Les Chaussures Rouge

Yesterday I was wearing red shoes. Red shoes seem to catch peoples' eyes. And these were my no apologies little red shoes--like pick red, add red to it, then times it by red--and make them patent leather, and point them, give 'em a little heel and there you go. It was my gesture, to the weather in New England for the past 2 weeks, as in my gesturing to the dreariness by putting on these little red shoes and flipping the weather the bird.

At work, my shoes attracted people like Superman to kryptonite. And I pondered--"I think the weather has greyed people out" and these shoes are like the red balloon in La Balloon Rouge. Which is a sad movie about a boy having a balloon for a friend and then it dies.

But as I was running from building to building for work, I stopped for a smart little pigeon... one of the hundreds of Cambridge pigeons that strut about our sidewalks waiting for the cool kids to walk by. I stopped because he looked sharper than the other pigeons and then realized that his legs were Joker face paint red. And I was happy. Because I was staring at his gams, the way people were staring at my feet all day, and I realized that he too was flipping this weather, the bird.