mlroseplant

Yes, I have felt heel withdrawal every year when I've gone to Vietnam. Not that I would be jailed there, but would probably face a worse fate from my wife.

I had mentioned the idea of starting a work boots thread in the past, and here it is. Not high heels of course, but I think there are enough boot guys here that this subject will be a conversation starter. As many of you already know, I am an electrician by profession, and my jobsite conditions vary wildly. Right now, I'm working on concrete, but just a couple of months ago, I was in the mud doing underground utilities. Sometimes I walk miles and miles every day, and sometimes I am working out of an elevated work platform, and walk hardly at all. Over the years I have tried many different kinds of work boots. The one thing that remains fairly constant is that I have almost always owned two pairs simultaneously, and switched off every other day. I feel like this is better for both comfort and foot health. There may be nothing to it, but it's just what I've done for nearly 30 years, and I am now too old to change. I started off as a Red Wing guy, and I remained a loyal Red Wing guy for the better part of two decades. Red Wing boots are made (or used to be made) in Red Wing, Minnesota, not all that far from me. The reason why Red Wings were so cool is because they made almost every boot style in every size, not only by length, but by width. Therefore, I could get my 7 1/2 Bs which fit perfectly instead of having to put up with 7 1/2 D, which is "medium" width for men's shoes. Then, in what I can assume was a cost cutting measure, they quit making my size in most styles, which irritated me very much. In addition, during roughly this period of time, they also moved a lot of their production to China. Therefore, it was time to try something new. It was then that I went through my Doc Marten phase. By this time, I was wearing high heels in my non-work life, and I found some Dr. Marten boots with rather giant heels, and I had to give them a go. I rather liked getting away with wearing 2 1/4 inch heels to work, and the boots eventually broke in to where they were reasonably comfortable. It was at this point when I went from men's 7 1/2 to women's size 9B, which is still the size I wear fairly reliably. I gave up the Doc Martens for two reasons: 1) They were almost too squidgy. I don't like a lot of padding to begin with, and these boots were sort of like walking on pillows. Who the hell wants to walk on pillows? I think it takes a lot more effort to walk on pillows. I'd personally much rather just walk on the ground. Because they were squidgy, bending conduit with a hand bender took some getting used to. When using a hand bender, a lot of foot pressure is required to get it to come out right. In fact, in certain regions of the U.S., they call the exact same tool a "foot bender." 2) Later that following winter, I discovered that those squidgy soles do not like the extreme cold at all. Both pairs I had split clean across the balls of my feet when the temperature got down below about -15º C. I am deducing that it was the cold because both pairs failed within a week of each other, just from walking. I then went to Ariat boots, in a women's size 9, which is where I'm at today. I've tried several different models, and of course they have stopped making my favorite model. Pictured here are Ariat's "Scout" model, which are a step down from my preferred "Heritage Breeze" model. The differences are subtle, but noticeable. Both are marketed as a "paddock" boot, suitable for riding horses. There is even a spur rest built into the back of the boot. The reason I like them for work is that they are very light and flexible, and the tread pattern is minimal, meaning less mud collection. Despite having little in the way of tread pattern, they are quite grippy on low friction surfaces. For being very affordable (less than 150 USD, depending), they have proven to be durable and just plain different enough that I like them. I seriously doubt whether many of my colleagues in construction would like them. I feel as though they are too light and the soles are too thin for your average construction worker. The soles on my older pair (not pictured here) are now so worn as to be almost literally paper thin. If I am standing on gravel, I can count the number of stones beneath my feet by feel. I don't think most people would like that. Those are now relegated to lawn mowing and other soft surface work. I am considering the purchase of another similar pair in the near future. My newest pair of boots is the Thorogood Model 814-4200 (made in USA). This moccasin toe, wedge sole style of boot is extremely popular in my area at the moment. Every other worker, or at least every other electrician is sporting this style of boot in one brand or another. My company gave me a voucher for 250 USD to purchase a new pair of work boots at a particular retailer. I didn't really love any of the available selection, but 250 bucks is way too much to leave on the table, so I settled on these Thorogoods, which cost somewhere north of $250, so that I wound up paying about 40 bucks out of my pocket after sales tax. They were the only boots I tried on in 7 1/2 that I didn't feel was way too wide. In fact, even though they are labeled 7 1/2 D, they sure feel a lot more like a B width, and I'm really halfway between B and C width. I guess they're ok, but I'm not crazy about them. Certainly at first, and to some extent even now, they feel a bit like wearing hollowed out logs on my feet. They do not cause pain, but I just don't feel very graceful wearing them. Also, despite having fairly soft soles which show wear quickly, they're not all that grippy. I discovered this initially while riding my motorbike to work, and putting my foot down on some sand at a stoplight. Appearances can be deceiving. I kind of like the way they look, but there's no way I would have paid nearly 300 USD for them. I hope others will share stories and perhaps pictures of their favorite (or perhaps least favorite) work boots. Just in case there is any confusion (I'm sure there won't be), the black ones are the Ariats, my favorites, and the tan ones are the Thorogoods. And I obviously didn't clean either of them up for the photos. This is how they might actually appear on the job.

