Flashback Friday: Terrifying Halloween Costume Edition

Nothing says "I sit down to pee" quite as efficiently as a bow tie. I taught myself to tie a bow tie when I was in high school, while all the other kids were doing more useful things like—oh, I don't know—hanging out with each other and forming meaningful friendships. I thought my little Madras plaid bow tie made me look so cool that I went out and bought a bunch more bow ties in all kinds of colors and patterns. Which makes this plaid one kind of a gateway bow tie. One reason I was so good at tying bow ties was those glasses. Their lenses were so expansively huge—like the Hubble telescope!—that I barely had to bend my neck to look down and see what I was doing. Big glasses + small bow tie = man who goes to the theater with his mom. Every time.

Fun fact: This is me in my dinner-plate glasses and pleated pants that were wider than the rest of my body in the lobby of the Kennedy Center when my mom and I went to D.C. to see Tyne Daly in Gypsy when I was in college. She got her kids out!