Reactions to VFFs.

The reason that I didn't wear my shoes of choice on Saturday was a little bit foolish. I was at the Special Olympics to watch my brother compete, and I didn't really feel like drawing any attention to myself, because the day was about him. In hindsight, it seems like a foolish way to feel, because what I have on my feet has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but wearing VFFs (if people notice them, which seems to inevitably happen) tends to be a conversation starter and I really only wanted to be talking about how proud I was of my brother. Of course, I paid the price and my foot was sore all night.

When I first started wearing the shoes, I was a little bit disappointed that no one noticed or commented on them right away. I was so excited and enthralled by my reasoning behind starting this experiment that I couldn't wait to share it with anyone who would listen, and when no one seemed interested, I was a little bit sad.

However, at this point, many people have commented. What I can report is that the feedback has generally been quite positive. J and I were bumming around the mall one day, waiting for his tire to get replaced, and two girls in one of the stores we were browsing through noticed the shoes and asked us all about them. One of the first things that they blurted out was, "I bet those are really comfortable!" This seems to be the most common reaction, actually. A general sense of "Wow, that is a really cool concept, I bet that feels great on your feet." This feeling has in fact influenced two of our close friends to purchase their own pairs (Bikilas and TrekSports respectively) and both seem to love them as much as we do.

Then, of course, you get the people who act like you're crazy. I wore my VFFs to the second day of the Special Olympics today because I couldn't afford to injure my foot any further. The only person who commented was the father of one of my brother's teammates. His tone was very "What the heck are those?" In fact, those may in fact have been the words that he used. My mother had given me advice the night before, when I confided in her why I didn't wear my "silly shoes", to just tell people that I have a foot problem and these help me, and leave it at that. Which is what I did when I was interrogated today. It went fairly well, but he definitely left the conversation thinking I was crazy. I don't really mind though, because today, my foot doesn't hurt.

I contemplated going on a run this evening because my roommate destroyed one of my towels (I should start a blog entirely dedicated to antics about him, seriously) and I was quite irate. However, the last time I ran because I was upset about something, I injured my calf for about a week, and since it was mosquito hour, I decided to forgo the run for today and listen to Chopin instead. I am sure I will have many opportunities in the future to use running as a catharsis, but tonight just wasn't the night.