Secret Ten: This is an easy one!!

De asks:

Which character is the pickiest about shoes?

There is only one possible answer.Whose famous feet are those? The one and only Carrie Bradshaw. Do NOT get between her and a sale at Manolo Blahnik. In a scene from an episode of "Sex and the City" I rather envy, she registered for shoes. REGISTERED. FOR. SHOES.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to update our registry list.

I bought shoes!

I know, I know. Just pretend to be surprised, ok? For me?

I had lunch today down in the Union Square area, and since we couldn't get a reservation until 1:30, I headed down a little early and hit DSW. I didn't even know that were having a special clearance, but I was very happily surprised. I had less than 20 minutes, I think, to get in, find silver shoes, buy them, and get out again and meet my lunch date. So how'd I do?

I bought two pair!! (Not that I can find any pictures of them online, of course.)

The first pair was a peep-toe t-strap that buckled at the ankle. The t-strap was all pretty and rhinestone-y, and someone remarked that it looked like a dance shoe -- which I took as a good thing, since I plan on doing a lot of dancing in it!

The second pair (both were from Nina, by the way) was on the clearance rack, open toed sandals with a strap that crossed over from the outside of my foot to the inner ankle, then became a slingback strap. Very fancy.

I didn't have a lot of time, as I mentioned, so I bought both, went to my lunch with a fun editor (sent back my burger for being too rare, which I hate doing, but it was red!), and came back to the office for a fashion show. See, I need other people's opinions. I like to hear what other people have to say, and having taken in all their thoughts, will then make my final call.

So I walked around the office, wearing one shoe of each pair, and polled about 8 women. Off the bat, most preferred the fancier shoe with the slingback. But when I described what it was for, and when I would be wearing it, most said the t-strap was better. So, the t-strap it is!! I'll be trying it on with the dress tonight to make sure I like the look with the hem, but then I can go and get my super-bra, and take the dress to be altered for the wedding.

And speaking of weddings, I was reading Weddingbee, as I'm wont to do, and read this in one bride's post describing her dress-shopping adventures:

Well, with this dress I learned the lesson that 95% (my rough estimation) of brides realize upon dress shopping – what you initially think you want is probably not what you end up liking/buying.

And what struck me about that was that I'm apparently in the 5% group. Sure, when I was a kid dreaming of dresses, I had a different idea of what I wanted, but when I actually WENT dress shopping, the dress we walked out of the store with was almost exactly what I described to the saleswoman.

I'm not saying I'm super-amazing or anything, but part of my weight loss journey, I think, has been recognizing the looks that work for me, and sticking with them. And as that makes four labels I can throw on this post, I'll leave it at that. To thine own self be true -- but before you can do that, make sure you know who you are!

What does Your Writing Mean to You?

My brilliant and talented (if too far away) friend Miss Midwesterly recently shared an essay she wrote for a writing grant, answering the question, "What Does Your Writing Mean to You?" In part, she wrote,

I am about the fine sense of gratification I get from the quick panicked scratch of pencil on cheap newsprint in a jotting of a thought in the middle of the night ("quickquick before it goes away"), or the swoop of liquid ink that expresses a note of thanks ("What a lovely housewarming—and an equally lovely home!"), or the banging of my fingers on the keyboard when I am particularly moved by something and have found a good turn of phrase with which to express each shade of the moment ("I stored his business card in my bag, where I stumbled across it often, by accident, on my way to look for my keys, or sunglasses, or wallet"). I am lucky and determined enough to choose a path that places an onus on me to share with others what I see, learn, and experience. Life comprises these moments, details.

It's a gorgeous essay, and I was inspired to answer the same question myself. I invite you to consider it as well!

For me, writing is about sharing. Sharing a world that I envision, or that appears to me in a burst of inspiration, sharing how one character's reaction to a situation may speak to others. As so much of what I write now is personal, though I yearn to get back to fiction, in all of my writing I share myself -- my thoughts, my dreams, my wedding plans -- and welcome comments from others. It is a kind of companionship, writing. Sharing words with others, we can each experience them, take them into ourselves, and see how they fit -- like trying on a pair of shoes in a store, buying them, and wearing them around indoors to see how they feel, careful not to scuff the soles by walking on hard pavement, but knowing that just by taking them into my home, into my closet, they're already a part of my life.

Words are meant to be read, to be heard, just as shoes are meant to be worn.

Shopping!!

Another success story regarding a shopping quest, I'm delighted to say. This one was much shorter than my search for purple shoes.

As I mentioned, my sister C is getting married in November, and it's going to be a whole black-tie, formal kind of affair. Evening wedding, ballroom reception, the whole works. As is my way, I wanted to stand out a bit, so my guidelines for dress shopping began with no black or brown, but were otherwise pretty much WIDE open. I did consider looking for purple dresses, since I had the shoes, But I hadn't fixed on anything.

So, yesterday at lunch, I hit Bloomies. I grabbed a bunch of long dresses and hit the dressing room. Pretty quickly, I narrowed my search down to two dresses. First, this lovely strapless number from A.B.S.. I found it in purple, too. See?

