Shoe fiasco x 2.5! Or, my near death experiences.

After 2.5 near death experiences this weekend involving footwear, I'm feeling quite empowered. It's as if I am an evil-fighter in stilettos.

Last night was girls' night out with my favorite female cousin that's in the metroplex and over 21. She had never had a night of debauchery, and I was the lucky soul chosen to "break the seal", if you will, of her life-long sobriety. After stops at Gloria's, Zaza, and several other seedy, glad that I don't know the name of, bars on lower Greenville, I took her to the end-all, be-all of ridiculous night-ending bars.... Zephyrs. After hanging out in the bottle-service section for quite sometime while half of us tried to recover our bearings, we decided that some water and a short trek to the patio would do half of us some good in the impaired vision department.

While cautiously establishing our footing to one of the more isolated tables in the back of the patio, my shoe broke. My most favorite Tory Burch wannabe t-strap sandal broke! The part that connects the t-strap to the sole between my toe just went free. It was emancipated from the bondage of the plastic between my toes to soar high above my foot. While I'm all about liberation from bondage, this was neither the time nor the place. But as with most revolutions, this riot was out of my control.

So across the patio I continued to walk, Queen of Inebriation on my right, broken shoe still fastened around my ankle, sole dragging behind like a ball and chain, and t-strap flapping in the breeze. I nearly fell and broke my neck. Or at the very least, my perfect little nose.

While we walked, I deliberated the second hardest decision of the night (the first being what to order for my cousin). Do I continue to walk barefoot across the patio and risk stepping on a drug needle or worse, a lougi while the sole of my shoe drags behind me much like a dead dog being taken on a walk? Or do I lift my left leg like an over exuberant Clydesdale in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade? I opted for option 2. I have been called horsey a time or two, so I figured there was no better time to not only flash the world as my short skirt betrayed me with each step, but also to live up to the adjective too-often bestowed on me by my mother. Mammal trumped drug needle in this battle.

After the treacherous 20 foot walk, my comrade and I made it to our goal, where I made sure she would not fall over and then removed my pathetic shoe. After we were settled, I told my cousin my plan. "I'm going to the bar to see if they have a stapler or tape."

"You're just going to go up to the bartender and ask him this?" She asked with not just a hint of a laugh in her eye, but with audible guffaws so enormous that she nearly choked on her own amusement.

"Abso-f***ing-lutely I am." I told her, much to her chagrin and continued laughter. She was doubled up at this point, and I sincerely feared that she would be the one with a broken nose, as her face neared the unevenly bricked patio.

Now, life risking moment number 1.5 was upon me. Do I show off my mad hopping skills, and pogo it to the bar (at the entrance of the patio)? Or do I again risk the drug needle/spit-wad scenario avoided earlier? Drug needles and fluid it was. I gingerly stepped over to the bar and asked the bartender if he had a stapler or tape. He promptly said, you'll need to go inside for that. After I hastily held up my shoe and said in my best dead-pan, "My shoe is broken. I'm not walking in a bar barefoot."

Funny how when you tell someone how it is (with a nice tone and smile, of course), duct tape appears. Since duct tape fixes everything, my life was saved. Not to mention, I started a duct tape revolution at the bar as all the guys who had turned to watch me tape my shoe (They suggested I tape my shoe to my foot. Yeah, right! Think about pulling the genius quick-fix off... Ha!) suddenly found that they, too, had something that could be fixed by duct tape, and that now was the perfect time to do it.


Near death #2 happened tonight at the store. First of all, can I just say that wearing my 4" heels to work in retail for 6 hours is not the most genius idea I've ever had? I'd say it's right about on par with last night's suggestions of wrapping duct tape around my foot and shoe to avoid further barefoot drug needle escapades. Thank goodness I had the sense to bring my trusty gold flops, even if they don't really match the shades of gray ensemble.

A customer wanted to try on a pair of shoes that we keep in the back. I went to get them for her, and of course they had to be the top shoe on the top shelf of our tiny storage/office area. In the interest of time, I do what I always do... plant one bare foot in the middle of our little hot pink rolling office chair, and work out my thighs hoisting the rest of myself up. I will say, that I've been told not to do this, but I just can't be bothered with Snapper the ladder during customer crunch time! Not to mention that Snapper earned his name for a reason...

