Pair Of Shoes Love Quotes

I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it. I will love you as a dagger loves a certain person’s back, and as a certain person loves to wear dagger proof tunics, and as a dagger proof tunic loves to go to a certain dry cleaning facility, and how a certain employee of a dry cleaning facility loves to stay up late with a pair of binoculars, watching a dagger factory for hours in the hopes of catching a burglar, and as a burglar loves sneaking up behind people with binoculars, suddenly realizing that she has left her dagger at home. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguised and until every home is rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where we once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and now matter how I am discovered after what happens to me as I am discovering this.

Falling in love with a house or a car or a pair of shoes, it was a dead end. You save your love for the things that can love you back.

Even a child with normal feet was in love with the world after he had got a new pair of shoes.

What was the self-sacrifice?" I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes." Why was that self-sacrifice?" Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly. I think we have different value systems." Well mine's better.

Settling into a new country is like getting used to a new pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. The longer you have them, the more comfortable they become. Until one day without realizing it you reach a glorious plateau. Wearing those shoes is like wearing no shoes at all. The more scuffed they get, the more you love them and the more you can't imagine life without them.

when you're young a pair of female high-heeled shoes just sitting alone in the closet can fire your bones; when you're old it's just a pair of shoes without anybody in them and just as well.

She felt about her zester the way some women do about a pair of spiky red shoes--a frivolous splurge, good only for parties, but oh so lovely.

My maid never sweeps under the bed so I asked her to do so today. Found a pen, three pairs of shoes and the man I had lost two years ago.

I felt the water rising enough to touch my Vans. She was worth ruing a pair of shoes over.

It’s to do with knowing and being known. I remember how it stopped seeming odd that in biblical Greek knowing was used for making love. Whosit knew so-and-so. Carnal knowledge. It’s what lovers trust each other with. Knowledge of each other, not of the flesh but through the flesh, knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face. Every other version of oneself is on offer to the public. We share our vivacity, grief, sulks, anger, joy ... we hand it out to anybody who happens to be standing around, to friends and family with a momentary sense of indecency perhaps, to strangers without hesitation. Our lovers share us with the passing trade. But in pairs we insist that we give ourselves to each other. What selves? What’s left? What else is there that hasn’t been dealt out like a pack of cards? Carnal knowledge. Personal, final, uncompromised. Knowing, being known. I revere that. Having that is being rich, you can be generous about what’s shared – she walks, she talks, she laughs, she lends a sympathetic ear, she kicks off her shoes and dances on the tables, she’s everybody’s and it don’t mean a thing, let them eat cake; knowledge is something else, the undealt card, and while it’s held it makes you free-and-easy and nice to know, and when it’s gone everything is pain. Every single thing. Every object that meets the eye, a pencil, a tangerine, a travel poster. As if the physical world has been wired up to pass a current back to the part of your brain where imagination glows like a filament in a lobe no bigger than a torch bulb. Pain.

BUYING A PAIR OF shoes is one of the most optimistic acts I know, next to falling in love. I like nothing better than to see an old man wearing a brand new pair of brogues or cap-toed oxfords, preferably jaunty orange-brown, unscuffed, heels unworn. We want to be here tomorrow, but buying new shoes, like falling in love, says I plan on being here tomorrow.

When the people you love are gone, it’s the things they’ve touched that keep them alive in your mind. A picture, a shirt, a poem, a pair of baby shoes. They become anchors that help you keep their memory from drifting away.

How could she trust this man, so imprecise with his words, to take care of the burial? To say there had been a loss was ludicrous; one lost a shoe or a pair of keys. You did not suffer the death of a child and say there was a loss. There was a catastrophe. A devastation. A hell.

There once was a poor man who walked around without shoes. His feet were covered in calluses. One day a rich man felt sorry for the poor man and bought him a pair of Nikes. The poor man was extremely grateful and wore the shoes constantly. Well after a year or so, the shoes fell apart. So the poor man had to go back to running around barefoot, only now all his calluses were gone and his feet got all cut up and soon the cuts became infected and the man got sick and eventually, after they cut off his legs, he died. I call that particular story "Love, Death & Nikes." A real cheer me up story for Mr. Monster. That's right! All for you. Oh and something else: fuck you Mr. Monster.

When I see him, his frame filling the doorway, I do not feel passion, excitement. I can't remember if I ever have. He makes me feel comfortable, like a favorite pair of shoes.

Drop down someone else's shoe and run to take your own quickly. Don't hire your own to anybody, else it profits you nothing! Brighten the corner where you are. Yes, you can!

You always need to be wearing an elegant pair of shoes. Men are good too; but what good is a man if you don’t have beautiful shoes on your feet? You need to be either barefoot; or wearing fabulous shoes in order to attain that certain type of happiness...I don’t know what it’s called... it’s a “to hell with it all” kind of happiness that makes you know that you can take on the world!

Boots, love isn't like a cute pair of shoes. You can't try it on to see if it fits and walk out the door wearing it.

There are three things that always look very beautiful to me: my same good pair of old shoes that don’t hurt, my own bedroom, and U.S. Customs on the way back home.

But that’s what the cool kids wear!  Whereas I, on the other hand, wear PayLess.  And not just any pair of PayLess shoes, mind you.  Oh, no!  I’m wearing the BOGO addition: buy one for son, get one for mom, all for nineteen-ninety-nine.  Like an informercial!

The middle of the 'Atlantis' the warm, luxurious cabins,ining-rooms, halls, shed light and joy, buzzed with the chatter of an elegant crowd, was fragrant with fresh flowers, and quivered with the sounds of a string orchestra. And again amidst that crowd, amidst the brilliance of lights, silks, diamonds, and bare feminine shoulders, a slim and supple pair of hired lovers painfully writhed and at moments convulsively clashed. A sinfully discreet, pretty girl with lowered lashes and hair innocently dressed, and a tallish young man with black hair looking as if it were glued on, pale with powder, and wearing the most elegant patent-leather shoes and a narrow, long-tailed dress coat, a beau resembling an enormous leech. And no one knew that this couple had long since grown weary of shamly tormenting themselves with their beatific love-tortures, to the sound of bawdy-sad music ; nor did any one know of that thing which lay deep, deep below at the very bottom of the dark hold, near the gloomy and sultry bowels of the ship that was so gravely overcoming the darkness, the ocean, the blizzard.

If I had a wish, I would turn you to a pair of shoes to keep you under my feet and you get an opportunity to be under the bed too.

The right outfit and the right pair of shoes can change a woman’s life! If you don’t believe me, just ask Cinderella!

