mlroseplant

It has taken some time, but I see that my thread has settled down into an online print representation of what my conversations in real life are actually like. I did pick the title of this thread fairly purposefully, but it has taken a few years for it to evolve into what I imagined when I started the thread. Thank you all who have made contributions to the conversation. In other news, I can definitely say that I got by with falling down the other day. The knee upon which I fell was a little tender for a couple of days, but nothing serious, and now it is back to its normal, somewhat squirrelly self. I've always had a bit of trouble with that knee on and off for the past 25 years. However, I did unfortunately ruin my last unblemished pair of skinny jeans. I am in the market for replacements.

Well doggone it, I DID fall down yesterday. I was in a parking garage which was not well lit, with temperatures right around the freezing mark. I stepped on a small patch of ice that I didn't realize was there, and down I went. I am going to say that in this case, there is a good chance I would have fallen regardless. I didn't feel like the heels were a factor, unlike the last and only other time I have fallen in heels. The situation was quite similar. I am proud to say that, even as my 51st birthday approaches tomorrow, I was up in a flash, without much injury, just my pride. There may or may not have been witnesses, haha.

This whole exchange was quite a bit lighter and gigglier (is that even a word?) than it sounds on paper. It could have been even more so had I not been involved in a completely different conversation at the time. I'm not losing any sleep over it. I'm still counting it as an overall positive experience. Well, because she was right! I shouldn't have been wearing those shoes under those conditions, but it's sort of what I do. Nobody even fusses at me any more when I show up to church on a snowy day in very high heels, walking down the very same icy sidewalk where hips have been broken. And yes, the Sam Edelman clogs, which have a lightly lugged sole, are remarkably grippy, even compared to your average sports shoe. The Nine West pumps I wore to church? Not so much. That just relies on sheer talent and experience, and maybe a little bit of luck. Jeff B always says if the streets ain't dry, then my heels ain't high. My mantra has become, "I probably won't fall down. Damn the torpedoes!"

We had our first significant snowfall of the season starting Friday night, and continuing all day Saturday. It was a snow with a remarkable lack of violence--it just kept snowing a little bit at a time for nearly 24 hours, and when it was all done, we had about 5 or 6 inches on the ground. Did this stop me from wearing heels? Silly question. I found it necessary to venture out to my local grocery store, and I wore my new-to-me Sam Edelman "Flair" clogs, which have become my go-to shoes this winter. With the very high heel and platform, there were only a very few places where the snow came over the top of them, and they seem to have remarkable grip on the snow and ice. My 10 year old son and I finished our business before my wife did, and we were hanging around the front door, waiting. A young mother carrying her about one year old daughter happened to pass by, and remarked, "You should NOT be wearing those shoes today!" It was kind of an interruption of my thoughts or whatever conversation I may have been having at the time, and I was somewhat surprised, so I said, "Well, why not?" "Well, what if you fall down?" She asked. "What if YOU fall down? You are carrying your daughter. At least if I fall down, I will only hurt myself." It was rather more confrontational than what I intended, but I think the expression on my face made up for the harshness of my words. It didn't feel terrible, but obviously the young lady was anxious to be on her way, realizing the absurdity of accosting a stranger in such a manner. I mean really, I probably won't fall down. I hardly ever do.

I think in the early days of one's public heeling journey, one is tempted to place far more emphasis on the fact and phenomenon of it than what it actually deserves. Do not be tempted to make such an announcement on Facebook. Not only will it not do what you hope it will do, it is just simply a waste of mental energy. What you actually want is for people to forget that you wear heels all the time every now and then. Just wear the heels, as often as possible, as well as possible. Don't draw special attention to it. People will accept you, eventually.

Even though I freely admit that I do not understand the concept of thigh high boots outside of activities like trout fishing, I rather thought the above boots were supposed to look like that! I don't see a thing wrong with them.

It is a long established fact that you are just not a suit and tie kind of guy. That does not necessarily get you off the hook when it comes to being teased about it. Evidently, especially about the ties! (Insert some dumb, laughing emoji here, and maybe a winky one for good measure)

My wife uses that argument also, and it's about 80% of her case in support of why she doesn't like what I wear. If I have the need to buy something androgynous, like a pair of flat loafers or jeans, I just make sure I obliterate the tags before she sees them, then it's no problem. A bit frustrating, because there is absolutely nothing to be gained by arguing or logic. It just is. Luckily, I must be an OK guy otherwise.