I'm usually pretty dang good at finding my equilibrium when balancing on the rolling trap of death and concussion, so I wasn't concerned at all when I had to reach up a bit higher than normal to grab the appropriate size. Well, I wasn't concerned until I over-compensated too far over to the right. I placed my hand against the wall a bit out of reach to the left, which of course put pressure on the outside of my foot, pushing my bottom half right while my top half was falling left.

For a moment, I looked like a star as one foot was firmly on a chair, the other foot (in the 4" stiletto) sticking out to balance me as far as it would go to the right, and my arms flailing out to catch my balance. As I stretched back into my original one-footed stance, I realized that my flail of horror wasn't over yet. In my attempt to re-position myself, I had thrown off my planted foot, and started falling again!

From the doorway I looked like a giant gray starfish, struggling to breathe when hoisted from the water, attempting a complicated ballet move. Leg to the right, arm to the left. Head held high, body doing the snake, I was falling backwards with just enough space to hit my head on the door as I plummeted to the ground.

Fortunately, my stiletto knew what to do! Spike stayed attached to my leg and thrust himself down into the ground, until I was firmly planted. He didn't bend or break, to my surprise, and within a second I had the shoe attached to my foot firmly back on the ground, and only a mild impact from landing on one tiny stiletto.

I didn't see my life flash before my eyes, just some dust that fell off the shelf as I stirred the air with my flail-for-my-life ballet moves. I never thought that I would be so thrilled to have sore feet from stilettos as I am tonight. Good work, Spike. You've earned your keep!

THEIF!

EXCITEMENT AT NORTHPARK!

Since my store is indeed a fishbowl of sorts with bright lights and hot pink inside an all glass facade and side wall, I get to see interesting things. Usually the most interesting things include people running into the wall, but not tonight!

On this unbearably slow eve, I saw a security guard acquaintance lead a handcuffed girl to the security office! Dun, dun, dunnnnnnnnn...

What had she done I wondered. Did she pull a knife? Did she try to steal? Did she write 1 too many hot checks?

My answer came about an hour after I watched the aforementioned culprit slink down the hallway. She had tried to STEAL! (Surprise surprise, I do work in a mall...) The question is, what did she try to take?

And the answer? None other than some LVs! This dork tried to steal Louis Vuitton. As if they wouldn't notice... As if they wouldn't have security measures in place to prevent such thievery. I mean, come on. If you want something bad enough where you need to steal it, should you perhaps make sure your plan is foolproof? Amateurs! (Slash I bet she got further stealing then I did since I've never actually tried to take something...)

The Offit

This is the story of Sedgewick Stanislav, the Offit (Office Hobbit) I dreamt up today at work while chatting with a colleague in my corporate office.

Sedgewick could hear the thunder booming outside of his office building, but he couldn't be bothered to give it a second thought as he lumbered ferociously down the dim hallway. He was at work at the Krag, which meant he of course was on a very important mission and could not afford any delay that weather pondering might create. You see, Sedgewick is not just an employee of the Krag. He is the Assistant Financial Billing Specialist in charge of invoicing who, after a raucous night at the local pub and an unforgettable morning in the bed of the VP of marketing, was quickly thrust into the spotlight as the new talking-head for the entire finance department.

As he continued his march towards the copy machine, his team of five invoice-rs peered over their cube walls to leer at the melodramatic Sedgewick and to see what problem their illustriously incompetent leader would create for them. While they were used to his usual office antics, he had recently employed some more drastic scare-tactics involving a double-edged sword he purchased at the War and Warcrimes video game convention he attended two weekends ago. The convention had been stocked full of weapons ranging from medieval swords and poison infused chalices to the newly acquired technology making light sabers a reality. While Sedgewick had been able to forgo the light sabers, he had always been a fanatic for all things Will Shakespeare and could not pass up the opportunity to purchase a replica of the dagger used in the 1971 production of MacBeth.




I've figured out what Sedgewick does next, but tired of writing about him b/c I can't get over the fact that my stomach is eating itself from hunger... Only 1 hr and 19 mins left of work... LONGEST DAY EVER!!!

