The High Heeled Ruminations Of Melrose Plant

[hiddenheels]

7 hours ago, mlroseplant said:

It has recently snowed here, but only about an inch or so, not enough to where anybody has really bothered to shovel. Last night, I went to the church around 8:00 or so to practice the organ. When I got out of the car and started to walk towards the building, I noticed some footprints in the snow, and thought to myself, "Hey! Somebody wears high heels in the snow besides me! And they look to be fairly slim heels, too." Then I saw where the footprints veered off to a side door, not the main door. Oh.  .  . um, yeah.  .  .that was me. From the previous night.

Funny, and kinda sad at the same time. Sad, as in no-one else wears heels in the snow.

I do agree though that the footprints left behind are very cool! I loved making the prints in the snow. :)

[mlroseplant]

 Some more pant talk. After seeing a video of me yesterday, I think I am going to have more of my suits tailored. Well, just the pants. I do not like how this otherwise sharp looking olive green suit looks with heels. The pants are too full, yet straight. I have nearly all of my suitpants hemmed this way, so that you can't wear them with normal men's shoes, but the effect is better on some than others. I'm going to have the legs slimmed up quite a bit, and have them shortened to ankle length. I think this will give the suit a more modern, edgier look. 

On the other hand, while I wasn't particularly pleased with my appearance or my playing (I rarely am), I was pleased that I appear to move quite naturally and easily in heels, which in this picture are my new (to me) Aldo oxfords, documented in the "new shoes" thread  

Backing up a day, I had the chance to attend an event called Tuba Christmas, which is a group of low brass players that get together every year and play Christmas carols. We had 111 players this year, rather a lot more than expected. My 10 year old came with me, and played tuba, while I played euphonium. Our audience for the concert was about 600! That was a lot of people to have the chance to see the 5 1/2" heeled Michael Antonio sandals I wore to the event. That's right, sandals on the 21st of December. It was a nice day! Nobody commented on my shoes at all. 

Edited December 23, 2019 by mlroseplant
Forgot the pesky little word "not."

[Pierre1961]

Yes. You are right. You will certainly be happier with slimmer pants . But don’t shorten them so much. 

 Just my opinion.

Oxford is a great match with a suit. 

 

[Cali]

I have just started to wear skinny pants. Mostly motivated by the desire to wear my boots on the outside. I bought 30 inch and 28 inch inseams. When I first started to wear heels I used 34 inch inseam that hide most of the heels. The 30 inch (Levis 311 30X30) hits at my ankle and can cover the top edge of some booties, socks (cute) needs to be worn with these. The 28 inch (Express 10S jeggings)  hits 1.5 inches above the ankle. This is a much more bold look, it takes more "gut" to pull it off.  With my skinny jeggings it does have a feminine feel to it, especially with red stilettos. But both are excellent with my calf high and higher boots.

So be careful with going too short. A little wide and short may leave you open to the question "Where's the flood?"

 

[mlroseplant]

19 hours ago, Cali said:

I have just started to wear skinny pants. Mostly motivated by the desire to wear my boots on the outside. I bought 30 inch and 28 inch inseams. When I first started to wear heels I used 34 inch inseam that hide most of the heels. The 30 inch (Levis 311 30X30) hits at my ankle and can cover the top edge of some booties, socks (cute) needs to be worn with these. The 28 inch (Express 10S jeggings)  hits 1.5 inches above the ankle. This is a much more bold look, it takes more "gut" to pull it off.  With my skinny jeggings it does have a feminine feel to it, especially with red stilettos. But both are excellent with my calf high and higher boots.

So be careful with going too short. A little wide and short may leave you open to the question "Where's the flood?"

