Feet 4

(Feet 1 -- http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer/2006/11/30/feet_1)
(Feet 2 -- http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer/2006/12/09/feet_5)
(Feet 3 -- http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer/2006/12/11/feet_8)

With my uncertain, self-conscious motions perceived as character rather than circumstance, I began to increasingly fear all manner of potential misperception. I didn't speak as often as I had, afraid the reaction to my words would be other than I wished; terrified I would communicate something other than I intended.

One night, Richard Belzer, who -- when I first came around the comedy clubs as a teenager -- was very nice to me, reacted to the newly timid me by saying, "I liked the old, pugilistic Andy better."

We were standing in the back hallway of the (L.A.) Comedy Store and my reticence to speak must have leapt out at him. I smiled inside at the notion I had once been "pugilistic" and, ever optimistic, assumed I would be again. That was, after all, the "real me". And a possible road back would be the purchase of new, smaller shoes.

Which, inevitably, did happen.

But I guess I still didn't find out exactly what size my feet were, so I purchased shoes that, if I remember correctly, were closer, size-wise, but still did not earn me a cigar.

I guess I simply didn't know just how much smaller my feet were than the shoes I'd been buying.

At least, I wasn't swimming in them anymore or tilting at the worn-down heels. But an insecurity had developed and since my new shoes did not cling tightly to my feet, I still feared there was room for imperfect movement and the damning of my character that would result.

I developed a technique of compensating for the looseness around my sole(s) by grabbing the (inner) bottoms of my shoes with my toes, essentially using my feet as if they were hands holding onto the shoe below. But they're not hands -- this doesn't work -- and I suppose I looked somewhat constipated as I focused my physical and emotional energies on the melding of man and shoe.

To Be Continued

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30 December, 2006 @ 18:18 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer