Banana Pancakes

I ate some banana pudding years back, and it inspired me to write. This morning I ate banana pancakes, and it brought on the same effect: acid reflux - and inspiration to write.

Must be something about the bananas.

About the same time years back, my first friend got married. It seemed in many ways to be a big pain in the ass. There are flowers. And family wishes. Times and costs and quotes and plans, lots of plans. But the kind of pain in the ass, I too, would like someday.

Just as I've discovered when these same people have had babies, and realized from the registry, babies need a lot of things, in marriage, via a registry, to be man and wife, you too, need a lot of stuff.

Today I sought out to prove, without the fanciness of a registry, I too could make things in my kitchen.

I thought wrong.

I'd craved, jonesed, for banana pancakes, so it was those I would make. How difficult could it be.

Very difficult when you don't read all the ingredients.

First, I'd bought the wrong oil. Correction, I hadn't bought any oil.

Next, I'd not any of the pans necessary for pancake making. Or pancake mix, mixing. A fancy mixer I wouldn't need, what with some old fashioned hard work and elbow grease.

Wrong.

I then discovered why the Los Angeles Department of Housing has been fining my landlord monthly for refusing to install a smoke detector in the kitchen. And for not fixing kitchen windows. I discovered these things.

But I did come to discover what also I set to prove at the start of my theory: I could produce something moderately edible without the help of fanciness. And I did. Produce. Moderately edible banana pancakes.

My writing style many times sells myself short. They were actually awesome. Sellable. Marketable. Eat all 8 that I made, good. That great.

Jack Johnson eat your heart out.

Die Happy

I love tator tots. And I love Sonic. And I love all those things in a drive up window with food being delivered by a 16 year old in roller skates. So that's essentially the only reason I mention this conversation happened at Sonic, over tator tots, and grilled cheese on texas toast and a cherry coke. Because for all essential literary value, it's of no consequence to this story. Although there's something supremely happy about eating tator tots and drinking cherry coke that makes me think of a day and a place without those things, and I of course, I turn to contemplate my death.

"I'm going to say something probably really unpopular," I said.

"Rebecca, is this about your theory that women shouldn't play sports. Because I can't have that conversation with you one more time."

"No," I said, "I think if I ever found out I had a life threatening illness, one with no chance of survival, death eminent, something like you're hearing that sound when you've used your last life on Mario Bros, well, I wouldn't tell anyone."

"Yeah, that's stupid."

"I just think, I mean being really selfish, it will significantly devalue the quality of my life. My last days. With people being all sad and weird. I'd just rather have a good time and, you know, party my ass off."

"Well how are people supposed to say goodbye, tell you how they feel, that they love you."

"And therein," I said, "lays the problem."

In the most uplifting way I say we're all a moment away from the game over brick breaker mario bros music. So I'd rather air on the side of telling you too many times how much I love you, than never enough. I should say I'd be generally displeased if it did all end tomorrow. What with a full list of things I'd like to do in my blackberry like buy new bras, get a facial, adopt a baby, go to Morocco. But if it did, I'd feel at peace. And last Thursday just helped that along.

The following tale is a classic tale. A classic tale of young love. A relatable classic tale. The kinda love where a 14 year old on roller skates, sits in their bedroom for hours, yelling at their little sister for picking up the phone and listening in on the call. There's nothing extraordinary about this tale. Except that it happened to me.

As a teenager I met a boy. We shared friends and classses, but what we didn't share was feelings. Me for him, but not him for me. Friends, he'd say, we'd always be. That didn't stop my little young heart from pitter pattering and declaring it the worst pain of my life when he asked my best friend to homecoming. "Friends, Rebecca, we're just friends."

Friends. The only time I've called that the f-word.

I never quite got over it. I graduated and went to college. He the same. And in run-ins in college, although I'd moved on to a serious relationship, and in no one could act on my feelings, I'd become that teenage little girl again, and him, dismissive with a new cap of fraternity boy arrogance.

I'd die my hair. I'd lose weight. I'd buy new clothes and hats and scarves. I'd be more hilarious. I'd be less hilarious. Outgoing and shy and more me, less me, whatever I had to be to get this gentlemen to like me, but alas, my efforts left me in the same place they did when I declared my love 8 years before. "Friends."

My ridiculousness was realized, as well as the knowledge I shouldn't ever be less myself in pursuit of affection. In lamemens terms: I grew up. I grew up, and I graduated college, and I became the person that fit me better than an outfit or hair cut or color that would fancy him, and in lamemens terms: I moved on.

