Part Three
Feb. 8th, 2007 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslut(rough! babbly! self-conscious! Who has this much to say about shoes? What does it all mean? Is there a point? Does this make any sense at all? Does any of it fit? Fuck it. Consider it free writing. Usually we don't share free writing with the universe at large, but so what.)
And all of this sounds like a tragedy. Poor little fat girl with bad feet, never went to the prom, had to wear ugly shoes instead of glass slippers, ended up frumpy and bitter and dour.
And the route to redemption is this: she found she wasn't all that girly anyway, and bought a pair of men's wingtips and a can of black shoe polish, and lived happily ever after.
And I did buy a pair of men's wingtips. And then I found out that men's shoes are too wide for me to wear every day. My foot splays out and the pain in my heel returns full force.
What I wanted to write was a defense of sensible shoes. Sensible shoes! Let us hail the roomy toe box and the slight rise to the heel! The rocker sole, the cork instep! Let us honor the nurse and the line cook and their sturdy black clogs. Except now you can get those clogs in strawberry and in cream.
My co-worker, a retired nurse, once caught me browsing a pair of white patent platforms with a red cross on the side. She liked them. I didn't buy them.
My sensible shoes are not a political statement, they are not a fashion statement. They are not a repudiation and they are not a capitulation. They are not a failure. They are not a success.
They are not a choice.
And yet, vanity.
And yet, self-love.
And yet, strawberry and cream.
And my shoes today slip on. They are shiny black patent. They are as far away from brown and sturdy as I can walk. I hated those shoes. I love these shoes.
Practical, not sensible, is what I want to say.
But I don't know if it's true.
And all of this sounds like a tragedy. Poor little fat girl with bad feet, never went to the prom, had to wear ugly shoes instead of glass slippers, ended up frumpy and bitter and dour.
And the route to redemption is this: she found she wasn't all that girly anyway, and bought a pair of men's wingtips and a can of black shoe polish, and lived happily ever after.
And I did buy a pair of men's wingtips. And then I found out that men's shoes are too wide for me to wear every day. My foot splays out and the pain in my heel returns full force.
What I wanted to write was a defense of sensible shoes. Sensible shoes! Let us hail the roomy toe box and the slight rise to the heel! The rocker sole, the cork instep! Let us honor the nurse and the line cook and their sturdy black clogs. Except now you can get those clogs in strawberry and in cream.
My co-worker, a retired nurse, once caught me browsing a pair of white patent platforms with a red cross on the side. She liked them. I didn't buy them.
My sensible shoes are not a political statement, they are not a fashion statement. They are not a repudiation and they are not a capitulation. They are not a failure. They are not a success.
They are not a choice.
And yet, vanity.
And yet, self-love.
And yet, strawberry and cream.
And my shoes today slip on. They are shiny black patent. They are as far away from brown and sturdy as I can walk. I hated those shoes. I love these shoes.
Practical, not sensible, is what I want to say.
But I don't know if it's true.
