QUEENS GAMBIT

I watched the documentary on Walter Tevis.  He wrote Queens Gambit.  He was a professor at 

Ohio University when I was there.  His daughter was my first roommate in college and I was very 

lucky that I got to meet him.  At the beginning of the quarter, maybe even before classes had started, he was driving us back to our dorm from somewhere and he made funny comments about the students.  "Look at em!  Look at em!  All they care about is sex!"  He was of course kidding and I giggled like an idiot.  Back then, I didn't know he was a famous writer, he was just my roommate's dad and one of our professors.  When I found out he had written "The Hustler", I was so impressed, and of course, as I always did back then, told 400 of my closest friends.  He gave a signed copy of the book to me to give to my parents and unfortunately, I have no idea what happened to it.  He had written the book, "The Man Who Fell To Earth", and it was already made or going to be made into a movie with David Bowie.  People in our dormitory teased my roommate that she would probably go to go to the premiere and get to sit next to Mr. Bowie.  We figured they would soon be a couple.  This went on for a long time but I don't remember if the family ever got to the premiere.  One time he stopped over on a Saturday looking for his daughter.  The place was a mess and I was in my leotards and tights doing whatever exercises they had us do in our movement class.  I was a theatre major, and it seemed theatre majors were always in their leotards and tights. (Just the girls)   The expression on his face when he saw the room was priceless but he didn't say a word about it.

As was told in the documentary, Walter had a drinking problem, but I never saw any of that.  I did hear from some of his students about what a fantastic teacher he was.  I met one of his students that summer here in Cleveland when I was a cashier at Gold Circle.  She couldn't say enough about him as a teacher.  He left around my third year at O.U. and later I had wished I had taken a class from him.  His daughter and I had many laughs and she was very quick witted and worked hard.  One of her funny expressions was, "Shitfire!"  I recall reading one of her papers for an English class.  She seemed to have that great gift of writing where you laugh and cry at the same time.  My second year, I saw him and he said that he wished I was still living with his daughter.  I don't think she felt the same way he did.  I never put anything away in our room and would turn on the light late at night to study.  It drove her crazy.

On Mother's Day weekend, Mrs. Tevis, my mother, my roommate and I went out to dinner and as I recall, we had a very nice evening.  I did get in touch with Walter's daughter about 12 years ago. We haven't really stayed in touch that much.  Watching her talk about her father with more enthusiasm than when she was 18 made me very happy.  So, since the documentary, we connected and even though we are in different cities, we will try and see each other very soon

Right before Christmas break, Walter took his daughter and I out to lunch.  I just recall his humor and kindness.

BELLA

     When I moved in with my friend Paul in 2012, I was so excited to be able to live in his beautiful home.  What I didn't expect was to fall in love with his dog, Bella.  I had met her a few times when I went to visit with my best friend, Paul's girlfriend, Barbara and I found her annoying more than anything.  I loved pugs but she barked a lot and got underfoot too much.  Then I moved in and my main concern was starting radiation treatments.  Due to a spinal cord injury in 1980, I walk with a crutch and wear braces up to my knees and having Bella around was a little difficult especially with Paul's hardwood floors.  Paul had built a suite upstairs for his son and family and when they left, I moved in and I was in heaven.  Paul and I shared the kitchen and Paul was as easy to get along with as anyone I had ever met.  He charged a very small amount for rent. After my first night there, I got up and went into my living room, sat on the leather couch that was left there,  and turned on my laptop.  I heard Bella run up the stairs and she ran into the living room, jumped on the couch and all over me.  After greeting me for all of 10 seconds, she ran back downstairs. This became our morning ritual.

One night Paul and I went out for something.  It might have been a movie with Barbara, I don't remember.  But we came home and I went up the stairs to go to bed.  It looked like Bella took a dump on Paul's rug in the hallway.  Then we went out another night and the same thing happened.  Paul felt that the rug must of had some sort of smell so he took it out on the deck,, sprayed it and cleaned it, leaving it to dry out in the sun.

Paul bought a small staircase to put in my bedroom so that when he stayed at Barbara's, she could sleep with me.  I figured she would sleep outside of the covers, because of the difficulty pugs have breathing.  But she would get completely under the covers, and snore very loudly.  Then when she would hear Paul come in the house the next morning, she would run downstairs, mostly because he gave her a treat when he got home.  But also, because she adored him.