Things that made me smile today

With the exception of a mild panic attack over nothing this AM, I found myself in an exceptional mood today! Here's why:

- Last night I believe I held the VISA equivalent of the coveted Black Amex... I felt it's power!
- My big toenail on my left foot is lookin' awesome today
- Last night I unknowingly liked my cousin's FB status, which she had copied from my blog
- This picture makes it seem as if I've climbed very high up a tree (I won't disclose actual climbing capabilities...)
- I'm taking the weekend off and heading to my fave TX town tomorrow
- While in said fave town not only do I get to visit a good friend, but we'll KAYAK! Tandem version. That means I'll be looking like this tomorrow:
- Two little girls that are in my store looking at handbags and shoes can't be older than the ripe old age of 10... Too cute!
- The fact that I had self control enough not to buy the DVF sarong that I wanted even though it was only $35. One does not necessarily NEED a sarong (regardless of DVF status and the internal coveting of anything by her), however one does need to be able to pay to go kayaking while in ATX!
- Going to Gap, trying on clothes that fit, and then deciding that I didn't like them enough to get them, and then actually putting them back. Did I mention that they even fit?!
- The fact that it's PAY DAY!
- The Bravery, Muse, The Killers, but most of all The Strokes "Someday" which came on Pandora and absolutely made my day!
- Finally buying the lotion I've been wanting for over a year, at a 40% discount!!

And the Pièce de résistance:

Telling the president of my company that my boss was on a conference call with Tom Petty (even though she wasn't, the name just sounded like the actual name of the guy she was on a call with that I couldn't remember... Tom Petty sounded familiar for some reason), having her laugh and say um... he's a famous rock star. To which I replied, leave it to me to say something stupid to you, you are kind of important, here... To which she replied that I could get away with it because of my awesome name! Granted, she does happen to share the same name as me... but I'm sure that little piece of info is irrelevant.

Yup. A pretty glorious day if I do say so myself!

AWESOME ONLINE RADIO!

I'm always in search of music to keep me going during the long workday. I've been a long-time fan of Pandora, last.fm, and the random youtube song search. But my BFF introduced me to the coolest site, and my new fave online "radio"!


http://stereomood.com

Unlike other radio sites I've used, here you choose an emotion, and stereomood plays songs that evoke that feeling. They have lots of emotions to choose from, and then show you the playlist with that mood. Not sure if their music selection is quite as extensive as other streaming radios, but it's sure a heck of a lot easier to choose "optimistic" over creating my own combo station to try and match my mood on pandora or last.fm!

GENIUS! Thanks, Lacey for the marvelous introduction!

You know you're tired when...

So I've been doing nothing but daydreaming for the past few weeks. Dreaming about all the clothes I'm going to buy for fall, dreaming about what nail polish will most disguise my one stump nail, pondering how to meet R.Patz (which will never happen, but it indeed is at least a topic worthy of a daydream) and most often scheming a plan to somehow work in the movie/TV industry. It's no wonder with all this dreaming that I'm exhausted! And, surprisingly, I don't really have anything to blog about! I mean, I ALWAYS have something to say! I suppose it means I'm boring this week. Must try harder next week!

The only super hilarious thing that happened (at least hilarious to me after not much to eat during the day and a couple of cocktails at night) was going out for some friends' birthdays. We were at a bar in the Big D just hanging out when over to the left there was an Amazon Woman dancing with a flashing stick. Actually, not sure if it was dancing.... It was more like squatting. Actually, come to think of it, she was quite similar to my dog Scruffadoodle when you pick her up and her leg kinda pops out in an unnatural splay-legged sort of way. She frolicked all 6"+ of herself around for quite awhile, using her scepter as a magic wand, as a pole (for pole dancing), as a parade baton... Did I mention it was multi-colored and lit up? She was quite a sight in an otherwise ho-hum bar. And I'm certainly not poking fun of her height- she was a pretty enough girl, but my my... I thought her leg was going to kill someone! Or possibly trip them while she awkwardly lunged in the inappropriate man lunge way to lean over to talk to her friends. Again, she provided many minutes of quiet entertainment!

So that's it. I blogged b/c it is my mid-season goal to blog more. So there you have it. Amazon woman danced with legs all akimbo flailing around like a fish out of water at times. And that's the excitement of the week. Too tired to even think about something smart to educate everyone on.

Hopefully my weekend trip to Austin will provide for some much needed blog material. I mean, how can I become Chelsea Handler if I run out of material at the ripe old age of 24?? (I'm contemplating lying about my age.... I feel like I could pass for 24!)

Till next time. Cheers!

PS, I realize akimbo is the wrong word, but it's kinda how her legs would've looked if they were arms... Did I mention that I'm exhausted?? ;)

Captain Narcissism

A while back I think I mentioned that I was reading the Narcissism Epidemic. And by reading, I mean I read a few chapters until I got bored. (Oh... and I did the self-test to determine how narcissistic I am, and I was pleased to find out that I was only at medium levels!)

