Six days before Halloween I had the inspiration to dress up as the joke I’d always thought was funny: librarian during the day, hooker at night. As I worked on the costume, I realized it could also be the dichotomy that perhaps all women live with: good girl/bad girl, virgin/whore. Although there were unexpected challenges, such as discovering that symmetry in clothing also helps with the gravity problem, my costume was a success. The reactions were amused and puzzled. Are you schizophrenic, somebody asked me? Well, yes, but isn’t that the normal state of being? I found the best clue when asked who I was supposed to be was, they are professions. The oldest…haven’t there been librarians as long as there have been prostitutes? Maybe not…
It was not hard to choose which side would be my prostitute side—the right. It was the side of my nostril I picked to be pierced two years ago. I am right-handed, yes. The left side, on the other hand (ha ha), was the side that was paralyzed for three weeks as a side effect of Lyme disease, called Bell’s Palsy. Can one have a sexy side and a less sexy side? It would seem so. I never thought of dividing myself up horizontally so I would have a prostitute top and a librarian bottom or vice versa. That doesn’t seem like it would be as much fun nor as obvious!
We had a strange patron at the library while I was wearing my costume. That in itself is far from unusual. But it’s the first time my male co-worker had to deviously send me to the back office to make the young man go away. As soon as I turned around to leave the reference desk, hearing him ask me how old I was, he turned and left.
The high heeled gold boot on one foot and the low heeled black shoe on the other made it too difficult to walk. I hobbled around and felt very off balance. Similarly with the glasses I made, one half wire rimmed and the other pink sunglasses. How very disconcerting to have one eye shaded and the other not! Half a wig did not feel nearly as strange and having different earrings on didn’t bother me at all.
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