mlroseplant

I do not believe that it is ever an all-or-nothing situation, or at least rarely. Who among us suddenly decided one day, "Hey, guess what? I'm wearing heels today! And I'm going to make sure everybody knows I'm wearing heels!" Maybe somebody did that, but very, very few. No, we thought about it for a long time--maybe years--and then we eventually ventured out wearing 3 inch block heeled booties under flared jeans, feeling great, but at the same time wondering how people were going to react to us. Complete confidence towards the world does not necessarily equal freedom. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are certain things I don't worry about at all that I probably should, like the state of my retirement pension.

10 hours ago, bootedbloo said:

Thanks Puffer. A great article! 

I especially like the way he breaks the tension with people who stare & gawk: 

He added: 'If I sense someone is taking a longer look, I'll joke and say 'take a picture if you want' and it usually breaks up any tension.

I can sort of do that now, although I haven't really had any reason to for quite some time. There's no way I could have been that comfortable about it when I first started heeling. There is a certain confidence level one gains from years of experience.

Hello Jim, my oldest pair of heels is a little over 10 years old, they still look pretty good, and I still wear them (at least in the winter). Someday, I shall have to do a feature on them. Even if I did not have many other shoes to choose from, I would not think of getting rid of them.

21 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

Well done. My basement is cluttered too.

I've never done a YouTube video, maybe someday. Hope you do more with your shoes. I looked through your main YouTube video posts, didn't see this one in there. Does YouTube take a while to open them up for general viewing if one doesn't have a direct link?

I've got this video "unlisted," as I was merely using Youtube as a convenient way to share it with y'all. Let's face it, Youtube is a cruel, cruel place. I don't need that kind of abuse.

18 hours ago, pebblesf said:

Glad I found your youtube channel!  Love those lawnboys and that cool international truck

Alas, the International has not been with us for over 10 years. However, the Lawn Boy collection still is. As my son has taken it over, it has become populated with much older mowers in general. As you can see, it has been a long, long time since I made any videos of any sort.

I just rediscovered an old hack I'd forgotten about by accident. When I came home from work, I decided I had the energy to wear one of my higher pairs of stiletto mules to prepare supper. I move around a fair bit doing that, but nothing serious. The pair I selected is nothing crazy, at about 4 1/2" heel height. Did a little bit of light cleaning after supper, and a bit of this and that, so I was in these shoes, mostly standing and moving for about 2 1/2 or 3 hours.

So here's the hack: Because the weather was so much nicer than I had anticipated, I decided to take an evening walk. For this, I selected a sturdy pair of clogs with 4 inch effective heels (5" with 1" platform). After having been in the higher, minimalist sandals for a while, the clogs were like butter. I won't say they felt like flats, but walking in them was no effort at all.

22 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

That's a good look. I've been mismatching shoe color for yrs in much greater levels than you show here. It's actually well received.

Your sister is taller than you with less heel. 

Must have been your parents children were limited to just so many total inches and there wasn't enough for you. 🙂

I wasn't so much thinking of mismatched shoe color, it was more of everything else. You see, I had originally intended to wear a black jacket. I tried on two different black jackets, and it turns out that both of them are missing buttons. Curses! The only other possibility to my mind, without changing everything, was this tan jacket, which sort of matched my shoes. However, it has a houndstooth pattern, and I was wearing a shirt with a bit of a stripe in it. Not to mention the purple tie (proper liturgical color for Lent).

My sister and I would be the same height, but for the fact that she's got twice the usual amount of neck!

Sometimes, you have one of those mornings when everything comes together. Sunday morning was not that morning. I had an idea of what I wanted to wear, and it centered around the shoes, but I didn't decide until the last minute exactly what those were going to be. I settled on my Steve Madden "Daisie" pumps in tan patent. These are the shorter of the two Daisies at 4 3/8", and also the tighter. Although I bought them on Poshmark, they were brand new in the box, and were almost impossible to get on when I first got them. I figured I'd better wear them some, get them stretched out a little bit and assess their true utility. I'll skip to the end on that part--they're fine. They are a little snug, but not in a horrible, debilitating way. After three hours, more than 50% of that standing, they were still fine. In fact, rather better in places.

The basic problem with me wearing lighter colored shoes is that I don't really have any lighter colored suits to go with them. Actually, I do, but I didn't want to wear those on this particular week for tailoring reasons I won't get into now. So I began to think of all the chicks I've seen get away with a dark colored outfit and light colored shoes, and I thought I could pull it off.