Yet whatever her enthusiasm for independence, with time Chloe nevertheless began leaving things behind. Not toothbrushes or pairs of shoes, but pieces of herself. It began with language, with Chloe leaving me her way of saying not ever instead of never, and of stressing the be of before, or of saying take care before hanging up the telephone. She in turn acquired use of my perfect and if you really think so. Habits began to leak between us: I acquired Chloe's need for total darkness in the bedroom, she followed my way of folding the newspaper, I took to wandering in circles around the sofa to think a problem through, she acquired a taste carpet.

These micro-performances keep us going, they always have, we all of us love the tiny one-act plays enacted over the last spoonful of jam at breakfast, a new pair of shoes, the glossy surficial frivolity of our ordinary lives.

There are only two kinds of women in the world, those who love shoes and those who had the misfortune to be born without the ability to experience total bliss on finding a pair of perfectly designed pumps in the right size at half price.

In two weeks, our house will be empty. And then the stagers will descend with the trucks full of no one’s furniture and art and try to make it look like a different family lived there, an imaginary family with no photographs or mail or food in their refrigerator. In real life, we were sometimes messy. We didn’t always do the dishes. We left pots soaking. We let the papers pile up, and left too many pairs of shoes by the door, and didn’t vacuum as much as we should have. We were not always happy, but we were always us.

Once my father told me: When a Jew prays, he is asking God a question that has no end. Darkness fell. Rain fell. I never asked: What question? And now it's too late. Because I lost you, Tateh. One day, in the spring of 1938, on a rainy day that gave way to a break in the clouds, I lost you. You'd gone out to collect specimens for a theory you were hatching about rainfall, instinct, and butterflies. And then you were gone. We found you lying under a tree, your face splashed with mud. We knew you were free then, unbound by disappointing results. And we buried you in the cemetery where your father was buried, and his father, under the shade of the chestnut tree. Three years later, I lost Mameh. The last time I saw her she was wearing her yellow apron. She was stuffing things in a suitcase, the house was a wreck. She told me to go into the woods. She'd packed me food, and told me to wear my coat, even though it was July. "Go," she said. I was too old to listen, but like a child I listened. She told me she'd follow the next day. We chose a spot we both knew in the woods. The giant walnut tree you used to like, Tateh, because you said it had human qualities. I didn't bother to say goodbye. I chose to believe what was easier. I waited. But. She never came. Since then I've lived with the guilt of understanding too late that she thought she would have been a burden to me. I lost Fitzy. He was studying in Vilna, Tateh—someone who knew someone told me he'd last been seen on a train. I lost Sari and Hanna to the dogs. I lost Herschel to the rain. I lost Josef to a crack in time. I lost the sound of laughter. I lost a pair of shoes, I'd taken them off to sleep, the shoes Herschel gave me, and when I woke they were gone, I walked barefoot for days and then I broke down and stole someone else's. I lost the only woman I ever wanted to love. I lost years. I lost books. I lost the house where I was born. And I lost Isaac. So who is to say that somewhere along the way, without my knowing it, I didn't also lose my mind?

Listen babe, I'm thinking, if you want to stay the weekend, bring some more stuff over. You know, just in case you want to stay longer or something." I smile. "Careful there, love. You're going to regret it when I bring in a hundred pairs of shoes and take over your closet." "You don't have a hundred pairs of shoes." I laugh, mockingly evil. "Bwahaha, after this app hits number one and I get gamer coding bankroll, I might go shoe shopping!" Derrick laughs. "Add in a couple more pairs of fuck-me pumps, and I'm happy. You can wear them while I make you scream my name in ecstasy.

Listen babe, I'm thinking, if you want to stay the weekend, bring some more stuff over. You know, just in case you want to stay longer or something." I smile. "Careful there, love. You're going to regret it when I bring in a hundred pairs of shoes and take over your closet." "You don't have a hundred pairs of shoes." I laugh, mockingly evil. "Bwahaha, after this app hits number one and I get gamer coding bankroll, I might go shoe shopping!" Derrick laughs. "Add in a couple more pairs of fuck-me pumps, and I'm happy. You can wear them while I make you scream my name in ecstasy.

Ford and Arthur talking: "This is very, very serious indeed. The Guide has been taken over. It's been bought out." Arthur leapt up. "Oh, very serious," he shouted. "Please fill me in straight away on some corporate publishing politics! I can't tell you how much it's been on my mind of late!" "You don't understand! There's a whole new Guide!" "Oh!" shouted Arthur again. "Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm incoherent with excitement! I can hardly wait for it to come out to find out which are the most exciting spaceports to get bored hanging about in in some globular cluster I've never heard of. Please, can we rush to a store that's got it right this very instant?" Ford narrowed his eyes. "This is what you call sarcasm, isn't it?" "Do you know," bellowed Arthur, "I think it is? I really think it might just be a crazy little thing called sarcasm seeping in at the edges of my manner of speech! Ford, I have had a fucking bad night! Will you please try and take that into account while you consider what fascinating bits of badger-sputumly inconsequential trivia to assail me with next?" ... "Temporal reverse engineering." Arthur put his head in his hands and shook it gently from side to side. "Is there any humane way," he moaned, "in which I can prevent you from telling me what temporary reverse bloody-whatsiting is?" ... "I leaped out of a high-rise office window." This cheered Arthur up. "Oh!" he said. "Why don't you do it again?" "I did." "Hmmm," said Arthur, disappointed. "Obviously no good came of it." ... "What was the self-sacrifice?" "I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes." "Why was that self-sacrifice?" "Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly. "I think we have different value systems." "Well, mine's better.

Nowadays we live in a world where poor teenagers are willing to maim and murder for a pair of tennis shoes or a designer coat; this is not a consequence of poverty. In dire situations of poverty at earlier times in our nation's history, it would have been unthinkable to the poor to murder someone for a luxury item. While it was common for individuals to steal or attack in the interests of acquiring resources - money, food or something as simple as a winter coat to ward off the cold - there was no value system in place that made a life less important than the material desire for an inessential object.

Loving someone who does not love you back hurts, alot, i know. It is liking seeing these pair of shoes at the retail store which do not fit you. Chances are, if you buy them knowing they are a small size, you will have blisters and probably hurt your toes. What i mean is, not everyone will love you back, therefore, never shove your love down anyone's throat. Accept it and appreciate the ones that do love you.

