Bloody Heel! (day 3)

DAY 3

Oh the pain. I cannot see my feet for the multitude of band-aids swaddling them. Somehow the soles of my feet have developed blisters – I didn’t know it was possible. Thanks to my grossly stubbed little toe, my feet will not fit inside shoes today. Even slippers are a no-go. Time spent sleeping is legally heel free time so I stay in bed the entire day dozing. What a write-off. This is the time in my life that I need Hermione Grangers’ quick healing spell.

Bloody Heel! (day 2)

DAY 2

I had a dream last night about running a 30km marathon in high heels, and wake up feeling invincible. Choose 4 inch gladiator sandals with huge buckles, and bravely team them with thigh skimming floral mini, waist cinching fetish belt, and sack forming stripy grandpa top.

My entire day is devoted to shopping for someone else’s wardrobe. Walk 6 hours on asphalt and my calves are tired from being flexed all day. Apart from the legs, I was doing great until the crucial last hour of the shop, when the side of my foot decides to slide off in a circle of popped blister. Have to taxi to my dinner destination, as taking steps brings on yelps of agony.

7pm: God is watching. I remove my heels in the restaurant for 5 minutes reprieve and immediately stub my toe on the way to the bathroom. Blood everywhere, I have to grovel at the waitress for an embarrassingly large blue plaster. Cobalt blue is so Fall 2007.

Bloody Heel! (day 1)

DAY 1

Dilemma of what to wear. I stare at my rows of footwear with a lost expression. Choose tan MiuMiu inspired wedges with gold hardware (never been worn), then pull the lame card and play it safe with cuffed up dark denim, plain white T and my signature leather jacket. Look in the mirror, like what I see, but all the time kicking myself for being conservative. Oh well, I tell myself; it is early on a Tuesday and I have a whole week to be mad. Leaving the house I have a last minute stress about looking contrived, so dash back inside and swathe myself in a massive tie-dyed muslin scarf. Now I’m rock and roll.

Tottering down the road for my first coffee of the day, it takes a bit of practice to eradicate the giraffe-ish lope that goes with wearing high wedges. After some rehearsal down a back alley, problem solved. Solution? Tight tummy, long strides. I feel sure the eyes of everyone on the street are burning into me. The coffee is lovely, though my paranoia endured, and I get a few prolonged glances at my feet.

By lunchtime my feet are killing me, toes have been all but severed by the too tight top strap of my shoes. My lunch date scoffs; saying it serves me right for trying to break in new shoes on my first day of a week of heel wear.

End of the day. In the privacy of home I inspect my war wounds and discover three small blisters. I prepare myself a peppermint foot bath and sob into the hot water.

Bloody Heel!

Lordy Lordy, I own 15 pairs of heels. That’s 30 single heels, and 15 pairs I never wear. Plus the 3 pairs I bought on my recent 3 week holiday – that’s one pair for each week I was away.

I am in love with heels, and with the idea of wearing heels, but can never bring myself to actually leave the house in a pair. I have a mild phobia of looking too “done”. I gaze at casual heel wearers in awe, but I myself am always afraid of looking overdressed. But after unpacking the three latest purchases from my holiday luggage and discovering that I have no room for them to live - despite my entire bookshelf devoted to shoes – I decided that this silliness had better stop. For a while I excused my obsessive heel buying as “like buying a piece of art”, but 15 unworn pieces of art lying around is a bit ridiculous. Wearing my flats all the time is a bad habit, and wearing heels is a good habit. I just have to force myself out of my bad habit and into a good habit. My theory is that practice makes perfect.

Over the course of a few late hours and a few too many glasses of Riesling, I hatched what I thought at the time to be a cunning plan. I would endeavour to wear high heels for all of my waking hours for the next week - A: in order to get into a habit of wearing them more often, and B: in order to get some cost-per-wear out of my shoe collection. Up until now I’ve been practically losing money.

My week begins on Tuesday, as the post-unpacking from holiday brainwave struck late on Monday night. My only quandary is how to get around the dog-walking chore, as it is more like dog running, and ladies never run in high heels. The dog must be exercised, so if you will allow me a brief daily reprieve, I promise to make it up to you by spending an entire night until morning in my stilettos.

Love this shit

1998. Daft Punk. His styles are rockin, as is his dance.

Good god! I'm in lust

Are you feeling the oonst oonst?

These beauties were unearthed when my flatmate was rifling through boxes from her past life. Costing more than a couple of hundred and worn only once, these would have been the cutting edge of style in 1998 - their date of purchase. Remember those days? The time of the dance party, 1998-2000, when every man and his dog were sodding off to London to earn big bucks and drop acid every weekend.

For those of us stuck back in little old NZ, the most we could do was buy the shoes, slip into our lycra cowl-neck dresses with strategic cutouts and dance in our bedrooms like it was 1999. Oonst oonst oonst...I'm blue Da Ba Dee Da Ba Dai...

How To - this is the new self help 3

How to make yourself (believably) presentable in proper company

Be it your Grandmother, your boyfriends’ grandmother or the Queen mother coming to tea, sometimes you have to pretend you are not a wanton hussy with an empty fridge and an un-emptied rubbish bin in order to be accepted in life. Here’s how to do it right.

Do tidy your house, empty the rubbish, and scrub the dried toothpaste dribbles from the bathroom sink.

Don’t be tempted to fill your house with pink peonies, or any other effeminate blooms.

Do hide away your massive collection of spirits, but leave out your interesting collection of books/music to show you have a personality.

Contrary to popular belief, high neck sweaters, cardigans, and demure cotton day dresses are not convincing. Toned down versions of your usual style are.

And one more thing – do not, I repeat, do not attempt to lose your nerves by drinking wine at the first formal event. I know from experience that the results are far from desirable.