That is exactly the reason that I went to measuring straight up the back of the heel quite some time ago. It's not a perfect method, but it is more consistent across all heel types. "Load of cobblers" indeed! I shall make it my goal to use this phrase sometime in the next week at work, just to see how we Yankees react to it.

I think this outfit suits you well, but it has always amused me that 3 inch heels in your size are basically kitten heels. I don't know why this amuses me, really. It just does. One thing that I am curious about, and perhaps you have addressed this before, is how do you. . . well, not stick out in places where one ought not to stick out?

The oxfords look remarkably the same as my Nine West "Sizzle" oxfords, and if that is true, you will find them very easy to wear. I highly recommend! At least the heels themselves appear to be either regular calf leather or patent, so you have a fighting chance of not trashing these.

I also get this all the time, and in a number of cases, I offered to help them along a path that would allow them to wear heels that high. Not a one of them ever followed my advice. While I'm sure that many have physiological problems that actually prevent them from wearing heels, most just don't really want to badly enough to go through the effort it takes to master the skill of wearing anything higher than 3 inch. In much the same way that people often say, "I wish I could play the piano," it's just an idle remark, signifying very little.

You're right. The damage is not limited to the metal shank. However, it WAS limited to the shank before I ripped the shoe in half with my bare hands! I am not nearly gung-ho enough to fashion a replacement shank, even if I hadn't destroyed the shoe.

I have now discovered why one of my favorite pairs of sandals (for actual walking, anyway) has bitten the dust. One day, without warning, no tripping, no stumbling, nothing like that, the heel on one of the sandals became quite loose, to the point where they were completely unwearable. But they were loose in a very weird way--the actual heel appeared to be firmly attached to the sole, but for whatever reason, the heel was flexing wildly, as if the screws holding it on had come loose or broken. They sat on my shelf for a few months, then during a rash bit of cleaning up, I decided that I wasn't going to dump any money into them, that I would find out what was wrong with them, even if this meant destroying the shoes and having to get rid of them. First, I peeled up the inner footbed liner where it covered the screws that actually attaches the heel to the sole of the shoe, and, as expected, everything was tight and solid. So what was causing all of this sloppiness in the heel? I remembered taking a pair of well-worn pumps which had a similar problem, and asking him to tighten up the heel, but he said there was nothing to be done because I had bent the shank of the shoe, likely by tripping over something and catching the heel hard. I didn't remember doing that, but it could have happened. I reluctantly threw those shoes in the trash. Could it be that somehow these sandals had suffered the same fate? I know for a fact that I hadn't tripped or stumbled on anything. Do shanks just bend on their own after extensive use? After pondering this for a minute or two, I impulsively took the heel in one hand and the front of the sandal in the other and bent. Unbelievably, the whole sandal snapped in half without all that much effort, revealing its secret. As you can see in the accompanying photos, the metal strip which runs the entire length of the sole had completely broken in half. Total and utter failure. That accounts for a Good Deal. It Explains Everything. It is also very disappointing, given the fact that when new, the retail on these Vera Wang Celeste sandals was about 300 USD. A bit overpriced for what you get, but still not cheap-ass shoes. I didn't pay anywhere near that, by the way. I want to say about 50 bucks. Anyhow, after many, many miles of use (they are great walking shoes), metal fatigue evidently got the better of this reinforcing strip, and that was the end of the line for these. It all comes, I guess, of actually walking in shoes that were not really engineered to be walked in. I was surprised to discover that the entire stiffness and strength of the substantial-looking sole was essentially provided by that thin strip of metal. I have an identical pair in black. We'll just have to wait and see if they end up suffering the same fate. Hopefully, it will be some time before this happens, if it ever does. The black pair has a lot fewer miles on it. I have included a shot of what they used to look like in their intended environment.

My memory serves me well some of the time. I thought that I posted about my outing to the bar nearly two years ago, and I was right! My memory of the event is still pretty accurate, and a more contemporaneous memorial of the event can be found on page 7 of my thread "The High Heeled Ruminations of Melrose Plant." I don't know how to link it to here, if it is even possible. Basically, only one of my colleagues accosted me on the night in question, and I owned up to my fashion choices right away, made some jokes, bought the fellow a drink, and that was the end of it. Over the course of the next week, my actual friends at the job site said that my name had come up a couple of times, but everybody decided that I was just my own man, and there was nothing more. I remember it that way, and evidently I got it pretty much right, having refreshed my present recollection by reviewing my posts made in the last week of February 2017. What I did not remember at all is that the "pretty lady" wearing my mules is a recycled photo, originally posted on page 8 of my thread, a few months after the bar/coworker/lady who tried on my shoes story.