Comma.
You've had a September anyone would call a gift - finishing up the season playing the two worst teams in all of baseball. Aside from Capps and La Roche, the Pirates defense, and perhaps Adam Dunn, there's nothing complicated with winning the majority of these games. For a team with the best record in the national league, an almost shutout today, and the atrocity of yesterday - makes me livid. I won't anymore argue with those who say we won't make it through the first round of playoffs, because with you playing this way, they are right. You think you can beat the Cardinals or Phillies when you can't turn a simple double play from short? When the best closer gives up 4 runs in the home half of the 9th? When you commit little league errors at a demonic pace? No, you cannot.
I am a Jewish mother in training. I am a guilt giving, head shaking, stern looking giving, mother in training.
I have gone to your games when I've had no job at all and little disposable income. I've paid for your parking. I've bought your overpriced food. I have arrived in the 1st and stayed until close. I revolve my days around your schedule, checking the score in temple and other inappropriate occasions. I have returned from vacations early to be at your games. I sing the praises of the best team I've ever known, and why.
If I didn't think you'd like it, well I'd turn you all right around and give each and every one of you a spanking. It's September 28th. Stop sucking right this instant.
Respectfully,
Rebecca
Monday, September 28, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
August: Osage County
"Grandma, I can't find a job. There's virtually nothing out there."
"Well do you think anyone will want to hire you the way you look and sound right now? You've got bronchitis. You've had a fever of over 100 degrees for a week. You have bags under your eyes. And you look terrible."
"Hmm. I thought I was lookin' alright today."
"No. You look horrible. Take care of yourself now. See a doctor if you have to. Go to a clinic. Don't be proud. You'll get a job when the good lord is good and ready."
We all have different standards for what constitutes entertainment. Anything that's got solid writing is fine in my book. If someone who calls themselves a critic has something good to say about it, that helps. If it's got a kid left Home Alone or John Candy as an uncle making pancakes that can't fit inside the kitchen, well it's probably going to be the best movie ever. And it's got too much nagging, well I can get that in a car ride with my Grandma. I like entertainment that doesn't remind me of who I am and where I've been. I don't like reality, and I don't like arguing. In my movies, in my tv shows, or in my life.
I saw the Breakup, because people said alright things about it. My critical critique after seeing it: Those people are liars.
If I lived 100 more years, those are 100 years I'd be just fine doing without arguing. Doing it myself, or listening to others. There's nothing fun about it. Hence my rule.
I accepted tickets Sunday to the Ahmanson for one reason only: I love the Ahmanson. As a nine year old I saw the ballet at the music center just about once a month. I sat next to people drinking wine, and ate my pretzel. As a twenty nine year old, I like it just the same. The scrapers of downtown LA surround the theatres, which all surround three perfectly nice looking fountains. If I had a say in to whether I got married, and engaged, who it was, and where it all started, I'd ask the universe to make it happen there. I've romanticized that I'd stare across the shooting water, and a face in the crowd, would be the one, the one for me. We'd live happily ever after, and it's probably fairly certain this will never happen, but I decided it at nine with my pretzel, and I'm not about to let that little girl down.
I like to dress up, take the train there, sit near the orchestra, hurded with old women and new pashminas, little girls and party dresses, and be in this world, this romanticized world, acted out for me. I'd stop at intermission to replay what it was I enjoyed, and at lights dimming, head back for the second half. When it's all over I'd scurry out to make my train, peer at the fountains, sifting through every face in the crowd, and box up, like a present, my romanticized feelings for this place for next time.
The trouble is, I never went Sunday. I never took the train, or saw the play, looked through the crowd, or stood under the dimmed lights. I wanted to know in advance the play's subject and for that, I never went. It would have been three and a half hours or arguing, a family at odds with each other, doors slamming, marching up stairs to nowhere. So I read the summation, was able to provide "how I liked it," with details, to my mom, when she called to ask how it was the next day.
I don't enjoy lying, but I do enjoy seeing my mother is satisfied - and she was. In her mind, I went. And in mine, I did too. For romanticism is a place I visit only when I travel within. The man in the crowd I meet, and fall for, probably won't be at the music center. It most probably won't even be near fountains. He'll be far different than the bow covered boxed up fantasy that I've had twenty years and a pretzel to create. But he will be, a gift.
When I'm out in the world, and I see others, unappreciative of that love and arguing though they live on a stage in August Osage County, I think about that gift, and that boxed up dream, and wish for silence. Where I could lay among fountains, my head on his heaving chest, and ask for nothing more than just being. Being with the man who holds my heart.
Monday, September 21, 2009
My Coffee With Niles
If it's true that our bodies house a soul, which has journeyed through time and traveled through space, then I can't also believe we are all the same. I've met 3 year olds and 90 year olds, and through thorough comparison and inspection, I couldn't tell you who was older.
I spent my teenage era convinced there was an aging sweet tea drinking southern woman inside me. It never served as reason enough to allow me to stay home from geometry exams, but it made my parents fear for my mental health. They never really understood I was just trying to undermine their authority by proclaiming I thought I was older than them. Yet I always did feel older than I really was. And as long as my skin can fight the years of aging, I think no one, save my parents, and the two people who read this blog, will have to be the wiser.
