IF..........

     If I could meet anyone, it would be Ellen.  It would be so much fun.  First she would dance.  Then, she would talk about her Mama.  Then she would take me to one of her homes and then we’d talk with her wife, then we would play with her animals, then we’d have a few drinks and I would go home.  That’s who I would love to meet.   Ellen Lougenis.  She used to work with my mom at Marble Chair Factory in Bedford Ohio.  Anyone know how I could get a hold of her?

Waaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   I realize I have been through some tough stuff, so a little self pity is expected.  I am indulging, ya… I am..

I understand that I am lucky to have my hip just about healed.

And lucky that the cancer I had was easily taken care of.

And Lucky to have lived in a beautiful home with a great landlord

And Lucky to have so many friends help me out from driving me to physical therapy, to sending me money, to getting my groceries, etc.

     But I am feeling sorry for me.  And I am ok with that.  I think it bites that I had cancer and bites that I fell and broke my hip despite efforts to keep my bones strong with exercise and yoga.  I think it bites that my buddy/landlord Paul died and not only did I lose a dear friend, but I now have to move out of the most beautiful home I have ever lived in.  And it bites that I cannot be in the women’s chorus that not only brought me great joy to perform in, but it brought me a group of friends that I hadn’t banked on.  I can’t be in it because I am afraid to go anywhere until the weather changes, unless someone hangs onto me for dear life. 

     My life turned around when I got cancer.  Suddenly, I didn’t want to chat on the phone so much unless it was from fun people.  I didn’t want to take the same jobs that the Bureau of Vocational Rehab was getting for me like sales jobs and customer service and they helped me make a great voice over demo and lots of help promoting it.  I didn’t want half of the “stuff” I owned, so I got rid of things.  And then I moved.  And I felt so much better.  I loved my place and living with Paul was so easy.  I had my own suite upstairs but a lot of time was spent with him and we became friends.  When my family came to town and saw where I lived, their mouths dropped.  My brother said he was so impressed and asked why did it take me so long to move?  I told him that I was waiting for the right place.  The truth is I was just scared.  Moving seemed so difficult.  The places I looked at were either in a bad neighborhood, or out of my price range, or I had to climb too many stairs to get in and out. 

     My belief is sometimes life kicks us out of relationships, jobs and homes when life is ready and you’re too much of a weenie to leave on your own.  And there is a small part of me that sort of would like to get out.  Try something, “else”. 

PHILLIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN

      I am so sad about Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  And I am sad about the statements people are making.  My friend Michael McCarthy wrote, “PSH died of a disease.”  I was glad to see that.  Heroin cannot be easy to just shake off.  Hell, I'm  still working on sugar.  I realize that putting a needle in your arm is not a good move, but I just don’t know what the circumstances were.  My only thought is that you do that because your life isn’t working.  One thing that always strikes me is that fame seems almost like a trauma.  As wonderful as it must be to doing what you love and to be honored for it, there is something very bizarre in our society that we give so much attention to performers and athletes.  Not to mention money.  To me fame is like having children.  Nobody gives you a manual before it happens.  Everybody just wings it.  Michael also wrote, “It's slightly amusing for some people in my line of work to have to fathom the distant, foreign concept that even an Academy award... might not make it all better.” 

      I pretty much loved everything I have seen PSH in.  I loved him in "Boogie Nights".  He was awkward and uncomfortable and perfect in it.   He was as good in small parts as he was in the big ones.  I loved "Capote"and I loved him in "Doubt".  I liked him in "Joey Breaker" as Joey’s assistant.  Joey is a workaholic talent agent in New York.  For some reason, even that small part had me watching him closely and always relating to whatever character he was playing.  Playing them so “human”, for lack of a better word.  I have missed quite a bit of his work lately but will catch up soon. 

       I am sorry for his children and losing their dad.  And frankly, sorry he won’t be performing anymore.

      

GOODBYE

    I have been trying to write about my landlord, housemate and dear friend Paul’s passing and just haven’t been able to.  I really haven’t felt the grief yet.  I can tell you all the wonderful things he did for me. And all the things I will miss. 

    Mostly, Paul was just really sweet.  I was nervous about moving in here but found out he was so respectful of my privacy.  I didn’t know that we would become great friends.  My favorite time with him was in the morning.   I would get dressed, come downstairs, go into his office and he would be at his computer.  His pug, Bella would be in there with him in her little bed.  I would sit on the floor and play with her and Paul and I would chat. 

   When I first moved here, I started radiation treatments for breast cancer and one morning, he called upstairs and said, “Chrissy...Lunch is ready.”  I thought that was odd since I didn’t know he was making me lunch, but I came downstairs and he had baked crescent rolls with cream cheese and chicken. 

    Paul was so supportive of anything I did.  I belonged to a writer’s group and I don’t have a printer so I would email what I had written for the group to Paul, and say, “Poppy, can you print this for me?”  He would and usually thought what I wrote was good.  I started calling him “Pop” after a while, since he was like a father.  Then it went to “Poppy”.  When he would be staying at his girlfriend’s house, he would write me a note to let the dog out and then he’d sign it, “Love, Poppy.”  He enjoyed the concerts I was in.  He came to about four of them.  He enjoyed meeting the women I sing with.  One time our women’s chorus sang with the North Coast Men’s Chorus and we all went to a gay bar downtown called Union Station.   Paul seemed to love it.  One man stood up on a table and either sang like Judy Garland or Liza Minnelli, I can’t remember.  A few months later, he wanted to know when we were going back, only instead of calling it Union Station, he called it Union Square. 

