Every Clog Has Its Day

Epilogue

o how does that saying go about the best laid plans? It's certainly apt because my grand design has most assuredly gone awry. I had a story to tell so as you may have noticed, I excused myself from regular blogging duties to tell it. Well, yes, there was some time spent moving my fiancée into my condo in Chicago during my absence. And the new year has brought some new career opportunities that have commandeered my time. And I can't deny that there are new creative ventures that have pulled my energies in other directions. But I truly intended to take a break of no more than a few weeks while I dashed off my memoir. Then it was going to be back to blogging once again on what I hoped would be a reduced basis. Seriously, it's hard work coming up with a fresh post every day. I thought maybe I could manage three days of footwear fanaticism a week. Or two. Or at least one massive post on, say, Saturday. In the actual event, I find that what I need to do is take my bow and make a graceful exit. It's been an exciting 3-1/2 years sharing my passions online. As any lover of shoes would agree, finding and owning and talking about my favorite footwear has been a heady experience. But the emotions that I feel most strongly in my heart are the sensations of warmth and connection I have felt with the community of clog fans that evolved here. You gals and guys most definitely rock! I ventured out onto the world wide web knowing my interest in shoes was not conventional...and that it certainly put me at odds with life as most people live it. But here on Every Clog Has Its Day, I found myself in the midst of a group of people who all "got it." You understood that shoes were just my particular thing and you accepted and celebrated me for it. What can I say but, "Thank you!" It's been a great experience getting acquainted. And with readers checking in frequently from London and Johannesburg and Hungary and Australia and Portland, Oregon, and Arlington, Virginia, the world has become a smaller, friendlier place since I put my first post online in the summer of 2009. I don't really want to say goodbye. At the same time, I don't want these pages to become internet orphans, neglected and ignored. It does cost me a nominal fee to keep this blog online each month so I'll probably cancel that subscription sometime this summer. If you want to stay in touch, you can find my e-mail address (or a link to it, anyway) under the About link at the top of this page. In the meantime, I have a handful of photos to clear out of my Inbox. And if I don't share them with you here and now, I don't know when I'll ever get around to it!

Melissa says, "Hi!", by the way. Spring is fighting its way through the permafrost here in northern Illinois, and both she and I feel the promise of new life and new adventures in store for us. Not so much in the cool new shoes department (curses on you shoemakers who've stopped making wood-soled styles), but as a couple in love, our muses are speaking to us with fresh urgency. We've both got new things to create. And I hope we can find a way to share those with you down the road!

P. S. You know what I should do? I should figure out how to do something more with the Facebook account I have for Every Clog Has Its Day. I set one up last summer, but then it took so much time getting a post written and uploaded, I had no energy to travel over to Facebook to do more work. But maybe that would be a good way to keep this community connected. What do you think? 

 

 

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Karen Kell now has the full range of (women's) sizes

At the end of winter, shoe designer Karen Kell checked in to say,

Things are going pretty well for me actually! Business really started to kick off, and I have my first style of clogs available in all the sizes!  They are custom made and take up to 1 month after order date and are available in 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10!  Apparently there is no need for half sizes when you have open toe and open back shoes. I'm thrilled that at last I can take my shoes further.

You can find this style in Karen's Etsy shop here.

 

 

 

 

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Multnomah Leather Shop's latest

Say hello to some recent wooden goodness from the Pacific Northwest's most amazing shoemaker. Mark Casperson sent me these photos back in February. Mark writes,

We just made these boots for a fan in South Dakota. The Kilties are similar to some I've seen on logging boots. I think the rugged look goes well with the Anne style. What other style cries out for an added kilty?

More Multnomah Leather Shop styles can be found here.

 

 

 

 

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Multnomah Leather Shop contest winner's clogs

I announced the winner of the 2012 Multnomah Leather Shop design contest back in October. By the time the M. L. S. factory got them through the assembly line and out the door, I was on hiatus. So months after the fact, here's a reminder of what the winning entry looked like...and the finished pair of clogs.

Mark Casperson chose the entry below by saying,  

After considering the five finalists on the basis of originality, workability and just plain cuteness, our winning design is...

...Annelizabeth Wells' style #1 with hand-sewn moc toe and zipper closure! 

Congratulations, Annelizabeth! Contact us with your color choices and we will get started on your clogs!

 

And here's what Mark created for his winner:

 

 

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A crush on clogs

It was the 2nd of January that I received an e-mail from a U. K. clog fan who wrote,

i would like to send you some pictures of my work boot clogs ! I guarantee you have not seen anything like these. 

So I forwarded my e-mail address, and he in turn wowed me with a truly intimidating pair of shoes. No wonder he signed his e-mail "crushclogs."

 

 

 

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Another country heard from: France

Then in February, tales of my career in radio broadcasting may have inspired Stéphane to write to me and say,

I'm a french DJ and i love and wear clogs all day, all night !!!

And he has the photos to prove it!

 

 

 

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Another country heard from again: France

When March arrived, I got an e-mail from another French reader. Brian sent this message from the Languedoc region and accompanied it with the photos below. 

