If you look closely between the Gerber jars of Creamed Bananas and Turkey Rice, there's a small innocuous-looking container labeled Romantic Delusions. In minuscule print, under "Ingredients", "Unrealistic Exceptions"is listed first. Across the nation vacuum-sealed lids pop and unwitting parents spoon feed little girls fantastical fairytales, right after they move past smooshed peas and into solids. To ease future pain heaped on both sexes, I think it's time we start doing them a real solid, and forgo the saccharine, BS laden lines instilling princess complexes and images of white steeds bearing metal-clad men who risk life, limb and heat exhaustion to be with them.

You know the stuff--either you've expected it yourself or had it hit you upside the head in a storm of sobby, hard-to-understand wails from your girlfriend. The wheedling, cajoling, beggin'-on-one's-knees that young romantics' hearts are fed by. How many times had I myself hoped to spark such desire in another? The anguish of separation, too much to bear, leaving him besot and on his knees. A Shakespearean sonnet alive and thriving at my window pane, where a lovesick man-boy beseeches me to give him another chance. Or in this particular case, his CD back. You know, the one you borrowed on the road trip to Montana? Thank you, Romeo.

Most of my wild attempts to stir such emotional fervor ended with me storming through door, door slamming, me looking over shoulder in anticipation at door, waiting for said boyfriend to be hot on my heels in pursuit. He'd rush to me, I'd feign contempt. He'd profess his love, I'd turn my head. He'd beg me to forgive what ever menial slight he committed and I'd, of course as fairytales dictate, consent then wither into his strong embrace. Wave of magic wand. Sha-zam! Happily ever after, dammit.

The result of such high hopes always came to a culmination in...nothing. Except me waiting, eyes narrowed, neck craned forward, listening for any sign of progression towards to door. Maybe he tripped in haste. Or was crafting an "I'm sorry" heart of felt and tissue paper that he...er, just had laying around the house under his Playboy mags and five remotes.

What ever ridiculous misdemeanor he initially committed was aggravated to a felony in that two minute span. Equaling jail time in isolation. Because if there's one thing women are good at, it's closing up tighter than a gnat's ass stretched over a rain barrel. Isolation period to increase once boyfriend is spied inside through window, not crafting a Victorian-inspired love gift, but with video controller in hand, fiercely battling to reach level seven in a fantasy land of his own.

Netflix marketing minds have honed in on this unfulfilled desire to be fought for. "Come back to us" implores the first line of their customer retention email. And oh how my heart leaps. To be wanted! No, no Netflix...surely I can't. I turn my head from the browser window. "Please, please Rebecca" it begs. "Life in the vacuous consumer-driven world fueled by your pocketbook is profitless meaningless without you." How can I resist such sentiments? That AND their willingness to deliver Benny & Joon or any Meg Ryan movie my heart desires with nothing but enthusiasm and a sincere followup inquiring on my satisfaction. My satisfaction? Ye gods! I'm in love.

Boyfriends of the world, take note: Netflix is making you look bad.

Deck the Halls with Bling and Holly

Tired of last-minute, sloppy shopping sprees? Done with forcing truckloads of dollars towards slot-fillers to compensate for poorly thought-out gift purchases? Well, luck be a billion-dollar industry hocking jewels these pre-Christmas nights. Now, this holiday you can show her you really love her. No, really. Unlike the other paltry 364 days of the year where you apparently were an insensitive, poor excuse of a partner/lover/husband/boyfriend showering her with trite "I love you"'s and small affectionate gestures from the heart.

Yawn.

Better option: Give 'em something dripping with white gold and karats. This year, buy her a diamond necklace. Better yet, a diamond necklace in the shape of a heart (those gem dealers think of everything!). Because just like your love, they're forever. And a steal at only $199.99 at Sears. Or DeBeers. Or Weisfield. Or Kay's. Or that sketchy diamond outlet store just off the freeway that sells everything at slashed prices (which now puts it only at a 100% markup).

Two weeks ago, strolling along the warf at a beach-side park, I passed a large wooden billboard plastered with safety precautions and ads for dog-walkers. Tacked in the middle read a sign decrying litter. "Plastic," it warned, "is forever."

It's fascinating this diamond craze hinges on the presumption that forever is preferable, as it apparently doesn't even have a corner on that market. Life in prison is forever. Dry rot is forever. Tattoos are also forever. My mother instilled that truism in me at a young age. "Never, ever, ever" she commanded, "Get a man's name tattooed on your body!" I gurgled and flung a spoonful of cheerios at her. And now, plastic it seems, can be added to the list.

Does anyone ever wonder 1) what makes a diamond resistant to destruction, and 2) if that is a good thing? Twinkies are practically forever and I'm pretty certain Hostess would be happier if we'd just forget about their Armageddon-friendly shelf-life. As a metaphor for love, does it make sense to use the hardest mineral substance found in nature? Just like your love, a diamond is forever...and cold. And hard. And can cut glass. No sir, no how...keep your stinkin' diamonds. This year I'm asking for plastic!