All of this being so, I still have a need for the modern. A new cell phone as often as a mobile servicer allows. A knowledge of the news at its breaking. A politico following. I'm an interested 2009er. But I also adore times of past. Whether it be due to the still to be proven old southern woman inside my 5'6 blonde frame.
I craved a rotary phone at one time, and as I asked, heaven and a local thrift store delivered. It wasn't the candy pink or yellow I had in childhood mental scrapbooks of a wall mounted phone I rushed to answer at Grandma and Grandpas. It was black. And it's price probably 200 times that of it's original sell for amount. But it had been as I desired and as mine it would become.
It would be more of a shabby chic decorative piece, with little otherwise value. Though I hooked it up in case.
Having had issue with my mobile device, I called the company for repair. Knowing troubleshooting is possible only by calling on a phone other than the problemed one, I used the rotary.
Interesting thing about rotaries. Aside from the 4 American businesses who plan for those who call from rotaries, no one else is enabled. Unable to "key" in my selections, the automated voice on the other end growing more frustrated with my lack of response, disconnected. If it hadn't been automated, I'd imagine her saying something like "get a real phone, idiot."
I called back on my mobile.
"You know you really have to call on a landline-"
"Yes I know. Long story, long.....
...so if you could call me on my rotary phone, I think then we could troubleshoot my cell phone."
"Ok calling now, mam'"
"Oh I forget to add, sir, my rotary phone doesn't ring. So tell me when you're calling, and then I will just pick it up."
I'm typically late to the party. And it's not my first time at the rodeo. I was born on a Tuesday, just not last Tuesday. But my life, resembles that of a circus, at a more curious inspection. Between a cell phone born in 2009, and a rotary phone born in 1950, both can dial out, but only one can key in selections, and neither can perform any other functions of a typical telephone.
I think through the next 30 minutes he was in many way pleased that I wasn't as ill minded as I had originally given off the perception. My mobile was repaired, and my rotary shall, in the way it was bought, be fancied mostly for decorative glances. I have at least one phone that can make, and receive, telephone calls, text messages, and with satellite's assistance, perhaps some data services.
While I juggled the rotary phone cord, and the cell phone, a laptop on my knee, and eyed the time I needed to jump in my car and be off, I thought of my favorite Frasier episode. Frasier and Niles are sitting at the coffee shop, having just ordered their most specific coffee orders, and sending them back repeatedly for fixing. Niles asks Frasier if he's happy. Philosophers and psychologists and other people who have opinions have held that once you ask this question, you aren't. Something, I reason, like stopping to take a photograph, and removing yourself from a moment. But I stray. Frasier and Niles, at the coffee shop, the entire episode revolving around Frasier, and his answer. Moments before the twenty-two minute end of the sitcom, Frasier, finally getting his coffee order right, says, that he is.
I left my friend at the phone company, after repairing the cell, and jetted to Rosh Hashanah evening services. I read hebrew, and sang with the choir. I asked that everyone I love be remembered for another year. I heard a sermon, and listened to a cantor. And when all was done I retreated to our family home. To finish off our dinner, and for me the dessert. I sat with my family. It didn't need to be 2009. It could have 1950. Or the dawn of creation. I wouldn't have needed a cell phone. I wouldn't have needed a rotary phone. Just people who I love, and people who love me back so that I could tell Niles, what took Fraiser twenty two minutes and the perfect cup of coffee to get to.
I'm happy.
I spent my teenage era convinced there was an aging sweet tea drinking southern woman inside me. It never served as reason enough to allow me to stay home from geometry exams, but it made my parents fear for my mental health. They never really understood I was just trying to undermine their authority by proclaiming I thought I was older than them. Yet I always did feel older than I really was. And as long as my skin can fight the years of aging, I think no one, save my parents, and the two people who read this blog, will have to be the wiser.
All of this being so, I still have a need for the modern. A new cell phone as often as a mobile servicer allows. A knowledge of the news at its breaking. A politico following. I'm an interested 2009er. But I also adore times of past. Whether it be due to the still to be proven old southern woman inside my 5'6 blonde frame.
I craved a rotary phone at one time, and as I asked, heaven and a local thrift store delivered. It wasn't the candy pink or yellow I had in childhood mental scrapbooks of a wall mounted phone I rushed to answer at Grandma and Grandpas. It was black. And it's price probably 200 times that of it's original sell for amount. But it had been as I desired and as mine it would become.
It would be more of a shabby chic decorative piece, with little otherwise value. Though I hooked it up in case.
Having had issue with my mobile device, I called the company for repair. Knowing troubleshooting is possible only by calling on a phone other than the problemed one, I used the rotary.
Interesting thing about rotaries. Aside from the 4 American businesses who plan for those who call from rotaries, no one else is enabled. Unable to "key" in my selections, the automated voice on the other end growing more frustrated with my lack of response, disconnected. If it hadn't been automated, I'd imagine her saying something like "get a real phone, idiot."
I called back on my mobile.
"You know you really have to call on a landline-"
"Yes I know. Long story, long.....
