Silly shoes, perfect cookies

 I had coffee with an old friend on campus the other morning, and, because I am a very old lady, I had to duck into a building to pee on the way back to my office. Something about that bathroom's smell-- nothing particularly disgusting, just a very old bathroom in a random academic university building smell-- made me instantly nostalgic for my college speech tournament days. 

Specifically, I had a sharp memory of being in a stuffy bathroom at Illinois State University in that drowsy, early evening time after the final rounds of competition but before the awards ceremony started. I was with my friend Jamie and a couple of other girls from my team, and we were standing on the bathroom floor in our pantyhose, taking a break from our tall, cheap heels. I remember how badly the balls of my feet ached and how good the warm, grimy bathroom tiles felt on them as we stood there smelling the odor of feet finally released from pleather and wet paper towels and heating vent dust in our tight suits and control-top hose, exhausted after a long day of competition but still excited for awards, the van ride home, a party or two on the horizon.

Sometimes when I am at work, I miss being young so much the feeling overwhelms me. 

Sometimes I am so happy to be 25 years older but still clomping around a college campus in high heels and pretty skirts, ducking into lecture halls to speak-- only this time no one is judging me, and getting paid for it.

I would absolutely not be in a public bathroom in my stocking feet any more, and I wondered the other morning from the depths of my nostalgia why that is. Maybe because as an adult, I clean bathrooms and know just how dirty they are. Or maybe I would be if I still spent 12+ hour days three-to-five spindly inches taller and walking miles.

I clomped around in these the other day:

I bought them JUST IN TIME for snow. Cool.

I also accessorized with pink lipstick, but I ate a huge apple, and calamity ensued

I FNALLY made THE COOKIES, and they were so great I had to make another batch 18 hours later. You gotta make these, you guys (I didn’t modify the ingredients, but I did make 30 small cookies and modify the cook time)