She So Funny

One of my regular readers once told me he feels like he knows Mustache, my feline friend who lives in a discount store on 198^th Street, from my many mentions of her in this blog.  He asked if I had pictures.  I didn’t.  I took a few since then but she was moving, so they are a bit blurry.  This is the girl who loves me.

I confess that in all this time, I have not worked consistently on comedy writing.  I’m sporadic with that.  I’ve kept up somewhat with poetry and decluttering.  My latest poem:

In order to date

ever again

I need

a huge

condom

for

my

heart

 Mindy Matijasevic

3/15/2021

In the past month and a half, I had a chest x-ray, an ultrasound on my veins, and a lung scan.  The x-ray was okay-ish.  The veins have no clots at this time.  The lung scan results aren’t in yet.  I have more to go in the medical part of my life.  I hate that whole reality.  I just hate it.

On a positive note, I have taken steps with the t-shirt stuff I spoke about in the last blog.  I’m getting excited.

If you can spare less than a minute, this is a real feel-good experience.  Enjoy!

Love to CGG-M ❤❤❤  

Mindy Matijasevic

I hope to soon be presenting to you my t-shirt line.  I have been planning too long and have to make it happen now.  I need to do something.  My friend and former co-worker, Kerstin, suggested I have matching mugs and sell as a set.  I may start with the shirts, but I really like her idea.  The line was inspired when a male told me I was a “selfish bitch.”  I’m so far from either of those things, but when some people don’t get what they want, they default to that view.

Previously, a man in a double-parked car once yelled to me asking me the time (as if he couldn’t see the time on his dashboard somewhere).  I told him “I don’t know.”  Then he told me, “Come here.”  I’m sure my face looked like, “Get the fuck outta here.”  I kept walking.  He called me a bitch.  I yelled back, “You’re the bitch.”  A young man seeing this from his window laughed.  I walked more quickly.  That’s when it became so clear to me how people use the word.  Basically, if you don’t do what I say, and you are female, you are a bitch.  I wanted to wear a badge saying: Proud Bitch.  But since the word is interpreted so differently, I won’t wear such a badge.

When I was growing up, “bitch” was a term used for a mean woman.  Then I  learned it meant a female dog.  Disturbing.  As an adult, I realized the word had become a synonym for woman.  Grrrr.  I don’t use it that way.  I don’t find it funny when comics call female paying customers “bitches.”  I still use the word for a mean woman.  One who truly earns it.

My t-shirts shed a different light, and I hope I get it going very, very soon.  Stay tuned.

Love always to CGG-M  ❤ ❤ ❤

Mindy Matijasevic

The more I watch Dateline, the more I am glad I’m not partnered up with anyone in any kind of romantic situation.  Lordy, Lordy.

In terms of the pandemic, I’m not yet vaccinated.  I still don’t hug my friends.  It feels so strange.  When we can hug again, it is going to feel like sex.

The positive news I have is I received a beautiful anthology, After the Clouds, the Sun, with two of my poems in it.  My poems are “Living in Peace” and “Rotary Phone.”  http://roguescholars.com/anydswpe/info.html

Then I received a link to the online journal, Home Planet News.  I have four poems in there – “With women and children on the street …,” “Not For Me,” “’Wear a smile’, she said,” and “Hey.” 

https://homeplanetnews.org/8-66MindyMatijasevic.html

I’ve done a significant amount of decluttering and that is always a good thing.  More is waiting for me.  I look forward to the day I am done with that. 

In the past month and a half, three people sent me money, two stores extended me credit, and my long-time friend Judy gave me bags of food and household products.  “Food” includes wine.  I can’t even describe how I feel.  Grateful, blessed, and shocked begins it, I guess.

Sometimes I watch youtube videos of things I’ve done to remind myself of things I’ve done.  This one was fun.  A stretch for me, since I was supposed to be a Dominican woman.  I don’t know that I was convincing of that, but my co-actor kept telling me that many American-born Latinas/os don’t speak Spanish well.  The best for me was when the writer was in the audience and told me she thought I did a great job.  The play was about her sister, and she felt I captured that character.  This video is the dress rehearsal, so it wasn’t filled with actual audience.  Still, I enjoyed watching it.  It’s less than ten minutes.

