Tag Archives: shoes

Crowd

Crowd: (n) a large number of people

Buying a pair of shoes.

What is necessary for this task? Me, shoes and a good fit.

Like every human child born on the Earth, I have bought shoes because they looked good, hoping that I would be able to tolerate how they felt on my feet. It was always a huge mistake. No—shoes are about the fit.

Food.

It needs to taste good—and it needs to taste good to me. I always take into consideration whether it’s healthy or not—but only in determining how much of it to eat.

Car.

I want every car I own to do three things for me:

  1. Drive
  2. Be able to be maintained without developing terminal problems in its crankcase or transmission
  3. And finally, it should look decent enough that it’s at least ignored.

What do I look for in a friend?

Someone I can trust. Because I don’t know about you—I use my friends to help me learn how to become friendlier. So they’re going to find all my dumb spots, and I would rather they wouldn’t post these flaws on social media.

My passion? Maybe it’s my mission?

That thing that rings my bell.

I want to be able to do my thing without having people wonder why I’m not getting rich from it or haven’t received an award.

When I used to travel on the road, performing, the first question people asked after the show was how many people attended.

“How big was the crowd?”

When I told the truth, they would quietly back off—thinking it must not be that good, or more people would have been there.

We can’t judge our efforts by the crowd we draw.

If you think about the most important things you do in your life—parenting, being generous, lovemaking, praying, education, exercising—do any of those draw crowds? I don’t think so.

There will always be crowds.

There were crowds in the Coliseum to watch the animals rip apart the flesh of the early Christians.

There were huge crowds in Germany in 1935 to cheer for Chancellor Hitler.

Massive crowds of soldiers gathered on the battlefields in the Civil War, fighting to keep black people in slavery.

There have been crowds associated with every disaster.

Crowds for every tyrant.

Crowds for every fad that came along, and within a short period of time, found themselves embarrassed because they got so worked up over such a stupid idea.

Don’t look for the crowd. Look for the good cheer in your heart.

Don’t look for the crowd. Look for the benefit to humanity.

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Buckle

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Buckle: (v) to join the ends of a belt or strap.

“One, two, buckle my shoe…”

I remember when I was a kid, I asked my teacher what that meant. She explained that long ago people hadDictionary B buckles on their shoes.

I peered at her, frowning. She laughed. “It doesn’t change how good the rhyme is.”

She was right–especially when you consider the power of the concept of, “…three, four, shut the door.”

But “five, six, pick up sticks” still confuses me.

And then, for some reason, after “eight” we’re supposed to “lay them straight.”

And for the final act, we have a “big, fat hen.”

(Maybe our forefathers did take drugs.)

Yet, what do we buckle?

Belts. Do people still wear belts? Not as much as they used to, though I’m sure I will be contradicted.

Actually, we’ve grown plumper in this country, so most of us have a belly that holds our pants up quite well.

We do buckle our seat belts, though I think now we say, “Put on your seat belt.” They don’t really buckle–they snap.

So what use for ae buckle?

Matter of fact, the word has taken on the responsibility of donning a new personality.

Now when we use the word “buckle” we are usually talking about “buckling under pressure.”

“Buckle at the knees.”

To buckle is to give in to surrounding circumstances, failing to exhibit adequate backbone.

I wonder if it hurt your backbone when you bent over to buckle your shoes…

 

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Bond

Bond: (v) to be joined securely to something else

Putting my shoes on.Dictionary B

It’s a confirmation that I’m heading somewhere–usually out the door.

So footwear has a special significance to me. It tells me I’m ready. It tells me I’m going to be moving from my place of personal sanctuary into the coliseum of fellow-gladiators.

At that point, I need to understand one immutable reality: I must bond.

  • I must find a reason to get along with others.
  • I must be looking for commonality.
  • I must carry a pocketful of logic to pay the toll on a highway of misunderstanding.
  • I must realize that even though the humans around me may put on ugly masks or disguise themselves behind clown noses, beneath all that fakery is another soul not so different from me.
  • I must penetrate color.
  • I must be able to incorporate another gender.

I must find the bond … or stop being surprised that the whole damn world seems unglued.

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Apparel

dictionary with letter A

Apparel: (n) clothing

For most of my life, I have been a vagabond traveler with a bit of gypsy in my soul, who mustered just enough air of sophistication to avoid being deemed “Bohemian.”

But for a very brief season, I bought a piece of land and became “Lord of the Manor,” which along with its title, warranted the purchasing of garments to hang in a closet, since it was available for walking in.

I was a little shocked at how quickly I accumulated apparel. A shopping trip here, a gift there, a sale when someone was convinced I couldn’t live without some sweater handed over to me as a surprise…

It all eventually filled my closet with more turtlenecks than prayer.

And with it came shoes.

In my early years, I had one pair of shoes to my name and when they began to wear out, it would take me several weeks to conclude that they were no longer foot-worthy and needed replaced. But at one point, I think I had almost twenty pairs in my hideaway.

