mlroseplant

This is even more true, if, like me, one prefers to buy his shoes on Poshmark or Ebay. In that case, all that matters is whether the thing got there on time or whether it got there at all.

I concur with Shyheels. Most reviews are useless. However, if you notice 50 bad reviews, and most of them say, "The strap broke after only 3 wearings," then it's probably useful. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. I don't know how many shoe reviews I've seen that have some saying that these run large, so order a size smaller, and a short scroll down, you'll find others saying that these run small, order a size up. By the time I feel qualified to write a review, they have usually quit making the product that I liked. I'm only about 80% kidding.

I am probably a little bit biased, but my wife, despite all her faults, makes the best product available locally. I think it's because she has the perspective of having grown up in Asia, but also having lived in the West for a long time. She understands how to modify the Asian food to cater to the Western palate. Also, to be clear, I did not come up with the business name, "Egg Rolls Yum!" That's about the dumbest name I could ever imagine, but, like my own presence as an ugly old guy in high heels, it doesn't seem to have hurt sales. I do seem to have mastered saying, "Thank you! Y'all have a good night!" in an enthusiastic way. A standing offer to Shyheels and all other hhplace people. While I seriously doubt we'll ever take our van to Sussex, if any of y'all ever make it out this way, you eat for free. That's not my decision, that's my wife's.

Last night was the 4th week for the "big" farmer's market. For those of you who don't know, my wife has a side hustle making egg rolls and crab rangoons. The "big" farmer's market is not really a farmer's market at all in the true sense of the word, as about a third of it is food vendors. At any rate, it's on a city street that has been blocked off for the evening, so I always wear heels of some sort to work the evening. It can involve up to 5 hours of more or less continuous standing, with loading and unloading bookending the evening. We actually bought a full size cargo van to accommodate all of the necessary equipment to make this operation run. I have not been very brave so far this year, and have been very conservative in my choice of heels. I have not worn anything so far but my Söfft "Calvados" mules, which are effectively 3 inch heels. I have them in 3 colors: Black, silver, and taupe. The reason I haven't ventured any higher yet is because I have been slacking off on the endurance training this month, and also because our sales volume so far this year is a big upstep from last year. We set up at 3:15, start selling at 4:00, and so far, every week by about 4:45 or so, there is a line of 3 people or more from that time until closing/teardown time at 8:00. I am pretty much tuckered out by then, and ready to go home. Achy feet would be a big liability in such a situation, but nevertheless I'm sure I will wind up pushing it by summer's end. The Söfft mid heeled mules have not disappointed so far. It is very difficult at that height to notice that you're even wearing heels, and I've suffered no ill effects at all from any of the 3 pairs so far. I hope to get some pictures at some point of me actually working instead of taking a mirror selfie in the bathroom.

My personal test for heels is my wife's farmer's market booth, and that's only 5 hours of 95% standing. If I can work that in relative comfort, then I have something there. I have not been brave so far this year, sticking with effective 3 inch heels.

I am definitely way behind on introducing new shoes to this forum, so after I finish writing this, I'll be slightly less behind. Since this is my latest pair, I guess we're going in reverse chronological order. I wore these for the first (and only, so far) time a few days ago to church, documented elsewhere. The facts: Brand is Caressa, which appears to be made in Spain. Never heard of them. One shoe is labeled Caressa Prestige, the other simply "Caressa." I don't know if that's on purpose or not. They are size 9 USW, and they're pretty much a perfect fit, perhaps a little snug. Leather uppers, manmade liner and sole. Not a super high quality shoe, but not terrible, either. 4 1/8" cone-ish shaped heels, that taper to about 5/8" at the bottom, so not super thin, either. They were comfortable enough for the 3 hours I wore them. I did have to punch new holes in the straps because they were too big by 1/2". These are my first Mary Janes ever. I think I like them.

I will be honest, I am reserving judgment on these until further notice. I don't love them right off the bat, but I don't hate them, either. The fact that there is absolutely no curviness to the heel, and that the top of it doesn't line up with the back of the shoe is a little off-putting to me. But you never know, I've changed my mind before. I am still trying to determine how they attached the heel to that plate, and then how they attached the plate to the shoe. Obviously, they couldn't run pointed screws down from the top like they do with a normal heel.

Believe me, I slew nobody, but everybody who had anything to say rather liked the shoes. In fact, there was one woman who said something about them, and I replied, "Well, Marcia, I actually thought of you when I bought these, because they looked like something you would wear." She said, "Oh, you're right, those are exactly like something I would wear!" Although I don't think I've ever seen her wear anything above 3 inches. On rare occasions, 3 1/2. Maybe. It's funny, all the women who sing in that early church service band wear heels pretty much every week, but not Heels. About 2 1/2" average.

Here is the outfit of the week, featuring my new Mary Janes, which I will post about later in the New Shoes section. Here is one regular picture, and one picture of me doing my very best pissed off looking model impression. Why do those people always look irritated?

As did I. I believe I can still get through the first eight lines of it. I will have to disagree. It's still ambiguous. It probably means Mary did a good thing, but extra blue eye shadow is hardly ever a good thing. Setting aside my own biases, with the addition of one little word, "but," it would possibly change the whole meaning, and would be unambiguous. "But she killed the look with extra blue eye shadow."

