Peer pressure

Polimom’s always been a blue jean kinda girl, and it extends to all areas of my life; I’m just not one for formality and fluff.
AC, on the other hand, started sorting her clothes by color when she was two, and since her dad was even more casual than I (as in… only t-shirts in the closet), I’ve concluded that style sense is never going to be pinpointed in DNA code.
I’m thinkin’, though, that I’d have done well to use AC as my model on Tuesday when I went to vote (from the comments):

.did you catch 26’s coverage of polimom’s katy school bond vote?

Polimom didn’t catch it, actually, but I know how I looked. There I was, jeans and a sweatshirt, no make-up, and probably wind-blown hair (cuz I nearly always have my windows down)… and there were tv cameras there.
Oops.
It was my own fault, of course. The KISD bond is an important item on the local ballot, so when I walked toward the sidewalk and saw a news crew interviewing someone in front of a “vote no on KISD bonds” sign (it turned out to be Chris Cottrell from the Katy Watchdogs), I stopped to listen. And when they asked me what my thoughts were on the issue, I evidently lost my senses and answered.
My bad… but in my own defense, I really didn’t think my piece would air. I looked, and no doubt sounded, rather less than thoughtfully coherent (much less credible). In fact, I didn’t even mention it to DH and AC.
However, there’s more to this story than going out in public (and in front of a tv camera) unprepared. In the course of the dialogue, the interviewer asked whether I’d voted in May. I said I had not, and made up a feeble exuse that simply was not true. Why on earth would I have done something like that?
It’s because I was ashamed, folks.
By voting early (and being willing to talk about it), I was presenting myself as an interested and involved citizen — and yet, I hadn’t voted in May. How could I possibly stand there and speak on this issue when I was not only late to the party, but (by extension) partially responsible for the first bond’s defeat?
And so I said the first thing that came to mind, instead of what I should have — that I totally overlooked the issue because May is the most chaotic part of the school year; that holding an election so far out of what I consider “voting season” has a negative impact on voter turn-out; that I had not participated at all, and thus felt as if I’d disenfranchised myself.
Because I feel so strongly that civic participation is the only way out of the mess we’re in politically, I wasn’t able to say, “I didn’t vote last time because it wasn’t as important as tests, sports, family activities, and summer planning“.
We apply strong civic peer pressure to voter participation (as we should), but I’m stunned to discover that I’m susceptible to it. I’m not known as a conformist, but even though I rejected the world of panty-hose and heels (among other things), I obviously haven’t completely escaped the fear that others will judge me — and find me lacking.
In retrospect, I think I’m glad this went the way it did; I clearly needed to confront myself, and required an external lens rather than a mirror.
And as long as we’re talking about mirrors, mine’s been giving me some bad news for quite a while. While I’m not planning to change out of my jeans or start color-coordinating my closet, Polimom won’t go out again without a bit of make-up and a hair clip — which will relieve AC enormously.