Certainly the mental anxiety has something to do with it, but perhaps an equally challenging factor, one that is completely beyond our control, is the fact that the real world is a much more difficult place in which to wear heels than is the home. I must have said it at least a hundred times, but it bears mentioning again: I don't how many hours you've spent in heels at home, how many floors you've mopped, how many meals you've cooked, or how many dishes you have washed, the minute you step out of the car, take your first half dozen steps, look up and realize that you're going to have to cross the entire Walmart parking lot, and you will have to do so all in one go, while trying to act naturally, it will feel as though you've never worn heels in your life. Three inch chunky heels are definitely a good idea for those early days in public.

This will be perhaps the most unusual "new boots/shoes" post I have ever made, which will be evident when I explain my intended course of action with these NOS Simply Vera Wang Svellie ankle boots in dark gray. I had a black pair exactly like these 12 years ago, and they were the only pair of shoes that I actually bought in a store. Simply Vera is Vera Wang's inexpensive shoe line, and is or was sold at Kohl's. These boots came in the original box, and look as though they were tried on, but never actually worn. They feature 5 1/8" slim heels, about 3/4" in diameter, and a 1" platform, about half of which is hidden, yielding an effective 4 1/8" steepness, which is quite reasonable and not too crazy for me. These days. It wasn't always so. I know I have told this story before, but now I have pictures to go along with it. Shortly after purchasing this boot model 12 years ago, my wife and I had to go up to a shopping mall to the mobile phone store. I proudly wore my new 5 inch boots, which my wife really, really didn't like back then. This was one of my first few pairs of heels ever, and it may have been the first pair that sported shockingly tall heels. So yes, at that time I had been wearing heels publicly for about six months or so, but not very often, and the heels weren't very high. We went to the mobile phone store, and I don't remember any of the business that went on there, but I do remember that they were very busy, and we had to stand and wait for the better part of an hour. And as you know, standing is often way worse than walking if you're not used to heels. Whenever I tell this story, I have often used the phrase, "I thought I was going to DIE before we got back to the car." I did not literally think I was going to die, but I had serious doubts about whether I was going to make it back to the car with those boots on. Oh, it hurt SO bad. And we're talking probably 15 minutes total walking to and from the car, and 45 minutes to an hour of standing, really not all that long. Of course, since my wife was very negative on my shoes, I couldn't really let on that I could barely walk, could I? I toughed it out and somehow managed to cover up my true feelings. Somehow or other, since we took her car up to the mall, I was able to not drive and I can't remember whether I took my boots off, or secretly cringed all the way home, thankful that I was at least seated once again. I do remember thinking to myself, "This whole high heel thing is just a fantasy. Now I get why women can't or won't wear these shoes all the time." I was very discouraged, and thought about giving up the whole thing right then and there, which would have made my wife very happy. As you know, that did not happen. After just a couple of days of brooding, I started to wear my lower heels pretty much everywhere I could, and eventually, I believe my system of purposefully walking and recording the statistics in heels was born during the first half of 2013. It took a while, but by 2015, after many miles in lower heels, I was able to walk 5 miles in these boots with no issues, my first time to walk that far in what I would call a "high" heel. As shown here, which was yesterday, I had walked a mere 3 miles right before this picture was taken, and would spend the remainder of the morning running errands in them. I try not to let myself forget just how badly those things had hurt 12 years ago, to remind myself and show to others that things that seem impossible are not always impossible. I'm not one of those guys who will say, "Anyone can accomplish anything if they put their mind to it." This is patently false. However, many people can accomplish quite a lot more than it seems at first. Now for their future: As soon as I wear the stock heel tips down, they are going in the trash. Although they have never been worn, the chemical reaction of being so old and not leather has caused the gray color to peel off massively from the first time I wore them. How disappointing. They are plenty fine for walking in the dark, but they become less and less presentable with each passing day. Luckily, I have found a replacement already, and hopefully they don't have the exact same problem. If they do, we'll just have to find something else that is real leather.

