mlroseplant

I ran across this article in which it has become apparent that there are some computer systems out there requiring upgrades/modification that need a significant number of people who can program in COBOL language. I'm old enough to know what it is, but not old enough that it was ever taught in my age group. That alone is fascinating and/or perplexing, depending upon your point of view. However, what I found more interesting is the picture accompanying the story. It was a different time. I highly doubt there were any guys in the office wearing heels, though.

I know it's not heels, but stuff gets lost pretty quickly on the General Fashion thread, and it's not like we have the traffic here to get everybody all confused.

I got into a discussion elsewhere about nail care, and decided maybe it would be better to create a dedicated thread. As many of you know, I am a proponent of natural nails with no nail polish/varnish, or maybe clear nail polish. I just think they look better. My opinion only. I don't have anything against nail polish, in fact sometimes I think it can look rather nice, but I don't choose it for myself. This does not mean I don't take care of my furthest extremities, far from it. I guarantee I spend more time worrying about my nails than 99.99% of men (outside of fingerstyle guitarists, maybe). This is particularly difficult considering my chosen career, industrial electrician. The fact that most places require you to wear gloves 100% of the time nowadays helps somewhat.

The tools I use are very simple, since I don't have to worry about application or removal of polish, maintenance of artificial nails or any of that. I have them listed elsewhere, but I'll repeat the list here, for the sake of ease:

- 2 gallon washtub, for foot or hand soaking

- 4 sided buffing block

- 2 sided emory board

- orange wood stick (for cuticle pushing)

- spoon shaped metal pusher (I do not use it to push cuticles, I use it mainly on big toenails to clean out underneath the corners of the nails)

- a couple of various shaped pairs of tweezers, but I don't often use these

- cuticle nipper (diagonal cutter), which I never use for cutting cuticles. This is a somewhat controversial subject, I understand. I am a non-cutter.

I think I have OK looking feet, but I do not like the appearance of my hands. 25 years of manual labor have made my fingers thick, meaty, and somewhat gnarly. I guess I want neat looking nails, so as to not make them even worse than they already are, but I would certainly never want colored polish to draw further attention to them. I guess if I got to pick what my hands and nails looked like, I would want my friend's hands, pictured below. She is an IRL (In Real Life) friend, and she does have very nice hands and nails. For the record, she more than occasionally wears nail polish, but has never worn artificial nails. Those are her natural nails. I am awfully sure my wife could have nails like this, though maybe not quite as long, if she would take the least amount of time for preventive maintenance. She doesn't, and despite this fact, her nails are actually pretty decent looking at 51 years old. As an afterthought, I would NOT want to trade feet with my long-nailed friend. Mine are much better!

On second edit: I forgot another key part of nail care. I use almond oil daily on my nails as a moisturizer for nails and cuticles. I don't know why I use almond oil. I could use something else, I just like it. I have it in little 4 oz. bottles in a couple of places in my house.

What is your nail story? Do you wear artificial nails, and why? How did you come to your current situation? Do you do your own, or always go to the salon?

5 minutes ago, SF said:

To quote Pat Paulsen (Pat Paulsen for President 1968)  "If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve..."     sf

PS Some of the "older" folks here can relate....   ha ha     

As I recall, the late Doug Marlette (Charlotte Observer, and the comic strip "Kudzu.") picked up on this somewhat later for one of his characters. I was born in '68, so I don't remember the original.

I will go second, both in time and in situation. Unlike SF, my wife is not really supportive of my heeling, but tolerates it well. The only pictures I have of us together in heels are completely unintentional. She posts a lot on social media, and there are an awful lot of pictures of me out there where my feet have been cropped out. This particular photo, taken on our wedding anniversary last year, is not posted anywhere except HHP, as far as I know.

14 minutes ago, Tech said:

How shall we vote...? Post with the most "Like" reactions by Dec 31st?

That would certainly be the easiest from an administrative standpoint. It is problematic in some ways, but on the other hand, so what? This is supposed to be fun, so yeah, I'm in for number of likes. I already gave @KneeBooted a like, not because I think it's a great picture, but because I like him, at least as an online personality. Just pointing out the "problematic" part. Again, it's just not that big of a deal. Like SF always says, "Have fun!"

4 minutes ago, SF said:

I chose not to participate in the earlier "contest" for similar reasons.  And I doubt I will take part in this round.  But for those who do, enjoy yourselves...   sf  (mr. no fun)  

If we "like bombed" this post, could SF win with no picture submitted?

One entry per day? How about one entry per month! That'd be God's plenty. Some people don't have any sense when it comes to these things. We do not need 50 pictures of basically the same thing to get the idea. Leave that stuff to teenaged girls. Having said that, I might consider entering the contest this time around, as it appears to be officially sanctioned. Past contests had the strong undertone of mocking us silly boys, which is fine, but I took a pass.