...so if you could call me on my rotary phone, I think then we could troubleshoot my cell phone."
"Ok calling now, mam'"
"Oh I forget to add, sir, my rotary phone doesn't ring. So tell me when you're calling, and then I will just pick it up."
I'm typically late to the party. And it's not my first time at the rodeo. I was born on a Tuesday, just not last Tuesday. But my life, resembles that of a circus, at a more curious inspection. Between a cell phone born in 2009, and a rotary phone born in 1950, both can dial out, but only one can key in selections, and neither can perform any other functions of a typical telephone.
I think through the next 30 minutes he was in many way pleased that I wasn't as ill minded as I had originally given off the perception. My mobile was repaired, and my rotary shall, in the way it was bought, be fancied mostly for decorative glances. I have at least one phone that can make, and receive, telephone calls, text messages, and with satellite's assistance, perhaps some data services.
While I juggled the rotary phone cord, and the cell phone, a laptop on my knee, and eyed the time I needed to jump in my car and be off, I thought of my favorite Frasier episode. Frasier and Niles are sitting at the coffee shop, having just ordered their most specific coffee orders, and sending them back repeatedly for fixing. Niles asks Frasier if he's happy. Philosophers and psychologists and other people who have opinions have held that once you ask this question, you aren't. Something, I reason, like stopping to take a photograph, and removing yourself from a moment. But I stray. Frasier and Niles, at the coffee shop, the entire episode revolving around Frasier, and his answer. Moments before the twenty-two minute end of the sitcom, Frasier, finally getting his coffee order right, says, that he is.
I left my friend at the phone company, after repairing the cell, and jetted to Rosh Hashanah evening services. I read hebrew, and sang with the choir. I asked that everyone I love be remembered for another year. I heard a sermon, and listened to a cantor. And when all was done I retreated to our family home. To finish off our dinner, and for me the dessert. I sat with my family. It didn't need to be 2009. It could have 1950. Or the dawn of creation. I wouldn't have needed a cell phone. I wouldn't have needed a rotary phone. Just people who I love, and people who love me back so that I could tell Niles, what took Fraiser twenty two minutes and the perfect cup of coffee to get to.
I'm happy.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Fruits, Veggies and Honey Du Jour
I've been told being a non-practicing vegetarian, is, unpractical. That it isn't the same as being a non-practicing Jew and going to service only on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and your little cousin's Bar Mitzvah. That's it's more like being pregnant or not. Well guess what?
My world. My rules.
Let's, as Maria and the children would say, start at the very beginning. A very good place, indeed, to start.
I've always looked at meats with a glare of avoidance. Starting first in the womb with a mother who kept vegetarian during her pregnancy, and culminating in a childhood where I asked an ungodly amount of questions. I've never been able to separate the product from the process. As an adult I want to see the air filter my mechanic repaired and in what pipe it's connected, and through what pipe it's filtered to the engine. Understanding how things work makes me feel better about how much of a check my mechanic gets to cash from me, and trying to link the product to the process makes me feel like this world isn't totally chaotic. Because it mostly is.
The nuts and bolts. They are scientific. But the rest, it's not. Even through a seemingly tight relationship with God, I'm unclear why most of what happens to the world, happens. So what we have is trust. God and I have a trust among us. That I will do my very best. Even when the sewage of life has washed out to sea, what he'll remember is poise, and that I have done all I can.
I wake up this Thursday to a world that through it's great beauty gleams with a lot of tragicness. There is sickness and there is homelessness and pets that need good homes. There are continents of people who only wish for the things my continent takes for granted. So what does one do, when there's just too much to be done?
Anything.
I'm haunted by my demons like us all. And I like the 99 cent ice cream at Rite Aid. So keeping vegan always isn't easy. Instead I joke I'm a non-practicing vegetarian. But the truth is this. There is a peace about us when we are doing the best we can. There is a peace about me when I awake, and minutes before every meal, and a calm before bed. Because I'm doing the best I can. That few animals have to be inconvenienced by my life. That I can move around, happy and healthy, without leaving too large of a footprint on a globe already burdened by much else. So it's never going to be about preachiness, or controversy. Nor is it going to be changing what anyone else chooses to eat. Or giving Obama a hard time about swatting a fly. It's a personal choice. One that allows me to convey to God in a meaningful way, I'm doing the best I know how.
So it's not without merit or link that I see my eating choices, as a silent pact with God, on the day before this Rosh Hashanah. While Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of mankind, it's every moment that we reaffirm a wish to please God. As I wish you all a good and sweet new year, and I taste the apple and honey of another year to come, I ask that Jewish or Vegetarian, Vegan or believer in God, you see the tragicness and chaos of the world as your potential to bestow upon it the very best of you. For years to come.
My world. My rules.
Let's, as Maria and the children would say, start at the very beginning. A very good place, indeed, to start.
I've always looked at meats with a glare of avoidance. Starting first in the womb with a mother who kept vegetarian during her pregnancy, and culminating in a childhood where I asked an ungodly amount of questions. I've never been able to separate the product from the process. As an adult I want to see the air filter my mechanic repaired and in what pipe it's connected, and through what pipe it's filtered to the engine. Understanding how things work makes me feel better about how much of a check my mechanic gets to cash from me, and trying to link the product to the process makes me feel like this world isn't totally chaotic. Because it mostly is.
