Sassafrass

I still believe that when it's real, you can see it

 Last night, I did something I don't do much anymore. I stayed up late watching Ellen DeGeneres on "Oprah." She was funny and engaging in that not-raunchy way Ellen is so good at being.

And then her wife Portia deRossi came out. They talked about meeting each other, confessing their feelings for each other, falling in love, getting married. Grateful. As the clips of their wedding day played and the camera panned across the two of them watching themselves on screen during those intimate, sacred moments, I had tears of my own.

I'm convinced they are the real deal. Oh, how I hope they are the real deal. It made me realize how rarely we see that on television and in the goss rags, when we turn all this stuff on. Yet, I think we want to see it. We want to believe it is there. So we are disappointed when people we think we know, we think seem like great couples falter or even fall apart.

Maybe I am blindingly seeking that in the faces of this couple. But I don't think so. I think that it is there, the thing you are overwhelmed by at some weddings and startled is absent at others.

One day, I'm going to feel my heart explode with all that goobiness again. Yesterday, it was a blessing to catch a piece of that confetti floating down from these two.

I'm calling it NoBlownPoMo

For three years, I've participated in NoBloPoMo and I didn't anticipate this year would be any different. To the best of my ability and maybe with an eensy bit of back-blogging, I've spent the last few Novembers posting as many every days as I possibly could. I blogged during the days I filed for divorce and in my early days of blogging, and so I was pretty sure I could muster the energy and inspiration now that I am in a much, much better place.

And I did for a week. Or rather, a work week. Then the weekend arrived and I waited for the late-night panic to set in that I hadn't yet posted. DURING NOBLOPOMO! I waited for the push to put up something -- anything -- after I'd had a few glasses of wine (sorry we all missed out on the brilliance that could have been). And you know what? Nothing came. The only thing that was there was a desire to have a real weekend. A real weekend off. You know, the kind where you magically get a break from working.

So I decided to say screw it to this idea of posting daily and do something a little more manageable for me. I'm going to spend the month posting on the weekdays and practicing logging off on the weekends. Those are definitely equal challenges for me. I guess that means I am still participating, just to a degree. I'm doing this, but with boundaries that don't carry the stress and backpedaling and worries of doing something every damn day. More than belonging to some blogging challenge, I need that. I choose that sigh of relief.

Just in case this thing is being graded, I just wanted you to know that I've officially changed the assignment. I've got gold star stickers to give out to the rest of you and I think I'm going to be fine without sticking one on my screen.

First a line, then a bump

In a slight pause before a big weekend, we stopped off at a coffee shop for after-school treats and a little quiet time together. Lil E asked to practice his letters, so I sipped a latte while he wrote out lower case r after r after n after n after h after h. It was by far the best moment of the week.

Postcards from the past: Three Novembers ago

Of the thousands and thousands of photos of this child living on my hard drive, this may be my favorite. He wore that newsboy cap without flinching and the hint of the smile was already well-practiced. I hadn't yet worked up the courage to take for his first real haircut and instead snipped little bits while he played in the tub or sat wrapped in a blanket on my lap. And there it is, peeking out, reminding me it is time to let the wispy baby hair go.

Or maybe it is telling me to hold on, one last moment. To the cheeks and round belly and willingness to be held for hours. That's all gone now -- and for good things like attempts at winking and a toothy smile and long legs stretched out and running. But I've still got a lot of that baby held tight in my heart, like we all do. And tucked into the corner of the lid of my jewelry box and inside the front cover of my favorite books,  I am also keeping close some of these little, precious moments.

Coming to town

Whenever I think of the circus, I can almost immediately smell the warm cotton candy and my eyes get all hazy with the thought of glittery costumes and bedazzled horses and acrobats hanging from trapeze swings and rings suspended from the rafters and each other.

I love the circus, and last year I loved watching Lil E light up in the same ways I did as a kid. And honestly, I had more fun watching it than I ever dreamed way back then that adults could have if they weren't swinging flashing light-up wands and clown noses.

