(Who among us doesn't love a coworker dressed like a bag lady?)

Hi. My name is Audrey Clare, and I am fashion-impaired. Usually I can get by on my collection of black, ironic, web comic baby tees with an assortment of long black skirts, because navel-gazing angst never goes out of style. But there's a growing number of days when it's pretty clear that I'm at work looking like I found a bag of clothes in the middle of the road. Here's my growing list of fashion faux pas:

• Black is what I wear on the outside because black hides all the spilled coffee.
• How is it that I can put on a perfectly reasonable length shirt, leave the house, reach up to grab a binder off a shelf and notice that particular action exposes my ribcage? Do my shirts shrink in the car? And why do they all poke out in front? Which laws of physics are responsible?
• I can't remember the last time I opened a glossy magazine. (Does Vogue Knitting count?)
• The Yojito has twice intervened when I saw nothing wrong with slapping on a black cardigan to, and I quote, "make my pajamas more professional".
• Even though I have not been home long enough to pick up a rabbit in four days, all my black shirts are covered in white fur.
• Comfy shoes are rarely foxy shoes.
• Long hair in a long braid rarely looks "understated" and "simple" so much as it looks like "I was too tired to wash my hair again".
• Orange goes with everything.

Today I am wearing brown slacks and a brown longsleeved tshirt. These items are both in the same color range, so I am choosing to assume they match. I have finished my creation with flatsoled brown oxfords (which were a fine, fine value from the Salvation Army) and a teal Swatch, the band of which, I just now discover, has begun to mold.

Back in the day, I used to laugh at a dear friend of mine who insisted on going nowhere without lipstick, because apparently if she did, people asked her if she was ill. Y'all, I laughed. I laughed at her. I snickered with the snark of omnipotent youth and now you know what? Three people have asked me today if I need to go home.

I know this is not genetics, as my sister, The Deadly Meringue, is always the pinnacle of couture and good taste. When she was here in December, I became her own personal What Not to Wear project and Deadly, I have a confession. I've worn those clothes maybe twice apiece, with the exception of the red satin shirt, which has never left the safety of my closet. I look at it and I think Tom Jones with tits. It's never going to happen.

At the same time I don't think it can be environment either, as most of my good friends are glamourous and pulled together as well, but so far nothing's rubbed off on me. I picked up some type of make-yourself-beautiful-with-us magazine from the hospital a couple of weeks ago. I got three pages in, lost all patience and gave it to the rabbits to chew on

Part of it is that books and rabbits suck away all my disposable income, and really $15 for a lipstick that may or may not look like you have Ebola doesn't seem like a financially sound investment. But these magazines also assume a level of previous knowledge not in evidence here. I really don't know the secret of pumps, and I frankly don't know where to look to find it.

For most of this winter, especially the bits where Vermont tried to kill us, I wore an oversized cream-colored Aran cardigan everyday. I mean, sure it screamed "70's dance movie", but it also kept me warm. It was practical, even if wildly unflattering. Besides, that sweater was by the side of the road, not the middle, and it was in a box, not a bag. Details, people.

This topic is wildly depressing. I think I'm going to return to my stats homework and catching up on Bio. I'd love to just be judged on that alone, as it turns out that I'm actually good at the parts of math which require making lists of things and then doing math on those lists. This has opened up a whole new world for me.