Accomodations.

I try to dress according to my mood.

Today, I'm wearing a brown and blue horizontally striped sweater with a crew neck. Form-fitting, but the sleeves aren't quite long enough. I'll pull them over my hands, curl my fingers up like a fist, and stretch. I'll do this maybe 50 times today. I'd have better luck trying to make my arms shorter.

Today, I'm wearing my hopeful sweater. Brown and blue stripes.

I'll look in the mirror and try to see if there's anything there, more or less, than yesterday. Whether or not my hair finds a place to lay flat is out of my control. I like it when I look up from a book and there are a few strands brushing against my eyelid. It lets me know they're still there. My nerve endings, I mean.

In case my mood changes, I keep an extra sweater or jacket in my car. I can strip off the horizontal stripes, push my hair out of my eyes, and pop a couple of aspirin. In case the weather changes, the hopeful sweater can be replaced with a livid cardigan or yanked over my head to reveal the forlorn t-shirt underneath. I'm not quite a chameleon, but I try to keep up.

Shoes are important. It's a good sign if they match, but some days it makes more sense when they don't.

Left foot, a pensive black canvas sneaker with a white sole and laces tied in a sloppy knot. Take one step.

Right foot, an ambitious brown leather dress-shoe with arch support, tied tight and stiff. Take another step.

Left foot, "I wonder if squirrels like rock and roll."

Right foot, "Watch out world! Here I come!"

People get tattooed to fit their moods. There are lustful skulls, broken hearts engulfed in somber flames, depressed pin-up girls with perfect round asses that fade and sag in the sun. The reasons are always the same. You're always covering yourself up. You're fixing something.

I wear a few fading black letters on my back. A star on my chest. My forearm shows a snarl of vines crushing a stone slab with a Japanese kanji that translates to either "zen" or "robot caramel patient light-bulb." They don't mean anything, but they're doing their job all the same.

I read an article in a magazine about people who undergo elective amputations. A perfectly good foot gets lopped off at the ankle. A fully functioning middle finger, severed at the second knuckle. A middle-aged mother of two in Kentucky had both legs removed at the knee. She got tired of covering up her legs with happy socks, angry shoes, mournful pants.

When people ask me why I stretched out my ear lobes, or why I punched out two discs of cartilage from my ears, or why I'm slowly covering up every last bit of skin with ink, when they ask me, I say, "I still have both my arms, don't I?"

A baby in Pennsylvania was born with both male and female sex organs. At the hospital, the new mother confided in her doctor that she'd always wanted a girl. When the girl was 19, she got tired of wearing frightened bras and melancholy patent-leather shoes with 1/2" heels, so she went back to the hospital and confided in another doctor that she'd always wanted a nice set of testicles. The hospital turned her away when the insurance company refused to pay for the operation. A year later, she tried to kiss her best girl-friend after a dorm party. This time she went to the hospital with a shattered cheekbone, fractured skull, and signs of forced penetration. The insurance company made the check out to her mother.

I was barely a day old when I was circumcised. Five years later I got rid of the tonsils. Almost 18 years later, on a Christmas morning, I woke up to find that the last of my wisdom teeth had finally rotted out. I never liked dentists, but Camel Lights and Coca-Cola will do the trick with enough time.

I wear hooded sweatshirts to feel safe, a baseball cap when I feel like hiding. Leather mittens keep my fingers warm and tell the world I'm feeling confused and a little betrayed.

My father dyes his graying hair a youthful shade of black and feels 20 years younger. My mom pastes acrylic fingernails over the ones god gave her and feels secure. My grandmother wears supportive under-garments and shoulder-pads under her blue pant-suit. My sister wears a goose down vest in the fall and she's feeling exhausted.

I saw an old woman on a ten-speed bike pedaling up a hill in the summer. She wore a crash helmet, swimming goggles, and cobalt blue dress with fat, white polka-dots. If I had to guess, she was feeling confident.

When the day is over, when I've tugged at my sleeves and switched out my pensive sneakers for a pair of curious steel-toed boots. After I've cycled through manic white t-shirts and sullen windbreakers and sad tube socks, I strip it all off for just a minute before I cover myself up again with a thick, lonely comforter and bury my head in a guilty pillow. And I wonder, before I fall asleep, I wonder if I remembered to throw my self-conscious boxer shorts in the dryer. I'm going to need them tomorrow.