Looking for love: while floored

"Mommy! Mommy!" He was yelling it out in that loud voice that teeters between excitement and alarm. I rushed out with my towel barely covering me and water pooling at each footsteps.

I thought something was the matter. I found him standing tall, alert, with his finger pointed down definitively.

"LOOK AT THAT!" He kept yelling. Was that a smile? Or was he scared?

"At what? At what?" I asked it twice, confused. What was he pointing to.

"That right there," he shook his hand at the floor. "THERE! LOOK!"

I bent down, pulling my towel tighter to my body. I had no idea what he was directing me to. I shook my head back at him to let him know.

And then Lil E fell to the hardwood floor, stretched his body out, put his face as close as he could to the boards and traced his finger along the grain until he found what he wanted me to see.

"Right there," his voice nearly became a whisper. I moved in closer, lowering to my knees. My drenched hair fell in front of his face and he pushed it away patiently. I squinted. "A heart."

I saw it, a speck worked into the wood we walk upon hundreds (?) of times a day. The place where Lil E calls spontaneous dance parties to avoid housework. Right next to the spot where he drops his book bag, Tae Kwon Do gear, backpack for his daddy's house and I step, step, step all that evidence of his first-grade life. There was a heart.

"You're right, it is." I got in as close as I could and then Lil E nudged me aside so he could examine it even closer.

"I don't know how I saw it," he said. "I just did. I just looked down and there it was all the time! And I had to show you."

I'm sure his vision is sharpened by all those hours of hunting eighth-of-an-inch Lego pieces and seeing clues in Pokemon cards I will never understand the meaning of (and neither will he, probably). Still, it's the tiniest little thing, that heart.

It's wearing at part of our foundation, eating at our structure, but that heart belongs there. Maybe not for all eyes, but he was open and clear-sighted and he saw it for both of us.

Think you've lost love? Not to worry. We're heart detectives and we've spied it:

In clutter.

In salad.

And our favorite place, in the ocean.

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Slipping into a dress I wore in 8th grade

I have vowed to turn 40 fabulously this year. I will be wearing heels that make my chiropracter cringe and insisting upon skinny jeans and slathering on entirely too much glitter eyeliner. Sure, underneath all that will be heaps of heel pads, Spanx and moisturizer, but the outside will look fucking phenomenal.

Over the weekend, one of those miracle age-defying images came to life in my mother's living room.

"There's a beautiful pink dress for you!" Lil E squealed when I walked in the door. My mom had placed it, still wrapped in dry-cleaner plastic, lovingly on a floral-upholstered chair for me.

"Is it from a wedding you were in? Prom? WHAT?!" My mother was shouting that from the kitchen. She was at the stove, stirring something, surely.

I couldn't imagine where it was from. A pink dress?

But when I unwrapped it and saw that it was tucked in with my eighth-grade graduation robe, also a strange mauve color, I knew exactly where that mystery poof of satin came from.

I wore it in a quinceanera when I was fourteen. It was royal blue back then and the measurements appeard to be in the single digits. The gowns had been stored in the attic next to a crocheted dress of my mother's from the late 60s. Sun and dust and shame of the 80s had faded them. Once upon a time in the years of Sears training bras and size-zero stirrup pants, I wore these gowns. My arms slid into the Barbie-bicep holes and the pleats flared out from my boyish waist. My hair was the biggest thing in the picture of me doing some choreographed dance with thirteen other girls in my class in honor of one of my friends.

"I bet you will look beautiful in that dress!" Lil E said. Damn, he's good.

I didn't tell him it was half the size I am now. Maybe less.

"Try it on," he added sweetly.

And so I carefully tugged on the zipper, still royal blue and perfectly in tact, and held my breath as I stepped into it. I would have done it properly - over the head - but I was afraid Wham and a whole bucket of rubber bracelets might fall out, maybe my red Sally Jesse Raphael glasses. That, and I might never loose myself and have to live out this decade swathed in a dress that now looks like a Golden Girls' comforter.

Inhaaaaaale and slide up annnnnnd....then something miraculous!