I have not been keeping up with the new purchases as of late. Part of this is due to the fact that my photo standards have gotten higher over the years. I do not particularly enjoy taking pictures of myself, but I do so for the sake of this group, mainly. And one other person who is not part of this group. As I have intimated recently, I have been expanding my boot collection this winter, particularly the ankle boots. My latest purchase was these Aldo Marille combat/motorcycle boots. The reason I bought them was because I was somewhat dismayed by how huge the heels on my last boot purchase were. I wanted something in more or less the same style, but a little less extreme. I think I have found the answer in the Aldo boots, as long as they hold up to actual use. They are still quite rugged looking, having a lugged heel cap as well as a lugged sole, but at 1 5/8" in heel width, they are not quite as chunky looking as my other similarly styled boots. The heel height comes in at the same 4 3/8" tall as the Steve Maddens, but they appear taller because of their slimmer appearance. However, the effective steepness is less than the Maddens by a substantial 3/8", simply because of the internal construction of the footbed. The platform is a true 3/4", making the effective heel height a somewhat tame 3 5/8", or just barely over 9 cm. I have worn them out a few times now, and they easily passed the 2 mile walking test, though they are ever so slightly narrow. This has a side effect of looking absolutely adorable on my feet, which is why I took a top view photo. You'd swear I wear size 36 from this photo. I may choose to use a shoe stretcher on them in the future, or maybe they will stretch from just wearing them. Being as they are not overly tall, I can zoom in these boots. I clocked 19:00 miles just yesterday, which is not a lot faster, but notably faster than I normally walk in 4 inch heels. Of course, it was colder than crap yesterday, which probably encouraged me to walk faster than I normally do.

I guess I never really read the original post carefully, which is rather unlike me. Now that I have read it, I have some real advice. I feel I can give real advice because I've been there. Stop with the 200 pairs of shoes for your wife. They're not for her anyway, and you know it. Get your own shoes, and then you will never feel the need to pressure your wife to wear heels when she doesn't want to. This is not a perfect solution. It may create other problems where none existed before, but it will solve some very fundamental problems that you are obviously having. I'm not being mean, I have just been there myself.

The font option appears to be back. It was gone a few days for some reason. I have been a follower of this site since the Jenny days (circa 2000), but I was up until recently programmed to believe that heels were only for women. Had I stayed married to my ex-wife, I wonder how my fashion proclivities would have turned out. As a result, I actually joined fairly late, and it took me quite a while to get used to the sight of men in heels, including my own reflection in the mirror. I was a little taken aback when I got here finally, and was not necessarily welcomed with open arms. This place has evolved quite a bit within the last decade. True, it's almost dead, but it's friendly. @Laurieheels was a favorite of mine back in the day. Punching in the name, I see that she is still technically a member here. She was inspiring to me because she wanted to get to the point where she could wear very high heels every day as her normal footwear. And I really don't remember the denouement of her journal, but I do remember progress documented. And I thought to myself, "I wish my wife would do something like that." What I did not realize at the time is that what I really meant was, "I wish I could do something like that." Here I am, some 20 years later, living the dream. Of course, my job does not allow me to wear heels as much as I would like, but it's enough. I think I can reasonably say that I probably pound the pavement more than anybody, maybe not timewise, but certainly distance wise, and although I've never learned to properly walk in 5 inch heels, I have pretty much mastered 4 inch heels (more about how that is so untrue in a future installment), and I guess I'll have to be satisfied with that.

