Book Review - Sharp Teeth

I chose Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow for my book club pick in July. When I introduced the book club members to it, I told them there were four reasons I had selected it:

1. It was suggested by a friend whose opinion on the written word I respect.

2. The cover. It looks like a rock band poster.

Oh man, that's awesome.

2. It's about modern-day werewolves in L.A.

3. Aaaaaand it's written in free verse. Yeah. You heard me. FREE VERSE.

Most of the them were with me right up until #4. When I opened the book to show them the broken lines of poetry the light in their eyes was suddenly extinguished like a wet-fingered pinch to a candle flame.

Phsst.

I enjoyed it immensely. It was very different. You could really sink your teeth into (slight pun intended) the language once you synced with the flow of the verses. Barlow is a master of the words. Everything seemed rich and vivid written in such sparse form and he used it to his advantage. Blood seemed thicker and redder. You could smell the hot earth blown bone dry by the Santa Ana winds and the musky tangy of wet dog. You could feel the pulse and jump of the chase, the dampness of tears. See the shimmering skyline of L.A.

There were also some particularly insightful moments:

"Everyone is always looking in the wrong direction,
we worry about our lovers while losing our jobs
we stress out about cancer while our children run away
we ponder the stars while burning the earth.
Lark used to say the bullet we're running from
is almost never the one that hits us."

"What would you do to
protect the love you have?
Would you kill?
Would you hunt to kill?
Would you kill without mercy?
And if you wouldn't
then how precious is your love?"

Keeping track of all the characters proved a challenge for some. Obviously, it wasn't the first time it had come up because several of the paperback editions had a list of the characters. (Mine did not. I had the hardback version.)

We were split on the ending. I thought it suited the story, but others felt it to be incomplete. 

Since finishing the book, I haven't looked at my dog in quite the same way. I keep watching him out of the corner of my eye. I could have sworn I left my keys in my purse and there was more gas in the car last night...

Friday Faves - Foxes

Friday is one of my favorite days of the week. Work is ending and the weekend is beginning, new movies come on at the theater, you order take-out and go home to veg on the couch or have a few drinks with friends. Friday is casual, Friday is relaxing, Friday is the perfect day to post some of my favorite things.

The fox is one of my favorite animals. They are cunning beasts of storybook fables and in real life they are incredibly adaptable creatures.

When I was living in Colorado, I had a close-fox-encounter in downtown Denver. I'd been playing poker with some friends and in the early wee hours of the morning (2am-ish) I was strolling back to my car, parked two blocks off one of the major streets in downtown Denver. As I got closer to the car, a dog ran across the street and stopped under a streetlight.

Thinking someone's pet had gotten loose, I tried to coax it over with a "Heeeere doggydoggydoggy."

I was not drunk.

I swear.

When it turned in my direction, I realized it wasn't a dog at all, but a red fox. After giving me a scornful glance ("Did you just call me a DOG?? Idiot!"), it trotted off and disappeared between two houses.

Neat.

Here are some other neato foxy items:

 



 

Fox of the Month Calendar

 

Little Fennec Fox Sculpture

 

 

Fox Bookends

 

Fox Mini Pouch

 

 

Rose Gold Fox Ring

 

 

 

Fox Plushie

 

 

 

 

Aesop's Fox By Aki Sogabe

Fox Hat

Fox by Carrie Booth

 

Notes from the Lab - The Paleo Diet

Week One of my Paleo Diet has come and gone. It wasn't easy, particularly when I had a lunch meeting where I found myself staring pathetically at my friend's sliders and fries while I had a salad - hold the dressing.

I may have gotten a little teary.

What is the Paleo Diet, you ask? It is a diet that says you can eat like you're living in the Stone Age, when our ancestors migrated, following the herds, and gathered what they could from the wilderness. Back in the day when we were a notch lower on the food chain and getting together around the fire at night to nosh on a brontosaurus haunch and chat with the clan mates was a PAR-TAY.

I'm realizing that it's going to be rather difficult to do this diet well if one does not cook or own a grill. However, I did recently purchase a slow cooker in which to pot roast the hell outta some brontosaurus haunch. (Is "pot roast" a verb? Well it is now, bitches.)

Basically the idea is that you don't eat any processed foods. Sorry, folks. No Twinkies in the early Stone Age, though if we were to unearth some ancient Twinkies they would probably still taste good. No flour, no sugar, no dairy (though dairy is a point of contention in the Paleo community, depending on who you talk to). You're also encouraged to steer away from other inflammatory foods - potatoes, legumes, other nightshades, etc. - particularly if you are making a diet change to help arthritic or digestive issues.