14 hours ago, Bubba136 said:

Practice.  since being confined I have been wearing my 6” heels again.  While I am fully accustomed to wearing my 5” heels — that I wore daily for almost 30 years —  I am not back to being completely comfortable in my 6 inch’ers, yet.   It shouldn’t be very long before I feel normal spending a day in them without problems.  As far as my 7” heels,  I never did learn to wear them for any long time.  While I have tried them again, this time I believe that I‘ll pass (at my age).

I have actually made some progress in the past day or two, though a small amount. I can now walk somewhat gracefully, as long as I don't take more than about a 12" stride. It's not much, but it's something. Again, my main limitation is ankle flexibility.

I will reiterate Pierre on two things: 1) Congratulations, and 2) you already knew this from before, but isn't it amazing how much harder it is to walk outside in the real world than it is inside your house? I remember my very first time in heels outside that involved any amount of walking. I was wearing shoes very similar in style to your mules, only mine were close-toed. In other words, definitely high heels, but not all that high. I had to walk about 1 km, and man, that was the LONGEST 1000 meters I have ever walked in my life. It seemed like it took for-EVER, and my feet were tired when I finally got back home. That was about 8 years ago. Today, I literally would not even notice I was wearing heels if I had to make the same trip in the same shoes.

The treadmill doesn't sound like a bad idea, if you are unable to go out to get practice. We had this discussion last year above on this thread already. But again, I'll have to concur with Pierre, wear the shoes that you want to wear outside on the treadmill at first. Practicing in 6" will not get you where you want to go at this time. I personally have a 2 mile (3.2 km) rule. If I can't walk 2 miles comfortably in a pair of shoes, then I don't need to be wearing them outside. Keep up the good work, and we look forward to your new thread!

OK, I had thought much the same thoughts as y'all, only I didn't like to say. It's obvious that Marc Jacobs does not care what you or I think, so let's try an experiment. How could we change Mr. Jacobs's outfit so that one of us could or would actually wear it in the real world? I will begin with two items, and perhaps they are the most obvious ones, so forgive me for picking the low hanging fruit. First, the boots have to go. I know somebody probably finds them cool, but they are just way too huge to be anywhere but a Kiss look-alike event of some sort. I think they could stay white.  .  . possibly. Second, the capris have to go. Either shorter or longer, and I don't care particularly which. It would almost have to be longer to survive my "real world" requirement. I'm not really sure his reasoning for having very short pants, plus a band of bare skin, plus a band of sock, then these very, very blocky boots that in my opinion should have either been shorter (trimmed down below ankle height), or taller (knee high). The fundamental problem with the look is that, although he appears to be quite fit otherwise, he looks a bit like Humpty Dumpty in this photo because his legs are dissected into too many pieces, making them appear about two feet long.

OK, your turn. What changes would you make before you would wear this in public?

8 hours ago, chesterx said:

One of my last orders to OnlyMaker arrived today. A nice velvet O'Dorsey pump with gold embellishments. They are tighter fit than my other OnlyMaker heels, but I think they will be ok, if I can find a event to wear them to that is...

Those look pretty good with just jeans, I think. Obviously, they could be “event” shoes, but I think they look just great in a casual setting, if you’ve got the attitude to pull it off.

@Pierre1961 and @chrigi-ch, kudos to you for being able to wear such steep shoes! Your discussion reminded me of something I read on Jenny's High Stiletto Heels website. HHP basically came from that website a long time ago. It was mostly women back then, and they were having a discussion about a “dead zone” between 4 inch (10 cm) and 5 inch (12.7 cm). If I remember this correctly, and this is now 20 years ago, long before I started wearing high heels myself, a few women were saying that anything 4 inches or less was easy, anything 5 inches or more was difficult, but possible with practice, but a lot of them said that 4.5 inches (11.5 cm) was very awkward for them. I myself have not found this to be true at all. On my U.S. women's size 9, I find 4.5 inches to be a sweet spot for me, the highest I can wear on the street for everyday life, but very possible. Perhaps you (Pierre) are experiencing something like what those women were talking about some 20 years ago. Just a thought? @Bubba136, do you remember that conversation? You may well have been there.

1 hour ago, RonC said:

Furthermore, this second time I wore them, I had them on for about an hour, and I was quite ready to get out of them. 

Just curious, what do you believe makes them uncomfortable?  Height, width, length, shape?  

Oh for sure, it's the height, and specifically, the steepness. I'm not used to it. Thanks for asking!

8 hours ago, Cali said:

The cuticle nippers are use to cut dead cuticle skin around the edges.  @mlroseplant I hope your client last night was a good tipper.

