tasteless encounters of the trashy kind

Do you ever get a compliment from someone who has absolutely no taste at all??? Perhaps someone you'd even call "trashy"??? Well, it's seriously causing me a giant mindfuck right now.

Let me first say that I pride myself on my fashion sense. I love my clothes. They define me. Literally. I love putting together the perfect, well-balanced outfit. Just like art and design, an outfit should be balanced in color, shape, fit and exude the "look" you are going for. Part of having a fashion sense is knowing what that "look " is and how you're going to pull it off without seemingly trying too hard. I'm sure ...love Maegan would understand what I'm saying here. I enjoy this part of my day. Usually I visualize an outfit before I put it on. On occassion, I have a bad day and nothing I own fits right or "feels" right and I try on like 20 outfits. You all know what I'm talking about. My friends and family will tell you that, with the occassional exception*, I am dressed to kill. Every day. Of. My. Life.

The other day a stranger on the elevator complimented me on my gloves, which are the cute knit kind with the fingertips missing. They are not the truck driver fingerless kind, or the homeless person fingerless kind. I wear them so i can use my iPhone's touchscreen when I'm wearing the gloves. Also, sometimes it's chilly outside but not freezing enough for fingered gloves, and when I carry my iced Venti unsweetened green tea, I need something to keep my hands from freezing off. Anyway, so this lady has blond hair with like 5 inches of roots showing, is wearing an oversized, worn, old, nasty men's leather jacket, a plain ill-fitting black skirt, and GET THIS, black stockings with open-toed shoes! In December! ARGH. I'd shoot myself in the head before I wore something like this.

So this woman compliments me. What the hell am I supposed to think? If SHE likes my gloves, should I throw them away? Give them to goodwill? Burn them in an seance offering to the God of Tackiness? This is like a car salesman telling a meat packager that he likes the way he covers his salami. It makes no sense. Now I like a good compliment, and I'll retort with a swift "why, thank you!". But I prefer these compliments to come from people who's taste I respect, like, can appreciate, whatever. Now you probably think I'm a whiner or that I'm asking for too much. But I think not! By her complimenting my gloves, she's was basically insulting me! Saying that SHE would wear my gloves, which means that they are tainted and tasteless. That, people, is a serious blow to my fashionistical (?) mind and soul. God save my wardrobe. Amen.

*occassional exceptions include the "so called" cut-off jean shorts my BFF claims I wore the day we met (which is a total lie), a seethrough orange flowy fairy-like top with lots of sporatic sequins (which I still own), too-tight white jeans that showed off the cellulite, a brief obsession in the 7th grade with a Luke Perry 90210 t-shirt, and once I wore a sweater with a gaping hole in the armpit because I didn't know it was there. I encourage any friends and family that read this blog to add to this list if I've forgotten anything.