Help! My Mall is Disappearing!

I'm not much of a shopper. In fact, I sorta hate it. Most of my holiday or birthday shopping is accomplished online, and only the most dire, personal needs will force me into the local mall. Obviously, I don't visit enough because when I went yesterday, the mall was gone. More precisely, the buildings were still there. Same brightly colored entrances, same neatly groomed exterior landscaping, but the interior was populated by changelings. Stepping inside, I felt like Alice through the Looking Glass. It still looked like the mall, but ... it was like the anti-mall. Gone were the familiar signs above Foot Locker, Bath and Bodyworks, the Disney Store, Bailey, Banks, and Biddle, and others. Mysterious names jumped out at me. What happened? Where were the national chain, name brand stores?

Passing a once familiar spot, I was riveted by the display. Crammed into every corner were large volumes of merchandise. Every square inch of what was once the Bombay Company was filled with heavily shellacked, sleek, "international" furniture. Blinding reflective surfaces bounced light around the space. The front display boasted enormous, ceramic, cream and gilt water fountains of nudes that would have made a pimp blush. Where was the Bombay Company? Didn't I buy a lamp here once? OK. OK. Maybe it was 15 years ago, but I still have the lamp. Wasn't my purchase enough to keep them in business? Hey, I'm back ... maybe I'll buy a mirror this time. Hello? Anyone?

Considering the other shopping options around me, I felt doomed. Glumly I shuffled along the unfamiliar landscape. Other shoppers appeared merry. Bags rustled. Credit cards were swiped. Smiling customers gloated over purchases. I swam solo through the sea of weekend consumers like a trout making its way upstream. Attempting to reorient myself, I focused more consciously on the store names. Something about them seemed slightly, vaguely, nearly familiar. I paused in front of Magic Health Plus! (exclamation point obviously an official part of the name). World Wide Gifts? International Furniture and Luggage? Take a Journeys? DTLR? An epiphany flashed - The store names read like SPAM SUBJECT LINES!

Clever manufacturers have eliminated the glossy corporate American-themed middle man and are shilling directly to the consumer!

Maybe this is a good thing. The mirrors at International Furniture and Gifts are cheaper than the ones sold by the Bombay Company. World Wide Gifts and Luggage sells ... you guessed it - luggage and wallets, and these are cheaper than the pricey leather store it replaced. Magic Health Plus! offers on-site massage and reflexology services, a boon for weary shoppers.

Of course, there might be a downside to all this direct marketing. Faithful patrons parked outside of the once popular Coffee Bean seemed oblivious to its new moniker - The Jumbo Cafe.

As for me, I retreat back to my shell. I wait until the next shopping emergency pushes me into the local shrine to capitalism. The Magic Turbo Aqua Spa and Frying Pan Emporium await!

Ummm ... About that $700 Billion ... What If?

Could I have just a tad? Just a wee scotch? A little something, you know ... for the effort? Some of it was my tax money, right? So maybe a tiny throwback to old Ma and Pa middle America would be ... ummm ... fair? I promise to use it wisely. I will do my part to stimulate the economy - maybe paint the bathroom, plant a shrub or two, pay the electric bill, eat.

'Cuz here's the thing ... I don't know where the $700 billion came from and I don't understand where it's gonna go. Seriously, where was the $700 billion before last week? It's not like the $20 bill you found in the pocket of your winter coat. Or the torn $5 wedged between your carseat and the console. Where in the heck does $700 billion come from? Did George Bush spy a little glint in the grass when he was hitting a few dingers on the White House lawn? After a few minutes of investigatory diggin' he yodeled out to Laura, "Holy crap, I found this Mason jar buried in the Rose Garden and it has like 700 billion dollars in it! Bonus!"

I don't think so.

In the end the money comes out my pocket and yours and your mom's and your 2 month old baby's future pocket because this is the price of greed, and somebody has to pay the bill ... or in this case the $700 billion. It hurts today and it will hurt for many tomorrows...

...which brings me back to my original thought. What if, just what if, the $700 billion was given instead as grants to fund people with good ideas, like innovations in manufacturing or inspiration in the arts, or programs that promoted self-sufficiency, or schools that taught economic literacy, or neighborhoods that planted community gardens. What if that $700 billion was the stuff of a trillion micro-loans, for ordinary people to dream, to grow, to create, and to do great things? And what if those micro-loans helped wonderful ideas to flourish, and what if we could share those wonderful ideas with the world? And what if those with power realized that the biggest investment that any nation can make is in its people. Just ... what if?

"The Fall Will Probably Kill Ya!"

Ice blue eyes squeezed shut. Head thrown back against the rock. Tan and tawny Adam's apple raised to the sky in an expression of unabashed glee. "Whaddaya crazy? Can't swim? The fall will probably kill ya!" Paul Newman - in the cliff jump scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ...

Evocative and monumental, this scene, this moment never fails to thrill me. I've seen it a hundred times in re-runs on t.v., repeats on YouTube, but it's fresh each time. I am transported back to the moment when I stole downstairs for some illicit, late night t.v. time. I was twelve. My parents were asleep. It was about 3:00 a.m. and Butch and Sundance lit up the flickering screen of the old t.v. At twelve, love is a tangible thing - a crush of emotions that is palpable in every fibre. But at twelve, sex is still a mystery. Sure, I knew about the mechanics. I had listened to the lesson with a lot of curiosity and a little disgust. Why anyone would bother remained the obvious question in my young mind.

Until Butch.

Head thrown back, tawny neck open to the sky and I wanted to ... kiss that neck ... sniff that skin ... feel that pulsing laugh under my hand. Something changed in that moment. I felt a flutter in my lower belly sending a shiver of near-fear through me. In that moment, around 3:00 a.m., on an early morning in 1977, I knew. Butch was the trigger.

Butch was right. The fall will probably kill ya. The descent is swift and the plunge is cold, but if you survive, the water's fine. Those icy-blues were part of my awakening, those tiny, halting steps made from childhood to womanhood. Sweeter than my first real kiss, Butch stays with me forever - forever on the brink, forever at the edge, forever pushing risk in the face of insurmountable danger.

Thanks, Paul Newman. For...ahem ... everything.