Feline Warrior

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/obama-binladen-idUSWNA743620110502

How many lives have been lost on and since 9/11?

What a horrible, horrible man.

My friend Kitten and I have been in deep, ongoing discussion about our absurdly similar pasts and how events from those times are continuing to affect us now. The topic has to do with what my therapist calls “covert incest”¹ – something that I can claim for myself, and possibly Kitten would for herself too. The definition below does not make as big a deal as my therapist does about the sexual nature of the covert incest relationship. And no, I do not believe I was molested by my father. However, we “dated” for a year – my 16th year- when we were home alone. Inappropriateness occurred. Things happened and words were spoken that have been crucial in the shaping of what would become my adult life. Hell, my teen to present life.

As I shared about what seems like an addiction –but to a person, rather than a drug or other substance- Kitten said, “I wouldn’t know how to reach through the powerful pull of lust combined with abandonment. Please don’t leave me! Love me! F*ck me!”

That statement sums it all up for me: There’s the sense of abandonment –my parents were not always parental- and then the need for emotional support. And love. And being sexualized as a girl from early on, I believe, only seals the deal on what I’ll call my emotional paralysis.

This has been on my mind a lot lately, too, as it’s all interconnected: Being sexualized as a girl, that is. This seems to occur to varying degrees to most of us (females), at least those in western culture. But when a parent turns his daughter into his girlfriend, the sexualization  is even more intense. Because the idea is that home is where we  learn to function out there; dad teaches us (girls) how to relate to other males; parents and home should always be safe, and when they’re not, I believe the lack of safety gets woven into this whole mess of emotional paralysis.

The end result is messy, to say the least. I’m calling it “emotional paralysis,” but it’s anything but stagnant or unmoving. It really is like an addiction: An addiction to a FEELING. “This is the feeling [or like the feeling] I got when my needs for love and emotional support were met by my parent!” And no matter how insane the relationship is, no matter how potentially dangerous, unhealthy, or just plain WRONG it is, the covert incest survivor goes back for more. SHE HAS TO. It’s like getting a fix. Hell, it IS a fix.

And what happens when we don’t get that fix? My roommate likened it to sugar, which for me is a drug: “That blah feeling you get when you start to go off sugar,” he said, and that’s exactly how it feels. Empty, gray, meaningless… in need of that rush, the fill, the chase, the thrill. There is nothing good about this, I’m telling you.

Well, what may be good is that one can recover from this – I’m not sure how just yet, but there groups, and the website below (from which I snagged the description of covert incest) seems intent on doing some work around this issue.

So what am I telling you? You may be wondering, “FW, what the hell? Were you molested as a child?” No. “Are you in a sick or unhealthy relationship?” Chances are good that if I’m in a relationship, it is unhealthy (not necessarily a reflection on the other person – this is about me, my history, my reactions, and so on). The other person in the relationship is the “substance” and the addiction has everything to do with the addict – why do I need this? why do I obsess? why do I keep myself in a bad place when it’s interfering with my work/school/daily activities? (And it may interfere with some, all, or none of those.)

One would think that I would simply step away from relationships of all kinds, right? BACK IT UP, SISTER! But no, I think not. For now, I will continue to plunge myself into the churning waters of human interaction, because if nothing else, I do have hope that, like I have with other serious issues, I can work through this one.

Someone might want to mention to my therapist that we have in fact finally hit the tar pit… the power source of all this messiness.

^1. Covert incest typically occurs in families where one parent (the shadow parent) does not actively participate in family affairs, thus setting the stage for the other parent (the invasive parent) to turn to a child for emotional support. The invasive parent in effect makes the child a surrogate spouse who is forced to take on the responsibilities of the shadow parent. The roles are essentially reversed; instead of the parent looking after the child, the child is responsible for the parent’s well being. This is a terrible burden for a child to carry, as a child is incapable of meeting the emotional needs of an adult. CovertIncest.org, http://www.covertincest.org/content/why-it-happens

There are weird formatting issues using the WP editor. It makes me weepish.

