SHOES
Let me state categorically that I love shoes — specifically, high heels that show a little bit of “toe cleavage”. I don’t care high heels aren’t good for my leg muscles or posture. I don’t care they’ve given me hammer toes, corns and bunions. I don’t care my toes go numb in sub-freezing weather. High-heeled shoes make my calves look thinner. That’s all I need to know.
I started wearing high-heeled pumps at age six. I’d open my mother’s bedroom closet, sit on the floor and paw through her vast collection of shoes. I’d put them on my tiny feet and totter around the bedroom, imagining how grown-up I looked.
My mother loves clothes and dressing well. Since she sang semi-professionally, she also owned dresses and shoes specifically for performing. I don’t recall her early performances in a lot of detail. But I remember the glitzy shoes; green, shiny pumps for Verdi’s, La Traviata, red, sparkly ones for Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy duets, and purple stilettos for her “Wicked Witch of the West” routine.
I wanted to perform, too. But the only thing I thought I’d be good at was ballet. This was based solely on the fact I liked ballet slippers — pink, silk ones with pink ribbons to tie. So I whined until my mother bought me the ballet slippers. Then I wanted the ballet outfit. And of course, the outfit necessitated ballet lessons. I could’ve become the next shining star at the NYC Ballet at Lincoln Center. If only I had grace.
My fascination with shoes declined in my high-school years. The fashion of the times was to dress down. This suited me fine, as my general finances were depressed as well. So my standard attire became jeans and old sneakers. This only slightly improved on Sundays when I dressed for church — I wore my newer sneakers. In college, I graduated to work boots. Both pairs of sneakers were worn out by then.
It’s only when I got my first full-time job that the shoe situation improved. Back then, like professional men, professional women always dressed in suits. So I had to have decent pumps. And I quickly established the habit of buying a new shoe wardrobe every season. I had to. They wore out quickly from all those trips to the restroom and copier. Selecting footwear became my passion and joy — second only to eating-out for dinner.
There are men out there who like selecting footwear. But most don’t have the zeal for it the way women do. It’s in our DNA. So men miss out on a lot of fun. And they miss out on variety, especially in the boot department.
Men get work boots, outdoor boots, or cowboy boots to choose from. These are limited in color and material. The choices are either black leather or a kind of grey, composite material you get from used Saran™ wrap. Women have selections like ankle-boots, knee-high boots, and thigh-high ones for every part of the leg that can be covered. Women can choose boots with no heels, stacked heels, platforms, or stilettos. And there are no recycled soda bottles in our boots.
The reason why men suffer for shoe variety is because, let’s face it, they generally don’t have nice legs. Their legs are either so scrawny they look like twigs or as hefty as tree-trunks. They can be hairy or hairless. I’m not sure which one is worse. But, I despise, absolutely loath, the black-socks-with-sandals look no matter what kind of legs a guy has.
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