So when I was offered tickets to take Lil E and my parents back to the circus when it comes to town this week, I quickly shuffled our schedule to make sure we would be there to see a new show that I imagine will stir up all those same nostalgic feelings.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's ZING, ZANG, ZOOM tour lands in Chicago tomorrow night and runs through Thanksgiving weekend. This show promises to include magic and illusionists alongside classic acts like human cannonballs. After our visit this weekend, I will be putting up an honest review of the show that I promise will only be biased if there are baby Bengals or I get a full stick of pink cotton candy to myself.

Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey has kindly offered a reduced ticket rate to Sassafrass readers. If you'd like to slide into the holiday season by getting your own ringside seats, simply click here for more information. Sassafrass readers can purchase tickets at a special rate of $44 for a 4-pack of tickets (valid Monday-Thursday and Friday Matinees, excluding holidays) and can save $4 on all weekend shows by logging onto Ticketmaster and entering the coupon code: MOM.

Speeding the pace

Years ago, I participated in what was then the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. The challenge was to team up with several of my grrrlfriends and walk 60 miles over three days.

Since it was long before the economic dive in this country and because I am fortunate to have many loved ones who care about this cause the way I do and were able to make donations of all amounts, the fundraising was easier than I imagined it would be.

The training was harder. But I treated it like an A-student doing a social studies project. I walked and I walked and I walked. I walked miles and miles to Wrigley Field and back in a thunderstorm. I walked up and down side streets in neighborhood after neighborhood. I walked on treadmills next to the old men in tube socks and slippers who live at the Y. I walked on forest preserve trails and on the sculpture walk to the 'burbs and around and around and around my block, until I was confidently and completely prepared for the event.

It's about time for a new challenge. It's not like I need another thing on my list. But when Foodmomiac asked me to join a team of mom bloggers in training for a relay next summer, I said yes without thinking twice. We won't know for a few weeks if we'll actually get to run in that relay. But if we do, each member of the team will run three legs of four to six miles. It seems like a long time away, but friends, I have a lot of work to do.

The difference between this challenge and all the walking I did years ago is that running scares the hell out of me. I've tried many times to force myself into loving it but have never committed to it long enough to let that feeling grow from the the place where the sheer disdain for it lived. Still, I've had many opportunities to bow out of this commitment already and I am still in. I am still signed up. I am still doing it.

I don't know why, but I have an idea I need something big, powerful and hard to work toward that is not about my job, Lil E, or anything or anyone else. I think I need to prove to myself -- once again -- that I can do this. I've hidden in the safety and serenity of yoga and walking, and that has been necessary and wonderful in slowing myself and my life down to manageable gait. But sSomething is pulling me, step by step and breath by breath, out of that.

The training schedule officially starts December 8th. But after reading this ass-moving brilliance over at All & Sundry and hearing how inspired Foodmomiac is about adding a half-marathon to her own training schedule, I decided to start early.

I won't be fundraising for this event. But I certainly can use your support. If you see me lapping the park near my house, feel free to fall in line with me. If you have words of playlists, advice or your own inspiration to share, please do. If you want to join me in running toward a new and big challenge, I'd love it.

For now, I'm taking this as I am trying to take everything else right now -- one time at a time until it really does feel good and I can honestly say I am just as confident, prepared and anticipatory as I was all those years ago.

Lil E explains: [Feel free to insert interpretation here]

In the car, driving home in the dark (thanks, Daylight Saving Time), trying desperately to have our routine "5 things about my day" conversation.

Me: Did you take a nap at school today?

E, shaking his head no: My brain and my body just wouldn't let me.

Me: What centers did you play in?

E: I didn't play at all today.

Me: In preschool? Really?

E: OK, I played, but only a little bit.

Me: Maybe you could tell me one thing -- anything -- then.

E: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy, guess what? One time, when I was leaving a Chicago Fire game with Daddy, we were in the parking lot and I saw an old lady...WITH ORANGE EYES! SHE HAD ORANGE EYES.

