Fashion, sneakers, shopping.

I have allowed myself to be swayed by the demands of fashion and trend, and have made a purchase this weekend that is quite unlike me in more ways than one.

This weekend the boyfriend and I have made a shopping expedition into the city, mainly to get some inspiration for decorating his hovel-ish abode. The fact that we went in on a Saturday, a day everybody knows is designed to test the patience of every window shopper ever while simultaneously providing every windowshopper ever with the chance to dally in front of storefronts, thereby testing the patience of all OTHER windowshoppers should make it hardly surprising that the amount of inspiration gathered was at best minuscule, and at worst to be described with the idea “But what exactly is WRONG with decorating the small wall with the entrails of the short and annoying woman right in front of me?”

To keep either one of us from disembowelling fellow shoppers with the sharper bones of other fellow shoppers, we decided to take a venture into a calmer part of town, and pay a visit to Boyfriend’s Dog. Dog, name of George, seemed to enjoy this small bit of attention very much, and I have decided to forgive him the usual doggy tendency to be highest up by using my head as a step and/or resting place for the sheer enthusiasm he put to light for trying to eat my hand.
After having taken the dog for a walk and spending some time doing relaxation exercises to steel ourselves for the onslaught of annoyance we were bound to encounter on the walk back to the bus, I suddenly remembered that the reason for me to go into town in the first place was to get new shoes. Shoes, the one item of clothing I truly despise shopping for.

Now I usually wear basic black, basic model shoes without much frillyness, and I maintain to others that this is for simple style reasons. This is a blatant lie.
I wear them because there is no gender ambiguity.
Shoe-stores confuse me, especially modern shoe-stores. All those same basic model white sneakerthingies and people milling about between them… I am never sure whether I am on the right side of the store or not. I like old-fashioned shoe-stores where the areas were clearly indicated, and the chance of being wrong was further negated by the fact that I, as a man, had no business in the part of the store with all the glitter and heals.
The fact that I am now a confirmed genderfucker makes this in no way easier, as I hate doing that by mistake as much as I like doing it on purpose.

So I have steered clear of sneakers in the past, until this Saturday. Armed and bolstered by Boyfriend, who is a sneaker-wearing person, I decided to brave the confusion and find some shoes. And I did. Yay!
I am now the proud owner of a pair of white K-Swiss sneakers, with dark red detailing, and a dark red/light red stripe shifter system.
And I love them. As usual, I have purchased an item of clothing I really like, and I can’t stop talking about them.
I never really liked sneakers, they make the foot a good deal flatter, and on people with large feet, the idea of a walking “L” is hard to escape.
But I love my new white sneakers.

But now a new problem arises. The Stripe Shifter system is designed to enable one to use their shoes as a medium for communication. The idea is that the stripes on the side of the sneakers can be “opened” or “closed” with slides on the stripes, making them either dark red or light red, or other colours as the case might be. And different combinations would carry a specific message. This can be quite elaborate, actually, as both shoes have two sides, with five slides each, who can all independent of the rest can be recognizably at open, closed, or half-way. This means that there are 20 slots with three options, totalling a 3 to the 20th amount of options, which accoridng to my calculator means 3.486.784.401 options.
I am not taking the option that the stripes can be worn at quarters or thirds as well, the options would grow higher, but the indication is hard to differentiate between.
Best is it, obviously, to maintain the same config on all sets of 5, giving a mere 243 different combinations.

This is all nice and well, providing people would get their freaking head round what a certain combination would actually MEAN.
So far I have been able to find out that all open means “gay”, which would be fine but is unlikely, as all stripes open negates the idea of the shifter, and it seems a tremendously non-straight idea. And all slides at half mast is “respect” which is fine by me as it is the config I find most visually pleasing.

But what if I decide to alternate? Is 2nd and 4th of the 5 stripes open a good thing, a bad thing? What if I am signalling my allegiance to CDA? What if I by wearing my shoes thusly protest for the treatment of Dutch Elm Disease by burning puppies (Hush Puppies, most like, considering competition wars and all that)?
Looking through Google results hardly helps, the manufacturers site gives no useful information, and nobody I know wears the things…
Can anybody help me out here?

I have pondered the idea of putting my age in, as 10011 should be 25, and open-closed-closed-open-open is an acceptable configuration, but then, who understands binary except for true geeks, and they hardly ever look at people’s shoes. It would be a good way to find the few fashion conscious geeks, but then I am already training Boyfriend to be one of those, and really, with me being one as well, I am already pushing critical mass… Indicating an age will become problematic in 7 years when I get above 32 years old, but that is a problem I will tackle then.

Until then, all stripes at half open,

Kevin.