Unconditional love to CGG-M!  ❤❤❤

Mindy Matijasevic

It had been quite a number of days since I had any time with my feline friend, Mustache, who lives in the discount store down 198^th Street.  Today I went in there to use the ATM.  While waiting for the machine to process my request, someone was rubbing against my leg and saying “meow.” 

“Mustache, it’s so nice to see you.  I’ve missed you.”

After getting my cash, I bent down to give Mustache some petting.  She jumped up on some boxes.  “Yes, that makes it easier for me,” I told her.  She clearly had missed me too.

One of the people in the store was telling me how much the cat loves me and that I should take her home.  This man tells me that whenever we are all in the store at the same time.  I always tell him that she’s not up for adoption, that she lives in the store.  This man is always trying to convince me that Mustache loves me and doesn’t act this way with anyone else.  I let him know that I know she loves me and that she knows I love her.  Another customer chimed in, “She gives the cat love.”  I nodded to her and we both smiled which is recognizable even with masks on.  It also struck me how much the woman didn’t find the love a mystery whereas the man always seems to sound like it’s unbelievable.

So Mustache and I continued our affection session.  I had knit gloves on and wondered if that felt more like her cat mother to her.  And then the man told me that she caught a rat earlier.  “It was almost as big as the cat.”  I made gagging sounds.  He hurried to assure me that she caught it but didn’t eat it.  I shuddered anyway.  I continued to pet her and even told her, “You did your job.”  But I was so glad I had my gloves on the whole time. 

❤ to CGG-M

Mindy Matijasevic

Hi people.  I went AWOL for a couple of months.  Hibernating in a way.  Thanks to many of you for checking in on me.  The holidays, the cold, and falling into a funk of sorts just had me feeling not very communicative.

I’m dealing with health issues and lack of money.  Such fun.

People from different areas of my life have been very generous to me.  In that way, I feel very, very lucky.   And I am very, very grateful.

My most productivity is when I am decluttering in my apartment.  I’m just amazed at how much stuff is in here.  Unbelievable.  It feels good to fill garbage bags.  It also feels good to fill bags for the shelter in my neighborhood.

I weigh more than I have ever weighed in my life (including when nine months pregnant).  I think sitting way too much is a big factor.

Some pandemic confessions:

        I am finding it easier and easier to be a hermit.  I rarely even return phone calls.

        I got hooked on a season of “The Bachelorette.”  I had never watched  it before.  Not my thing.  Yet I got hooked.

        Shamefully, I got interested in “The Bachelor” as well.

        One day I really sunk.  I couldn’t tolerate listening to Trump’s defense attorneys anymore, and I watched half of the Maury show.  Yeah, the “You ARE the father” show.  I was shocked at myself.  I haven’t done that again.

I am soooooo looking forward to the relief check.  I need it just to catch up with some things and stock up on some things.  It’s not about a trip to Cancun for me.

Much love to CGG-M  ❤❤❤

So the day began with my bladder ordering me awake.  The neighbor upstairs was doing his workout upstairs involving heavy equipment that he drags along his floor/my ceiling, and he drops weights and all kinds of things that make me feel I will die by ceiling.  So I couldn’t go back to sleep.  I was still tired and needed my dream time.  But I went out to get coffee and a bagel.

Physically, I have been feeling somewhat weak, so instead of going to my preferred store, I went to a closer store.  I asked for a buttered bagel lightly toasted.  When I got home, I saw I had a partially burnt roll lightly buttered.  We both spoke English well, so it wasn’t a misunderstanding.

I was hungry, so I ate most of it.  I wanted to go back to sleep, but the MF-er upstairs was doing his thing – treating the apartment like a gym.  It wasn’t built to be a gym, so this is a problem.  He seems to also run track up there.  I’ve made contact with him twice in the past and even told the super.  I have not told the landlord yet because I was hoping we could solve this without doing that.  In other ways he seems like a decent person.  I might have liked him if he didn’t live above me.  I took a big stick I have and banged on the ceiling a lot.  He eventually stopped.  

