The Glorious Cliche

I was recently trying to explain types of shoes to a male tuba major who knows absolutely nothing about women’s shoes.  Hence, I came up with these descriptions of what musical era different types of women’s shoes relate to.

1: The wedge heel

I determined that the wedge heel correlates most closely to the mid to late romantic period.  If you have listened to anything from this time period, there is a fullness of… Well sound.  Everything.  Almost to the point of being excessive.  Just as wedge heels are full, so were the orchestras and emotions of the mid to late romantic period.  It was almost hyper-emotional — and one cannot deny that wedges have the greatest capabilities for adding a touch of whimsy to any outfit, and are most often seen during the spring and summer months, optimal times for romances to blossom.

2.  The basic pump

The basic pump is unquestionably classical era.  Musically, it was a time of strict mathematics, unhampered by hyper-emotions.  Of course, it could be paired with great emotion, but in and of itself, it was a time of equilibrium and straightforward-ness — very much like the basic pump.  It can match any business suit, or be paired with a simple, romantic dress and still look good.

3.  Platforms

No, I am not talking about platform shoes of disco fame.  Nor are these shoes from the disco era, but more readily relate to the baroque era.  They are often excessively ornamented, but can also be relatively simple.  Such like a da capo aria.  It begins with the basic melody and verse, moves into a second, contrasting section, and then returns to the original melody, only this time, ornamented to the vocalist’s pleasure.  It often got very complicated, but nonetheless rather exciting — at least at the time.  I’ll be the first to admit I’m often bored to tears by baroque music.  But, it IS rather uppity, which is pretty much what the platform is all about, correct?

4. The basic flat

This shoe is undoubtedly from the renaissance era.  There was nothing too thrilling about it, and the instruments were rather basic.  This shoe just begs for lute accompaniment.

5.  These shoes

These shoes are, without mistake, early 20th century.  Still reminiscent of the romantic period, but trying to breathe a new life into things.  I’d say something like 12-tone music.  Rather unstable and alittle painful to listen to if you’re not used to it.  Of course, sometimes it’s entirely impossible to get used to it.  That’s where the next pair comes in:

6.  Stilletoes

This may look like the platform we mentioned earlier, however, if you look closely, you can almost feel the instability.  Of course, there is a little more stability than the “this shoe,” but still… if I were standing, I would probably fall over just looking at them.  This is why I would say they most closely correspond to basic 20th century, where things are become less stable, rhythms are being played with and manipulated, strange new elements are being delved into.  However, there is still an element of math in it– relating to the classical era, just as the basic pump has been modified to become this shoe.

7.  These other shoes

Yes, these are all shoes, including that green thing down there.  I’m thinking these are a 20th century form of music, perhaps from the 70’s.  Becoming almost unrecognizable in form, distorted to a point where they no longer resemble shoes, but a strange mass of “What the heck?”

And there you have it.  Shoes make a lot more sense to him now.

I think I may be losing my mind.  I need summer to end.  Now.

I can’t stand to go to another message board or chat room.  I need to be around real people — And not to say that my family aren’t people.  I need to get out of the house.  Do something.  I can’t do that up here.

I’m going crazy!  I hate summer!!!!!

I recently took a trip to the chiropractor.  It was my first visit, so they did some routine check-up type things, including a zinc test.  I wasn’t too worried about this test, or so I thought.  This test works by me swishing some stuff around in my mouth for thirty seconds or until it starts getting a metallic flavor.  If I have enough zinc in my system, it should have started tasting metallic — but apparently, I had none, for as I swished and swished and the nurse kept looking up at me expectantly, and I was beginning to mentally yell at my taste buds to work — but alas, I failed.

So, I went on a quest to find out what zinc has to do with anything and how I can get more of it without having to take an easy-way-out multivitamin.  Quite frankly, I’d rather eat what I’m supposed to and not have to depend on pills to survive.  But anyway, turns out that I can blame my zinc defficiency on a lot of crap that I’ve been going through, such as this awful funk I was in last Tuesday or Wednesday, which was NOT aided by the fact that I am still jobless and beginning to resign myself to the fact that I will be sucked back to Dragon Hill for yet another summer of making only enough money to pay for books and some groceries for one semester.  According to Dr. Ben Kim, zinc is key in maintaining mental and emotional balance.

