Sometimes you wonder if “alternative” people you see out are poseurs or if they always live life outside the box. Myself, I’m not even outside the box adjacent so who am I to judge but still I wonder.

I go to a lounge bar some Saturday nights. Nothing special, it plays tunes from the eighties and a few current hits as well. Most people there are dressed up but in typical club clone fashion.

Except for one woman that always catches my eye. She often wears floor-length dresses verging on retro 70’s ball gowns. Her platinum blonde hair swept up to a crown of curls on top. Pale foundation and bright-red lipstick are finished off with elaborate eye makeup with various vibrant shades of shadow, mascara and huge fake lashes. She almost looks like a drag queen but she’s so over-the-top, it’s mesmerizing.

She’d be average without the incredible outfits and I secretly pictured her as being a mousy secretary working in an industrial park somewhere. I figured without the hairpieces, fancy attire and makeup, she’d look like any other woman in her mid-thirties. I even supposed I had passed her in the street without noticing.

Then just the other day when it was unseasonably warm and many folks were wearing shorts and T-shirts, I saw her on a street corner in broad daylight talking to some ordinary-looking friends.

Her hair was down but carefully arranged with perfect ringlets brushing across the silky red lining of a high-collared black crushed velvet opera cape. Her glitter-lined lids sparkled in the sunlight as she teetered precariously on dangerously high-heeled thigh-high, lace-up boots.

It’s strange but in a society obsessed with seeing famous people looking ordinary or even worse. In a world that takes pleasure in seeing some actress sans make up, wearing sweatpants and ordering a full-fat latte at some common chain of coffee shops, I felt reassured to know that she wasn’t a once-a-week starlet. She’s a 24/7 fashion freak living her life as the star of her own show.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all live life that large?