For Sale: Overpriced Silver Rings, Incense, Drinks and Feeling Like You're Cool

I had some version of the following conversation at least four times today:

"Do you think we should go?" my husband asks.

I immediately reply, "Hell no! I'm not paying $12 to get in there!"

"Yeah, you're right," he says. "It's just that we go every year. It seems a shame to miss it."

He's right. It does seem like a shame that I'm missing Sunset Junction Street Fair this year. Instead, I'm making a conscious decision to avoid mingling with the thousands of aspiring cool people that make the trek to get smashed while checking out the booths of overpriced silver jewelry and ethnic-looking clothing and art.

Why the self-imposed boycott?

Well, I've been in this neighborhood long enough that I remember when getting into Sunset Junction Street Fair was a two or three dollar donation. This wasn't a lifetime ago. This was only eight years ago. I know, rising prices are a reality in life. It wasn't too much of a shocker a few years ago when a five-spot was demanded at the door.

Last year though, the same inflation that's afflicting home prices in L.A. had clearly come to the street fair. Ten dollars was the suggested donation. I paid and walked away feeling like the fair wasn't worth ten bucks. I mean, I never paid to get into Taste of Chicago. Sure I coughed up the cash for an overpriced slice of Giordano's pizza. --It was always well worth it. It's the best pizza in the city!

This year, twelve is the magic number of dollars we're all expected to cough up in order to stroll down Sunset Blvd. And that's if we get there before four in the afternoon. After 4 p.m. it's $15. Then I'd still have to pay for a bunch of stuff I don't need: the pricy drinks, eats, incense and ethnic trinkets. Plus, I live here so I can feel cool and check out the bondage-gear store with the butt-baring chaps-wearing mannequin anytime I want. For free!

I guess it's all for the best that I won't go broke trying to buy lemonade for my two sons this year. Come to think of it, I don't know how anybody is going to feel hip and cool this year when the fair isn't even making an attempt at being down-to-earth. Sunset Junction will have it's first-ever VIP lounge at Cliff's Edge Restaurant...because the point of coming to an overpriced STREET FAIR is to hang out at an overpriced restaurant.

Reflections on The Grove

A few years ago I was not a happy camper when I heard that a brand new shopping mall called The Grove was going to be built. As construction progressed, I pondered the philosophical dynamics of materialism and consumer-culture in my corner of the globe. Why was another mall needed in the area when The Beverly Center was right down the street and Hollywood and Highland would also be opening a few miles away? My cynical side came out when I saw the list of stores that would call The Grove home. Nothing creative, just the usual, garden variety chains. Apparently someone thought LA really needed another Gap and Banana Republic.

On a practical level, I was happy that a Barnes & Noble would be opening but also figured it was going to be a pain to get there. I figured throngs of hipster sycophants would wreck traffic in the Beverly/3rd Street/Fairfax area in their quest to snap pictures of themselves standing outside the Ambercrombie store. I also figured the place would destroy the quaintness of the Farmer's Market, the LA landmark right next door with the good eats.

Four years later, all my predictions have come true and yet, we go to The Grove at least once every two weeks. The place is overcrowded and overpriced so I ask myself, why do we keep going?

The Grove is more than just a mall in this corner of LA. It is the 21st century version of the town square and an experience that's steeped in a fantasy of fabulousness. The fact that it's no ordinary place becomes apparent when you zoom into the parking garage and see the electronic signs proclaiming the number of parking spots remaining on each level. Seeing the scarcity of spots available in the garage makes you panic, makes you even more anxious to get to the fantasyland you know is waiting on the ground floor.

Once you descend the escalators from the parking garage, you step out onto the mosaic-tiled sidewalk and begin the walk towards the koi pond fountain. Two restaurants have tables lining the pathway. Everyone eating on either side of you is visible and you start to check for famous, or slightly famous, people. The diners are also checking you out as you stroll this cobblestone catwalk. If you have the right look, they are asking themselves, "Didn't I see her in a TV movie? Is he a studio boss?" After a few moments of posing on the edge of the koi pond or chatting on your cell outside Anthropologie, you begin to believe that you are a star.