It's clear from your site that you're passionate about clogs so I thought I'd send you a photo of a pair of Childs Antique clogs which I found at a French fleamarket last week.  The coin next to them gives an idea of the scale (it's not what I paid for them!)...but they are cute little things measuring just a few inches long so toddler size I would imagine.  They are beautifully decorated with carving  and finely tooled leather and must have been bright blue when new as there are residues of the original paintwork.  I can see a little Lord Fauntleroy wearing them (or at least his French equivalent). What makes them really unusual is the leather liner in place of a sock.  I haven't seen anything like this before.  I suspect them must be at least 19thC if not earlier but I wondered if your members would like to see them or know anything more about them.

 

 

 

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Yet another country heard from: Hungary

We also have the opportunity to get a peek at the wood-soled shoes that are fighting for closet space in the home of another fellow D. J., Andras. He wrote to say,

Greetings from the other end of the world! Please have a look at my humble collection. (Berkemann toefllers and large size Peggies unpictured)

 

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Meanwhile, over in Australia...

It just wouldn't do to put a post online after all this time without bringing you up to date on our favorite clog fan down under. Philip has been busy both acquiring and manufacturing more and more awesome wood-platformed shoes. Gaze upon the wonder of what he's been up to! (Comments are Philip's.)

 

I have just purchased a pair of Munster boots from Sole struck.  The size runs large but are very easy to walk on.

 

Here are some photos of new and old boots, sandals and clogs. 

 

 

 

Here are some photos of my new Båstad Lilly boots I purchased on eBay last month. Very comfortable to walk in and easy to get on and off due to the elastic sides. The base is PU with a wooden insert.

 

 

 

Here are the designs for the clog sandals and the new platform sandals I have finished. The platform sandals are 4.5 inches high. I have decided to stain them black.

 

 

 

 

Here are photos of the platform hinged wooden sandals from the workshop. The sandals take awhile getting used to as the toe’s stay on the ground and the rest of the foot lifts up. There is less effort in walking as the hinge acts as a pivot point under the ball of the foot and less effort to raise the heel.

 

 

And if those photos aren't enough to make you book a flight to Sydney or Melbourne, Philip also sent along a glorious shot of an Australian sunset. It's a beautiful world. And I count it an honor to have been able to walk the planet alongside everyone I've met here. Wearing amazing shoes while I do, of course!

 

 

 

 

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[On my feet as I blog:  as I've always said, "So many shoes. So little time!" 

For the record, the lavender John Fluevogs are not mine.]

 

Every Blog Has Its Day—Chapter 13

I began by telling you this would be a story from the other side of “what if?”  What I should have said was that it’s only the first installment in an ongoing series of questions that all begin with “what if?”  Because as you might expect, once you get a glimmer of an answer to any particular question, there are handful of others that come tumbling in to take their place in line.  This whole tale began with me asking, “What if I left the comfort and security of what I knew to search for a relationship that would resonate powerfully with my heart and soul?”  I’m happy to report that I now have an answer to that question.  But I’ve also needed to address a half dozen more “what ifs?” as well.

“What if we get to know each other better?”

“What if we really like what we see?”

“What if we fall in love?”

“What if we decide to commit our lives to each other for the next, oh, thirty years or so?”

Big questions indeed.  And of course, every one of those questions would lead to another handful that needed answering.

Well, if I had wanted life to be simple and easy, I would have just stayed put, wouldn’t I?  But something called me onward.  Into the unknown.  Into a future where my path was uncertain and there were no guarantees.  An observation by Jungian psychologist James Hollis comes to mind.

“Anxiety is the price of a ticket on the journey of life.  No ticket, no journey.  No journey, no life.” 

Let’s be honest.  When we’re lying on our deathbeds, do we want to congratulate ourselves for all the times we were well-behaved and colored within the lines?  Or would we rather reminisce about how much fun we had?  I love the fact that that quotation comes from a book Hollis wrote called Swamplands of the Soul.  It is always necessary to spend some time lost in the wild before we can discover our true path.  And I can tell you I certainly spent a fair amount of time feeling as though I’d lost my compass.

But I hadn’t really at all.  To use the example I’ve made the focus of this memoir, I knew I loved shoes with a fiery passion.  And that passion was the fuel that powered my uncertain reach into the vast unknown of the internet to send my little blog to float on its own on the currents of the web.  Wonder of wonders, a kindred spirit saw the colors I was flying and paddled over to take a closer look.  From the outset I could tell that Melissa and I had enough in common to be good e-friends.  But then as we circled ‘round each other with the playful give and take of a couple just beginning to interact, we found we had a whole lot of other interests and passions in common than we would ever have imagined.  As it unfolded, it was rather astounding.  Well, that’s the word I used.  Melissa preferred to say it was astonishing.  You like rock music?  So do I!  You’re a Mac fan?  So am I!  You love London?  So do I!  You love to read?  So do I!  You like sci-fi movies?  British humour?  Japanese cars?  Dark chocolate?  So do I?

