mlroseplant

Couple of things to report on the young women's fashion front. Number One, when asked (or ordered) to dress up, high school girls still often wear heels. They may not be to my exact liking, but they're better than the alternative. I witnessed this when I went to drop off my son for his All State Band audition. Number Two, which is related to Number One, our neighbor down the street just posted her daughter's senior photos on social media. Nothing really remarkable about them except for one thing: Her choice of footwear. I haven't seen anything like this on a teenager in at least ten years. I cropped out most of the picture for privacy and discretion reasons. To tell you the truth, until this social media post, I didn't know my neighbor had a senior in high school. Unlike my kid, all of her kids are very standoffish with adults. I only know the twins that are in my son's class (sophomore). This, of course, begs the question, "Are these for real, or just for a photo shoot?" The answer to which I will probably never know, and really don't care.

Here I am with another church OOTW. The only notable thing here is my new shoes is the color, which I cannot define. The camera actually captured the color fairly accurately, it's a sort of purple, but it's not really purple. Anyway, like most of my Steve Madden pumps, I can wear these things just fine. They're not really all that high, coming in at 4 3/8 inches.

I bought yet another pair of Steve Madden pumps, model Daisie. I bought them because they were purple. Only once I got them, they were only purple-ish. I don't know what color you would call this, but I wore them for the first time today, with pink and salmon attire. I don't really have anything purple to wear with these shoes. As you can see from the picture, they are tall, but not super tall, coming in at 4 3/8". The heels are super skinny, though.

I have to admit to having done that in my life--that is, stop at a gas station when I didn't need gas just to check out someone's shoes. However, I have never engaged anybody without some other intervening factor. I think the subject's age would be a big factor also. Mid 40s, not a problem. Hey Nineteen, Big Problem. Hey Nineteen is probably not going to be wearing decent shoes anyway.

In addition to this, there are only so many picture variations one can do before it feels like, "Is anybody else as bored with this as I am?" Even among very popular people on social media, who actually know how to dress and pose for pictures (unlike me), after a while it becomes way less exciting. As far as the potato sack dress and Birkies, a certain staff member at one of the institutions I frequent wears such attire pretty much daily, but she is also fabulously overweight. I cannot say that I would do any better, given those circumstances. It may not be fair or just, but I will say that it's much easier to dress nicely when you're thin.

To be fair, they don't really need high heels, as they already walk at quite a steep angle on their forefeet.

Don't worry about posting too much on here, you're just taking over for me while I try to figure out why I don't feel like posting much lately. Your transformation, both physically and mentally has happened at lightning speed. After more than 12 years, I'm not at all sure that I want people to notice me, which is kind of silly, isn't it? After all, I'm on livestream every week that is archived forever and ever, amen. I would caution against becoming too manic with this newfound confidence, if for no other reason than because it has come quickly. You seem like you're very conscious of taste and style, but I've witnessed a couple of different people who found that taste of freedom and confidence, but failed to follow the adage, "Just because you can wear something doesn't mean you should." You seem an unlikely candidate for that particular problem, but I'm just putting that out there. Everything I've seen looks very nice.

Congratulations on your newfound confidence, and the willingness to experiment. I always thought you were a little more worried about what was "appropriate" than you ought to be. Like you said, many workers show up in sweatpants and Crocs. What are they going to do? Send you home because your boot shafts are three inches too high?

I guess I am counting myself as back. I have worn 4 inchers for a week, and haven't had any pain. I am still wearing mostly flats at home, and am very careful about stretching my calves and feet, and am careful about how boisterously I stretch my calves and feet. My right ankle is still not as flexible as my left, but that's always been the case. At least I don't feel a slight pain with every step like I did before, particularly if I've remembered to warm up. Oh, and I didn't even tell you about how I injured my left foot a week ago (not high heel related). That's now back to 100%, so I'm in reasonably good shape coming into the last third of the month.

That's actually fairly impressive, considering how steep these are! I'm not a big snakeskin guy, and I'm not necessarily a big platform guy, but I kind of like these shoes anyway. "Walking in them is absolutely no issue. . ." I think maybe your definition of "walk" and mine are a bit different, but as long as you're having fun!

It's just irritating that it happens in the first place. I've probably broke more shoes than most people have ever owned. I should make a special thread about it someday.

Yep, we are pretty much screwed, at least for the moment. The new shoes are pretty much awful, and the old shoes are falling apart. I have half a dozen items on my "shoe repair to do" list at the moment, and half of those are "new old stock" shoes which have never been worn, but have been sitting for 10-15 years. The glue gives way after a while, and often there is nothing to be done. Hope you are ok, was it a known allergy, or one you just discovered?

I can't really define it, but I know it when I see it. What is elegance? Is it even a goal of mine? I am way more interested in elegance of movement than I am in creating the perfect outfit. And I'm not even very good at that. Having said that, I still refuse to throw on a pair of heels with anything I consider to be workwear (and by work, I mean the kind where you get dirty), as I insist on looking somewhat presentable while wearing heels. However, I'm afraid I will probably continue to throw together my outfits at the last minute on the fly, and hope for the best. Elegant? I think not. Presentable? Attractive? Maybe.

Yes, you are correct. I think he was living with us the last time you came through? Although he has his own house now with his wife, he lives pretty close by in the major metro area. I forgot to mention one other person who was wearing heels to the wedding--my sister. Although they were not quite kitten heels, they were definitely within my personal definition of low heels. The specific reason for this is discussed elsewhere. I'm guessing that it would be inadvisable for a guy to wear heels in either Turkey or Morocco.