What is it about shoes? I mean, I like most kind of clothes, but a fabulous pair of shoes can just reduce me to jelly. Sometimes, when no-one else is at home, I open my wardrobe and just stare at all my pairs of shoes, like some mad collector. And once I lined them all up on my bed and took a photograph of them. Which might seem a bit weird, but I thought, I've got loads of photos of people I don't really like, so why not take one of something I love?

You know, I’m just a regular guy. I mow my lawn, shovel snow from the driveway, and change the oil in our vehicles. I do the grocery shopping and cook most of our dinners. I’m like any other man in America. Only I got lucky—I have a beautiful son and an activity we can do together, despite his disability. It’s been an incredible journey. I’m not a hero. I’m just a father. And all I did was tie on a pair of running shoes and push my son in his wheelchair.

The planet was filling up with good-looking young worldlings built entirely of opposites, canceling themselves out and- speaking as a bloke- leaving nothing you'd honestly want to go for a drink with. This new species of guys paired city shoes with backwoods beards. They played in bands but they worked in offices. They hated the rich but they bought lottery tickets, they laughed at comedies about the shittiness of lives that were based quite pointedly on their own, and worst of all they were so endlessly bloody gossipy. Every single thing they did, from unboxing a phone through to sleeping with his athlese, they had this compulsion to stick it online and see what everyone else thought. Their lives were a howling vacuum that sucked in attention. He didn't see how Zoe could ever find love with this new breed of men with cyclonic souls that sucked like Dysons and never needed their bag changed in order to keep on and on sucking.

Did you have any yourself?" she said. "Just one." Harold thought of David, but it was too much to explain. He saw the boy as a toddler and how his face darkened in sunshine like a ripe nut. He wanted to describe the soft dimples of flesh at his knees, and the way he walked in his first pair of shoes, staring down, as if unable to credit they were still attached to his feet. He thought of him lying in hit cot, his fingers so appallingly small and perfect over his wool blanket. You could look at them and fear they might dissolve beneath your touch. Mothering had come so naturally to Maureen. It was as if another woman had been waiting inside her all along, ready to slip out. She knew how to swing her body so that a baby slept; how to soften her voice; how to curl her hand to support his head. She knew what temperature the water should be in his bath, and when he needed to nap, and how to knit him blue wool socks. He had no idea she knew these things and he had watched with awe, like a spectator from the shadows. It both deepened his love for her and lifted her apart, so that just at the moment when he thought their marriage would intensify, it seemed to lose its way, or at least set them in different places. He peered at his baby son, with his solemn eyes, and felt consumed with fear. What if he was hungry? What if he was unhappy? What if other boys hit him when he went to school? There was so much to protect him from, Harold was overwhelmed. He wondered if other men had found the new responsibility of parenting as terrifying, or whether it had been a fault that was only in himself. It was different these days. You saw men pushing buggies and feeding babies with no worries at all.

Good morning! The sun is up! Wake up! Time to eat," said the birds. "Good morning," Ashlynn said back. There was a clink of glass slippers against the wood floor, and then her mother appeared in the doorway. She had the same strawberry-blond hair and green eyes as Ashlynn. Her mother was already dressed, but Ashlynn didn't notice the clothes she was wearing. As always, her eyes went right to the glass slippers. Oh, how she loved those shoes. "Chores, dear!" her mother said, leaning over to kiss the top of Ashlynn's head. "And then you should pack." "Yes, Mother!" Ashlynn washed her face, put on an apron, and then opened wide the door to her shoe closet. This princess wouldn't care if she wore a burlap sack every day, so long as she had dozens of footwear choices. Today she settled on a pair of scrappy teal wedges and went to start breakfast. Even though her father's grand house came fully stocked with servants, her mother believed in good, solid, character-forming chores. After all, Ashlynn would inherit her mother's story and become the next Cinderella someday, and there would be lots of floors to mop and hearths to sweep before her Happily Ever After.

Five years from today. Where, exactly, do you want to be?" Her eyes lit up. Sadie loves that kind of question. "Ooh. Wow. Let me think. December, getting close to Christmas. I'll be twenty-one..." "Passed out under the tree with a fifth of Jack, half a 7-Eleven rotisserie chicken, and a cat who poops in your shoes." Frankie returned our startled glances with his lizard look. "Oh, wait. That's me. Sorry." I opted to ignore him. "Five years to the day,Sadie." She glanced quickly between Frankie and me. "Do we need a time-out here?" "Nope," I said. "Carry on." "Okay. Five years. I will be in New York visiting the pair of you because, while NYU is fab, I will be halfwau through my final year of classics at Cambridge, trying to decide whether I want to be a psychologist or a pastry chef. You," she said sternly to Frankie, "will be drinking appropriate amounds of champagne with your boyfriend, a six-three blond from Helsinki who happens to design for Tory Burch. Ah! Don't say anything. It's my future. You can choose a different designer when it's you go. I want the Tory freebies." She turned to me. "We will be sipping said champagne in the middle of the Gagosian Galley, because it is the opening night of your first solo exhibit. At which everything will sell." She punctuated the sentence by poking the air with a speared black olive. "I love you," I told her. Then, "But that wasn't really about you." "Oh,but it was," she disagreed, going back to her salad. "It's exactly where I want to be. Although" -she grinned over a tomato wedge- "I might have the next David Beckham in tow." "The next David Beckham is a five-foot-tall Welshman named Madog Cadwalader. He has extra teeth and bow legs." "Really?" Sadie asked. Frankie snorted. "No.Not really.

She felt about her zester the way some women do about a pair of spiky red shoes—a frivolous splurge, good only for parties, but oh so lovely. The day Lillian had found the little utensil at a garage sale a year before, she had brought it to Abuelita, face shining. She didn’t even know what it was for back then, she just knew she loved its slim stainless-steel handle, the fanciful bit of metal at the working end with its five demure little holes, the edge scalloped around the openings like frills on a petticoat. There were so few occasions for a zester; using it felt like a holiday.

In fact, in recent years I have become more and more didactic about pubic hair - to the point where I now believe that there are only four things a grown, modern woman should have: a pair of yellow shoes (they unexpectedly go with everything), a friend who will come and post bail at 4 a.m., a fail-safe pie recipe, and a proper muff. A big, hairy minge. A lovely furry moof that looks - when she sits, naked - as if she has a marmoset sitting in her lap. A tame marmoset, that she can send of to pickpocket things, should she so need it - like that trained monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

God loves everybody, exactly the same. No matter what you do. If you grew up like me, then you are waiting for the asterisk to that sentence. Sure, God loves everybody the same. *But he really likes it when you go to Africa. Or start a food kitchen. Or adopt through foster care. Or buy cool, overpriced shoes that may or may not give an orphan in some nameless country a complimentary pair. Or turn your TV into a garden for succulents. Or whatever it is that we believe we must do in order to be fully loved. God took away my asterisk, and now I don’t know how to classify myself anymore. I’m just a sheep of his hand, and it is more lowly and lovely than I could have ever imagined.