Me: Yeah, I'm not buying that one bit.

E: Mommy! She did. For real life.

Me: Well, if you say it was for real life, then...

E: I saw her! I did. She had orange eyes! It totally freaked me out.

Me: It did?

E: Yeah, I was totally cheesed out, man!

Me: Cheesed out...man?

E, breaking in to song:

Ollllllllld lady, old lady

She needs to concentrate

reaaaaaaaaaaaal hard

Old ladies have canes

And they concentrate on things

Frankenstein goes with fruit

Because they both begin with F!

And old, creaaaaaaaky lady

What are you talking about?

It. Is. Windy. And. Darrrrrrrrrrrrrk.

There are goopy, green things

That look like boogers.

The Biiiiiiiiiible tells me so!

As awkward as it is, these moments, the ones when the child loses all grip with reality and the English language and launches into some kind of preschoolian babble song, the only option for sanity that remains is to act like a Very Important Mommy Call has come in on the cell phone and proceed with a pretend but far more coherent conversation with with blissfully silent airwaves.

Eventually, the song will give way to uncontrollable giggles. Then, and only then, is it safe to give your attention by scooping up the cute but clearly crazy kid in the car seat.

Postcards from Halloween: Before and after dark

Halloween went, as these divided holidays often do, just fine. Lil E got to spend a few hours in our neighborhood with four other boys (and two toddler girls -- one as a bug and one as a garden gnome...so funny -- who tried very hard to keep up with the super heroes and Rebel Alliance representatives who sped up and down the steps of each house). After a breather of passing out candy to kids from our own front porch, he took off for the suburbs with his dad for more trick-or-treating. 

The next morning, he happily agreed to send his very-full pumpkin bucket of candy back to his dad's house and turned in a big pile of mini chocolate bars we had here for a Star Wars action figure. Not to worry -- there are plenty of Reese's left in our house, but I am loved that the tricks I touted on channel 5 Saturday morning actually worked once Sunday rolled around.

 

 

I also admit I had a great time sipping my treats on Saturday night with one of my favorite grrrlfriends. Although I haven't been out to a bar or adult party on Halloween in years and years, the scene was pretty much the same -- lots of priest costumes, some puke on the bathroom floor, and the obligatory sexy nurse working her way up and down any Mad Hatter, Michael Jackson, or NASCAR driver who came her way.Oh!  And a very drunk shiny cop. It was good fun.

 My favorite costumes of the night? The dude with the baby from "The Hangover", Billy Ray Cyrus and one of the Texan polygamist's wives. The cult wife costume lady said she just HAD to take a picture with me, which made me think maybe we both were dressed as people being lured to the Dark Side. 

Despite my failed prediction that there would be a lot of Balloon Boys and Kate Gosselins, there was a Mr. Incredible who took a shine to my friend. He's apparently looking for just the right lady to wear the Mrs. Incredible costume he has hanging in his closet at home. No, really. I think he might have to keep looking, but I let him try on my Leia wig anyway.

The final pic: Leia's very practical running shoes and the cowgrrrl's roping boots.

The webs we weave

I've posted about this song on Sassafrass before, but the words just keep rolling around in my head today, especially this verse:

Please, remember me
At Halloween
Making fools of all the neighbors
Our faces painted white
By midnight
We'd forgotten one another
And when the morning came
I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world
And then returned
And now you're lit up by the city

How many times have you been there -- fully invested and engaged in something silly only to wake up worried that it might not have been so wise after all? I've been there. Hell, I may be there tomorrow morning.

As I sit here in my crazy spider stockings and heels way too high for a Saturday afternoon before I put on the Princess Leia wig and turquoise eyeliner, I am wondering why it is that we both are drawn to and rue the costumery of Halloween so much. I am trying -- trying, trying -- to live more fully in the present, and today I think that could mean a little more self-mockery  and possibly more fun than I have on Halloweens past.

What would you do this All Hallows Eve if you weren't worried that it would seem silly tomorrow?