The Grove is indeed a place to see beautiful and wealthy Angelenos (or those fronting like they are), all wearing the right oversized sunglasses, platform open-toe heels and hip jeans held up by this year's crimson, fashionably-wide belt. Surrounded by all those people and the wonderful things we can buy if we have the credit card limits to do so, we can't possibly be lonely and searching for meaning in our lives. Right?

To distract us from such esoteric wonderings, The Grove also has a trolley ride, a fountain show and a village green on which parents happily turn their toddlers loose. There's a summer concert series where manufactured teen heartthrobs that get their music placed on crap shows like One Tree Hill "perform" to hordes of teens snapping photos with camera phones. In winter, so you can forget that it's 72 degrees outside on Christmas Eve, they even make it snow at The Grove.

When The Grove first opened, it had this restaurant called Madame Wu's. We took our kids there every once in a while since Madame Wu's was inexpensive, although rather mediocre Chinese food. The place lacked spark, shine or exclusivity. It was never crowded and must not have been overly profitable because it quickly shuttered it's doors. By the fall of 2004, signs were posted that proclaimed, "Opening Soon: The Cheesecake Factory." I wasn't thrilled about the opening of a CF at the Grove because it would certainly make the parking situation there even more of a nightmare and I firmly believe that one thing world doesn't need is more chain restaurants.

I'm not a huge CF fan, especially when the wait is usually an hour to get a table. There aren't a ton of vegetarian options on the menu, the portions are too large, big enough to feed a couple of cows, and one slice of overpriced cheesecake is the caloric equivalent of all other food you might consume in a day. Still, there's something I've noticed about The Grove since the advent of the Cheesecake Factory.

Before the CF opened, The Grove had a sprinkling of pepper, paprika and curry, enough to give it a comfortable cultural and ethnic mix. But not too much flavor, and certainly not enough black folks to make white folks clutch their Vuitton purses.

Now though, it's clear that the bottle of hot sauce has been popped open. There's a noticeable increase in the number of brotha's and sistah's in the whole of The Grove. Why? Because black folks LOVE them some Cheesecake Factory! It's one of those build it and they'll come scenarios. Everytime I'm in the CF lobby waiting for a table, half of the other people waiting are black. This is not the norm for a restaurant at The Grove. I've never seen a line of black people waiting to be seated at Morel's. We aren't dying to get a table at The Farm of Beverly Hills.

Of course, the black folks don't just eat at CF and then bounce. No, they go pay $12 at the movies, they check out the Apple store, and they snap pictures of themselves in front of the fountain. And it's the kind of scene where brotha's ain't scared to stroll with their non-black dates and gay black men aren't shy about being seen in public with each other. No one is staring because it's not Leimert Park, it's The Grove.

I find myself wondering if the management of The Grove realized that a larger portion of LA's 12% population of black folks would be zooming up Fairfax once a CF opened. I find myself wondering if the management of The Grove is feeling positive about this shift in patronage. My cynical side says no.

Is this why I keep going? Is it because I get some sort of perverse satisfaction in seeing The Grove turning into something I think the creators did not intend it to become? Black folks, well, we'll live a fantasy but we'll ruin one too. We'll talk all loud about slavery, reparations and Spike Lee's documentary on Hurricane Katrina...all while posing for those fabulous camera-phone pictures.

Clifton's Cafeteria

I just got back from lunch with some colleagues at Clifton's Cafeteria. Clifton's is located in downtown LA, on 7th and Broadway, just a hop, skip and jump away from my office. I don't go very frequently, but everytime I do go to Clifton's, I feel like I've been transported back in time to the 1940s. I feel like Cary Grant is going to sit down at the table across from me or offer to go get me some more jello. The romance of the place is not in the quality of the food but in the atmosphere. So don't go anticipating a 5 star meal. Go to get diner food. I recommend the vegetable soup.