And you're expected to drink water, and only water. For the continued health and well-being of those around me, I'm still drinking one cup of black coffee in the morning.

You can go to the extreme with this whole idea. Some people only eat meat they actually hunt and kill themselves and grow in a pesticide-free garden or wild-gather, but unless I want to limit myself to diet of grasshoppers and grass that's out.

How is this different from Atkin's and other protein-heavy diets? Paleo isn't about eating one or two food groups exclusively and it isn't about weight loss, though that is often a side effect. Paleo encourages a variety of foods, many, many veg, fruits and nuts as well as protein. It also discourages pre-packaged, un-natural foods in which most of the original nutrients have been stripped and then chemically added in and flavored.

I've purchased several cookbooks so far. Well-Fed, Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook, Practical Palo and, most recently, Primal Cravings. The last, Primal Cravings is brand new. I haven't cooked from it yet, but the deserts look scrumptious.

Well-Fed is beautifully designed. The Pad Thai recipe was very, very tasty, as was the Faux Rice. But the other recipes I've attempted ranged from "meh" to downright "blech". The Bora Bora Fireballs were overly complicated and surprisingly bland, and the Jicama Home Fries were downright gross.

Everyday Paleo has some tasty, simple recipes, but the photographs look like they came out of a 1970 Betty Crocker cookbook and are a major turn off.

The one I've used most so far and has the most extensive introductory to the program (50% of the book) was Practical Paleo. I've tweaked most of the recipes I've made just to suit my own individual tastes, but all of them have been very good. I really liked the blueberry muffins, pumpkin cranberry muffins, the Spaghetti Squash Bolognaise, and the Salmon Patties.

There are also a couple of go-to sites to check out for tasty recipes: Pinterest, Nom Nom Paleo, and OMGPaleo.

Your Path

Not everyone will understand your journey.

That's fine.

It's not their journey to make sense of.

It's yours.

...

I saw this on a friend's Facebook page and it struck a cord with me.

Top Ten Authors Who Deserve More Recognition

This Top Ten Tuesday is brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish. It's a list of fabulous authors who I believe deserve more airtime. Even the award-winning ones.

Sharon Shinn - She has several fantasy series (I particularly enjoyed the Samaria novels about archangels), but my favorite novel is a stand-alone fantasy, Summers at Castle Auburn.

Lucy Christopher - Stolen. Sixteen-year-old Gemma is kidnapped. Disturbing and thought-provoking.

Kashmira Sheth - Keeping Corner is a YA novel of a girl's life in India when the boy she's betrothed to at a young age dies unexpectedly. I love any novel set in India. I did a review of the book here.

A. Lee Martinez - I am reluctant to compare anyone to Terry Pratchett because he is an incredible, unique writer, but A. Lee Martinez comes close in the book Divine Misfortune.  

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Mistress of Spices has all the flavors of India between its covers.

James D. Doss - In Doss' mystery series, Ute tribal detective, Charlie Moon, and his local police chief sidekick, Scott Parris, tame the modern wilds of Colorado and attempt to keep Charlie's feisty, elderly, shaman auntie, Daisy, out of mischief. Doss is a natural storyteller, and his writing is sprinkled with wry humor and surprising insight. The books are better if you read them in order.

Riane Eisler - The books The Chalice and the Blade and When God Was a Woman were mind-expanding books for me.

Lois McMaster Bujold - I haven't read anything by her that I haven't liked, and how many authors as prolific as Bujold can you say that about? She writes fantasy AND sci-fi equally well and she is an incredible world and character builder. Among her fantasy novels my favorite is The Curse of Chalion. In the sci-fi realm, The Vorkosigian Saga is my favorite. Yes, ALL of them. It's a SAGA.

Lish McBride - Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is a fun, paranormal young adult book with relatable characters. I did a review on my blog of it here.

Colin Cotterill - When I read the premise of his Dr. Siri Paiboun series, I couldn't see myself enjoying a mystery series about a 70+ year-old coroner in communist-controlled Laos in the mid-to-late 1970s. (Seriously?? It there anything that sounds less fun?) But starting with a book called The Coroner's Lunch, I found myself voraciously devouring these books one right after the other.

