Madhouse: Shoes

Shoes. What about them? I'm no Imelda Marcos but I like them.

But as is often the case, my taste in them has changed somewhat. I remember pleading with my mother for a pair of Candies high heeled slings, only to be told that it was trashy to wear heels with pants! (This was in the dark ages...I mean, late 70s, folks.)

In high school I remember when she and a salesclerk talked me into a really handsome pair of burgundy leather slingbacks instead of the rather awful ankle strap shoes I coveted at the time. They were right. Classic is a really good thing. I wore those shoes all through high school and college...and beyond, until they literally began to fall apart.

So we're still with heels, but now classic. College mostly meant boots and tennis shoes and so on; I went to New England Conservatory after SCCC and walking around Boston and taking the T makes you fairly practical, even at 20 or 21.

Back to heels next, fairly classic. That continued for a while, though I developed a taste for silver shoes for formal wear, instead of black. (That trend continues...only now they're glace leather, not glitter!)

In the 90s I began to swing dance. Oddly, for a while that meant I started to wear absurdly high heels to dance in. Four inch heels and doing swing-outs? Sure, I'm still indestructible, I'm in my 30s! Eventually I went to lower heels, wedges, oxfords and the occasional vintage shoe in good condition.

This is what really cured me of very high heels, though, and it was only about 5 years ago. I was working in a downtown office and that day was wearing my brand new white stiletto pumps. When I say stiletto...I mean five inches high. Yes.

And on this day, the office jerk (there's one everywhere, as a rule) decided that I (the acting receptionist, not mail room clerk or delivery clerk or runner) would walk a mile across the area and make a hand delivery for him. Never mind the phones.

I damn near killed myself. (I had plans for him, too, but decided I didn't feel like finding out what my bail would be in the circumstances, though I knew that it would be justifiable...whatever-I-did-to-him.)

Now it's 2.5 or 3 inches for heels, lots of loafers and even ballet flats.

Haven't you heard? I'm a knitter now. How else can I show off my handmade socks?