 I had pretty much decided that anyone I met was only going to offer a pale facsimile of the easy delight I hoped to enjoy with a partner.  And Melissa had pretty much resigned herself to being single.  But then, as John Lennon once sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

In hindsight, that simpatico we felt isn’t entirely surprising.  Remember that I had been blogging every day for a year when Melissa first discovered Every Clog Has Its Day.  And she’d been reading it regularly for a year before we began to truly turn our gazes toward each other.  That’s a lot of my personality that had been expressed online for her to take in and get familiar with.  And a lot of opportunities for her to be delighted—or not—by the things I had to say and how I said them.  Just as the topic of the blog helped select her as someone I could share a particular mutual interest with, I think the flavor and tone of my writing and the side topics I chose drew her closer in other ways, too.  And for my part, at the same time, I was regularly enjoying the way she expressed herself in the comments she posted and in the e-mail she sent.  By the time we actually started flirting with each other in earnest, we were already feeling mutually attracted for a number of well-established reasons.

In the unfolding of our attraction, though, it wasn’t certain we would hit it off at all.  First infatuations are often riddled with projections.  Expectations about whom we think the other person is.  Fantasies we’ve indulged in about love and relationships.  Honestly, the partner we think we’ve found is usually not the partner who is actually there.  But that needs to be the case starting out.  There’s got to be enough attraction to get a human being over the hump of inertia that would keep us at home wondering what’s on TV.  As two strangers begin to find their footing together, the blinders fall from their eyes and they discover just how truly “other” the other person is.  In our case, fortunately, I was astounded (and Melissa was astonished) by how much we actually did have in common.  Our initial courtship could easily have foundered, and we might have ended up merely fellow footwear fanatics who would reach out with excitement whenever a particularly noteworthy pair of shoes turned up online.  (Which is something we actually do do, by the way.)  But as we began to tease out and to explore each other’s nooks and crannies and share the treasures we had stored up in our personalities, we found ourselves falling more firmly, more deeply in love.

Following the exchange of e-mail that closed the last chapter—what Melissa calls my “big reveal”—we began to woo each other in earnest.  You’d recognize the usual milestones that charted the evolution of our desire.  Our first tentative e-mail exchanges soon turned into eagerly expected daily messages.  Observations about life, people, the universe...shared with wit and humor and a desire to be found entertaining and attractive.  

Next came the songs we shared with each other because we found we both respond to music so powerfully.  Peter Gabriel’s version of The Magnetic Fields’ “The Book of Love.”  “Hardliners” by Holcombe Waller.  “You (Make My Life Come True)” by The Roches.  “Delirious” by Luka Bloom.  “Harbor” by Vienna Teng.  “Hearse” by Ani DiFranco.  “Transatlanticism” by Death Cab for Cutie.  “Hungry for Your Love” by Van Morrison.  In an ideal world, this story will be made into a movie, and these songs will be in the soundtrack.  

Then there were the images:  our first photos to each other that we could show our friends.  Followed soon by our first photos to each other that we couldn’t show our friends.  No, these will not be found among the illustrations.  

Next there were the anxieties over our first phone call.  What if either of us was put off by the sound of the other’s voice?  What if one of us brayed annoyingly when moved to laughter?  What if one of us tended to monopolize a conversation unpleasantly?  It doesn’t take a lot for a relationship to click, but there are so many pieces that need to fit for it to keep on clicking.  And our biggest moment of truth was still ahead of us.

After two months of phone calls and e-mail messages, we came to the crucial acid test of our long distance courtship:  our first face to face meeting.

Does it feel as though I’m skipping through this all too quickly?  I can hear you clamoring for more details.  But in my defense let me argue that I’ve told you as much of my story from the other side of “what if?” as I can.  It’s a love story, yes.  Boy meets girl; boy digs girl’s shoes; boy falls in love with girl.  But you don’t seriously expect that the two of us would simply jump from the astounding (or astonishing) fairy tale of our “once upon a time” beginnings to settle down to a placid “happily ever after,” do you?  The slow motion dropping of bags and running into each other’s arms at the airport to be followed by nothing but non-stop harmony and bliss.  This is life we’re talking about!  

What I can tell you is this:  against all odds and contrary to what one would expect would be possible, Melissa and I found each other.  And not just found each other, but found each other and fell in love.  That’s Book I.  Book II would pick up the thread and tell the tale of how that love put down roots, followed by Book III in which it deepened and matured, and then subsequent volumes would carry us to the end our days.  We’ve given ourselves roughly 30 years to let this particular story play itself out, and at this point we’ve barely gotten the melamine unpacked.  Melissa has only just moved to the same city.  There’s not that much to tell.  If I were to keep writing, all you’d be getting is explication and setting.  Give us some time to have a little crisis, climax, and resolution, please.  

I can give you one glimpse into our lives together so far.  Late last year as we were making plans to fit the contents of Melissa’s three story home into my three bedroom condominium, we wrestled with what would be the best way to store our huge mutual collection of shoes.  We had the idea to put some of them on display in a tall storage hutch from Ikea.  But as we looked at just how many clogs and boots and other forms of footwear we had...and how little one lone cabinet could contain, a new plan suddenly came to Melissa:  move the bed from the wall it dominated and fill that entire 20’ length of the room with floor to ceiling bookshelves.  Then fill those shelves with our footwear favorites.

And that’s exactly what we did.  One hundred and forty-four pairs of the most amazing wooden clogs, platform boots, and high heeled sandals we’ve come across in our fervent wanderings on the planet.  