Perhaps my younger brother could use more zinc in his diet.

Anyway, you get zinc from beef, lima beans, eggs, and basically any other food that has protein, and on a ramen, mac n’ cheese, grilled cheese, peanut butter sandwich, and bananas diet, you don’t get much of any of this.  I got more of it my freshman year, which may also explain why I feel that my freshman year was so much more pleasant than this past year.

So, for now, I’m on a multivitamin and seeing a chiropractor for my bad back, but still doing laundry for my family and handing out wetnaps to anybody who might need one — I have a large stash of them in my over-sized purse right now. 

Nineteen is the new thirty-five, I suppose.

I hate moving out. It’s a pain. Especially when you’re the last of your roommates to move out and you get to deal with all the stuff they didn’t want to pack or forgot. Pleh.

That is all.

11:30 at night in Syracuse, Utah, and I’ve just finished doing my nails and decide that I need some chapstick before I go to bed.  My bedroom is in the basement and I had left my purse upstairs, so I exit my room, glancing momentarily at the foot of the door across from me, my younger brother’s room, to make sure his light isn’t on and that he has gone to bed.  What I found was a terrifying monster of a spider (really only the size of  a quarter, but it was really scary at 11:30 at night) with fangs half the length of its legs, ready to creep into his room and kill my beloved younger brother!

I stood there and fretted for a few moments, trying to hear if either of my brothers were awake (there are three of us with doors right next to each other) but I could clearly hear my older brother snoozing away in his room — or rather, snoring [sorry Scott, even though the Breathright strips stop the snoring, you're still a really loud sleeper], and I couldn’t hear gunshots from my younger brother’s room, which is a sure sign that he’s asleep because what else would he do in there besides play video games?  Anyway, I was fretting, making all sorts of squeamish “ooh’s” and “aah’s” but to no avail, the spider remained and even took a few motions in my general direction.

So, I leapt past the spider to the bathroom to see if I could find anything of use.  Toilet paper, cups, cologne… Nothing useful.  Of course, for anyone with courage, the toilet paper would have been enough, but I prefer a much less involved strategy.  So I cautiously exited the bathroom, made sure the spider was still there, and bounded up the stairs in search of something better.

I quickly opened up the cleaning supplies cupboard (after getting my chapstick, of course) to find nothing but furniture polish, clorox wipes, and… Windex.  Windex… According to many theologies, Windex can be used for just about anything, from washing windows to getting rid of zits… So why not killing monster spiders?  I grabbed the windex and made my way slowly downstairs, holding the Windex bottle in front of me protectively, searching the stairs and floor in front of me for the monster spider, which had plenty of time to make it to the stairs, I’m sure, and had possibly already ransacked my bedroom.  There!  By the unattended vacuum hose! (the vacuum had already been put away upstairs, otherwise this would have been done ages ago with the vacuum, but much too noisy)  The spider seemed to be seeking shelter from the light I had turned on in the hall, seeking refuge in the darkness of the vacuum hose attachment.  Little did the spider know it would soon be void of refuge, burning in house-spider HELL (with a streak -free shine).

I bounded up to the creature, aiming my weapon carefully, and BLAM!  I sprayed it right where it counts.  The spider tried to get away, bounding across to the other side of the circle created by the hose.  I leapt to the other side and continued spraying the thing, even as it attempted to climb over the hose — this was the creature’s last and most deadly mistake, as this gave me the angle I needed to send it falling on its back with one swift spray, unable to right itself before it was drowned in a torrent of streak-free bubbles.

So there the spider lay.  As each round of bubbles disapated, it was quickly replaced by more, for fear the the monster would revive and leap into my face with its fangs of death.  I squatted there in the hallway for what seemed like hours, with eyes only for the dying spider.  Once I was (mostly) positive that it was entirely immobilized, I put a cup over it (just in case) with a large, heavy combination lock on top, just in case the spider would have been able to lift a measly paper cup.

The dead spider prison is still there, and I really have no idea when someone will have the courage to lift the cup to make sure it’s dead.  I suppose we can give it a few more days.  Just to be sure.

Woodlouse Spider -- This is the spider I found in my basement. Creepy little thing. Click image for more on the Woodlouse spider.