2009 Sep 28: Nice Boots!

So the work challenge is over, and it's back to trying to pass for normal. In the process of writing about my shoes, I've realized I have a lot more to say. I barely scratched the surface with those 18 posts because as casual as casual may get, I own a panoply of shoes and boots that are simply inappropriate for work. Well, unless your job is SWAT team member, or special forces. Otherwise, the boots pictured here are pretty much only appropriate for gay bars on the wrong side of town that make you stop in your tracks until your eyes can adjust to the dim light. Places too dark to see what's happening in the corners. Places where you want vibram outsoles and thick buffalo-hide between what's crawling around on the floor, and also, to protect you from germs. Places your mom, no matter how cool she is with you being gay, definitely wouldn't want you frequenting. Places that I would know absolutely nothing about...

For the record, I don't own the boots pictured here, I swiped it from a website picture of a particular pair of boots that I have been lusting after for gosh, probably ten years. It's the price that's prohibitive, I simply can't justify the cost, because I am not, in fact, a SWAT team member and 200 smackers is a lot of money for boots that won't get much use (alas...)

Which brings me tolast night.

Last night I was attending a life drawing open studio I try to make regularly, but have been missing for a lot of reasons, some lamer than others. At the end of the session, I was messing with my paper out in the lobby, cursing myself for having brought the wrong stuff, thinking I had the good watercolor paper but instead had grabbed the colored drawing paper, and in my self-chastising interlude I missed the model setting up his pose for the last half-hour session. Upon re-entering the studio, my dick takes one look at the model and announces "NICE boots!" I really do wish it'd check with my brain for social appropriateness before speaking, although I suppose the alternative, raising its hand for permission, might have been even more embarrassing.

2009 Sep 09: Dress Boots

Italian leather boots so wonderful they attract a heavenly halo of light. With a navy blue pin-stripe suit, ivory-topped mahogany walking stick, and bowler derby I shall be all set for a night on the town.

2009 Sep 07: I am my father's child

It's sad, but true. I've become my father. Normally, I wouldn't wear these tired, scuffed old shoes to work because, well, they're tired, scuffed, and old. I bought them about 10 years when I changed jobs. They're size 8m Nunn Bush from some discount place or other. DSW maybe? I'm surprised they still fit and don't pinch. Nowadays I'm wearing an 8.5 or more often a 9. These shoes were my concession to going out in the "real world" and needing a pair of ordinary looking oxfords for my new consulting gig. But, in the spirit of my self-imposed challenge to wear a different pair of shoes every day for as long as I can maintain it, these don't look half as bad as one of my co-worker's shoes, that are torn, cracked, peeling nasty black vinyl lace up shoes from I dunno, WalMart? Target? PayLess?

So one might well ask, why do I still have these, given that I don't have a problem with donating my old stuff to the St. Vincent de Paul or other local charities like the State Hospital? Well for one they're kind of too beat up to want to give to some poor person, but more importantly, they're pretty good shoes, leather uppers, soft rubber sole, very comfortable, so I use them when I'm working in the garage. And that's when I hear my father, when I say: "there's nothing wrong with these shoes! Why get rid of usable shoes just because they're a little worn? You can still work in the yard in them." I've caught myself doing that with old work chinos lately. Maybe they got an ink stain in the pocket where I keep my pen, maybe they just got a little too worn. Perfectly good for painting in!

There is also the sentimental aspect of clothing, shoes in particular. I don't merely like clothes, I love them; they're old friends to which memories are attached. I ought to frame them and start a museum, honestly. I still have this favorite t-shirt from 8th grade that I wore every day it was clean, 2-3 times a week. It reminds me of who I was and what it was like to be me, back then. It also reminds me of how small I was, 5'4" and all of 110 lbs. Decent size for a 13 year old who isn't done growing, but less than half my weight nowadays. I can't remember fitting in that body let alone the clothes that went over it. But I remember that t-shirt and how much I loved it. I couldn't tell you what precisely was so appealing about that shirt, perhaps just its ordinariness. It was the only thing that remotely resembled what other kids were wearing to school in 1973 that my mother would let me leave the house in. But that's another story for another day and too much beer.

At any rate, these shoes aren't held together with duct tape, so I guess I can rest easy knowing I'm not just like my father. No sirree, if spring clamps and Elmer's plastic glue don't work, it's straight to the trash bin. I'm livin' large, I'm a wildly extravagant spendthrift, don't stop me now baby!

2009 Aug 05: Saturday shoes

I don't normally post on Saturdays, it's outside the original mission statement of this blog, but since I mentioned these in the LL Dorkmo entry, I thought they ought to get their due.

These are my original GBX pull-on shoes; you know, I don't even know what we're supposed to call these things? They're not "loafers" although they don't have laces. They sometimes call them "mocassins" but that's a pretty liberal interpretation of the semantics of that word. If "comfy, not appropriate for work unless you work around the house" is what you mean by "moccassin" I suppose you could get away with that but really. Pocahontas never had injection molded soles, gimme a break. While these shoes look like crap, they're very comfortable, and have a great sole that doesn't slip. I recently glued the tread back on with some Elmer's flexible plastic glue, and it's holding up great so far. It's a funny thing about shoes. I love new shoes, I love all kinds of shoes, but I also fall in love with particular pairs of shoes that have served me well.

Many years ago (more than 20, that's how long ago) an Indian friend of mine was blabbing on about how wasteful Americans are, how we're a disposable culture, toss everything out when it breaks, rather than fix it. To which I replied, "what about our sneakers?". That stopped her in her tracks. She thought for a minute and said, "That's not even natural, that's like a love affair. Americans won't even throw out decrepit sneakers with holes in them that are falling off their feet and held together with duct tape."

