it started this way

Here’s a bit of truth: my headband-wearing ‘guise’ originated in November 19, 2008. That is exactly three years and five days ago. It is one unforgettable date in college. Unforgettable because the headband-wearing is carried on to this year and maybe until the next few years.
It all started with the Opposite Day. I think it is what one would call a harmless dare (if not an embarrassing one). I and a fellow co-staffer of the university paper, The Weekly Sillimanian, thought we needed a little bit of crazy (as if we had not enough), so we rounded up the rest of the staff and suggested to fulfill this objective for an entire day: be in a getup that is as farfetched as a cat in checked purple-and-orange jumpsuit.
In simple words: don’t be you, aesthetically.
So I ditched my khakis, button-down shirt, leather slippers, messenger bag and opted for something quite more pedestrian: old PE shorts, an aircon shirt (tee with tiny strategically-placed holes), a pair of rubber slippers that was one size bigger, and a drawstring bag of some company’s seminar giveaway for all of my things. I topped it all off with a cheap, white plastic headband.
I got in my World Literature class that morning and the professor’s eyes, surprisingly, widened. (Surprisingly, because I thought he had no emotions in him). “Is there some kind of conspiracy going on around here today? I had a pirate in my previous class!”
Oh, yes, there was a pirate. There was an extreme gothic chic, too. There was a labandera (basin-sarong-bandana and all). There was the lesbian basketball buff. There was America Ferrera’s Betty. There was Wendy in night pajamas. And there are other more persona who I couldn’t really describe for the sheer madness of it all.
And for some strange burst of insanity (or reason), one thing stayed after that day: the headband. It just stuck especially when I had decided to grow my hair out of the blue (then shaved off into a Mohawk upon graduation day).
Of course, the headband only appears in appropriate places, or in whatever places people think are appropriate. I couldn’t care any less, actually. I’d wear it anywhere if I can. In fact, last May, someone who I was not fully acquainted with at that time remarked I was the only one she had ever seen who looked good with a ponytail and a headband on. Insert mandatory blush here. (Thank you, dear, I admire your taste).
I don’t want to repost the photos in this entry, but I could offer this shot, which is printed and kept in an album in the university paper office for future generations of staff to see. Anyway, I just miss some of the people involved (pictured above) because they’re crazy. And they’re great. And they’re lovely. And they’re brilliant. And they’re bright. And they’re scattered all over the country, all over the planet.

Sigh.