It was the first one we found. As it turned out, he’d left love notes for her everywhere. Inside the left shoe of her prettiest pair of high heels, at the back of the pantry weighed down by jars, behind the books on the living room shelf. Slotted between their favorite records. Some of them had song lyrics, some had jokes, some had pleas to remember him. My mother collected them all and put them in a Mason jar on her dressing table. Every time we found a new one, she would smile in a way I hadn’t seen her smile without him. When I discovered one in the bottom drawer of my bedside table, I kept it hidden so I could make her smile when we ran out of new notes to find. Or when the telegram came.

It’s to do with knowing and being known. I remember how it stopped seeming odd that in biblical Greek, knowing was used for making love. Whosit knew so-and-so. Carnal knowledge. It’s what lovers trust each other with. Knowledge of each other, not of the flesh but through the flesh, knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face. Every other version of oneself is on offer to the public. We share our vivacity, grief, sulks, anger, joy… we hand it out to anybody who happens to be standing around, to friends and family with a momentary sense of indecency perhaps, to strangers without hesitation. Our lovers share us with the passing trade. But in pairs we insist that we give ourselves to each other. What selves? What’s left? What else is there that hasn’t been dealt out like a deck of cards? Carnal knowledge. Personal, final, uncompromised. Knowing, being known. I revere that. Having that is being rich, you can be generous about what’s shared — she walks, she talks, she laughs, she lends a sympathetic ear, she kicks off her shoes and dances on the tables, she’s everybody’s and it don’t mean a thing, let them eat cake; knowledge is something else, the undealt card, and while it’s held it makes you free-and-easy and nice to know, and when it’s gone everything is pain. Every single thing. Every object that meets the eye, a pencil, a tangerine, a travel poster. As if the physical world has been wired up to pass a current back to the part of your brain where imagination glows like a filament in a lobe no bigger than a torch bulb. Pain.

To be productive, in fact, glorifies God because when we are productive we are not only obeying him but imitating him. Wayne Grudem perhaps captures this best: “It may be that God created us with such needs because he knew that in the process of productive work we would have many opportunities to glorify him. When we work to produce (for example) pairs of shoes from the earth’s resources, God sees us imitating his attributes of wisdom, knowledge, skill, strength, creativity, appreciation of beauty, sovereignty, planning for the future, and the use of language to communicate. In addition, when we produce pairs of shoes to be used by others, we demonstrate love for others, wisdom in understanding their needs, and interdependence and personal cooperation (which are reflections of God’s Trinitarian existence).”2

Beatrix was right, of course." "About what?" "That you and Leo were like a pair of ferrets, a bit rough-and-tumble in courtship." Catherine smiled sheepishly. "Beatrix is very intuitive." Poppy directed a wry glance at Dodger, who was carefully licking the last residue of egg off the saucer. "I used to think Beatrix would outgrow her obsession with animals. Now I realize it's the way her brain works. She sees hardly any difference between the animal world and the human one. I only hope she can find a man who will tolerate her individuality." "What a tactful way to put it," Catherine said, laughing. "You mean a man who won't complain about finding rabbits in his shoes or a lizard in his cigar box?" "Exactly." "She will," Catherine assured her. "Beatrix is far too loving, and worthy of being loved, to go unmarried.

Owen felt his mouth curve into a grin as he heard the familiar clap, clap, clap behind him. That was one of his favorite sounds—high heels on the wooden dock of the Boys of the Bayou swamp boat tour company. He took his time turning and once he did, he started at the shoes. They were black and showed off bright red toenails. The straps wrapped sexily around trim ankles and led the eye right up to smooth, toned calves. The heels matched the black polka dots on the white skirt that thankfully didn’t start until mid-thigh, and showed off more tanned skin. He straightened from his kneeling position in one of the boats as his eyes kept moving up past the skirt to the bright red belt that accentuated a narrow waist and then to the silky black tank that molded to a pair of perfect breasts. He was fully anticipating her lips being bright red to go with that belt and her toenail polish. God, he loved red lipstick. And high heels. In any color. But before he could get to those lips, she used them, to say, “Oh, dammit, it’s you.” Owen’s gaze bypassed her mouth to fly to her eyes. Because he’d know that voice anywhere. Madison Allain was home. A day early. Not that an extra day would have helped him prepare. He’d been thinking about her visit for a week and was still as wound tight about it as he’d been when Sawyer, his business partner and cousin, had told him that she was coming home. For a month. Owen stood just watching her, fighting back all of the first words that he was tempted to say. Like, “Damn, you’re even more gorgeous than the last time I saw you.” Or, “I haven’t put anyone in the hospital lately.” Or, “I’ve missed you so fucking much.” Just for instance.

SOYEN SHAKU, the first Zen teacher to come to America, said: “My heart burns like fire but my eyes are as cold as dead ashes.” He made the following rules which he practiced every day of his life. In the morning before dressing, light incense and meditate. Retire at a regular hour. Partake of food at regular intervals. Eat with moderation and never to the point of satisfaction. Receive a guest with the same attitude you have when alone. When alone, maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests. Watch what you say, and whatever you say, practice it. When an opportunity comes do not let it pass by, yet always think twice before acting. Do not regret the past. Look to the future. Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child. Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.

There was a clink of glass slippers against the wood floor, and then her mother appeared in the doorway. She had the same strawberry-blond hair and green eyes as Ashlynn. Her mother was already dressed, but Ashlynn didn't notice the clothes she was wearing. As always, her eyes went right to the glass slippers. Oh, how she loved those shoes. "Chores, dear!" her mother said, leaning over to kiss the top of Ashlynn's head. "And then you should pack." "Yes, Mother!" Ashlynn washed her face, put on an apron, and then opened wide the door to her shoe closet. This princess wouldn't care if she wore a burlap sack every day, so long as she had dozens of footwear choices. Today she settled on a pair of scrappy teal wedges and went to start breakfast. Even though her father's grand house came fully stocked with servants, her mother believed in good, solid, character-forming chores. After all, Ashlynn would inherit her mother's story and become the next Cinderella someday, and there would be lots of floors to mop and hearths to sweep her Happily Ever After.