(Why yes, that is my tool box in the background. Just because a grrrl likes patent leather peep toes, she is not discluded from also loving power tools and levelers.)

Click here to listen to "The Trapeze Swinger" by Iron & Wine in full.

Clawed

While Lil E is off on Halloween adventures with his dad before coming home to trick-or-treat with one of his buddies and scare up a special pizza dinner, I will be on NBC's "Weekend Morning Show" talking about cutting back on sugar for your kiddos this holiday weekend. Please do not judge me if I leave the studios and let my kid O.D. on high-fructose corn syrup and whipped-up orange lard. (I kid. We really did and will follow the five tips I will offer up -- my dad's fingers are crossed for this anchor -- to Nesita Kwan.)

I imagine Lil E's tossing and turning with dreams of sugar-free plums and spider rings in his head. I'm not in bed yet because I'm too busy staring at my pumpk-spired piggies and fingers. Lil E so cutely obligingly squealed, "Oooh! Your little fingers are so fancy, Mommy!" that I made him say it three times fast. (Not kidding about that.

I'll see you from the airwaves tomorrow. And if you miss it, worry not. I will surely shove the clip down your throat since the Milky Ways and Blo-Pops will not be there.

I vant to remove your plaque

Friday shoegasm: The shoes that go with every costume

Why yes, Party City does have a shoe department. That is, they have a bunch of extra-whorey shoes crammed in between the rubbery-scars-and-toxic-glue kits and goth wigs that are strangely and accurately styled.

Looking over all of the skeezy costumes some women (who are these women? Not me! Noooo, never *cough* me) feel obliged to squeeze themselves into (this is not a slam on anyone's size...I am not about that. It is a slam on the nasty ass polyester that shows everyfreakingthing and is ever-ill-fitting), I have come to the conclusion that we all need a pair of poorly made shoes that can transition from costume to costume, from year to year.

And so, after much deliberation over jingle bell janky boots and something strange called "sports boots" and gangster booties I am not ashamed to say I would wear on November 1st, the winner is...

White patent thigh high boots!

Are you worried that they are a little too sexy-nurse for your sexy cop outfit? Concerned that they won't complement your Kate Gosselin wig or skankified pirate get-up? Worry not.

After all, according to the savvy stylists at Party City (who apparently need a copy editor more than I do here at Sassafrass), here's how these babies  with the 5-inch heel and stretch glossy patent material will address your dress-up dilemmas: "These boots adds more sexy to any sexy outfit, while giving your silhouette a knock out look!"

See? Solved!

No? Not going to do it for the slutty poly-frock you're going to wear? Dammit! Well, at least they are going to help me work my Princess Leia out after the trick-or-treater is sound asleep at his dad's house.

Now, does Party City make a clutch bag that can fit a light saber?

Final question: For the love of breast enhancement, who in the world would purchase these or these from Party City? I mean, unless you also have to pick up a case of tiny bubbles and orange plastic tablecloths to go along with your cutlets. Ew. Ew. Ew.

Carved

Let us not delve into the psychological indicators present when a small child creates a story of a family out of a table full of pumpkins and then gleefully demands them to be disemboweled and carved into scary and shocked faces. We will just stick with the happy, safe "being a kid!" theory and enjoy the craftswomanship of these free-handed jack-o-lanterns.

This year's pumpkins are not as fancy as last year's but they were a lot more fun to create. We also got wiser and propped them up on a window sill on the inside so that they simply mock the ravenous squirrels rather than becoming their soggy lunch.

I bought cheesy red, flashing lights to go inside and Lil E was delighted into silence when we went outside and watched them flicker down at us from our second story apartment.

He doesn't think our place is decorated scary enough and for weeks he's been begging me to buy styrofoam tombstones and life-size Frankenstein dolls and inflatable ghosts. That all sifted out when he saw the drawing of the spooky face he wanted, that he thought would scare "even my daddy when he comes to get me," come to life in eerie red light flickering from his white pumpkin.

He asked me to pose with his pumpkin, and to "be really, really scared of it." (Yes, I realize I resemble my pumpkin a little too much.)