I guess it depends on what you're calling the cuticle. What I've generally seen is nail techs using "cuticle" nippers to cut dead skin on the proximal/lateral nail fold. In my opinion, this is a questionable practice, except in extreme cases, where the buildup of dead skin is excessive. I feel kind of funny discussing this on someone else's thread in detail. If it's a true item of interest, maybe we can start another thread?

By the way, my client was very gracious, she didn't yell at me at all, even though I caused her some amount of personal pain.

Here is my toolkit, although it might be of limited interest, because no one in our household wears nail polish or artificial nails.

- 2 gallon washtub

- 4 sided buffing block

- 2 sided emory board

- orange wood stick (for cuticle pushing)

- spoon shaped metal digger (don't know what it's really called--use it mainly on big toenails to clean out underneath the corners of the nails)

- cuticle nippers, Nghia brand from Vietnam (the best in the world for nails, haha). I don't know why they are called cuticle nippers, DON'T ever use them for that. If some nail tech ever tries to cut your skin with these, give her a good dope-slap. I use these "diagonal cutters" for actually cutting nail length, rather than a traditional clipper. A regular nail clipper does not work well for me.

Like Cali says, have fun, and take your time! I'm slower than Christmas, just ask my wife. I took care of her feet last night. I'm glad she's happy, but I sure wouldn't want to do that for a living.

15 hours ago, RonC said:

 A pair of black patent classic pumps always looks good.  As I mentioned earlier, way too high for my ability, but a very nice look.  Always my favorite (for the ladies, put a bow on the toe and it's perfect!) as indicated by my photo at left here.

Oh, they're too high for my ability also. As I might have mentioned elsewhere, I bought them partially to see how I would fare in an over 5" single sole shoe, and to try to expand my physical limits. That, and the fact that the Poshmark algorithm kept pushing these in my face every single day, and finally I caved. But I'm not disappointed for the price, which was $25 + shipping.

I've actually only worn them twice besides an initial try-on, and I haven't left the house in them. For one thing, I can't walk in them. OK, that depends on how you define "walk." I can walk in them just fine if all you want to do is get from Point A to Point B. What I can't do is walk in them without looking like an idiot. Furthermore, this second time I wore them, I had them on for about an hour, and I was quite ready to get out of them. Both of these things need to improve by a factor of several before I would ever consider wearing them outside the house.

22 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

nicer in my opinion

If you had said anything different, I would have been concerned about your state of mental health!

Just for the heck of it, because what else am I going to do, I decided to put on the same outfit I wore to Costco the other day (minus the mask), only wear my new Pleaser pumps with it. Just to see what it looked like. Here it is:

7 hours ago, chesterx said:

just polish remover & qtips. I think it my just be either staining or possibly an old bruise from when I 1st jammed it 2 weeks ago, you know how much that can hurt.

 

I won't say I know nothing about fake nails having spent lots of time at a nail salon, but I've never worn them myself, nor have either of my wives. Looking again at your photo, I think your explanation of hurting your finger makes the most sense. That doesn't look like fungus to me, it looks like you smashed your finger with a hammer! Been there, done that a few times. I think, like Cali said, I'd soak that sucker in acetone for a good little bit, and see if you can't coax some of that residue off with something soft, like an orange wood stick, or ever a popsicle stick, if you haven't got a proper cuticle pusher. Certainly don't use anything metal on that nail, it's already looking fragile. Hopefully that residue will at least come off.

13 hours ago, Puffer said:

If it wasn't for the virus protection, I'd think you were planning to hold up a stagecoach.   (But the witnesses would surely identify you from your shoes!) 

If I were planning to rob a stagecoach, I would buy some brand new trainers and a track suit. No one would ever suspect it was me!

We had to make a dangerous excursion to Costco today. Just for the record, we did NOT buy toilet paper. I did get a random compliment on my shoes, my trusty Nine West Planteras, from a 30-ish white woman, accompanied by her evident significant other. She declined to compliment me on my mask, however, despite my fishing for compliments. Oh, and another notable thing--when we entered the store, I was fumbling about trying to find my membership card, and the lady said, "Never mind, I believe you. I've seen you here a lot of times before." I said, "Well, how do you recognize me with this mask on?" Without missing a beat she said, "Well, from your smile!" Yeah, right. I just wanted to see if she would actually say it. And remember, this is not in my small hometown, it was in the "big" city!

15 minutes ago, HeeledSlides said:

I fully agree, musically it’s not a great performance. But she still manages to get through, even in high heels as an added difficulty. I am sure that many amateurs are not able at all to play this famous piece. How much legato you need for Bach, that’s a never ending discussion among organists. What makes this video interesting for me is of course the visual part. So I have to agree with p1ng74 as well: I’d love to place myself in her high heels on this organ too!