Banksy is a Font of Wisdom

"Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Leave the house before you find something worth staying in for."  --  Banksy

The Reintroduction

Wow.

Has it really been that long?

I'm sort of embarrassed to continue this blog at all considering the time that has passed since my last post. The only way to move forward is to just consider it a fresh start and begin here, despite the almost irresistible urge to rip out the previous pages and start over.

Mymy how time flies and situations change. Where to start?

Holly House is (mostly) complete. There are still some cosmetic things to take care of, but all-in-all  I can consider it done. As much as any house one owns is ever really "done".  No one told me about the constant upkeep, repairs, and lawn mowing involved in owning a home, and now it's too late to change my mind. This heap is mine forever and I plan to haunt it when I die, just to make sure I get my money's worth.



This is an old photo. I have shrubberies now.

For those of you who read my Stray Dog Saga, Obi is awesome and tick-borne disease free.

Thanks to my friend Larry, endless hours of weekend and after-work labor in intense heat, and literal blood, sweat and tears, Obi now has a large fenced yard in which to gambol about. He and my 17 year-old cat Beckett have become fast friends. I wouldn't say I've completely converted into a "dog person" exactly, but I am definitely a this particular dog person.



Who can resist this cute widdle face?

My friend Brian and his cat Cooper moved into Holly House at the beginning of March 2013. It made my tiny home even tinier. Except for a few minor issues, which we managed to work out in a ugly screaming match, it's been a pretty smooth transition. It was difficult for me as a single, loner, home-owner to share space with someone again (MY space! MINE!! My preccciousssss...), but it's been good and it's kept me from reverting into my natural state as a complete recluse.

Especially since my dad died in November of 2012.

...

Yeah. That whole situation is still too painful to discuss. It's barely scabbed and I don't want to start picking at it.

...

I changed jobs about a year-and-a-half ago. It was a huge career advance and a big, scary, leap of faith, but has turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. A year-and-a-half later, I still love it even though most of the shiny has worn off. It's different every day, super challenging and the people I work with are fabulous (mostly). Oh, and I make a little more money. BONUS!

Since I've been absent from the blogosphere, I've done a bit of reading, a tiny bit of writing, a portion of a meditation retreat (interrupted) and almost no art at all, but I have plans to remedy all that.

I'm starting my Paleo Diet Challenge on July 13th and as a result of no bread, no pasta and no potatoes will probably be a giant, grumpy, carb-free, pain in the ass to be around for the entire 21 days. Consider yourself warned.

But tonight... WE'RE HAVING RIBS, FRENCH FRIES AND BEER!!

Now you're all caught up. We'll see how it goes from here. 

It's That Time Again

Time for New Year's resolutions.

Ugh.

I hate resolutions. For me, they are usually more about not doing something than they are about striving for accomplishment. Instead of resolutions, this new year I decided to rework my list of goals.

Semantics. I'm all about it.

I have many goals. Forty and counting. Both long and short-term, covering just about every aspect of my life, personally, professional, physically, mentally, and spiritually. It's all covered at 43Things.

On the site you create your list of goals. Along the way you can add entries about each goal as you make progress or suffer setbacks. You can view how many people have chosen the same or similar goals and get advice from those who have completed it. Other 43Thingers can see your goals and offer "cheers" of encouragement or comment on your entries. You also get five cheers a day to distribute - more, if people cheer you back. It's the definition of the more you give, the more you get.

It's a positive way to get the year started. What are your goals for 2012?

2012 Art Project

Every year I assign myself an art project to work on.

Mainly I do this assignment to keep myself out of trouble (idle hands are the devil's somethingorother) and to provide a break from writing while still exercising my creative muscles.

This year, in the spirit of the journal that I've always kept, I'm going to assign myself a project using a particular product.

I've heard about SMASH journals for a couple of years now. For a while they were so hot you couldn't find them anywhere because they were always sold out and the back orders were six months behind. They are touted as the "unscrapbook", where messy is beautiful and heck of a lot more representative of a person's real life. The journal comes with a variety of paper and a pen that is inky on one end and gluey on the other for quick, just-smash-it-in options. 

Now, I'm not sure exactly how this is going to be a different experience from me just using a Moleskine as my art journal, but several people I trust have sworn by them. Does it seems counterproductive to be "creative" using a bunch of pre-package products? Wouldn't it be more creative to start out with a completely blank slate and not be hampered by the use of specifically designed, SMASH-trademarked bits and bobs?