The nuts and bolts. They are scientific. But the rest, it's not. Even through a seemingly tight relationship with God, I'm unclear why most of what happens to the world, happens. So what we have is trust. God and I have a trust among us. That I will do my very best. Even when the sewage of life has washed out to sea, what he'll remember is poise, and that I have done all I can.
I wake up this Thursday to a world that through it's great beauty gleams with a lot of tragicness. There is sickness and there is homelessness and pets that need good homes. There are continents of people who only wish for the things my continent takes for granted. So what does one do, when there's just too much to be done?
Anything.
I'm haunted by my demons like us all. And I like the 99 cent ice cream at Rite Aid. So keeping vegan always isn't easy. Instead I joke I'm a non-practicing vegetarian. But the truth is this. There is a peace about us when we are doing the best we can. There is a peace about me when I awake, and minutes before every meal, and a calm before bed. Because I'm doing the best I can. That few animals have to be inconvenienced by my life. That I can move around, happy and healthy, without leaving too large of a footprint on a globe already burdened by much else. So it's never going to be about preachiness, or controversy. Nor is it going to be changing what anyone else chooses to eat. Or giving Obama a hard time about swatting a fly. It's a personal choice. One that allows me to convey to God in a meaningful way, I'm doing the best I know how.
So it's not without merit or link that I see my eating choices, as a silent pact with God, on the day before this Rosh Hashanah. While Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of mankind, it's every moment that we reaffirm a wish to please God. As I wish you all a good and sweet new year, and I taste the apple and honey of another year to come, I ask that Jewish or Vegetarian, Vegan or believer in God, you see the tragicness and chaos of the world as your potential to bestow upon it the very best of you. For years to come.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Home Page
I was inspired to change the layout of my blog by latimes.com. Simple black and white, text driven, classic, and antique. It had been my opinion in creative meetings in jobs of the past, that websites need first to be easy, simple to read, with clear navigation. Once established add the multimedia and sparkles. I, no surprise, lost those battles. I was refreshed to see latimes.com return to what I prefer, and inspired, I modeled mine after such.
I visit latimes.com once a day, at the minimum, because, national news isn't going to tell me about a sinkhole on Lankershim, or a fire in Pasadena. CNN won't likely have political rumblings of city council elections, or measurements of countywide school test scores. And foxnews isn't going exude angelenism. Because when you're from LA, like when you're from Atlanta, or you're from Dallas, Texas, you're not like anyone else. You're an Angeleno. And virtually picking up a local newspaper, reminds me where I'm from.
Being from Los Angeles, and the valley at that, isn't something that makes you confused with being from anywhere else. It's as obvious as the valley girl accent, driving the blocks length, and knowing the weather is as silly as the celebrities. Not a whole lot there and same as yesterday. LA is a good city, and it's been very good to me.
Mostly.
The last boy I dated would call, due to his job, not on my most regular of basises. When he'd do so, I would bombard him with the whosits and whatsits of the past 48 hours.
"Rebecca only 2 days have past since we talked last. How could all of those things have possibly happened to you?"
"I don't know. I don't know. Things. Good. Bad. Very strange, they happen to me. And because you've chosen to date me, you must hear about these things."
So being a native Angeleno, born here, raised here, through riots, earthquakes, and an OJ Simpson chase passing me by off the 5 freeway in Santa Clarita - the unusual has come and the unusual has gone.
In 1996 I was shot at by Mexican gangbangers in what was described by police as an initiation type event. To make matters worse, I was in a bathing suit. I seem to always be in a bathing suit.
Opening Day several years ago Brad Penny, starting pitcher of the LA Dodgers, came within an inch from hitting me with his car.
I once partied in an underground speakeasy in downtown LA with Prince.
I 5150'd 2 guys, one who was laying in a lane of traffic on my street.
I single handedly caught "The Miracle Mile Rapist" who attempted to break in to my apartment and was not ready for my adrenaline stimulated badassness that left him bolting. He now lives in prison due to my airtight police work.
Vince Vaugn checked out my ass through a restaurant window on Beverly Blvd. I do not blame him. I do blame the guy I was with for spending the rest of the night being so damn uptight about it.
My biological grandfather passed away, in a hotel room. They found out at his passing, he was engaged to, and illegally married to, many, many - many, women.
My other biological grandfather, got up one night during dinner, left, and never returned. Word has it he now resides in Iowa.
My dad, that's for another day.
I surprisingly have very little issues with men, but an unnatural fascination with polygamy.
I once drank and was sprayed with Cristal by Tommy Lee and 2 very floozy blondes in pink bikinis at 5am in the morning.
Clearly not knowing LA Laker Pau Gasol, I asked the stranger who he was, and if he played basketball "professionally."
At another time at another place, I made out with a member of Spain's basketball team. Making out is a fun activity, like coloring.
I was caught in a high speed police chase in East LA on a Sunday morning that seemed all together too early for all that fuss. But I stayed at the scene, to nurse the injured, because I'm, in any way trained for that? Lets be honest I was waiting for firefighters.
