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March 30, 2006

I call all athletic shoes tennis shoes, and I pronounce it tenna shoes. Deal with it.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'm really annoyed that I need new shoes.

Normally, I fit every single stereotype about women and shoes. I hate buying clothes, and I could wear jeans and a sweatshirt every cold day for the rest of my life and a t-shirt and long skirt every warm day for the rest of my life without complaint. But shoes... I really love them. The only bad things about buying shoes are the cost and finding clothes to go with them. I could go broke on shoes.

But I really love my tennis shoes. They're totally my style (not too cheesy), totally my colors (neutral, tans, greys), totally fit my needs (they're called "country walking" shoes, which is the only kind of physical activity I would ever do voluntarily), and when I got them, they were the most comfortable shoes I had ever worn. I bought them in the summer of 2003 after I got shin splints working out in the tennis shoes I had been wearing for the previous four years. I felt like I was walking on air. I love pretty shoes, but I have worn them more than 75% of the time ever since.

Last fall when we started thinking about going on Birthright Israel, I realized I was probably going to need new shoes, especially since I wasn't planning on getting hiking boots. But when I went to the New Balance website, I saw that they didn't make this style anymore. The only "country walking" shoes they make are these, which are so hiking boot-ish. And brown. I really hate shoes that come up that high, so I decided that I could make it around Israel in the shoes I already had. And then we didn't even get to go, so it was moot. This spring, I've applied to Birthright again, but I didn't even bother looking for new shoes. I just figured I'd stick with these. No problem.

But... Lately my arches have been hurting really badly. In fact, I've been having some serious arthritic pain in ankles, toes, and arches. And I don't feel like I'm walking on fluffy clouds anymore. And then last week in Minnesota, I was tying them and one of the laces snapped off. Since then, I've had to tie my left shoelace in a knot with tiny two-inch pieces of shoelace. We looked for new laces today and couldn't find any that wouldn't look completely ridiculous.

So I think I have to buy new tennis shoes. I LOVE these shoes. I mean, I loved my Airwalks in 8th grade, and I loved my silver Sauconys in 10th grade (before Saucony was cool, yo), and I liked my turquoise Sauconys after that (they were already cool and pretty much over by then). But I LOVE these New Balance shoes. A lot.

This exact same thing happened with my conditioner last month. Turns out they've changed the scent, and now the conditioner I've used for the last 10 years is no more. I had to scour the web and buy myself a 9 month supply so that I could have that long to try out new conditioners gradually before I have to go cold turkey and make the switch.

I think the moral is that I'm weird and obsessive and get attached to things I know, so when I like something, I should buy 37 of it so I'm guaranteed never to run out.

Anyone know where I could find some old New Balance country walking 745s from 2003 online?

Posted to Miscellaneous at March 30, 2006 05:24 PM

Comments

Posted by: Cara at March 30, 2006 06:11 PM

Posted by: Rebecca at March 30, 2006 06:16 PM

Posted by: Amanda at March 31, 2006 09:08 AM