Guess I'll find out. I'm not going to invest a whole bunch of cash though. I'm going to buy the journal, and take a pass on the extras like little SMASH pockets, SMASH sticky notes, SMASH tabs and SMASH clips. Seems a bit of a racket. 

Book Review - Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

I was surprised by Hold Me Closer, Necromancer. I'll admit my expectations weren't high going in. I'd burned out on YA paranormal lit a couple of months ago after blasting through the first seven Morganville Vampire books in ten days. Afterwards, whenever I picked up a YA book that had a paranormal vibe to the storyline, it felt like my eyeballs might pop outta my head and going pinging around the room. I retreated to Regency-era historical fiction along the lines of Austen to soothe my frayed neurons, and Necromancer remained mid-way through the teetering stack of TBRs.

Initially I bought it because it had a promo blurb by Sherman Alexie, author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (which the brilliant, hilarious, heart-breaking movie Smoke Signals was based on), whom I luuurve. His books should be required reading in high school. He's an amazing writer.*

And the fact that the author's name was Lish. Which kinda plays on the necromancer theme. Lish... Lich. McBride... Bride. The Lich Bride.

Anyone??

OK. Maybe it's just me. Anywhoo...

When I finally - and I will admit, grudgingly - picked Necromancer up, I nearly set it down again permanently when I realized main character Sam's full name was Samhain. I sneered in disgust. The author hadn't even done their research. Any good Gael can tell you Samhain is NOT pronounced "sam-hane". It's more along the lines of "sah-win". Thus, SAM cannot be a derivative of SAMHAIN.

Sorry to be such a pronunciation snob, but that shit bugs me.

Fortunately, before I could throw the book across the room, the author redeemed themselves with a plausible explanation in the next paragraph. At that point, I gave up the struggle and let myself become completely engrossed.

Sam is a lovable slacker - a skateboarding college dropout working the fast-food career track. That is, until he has a run in with the local necromancer at which point Sam's entire life goes from meh-to-worse in the space of 48 hours.

One of the other reviewers on GoodReads (Vinaya) said they pictured Sam looking like Lloyd Dobler from the 80s movie Say Anything, and now I can't get the visual out of my head.

Slap a hoodie on him, hand him a skateboard, put him in Seattle, and pit him against an evil-dead-raising SOB, and you have Sam LaCoix.

The plot was twisty and sprinkled with enough new angles on the paranormal stuff - werewolves, vampires, fairies, ghosts, zombies, etc. - to seem fresh. Which is hard to do considering how the market is flooded with the stuff. (Oo. I just came up with the title of my next book/blog post: Weary of Werewolves. Or how about, Fed-Up With Fairies? Sick of Vacuous Vampires?)

Despite all the weirdness going on, Sam came across as a very normal, likable guy. He's not the perfect hero. His apartment is a mess. He eats a lot of ramen. His friends crash on the couch. He ogles the occasional chick. He sticks his foot in it a lot. He bumbles around trying to make sense of his life and find some sort of purpose. He gets his ass handed to him a couple of times, so he's no ninja. All of those things, combined with a good heart, make him a character worth reading about.

The ending, which was very satisfactory, still left the door wide open for sequels. I'm eager to find out what happens to Sam AND all the interesting secondary characters that were introduced.  If the first book is anything to judge by, it's going to be an interesting ride.

*Shameless plug. Sherman... call me.

An Awesome Book by Brian and Bronte

Best.

Christmas.

Present.

EVER.

Today a gift arrived on my front porch from my friend Brian, a.k.a. Fells. It was a book. Which is why he's my besty. He knows me. Obviously.

I'm Fields, if you hadn't guessed.

What elevates him to super-besty is that the book is one of my favorites; Jane Eyre.
But to take it a step beyond, the book had been customized and everywhere in the text in where it had originally said Jane Eyre, it now said my name. When I opened it and began reading, my heart did a little flip-flop and I squealed like a freaking fanboy every time my name appeared.

So very, very cool.

More Fun with Mustaches

Brought to you by Bored Holly

Thanksgiving in the Lab

Since we kids "got all growed up", as my grandmother used to say, Thanksgiving has become a potluck affair for our family. Sign-up begins three weeks in advance, and if you want to be the one who brings rolls, plastic silverware, and paper plates you have to act fast.

Most of the time that's reserved for the person who's currently single, unemployed, or traveling more than 10 hours.

