Do not let me buy any more secondhand Converse One Stars on eBay!

Do not let me fall into the trap set by those red leather-looking ones with the white stars. There’s only one picture of them (only one? — suspicious) and it’s definitely copied from a catalog, and even though they look smooth like leather, the listing says this shoe is made out of “regular.”

Nor will I be tempted by the black leather ones with the red stars — partly because they’re pricey, but mostly because I can’t picture myself wearing them, I picture a cool blond skater kid two years ahead of me in high school who looks past me with zero recognition of my basic humanity; to him I am a human potted plant. No, buying these shoes would make me mean, I think, except I’m distracted now because you grew out your hair over the summer and it looks really good. Our lockers are on the same hall but you’re pretending not to notice me, and even though you’re a only freshman you sit behind me in math and say funny things to me under your breath. My mind keeps throwing up the word “ravishing,” and now I realize that I’ve always underestimated you.

Other Converse One Stars I will not be buying: the turquoise ones with the green stars (back to Margaritaville with you) and the Hello Kitties (not my bag) and the golf ones (ugh).

And definitely don’t let me bid on any more Birkenstocks.

They’re twice as expensive as Converse and I’ve been lured too many times by such irresistible product descriptions as “only worn once” and “hurt my feet” and “so ugly.”

I have but two feet! And maybe twenty or thirty years left to live — a generous estimate, no doubt, though I have spent my life being vaccinated against so many different things. Wearing Birkenstocks is a vaccination in itself. They’re like broccoli for your feet; they’re vitamin shoes. They’re the girl in my college co-op named Daisy who made cookies out of whole wheat and washed all the cloth napkins once a week.

To be honest with you, I don’t really want to be writing about shoes, but I’m undergoing so much change right now that I don’t know how to say it out loud.

Boyfriend is more than a boyfriend. He’s Brian and I’ve known him since I was 16 years old and we’re starting to look for a house where we can live together, with Jackson, in Santa Barbara. If you’d told me that a year and a half ago I would have screamed, loudly and uncontrollably, like I did at my 50th birthday party. But that was a valuable experience because it taught me something I hadn’t ever known about myself. It’s good to know how you might react under different kinds of duress. What I didn’t know was how used I’d become to things going wrong, how much time I spent braced for each new disaster. My nervous system hasn’t caught up yet to how happy I am and how right, I think, this is all going to be.