It Is A Happy New Year After All.

Rebecca's Dad: So 2008.
Rebecca: Yeah, what about it?
Rebecca's Dad: I fully expect the Dodgers to win the pennant under Joe Torre.
Rebecca: You know what Dad - I appreciate that sort of enthusiasm.

Alice on Caucuses

Thank you for this thimble Dodo, said Alice, a prize for our long and arduous caucus race.

Political Watch 2008

My friend Lisa replaced me in her myspace top friends with the mediocre presidential contendor Barack Obama. It's a low blow for me and probably my lowest point as a conservative political watcher. I will probably still be her friend, although I am weighing my other options.

All I Want For Christmas

..is a day as beautiful as the one we have today.

77, sunny, and clear for miles. We do love LA.

I am a firm believer than until cell phone companies take responsibility and put breathalyzers on phones, I am not going to hold myself accountable for the sort of texts that come from my drunkenness. -Krista Stilley, Contributor to Blonde Memoirs

"Business fabulous, slutty casual - it's like I'm reinventing the modern wardrobe, one good time after the next." -Rebecca Wareham, Blonde Memoirs Staff Writer

"Do you think Jesus gets chocolate flan on his birthday, too?" -Rachel Wareham, Sister of Blonde Memoirs Journalist

Blonde Memoirs Remembers Holidays Past

My New Couch: A Love Story (Dec-2005)
I've come to peace with the two months of Christmas music. I can tolerate the simple fact you cannot exit the 118 at Tampa or come within 15 miles of the Northridge mall without entering gridlock. I can even show up at my holiday party and make nice with my coworkers. That's me -- giving, generous and accomodating (and humble, did I mention ever so humble). I can go so far as to stop shopping for shoes for myself for a day or two and purchase things for other people. Again, giving and generous. And did I mention accomodating? So when I ventured to the Glendale Galleria Monday I had a plan. I had mapped out my trip. I had reserved cash for valet parking. I had practiced deep breathing prior to my departure. But things went bad and quickly. I arrived and valet was 15 cars deep and I drove around in circles through the parking structure. All things went awry. My heart started pounding. The city started spinning rapidly around me. I tried deep breathing. But it was too late. All I knew was I had to abort mission. ABORT MISSION. I feverishly looked for an exit. EXIT. There it is. I exit down a driveway and nothing looks familiar. I'm still in Glendale but I'm lost in a new land. I look for fellow survivors but I'm on the island alone. I drive and I drive and I drive and I drive and in the distance I see a mirage, a furniture store. Ahh, I say. Plush couches to sit on. I will sit and Glendale will stop spinning and deep breathing will resume and I will map out plan B for holiday shopping. I enter and focus myself on the closest couch. Breathing has resumed. Dizziness ceases. The shaking has left my body. I lay there in perfect harmony. What is this most wonderful couch my body lay upon? How I just sink into its memory foam. It's plush and lovely and just a little tasty scooping of wonderfulness. It's honestly everything I could ever ask for in a couch. The tag says how much? Oh why that's nothing when you haven't done holiday shopping for anyone. Several forms later and a valid method of payment and I am proud to announce that I am now the owner of a brand new couch. While I was thrilled beyond belief, as you can imagine, I knew there needed to be an alternative plan for holiday shopping. Surely I could not afford to buy living room furniture everytime I encountered a crowd and had anxiety about facing them. So I conferenced with my Mom, as any grown up adult would do, and she agreed to drive me and be my sponsor, if you will, while I attempted to shop once again. I can proudly report it went just swimmingly. She whispered words of affirmation in my ear as we took back roads to avoid the crowds. So if you have read this love story to completion, I do appreciate you for for your time. If I must finish 2005 single and alone in a little one bedroom apartment in the valley with my cats (really I am very happy this style just lends itself to a tidier ending) -- at least I can do so on my new loveseat and chaise with memory foam. And that really is the moral of this love story.

Baseball players do steroids?

Next thing you'll tell me basketball players cheat on their wives.

Ah a week ripe with tales of both.

Senior Vice President of Doing Shit/General Manager of Getting Shit Done

Someone came by asking for a final approval on something, and as the only person here in the office I decided by default I could and should make all decisions related to the company.

So we spent all the Christmas bonuses on ponies.

You're welcome.

Even my unconscious has a sense of humor

From a deep sleep, I woke myself up laughing.

Apparently that's what an entire bottle of champagne to yourself at the company holiday party and a slight case of mania will do to you.

My friends are better looking than yours

But you already knew that. What you probably didn't know is they are also super witty and creative.

Please read my friend Lisa's suggestions for gift giving.

http://family.go.com/shopping/article-481056-25-personal-presents-in-a-pinch-t/

Scott Plank says this is why I will be single forever

To that I say, Scott Plank, go elf yourself.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1374045175

Do Not Miss The Forrest For the Shiny Pink Balloons

An Anthem for our Age: A Party, and Nothing to Wear

Literally, nothing.

The Glendale Galleria is located in downtown Glendale, the second largest mall in Los Angeles County, and home to 220 stores and food shops. A virtual myriad of options. Just nothing that necessarily fancied me. It all turned in to a hazy shade of winter as the bangles would harmonize and hours and lines of aging which may see no turning back - til I would find just the thing. Yes, it wasn't what I had imagined - but it would do. "A solid 7" as my friends would say.

