fashion dailymotion

I used to have a large shoe collection. Not a Sarah Jessica Parker Shoe Collection but a significant enough one for someone who doesn't have a job. I had a big closet in my old apartment and the shoes and boots filled up both sides. I wouldn't go so far as to say that shoes were my life, because then my bags would feel left out, but shoes were a big part of it.

These are from my old apartment. I didn't get all of them in the shot because some wanted to remain anonymous. See the little red bottle in the middle shelf of the big shoe holder on the right? I kept the requisite shoe maintenance equipment with them at all times, in case of emergency. You never know when two shoes could break out in fisticuffs. And then where's that emergency repair kit? Exactly.

But then tragedy struck and I needed ankle surgery. I know; tragedy is usually not defined as anything that compromises your Loehmann's shopping trips but it was a tragedy to me. I suddenly was unable to hike. I could barely walk. There was something very wrong with my right foot. The doctor calmly informed me my right ankle had lost all its cartilage.

I said, "WHAT?" also.

He asked me how I did it, as if he expected me to reply I'd purposefully banged the heel of my right foot on a manhole cover over and over for 20 years. You know, like you do when you're in love. Or incarcerated with no chance of parole.

So he rebuilt my right heel and gave me an arch I didn't ask for. He gave me one anyway, even though my other foot didn't have one. Don't tell me I should have had a second opinion; he was my fourth opinion.

I find it interesting that my doctor didn't want to be photographed. This is what I looked like after the surgery. I couldn't walk for four months and yes, that was my scooter. FOR FOUR MONTHS.


Once I started walking again, my shoes became my enemy. I gave most of them away. I held shoe giveaways on this blog and cried at the post office while standing in line with my carefully wrapped packages. I'm sure most of them arrived waterlogged.

No more spiky heels, no more 5 inch boots. I eventually stopped looking for shoes. Stopped shopping in general. It was too depressing to find a great dress only to realize I'd have to look for amazing shoes and probably wouldn't find any that were easy to walk in and didn't hurt.

And then I discovered the Orthaheel.



The Fitflop from Sole Provisions had the orthaheel and comes in a ton of pretty summer color combos. See that built-in arch? I didn't NEED to have one installed in my foot - at a cost of $12,000 - had I discovered this shoe first. It's like walking on air.



And these I love love love. They remind me of the colors you'd see on an African Safari. Even though I've never been on an African Safari, the dark green and sand combo reminds me of one anyway. I might be thinking of Miami, though.

Dear women of America: You will sadly discover that as you age, (which I'm not, by the way) that neither your knees nor your ankles will support high heels anymore. Because bearing children and going through menopause isn't enough, apparently.



This was a sponsored post by the lovely people at Sole Provisions. All the above shoes can be found on their website plus many, many more. Go. Look. Buy.

The winner of the Kindle copy of my book, Celebrity sTalker is Terri! I've spent all weekend trying to load the Random Picker Thingy graphic but when I do, then BLOGGER won't let me type in the Typing Box Thingy. There were 10 names eligible for the drawing. Everyone else had already bought the book or read it and one person entered two comments. So I entered 10 names starting with 1 and the Random Picker Thingy chose number 5. Congratulations Terri! Go to hell, Blogger!

Are you one of the people who haven't read my book because you'd rather feed your kids and get pedicures? I'M ON TEAM FEED THE KIDS AND GET PEDICURES! So here's your chance to read it. For Free. I'm giving away a Kindle copy! Because next to Mother Teresa, I'm a giver. (maybe in another lifetime.)

Sidebar: You don't have to own a Kindle to read on a Kindle. You can download Kindle's free app to your computer, tablet, or phone. I'm not being sponsored by Kindle to say this. (I wish I was because I could use the money.) Go to the above link and down on the right sidebar you'll find an option to download the free app.

All you have to do to win my book is leave a comment and I'll pick a winner by July 15. Leave as many comments as you want. Try to leave them in English. No one likes a smart-ass.

Since she arrived at my apartment two weeks ago, these are some of the arguments my mom and I have had:


1. Whether orange bougainvillea was in fact orange bougainvillea.

2. Why the 8 ounces of water I make her drink twice a day with her medication is in a glass so big she’s never seen a glass that big ever in her entire life am I trying to drown her.

3. How sponges work.

4. The fruit flies in my kitchen should pay rent there are so many of them.

5. Who shut down the online Mah-jongg game when they should have checked with her first to see if she was done playing.

6. The guy who parks next to me is probably glad I had my car washed.

7. Why did it take me so long to get my car washed.

8. We need to stop eating tilapia.

9. Why I eat in front of my computer and will probably die there.

10. That the people on So You Think You Can Dance really can’t dance if you call that dancing.

11. Why don’t I hang up paintings over the couch only hobos live like that.

12. Whether the woman at Bank of America wrote down her password and will try to get into her account because she looks shifty and is Russian and mom is part Russian and knows shifty when she sees it.

13. Why am I forcing her to go to the LaBrea Tar Pits when everybody but me knows she hates fossils.

14. Who moved her coffee cup.

15. Who moved her dish.

16. Who moved her glass.

17. Who moved my coffee cup.

18. Who moved my dish.

19. Who moved my glass.

20. Who drank all the wine.

(21.) me

Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, summed up Hollywood the best when he said, "It's all about greed, ego, stupidity, and insecurity." Those words could very well sum up a man I was working for a few weeks ago, a man named Rasool Verjee.

