closure is a glaze you see only on tv screens

[meikuree]

a quirky incident: my partner ordered a democratic theory book online recently. the package came alright, but when we opened it it had a pack of walnut biscuits inside instead of the Oakeshott tome we were expecting. turns out the sender had mixed orders up, but if it hadn't happened irl it would've sounded like the start to a surrealist story. the sender said we could keep the biscuits; we enjoyed them. I felt sorry for the other recipient, who probably wouldn't find the same use or enjoyment from Oakeshott's writing.

recent happenings:

went to France for a short trip and met up with online friends transversely and bireaucracy IRL at a Kurdish restaurant, very Exordia-core. and an incroyable experience!

I've fallen ill with a sneaky cold (again!) I've been listening to illness classics I Want to Be Well and I Walked by sufjan stevens, and also lots of live Tori Amos songs -- there's a live "bootleg" rendition of Mother that sends chills every time I listen to it, no matter what's happening in my life. the simplicity of a piano and powerfully sad lyrics is something that can be so personal.

I was going to do a big reading round-up, but instead I will chat on about refurbishing shoes, aka "OP is now a shoe geek?!"

real answer: I'm not, but after all my BIFL reading from months ago I picked up some advice on how to make shoes last longer and care for them. well, it came in handy recently. last week I picked up a pair of secondhand leather COS sandals from a street market for 13 quid (original price £135). they were in decent condition and very comfortable, but obviously had a few signs of wear:

1. a mid-sized piece of black gunk? stuck to the bottom of the right sole, that looked like it could be peeled off
2. grey marks on the wooden block
3. light scuff marks on the leather upper
4. I also wanted to clean the soles up enough in general for me to add some cheap protective rubber soles, to help them last longer.

because I am incredibly sane and chill, I've spent the last few days not convalescing, but trying to DIY clean the sandals when I've been lucid enough, because I find it therapeutic. I used Google to track down the exact item and the materials used in its construction, so I'd know how to tackle them:

These sandals are designed with a contrasting wooden heel and chunky metal buckle details. Made from extra-smooth leather, they have nubuck foot soles and lightly cushioned insoles for added comfort.

I groaned when I saw the bit about nubuck soles, because nubuck and suede are a pain to clean (also, seems like a design issue? nubuck is durable but still a questionable material for outer soles), but I like a challenge, so: TLDR, I tested and experimented with different methods.

materials I had on hand included: black shoe polish, leather conditioner (mink oil + beeswax), antibacterial household wipes, a toothpick, a pair of old tweezers.

first I sanitised the footbed with antibacterial wipes. the black shoe polish took care easily of 3; the most complicated bit was simply avoiding the metal buckles and nubuck sole while applying it. the grey marks on the wooden heel (2) went away with antibacterial wipes and some consistent pressure.

1 was more complex. the common wisdom is that you shouldn't get nubuck wet/it should be damp at most, but since I got these shoes for £13 I had nothing to lose and was feeling spicy. I brushed off residual dirt, used a little foam to get rid of old dirt marks, and then used the antibacterial wipes to wipe off as much stubborn dirt as I could. I tested the wipes first on a small area to make sure it wouldn't remove any... nubuck dye... and then went all in and removed some of the dirt.

now for removing the black gunk! I used a toothpick first to do initial delicate work, as it was less likely to scratch the leather soles. and then -- I don't advise trying any of what I did with your shoes, but especially this -- I used the tweezers to scrape away at the black gunk, as it was remarkably more efficient.

it worked for a reasonable definition of 'work', because the black gunk is sort-of gone. and then I used the (apparently 'suede safe') leather conditioner to moisturise and waterproof the soles, and will add the protective rubber soles when they're dry. the mink oil darkened the nubuck, obviously, but since these are the bottom of the shoes and nobody will see them, I don't really mind.

and that's how I got my shoes looking as close to new as possible, on two shoestrings and a half's budget.