I worked for John McCain's presidential campaign. I wasn't allowed to talk about it since he hadn't yet announced officially. My friend and I nicknamed him "cupcake" to discuss it in conversation where others may hear. I can't see him on the floor of the Senate, talking of nationalized healthcare or the issues of Arizona constituents, without yelling, CUPCAKE!
LA. It isn't like any other city I've been to. But it's my home. It's made me tough, and beat me down, and made me able to see adventure in everything. I hear people talk badly, and I let it happen. Because how do you ever, through words and stories, convey to another human being, the essence, the indescribable love anyone has for where they are from. Home is a word, like love, with 8 billion meanings, and no real way to describe it.
So you stop describing, and just let it rest, as to say, I'm home.
I visit latimes.com once a day, at the minimum, because, national news isn't going to tell me about a sinkhole on Lankershim, or a fire in Pasadena. CNN won't likely have political rumblings of city council elections, or measurements of countywide school test scores. And foxnews isn't going exude angelenism. Because when you're from LA, like when you're from Atlanta, or you're from Dallas, Texas, you're not like anyone else. You're an Angeleno. And virtually picking up a local newspaper, reminds me where I'm from.
Being from Los Angeles, and the valley at that, isn't something that makes you confused with being from anywhere else. It's as obvious as the valley girl accent, driving the blocks length, and knowing the weather is as silly as the celebrities. Not a whole lot there and same as yesterday. LA is a good city, and it's been very good to me.
Mostly.
The last boy I dated would call, due to his job, not on my most regular of basises. When he'd do so, I would bombard him with the whosits and whatsits of the past 48 hours.
"Rebecca only 2 days have past since we talked last. How could all of those things have possibly happened to you?"
"I don't know. I don't know. Things. Good. Bad. Very strange, they happen to me. And because you've chosen to date me, you must hear about these things."
So being a native Angeleno, born here, raised here, through riots, earthquakes, and an OJ Simpson chase passing me by off the 5 freeway in Santa Clarita - the unusual has come and the unusual has gone.
In 1996 I was shot at by Mexican gangbangers in what was described by police as an initiation type event. To make matters worse, I was in a bathing suit. I seem to always be in a bathing suit.
Opening Day several years ago Brad Penny, starting pitcher of the LA Dodgers, came within an inch from hitting me with his car.
I once partied in an underground speakeasy in downtown LA with Prince.
I 5150'd 2 guys, one who was laying in a lane of traffic on my street.
I single handedly caught "The Miracle Mile Rapist" who attempted to break in to my apartment and was not ready for my adrenaline stimulated badassness that left him bolting. He now lives in prison due to my airtight police work.
Vince Vaugn checked out my ass through a restaurant window on Beverly Blvd. I do not blame him. I do blame the guy I was with for spending the rest of the night being so damn uptight about it.
My biological grandfather passed away, in a hotel room. They found out at his passing, he was engaged to, and illegally married to, many, many - many, women.
My other biological grandfather, got up one night during dinner, left, and never returned. Word has it he now resides in Iowa.
My dad, that's for another day.
I surprisingly have very little issues with men, but an unnatural fascination with polygamy.
I once drank and was sprayed with Cristal by Tommy Lee and 2 very floozy blondes in pink bikinis at 5am in the morning.
Clearly not knowing LA Laker Pau Gasol, I asked the stranger who he was, and if he played basketball "professionally."
At another time at another place, I made out with a member of Spain's basketball team. Making out is a fun activity, like coloring.
I was caught in a high speed police chase in East LA on a Sunday morning that seemed all together too early for all that fuss. But I stayed at the scene, to nurse the injured, because I'm, in any way trained for that? Lets be honest I was waiting for firefighters.
I worked for John McCain's presidential campaign. I wasn't allowed to talk about it since he hadn't yet announced officially. My friend and I nicknamed him "cupcake" to discuss it in conversation where others may hear. I can't see him on the floor of the Senate, talking of nationalized healthcare or the issues of Arizona constituents, without yelling, CUPCAKE!
LA. It isn't like any other city I've been to. But it's my home. It's made me tough, and beat me down, and made me able to see adventure in everything. I hear people talk badly, and I let it happen. Because how do you ever, through words and stories, convey to another human being, the essence, the indescribable love anyone has for where they are from. Home is a word, like love, with 8 billion meanings, and no real way to describe it.
So you stop describing, and just let it rest, as to say, I'm home.
Good for the Seoul
On Saturday evening I got a visit from my favorite two year old. Somewhere amidst the golden curly locks is just about the smartest toddler I know. When she's not playing the violin and piano, speaking 3 languages, and impressing me with her advanced language and vernacular skills, she's striking a bit of fear. Fear that this time next year, she'll be smarter than me in just about every way. But today, between new big sister duties, and her second week of preschool, I get to enjoy being on just about the same level.
"Sara I'm so jealous of all the vacations you've gone on lately! Your mama sends me all sorts of pictures of you. One I saw you in your bathing suit on a beach in Hawaii near a volcano all covered in sand! Then next one you're in Chicago seeing the sights!"
"No you're not," she says.
