OLD LADY

November 30, 2020

When did I get so old, I ask you?  Just a few days ago I was 20 and now I am 64 and still a whore.  Ya, I said it.  When I was 30, men asked me out that were 15 to twenty years older.  It seemed like I just hit 30 and they sensed it and figured that I was ready for a more mature man.  This was back when I thought I was straight.  While waiting for a table to open at a local restaurant, a friend and I sat at the bar and got a drink.  A man who was about 50 and overweight walked over to us and started chatting.  I can't remember what he said but he had a stroke and one side of his body was paralyzed. He was handsome but not for me.  At some point he said something flirtatious and took off his glasses to show his face like it was the big reveal or that scene where Robert Stack takes off his sunglasses in the movie Airplane because he has something important to say.  Only Robert Stack has another pair of sunglasses on.  (Still makes me laugh)  As we walked to our table he asked if I came here often and I said I didn't.  Another man I met at a play got my phone number from someone and called me to have a drink with him.  He was about 20 years older and I said thank you but that I wasn't interested.  He told the someone that gave him my number, that he was very upset with me and I felt like saying, "You're old enough to be my daddy!" 

When I hit 40 years old, all of the sudden, people in grocery stores and other places began calling me mam.  How in the hell did they know I was 40?  Before that it was Miss.  Just the day before I was a Miss!  Did I change so much from one day to the next?

When I hit 50, ok, I don't remember 50.  Frankly, I don't remember much.  Who is this?  No really, when I hit 50, uhm.. nobody gave a shit.  I mean I had a beautiful birthday but people started to change their attitude towards me.  I shared with a friend that I felt invisible at times and she said rather sadly that because she had been overweight her whole life, she had always been invisible.  I wanted to cry at that one.

When I had to move 7 years ago, a friend suggested a place her mom had lived in for ages 50 and over.  She felt I would be one of the young people there and people much older would enjoy my company.  It was sort of in my price range.  I went and it seemed nice and then I got so depressed seeing folks unable to get around very well and the people my own age seemed whack and needed a lot of help.  If I fell and needed a doctor, it would be easy to get assistance and the bus was easy to get to and they had movie night and a cafeteria and it was the most depressing place I had ever seen.!  Moving there would mean to me that I can't do much for myself and ain't it great there are places like this for a disabled old broad like me.  I couldn't do it.  Truly, it wasn't that depressing.  It was me getting so depressed in that atmosphere.  It felt like I would be stuck and I just didn't want it.

Now I'm 64, and I get still get mam a lot.  But I don't seem to care.  Could it be that I'm more comfortable with me?  Maybe. There's something so much easier as one gets older.  What mattered so much 40 years ago, doesn't matter now.  If I wear the same shirt two days in a row, no one seems to care unless it's dirty of course.  If I can't be somewhere for a party or an event, (pre Covid), folks are more likely to understand.  I seem to need far less attention or even want it and my time alone is more sacred.  My friendships are better and frankly, make more sense.  I sure don't feel invisible anymore.

I'll let you know what 65 brings.

DATING

 November 29, 2020

I've been on a couple of dating websites, but haven't had much luck.  Some people just aren't right for me and other folks are out of their minds.  One lady I was having a nice conversation off and on with on the website said she had metal in her B.S.  B.S. always meant "bullshit" to me.  But I had forgotten a few conversations earlier that she had mentioned some issues with her "blood stream".  When I asked what B.S. meant and if it meant "back side", she went crazy.  She said, "How dare you talk to me like that!  I am a mother and a grandmother!".  She had used abbreviations before and it would take me a while to figure out what she was talking about.  I explained all that to her but it didn't matter, she was done with me and I am grateful she was.  Another lady was very excited to meet me and then on a text said that she sensed some hesitation on my part and was not interested.  I don't know what she was referring to. One lady was ready to meet me, but before we met I explained some of my health issues and in an email she responded with, "I'll pass."  So subtle.  One lovely person was writing me and she asked if I had met anyone special on this website and I said, "Not yet." and she responded with, "Then you must not know what you want.", and then blocked me from writing her a response.  One person wrote me an email and that she was from Australia. She seemed to have trouble putting a sentence together and that I was someone she would like to have in her life, her heart and on her head.  ON HER HEAD!  What the heck is that?  Is she in Cirque Du Soleil?  I looked back on her profile and she pretty much wrote the same thing.  That she wanted someone on her head.  Someone explained to me that when you write from another country, emails don't always come out correctly.   

