Recent Personal Obession: Chippewa Boots

Regular readers (reader?) might know: I can get a little obsessive. I've always been obsessive about clothes. And recently, especially, I've become obsessive about exploring and wearing high quality clothes--to the point of almost ruining my relationships with Ella and Karen. Take my boots. This winter I decided to buy new boots. Each night I spent hours researching the exact best boots. Here's what I did: First, I looked around to see what I liked--what best fit the way I feel about myself and my style. Then I read forums, style sites. After this, I choose five or six options. Then, finally, for every shoe, I read every single comment on Zappos. The shoes I ended up buying, the Chippewa American Handcrafted GQ Apache Lacer Boot, had 53 reviews on Amazon--I read every single one. From the reviews of my boot, I learned that you should order one size down, and that the shoes run a bit narrow (a point I ignored to disastrous consequence). Finally, I priced shop, and ended up buying my boots from Amazon.

All that research, and obsessive comment reading, took many hours--hours that I probably should've spent reading, or writing, or spending time with Karen and Ella. But when I got the shoes, I knew I had the best pair I ever owned--I loved the look, feel, everything. A succinct Chippewa Boot review: wearing the boots, standing over my baby daughter, I feel more powerful and manly.

But they were definitely narrow, and soon I realized that they were simply too narrow to wear comfortably. This led to a month-long odyssey. I took the shoes to three (three!) different cobblers to no fucking avail, and then finally, after contacting the company, and exhaustively researching shoe stretchers, I bought a $30 shoe stretcher that did the trick. Now I wear the boots comfortably--and I probably will for years.

This obsessiveness has also helped me learn the necessary information about ulcerative colitis--so that I essentially live symptom free. It's also helped my writing. I believe: Research + experience = decisions that you don't regret. Especially with clothes.