My Commonplace Book

Everybody needs a pair of these driving gloves!

Shoes are not something I think about much. I'm not particularly interested in shoes, and I never thought of myself as having a lot of shoes.  But ms_interpret asked "How many pairs of shoes do you have?", and when I started thinking about it, I realized I had a lot more than I thought.

But as I was writing a reply, I started to realize some things about me and shoes, so I'm posting an entry here instead.

I have quite a few shoes, but for two -- or three -- or really, four reasons. Or maybe it's only three after all?

( Shoes and reasons )

I wrote the other day that I would post photos of the four t-shirts that I got at the thrift shop because some of them are so cool. Three of them were only 99 cents each -- it was blue tag half price day, and they all had blue tags marked $1.98!  They're all in perfect condition. The other one was $6.95, but you'll see why it was still a great deal!

( Photos and descriptions )

Do you ever wonder about how some of the things in thrift shops ended up there? The Shakespeare t-shirt was probably a gift; I wonder why the recipient didn't want it? Wrong size? They hated Shakespeare? They obviously didn't want to admit they didn't want it and probably had it put it away for years -- I searched for quite awhile and was totally unable to find this shirt for sale anywhere on the Internet, even though it has a brand name (Wildwood Productions) and the artist's name (Mary Hood).

What about the Bushes shirt? Did they wear it before the election and then give up? Did they outgrow it? As far as I'm concerned, it's very relevant for 2½ more years and after that I can wear it for walking in the woods and housecleaning and such.

And the lab shirt ... it must have been fairly expensive with that embroidery, and although it has no tags, it looks new. Did someone receive it as a gift and not want it? Bought it for themselves and their lab died and they couldn't bear to see it?

The only one that's reasonably obvious is the skipjack t-shirt ... it's relatively generic and someone just got tired of it, or outgrew it or something. But the others seem either special or still relevant. I've often wished objects could talk and tell us about their pasts!