I might be almost 40, but dammit, I can still fit in that dress. A smidge squeezy, but come on! It covers all the right places (and then some).

"It IS beautiful! It DOES fit!" Lil E let out and naturally, I nodded and smiled.

I smoothed that satin across my chest and waist and stood taller: That's right! I grew boobs! And a fetus! And something on my thighs clearly derived from Doritos and French Vanilla Creamer in the early 2000s! But that dress fits me like a glove.

A child's hand-me-down communion glove, but a glove just the same.

If you're going to judge by the way I work that grammar-school formal attire, then 40 is going to be just fine.

I might just have to buy myself a Cuarentanera dress, which I am thinking would be slightly more Rainbow than the lovely Traveling Red Dress Project. Not that the one from the quinceanera isn't divine and figure-flattering. It's just that these might better reflect where I am at this stage of my life now.But it's just so hard to choose!

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Friday Shoegasm: The hunt for the perfect black boots

Say it with me, shoe whores: I have plenty of boots. I have plenty of boots. I have plenty of boots.

Oh, goodness, I want these boots.

I've been on the hunt for the perfect black high boots since the mid-80s. I had them. I had several pairs of them. And they were glorious -- buttery leather, not too squeezy on the calf, the perfect shape for pairing with pencil skirts and not too dressy for jeans. Of course, I wore those boots into the ground, literally took inches off the heel I wore them with such conviction. I haven't been able to replace them.

I was close. Last winter, I scored some suede-ish over the knee numbers with a ridiculously high heel and platform that was just this side of mid-70s North Avenue/Clybourn hooker. I felt so damn smart for snagging those black boots for $35 and they felt like everything I'd dreamed. Until I put them on a few weeks ago for the first time this winter, turned to face the mirror and felt a heel snap completely off.  It was like a moment out of "Moonlighting" except I wasn't chasing a bad guy not-so covertly with Bruce Willis across the roof of a skyscraper.

Repairing those "perfect" boots will cost more than I paid for them, so...you know, I'll just keep them in memorium under my bed with my prom heels for the next decade or two.

Back to the search for the perfect black boots:

* 4-5" heels, preferably chunky wood heels or wedges because people at first-grade pick-up can only take so much Harper Valley PTA.

* A shaft that will fit without requiring calf-Spanx, not that I have ginormous lower legs but that makers-of-boots seem to base their mold measurements on Heidi Klum or the average calf size of fourth-grade girls.

* Leather, suede, something not-fake so I can think "suck it, PETA" with every step I take.

* Same aforementioned pencil skirt/jeans styling.

* Less than a thousand dollars. OK, $400. Can I get $350? Who's in for $109? I'm a bargain shoppper, friends. No need to cover that up. I want designer boots for a garage sale price. I'm not kidding.

* Pretty.

Obviously this is a tall boot order (also a tall-boot order). After combing Zappos, iDeeli, RueLaLa, Gilt, Piperlime and many other searches and sites, I've found very few I really want. Or that my budget will allow.

And then today, I saw these. Lovely, lovely these. And I can't stop thinking about them. How they'd look with the sweater dresses I adore or the skinny cords I want to wear every single day all winter long. How they'd dress up the sexless, sleeping-bag down coat I will be in until July.

They are made by Frye -- I love Frye boots. My motorcycle boots are by Frye and look and feel amazing, even a few winters later.OH! And the name -- Harmony Tall Harness. Rrrrrr! So determined!

They are waxed suede, no kind-of-soft stuff that will fall off in chunks once they are exposed to a couple of grains of de-icing salt. And the buckles...I just love those little details on my feet.

Perfect, right? Nope. These babies are $388. As much as I love myself, there is just no way I can invest that much in one of nine pairs of boots in my possession.

I guess that means I'll carry on. Hobbling on that one broken heel.

Do you have a perfect pair of shoes that has eluded you?

Keep hunting here:

• Dear internets: I am so sorry about my shoes
• Jesus wanted me to have these boots
• Real boys wear heels

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