I think it’s obvious why we call it The Wall of Infinite Pleasure!

 

I have clearly died and gone to heaven.  Not only have I found a partner and playmate who shares my passions, she’s just as eager and willing to celebrate them as I am, too.  It’s truly astounding.  Or astonishing, depending.

For now, that’s the tale I’m able to tale.  It’s a true story.  And a real one, too.  Which means our lives together are full of twists and turns and unexpected dips and dives.  Moments when we crashed and burned.  And moments of the most exquisite ecstasy that this life can offer.  I believe I’ve found the partner I set out to find.  While I know better than to use words like “always” and “forever,” I truly believe that Melissa is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.  And she’s told me she feels the same.  Can you ask for anything more than that?  

In this life, we make the best choices we can based on the best resources we have to work with...and then hope it will all work out.  And as we were reminded in the recent British comedy/drama, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, it will be okay in the end.  And if it is not okay, it’s not the end.

Oddly, that’s not the only pat phrase that comes to mind.  I can also say that love came my way when I least expected it.  I also found love when I wasn’t looking.  And while I’m at it, I guess I proved the wisdom of:  to thine own self be true.  

What’s next for Melissa and me?  As I said, that’s a whole ‘nother set of “what ifs.”  You can bet that wherever our feet take us next, they’ll be shod with the most astounding shoes (well, astounding for me, astonishing for her) that we can find.  We’ve walked a lot of roads in our lives, and we’re proud that those journeys have made us the people that we are.  But interestingly, what makes us fit together so well are not the personalities we possess, but the perspective.  As Antoine de Saint-Exupery summed it so neatly, 

“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

 

 

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[On my feet as I bring this story to a close: Melissa got me some amazing tiered leggings from Black Milk Clothing and wanted to send them a photo of my pair in action. It took a few moments of debate in front of The Wall of Infinitie Pleasure, but I eventually did find the proper pair of shoes to do them justice: my Ronsons from Jeffrey Campbell. While we had the camera out, we also posed in our "his and hers" Andees for the folks at Miista. Yeah, we're definitely having fun together.]

 

 

Every Blog Has Its Day—Chapter 12

I was worn out with blogging.  I should have known it would be a lot of work.  I’d had to create daily posts for my radio station’s website, and I’d learned from that experience that it took more than a few witty lines about what I’d had for lunch and a picture of what I was wearing to make a webpage worth visiting.  I found myself putting in a couple hours or more every day just to make sure that I had something new to post regularly.  After all, the blog was named Every Clog Has Its Day.  I figured there should be something new every day.  Fortunately, I dreamt up a handful of recurring themes to help me generate content.  The What’s New? feature ran every Wednesday.  Well, I was already scouring the ‘net for cool wood soled shoes.  It was a piece of cake to share what I’d found.  Saturday Flea Market focused on used clogs and bygone styles.  I was already prowling the e-thrift stores for what they had to offer, too.  I found there was enough interest from male readers of my blog to justify launching a weekly Guy Day Friday post.  And then I dreamt up a handful of topic categories that would help me create fresh posts without having to reinvent the wheel every 24 hours:  Featured Designers, Celebriclogs, This ‘n’ That from Here ‘n’ There, Miu Miu Monday, and On My Feet As I Blog.  It was invigorating.  It was a creative challenge.  It was a heady experience.  And it was taking its toll.  

A few months shy of the two year mark, I began to feel the burn.  I started to think that I had said all I had to say with Every Clog Has Its Day.  Soon after I’d launched the blog, influential fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld had turned clogs from dorky ‘70s footwear relics into the new “it” shoe with the Spring/Summer 2010 wardrobe he’d created for Chanel.  That surge in interest in wood-soled footwear provided me with a seemingly endless supply of shoes to post about for the rest of the year.  By the spring of 2011, though, it began to appear that the resurgence of clogs had run its course.  Shoe makers were backing away from platforms and chunky heels.  Retailers became reluctant to call anything they carried a “clog,” sometimes going to ridiculous lengths to avoid using the C-word.  And I, personally, was often finding myself ready to relax at the end of busy day and not particularly interested in devoting two hours to researching and composing an entire post.  It felt as though it was time to say goodbye.

But what about the community I had created?  A community that stretched from Illinois to Pennsylvania and California, from Washington state to Washington, D. C., from England, Germany, and the Netherlands to South Africa to Australia?  What about those readers who genuinely looked forward to seeing what I had to say each day?  What about my fellow shoe addicts who turned to me for advice on where to score their latest fix?  What about all of the e-friends I had made?  I couldn’t just up and announce that I was tired of blogging and pull the plug.  I had to make my exit with a sense of closure.  I had to say goodbye in a way that would express my gratitude to all the clog fans I’d met.  I had a vision of how I wanted to bring it all to an end.  But before I did anything, I wanted to get the opinion of one of my most faithful readers:  Melissa.

We’d gotten even closer in our internet friendship at the beginning of 2011.  She’d become a welcome fixture in the Comments section the year before, but her posts tapered off as 2010 drew to a close.  That January I had to write to ask how she was.

