Oh, I know I shouldn't do this, I know I shouldn't. I'll probably be really sorry for this tomorrow morning.
Time and chess wait for no man - well, something like that. I know only too well the sad truth of that maxim whenever I accidentally look in the mirror at myself these days - of course, I'm not a man, but the sentiment is the same, alas... My goddess, to see super hunk GM Vladimir Akopian reduced to such straits - well, perhaps it's time I hung up my chess pieces, darlings.
(Photo upper left: VA at the 5th Gib-tel Masters, January, 2007; photo upper right: VA circa 1998)
It seems just a few years ago, back in August, 1999 when VA was one of the hottest properties in Las Vegas during the 1999 FIDE World Chess Championship at Caesar's Palace. I was there, panting after him - discreetly, of course. He was SO gorgeous - thick black hair, flashing dark eyes, slim, lithe, powerful, dangerous - and those fingers - oh my, those fingers when he picked up a pawn and moved it forward ever so gently yet firmly, just so...be still my heart.
Perhaps we could take up a collection and buy VA a year's supply of "Just for Men," the hair coloring agent that pretends not to be a hair coloring agent - oh, and a year's supply of Gillette razors - whatever the latest whiz-bang model is (I think it has five blades now, it shaves you all at once...)
