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.

SEYMOUR AVE.

April 9, 2019

     It was a beautiful spring day last week and I was eager to go to the grocery store but instead I took a drive to just look around my town.  And my journey took me to Seymour Ave. where Ariel Castro held Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus were held captive.  I kept asking myself why would I do this.  I think a big part was just that curiosity one has when they see an accident on the freeway and they just have to slow down and look, but there was something else.  I could not believe that this happened so close to where I live and that nobody knew for over a decade.  There were people outside that day and the house has since been demolished, but all I could think of was how out of touch we can be with each other. I wondered if people were walking outside all those years when those girls were being raped repeatedly and beaten.  In my old apartment, I have had neighbors who lived below me knock on my door to see if I was ok because they heard me fall.   I realized that I don't have a clue how much others are suffering.  I don't want to commiserate and hear sob stories, but I just wonder when I see an acquaintance on Facebook, or a fellow actor on TV looking so happy, what they are really going through.   So many people have been so "there" for me when I have had a problem or a crisis.  But none of us knew what was happening to these beautiful young women. When I came home, I told a friend what I had done with great embarrassment questioning my sanity. I went on line and saw Michelle Knight on Dr. Phil telling him that she was now married and was giving inspirational talks around the country. She looked so happy.  She had no support from her family when she got out, yet she survived and I think that was the big lesson for me. That she survived and thrived.  And maybe  that's why on that beautiful sunny day I took a drive.  

BULLIES

     When I was 16, I was in geometry or algebra.  One of those, and there was a boy in our class who was teased a lot.  He didn't say much, but for some reason, he was the scapegoat.  Once the teacher left the room, the bad boy in class came up to him with a book and smacked the side of his head with it and then the other side and did it over and over.  Nobody did a thing, including me.  I was more shocked than anything. I don't recall if we laughed or what.   After class I told the teacher and on my walk home from school the next day, the bully asked me if I knew who ratted on him and I lied and said that I didn't know.  He said it was probably that fat Cathy.  And once again, I didn't say anything.  

    When I was in the 5th grade, a boy was made fun of a lot and I don't remember why. We'll call him Sam.  One day on our playground, another boy named Peter fell and broke his arm.  His mother came to our class and asked what happened.  It seemed the boys were chasing him and he fell.  After she left, the teacher asked the boys more questions.  The boys said that they were playing and Sam said, "There's Peter!", so they ran toward Peter and Peter ran from them and fell.  The teacher asked why they would listen to Sam.  Then she said something awful.  She said, "Anyone who listens to Sam ought to have their head examined."  Everybody laughed.  I kept wondering what happened to Sam.  I finally saw him at the grocery store and said hi.  His face looked so old.  Like he'd had such a hard life.  He didn't really hold his head up.  I apologized for not sticking up for him that day.  He didn't really remember the incident and told me not to worry about it, but I wondered what his life had been like all these years.  I never found out what happened to the boy who's head was slammed with a book but I wish I had stuck up for these boys more.

    All of us want to belong and find a group we can feel safe in.  In one of my jobs as an adult,  a woman I worked with had some social issues and was made fun of a lot. Mostly, she didn't know how to hang out with people and just chill. I have to say, I had a hard time dealing with her as well and stayed away from her.  But when it came down to it, she worked very hard, and did a great job.  She was a good person.  I did say a few things behind her back when I was overwhelmed by her.  She wanted to be friends and I just couldn't do it.  Once she said something trying to be funny and I said something rude to her.  I then apologized but the damage was done.  Years later a friend of hers saw me and said she just wanted to be more like me.  

    People have stuck up for me at various times when I needed it.  I have been welcomed into groups at different times in my life, and its been wonderful.  Even at age 62, I need a tribe.  When I was very young, some of my friends dissed me.  They would do all they could to stay away.  It was heartbreaking and I couldn't figure out why.  It then occurred to me to get new friends.  I don't know why we feel a need when we get in a group to make fun of someone, even as adults. We seem to think that we bond better with the others. Sometimes I think not speaking up for someone is almost as bad as the blatant head bashing or gossip.