I went to a high school jazz band concert this week. I saw what I expected to see, a lot of low-to-mid block heels, and largely on strappy sandals. Despite the temperature being around the freezing mark, there were an awful lot of sandals in the band. Perhaps it comes of these younger girls having but one pair of dressy shoes, and they happen to be sandals. Heels do not appear to be dead, they're just a lot lower and clunkier than they used to be. Which brings me to the reason for this post. On my way out of the building, I saw a girl/young woman wearing actual high heels. She was obviously not in the show, because otherwise she would have been wearing black, and I couldn't tell you exactly how old she was, but she looked quite young, had braces on her teeth, and was wearing this rather outlandish flannel blanket/dress thingy. I don't really even know how to describe it. It didn't look horrible, but it did look rather odd with her black strappy sandals. They looked pretty similar to all the other girls' sandals, except they were easily at least twice the height. Chunky block heels, but I would estimate about 4 1/2 inches tall with maybe 1/2 inch platform. In other words, actual high heels. So they are still out there, even in Gen Z.

I have evidently missed my HHP anniversary, but not by much. Evidently, I've been on this site for 12 years! I wonder how this would have all gone without this site. I had already made up my mind that I was going to wear the shoes I liked about six months before I joined here. I'm sure that my fashion life would have been different, but I'm not really sure how. I guess it's been good to know that I'm not the only one, but I've been used to that my entire life, so I don't know that it would have been a deal breaker. One thing I have noticed is that for my anniversary, I no longer have the option to choose a different font than this default sans serif font that I'm not particularly fond of.

I had occasion to go the bank yesterday. We got off work a little bit early, and I decided I needed to move some money around. This time, I made sure I was cleaned up, looking halfway presentable, and wearing heels. I chose burgundy colored pants to go with burgundy Carressa mary janes. I considered wearing some super stiletto-y Steve Madden pumps, but thought the mary janes were a better choice for what I was trying to accomplish, which was to talk to the bank lady about heels. I entered the bank with my paperwork in hand, looked around for an open teller (and the high heeled bank lady), and soon a teller called me across the lobby to her counter. No sign of the bank lady. Figures. I went on about my business with the teller, and the next thing I knew, there was this person standing right next to me, which just goes to show that you can't always be situationally aware unless you make a constant effort to be. The person who sneaked up on me was the bank lady, and she said, "I don't mean to bother you, but your shoes are incredibly cute. I heard someone walking across the lobby who sounded just like me, and I had to see who it was. I'm glad it wasn't just somebody wearing cowboy boots, and WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE SHOES?" Whoa! That was not at all how I figured this was going to go down. You would think that after what, 12 or 13 years of this that I'd be perfectly comfortable with this sort of encounter. I did manage to get out my line that it was indeed heartwarming to see someone out there who still wears heels besides me. Mind you, this is all right up there at the counter in front of the teller who was helping me. So as it turns out, bank lady wears heels every single day and loves wearing them, and the rest of the people at the bank think she's crazy. I think she was glad to have someone else tell her coworkers that heels don't necessarily have to hurt at all. I don't think we gained much traction on that assertion. After the transaction was over, I went over to the bank lady's desk (I still don't know her name), and we talked about shoes for another five minutes or so. Her boots on this day were nothing very special, they were plain black with slim (not stiletto) 4 inch heels. She said she had most of her extensive shoe collection already packed away for the move. Move? Now for the bad news. This interaction will never happen again. Evidently, today (Wednesday) is her last day at the bank. I asked her where she was going to, and she said that her husband had gotten a new job in a town about 75 miles away, and that they would be moving there. I know the town reasonably well, and we talked about her impending move. I wished her well and departed. It's not really a big deal, but that's exactly my luck. I'm going to be the only one again. Sigh. At least you won't have to read any more stories about the bank lady, and I know for sure she doesn't think I'm a creep for liking her shoes.