Paul and I went out again one night and when we got home, I had found that Bella had climbed up the stairs, into my bed and taken another dump.  So, Paul put a gate up so she could not go up again.
Then I would wake up, get dressed and sometimes she would be waiting for me at the foot of the stairs and sometimes she would be in Paul's office asleep in her bed while he played or worked on his computer. Other times she would be in Paul's bed snoring.  He would make the bed with her still in it, and it just looked like a loaf of bread that snored.

My cousin Lowy came to visit me.  Lowy is so sweet but also very funny. We sat on the deck and chatted while Bella was out and Bella laid down and Lowy mentioned that Bella looked like a piggy and the name stuck.  I realized that this is not a nice thing to call a doggie but she didn't seem to mind.  When workers came to work on the house or do some leaf blowing, she would be so excited to see them.  They knew where her Snausages were, and they'd go into the laundry room and give a few to her.

About a year and a half of me moving in, Paul's melanoma had spread to his lungs and I fell outside and broke my hip.  After surgery and a couple of weeks of rehab I came home and Paul was exhausted but ok.  Then it spread to his brain and his children and sister came home to help.  I wasn't much help at this time.  I was using a walker and getting physical therapy.  I was not to go anywhere except physical therapy and after a while I could go and do errands.  Paul died very quickly and after about a week, his family left, and I was alone with Piggy.  I slept in an extra room in the downstairs bedroom, and Bella slept on the left side of me, the side that wasn't broken.  I couldn't sleep on my side at the time or my stomach, so I laid very still in the bed.  I noticed I was talking in my sleep when I was in the hospital.  I know this because I kept waking myself up.  In my dream, I would be having a conversation with someone and out loud I would say something like, "I don't know.  What do you think?"  So now that I was home I would do the same thing.  Only this time, Bella/aka Piggy would respond.  Her snores would get louder or she'd make a cooing sound to me or a new sound I hadn't heard before.  Paul's children graciously let me stay at the house until my hip healed.  Friends and family took me to physical therapy, grocery shopping and out to eat.  But Bella seemed to be the best support while I grieved Paul's passing.  Then the weather started changing and I felt safer to go out on my own.  Bella had a fenced in back yard but every time I opened the front door, she would get past me and run out.  Sometimes someone would get her for me. The family was so kind and said I could keep her when I moved but I soon realized that I couldn't handle her.  If I had a fenced in backyard, I might have been able to keep her, but having to walk her every day would be too much if I wasn't feeling good.  And I never know from day to day how I would feel.  So she moved to a family member's home who had a lot of land and a great love of animals. She was out of the state so I never got to visit her.  I think that was the last hard thing for me that year.  Paul's children were gracious and let me stay 6 months after Paul died until my hip healed.  Not having her to keep me company was heartbreaking but I was grateful she had a good home.  Her new owner posted some pictures on Facebook and sometimes a video.  She had a much better handle on Bella's spoiled behavior.   After a while I wrote the owner and she said Bella had passed away.  I was sad, but every time I think of her, I start to giggle.  She was a spoiled little girl, but she was very funny.  She reminded me of me.  I was a spoiled bratty kid, teen, young person.  But I am very funny.  

