https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title Essays and field notes by Jenn Day. en-us https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/you-cant-save-a-place-by-missing-it https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/you-cant-save-a-place-by-missing-it Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Tattered Cover is still open. Barnes & Noble owns it now. Depending on whom you ask, the first sentence is either a relief or made considerably worse by the second. Both reactions make sense to me. Denver kept its bookstore. Denver lost its independent bookstore. The sign on the door can’t settle which of those facts matters more. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/the-lie-was-the-tell-not-the-job https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/the-lie-was-the-tell-not-the-job Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT There's a guy in this week's Wired piece — Gary, 23, works at Palantir — who tells women at bars that he took the job to help pay off his parents' medical bills. It's a good story. Sympathetic, specific, hard to argue with. It's also not true. His parents don't have medical debt. They're not sick. He made it up. Sit with that, because the internet's version of this story is "tech bros can't get laid anymore, lol, good" — the version that fits in a repost. It's also the least interesting thing happening in the piece. The interesting thing is that a 23-year-old engineer has a pre-loaded fictional excuse on standby for his own employer, and reaches for it before the truth, because he's already run the math on which version gets him further. That's not a man caught off guard by the culture turning on him. That's a man who has fully internalized the read and is now performing around it in real time. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/i-was-supposed-to-be-in-the-world-trade-center https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/i-was-supposed-to-be-in-the-world-trade-center Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT I was supposed to be in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/i-have-become-emotionally-invested-in-several-houseplants https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/i-have-become-emotionally-invested-in-several-houseplants Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT There was presumably a time when I owned plants in the normal way, although I can no longer produce evidence of it. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/these-boots-have-been-to-cbgbs https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/these-boots-have-been-to-cbgbs Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT There are things you keep because they are useful, things you keep because they are beautiful, and then there are the things that have somehow slipped past every reasonable standard for continued ownership and taken up permanent residence in your life. My purple boots belonged firmly in the third category. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/i-found-the-most-beautiful-shoes-in-the-world https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/i-found-the-most-beautiful-shoes-in-the-world Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT There are expensive shoes I admire, expensive shoes I think are ridiculous, and expensive shoes where I spend ten minutes trying to figure out whether I actually like them or whether years of fashion conditioning have simply taught me that if something costs enough money, I should squint thoughtfully and call it *directional*. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/the-wednesday-shakedown https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/the-wednesday-shakedown Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT A glittered cocktail crawl, a Tony Awards raffle, and several extremely useful yeses. https://nyshoeaddict.com/the-pie-queen https://nyshoeaddict.com/the-pie-queen Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT By the time the Pride Parade happened, Pride Week had already been underway for days in Chocolatina and Lavinia's orbit. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/come-support-the-pie-queen https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/come-support-the-pie-queen Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Pride week has a different energy than everything that came before it. The events leading up to it are wonderful — the cabarets, the watch parties, the happy hours that turn into something more than happy hours — but Pride week itself is something else. The volume goes up. The calendar stops pretending to be manageable. Everything that has been building since the first week of June arrives at the same time, on the same days, and you just show up. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/i-showed-up-in-my-good-shoes https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/i-showed-up-in-my-good-shoes Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT By the time June really gets going I've been to more events than I can count on one hand, which is saying something because I work in events and I actually can count them. But there's something different about these. I don't just work them. I live them. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/june-has-a-personality https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/june-has-a-personality Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT June arrives like a friend who texted "I'm outside" four minutes before they were supposed to, and also brought six people, and also it's a whole month. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/he-was-not-my-favorite-character https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/he-was-not-my-favorite-character Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT ⚠️ Spoiler alert: Especially for droid lovers. Make sure you watch Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord Season 1 first. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/second-errand-hope-dies https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/second-errand-hope-dies Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT The first errand is fine. The first errand has a clear purpose, a logical starting point, probably a parking spot. You've planned for the first errand. You have the right tote. You know what you're getting. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/birthday-deadline-frosting https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/birthday-deadline-frosting Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT I do not hate birthdays in a dramatic way. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/field-notes/a-crew-is-not-a-cast https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/field-notes/a-crew-is-not-a-cast Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT A cast stands near each other. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/no-worries https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/no-worries Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT I started keeping track after the third time in one week. Three different people. Three different crises that weren't mine. Three times I said "no worries" and meant I'm now carrying your anxiety so you don't have to. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/field-notes/booshkeedoo-domain https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/field-notes/booshkeedoo-domain Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT The subtitle said Booshkeedoo. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/system-needs-a-system https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/system-needs-a-system Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Organization begins as a noble act. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/murder-she-wore https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/murder-she-wore Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT The crime scene was my bedroom floor. The victim? My social battery. Time of death: approximately 11:47 PM, somewhere between the third round of tequila shots and the DJ playing "Dancing Queen" for the fourth time. I know this because my patent leather pumps were still lying on their side near the door, abandoned, betrayed, and frankly judging me harder than anyone at that party ever could. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/if-you-know-you-shoe https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/if-you-know-you-shoe Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Forensic investigators use footwear analysis to identify criminals at crime scenes. Wear patterns, scuff marks, sole shapes — all admissible in court. I do the same thing at brunch. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/final-sale-confessional https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/final-sale-confessional Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT I need you to understand something about me before we go any further: I have never returned a shoe. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/sequins-at-the-post-office https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/sequins-at-the-post-office Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT I want to be clear: I knew what I was doing. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/dressing-for-a-duel https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/dressing-for-a-duel Sun, 22 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT There's a version of me that shows up to a Tuesday meeting in leggings and a blazer. She's fine. Everyone nods, decisions get made, nobody remembers anything. https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/can-you-survive-a-room-full-of-exes https://nyshoeaddict.com/below-the-title/can-you-survive-a-room-full-of-exes Fri, 14 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT All scenes, characters, and emotional disasters depicted here are fictional. Any resemblance to real people, living or texting you at 2 AM, is purely coincidental.