Rising above it all

So I've had a pretty crappy last couple of weeks, filled with some sad, non-bloggable worries that have kept me pre-occupied and kind of down. I say this first of all because it is true, and secondly, because you might otherwise think I am superficial and materialistic when you read this blog. You still might end up thinking that, but you will hopefully at least admit I have good taste.

Because it is easy, because it is fun, and because I have a lot of them, I will blog about high heels. And I don't mean the kind of high heels you first wore when you were fourteen, or the kind of high heels you buy to go with your new skirt. I am talking about delightfully, impractically, unnecessarily high heels that inspire a unique kind of courage when you are walking on cobble stone streets and that you rarely find the right occasion to wear.

These are my high heels. The normal heels aren't really worth a picture.

This is one of the least economically sound collections of anything I own. I have gotten fewer wearings per dollar spent on these shoes than practically anything else I own. But I have also gotten a lot of pleasure out of owning these shoes and thinking about the possibilities of where one might actually get dressed up to go wearing shoes like these.

The funny thing is, most of these shoes almost didn't happen.

Take this pair of L.A.M.B. shoes from one of Gwen Stefani's early collections. I fell in love with them, immediately bought them, and then spent the next two weeks stewing about how impractical they were and too expensive for how often I would wear them. I rode to the Salt Lake City airport to go back to Zurich with these shoes on my lap the whole time, agonizing over my decision not to pack them and have my mom take them back. After we had checked all the bags in, at the last minute I dramatically reversed the decision, crammed the shoes in my carry on, and handed my dad a fistful of money to pay off the shoes from my mom's credit card.

I knew these shoes were going to bring me a lot of good luck. They didn't bring my dad a lot of luck, though. He misplaced his wallet in all of my airport shoe frenzy and spent the better part of the day looking for his wallet before he found it I think in the side of the car. This is also the only pair of shoes I have ever actually fallen down in. It was at my 20 year high school reunion, and there weren't even any cobblestones involved. That wasn't so lucky. I still love the shoes.

Fast forward a few years to Christmas 2010 when I saw this pair of Betsy Johnson shoes online that I fell in love with and also thought I needed to have. Once I got them and tried them on and Brittney confirmed they were "must haves," I also started worrying that they were too expensive to keep and I didn't know where I would wear them. (Which Brittney also quite rightly pointed out was a consideration that had never kept me from making other frivolous purchases.)

With these shoes, I actually did end up taking them back after Christmas, with Holger stopping at Nordstrom specifically to return them. I hinted and asked him every ten steps I took toward the shoe department whether I shouldn't just keep them, but Holger was in a practical mood and confirmed the shoes needed to go. And so they did. When the clerk at the shoe counter asked me what was wrong with the shoes, I sobbed out, "Absolutely nothing - they're perfect and I love them!" The clerk was confused by this, as were the other people standing in line, but he gave me my money back, and the shoes were gone.

I called the store back and re-bought the shoes the next morning. I'll spare you the details of the logistical hurdles that needed to be overcome to get the shoes delivered back to me in time to make the flight back to Switzerland., but suffice it to say it would have been easier and cheaper to just keep them in the first place.

These Stuart Weizman shoes were a good buy from the start and are the only shoes that were never in danger of being taken back. I wear them with a dark grey suit for work and feel like a million bucks.

This is my highest pair of shoes, and I also waffled through a week of my parents' visit one spring over whether or not I really needed to be this tall. They work, though, because your ankle is all caged in and you can't crumple over so easily. I wore them to a meeting in London last June and made it all over town - including cobblestones - that evening without toppling over. A real triumph.

These are new shoes from the spring DVF collection. I love the color - citrine - and summery feel. The only problem is I'm worried the satin bows won't stay tied and will always be slipping down. I also never told Holger I bought these, and I feel a little bit bad about this.

These shoes are from Bally. I'm generally not a huge Bally fan, because I think their shoes are pretty staid and conservative (but reliable and solidly Swiss-quality made). But, these had a really nice heel, and I liked the color. And this is my point. I have been looking at shoes this color from Christian Louboutin for a long time now and wishing I had the courage or the pocketbook or the occasion to buy the Rolls Royce of high heels. So very likely every time I wear this pair of shoes, I will be wishing they were Louboutins and not my B-string Ballys. That's shallow.

What isn't shallow is that I think my shoes are fun and I feel like a million bucks when I'm wearing them, even when it's just to see the ladies for book club or Valentine's breakfast.