Just to be clear, I am among the players who can't make it through this piece! Still workin' on it.  .  . Dammit Jim, I'm a cellist, not an organist! It does seem obvious reading through the comments that this was intended to be a fun video, not a serious, introspective performance. At that, it succeeds brilliantly! The comments also say that she apparently does not have an instrument available for her to play anymore. That is a crying shame.

I have previously replied to this post, but I think it's worth a revisit because of the reaction I got from my 11 year old son when he first saw me wear these Pleaser pumps, featured in the "New Shoes" thread. I tried them on for the first time, went upstairs to the kitchen sink and started washing the dishes. A little while later, he came in and said, "Daddy, those are about the most woman-like shoes I've ever seen you wear! Why did you get those?" Out of all my strappy sandals, mules, and lighter colored shoes I own, for some reason these struck him as being over-the-top.

I have forgotten to post a few new pairs I got back in January/February. Here is one of them. They are Pleaser Sexy-20 pumps. They are my first pair of Pleasers, and my first pair of pointy-toed pumps. The only reason I bought them is because my Poshmark feed kept throwing them in front of my face, they were pretty cheap (brand new in box for $25), and I have been wanting to get a really steep pair of heels to see if I can't learn to walk in something a little bit more challenging than what I have right now. I have no idea where or how I'd ever wear them at the moment. They have about a 5 1/8" heel with no platform, as you can see. I haven't worn them too much yet, they're a little snug, and since they're not real leather, I doubt they'll stretch much. They're not horrible, they're just cheap shoes, that's all. They look rather nice to me. They look kind of like Louboutin So Kates, only with a slightly higher heel.

On edit: I have decided that they look much more like the original CL Pigalle, not so much like the So Kate. Only with more like a 125 mm heel instead of a 120.

19 hours ago, p1ng74 said:

I'm not sure if it is the heels or just some of the technique that differs from what I know about organ playing, which is limited  to what I have pieced together from various sources, none of which were formal lessons.  I mean, the first thing I noticed is how low on the pedal she toes the natural pedals.  Makes for a huge distance between the natural and half-tone pedals, which I imagine creates a ton of extra movement and work for legato playing.  But then again, I am so tall that when I sit at the bench my heels are basically already sitting on the pedals, so I can't help but toe all the pedals really high up.  This kind of playing is what I'm more used to seeing:

 

 

Yes, the second performance is something like what I expected in the first, only with high heels! Upon re-listening/watching the first gal, I have come to the conclusion that it's probably more the player more than it is the heels. I think she was making a fun video, and there's nothing wrong with that. Yes, you are supposed to keep your feet closer to the sharp pedals than what she does, if for no other reason that you can "feel" where the groups of 2 and 3 are without having to look at them. I still have to look pretty often, but I'm slowly, painfully getting better at sight reading.

When I first decided that I needed to play the organ, and it's getting close to three years ago, my sister, who is an actual organist (I only play one on TV) recommended that I get this book called "The Organist's Manual: Technical Studies & Selected Compositions for the Organ," Roger E. Davis. It's a little spendy, I think I paid about 80 bucks for my copy, but I dove right in with the pedal exercises and etudes. I therefore learned the heel-and-toe method of playing from the beginning, and I've found it very difficult to change now, nor do I really want to. The only reasons to change that I can think of is if I ever had to play an super old Baroque organ that had short pedals (ain't never gonna happen), and if I ever decided I wanted to play in truly high heels, which is just silly. Not that I'm above doing anything silly, but I guess I'd rather spend my time actually improving. Anyhow, I highly recommend that book if you're looking to do more than just dabble. I know it helped me tremendously, and far beyond just pedaling.

24 minutes ago, p1ng74 said:

I watched it the whole way through, but I just love tracker action organs.  It must have been a real treat to play that piece on that organ - I'd love to place myself in her shoes, heels and all!  

The organ itself seems absolutely top-notch. There is a church in my town that has a similarly sized tracker organ. Unfortunately, it's not MY church. I've often threatened to defect and become a Presbyterian just because of that organ! It is fairly obvious in the video that the playing suffered on account of those heels, however. There was not even an attempt at legato playing.

5 hours ago, HeeledSlides said:

Here’s another very nice video of an organist playing in high heels.

 

That is a great find! Well, visually anyway. I know this piece very well (although my organ skills are not up to it), and my first thought was, "What the hell is REALLY going on here?", as that was one of the most tedious and ponderous interpretations of the opening Toccata I believe I've ever heard. Then I made it up to the point where the pedal first entered in the fugue, and I had to stop and look her up. After reading the comments on this video, it all makes perfect sense. I didn't take the time to find out who she is, but she's obviously not a professional organist, and the heels thing was meant to be more of a joke or experiment. I'm certainly not against that at all, but it's not a recording I would ever listen to for its fresh interpretation. I'm sorry if I sound like a music critic, I'm my own worst critic, and I recognize the limits of my abilities. Are those Hot Chicks? O.o