Which way to the moon?

I have this unshakable sense that I'm falling. Instead of the proverbial metaphoric off a cliff hanging for your life I'm standing on solid ground but I can't keep my balance. And in an instinctual knee jerk reaction, in a desperate attempt to save my own life, I'm grasping for anything to hold on to. I discover that it's just me on this concrete plank that extends for infinite miles and valleys and I'm all alone, I am all by myself, and I'm grabbing at the concrete just so I can stand. And I know the concrete is going to provide me no support, it's going to help me none, but it's all I have. So I bloody my hands and my fingernails become frayed and my knuckles go raw, but it doesn't stop me from trying. The less chance I have of holding on the more inspired I become, the more desperate I realize I already am. Because all I really want to do is not fall down. And even if I can't stand I just don't want to fall. I really really don't want to fall.

The silence becomes deafening on the concrete plank. It causes an unforgivable ringing that beats at my drums and its beats and it beats and it beats and it pounds and I scream for it to stop but nothing can be heard above the silence that has insulated me in my new concrete home. And I am again reminded by my screaming that I am alone. All. Alone. So instead I look away from the concrete landscape that traps me to the moon which looks especially close on this particular day and remarkably homelike, and I chart the distance because when you can't do the most simplest of chores like standing or speaking, something like getting to the moon without even the most modest of means, say a rocketship, sounds within reasonable effort.

I don't really want to go to the moon. I have made a home of this earthly place. But the planning takes my mind off of the mess I've made of my hands.

Dear Santa,

Dear Santa,
It's me, Rebs. I know we go through this every year. I explain I'm a jew and shouldn't really be asking you for stuff and my wishes are unconventional and I go on to tell you I'm not really a things oriented person, well except when it comes to a big diamond because when I get engaged you best be sure I will be things oriented, but for right now I'm very ok asking you for the contrary. See it's the train sets and dolls that get all your attention this time of year and I'm sure you have just mass quantities being hammered one at a time in some cute little assembly line operated by elves and featured in a Christmas movie overplayed on network television, but for what I ask you, you don't even have to raise one finger. See this all started when I went to my sister's myspace page. And she has this sappy ass music all the time. I'd like for you to make her change it something cheery and upbeat - something I'd pick. See, Santa, you're going to start to pick up a theme here. Basically I'm going to ask you to make other people do stuff I want them to do. But because I'm like seriously filled to brim, overflowing at the seams, all about the peace and love, I'll ask you for a little of that too.
1. A baby brother. Not because my sister isn't totally kickass and don't give me the you can have one yourself. It's not the same. I want a baby brother. That you may have to lift a finger for. I don't know protocal. Not that I want you to knock up my mom, God that would be awkward. I don't need to know how you do it, just baby brother, and make it quick.
2. I would really really really very much so gosh i want it so so so bad, where was i, oh, i would like the dodgers to please go to the world series in 07. 7 is a lucky number. I think that's the year I'd like a motherfucking championship in my goddamn hometown. Sorry for the profanity Santa. You know how I get worked up over baseball. But seriously. I'm sure there are good teams in other cities with very nice fans that should I chance upon them in a shopping mall I'd make all kinds of pleasant smalltalk with. But f them (as dodger baseball goes).
3. Make Britney wear some panties. Goddamn it's hard being a Britney fan these days. People come to me for answers. Do I look like her publicist? And if so, why haven't I ever been paid? I don't even mind all the other behavior, just the underwear thing.
4. Make a boy like mad fall in love with me. It looks like sinfully wonderful in the movies and I have curiosities. It's a tall request but it's my most important wish, well next to the world series championship.
5. Jamie Watkins. Keep her safe in her travels. That's easy enough. You may have to work with God on this one. I asked him already, but maybe a quick follow up note would just speed things along. You know how requests just get backlogged with him.
6. Two of my friends just had babies, and another is coming soon. I'm excited about them and I'd just like some reassurance from you, and God, and whomever y'all consult, that there will be peace for my new friends here.
7. I'm over the days of asking for my Mom and Dad to be together or even asking for them to be civil with one another. And as painful as seeing them date is for little baby Rebs, I come to you from a very high spiritual place and ask you to find them partners that will bring added purpose to this point in their lives.
8. My cats ask of you additional birds for the outside of our apartment, and an occasional bug to sneak in under the door jam so that they may play for hours and hours and hours.
9. Because I am in change of risk management for the sorority I suppose asking you keep all my girls safe would be in order.
10. There may be appendix's and amendment but it's late Santa and ten is always a good number to cap things off with, so I'll end with ten. My tenth wish this Christmas season is, and now I feel all this pressure because it's my last wish so it has to be good, and it has to be good but not in a corny way, so I guess I wish that jewish boys and girls can get presents from you too. As cool as the festival of lights is, getting shit from you is way better. So don't be such a hater is what I'm saying.
Thanks Santa.
Rebs

My big burning bush moment.