Some addictions are clear. The homeless woman with the fresh track marks over years of scars. The man who loses his home and car to gambling debts and now is hiding from dangerous creditors. Some addictions are softer, easier to engage in and still get up and function every day. Those of us who take out a bag of chips or tray of muffins after a tough day. Or go shoe shopping for our 8th pair of black sandals that we are never going to wear. There are addictions that excuse us from society altogether, those that keep us barely afloat within it, and those that become a barrier between us and the rest of the world. It’s only a matter of degree, in the end. How do we define when we cross over into addiction territory? As a relationally-trained therapist, my answer is a simple one. When our addiction becomes our primary relationship. Maybe not in our hearts and heads. But in our behaviors, definitely. When we don’t have control over our addictions, we are spending time, resources, and energy on the addiction instead of the people we love. And instead of, let’s face it…ourselves.

Oh, were we talking about dinner? Well, let me say this: I don’t take it lightly if when I write the word beef someone chooses to read lamb. People talking about a book as if it were just another thing, like a dish, or a product like an electronic device or a pair of shoes, to be rated for consumer satisfaction—that was just the goddamn trouble, you said. Even those aspiring writers your students seemed never to judge a book on how well it fulfilled the author’s intentions but solely on whether it was the kind of book that they liked. And so you got papers stating things like “I hate Joyce, he’s so full of himself,” or “I don’t see why I should have to read about white people problems.” You got customer reviews full of umbrage, suggesting that if a book didn’t affirm what the reader already felt—what they could identify with, what they could relate to—the author had no business writing the book at all. Those hilarious stories that people loved, and loved to share—the book clubber who said, When I read a novel I want someone to die in it; the complaint against Anne Frank’s diary, in which nothing much happens and then the story just breaks off—did not make you laugh.

This felt like a golden opportunity to alert Dan to some non-negotiables I had regarding men. "Bear with me," I told Dan. "This is going to be a long list. I don't like strong scents, so that kind of prohibits waking up next to someone of the opposite sex, or any sex, really. I'm extremely sensitive to smell. I have a problem with smelling anyone's breath. I'm not the kind of person who can get past that. I get turned off very easily. It could be anything. It could be finding out they have a cat, or seeing their apartment, or they could love room temperature water...Feet are tricky. That's why I like to lead with them. When I meet a guy I like, I take out a foot and show him what he'll be dealing with if things go any further. Put your worse foot forward. That's how I like to start a conversation. And then, when they're gracious enough to tolerate me and my feet, God forbid they have a weird foot or a double-decker toe - I can't deal with it...Also, I have too many questionable habits that no man would be cool with, and by the way, if there was a guy that was cool with them, I'm not sure I'd be interested in him..I can get icked out so easily. I'm aware this behavior is unreasonable and immature, and I'd like it to stop. I don't want to get turned off so easily, but I just don't know how to get past a bad pair of shoes, or...male jewelry.

Grace adored Amelia. The older woman was a close friend of her grandmother and mother, and a constant in Grace's life. She visited Amelia often. The inn was her second home. As a child she'd always raced up the stairs and raided Amelia's bedroom closet, and Amelia had encouraged her unconventional behavior. Grace had loved dressing up in vintage clothing. Attempting to walk up in a pair of high button shoes. Amelia was the first to recognize Grace's love of costume. Her enjoyment of tea parties. She'd supported Grace's dream of opening her business, Charade, when Grace sought a career. From birthdays to holidays, the costume shop was popular and successful. Grace couldn't have been happier. She admired Amelia now. Her long, braided hair was the same soft gray as her eyes. Years accumulated, but never seemed to touch her. She appeared youthful, ageless, in a sage-green tunic, belted over a paisley gauze skirt in shades of cranberry, green, and gold. Elaborate gold hoops hung at her ears, ones designed with silver beads and tiny gold bells. The thin metal chains on her three-tiered necklace sparkled with lavender rhinestones and reflective mirror discs. Bangles of charms looped her wrist. A thick, hammered-silver bracelet curved near her right elbow. A triple gold ring with three pearls arched from her index finger to her fourth. She sparkled.

What does one wear to a ranch early in the morning? I wondered. I was stumped. I had enough good sense, thank God, to know my spiked black boots--the same boots I’d worn on basically every date with Marlboro Man thus far--were out of the question. I wouldn’t want them to get dirty, and besides that, people might look at me funny. I had a good selection of jeans, yes, but would I go for the dark, straight-leg Anne Kleins? Or the faded, boot-cut Gaps with contrast stitching? And what on earth would I wear on top? This could get dicey. I had a couple of nice, wholesome sweater sets, but the weather was turning warmer and the style didn’t exactly scream “ranch” to me. Then there was the long, flax-colored linen tunic from Banana Republic--one I loved to pair with a chunky turquoise necklace and sandals. But that was more Texas Evening Barbecue than Oklahoma Early-Morning Cattle Gathering. Then there were the myriad wild prints with sparkles and stones and other obnoxious adornments. But the last thing I wanted to do was spook the cattle and cause a stampede. I’d seen it happen in City Slickers when Billy Crystal fired up his cordless coffee grinder, and the results weren’t the least bit pretty. I considered cancelling. I had absolutely nothing to wear. Every pair of shoes I owned was black, except for a bright yellow pair of pumps I’d bought on a whim in Westwood one California day. Those wouldn’t exactly work, either. And I didn’t own a single shirt that wouldn’t loudly broadcast *CLUELESS CITY GIRL!* *CLUELESS CITY GIRL!* *CLUELESS CITY GIRL!* I wanted to crawl under my covers and hide.

But what should he wear? I thought about having him laid to rest in his uniform. But the truth is he hated wearing it. He really needed to be dressed in something he was comfortable in. And that wasn’t going to be in a suit, either: he hated being in a jacket and tie even more than in a uniform. Tie? Ha! I got a pair of his best pressed jeans. They had a nice crease in the pants leg, just like he liked. I found one of his plaid button-down shirts, another favorite. Kryptek, which produces tactical gear and apparel and was one of Chris’s favorite companies, had presented him with a big silver belt buckle that he loved. It was very cowboy, and in that way very much who Chris was. “You think I can pull this off?” he’d asked, showing me how it looked right after he got it. “Hell, yeah,” I told him. I made sure that was with him as well. But if there was any item of clothing that really touched deep into Chris’s soul, it was his cowboy boots. They were a reminder of who he was when he was young, and they were part of who he’d been since getting out of the military. He had a really nice pair of new boots that had been custom made. He hadn’t had a chance to wear them much, and I couldn’t decide whether to bury him in those or another pair that were well worn and very comfortable. I asked the funeral director for his opinion. “We usually don’t do shoes,” he said. It can be very difficult to get them onto the body. “But if it’s important to you, we can do it.” I thought about it. Was the idea of burying them with Chris irrational? The symbolism seemed important. But that could work the other way, too--they would surely be important to Bubba someday. Maybe I should save them for him. In the end, I decided to set them near Chris’s casket when his body was on view, then collect them later for our son. But Chris had the last word. Through a miscommunication--or maybe something else--they were put in the casket when he was laid to rest. So obviously that was the way it should have been.

