les is not this goodlooking, either, but at least she doesn't have a unibrow

I'm pretty sure referring to hillbillies as inbred is a particularly unkind thing to do. Especially when some of that breeding led to yours truly, The Les. So in the interest of avoiding self-loathing, I'd like to embrace my inner hillbilly and just leave it at that.

For the record, I am no closer today than I was yesterday at learning to play the banjo.

Today my coworker and I had a little time to kill between meetings so we did our favorite thing and went shoe shopping. I was ostensibly in the store to buy a pair of casual sneaks that would look okey dokey with jeans and shorts (so I can give my expensive running shoes a break from the dog eat dog world of everyday wear). Of course, I quickly dispensed with the lame sneaker offering and went over and checked out the pumps. In the last year or so I've embraced the high heel. And, I've got to say, I've got some pretty nice gams.

Did I ever tell you that shortly after I started my current job (nearly 5 years ago), my photo appeared in the local paper? I was all dolled up in a navy power suit and was perched coyly on a rock with a rescued Keeshond by my side. In the photo, a teensy weensy bit of my slip is showing just above my left knee. A few days after the photo ran I received a letter in the mail. It came in a little white envelope with no return address and was postmarked from a sizeable city that is about 30 miles away. The address and the letter were typed on a typewriter (people do, as it turns out, still have those). The letter said that the anonymous writer--the letter was unsigned--believed me to have the "most beautiful legs [the writer] has ever seen." And then the writer "congradulated" me (the spelling is, as they say, a [sic]). My very own marginally literate stalker.

So at the shoe store today, I slipped off my cute little ballet slipper-style black heels and tried on some serious black pumps. They kicked ass. But they also didn't fit quite right and there really is nothing worse than loving your shoes when they don't love you back.

Speaking of loving those who don't love you back, my pursuit of love (or at least a fricking date) on Match.com continues. Internet dating is an odd thing. I manage about 1 date a year. This despite my smashing legs. Maybe it has something to do with the bruises all over my legs and arms that make me look like I'm in denial about a less-than-ideal relationship with someone with anger management issues. (The bruises come from BJJ practice.) I guess that makes them smashed legs, instead.

One date a year and I've been divorced now for about 10 years. People tell me I need to get out more. I'm not sure what this means since I'm very rarely ever in. Apparently I'm either not out in the right places or I need to spend more time evaluating my similarities to today's visual aid.

I picture myself alone at 90 years old on some rambling old overgrown farm in Vermont, rattling around in a stained housedress worn over blue jeans (one pantleg caught inside my big black wellington boots and one pantleg out). I have on a battered brown hat, my hair is curly and unruly (how it gets curly is not entirely clear) and grey. I'm wearing glasses circa 1984 and I carry around a walking stick (my bursitic hip finally having gotten the better of me 50 years down the road). I also use the stick to hit people and I use the words "scat" and "varmint" as epithets. My nephews (I don't have kids, so my nephews are screwed) show up at my door and are discouraged by the odor of cat urine and firmly believe that my pickup truck keys should be taken away. They argue with me and call me Aunt Les in a whiny way that is entirely inappropriate for 50-something men, and their grandkids stand in my yard pulling black ants off my peonies with one hand and picking their noses with the other. I squint at them all, brandish my walking stick, and say, Scat!

I come from a long line of cantankerous women.

P.S. I'd like to thank you, dear readers, for your comments on the Lesblog. The blogosphere is something of a lonely place, as it turns out, and I'm glad to have a little company now and again.