Frumpy Hipsters

Today I got to experience a world that I seldom inhabit. I took my two sons to the mall on a Tuesday afternoon. I’m usually at work on Tuesday afternoons. So today, in the spirit of vacation, we went in search of adventure and the toy store. Our destination was the K-B Toys I thought was still open in the mall. I was wrong. Apparently they went out of business a couple of months ago. You can only imagine how well that went over with a five year-old and a two year- old.

Despite the disappointment, my boys waited patiently while I tried on and purchased a pair of red shoes from 9-West. They moaned a bit when we strolled through Express and were relieved when I promised I wouldn't try anything on. They flat out rebelled when I suggested we go into the MAC store. After the rebellion, I let them romp in the Lego store till they announced that they were hungry. We then headed to the food court and downed some slices of pizza. It wasn't till we headed for the indoor play area outside of JCPenney that I noticed two things that seemed so odd about our trip to the mall.

First, you have to understand that normally on the weekends or in the evenings when I head to the Glendale Galleria, the place is jam packed. They have to hire people to direct traffic in the parking garage because it's so crowded. Walking through the place on a Saturday can feel a bit like walking through midtown Manhattan at rush hour. Wall to wall people darting to and fro, clutching shopping bags and looking crazed. Today, I didn't run into anyone and no one tripped into me. In fact, most stores I went into, I was the only customer.

This leads us to the second odd thing. Who were the other shoppers? No, not fifteen year-olds wearing Sex Pistols t-shirts. No, not the futue homecoming queens dressed in pink Ambercrombie sweatshirts. Nope, the other shoppers were moms, mostly moms out with their small children. I know all those women aren't on vacation like moi, so I found myself wondering, is this what housewives do when they get bored? Do they go wander around in the Glendale Galleria? Of course, some moms are more obvious than others. Here are the types I observed:

Type A: Frumpy Mom. This mom is a little on the plump side, wears tennis shoes, a yellow shirt and light-blue colored jeans. If Frumpy Mom has on a dress, the dress has boats or flowers on it. Frumpy Mom wears a necklace with her birthstone on it. She has an enormous beige purse in which she drags around all the "just in case" items she could possible need. Frumpy Mom doesn't wear makeup and doesn't have a manicure. Or an eyebrow wax. Frumpy mom is shopping with a purpose. Her kids need school clothes and she's on a mission to get them.

180 degrees away from Frumpy Mom lies the realm of...

Type B: Hipster Mom. This mom is doing her best to not look like she's a mom. She's pushing a stroller while wearing patent-leather high heels and low-rise dark-wash "skinny" jeans. (The jury is out on whether she should actually have the jeans on). Hair, nails, makeup are all done. Her diamond jewelry sparkles as she longingly gazes at the Forever 21 window display. Hipster Mom says to her children, "Mommy likes that cute pink shirt over there. Won't it look hot on mommy?"

Does Frumpy Mom look at Hipster Mom and wistfully recall her own hot pre-pregnancy body? Does she dream of spending money on Victoria's Secret underwear for herself instead of a three pack of superhero undies for her kids?

Does Hipster Mom wish she had the confidence to walk out of the house without the pound of makeup and styled hair? Does she gaze at Frumpy Mom's tennis shoes in envy?

These two types of moms were incredibly easy for me to discern. Most moms, including yours truly, fall somewhere between the two extremes. It's two very different mentalities. Which begs the question, is one more content than the other?

Something to Do

I worked the entire weekend, worked twelve hour days on both Saturday and Sunday. Today I spent the day doing nothing. Or rather, in comparison to my normal schedule, almost nothing. It's incredibly difficult for me to relax because I tend to think I should be doing something all the time. I have a hard time stopping and breathing. However, I have forced relaxation upon myself. My first vacation since the winter holidays is here.

Several people asked me last week and over this past weekend, "So, where are you going for your vacation?" Hmm. How about nowhere? The biggest thing I want to do this week is spend lots of time with my family. My two boys are growing so quickly and they are so full of personality. I feel simultaneously happy and sad when I'm carefully questioned, "So, you don't have to go to work today? Right?" Once I reassure them for the umpteenth time that I'm not going to work and they have me at their mercy, they howl with glee and jump all over the furniture. Fifteen minutes later, "Are you sure you don't have to go to work?"