"I'm not what?"
"Jealous, you're not jealous"
"Sara, I bet you don't even know what jealous means!"
"Fine. What does it mean?"
"Well it means you want a bit of what someone else has. A little is ok. It means you are happy for them, but maybe you'd like that thing too. When you're not sure what you want, a bit of jealousy is good to say, I want that for myself"
"Well, in my opinion," she quipped, "I say, you aren't jealous."
Mind not a 2 year old said the equivalent of agree to disagree, I'd told a 2 year old I was jealous of them.
In fact, she's right, I'm not truly jealous. Being 2 years old has to come with enough challenges with potty training and such, that I'd be just as fine being 30 if for no other reason than I'm without choice. But I'd also be a fool to imagine I'd approach 30 without a hiccup - or a loud bellow.
I didn't go to any old public school. I went to one for smart kids - or in my case kids with moms with connections to sneak the ordinary in undetected. Magnets they were called, and maggots we were called. I felt all my life was damn hard. When I'd complain my mother would say, "you have to get grades to get in to a good junior high." So I worked and I worked. I memorized the preamble to the Constitution and the solar system, presidents, and books beyond my year. I got to junior high and when I complained about a molecular biology assignment splicing a cell my mother would say, "you have to get grades to get in to a good high school." By 9th grade I had gotten in to a good high school. The most sought after one in LAUSD. Being in the magnet wasn't enough. I had to take gifted classes and AP classes, and read the entire bible in one weekend for an advanced literature class and when I complained, you got it, "you have to get grades to get in to a good college."
College wasn't an option. I learn now it could have been, but in my home, in my reality, on the small dot, on the big map it wasn't.
College was remarkably easy from the business of the magnet schools. Only 2 classes (grammar and nutrition) tested my will to live, but otherwise I did just fine working full time, holding positions in my sorority, and making the deans list twice.
I didn't complain. And because I didn't, I never heard why it was I had to work. What was next.
You hear a bell, you know you're late for 2nd period. You get a call from Mrs. Lipton to say Rebecca wasn't in class today. You are monitored by parents and teachers and institutions, and a society that dictates what is next. And then what.
I called my mom last Thursday. She was hounding me about Thanksgiving, thank goodness she is still thinking ahead, and I asked her, now what.
Without any further prodding she knew what I was asking.
"You've done everything just as you were supposed to. You've worked hard from K to 12. You put yourself through college. You took the LSAT. You worked fulltime through all your adult life thus far. And now you apply to jobs, 10-15 a day and spend the rest of your day sitting next to a phone that never rings. I wish I had more answers for you. But the nexts have stopped. I don't know what's next."
And perhaps I am indeed jealous of a 2 year old. Not of the vacations or the potty training, but of the being told what to do. Because even so, if you're resentful, and your personal will is bent against another who has the upper hand, there is still a person at the end of the day with a next to deliver to you.
So 30 has come with a hiccup. A loud bellow, and the search for a next has been an Alice in Wonderland adventure. At first lying on a leisurely bridge with my cat and a book, and next following rabbits down deep and seemingly never ending holes. But I've found that with darkness, and holes, come bottoms. And with bottoms come nexts. Nexts that will allow my mom to say:
"You can do anything now."
It was the 2 year old, and my mom, the hole and a white rabbit that visited me in a dream, that all said, here at the bottom is possibility.
My job search has covered the world, from sushi chef to batgirl, to probation officer to english teacher in korea, and while I seek each one out, it's been good for my soul to know, that what next is
Anything.
"Sara I'm so jealous of all the vacations you've gone on lately! Your mama sends me all sorts of pictures of you. One I saw you in your bathing suit on a beach in Hawaii near a volcano all covered in sand! Then next one you're in Chicago seeing the sights!"
"No you're not," she says.
"I'm not what?"
"Jealous, you're not jealous"
"Sara, I bet you don't even know what jealous means!"
"Fine. What does it mean?"
"Well it means you want a bit of what someone else has. A little is ok. It means you are happy for them, but maybe you'd like that thing too. When you're not sure what you want, a bit of jealousy is good to say, I want that for myself"
"Well, in my opinion," she quipped, "I say, you aren't jealous."
Mind not a 2 year old said the equivalent of agree to disagree, I'd told a 2 year old I was jealous of them.
In fact, she's right, I'm not truly jealous. Being 2 years old has to come with enough challenges with potty training and such, that I'd be just as fine being 30 if for no other reason than I'm without choice. But I'd also be a fool to imagine I'd approach 30 without a hiccup - or a loud bellow.
I didn't go to any old public school. I went to one for smart kids - or in my case kids with moms with connections to sneak the ordinary in undetected. Magnets they were called, and maggots we were called. I felt all my life was damn hard. When I'd complain my mother would say, "you have to get grades to get in to a good junior high." So I worked and I worked. I memorized the preamble to the Constitution and the solar system, presidents, and books beyond my year. I got to junior high and when I complained about a molecular biology assignment splicing a cell my mother would say, "you have to get grades to get in to a good high school." By 9th grade I had gotten in to a good high school. The most sought after one in LAUSD. Being in the magnet wasn't enough. I had to take gifted classes and AP classes, and read the entire bible in one weekend for an advanced literature class and when I complained, you got it, "you have to get grades to get in to a good college."
