"Are tigers considered breakfast food?"

That's the question someone asked in my dream last night as a pair of cartoonishly bright tigers loped across the grassy expanse before me. I am unsure as to how serious this question was, cannot tell you whether the questioner would have been willing to carve freshly-killed tiger flesh into steaks and roast them over the fire. I can tell you that two hours after I woke up, I broke my fast with fried catfish and okra.

In my dreams, tigers tend to be associated with early morning, with sunrise and breakfast and a new day. This has been the case ever since I first heard the Paula Cole song "Tiger" with its refrain, "I've left the girl I was supposed to be... and someday I'll be born." I take these associated symbols as a strong hint that it is time for a bold new beginning.

What I would like to begin, what I need to begin very soon, is a job. One which pays money. In order to get a job which pays money, I should probably have shoes more appropriate for interviewing than the battered pair of Nikes I've been walking around in. So I went shoe shopping today with a very very kind person who was willing to pay for decent shoes. The very very kind person was, in fact, determined to get me some decent shoes. Unfortunately, determination is not always enough.

I had an epiphany today, walking through shoe stores in downtown DC. I realized that the reason that physical therapist two years ago was so amazed by my leg strength was that your average American woman never gets the chance to walk anywhere because she's stuck in crappy shoes. It's bad enough that only 1/4 of the styles sold in stores are available in narrow widths ("There just isn't a demand for shoes in your size," sighed one sales manager), but the styles which are available are--almost without exception--entirely unsuitable for purposes of ambulation.

The very very kind person determined to get me some decent shoes says we'll try again next week out in the suburbs. I do hope we'll have better luck then than we did today.

My dream seemed to tell me that it is time to start something new, to begin a new journey. If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then I'm gonna need some sensible shoes.