extremity

They have arrived! All hail the practical penny loafer! All hail the fact that it took me three times to spell "practical" correctly! The shoes are so great. They are so practical and so sensible and so classic. I am so proud of the fact that I made a wise investment in shoes for ONCE in my life. Or twice. Three times. One time I bought really warm snow boots. Another time I purchased excellent running shoes. And here we have some penny loafers! But my oh my have there been countless poor shoe choices in my past. I'm thinking specifically of the pointy stilettos I wore in a previous lifetime in Las Vegas. I walked the strip in them all night long, sober as a skunk with blisters the size of nickles forming on my naive feet. What a darling, podiatrically careless sweetheart I once was. Times have changed. I've magically transformed from a stilettoed 20-year-old to penny loafed thirtysomething practically overnight. Practically. Practical. Practice what you preach, girl. And I'm going to practice good foot care from now on.

I am almost done -- like, two pages away! -- with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Why have I never read this delicious book before? It fills me with all of the feelings one person can have, including RAGE. Psych. Doesn't do that. I should have read this book in high school, right? Not implying that it's a juvenile book, just implying that perhaps I didn't go to the best of schools. I sincerely cannot remember being assigned to read very many books in my English classes. Sure, we read the Shakespeare and the Salinger (did we?) and those were marvelous. But I remember being allowed to read freaking Fear Street books. In 12th grade. IN 12TH GRADE. R.L. Stine vs. Steinbeck: Who will emerge victorious? Who shall be crowned the king of literature? Who will notice my penny loafers first and shower me with compliments? Sorry, I got sidetracked.

What me? Getting sidetracked? Puh-lease.

Speaking of please, will you please find me a summer job as a camp counselor along the coast of Maine? For some goofy reason, I am suddenly highly interested in the East Coast, specifically Maine. And this is all due to watching one stupid House Hunters episode. I have flavors of the week, folks. And this week it is imagining myself living in a wooded area of Maine eating rare blue lobster with my incredibly practical life partner who also happens to wear incredibly practical and finely crafted penny loafers. Anyway, I've never been a camp counselor, shockingly, and I've always thought it would be delightful to blow a whistle and fall out of a canoe.

Okay, well. Work beckons me like a lighthouse beckons travelers seeking adventure and tranquility. Can you have both adventure AND tranquility? Seems as though you have to choose one or the other. Oh well, make up your mind. Not your mind, but my mind. Make up my mind for me. But not about the shoes. My mind is set on sensible shoes forever. See you in hell, stilettos.