Promote the hand that feeds you

For the third time in just as many months, the emperor-behind-the-curtain administrator at DC Blogs has anointed one of my posts with the title of "noteworthy."

I don't usually like to draw unnecessary attention to myself (hence the modest photo), which is why when this post and then these two were featured on DC Blogs back in March and April, respectively, I only gloated to a select few - the lucky few - with the news.

This morning, however, mid-shampoo, I realized I should give back and at least make mention of the hand that directly fed me more than half of my regular readers.

So, if you don't have a job or your employer is cool with you scanning blogs all day long, head on over to DC Blogs and oh, I don't know, click on the insightful girl-date post. It is "the definitive edition," after all.


*I didn't have time to find an appropriate picture to accompany this post on such short notice, so you get this one of Charlize Theron looking like the perfect-10 she always is at the 2008 Dior Cruise Collection runway show in NYC last night.

Crocs rebuttal

In response to the "but they're comfortable" excuse:

Comfort may be a reason to buy something to wear in private (that explains why I own tapered Army sweatpants and three adult-size onesies), but it is NOT an acceptable justification for wearing said item in a public space, especially if that item is a pair of Crocs and you are a professional woman with dignity and at least 20/800 vision.

Imagine if you will the kind of world we'd have to live in if everyone wore whatever they wanted just because it was "more comfortable."

There would be pajama pants, fleece socks and bralessness in corporate meetings, there would be platform flip-flops, spandex shorts and oversized t-shirts on dates, there would be muscle tees and Mephisto sport sandals at happy hours, and eyebrow, leg, armpit, back and down-there hair growing wild and unkempt, peeking out of hemlines, necklines, waistlines and sleeves in every crowded subway car. If you think you're not having enough sex right now, just imagine how little you'd have if your boyfriend, wife or whomever felt (s)he had the right to dress, wax and tweeze however they - not society - deemed appropriate. He might be that one guy who listens with sincere interest about the people at your work and he may be that one guy who knows to calm you down with a pint of B&J Phish Food when you're acting like a demon-bitch three days before your period, hell, he may even be "the one," but I guarantee you if this soulmate of yours allowed a unibrow to settle above his nose-bridge, grew a T-shaped back-rug and decided to roll up to your best friend's wedding commando in his favorite Redskins-embroidered Zubaz pants, "Lickalotapus" hoodie and a pair of emerald green man-Crocs, your sex-drive would plummet about as quickly and extremely as Bill Clinton's does every time he hangs his head and walks in the front door.

You may think I'm going to the extreme end of extreme to prove my point, but frankly, I think Crocs are just as extreme in their offensiveness as any of the items I've enumerated above. Like denim stretch pants, Crocs are the quintessential example of a 100%-function-over-fashion item.

Look, I believe in indulging in ugly comfort when it comes to your own residence, but when I kiss my puppy's underbelly goodbye and cross that threshold into the no-longer-my-private-space public domain, the balance tips the other way --- as it should for everyone.

Where you fall in the fashion/function debate is up to you obviously, but just ask yourself this one question: what's more important, the comfort of an anti-microbial dishwasher-safe shoe and an extra $600 from not getting your hoo-hah Brazilianed for a year, or the confidence you gain from knowing you look your best and a sex life that consists of more than just the let's-both-look-to-the-side-and-get-this-over-with and the it's-your-birthday-so-I'll-allow-it-but-hurry-up positions?

Seems obvious to me.

Why? No seriously, *why* are you wearing those?

Last night, on my abbreviated-due-to-weather "heel-hike," I saw no fewer than six pairs of these inexplicably popular plastic/rubber/latex-looking nightmares known as "Crocs."

I don't get it. I just don't get it.

Birkenstocks, though ugly and more often than not on the feet of that cruel kind of Mom who doesn't believe in allowing her kids to eat sugar even on their birthdays and Easter morning, are at least ergonomically designed to give its wearer proper arch support.

Reebok crosstrainers, though a glaring red flag for that insufferable type of woman who has the gym staff oust you off treadmill #5 for running 2 minutes over the allotted 30 only so she can climb on with the latest issue of Cat Fancy and walk at a 1.0 incline at 3.5 miles per hour, are at least a sign of...I don't know, someone trying to improve upon her two-lane-road waistline.

There are a dozen other kinds of "commuter shoes" I could discuss and about which I'm sure I could think of at least one redeeming - i.e. from the wearer's perspective, not mine - characteristic, but in the consideration of time (I'm running late), I need to bring to the forefront the downright scary phenomenon of the ubiquitous aerated plastic gardener's clog in NW DC.

These are objectively the ugliest shoes on the market. I've asked enough people on all points of the fashion spectrum -- this is an inarguable fact. Just because these things are available in punchy colors like orange, cotton candy pink and tie-dye doesn't make them look like they belong any less to a giant Cabbage Patch doll or a patient in a mental hospital who can only be given "safe" materials.

So if they aren't fashionable, what is their draw? Is it that they're anti-microbial and odor resistant? Is it that they look ironic in contrast to the rest of your put-together outfit? I see them on young people, older people, overtly wealthy looking people, scrappy looking no-goods, the curious devotion for Crocs knows no gender or socioeconomic boundaries.

To be honest, I'm completely vexed by their popularity. In the past two years, I've watched as the typical comfort-first suspects - Moms, kids and fat women - began wearing them, but now, if yesterday's random sampling was any indication, the virus has spread to sectors of society typically impervious to the function-over-fashion attitude such as men, college students and women with "normal" BMIs.

My only advice - aside from changing the theme of your next neighborhood party from "Not Oktoberfest - Bethesdafest!" to "Croc bonfire" - is to stop the cycle in its tracks. As awww-aren't-they-cute? as those "Kid Crocs" may initially look, put them down, walk away, and either let your little ones channel their inner-hick and spend the summer barefoot or spend the same amount of cash on some Chuck Taylor All-Stars.

Pass it on, ladies.

Please allow me a brief digression from fashion critique for this public service announcement. Ladies, it is of the utmost importance, so please pay attention.

Two Thursdays ago, while on a first date at the Ritz in Georgetown, a couch-ful of ladies had my waiter deliver to me a note and a second Kir Royale after my companion excused himself from the table to take not his first, not his second but his third non-emergency 10+ minute phone call in the space of an hour.

The first hour, mind you.

The note read, "He doesn't deserve you. Leave now. We speak from experience."

He didn't. I didn't. And they did.

Tonight, while enjoying the 75-degree breeze, the onion loaf and a single cut of black-and-blue filet on the Morton's downtown terrace, R and I had the displeasure of sitting next to a young couple, the male half of which spent the better part of the evening booring into his bluetooth earpiece, save for the three minutes he tried unsuccessfully to get the attention of a guy on the opposite side of ConnAve who he was convinced was a former frat brother at Tulane. After his "NATHAN! Yo, dude, NATHAN! Up here! UP HERE!" episode, it got to the point where we weren't even annoyed when he guffawed about how much "frickin' Chivas Regal" he had left over from last weekend's dinner party, we were just stunned his much more attractive, much more polite (she kept shooting everyone in their vicinity "I'm so sorry" glances) companion was still sitting in her seat, calmly nursing her glass of Cab Sauv and doing her best to look occupied with her text logs.

"I'm going to have to pass the note forward," I thought to myself, "I just have to."

And so on our way out, I gave our waiter the proper instructions and handed him a note neatly cursived with those same 10 words.

Ladies, don't put up with it. Don't let your fellow DC sisters put up with it, either. Pass it on.