The other option was very different, sort of drape-y, with a pretty open back, but also from A.B.S. This is it in blue. Here's me in it. There's some concern that the color is too light for a November evening wedding, but I think it's fine. Best part? Totally on sale.

But even on sale, it was a lot of money to spend. So I put them both back on the rack, and went back to work, having sent the two pictures to Doyce for his opinion. Well, it came in loud and clear. He liked them both. A lot. (Woot!) I showed the pictures to a few other people at work, too, noticing that the two colors were almost exactly the colors of my blog, and by the end of the day, I decided to run back to Bloomies, and if the sale dress was still there, it was a sign it was meant to be.

Well, it was! Hooray! The green dress is now happily hanging on my wall -- my closet being too low to handle the length. I still need to get the perfect piece to wear underneath, but I'll bring the dress to my bra lady, and see what she can find. After that -- I get to search for new shoes! Silver, I think. Fun!

Purple shoes, purple shoes, purple shoes!!!

Hooray!! I found them! They're loverly.

Perfect color, wrong shoes

The latest update in my search for wedding shoes? I found the perfect COLOR shoes, but not the right style. The first pair I found in Walter Steiger, although the website doesn't seem to have them, and is, in my humble opinion, a suck-ass site. In any case, they were the perfect purple, in suede, but closed-toe pumps, nothing delicate or "evening" about them. Also -- $600. Nope!

Then, this morning, I walked to work a slightly different way in order to pass Naturalizer, and saw these.Totally the wrong style, but so adorable! And the color is perfect.

Sigh. I'm drawing great comfort in the slow increase in purple shoes I'm seeing out there, and in the trend forecasters who tell me purple is one of the "in" colors this season. Now all I need is for someone to make fancy shoes in that "in" color, and I'll be all set!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Sad news, shoe-philes. I took a trip Saturday morning down to a bridal store a couple of miles away from our shore house in New Jersey, to look at the Salon Shoes I liked and to try to get a sense of sizing. Which I did, but unfortunately, I also discovered that the plum color I hoped would be a match for my purple was in fact the wrong shade. Poppycock!!

Still, reading this renewed my hope. And I still have to brave the Herald Square crowd to check out Macy's, where the Monkey Queen said she saw some possibilities for me. And there's always DSW.

Anyway, it was a disappointing weekend. Saturday was a nice beach day, but I think I did something funny to my back on Friday, carrying my weekend bag (or maybe the five books I brought down to read over the weekend), so after a couple of hours sitting on the beach, I had to go home and take a hot shower and some ibuprofen. And Sunday was drizzly and overcast, so I came home early -- at least Doyce and I were able to get some playtime in for the Brightsides, who are up to level 20 and have swanky new business suits.

Anyway, 4 days til Denver.

Shoes!!

Hooray, hooray, hooray! I may just have found my wedding shoes!

*does a little happy dance*

Now, I haven't actually tried them on or anything sensible like that, but after reading about another bride's purchase on Amazon (I know, Amazon!) of her wedding shoes, I figured I would do a search there as well. I typed in "Purple Evening Shoes" and came up with a whole line by designer Salon Shoes, which has several different styles that come in an assortment of colors, including plum. Amazon didn't have the colors shown, just their names, but I tracked down the company's website and got to see sample swatches. So here's my top three choices.
I'm leaning towards Monaco right now, because I love the little buckle. What do you think? There's a couple of stores in NYC where I can go and try them on, and then just go back and order them through Amazon. I think that would probably save time, instead of ordering several different styles and sizes and returning the ones I don't like.

It's all very exciting. Piece by piece, my wedding outfit is coming together!

Help me find shoes!!

Ladies -- and any gentlemen who frequent shoe stores -- I'm putting out an A.P.B. for some purple shoes. Since my friend Kyrra's wedding a few years ago, where I saw she wore fabulous pink sandals with her wedding dress, I've been stuck on the idea of wearing purple shoes with my gown. Fast forward to now, when I've got the dress, but still no shoes. How can this be? I've looked at Prada, DSW, Stuart Weitzman, Kate Spade, and loads of other places, but still haven't found anything perfect. Sure, there's been some close calls. These were nice, but the version I saw of them in the store was too gladiator-y. These are great shoes, almost perfect, except for the shade of purple, which is a little too pink. These are close, but will I be able to swing dance in them? I had been thinking of something with an ankle strap. I love these, but they're from Kate Spade's wedding line, and only come in white. I don't want the hassle of dying, since my experience with that in the past has left me with dye marks all over my feet.

Anyway, so I turn to you, kind shoppers. On your travels around the internets and the stores of our fine city, could you let me know if you stumble across any great purple heels? Looking at something with at least a two inch heel, preferably open toe, with an ankle strap or slingback. If you need a reminder on the color purple I'm looking for, just check out the background on my blog!

May have found my wedding shoes.

They're Prada. Swoon!

Back in Blighty!

