The High Heeled Ruminations Of Melrose Plant

[Mr. X]

Another winner

[mlroseplant]

Hi all, I'm posting a day or two early because I took some extra pictures this week. They are really all the same picture, but I'm not very creative about posing.

Yesterday, I did a 5 mile (8 km) walk for only the sixth time since I started heeling. As I've probably said before, I have a 1 mile, a 2 mile, and a 3 mile loop that I walk regularly, choosing one on whim or available time. On weekend mornings, it has been my habit as of late to walk the 3 mile loop. On this particular morning, I chose my BCBGirls Bonny mules, iteration No. 4. No. 4 is pretty unused, as No. 3 yielded up the ghost sometime last fall. These Bonnys are not a shoe that feels good out of the box. Every one of them has been very stiff and rather uncomfortable until having been worn for several hours. Then they become pliable and all-day comfortable.

I have never done a 5 miler in Bonnys before, even though I've tried on a couple of occasions. Both of the previous attempts ended in shoe failure of some sort, one of them catastrophic. The fact that these Bonnys only had two miles on them to begin with made them a suspect choice for a 3 mile walk. I had worn them around the house for a couple of hours, but they were still a bit on the stiff side. I took Bandaids with me, just in case. After the first mile, it was obvious that they are going to be just fine, same as the other 3 pair were. After two miles, I began thinking, "Yeah, I remember why I like these so much." At about 2 1/2 miles, I thought, "Hmmm, I've got time, why don't I do a 5-miler today?" So I did. During the 4th mile, the right shoe started rubbing my instep. Luckily, I had those Bandaids with me, so nothing bad happened. A little tender when I got back, but no blister. The rest of me, however, was very tired. You wouldn't think 5 miles would be that big of a deal when you do 3 miles regularly, but those last 2 really took it out of me.

When I got back, I made a list and went grocery shopping, changing my shoes to another pair I haven't worn in a while, blue FSJ stiletto mules. Like last week, I couldn't remember if there was a comfort reason why I haven't worn them. Apparently not. They were just fine, and easier to walk in than I remembered. It is really hard to tell the color in this picture, but they pretty much match the color of my jeans.

Note: Photos are in reverse order of the story, if you haven't already figured that out.

Edited May 19 by mlroseplant

[mlroseplant]

I did something that I rarely do during warm weather. I wore actual enclosed shoes to church. I did so because as I posted in the New Shoes section, I bought some pumps specifically to wear to church (and maybe a few other places). I keep saying that I do not need any more shoes, but I bought two more pair last week. These Steve Madden pumps, and a pair of Frye wooden heeled sandals. Sometime I'll post the Fryes--they're kind of interesting, but I thought the coffee color of the pumps was really beautiful, and the lady offered to sell them for 20 bucks plus shipping.

The rest of my outfit was based around the shoes. I often do that, but it was very particular on this Sunday, because I had decided to wear the shoes well in advance. So I picked out some earth-toney stuff I thought went with the coffee color, and then I realized, "Hey, wait a minute.  .  . It's Pentecost." To some of you, this will mean absolutely nothing. For others, you are chuckling to yourselves right now. Let's put it this way--the red tie is an add-on and an afterthought, but I think it works. I even got complemented on my tie. But not my shoes.

[Jkrenzer]

Excellent heels. Pumps are great year around. 

[Shyheels]

That’s a very impressive walk! I did a similar distance on Sunday - to a pub for lunch and then back again - but I was in boots with chunky 3.5” heels. That was enough 

[mlroseplant]

A long time ago, I mentioned something about my wife partnering with another Vietnamese woman for the purpose of selling food and making money. At the time, I think I mentioned something about not wearing heels to meet her so as not to project myself into something that is none of my concern. Today, that partnership truly begins, and I have already forgot about being invisible.

There is an Asian festival taking place in the city, and it's one of those things that is well organized, well funded, and well attended. We went to set up some things last night, and I didn't even really think about it, but I wore some casual heels. My wife didn't say anything, the other woman didn't say anything, and her husband didn't say anything.

