something to think about before indulging in reckless pattern mixing

 

First off, why didn't I pursue a career as an intravenous drug user?

But on with my didactic message.  In my book, patterns are not just for hernia trusses anymore. The above declaration of independence from rational living is an actual reproduction of an ensemble I trotted out in NYC.  If you stare at it and scroll up and down real fast, you'll hurl. Or suddenly be able to curl your tongue. Anyway, aside from causing some confusion for the TSA agent charged with getting up in my business (What is that? And is it detachable, she asked, and I trust she was talking about the traditional Hmong pleated hospital gown and not my ass),  it was comfortable and warm and brought to mind Tommy Hilfiger and J Peterman and a Scottish schoolboy holding hands and singing I Like To Go Awandering as they skip through a Deer Hunter-esque miasma.  This makes me very happy.

HOWEVER
Clothes are contextual.  At home, for example, our ex-dog Rascal would not have blinked an eye at this atrocity (he was blind) but as it happened, I was having a post-Sandy look-see about lower Manhattan.  Everything seemed quite normal, which is to say, guys in slim-cut suits and professionally knotted cashmere scarves on their cellphones, seldom inconvenienced by anything as insignificant as a natural disaster because, like Goldman Sachs, they have their own generator that powers their gold-plated WaterPic and their nail buffing protocol. So their cuticles are sublime.  And there were some people wearing Duane Reade bags.  I would like to say that this happened on Mulberry Street but I had just crossed Mulberry so I think it was Houston when a grizzled man wearing five or six coats and a sleeping bag gave a compassionate nod as he approached and said, "Hang in there man."