Cranky Lesbian

Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Tag: Cranky's Sad Inner Life Page 3 of 4

Federer’s Long Goodbye

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On September 15, 2022

In Tennis

Longtime readers know how I feel about Roger Federer. Newer readers know how I feel about Roger Federer. Alien life forms probably know how I feel about Roger Federer.

My phone buzzed this morning with a few messages from people wondering how I was “handling the news,” somber phrasing that initially alarmed me. Had someone died? Announced a terminal diagnosis? Fortunately, it was nothing that dire.

Federer had finally acknowledged what was widely suspected already, that he was retiring after next week’s Laver Cup. Months ago, when Federer posted a ‘delfie’ with his family’s newly adopted dog, I felt certain it was over. The player who famously traveled the globe with a wife and two young sets of twins was now comfortably settled at home. It was a logical progression.

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Shut Up and Deal

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On August 12, 2022

In Oh No!

I was high as a kite on morphine when Dan Quayle walked into the room during my strangest childhood hospitalization. It was a campaign stop in the waning weeks of the Vice President’s failed 1992 bid for reelection, and through some misfortune I’d been selected as one of the sick kids he’d visit. I wasn’t capable of having a coherent conversation then, but was vaguely aware of the nursing staff’s excitement and my parents’ pride at being photographed with him. My only specific memory of our encounter was that he drummed his fingers (boredly? anxiously?) on my bedside railing while waiting for the camera’s flash.

A package later arrived containing two copies of the photo, one autographed, and a tiny basketball bearing a stamp with his name on it (or was it his wife’s?). It fit perfectly atop the empty bottom-half of a pink Bubble Tape container, where it sat on my childhood desk until I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. There were other curiosities in my collection of hospital ephemera: the pillow I clutched to my stomach when I coughed and sneezed post-surgery; the “fun,” brightly colored breathing toy the respiratory therapist taught me to use. None annoyed me as much as the ball or ghoulish photo.

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A Brief Conversational Detour About Sheree North’s Face

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On August 3, 2022

In Oh No!

Sheree North and Ed Asner on The Mary Tyler Moore Show

This is a detour from the Golden Girls: “Transplant” recap. (Sheree North guest stars as Blanche’s sister in that episode.) It’s about the time I got a little too Lou Grant-ish while unwittingly close to death.

Sheree North is one of those actors, like John Schuck, who lingers in my memory for medical reasons. On a Sunday morning only eight days into 2017, I was sitting on the couch with my wife (then-fiancée), watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was one of the episodes in which North appeared as Charlene, Lou Grant’s lounge singer girlfriend.

Normally I would’ve been alone for most of a Sunday, so it was fortuitous that my wife noticed something was ‘off’ about me and chose to stay nearby. This was during a time when it took some effort to keep me out of the hospital. I was having a Crohn’s flare and my hapless doctor, who was soon to be replaced by someone more competent, was in over her head. My potassium kept falling into the twos.

All I remember about that MTM episode, whichever one it was, was that I simply couldn’t keep up with it. I had no idea what was happening and couldn’t quite focus on North’s face. That was odd, because I normally had a bit of a crush on her wisecracking Charlene. Several times, my wife looked at me and asked if I was OK. Several times, I stubbornly insisted I was fine. She didn’t believe me.

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A Dog’s Life in Two Acts

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On July 23, 2022

In BFFs

“What’s next, chief, eating trash? Harassing rabbits?”

Muriel and I have been coworkers since our first week together. (Her name isn’t really Muriel, that’s an alias selected because she’s frequently told “You’re terrible.”) For our first year together, we worked from an office where she made new friends every day. Since then, we’ve worked from home.

Every morning, including weekends, she follows me into the office and looks at me expectantly. Her preference is obviously for an exotic wilderness assignment, maybe a bit of bird-chasing or ritual squirrel murder. Then she watches me sit at the desk and open my computer, and perhaps notices the nearby stack of ’80s celebrity tell-alls and Kristy McNichol DVDs.

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Thank You for Being a Friend

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On July 12, 2022

In Friends of Dorothy Z.

The Golden Girls premiered in 1985, when I was two years old. My earliest memories—of life in general, not The Golden Girls specifically—begin in 1986. That year I spent nearly a month in the hospital with inflammatory bowel disease. You wouldn’t think those disparate things, a disease and a sitcom, have anything meaningful in common. You would be wrong.

Each has been in my life forever. My mom always watched The Golden Girls, which meant that I always watched The Golden Girls. Perhaps more importantly, in 1992, as the series concluded its seven-season run, illness had again derailed my life. I was partway through the lengthy process of a three-stage total proctocolectomy with j-pouch reconstruction. It wasn’t a happy time. Third grade was one of many that mostly went on without me.

