I tried to get a picture of Phyllis' triumphant return from the vet, but the welcoming committee got in the way.

Sometimes Misbehaving Tuesday is all in the head. While the day’s external activities were dominated by grocery shopping, CSA pickup, and taking one of the cats to the vet, the day’s internal activities were dominated by the dirty. Filthy. Profane. Oh, I had a head full, alright. Maybe the heat is getting to me oh who am I kidding. I couldn’t even get through that sentence without smirking. It’s not the heat. Not the heat outside, anyway.

For my younger readers, a word of advice: Ladies, try to plan your lives so that you have some free time in your mid-thirties because YOWZA. Just trust me on this, you do not want to miss whatever the hormone thing is that hits you and turns you into a nineteen year old boy, albeit a nineteen year old boy who is into boys with tattoos and glasses and sometimes just the tattoos will do fine, and if they’re tall enough what is going on from the neck up doesn’t even matter because the only thing I remember about the guy in front of me in line at Whole Foods is the tattoo on his tanned arm, peeking out from under a burgundy t-shirt.

So, this is what you have to look forward to, girlfriends. You will hit your mid-thirties and you will turn into a young gay man. And it will be AWESOME.

Anyway, I took Phyllis to the vet, and if you ask her, that was some pretty damn overt misbehaving. Her plaintive yyyeeeows and rrrowwuuus from the carrier eventually became just plain owwws as she realized that I was definitely transporting her to the place where they put things in her butt. If you ask the other cat or either of the dogs, I misbehaved by leaving them behind while taking Phyllis somewhere that smells like things. What was I thinking?

So, that’s it. Sometimes Misbehaving Tuesday IS all in the head, but still, it wouldn’t be Misbehaving without cute shoes, right? Shoes!

Instead, I am going to write about myself and my shoes and my feet.

My feet have been a vanity for me for a long, long time. Even when I was at my least girly, I loved wearing sandals and having neatly painted toenails, and open-toed shoes in the office were a violation of professional dress that I committed with willful joy. I have nice feet, and as long as I take care of them, they look good, even when the rest of me does not.

It’s not just my feet, though. Feet in general are awesome. Anyone who has been to my classes a few times has probably heard me riff on feet during shoulderstand. It is good to look up to your feet sometimes. They do so much for you, root you to the earth, take you everywhere you need to go, even while stuffed into uncomfortable shoes. Look at them, get to know them, love them, so sayeth Lauren, the champion of the foot.

First blog shoe pic (I think). 5/18/09.

Over the past year, as this blog moved from being a journal that just happened to be public to something consciously created for public consumption, I started paying closer attention to patterns in my posts, and realized that I write about shoes and feet (and fiction and frolic and food) an awful lot, and thus the tagline was born. I also started minding other widely read blogs, and learned to take advantage of the platform not just as a verbal medium, but as a visual medium, too. So, instead of just writing about shoes a lot, there were pictures of shoes with my feet in them, which didn’t bother me a bit, because, hey, my feet look good.

This was the beginning of developing an online persona, which really, truly, is just me, in blog form. I don’t know if I became the blog or the blog became me, but a year later, here I am, in all of my shoeyness.

Along the way a funny thing happened to my vanity. The more I looked at my feet and the more readers I brought on who also looked at my feet, the more I started to notice the flaws. Where once I would snap a picture or two of a pair of sandals, crop it and post, I now take quite a few, because I see every little asymmetry, every ridge in the nail polish, the way that the third and fourth toes on my right foot press down at a funny angle when I stand, causing a divot at the knuckle (Are toe joints knuckles? Toe knuckles?), how if I lean a certain way to get the picture my little toes start to turn sideways, I notice all of it. A couple of weeks ago I caught myself liking my feet less and for the first time ever, wishing that this thing or the other about them were different.

I’m over it, but it was a wake up call about vanity. The criticism really comes to life around the things are actually the most beautiful and the most unique, the most me. I am this way about my hair, my nose, my writing… it took me twenty years to figure out that that the thing in my writing that I found weird and awkward was really the “voice” that always got high praise.

I know this isn’t just me. I invite my readers who are rolling into middle age with me to take a quick scan of the features -physical or otherwise- that stoke the most self-criticism and treat them with some kindness. They have carried you through the world this far. Treat yourself with some kindness, please. Love you. I do.