College wasn't an option. I learn now it could have been, but in my home, in my reality, on the small dot, on the big map it wasn't.
College was remarkably easy from the business of the magnet schools. Only 2 classes (grammar and nutrition) tested my will to live, but otherwise I did just fine working full time, holding positions in my sorority, and making the deans list twice.
I didn't complain. And because I didn't, I never heard why it was I had to work. What was next.
You hear a bell, you know you're late for 2nd period. You get a call from Mrs. Lipton to say Rebecca wasn't in class today. You are monitored by parents and teachers and institutions, and a society that dictates what is next. And then what.
I called my mom last Thursday. She was hounding me about Thanksgiving, thank goodness she is still thinking ahead, and I asked her, now what.
Without any further prodding she knew what I was asking.
"You've done everything just as you were supposed to. You've worked hard from K to 12. You put yourself through college. You took the LSAT. You worked fulltime through all your adult life thus far. And now you apply to jobs, 10-15 a day and spend the rest of your day sitting next to a phone that never rings. I wish I had more answers for you. But the nexts have stopped. I don't know what's next."
And perhaps I am indeed jealous of a 2 year old. Not of the vacations or the potty training, but of the being told what to do. Because even so, if you're resentful, and your personal will is bent against another who has the upper hand, there is still a person at the end of the day with a next to deliver to you.
So 30 has come with a hiccup. A loud bellow, and the search for a next has been an Alice in Wonderland adventure. At first lying on a leisurely bridge with my cat and a book, and next following rabbits down deep and seemingly never ending holes. But I've found that with darkness, and holes, come bottoms. And with bottoms come nexts. Nexts that will allow my mom to say:
"You can do anything now."
It was the 2 year old, and my mom, the hole and a white rabbit that visited me in a dream, that all said, here at the bottom is possibility.
My job search has covered the world, from sushi chef to batgirl, to probation officer to english teacher in korea, and while I seek each one out, it's been good for my soul to know, that what next is
Anything.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
All Roads Lead to Lamont California
A friend, some years ago, said, that everything was more fun with me there. We once drove south from Los Angeles on the 5 freeway trying to get to Las Vegas. In south Orange County, we realized south was not getting us east and we were a long way from the glitter, lights and fast times of Las Vegas.
She claims, that, was fun.
I've always been fairly certain she was lying. That adding two hours on to a Vegas trip in rush hour traffic isn't fun. And everything wasn't more fun, simply because I was there. She's my friend, and friends have to lie to you sometimes. They have to tell you the truth when you're dating someone who's no good and you're too week and too in love to know the difference. They have to pick nicknames for you that you had no say in, and aren't going to like.
And they tell you things are more fun because you're there. She claims she wasn't lying. And I claim to not care. Because I'll chose to believe it anyhow.
Friendship is funny like that.
Friends of mine have married and moved to places which inspire a slowness about life, they say. I'm not there. I need the music blaring, and the dodger game in the sixth inning while my cats chase a spider up the living room wall. I need to be instant messaging and updating my facebook while chatting with my mom. I need eight plans a day. And I need my music loud. And I need to be driving fast. Very fast.
Outside the little town of Lamont, I was stopped some months ago, and cited with my first ever speeding ticket. When the officer asked why I seemed to accept it so calmly, "it was about time" was what my mind spoke, while he saw only a smile. I drive too fast. And I'm usually in a rush. I stop to smell jasmine flowers, and lay in bushels of tall golden weeds, but only when it's on the way to something else.
One week ago, in kickboxing class, the fastest moving, hardest grooving class I take, I stoped. I wasn't thirsty, and I wasn't sore. I had plenty of room, and I knew the choreography by heart. My instructor looked my way, but I felt as no explanation was necessary. I had to stop. I had to stop to cry. Probably the most inappropriate of times to stop and do so, but I never was qualified to explain my behavior as rational. I was tired of moving forward. And I was exhausted. Exhausted of 11 things not necessary to describe on this blog in order to make the point. I've driven so fast all of my life, through Lamont County and Anywhere County and you don't always have an officer there to cite you and tell you to slow the f down.
But we all do slow down. Whether by an officer of the law, the pain that takes a toll over our old age bodies, a love that makes time stand still, and quite finitely, in our final resting place.
When I joined the sorority I did so knowing I wouldn't be able to contribute like I ought to. I was too otherwise committed. I was overcommitted. To school and work and much else. But I did the best I could. Not being at most parties, and functions, even getting "talked to" at one point about my not being present for something. I am not a fan of that conversation, but I maintain I did the best I could, knowing that for me, joining a sorority was a lifelong decision. One I'd have more time for at chapters of my life, and less at others. That when I could, I'd be the very best sister, and friend, I could.
After a very long bout, a good friends father lost his battle with cancer two weeks ago. I recall that sadness I had for her, as one of those moments that demanded slowness, a halting of all life around you. What can you say, what can you do when all is said and done. When alls thats left is the missing. I couldn't do much. A call. A text. A thought. A prayer. A drive to the funeral, to lower my head, in solitude with her, as to say I joined this sorority not for the parties and good times, but to stand by your side for all of the times.
