Do You Like My Shoes? I Do Not Like Your Shoes.

Hello Reader, 

Most of my blog posts have been parodies of some sort.  On the other hand most of my blog posts haven't happened.  Numerous are the trips that I have taken notes and pictures for without ever opening Google's blogspot app.  There was the time that Stef and I traced the Mayer's engagement road trip in reverse.  Remember that one? At every turn we quipped, "that's hilarious, that's going in the blog." But it didn't. There was the time we lassoed the west coast and its National Parks with one big 4,000 mile flick of the wrist.  It was glorious.  It was noteworthy, even blog-worthy, but it never made it to the world wide web because I never had the time.  I never had the time to pull off a blog of the scope and scale, the caliber and quality, that somehow tumbled together here with my inaugural Nick Maurer Biola Day post. That was my Magnum Opus, despite the few times I forgot to capitalize I, and you should probably just read that again instead of continuing here.  You could also read this post which is related and probably a better use of your time.  

Did you enjoy it? The Jim Caviezel joke right?! Or for those who followed the other link: How funny is it when the focus dissolves ever so slightly into a personal rant?  

Now that you know what i'm capable of, please know that I am not trying to recreate my former glory, or that of the open letter to the PD Eastman hat bitch. I am only  trying to be who I am now and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  I am setting sail into the seas of mediocrity with the blissful reassurance that anyone reading this already loves me unconditionally (shout out to Jesus out there in the 4th dimension charging you kindle fire so you can stay up to date on my progress as a human and a writer. Second shout out to my earthly father for finding my blog when you were googling one of my friends and then encouraging me to write again.)  

My prospective and tentative themes for this trip's blog were shoes and or F.Scott Fitzgerald.  I quickly dismissed the latter upon realizing my lack of a decadent vocabulary, or a quality thesaurus for that matter, to supply me with words like gormandize, obsequious, or appurtenance.

So shoes. Or so I thought. I had just bought some new Old Skool Vans, which one of my students deemed cool enough to be called J's. (A term used to refer to any "fresh" shoes. The phrase is derived from Jordan's which are arguably the freshest noun in the universe. [Universe is the correct term. My source is Space Jam]). 

Maybe my theme for this blog should have been "Confusing tangents that make some people giggle and others stop reading my blog forever." 

Returning; These Vans had me thinking about footwear.  I observed the foot coverings at my school during the last week of the school year and noticed the overwhelming monopoly that Vans has on the Middle Class Middle school demographic here in Southern California.  I'm talking:

Red Vans, Blue Vans, Vans with Checkers, Vans with Stripes, 

Vans on Skateboards, Some on Sidewalks, Some on pipes.

Big Vans,  Small Vans, Vans with windows, Vans without

Some unnoticed, some with CLOUT.

Vans that are Phone Cases, Bright white shoe laces, Vans on Athletes, Vans on Geeks, 

Vans lookin' dirtball, Vans on Fleek. 

Vans on Daniel, Vans on Ellen, Barefoot Vandals, Vans Magellan (remember those Dr. Scholl's insoles commercials? Are you Gellin'?)

Vans that seem to circumnavigate the globe, VANS, VANS, VANS, no DCs, Adios, Osirises, or Globes.

Vans everywhere.  

Do you like my vans? I do not like your Vans.  

It seemed like that is what Europe was telling me. 

I do not like your Vans.  

And I don't think they are a cool marker of your southern California progeny (take that Fitzgerald).  And they are available here, and most of us choose not to buy them.    

I guess I had made an assumption that the whole world was into vans at our historic moment. I assumed for a hot second that my narrow experience was the world's experience.  Isn't that how it is? (A google search for "name for problem when people assume others lives are like theirs" informs me that my mistake has a name.  The False-consensus effect.  Don't make my mistake, for the sake of the earth, and our country, in this political climate, don't do it.  

I also suppose that I am hyper-analyzing because I am having fun writing, and conjuring, and sculpting some character in me that is not the me we know, but might be. So if you want a no nonsense report of our trip to Europe, call me and lets have lunch, don't keep reading.   

In the end shoes won't be the theme of my blog, or maybe they will, I guess we will have to see where this goes when I figure out how to upload pictures.  Thanks for coming along on this journey with me.  The plat principal, (got you again Fitzgerald) of our journey will be published soon.  That is if I don't get overwhelmed by my own expectations after all, or called, like John Muir, to the mountains again.  It is summer.    

Au revoir, 

The Benevolent.