So here’s what I discovered about an abundance of apparel: for most of my garments, it was a very lonely life. Matter of fact, it’s a wonder that some of them didn’t “suit me” for non-support. (I apologize for that one. Sometimes I can’t resist.)

After all was said and done, it boiled down to about four outfits that I universally wore from week to week, and a few extra pieces thrown on as occasional accessories.

I truly learned the importance of the adage, “Take no thought for what ye shall wear.”

Because all a closetful of apparel did for me was make me feel guilty about ignoring my threads.

 

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Accessorize

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Accessorize: (v.) provide or complement (a garment) with fashion accessories: the leisure suits were accessorized with white vinyl loafers and matching belts.

I wouldn’t say that I lose sleep over it, but there is a certain amount of turmoil inside my brain when I try to figure out what to wear with my gray jogging pants with the white stripe down the side and the elastic waist band which no longer seems to be willing to be elastic. At that point, you’re grateful to have a belly which holds your pants up instead of having to trust that the original garment’s intention for retention will hold true…

First of all, I probably should apologize for calling them jogging pants, considering that I have never jogged in them and probably will never pursue such foolishness. So let me change the name to blogging pants, since I have blogged in them and probably will again.

The problem is that I don’t know what to wear with graying trousers. They require an accompaniment which is just a notch above their social strata. Otherwise people walk up on the street, hand me dollar bills and wish me good luck.

What I mean is that a pair of old pants demands a newer, hipper shirt–or the pants don’t seem to be an attempt at dressing down, but rather, an admission of pernicious poverty.

So I guess my favorite way to accessorize my aging gray blogging pants is to wear a black t-shirt (which my oldest son insisted had a skeleton on it, but really, I think is the embroidered head of a Klingon. Some people think there’s not much difference between a skeleton and a Klingon, but I would have to refer to those people as the personification of ignorance).

Shoes become important, too. My blogging pants are not really long enough to hide my socks when I’m sitting down, so therefore the shoes feel totally exposed to the outside world and need to be confident that they are being appreciated for their fine, soulful, “footery” nature.

A ball cap helps. The beautiful thing about wearing a baseball cap is that it tells people that you’re accessorizing towards a common humanity–but that you’re also willing to advertise some inane team or idea at the same time.

Actually, as you can see, for being an extraordinarily masculine straight man, I probably spend entirely too much time thinking about accessorizing. But if you followed THAT logic, golfers and bowlers–with their funny bright-colored pants and strange, plaid shirts–must be flaming queens.

 

Absorb

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Absorb: (v.) 1. take in or soak up energy or a liquid or other substance by chemical or physical action, typically gradually 2. engross the attention of someone: the work absorbed him.

You do realize–there is no prize given to those like myself, who are very successful at absorbing calories. It is a prejudicial situation.

If I absorb knowledge, I am praised. If I absorb iniquity, I am rebuked. If I absorb water, I am bloated. If I absorb the right amount of fluid, I am hydrated.

How do we know exactly how much to absorb before we are saturated, which brings us right back to saturated fats, which, by the way, we are not supposed to absorb.

When we are little tykes we are forbidden from watching certain television shows because we will absorb them into our minds, which are compared to sponges. Why would we think little ones contain spungier brains than older folks? Especially since those with greater years seem to do more damage than the playground crowd?

So what should I absorb?

I read a book once which said that things which are good, pure, praiseworthy–that these are things to absorb and think on. But if you spend your entire life trying to be a “do-gooder,” there are those around you who will find that obnoxious, pious or even boring.

So how much of “bad” can I absorb for the purpose of entertainment or acceptance in my society, before I begin to sprout some of the darkness myself? Because after a while, when you absorb something, it leaks out somewhere,  right?

You do get around people who insist they can tolerate much more absorption. Like a high toleration for pain, for instance.  I have to admit, though, that I find ita bit useless to be proud of achieving high standards of long-suffering.

What should we absorb without becoming contrary to those who walk around us, who for one reason or another, need to put up with our attitudes and lifestyles?

  • How much of social change can we absorb before we totally sacrifice everything we truly believe to be of pristine value?
  • What can we absorb of spirituality without flirting with the tendency to be religious?
  • How much language from the common culture can we absorb before we are judged by our words–prior to ever having the chance to establish our talents?

Absorbing is tricky business. It’s why I would not like to come back to earth as a sponge. Even though I don’t particularly hold to any ideas of reincarnation, returning to the planet as a sponge would put me at the bidding of people who want to clean up messes–and because I’m an absorber, I can’t exactly complain about what fills me up.

I guess I’d like to maintain the right to be a little fussy about what I absorb. I don’t want to be behind the times, but I don’t want the times to get behind me and shove me into decisions that truly are not of my making. Does that make sense?

It’s not that I want to drag my feet–it’s just that I would like a little time to put on my own shoes … if we’re going to walk a new path.