My bisnonno is such a man...Fine, you laugh again. Not so handsome,I think,but just as proud. He struts through the square with his new shoes. He buys a carriage. But he gives to the poor,too, to the Church.He is kind to his siters; he is a friend to many.He is raffinato, a gentleman. And the girl he chooses? Hmm? Hmm?" "I don't know, Nonna. Elizabeth Benedetto?" "Hah!" Nonna slapped her hand hard against her knee. It bounced soundlessly off the leopard plush. "Elisabetta. Elisabetta, daughter of a man who works on another's boat. Elisabetta who has many sisters and who is intended for the Church if she does not marry. I don't remember her family name, if I ever knew. Maybe Benedetto.Why not? It does not matter.What matters is that no one understands why Michelangelo Costa chooses this girl. No one can...oh,the word...to say a picture of: descrivere." "Describe?" "Si. Describe.No one can describe her.Small,they think. Brown, maybe. Maybe not so pretty, not so ugly. Just a girl. She sits by the seawall mending nets her family does not own. She is odd,too,her neighbors think.They think it is she who leaves little bit of shell and rock when she is done with the nets, little mosaico on the wall. So why? the piu bella girls ask, the ones with long,long necks, and long black hair, and noses that turn up at the end. Why this odd, nobody girl in her ugly dresses, with her dirty feet? "Michelangelo sends his cousins to her with gifts. A cameo, silk handkerchiefs, a fine pair of gloves. Again,the laugh.Then, you would not have laughed at a gift of gloves, piccola. Oh,you girls now. You want what? E-mails and ePods?" "That's iPods,Nonna." "Whatever. See,that word I know. Now, Elisabetta sends back the little girst. So my bisnonno sends bigger: pearls, meters of silk cloth, a horse. These,too,she will not take. And the people begin to look,and ask: Who is she, this nobody girl,to refuse him? No money,no beauty,no family name.You are a fool,they tell her. Accept. Accept! "And my proud bisnonno does not understand. He can have any girl in the town.So again,he gathers the gifts, he carries them himself, leads the horse. But Elisabetta is not to be found. She is not at her papa's house or in the square or at the seawall. Michelangelo fears she has gone to the convent. But no. As he stands at the seawall, a seabird,a gull, lands on his shoulder and says-" "Nonna-" "Shh! The girl tells him to follow the delfino....delfin? Dolphin! So he looks, and there, a dolphin with its head above the water says, 'Follow!' So he follows,the sack with gifts for Elisabetta on his back,like a peddler, the horse trailing behind.The dolphin leads him around the bay to a beach, and there is Elisabetta, old dress covered in sand,feet bare, just drawing circles in the sand. She starts to run, but Michelangelo calls to her. 'Why,' he asks her. 'Why do you hide? Why will you not take my gifts?' And she says..." I'd been fighting a losing battle with yawning for a while. I was failing fast. "I have no idea. 'I'm in love with someone else.'?

even the peoples we love won't have the same life experience like pair of shoes does.

that my obsession with Barbie © ended after I aged into the double digits, but it turns out that I just stopped collecting the dolls. My fascination with the glossy world of Barbie has continued, if not intensified as I got older, and I replaced my doll dresses with real dresses.However, it really took the Barbie Runway Show yesterday at the tents to remind me of the special place Barbie’s always occupied in my heart - and in those of little girls and grown up fashionistas everywhere. Everyone has a Barbie story. I fell in love with the doll after spotting it among its friends at a local supermarket at a very young age, and spent the next few years giving her haircuts and even making her clothes. The first pair of shoes I really loved were the pink heels Barbie wore. I was so disappointed that Barbie couldn’t actually stand up in them - though now years later I often face the same unfortunate results when I don on my most Barbie-esque of shoes, the Christian Louboutin Decollete. At any rate, during the show I realized that each girl’s fantasy of the Barbie world lives copyright

Merle took off to hide his front end under a dining room chair, ass in the air like always, as I scooped up the shoe he’d been gnawing on like a damn rawhide bone. “Just a shoe?” I asked in a deadly-quiet voice. “Just a shoe? This is a goddamned Manolo Blahnik! It cost four hundred and seventeen dollars!” I stared down at the ravaged shoe in my hand and felt a whimper bubble up from my chest. I swear to God, I was this close to crying as I looked down at my poor, ruined baby. “Holy shit! You paid four hundred and seventeen dollars for a pair of friggin’ shoes?” Trevor asked in astonishment. “Are you insane!” “Nooo, I said this shoe cost four hundred and seventeen dollars. As a pair, they cost eight thirty-five!” I shouted like the math made the situation more understandable. “Fuck me, cher. It’s a shoe. You walk around with it on your foot; you don’t live in the damn thing! You’re telling me that ugly-ass thing cost more than I paid in rent for a month at my apartment?” I sucked in an audible gasp. How dare he call my precious ugly. “Take it back,” I whispered. “What?” Trevor looked at me like I was a crazy person. “Take it back. This shoe is not ugly. It’s stunning,” I said, holding it to my chest and giving it a loving stroke. He let out a sarcastic grunt and eyeballed the pump like it was garbage. “Not so stunning covered in dog slobber,” he laughed. And I was a second away from stabbing him with the chewed-up stiletto heel. Those shoes deserved to be praised. They deserved to be worn to the most expensive restaurants and balls and red carpet premiers! And they deserved to be buried with dignity in the backyard under my pretty oak tree. And I didn’t think I was being ridiculous at all!