I've been lucky to get many jobs off the Internet, everything from content creator for Uproar Entertainment, my monthly joke writing job and The Taboo Show to my book deal for Celebrity sTalker. But I was surprised to get contacted from LinkedIn. People joke about that site but it's currently the biggest and most successful provider of resumes on the web.

Rasool wanted me to read his screenplay, a comedy. A person who reads a screenplay for free here in Hollywood is as rare as O.J. Simpson offering to pay off his civil lawsuit to Fred Goldman. I've written three of them, plus nine teleplays. I've written standup and blog posts and a memoir and essays but by far the hardest of all to write is the screenplay.

So I said I would read it and give him a one-sheet (critique) in return. We agreed on a price. After he asked me for a 10% discount, which I granted.

So here's how our email exchanges went down: I asked for a check but realizing he was in Canada, (although the phone number he lists as a Canadian one is actually a number in Beverly Hills) suggested he PayPal me since U.S. Banks remove a portion of your spleen to cash a foreign check. He wrote back:

"Suzy, I have a US account at Chase. Let me know. Thanks for getting back to me. Will confirm or not shortly. Was looking for more help with some rewriting."

Then wrote this:

"Okay done! Sending the script now. Please send me your bank details. Appreciate your advice."

I sent him my bank details and "Rasool, when the check clears I'll send notes, ok?"

He wrote back:

"Sure sounds good. Would prefer to email transfer if that works. Anyway will get it done."

An email transfer? I was unaware you could stick a check in an email and send it to someone. Thinking he meant a wire transfer from bank to bank, I asked for clarification and got this in return:

"Love to know when you have read it."

I wrote back: Did you send the check yet? Because at this point I'd started to read his script and it had so many problems I knew I couldn't list them all in a one-sheet. I already had 3 pages of notes and was not going to give him any notes without getting paid. And then suddenly this email:

"I am going to give the money to a friend who is here from Rochester. As I don't have a cheque and a wire is $30! I will confirm. Please go ahead and read! As you said no notes till you get the money. I won't stiff you!"

Didn't have a check? What happened to the Chase bank he said he had? I started to feel bad about the deal. And him. Something was wrong. Something was off.

"Suzy where are you located? New York. It looks like I will be in NY next week."

WHAT? My LinkedIn profile clearly states I live in Los Angeles. I wrote back and said that I lived in LA.

"Aha! Okay. Why did I think NY. Do you use pay pal?"

Aside from the fact that I already told him he could PayPal me I wrote back and said that I did but for him to add $3.00 to the total to make up for PayPal taking funds away.

"Oki doki! When do you think you will be done?"

I told him that as soon as the money cleared I'd send the notes.

I heard nothing from him for days. Suspicious of his silence, I emailed him to say I'd finished the script. And that there were problems. There are ALWAYS problems with scripts. Like with all writing, nothing is ever perfect until the 12th of never draft. Not to mention that a script in development is rewritten so many times by so many writers that it often doesn't even resemble the original. But was his script in development? I doubted it. He didn't even use screenplay software and that, right off the bat, was a sign this was an amateur project. Rasool wrote back:

"Thanks Suzy - just trying to get my damn PayPal to work. Ughhhh. By the way did you like the story? Sounds there is some work to be done. But can it be fixed and made into a great script."

At this point I realized Rasool was never going to pay me because he really didn't want feedback on his script; he's one of those writers who thinks it's already perfect and is just sending it out for confirmation of this. Many first-time writers make this mistake. Good writers have self-doubt about their work, worry about it, test-drive it with everyone they know. They agonize over one sentence, or one scene, or sometimes over one word. It's what makes them good writers.

So, do you know who this guy is who can't "work" PayPal ? According to his LinkedIn profile he's Rasool J Verjee Success Messenger and Millionaire Coach.

MILLIONAIRE COACH!

I googled him and discovered an interview he gave where he mentions his script, how he's already got the star AND THE MONEY and is ready to go into production! Do you have any idea how much money it takes to go into production? About twenty million for a low budget indie. And most of his script takes place in Kenya so how cheap is that going to be? If he had this money why was he still sending out his script for critique?

The man is in his 60s and there's no way anyone in Hollywood is going to develop a script by an old man. If you know anything about this town, it's that they hate anyone over the age of 28. According to his IMDb he produced something in the 1990s and that's not a track record he could take to the Hollywood Bank. At that point it occurred to me he thought I might have liked his script and used my contacts to help him. I felt sorry for him if he thought that's how Hollywood worked. Especially since he was stiffing me on a written contract. If he lived in LA I'd haul his ass into small claims court. And I would win. Emails are the new written contract proofs, Rasool.

So who is this guy? One of the original founders of Lavalife. The online dating site. Which was sold for quite a bit of money when it changed hands. And how much money were Rasool and I negotiating? What massive amount of money was tying up his stock options and accountants? What was forcing him to transfer funds from a Swiss bank account to an off-shore bank account?

$100. One hundred dollars.

Plus the 10% discount he asked for.

$90. That's what one of the founders of Lavalife, a millionaire coach, and movie producer couldn't afford.

I never answered his last email. I never sent the notes.