Nigel seems to have recovered from his indigestion-inspired incontinence, so I’ve had a little bit of time to devote to a project that’s been looming over me for a while now: new shoes. Particularly, new shoes that would be appropriate for our annual meeting, which is coming up at the end of next month. Most of my shoe collection is bordering on the elderly and in need of repair (e.g., my favorite knee-high vegan stompy boots, which need both zipper and heel repair before I can wear them again); ancient leather that is too worn to give away but not quite worn out enough to chuck (e.g., my ancient metal-heeled stompy boots, or my very first pair of Docs that I’ve had for 17 years, and have Nigel’s teething marks on the steel toes [albeit now underneath the silver paint and glitter I added to them a few years ago]); have heels that are rather too high, or cushioning too puny, for me to wear without exacerbating the lingering damage from the January meeting; or they’re my battered Converse high-tops, which are not work-friendly. For the past few months of work wear, I’ve been alternating between the red beaded maryjanes (ancient and falling apart, but not yet kaput) and the black Doctor Martens maryjanes (which are also ancient and, unfortunately, leather, but were secondhand from my mother). This will not do.
The requirements for new work shoes are (1) vegan; (2) at least a reasonable assurance that they’re sweatshop-free; (3) comfy, with room for cushy inserts; and (4) interesting enough for me to want to wear them, but not interesting enough that they’ll look unprofessional and scare the engineers. Oh, and also (5) affordable. Not surprisingly, it’s somewhat difficult to meet all of these criteria.
On the “holy crap, that’s almost as much as my monthly car payment” end of things, I found these shoes; there are several others in the range that are pretty cool, with interesting checkered or vine patterns, but there is no freakin’ way I would ever pay over $300 for shoes. I also have issues with the open toes: human feet are not particularly attractive to begin with, except to specialize interests, and when you squish the toes all together — and you’re starting with blocky feet such as my own — well, nobody really needs to see that. The advisability of wearing them for long hours, spent mostly on your feet running from seminar to seminar, is also in question.
There are several cool options at Vegetarian Shoes: a chunky brogue that would probably be okay for work/meeting and purple combat boots, which I could probably get away with at work, where they know me and just roll their eyes, but not at the meeting. (They’re so cute, though; I really want them. Also the black ones.) The conversion rate puts each of them at about $150, though, which is still rather a lot for me. (I think my most expensive shoes are my Docs, which cost about $100 when I bought them in 1990.) Still . . . vegan combat boots! I really want them. Add in the shipping, though, and that’s another $20 to $40, depending on how many shoes I ordered; that all adds up to a helluva lot of money.
The bat-buckle boots at Pennangalan Dreams are also covetable, but not much cheaper than the combats, and the pleather ones are out of stock; I’m also a little dubious about the zipper being flexible enough to accommodate All That Is My Feet — I’ve had issues with zippers breaking on my high instep, and pull-on boots requiring considerable third-party assistance when it came time for them to be pulled off. I also doubt that there’s room for cushy inserts, and the buckles might alarm the other meeting attendees.
I am in love with these sneakers from Alternative Outfitters, but, again, not really work-friendly. I’ve been considering the Bridget shoes at MooShoes for months now; they’re definitely work-friendly and at least vaguely interesting, so it’s possible that I’d actually wear them voluntarily, but I’m a little concerned about how much room there might be for adding cushioning. If they were cheaper, I’d probably take the risk, but if I’m going to spend a hundred bucks for shoes then I’d better damned well be thrilled to bits with them, not just sort of, “eh, they’re kind of cute. Ish.” Goodgoth has several really cute and reasonably priced shoes — unfortunately, I can’t link directly to them, but there’s a black maryjane with red lace on the toe that should be doable, and some buccaneer boots that I crave with a geeky passion. I mean, everybody needs vegan buccaneer boots!
No. Must stay focused: I need work/meeting shoes. I cannot get sidetracked by stompy combat boots or pirate boots or bat buckles or interesting purple sneakers.
But I want the interesting shoes. I don’t want to wear boring shoes. I particularly don’t want to spend money on boring shoes.
Great. I’m all depressed now. I think I’ll go make some cupcakes.