Respect: If your son is raised connecting the word respect with the following statements: “I respect the choice you are making to wear your sandals; I will be wearing my rain boots.” “I can see how upset you are, and I love you and respect you too much to fight with you, so I am going to go outside until I cool down and then we can talk about what happened.” “I know you like having the same lunch every day, so I bought you everything you need to make the lunch that you like.” “I can see that the way you organize your clothes really works for you.” “I can feel myself getting angry, so I am going to go cool down and think about how I feel about the situation and then maybe we can find a solution that works for all of us.” “I respect your choice not to work on your science project and I hope you can respect my choice not to get involved in the decision your teacher makes.” “I know your uncle can be very judgmental and in spite of that, you showed respect for his point of view and for the rest of the family by not arguing with him over dinner.” … it is reasonable that you will raise a son who has a healthy concept of what respect looks like, sounds like, and feels like in a relationship with others. Message: Respect is a two-way street and we both participate. Cooperation: If your daughter is raised hearing: “How about you carry the jacket to the car just in case the weather changes? If you decide not to wear it, that’s fine, but at least you will have it with you.” “Would you be willing to help me out at the store and be in charge of crossing things off my list and then paying the cashier while I bag the groceries?” “I am not going to have time tonight to help you with your project, but if you are willing to get up an hour early tomorrow morning I could help you then.” “I promised your brother I would make him a cake and I am wondering if you would like me to teach you so we can make our cakes together from now on.” “I am willing to watch thirty minutes of your show, even though you know it’s not my favorite, before I go to the other room to read.” “We have a lot of camping gear to set up, how do we want to divide up the jobs?” … it is reasonable that you will raise a daughter who has a healthy concept of what cooperation looks like, sounds like, and feels like in a relationship with others. Message: Cooperation is a willingness to work together. Responsibility: If your children are raised hearing: “I trust you can find another pair of mittens to wear today at school.” “Only you can decide how much lunch you will eat.” “I don’t know where you put your soccer shoes. I put mine in the hall closet.” “I’m sorry, but I won’t bring the homework that you left on the counter.” “You told the coach that you would put in the extra time outside of practice; you’ll have to explain to him why that didn’t happen.” “Do you have a plan for replacing the broken window?” “I understand that you are frustrated. I am following through with our agreement.” … it is reasonable that you will raise children who have a healthy concept of what responsibility looks like, sounds like, and feels like in a relationship with others. Message: Responsibility is being able to respond effectively to the situation at hand.

Sometimes love is like a meal to someone who’s been fasting at other times it’s like a new pair of sports shoes given to a disabled child. Love, in general, is a deal that brings much loss to all parties.

As soon as we were settled, I wrote to Diana to give her our new address and family news. Diana replied in late November after returning from a trip to the Middle East, which she had found “fascinating.” Then she wrote, “I wish I could persuade you to come and visit us over here as I think a great deal of Patrick and I shall never forget that adorable face in Washington with the blue blazer, tie with pheasants on and a junior pair of shoes on that my husband had on at the time!” What a memory and what fondness to recall Patrick’s outfit a year later!

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” To respond to this prophetic command our church put on crusades in the streets. We visited hospitals, boldly preaching about the God of the Bible. With all the prayer and worship at church we had been infused with the Holy Spirit to go to our city and villages and tell people about Jesus. We were sent out two by two for local outreach and would go on mission trips, as described in Luke 10:1, 4: The Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them in pairs ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come. . . . “Carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes; and greet no one on the way.

No amount of marketing will change an experience.” —Brian Solis Customer experience is everything that happens when people encounter your brand. And whether it’s online or offline, you get to design it. Most people don’t put money on the table and hope that they hate the results of their choice. They actually want to fall in love with you and your brand. It’s your job to give them a reason to. The feeling your customer leaves with, as she walks out the door or clicks away from your website, is your best opportunity to differentiate your brand. Commodities are just stuff with a fixed value—until they’re not. The brands you love and talk about are not the ones that competed on price or features. They are the ones that changed how it felt to buy a cup of coffee, slip on a pair of shoes, or open a laptop in a café.

Uma Akkolyte: "When I was a little girl, my mother gave me a pair of shoes and put me on a train and I watched as she exploded with the rest of Cairo. "I lived hating her for a long time. I thought when she died ... [sic.] "I thought it meant she didn't love me enough to live. "But I want you to know. "I love you more than anything. "And I know I'm rambling, but I am really scared right now. Not for me. Don't worry about me. I'm gonna go see my mom now. "I'm scared for you. So just do me one favor, okay ... [sic.] "... [sic] Don't let this consume you. Try not to blame me. "Don't live in hate. Or grief. "Just-- "Live.

Damn it.  Why didn’t the United States know when to declare a real war?  Those running the country he loved were making a mockery of it.  Misusing the word war had become a joke, like The War on Drugs or The War on Women.  What was taking place in Guatemala was being run the same way as the fake War on Terror.  Similar to Afghanistan, it didn’t take long before he realized he was in a no man’s land where the dead piled up in silence and the living had nothing to say.  Hordes of beggars and gang members roamed the area seeking food, money or young women to rape.  Life was cheap.  People were killed for a pair of shoes or a handful of pills. 

As her feet squelched in her soggy sneakers, she desperately hoped that the luggage her mother had packed and shipped ahead to her uncle’s house would contain at least one pair of extra shoes. Of course it would. Knowing her mom, she had probably packed five, along with several handwritten notes proclaiming her unconditional love.

The last time someone had laid out a suit and a pair of dress shoes with a ticket purchased for a faraway place, Henry had refused to go. This time, Henry refused to stay.

That was one f the hardest things about breaking up. It's not a pair of bookends, the beginning and the end. It's the unravelling of the future. The flat we would never move into together, the cat we would never pick up from the shelter. It was all the times I wouldn't hear her go on about some boring film I couldn't sit through, or the way I wouldn't see her do that silly tap dance she does when she is trying on new shoes. It's all the things we used to do we'd never do again and all the things we'd never do for the first time together.

I’m still so lost.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “It feels like I keep trying on all these pairs of shoes, right? And none of them fit because none of them are mine. And some of them are comfortable enough I can walk around in, but…but…

I had walked away from Patrick knowing deep down that, for both of us, our relationship had become a habit, a pair of shoes you might no really love but wore because you couldn't be bothered to get new ones.

