{"id":475,"date":"2009-07-09T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-09T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=475"},"modified":"2009-07-09T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-09T08:00:00","slug":"my-brothers-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=475","title":{"rendered":"My Brother’s Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"

My twin brother, bless him, is always on my case about “not dressing the part.” He continually pressures me to “dress up more” since I work in a management position. I deal with many elected officials. I often represent my organization in meetings with officials from government agencies.<\/p>\n

I have relented to wearing a tie when I have to go to these meetings, and even a jacket (if I absolutely must.) But I still steadfastly say “no” to dress shoes.<\/p>\n

Or so I have said to my brother, who thinks that I am being more than stubborn. “Sei sempre cos\u00ec testadura!” he extolls.<\/p>\n

He got “creative” this year for our birthday (still weeks away). He sent me a gift certificate from Kenneth Cole. He suggested that I get a “decent pair of shoes” with his generous gift in advance of national conference that I will be attending in Nashville later this month, and at which I will have to wear a suit most of the time (yuck!) <\/span> <\/span>

Well, I looked at the website and available footwear. My stomach turned into knots and I got a bad headache. Seriously, I can not consider wearing dress shoes. I can’t even consider wearing sneakers. Dress shoes make me ill. (Sorry to the shoe fetish guys — you have your interests and I have mine, and in this case, our interests do not intersect.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I was considering “re-gifting” the gift certificate to my partner, but he stopped me cold when he said, “how would J [my twin] feel about that?” And of course I would tell him, if he didn’t know already. (That “twin-thing” is alive and real for us. He always knows what’s on my mind.)<\/p>\n

I agonized over this for a couple weeks. Monday morning, J called me and said, “you haven’t gotten the shoes, have you? You won’t, will you? You’ve got that conference coming up, but this whole ‘shoe business’ has probably caused you a lot of agony, hasn’t it?” Man, that guy knows me. Guilty as charged!<\/i><\/p>\n

Then he sent me back to the Kenneth Cole website, and suggested that I look at the “n-different” boot. The style is being discontinued. Other so-called boots that Kenneth Cole sells are just plain ugly (IMHO). But the “n-different” boot was, well, “different.” It’s a boot, at least. A lace-up, which my best friend “AZ” detests. But… it’s a boot. So I ordered a pair.<\/p>\n

These “boot-ettes” arrived Tuesday (without even having to pay for next-day service!) I put them on and wore them to work yesterday, with a Harley tie that my brother gave me a few years ago. I’m wearing this stuff to prove to my brother that I can wear something a bit more dressy to work. Funny, at our staff meeting on yesterday, six people commented on the Harley tie, and two on the boots. “New shoes? Nice!” said the boss.<\/p>\n

Life is short: show those you love that you love them. (Even if it kills ‘ya!)
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My twin brother, bless him, is always on my case about “not dressing the part.” He continually pressures me to “dress up more” since I work in a management position. I deal with many elected officials. I often represent my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twin-brother"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}