It always works out pretty well, and there is never any shortage of food. It also gives everyone a chance to expand their culinary skills and take new items for a taste test using human guinea pigs. Fortunately, no guinea pigs, human or otherwise, were harmed in the making of this year's dinner.

My sister cooked her first turkey. Joel made a green bean, kidney, and bacon dish. My brother tried his hand at baking a ham. One of the cousins brought corn spoon-bread. An aunt brought parsnips...

What the hell is a parsnip?

These are parsnips, or as I like to call them, naked carrots.







I signed up two items I'd never made before, creamed spinach and a pumpkin pie. The creamed spinach wasn't too difficult, except I made it from fresh spinach so it took eight pounds to get a decent amount once it wilted.

The pie... I know you're thinking pumpkin pie is easy. Crust, can of pumpkin glop, 30 minutes in the oven, and you're done. But NO, there would be no canned pie glop consumed by MY family this Thanksgiving. I was determined to make a pumpkin pie from scratch. From an actual pumpkin. You know, that thing you carve jack o'lanterns out of.

Lab Notes: The first thing you should know is that you have to get a special kind of pumpkin. You can't use just any big, orange squash. You definitely CANNOT use the same kind of pumpkin that you use for fall porch decor or Halloween carving. You have to use a PIE pumpkin to make pie.

Huh.

After you get the expensive ($3.99/ lbs) little sucker home, you cut it up in chunks, gut it (remove all seeds and gross, orange, slimy string stuff), and bake it in the oven until it gets soft and practically slides right out of the skin into the bowl. Add about $50 worth of spices that you have to go out and buy (because who keeps ground cloves lying around?), evaporated milk, sugar, and eggs. Hit it with a immersion blender until you have...

soup.

Lab Notes: "Huh. I wonder if it's supposed to look like that? Maybe I left something out. Like flour. Hmmmm... (consults recipe) Nope. It's all here. Maybe it will thicken up if I blend it some more."

*10 minutes of splattering copious amount of liquefied pumpkin all over the kitchen*

"Nope. Still soup. Oh well. *Shrug* Might as well go ahead and see what we get."

Funnel the pumpkin soup into the prepared pie crust, bake, and miracle of Great Pumpkin miracles you get...

PIE!

Pretty darn good pie, too, if I may say so myself. It was much lighter and fluffier than you get when you use pumpkin out of a can. Even the people in my family who don't like pumpkin enjoyed it. So much so, that there wasn't any leftover to take home.

The downside is that it probably costs about $10 a slice.

And So It Ends...

Life as we know it may now resume.

NaNo is over.

Thank you sweet baby Jebus.

Don't get me wrong. NaNo is fun. At least it's fun up until the last week. That's when you do the math and you realize you're going to have to get 10,000 words a day from now until the end of the month to make it to your goal. It makes you feel like a big, smucky loser and you are sad that you will not be getting a winners badge or t-shirt again this year.

When it's finally declared over, you're just glad to see the backend of it. After a few days of mourning, you're more than happy to shove the POSM (Piece Of Shit Manuscript) of approximately 38,000 words into a desk drawer with a huge sigh of relief.

That usually happens somewhere around Dec. 3rd or 4th.

Thusly NaNo 2011 concludes.

Whew.

Soul-Reviving Reading for Writers

There are several books about writing that I re-read on a regular basis: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland, and Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. None of them are about the technicalities of writing, but rather about the fulfillment and connection to oneself and the world outside of oneself that writing can bring.

Writing Down the Bones was one of the first books I purchased when I decided to leave the world of writing for a living and to write for myself instead. Churning out articles day-in and day-out had burnt away my soul. If I continued to do it as an occupation, I knew I would never write my novel(s). Goldberg's Zen approach to the writing process was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Now she's endorsing NaNoWriMo.

Write or DIE

I love this guy. Dr. Wicked is the inventor of the program, Write or Die. He has taken this difficult thing - getting words out - and made it more fun. Which is essentially what NaNoWriMo is about, too. Now I want him to create a program called Butt in Chair, which will actually force you into a chair in front of your computer where you will launch Write or Die in order to hammer out your novel.

My illustration. His quote.

Calling all NaNo-ites!! Or would it be WriMo-nians?