To make a long story short, several changes of clothes later, this is what I ended up with--NOT how I had envisaged this at all. By this time it was too late to change any more, so I had to go with it. I snapped a mirror selfie (yes, that mirror needs to be cleaned) and sent it off to my fashion advisor/friend up in Minneapolis, basically saying, "Oh well, here we go, just as I am without one plea!" However, much to my surprise, I received several compliments on my outfit over the course of the morning, shown here in reasonable detail in a picture with my sis, who was visiting this weekend from a long way away.

19 hours ago, spikesmike said:

Cali: I am hopeing the best for you in getting JS people to resurrect your specific high heel interest. However, I had a conversation with a salesman years ago who said, (Quote) "You never go to the well twice." I would love to be able to get high heels I have seen years ago. I am not holding my breath.   Mike

The lawyer in me is suspicious of the absolutes "always" and "never," but yeah, I get it. It makes sense. No wonder I buy used. That way, I can let somebody else fall into the well.

On 3/1/2023 at 12:45 PM, pebblesf said:

No one has ever come out and said the "why" to me, they have only asked if they were hard to walk in.  I usually reply they are fairly easy to walk in and are comfortable. 

I have to be very careful when someone brings up that subject, as to whether they are actually interested, or whether they are just idly curious. I suppose I should say something humorous like, "The jury is still out on that. I'll let you know the verdict by the time I get back home." and just see what happens. Usually, however, I am going about my business, thinking of something completely different, and I don't think of these clever things on the spot. Not until it's about 30 seconds too late, anyway.

23 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

Proper coordination today.

I don't know, it's pretty hard to tell when you're sitting down. Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?

It has been many years since somebody actually asked "why," and I usually answered as briefly as possible, "because I like them." Nowadays, the two main things strangers say, as noted by several others above, are "How do you walk in those/I can't believe you can walk in those" and some version of "I really like your shoes."

Interesting. I happen to have two pairs of "Daisie" pumps. They don't look bad on him. I'm not sure what is going on with the peppermint candy.  .  . thing, but whatever. Marketing is one thing I don't understand. However, I think I now know, just from looking at the pictures, why the heels on my newer pair of Daisies is noticeably shorter than the older pair. I believe they purposefully took a centimeter off the height to make them less intimidating to buyers.

I wasn't going to mention all of it, but since we seem to have people familiar with Nebraska, I will say that Nebraska is far more interesting than most people give it credit for--once you leave Interstate 80. For one thing, it is far more geologically diverse than Iowa, you just have to be interested in such things.

@Jkrenzer, he performed at Westside Middle School. Which is a very nice, clean, well-maintained school, but absurdly huge. It is located about a mile north of I-80 at the 84th St. exit (I know you've slept at least a few times since the 90s).

I just returned from Omaha, Nebraska, where my son had a show choir contest. Well actually, he's the bassist in the backing band, he's not one of those to go about singing and dancing on a stage for people. He really does a good job, even though he's less than enthusiastic about the group. It's good experience for him as a budding mercenary musician.

At any rate, that's got nothing to do with heels, except that I had to park a long, long ways away from the school building where this contest was being held, just because the event was so large. Nebraska is in general a very flat, sparsely populated state, known mostly for being way too long to drive through on your way to Colorado, and college football. However, Omaha is a river town, and the Missouri river, upon the bank of which Omaha is situated, used to be many several times bigger than it is today. Therefore, Omaha is quite a hilly city in many places, one of which is where I parked.

I did ok, but I was pretty slow, especially compared to the kids, who seem to like to run everywhere. I can run in the heels I chose to wear, but I have never tried it downhill, and it is probably inadvisable to do so. I did actually bring backup shoes with me, just in case. I did not need to be dealing with a shoe failure that far away from home.

There is really nothing out there on the internet about "How to Walk in Heels in the Real World." And really, what would such advice be? "Walking uphill OR downhill, you're going to look like you're struggling a bit, and forget about walks that are canted sideways. The best you can do is avoid falling or twisting an ankle." Or, "Walk tall and look forward off into the distance, while at the same time paying attention to what is directly in front of you, so that you don't put your heel down a crack in the sidewalk." Oh well, we do the best we can!

I have to admit that even I only know the names of a few UK prime ministers from years past. Of course nowadays, it's quite difficult to keep up with who's in there at any given moment.

