Nashville Part 1: These Boots Were Made For Dancing

It's taken me almost a month but I'm finally recovered enough from my trip to Nashville to write about it.  I went down to Nashville for an American Bar Association conference.  After a particularly heinous day at my former job, I received an email about the conference and jumped at the chance.  Between the country music, cowboys and warm weather this trip promised (and of course, hot topics in the law lectures) I booked a flight and hotel within minutes.

Before my flight to Nashville departed from LaGuardia airport, I had already made fast friends with two lawyers from Montreal.  After they told me that they were attending because of the social events and explained how last year's conference in Vegas went down, I knew it was going to be a good weekend! 

My first order of business upon arrival, aside from getting my official conference name tag and CLE calendar, was to find me some cowboy boots.  I asked the bellhop where I could buy some boots and he explained, in a slow southern drawl, that a store called Nashville Cowboy was having a "Buy 1, Get 2 Free" boot sale.  If his accent hadn't caused me to melt on the spot, his mention of a sale certainly would have.  I gathered my composure and scooted my booty over to the store.

I found myself in a leather scented mecca of all that is good and holy about cowboy boots.  They were red, brown, black, white; studded and stitched; stacked 3 deep, 10 feet high and 50 feet long.  At that point my life changed and all events would be divided into BCB (before cowboy boots) and ACB (after cowboy boots).  Ok, I'm kidding (sort of) but it was an overwhelming experience.  

Boots, boots and more boots!

I walked in knowing that I would leave with 3 pairs of cowboy boots.  Although I'm a lawyer (and infamously bad at math), I'm also a woman so I know that a Buy 1, Get 2 Free sale equals 3, yes 3, pairs of boots.  You're probably thinking, "Who needs 3 pairs of cowboy boots in New Jersey," in which case we must not have been properly introduced, (Hi, I'm Emily) and the answer is ME!  I need 3 pairs of cowboy boots in New Jersey!   My parents had already pledged to buy me a pair as an early birthday gift (July 6, thanks Mom and Dad!) so the fact that I could get 3 pairs for the price of one was too good to be true! 

Between my indecisiveness and "retartoes" (I have notoriously bad feet that have been operated on multiple times in the past 15 years) I knew this was going to be a daunting task.  The store was almost empty so I enlisted the help of a nice salesgirl to guide me through my boot selection.  She informed me that I needed at least one pair of brown and one pair of black boots, obviously.  I immediately fell in love with a dark brown pair with turquoise stitching that would match my straw and turquoise cowboy hat.  Pair one settled.

In an effort not to bore you with my thought process I will fast forward 2 hours, 1 packet of almonds, 6 mirror self-portraits and countless text messages to my fashionista friends and mother.  It turns out that the most difficult decision to make is deciding which pair of buttery soft goat-leather boots (yes, they're made from goat skin) should be the 3rd, as I had found 4 pairs of cute cowboy boots that didn't mess with my sensitive feet.

As I hemmed and hawed over whether to put back the caramel colored or the shorter boots, I heard a voice whisper, "The 4th pair is 40% off."  I turned to see an angel in tight jeans and cowboy boots.  Saving me from the despair of abandoning a pair of boots, I jumped up to hug him from my crumpled place on the worn wood floor (where I was likely having a conversation with the boots to decide who was coming home with me) but he was gone.  As I questioned whether this intese spiritual moment had been real, my angel reemerged, from the stock room no less.  He explained that he was the manager and would be pleased to give me 40% off the 4th pair seeing as I was having such difficulty deciding.

Caramel, Dark Brown with Turquoise, Black cut outs, short tan suede and dark brown leather (From L to R)

I choose to believe that he gave me a discount because of my overwhelming beauty and not my everlasting presence in the store or their existing sales policies.  Regardless, I left with 4 pairs of boots-- 3 as an early birthday present from my parents and one that I bought on my own.   After just 3 hours in Nashville, I was ready to take on the town and headed back to the hotel for a Welcome Reception that requested "snappy country" attire.  

  

Dating Games (Part I)

My friend, Greta, from Dating Without a Net, and I are playing a dating game.  We rationalized that since we keep picking the wrong men for ourselves, we will pick dates for each other via Plenty of Fish.  Figuring that this plan cannot be any worse than the system we currently employ, we provided each other with our zip codes (I live in NJ; Greta lives in TN), dating radius, a few non-negotiable attributes and gave each other free reign.  


The rules were to pick 3 men from our respective geographic locations who fall within the set criteria (who we haven't dated), email, secure a date with at least one and, of course, blog about it.   Greta and I set to work yesterday, but the first task of finding potential dates was more difficult than originally anticipated.  


While I thought that I had a tough time navigating through the hoards of wanna-be-guidos, the dating pool near Greta posed its own challenges.  In her neck of the (back) woods, I found most of the men to be either in the public service or transportation industry (read: cops/security guards and truck drivers) so it was a good thing that education wasn't a deal breaker for Greta (note: education wasn't a criterion of mine either--we tried to make the pool as large as possible).  I found may of the men in her tri-state area of Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas to be redneck hillbillies that even this country-lovin' girl wouldn't let buy me a beer um....unimpressive.  


Up here in NJ, I deal with men who swathe themselves in the Italian flag, rock fake tans and faux hawks but these men are no match for Greta's potential suitors.  Between the mullets, missing teeth and hunting prize pictures (I stopped counting after 5 dead animals and one hog-tied pig), I can see why she's having trouble picking the right men.  There were a few attractive men, but they either hadn't been online in months or Greta had already dated them.  Our exchanges went a little something like this:


Me: Here you go--let me know if you've blocked or already talked to them: Johnny, SomeDude, OtherDude.
Greta: I emailed Johnny a while back, wanna switch him out for another?  Here are yours: HotDude, BeachDude, SarcasticDude.
Me: I've already met and um, hung out, with HotDude.  We're good friends.
Greta: No way!  The foot fetish guy?  I thought he was the hottest and totally my type.. you go girl!  I'll pick an alternate for you.
Me: No, the guy with the tiny dog.  Don't know if I told you about him.  He drives that hot truck and is super sweet.  No foot fetish.  Ok, sub BadCop for Johnny---if you haven't already talked to him.
Greta: Good one but BadCop guy hasn't been online since October! #notthatmanyfisharoundhere  Ok, sub this LawyerDude for the HotDude.
Me: Ugh, LawyerDude is "JD" the one who got drunk, said he wanted to swing and tried to get me naked!    I blogged about it here.
Greta: Omg, you have dated every guy in NJ already either that or we totally have the same taste, Let me try one more time...
Me: Ok, so what about Sean? Aside from the weird dog pic, he's pretty cute.  Hamm looks promising too, although I see a radio on his lapel (are you done with dating cops?)
Greta: Sean is the cop I went out with on Friday!!  lol  Ok, last try, have you dated NJman?
Me:   NJman is kind of old but we're running out of options.  Is Sean the cop whose partner got shot while you were on your date?!   What about Tim?  Might be a freak--not a good face pic but his tattoos are kind of sexy.  Or what about Frank?  He kind of looks like a meth head but he has a Masters Degree so it might just be the highlights in his hair that are throwing me off.  OMG we both need to move! 


After way too much time surfing Plenty of Fish, Greta and I have our dates nominated.  I emailed my 3 potentials--BeachDude, SarcasticDude and NJman--and now we wait.