Champagne Tastes: Why You Can't Be Great...

I like “stuff”. My favorite time of year is “catalogue” time when my favorite stores jam pack their ‘printed on recycled paper’ pages with new stuff. Everything within its lacquered sheets is shiny, smooth, sparkly and new. These things make me swoon. I think decorating my home should arrive like the seasons, complete with some aptly named solstice, celebratory dance and new color schemes. I like “stuff”.
Having said all that, (and knowing that by now, Patient Reader, you should realize I’m a Harlem~shuffling dichotomy) I’ll admit that once my full swoon is accomplished, I drag my happy tail up off the floor and rearrange my current furniture, hit a thrift store with a budgeted, spectacular vengeance and place said catalogues firmly in the nearest waste receptacle.
(Side Note: I’m trying to set a record for run on sentences meant to induce finger pointing spasms from every English teacher I ever had. Knowledge is power…)

The Goodness that I currently live with and I have interesting conversations from time to time.  This explaines why I keep him around (and vice versa...). The following led to this post.

The Feminine Goodness: I want a new sofa.
The Masculine Goodness: Oh yeah?
TFG: Yeah…
TMG: What else do women spend money on?
TFG: (looking at my own nails, egg washed loc’s and closet filled with Old Navy gear)…ummmm

So I got good and curious, pulled together a panel of women and discovered “debt when the rainbow costs too much”…

1. The "Beautyshop".

Okay, I’ll admit this. Thanks to loc’s, eggs and avocado’s I probably spend a monthly total of $20 dollars on my hair (including my not brief enough stint as a blonde…don’t ask!). I wash (the eggs), condition (the avocado) and use occasional sunflower/tea tree oil (luster and shine). I’m not recommending my regiment for everybody…but I priced lace fronts and weaves. (The look of shock and awe is STILL on my face!). A median amount of $1500 MONTHLY is spent at the “beauty shop”. That’s a mortgage on your scalp for something that grows EASILY. Another confession: I’ve not frequented a “beauty shop” since I was 16 years old. The last perm I bought (and tricked my Dad into thinking I used) was 5 bucks! I’m admittedly out of touch on this one, but that’s one HELL of an economic crisis in my book.


No wonder he wants you to be independent!

2. Keeping Up With Sex In The Fictional City & The Real Housewives of Hell Fashions…
(da hell is a Louboutin?!!!) 

This is not the Loser Shoe in question...
but it might as well be.

A shoe covers your feet (basically), protects you from the elements (sometimes) and helps to transport you from point A to point B. If you’re lucky, the right heel elevates your butt to dynamic proportions and makes you strut. It does NOT guarantee you a free drink in the club, make you more dateable/marriage material OR make you great. Kanye. So what is the obsession about?!!! I visited the “new shoe of choice for women’s” website and you people should be ashamed of yourselves. Don’t get me wrong. I love high heels accentuating all 6 ft of this Amazon. I encourage and emphasize the inherent sexy of tall in my strut and every time I cross my legs…but I refuse to pay the equivalent of (ANOTHER) mortgage payment simply because some ex-wife of a washed up pro~baller mentioned it.  It’s not that I can’t…it’s that I won’t! And honestly, I didn’t realize checking labels on anything outside of food still occurred amongst adults.
3. Men, Women. 
I was one of the last great hold out’s regarding the myth of female competition until…
One day, I was playing around on good ol’ Facebook…watching the feed and whatnot when I began to notice a trend. (This occurs most frequently during rainstorms and late at night when the weather turns chilly). Women were listing their expectations in a mate. Men were listing their expectations in a mate. And neither of these folks was listening to EACH OTHER!
I’m not exaggerating when I say that I saw a post from “Mr. WalkWithALimp DrankWithADipMoneyBeforeHoes” and “Ms. I’mSoIndependentAndLonelyIWearUnderwearToTheClub” posted REPEATEDLY their desire for someone to hold, talk to, listen to and enjoy Luther Vandross with. (Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but I’m nowhere near lying…).
The competition to say “just the right thing” is costly. It's not a race, competition or a game of oneupsmanship. All those personas, hard outer shells, hidden soft hearts and characters that we play are costing us family, comfort, peace and a soft place to land.

She's got her's while you're still at the club...


I always start with my Sister’s first, but we all buy a bit of this faulty stock and right now…in 2010…the cost financially, physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually is too damned high.

Let’s love…