So many things to think about here! First of all, I would like to submit a photograph which shows exactly what we are talking about with the rails-to-trails bike path. Although the first iterations of rails-to-trails were indeed cinder paths, they really don't screw around with that anymore. 98% of the the bike paths around here are asphalt (concrete is way too expensive and time consuming to install). As you can see in the instant example, it's been around long enough to have been extensively repaired.

Passenger rail service from my town certainly never existed in my lifetime--I can remember exploring the abandoned train station as a kid. The last freight service was solely for the grain elevator, and they only made 2 or 3 trips a year. The track was in such poor condition by the 1990s that the maximum safe speed was probably about 10 mph.

As far as the rest of the conversation goes, I have no idea how truly steep certain sections of sidewalk may or may not be in San Francisco, but it just goes to show how, in the grand scheme of things, these shoes we like to wear more than anything are highly impractical for many situations. I think it would probably be easy enough to walk in stilettos on a cinder ex-rail path (in my personal experience anyway), but you'd certainly ruin your shoes doing so. Block heels would ok for sure, but I wouldn't want to try it in platforms, even with my strong ankles. What strikes me most is the fact that we even have to have this discussion at all. Unless you've got like 500 dollar designer shoes, you don't even think about exactly what you might be walking on in flats, be it grass, gravel, steep inclines down to the street, or whatnot. And yet, we choose to put up with this inconvenience by choice on a daily basis.

On 2/23/2023 at 5:21 AM, Shyheels said:

Quite a stroll and in inclement conditions to boot. What prompted the marathon outing?  I couldn't see the heels in the picture - were they block? Stiletto? Id be a bit worried about durability if I was to attempt such a lomg walk in stilettos - both mine and the shoes/boots. 

On 2/23/2023 at 7:49 AM, roundy said:

I’m interested to know what style of heel you’ve got on those shoes too? What kind of pace do you think you were keeping before the last couple of miles?

You would think that I'd have a good picture of my Nine West "Sizzle" oxfords, but evidently the only photos I have are not specifically focused on the shoes. I find this somewhat puzzling because, while they are not technically my oldest pair of heels, they are my oldest heels that I still wear, and they are the single most worn pair in my collection. How do I know this? I record dates and mileage when I go for purposeful walks. I've had these for just over 10 years, and very close to 150 miles. 150 miles does not seem like a terrible lot in the grand scheme of things, but other shoes which have approached this sort of heavy use have self-destructed in one way or another. I've got a pair of sandals that may approach that mileage this coming summer, but only time will tell.

Stats for the oxfords: 4 3/4" heel, 3/4" platform, and the heel itself is about 1" wide and 3/4" long, so no, they're not at all stilettos. Another interesting fact about them is that they are really too big for me. For some dumb reason, at the time, I thought I was a size 9 1/2, but I am not. Therefore, I have always worn these with thick wool socks, and it seems to work out very well. Perhaps that is indeed the reason why these have become my sort of default shoe in winter.

As far as the pace goes, I was walking on one of those rails-to-trails bike paths, and there was very little in the way of windblock. Luckily, it just so happens that I chose to walk against the wind for the first three miles, and so I had the wind at my back for the return three miles. I'm sure I would have had a much worse time of it had I chosen to start out in the other direction (I was at a midpoint in the trail). Since I have one a them exercise apps on my phone, I know exactly how fast I wasn't walking. The first mile or two, against the wind, started out somewhere in the neighborhood of 21 minutes per mile. As I became fatigued, I slowed down considerably, despite being able to walk with the wind, so that the last couple were more like 24 minutes a mile. Average pace for the entire 6.1 miles was 22:11, which is really not all that bad for what is effectively four inch heels. And the most important thing is, I actually didn't injure myself. Just sore for a couple of days, mainly in my shins.

As a historical note, I walked pretty much this same route, only further, and in only one direction with my faithful dog Sadie back when it was still railroad tracks. That has been a week or two ago. It actually kind of hurts to think that it was more than 30 years ago. And no, I was not wearing heels for that journey.