Last Thursday I spent the thanksgiving holiday with family, and the night with my favorite kind of family: my sister. We went to a local bar which features an event I've redubbed, "family is stressful, get drunk." I followed my sister around for most of the night, while she bumped in to people she knew, and I sipped on my jack daniels and diet coke. At a visit for a refill, a stranger approached me.

"Rebecca."

(Ok, so this isn't a stranger. They know my name. But I've got nothing).

"Umm"

"Wow, you really don't remember me."

It was him. All grown up, and nearly not the person I remembered longing for as a teenager, or dismissing me in college. And not only did I not recognize him, I didn't recognize the feeling in me. I had moved on. Well this did feel delightful.

As someone I've known for more than half my life, we caught up. His brothers and parents. Where he's living, working. I did the same. Including such details like the happiness that surrounds my life.

"Yes I'm living here, and doing this, and this happened, and my sister this, and friends this, and the guy I'm dating this, and my ballet class that."

But all he seemed to zone in was "...and the guy I'm dating."

He asked me about it.
And he asked me about it again. Questioned it, frowned and sighed.
And again.

Three times he asked me about it.

Could it be possible that half my life later, a lot of moving on, and a lot of happiness, the tables had turned.

All my head spoke was OH MY HOLY HELL. "Yes I'm dating someone and I'm so happy."

As I walked to my sister's car and we spoke nothing, she looked at me and knew, without having to pick up the other end of the phone and secretly listen in on a conversation I was having as a 14 year old...I could die happy.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

In the summer of 2001 I made my first trip to Europe. It has been my only trip to the continent but there's something about saying it's the first that inspires of sense of culture that I can fool you in to thinking I own. I visited London and spent a lot of time in the curry filled street of northern England, a place many Indians still reside, and make a masala sauce that still haunts me in sleep. I spent a week in Paris, a week I spent not understanding why Americans don't like the French. They were nice, and gracious, and smelling flowers at a market smelled better because I was smelling them in Paris. I spent 24 hours in Dublin. Enough time to take a tour of the Guinness factory, experience the most torrential of rains I've known and drink brew with Irishmen at the cities pubs. The bulk of the rest of the trip was in Italy, and for reasons I can probably attribute to it being the most cost friendly solution, I flew Dublin to Pisa.

Pisa's a city of an airport, and a leaning tower. If by chance the airport went in to disrepair, and the leaning tower, leaned to its demise, the city, may never make another map. It was the only thing we were seeing there, so it made the most sense to lug the luggage from the airport to the tower, from tower to train, where we'd travel to Florence that afternoon.

Once you squeeze through crowds and get close enough, camera in hand, do the cliche photos, me in front of the tower, me next to the tower, me pretending to hold the tower between my fingers, me pretending to be larger than the tower, your work at the leaning tower of pisa is done. And if you have an ex-boyfriend like I did, not only will he delete all the pictures accidentally so that my readers would just need to take my word this entire post isn't a figment of my imagination, you'd have an ex-boyfriend that after London, Manchester, Dublin, Paris, and an afternoon in Pisa, had driven me to meltdown status.

Years later when I broke up with him (in a therapists office - but that's for another post) - they were for all the same reasons that drove me to that meltdown that August afternoon in 2001 burning sun beating down on my bare skin, luggage surrounding me, as I told him I didn't want to go on.

Oh don't get me wrong. No suicide intervention was necessary. With him, I didn't want to go on with him.

He told me I looked silly. Tourists, children, backpackers, manueving to get around me. While I sat on my large suitcase and sobbed. This post isn't about him, so there's little reason to go in to details. All you need to know is I was right, and he was wrong. About everything.

I've been siked about turning 30. It happens tomorrow. And even though it falls on a Friday the 13th, it clearly is more of a magical wonderful sort of 13, and not the horror movie sort of number. But 30, it comes with some baggage, some luggage, like the one I sat on in Italy. And in yoga today, between a birds of paradise pose and tree pose, I discovered - I'm turning 30.

When class was over I walked outside. I sat down. And I cried. I can't even remember why it was I started, but after a half hour, I got my life together and walked away. But I needed to sit down, melt down, be down. And admit some truths to myself. Truths like you can't ignore getting older. Or the responsibility that comes with it. Or that sometimes when faced with it, it's ok and not be ok.

I suppose if I could rationally explain a meltdown, or any meltdown, about age or the weather, than I'd in some way let the world in to the complexity of women. But I don't have that answer.

I needed about 10-12 more minutes of good crying time, but I discovered I'd been sitting on ants, and worried at any time they'd use my legs as a food source, so I got on my way.