Of course, the whole night was capped off with taking a picture of ourselves, silly, slimy and just scary enough for Halloween in our house.

In case you haven't already cooked up and devoured the eleven pumpkin seeds you salvaged from your kids' pumpkins, here's the closest I will ever get to sharing a recipe on this blog: How to make toasted pumpkin seeds in 18 complicated and disgusting steps.

Lil E explains: The giant, bulbous circle of life

First, there is the Mommy Pumpkin. She is smooth and orange and tall.

 

There is a Daddy Pumpkin, too. He is white and...like, sort of smaller.

 

The Mommy Pumpkin was pregnant and then...LA! LA!...she had some babies. They were sooooooo cute. Aren't they the cutest little pumpkin babies? [Pictured here with and looking a lot like Daddy Pumpkin, an injustice to be explored in gourd therapy for years to come.]

 

OH! They also had other children. They were sort of bigger. And one was rotten. Remember, I just stuck my finger in it accidentally and had to wash my hands? It was disgusting. And it was stinky. It smelled so gross! So we put it on the porch for the squirrels to eat. The squirrels are going to eat the children...HAHAHAHA! [This shall be explored in real person therapy that will likely be funded by me.]

 

These are other pumpkin babies. I don't know where they go. They live on those acorns and pine cones. They are funny. I like the bumpy one best.

 

This is the whooooooooole pumpkin family. Mommy, Daddy, children, and babies. Everybody's together on Halloween. Aren't they a sweet family?

OK, let's carve them!

In case you need directions

...to the troll house, apparently you just need to follow the arrows.

Yes, right there next to the beaded Pier One pumpkins and club chair is the two-story Chez Troll, constructed solely out of cushions and strange preschool preoccupations with small creatures that should scare the bejeezus out of them.

It has a peaked roof, a bedroom and a bathroom because (duh) a 5-year old's projects are never complete without a potty. Perhaps I would have minded crawling over the 17-cushion creation for two days, but the architect and developer was so polite and grateful.

"Mommy," he said quite seriously over dinner, peering past me at the couchy little goblin fort in the middle of our living room, "I just want to thank you -- really, really thank you -- for giving me a medium amount of time to make my troll house."

"A medium amount of time?" The troll house was puzzling enough but the construction time threw me over into complete confusion.

"Well, you didn't make a QUICK dinner like mac and cheese or something or a LONG dinner so I was starving. You made a dinner in just a medium amount of time so I could make my troll house."

So that's how we got there, over curry chicken and rice and just feet from the strangest and most delightful thing I've seen this holiday season, to the place where trolls dwell among us.

Once upon a zine

I was telling someone just this weekend about the days when I published a feminist anthology, rebellious and radical and zine-style, about the poems that I placed in there with great care even though my mother warned me that one day I would have a child who would inevitably read those words. What then?

That seemed like a ridiculous question back then. Those poems spoke to a part of my life, after all. They were raw and raunchy and dramatic, yes, but they were also real. Some future child in the unforeseen distance didn't seem to factor in.

And now, there they are, all those words piled up on each other in boxes in the storage room of my building's basement. Overstock copies of that anthology sit and wait, each cover an image of a naked woman, each page filled with some feminist's very personal writing or art. There they are, among the plastic tubs of onesies and dusty bouncy seats, baby toys and tiny, plastic bathtubs. 

Now I get what my mother meant.

Even though I feel a shudder to think of my child reading words of a poem called "The Fourth Time We Ever Did It" or details of tough things best told in person or the essays that follow my full first-middle-last byline, there is still some truth to the flipped-off attitude from all those years ago. We will get there when we get there, I guess. Who knows? My child may very well not care at all about that stuff. That would be fine, and also, a little bit of relief.

