i'll see your bleached jeans and pleather go-go boots in hell

In a prophetic and awesomely twisted coincidence, my Gmail-user-generated Dictionary.com Word of the Day this evening was "dishabille" (pronounced dis-uh-BEEL), which means "the state of being carelessly or partially dressed."

I immediately chuckled and thought to myself, "Oh, Gmail, your ability to use complex algorithms to snoop around my private E-mails and generate advertising based on some random words I just used has once again left me amaz..."

I paused. Something wasn't right. And then I remembered:

"Wait. Wait just a goddamn minute! I didn't type any Gmails today! In fact, I was out of the office and away from my computer all day! WTF?! Gmail's read my mind! Just like that she-demon Miss Cleo!"

But don't worry. I quickly calmed down after reminding myself that I'm probably just too dumb to understand the mechanics of the said algorithms that I usually find so magical. Eh...whatevs.

But even if Miss Cleo isn't involved, this fortuitous encounter with this unknown fantastic English word has changed my life, er, well, at least it's changed my theory on what the hell is wrong with DC style.

With that in mind, I realized my original Anti DC Theory of Fashion was no longer applicable. The beautiful Venn diagram graphic failed to describe accurately the gnarliness I confront each and every day. No longer is it important to recognize if something is ugly, boring, or ugly and boring. Why? Because it’s all dishabille!

And moreover, the use of circles also now seemed inappropriate. Circles are too careful, too whole. DC requires something much more disheveled and blob-like, such as... well, just hold onto your pleats and behold:

Yes, DCers, for the most part, you’re all collectively a bunch of carelessly and/or partially dressed people. And, as if you needed more proof, here’s a partial list of some of the said style slip-ups I chanced upon today:

• Ill-fitting jeans, featuring high-contrast bleached white stripes up the front and back;
• Crocs (Duh, of course. What would a day be like in DC without at least one sighting?!);
• Black pleather go-go boots with white racing stripes up the front and back;
• Multiple visible panty lines;
• Unintentional ankle-skimming jeans, which also happened to be about 4 to 6 sizes too small on the woman wearing them (Seriously, if those somehow managed not to split at the seams at some point today, some fabric scientist needs to get the Nobel next year. That is some serious science.);
• Multiple pairs of 2.5-inch, block-heeled orthopedic shoes, most of which were stuck on the feet of women younger than me. I'm 28.

And to put the cherry on top of the dishabille sundae that is DC, I also encountered quite a few non-clothing-related blunders today, including last decade's popular zig-zag hair part and multiple cases of Pee-Wee Herman face (sans bowtie, unfortunately) on the District’s men. (Wow, come to think of it, perhaps the multiple false P.W. Herman-visage sightings were portents that, just like at Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, I, too, would find myself with a computer-generated word of the day. Dishabille! Ahhhhhhh!) Oh, DC, you sassy, foreshadowing bastard!