I played hooky yesterday. Not really, it was a planned day off from work, but still, it felt kind of weird not going to work in the middle of the week. What I did first thing in the morning was walk, despite the less than nice weather conditions. Even though I recommend regular and long distance walking as an essential part of developing stamina in heels, for whatever reason I have only ever walked more than 5 miles at a clip in heels 4 times in my life, yesterday being the most recent. As it turns out, I walked a 10k, or just a little over 6 miles. I can't say it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, as the last couple of miles were a total slog. The good news is that my feet and ankles didn't hurt when I got done, but the rest of me was totally exhausted. And that was with the wind at my back on the second half of the excursion. Which means that either I shouldn't ever do that again, or I should do it a lot more often. The accompanying picture is not from the day of, but it is very close to what my outfit was, and the shoes are correct.

It just goes to show that foreigners (and I understand you spent substantial time here, but still.  .  .) know more about American history than Americans do. And that ain't no sh**.

Since this is a thread where anything goes, I will tell you the story about my whiskers. They are meant to be in the style of U.S. President Chester Arthur, our 21st President from 1881-1885. Back when presidents had facial hair. President Arthur is one of those presidents nobody has ever heard of, possibly but for the mustache with side whiskers, but I am a student of many things obscure, so naturally I know more about President Arthur than most people.

My wife does not like the whiskers, but I think it's mainly because they make me look old, and she is not wrong. However, the overall reaction to my Chester Arthur has been overwhelmingly positive, much more so than on this forum. I have gotten compliments from family, friends, coworkers, and even total strangers. It's kind of weird. If the situation warrants, I am happy to give a mini lesson about a relatively boring time in U.S. history.

Here is an image of President Arthur, along with a closer up shot of me. It's probably the only selfie I've ever taken that has come out ok on the first try. This selfie was originally taken for a completely different reason, but it happens to work out for my purposes here.

It has evidently been about a month and a half since I posted any pictures of me. Today was the first day in a while that I actually didn't feel like immediately rushing indoors to escape the cold. Spring is not here yet, but it is just around the corner. I need to start my seeds for my garden here in a couple of weeks.

Pictured here is my Zara suit. I have no idea how much the thing cost, because it was a gift given to me by my nephew. It's not really a formal suit, it's made of softer, more flowing material than most traditional suits. I like the fact that the pant legs are cut a little bit on the narrow side, the better to show off my Steve Madden "Klory" pumps, which got their first proper outing today.

Also featured here is my experiment with facial hair, which is really the first since I started wearing heels. I wondered if it would look too out of place with the rest of my wardrobe, but it seems to be just fine, at least for the winter. I am committed to it for at least another month, after which I'll probably shave it, as I don't see the white mustache and side whiskers going well with shaved legs, short shorts, and sandals.

I guess I am largely back, after my hiatus from serious heeling. Although it's still at the limit of what I can walk in semi-gracefully, I wore my Steve Madden Klory pumps to church, which sport 4 3/4" heels. The day was a little bit hectic, which means I didn't even think about my feet until I was loading up my car after the service. I will not claim that my feet were not tired (I spent about two hours in these shoes), but it wasn't like I tore them off my feet the instant I got back home. I would liken it to having a good workout at the gym. It's achy, but it's a good kind of achy. Maybe next time, three hours will be possible. My entire outfit is chronicled elsewhere.

At the present moment, I am "down" to 101 pairs. I got a couple more pairs of sandals, but I had a pair of oxfords break on me, another pair of what I call "faux" oxfords sort of break, and I got rid of a pair of shooties that I finally admitted are just too damn big, no matter what I do. I've also had a couple of recent purchases that haven't worked out from the get go, so they never counted in the first place.

I'll elaborate on the latest pair that didn't work out. They are Steve Madden single-sole sandals in nude patent with 4 1/2" stiletto heels. I ran across them on Poshmark, and "liked" them, so I could find them later. After 24 hours, I decided I could live without them, since I already have something somewhat similar, but the seller kept sending me offers to lower the price. Eventually, I caved and said ok. So for a total of about 18 USD, I have a pair of Steve Madden sandals that look pretty decent, but do not fit right. For one thing, they're size 9, which I can rarely get away with in sandals, but not that often. In this case, they are pretty tight over the top of the toes, and yet there is way too much real estate between the ends of my toes and the end of the shoe. If I were to somehow fix this, then there would be way too much space behind my heel, which looks equally bad.

I should really go through and make some hard decisions about how to get the number back down to under 100, simply so I can get everything off the floor. It really shouldn't be that hard.

I imagine this is like wishing for more uniform sizing for the length and width of shoes. We won't even talk about other items of clothing. One might as well spit into the wind.