Today and tomorrow, the festival is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. I am assured that I will not be obligated continuously for that long, and I hope that's right. I am not finding any joy in any of this. But, I am seriously not sure whether to wear heels to work this thing. Since I won't have a vehicle available right there (we have to park several hundred meter away), do I carry backup shoes with me on my person? I cannot recall ever needing the backup shoes in the past when I have brought them. And if I do decide to wear heels, which heels? Naturally, it is thunderstorming outside my window as I write this. It's supposed to be over by the time the festival starts.

[Shyheels]

Wow! For starters I wish I could go to this festival and stock up on some nice food! I love the sound of the stuff you guys have on offer!

to your point on footwear - those are long days. Although your vehicle will be a ways off it might be wise to bring a spare pair just in case - either because your feet need a break or because it may be useful or desirable not to be heels for some reason. If you don’t need them a spare pair don’t take up much space and if you do you’ll be glad you have them handy

[Bubba136]

On 5/21/2024 at 5:42 AM, mlroseplant said:

I did something that I rarely do during warm weather. I wore actual enclosed shoes to church. I did so because as I posted in the New Shoes section, I bought some pumps specifically to wear to church (and maybe a few other places). I keep saying that I do not need any more shoes, but I bought two more pair last week. These Steve Madden pumps, and a pair of Frye wooden heeled sandals. Sometime I'll post the Fryes--they're kind of interesting, but I thought the coffee color of the pumps was really beautiful, and the lady offered to sell them for 20 bucks plus shipping.

The rest of my outfit was based around the shoes. I often do that, but it was very particular on this Sunday, because I had decided to wear the shoes well in advance. So I picked out some earth-toney stuff I thought went with the coffee color, and then I realized, "Hey, wait a minute.  .  . It's Pentecost." To some of you, this will mean absolutely nothing. For others, you are chuckling to yourselves right now. Let's put it this way--the red tie is an add-on and an afterthought, but I think it works. I even got complemented on my tie. But not my shoes.

Nice crisp look.  Love the tie and shoes.

1 hour ago, mlroseplant said:

A long time ago, I mentioned something about my wife partnering with another Vietnamese woman for the purpose of selling food and making money. At the time, I think I mentioned something about not wearing heels to meet her so as not to project myself into something that is none of my concern. Today, that partnership truly begins, and I have already forgot about being invisible.

There is an Asian festival taking place in the city, and it's one of those things that is well organized, well funded, and well attended. We went to set up some things last night, and I didn't even really think about it, but I wore some casual heels. My wife didn't say anything, the other woman didn't say anything, and her husband didn't say anything.

Today and tomorrow, the festival is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. I am assured that I will not be obligated continuously for that long, and I hope that's right. I am not finding any joy in any of this. But, I am seriously not sure whether to wear heels to work this thing. Since I won't have a vehicle available right there (we have to park several hundred meter away), do I carry backup shoes with me on my person? I cannot recall ever needing the backup shoes in the past when I have brought them. And if I do decide to wear heels, which heels? Naturally, it is thunderstorming outside my window as I write this. It's supposed to be over by the time the festival starts.

Interesting situation.  If I were you, I’d take along a spare pair just in case.  You never know how deeply involved you are going to be anytime your wife is “involved.” Please let us know how things go.

[mlroseplant]

As it turns out, my presence was not really needed after the setup and settling in. I was only there for about 3 hours in the morning and a couple right around closing up time (10 p.m.). I wore some Bebe wooden heeled sandals with an effective 3 3/4" heel, and they didn't bite back. I was actually rather glad to have them when it came time to open up the side wall of our tent, as I am barely tall enough to reach the hooks. Their one inch platform with 4 3/4 inch heel gives me an effective 3 1/2 inch boost in height. Perhaps today I will choose some type of shoe with a really big platform for that very reason. Nah, probably not. Today I will have my son with me, and he will be my effective boost in height.

One person said something to me the entire time I was there, and it was some random 20-something woman, who simply smiled at me and said "Fabulous!"

[mlroseplant]

Not a lot to say this week. The Asian festival is over, everything is packed up and back home. The second day I wound up wearing my Bruno Magli blue suede wedges both for setup and teardown. We got back home at midnight, and then I had to get up too early to prepare for church. I feel like I keep repeating myself, and this week's picture is not all that great.

