Cat in Heels

The other day a girl I never saw before came strolling into my office and said she was told to look at my shoes. Purple shoes and the great disappointment I kind of stared blankly at her for a moment. "You were told to see my shoes today?" I asked. "Yes, I was told you have fabulous shoes." "Ummm. OK. Today is a little dull though. Just brown crocodile peep toes. I'm pretty sure they meant another day. I have shoes way more interesting than these," I explained while swiveling around in my chair and letting her look at my shoes. She looked a bit crestfallen. As if I was was supposed to be wearing the most amazing shoes ever. The kind of shoes you think about and obsess over for weeks after seeing them. The kind that you look for forever and can't find. A couple days later she stepped in front of me in the hall and pointed a finger at me. "Oh my God, your shoes are purple!" she exclaimed. I just stared at her. I know my...

I recently finished a book of essays and articles by Chuck Klosterman and was reminded of a day long forgotten. The annual unofficial holiday of Talk Like a Pirate Day , which is an international holiday celebrated every September 19 by those who really love pirates. They even suggest those who really love pirates have pirate themed parties, buy books about pirates and download official songs. DKNY Klosterman was discussing the day in relation to society's obsession with pirates, which we seem to still have. Unfortunately the recent bout of actual pirates (as recently as earlier this month) seem to have made the whole notion a bit less romantic. It seems none of them look like Johnny Depp, and they tend to take over ships and kill (as opposed to fight the undead and crack one liners while looking like a hotter version of Keith Richards). Regardless, the point that pirates continue to influence society, and our fashion, still stands. This year I've seen more and more bo...

I'm really glad I don't have bird legs. Or cankles. I'm not really sure how to spell that, but you know what I mean. When your calf and ankle meld together into one giant, soft, fleshy, undefined mess. Gag. In reality I don't have amazing legs. They're not bad, they're just legs and they work just fine. They're not really long (or short). My thighs have never been as tight as I want, or as small as I want, and thanks to some freakish German genetics, years and years of dancing (and being in heels constantly), my calves are larger and more defined than some other ladies. Thankfully though I have never had those under-defined, straight up and down, calf the same size as your thigh, bird legs that currently dominate runways. As I've been watching the new styles rolling out from fashion week I realized that none of the shoes look good on those women because they have no definition to their legs. This season shoes have gotten chunkier. They're gia...

This weekend I finally got my pink glittery shoes. Actually it was only one shoe. And it was a wedge instead of a heel. But it was edible. My ever creative mother had a shoe cake made for me for my birthday celebration with the family. And in true mom fashion she went all out and had it made pink and sparkly. The cake was a great wedge sandal, complete with ankle straps (that were not edible), with butterfly cookies on the side. In fact it kind of looked like the wedges I wore over there (because even dinner with the family requires a little lift). So we ate and drank. The joke of the night being the Raging Bitch ale that Dad brought home from the store. I'm pretty sure there are pictures of everyone modeling one of these beers, though it was only my brother-in-law who was brave enough to make the inevitable raging bitch joke about his wife.  Did he want a Raging Bitch? No thanks, he came with one. It was a few sweet hours of relaxation. No wedding plans, no housework...

I am a woman of many talents. I can bake, write, wear thing other people only dream about, do 50 things at one time, throw one hell of a party, and walk in just about any kind of shoe while doing any of the aforementioned activities. Those who lack the ability to walk in heels often do what my snarky friends and I have deemed the "cow walk." They lumber forward, their upper body at a slant forward or backwards as if they're about to tip over, knees bent, stomping one foot in front of the other, as if punishing the shoes. It's sort of like watching the Jolly Green Giant in drag. In all honesty I'm not sure what's so hard about walking in heels. I've been doing it since I could scuffle around my parent's room in my mom's shoes. Once I started buying them for myself I started small, and gradually built on height. I'm not sure when I started wearing things that only have platforms, and 4-5 inch heels became the norm, but that's exactly wh...

The other day I got a text from my brother-in-law. It said Vibram FiveFingers and then a link. Now, maybe there's something wrong with me, but my immediate thought was, "Why am I getting porn SPAM from the BIL?" Then I realized that texts aren't SPAM, and there's no way he'd send me porn (because that's weird) and it had to be something else. So I took a deep breath and clicked on the link. I'm pretty sure I would have rather seen porn. Instead there are pictures of people's feet adorned in those awful hobbit feet, rubber shoe things. Which I guess are kind of like porn because they're obscene looking, and kind of like a foot condom. I must have taken a while because then he sent a text, "Cat in fingers?" Ummm...no. I understand it's the closest thing to being barefoot, and that's good, and it's anatomically correct, and designer shoes are still more expensive and definitely not as comfy, but the fact remains th...

I love watching people. What they wear, their mannerisms, habits, nervous twitches. And even more amazing is how people act when they think no one is watching. This is when you see the nose pickers, face makers, eye rollers, nail biters, and on and on. Today I encountered another breed of it. The casual from the waist down people. I work in an office where the vast majority of us spend our time sitting behind desks, typing, talking on phones and shuffling papers. The dress code is business casual, which leaves a lot open for interpretation. At one point today I was running around and noticed that not only are there those who push the "casual" part of "business casual" but there are also those who look great from the waist up, and the bottom half looks like they got dressed out of the hamper in the dark. It's like the clothing version of the mullet. This extends all the way down to the shoes (despite there being rules on footwear as well). Dirty gym sho...