We had a couple of good wrestling matches this afternoon where they tag-teamed me and I lost. I was really trying to win but one jumped on my head and the other elbowed me in the stomach. They high-fived each other afterwards.

They also notice many things I don't. Today, driving through downtown, they pointed out to me the airplane circling with a huge banner attached. "Hey mom, it's an airplane pulling a gigantic 'Snakes on a Plane' poster." This was profoundly exciting to them although neither one wants to go see the movie. "It's too scary for us and you too, Mommy." I just kept reflecting on how my eyesight is so poor that I couldn't even discern exactly what was on the banner floating behind the airplane.

My youngest tends to shut down tough conversations about the potty chair by hilariously declaring, "I don't want to talk about it!" He also uses this phrase when talking about bathing and brushing his teeth. Let's hope he changes his mind about all this for the sake of his future wife.

I'm sure I'll get out to the beach with the kids and to a couple of bookstores and cafes by myself, but I am not planning on going anywhere this week that requires a plane trip. Come to think of it, I have some other rather unorthodox vacation destinations in mind.

Destination Numero Uno: My bed. Sure, I see my bed on a daily basis. I sleep in it every night. But, it's been a long time since I've been able to lounge in bed for a few uninterrupted hours with a nice cup of jasmine tea and a deliciously decadent novel. I'm trying to schedule this destination for Friday. Despite the fact that I didn't have to go to work today and didn't have to be anywhere at all, I still got up at 6:00 this morning. I figure that by Friday I'll mentally have chilled out enough to be able to sleep in and accomplish the tea/novel thing.

Destination Two: Getting up at 6 a.m. inadvertently led me to my second choice locale, the living room couch. I first decided to go to the gym since I figured exercising would be incredibly productive and energizing. I do want to get more exercise this week, however, 6 am is a bit early for me and exercise. Plus, I already felt a bit guilty for not staying in bed longer. So, I said no to the gym and yes to vegetating on the couch with the TV.

I engaged in some channel surfing, mainly wondering if Ann Curry is annoyed that Meredith Viera is getting the top job on the Today show. Ann has worked hard at Today. I wonder why the top brass doesn't think she deserved to be the new "Katie Couric"?

Finally, I settled on watching music videos on MTV and VH1. Early morning is the only time either station really plays music videos anyway so I got to see all of the latest soft-core porn, I mean, videos. After seeing Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack", Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous", Cassie's "Me and You" and the queen of them all, Pussycat Doll's "Buttons", all within a half hour time frame, I felt like I needed to go sit in front of a fan to cool off or else go attempt to wake my husband up. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) for my snoring other half, my eldest son woke up and wanted breakfast and cartoons. Nothing like a chatty five-year old and some Barney to kill any sense of desire that may have been sparked.

Le Troisieme: Correspondence. Ok, ok. Perhaps this isn't really truly a destination but I have a lot of folks I need to write to. I miss that feeling of getting a beautiful hand-written letter from a friend. I loved getting letters so much that I became a huge letter writer back in the days before email. Now, I have a list of people I am behind on sending letters or cards to, namely a couple of girlfriends who are pregnant, or moving, have just bought houses or are otherwise in transition! Plus, my sister's 40th birthday is coming up. I'm going to take the time to write to everyone this week. Of course, wouldn't it just be the stars aligning if folks somehow decided to write me as well and I got some nice, detailed emails from friends this week, telling me all that's going on in their lives?

Nothing to do certainly turns into something in short order. It's not doing "nothing" but more changing my priorities and shifting to the things I need to find more time to do. It's doing them more frequently, not just when I'm on vacation for a week. What I need to figure out is how to retain the elements of vacation that I enjoy when work starts back up again.

No Straight Answers

I have to be at work at 7 a.m. tomorrow so I really should be asleep right now. There are no wild parties going on across the street tonight to keep me entertained and awake.

