Heck on Heels by Mary T. Wagner

by Mary T. Wagner
(Southeast Wisconsin, USA)

Slice of life collection of essays and photos from journalist-turned-criminal-prosecutor-turned-author-and-blogger.

Heck on Heels: Still Balancing on Shoes, Love and Chocolate!, published by iUniverse in November, 2009, follows my award-winning debut collection of essays, Running with Stilettos: Living a Balanced Life in Dangerous Shoes, published in 2008. Yes, those really are my spike heels on the covers of both books. Running... won a first-place award in the National Federation of Press Women's 2009 communications contest, and was named a finalist in the Royal Palm Literary Awards contest in 2009 as well.

While I love that a friend of mine deemed me "the Midwest's answer to Carrie Bradshaw" when Running with Stilettos first came out, my life is certainly more frantic than fashionista, more snow-shoveling than sequins! I'd pit my still-evolving skills with a cordless drill or my itty bitty chainsaw against the "Project Runway" set any day...though I've been known to take off a spike heel and use it to pound a nail for hanging a picture when a hammer wasn't within reach. I like to say that I live a very ordinary life--kids, pets, parents, work, relationships, girlfriends, divorce, moments of panic and moments of reverie--but I happen to write about those moments a lot. And I feel that whenever I happen to make someone laugh, or cry, or laugh until they cry by writing about the familiar chords that play through all our lives...I'm doing just what I was meant to do in this universe.

Here's an excerpt from the Heck on Heels chapter called "Toolbox Therapy"...

There many ways I deal with stress. The chronic, day-in, day-out variety like the splendid and noble insanity that comes with working in a prosecutor?s office, usually calls for chocolate. On a regular basis. Cops and co-workers have even been warned on occasion to not approach unless they?re bringing some good chocolate to feed the beast.

Other spikes in adrenaline or responsibility have been dealt with by buying yet another pair of spike heels. Lime green with perforations, magenta suede with patent leather bows, leopard print brocade slingbacks, I can tell you a story behind nearly every pair of stilettos in my closet.

And yet another favorite release is to escape to the shoreline of my favorite state park on Lake Michigan with a soy mocha with whipped cream from Starbucks and bury my hands in soft white sand as seagulls and sandpipers look on, unmoved. That has been a luxury untouched for a long time. The annual state park pass on my dashboard is two years old.

But right now, neither chocolate nor shoes nor nature will do. I want a clean, functioning bathroom. My father is dying in a hospice and my youngest child is leaving for college in a week, and an imported chocolate bar with hazelnuts is just not going to cut it...