this past friday morning, walking from clarke quay station to the high court over unfriendly pavements, the rubber heel tip of my right shoe was (like macduff) untimely-ripped. i am sorry to confess that later on, the metal pin in my exposed heel pierced right through the carpet just outside chamber 2-8, and i was wedged in the ground for nearly 15 seconds wiggling my foot delicately, trying to extricate my shoe without drawing attention to myself and without resorting to that proven but undignified measure of hopping out of my shoe, steadying an unshod foot on the ground, and bending over to yank the shoe out with both my hands.i’m even now keeping an ear out for someone coming after me with an astronomical bill for carpet damage, or of news of a judge sinking through the floorboards at that very spot.
this makes the third pair of stilettos/kitten heels that i have ruined in just 2 weeks of interning (i have still the month of july to go.) as for the ruined-shoes tally for last summer (8 weeks of interning): six pairs. obviously, the courthouse-stiletto curse upon me is still not lifted.
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while we are on the subject of court dress, john d.m. very kindly came around to bugis (where my internship firm is) with some books he was lending me (richard powers’ newest, orfeo, and mark dunn’s american decameron.) i hail him in my black trouser-suit and white long sleeved shirt that was ‘high to the collar’ (the strange turn of phrase that the court practice directions uses to prescribe dress for women) and was immediately given what spike milligan calls “an intense scrute.”
john: hmm. so, is this your lawyering get-up?
me: if you mean, is this what we have to wear to court, yes.
john: but…. you don’t look especially evil!
me: thank you.
Best of the Transparent Hummingbird