I'm totally fucked

Over coffee this morning, I was thumbing through this week's edition of The Week magazine. This week's "The Last Word" topic was all about how shoes are bad for feet. And not just the medieval torture devices that I personally heart so much. Apparently, ALL shoes are much worse for our feet than simply going barefoot, as our feet have been cleverly designed through eons of evolution to distribute our weight, help us balance and grip the ground to highest effect. Not only that, but habitual high-heel wearers often note that switching to flat shoes is actually far more uncomfortable than continuing to wear the stilts. I've noticed this myself-- if I were to, say, spend 3 hours on a weekend day, wearing some sort of athletic shoe while traversing some sort of shopping venue, my arches would be aching MADLY within about an hour and a half. I'd notice only a fraction of that pain, more in the balls of my feet, if I walked around for 3 hours in a heel. Apparently, this is because the foot acclimates to a heel and the tendons shorten. Yay.

Now, I actually do spend quite a lot of time barefoot. I kick my shoes off under my desk at work pretty much every time I get a chance. I kick them off as soon as I put my mail down when I get home in the evenings. And with every vinyasa in my yoga practice, I roll back and forth over the entire surface of my foot-sole, thus stretching out those shortened tendons. But I've also developed some wicked callouses on the balls of my feet from walking on my toes so much. And nary a day goes by when I don't develop a new blister, particularly in the warmer months. I know the shoes are as bad for me as cupcakes. But I'm really not about to give them up. As described in this post, too much of my ego is entwined in the wearing of assorted pairs of fuck-me heels. And, well, my collection thereof also represents something of a financial commitment.

So the article linked above makes reference to a pretty cool company that's an offshoot of the English shoe company, Clark's. This company, Terra Plana, is doing some interesting things with minimalist shoe design, so as to more nearly approximate the unshod gait of a human. And they're doing it with recycled and/or sustainable materials and minimal waste. Most of the shoes are a little too granola for my taste, but some of them are actually kinda cute. And their heart is certainly in several of the right places.

Regardless, I'm still not ready to donate all my sexy shoes to The Salvation Army. Perhaps I'll just have to restrict myself to wearing them only when I can rest my calves on someone else's shoulders. And hope that one of those pairs of shoulders will be generous enough to help pay for my podiatric surgery when I'm old and crippled.

More links of joy

I don't know who the genius at www.Stevemadden.com is, but dear god, has anyone seen my paycheck lately? Oh, right. It went here. Honestly, I could play with this thing the rest of my life and never need food or sex again. I'm veritably trembling with shoe-bliss.


Also, the folks at Aardman Animations, who are responsible for the likes of all the Wallace & Gromits and Chicken Run and all that great, quirky brit-anime stuff, have descended upon American network television in the form of Creature Comforts. It seems the thought process behind the show includes some interviews with totally random people who talk over each other and embarrass each other and bicker and say pretentious stuff or totally inane stuff or whatever else people unaccustomed to television interviews say. And then they run the interviews over claymation penguins or squished flies or horses or vultures and many other animals. Honestly, it's so unlike anything else on television that I'm not quite sure how it made it where it is. But it's bloody brilliant. I don't know how long the novelty will last before it gets played out, but, for the time being, it's not to be missed.