Well, after some more introspection spawned by my insane addiction to all things that a teenage girl would be obsessed with (namely Twilight, Hannah Montana, and nail polish) I have decided that a long-ago thought of conclusion about my own psyche is now more of a truth than ever.

In one of my psych classes, we discussed Erikson's (that cute little German dude to the left!) stages of psychological development. An interesting point that my professor brought up was that when a child goes through a trauma during one of the stages of development, the child can remain stuck in that stage of development long-term. So after years of being focused on me, I've decided that I'm perhaps halfway stuck in the fifth stage of Erikson's 8 stages. This is the stage during adolescence (13-19) where adolescents are concerned about how they appear to others. One of the defining psycho-characteristics of this stage of development is that the child feels that they're constantly on a "stage", being scrutinized by others. This stage in development really stuck out when I was learning this originally in college when my professor said that children in this stage assume that everybody is watching them.

Well, I hate to break it to myself, but that's how I feel! That people are watching what I do. I mean, I suppose I know they aren't really, but even today as I was eating breakfast on the way to work I was concerned with what the car next to me would think if she saw me eat in the car. So I glanced over at the driver expecting them to be judging me and my breakfast on the run, and of course she was just doing her own thing!

My theory that I'm stuck in stage 5 came up again when I was discussing Eclipse with a co-worker. Now granted, every woman and her dog practically loves this book/movie series, but I'm obsessed! (Not that this is so abnormal, but combined with my love for Disney Channel shows like Wizards of Waverly Place and Hannah Montana, I'm starting to notice a trend.)

Finally, today I was discussing with one of my college besties my need for a life plan and how I want to go work in the movie industry doing promotions. We were talking about movies and famous people, and how I'm the ultimate escapist. I know movies/books/TV isn't real life, but oh how I struggle sometimes! (I mean, honestly.... I'm sure Rob P. would be my buddy if we ever met!) Now not that being the ultimate escapist is directly related or mentioned in Erikson's stages (at least not that I've researched so far), but I can't help but think that my unnatural longing for something more, that most likely isn't reality, are the same desires of an adolescent with the world at the fingertips. I'm a bit unrealistic, and am in-turn disappointed when life isn't movie-tastic! Surely it's related!

So today brought me back to college psych 101, and Erikson's stages of development. My trauma was the whole Dad dying thing when I was 17. All of the aforementioned thoughts are those, too, of a 17 year old version of myself. Thus, I officially declare myself stuck between stage 5 and 6. Not sure how I feel about this. I suppose I feel ok, as I just do what I do! But after all these years, it just goes to show that sometimes people never grow up, and that major life events affect people for years to come in unimaginable ways!

(For more info on Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, click the title!)

Prancing in heels

As I mentioned in the last post, part of my resolution was to pay off credit cards. To aid that goal, I have not only cut expenses, but also got a part time job at a high end handbag and shoe store. I've been there for a couple of weeks now, and had a most interesting experience yesterday!

A young man (I would guess between 20 and 25) came in asking if we were hiring. I told him, "No, sorry. We just hired our fourth person. Good luck, though!" To which he told me thanks and started walking out the door. On his way out, he grabbed a pair of our highest heels and said, "Oh My GAWD! I LOOOOOOVE these shoes!" It was quite apparent to me that he was of the homosexual persuasion, so I thought he was just admiring our handiwork. He eyed the shoes up and down, so I went through my normal selling points...

"Yeah, those are a great pair of shoes! All of our shoes have memory foam, so they stay super comfortable all day long. And I know the heels look a bit daunting, but since there's the inch platform in addition to the memory foam, this pair is so easy to walk in!"

I assumed that he was interested in the shoes for a family member of a friend. WRONG!

In response to my sales pitch his eyes lit up and asked me what size we go up to. I told him a 10 (by this time I'm catching on that maybe the shoes aren't for a friend, but rather for himself.) I told him that's my size, too, and he asked if he could try them on, and if so, did he have to keep his socks on. I told him that he should of course try on the shoes with whatever he'd wear them with, and that if he wanted, I would be glad to give him some of the little hose used for trying on shoes.

He proceeded to try on the 4" pair of shoes and tell me about how the other day he bought a $300 pair of 12" platforms. I was impressed.