So with complexity of women, and complexity of relationships, and complexity of age, comes a spontaneous meltdown.

Years ago, in the summer of 2001, I eventually got up, I dried my tears, I hopped on that train to Florence, and I enjoyed it as I did Naples, Pompei, and Venice. Today, the fall of 2009, I metaphorically do the same. Move on. With purpose, and cause, and a humanity.

When Sleep Meets Light - Light Meet Clarity

I'm afraid I may always be one of those write when times are tough sort of folk. Such that, the absence of posts should signal the adverse, that things are, quite positively, good.

Alexander's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, in reverse.

I suppose getting good things is fairly simple. As simple as ABC, 1-2-3, heads shoulders knees and toes. The sun in the east, and by noons after - the west. It needs only one, just one, a singular requisition. An assumption, a supposition, a science fair hypothesis, that says first, I deserve good things. I deserve good fall like weather and I deserve faithful friends - fresh baked cupcakes and a delicious cheese pizza just for me. A tub of cookie dough, and no one to judge my food metaphors. I deserve love and I deserve happiness. Love and happiness that inspires clarity and golden silence, stillness, and light, holding tight to what you've got, like a box of 4 ready to be devoured before thawed Uncrustables, and those who won't judge my ever growing food metaphors. And on this rare occasion, a blog entry.

While my waking life is good. My subconscious isn't. It's a murky sleep filled place, with visits most recently from my past.

Sometime ago I got to thinking about sleep. If you're sleeping as much as the doctors order, you're spending about 1/3 of your life tucked under the sheets. Add to that a rainy Saturday, and a week a year of sick time, a marathon of the West Wing in bed, you've got a lot of time with you and your mattress. I was going to take advantage of that time, and make it as comfortable as humanely possible. My bed, is a feast for the tactile senses. It's a down paradise. A thread count dream. Eleven pillows and a cat purchased solely for her heat generating, jonesing for a nap at moments notice, spooning potential. Fresh cut lavendar. Vanilla custard candle. A cup for tea, and a ceramic cupcake to inspire good dreams. It's a grand place, a vacation for 8 long hours, once a day, seven times a week, where a month turns in to a year and life is, good.

But even when life is good, and your thread count is better, there's still work that the subconscious asks. And in the past 2 weeks it's asked me to spend time with those who've occupied parts of my past. I've had awkward conversations, been chased down my childhood street, and looked back to see the people I love replaced. I would hope this isn't unconventional marketing for Jim Carey's new Christmas Carol, and instead about making peace.

In the past 3 nights, I've awoken with no dreams, no nighmares, no visits. Sound sleepfulness. But an idea. A gutted feeling. That being happy asks two requisitions: knowing you're deserving of it - and saying goodbye to a time and a people who never deserved you. And if I've had to do that in the murky world of my subconscious sleep, I get to wake up to luxury sheets and the happiness I now come to rely upon at mornings hello.

That's Some Pig

I was a fan of Charlotte's Web long before the adorable Dakota Fanning rendition. I read the picture book aloud, the paperback silently, and when I'd finished, the animation. I immersed my eyes and brain and imagination in talking sheep and goats and pigs and spiders, and when in the 4th grade our teacher asked if anyone was interested in taking home to live out it's glory days our classroom rat, I knew my parents would be the only ones who'd say yes to my animal rescue missions. In my house, in my living room, across from the piano, and next to the fireplace, Templeton lived out his two year life in the lap of luxury: a mansion style cage I asked as my Chanukah present.

Templeton was some rat. No Templeton was more of a son of a bitch. But when someone passes, even a rat, as he did in 1990, it's bad form to speak badly of them. So, that Templeton, he was some rat.

He ran the roost as the little one always does. The cat, the golden retriever, even my human sister feared him. But he was alright. He was some rat.

Charlotte's Web tells the story of a pig destined for a bacon fate. Who, by the miracle of his courageous little spirit and the help of a spider, made unlikely friends and prizes abound. Charlotte reasons if she can make the farmer see the things in the little pig no one sees, he won't have to die. Some Pig, she writes.

Terrific.

Radiant.

And, humble.

I have a "some pig" theory when I need to see the best in someone. Somewhere in a barn, there's a spider who thinks there's a pig that's radiant and terrific, and it's only my task to try to see that too.

I like baseball despite my friend's insistence it's boring and slow. (Their words). (And they are wrong). But it would be a seemingly tiresome mission to convince them otherwise. Instead I enjoy it for what it brings me, and through that, through the nuggets of optimism and "did you see that fast ball on a 3-2 count" details of the game I hope they will see it as the "some pig" it is.