So what's my problem? I suppose it's just a matter of thinking too much, thinking about all the people, places, things and ideas whirling through my head. Some of these thoughts have been spurred by my decision to flat iron my hair tonight. It took me a good hour to flat-iron all my hair, so I had ample time to psychoanalyze myself and the debates I have with myself over my hair. I'll tell you a few of them.


I was very aware at a very young age that my hair needed to be tied up, braided, greased, and pressed and sizzled into a state of decency and appropriateness. I didn't even know what my natural texture of hair looked like as a child. I never wore my hair unstraightened in public until 1996.

Meanwhile, every white girl I went to school with had the long, flowing ponytail that blew freely in the wind and bounced with joy as she turned her head. My hair did not flip. It did not bounce. It was pressed straight, braided and pinned to my head. And I knew I better not run too much at recess because the sweat would make my hair go back to the state of undesired nappiness.

I went to Catholic school for grade school and going to Mass comes with the territory. I absolutely loved going to Mass, even though I wasn't Catholic. I loved the prayers. I loved the singing. I had the Apostle's Creed completely memorized. Then, one day, while kneeling in the pew, the girl next to me passed me a few strands of her hair and said, "Maybe if you pray hard enough, God will make your hair straight like mine." There were soft snickers of laughter and I recall feeling so confused, so embarrassed. And angry.

Who was I angry at? I was angry at those girls, of course. But, I was also angry at my mom. Since my mom is black and my dad is Irish, it felt like it was her fault for making my hair different, for making it nappy. I can't tell you how many times I've had it said to me by other black folks, "You're mixed? I wouldn't have known! I mean, you don't even have 'good' hair." What's good hair? Think about most of the black women you see in commercials. Does their hair look like the average black woman you see walking down the street? Nope! They always have the bouncy curly hair on their heads, the Halle Berry and Alicia Keys hair. The Mariah Carey hair.

As a teacher in Compton, I saw the little Black girls in my classroom stroking the hair of the Latina girls and saying, "I wish I had your hair. It's so pretty and long." Most of those nine-year old Black girls had their hair braided with extensions or had the braided and controlled look I had grown up with.

A year ago, I had to get my hair cut to chin length because I'd gotten it braided over the summer. I thought it would be fun and different. Unfortunately, the fake hair that got braided in with my own hair also broke off all of my hair. I had to cut it because it broke so unevenly. It was a bit traumatizing to have my hair that short. I know other black women that are reading this can relate to the fear that your hair will never grow back. Of course, it did grow back and it's long again like it's been most of my life. I'm left with the fun decisions of if I'll wear my hair natural and nappy, pressed, relaxed, texturized or braided, or do I get a blond weave like everyone's favorite black female role model, Beyonce?

It all ends up feeling political. I have to ask myself, how much of my decisions around how I wear my hair every day are based on societal pressures instead of what I actually like? And how do I know if I really decided to flat-iron my hair tonight because I sometimes like it straight? Or did I do it because I am giving presentations all day tomorrow for work and I know that in America, straight hair equals professionalism? How can I be sure?

Is it Good to be Twenty-Something?

It's my opinion that if you are over the age of 29, your adventures on Thursday nights at 12:30 a.m. are rather limited. If you are over the age of 29, you are are probably geriatrically engaged in one of the following activities:

Option A) You are in bed. It may or may not be your own bed. You may or may not be sleeping. I'll leave that for you to decide. Still, if you are over 29, I highly doubt you are having sex. You are probably snoring peacefully and dreaming about clothing from Banana Republic.

Option B) You are watching late-night talk shows. I use the word "watching" loosely. I know you're just trying to stay awake now that the joke monologue is over. As your eyes start to close, you find yourself thinking that Jimmy Kimmel is half-way decent looking. To keep yourself alert, you are probably channel surfing over to Fox News Channel and MSNBC to find out the latest political pundit's opinion on our being unable to take a bottle of soda onto an airplane anymore.

Option C) You are playing videogames. Someone else in my house is doing this right now. I don't think he's really good at this game though because I keep seeing the same screens over and over again.

