I’ve been thinking a lot about the iPhone recently. No, I’m not getting an iPhone (that’d be the day!). I’m thinking about the iPhone because it represents some deeper resentment building within me. First, I thought the iPhone would fail miserably, then I thought it would lead its users to physical injury and finally social isolation. Well, I was wrong (at least about the first part).

That brings me to these shoes. I’ve been trying to take up jogging. Part of this is embarrassment about how out of shape I’m in, but most of it is due to Christina’s hardcore 10k training regimen. And if she can run 10k, I can surely run 10k, right? Bah, well, after a few miles my legs are sore and I feel like my Achilles has just been Paris’ed. The culprit? Probably my shoes. Buying shoes was a childhood nightmare because of my bizarre shoe size. My feet are super wide, and when you’re on a budget, you can’t exactly go nuts on the well-fitted shoes. I usually just went to Big 5 and bought some $25 shoe on sale. Usually a size 10 or so, which is too long but barely, barely wide enough.

Well a few days ago, at 5:58 or two minutes before closing time, I wandered into a local running shoe store. Their website offered something called a “gait analysis,” which must be runner’s lingo for “look at that fool and see what the hell is wrong with him.” Because that’s what they did: watched me walk and run awkwardly. I was glad I was in my relatively snug sandals rather than my comically mis-sized Reeboks. I was told that I pronate slightly and collapse my foot-arch when I run, which wasn’t exactly news for someone who has had a lifetime history of ankle injuries. Then I was properly sized. I am nowhere near a 10 normal width, or even a 9 normal width. No, I am an 8.5 EEEE, which is only topped by the F and G widths. They had exactly one comfortable shoe in EEEE, which unfortunately had been mixed with a EE shoebox, meaning some foot kin of mine is hobbling about the streets of Menlo Park with two differently sized shoes.

Why the iPhone comparison? Well, the salesman put in an order for the EEEE freakishly shaped shoe. The shoes themselves are quite comfortable, snug but not constricting (at least the left foot, which was the orphaned EEEE). The shoes also cost $100, which is quite a sum for a graduate student. Part of my consternation is determining if this counts as materialism. Surely yes, as any barefoot monk might tell me. But what about compared to something like an iPhone? I personally detest objects like the iPhone as a representation of excess, but here I find myself sitting in a fancy running store ogling $100 shoes.

I can’t argue with buying something on the basis of function, as many people who have the iPhone use it judiciously. I also can’t argue with buying something on the basis of improved function, at the risk of being a hypocrite. I bought a dSLR to improve my photography skills, and it’d be silly to pretend that pictures like the one at the top of this post would have been easily accomplished with a point-and-shoot. But this seems to me a dangerous, slippery slope. I’m perplexed that to enjoy something so basic and natural as running, I must wrap my feet in this technology-infused hunk of foam.

I’m frustrated by all the crap in my life–and especially piling up on my desk–yet they all seem somehow necessary. Even this external keyboard I’m typing on is a relief compared to hunching over my laptop. I often find myself performing the following thought experiment: walking through my day, stripping away objects from my life until living is unbearable (usually around the point I take away the toilet paper), then replacing things into my life until living is tolerable (usually when the coffee returns). But even in my imagination, these are blurry lines between function and indulgence, necessity and materialism, comfort and complacency.

Burns, twice.

I saw Inception last week with a bunch of friends. Consensus opinion was that it was a solid “good.” I think it made me think; that is, it wasn’t the sort of action movie where you can just sit back and be absorbed in wave after wave of mechanical noises and CGI. If you care about the plot, you must actively keep track of various elements and rules, which is surprising given my estimation of the average American moviegoers patience (=low). However, for all this movie’s cleverness (it makes Memento look like a film school project), it is utterly unmoving. The acting performance are just frigid, except for Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s given some terrible lines and can only do his “furrowed scowl” face while hissing urgently. Everyone else, Ellen Page included, acts like they just had a wet towel wrung over them. Still, it’s more thoughtful and interesting than most summer blockbusters. Plus, there’s one fight scene that has to seen in theaters, and, as a bonus, it doesn’t make you as nauseous as District 9!

Yesterday, I went to Brian and Emilee’s house where Brian and I transformed 6.2 pounds of pork, veggies, and wrappers into almost 300 dumplings. It took a lot of willpower to avoid boiling and frying them all on the spot. But that didn’t stop us from boiling and frying a lot of them on the spot. Work, meet reward.