 

Yes, I have no desire to have my pants tailored to look like the gal pictured a few posts up. Not only is that too short (especially with a suit), but it’s too wide. I had one pair of suit pants altered by my friend the tailor to make them much narrower and tapered at the bottom, and after a couple wearings, I had her take yet another inch off the hem because they bunched at my ankles when I stood up. They were too narrow to slip over the heels of my shoes (the part where my foot goes in the shoe, not the elevated part of the shoe), and too long to hang properly and neatly. I’m pretty satisfied with how they turned out, which is why I say ankle length and not longer.

I do have a couple other suits where the pants are quite a bit narrower, but wide enough to fall around my shoes, and I think those look ok too. It’s just this particular suit that I’m not happy with. It’s cut in an older, more traditional style, and I feel it just doesn’t look that great with these very high platform shoes. Someday soon, I will have to take some pictures to show you what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, my computer seems to have picked up a virus, and is not working properly. I am writing this on the company iPad, and I really don’t want to put a bunch of personal stuff on here. Hopefully, my brother-in-law, who is a computer guy and is coming to visit soon, can help me get my computer sorted.

[Pierre1961]

I agree. The pants of that girl are terrible. Never!

But we still have a lot of other choices: skinny ( ankle length with pumps or oxford,or longer with booties) 

Slim with Oxford,pumps booties,but not too short 

straight with Cuban heels. Could be baggy 

boot cut to cover any kind of shoes  

So a lot of choices depending of what we wear on top and circonstances  

A lot of fun 

 

[mlroseplant]

19 hours ago, Pierre1961 said:

I agree. The pants of that girl are terrible. Never!

But we still have a lot of other choices: skinny ( ankle length with pumps or oxford,or longer with booties) 

Slim with Oxford,pumps booties,but not too short 

straight with Cuban heels. Could be baggy 

boot cut to cover any kind of shoes  

So a lot of choices depending of what we wear on top and circonstances  

A lot of fun 

 

I have had a chance to have a lot of fun lately, with several days off for Christmas. In addition to my tuba adventures, I went shopping yesterday to pick up a very few last minute items, and somehow the weather is unusually warm this week. With temperatures in the 50s (low 10s in Celsius), I wore my gray Michael Antonio sandals yet again, and was able to ditch my coat. My 10 year old complained that these sandals are obnoxiously loud (they kinda are!), but I told him that once I get the heels replaced with rubber, once these heels wear out, they won't be loud anymore. Just by chance, a lady wearing high heeled boots (maybe 3 1/2" block heels) walked by. I said, "Look there.  .  ." He said "What?" I said, "What do you mean 'What?' Her heels are every bit as loud as mine!" Evidently, I am obnoxious, but everyone else is nearly unnoticeable. Kids!

For Christmas Eve services last night, I decided not to wear a suit, since I would have a choir robe on anyway. Besides, I wanted to wear sandals yet again. I chose some very plain black skinny dress pants that haven't fit in a while (did I tell you I've lost some weight? More about that later) with my red BCBG Paris mules. Red for Christmas, I figured. Plus they compliment the blue choir robe quite nicely. Not only did I sing in the choir, I played brass with a small group to compliment/augment the organ. That was exhausting, since everything was on the fly, none of it planned out. The first thing I noticed was that the two acolytes, two girls maybe 10-12 years old, were both wearing sandals, so I wasn't the only one to wear sandals to Christmas Eve service. Thankfully, they were very nice looking, dressy sandals and not rubber flip flops. Of course, they weren't heels, but girls that young probably shouldn't be wearing heels anyhow, so they get a pass.

Naturally, you can't really see my shoes in this picture, so I am providing a second picture. Anyhow, Merry Christmas to all, or whatever holiday you might celebrate at your house! I hope you have many heels and many nice adventures in the year to come.

[SF]

And Merry Christmas to you and your family as well.....

