Not a Mall Girl

Anthony saw some things he wanted to wear in the wedding at Macy's in The Beverly Center.
If left to his own devices, I know he'd do just fine, but I wanted to give him moral support: we are not lovers of mall culture and the Beverly Center is especially painful because of the carefully studied nonchalance and sunglasses-indoors-wearing-cell-phone-affixed-to-ear-through-transaction Beverly Hills-ness of it all.
It just feels so foreign to me in so many ways, that mall - and trust me when I tell you I was glued to my local mall growing up: it's where I had my first covetous feeling ( an off-the shoulder pink sweater at Express ) and the first place I desperately hoped boys would notice me: it was a mecca of sorts to a suburban teenage girl.
She who was once a teenager is a full-blown woman who prefers to shop online, prefers handmade to machine and cannot get her head out of the numbers when looking at tags, "How much is this made for? Marked up percentage-wise?" and the mall was so painful for me I felt RIdiculous -- in and out of technoflourescent stores with salespeople who so obviously see you as potential and seem to have no interest real kindness....
Oh, my.
What a difference a decade makes ( and some serious change ).