[mlroseplant]

This week's Church outfit. It was a special week at our church. We had a special service to commemorate the 175th anniversary of our existence. It was a nice service, and many people from the days of yore travelled a long way to attend this service, some of them pastors from my youth.

What I did not enjoy about the service was the music, which was contemporary Christian Pop, and the apparent contemporary band dress code, which was a red t-shirt proclaiming the 175th anniversary of the church. I don't normally play with them, but their guitarist was out of town. There's nothing wrong with a red t-shirt, but I looked much nicer than the rest of the band, if I may say so. I did don a red t-shirt after church to do a little bit of grocery shopping, this one featuring our arch rival college. I think I know how I came to have this t-shirt, but it's a long story, and nobody cares anyway.

[Jkrenzer]

You're a rebel.

Colors are vibrant. 

[Shyheels]

I like the pink and burgundy combo - very nice

[mlroseplant]

Today, I want to talk about heels, compromises, and peoples' comments.

As many of you already know, I bought a new motorbike about two months ago. I have now ridden it a total of 1,500 miles, mostly commuting to work. A good deal of the reason why I bought a scooter style motorbike is because I can easily ride in heels. Not that I can't ride a regular motorcycle in heels, but to me it's absolutely no fun, and I tend to damage my shoes in the process. The other percentage of the reason why I went to a scooter is practicality. Because of the layout, there is a lot of storage space underneath the seat. This allows me to lock up my helmet and jacket right on the bike, rather than lugging that riding gear onto the jobsite, where I might or might not have a good place to put it during the day.

The safety compromise I make every day is the fact that I don't wear leather pants. I wear a helmet, jacket, and gloves even in the heat of summer, but pants are too much of a pain in the neck. Around my town, I really make some safety compromises, and just wear whatever I happen to have on that is appropriate for the season. In the summer, it's often shorts and sandals. I live in a 25 mph (40 km/hr) town, and although statistical analysis might not be with me on this one, I figure I'm probably not going to get into a wreck around here.

If I need to leave town, usually to go to the capital city of Des Moines, I will not go in shorts and sandals, and here's where the weird compromise part comes in. Up to now, I've never had a scooter style motorbike that could do highway speed. Therefore, I've never considered wearing heels, except for around town, running errands and such. Now, I can leave town wearing regular street clothes. I recently purchased a pair of block heeled booties that seem perfect for riding in terms of safety vs. style, and I've been wearing those, but I wanted to wear sandals went for my appointment with the dentist up in Des Moines. I wound up bringing sandals with me, since I can do that now, and changing in the parking garage. It worked out great!

I have a new dentist, and a new dental hygenist (the old ones retired at the same time). The old gang would always comment on my heels to the point that I would make sure I wore something really interesting each time I visited, about every six months. This new bunch refuses to say anything, even when prompted. I can't even detect a sideways eye thing going on. They are much younger than the old crew, probably older Gen Z or younger Millennials. We all know that people notice, but it seems the younger crowd, if they're not interested in shoes, just moves on in their mind as if it were an everyday occurrence. I guess that's where we want to be, so I shouldn't complain.

[kneehighs]

2 hours ago, mlroseplant said:

...This new bunch refuses to say anything, even when prompted. I can't even detect a sideways eye thing going on. They are much younger than the old crew, probably older Gen Z or younger Millennials. We all know that people notice, but it seems the younger crowd, if they're not interested in shoes, just moves on in their mind as if it were an everyday occurrence. I guess that's where we want to be, so I shouldn't complain.

Very interesting. I've had the same experiences internationally, for what it's worth. From life in Moscow to Budapest to Tbilisi (where I'm at right now).

Regarding your experience in the US, a recent Public Religion Research Institute study found that 28% of GenZ identfy as LGBTQ. 

I think social media really started this.  And because a simple VPN allows users to bypass social media restrictions, the wave of acceptance is international--even in cities in the East aligned with Russia/China.

Mostly, this started with Instagram, which promoted visual repetition of men in heels broadly and repeatedly--an idea I received push back for back in 2016. Back then it was only 400 Million monthly active users on Instagram. Now it's 2 Billion.