     One of the most special times I had with Paul was when he took me to Great Lakes Brewery.  It was just the two of us and we had lunch and our beers.  Paul loved beer.  He talked about his wife, and welled up with tears when he said they were so glad she had finally passed because she was in so much pain.  He got emotional about a lot of things.  We went to see the documentary, Bully.  It was about the bullying in our schools and after it was over, he started crying.  There was a mom who’s son had committed suicide from being abused by the kids at school She was inconsolable at that point and was sitting on the floor in her bedroom as her husband tried to help her with this pain.  Paul said through his tears, “Did you see that poor woman who couldn’t even get off the floor?!!"

   This past Christmas he was able to put up his little tree and lights.  Last year, as he was decorating the house, he said he missed the Christmas when his son’s were little and he’d be up all night putting their toys together.  He talked a lot about his boys.  Chris, Matt and Tim. All three live in different states.  I have gotten to know them a little bit better since Christmas when Paul got really sick. They remind me of Paul in one way or another. When he started getting sick, they sprang into action.  Then his sister Peggy came in from California and helped. I don’t know if she got much sleep between staying at the hospital with Paul and taking care of him at home. I can tell you he was in good hands. He spent two nights at home before he died.  The first night I was saying goodbye to his girlfriend Barbara, and figured he didn’t hear me, but he took my hand and kissed it.  The next night, I fell asleep around one and woke up at 5 am.  I knew this was the end and I put my braces and shoes on and grabbed my crutch.  I stopped myself and after a short prayer, I realized that this was just for family.  I went back to bed and the wind chimes outside my window blew gently.  As gentle as Paul was.  I woke up and heard Peggy on the phone.  I went downstairs and she told me Paul took his last breath just moments ago.  Matt was there and Peggy and Bella, Paul’s dog.  All Matt and I had been doing since he came home was joke with each other, but he grabbed me and hugged me crying.  I kept thinking how fortunate I was to know Paul but also to witness the love his family showed him.  I honestly don’t have much else to say.  He loved reading and his friends and his family.  He loved his dog and watching Jeopardy.  He loved animation and exercise.  He was smart and did so much for me that I was almost embarrassed at times to tell people.  I went to my car once and realized I had four new hubcaps.  Two had fallen off and two were cracked.  His girlfriend, Barbara bought them for me and Paul put them on while I was taking a nap or a shower or something. When I was diagnosed with cancer, he took me to many appointments, one at 6:00 am. I will miss his smile and his laughter.  I am lucky to have his dog to keep me company.  I will take with me his sweet spirit and his love.  I am grateful that when we would say goodnight to each other we started saying, “I love you.”  I don’t regret any time I had with him…

  A week ago, when everyone was gone, I went into his office and started crying.  At that moment I heard Paul's Wallace and Gromit alarm clock go off.  It was a gift to him from either his sister or his girlfriend, Barbara, and I never heard it before.  He LOVED Wallace and Gromit British animation.  We would imitate them sometimes.

                                             Time for walkies Gromit!!!!"

                                                      I miss you Poppy.....

                                  

KAREN

     I have watched Karen McCrocklin’s TEDxTalks a few times now, because I can’t seem to get enough.  She talks about how being gay is the best thing that ever happened to her.  I keep asking myself if I feel the same way.  I don’t.  Not yet. Why?  Because I refused to come out even to myself until I was about 40 and was watching my mother dying.  My friend Scott McPherson said when his brother was killed in an accident, he decided to come out of the closet.  Scott was around 21 years old at the time.  I am sure it was a difficult decision to come out.  He was smart, incredibly funny and about the cutest guy you ever wanted to meet.  He wrote a famous play, Marvin’s Room, which was made into a movie and then he died very young of AIDS.  I remember my mother asking me if he had a girlfriend when we were in our twenties.  I said, “Scott isn’t going to have a girlfriend.”  My mother flew into a LOUD kind of talk.  “Is he gay?! Well, that poor mother!!!”  I didn’t want to tell my mother that not only did she herself have a son who was gay, but her daughter was possibly gay as well.  The very thought of it scared me.  I thought that if I'm gay, I will have to kill myself.  That’s how scared I was.  Now, my mother was a great lady, but that would have taken her some time to get used to.  A lot of time.  I almost told her before she died, but I couldn’t.  So now after being out for about 16 years, I watch Karen’s talk.  It’s pretty spectacular and I recommend you take a look.  But when I say, I am out, I am not really out.  I worked a job for about 5 years and I told my supervisor, who said not to tell anybody else that worked there.  It would have made things much more difficult on the job I guess.  I was in a relationship with a beautiful lady at the time, and I didn't tell my co-workers.   My friends know.  My family knows.  But I waited and outed myself once I felt safe.  I have played it safe for many years.  I used to listen to Karen’s radio show on Hay House Radio and she would start out the show saying, “It’s a great day to be gay.”  It wasn’t sunshine and pink flowers.  She spoke honestly and with a great deal of humor.  The last thing she says in this video is, “My name is Karen.  And being a lesbian is the best thing that ever happened to me."  I have had the honor of connecting with Karen and when I saw this I told her I wish I'd of had her courage many years ago.  She replied, "You have it now."

My name is Chris and being gay is the best thing that ever happened to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj2YxCAnqx0#t=994