there are two sorts of shoe in my life: the loud, complicated ones i buy on sale or impulse and wear a handful of times season after season, and the little black flats i wear almost every day until they fall apart (magical things, those little flats: they make almost any outfit juuust businesslike enough for the office). it takes me four to six months to destroy said flats; as i walk two miles a day just scooting to and from work, i feel like i'm getting a pretty square deal. i was getting a square deal, that is, until - somewhere early in month two -
this happened. what the hell? do i pirouette on my left foot unconsciously? is there some sort of twelve dancing princesses thing going down after i fall asleep? does steve madden booby trap his flats?* then i realized i'd seen that shape before. oh, yes.
my shoe has sprouted a kraken's eye. when i said a few days ago that the end was nigh, i thought i was talking about kitten pictures - but as tennyson wrote,
There hath he lain for ages, and will stewprepare for the last battle, internets.
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and fuck up Lauren's shoe.
on sightings, i can also report that mentioning pretty in pink last week actually summoned james spader.
celebrities v. giant inflatable rats:** steff edition
he swept past me on fifty-seventh street wearing an indiana jones fedora and walking a fluffy white dog, so it wasn't exactly a brat pack moment, but in a six-degrees-of-kevin-bacon way it brought me closer to both molly ringwald and william shatner than i have any right to be.
rats: 4.5
star: 13
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 what the hell happened to my shoe?
02 were you aware of canada's postal excellence? (check out the whole cryptozoological quartet. where's our ogopogo stamp?)
03 on a totally unrelated note, paul auster readers, is the book of illusions acceptable as an entry point? a copy materialized, kraken-like, at my office, and i'm thinking of auditioning it as a subway book.
*a designer willing to knock off the balenciaga lego heels is capable of anything.
**an ongoing tally of the famous people and union-displeasure-indicating balloons i see in the city.
