A Revelation, a Life Story, a Piece of Art in a Skirt

There I was, standing in the fluorescent lighted vinyl cover isle, at a crossroads in my life. The racks of clearance clothing jeered me on as I held the metallic piece of fabric in my shaking hands. "To buy or not to buy, that is the question?" The guilt of having to sacrifice money for it scared me a bit but the thought of not having it scared me even more. I stood there for a few moments as I pondered back to when it all started.

*Flashback* 20 minutes ago
I had finished one sweep of the racks of 80% clearance clothing at Kohls, a gigantic lower quality department store that had once been the home of a Home Depot to give you an idea of its giganticness. Kohls is usually not the first place I want to head to when I go shopping. But I would dive into Kohls headfirst before I ever step foot into an Abercrombie or a Hollister (shudder, don't remind me of my experiences). So there I was with my mom at Kohls all because we had a 30% off coupon to use for the entire store. Add that on to there rows of 80% clearance and we were golden.

After perusing the crowded racks and not finding anything wonderful enough to induce a fashion orgasm. Sure there were cheap shirts and pants, but with my genetic cheapness even the way low prices of the pieces I had picked up, it somehow did not satisfy. It was still not cheap enough. That was until I stumbled upon it...

I got into the dressing room and looked at my loot. Nah, no, hmm... maybe but not really me, possible, no, no, no.

Then I turned to the last piece. A metallic fabric flared skirt. I liked the fabric because I like a swallow am attracted to shiny things. Okay fine. I lied. It wasn't the fabric that I was attracted to at first. It was the taunting 90% off tag the salespeople had slathered on to the label. At almost $5, the skirt wasn't exactly as cheap as I could go, but I picked it up anyways. Plus the extra 30% lingered in the back of my head, so that's like what an extra 1.50 off?

I tried it on. Disgusting. It was dowdy and fit badly. Even the shiny shiny couldn't do it justice. So then while my mom was trying on her bunch, I simply pulled the skirt up to my chest and.. wait, wait a minute, this looks kinda cool, kinda neat, lemme just unzip the zipper a bit and place it in the center....there!..there we go...It was an epiphany. The skirt was not destined to be skirt, but a top. It was nothing new to me for I had made my graduation dress from a gigantic silver laced metallic size way to large for me bohemian style skirt.

*End Flashback*

I was in the aisle again. And I went with "to buy" because really, my mom was paying for it and as mean as it sounds I must take advantage of these last few years possibly months before I have to pay for everything myself. So I bought the ugly skirt and for days it had remained on my sofa rotting away, that was until today.

The skirt. Ick.

So today, after a bit of morning shopping and eating vegetarian with grandma, I headed back to the "studio" and picked up the rotting skirt. I decided for my revamp I would go all out in terms of me painting on it. It will be all about who I am. It will be a piece of art (literally) for my body. For three hours I painted on the ground. This skirt top would tell my life story. It would tell the story of Lala and who she is: Nerd, Artist, Fashionista, Dreamer and Weirdo.

I waited for the paint to dry and then with a stitch and snip I added some black ribbon as straps. Done. Finito and boy did I pick the right path.

When my mom sneaked in to my room, she said I "overdid" it with the painting. But I just pshed her off. "Go big or go home" as the Americans say it.

So this is me manifested as a top/super short dress.


I am 1/5 = 20% part Nerd. It is a fact I embrace openly and fully. Yes. I was in honors. I hung out with nerds and the smart kids whatever you call them and they are some of the coolest people I know. Who needs popular kids when you have them. Certainly not me. And yes I still am a nerd. I like math and loved calculus (shh, don't tell anyone). I like writing notes on new pieces of crisp white paper with my BIC black ballpoint pen. It was pure bliss. I like learning despite my sometimes negative attitude with educational system. And dare I speak it aloud, (I actually kinda like learning about economics) even though fashion will always be my number one. I don't like tests, except when I do well and get A's or beat out the competition MUAHAHAHA (that was pure nerdness there).

I am Nerd in a symbolic sense as well. I am awkward. in social situations. in life. in everything. I don't easily make friends because of my inner fear of rejection so instead I reject people first so they won't to me and then I see if I can accept them. Bad I know. I'm a lot better now though. I might have broken out my shell. I obsess over odd things that help me cross the border to Geekdom and I like to repeat things I remember from school randomly. But I accept it. I love it. Some people would rather die than be a nerd. But why?! Nerds will rule the world not someday, but today. (except C student President George Bush, now that was just luck in my opinion).

I am Nerd here me roar!!

I am one-fifth artist. Before fashion or even nerd, art was my number one. It still is because fashion is a form of artistic expression in my opinion. The world I see around me is really my canvas for the taking. I paint it, mold it, chop it up whichever way I want. As a child I wanted to be an artist. My dream stayed with me until middle school when my dreams were crushed when I learned that artists rarely make it big time. But to this day I will always an artist. An Art Geek because I was never one of those "cool" art kids in highschool and I like it better that way because they didn't have much talent anyways. Hey, truth is sometimes harsh. So art. I love it and sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake by going to a four year traditional college instead of an art school but I know that it's not because learning is never a waste. I love weird art but not necessarily really modern art. I like Impressionism, Surrealism, Post-Impressionism and anything that tickles my heart.

I am also in love with a ,unfortunately, dead man with coolest mustache in the world, but things could be worse.

I am 1/5th fashionista. I don't know if everyone will see me as a fashionista, but I see myself as a fashion obsessed girl so I win. Truth be told I don't think I really got into fashion until my junior year in high school. I liked shopping and doodling outfits but I wasn't really passionate about it until now. Hopefully the future is bright for me in this portion of me.

I am part dreamer. I have big dreams for everything. I allow myself to get my hopes up because it keeps me going and plus if things don't work out and I don't find my magical prince charming riding in on a silver unicorn then I can always change my big dreams.

Finally, I am a weirdo. I like to laugh and make people laugh with my weirdness. I love oddities. If you're weird, I may just stare at you for a really long time. I am brave enough to don a lobster headband in a really non-fashion oriented city because I am weird. And us weirdo's cannot see anything beyond our own weirdness that we don't really care if people judge us as weird because that's what we wanted to be known as in the first place.

So there I go. I think this is longest post I wrote. I really beat out Hamlet in my decision making because the little dinky ugly skirt became such a revelation for me as person. It was so worth my, I mean my mom's, $3.50 + tax.

I am 100% Lala, I am 100% me. And if you don't like it, I'll get my turtle, Mr. Wallace, to hunt you and your mother down.

I leave you with a image of my hideous shoes that have MELTED!! I know, wtf right? They weren't even outside. Just sitting in the hallway. I guess the sun must have attacked them secretly while I was away. It's on sun. You better watch your back.