Comments

[blueshiftofdeath]

OMG-- is your online friend the same as bireaucracy / Elisha?? We're friends too although I haven't been able to see them around since I dropped all social media besides Dreamwidth. I'm very happy to hear you had fun together! (Apologies if this actually came up before and I just didn't remember it??)

I've been exposed to a lot of shoe geekery which I really enjoy-- how exciting you got to apply that to your sandals! I think doing that kind of care on your items is very satisfying. Congrats on your beautiful like-new shoes!

[meikuree]

omg - yes, mine’s exactly that Elisha, what a lovely small world!! and no worries, it’s on me as I haven’t properly introduced myself or any of our possible connections ever 😆 they’re active on Discord which I recall you do use, happy to share their deets! I can’t remember how I got acquainted with them in the first place now, but we enjoy simultaneously loving and hating on bad media that could be good aside from ONE fundamental slip-up, etc. etc.

it is truly so satisfying, I like pretending I’m now Fast Fashion Shoe Company #1837262’s no. 1 enemy now by being stubbornly anal about shoe maintenance.

[blueshiftofdeath]

I actually stopped using discord too 😭 otherwise I do still have their discord.. but I pretty much only log in once a week to chat when my friend streams Umineko now (which now that I think about it is 1000000000% up their alley so I should advertise it to them if they haven’t seen it already…) and was even considering deleting it once we finish that tbh…

That being said this was a great prompt to say hi so I will go do that now 😆

we enjoy simultaneously loving and hating on bad media that could be good aside from ONE fundamental slip-up, etc. etc.

BEAUTIFUL!! :D What a wonderful friendship to have!!

[meikuree]

:,) as a casual Umineko fan (last time I read/watched anything was… 7-8 years ago?), you’re so very right and I’d love to see Eli’s thoughts on the manga/VN! and aw, very understandable — would the the Discord deletion be part of a digital hiatus or something along those lines? either way I think they’d be glad to reconnect!

[blueshiftofdeath]

Hilariously, I messaged them and also told them about Umineko, and they said they already started it because of my recommendation back when I started it 😆 They shared their liveplaying tag on Tumblr for it which I had fun looking through! :D https://www.tumblr.com/stackslip/tagged/eli%20plays%20umineko

Discord deleting would be less about a hiatus and more about just general long-term pruning of my online presence, similar to how I deleted Twitter and Tumblr... I stopped using Discord because it's very tied to my feeling of being always online / always contactable / looking at things that only stress me out.

Like on Discord I'm in a million servers and have direct messages going with dozens of people. It also used to be my primary form of communication with my closest / most frequent contacts (as in, excluding my mom, 99% of my distance chatting time is with the same 5 people, and 4 of those 5 people I talked to primarily ivia Discord). This meant that I pretty much "had" to have Discord open all the time for basic communication like coordinating dinner with my girlfriend, which meant I was constantly seeing my zillion servers and every other casual conversation I've ever had on the side.

It's really hard for me to ignore the servers when they're constantly updating... some of them are purely utilitarian (massive servers equivalent to subreddits where I look for information about things, which I am less obsessive about) but a lot of them are social and it feels awkward that I never say anything in them, and just looking at them reminds me about how maybe I should do that, but I also really don't think I have the time to get involved with even more social groups, especially when there's no irl component. Most social servers I'm in have a huge negativity/complaining aspect to them too, and even besides that people often say things that irritate me, so checking all my servers can give me psychic damage.

(I have had friends reasonably point out that I could just leave all my servers, but despite the purely utilitarian reasoning behind it, I think it's impossible to avoid hurting friendships if I do that, since I have friends in almost all my servers.)

Then also everyone on earth could message me at any moment, and for me personally it's basically impossible to not reply right away, unless I simply forget they messaged me and then months will pass before I reply, which causes me (and maybe them) psychic damage. And also just seeing all those friends makes me think about if I had anything to say to them (often I do)... so I both get directly derailed a bunch by DM/server notifications, plus experience low-grade background radiation of distress/distraction.