[JeffB]

5 hours ago, mlroseplant said:

I have had a chance to have a lot of fun lately, with several days off for Christmas. In addition to my tuba adventures, I went shopping yesterday to pick up a very few last minute items, and somehow the weather is unusually warm this week. With temperatures in the 50s (low 10s in Celsius), I wore my gray Michael Antonio sandals yet again, and was able to ditch my coat. My 10 year old complained that these sandals are obnoxiously loud (they kinda are!), but I told him that once I get the heels replaced with rubber, once these heels wear out, they won't be loud anymore. Just by chance, a lady wearing high heeled boots (maybe 3 1/2" block heels) walked by. I said, "Look there.  .  ." He said "What?" I said, "What do you mean 'What?' Her heels are every bit as loud as mine!" Evidently, I am obnoxious, but everyone else is nearly unnoticeable. Kids!

For Christmas Eve services last night, I decided not to wear a suit, since I would have a choir robe on anyway. Besides, I wanted to wear sandals yet again. I chose some very plain black skinny dress pants that haven't fit in a while (did I tell you I've lost some weight? More about that later) with my red BCBG Paris mules. Red for Christmas, I figured. Plus they compliment the blue choir robe quite nicely. Not only did I sing in the choir, I played brass with a small group to compliment/augment the organ. That was exhausting, since everything was on the fly, none of it planned out. The first thing I noticed was that the two acolytes, two girls maybe 10-12 years old, were both wearing sandals, so I wasn't the only one to wear sandals to Christmas Eve service. Thankfully, they were very nice looking, dressy sandals and not rubber flip flops. Of course, they weren't heels, but girls that young probably shouldn't be wearing heels anyhow, so they get a pass.

Naturally, you can't really see my shoes in this picture, so I am providing a second picture. Anyhow, Merry Christmas to all, or whatever holiday you might celebrate at your house! I hope you have many heels and many nice adventures in the year to come.

Well, that’s still pretty darn cool! Good for you!

[mlroseplant]

I got to wear sandals yet again yesterday. Christmas Day was definitely not white. I tried this layered thing, which might at this point be a little dated. However, there is this thirty-something woman at church who often sports this look, only I think she uses three layers instead of two. Always with short heels of about 3 inches, and skin tight boot cut jeans. Despite the fact that she's a rather mousy-looking woman, she always looks kind of hot. So I decided to try it, only with skinny pants and sandals. One of these days, I've got to find a better spot to take selfies.

[KneeBooted]

2 hours ago, kneehighs said:

I find it fascinating how your niche for heels is acceptance at church. Quite valuable, if you ask me.  At surface level, I imagine there's a couple challenges which leads me to two questions.  Neither of which you're required to answer if your privacy or boundaries deem inappropriate.

1.  What denomination of church is it?  

2.  Has anyone ever thrown Deut 22:5 at you?

While I don’t want to hijack the thread, I will add that this has been something I’ve been working on/towards. I’ll discuss it more in my thread, but these past few weeks that I’ve been making my heels more noticeable, I’ve gotten some quizzical looks, but nothing negative as of yet, and the only person to throw Deuteronomy 22:5 at me was myself a few years back. I’m a non-denominational Christian, and my argument if someone were to try and use that verse against me, I’d politely ask them to read that entire chapter and tell me if they’re also ok with the rest of what it says...

[Shyheels]

Yes, especially the bit about never hitching a donkey and oxen together. I‘ll bet that catches a lot of them out.

The God described in Deuteronomy must spend a lot of his time cherry picking his abominations - presumably giving a pass to Scots in kilts and Fijian men in sulus. And since heels hadn’t yet been invented then, one wonders how they fit into the picture - especially since when they eventually were invented they were for men...

[KneeBooted]

Yeah, and who in a first world country uses stoning people as punishment today?

[mlroseplant]

17 hours ago, kneehighs said:

I find it fascinating how your niche for heels is acceptance at church. Quite valuable, if you ask me.  At surface level, I imagine there's a couple challenges which leads me to two questions.  Neither of which you're required to answer if your privacy or boundaries deem inappropriate.

