Girly crap

Thanks to realizing clinical rotations were starting and I pretty much owned *no* nice clothes save for a kind of weird patterned go go dress I got at Goodwill for three dollars, I had to engage in a two day estrogen-fest at the local mall for a day of clothes shopping, including *finally* buying a couple nice dresses so I don't have to beg clothes off people for social events, and a day of shoe shopping, while looking longingly at Spencer's Gifts.

Shoe shopping and I... ergh. My shoe shopping expeditions used to consist of going to Payless and picking out keds, wearing them out, and repeating. I tried for hipper shoes, but I was a pennyless teenager, so I occasionally was able to score cooler stuff from thrift stores. Then I got converted to running shoes, which I'd long associated with being part of the consumerist establishment, but like portable electronic devices, that was before I discovered how freaking awesome they are.

So my pattern until today: Go to New Balance store. Tell them exactly what I want. Have them bring out three pairs of shoes, from which I generally choose one, not particularly mindful of what it looks like, leave store within twenty minutes. Wear shoes for 1-2 years until I have destroyed them. Repeat. Expanded slightly for Grenada because I needed two pairs of shoes prior to going.

The last two days; however, I feel I've finally lived the "girl" experience of having to hunt down sales because nice clothes are frigging expensive, and then having to spend another day hopping from shoe store to shoe store in an attempt to find a nice, hospital appropriate shoe that remotely matches the crap I had to buy the previous day, isn't 80 dollars, and doesn't leave leather-strap induced ulcers all over my feet.

This is no easy task.

Being a former ice skater (I know), I was also confident in my strength of ankles, thus my ability to walk in heels without snapping off part of my fibula, until I fell off a half inch path at Aquarium for no particular reason and turned one of my ankles into a bloated Christmas tree first term, and now I'm all paranoid.

Shoe shopping seems to spark a very teenage sense of rebellion in me as I'm looking at my 17th pair of 'why the hell do we have to be going into summer and there are NO close-toed shoes' and as I'm passing the hipster shoe stores, I get a nearly overwhelming urge to just throw caution to the wind and buy a pair of stiletto heels that appear to be made of pink care bear fur, largely because they were probably the most hideous things I've ever seen, which made me want them. And, by the letter of the law, conformed to most hospital dress code policies, but would have likely netted me a nasty write-up about professionalism.

This is why I buy running shoes. And then run in them. But after a ridiculously long mall trip, and a ridiculous number of stores and sales, I have shoes for work and shoes for play. Oh, and shoes for *real* play, which are my beloved trail runners that I've had to shower cow/horse/goat crap off of on no less than three occasions. If my new nice shoes and clothes can survive a hash as well, I may change my tune.

Addendum, for those wondering why I'm shopping for clothes and shoes in Modesto when I'm going to be living in NYC, it's because in one of the three episodes of Sex and the City that I have ever seen, one of the sociopaths/main characters is having some sort of Sophie's Choice moment over a pair of 400 dollar shoes, so I became instantly convinced that to buy work shoes in New York, I'd need to supplement my student loans. And yes, I believe everything I see on television.