I am a mother, maybe even a different woman now. Yet, all of that is still a part of my life. A real part of who I am, or was (or does that even matter?). Sometimes, I pull out a copy or two, read through them, remind myself of what was present and important and very clear to me back then. Sometimes, that makes me thank the goddesses that much has healed, that time has passed, that those days were the beginning of my life really opening up. Sometimes, reading it all makes me teary. Other times, I laugh. Once in a while, I cringe a little. Then I close them up, come upstairs and go back to my life now.

So the boxes of anthologies will stay. I am itchy to sort through the baby stuff, finally get rid of the wedding stuff, move out the donation stuff. But those boxes will stay.

One day, I suppose I might look back on this blog, at all these posts and feel the same way. I may even wonder, "Why did I write that? Why did I put all of that out there? Who will read this? What will they think?", just as I have with some of my poems and essays. After all, I spew all this out, close my eyes, hit publish, in the very same way I cranked out the pieces in those anthologies. One day, I may even be the mother warning, "Be careful, protect yourself, choose your words wisely." After all, I am far more measured as a mother than I am as a writer. We shall see. So much can happen, so much can change.

Those possibilities make it all the more important to hold on to the pages and poems from my past, to remember what it felt like to say exactly what it is I wanted to say, to let the words escape, to feel the freedom of not giving a fuck. To open up, let out.

For now, there is no embarrassment or hiding. But I also will not share or sell those anthologies. I will just let them be for a while longer, let them sit quietly in a dark corner, and let them be a reminder, a "Wow. You said that? Out loud?".

That is enough. That is a lot.

What made this all rise to the surface? This lovely poem by Arlyn Miller, featured on Literary Mama this month.

No, Jesus is HIS homeboy

The dinosaurs that have long occupied our home have apparently bred with or evolved into some far more mechanical being. And in that, is now (pardon me) hanging with out buddy, Princess Jesus.

There's a lot of love here. If you can't see it now, just wait until the nativity's open for business.

Three minutes (or a week) of real beauty

I love that this week is Fat Talk Free Week, an international campaign to bring activism and awareness to the damage the skinny ideal has on all of us, and particularly on women. I think it's more than good, it is critical, to set aside the fat-assery and self-deprication and be a part of a bigger cause to help girls and women live freer, richer, more authentic lives.

The interwoven issues of body image, eating disorders and the media representation of women have been at the center of academic, professional and personal lives for as long as I can remember. Still, I do not dare calculate the minutes, hours, painstaking time periods I've spent worrying about my size, stretch marks, and tiny details of my body. Nearly every woman I have ever roomed with had an active eating disorder. Almost every woman I have ever known has struggled with negative body image. Most of the parents I know worry about how they will raise their daughters and sons to be impervious -- or victorious -- in the ongoing challenges of being healthy and feeling good without anxiety, abuse, addiction, misperception, depression, and self-hatred. It's hard. What could we do if we harnessed all the energy that goes into pursuing unattainable and ridiculous ideals? I suppose that, with luck and commitment, this week we shall see.

I'm going to be a part of this campaign. And I am going to start by posting this video (via Guy Kawasaki -- thank you) of 500 years of portraits of women in less than three minutes. It is haunting and beautiful. It made me want to cry. And paint. And tell my grrrlfriends how beautiful they are. What I see here is mostly in the eyes, and I loved that. I loved focusing in right there.

In the interest of fueling creativity, passion, empowerment, a few minutes of some true beauty, please watch.

It's always good to know where you stand

Oh, Google searches. They're like that one grrrl in middle school you hung around with all the time even though she would call and bait you into talking shit about some other grrrl in your class while they were silently listening in on the line.

The one your mother didn't approve of, and you understood why but fought back anyway. The one who swore she wouldn't really kiss that boy with the feathered hair you liked so much during Seven Maybe Two Minutes In Heaven but then bragged to the whole class that she did anyway.

The one who taught you important things -- like which pages in Forever to flip to first and how to crimp your hair -- but then didn't invite you to her totally major end-of-year boy-grrrl pool party at the JCC.

Google is the new her. You love it, you feel you need it, you make it 16 friendship pins to put on it's Tretorn laces, and then it does incessant little things that make you think maybe, just maybe, you are being totally suckered.