1.  What denomination of church is it?  

2.  Has anyone ever thrown Deut 22:5 at you?

I will largely answer your questions with this picture:

To totally mix my metaphors, we have much bigger footballs to fry at the moment than worrying about my heels. It wouldn't surprise me if the United Methodist Church split up within the next few years, much as that pains me to think about. Oh, and to answer very clearly, no, no one in our church has ever even thought about anything in the Pentateuch past about halfway through Exodus, much less complained about my heels.

Can you find me in the picture? I'm almost all the way to the very left, next to the big guy in the yellow polo shirt. I'm wearing shorts and heels, though it is not obvious in this photo unless you know.

14 hours ago, KneeBooted said:

While I don’t want to hijack the thread, I will add that this has been something I’ve been working on/towards. I’ll discuss it more in my thread, but these past few weeks that I’ve been making my heels more noticeable, I’ve gotten some quizzical looks, but nothing negative as of yet, and the only person to throw Deuteronomy 22:5 at me was myself a few years back. I’m a non-denominational Christian, and my argument if someone were to try and use that verse against me, I’d politely ask them to read that entire chapter and tell me if they’re also ok with the rest of what it says...

Don't worry about hijacking my thread, there's nothing much here to hijack! Indeed, sometimes if one tries to artificially move a discussion elsewhere, it dies.

I've always wondered about all those old Jewish laws, and why we even worry about them, when even Bible literalists don't follow them in any meaningful way. I suppose that at one time, there was a logic to nearly all of them, though some of them may have arisen from mere superstition. The ox and the ass thing, for example, why in the hell would you ever want to do that in the first place? The laws of physics, to say nothing of Jewish Law, would pretty much prevent that from being successful. I can just imagine the priests or the Levites coming out to the farmer, trying to make such a rig work: "Why do want to do it THAT way for, you dumb son of a bitch? That's just stupid!" Then they made a law to protect idiots from themselves. No different than what we're still doing today!

 

Edited December 27, 2019 by mlroseplant

[Jkrenzer]

Looks like a great crew. I did spot you in the red shirt, and knowing what to look for i felt you were in heels. Even squatting heels change your posture just a bit, but no i wouldn't have guessed not knowing in advance.

[SF]

I have worn heels, and gals flats to church many times.  Even gals sandals with painted toenails.  Other than a few compliments, no one has ever said a word.  Nice.....   sf  

Edited December 27, 2019 by SF
typoe...

[p1ng74]

3 hours ago, mlroseplant said:

To totally mix my metaphors, we have much bigger footballs to fry at the moment than worrying about my heels. It wouldn't surprise me if the United Methodist Church split up within the next few years, much as that pains me to think about. Oh, and to answer very clearly, no, no one in our church has ever even thought about anything in the Pentateuch past about halfway through Exodus, much less complained about my heels.

I've always wondered about all those old Jewish laws, and why we even worry about them, when even Bible literalists don't follow them in any meaningful way. I suppose that at one time, there was a logic to nearly all of them, though some of them may have arisen from mere superstition. The ox and the ass thing, for example, why in the hell would you ever want to do that in the first place? The laws of physics, to say nothing of Jewish Law, would pretty much prevent that from being successful. I can just imagine the priests or the Levites coming out to the farmer, trying to make such a rig work: "Why do want to do it THAT way for, you dumb son of a bitch? That's just stupid!" Then they made a law to protect idiots from themselves. No different than what we're still doing today!

 

There is a human tendency to read the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law.  Moses wrote Deuteronomy, which means "second law", as parting words before he died, because the Israelites were already starting to lose the spirit of the first law, the 10 Commandments, which could be summarized succinctly as "Love God, and Love each other."  The way I see it, the spirit of Deuteronomy 22:5, as a supporting command to God's first law, is that we should honour God's order of creating us male and female.  When I put on a pair of shoes, whether it be cowboy boots or an item from the "womens" section in a store, I am not cross dressing, nor trying to become female, nor trying to shirk from my God-given responsibilities as husband and father, nor mocking femininity. 

