So the Wall Street Journal did a fashion article about the spike heel.

Flats are this year’s much-hyped shoe trend, with sales of comfy shoes shooting skyward, according to retailers such as Nordstrom and Zappos.com. But those friendly flats tend to disappear at key moments — the biggest meetings, confrontations and transactions.

Yes…I noticed that. Flats are the new trend precisely because the Stiletto heel is really the new trend. Women who try to wear the spike heels are required the next day–maybe the next week– to take it easy with the flats. Sprained ankles and swollen fore-feet require a recovery period.

I won’t say I don’t love the stiletto. I admire the women who can wear them. I would…I would stomp around in 5 1/2 inch heels that could draw blood samples.

I just can’t. I don’t know if it is the lack of self-hatred or the lack of self-esteem that keeps me from working the righteous leather pumps until my feet can carry them effortlessly.

I will admire–out loud–the women I encounter with the heel mojo. “I love your shoes..I’m not enough of a women to dare wear things like that.”

They will give advice. Find the right fit, the right designer…

It’s quite possible that my problem is that I can’t seem to spend more than 25 bucks on shoes. I shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t feel like Nikes.

But the WSJ is talking about how high-powered women keep a pair of high-powered shoes around for when they need them:

“High heels indicate power,” says Stuart Weitzman, designer of many a power heel. “For some reason, it’s a natural instinct for human beings.”

This is partly a factor of height. At 5’9½ in bare feet, a pair of heels leaves Kristin Bentz, who runs a fashion-investment blog, towering over many men in a room. “I totally use the shoes for the intimidation factor — for women and for men,” she says.

Yet, as much as I’d like to argue that this is all about the added height, I’m afraid it’s not. High heels are sexy. They offer an inherent contradiction: They make us more fragile, but conquering them to stride alongside men in their sensible flats creates mystique.

MMm….all the things I would like to be. Sexy, Powerful, Intimidating…Don’t mess with me!

But it hurts to wear those shoes.

maybe that’s part of it. When a tall women walks into a room in her dangerous stilettos, maybe that’s what she’s saying:

“I eat you for breakfast. You think you scare me? I can take what you’ve got and feed the leftovers to my dog. You think you can hurt me?
Look at these shoes. You talking to me? There’s nobody else here but me.
You don’t know the meaning of pain.”

Yeah, that would be pretty intimidating.

They’ve figured out how to do botox to numb the face into smoothness.

When are they going to let us inject novocaine into our feet?

THAT’S when I’ll wear the heels.

I live in a desert.

Asphalt and chapparal cover the earth that is my chosen homeland.

The chapparal will always win, but the asphalt is gaining territory.

It is getting vertical, too.

Layered like a cake, or like strata in archeology.

Or stacked like firewood.

VERY stacked:

I’m counting six layers of lanes in that intersection. Six seems to be the limit. I’ve never seen seven.

I live in a desert, so these overpasses are over earth.

But it shook me pretty badly when a bridge collapsed yesterday.

I couldn’t stop watching the news. My first thought was whether one of my favorite writers, James Lileks, was okay.

Lileks blogs the way I wish I did. He talks about his wife and a LOT about his daughter. I was very worried for him, and for his family. I imagined what sort of sadness it would be if one of them had been killed in this horrible tragedy.

For me, he was the personal face of Minnesota during this time. I couldn’t turn off the TV until he posted online and I knew he was okay.

The sad part is, there are other families that are not okay.

Trying to whistle in the dark, I said to Chris, “At least I don’t have to cross any bridges when I am driving around.”

‘Yes you do!” he said.

“Well, not over water.”

right. But if I fell through onto asphalt or chaparral, it would be even less forgiving than the Mississippi river.

I’ve admired the beautiful freeways and overpasses I travel for a long time now. But what are they hiding beneath their swooping exteriors?

I can look down, when I am traveling on the higher of the six layers, and think about what holds me up.

Or what keeps me safe as I travel under:

How safe am I?

My heart is with the Minnesota people. I hope the best for them.