Ode to a Converse sneaker

I definitely owned Converse sneakers before I ever saw the Nickelodeon Harriet the Spy movie. But the movie (and my subsequent reading of the book) bonded us for life. Both the book and movie became transitional objects for me: I read the book over and over, and for a year I watched the movie every day after school. (I remember my best friend at the time asking, after a few days of coming over to my house and being subjected to watching the movie, if we could please watch something else.) I dressed up in my raincoat and Converse and attached a flashlight and notebook to my belt and crept through the shrubbery that delineated the backyards of neighboring houses, trying in vain to find anything to take notes on.

This was how I learned that Converse go everywhere and do everything. In a world that never stops spinning, Converse sit calmly at the center. So when I found out that the bog-standard weight-lifting shoe that weight-lifters wear at the gym was Converse, thanks to the flat, stable soles, laces, closed toes, and relatively cheap price, I felt an instant kinship.

The stylishness of Converse has ebbed and flowed my whole life, and whether I wear them out in the world or only to lift ebbs and flows with it. But I’ve owned at least one pair continuously for over 30 years. I’ve only had to replace them a handful of times, occasionally in white, but usually gray or navy blue (the standard Harriet the Spy color).

I had been rolling over and over in my mind for months what shoes to wear for my book tour events. I’ve never been much of a shoe person—my shoes could be described as a collection of old reliables—and nothing I could think of was quite right: my millennial black ankle boots, my huaraches, my Birks, my Docs. Then I realized there really was only one option that made sense.

By the time my book’s release date rolled around, my current Converse were looking pretty beat; the tread was worn down, the rubber toes had hardened. The other day, I passed a Converse store in one of the LA megamalls on my way to do something else. I went in and found they had all my favorite colors. But there was one I’d never seen before, a kind of phthalo green-blue, the color I unwittingly have chosen every time I got to choose the color of anything for the last several years. It got to a point that my phone case, water bottle, notebook, and favorite lifting pants all matched. I have come to accept that I have phthalo green-blue disease, where if I don’t receive a steady drip of phthalo green-blue, I will perish.

So here I am, shod in my new phthalo green-blue Converse on a plane to the East Coast. I’ve only worn them one other time, to the launch event for A Physical Education at Skylight Books, and somehow they already have a little bit of soup or some kind of flavored aioli crusted on the sidewalls. Somewhere between the plane and the hotel, I stepped in gum.

Basic or even played-out or out of fashion though Converse may be (I think right now we're in a Converse resurge, but not sure), they’ve come to represent the convergence of my writing life and my lifting life, just like A Physical Education. So, I’m sorry that when you finally get to see me in real life, I will be wearing sneakers. But to me, they are perfect.

Eat

~Liftcord Pick of the Week: Well if it isn't the Royal Ballet lifting weights!! (Previously at this website: Why would a ballet dancer lift weights?~

Zen and the art of powerlifting. (Previously at this blog: The Zen of Sports and The Artist’s Way.)

Stumbled upon this excellent piece from over a year ago: Who Gets to Play in Women’s Leagues?

The fertility struggles that come with overexercising and underfueling, even in a subclinical way. No one says the words “Female Athlete Triad” (outdated, but would have applied at the time) or the more modern RED-S (relative energy deficiency in sport). I wrote about RED-S here: ‘My sport says I weigh too much.’

Just a nice piece of writing about donuts: Hot Glazed Now.

Drink

A teen boy wrote a piece on why teen boys are so into Andrew Tate. It could be summed up as, “we feel so lost and no one tells us what to do, but Andrew Tate does.” No one is supposed to tell you what to do, my little man! People who prescribe concrete tasks promising success are called cult leaders. It is not better to be in a cult than to be a little bit (or a lot a bit) lost.

Similarly: I’m sorry, but a teen doesn’t know anything, straight up, especially not about wellness. I feel sorry these kids are being so adultified! Ahhh! And further, Ahhhhh!

Rest

One shining light in the distance: (Some) teens are quitting music. This piece reminds me what a revelation an iPod was to me as a teen, that I could suddenly be listening to whatever I wanted at any time I wanted. The control over my environment! I was drunk with it. But over the cough decades I came to feel like that control became a lot of responsibility for maximizing my experience all of the time, which became a chore and a burden. And that’s how I started leaving the classical radio station on in the car.

Early readers of A Physical Education know that Schrödinger’s cat makes an appearance; read more about our feline friend here.

If you enjoy just reading very long things: A very readable history of Monty Python’s comedy albums.

That’s all for this week! I love you for reading, thank you, let’s go—