Ah, the age old discussion of what is masculine and what is feminine. There is some room for discussion about that. I do not think anything I wear looks particularly "girly," but others would violently disagree with that self-assessment, the most important of these being my wife. Body type definitely plays into the whole thing. I don't think I look very feminine, but I am small, so finding so-called "men's" clothing and shoes has been a bit of a problem all of my life. What I wear on a daily basis would probably look ridiculous if I were 6'3" and 220 lbs.

I was more referring to the above picture that has the crocs with the nails sticking out the bottom, but since you brought it up, yeah, some of those pictures look ok. It kind of brings to mind the expression "She'd look great in a flour sack," but ok. What a pity you can't enjoy your footwear of choice wherever you feel like it. Most of us have been in that place to one degree or other at some point. It even crosses my mind every now and then that I don't have the mental energy to wear heels in every situation. I am sure it is only a matter of time before somebody makes a comment that, in additional to being awful, those jellies are not high heels at all.. While this is true, it does not materially change the content or context of the discussion.

That's sort of what I meant in reference to my comment. It wasn't really very funny. It was me attempting to play it straight with the word(s). What I do find funny is that now we seem to be using a slang meaning to define slang, and it's still being debated (and misunderstood, although that might be on purpose, it's hard to tell).

I can remember the first time I ever looked in the mirror (at approximately age 20, or 35 years ago) while wearing high heels, and thought to myself, "God, I look absolutely terrible, I'm never letting anybody see this." And it was true, I did look terrible. It had nothing to do with the actual clothing or shoes, it had everything to do with the way I carried myself. I guess I've always known it, but for most of my life, I have looked terrible moving through the world--bad posture and a funny walk with bowed legs. I still catch myself doing this from time to time, I have to work at it constantly, and I'm never really satisfied. It's even worse now that I'm on livestream video every single week, I get to see what happens when I'm thinking about what's going on in the moment, and not how I'm carrying myself. "Wow. . . did I just walk down those steps like that?" (Involuntary shudder).

Everybody is different in that regard, that is, sweatiness and relative comfort. Believe it or don't, I have never actually tried wearing thin hosiery with pumps (or anything else) for more than a couple of hours at a shot. I can tell you that, for me personally, I can't do bare feet in an enclosed shoe for very long, even though I know plenty of people who live their daily lives this way.

Hmmm, after having read the recent discussion, I seem to have the privilege of simultaneously being both irrelevant and influential.

Wow, did I just do all that? I really didn't mean to, I was just trying to be funny, in a George Burns kind of way.

I sort of get it, but I must know, where on earth would you enjoy any of these? With what outfit would you ever wear them? And to what venue, other than possibly some sort of cosplay event?

Yes, that does not sound like something I'm going to undertake. If these were actually fine quality shoes and worth preserving ad infinitum, this peeling business wouldn't be happening in the first place.

I hope that is not actually true, because if it is, I probably need to report you to the authorities. I do find it interesting that we never use that word in that past tense, either. And if we did, I'm sure the grammar would be wrong.

I probably shouldn't own anything that should be in a museum, simply because I would want to use it, whatever it is. I am not a strict preservationist. For example, the mower I typically use on a day-to-day basis, while not a true Frankenmower, is a mishmash of 3 different years. It's a '72-'73-'74 model. I got it one piece at a time, and it didn't cost me a dime. You'll know it's me when I mow through your lawn.

It is a shame that Alex linked, not to us, but to our brother who is in a coma. That is, the Heels4Men forum. As an aside, it bugs me that the credit for this article is "Alex." I've always been bothered by celebrities who use only one name, and that includes Prince.

There is a lot of stuff to talk about here. First, yeah, no, there ain't no way I'm paying $35,000 for a car. There are many, many Crown Vics/Mercury Grand Marquis to be had for a very reasonable price. I got mine for $5,500 with no rust (difficult here in the midwest) and 90,000 miles. I'm very glad I don't need/want a pickup, talk about crazy prices! Second, there are only Lawn Boys in our collection. Second cousin, once removed to your Evinrudes. My 14 year old son got the bug a lot harder than I ever did, and the collection keeps getting relatively older and older. He likes the pre-1970 stuff, and he actually mows 6 lawns with it, but when the grass gets so high (we've gotten a lot of rain lately), you pretty much have to dig out the "modern" stuff from the 80s as a practical matter. I have no idea how, but we also have three vintage clocks. All working. One of them plays the Westminster chime every quarter hour. This must not be allowed to get to the point where we start buying parts clocks. Interestingly enough, I do not collect guitars, even though I'm totally the type.

The way I first noticed something was amiss was that I looked down when I got to church and noticed that there was a small white spot right in front of my toes, almost where the shoe meets the ground, and I thought, "I haven't even worn these shoes for 20 minutes and I've already managed to trip on something and take a small chunk out of the leather!" Turns out that wasn't the case, that bit of the shoes are not leather either, and it's just coming apart. However, red Sharpie matches the shade perfectly and camouflages the damage quite nicely.

Yes, I suppose in the grand scheme of things, my cars are not all that old. My main car now is a 2004 Crown Vic. The backup car is a 2002 Buick Park Avenue. What I am getting at is that most people in my income range drive newer cars than I do. While I do not have a great passion for cars, I do have a number of vintage lawn mowers, a hell of a lot of old instruments (which all get played regularly), and of course, a lot of high heeled shoes.