“Pardon my intrusion, but you've mentioned your late husband a couple of times lately.  When I first met you via my blog, I had the impression he was still alive.  Did you suffer a loss I didn't hear about in the past year?  I don't mean to be nosy.  Just concerned.

"Thinking warm thoughts in your direction.” 

Her reply caught me totally off guard.

“You aren't intruding at all: it's thoughtful of you to notice and ask; yes, the love of my life lost his life to cancer at the end of October.”

I wrote back:

“Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry.  What a heartrending upheaval that has been, I'm sure.  My sincerest sympathy.  Oh, my God.  I can't even begin to comprehend what you've gone through.  And yet you pop up from time to time in my Inbox and offer a thoughtful comment or share a bit of your warmth.  Lord, I'm sure I would be reduced to staring listlessly into space in such circumstances.  My thoughts are with you.  And I hope I can at least offer the consolation of letting you know how your presence has brightened my corner of the world over the past six months.  Thank you for the goodness you've sent my way.  Your man most surely had some wonderful times on this planet with a partner like yourself to spend his time with.  

"Wish I could invite you over for a little tea and sympathy.”

To which Melissa appreciatively replied,

“Thank you, Lindsey. You are a bright spot in each of my days.

"Husband was quite sick for almost a year, so his death was not unexpected—I do miss him like crazy though—he was a great appreciator of cool shoes.

"I too wish we could share a warm beverage—and a stroll through each other's closets!”

And that, to me, was that. 

This dear reader had suffered an unthinkable tragedy, and I could do little but offer digital words of condolence.  It hurt to realize that as much as I enjoyed the glimpses I’d gotten of this fellow footwear fanatic through her correspondence, I really didn’t know anything about her.  She, like myself, was surely a vibrant and varied individual who was made up of more than just a great closet full of shoes.  But I was so far removed from the realities of her day to day life, I could do nothing more from four states away but give her space to heal.  I felt drawn to her personality.  I was curious to learn more about her.  We had written each other in occasional e-mails, and through those messages I learned that yes, her late husband had been a musician.  But the music making had been merely a hobby.  He was in fact a talented graphic artist.  And she had been to art school herself.  I was delighted that music and creativity were front and center in her world.  I also learned that she worked in Fairfax County, Virginia, not far from where I had spend the majority of my 2nd grade year.  How interesting that we would have a fleeting bit of geography in common, too!  She also mentioned that she had lived in London, my favorite city on the planet.  The groundwork was there for a very satisfying conversation over coffee should the stars ever align to make such a thing possible.  But that was just a fanciful daydream.

The cold, hard reality of life was that I had a free lance career that needed nurturing, a growing number of opportunities for my newly burgeoning musical talents, and the more realistic romantic expectation that I should look for someone in my own backyard to be a good fit.  I’d been dating around since breaking up with my girlfriend of three years.  (Do I even need to tell you that she was neither amused by my penchant for wearing women’s shoes nor particularly pleased I was devoting so much energy to blogging about them?)  It felt like it was time to get my bearings and chart some new directions in my life.  It really felt as though it was time to bring down the curtain on Every Clog Has Its Day and invest myself in some new creative project.  

But as I said earlier, I couldn’t simply close up shop.  I truly needed to get the advice of someone who knew the blog well and understood its community and its allure.  It made sense to reach out to one of my most passionate readers, a reader whose wisdom and insights in the Comments I had enjoyed time and time again.  

I turned to Melissa.

“Hey, if you're not too swamped...,” 

I wrote,

“...I thought I'd get your opinion.  Got a moment?”

“What’s up?”

she wrote back.

And with a great deal of uncertainty in the middle of June in 2011, I unburdened myself with the following:

This is a message that in some ways is long overdue.  I've been delighted getting to know you through our occasional correspondence and have truly appreciated your contributions to my blog.  It's good people like you that make charting my course forward difficult.

You clearly know that I'm a passionate fan of wood soled shoes.  What I don't make clear in my blog is that I'm actually a guy who's rushing off to pick up this style or that and then wax rhapsodically about its many delights.  When I started this blog nearly two years ago, I wanted to make sure it didn't turn into a fetish site.  And I figured the best way to do that would be to hide my gender and just focus on the shoes.  For the most part, I think I've been successful.  But along the way, I've gotten to meet a number of wonderful readers whom I've wanted to put in the know.  Many of the designers I've spoken with have been aware I'm a man.  But I haven't thought it was time to step out from behind the curtain for my regular readers.  

My caution is not out of my own desire to hide who I am.  I honestly do wear the shoes you read me raving about and am genuinely celebrated and loved by my kids, my friends, and my co-workers for my unique and individual style.  But I work in a public position as a radio personality and creative services director here in Chicago, and I haven't wanted to bring the scrutiny of that community (or the general public that knows me from my on air work) directly to bear in this area of my life.  So I've blogged using my middle name and have only pointed my friends and people I know well toward the URL.

