mlroseplant

A report: I survived the first day of work. I think this is going to be all right. I actually walked a mile after supper, so I guess my energy level is high enough on Day 1. I'm on the fire alarm crew, which is not ideal but it's waaaaay better than doing underground! I ran into a guy I had worked with at some point in the past the other day at the grocery store. I was with my son. I was wearing my black Diane von Furstenberg clogs, which have 5 3/8" narrow heels (1" platform). I knew I knew the guy from work somewhere, but I couldn't think of his name (still can't). He sure knew mine. At any rate, it was patently obvious that he did not notice my shoes. Not everyone has an interest such as we. That's just weird, innit?

The commute is about half an hour each way. I did this for years in the past, and I thought I was done with it, but I guess fate had other plans. My plan is to work all the hours for at least a month, and get a feel for how management feels about people working less than that. I am not the only one in my orientation group who feels this way. We are paid quite well enough to more than make it on 40. OK, I'm signing off right now. Here we go!

I am so sorry to hear your news, Alex. Take care.

Yeah, I know that I don't have a lot to say that hasn't already been said. That's why I have to invent stuff like statistics, and even that only goes so far. I am wondering how my new job is going to affect my walk schedule. It's 58 hours a week, so that means that many hours plus commuting time will be spent in flatties. Will I be able to average a mile a day in heels or not? I'm hoping that I can, but I can also see it going by the wayside.

There isn't much going on here lately, so I decided to spend a few minutes and compile some personal high heel statistics. As I told about 2 1/2 months ago, I managed to walk approximately 350 documented miles in heels in 2024. I know that over the last 12 years of this adventure, my heels have gotten incrementally higher, so I was curious about what percentage of those 350 miles I walked in "high" heels vs. "mid" heels. My definition of a "high" heel is 4" or greater difference between heel and toe, subtracting out the thickness of the platform, where applicable. A "mid" heel to me is 3 - 3 7/8", using the same metric. So here are the numbers: 56.9% of the mileage was in "high" heels, and 43.1% was in "mid" heels. 0% for anything less than 3". I was able to get this information because I keep track of how many miles I walk in specific shoes, in addition to keeping a running total. I do this to keep track of how many miles I get out of heel tips, and ultimately the shoes themselves. For anybody who is curious, my most durable shoes to date are my True Religion mules, at 243 miles and still going strong. They are barely "high" heels with a 5" heel and 1" platform. In second place are my Nine West Sizzle oxfords at 196 miles. Those, unfortunately, are no longer with us. In other non-high heel news, I'm going back to work Monday. I really didn't want to take this job, but given what's happened in the last seven weeks, I figured it would behoove me to have a job, while there is still one available. At least I'll have friends there--it's not like I'll be a total stranger. I met a brother at orientation yesterday whom I hadn't seen in years. I hope we manage to get tooled up together.

I'm glad it didn't break at a more inopportune time. I don't think I've ever had a shoe failure right in front of someone, but I've sure had some inconvenient ones over the years. As far as knowing how many miles you have walked in the boots, a good indicator would be how many times you've had them reheeled. I typically get about 10 miles out of stiletto heel tips, but increase the diameter to 3/4" (still a slim heel, but definitely chunkier), and that average mileage increases to 50, easily. This is strictly outside walking, of course.

Times have definitely changed. I can remember working at a grocery store as a teenager, and you used to see heels all the time, often paired with a casual outfit. It wasn't a big deal. Now, it's a big deal! Even going to the downtown office district in the capital city is not a guarantee of heel sightings, and if you do get lucky, the shoes you will most likely see are usually nothing to write home about. Then again, my standards have gotten a little higher these days, no pun intended.

Yesterday at the grocery store, I saw a young woman (early to mid 20s) who looked like she had just come straight from church (as I had). She was wearing a nice A-line dress with adorable little booties that had maybe a 3 inch heel. Maybe it was only 2 1/2, but they were noisy, same as my shoes were. We passed each other in the aisle several times, and she gave me the eye, but we never spoke.

I guess we often talk about heels being a rarity, but I hadn't actually considered the type of heel in my occasional sightings. Come to think of it, I can't think of the last time I saw somebody wearing stilettos in person, i.e., not on social media. I'll have to make a note of it the next time I see it.

I did actually wear stilettos in public just yesterday, to my kid's jazz band concert. And even then, I seem to have attracted very little notice, despite there being hundreds of people there. And yet, at the same time, I was a unicorn. I was not the only one I saw who was wearing heels, but I was the only one in high stilettos. It hasn't always been this way. I've certainly been challenged and even heckled in the past.

It's been a while since this thread has been active, but I've got a post for it. I will say that this is only my first failure of 2025, but I'm kind of bummed about it. I bought these Steve Madden Klory pumps about 2 1/2 years ago, and was thrilled that I had finally found the perfect pair of beige/nude colored shoes. Sometime within the last couple of months, the heel on the right shoe has ceased to be vertical. Not only does this offend my visual sensibilities, they don't walk quite right anymore. I have no idea what really caused this, but I'm guessing it's a bent shank. In any case, I have to bin them. I probably won't replace them, even though I've found an identical pair, because I already have several pair that are so close in color and style that I feel silly spending money and space on something that I absolutely don't need. For comparison, I've also included a picture which illustrates why I feel silly replacing them. The middle shoe is the one from the pair I've had to toss. The only on the right is actually the one I wear the most. The one on the left is new, a different brand, and is unvetted as of yet. I might do a separate post on that pair in the future. For those interested in such things, the heel heights are 4 1/2", 4 5/8", and 4 3/4", right to left of course.

To be sure, the Iowa interaction on the street is typically very brief, and rarely includes actually stopping one's pedestrian momentum, but it does exist. If the weather is particularly remarkable, it might involve slowing down and turning around slightly to get in a couple more words about how cold it is, or how nice it is. The grocery store or post office is a completely different animal in that regard. That might involve a much longer conversation.

That is downright Iowan of you!

I believe the phrase was originally written by Justice Potter Stewart in one of the several important First Amendment cases ruled on by the Supreme Court in the 1960s. I can't remember the name of the case, but 30 years later, I still remember that phrase, "I know it when I see it." I would prefer not to see the moose knuckle, and I don't really think it's a very good look. Of course the problem with Stewart's little catchphrase it that it leaves so much up to the discretion of the beholder, and is not really an objective standard. If memory serves, this was actually addressed at some point in a later case.

That brings back up a very interesting subject once again. Why do women still wear high heels? I think increasingly, it's all an illusion of what used to be fashionable in years past. It is certainly not required anymore, but even young girls hold on to this image of a high heeled life. It's just that very few of us are actually willing to do what it takes to actually live it. I went to school with a girl who wore heels regularly. In fact, she was notable for wearing higher heels than practically everybody else. She, unlike me, got a job right out of college in the financial sector, and she's still there to this day, not far from retirement. She recounted at some point that in her first years at the job, she was expected to show up every day in a skirt and heels and hosiery. That's how she dressed a couple of times a week in high school by choice, so I'm thinking, "What's wrong with that?" As it turns out, as work dress codes have relaxed, she gladly ditched all of that stuff, and now brags about how she hasn't worn heels in years. This tells me that there is simply a fundamental difference between how we view high heels and how the general populace view them.