Social life. I'm not allowed to have one in October. Because when I do, I'm out on such an outing, and the Dodgers have a 9th inning like the one we had today. A game 2 clinching NLDS Dodger win 2 outs in the 9th inning win. And while I'm dumb enough to leave my house in October, I'm also smart enough, even by accident, to leave on the television and let tivo rewind the entire game for me.

There is a charm about getting to watch a 9th inning like todays, when you already know they won. Because it's not like those bases loaded bottom of the 9th situations where runners are stranded and there's disappointment. It's more like Christmas where you know there are presents downstairs, it's just about how fast you can run to violently unwrap them. So I violently unwrapped the 9th inning, thank you Tivo, and it was just as the 11 text messages I received said, a win. A win. A win.

A radiant.

A terrific.

If not humble.

Win.

That was some pig, win.
That was some win.

Simplicity

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from a friend. A two hour phone call from a friend. A beau like firefighter friend. We talked of the recent weeks he'd spent in Oregon fighting a fire. We talked of the self defense class I'd taken. We talked of the NFL season thus far and a quarterback friend we share. We talked of the MLB post season at our fingertips and a relief pitcher Dodger friend we share. We talked of his sister and her new chocolate lab. And we talked of my mom and the surgery on her black lab. We talked of his parents and their cruise up the eastern seaboard to see the changing of the fall foliage. We talked of my mom and the same cruise she's taking as they debark. We talked about how impossible it is to ever make what we have work, and we talked about what our friends will never understand: our lives are indescribably connected despite our best efforts in opposition.

In yoga, whether you're doing bikram or power, meditative or any other form, uji breath is the common link. The uji breath is so common, that it's at the core what yoga is. Through yoga, you learn how remarkably critical the breath is. That that breath can heat up your body, and cool it down, open muscles and close them right up again. That when life gives you nothing but woes, it's that breath in which you always return to. As regular as the timing of the sun. As powerful as a foreign military. As simple as a child's laughter.

Like grief, a quickness to acceptance is at the core of happiness. It's my reason for being happy more often than the average bear. It's all resilience is. I see acceptance there. Pass go, collect $100 dollars. Buy park place and breeze through collecting monopoly pieces. Win the game. Prize: acceptance. Now go be happy.

I told fireman what a fool he is. I told him that he should go out, and try to find someone as awesome as me. There's no way to say this seriously, so he laughed. "Just try," I said, "and find someone as awesome as me." Just like that I said it. Laughter.

I wasn't attempting to be funny. I was absolutely seriously. Though a diztiness about my personality makes it remarkably hard for anyone to take me seriously. But I was very serious. He never will realize it. He will never realize it not because there's anyone else. Or because he doesn't think he's not putting forth his best effort. I know at the root of my uji breath, his effort, unlike all other aspects of our connected life, is misaligned.

It was a two hour conversation with lots of time to talk about lord knows what. But tucked in there like an eight year old at bedtime, was the place of work. I said I'd struggled so to find purpose in a year that's brought a lot of unemployment. And how I'd learned through introspection and good friends, that my earthly purpose is supremely more important than just a job. As much as that man can talk, he didn't say anything. Until he did. "Rebecca I can't really agree with you. For me, my job is everything. It's first. It comes before anything else. After family. No, before family. They are my family. Everything else is second. And that will never change."

No, no, it certainly never will.

And in the simplest way, our interconnectivity unwhined like a summer camp friendship bracelet through the heat of the tepid air. We are so very different.

I woke up early this morning. I hadn't slept if at all last night, worried, anxious, hesitant, about a job interview today. I'd been up late preparing, and couldn't settle in to sleep. I woke up to an alarm, followed moments later by a phone call from my grandma, "I need you to take me to the hospital."

In that second of pause, of finding my uji breath and trying to wake my sleepfilled eyes, two hours of talking to a firefighter beau came back. A fast forwarded tivo induced recollection of everything we'd talked of, of all ways we were the same, and different. My instantaneous response was of rescheduling the interview. Of jumping in clean clothes and getting to her home to take her.

When he calls me back, whenever, if ever that will be, and asks me of the interview - if he remembers, I don't think there's any part of him that would understand how I make the choices I do. As I don't understand the choices he makes. But in rushing to happiness, I seek acceptance that I never will understand him. And in spending any amount trying to do so, I waste time in seeing that my complexity lies in simpleness. Lies in choices. Lies in priorities. Lies in drawing in an uji breath and letting my muscles know that this life, like it drew us to one another, will draw me to someone who, in our indescribable connectivity, chooses me first, too.

Dear Dodgers Stop Sucking

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