man black sock

If you're like most people, you've heard me gripe about the lack of style amongst the UCSD denizens. Shorts and flip flops wherever you look; too many women wearing the low-rise, butt-crack-exposing jeans when they ought not to; far, far too many boy-men wearing baseball caps turned every which way on their heads ("let's meet at the cafeteria - you'll recognize me because I'll be the dude wearing the baseball cap!").

At the beginning of this school year, however, I was amused to see an aberration. A tall, skinny guy wearing what looked like a black full-body suit, like a cotton scuba suit. I was glad to see a spike in the typically flat fashion topography around here. Cynic that I am, I figured that this was just a momentary anomaly characteristic of the new school year. Surely this freak would fall in step with his surroundings a little later in the Fall quarter. Surely within two weeks he would buy himself a baseball cap advertising Corona beer.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this character again today, in the middle of Spring, walking by in the very same outfit. This time I noted more detail; he is weirder than I thought. (I tried to find a picture of that suit he wears but I made myself more than a little ill researching pictures of "specialty clothing for men" on the internet. A lotta sickness out there; the best I can do is that photo.)
To begin with, this tall, crank-thin man reminds me of a cross between Sprockets and The Sisters of Mercy. He's got a shaved head and he's wearing just aviator sunglasses and that long, black sock. Imagine a pair of black gloves (made of some kind of cotton and nylon combination) that start at your fingertips and continue all the way down to your toes. Except for the hole for his neck he's completely sealed up in a black membrane. Must have some kind of pads for the bottom of his feet. How does he get inside of it? Through the neck hole?

It's not a fashion design that I'd choose to express my unique personality, I'm doing just fine with the cowboy vest. Yet who isn't tired of seeing these flocks of kids with the same shiny, little metal ball studs sticking out under their bottom lips. What do those little rod piercings mean (where there are two studs sticking out of a person's body at the entry and exit points of a little metal rod that's going through the skin, often seen at the bottom of a girl's back above her tattoo)? Is that saying "I'm in pain, but I'm weird and brave"? To me, seeing a man wearing that black sock is more unusual and disturbing. That's a man who's making an emotional investment in not fitting in, and nothing is more upsetting to see than that.