"Because fashion matters..." I just made that up...but we can pretend Larry Boy said it.Up against so much, one thing that I took very seriously was my son's wardrobe. That may sound a little ridiculous but somewhere in one of the books I was pouring over there was a brief paragraph on style. In a nutshell: Give your kid a little. One less thing for folks to judge. That made complete sense to me. I had a difficult time seeing beyond judgment back then. Not my own but others. People can be extremely harsh. And so often, when we would be out shopping or attempting some other adventure that was too overwhelming for my child, the judgments would fly. Looks and glances can be thick volumes you pour over at night in your mind. I think the biggest issue was he looked 'normal' and exceptionally so...until the florescent lights or the elevator music triggered a meltdown (with him having inherited the latter from me, I'm sure). Wait, I just had an epiphany: Maybe I dressed him too nicely. We didn't have much money then. In fact, we were poor. No, broke. Never poor. Two very different things. Maybe I never felt poor because of the creative ways life came together to meet our needs. Brilliant synchronizations. I have a passion for thrift stores and sales of 60% off and above. And I think the good stuff just waits for me to show up. So, I do. Even now, not so broke, Good Stuff beckons me. How sweet. It's a loving vibrational transmission. A matching of forces. I am 'one with the sale'. And, for it, my son looks so good. GQ good...until he takes his clay covered hands and smears them all over his new threads.