It was late one night when I was walking to temple for a class on what I think is a deserted residential street. My mind turns to God, our relationship, my mortality, earthly purpose - you get the idea, when I hear it for the first time. "Rebecca." I turn around. I circle myself on the sidewalk and return square to my starting point. I see no one, but hear it again I do. "Rebecca." I am outside his house, thinking of him, this must be God speaking to me. So I say to the voice, "Yes, God, I am here." I'm gearing up for my big burning bush moment, ready to get all Moses on his ass - when the voice subsides and disappointment falls like a light rain shower that dampers your spirits and messes up your hair. Silence. "God?" I say again followed by a "Rebecca?" I hear from the nothingness. I circle and I circle and now I look stupid to anyone who wouldn't know I'm having this moment with someone pretty important who created Earth and me and you and the sidewalk I'm turning in circles on.
When I was young, to talk to God, I'd just kneel right down next to my trundle bed, fold my hands together, close my eyes and speak. But when he's talking to you, and so unexpectedly, what do you do? Do you sit, kneel, should I continue to circle, remain standing? What is proper protocal? So I'm circling, circling, circling, croutching, looking off in to the distance, looking up, looking down, when I notice just the faintest light peering forth from my clutch. My mom calling. She'd love to hear that God is talking to me. So I answer and I say guess what mom, God is trying to speak to me. This is not such a good time. I'll call you back... - when it all starts to make sense. There was no burning bush moment, no voice from beyond, no dialogue with my creator. Just a clutch that held within it a cell phone which had accidently called my mom. She was speaking to me. Shouting at me. Shouting my name. No God. Just Mom.
Best. Blonde. Moment. Ever.

An open letter to Miss Paris Hilton

just for the purposes of my own understanding, and i'm the product of a decade and a half of a los angeles public school education, so bare with me, let me get this straight. paris, you got busted for a dui. totally a bummer. here is what i'm stuck on. per your statements - it's ok if you drive erratically, if only on your way to get a hamburger. and you were super tired but not enough so to not go grab dinner and a night of partying with your girlfriends. and you were legally intoxicated per a field sobriety test but that's only because alcohol affects you faster because you're tall and skinny. and lastly you think it's totally unfair, no wait, it hurts your feelings, that people blow this stuff out of proportion, probably much of the same way hearing that pos song a producer manufactured in a studio everytime i turn on fm radio hurts my ears. so i empathize. hurts your feelings, hurts my ears. listen, duis blow. i get it. but how about just taking responsibility instead of forcing an american audience with little patience for you already to have to endure days, potentially weeks, of this lame spin control. you drank too much, you shouldn't have been driving, and you got caught. life's a bitch. deal.

An open letter to Mr. Brad Pitt

it was recently when i heard you quoted. you said, you and angie will get married when "everybody who wants to be married can do so legally." first reaction, i'm a fan. reasons. i think it sounds really romantic. second, i like to boycott things, personally, and anyone who uses protest as a tool for social activism and progress can't be all bad in my book. a short book with mainly pictures, but nonetheless a book. but let's all just take a very lucid clear moment and keep it real with each other. back in the day when you made it honest with jennie on martha's malibu property you weren't so concerned with who else got to participate in holy matrimony. so let's assume the best, you had a change of heart. angie's out there saving the world and you're out there showing you can keep up. i can't be mad about that. what i would like us to focus on is really two key talking points. firstly, you want everybody who wants to get married to be able to do so? surely you would insist upon some restrictions. age, the amount of people who can be married to one another, relatives. surely if we allow all who want to be married to do so, these issues will arise. but what i really want to know is why it's just marriage you are pursuing equality under. i just dont see you saying to paramount i wont fly the corporate jet until everyone can-i will rely on commercial air travel. i also dont see you turning down a meal at spagos by your management because lots of people in the world are going hungry. or giving up your malibu residence because there are people with no homes who through circumstance will never see an ocean. you are super active doing good so i wont dig too hard and i hardly believe you are working towards a socialist climate, so what i really have to think is that you say these things to get people talking, blogging, ultimately generating press. which i have to say is a little interesting being you get it and then are super bothered by it. you and every celebrity. so look, how about you stick to acting. you aren't really the best at it, but i feel like angie could be a good role model/teacher. because your mediocre acting, your halfhearted messages about marriage filled with hypocrisy over your own plunge into bonded matrimony some years back, and your disinterest with equality between yourself and everyone else in every other aspect of your life just make me kinda discredit you all together. so just marry angie, get a thorough prenup, your career will be better off when it's over in a couple years, and stop pretending you care about marriage when you really just want to up your own stock. we'll go see your movies, just stop pretending this is about anything else but the press.

A fall classic

There are days it's definitely easier being a Dodger fan than on all other days. In a year that included a poor 05 season at its heels, a lineup of unproven rookies, shakey pitching, dramatic losing streaks, a season ending injury to Gagne, a sweltering Los Angeles summer heat wave - one can see how Monday night was simply one of those easy kind of nights.