Google doesn't steal the feathered-hair boy away from your clutches or announce to the 7th grade you got your period. Google just sends wackadoodle people to the front door of your blog by way of crazy searches. 

Searches that make you wonder where the hell you stand in the universe, or at the very least, the interwebs: "the dirt in corvallis"  (A far cry from my favorite and more popular searches for "britney's vajayjay" and "large black lady" -- I'm not kidding -- but somehow, this is a strangely compelling way to find me.)

Searches that make you feel like you are doing clock algebra when really it is just some PSAT prep question about trains that requires a simple formula but is dressed in a fucked up essay format: "dream" "mean"  (Huh? And how did something about a warrior's whiskey prayers arrive at the station before me?)

Searches that might make you hate your out of control body now but relish it years later: "just boobs" (75th? Really? Have you seen this rack? I mean...What's it take for a lady to move up in the ranks? And also to get away from the results above and below?)

Searches that make you wonder if you have actually died and gone to hell or if you are just eternally in grammar school: "lightning mcqueen underwear small for my age 14 years old" (I can't even bring myself to think too much about this one, let alone the fact that my blog comes up FOURTH for this search.)

Searches that, during the rare moment when the spotlight reflects perfectly off your braces and light up your upward-facing eyes, remind you that you are doing exactly what you set out to: "feminist thing" (Made better by the fact this one was by way of a Google Image Search -- because we all want to know what those "feminist things" really look like. Oh, who am I kidding? This search had me at "feminist".)

Oh, Google searches. I love you. I hate you. I want my bright yellow v-neck Shaker knit sweater back.

Friday shoegasm: It's raining boots

Last week's shoegasm was all about frivolous ankle boots that you don't need but look so good. This week's is all about practicality. Sort of. If you have to slosh around in crap weather, you might as well have shoes with a splash of color, a little heel, or some detail that brings sunshine to your outfit.

Can I get a hell yeah? First, a note about the boots that disappointed, followed by five of my favorite styley galoshes.

Boo, hiss: I really, really wish that I could recommend all of the tempting rocker rain boots made by Chooka. Sadly, my own killer koi tattoo boots cracked irreparably after only one year. If you're willing to buy boots you may only wear for one season, then check out Chooka. If you're looking for investment rain gear, steer clear. Dammit.

Woo-hoo:

Now wedges, which have all they height and girly-glee of a heel with added stability and comfort of not balancing the ball of your foot, just got a little smarter with these rain boots. Won't you look sassy splashing around in these by Sperry Top-Sider? The graphic cuff fabric and steel eyelet adds a little pizazz to the black boot, which also has cozy microfleece lining. $75 on Piperlime.

Check it! Similar styles and colors are wayyy on sale for $49.99 on Amazon.

Aren't these just a little slice of...well, slouchy sweetness? And they're Vans! So it's kind of like the tennies you decorated in 1989, but for wet weather. And trips to Costco. Maybe a crazy, impromptu playdate. $77 on Shoes.com.

Hunter makes the classic, well-constructed rain boot. And while alternagrrrls and farm grrrls alike can rock them in standard hunter green and preppy yellow. But now that Hunter's offering them in cute colors, like this high-gloss violet and lava and (EEE!) silver, why wouldn't you take your classic boot up a notch? $115 on Piperlime and on Zappos.

If you're need your gear to take you from nasty subway station to happy hour, and if you are still digging the wedge-heeled rain boot, check out these babies by Betseyville. Who knew splishy-splashy could also be sessy? Although Betsey Johnson designs are sometimes a wee bit flashy, even for me, I think these boots are hot. Also good? On sale, kittens. $83.99 on Shoes.com.

OK, so I am a little obsessed with my new leather motorcycle boots but there is just no way I am going to wear them out into the slush and puddles. That's why I also now obsessed with glossy, strappy motorcycle rain boots. Who else would have come up with something something so cheeky than the man with the Cheetoh tan, Michael Kors? $129 on Zappos.