After a mostly uneventful if occasionally painful flight over, I landed safely this morning and got driven through a gorgeous Spring morning to my little hotel in Kensington. Which reminds me of everything I used to know and love about England: tiny showers, strange doors, meandering hallways, weird hangers... Still, I'm here! And MJ is on her way. And there's a giant Sainsbury's just down the road, which I plan to hit later for ginger ale, Assam tea bags, and Maltesers. And we're undertaking the Great Harrods Caper, of course, and I'm thinking of hitting up a Marks & Spencer for a sring raincoat, and possibly (what else?) a new pair of shoes! Shoes!

Pictures to follow.

Bestill My Heart!

Words cannot express the depth of my desire.

They're CHOCOLATE.

Too cute!

I want!

I have no idea why I got an email from Ryka about these shoes, but clearly, they know me well. You know, my birthday is coming up shortly...

Shoes!

I NEED

Words cannot begin to express the depth of my desire for this.

Tired, but ready for Day Three!

Yesterday ended up being quite a bearable (rawr) day, with just enough short meetings and breaks to give me a few rests, and chances to run outside, through the smoky cloud around the doors, to get a breath of fresh air. After my last meeting at 4:30, and a social meeting at 5:30 with a Czech publisher, my boss and I went down to a Scandinavian social call in the halls, then headed back to the hotel for a hour and a half break before grabbing a taxi and heading out to the FFHof.

Or, that was the plan. It's mostly what happened, although the taxi line at our hotel was crazy long, so we grabbed our transit passes and took the S-Bahn first to the Hauptbahnhof (the big, glorious train station), where we changed for another S-Bahn to the FFHof -- although we missed our stop and got off at the next one, which was Romerberg, or the beautiful big square where I'd had dinner last year on Saturday night, and which I'm hoping to explore on Sunday with Doyce in the daylight. Cross your fingers it's not raining!

We walked back from Romerberg to the FFHof, me doing the exciting cobblestone shuffle in my heels, and stopped in first at a French cocktail party serving Veuve Cliquot, then a Dutch party, with food! The French was a very international party, with little Americans, as my boss explained -- although I told her I figured that out when she was speaking Italian to a Spaniard while surrounded by the French.

After enjoying the relaxing Dutch party, and speaking with a Dutch agent who'd spent her last holidays in Namibia (with Angelina Jolie! Ok, not really, but Europeans go on much more exciting vacations than your average American), we met up with a couple of scouts and another foreign rights agent, and took a long cab ride to a very out of the way club for a German party. Which was crazy.

Pretzels and sausages on one table, champagne handed out at the door with blue glowing ice cubes, soup at a cocktail party, speeches heralded by the muscial themes from Star Wars, and a lounge/opera singer in a tight black corset and giant white blouse singing "Carmen" in German and "Tonight" from "West Side Story" in English. Mere words cannot explain the horrors and the humour. Fantastic opportunity for German-people watching, though!

Got back to the hotel around midnight, and headed almost directly to bed, not getting my notes done -- so yes, I'm already falling behind on my genius plan. Ah well.

Today, my first meeting's not until 9:30, so i have an extra half-hour this morning to get ready/take it easy, and I'm hoping tonight becomes an earlier evening. I need sleep!!

There's a weird lump

At the back of my stocking, just above my ankle. I feel like I have an invisible growth - which, granted, is better than the visible kind, but still... annoying.

I had a lovely lunch of a ham sandwich on a pretzel (oh, those wacky Germans!) accompanied by a very nice white beer. A half liter of a very nice white beer, to be exact, after which I did a little browsing in the nearby arts & crafts stands, managing to hold off on buying anything until we get to Prague, even though I found the same woman who sold me my amber ring and earrings, and even though I very much want a matching pendant.

I'm between meetings again enjoying a Euro 3.50 diet coke (yes, that's as expensive as it sounds!) and getting off my feet, for though the shoes are adorable, to paraphrase Famous Author MJ, "they pinch."

And that will mean nothing except to her and I!

The Latest From Germany

Where I'm halfway through my first day in the Agents Center, and possibly on my first no-show. Interestingly, it's a meeting with an editor that I saw every time I turned around yesterday at the FFHof. Still, I have my fab new suit on, luscious heels, and I have lunch planned only three meetings away with our Eastern European subagent, who's a ton of fun.

I'd started to type out some funny German phrases from the free daily edition of the British trade magazine The Bookseller that they pass out to us every morning, but the best part of them were more the descriptions than the words, and that was too much to try to type with my blackberry. Still, German = funny!

Anyway, I keep getting interupted by meetings - have had two since I started this - so I will just end this and post it, and send more later!

All Packed!

The hard part wasn't fitting my clothes into my bags, but more finding room for all the little power cords, and books, and shoes, and boots, and bags of Cheerios (What? I'm on a DIET, folks!), and assorted presents I'm bringing for people over in Europe.

On the plus side, it'll be way easier to bring everything home in two weeks. I'll ship all my work stuff (books and papers and all) from Frankfurt back to the office, give away the presents, and leave whatever books I read for fun wherever I finish them. Not to mention eating the Cheerios (and, um, some peanut butter. Reduced Fat! See above!). See? Easy!

Except for all the souvenirs I bring home, of course...