All that said, for those of you who read this far, a peripherally shoe-related loose end: back in January when I won the smut contest, I promised I would post a picture of myself in the little schoolgirl skirt I won. It is not that I have been holding out, I just forgot, and picking up last Misbehaving Tuesday’s saddle shoes today reminded me. So, here it is, right in time for post #500:

I can imagine the conversation afterward. I was distracted, officer. Would you be able to focus if you were behind a Dodge Anal? Or a Chrysler DP? What about a Ford Blowjob? See?

It is a silly name for a vehicle, first because of the dirty implications (an FJ Cruiser sounds like a character who is going to show up in my smut sometime), and also because it always makes me think of FootJoy sneakers, which I remember having an FJ stamped on the sides, and being a big deal in the seventies and eighties. A quick googling reveals that FootJoy is still around and now mostly makes golf shoes. A quick googling also reveals that it takes me three or four tries to type “footjoy” instead of “footjob.” You know, because the b and the y are close on the keyboard.

Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day for a drive, and a walk, and a run, and getting the laundry outside to dry. So many firsts today:

1. Running outside: I haven’t done this in almost a year and I completely forgot about hills. Ouch. I did, however, learn that I am in much better shape than I was this time last year, and it is very cool to be coming up on thirty-five and know that I am in better shape than I was last year, and the year before that, and the year before that…

2. Laundry hanging out to dry: First time this year. Hanging laundry outside is one of those small joys, made even sweeter when I walk out to the yard in the morning and can smell nutmeg from the McCormick plant.

3. Sandals: Debut of the pair bought back in January (ok, except for the time I wore them for ten minutes to take that picture in the snow).

4. New conditioner: Again, it’s the small joys. After spending an hour or two behind a girl who smelled like Pantene and farts at the TMBG show, my generic Pantene knock-off conditioner from Target was making me cross. Whole Foods’ generic body care products are a dream: cheap, vegan (as far as I can tell), no animal testing, and smell nice in a non-chemical way.

Among all of these firsts, I did finish my homework and some other pressing tasks, but it is possible that Jamie was far more productive than me while I was out enjoying the run, the sun, and the clothesline.

The reading itself was fabulous. I am unpracticed as a reader, but still I got great feedback. People laughed in the right places (and a few surprising places), and got quiet in the right places. I heard someone say “this is good.” When I got to the part about a “metafetish” a klatsch of nerd men laughed behind me, and I was very, very happy.

After I read, a man sat down next to me and asked, “So how long did it take you to pick out the shoes you were going to wear to this?”

Another person asked for my autograph, and for a moment between saying yes, and putting pen to paper, I fretted, as it had never occurred to me to come up with a signature for my alter ego. With pen in hand, I discovered that my alter ego’s signature looks a lot like mine, but girlier.

People told me my story was great. The men offered compliments, and some of the women wanted to talk to me about shoes. The most interesting feedback, though, was watching the body language of the audience as I read. I couldn’t see much because I was reading, but the footboys and the gals who love them made themselves known, at least to me.

I can’t wait to read again, smutty or otherwise. Performance me has not gotten out in a long time, and it felt great to be in front of a crowd. My reading was not perfect, heck, the story isn’t perfect, but the experience was right on.

Pink, purple, blue... decisions, decisions.

Or, perhaps, you tired of me bugging you about voting for my smut.

I am delighted to announce that I won! Finally, that year I spent working in campaign politics paid off! Thanks everyone, for your votes. I promise faithfully to uphold my duties as whatever this makes me. This was really fun.

I eagerly await the arrival of my prize, a “skirt” from one of Alison Tyler’s sponsors, Yandy (NSFW). Perhaps I’ll post pics when it arrives. Now, to decide which color…

This is post #400. Yay for me!

If you’re not going to do it for me, do it for grammar: hot, sexy grammar.

Ok, so they’re limited. But I am down by one measly vote and I want to win.

It is not so much that I want to win the skirt (although that wouldn’t be so bad – I could use it as a belt in public), it is that I want to win. I like winning. There were better submissions than mine, but I think everyone should vote for mine anyway, unless you are my mom, and in that case you should skip it entirely and pretend you never read this post.

But if you’re not my mom, vote early, vote often. I can’t promise anything in return. After all, it would be immoral to try to throw an erection, er, election. And for those of you who don’t regularly read this kind of stuff – you are forewarned, it’s word porn.

Go vote!

*I have come to understand on a more visceral level why writers of certain genres have pen names.** There is the security aspect, certainly, but also this is a little embarrassing. I still want to win, though.

** I wonder if one day I could have two separate writing careers going, under two different names. That would be fun. And confusing. I don’t think I can handle another blog.