It would be fleece blanket night and the last homestand of the regular season. The final meeting of the division rival San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers. An uncharacteristic four game set concluding on a Monday night in front of a record sell out crowd. 2006 All Star starter Brad Penny reporting to the mound. Young Alabama ace and bad-tempered Jake Peavy called on for the Friars. For 24 hours the Dodgers had trailed the Padres in the NL West and the Padres had hoped to extend the lead to a game and a half. Where season change is rare, a crisp autumn air had begun to overtake the city and at arms length the brilliant lights of the downtown LA skyline sparkled. 55,831 fans were adorned in blue. Ok, so some were Padres fans. But everyone was ready for a decisive game, an important game, the most important game so far this season. It felt magical. And this was long before even the first pitch had been released.

We would be down 4-0 almost out of the gates. We do get 9 innings of game to play (at least that's what I shout to naysayers) and indeed we would squeeze it for all that it would be worth.

But we only care how it ends though, right? Who won, who lost, and maybe details a bench clearing brawl here and there. And indeed there was even the early signs of one of those.

Baseball is a sport of a habitual nature existing in a world of habit. And most people walk the earth awaiting a moment, and praying to the universe for a chance, to take a bat and break open the ordinary.

And then crack.

9-5 going in to the bottom of the 9th. Closer great Trevor Hoffman had been warming up, but with a 4 run lead, he wasn't needed for the save. Many argue save or not, this is crunch time, bring in your big guns regardless. But Padres manager Bruce Bochy sat him down and instead chose another reliever from the pen. Kent to the plate, blast. Homerun. Then Drew homers. Two in a row. Clearly Hoffman would be needed. However, he'd been sitting down, cold, not ready for a save opportunity, but Bochy called for him anyway. And in the bottom of the 9th with only 2 runs separating us, Trevor Hoffman reported to the rubber. First pitch to rookie Russell Martin, Homerun. Three in a row. First pitch to Marlon Anderson, homerun. Four in a row.

Back to back to back to back. Not since 1964 had any team in Major League Baseball accomplished this. Certainly never the Dodgers, ever. And certainly never off closer great Trevor Hoffman. And with the score tied 9-9, we would go to the 10th.

Some clutch plays by the Padres, we would again find ourselves down 10-9. Would it be possible that after that feat, the kind that comes around every 40 years, after one of the most electrifying and unbelievable comebacks in baseball, could we lose this game? I curled up in a ball in my seat. Literally. Bottom of the 10th. Lofton walked. With the tying run at first, and a fast runner at that, up to the plate walks Nomar, who had injured his left quad Friday, and had been nursing it since. Whatever happens, please let this to be a homerun, he's in no position for any kind of hustle baserunning, I mouthed to a reserve level basically empty at this point in the night. And on a 3-1 count, what made me smile, tear up, and laugh out loud almost as if all those things were one cohesive emotion, in the greatest performance this side of chavez ravine has seen by a disabled hitter since Kirk Gibson in the 1988 World Series, Nomar hits a walk-off homerun. Dodgers win the game 11-10 and reclaim the lead in the NL West.

"This will be a game," said manager Grady Little, "that people around here will remember for a long time."

It would be a game people would remember, if in April, if the homeruns were in the 2nd, if we ultimately lost the game. But with 12 games left in regular season play, a half game separating our division rivals, it was nothing short of magic.

If you're gonna go down, go down swinging, go down bunting, go down fighting in to that good autumn night.

In whatever way the next week and half shapes out, whether our bats get cold and we never see the light of post season play, or we have more to celebrate and more stories to tell come playoff time, I know only one thing - I got my fall classic. I got my fall classic in front of a sell-out crowd, on fleece blanket night, in my hometown.

"It was the best game I've ever seen," said starting pitcher Brad Penny.

It sure was.

18 July 2006

Via Fax: 818-871-3100

The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated
26901 Malibu Hills Road
Calabasas Hills, CA 91301

To Whom It May Concern:

My correspondence today is drafted in reference to the change to your menu.

I have traveled to Cheesecake Factories in California and Hawaii and I am aware the menu differs depending upon location, sometime incorporating local flare such as fish and spices. However, the menu in the Los Angeles restaraunts is what I am most accustomed to and for much of my life I’ve ordered the veggie burger when I come to your establishment to dine. Not only do I rave about that thing to everyone I know, I don’t even open your menu to see what else you have on it. It is by far my favorite thing there. And sampling the veggie burgers in just about every restraunt I’ve ever been to, yours is by far my most favorite. I am sure you can appreciate my surprise and sadness when told the new menu does not reflect my favorite dish. Additionally, I am also a little surprised you’d take off one of the only vegetarian dishes off a multipage menu of meat dishes. I cannot think of a place I’ve been to in recent years that did not have a veggie burger on the menu. Surely I will find something else to eat when I go there and I’ll even pretend to like it, but how happy would you make me if you brought it back? Very.
Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Wareham