Option D) You are online. C'est moi. In the past two hours, I changed my MySpace profile song from AFI's "Prelude 1221" to Depeche Mode's "Precious", I emailed a few friends, read a few other blogs and tried (unsuccessfully) to get my google chat to work.

All those options are fine and good. But, I can tell you with 100% certainty that my neighbors across the street are not engaged in any of those four. Do you want to know what they are doing?

They are having a party.

I don't just mean a small get-together with a few friends. No, I'm talking about a full-on bash.

How big is this? Well, they have a dj on their front lawn.

Yes, you read that correctly but, just in case, I'll say it again... A DJ ON THEIR FRONT LAWN!

They also have a live drummer to drum along with the house and techno beats the dj is spinning. There are flashing strobe lights set up on the porch and in parts of the front yard. Occasionally someone gets on a mic and shouts out to the crowd of people dancing. This party has been going on since about 9:30. They are obviously not past the age of 29.

Their DJ just played a remix of a song Prince no longer performs, "Erotic City" and everyone is singing along and cheering. I'll confess, this is one of my favorite songs, at least in my top 50. I'll front right now and tell you I only like it for the killer bass line and the keyboards. The title certainly matches the tune, that's for sure.

What's better, being in the twenty-something set, or being over here across the street in the online and writing on this blog set?

Repeat After Me

Get ready. On the count of three.

One.
Two.
Three.

I will not drive down the 101 with my parking brake on.

Soda Cans DO NOT Go In The Freezer

It goes without saying that you have to really know the character of the person you're going to marry before you marry them, or else your marriage is going to be absolute hell. I definitely knew before I married my husband that I could not be saying at some point in the future, "I didn't know you think women should do the dishes all the time."

I made sure he was fine with washing dishes, since I really don't enjoy doing them. In fact, he washes them most of the time.

I've been told by several other married ladies that I am sooo lucky that my husband helps out around the house because most men don't. Thank goodness I didn't marry "most men". The marriage would have been over in a hot second.

Clearly, dishwashing is not everything to everybody. Many celebrity marriages are over in the blink of an eye, even though the parties involved have the moolah to pay for a housekeeper to load the dishwasher. If you ever watched Newlyweds and the celebrated, "Is this chicken or tuna?" scene, you knew Nick was probably not wondering if he was going to have to wash Jessica's fork. No, he looked like he was really seeing her for the first time and wasn't too thrilled. Like the rest of us, he was probably asking himself, "Why is she acting so dumb?"

Or maybe there's something else that ended their marriage, something we haven't thought about at all. Maybe Jessica found out that Nick puts soda cans in the freezer!

There are many things my husband does that are very different from me. He likes to watch cartoons all the time. He also belts out R. Kelly tunes at the top of his lungs. He has a hard time hanging his clothes up. He is also a bit too pessimistic. Sometimes it gets extremely annoying, especially the clothes on the floor. But, it is what it is and I deal with it because I knew these things about him before we got married.

I did not know he missed the science class that talks about how cold things expand.

Every few days I open the freezer and discover a soda can inside. Most of the time, I discover the can before it explodes. Sometimes I don't. You see, he puts the can in the freezer and then forgets about it. Then, in the middle of doing something else, like watching cartoons, he remembers. He runs to the freezer and opens it up to exclaim, "Oh Shit! My coke is all over everything!"

Yes, slushy Coca-Cola is all over everything because the liquid expanded as it cooled, causing the can to explode!

I'm left to wonder, does he secretly enjoy cleaning soda slush off of popsicle boxes and bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables? I mean, why not just open the can, put ice cubes into a glass, pour the soda into the glass and let it sit for a few moments until it's nice and cool?

I came home today and discovered the soda slush all over everything in the freezer.

In a few short days, I will have been married for seven years. It sounds like a long time but it's really not that long. We have our ups and our downs like anybody else, but I have to tell you, this soda can thing, it is driving me CRAZY!

If you are saying to yourself, "Aw Liz, come on! Give the guy a break. He washes the dishes for chrissakes!" Let me ask you, could you live with seven years of soda cans exploding in your freezer?