But my favorites are the scams.  It is the same thing.  They start out with "My cousin or my best friend saw your picture and read your profile, and flipped!!  He wants to meet you.  He's just too shy to go on this website so could you please email him and then they send me his email address.  So, first off, it's always HE saw your picture.  If they read anything in my profile, they'd know I was gay, so they obviously didn't read a thing about me.  So finally after about the fourth person did this I wrote, 

Ok, Thanks!

So are you going to write him?

Okay

He didn't get it, can you do it again.

Okay

He still didn't get it.  Can you give me your email address and I will give to him?

Okay

Thanks.  Okay I am waiting, did you send it?

Okay

Well, are you going to do it?

Okay

Are you just going to say Ok?!  If you keep saying ok, I will report you.

Okay

FAT

 November 5, 2020

     Last year on a Saturday evening, I went to bed about 11:00.   I heard something in my bathroom and it turned out water was pouring in from my ceiling.  I called maintenance right away and ran up to the apartment above me.  I knocked on the door several times.  I heard a woman say very faintly, "Yes?" and I asked if she left her bathtub running.  She didn't say anything so I ran back down to my apartment and got pots and pans to catch the water and started mopping up what I could.  Maintenance took a little bit of time before they arrived and they finally got in her apartment to turn off her water.  When the maintenance man came in my place he said, "She was sleeping on her couch and forgot about the bath water running."  And then he added, "She's big."  I got very agitated when he said that.  I didn't need to know her size.  I realize he meant that she might be more apt to fall asleep longer or harder but it still stung.  I felt bad that she was talked about in that way, but I didn't say anything.  Some of us are bigger than others.  I have been known to sleep through people knocking on my door just because I'm exhausted, not because I'm big.    Once a lady had just started working where I was and as she walked by me and another co-worker, my co-worker quietly said, "She's big."  She was.  I felt bad for her but why did someone have to point that out? I think that obesity is one addiction that very few of us forgive.  Almost as if it's normal to make fun of someone with extra weight.  I remember several years ago in a parking lot I had just gotten into my car.  I saw a man who was very large walk near me and I thought, "That must be hard." Hard as in being large and walking etc.  He bent down, picked up a 10 dollar bill and said, "Ma'am, is this yours?"  It was.  I stuffed a 10 dollar bill in my pocket after I checked out of a store, and it must have fallen out right in front of my car.  He seemed to have had no problem picking up my money and was so kind to ask if it was mine as opposed to keeping it.  He moved better than I can and left me giggling that I had the thought that it must be hard to get around.  I think the harder part is everyone's judgements.

BABS

 November 1, 2020

    Last night I went to my friend Barbara's house and watched Borat 2.  Very funny but a tad gross at times for me.  I also do my laundry there and it is so much easier than in my apartment building.  That's because it's on the first floor but also because while my clothes are drying, we watch Netflix and eat take out.  Lately, I talk to her a great deal on the phone and most of the time I can't stop laughing.  We are terribly irreverent and she has to be the funniest person I have ever met.  My mother used to say that Barbara missed her calling as a comedian.  But she did a great deal of community theatre and loved it.  We were on the phone a while ago and she said, "I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who's glasses needed adjustment."  Once in the middle of one of the shows we were watching, she said, "What if Sleeping Beauty had been cremated?"  I mean, it's a really good question when you think about it.  Our usual joke is when one of us has something very serious to talk about, the other one starts to laugh.  It starts off as a fake kind of giggle and then we actually really laugh.  One thing I love about her is that she is the only person I can share my shame stories with and I am never judged.  I don't have anyone else like that in my life. I have told the wrong people very personal things and it has come back to bite me on the ass.  It usually starts with, "Remember when you..."  So I just tell my friend Barbara and I feel better and safer.  And then of course, she starts laughing.  When I was moving, she wanted me to move in with her and I said, " If I move in with you, I would have to kill you and then I would go to prison and that's not something I'm willing to do right now."  We definitely are very different, but she still makes me laugh and that's worth a million dollars.