I took my bags and left, unsure of the time, or how I'd gotten there. I'd been sucked in to a vortex of marginally successful mall shopping and it had left me devoid of willingness to live - a fragile shell of what once was.

Finding my car seemed reasonable. But where had I parked?

Where
had
I
parked
it.

I would come to eventually find the goddamn thing in a cold scary parking lot sitting, weeping, by itself, and make my way to internet access to post this tale - but the trauma, that would take time to work through. For me, and the car.

If only I could call in "nothing to wear" as opposed to the traditional "sick", I wouldn't have to put myself in such haphazardness.

Sigh.

Open Enrollment for Judaism

My fellow worker bee, questioning my real stretching of this Hanukkah holiday for all the honey it was worth, asked of me what many before her have pondered:

Can I, too, be a Jew?

I advised it wasn't going to be an activation immediately scenario. She should look for open enrollment in the spring time months - and at that time only, we would consider her application.

A Moment of Reflection

Last year I went to Stacey's 3rd grade classroom and she let me play all day with paste and shredded wheat and food coloring. We made ornaments.

I made a mess.

That could have been the best day ever. I mean not better than the Dodgers hitting 4 homeruns in a row on fleece blanket night in the last homestand of the regular season against our division rival Padres. But can you imagine if you threw some paste in to that evening.

Now that - would have been spectacular.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

(Please note I spelled infamy right the first time without even the reliance on spell check).

Last night I went to see Alisha for her birthday (Happy Birthday Alisha) in a play in Santa Monica. Whereas I'm used to situations where a "this would so much more fun high", such as anytime I have to spend time with my parents, this play took a different relevant turn. Instead I looked at my friends next to me and asked "are we high right now?"

"No Rebecca, this is absurdist theatre."
"Interesting - because it's kinda like the smart person's version of a serious acid trip."

So that was first experience with parisian absurdist theatre.

A Very Special Thanks From The Staff of Blonde Memoirs

A very special thanks to my hairdresser, Sara, who because of her talents in the salon today and every five weeks, we are able to continue on with the memoirs - and who without, I would be left in a downward spiral of self hatred and denial. And I would be brunette.

Update to Tackling Age

My much younger sister today told me she enjoyed my blog on age - and asked if I thought she needed anti-wrinkle creme.

It's a sort of a special feeling that comes from inspiring a new generation of women to be neurotic about the growing old process.

Amen to that.

It's All About Customer Service

Scott Plank believes he is my only loyal viewer. Out of a respect for old fashioned customer service and giving the users what they want, he's proposed I should write a blog about him.

Well you know what I say to that Mr. Scott Plank - you get your wish.

Scott Plank:
Man among men
Hero
Gentleman
Slightly an asshole

Happy Belated Birthday Britney

Even though the staff at Blonde Memoirs forgot your birthday (we actually remembered but were trying to play it cool), we thought it's never too late to post this picture of you on your birthday in as many places on the internet as humanely possible. But hey, you're Britney. You're basically invincible. So you go girl.

5 Ways My Night Will Be Significantly More Awesome Than Yours

Tackling Age

Alas even this girl must deal with the harsh realities that come with growing old. Growing old in LA. When my friends looked to diet and exercise years ago I mocked their frailty. I would handle growing old with superhuman strength. After all, I was invincible. I'd survived this long hadn't I - on a diet of donuts for dinner, no less.

At 27 when my peers bought under eye cremes and night gels promising to decrease the signs of fine lines and aging, I said I see your cremes and gels and I raise you one pair of good genes.

Thus blame it on an uncharacteristic rainy day in Southern California - the first of the season. Shit, I was in Hollywood, blame it on the town. It had left me misguided, dizzy feeling - but nonetheless I found myself in a store specializing in skincare, pressured by a good sales pitch and taunted by a freakishly good looking model on the billboard outside, and out sixty dollars. I walked to the car and thought about what I'd done. I had succumbed to probably what was inevitable about the landmark twenty-eighth birthday, the purchase of anti-aging scrubs and washes. Abrasive, though aromatic, my sixty dollar purchase doesn't give me the skin of a twenty year old, but perhaps with more use.

My cats think I'm crazy, but it's only because they love me unconditionally. Oh cats, if only the cruel world outside could know such love.

Spreading holiday cheer

A day of Saturday errands found me at Target. I started in sportswear, perused lamps,choose new bedding, picked up a new lint brush and rounded Christmas decorations to do a once over of food items. Down dairy and frozen food, up cereals and snack bars, down sodas and juices. At crystal light I took pause. As I scanned various powder mix-ins, something caught my eye. Myself. Somewhere between the morning when I dressed myself, and the food aisle at Target hours later, the top to my strapless dress had fallen below my chest, leaving me exposed. I looked down the aisle at an approaching family, hoping they would give me some sort of nod that four hours of Saturday errands hadn't been done topless. Maybe some explanation why I wouldn't have noticed this - why I wouldn't have felt something. But that family, complete with baby in cart, could provide nothing of the sort. I understand doing errands topless isn't traditional cheer, but hopefully somewhere along the way, someone felt a little bit of holiday cheer.