After trying on a champagne colored heel, he spotted the same shoe in black. "Oh my GAWD! I HAVE to try that pair on too! Do you have a 10?" We did, and after asking for another hose bootie (his big toe ripped a hole in the right bootie from the first try on), he tried on the black pair of heels. He was in love and pranced around the store in heels.

At the same time the young man was frolicking in the back of the store, another gentleman walked by outside and did a double-take. After comically blinking he decided that yes, he did indeed see a man walking around in women's shoes in the middle of a high end mall. He gave me a questioning look to which I replied with a shrug. I mean, a sale is a sale, regardless of who wears the shoes!

At the end of the whole experience, the young sir asked me to put both pairs of shoes on hold for him, because he'd have to ask his husband if he could get them. Apparantly, he has a bit of a shoe and skinny jean fetish that his husband is getting a bit tired of paying for. I said, isn't that what husbands are for?

Certainly it was an experience I won't soon forget! Not only did the young man provide me with some humor (how often is it, really, that you see a man prancing about in high heels), but he also astounded me with his confidence. How remarkable that he was so sure of himself that he felt comfortable telling me, a complete stranger working in a high end store, that he was a) a part of the gay community; b) was a male with a husband (in the state of TX no less!) and c) was so sure of himself that he could try on and walk around in women's shoes!

This was surely a 4th of July I won't soon forget!

Wow.... I suck at this blog thing!

One of my New Year's Resolutions (yes, one of them... I had one main theme, which was then broken down into 5 parts) was to blog every day of the new year so I could eventually write a book. Well... I'm not much further on either of my short stories for a book, and you can clearly see when my last blog was. That's ok... No time like the present to start something back up!

So my NYR was 5-fold, all falling under the theme: The year to WIN is 2010! (Getting fine in 2009 was a bust, so I figured something a bit more ambiguous was in order!) The 5 parts of my resolution were as follows, including their status 6-months in:

1) Blog regularly (FAIL!)
2) Lose a substantial amount of weight (SUCCESS!)
3) Pay off all my credit cards (SUCCESS- well, in 9/10 total success!
4) Travel to SF and NYC (in the works... have plans to do so, at any rate)
5) Start a book club. Eat, Pray, Love has been our first book, (which we will eventually finish!) and then see the movie (Quasi-SUCCESS!)

So over-all I've done pretty well! (I'm counting last week's trip to Yellowstone as a half success for traveling, and we did have 1 book club meeting, and the other will happen, I'm just sure of it!)

So today I'm starting my 2nd half of the year resolution. To seriously consider doing something adventuresome. The more I think about my life, the more I get frustrated. Yes I have put a lot of pressure on myself to do something great, but here I am, 26 years old, in a job that's not going places as quickly as I'd like, living with Spaggy (which has been the most inspiring year of my life, but let's be honest... I'm too old to rely on someone else as much as I do), and about to overcome the peak of my personal mountain. I can feel that something exciting is just around the bend, and I just need to convince myself that the time is right!

My thoughts of adventure entail legitimately writing a book of short stories about my favorite topic... me! Also, I think I might travel to Thailand in the spring of 2011. Thailand in '11, it's gonna be heaven! Sound like a new theme to anyone else?

The main point of this rambley post is to share what has kick-started my adventuresomeness tonight(it's a word.. I just used it!) and it's a person. Anais Nin. I feel like I've been familiar with that name from random song lyrics or HS lit classes or something, for quite a while, but had no clue who she is. (Or even that she's a she!) So I did a bit of research, and have found a new muse. At least new to me, and a muse for the time being. Read the following and I dare you to not be inspired! (Don't just stop reading here... the best 2 are at the bottom!)

* "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
* "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
* "For me, the adventures of the mind, each inflection of thought, each movement, nuance, growth, discovery, is a source of exhilaration."
* "Creation which cannot express itself becomes madness."
* "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."
* "The only abnormality is the inability to love."
* "I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing."
* "Each friend represents a world in us, a world not possibly born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
* "Dreams are necessary to life."
* "The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment with it, that was the miracle."

And my two favorite truths (well, truths to me):

* "It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before, to test your limits, to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

* "I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."

Hoping to remember this as I enter the last half of 2010, the year to win! I can feel an excitement stirring (or maybe I'm still suffering from butterflies from seeing Eclipse, but doubtful!) and hope I make some exciting decisions in the nearish future! After all, it's just life... no one get's out alive and we can sleep when we're dead!