I'm thinking with the popularity of the Guy Day Friday feature, it would make sense to step forward and introduce myself.  But actually, that's not the advice I was going to seek from you.  Instead, as I approach my two year anniversary with Every Clog Has Its Day, I find my interests have moved to many other directions.  Obviously, clogs are not the hot fashion item they once were.  And having plumbed the depths of what's available in the clog world, I feel like there's nothing new coming along to fire my imagination or to prize open my pocketbook.  I have all the clogs I could want right now (well, all the ones that are reasonably priced).  I feel as though I've done what I wanted to do in scouring the planet for wood soled shoes.  And now I want to put my energy into some other directions.  What other directions?  I'm sure you may be curious!  Well, as you probably have read, I'm working with a variety of music ensembles here playing bass with most of them, but I've been roped into getting reacquainted with my trombone for a couple of them.  Getting more proficient on my instrument is a goal right now.  And I'm feeling the need to explore some new career ideas this summer.  There's a musician interview show idea I want to pitch to the organization I'm taking music classes from.  And a good friend who was downsized at the same time that I was in 2009 has an opportunity brewing with a newly revitalized Chicago music venue.  I might be able to grab onto his coattails with that.  Suffice it to say, while I have been proud to meet the discipline of maintaining my blog on a daily basis every day for nearly two years, I'm feeling like I need to step away and pursue some other things.  

I'm writing to see what you think might be the best way to make my exit.  I figured I would make an announcement of some sort.  Cease posting once the second anniversary arrives in August.  Keep the blog active for another month or two.  Then close my account with TypePad in the fall.  

I've toyed with scaling back to fewer posts.  Maybe only post on weekdays.  Or every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  

What do you think?  

I hate bringing this community to a close.  We really have a warm, supportive group that's evolved here.  I can't envision handing the duties to anyone else since I've rarely seen that work well on other websites.  And besides, I have pretty high standards that I'd want someone to uphold!  I value your input and would love to read what light you might be able to shed on this issue.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.  I look forward to hearing from you.  And believe me, if we lived closer, I'd have suggested having coffee long before now!

I clicked Send, took a deep breath, and waited.  

It was a little over an hour before I received Melissa’s reply.  She was in the midst of her workday so the brevity of it was not a surprise.  The sentiment, on the other hand, knocked me off my feet.

“Well, now I'm more in love with you than I was before.”

 

 

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[On the feet around here lately: Woo-hoo! I submitted a shot of myself in my my new Mia lace up booties from Miista, and they posted it on the Miista blog! (Consumer photos are uploaded here. I was at the top of page 4 when I typed this, though they upload fairly frequently so it won't be long before I'm further down the e-pipeline. Here's the link to photo by itself.) I don't mean to carry on like a 20-year-old with her first pair of Litas, but it's nice to get a little recognition and take a brief turn in the spotlight. You won't be surprised when I tell you it was much more satisfying than having my product review posted on Home Depot two years ago.]

Every Blog Has Its Day—Chapter 11

One day I fell in love with one of my readers. 

My clog blog was such a perfect outlet for my passions.  It was such a perfect excuse for spending my time scouring the web for shoes that caught my eye.  It gave me the chance to write at length about a topic that I loved to contemplate.  It put me in the middle of a community of kindred spirits who could relate to my obsession.  It validated my fascination for footwear by letting me see I wasn’t alone in my approach to life.  It’s no surprise that I attracted someone who felt the same. 

Each day on Every Clog Has Its Day I would put a little bit more of myself online.  And every so often I’d hear from another shoe lover somewhere in the world who shared my interests.  One day I might write about sighting high-heeled Miu Miu clogs on Jessica Simpson.  The next day I might talk about the new wood-soled styles from Sanita.  The day after that I might feature an assortment of oil paintings depicting Europeans in wooden shoes.  And then the day after that I might offer an interview with a contemporary clog maker.  My blog was not only a place to broadcast my fervor for fabulous footwear.  It also provided me with a much needed outlet for my creative energy as well.  I wasn’t content to simply revel in the shoes I lusted after on a daily basis.  I was driven to express myself as inventively as possible.  I set out not only to create a blog about shoes, I wanted to make it a blog that I would want to read.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

Early in 2010 I made the e-acquaintance of Mark Casperson, clog maker from Portland, Oregon, and owner of Multnomah Leather Shop.  He had basically inherited the business from his father who in turn had learned the trade from a Norwegian craftsman who had brought his skills to the region in the early 1900s.  His clogs were a delightful combination of contemporary colors and textures and stolid wood-soled tradition.  Best of all, he made everything by hand...to order.  I interviewed Mark for the blog and published a number of custom clogs he had assembled for his clientele.  I began eyeing these unique Multnomah Leather Shop styles and started toying with designs for my own one-of-a-kind shoe.  But then unexpectedly, Mark sent me a photo of a new lace up clog boot he had just dreamt up, and I immediately knew it was just the sort of shoe I wanted to create.  I sat right down and designed my own pair of clog boots.  From the cap toe to the two tone combination of pebbled leather and plain to the thicker lug sole to the boot loop in the rear of the upper to the whimsical contrasting leather circle at the ankle, this was a pair of clog boots that came out of my own head.  And Mark, the clog craftsman, patiently guided me through the permutations of what was and wasn’t possible.  It was a heady experience bringing a pair of shoes to life.  And in typical blogger fashion, I documented the whole process in one monster post that included my original mockups, Mark’s photos of the shoe being built in his workshop, and the requisite blogging climax:  the unboxing of the finished design.  