It is true that society in general has grown way more casual, especially since our world health issue happened back in 2020. I get the kind of static you're talking about myself, because I won't wear heels unless I'm at least slightly presentable, which to most people these days is "dressed up." It's even affected my wife. She has many, many cute dresses and outfits, but rarely wears any of them these days. She is a regular vendor at a couple of different farmer's markets, and her signature was to dress up. All of the other vendors were looking like they were about to do automotive engine repair, and she'd be in this cute little dress every week. Those days are over. Now it's leggings and Crocs. What can I say?

I have come to the conclusion that certain brands, or at least certain styles within those brands are suspect just because they are that brand. You probably know that I am not a big fan of Michael Kors or Vera Wang, both well respected mid-priced shoe manufacturers. And by mid-priced, I mean like 300 bucks retail. Not cheap, but not Gucci. Neither of those companies seem to be able to make a shoe which will actually last when worn regularly. I have finally broken myself of thinking I'll give them one more try. I hate to admit it, but I've eventually come to the same conclusion about BCBGeneration/BCBGirls. They eventually crap out under what to me is normal use. This is why I bought 6 pairs of my favorite Bonny sandals. I'm on Number 4, and none have lasted the way I think they ought to. And now to address the part I bolded in the quote. I'm sure I've told this story before, but there is a certain model of True Religion wooden mules that I like, and I've owned 5 pairs of them over the years. The first pair I bought probably 10 years ago, and I wound up selling or donating them because a) they were too high for me at the time, and b) they were orange, and I only wore black back then. Could not possibly imagine myself wearing orange high heels in public. The second pair I bought, years later, was dark brown, and they were waaaaay better after a few years of practice. I loved them a lot. The problem was, within less than 10 miles, I lost a top lift (or heel tip) somewhere along the way, and by the time I noticed it, I had ground down about 3/4 of an inch off the bare wood/composite material. Not really fixable. In the trash they went. The third pair, which was in black, lost its top lift in about the same number of miles, only this time I noticed pretty much right away. I slipped off the shoes and walked barefoot the rest of the way home. Had the sandals reheeled, and they have turned out to be my most durable shoes to date, having racked up nearly 250 miles so far with no problems. Then I had a fourth pair where I lost the OEM top lift within a few miles, but knew to look for it. With the fifth pair, I told the cobbler, "I know these top lifts look brand new. . .because they are, but replace them anyhow." Lesson learned on what amounts to the third time. A very long-winded story to say that if you love the boots, I would take them somewhere and see if there is anything to be done with them before putting a bunch of miles on them worrying that they're going to fall apart at any minute. That kind of ruins the whole experience, doesn't it?

I'm not a conspiracy guy, but among all of us, we've had similar things happen to us many times. A heel came loose, or a shank broke, or some other catastrophic failure. So let me ask you this: In any case, when you were hobbling around, trying not to look like an idiot, would you have been able to take your shoe, especially while still wearing it, and rip the entire sole off with your bare hand, such that it was a separate piece, suitable for throwing?

She has done a number of things that I like in the past decade, but unfortunately none of them are musical. She was all right when she was sort of country, but now she ain't no differ'nt than any other pop schmo with 6 songwriters on every song, and 10 producers. I like the fact that she grabbed her own material back from her record label in a sneaky yet bold way.

Iowa is kind of famous for its winters, but the reality is that it's either mud or ice. Yeah, we'll get some snow in there sometimes, but for the farmer and the construction worker, there are only two conditions: Mud or ice.