I took a programming class in college and have had this inside joke url ever since
My family inadvertently got me these shoes for Christmas, when a sweater didn’t quite fit. Clearance at Anthropologie! Only one pair left and they’re in my siiiiize! They have black suede piping, tiny heels, and are lined with a seashell pink! Eee! Also, I disgust myself.
The older I get, the more drawn I become to babies, and shoes. This doesn’t bode well for my financial future.
1.) Summer dresses are the paragon of beauty and all, but when it comes to feeling womanly, I prefer a high below 60 degrees: there’s nothing like a pair of heeled boots (preferably with wooden soles).
bullshit clothes.”
3.) My new favorite thing about living with my sister: the sounds of bemused disgust that accompany my favorite outfits. “What the fuuuuuuuck,” she sighed at first sight of knee-high moccasins. (Her enthusiastic approval or disapproval is how I gauge much of my success in dressing for the day — no reaction and I have failed.)
1.) You have always considered yourself a flats kind of girl, for a multitude of reasons both form and functional. You walk everywhere, for one. Uninjured feet are essential. You’re completely satisfied with your height, for another — and secretly feel pretty pleased with yourself when someone looks up to ask “are you wearing heels?”, and you can respond “no.” Ha, ha.
But flats don’t really go with burlesque, and your wee black dancing shoes don’t really fit with the image of Glinda you need to pull of this Saturday, so — whatever, economy! — you go shoe shopping.
2.) You tell the shoe salesman (5’2″) that you have literally never worn heels that measure more than a couple centimeters, and you have no idea how to stand up, let alone walk, let alone dance. You stagger to the store mirror like an invalid.
“Just vacuum in them!” he tells you. “Wear them while you’re dusting, cleaning your apartment, that kind of thing. You’ll learn, no problem.” He grins.
You think he’s maybe being a sexist jerk, but the next day you try it out, and he’s totally right. It’s something about the small steps, the weight shifting back and forth, the third leg support of the vacuum. It’s like housework was invented for new shoes!
The only problem really, is that you feel like maybe you’re compromising some essential values. You’re still cool, right? Vacuuming in heels and shit?
3. Also: oh my goodness. Look at your legs. Look at your butt. Heels are amazing! “Ooo!” your boyfriend says. Then, “are you my height when you wear those?”
I’m always surprised when things don’t last forever: especially as I form emotional attachments to them which only grow stronger the longer they’re around. Ah well! Out with the old! In with the new!
See how freaking shiny these boots are? That is amazing. And comfortable, too — I went out dancing in them, to the rave reviews of some old dude. If we could own nothing but rain boots for footwear, stores would be amazing; because no other type of shoe gets to both look freaking insanely adorable and be functional. It just doesn’t happen in nature.
(Unfortunately, I should add that my very first broken heart has apparently left me a jaded and distrustful woman. Rain boots can leak? What the fuck is that about? Now with every step, even now, in my completely new, completely more comfortable, in-many-ways-superior rain boots — I wonder if this is the day they’ll betray me.)
This Christmas I was (am) very poor. To be fair, I’m one of those annoying people who doesn’t have to be poor. I work part-time from home, and home obviously doesn’t have to be one of the most expensive cities to live in. Over half of my income goes to rent; a tenth of my income goes to my ritzy yoga studio membership. Legitimately-poor people don’t get yoga memberships. But if I can’t eat it or learn from it, I can’t justify going further into debt for it, and somehow I’ve never been happier.
I wrote to my family members in November, asking for help buying the ticket home.
As you’ve probably discerned I’m low on income this season/year/lifetime(?), so I was thinking about getting craftsy this Christmas in lieu of spendy. Is there anything in particular you’d like knit (mittens! socks! pom-pom hats!), written (odes! sonnets! college entrance essays! greeting-cards!), web-design’d (headers! blogger account set-ups! social-networking presences!), radio’d (radio!), baked (pumpkin bread! cookies!), or created in some other handy fashion?
If there’s one thing I have, it’s time. And if there’s one thing I love, it’s glitter glue.
The following two months were a little intense, with their share of 5am finishing touches. But also, super awesome. Suddenly I was off the internet, catching up on episodes of This American Life and The Moth, learning how to divide heels and add stitches. I was doing things with my hands. I guess I’d kind of forgotten I had hands.
Scarf for Jan (Larger and other view.)
Story for Dad (Larger and other view.)
Collage for Paige (Larger and other view.)
Socks for Mom (Larger and other view.)
The whole experience got me thinking. A friend of mine works at the North Bennet Street School of craftmanship, and in December they were having an open house. She invited me to stop by.
And now, suddenly, I work in their gallery once a week, selling student work and supplies: the tiniest saws you’ve ever seen and a million different chisels and awls and clamps and ninety-dollar chrome rulers. The majority of the supplies we sell I’ve never seen before, couldn’t tell you how they could be used. The other day I was tittering in the back room, dusting what appeared to be decapitators while Italian opera merged from the speakers overhead with the alarming, muted buzz of wood-sanding two doors over. I’m trading my time, organizing safety goggles for a cloth-case bookbinding course in February.