Today, I’m wearing a dress.

I know, it’s completely out of character, but I found it yesterday on the Great Wallet Replacement search at Pac Sun, and decided that because it didn’t make me look like Blimpo the Wonder Girl, I could spend part of my government money stimulating the clothing retailers of Hershey.

What gets me, though, is how much more attention I’m getting from people today than any other day. I’ve had at least three comments on the dress specifically, and two other people telling me that I look generically “nice” today.

Okay, people, what gives? I didn’t do anything more to my hair than normal (less, really, as I didn’t even part it today) and I’m still wearing the same ratty flipflops, so why am I all of a sudden unto a fashion goddess?

I think it’s moments like this that I object to being female, simply because I’m expected to go out of my way to be cute and stylish every day. It’s kind of crap in my mind that I’m suddenly realizing that I probably ought to be considering spending some of each paycheck on enough clothes to get me through a week and a half at a time in a corporate whore position, just in case I can’t score a liberal workplace that likes random layers and kitchy t-shirts…. which, as a historian, is probably unlikely, unless I really REALLY luck out and Plimoth Plantation’s textile artisans turn out to be history-minded theatrical costumers (oh please oh please oh please.)