erin – Page 103 – erin morgenstern

this post is all about shoes

I’ve been trying all week to come up with something to blog about, to no avail. I’m not doing anything other than writing and making tea and while my tea is lovely and the writing is going better than I had expected it to, it’s not really anything blog-worthy. Tessa napped in the shape of a comma the other day, but of course she moved before I could get the camera so I couldn’t blog about that, either.

So yesterday I tweeted that I should just blog about my shoes, especially since I have new ones, and people (well, Liz & Rachel, who as far as I know do count as people) seemed to think that was a good idea.

So this post is all about my shoes. Specifically, all about my Fluevogs. If you have no interest in shoes or photos of shoes, I suggest you stop reading now. Though there is a kitten included in the photos, because I live with needy kittens.

Only the shoe people left and maybe some kitten fans? Good.

I have a confession to make, first, though.

I am not a shoe person.

I have never been a shoe person. I am thinking about the history of my life in shoes and can come up with nothing more than a few pairs of well-worn Doc Martens and a vague recollection that I had to wear brown shoes with my high school uniform, and I cannot recall what a single pair of those brown shoes looked like. I have never particularly cared much about my footwear.

And then a few years ago I started developing a fondness for shoes. Particularly boots, but shoes in general. I have big feet, so I never particularly cared for shoe shopping, and I can’t walk in thin or high heels so that always eliminated most of my choices. But probably due to the wonder of the internet I’ve been able to find more shoes that fit my style and my feet.

Today I will be featuring my Fluevogs, since I just got a new pair yesterday.

I discovered Fluevogs several years ago, likely via the BPAL forum, and figured I would pretty much never be able to afford them. I got one pair on clearance that the boy later inherited because they looked better on him. (No photo, they’re Angel Michaels. Just pretend the red bit is white.)

But now between gifts and savvy sale shopping I have three pairs and the boy has two.

These are the Fellowship Kathy Mary Janes that arrived yesterday. Tessa had to be in the photo because she’s a camerawhore.

They’re adorable and don’t seem to need much breaking in other than a teensy bit in the toes. I wanted a shoe that could be dressed up or down that didn’t have much of a heel and these seem like they’ll be perfect. No, I did not pay $239 for them. Google is my friend.

I love the Fellowship family, because of the heels. They’re big & low but but nicely streamlined, and the shoes are so fitted that they don’t look clunky.

These are my other Fellowships, the Jenna boots:

Please excuse my rolled up jeans. I learned today that it is very difficult to take photos of your own shoes. This one was actually accomplished by aiming my camera down into my full length mirror. I flipped it in PhotoShop because the backwards “f” on the heel (that you can’t even see) was making me neurotic.

I love these boots. They are comfy and fabulous. I’d thought the buckles would annoy me but they don’t, and even if they did they’re removable.

And last but certainly not least are my beloved Bellevue Libby Smiths:

Y’all should know by now that I’m a sucker for Victoriana, and one of my very favorite color schemes is black & white with a touch of red, so the buttons killed me and I kind of had to have these the second I saw them. I left them on after I took these photos, because I don’t have enough opportunities to wear them.

The whole Bellevue family is gorgeous, too, and the heel is actually sturdy enough for me to manage, which is brilliant because if these boots hadn’t worked on me I seriously would have cried.

And Fluevog is tormenting me now, because they tweeted a sneaky preview of these forthcoming Bellevues:

I’m kind of going to have to get those, too. I should start saving my pennies now.

By erin, 15 years ago

flax-golden

flax-golden tales: coffeeshop magic

coffeeshop magic

I don’t have the time to devote to circles or covens. I have to fit things in when and where I can, in stolen moments and cups of coffee.

Stirring clockwise to conjure.

Widdershins to banish.

There’s never enough time, and rarely enough caffeine, but I make do with what I have. Besides, cauldrons and pointy hats are overrated.

Sometimes I see other customers practicing. Pouring their cream and sugar with studied intent. Stirring with purpose.