Hah!

And speaking of not wasting usable clothes, please pay no attention to the mis-matched socks. It's Saturday, clothes don't have to match on Saturday's, that's the rule. Saturday is leftover day, when you make lunch from the odds and ends from the week's dinner leftovers, and I've naturally extended that to clothing as well. I mean, you wouldn't want to waste your good clothes that you could wear to work just vacuuming and tidying up and doing laundry, would you? And after all, these two socks are the same kind of sock, my favorite online retailer, http://sockdreams.com, their own brand of "slouch sock" made in a wild array of colors. They're kind of too small these days, because, shh, don't tell anyone, but I'm cross dressing, they're actually sized for women. At any rate, why waste two perfectly good socks just because their mates went on a walkabout? Apparently, I mortified my partner this morning by going to a local favorite restaurant for brunch in these socks. So I'll wear long pants next time. I suppose we probably wouldn't be together if he'd known me when I was pursuing my "See if I can embarrass my friends with my appearance" personal challenge.

Hey, everyone needs a hobby. And in this town, didn't used to be you could get thrown out of a restaurant for how you were dressed. But it was so much fun to try.

2009 Sep 03: LL Dorkmos

I took this picture on July 23, before I started this blog, but these are what I have on today. So I suppose I've failed in my shoesaday quest, and alas, they'll never make a movie about my shoe fetish, and Fluevog will never have an opportunity to publicly say he hates my blog.

These shoes are nearly brand new and if they weren't so damn comfy I would have returned them, because shoes like this belong only on people who say things like "a-yup" and "woo doggies! that's a kick in the carbuncle!" and are called things like "Papaw" or "Grampops" by their younguns' younguns. They're LL Bean Suede Comfort Mocs, men's size 8.5 wide, and as wide shoes go, they are very narrow. They fit like a glove and are so damn comfy it makes me want to cry. Maybe that's my next career, making comfortable shoes for old fat guys with bad backs and a keen sense of style.

I bought these to replace my original GBX suede slip-ons, which at the time were considered weird and ugly, and yet two years later every nimrod and their cousin, the same nimrods and cousins who called my shoes ugly, were wearing knock-offs of this very style. Turns out a little Elmer's plastic glue and some heavy duty spring clamps was all I really needed to fix those old shoes right up, it was just the treads were coming unglued after 10 years of hard use. They're once again good enough to wear while working in the garage and falling off of step-stools, comfortable enough for trawling around town on a Saturday, yet cruddy enough to not have to worry about spilling paint on. These replacements were meant to replace those venerable old kicks, but of course, being new and all, and even though I find them hideous, I don't want to actually spill paint on them just yet. Plus, they're great for strolling unperturbed through airport security, and I blend right in at the Luby's early bird special. Oh, and did I mention that they caress my feet, molding to my sole, every step an epiphany of pure bliss?

So.

Are these better or worse then my El Dorkmo's, the New Balance sneakers I blogged about?

2009 Sep 02: shoes every now and then

So, I took a couple days off the end of last week, and Monday was supposed to be the last day of our "relaxed dress" extravaganza at work, but it's been extended until the 14th of September, so I have more time to explore my collection.

This latest extension of "relaxed dress" makes me wonder if the powers high up are not contemplating permanently relaxing the dress code here. Face it, most of us grind at a desk all day and never ever meet the public. For me, that would be a mixed blessing. I own a lot of clothes (and shoes) I won't need to wear ever again unless I have to present before some governing body and that's not likely. On the other hand, I don't own a lot of clothes that actually fit anymore, and not needing to buy new dress pants would save me hundreds of dollars, especially if you count in the dry-cleaning costs, which I must, because I'm fussy. If you're going to do it, do it right. I don't iron, and dress pants look like crap after two passes through the washer, unless you buy cheap double-knit polyester from K-mart, in which case they look like crap before you put them in the washer. On the other hand, they don't look any worse after you wash them... but that's not a win in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I snub my nose at no-one who shops at these places for honest economic reasons. (Although I will add as an aside, my extremely "frugal" sister won't shop at WalMart because she finds their business practices unethical and reprehensible, and she falls quite far to the right of middle, no less.) That's the real kicker about civil service, they pay you crap AND demand that you dress formally, which for people with families, means you are forced to shop at K-Mart for you dresses, ties, dress shirts, shoes, if you intend to both feed and clothe your family. Contrary to the ideas of the people who made these rules, your outfit doesn't say "white collar professional" but instead screams "underpaid government worker".

But I digress.

Back to the shoes thing, these are my favorite "every day" boots. Some off-brand I found really cheap on ebay, the style really grabbed me, kind of old-timey, reminiscent of depression-era working class shoes. I could be an extra in "O Brother Where Art Thou?" with these babies on my pups. I replaced the leather insoles with some good quality Dr. Scholl's and they're very comfy. I love the height, they're high enough to be boots and give a little ankle support, but low enough they don't attack my achilles tendon. As stiff as they are, they don't rub anywhere and my feet don't hurt after a day of stomping around. They're truly odd boots though, they have leather outsoles with rubber treads glued on. You don't find real leather soles much anymore, especially not on cheap boots. And trust me, they are cheap boots, the leather is clearly from the rear end of some poor expired buffalo in some depressed part of the world, my guess would be former soviet union or South Asia somewhere. But they're just so darn stylish, who cares if they're not heirloom quality? Nothing is forever.