Hey, it’s all about comfort levels. I dress to fit in as well, sometimes. It’s honestly easier. I just like to stay aware of why and how I’m doing it.

I always deliberately try to dress to fit in at play parties. I feel like I stand out like a sore thumb anyway, and I’m painfully awkward enough without people treating me “like a tourist” because of my clothes.

No worries! Writing long comments saves you from going and writing a whole ‘nother post. ;).

Curiously, when I think of “teal” I think of blue teal. I sometimes forget that there even is a green teal. But pumpkin and spice? What great nuances.

The red, white and blue thing . . . yea, I try to avoid that. Although I suppose that if asked, I could just say I was French.

It’s neat that clothing can influence thinking. The idea of an outward expression of your inward self is fascinating to me.

I don’t know. I think how I act when I’m dressed is a combination of my mood and my surroundings. I don’t think that business clothes make me act differently, although heels do make me walk differently.

I can geek out over color all day long. You mention getting sexual aroused during a lecture on Milton in an earlier post. I *think* I can get aroused or at least “high” off of a conversation discussing the difference between “pumpkin” and “spice”. (Teal is such a tough one you know. It’s one of the few color names that can be used for drastically different colors, blue teal and green teal, although most people mean green teal when they say “teal”, nowadays.)

One of the things I love about the day job is that I get to work with color constantly. My job is to sell things to people – to use color to appeal, evoke emotions, for brand identity. So I get to think about and use color constantly. (Don’t take my blog as an example. My blog is like the shoemaker’s children with no shoes.)

There’s beauty in using color to fit in. I’d imagine that if you were timid about the scene, using the predominant color to look like most of everybody else is comforting.

But, there’s *power* in using color to stand out (and I don’t mean like a sore thumb :) ). Fitting in is nice until it starts to feel suffocating, and then it’s time for individual expression.

Which of course would be your point so I’m not entirely sure why I just wrote that when you wrote it better.

Here’s my last color story. Please remember that this takes place in the 1980′s when everyone looked as if they’d had cans of colored paint spilled all over them.

Young, in my first job, which was in, gasp, insurance. I went from being a film student to working in the insurance industry. I had to *eat*, you know? One thing and another, five soul sucking years later, I look in the mirror one morning before work and this is what I saw:

Blue pleated skirt. White tights. Blue shoes. White silk shirt with that stupid bow tie and shoulder pads. Red cardigan vest. Red earrings and red hair clips.

Eileen, I was wearing fucking red, white and blue.

So, when I said in my post that my teal skirt wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself to transition, I wasn’t kidding.

I was out of insurance a month later, starving, scared but NOT wearing fucking red, white and blue!

I adore you. Thanks for putting up with such a long color commentary. (hey, i made a funny joke!)

hugs, E