I checked email and was encouraged by an email from the executive director of City Lore.  He asked for my okay to include a poem of mine in the Corona Archives and to use in a future exhibit. Oh yes!  Fine with me. The poem was about when we heard Biden was announced the winner of the presidential election.  He said I caught the moment.  That felt good.  I need to feel good.

I went back to sleep.

Disturbing dreams as usual, but they have to happen so that I may have some peace when awake.

Woken by someone knocking on my door.  It was the delivery of a package from a beautiful woman I was lucky to have as a boss for four years several years ago.  She made a difference in my life, and I often relive times with her in my mind just to feel better. 

I haven’t opened the package yet; I like to elongate the anticipation.

I fell back asleep, and then it was night.  See how topsy-turvy my life has become?  I lost my job before the pandemic and then everything just became harder.  But honestly, with the new administration at that job, I wouldn’t have lasted there anyway.  It became almost the opposite of what it was 18 years earlier when I began working there. 

I went out to some stores.  In the Mexican place where I was waiting for my chicken tacos, a man who is a regular in the neighborhood, came into the store (which is small and only allows one person at a time now) to try to sell me a pocketbook for $5.  The owner told him he couldn’t be there without a mask.  He left, and on his way out, told me, “I just want to get something to eat.”  I told him, “I know.”  I got my tacos, paid with a five-dollar bill and got a dollar back.  When I left the store, I gave him the dollar.  There are days when I am searching pockets, under couch pillows, old pocketbooks, etc. for change. So I know one day I might miss that dollar, but tonight, I was able to spare it.  He thanked me and said, “God bless you.”

When I returned, I checked my mail and there was a fat envelope from my friend Liz who I met in my twenties at a corporate job. She was one of the rare ones with humanity.  She kept me afloat during those trying years.  I haven’t opened that yet either. 

I often feel God has blessed me even if as a child, I wondered if God knew I was here.

  5th night of Hanukkah

So much love to CGG-M. 💚 💛 💜

I slept most of Thanksgiving Day.  People called and left messages on my land line’s answering machine.  I heard the messages as they came in.  One was from a friend and former co-worker, Steven.  He said that he hoped I wasn’t alone.

Thanksgiving was typically a hard holiday for me since childhood.  It’s very family-oriented, and I had a hard family experience. Then it continued to feel like a sad holiday for me with the exception of the years my once-friend Brenda invited me to join her family.  She had two adorable children, and I had a wonderful toddler.  She had a high chair in her apartment, so we were set.  My son loved being with her children.  His cheeks were covered with mashed potatoes by the end of the meal.  

Those were precious times, but, for me, the holiday always felt difficult.  Eventually Brenda moved away in more ways than one.  I was in an unhappy situation, so no matter what went on for the holiday, I felt sad. Years later, more developments happened that just made the holiday worse. Eventually, I began to act as if it weren’t a holiday, and I treated it as any other day.

A friend in New Jersey, Barbara, had invited me for Thanksgiving, but I don't eat indoors with other people at this time.  Too risky for me.  So I declined.

As I sleepily listened to my friend Steven’s message saying he hoped I wasn’t alone, I thought, no that’s fine. I’ve had Thanksgivings spent with a person who claimed to love me and made me miserable.

Being alone was fine.  It is COVID-free, and I do whatever I care to and eat whatever I feel like.  I can choose to not get dressed, watch whatever I want on TV, write, sleep, clean, whatever.  I'm not dealing with anyone else's hostility.  Of course it can be better, and I hope next year it will be.  But I wasn’t feeling bad about being alone.  I’ve been way lonelier when not alone. 

My best buddy and I spoke on the phone later that night.  I ate pizza.  He had oral surgery two days before, so he had Ensure for Thanksgiving.  But we had our 40+-year-friendship and laughter on the phone (aside from grumbling about everything).  I’d give up a fancy dinner for that any day.

 

Much love to CGG-M ❤❤❤