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An Unspectacular Life, Part 5
03/20/09

I am more busy right now than I care to be but managed to get Part Five
pounded out. I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed
remembering it.

PART FIVE

My experimentation with personal style had begun before I left home and was
not at all tolerated by my mother. She would throw away or re-alter clothes
that I had stitched into new and exciting versions of their former selves.
For my last Bluewater Buccaneer banquet, I had made my entire outfit from
fabric purchased with saved allowances. I kept the project a secret. In the
end, it consisted of a bat winged three quarter sleeve shirt with black
piping separating several triangles of blue and purple, a large pleated
cummerbund of the same purple fabric as the shirt and a pair of parachute
black pants that were so tight around the ankle that I wasn't able to get my
feet through. I had to break the stitches and re-sew myself into the pants
after I had them on. At the mall, I found a pair of blue canvas shoes with
shiny black plastic tips that perfectly matched the blue in the shirt. It was
more a costume than an outfit but I made it and I was dying to show it off.
When I emerged from my bedroom wearing my couture, my father sucked up his
shock and asked me if I planned to be seen in public in the ensemble. I said
that I was and he said something about it being my life and if I wanted
people to laugh at me then that was my choice. I thought that I would have
received more opposition and had planned an escape route but it wasn't
necessary; my mother wasn't home for if she were, she would have thrown
herself in front of the door. The consensus at the banquet was that it would
make a great colour guard uniform. It was a diplomatic way of saying that I
looked really gay.

In the summer of 1983, I turned 18. I had been out on my own for six months
now. I embraced the freedom. I could wear whatever combination of second hand
clothing that I felt like and I did. I paired quilted smoking jackets with
over sized plaid pants cut off between the ankle and knee using the arms of
sweaters as leggings. I wore far too tight clear plastic women's rain boots
with grey wool work socks and used costume jewellery brooches pinned to the
socks to keep them from slouching. I often sported several mens ties loosely
hung around my neck with strings and strings of fake pearls. I dyed my hair
blue black then bleached it white the black again. My bang hung below my chin
covering one mascaraed eye. I wore glasses but often didn't use them as they
ruined the look. I couldn't see the people who hurled verbal grenades at me.
I didn't care what anyone thought. My strength came from a higher power.

I prayed at the alter of Boy George. The obsession had begun while I was
still living at home. I saw him and his band perform on an afternoon dance
program from Chicago. I had heard the band's single on the radio but had
never seen the singer and when I did, my world and perception of it was
transformed. At the time, I had no idea if the singer was a man or woman. He
was a gender bender, a descriptive term that became very popular in the early
eighties. When Culture Club had finished playing, the host of the program
introduced the band members. I sat breathlessly waiting for this exotic
fashion maverick to speak. He was a man and I was in love.

Boy George's style and irreverence gave me the permission to throw my sense
on non-belonging into the very faces of those that made me feel like the
perpetual outsider.I could take all of the verbal abuse because I knew that I
was better than my tormentors. They didn't understand people like Boy George
and I and it would be me who would have the last laugh when I became as
famous as my role model. I fantasized that in the future, when asked to speak
at a graduation ceremony at my former high school, I would accept then simply
not show up and when the press asked me why I didn't go, I would say that the
only good memory of high school was the day I finished. I didn't know how I
would become famous. I just knew that it was inevitable.