I haven't ever understood what it is in me that romanticizes tall stalks of golden strawlike weeds. What in me makes me want to stop and roll around in them. But as I stood there at that funeral, head held low, with those golden plants to the right and left, right and left, pushed by just the faintest of wind, as taps played on a single trumpet and marines fired rifles to honor the passing of one of their own, it would be difficult to picture anything more beautiful. That when life slows, we'd have our sisters at our side. We'd have earthy splendor. And those around us honoring the contribution of our life.
I was glad I could have made the trip there. But for me the irony came as I drove down the boulevard and the Lamont signs appeared. It seems as though when slowness of life is required, there I am, back at Lamont. It's a unremarkable place if you ask me. But my past several interactions there have made it a place of meaning. It's a place that forces me to slow down. It's a place that ultimately recalls to me the foundation of my responsibilities to my friends, and my sisters. That while friendship is this funny thing, of nicknames and ill fated roadtrips, good times and tough love, it's ultimately being there, slowing down, among tall stalks of golden plants, lowering your head in solitude, and doing nothing at all.
She claims, that, was fun.
I've always been fairly certain she was lying. That adding two hours on to a Vegas trip in rush hour traffic isn't fun. And everything wasn't more fun, simply because I was there. She's my friend, and friends have to lie to you sometimes. They have to tell you the truth when you're dating someone who's no good and you're too week and too in love to know the difference. They have to pick nicknames for you that you had no say in, and aren't going to like.
And they tell you things are more fun because you're there. She claims she wasn't lying. And I claim to not care. Because I'll chose to believe it anyhow.
Friendship is funny like that.
Friends of mine have married and moved to places which inspire a slowness about life, they say. I'm not there. I need the music blaring, and the dodger game in the sixth inning while my cats chase a spider up the living room wall. I need to be instant messaging and updating my facebook while chatting with my mom. I need eight plans a day. And I need my music loud. And I need to be driving fast. Very fast.
Outside the little town of Lamont, I was stopped some months ago, and cited with my first ever speeding ticket. When the officer asked why I seemed to accept it so calmly, "it was about time" was what my mind spoke, while he saw only a smile. I drive too fast. And I'm usually in a rush. I stop to smell jasmine flowers, and lay in bushels of tall golden weeds, but only when it's on the way to something else.
One week ago, in kickboxing class, the fastest moving, hardest grooving class I take, I stoped. I wasn't thirsty, and I wasn't sore. I had plenty of room, and I knew the choreography by heart. My instructor looked my way, but I felt as no explanation was necessary. I had to stop. I had to stop to cry. Probably the most inappropriate of times to stop and do so, but I never was qualified to explain my behavior as rational. I was tired of moving forward. And I was exhausted. Exhausted of 11 things not necessary to describe on this blog in order to make the point. I've driven so fast all of my life, through Lamont County and Anywhere County and you don't always have an officer there to cite you and tell you to slow the f down.
But we all do slow down. Whether by an officer of the law, the pain that takes a toll over our old age bodies, a love that makes time stand still, and quite finitely, in our final resting place.
When I joined the sorority I did so knowing I wouldn't be able to contribute like I ought to. I was too otherwise committed. I was overcommitted. To school and work and much else. But I did the best I could. Not being at most parties, and functions, even getting "talked to" at one point about my not being present for something. I am not a fan of that conversation, but I maintain I did the best I could, knowing that for me, joining a sorority was a lifelong decision. One I'd have more time for at chapters of my life, and less at others. That when I could, I'd be the very best sister, and friend, I could.
After a very long bout, a good friends father lost his battle with cancer two weeks ago. I recall that sadness I had for her, as one of those moments that demanded slowness, a halting of all life around you. What can you say, what can you do when all is said and done. When alls thats left is the missing. I couldn't do much. A call. A text. A thought. A prayer. A drive to the funeral, to lower my head, in solitude with her, as to say I joined this sorority not for the parties and good times, but to stand by your side for all of the times.
I haven't ever understood what it is in me that romanticizes tall stalks of golden strawlike weeds. What in me makes me want to stop and roll around in them. But as I stood there at that funeral, head held low, with those golden plants to the right and left, right and left, pushed by just the faintest of wind, as taps played on a single trumpet and marines fired rifles to honor the passing of one of their own, it would be difficult to picture anything more beautiful. That when life slows, we'd have our sisters at our side. We'd have earthy splendor. And those around us honoring the contribution of our life.
I was glad I could have made the trip there. But for me the irony came as I drove down the boulevard and the Lamont signs appeared. It seems as though when slowness of life is required, there I am, back at Lamont. It's a unremarkable place if you ask me. But my past several interactions there have made it a place of meaning. It's a place that forces me to slow down. It's a place that ultimately recalls to me the foundation of my responsibilities to my friends, and my sisters. That while friendship is this funny thing, of nicknames and ill fated roadtrips, good times and tough love, it's ultimately being there, slowing down, among tall stalks of golden plants, lowering your head in solitude, and doing nothing at all.
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