RO

   I don't think I will get past this grief.  Or at least that's how it feels right now.  Grief sneaks up on you in your daily routines when you least expect it.  I keep thinking I can text my cousin and tell her something or call her and see how she is feeling.  My cousin Rose was extremely private and would not like me writing about her but I feel it's the only way to get me past or deal better with some of this pain.  So if she's reading this from heaven, she'll have to deal with it.  We grew up together in the same town and she was only a year younger.  We went to the same elementary, Jr. High and Senior High School.  We were in marching band together, only she practiced and I didn't.  After graduation, we didn't have a lot of connection other than family gatherings, until after I broke my back and moved back home with my parents.  Her and I and my brother Joe would go out together a lot and we three nuts giggled either on the drive there or when we'd go out to dinner.  Sometimes she would come to my parents house and my brother had some video of a musical that he wanted her to see.  She loved musicals and she loved going to the theatre.  She worked at Bedford Hospital where my mother worked.  I had also worked there when I was 17 and 18 and Rose's mother worked there for a while and Rose's sister Vanessa.  At that time, it was an 80 bed hospital and then in the early 80's it got bigger.  I was in there at various times with one health issue or another.  My father died there and it was kind of the Vartorella Hospital.  When my mother retired in 1988, she said to me, "You know Chrissy, I'm going to miss seeing Rose at work everyday."  Rose worked for a long time for the head of anesthesia doing the billing but her office was right in the middle of outpatient surgery and when I'd go to visit, doctors and nurses were in and out of her office and she seemed to be very well loved. Whatever they needed, she'd have it. When my mother would walk in, they all would say, "Hi Aunt Eva." In 1986 I moved into her same building not far from my parents.  It was very reasonable rent and I liked the apartment.  I could walk 14 steps downstairs and be in Rose's apt.  She had already lived there for about 5 years.  She stayed there for 16 more years and then found a much more beautiful apartment across the street. Across... the... street.  It felt like across the Atlantic.  I missed hearing her door unlatch when she knew I was coming downstairs to say hi or if we were going out together.  Some friends of mine that met her started calling her "Cousin Rose".  And this seemed to have stuck with her although I only called her Ro, Rose, Roost or my favorite, "Roostafarian".  Every time we would go to a play my brother Joe was in, a cast member would yell, "Cousin Rose!"  She loved it.  More than one person said we sounded alike on the phone.  Some folks would call her and say, "Hi Chris."  She'd have to explain that it wasn't me.  One friend of mine was driving us somewhere and if either one of us would talk, my friend would say, "This is like stereo."  Since Rose knew where she was going, my friend said, "Cousin Rose is a veritable map."

Rose had a great sense of humor.  One time we were going to a grocery store on a Saturday night and she commented on what losers we must look like going to the grocery store in our sweats on a Saturday night, as opposed to going on a date or anywhere else.  So later that night we sat on our porch.  Our building only had 8 units and we had a nice front porch.  Our landlord was very happy to see that Rose fixed it up with chairs and plants.  We started to write a song about our evening.   We did it in our best hillbilly voice.  "Ohhhhhhhhh.......we're..... going to Finast on a Saturday night, we got no dates, we got no life, that's alright, we got no money, we're going to Finast cuz we're real hungry..  I added more to the song but it would offend too many people so I won't show it.  What I can tell you is that the second verse that I made up made Rose laugh so hard that she fell off her chair.  And that was one her many gifts.  Her humor and her laughter.   

She loved her nieces and nephew and great niece and nephew.  When Rose's sister had her first child, Kayla, Rose was in heaven and then Lexie came later, and she loved her so much.  When Lexie was very little she said, "Auntie, you're BEAUTIFUL!  And Rose said, "Oh, do you think so Lexie?"  "I know so!"

Rose tried to be diplomatic about things with me.  I went on a spiritual retreat in 1989, and during that time I needed a haircut.  The lady at the retreat cut it and said that the scissors were dull and she couldn't do a good job.  It was awful.  When I came home Rose stopped over, looked at me and said, "Oh I like your hair."  Then her body shivered like Lucy did when she tasted Vitameatavegamin.  "It's so tasty too!" She takes a teaspoon and says, "Just like candy." Then her body sort of has an aftershock.  Well, that's how my cousin looked when she saw my hair.

About 1990 something,  Rose was excited to try out a new bubble maker.  Supposed to make huge bubbles.  She brought it out on the porch.  She was so careful with the bucket of soap and water and I sat and watched.  After several tries, I must have turned away for a second because before I knew what happened, it was across the street.  She got so mad that she threw the stick as far as she could.  That was the end of our bubbles.  

Her apartment was very clean and decorated beautifully.  She loved nice things if that makes any sense.   One  Saturday, she was cleaning and cleaning and then I came down to watch a movie with her that she rented.  She pulled out a large bag of teeny tiny jelly beans that were every kind of flavor.  We were eating them and guessing what flavor they were.  Then she tasted one that she didn't like.  She looked at me and in her just cleaned apartment, she threw the left over jelly bean across the living room and it hit her pristine wall.  

Before she got really sick way back in 2006, she asked me to take her to the doctor because she had a lump on her leg which turned out to be an infection due to her diabetes.  She had no idea it was out of control.  She just took her pill every day.  When she got in my car, she started dry heaving.  Then started to sob and said,  "Oh Chris, I try to be such a good person."  

You are Cousin Rose, you are.

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.