We're not quite half-way through October and I'm already geared up for National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo to those in the know) in November. I've been jotting down story ideas and sketching out rough outlines for about three months. I've ordered coffee and tea in bulk, and there's a stack of snack cakes held in reserve in the pantry. I've washed all my comfy, flannel jimjams, bought a new pair of slippers, and stocked up on that powder shampoo stuff so I don't even have to take the time to wash my hair on the weekends. 

(Sexy lady, no?)

This year I'm taking no prisoners!

I will get my 50,000 words by the end of the month or die trying!

(Probably as a casualty of Twinkie and caffeine poisoning.)

That winner's t-shirt SHALL!! BE!! MINE!! RAAAAWWWRRR!!

*cough, cough, cough*

Yeah, so if you can't tell, I'm pretty determined to get my 50thou this year. I did in 2009, but 2010 was not a very good year for me. I think I was lucky to get a smidgen over 25thou, once all was said and done. The major difference between the two years was in '09 I had an outline, and in '10 I was a pantser. Also in my successful year, I met every weekend with the NaNo group in Norman for a write-in session. In 2010 I think I met with them once.

SHOUT OUT TO THE NORMAN NANOs WHO ARE THE BEST, BRIGHTEST, AND MOST TALENTED IN THE WORLD!

I think I've even managed to coerce a friend into joining in on the NaNoWriMo craziness this year. He even purchased a bright, shiny, new laptop for the occassion.

(Dude, don't think I don't see you lurking there. Now that it's in print on my blog, there's no backing out. It's practically a legally binding contract.)

During the month of November, postings on this blog might be even sparcer than usual. I'm trying to schedule things ahead as auto-posts, but I am finding out quickly that I am not that freaking organized. Maybe I can find a way to work it into my word count.

Weekend Fun Times

What happens when it rains, you're bored, and you're broke?

'Stache happens.

\

 "Why me? WHY??"

That's what his eyes are saying.

This post was inspired by the mysterious mustachios at...

Book Review - Nobody's Baby But Mine by Suzanne Elizabeth Phillips

Even though I'm not a big fan of Romance, every so often I venture into the genre. On a friend's recommendation, I picked up Nobody's Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Hey, I'm open minded. I'm willing to give it a shot. You never know, right? People's tastes change.

I finished all 350+pages the book to find that... uh... nope. Still don't care for it. I still prefer a plot that has a romantic interest as a subplot. Romance as the entire focus of a book just doesn't carry a story for me.

For instance, if the plot had been about a female physicist who, while making her Noble Prize winning discovery, decides to have a baby and raise the child as a single mom - that would have been better for me. Then the ensuing romantic entanglement with the sperm donor would have been a bonus.

The sex scenes were well-written and steamy, though occasionally the words "throbbing", "heaving", and "manhood" resulted in uncontrollable eye-rolling on my part. There were abusive overtones, both verbal and physical, that made me uncomfortable, but maybe that's just me being overly sensitive. Maybe that form of verbal and physical sparring is "romantic" for some people, but it's not my cup of tea. Some no-neck brute of a professional football player grabs my arm like that in public and I'm going to flash my license to carry concealed, if you know what I mean.

That probably explains why I prefer books like Monster Hunters International over ones with pink covers. Not very girly of me, I know, but there you have it.

I Am the Anti-Fashionista

Lately I've been working on a few simple drawings in a series of my favorite things.

I would never be classifed as a shoe maven. To me, shoes are practical items meant to protect your feet from pointy rocks, stickers, and spiders that need smooshing. It's the one thing that I am practical about.

Though when I find a pair of shoes I like, it's true love. The forever kind of love. Love through thick and thin, weathering every storm.

Recently a friend had to stage an intervention to get me to throw away a pair of shoes that I had worn so long that they had been reduced to flip flops. (They started out as patent leather mary-jane flats.)

I wore them almost every day.

I wore them until water seeped through the holes.

I wore them until the soles tore away from the uppers.

Then I wore them some more.

I wore them until my friend said, "Holybabyjebus, I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!! You look like a hobo! Give me those stupid, stinky, pathetic shoes. I can't stand to hear you shwip-shwopping around this place anymore. They've had their time and now they've gotta go."

When I turned to try and run/shuffle away as quickly as possible with my shoes shwip-shwopping, they tackled me around the knees, forcibly removed the shoes, and threw them in the garbage.

I'm not ashamed to say there were a few tears shed.

Now I've found a new pair of shoes to love.

Unfortunately, they are so expensive that I will only ever own the one pair. That's alright though. When it's true love, who needs others?