my fever made me write this

I try so hard to only get sick once a year (this excludes hangovers and stress-related stomach aches). There was The Christmas Flu of 2005, The Great Summer Cold of 2007, and more recently, The Walking Pneumonia of 2008 That Leads Me To Believe I Am Turning Into An Old Person. Well, I've officially already gotten my illness of '09 out of the way and then some. In addition to a 24-hour bug that I caught in January, this weekend I battled a crazy fever and sore throat. Though I was able to drag myself to the Walker After Hours on Friday night, for the rest of the weekend I was pretty laid up. I don't believe in Valentine's Day, so I wasn't disappointed to spend Saturday night in a novelty nightgown with a few of my besties and my man friend watching First Wives Club. But other than that brief social interaction, I didn't do much other than zone out while watching questionable movies. I watched Deep Blue Sea (just as good the second time around), Zack and Miri Make a Porno (not as good as I'd hoped), Mystery Men (What's up, Tigerlily?), Igor (surprisingly adorable), Wimbledon (surprisingly unmoving) and eventually I got to the classic Major League.

Which brings me to my roundabout fashion-related point. I know I'm not the only one conflicted about Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Yes, they have a classic design that flatters a wide variety of faces. And they reached iconic status thanks to movies like Breakfast at Tiffany's and Risky Business. And though they fell out of favor in the 90s, their recent resurgence felt new and fresh. But since their return to popularity, they've become ubiquitous with douchey hipsters that aspire to little more than starring in an American Apparel ad campaign and making it backstage at the Tapes 'n Tapes show. So even though I love Wayfarers and own them in a few different colors (I lost my black pair that were actually vintage Ray-Bans, but have cheap knock-offs in bright yellow, poppy red and splatter-painted hot pink), I get a little hesitant about wearing them very often. I can't help feeling a bit concerned that I look exactly like those douchey hipsters that I love to mock so much.

So much of fashion is about association, sense memory and nostalgia. So upon my recent viewing of Major League, I was delighted to be reminded that once "Wild Thing" Charlie Sheen gets his eyeglasses, he gets a pair of black plastic Wayfarer frames (customized with silver skull details). Love. Now whenever I'm running around in my red Ray-Ban knock-offs, I won't be worried that I'm being hypocritical and succumbing to the hipster sunglasses of choice. Instead I'll be reminded of the wild card pitcher from the greatest baseball movie ever made. (Suck it, Field of Dreams!) True, no one else will know what I'm referencing, but that's not really the point. Sometimes the clothes that you wear can be a subtle reference or a private joke that you share only with yourself. It's not about impressing an idea of yourself upon others. It's about enjoying what you wear for your own reasons.

On a slightly unrelated note, I miss Major League/White Men Can't Jump Wesley Snipes. I find Blade/Tax Evasion Wesley Snipes distant and joyless. Sigh.