I add an extra spoonful of sugar to my own coffee for them, to make all of our enchantments sweeter.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, 15 years ago

miscellany

i dreamt i went to manderley again

At one point this past Sunday night I was standing alone in a dark room full of artfully illuminated bathtubs. One of them still had a bit of blood in it, but my attention was mostly focused on the tub half-full of water in which a live eel was swimming counter-clockwise circles around and around and around.

A man in a white mask entered from a door across the room and walked toward me. He peered in the tub to see what I was looking at, watched the eel with me for a bit, and then walked out another door, leaving me and the eel alone again.

I was at Sleep No More again, of course. How I missed the eel the first two times is beyond me, but it gives you an idea of how much there is to look at besides the actors. I’m so glad they extended the (now sold-out) run, we have tickets to go again next month before it closes. I will miss it terribly when it’s gone.

I’m in revisionland at the moment, and I’ll hopefully have something resembling a new draft by the time I get to return to Manderley again. I have new text and old text in bits and pieces and divided up into different Scrivener files at the moment, but I think it’s going well. It’s more like writing a new novel with bits of the old one in it, rather than adding new bits to the old version this time, but I think that’s likely a good thing at this point.

By erin, 15 years ago

books

the to-read pile, 2010

This is not all of it, of course. This is mostly the recently acquired stuff. I should really re-organize all the shelves so I can actually see how huge the to-read pile is, but that might get scary.

By erin, 15 years ago

flax-golden

flax-golden tales: property feature

property feature

The monster came with the house.

The realtor said they could get estimates from removal services but then there was some sort of confusion with determining ownership because of the property lines, because it spends so much time underground. And there was so much paperwork and expense involved that we figured it really wasn’t worth the effort and decided to just let it stay.

We liked the house too much to give it up over something as minor as a yard monster. Besides, it doesn’t really bother anyone. It stays in the yard. The first summer it accidentally destroyed the azaleas but I didn’t care for the azaleas anyway.

The monster prefers the winter. It likes the snow.

I’m not sure who gave it the scarf, but it seems to like that, too.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, 15 years ago

musings

so long, 2009.

There is a fluffy coating of snow falling outside my windows, obscuring what’s left of 2009 in powdered sugar white. White primer to paint 2010 over.

Ten years ago tonight I was ringing out 1999 in the dearly departed Grotto nightclub in NoHo. The only bit I clearly remember is asking drag queens about the lyrics to that Whitney Houston song that was all over the place, and they confirmed it was indeed “something about Amistad.” That seems very long ago & far away.

I don’t have the memory or the inclination to do a decade in review. Ten years ago was my senior year of college. Since then I moved around Massachusetts at least five times, got married, got cats, had bad jobs, quit bad jobs, made lots of art, completed a tarot deck and a handful of novel drafts. Somewhere in there I developed a rather poor memory, too.

But here, I’ll look back a bit at 2009 proper, since that’s freshest in the blur that is the ’00s.

2009 was…

A year of literary agent blogs and Absolute Write and query letters and having minor heart attacks every time my phone rang with a 212 call. A year of taking up residence in revisionland and preparing to move back in tomorrow. For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. Or something.

A year of flax-golden tales that made me happy to be a dreamer and a wisher and a liar, especially one that is friends with Carey Farrell.

This year, more than any previous year, made me own the writer half of artist/writer. Even to the point of moving slowly toward writer/artist, which is surprising but nice, all at once.

It was a year of Sleep No More (carrying over into early 2010, seeing it 2x more) which kind of blew open the creative part of my brain. Remember that episode of Six Feet Under where Claire is trying to break her eye open for art school? Sleep No More did that for me.

A year of Bat for Lashes & Azure Ray & new Moby & yes, Lady Gaga.

A year for finishing the tarot deck after 3 years and 78 paintings.

A year of Fluevogs and shiny objects and cutting my hair shorter than it has ever been in my life. I’ll post pictures at some point, I promise.

I had an interesting year, I think. I’m not sure if it was good or bad but it was full and varied and I get to have Prosecco & fondue later so I can’t really complain all that much.

By erin, 15 years ago