I had walked away from Patrick knowing deep down that, for both of us, our relationship had become a habit, a pair of shoes you might not really love but wore because you couldn't be bothered to get new ones

On this particular day, the family had planned to take a walk along Lord Street, which was the main shopping boulevard in the centre of town. Della loved the buzz of the town centre and watched in awe as the horse-drawn carriages flew by with men hanging off all sides. The smell of sweet pastries and freshly baked bread from the boulangerie mixed with the stench of oil, hot dirt and horses from the street, and Della was intoxicated. She tilted her chin up towards the sun and felt its warm kisses glaze over her cheeks. After a deep breath, she overheard her mother complaining. "Where is that girl?" Della heard a few sharp footsteps heading in her direction before a firm grip took hold of her arm. "Off in fantasy land again, I see!" her mother huffed as she dragged her into Mr Lacey's shoe store. Della day-dreamed as she was forced to try on basically every pair of shoes in the shop, even ones that weren't in her size. It seemed her mother was aware of how painfully insufferable she found shoe shopping and wanted to drag it out as long as possible. After leaving the store, each with a pair of shoes they didn't like, Della and Mabel were instructed by their mother to collect everything else on the shopping list. She had bumped into a friend and made it clear that she favoured spending the day gossiping and tittle-tattling, over trudging her unruly daughters through town. She handed them a small leather purse that jingled with coins and sent them on their way. Della perked up with this request since, like her mother, she much preferred their time apart. Spending time with Mabel, on the other hand, was at the top of her list of favourite things to do. Together, the two sisters flew out of their mother's sight and headed towards the most central point in town.

That was one of the hardest things about breaking up. It's not a pair of bookends, the beginning and the end. It's the unravelling of the future. The flat we would never move into together, the cat we would never pick up from the shelter. It was all the times I wouldn't hear her go on and on about some boring film I couldn't sit through, or the way I wouldn't see her do that silly tap dance she does when she's trying on new shoes. It's all the things we used to do that we'd never do again and all the things we'd never do for the first time together.

Love is not a pair of shoes; you wear and change it; it is the beat of the heartbeat.

There was nothing like stepping into a fabulous pair of heels for the first time.

Her mother bought her a burgundy pair of VANS summer shoes in Italy, and they took a picture of her laughing happily while holding them in her hand in an exaggerated scene, as if they had been teasing him to take a picture of her for her boyfriend in a park somewhere in Italy. Shortly after, she started wearing them in Barcelona and cut off the tiny VANS logo with a scissor. When I asked her why, she tried to avoid answering at first until she said something like she didn't like it, or that they looked better without the tiny black VANS logos. It was suspicious that someone must have told her the urban legend in Barcelona soon after her Italian vacation, that VANS stands for „Vans Are Nazi Shoes.” It became more and more obvious in Barcelona that my life was in danger, as an awful vibe surrounded us due to the construction. It was mostly caused by rich tourists who I had never seen do much work in life, too high to take on a task as simple as changing a password on a bank account on an iPhone app – a crime organisation, quite international already and increasingly so, with a growing number of participants and secrets becoming more and more dangerous, I thought, and I wasn’t wrong, I just couldn’t see the whole picture yet as I was blindfolded. As if her nickname, Stupid Bunny which she had printed out at Ample Store with Adam, was a cute, nice thing, a reassurance after the day before she had been crying for some unknown reason and printing out the phrase, “You never loved me, you just broke my heart.” That couldn't have been further from the truth. She would fidget around and draw at home, and I didn't realise she was bored of being with me when she had so many other options in her mind because of what others had fed her, as if I was a monogamist who wouldn’t forgive her for cheating or making a mistake. Even if I had seen her, when she showed up at home she seemed in love with herself, watching herself in the mirror in her new tight, short shorts. It was weird. I had noticed something strange in Martina for a while now and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I thought it was only the drugs she was secretly doing behind my back, but I was far away from having all the answers.

What is it about shoes? I mean, I like most kinds of clothes, but a good pair of shoes can just reduce me to jelly. Sometimes, when Suze isn't at home, I open my wardrobe and just stare at all my pairs of shoes, like some mad collector. And once I lined them all up on my bed and took a photograph of them. Which might seem a bit weird—but I thought, I've got loads of photos of people I don't really like, so why not take one of something I really love?

That feeling usually passes pretty quickly and I remember why I love my singleness so much. The thing I try to remember in those vulnerable moments is this: I don’t know whether I’ll ever have someone there to grab my hand in the park, but I can’t let that stop me from reaching out my hand to grab on to other things. There’s so much joy and possibility and life to grab on to that has nothing whatsoever to do with finding love or romance. I can grab my friends’ hands. I can grab my nieces’ hands. I can grab the opportunity to speak life and hope and love into the hearts of others. I can even grab a pair of designer shoes if I want, because I have no one to answer to about how ridiculously expensive they are! And I can grab happiness. It’s there. It’s a different sort of happiness than the couple in the hammock—but happiness is still happiness, any way you slice it.

That's for Rich People' I remember a scene in my childhood. I love my mom, and she's a great mom, but one of her weaknesses was a pernicious poverty mindset. When I was a small boy, I remember Mom brought me to a shoe store. I pointed to a nice pair of black leather shoes behind the glass cover, and my mother made the sign of the cross, like I pointed to something I should not point to, and said, "Shhhh! Not that! We can't afford that! Those shoes are for rich people." In my little mind, I figured, if we can't buy the shoes for rich people, it meant that we were poor people. Today, I've learned my lesson. Even as God has prospered my little businesses, I don't buy everything my kids want to buy. When my boys and I are walking in a mall, and they point to something they like, and it isn't in the budget, I don't say, "That's too expensive." I say, "Boys, we can afford to buy it. But because we're wise, we choose not to buy it.

I want you to know what it's like to fall in love with somebody, to stay awake at night thinking you're going to die if you don't have them. All he could say was, I've stayed awake plenty of nights thinking about you. Worrying about me, she corrected. I'm not an old pair of shoes you can wear for the rest of your life just because they're comfortable.

I..." He bit his tongue before he blurted out that he did love her, that he'd only bought her the jacket because it pained him to see her uncomfortable. I would walk through the fires of hell to get you a pair of shoes.. But he could never tell her that.

A derelict? Do I look like a derelict? Do you know how expensive this car is? These shoes probably cost more than your weekly paycheck." She'd never been so insulted. "Ma'am, I'm not disputing that you're foolish enough to spend that much money on a pair of shoes. I'm simply stating that you can't loiter in the parking lot." Small Town Hero, Kim Koby

A designer in England made me several pretty legs with painted nails. They looked freakishly real. My boss hated them. He said they were as ‘fucking impractical as a pair of high-heeled shoes.’ Those legs were ‘prosthetics,’ and wearing them only revealed my vanity. He designed robotic legs, and comparing them to the average prosthesis was the ultimate insult. “Hey love, tell me about my baby.” Thaddeus “Thad” Westbrook wasn’t British, but he always called me love. Why? No idea. I was not his baby, but I think his baby ranked higher than his love. The “smart limb” aka my bionic leg was his baby. I had a lot of his babies, yet we’d never had sex.