mlroseplant

No idea who that is, and I can't really empathize. I don't sweat much compared to most people. If I'm dripping in sweat, it means it's actually hot, not "Britain Sizzles in the 70s" hot.

Like walking on pillows. Who the heck wants to walk on pillows? Sounds like a lot of extra work to me. I'm fine with walking on the ground, thank you. Again, I sound like I'm repeating myself, but I rejected Doc Martens boots for the same reason--too squidgy. I think they created more problems than they solved. Maybe my wooden shoes are more cushion-y than I give them credit for being, but the point is that I haven't worn any soft shoes to any extent at all for years, and I don't have the foot pain I used to have. There's more to it than that, of course, but my basic reasoning was, "OK, I could walk barefoot on this concrete all day long, no problem. Yet when I wear my cushioned boots, I can barely walk at the end of the day. Why is that?"

Another thing that is difficult, but not impossible to do in heels is ride a motorbike. It seems exciting at first, but as a practical matter it is somewhat less than exciting, and very possibly rather unsafe. This is one of the reasons I switched to a scooter, with automatic transmission and no foot controls. Those things were made for heels!

To be fair, I will use a ball-of-foot insert for fitment purposes, where applicable. I never had any luck with them heel grippers. I do have one pair of mules that actually fit better with double foot cushions, but naturally, I rarely wear them because they don't quite fit right. So here's the weird thing: Many of my favorite shoes are wooden heeled sandals. I've liked that style from my youth. A lot of them do not have any cushioning at all--your foot rests directly on the wood. Despite the hard surface, these tend to be among my more comfortable shoes. I can't explain that, but it did get me off my search for insoles, and moved me toward a different approach to foot comfort.

I have my own interesting relationship with insoles and arch support. After many years of experimentation, I never use them. For me personally, they seem to do more harm than good. I've never tried Keds or Chucks, but I'm sure they'd agree with me just fine, given their minimal support.

I know I'm repeating myself, but now there's a new audience, so it won't seem like it! I can drive in heels, even a real car/truck with a real transmission, but I find no thrill in it. If I have to go more than a few miles, I'll take my shoes off. I just don't enjoy it, though some may find it titillating. I've said for years that I should make my own how to walk in heels video, but I doubt it will ever happen for several reasons. I do like some elements of the model walk or beauty queen walk, but it needs to be toned down for the street to avoid looking ridiculous. This thing they call the "horse walk," however, is completely unusable, and frankly, looks like an excellent way to break shoes.

That is a very nice feeling, indeed! Unfortunately, I don't have that feeling nearly enough. It's not that I feel clumsy or uncomfortable, but rarely do I feel like I actually know what I'm doing. I may expand upon that thought later. I will have to buck the trend here, and say that I do not find How to Walk in Heels videos to be very helpful at all. There are a significant portion of them that are just wrong, or give bad advice. Those that do give correct advice present it in such a way to be less than helpful with the motion of the walk, if that makes any sense. And whoever says you need to walk upon a straight line, or worse yet, cross your feet over each other as you take each step needs to be publicly shamed. Nobody walks that way on the street. It looks beyond absurd. I'm not saying that there aren't any good videos out there, but they are few.

There is often a blurry line between actual injury and just getting old. I don't think there's anything wrong with my knees, but they are definitely not the knees of an 18 year old. As far as the other stuff, there seems to be no sign of trouble from the old Achilles tendon injury, and my plantar fasciitis symptoms have left me as well, thanks to ballet-type exercises. I guess I'll just keep doing THAT. How old do you have to be to get a knee replacement? I didn't realize there was an age floor on that. My wife needs one, but I guarantee she won't get it until she's in a wheelchair.

Bringing us gently back on point, I managed to snag a photo of my friend in her bootcut jeans while I was tearing down my musical equipment on Sunday. I'm not entirely sure what this group of women was doing, but I think they were learning American Sign Language. Anyway, I took a picture of the whole group, then cropped it to show the relevant part, and to protect the identity(ies) of those involved. My friend doesn't wear super high heels, but she does wear heels almost every Sunday, and this style, though on the casual side for me, seems to suit her.

Oh, yes! I've said for years that I don't care how many floors you've swept, don't care how many loads of laundry you've done, once you step out on to the street it's a whole different world, and suddenly, 100 meters might as well be 1,000. But, these difficulties are not impossible to overcome.

I cannot think of anybody who has stuck around here saying to put up with the pain. This whole Beauty Is Pain thing is kind of a social media meme at best, and a fetish thing at worst. Having said that, I certainly have gained some experience and endurance over the years between walking thousands of miles in heels, and working farmer's markets with my wife in heels. That covers both the walking and the standing aspects. I have quit bringing backup shoes, because I've never needed to use them. Well, except that one time when I had catastrophic shoe failure. On the other hand, I certainly do not expect everyone to do what I have done, and I think backup shoes are just fine. I always joke that comfort is overrated, but when it comes to actual pain, that 's another story.

The runner up for the most miles on a single pair of high heels is my Nine West Sizzle oxfords. These have the distinction of being the only non-mule in the bunch, and also the only closed toe shoe in the high mileage bunch. Sporting a 4 3/4"(12 cm) heel with a 3/4"(2 cm) platform, they are a full 4 inch (10 cm) heel, and is among the oldest pairs of heels in my collection. Or was among the oldest. I wore them from January of 2013 until January of 2024 when one of the heels suddenly decided that after 11 years and 196.1 miles (316 km), enough was enough, and promptly snapped in half, a mile and a half from home. This was the first of three similar failures I was to have with Nine West shoes of this vintage and heel style. There is a reinforcing metal rod or tube inside the heel, but it only goes about two thirds of the way up, for some reason. Where it ends is where the plastic heel snaps in two, suddenly and cleanly. And naturally, just after I'd paid to have them resoled. I have been unable to find replacements for these in any color, and I believe they were made in 5 or 6 different colors.

My ex-wife was/is a good two inches taller than me in bare feet, and I encouraged her to wear heels as much as possible, which she often did. I really don't see what the big deal is. Unfortunately or indifferently, she was unable to hack wearing anything over 2 inch heels for very long. We had very different ideas about the significance of heels.

I decided a long time ago that I look better in slimmer cut jeans/pants. I can pull off skinny jeans, and I like them, but they sure can be a pain in the neck to get on and off. I used to wear boot cut pants all the time for the reason that @Puffer mentioned, as an attempt to minimize attention to my heels, but I guess I got over that some time ago. Because I like to wear mules, I was glad to get rid of boot cut jeans, as the two don't live together in perfect harmony. Perhaps I am mistaken in my self-assessment, because my 40-something woman friend, mentioned several times elsewhere, wears boot cut jeans all the time with 3 inch heels, and she looks awesome. She's a very tiny woman, as well. The downside is, you can't really see the shoes. That was definitely the style in the early 2000s, when she would have come of age. I can remember working at the Iowa State Capitol building in 2004 and watching for heels, which were very common at the time. It was sometimes frustrating, because all you could see was just a sliver of a stiletto sticking out the bottom of a pair of pants that were very nearly dragging the floor. It was against this backdrop that I started my high heel journey, thinking I could do the same.

In the 1980s, I can remember watching Vanna White on "Wheel Of Fortune." She always had on high heels for the show, and her letter turning job always showed them off well. I can remember reading some interviews with her at a later time, where she basically said she hated everything about wearing heels.