lidoderm

I've discovered a marginally more useful way to use the marginally useful lidoderm patches. In the interest of spreading the word to others who might need this stuff (who turn up *everywhere*, someone at work asked about the patch on my hand, and it turned out that she has neuralgia in her feet. Her dr had suggested the patches but she hadn't tried them yet.)

My problem tendon runs down my thumb and along the side of my wrist. That's where it hurts, that's the most effective place to ice. I thought the obvious place for the lidocaine patch was along that side of the wrist. The patch actually works better when I lay it flat on the back of my wrist. I don't know if it's just making better contact for diffusion, or if the damaged nerve is a few cm from the tendon.

The best way to keep the patch on is with one of those self-stick elastic bandages. I cut it, so I don't have to wrap it 15 times around. But it's secure and easy to do with 1 hand (and it looks like a sprain, not a drug patch or a weird bandage for a cut. That's occasionally valuable.) Even with the elastic bandage, I can taste the lidocaine faster and more intensely when I put the patch on the back of my wrist than on the side. So there's definately better diffusion.

girly shoes

My brother is getting married in September. He and my sister-in-bill asked me to stand up for them at the wedding. I said I'd be happy to, so long as high heels were not involved. I'm not close to any of my blood relatives, but my brother and I have vague good intentions to each other. I want to cooperate with this nonsense as much as possible - it feels like a gesture of goodwill that goes far beyond the wedding, or even my symbolic, irrelevent, approval of him marrying this pleasant stranger. There's more to this than missing WorldCon so I can go to the midwest and dress up in other costumes, hit other cues, say other lines. I feel like I'm pretending to be someone I never wanted to be, someone I don't even like. Someone who cares about fitting in exactly by doing what's perfectly appropriate.

The wedding-related festivities will involve 3 different formal parties, each of which requires a different outfit. I thought I was set for the wedding itself, at least. My sister-in-bill and her friends and relations in Michigan went shopping to determine what everyone would be wearing. (I advocated for "clothes," though apparently bare skin is very fashionable for these things nowadays.) My mother called every night to ask my opinion of dresses under consideration, despite the fact that none of them were really under our consideration. (And one really has to be pretty hard up to ask my advice about fashion.) My sister-in-bill made her decision and I followed her instructions about ordering the dress. Stephen was with me when I dealt with it, and he commented that it must be the most girly thing I'd worn in years. I blinked at him, remembering how many times I'd worn a dress in his presence, then realized how "wearing a formal long dress" could fail to look "girly."

I think it's the shoes. (It's probably the hair and makeup as well, but I suspect those are altogether hopeless.) Some years ago, I realized that it wasn't skirts that made me uncomfortable. It was the trimmings of feminine dressing up that were expected to go with them that I loathed. I can wear skirts as cheerfully as a four-year-old playing dress-up. And as convincingly. I'm just now realizing how unconvincing girly clothes are without the shoes. (The local preschooler, by notable contrast, has appreciated fancy shoes for most of her life. I don't know how she looked so convincingly high femme toddling around in her mother's glittery high heels and [her own] diaper.) I can be physically and semiotically comfortable in a denim skirt with bare legs and sandals. Or a corduroy skirt with kneesocks and snowboots. Or an evening gown with...er...well, I've worn evening gowns with snowboots. Or taken off the boots and padded about in socks or slippers or bare feet. (Yes, I know I go to weird parties.)

Anyhow, the word of the day is "cooperate." The word of the whole summer, or as long as I can hold out. My sister-in-bill told all the bridesmaids she didn't want us to buy the cloth-covered shoes that are traditionally dyed to match bridesmaids' dresses. She just wanted us all to wear black silk shoes with closed, non-pointed, non-decorated, toes. (She wrote as if everyone had a wide selection of different kinds of dress shoes in their closets, and just pulled out something appropriate according to spec.) I don't have such shoes in my shoe-wardrobe, which runs mostly to walking shoes and boots with protective toe caps. I do have one pair of black dress shoes. But they're leather, and my mother says that's not nearly as dressy as silk, so they'd be unacceptable.

I've spent a disturbing fraction of the last month looking for appropriate shoes, and not finding anything remotely appropriate. I know some people are good at this kind of thing -- some even like it. I'm just feeling out of my depth. The specs are:

*black silk (black is not negotiable, silk might be)
*closed toe (not negotiable)
*low heel (flat or 0.5" would be best, 1" ok. This is my addition to the specs.)
*dressy (whatever that means)
*not decorated (or no obvious decorations on the toes)
*not dye-to-match (if nobody can tell they started white, that might be ok)

Have you seen shoes like this? Do you know where I can find them, either in the Boston area or online?
Thanks.