CHAIRS

October 28, 2020

     I'm trying not to think about politics and going for more introspective stuff.  Basically my biggest issue right now is trying to take care of my body and not overdue it.  It takes more discipline for me to stop what I'm doing and rest than to do something like exercise or clean my kitchen.  If I had my way, I would work out for a few hours and then chill a little, but lately my 64 year old body has cried "uncle".  So I can only do something for about 10 minutes and then I have to rest.  Yesterday, once again I asked for help and it is still one of the hardest things I have to do in this life.  I needed a very old beat up chair taken out of my apartment, and a very heavy love seat moved.  I asked two friends, Laura and Linda for their help and they did things very quickly.  I have been told to get rid of this chair for about 15 years.  Once my brother came over and asked when I was getting rid of it because the stuffing was coming out of the arm rests.  He then started pulling out the stuffing.  Then my cousin came to see my new place in Chagrin Falls and was so impressed with everything.  The house, the furniture that wasn't all mine, even my landlord/housemate.  He had fixed the upstairs and made it into a suite for his son and his family.  They moved out and he rented it to me.  We shared the downstairs which was amazing.  She commented on how my mother would have loved the place.  Then she stopped short when she saw this chair.  Her whole demeanor changed and she said, "Chrissy."  She said it like I had taken a dump on the floor.  So after that embarrassing moment, I kept a quilt on it.  Then I had to move and didn't have a couch anymore, so I took the chair with me and kept it covered.  My friend Amy was really concerned about this chair. Her and her husband gave me a beautiful leather love seat that they no longer used right before Covid.  They even delivered it from their home which was an hour away with a very kind friend of theirs.  I have a small place and this looks good and is very comfortable.  I thanked them via text and Amy texted, "Now we need to talk about that chair."  So after the chair was gone yesterday,  I sent Amy the picture of the apartment without the chair.  The weird Naugahyde chair that you fall into because the seat was so worn down.  The chair that my parents bought with a love seat over 40 years ago.  The one I can see from my window in the trash.  The one I actually fell out of trying to get up from.  And then, tripped over a cord, landed on my face causing my crutch to fall on my pinky and breaking it this past March.  The one that my 4 year old nephew said 21 years ago, "Aunt Chris, this is the most comfortable chair I have ever sat in."  Kids!!

ZOOM

October 6, 2020

I was blessed to have a beautiful birthday weekend with beautiful people and it seems to still go on.  I have gotten lovely messages on Facebook and emails and texts along with birthday cards.  I didn't realize how empty my life was without friends, until last week my high school besties and I had a ZOOM meeting.  Kathy, Pam and Danna.  These are people that seem to have stuck by me no matter how much of a goof I have been. We lost touch with Kathy and I finally found her.  I met these women in junior high in band and they are still as kind as I remember.  One of the things that's apparent with these three women is that they are all in the business of service.  All I wanted growing up was to be an actor.  Danna is an R.N., Pam was a social worker and now a retired teacher and Kathy was a social worker and now a teacher. Had I been paying more attention, I would have seen how giving these women have been to others.  We talked a great deal about my friend Kathy's parents who both had Alzheimer's or dementia before they passed.  I kept thinking of her parents and the kindness they showed me.  I couldn't imagine them getting old.  All three seemed to have such a stable upbringing.  After talking with them, I felt happier and that I was home, if that makes any sense.  Basically, when things were tough in school or wherever, I knew I could count on them and they had my back, so to speak.  And I still feel like they do.  I have written about my friend Danna who was an R.N. at the hospital I was taken to after I broke my back.  But Kathy came two times from Cleveland to Columbus to see me and might have even taken off work to do so.  Then she sent me a card every day and I was in the hospital for 10 weeks.  Pam came with Kathy once and since it was fall, they brought a pumpkin and decorated it for me.  I got out the day before Danna's wedding and was able to enjoy the festivities. I moved back in with my parents and Kathy and Pam made sure I got out and socialized.  We are sort of scattered around the country now, but I still feel honored to know these women and that we are still friends.  I can't explain the feeling, but again, it felt like I was HOME.  

AUGUST 20, 2020

 I'm at a loss for what to say.  It has been the most unusual time in my 63 years.  I like slowing down with this virus.  I like that I don't spend as much money and have to think about creative ways to see people I love.  I like that I care more about our government.  I like that friends are so generous that they always ask what I need.  

I miss my hugs from certain folk that energized me.  Some held on a little bit longer than others.  Some looked at me like we hadn't seen each other in years when it was only a week.  I notice my body seems to fall apart when I'm sad and I must be sad a lot, because I could barely get out of bed a couple days this week.  I wasn't in a great deal of pain, but the exhaustion was overwhelming.  I think that even though I'm sad about the state of our country, I'm more upset at how divided we are and how cruel one side is to the other.  And I see that in the Trump supporters as well as the Biden supporters.  I am a Biden/Harris supporter.  I know a Trump supporter that is a born again Christian and she wouldn't dream of saying some of the cruel things that some of the Biden supporters have spewed.  I just don't think Martin Luther King wanted us to be nasty.  I wrote that Iyanla Vanzant said something about that it was time for us to figure out personally, who's neck we are kneeling on and who's kneeling on ours.  I can think of a few people I have knelt on and kept kneeling. With all this time to reflect, my smart ass comments to others are a little bit less than before and my smirking doesn't happen as much.  I'm learning slowly.  As I hope others are.