I don't want to be the kind of woman who thinks her life would be better if only she could walk in stilettos, and yet, after you've invested $70 in a pair of ``training heels,'' as I did on Newbury Street the other day, it's time to face certain truths about yourself.

Such as: My name is Beth and part of me (the part with access to the American Express card, unfortunately) believes even my hair would be sexier if I were in a 4-inch needle heel with a killer toe.

``Why now?'' one of my colleagues asked when she noticed the 2-inch heels that had replaced my Tevas. ``What happened to you?''

I'm not really sure. The stiletto lust seems to have struck almost totally out of the blue, like a tornado, or a birthday cake for a colleague at work.

Here's what I do recall: I was going about my business in a sensible-shoe sort of way, when an Entertainment Weekly cover story called out to me. ``Charlie's Angels Tell All,'' it read. ``Demi's Comeback! Secrets of the Sequel! And . . . How to KICK BUTT in Stilettos!''

This isn't the kind of fantasy a grown woman should admit to in print, but suddenly there was nothing I wanted more than to kick butt. Whose I wasn't sure, since I'm not unhappy with anyone, but that didn't matter. If I had the right shoes, there would be butts aplenty that needed kicking, I just knew it.

At the very least, I wanted to be leading a life in which kicking butt would not be an aberrational activity. I wanted to be a high-heeled babe drinking cosmopolitans in the private room of a celebrity-owned bar, the kind of dame who would have a friend who'd pull on her cigarette when faced with such a statement, and rasp, ``Feels good, doesn't it?'' rather than the response I'd get if I confessed a butt-kicking episode to any of my current friends: ``Butt kicking? Is that a new aerobics class?''

So I scanned the Entertainment Weekly interview for the word ``stiletto,'' and picked up at the part of the conversation when Cameron Diaz says the shoes are ``really kind of easy to run in.''

Hmmm. Not exactly the how-to article I'd been hoping for, but it was encouragement nonetheless. Heck, if Cameron can run in them, I should be able to walk, right? Or at least stand.

``I think you may need to build up slowly,'' a friend said, as she held on to my shoulder in the shoe store, trying to help me balance on the heels much the way my dad did when he was teaching me to ride a bike.

But just as a diver who surfaces too quickly can get the bends, so too can a novice who rises too fast on 4-inch Jimmy Choos face grave danger.

So I decided to go only halfway up this time. And, just to make sure I don't hurt my feet or my lower back or my knees, I'm going to wear them only while sitting down.

Does kicking butt from a chair count?