“Applause, applause,” commented one regular reader.  “Yep, I’d be staring at my feet all day in secret (or not so secret) delight.  FABULOUS!!” 

“Oh, wow!  These are so great,” wrote another.

“Oh, my goodness.  Fantastic!” said a third.

And then a comment tumbled in from someone I had never heard from before:  a reader who signed her name as Melissa.

"I have been following your blog every day for quite a while, and it is wonderful---but this has to be the best post ever! How extraordinary are your new clog boots---I am off to order a pair of clog saddle shoes, having lusted for them ever since you originally mentioned Mark's work on your blog.  Walk tall in your awesome boots, ma’am!"

Just a few short lines.  A bit of praise.  Some personal warmth.  The acknowledgment that my passion had inspired her.  It was enough to make me sit up and take notice.  Yes, I noticed she assumed that because I was blogging with such intensity about women’s shoes I must necessarily be a woman.  But I could still appreciate the compliments.  And since I felt that by keeping my gender undisclosed I was helping my blog, I didn’t see any need to correct her.  

I replied, 

"God bless you for writing! I was just having a rough afternoon at work in front of my computer today, and your message made the clouds part and the sun shine. Thank you so much! (And when you receive your saddle shoes, be sure to send a picture or two!)"

One of the great delights of overseeing Every Clog Has Its Day was finding myself unexpectedly at the center of a community that was evolving around it.  Already I had a handful of regular visitors who would chime in from time to time about this style or that or some new shoe that had caught their eye.  But this woman said she genuinely enjoyed what I was achieving.  She touched me with her very first compliments.  And then she went on to make me smile with her enthusiastically appreciative comments on a regular basis.

In response to a post in which I expressed amazement over how so many twenty-somethings on street fashion site Lookbook.nu were posing in $400 shoes, Melissa commented, 

"You wonder how these young women can afford such expensive shoes? Well, obviously they don't eat...."

In response to a post describing my ecstatic anticipation of the new Jeffrey Campbell high-heeled Charli-C clogs I had just ordered from Nordstrom.com, Melissa wrote, 

"OMG indeed! I followed your link to Nordstrom and saw these Tory Burch clog boots. [link supplied] I may have damaged my keyboard by drooling on it...."

In response to a post celebrating my fondness for actress Kate Beckinsale in her chunky high-heeled Chanel clogs, Melissa observed,

"Holy crow! I too adore Kate! She comes across in interviews as a smart, sassy woman, and she is my idea of gorgeous. There was an interview with her in Esquire last November that I actually tore out of a doctor's waiting room copy because I loved the pix! My bad."

In response to one weekly review of the latest clogs to reach the market, Melissa contributed a link about a new style she had just discovered on the Sanita website,

"And as long as we are sighing over autumn previews, I am mad for Sanitas and mad for gray suede: given gray suede Sanitas, I must surely have died and gone to heaven!"

In response to a post that merely previewed the soon to be released line of high-heeled lace up clog booties from Jeffrey Campbell, Melissa exclaimed,

"ZOMG! The boots in pink! THE BOOTS IN PINK!!! (I hear angels singing "ah AHH ahhh wheeee"!)"

In response to a post detailing a variety of the specific styles in that Jeffrey Campbell line, Melissa simply wrote,

"I just swallowed my tongue."

What was going on here?  The women I knew didn’t talk like this.  My fondness for this regular reader of my blog could not be contained.  Eventually we struck up a conversation outside of the Comments section.  Keep in mind that I was still closeted to my readers and had no intention of stepping from behind the curtain just yet.  It seems a little naive in retrospect, but I wasn’t particularly eager to find out how my women readers were going to respond to finding out that their blog mommy was actually a blog daddy.  Still, the energy of her personality was irresistible.

In an e-mail just a month and a half after her first appearance, I wrote, 

"You have such a refreshing way of expressing yourself in the comments!  My daughter and I both look forward to reading something you've posted.  Even something as simple as your "Holy Crow!" makes me smile.  Thanks so much for dropping by so often.  You bring an additional satisfaction to my little web hobby."

Her reply?

"Well, thank you! I can be rather enthusiastic about the things I love! And shoes would certainly be one of those things!"

Was I dreaming?  Here was another human being who felt about shoes the same way that I did.  I could so relate to her passion for footwear and her fearless drive to express it and embrace it.  I was fascinated.  I would have loved to have gotten to know her better.  And from what I could tell, Melissa was feeling the same.  Consider her post on the occasion of Every Clog Has Its Day’s first anniversary:

"Thank you for making every day clogfully delicious! I look forward to all your hard work, I learn from you, and I spend money on shoes because of you—without ever having met, you are my BFF!! Yours is one of only four blogs I follow every day and the ONLY one about shoes! You rock and so do your clogs! Cheers!!"

