My fashion faux pas: red/gray/black striped shirt with green pants

My first selfie using a mirror

I am a very methodical person — to the extreme. Even something as simple as getting dressed is a process. Each morning I simply grab the shirt in my closet on the end. I then pick pants to go with the shirt. Done. I place clean shirts at one end of the closet and pull shirts to wear from the other end — that way my apparel rotates. I got the idea years ago from the movie, The Fly, where Albert Einstein was quoted as believing that man had a finite amount of thought, so he wore an identical outfit each day to avoid wasting thought on what to wear. I figured that I didn't have to wear the same thing each day — I only had to avoid deciding what to wear. My process provides variety as well as lack of thought.

My wife Sheryl knows I do this. Last night was Design Night in the Autodesk Gallery. The theme was how design affects fashion. Sheryl was attending the event with me. Knowing she would have to be seen in public with me, on Wednesday night as we went to bed, she flung open my closet door, and said "Let's see what shirt you'll be wearing tomorrow." She combed through the shirts and located the one on the end. It was the red/gray/black striped one you see in the picture above. She said that one would be fine. I said I would wear it with black pants. She said I could wear it with gray pants. I said I would since I wear black pants often. You see, already this conversation is more thought than I want to have about fashion.

On Thursday morning I got up at 5:05 am like I always do. I brushed my teeth, shaved, and showered. Sheryl doesn't have to get up as early as I do, so as I get dressed in our bedroom, I don't turn the lights on. Every day I put my shirt on first. I then select my pants based on the shirt. But yesterday, oh no, I didn't do that. I knew I should wear my gray pants based on the prior night's conversation. So I picked and put on my pants first. I then put on my shoes. I then grabbed and donned the shirt on the end. I left the house for work.

As I waited in line for the ferry, something didn't feel quite right. It turned out that I had forgotten to put on a belt. I guess the order of pants/shoes/shirt breaks my normal flow of shirt/pants/shoes/belt although I have no idea why. No big deal. My waistline is of sufficient girth to keep my pants up.

Once on the ferry, I got out my Autodesk badge that I knew I would need to enter the building. I normally clip it to my belt which of course I was not wearing. No big deal — I'll just clip it to my pants. As I did, I saw that I was wearing dark green pants instead of gray pants. I guess in my own Vladimir Putin-like not-yet-wearing-a-shirt excitement, I grabbed the wrong pants in the dark.

source: BeyondHollywood

So there I was at an Autodesk event, centered on fashion, and I was clad in a mismatched outfit with no belt. I was a fashion rebel. Oh yeah.

Fashion is not alive in the lab.