Making all my closest contacts message me elsewhere (which I did over a year ago now) means I don't need to go on Discord nearly ever; checking all my messages infrequently and all at once solves the main issues described above. But now when I do check my Discord it's obvious I get almost nothing out of it / it's primarily a negative experience, so it seems a little ridiculous I have it at all... it feels like a relic from another era of my life, when way more of my social life was digital, and I was always having a Discord conversation with someone or being active in a server.

Also, I don't really like having to check up on it and risk neglecting people's communication with me... I think it makes more sense to just let everyone know I'm not on Discord and that they should contact me elsewhere if they want a reply. And I think deleting my account is the easiest way to do that, since people will know I'm not there even if I don't go down the list and message literally everyone.

Other, secondary but still significant to me, points for deleting:

• I don't like that all my data is on there... I've sent so many messages over the years about really personal stuff, which requires trust in the platform. A lot of the platform decision making recently makes me trust it less and wish all my intimate conversations were not on there. I don't want to add to that (so I should delete) and I'd like to wipe what I have that's on there already (done most easily as part of the deletion process).
• The pop-ups and stuff on there these days drive me absolutely crazy. One of the major principles guiding my digital decision making now is avoiding pop-ups, ads, etc. It's not exactly the same since these are ads for Discord instead of for new shoes or surgery or something, but I still hate the experience of seeing ads constantly while on Discord. And I don't support Discord enough to pay for it.

That being said, if I did delete, I might make a new account that I would only use for attending online conventions and stuff like that 🤔 So yeah... something I've been thinking about, and I feel increasingly good about the more time passes 😆

[meikuree]

pardon my slow reply! I've been there with wanting to nuke my Discord account, and this was very insightful/relatable to read. you're stronger than I am as most of my close friends are off Discord and I have a 'utilitarian' relationship to fandom socialising -- if something's not working I'm happy to hit the bricks for servers which means I don't feel the need to delete my account yet. (I think of myself as someone who maintains a distinct fandom/IRL separation.) I'm lucky in that my online friends are all understanding people who preach the whole IRL > fandom principle.

a new account for lurking and browsing conventions sounds like a great idea!

[blueshiftofdeath]

One of my favorite things about Dreamwidth is the reduced pressure to reply right away :D

I'm glad my thoughts were relatable 😆 I don't see a lot of people wanting to delete their Discords (unlike most other social media-- which makes sense, I don't think Discord's format is even close to as bad as Tumblr/Twitter/etc) so it's extra exciting when I hear people have similar thoughts :D

And yeah Discord has 100% broken fandom containment for me; I think if it hadn't, I wouldn't have a problem... hopefully the potential new account would have that clear fandom/IRL separation benefit!

Thank you for your encouragement!! :DD

[nnozomi]

omigod, I love the biscuits vs. philosophy mixup. That actually does sound like the start of a short story. (At least it wasn't the book you wanted hollowed out to serve as a biscuit box?)

very envious of your short France trip! Sounds lovely. (and wait, transversely is the one who's written a lot of anime-related fic? I love their writing!)

hope your cold is better, summer colds suck. <3

[meikuree]

thank you, I’m on the mend now and this is very sweet! ❤️

LOLLL the idea of a hollowed out box is hilariously absurdist, even if our response would probably have been: 😱😢😖

and omg yes, it’s exactly that transversely - funny that you know her too! I’m guessing you’ve heard of her through her Ookiku Furikabutte fic?

[nnozomi]

it’s exactly that transversely - funny that you know her too! I’m guessing you’ve heard of her through her Ookiku Furikabutte fic?
yes, exactly :) among others. I would say know of her more than know her (I've commented just once or twice on her fics, lousy at commenting as usual, but otherwise I don't think we've had a chance to interact) but it's fun to see two familiar names come together in an unexpected place! :)