I mentioned the unexpected community that a blog can build.  But what of the friendships that a daily interaction over a shared interest might inspire.  We clog lovers found common ground as together we gazed upon the objects of our desire.  And from that starting point, we began to offer bits and pieces from the rest of our lives as we grew to know each other better.  I certainly had gotten curious about what sort of people my readers were.  In the summer of 2010 I held a Jeffrey Campbell giveaway.  I was able to award five pairs of JC wood-soled shoes to five winners chosen at random.  Content hungry blogger that I was, I had to ask the winners to send me pics of their shoes in action.  I knew it was good business to follow up the contest with photos of happy new shoe owners.  But I was also just plain curious what some of my readers looked like and how they lived.  

As Melissa repeatedly delighted me with her comments on Every Clog Has Its Day, I found myself wondering about her, too.  So much so that I couldn’t resist doing a little browser based detective work.  Not that I could turn up much.  Her e-mail address seemed to be related to a music production website.  Ooo!  Maybe she worked in a creative field like mine.  There was someone apparently on staff there with the same last name.  But no listing for her.  Oh, dear.  She’s probably some young twenty-something who’s married to one of the co-owners.  My heart sank.  Around the same time, one of her posted comments made reference to how much her husband appreciated her footwear.  Lucky guy.  But all my vaguely swirling fantasies of what this rare breed of woman might be like were instantly packed up and filed away.  

Of course, I should know better than to trust what I read on the internet.  Especially when a lot of what I’m reading is between the lines.  I was wide of the mark on a number of things I thought I dug up about Melissa.  But it would be a few months before I actually learned the truth.  I contented myself with having a new e-friend to get excited about shoes with and tended to other romantic pursuits.  

Still, I couldn’t overlook how smitten I was with such comments as:

"I cannot get enough of color, and anything in the pink-purple family grabs my heart and my wallet in equal measure, shouting BUY ME! WEAR ME! And I, of course, being the polite southern belle that I am, gracefully comply."

Or:

"Ooh! Sweet footwear! I have often "posed" my shoes and taken group shots! And I don't think I've ever gotten rid of a pair that I didn't snap a pic for the memories. I say "good on you" Lindsey, for recognizing what you love and going after it. Cheers!"

Or:

"OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! The aviator shearling clog boot in beaten brown! I am dying!!"

Or:

"ZOMG! I am so giving those to one of my fanfiction characters to wear!"

One fall day, I found myself debating a recent purchase.  Jeffrey Campbell’s successful series of Lita platform booties had included a thigh high variation named the Ivka.  I had long ago learned that when it comes to shoes in my size, he or she who hesitates is lost.  The Ivkas appeared on the Solestruck website in a size 11 shortly before lunchtime one day.  By the middle of the afternoon they were gone.  But not before I nabbed a pair for myself even though my budget could ill afford it.  I hemmed and hawed over the boots for a couple of weeks, and then decided to take the sensible path and return them.  Before I dropped off the box at UPS, though, I turned to someone I knew would surely understand my indecision.  I wrote to Melissa to say,

"I actually ordered those Ivka lace up platform boots from Jeffrey Campbell even though I can't really afford them.  I figured I'd try them on, take some pics of them for the blog, and then send them back.  Only...now that I've got 'em all boxed up, ready to go with the return label on the package, I'm flipping through the photos I took and thinking, "Damn.  Those do look fine!"  I'm starting to wonder if returning them might be a mistake.

"(sigh)

"And to complicate matters, I did recently meet someone who just might enjoy me owning this pair."  

Melissa replied sympathetically with just the words I needed to read:

"I hear your SIGH and return it.

"If there was one of those "buy ten, get the twelfth FREE" cards for shoes like there is for pizza or burgers, they'd be sorry they offered me one! 

"And as for keeping shoes that someone else will appreciate, I'm a bad influence: if that person likes those boots and makes you feel beautiful/desirable/yummy for wearing them, I'm afraid to report that the boots are worth the money—even if you have none—ain't no price to be put on desire!"

Amen, sister!  

Could this woman be any cooler?  She absolutely gets where I’m coming from.  At least as far as shoes are concerned.  And as you’ve read, my relationship to shoes is a facet of my personality that was feeling sorely under appreciated.  I so wanted to reach out to this mystery woman with the fascinating personality.  At the same time, I had to ask myself what I truly hoped to gain.  An occasional pen pal?  A co-conspirator in the search for fabulous footwear?  A person who had the potential to become a close friend but for the fact that she lived 12 hours away.  She was married, too, for Pete’s sake!  We clearly wouldn’t be meeting at Starbucks anytime soon.  What was the point of trying to get to know her better?  

Strangely, life had other plans.  In 2011 I made a decision that changed everything.  I decided to bring my blogging days to an end. 

 

 

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[On my feet this past week:  I played a set of Rod Stewart and The Faces music with my friends from the Old Town School of Folk Music last Friday night.  And since it was a snowy night, I took my new Medina rubber boots from Sorel for a spin.

Then Saturday night we went out with an old friend for tapas.  And I did my best to give people at the next table something to talk about with my blue and yellow Mia lace up booties from Miista.  

Today, on the other hand, I wanted to wear my blue Marlo booties from Kork-Ease.  They came in a vivid color called Bosforo Blue, but wouldn't you know it, the style didn't catch my eye until that color was completely sold out in my size.  So I bought the booite in the Natural Vacchetta color (a pale neutral leather) and took them to my favorite shoe repair shop in Chicago to have them dye them.  They did a great job as always!]