There were yet more hospital stays, and long recovery periods spent confined to bed or stuck at home on the couch, a pillow clutched to my stomach. The isolation meant a lot of reading, sometimes a book or two per day. Each Saturday I looked forward to The Golden Girls and the escape it provided. The characters felt like family, and so did the actresses. Betty White even looked like the shiksa version of my great-grandmother (minus the heavy makeup and costume jewelry), who had died two years earlier.

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Superstition Ain’t the Way

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On July 2, 2022

In Tennis

Muriel models my freshly laundered socks.

We’re nearly a week into Wimbledon and I woke up this morning as excited as I was for the start of tournament. On the men’s side there’s a third round meeting between Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas with blockbuster potential. Nadal’s due to play Lorenzo Sonego, and Jack Sock faces off against Jason Kubler. Sock, who a long-suffering friend can attest is my perennial dark horse pick at every Slam, is up two sets to one as I write this.

On the women’s side, Harmony Tan, conqueror of Serena Williams, dismantled Katie Boulter with such efficiency that the match ended before I was awake (and I’m an early riser!). Coco Gauff takes on her compatriot, Amanda Anisimova, and Qinwen Zheng vs. Elena Rybakina is quite promising. Simona Halep, a personal favorite due to her ethereal movement, will also take the court. (At the peak of her marvelous footwork, her shoes rarely seemed to touch the ground.) She already gave us one of the best moments of the tournament with her emotional sendoff of Kirsten Flipkens; I’d love to see her in the second week here.

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Sia’s “Hostage,” and a Walk Down Memory Lane

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On June 25, 2022

In Stories of Triumph and Inspiration

The first time I saw my wife it was February; I was as miserable as a woman could be, and unfit for human company. Still, there was a jolt of recognition, a feeling that if we met in better times, we would surely become friends. Our maiden introduction had gone absolutely nowhere, but when our paths crossed again that summer, a tentative bond began to flourish.

It was soon apparent that she was interested in something more, but I felt incapable of it. At the same time, I knew that if I ever rejoined the living she was someone I would’ve pursued. She was intelligent, mature, rational, kind and terrifyingly ambitious, all qualities I greatly valued—and she could quickly and unerringly select the right Arrested Development quote for every occasion. More than anything, I admired her emotional strength, deep reserves of empathy and dedication to a job that required every bit of both.

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Weekend Viewing: Roland-Garros Begins

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On May 21, 2022

In Tennis

“Voulez-vous coucher avec tennis?”

After all the excitement of our Mother’s Day Marathon, what with Patty Duke terrorizing her family, Loni Anderson whoring around, Elizabeth Montgomery’s sundry acts of deviousness, and Stockard Channing dramatically vowing not to help her daughter become a lesbian, I took a little break to watch a bunch of tennis.

From my couch I savored every dazzling moment of Carlos Alcaraz’s triumph in Madrid and Iga Świątek’s ruthless brilliance in Rome. My wife, a Tolkien fanatic who is about as interested in tennis as I am in Middle-earth, took notice of Świątek’s dominance and asked what “bagels” and “breadsticks” were in tennis parlance, and then dutifully sent me memes such as this:

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Low to the Ground, Loves to Chase Birds

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On April 1, 2022

In Stories of Triumph and Inspiration

Muriel, looking disreputable.

Springtime is here and soon I will celebrate the anniversary of my dog’s adoption. We’ve packed a lot into the last four years, both good and bad, and this is my tribute to her—including a rare photo of your mysterious blogger in the wild. Without further ado…

Part I: The Doggening

Muriel was a promise made to my wife early in our relationship. When she moved into my house from her studio apartment, amazed my mortgage payment was less than her rent, she wanted to adopt a dog. I wasn’t as enthused. “There’s too much going on,” I said. “We’ll get one when you’re done with fellowship.”

Fellowship seemed far away. She was a resident then, in year two of what felt like 8,000 years of training. That meant a paucity of free time—she regularly pulled 30-hour shifts—and a tremendous amount of high-interest debt. Her med school loans were more than double the outstanding balance of my mortgage.

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Dog Day Afternoon

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On February 7, 2022

In Oh No!

My dog’s birthday barkuterie board.

Today was going to be another Hallmark day with a review of Annie’s Point, a 2005 Hallmark original offering featuring Betty White. (Why not make the most of that UP free trial?) My dog had other plans. She gets an impromptu trip to the vet instead, and Betty’s probably pushed back until Wednesday.

Muriel (not her real name) got a little overzealous in her bone-chewing and has injured her mouth. She continues to eat and yell at us apace, but the sudden, eye-watering halitosis suggests that, at the very least, an antibiotic is in order.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, she broke a tooth. She’s scheduled for an extraction next week, which was the earliest slot available, and was sent home with pills. Hopefully she doesn’t become Neely O’Hara (again). The Annie’s Point review has been posted and is linked to above.

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