It's probably fair to say that my fashion experimentation pushes the edge of what popular fashion labels as masculine.  But since popular fashion has no indication of servitude to God's law, I don't think that by breaking the "laws of fashion" I am automatically breaking God's law by wearing shoes that have been designated a certain way by the clothing industry.  I think people are sometimes too eager to mix the two realms.  I know women that never wear pants - skirts and dresses only.  I've heard people give Biblical reasons for doing so, but given how comfortable they are compared to pants, I imagine one does not need much theological convincing to abide by that style.  

 

[SF]

Ten Commandments??  There were supposed to have been Fifteen.....   ha ha, sf

 

 

 

[Jkrenzer]

Ah, good old Mel Brooks. 

Back in biblical times there was no distinction between men's and women's clothes. Everyone wore the same rudimentary garb including footware. 

[at9]

There is often much wisdom in comedy.

The late great comedian, Dave Allen, always signed off his TV shows: "Goodnight, thank you, and may your God go with you "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Allen_(comedian)

Tom Lehrer (who was Jewish but not practising) wrote the wonderful "Vatican Rag":

 

Edited December 27, 2019 by at9
Typo

[Shyheels]

1 hour ago, SF said:

Ten Commandments??  There were supposed to have been Fifteen.....   ha ha, sf

 

 

 

Except in the Readers Digest abridged version of the Bible where they had only eight...

[bluejay]

4 hours ago, SF said:

I have worn heels, and gals flat to church many times.  Even gals sandals with painted toenails.  Other than a few compliments, no one has ever said a word.  Nice.....   sf  

I'm the same as you SF.  I wear heels and flats to my church on Sundays. I wear boots too, but have never worn sandals showing off my colored pedi. I've seen other men wearing women's shoes and boots too.  I get compliments from both women and men, in church. The Lord God, doesn't care how your dressed when you visit, "His House".

Happy Heeling,

bluejay

[SF]

The Vatican Rag.....   Another good one.....   ha ha      sf

[Puffer]

6 hours ago, SF said:

Ten Commandments??  There were supposed to have been Fifteen.....   ha ha, sf

 

5 hours ago, Shyheels said:

Except in the Readers Digest abridged version of the Bible where they had only eight...

I understand that, shortly after God devised a whole series of commandments, He offered them to several religious leaders.   Buddha wasn't interested and Mohammed didn't like them either, but Moses expressed an interest and asked how much they would cost.   When God told Moses that the commandments were free-of-charge, Moses promptly responded: 'In that case, I'll take ten!'   

[mlroseplant]

I see this thread has gone all wonky again. As I mentioned elsewhere on this forum, I have come to appreciate that, since it's difficult to artificially create a thread for such things. I try not to take myself too seriously.

16 hours ago, bluejay said:

I'm the same as you SF.  I wear heels and flats to my church on Sundays. I wear boots too, but have never worn sandals showing off my colored pedi. I've seen other men wearing women's shoes and boots too.  I get compliments from both women and men, in church. The Lord God, doesn't care how your dressed when you visit, "His House".

Happy Heeling,

bluejay

Flats to church? Perish the thought! I'm only joking, of course, but I can't think of the last time I wore flats to church, even on Wednesday night. I'm seriously trying to remember. Anyway, it's been years. I have gotten compliments from women, but only one man, who happened to be the Associate Pastor at the time, who said I looked like a Boss.

I've read it several times, so I know I didn't misread, "I've seen other men wearing women's shoes and boots too." Where have you seen that, and was it due to your influence?

Finally, it's a good thing that the Lord doesn't care how you dress when you come to church, because we're getting more and more casual all the time, much the same as secular society, and I don't know about where you're from, but we Iowans are not naturally pretty people. We could use a little cleaning up every once in a while. However, I like wearing sandals a lot. I actually attended Christmas Eve service, the biggest, most important service of the year, dressed what I consider to be casually, just so I could wear sandals. My excuse to myself was that I would be wearing a choir robe anyway, so who cares? I am not to the point where I feel it would ever be appropriate to wear sandals with a suit and tie. If I were a chick, that might be different, but I'm not.

