Boys and Girls

For all the ways we "get" each other, there are still some things about me that are a mystery to Lee, and vice versa.

Yesterday after work, I went shopping, and came home with three pairs of fall shoes. They're your standard browns and blacks, because I'm kind of on a budget and want shoes that work with just about any clothing combo. No blues and reds and greens - unless, of course, the shoes are VERY special. Then we'll talk.

So anyway, Lee gives me a kind of quizzical look and says "but you have all those shoes in the closet." He wasn't criticizing or anything, just seriously wondering what the heck someone with a closet full of shoes needed with MORE.

The thing is, I don't think I have all that many shoes for a girl. But when I do break down and splurge on clothes, I guess it does tend to be shoes that get me.

It is the "work shoes" thing that confuses him the most, I think. As a dude, he just doesn't get the whole notion that you need several different varieties of shoes for the office.

"You don't even like work. Or work-shoes," he laughed.

He's right there. I'm not an office-wear kinda girl. Give me the option of "dress shoes" or a pair of clunky, off-kilter combat boot-looking things that belong more on the feet of a 20-something college student than a 38-year-old administrator, and I'm gonna go with the boots every time. That is, when I can get away with it. But sometimes, in my job, I can't. And for those times, having a variety of options in the closet makes the whole dress-for-success thing just a bit more tolerable.

"It's all about choices," I tried to explain when he looked especially confounded by the pair of those baby-doll flats I brought home, the ones everyone is wearing these days and the kind of shoes he knows damn well just don't fit my normal style. "I mean, what if I have a meeting one day, and I just don't feel like heels, because heels just kind of suck to me some days, but I need something kinda dressy anyway? They're there for me, like that old friend you've lost touch with because you're both so busy and don't have much in common anymore, but that you still want to get together for lunch with now and then to catch up because you do still care and you both like sushi."

Makes perfect sense to me, but he still looked unsure.

"It breaks up the monotony," I continued. "You don't have a choice about whether or not you go to work. But if you can at least choose what shoes to wear, sometimes you can make yourself think that you DO have choices."

He shrugged, and looked down at the work boots he wears each and every day, until they wear out and are replaced by another pair. "Okay, sweetie." he said, and we went about the rituals of cleaning up pet poop - Sly's box for him and Vin's cage for me.

Later that night, he was out in the yard and I came out to the deck. He bounded over with something in his hand, fingers closed over it so that I couldn't see.

"Hold out your hand," he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. I know that look, so I clasped my hands together firmly behind my back.

"Oh, hell no, what is it?"

"If I tell you it will ruin the surprise."

"I'm not touching it. No way."

"But I promise it won't hurt you."

"Is it gross?"

"Like I said, I promise it won't hurt you."

"Not hurting me doesn't mean it isn't gross."

I stubbornly refused to give him an open palm, so he finally gave up and opened his hand to reveal a locust shell, which he then promptly pretended to try to put down my shirt until I squealed.

I told him, while still peeking down my shirt to make sure no bug-bits had made their way in, that I would never understand why guys like that kind of stuff. Sure, it may be neat to look at. From afar. But I didn't get it back in middle school when a few neighborhood boys watched Eddie Murphy and were all about the "Dead bird .... gonna put it on youuuuuu ..." thing for weeks, and I don't get it now.

We may be one of those couples who are lucky enough to say our love includes true friendship and more than enough common ground to be buddies as well as lovers.

But I'll never get the gross stuff, and I guess I can't expect him to understand the shoes.