In which there is much shopping and I am bemused and bewildered, if not bewitched.

So, Saturday morning, Ben, Shosho, and I got up early to hie us off to the hinterlands of the west side for Wally's Liquors' tent sale, which I had proposed after viewing their sale price for Chateau D'Yquem. The sale started at 9 AM on Saturday, and, as we confirmed our plans at 1:30 AM that very same Saturday, I was a bit worried I'd miss my opportunity to score what I had decided would be a necessary component of a wedding gift, as we made plans to depart at 9, rather than to arrive at 9. Delays in the form of my needing to get gas and Ben's needing to get coffee left me a bit twitchy until we actually entered the maze-like confines of the tent sale and I got my hands on the Sauternes. We arrived around ten, to the sight of enormous lines of shopping carts snaking out the side of the tent, and I, at least, had to steel myself with a deep breath before diving in.

As I was still savoring my cuban coffee and guava pastry, the sight of a wine-tasting table filled me with rather less joy than it ordinarily would, even at such an early hour (especially since one of the wines they'd put out for tasting was an Au Bon Climat pinot noir, one of the hits of Henry and Jessica's wine tasting a few weeks back). In any event, I scored my D'Yquem, Shosh scored a shopping cart, and we all took turns manning said cart both in the store and in line. By the time we were ready to check out, an hour or so after we'd arrived, the D'Yquem was all but gone, so our early morning was not in vain.

Oddly, as we waited at the end of the line, a random Wally's stock guy came up and grabbed us and said the line was better inside, then quickly wheeled our cart through the tent sale and the back room of the store itself, putting us in a line of five people, instead of 25. We were most pleased.

Afterward, we went to the cheese store of Beverly Hills, where I basically bought the greatest cheese hits from H and J's tasting. All I need say is: YUM.

The real highlight of the day, at least from a who-the-hell-can-SAY-what's-up-with-culture standpoint, came when we went to the Dior boutique on Rodeo Drive. Now, there are moments in all three of our lives when we do not look entirely out of place in those surroundings, but this was not one of those moments. We looked just like the Eastsiders we are, and sounded like it, what with talk of sex and heroin (when one's friends work in public health, conversations turn R-rated pretty damn fast without even trying). The ladies in Dior couldn't have been nicer, however, giving Shosho a silk-bound hardcover catalog of their jewelry collection, as they no longe rhad the one-of-a-kind ring she'd wanted to show us, and smiling benignly as we gawked at and made snarky comments regarding the display case full of skull rings.

Yes.

Skull rings.

Of the exact style one would find in Chicago's Alley complex of alterna/goth merchandise, or on the finger of many a Metallica fan in 1990.

Made of platinum.

With diamond teeth.

I mean, I understand that somehow proper Edwardian Gorey-esque goth style is very IN this season and all (though I still find it disconcerting to see it in Bebe), and that Hot Topic has been successfully commodifying dissent and peddling it to the well-washed masses for quite a while, but what? the? hell??

There are some things that will just never look right to me on the body of a Beverly Hills or Laguna Beach princess, and, quite frankly, skull rings and bias-cut corset-backed black velvet skirts are two of them.

And it's never even been my subculture to feel proprietary about! What on earth must the aging die-hard Cure and Bauhaus fans be thinking??