[bluejay]

Yes, Mirose I do wear flats to church when I'm not wearing heels. And yes there are a couple of other men that wear women's shoes and boots, at church.  I've never seen any, in real heels but they both wear skinny jeans tucked inside their flat heel, riding boots and do wear very brightly colored flats, like I do. I have lots of people observe me on Sundays. looking down at me to see what footwear I'm in. Since I belong to a large Catholic Church with over 3,000 families, we have 7 Masses between Saturday afternoon and Sundays. I'm an usher at the early Sunday morning Mass, at 7:30 AM and I'm on display, always. I'm dressed usually in a jacket and tie. I'm always complimented on my flashy appearance. I've had ladies compliment me and ask me to help them shop for their husbands wardrobe, to get some color on them. On Christmas Eve at the Midnight Mass I attended, I wore  black dress pants with a red silky shirt, matching red tie and pocket square with a black leather blazer and my  Funtasma, red patent, knee boots with 3" chunky heels. Of course the boots were under my dress pants but my heels were very visible and I did get compliments as usual , as I do most every Sunday.

Happy Heeling,

bluejay

[mlroseplant]

5 hours ago, kneehighs said:

Church priorities and never a mention about your heels.  Good news for your style preference.  

I studied a bit of context of Deuteronomy awhile back.  The whole book is kind of like an instruction manual given to a kid leaving home for the "promised land" of college.  After living for "hundreds of years" under the care of their parents they realistically have little life experience. Thus, the silly laws.

In the United Methodist Church, and perhaps some other denominations, we have a thing called "Holy Humor Sunday." It is typically the Sunday after Easter, but I think our church celebrates it at another time. I am not entirely sure where this tradition originates, but we have a sort of "silly" church service that Sunday. I have always wanted to try a little standup comedy, and I think I dreamed up that bit I wrote a couple days ago about the Jewish leaders chastising the silly farmer for trying to yoke an ox and a donkey together. If I stole that from somewhere, it was unconscious and unintentional. Several days later, I still think it's one of the funniest things I've ever made up, but unfortunately, like so much of my humor, it's only funny to a select group. I think I can tone down the language to make it work for the intended audience.

I had never thought about Deuteronomy (and probably most of Leviticus, also) in the way that you mentioned. I think there's probably some truth to it. Can I steal that idea as material for my sketch, if indeed it ever comes to fruition?

[at9]

Stealing is an interesting concept when you distinguish between bits and atoms. If you steal atoms (cars, books, wives etc) you deprive the previous owner of their use. If you steal bits this is done by copying (text, music, ideas etc) the original owner still has them. They may be of reduced value but the original owner can still play the music, read the document on a computer etc.

I'm no bible scholar but I don't think the concept of intellectual property is well covered.

[mlroseplant]

1 hour ago, at9 said:

Stealing is an interesting concept when you distinguish between bits and atoms. If you steal atoms (cars, books, wives etc) you deprive the previous owner of their use. If you steal bits this is done by copying (text, music, ideas etc) the original owner still has them. They may be of reduced value but the original owner can still play the music, read the document on a computer etc.

I'm no bible scholar but I don't think the concept of intellectual property is well covered.

If one continues reading past Deuteronomy chapter 22, it's addressed a few chapters later: "Thou shalt not sample classic rock 'n' roll for your hiphop record. It is an abomination."

[JeffB]

8 minutes ago, mlroseplant said:

If one continues reading past Deuteronomy chapter 22, it's addressed a few chapters later: "Thou shalt not sample classic rock 'n' roll for your hiphop record. It is an abomination."

I’m so down with that! Yea and verily!