Defeat of de feet

The new boots are extra hot. There is no denying this. I walked to work in them this morning, looking very sharp in my dark grey wool skirt, stripy tights, leather jacket and iPod.

Yes, these boots round out the ‘hot professional’ outfit perfectly. I have the blisters to prove it. I’ve got a nice puffy, pink blister on my right little toe, one on the pad just beneath my right big toe and a third one on the heel of my left foot. Boy, oh boy my gals hurt!

My right little toe is always giving me some sort of problem. It has this strange way of sticking out and curling under at the same time. Its nail tends to spilt at the edge and the cuticle is often quite scary. You know that saying ‘she just rubs me the wrong way’? Mhmm. You get the idea.

Here I sit, achy feet up on a stool, admitting defeat. Defeat. Ha ha. That’s funny. I just don’t know how other women do it. I just can’t wear hip, good looking footwear when I walk. I’ve rarely been able to handle the fashion before comfort rule. It just hurts too much. If I want to wear fashionable footwear out on the town, I either take a cab or make sure I can catch the bus to the subway.

I guess I’ll go back to my ‘commuter’ look. I usually wear black runners for the walk to work and change shoes when I arrive. I hesitate to do this with the stripy tight, wool skirt and leather jacket outfit. The thought of it brings up all my old high school geek self consciousness; runners with pants is one thing, but runners with striped tights and wool skirt is another.

It has only been the past three or four years that I’ve started to feel I can ‘do feminine’. Being sexy has never been a problem for me, but being feminine is different. All that femmie hair, hip clothes and make up. I just never thought I could pull it off. I gave up make up years ago because my artificial eye has always been quite snotty. Wiping up the discharge meant wiping away the mascara, eye shadow and foundation. I realized I must look a bit lopsided most of the time. When you have an artificial eye the last thing you want is to look more lopsided in your face.

Other than the ‘hot professional’ outfit, my cool clothes are all picked out by my wonderful hubby. It was his suggestion to grow my hair, too. I’m not bad at picking out earrings. I’m so-so in the bra area; better with undies. Jeans, cool t-shirts, hip jackets, shoes and pants – all my hubby.

When hubby and I started dating I owned only two pairs of shoes: Birkenstocks and Docs. I’m serious. One of my favourite weekend outfits was jeans, white Gap t-shirt and a old plaid shirt. One night we were curled up on the couch watching Family Guy. Stewie becomes frustrated when his plan to make Janet jealous flops. He tells his naïve accomplice to save herself years of sexual ambiguity and go ahead and buy Doc Martens and a plaid shirt now. I sheepishly hid my head under the throw while future hubby guffawed and carried on.

I don’t think I could go back to Docs now. Couldn’t they just make hot, sexy boots that don’t ruin women’s feet? Why doesn’t a smart, fashionista, entrepreneur type woman make hot, sexy boots that are actually comfortable? Some skilled woman out there could do that. I don’t think it is too much to ask.