Neither a Realist nor a Rationalist Be

"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."
-Tom Robbins

I wonder...a lot. Questioning everything, including my own questions. Scrutinizing the left-brain reverence handed to me by the people before me. Does rational thought take you to the end? Does status-quo satiate? Do I fall in line not knowing where the front of it is leading, or do I take myself there, letting others jump on and off as they dare like a cable car.

New thought struggles to form beneath the murky dirt of conscious concepts. It fights, squirming through the debris of societal manure heaped upon us with the belief that its mass-approved logical makeup fertilizes our minds. And it does, though therein lies the problem... it feeds the flavorless, chewed up and indistinguishable yak clogging our engagement with a reality just outside the grasp of rationale. Break free! Push through the layers of murk to rise and meet the sun... let inspiration drip from your brow and adventure breath through every pore.

Any thought that's not disruptive is plagiarism (I plagiarized that) yet we slather brick upon brick with repetitive thought and box ourselves in to avoid tipping over the glass and disrupting the party. Tip the glass! In fact chuck it altogether and promise to only gulp mouthfuls straight from cold mountain streams. That's where the only true thoughts exist: floating sediments suspended in watery motion, dislodged from the earth's womb and thrown into the world for us to catch on our tongues. To taste. To savor. To consume will unbridled anticipation and wonderment of something bigger then we can ever begin to imagine or explain away with that dirty word "logic".

Hi Kettle...Pot Here...You're Black.

Dating is mired with double-standards. Do as I say not as I do'isms. Flirting is not "flirting" when it's you who innocently chatted up some random,inadvertently sharing dirty jokes with him at the bar. But heaven have mercy if some gal bats her eyelashes within a mile of your man or some jerkoff has the nerve to buy a Duck Fart for your lady; faces flare red as blood boils and steam comes out the ears, head nearing combustion.

My personal get-the-hackles-up grievance of the moment is the female-focused misanthrope, who tosses a good ol' double scoop of double standards onto the fairer sex. And by "fairer" I don't mean more socially just, because it's often other women who are the first to persecute their own sex. Classic case of mindlessly swallowing the Adam and Eve parable, where by "that woman", with one fell swoop, ruined man's life.

In dating it's an annoyance, but in marriage it takes on a whole other realm of unpalatable. Take this example: married man engages outside of his marriage with a single lass in flirtatious conversation. So who bares the scarlet letter? Well, it doesn't go well with his sports jacket so we're gonna go with option number two, Bob. Who incidentally isn't the one who made the vow of monogamy. But, after all, he has a penis and was drinking. For those of you who failed math, let me map out the mathematically proven equation for you: (Penis + drink x uncontrollable lust)+ attractive female = Homewreckin' Harlot (also know by Santana as "Black Magic Woman").

My favorite regurgitated line is "Well, he didn't really want to get married to begin with". OH! I forgot about the finely printed infidelity due to unhappiness clause at the bottom of the marriage contract.

If I hear one more friend padding their male friend's/partner's behavior with another lame ass excuse relinquishing him of personal responsibility, I think I'll feed myself that tempting poison apple. After all, I'm a woman. I have a whole bushel of 'em.

Gift Horse

"Don't look one in the mouth," my mother always instructed, referring to the infamous gift horse that as a child I always wondered when it would arrive. Would it be wrapped in a bow at my door? What about a pony--do they come in gift ponies? Where the hell would we keep it? The garage was packed to the gills, full of left-over pieces of wood from deconstruction projects my mother never finished, an old refrigerator that housed her boyfriend's agricultural "experiment" and two roll-away tool chests.

The pony/horse never came. But as time passed and bitterness shed, I came into a deeper realization of her intended meaning. Gratitude.

Which leads me to the subject of the homeless. I've heard grumbles and complaints, funnily enough from those with houses and jobs and not from those without, preceding wishes that they'd be eradicated from our city streets. Perhaps relocated to a more fitting (read: not in my way) setting.

But these street sleepers and corner panhandlers are my personal gift horse. Their unrestrained compliments, sometimes hard to decipher through the slurs, are like sweet nectar to a parched heart.

Like the charming gent who popped out from behind a dumpster to tell me that he wanted to call my mother. "OOOO, girl...I need to call your momma and thank her for your sweet ass." Then he snagged a piece of french fry stuck to his fro, popped it in his mouth and disappeared like a angel sent only to wish me well.

Or the old man who sat by the bus stop and watched me pass every morning as he breathed heavily through his lengthy labyrinth of tubing hooked to a portable oxygen concentrator. "Yer the girl who was here yesterday in that green dress," he remembered as I stood there, waiting.

"Good memory," I praised.

"Outstanding legs," he said with a lingering up-down eye sweep.

I beamed. Outstanding legs, god dammit--I have them!

Yesterday I rushed out the back door of my office building, exiting into the alleyway. "Busted!" declared a jovial voice. I peeked in the doorway kitty-corner to mine and I'll be damned if there wasn't a gift horse sitting right there, this one baring weed.