My elder son got married on Thursday. It was a very small wedding. I would estimate the total number of guests at around 30, and about half of those were parents/grandparents. I was the only one in the whole bunch wearing heels except for my ex-wife, who has always been a big fan of heels. To be fair, I don't believe I've ever seen her wear a pair of "high" heels in her life, but she was often in mid-heels when we were married. Thursday she wore tan suede pointy-toed pumps with a three inch block heel. The only other exception was the cellist in the string quartet they hired to provide the music. The cellist had on black patent pumps with a three inch stiletto heel. We'll take what we can get. For the record, I was wearing my black Aldo oxfords with 4 1/4" slim heels. Almost stiletto, but I can't honestly call them stilettos among enthusiasts.

I clicked through several videos, and it appears that he and I have something in common--we break shoes.

Update on the achilles tendon situation. It's a lot better. Whether it's "normal" is not necessarily so clear. Now that I think about it, I don't think it will ever be "normal." I didn't really think about it until it actually hurt hurt, but it's been a little wonky for years. And then there was that whole drop foot thing that happened to me a few years ago that mysteriously cured itself, I have a slight loss of sensation in my right thigh, and I've got a slight case of plantar fasciitis in the right foot. None of these things is currently as bad as each of them have been in the past. I wonder if they are all somehow related? I've nothing like any of it on my left side. An afterthought: I'm still a little wary about wearing heels with a steepness much over 4 inches, even though I want to. Also, I quit wearing heels around the house. I have to force myself to take it easy longer than I think I need to.

I think that is a thing that is fading with time. I knew a lot of older ladies who didn't like their size number to be too high, but I've never known a young woman who cares at all. The most hilarious thing about it is, it's not like the size is stamped on your forehead. Who would ever know whether you wore a size 4 or size 10 dress? Having had to go through a lot of physical therapy over the years has helped you, I'm sure. Since I've never had any injuries or problems that have required medical intervention, I had to invent my own physical therapy to address feet that were killing me. I've actually expanded my "physical therapy" as of late to address my achilles tendon issues. It's not a miracle cure, but it seems to be doing some good, rather than any harm.

Church OOTW. I think this one may be a fairly close repeat of something recent. I was in a hurry, and the blue pants were already ironed. I know I didn't wear this last week, so heck with it. My blue FSJ mules have turned out to be pretty decent shoes after a very rocky start, in which both heel tips broke within about a quarter mile. They haven't given me any trouble since. I also went to a music recital later that afternoon wearing the same outfit, same shoes.

In the end, I think the reason we are so good at it is because we really want it, and want it in a way that very few women do. I have no idea what must go through a 8 year old girl's mind when she's begging her mother to let her wear heels. Something then happens in the subsequent couple of decades, and by the time that girl gets to be 28 years old, the bloom is off the rose and those strong desires are pretty much gone, other than wistful thinking. Why doesn't this happen to us? I can't imagine there's a man among us, absent traumatic injury, who will wake up one day and say, "I just can't wear heels anymore."

I am definitely jaded, but I've worked very hard to get to that point. In my own head, and by my own personal definition, anything less than 2 inches is a flat. Having said that, I can still feel a definite difference between the way a completely flat shoe "walks" and the way a 2 inch heel "walks," even though I can't really feel any sort of heel at a mere 2 inches. In fact, I really can't feel much of anything until I get to 3 1/2, which to me is squarely a mid-heel. I have never had anybody explain to me clearly exactly how any why these "mid-heels" hurt, and how it's not possible to wear them for more than a short period of time. I can sort of remember when I was at that point in 2013, when I wore 4 inch boots to the mall and almost didn't make it back to the car, and again in 2017, which was my first entire weekend continuously wearing high heels. And somehow I have managed to get over that hump, and I think it's been from walking. I do not know if this method would work for everybody. I still almost don't believe my friend when she says every time she wears her 2 inch block-heeled ankle boots to work on the sales floor, she regrets it within a couple of hours. I wish I knew why that was, and if there was anything I could do to help.

Oddly enough, in the sports shoe industry, they refer to a perfectly flat shoe as "zero drop," which seems completely backward to me. Shouldn't it be "zero rise?" They can be a flatform, and often do have a bit of a thick sole, but then there's "zero drop, zero cushioning" shoes, otherwise known as barefoot shoes. I have a couple of pairs of sandals that are that way, if you don't count the 2mm top piece stuck on the back of the leather sole for durability. I find cushioning to be overrated.

I have no doubt that Joe got autocorrected--twice. I have long used the chiefly British expression "queer fish" (I think I must have read it in some book when I was young). Everyone, even here in the U.S., understands exactly what it means, but one has to be very careful these days where one uses such an expression. I suppose I should use the more pedestrian American expression, "odd duck." I also habitually pronounce the last letter of the alphabet as "zed," which causes a lot more misunderstanding than calling somebody "a bit of a queer fish." I have no idea why I do this.

I had already put all of my shorts away for the season, but it was freakishly warm yesterday (+30º C), so I couldn't resist taking a pair out for one more spin. I was actually inspired to meal plan for the week just so I could wear my shorts to the grocery store, which I did. The model is wearing Bakers faux-wood wedges in a calf hair type material and Banana Republic shorts. These are probably my favorite shorts out of the more than dozen pair I own, but I don't wear them often, due to their length, or lack thereof. Today, it's a return to normal temperatures, and the shorts must go back in their spot for the winter.

There is sometimes a fine line between confidence and arrogance. However, I don't think the simple act of wearing a skirt, even a short-ish one, comes close to the line, much less crosses it. Congratulations on the weight loss.