In the summer between 5th and 6th grades, I had no clothes.

We’d just moved from Humboldt county California back to Alaska. I wasn’t naked, but I had one box for all my things. ALL my things, including clothes. You can imagine how that worked out.

But school had to start. I had niether enough clothes to last a week at school, nor any means to purchase them. So I hit up the give-n-take at church. That glorious closet of hand-me-downs served me well.

My goal was to own 5 pairs of pants. The clothing that I had been wearing during the summer was simply done as far as I was concerned. I never wanted to see them again, and anyway, they were past being wearable. To my delight and relief, I found four pairs of what appeared to be BRAND NEW pants in the give-n-take.

They were identical cotton polyester pants with an elastic waist band, the right size, but in four different colors:
pink
yellow
purple
green

“Look mom! I can wear a dress on chapel day, and have enough pants so I can wear different ones for each day.” They did sort of remind me of the kind of clothes a grandmother would wear, the kind that are advertised in the pages of Parade magazine in the sunday paper. But what I feared most, being teased for not owning enough pants, would certainly be averted by these glaringly different slacks.

I guess neither of us really anticipated that the kids in the Alaskan Christian School would be bigger clothes snobs than the kids from Humboldt county. It took until about the 3rd day of school for me to figure it out.

I found ways to earn money for pants as fast as I could. Three months went by before I had the 20 bucks to buy a non-shaming pair of pants. In the meantime, I found that skirts were my friend.

The pink pants were the most onerous. Kids from lower grades teased me about them, even after I had stopped wearing them (for good, believe me. I felt like burning those hated pants).

“Pink pants Pink pants!!”

I didn’t wear pink even once the rest of the year.

My class was made up of three grades, fifth, sixth, and seventh. I remember once, talking with a likable fifth grader about boys. Beginning with my strategy of avoiding the color pink, I had formed a theory about attracted boys which I shared with her:

“You have to be a tomboy. If you act like a boy, they will feel comfortable around you and then..maybe…even like you.”

Such sage advice from a 12 year old–I don’t know what made me think I had something to say about attracting boys. Certainly none of the boys in our class were interested in me. Maybe I was just hoping that my natural exuberance–which wasn’t ladylike–would get me what I was hoping for.

I do consider myself feminine. I have reclaimed my beloved color pink. But I am not ladylike. I don’t wait to be asked, because I simply don’t believe that will ever happen. It’s up to me to get things started.

Ask the question if you don’t know. Ask for what you need, or even what you want.

What makes that unladylike, I’d like to know? why not?

And yet, I can’t help but notice the reaction.

I was in a training class recently, and sat in the middle. When I had a question I raised my hand and asked it. But on the break, I walked up to the front to take a look at some technology there.

The teacher (male) said “Uh Oh, I’m in trouble now.”

I wanted to smack him. How insecure is this guy to be scared of me asking a question? Or was it just me? unladylike me?

Man, it’s hard enough with all the other things that can detract and derail. I believe that women must be assertive..yes pushy..to take care of the things that are most important.

When it comes to the people we women care about, we women have to push to get them what the need. From the local school principal to the President of the United states, we have to be willing to push.

And that includes pushing for ourselves.

But you know, if people think I’m pushy, it really reflect back on themselves. I wouldn’t have to push if I could just get the answer/resources/materials that I need when I ask nicely the first time

I heard that kids these days want to be famous.

It’s hard to miss, this celebrity culture. What are the famous people doing? Everyone wants to know!

If you are famous, people notice you. People want to know how you are and what you are doing. They think you are special.

All of which could actually be accomplished more effectively by an attentive grandmother, don’t you think?

There is a lot of distance between people now. Separate vehicles carry us, pod-like, to where we need to go. Don’t get too excited

But if americans are so happy to keep our distance, keep our fences tall, why are so many people ready to invade the privacy of celebrities? And why are kids wanted to be famous like that?

It’s just another way of getting love. Why can’t we all take turns being famous? Let’s all stop and appreciate one another frequently. Let’ s take any opportunity we find to notice and applaud each other.

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.