Purim costume (and GIP)

[lethargic_man]

After Purim last year, I decided I was going to dress up this year, for the first time since I was little.

And the result? One mad scientist:

What you can't see very clearly on the picture is that the lab-coat (left over from my undergraduate days) is indelibly stained with various chemicals, and riddled with acid-etched holes). The soot on my face is the result of quarter of an hour's running my finger through a candle flame. And the hair is here to stay, until it's grown out at least; thanks to compilerbitch for the advice, and ewtikins for helping me out with the dyeing. (And compilerbitch, you were right about brightly-coloured hair making it more likely for random people to make conversation with you...)

Actually, Purim was just an excuse for me to dye my hair. It's something I've been vaguely considering for a while. Originally I thought I'd wait until I was old and had almost no hair left, then dye what remained a bright colour, simply on the grounds that you never see pensioners with brightly-coloured hair. Then I realised the punk rocker generation is going to reach old age a decade before me, so whilst OAPs with brightly-coloured hair won't exactly be commonplace by the time I reach old age, they won't be unheard of either. So, I thought, I might as well do it now. Try everything once, except incest and folk-dancing. (Not, as doseybat and livredor know, that I've got anything against folk-dancing (ceilidhing).)

What surprised me, what with the green hair and the soot and the acid holes and the stains, and the way too many pens in the breast pocket, is how many people (over a quarter of those I spoke to) mistook me for a doctor, rather than a mad scientist. One wonders what their doctors look like...

(Second photo, on Facebook.)