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November 7, 2005
The Naked Truth About Going Barefoot
From Whitney Gaskell, November's Guest Literary Chick!
Hi everyone! I’m thrilled to be guest blogging here at Literary Chicks this month. To celebrate, I’ll be giving away three -- count ‘em, THREE -- signed copies of my new book, She, Myself & I. Lani will post the details later in the week.
And now I’d like to turn your attention to a subject near and dear to my heart: shoes.
There are two kinds of women out there: those who are comfortable wearing high heels and those who are not.
I am not.
Like most women, I adore shoes. I covet them. I read magazine articles entitled 50 Pairs of Shoes You Must Own Buy This Fall! and drool over them in stores, even as I marvel that anyone could spend $600 on a pair of sandals made out of a few scraps of gold leather.
I have a closet full of high heels that I’ve bought for various occasions. There are the shimmery oyster sandals I was married in. The sensible Nine West pumps I wore to job interviews. The black satin evening slippers with the kitten heel and beading over the toe that I bought for a cocktail party my husband’s boss was throwing. And then there are the dozen or so pairs that I’ve picked up over the years, at TJ Maxx or on the clearance rack at Macy’s, that I just had to have, because it let me pretend that I was the sort of woman -- like Carrie Bradshaw -- who actually wears high heels all the time.
When, in truth, I don’t.
It’s not that I can’t walk in heels. I can, at least for short periods of time. But -- and here’s the real key -- they’re really freaking uncomfortable. And while some women are willing to put up with that discomfort, I am not. I have the sort of job where my commute is just across the living room, and I can work in my bare feet. So where am I supposed to wear a pair of four-inch stilettos? To the playground? To the grocery store? To story hour? Please.
When I was pregnant with my son, my feet were so swollen and sore, my mother dragged me to the Birkenstock store. Once there, she forced me to take off my pretty tan leather sandals with a brown wedge heel and try on a pair of what I’ve always sneeringly called, “birth control shoes.”
“I’m not buying a them,” I told her. “There’s no way. I may be swollen and miserable, but I have my pride.”
And then I tried a pair of the fugly things on. It was like a standing on a cloud. No, even better: it was like wearing shoe-shaped clouds. My sore feet sighed with happiness, and twenty-minutes later, the sales clerk was ringing me up. (To this day, my mother claims that I cried as I handed over my credit card; this is a lie.)
In the latest issue of Shop, Etc. magazine, Angie Harmon is quoted as saying, “We’re remodeling our house in L.A. right now, and there’s no place for shoes. So I put them on the ladder that goes up to the attic. I stood back and every pair was Manolo Blahnik, and I thought to myself, ‘Does this mean I’m successful’?”
Um. I don’t know . . . does it? Is this how we now define success? And I know Manolos are pretty and all, but every single pair? What does she wear to the grocery store?
This blog was brought to you by THE NAKED TRUTH, a fiction anthology for which Alesia contributed the story "The Naked Truth about Guys."
Posted by Whitney at 8:02 AM | Comments (2)
Comments
I used to be one of those stiletto-heeled chicks. I found that the higher heels were actually more comfie than a 2" heel, at least for me. Then I was in an accident and totally destroyed both knees. Now, I sit and look at all those lovely, sexy heels and wish I could still wear them. Silly as it is, I can't bear to part with them. Someday? That's what I tell myself.
Posted by: ZaZa at November 7, 2005 9:45 PM
Just lost my "Manolo" virginity last month - tried a pair on. DH was dying to buy them for me. Called my girliest girlfriend who said, "I don't care how well made or expensive they are, after an hour they all hurt." I put my Keds back on and he still wanted me in the end ... Ha!
Posted by: va dreamer at November 8, 2005 3:16 PM
