Shoes

There is a myth out there that a properly-dressed, stylish young woman should have a very large shoe wardrobe. In fact, most women my age, if they are at all style-conscious, have at least ten and often more than thirty pair of shoes. They have shoes of different colours and styles to go with different outfits. In fact, they buy a new pair of shoes to go with the cool $10 t-shirt they just bought. This afternoon, this trend is very depressing.

I just came back from the old-lady shoe store (so called by my sisters, in reference to the fact that my grandmother shops there religiously.) They measured my foot, because feet often grow after pregnancy and I haven't bought a really good pair of shoes since Elizabeth. Accordingly, I have my foot measured. It comes in at one full size SMALLER than I was previously wearing.

Oh, think I. This is interesting. It explains why most of my shoes slip at the heel, anyhow. Well, let's try on the smaller size and see what happens.

So I try on the six and a half. I can't get my foot into it - the bridge is too narrow. I try the seven. I can get it on, but it's crunching my baby toe. The heel, however, is slipping again. I try the seven and a half (the same size I was wearing most of the time before.) It slips worse, and still crunches my toe.

Now, this store carries the widest shoes that are available at most stores - a D. This is what I have been trying on. None of them fit right. Some of them come close, but none of them are worth spending $115 on, because they are certain to cause me serious baby-toe problems. I leave without purchasing anything.

I try Payless, where I normally buy my fun shoes. Their wide width shoes don't fit, either - not even the "good enough" fit that I look for in fun shoes. Not in any size.

Bottom line - I need to go to a store that sells specialty width shoes, and spend well over $100, to get something that other people can get for about half that price. Since my shoe budget has never been that large, I will buy one good pair of walking shoes, and that's probably it. I will be unable to wear skirts to work because my shoe wardrobe does not include a dressy shoe that will leave me able to walk at the end of the day. I will continue to hobble to church in shoes that don't fit but look really nice and seriously impractical.

And I will curse the fate which bequeathed me a Page foot. (Nana Page never shopped at a regular shoe store, for exactly the same reason. My dad has to buy wide widths, too. But I'm the only one in my generation to be cursed this way.)

Trading Spaces

I just watched the Manhattan episode of Trading Spaces, which was on for the first time tonight.

One of the girls (since I didn't watch the beginning, I don't know her name) was from Alaska. She looked about my age, maybe as much as a year younger. She had medium brown hair. I think I used to know her.

When I was in France on exchange, I took a week-long tour of Brittany, Normandy, Paris and the Val de Loire in May with a bunch of other exchange students staying in various parts of France. One conversation is sticking in my mind. It was a discussion between three or four of us of the one thing we really wanted to do before going home. (I think I said learn to recognize a good wine; since I had steadfastly refused to drink at all until that same week, it was a logical choice. The group made it their mission to teach me.) One girl was from Alaska. She said she wanted to spend her birthday, which was coming up at the end of May, on a beach, because "You just can't do that in Alaska."

I have an excellent memory for voices and accents, though I don't reproduce them that well. I would be prepared to bet money that the girl on Trading Spaces tonight was the same girl.

Now, I know there must be hundreds of girls her age who are from Alaska. Probably many of them no longer live in Alaska, and it would not surprise me if there were a large number of Alaskan girls between the ages of 25 and 35 now living in New York City.

Still.

I do not remember the name of the exchange student, so even if I'd seen the beginning, it wouldn't help. I don't even know anyone I could ask, since I've lost contact with all the exchange students who were on that trip with me. I don't know what part of France she was in, other than South, since that would be the best place to spend a day on the beach in May. In short, I have no way of knowing if I'm correct. But I'd really like to find out.