And updated in 2022

The difference is now in the Western countries "wokeism" has generally advanced political idealogies that support men wearing heels.   Such ideology is not necessary imho for public assimilation, but it's there.  

Regardless, it's cool to celebrate men in heels as "unique". Congratulations on the experience.

Edited June 9 by kneehighs

[Cali]

I wonder if you wore a "celebrity sneaker" would they then be excited?

[mlroseplant]

Here is my church outfit of the week, which was kind of a sad one for me because my choir director of seven years has taken another position at another church. This was the last Sunday that my son and I got to make music with him. I think we finished pretty strong, even though once again, we had no rehearsal.

This week's choice was totally based around my new Stuart Weitzman shoes, the details of which are cataloged elsewhere. I actually have a pair of pants that matches their dark olive green color more closely, but they're getting a little bit ratty looking lately, so I chose a lighter colored, but newer, pair of pants. My shirt and tie were chosen mainly to not offend the rest of the outfit.

I missed celebrating my 12th anniversary of "coming out" in heels. Perhaps "going out" would be better phraseology for shoes. It's funny, I don't remember the exact date for sure, but I remember what day of the week it was, so I'm calling it Wednesday, May 16th, 2012, as the first day I ever stepped foot in front of anybody wearing heels as my own serious footwear. Oddly enough, the location was at my church at a choir rehearsal. Perhaps this is why I think of it now.

The point of this last paragraph is not so much to celebrate my own accomplishments, but rather to note that enough time has gone by that the clothes I bought to match my new persona are starting to physically wear out. I have bought quite a bit of clothing over the years, but I have gotten rid of precious little, unlike my shoe collection. Some of that clothing, like most probably the tie I wore three days ago, predates my heeling days, and a lot of it needs to be retired for one reason or another. Perhaps this is a subject for another rumination in the future.

[Cali]

It's funny how we don't keep track of some of these dates. I just know I started my switch to women's shoes in October of 2011 and high heels mid-February 2015, but that's the closest I can guessimate.  I had a 22-year out T-shirt on this week.  How time flys.

[Bubba136]

Like my old dad used to tell me If you live long enough you going to get old.  
I guess that applies to most everything else, also.

[mlroseplant]

Just out of curiosity, I perused the shoe collection to see how many pairs I had left from the early years, say before 2015, and it's three. Not counting my first two pairs of heels that I keep for sentimental reasons. So out of a hundred-some pairs, I have rotated clean through to where the majority of my shoes are less than five years old.

The same cannot be said of my clothes. Most of my good dress clothes are probably in the neighborhood of 10 years old. Especially all of my suits. There's nothing wrong with the suits, and I still like them. What I don't like about them are the pants. They are all quite full-legged traditional suit pants. I used to have them hemmed long to accommodate my heels. I had a couple of suits for wearing flat men's shoes, and the rest required me to wear heels or the hem would be way too long. I'm not a huge fan of that look anymore. Even though that's sort of starting to come back, it's a different cut, and I'm still not a fan. I have a number of slimmer cut pants that match a few of my suits well enough to substitute for the pants that actually came with the suit. I usually wear those.

Life has gotten much more casual, and these days, wearing a shirt and tie with no jacket puts me in the top five percent of dressiest clothing at church, and that includes the women. When I say my clothing is old, I basically mean my dress shirts and ties. My pants and my shorts are actually on the newer side.

[mlroseplant]

Over in the "For Everybody" section, we got off on a tangent about whether I'm too old to wear shorts. And my friend from university told me that I personally can pull it off, but not everyone can, including her. After some input here, I finally decided, "Fine, I'm going to quit worrying about it."

About a week and a half ago, we changed directly from rain to heat. Because of my work schedule and responsibilities, I have been unable to take advantage of the situation until this weekend, at which time I pulled all the stops out. Whatever it is I'm doing, I guess I need to keep doing that. Within the last two days, I have received a number of unsolicited compliments, all by women, about my legs. Here is my outfit, which is obviously nothing special, just a t-shirt and shorts.

[Shyheels]

Yes you carry off shorts well. No question about it.