"Busted smoking reefer and drinking Guinness," he chortled, waving his right hand towards a dark brown glass bottle of beer while the other hung on loosely to a half-smoked joint. "I may be homeless but I still have class!" He pulled his sunglasses down his nose and peeked out from under his blue and white striped conductor hat, staring at me. He narrowed his eyes, the weed making them almost already shut as it were. "You want some reefer? It's good stuff...just sitting here, watching the clouds. Enjoying the good life, ya know."

Yah, I did know. And it never leaves you without a gift horse, the good life. There's one every where you look. Just refrain from looking in its mouth.

Nice Shoes...Where'd You Get 'Em?

I walked into my floor's bathroom at work the other day. It's 10am and of the two stalls, one is occupied. I always feel a small wave of pity for the person who thought they'd perfectly time their toilet usage, squeezing between the 9:30am post-coffee rush and the 11:30am making-room-for-lunch herd. It's not hard to guess the scenario--the dead silence from their frozen frame (because if they're veeewy, veeewy quiet you'll never know they're squatting behind the stall door) paradoxically heightens their presence tenfold. The feet planted firmly on the floor as if they're bracing for a biggun don't help either.

I think they even stop breathing at this point, like I'm the toilet Gestapo about to make an arrest and one false move could mean death by humiliation. And depending on my mood, I either try to help them out by peeing fiercely fast, no dallying around or anything to extenuate their misery and potentially lead to their own asphyxiation, or -- if my evil side is at the wheel -- I pick my teeth in the mirror or hum while carefully folding a swath of toilet paper into a crane, enjoying my right to breath loudly next to them.

Then I'll mentally entertain conversation starters to volley over the stall wall.

"Do you know a good doctor by any chance?"

"So this 80 year-old man and a platypus walk into this bar, you see..."

"Wow, who would have thought Red Bull and Indian curry didn't mix well!"

"I'm stuck on 23 across...What's a five letter word for 'Montezuma's Revenge'?"

"Hover or sit--which is it?"

Which ever way you slice it, I feel wrong not saying something. Maybe it's the awkwardness of sharing such intimate space with someone whose name you don't know, let alone whose face you can't see. It's like having sex with someone without even having shaken a hand first. Cart before horse kind of situation. That's why I'm going to start stuffing my pockets full of business cards. I'll casually slip one across the cool linoleum floor, the smooth flourish speaking to my ease and grace. Just in case you wondered who you were shitting next to... By the way, I just love that shade of toenail polish. What is it--vermilion?

Pole cat

I determined, 18 hours ago, that I could not be famous. Not due to lack of ability or amazing talent *ahem*, but for the pure simple, undeniable physiological reason that...I'm a bruiser.

Lord knows why but, despite my staunch belief in high standards of mental stimulation, I succumb to shit journalism on a regular basis (celebrity buzz mostly). With such regularity, in fact, it's like I'm mainlining Metamucil. While undertaking such mind-dumbing research with the senseless commitment of a crow pecking at a shiny scrap in the middle of the road, I noticed a common trait in all these covertly taken snapshots: perfection.

A scratch, scabbed-over wound or blue-hued bruise were all but impossible to find amongst the star-studded shots. Then there's me. I walk to the fridge to refresh my drink and stumble back to the couch, knee nicked from whacking the coffee table and arm scratched by a piece of plastic jutting from the fridge when I unsuspectingly reached into its vicious mouth. So this begs the question: What are these people doing? Do they sit, frozen in fear, knowing that one false move could mar their blemish-free epidermis and lower their box-office draw? Is that the real reason behind their personal assistant's existence? Not laziness or an over-inflated sense of entitlement as we'd believe, but because they are victims of their own stature, forced to use daily stand-ins for life's blows? "Man, you should see poor Jennifer Aniston's assistant--bruises all over the girl! You'd think she was beaten for buying Aquafina instead of a SmartWater!"

This weekend I also learned that stripper is not in my career cards. And definitely not, as I established, a famous one. Mid-Saturday morning hike, following a brief spin on a pole the night before (another story for another time), I halted and looked in horror at the now solid blue of my inner left leg. My mind raced. Had I brushed against a blue-painted post? Cut off circulation to my leg? Squashed a smurf?

No.
No.
And only that one time I did 'shrooms.

It was seven bruises merging into one giant representation of why I am not a dancer by trade. Not about to be defeated by a pole of any sort, one week later I try my hand with one of the fishing variety. Small and wielding to my desires, this was one pole I would defeat. Until a fish bit. At which point the rod spurred its butt into my left hip, bracing against the halibut on the line, my face melting into an interpretation of Munch's "The Scream" as my reeling arm generated enough heat to melt the butter I'd later cook the fish in. I knew before even landing the damn creature that my capillaries were bursting under my skin, hatching battle plans to launch the impending bruise that would consume my left side.

Two nights later, a sauced yet curious gent at the bar inquired if I smoked pole. I looked him square in the eye and said that I would not, in no uncertain terms, touch any pole, lest of all with a ten foot pole, lest of all consider smoking it. God only knows what that would bruise.