This song came to mind just now: Howard Jones’ "What is Love?" (lyrics below)

The question is a good one - how do we know what it is, or if, when we feel it, it’s real? How do you trust what appears to be love? They can change over time, they can ebb, flow, rise, fall… and not always in concert. That is, in a romantic couple, the feelings of one may not mirror the other’s. Then what?

Love isn’t limited to romance, of course. There is love among friends… I’ve loved friends, lost the friendships, and never stopped loving those people. Sometimes they even come back into my life.

People, they come, they go; sometimes they come back again. Even when they don’t, the spaces in my heart for them don’t close. (Okay, maybe a few times there’s been the echoing sounds of a chamber door slamming shut!)

I know a man who says that he’ll never trust another person (woman) so deep are the wounds from several past wives. It appears that he’s serious, too. I don’t think I could do that. It’s difficult to imagine what would have to happen to shut me down in that way.

Me… I’ll love again. Oh, hell – I already love. I didn’t stop loving. I think that from the minute I was born, I loved. There were sources that tried to keep me from loving, I suppose you could say; FelineWarrior is one resilient cat, that’s for sure.

For me, love goes on and on and on. It just looks different, feels different, in different situations. It scares people sometimes, I think, when they are the recipients of love. I wish it weren’t so; love is such a precious (if plentiful) commodity. To feel it, as to share it, is a wonderful, wonderful expression.

What is Love?

I love you whether or not you love me
I love you even if you think that I don’t.
Sometimes I find you doubt my love for you but I don’t mind.
Why should I mind? Why should I mind?
What is love anyway?
Does anybody love anybody anyway?
What is love anyway?
Does anybody love anybody anyway?
Can anybody love anyone so much that they will never fear
Never worry never be sad?The answer is they cannot love this much
nobody can.
This is why I don’t mind you doubting.
What is love anyway?. . .
And maybe love is letting people be just
what they want to be
The door always must be left unlocked.
To love when circumstance may lead someone away from you
And not to spend the time just doubting.What is love anyway? . . .

You know how the Google-box is: One minute you’re trying to relive youthful memories of punk rock gigs around Orange County, CA, the next minute, you’re hip-deep in videos of some of the best bands ever.

I had the good fortune to grow up at a time when the punk rock scene was exploding on the west coast and the even better fortune to see much of it up close and personal. Today, I came across some videos that I will share with you - musical memoirs of a punkrockesha, if you will.

It was my original intent to write a bunch about this, but alas, the reason I was able to watch so many videos was that I was home with a cold; I slept on and off throughout the day, never finished the post, and so here’s an abbreviated version of the original post.

Let’s start with a few interviews of two members of one of my favorite bands: X.

Exene Cervenka: http://swindlemagazine.com/issueicons/exene-cervenka

Billy Zoom: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/billy-zoom-puts-x-in-perspective

Onto the videos!

X: Los Angeles: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGhgdxoPQbE and

Johnny Hit and Run Paulene: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRWunSUmEm4

Fear: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8B2WuudHXs

Circle Jerks @ Stardust Ballroom, c. 1984:www.viddler.com/explore/VideoLouis/videos/244/14.571#

Tex and the Horseheads @ Black radio, c. 1986: www.viddler.com/explore/VideoLouis/videos/206/

The Minutemen @ Club Lingerie, c. 1984: www.viddler.com/explore/VideoLouis/videos/256/

Gang Green (no info): www.viddler.com/explore/UndrgroundMusic/videos/2/

The Germs: www.viddler.com/explore/UndrgroundMusic/videos/7/

Black Flag (with lyrics, oddly enough): www.viddler.com/explore/UndrgroundMusic/videos/6/

Eddie and the Subtitles: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHyMnOKe93s&feature=related (sadly no actual video, just an album cover - these were Fullerton boys!)

The Avengers @ The Masque c. 1978: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZrQ33NbSbY

Here’s a fab database of shows and venues: www.flipsidefanzine.com/Liveshowhome.html

And there’s great vids here, too: http://punkrocksaves.blogspot.com/

…and now it’s bedtime for the FW!

CTV Montreal - Coulter speech cancelled over fears of violence - CTV News

Updated: Tue Mar. 23 2010 9:03:01 PM
CTV.ca News Staff

“The University of Ottawa cancelled a speech by U.S. firebrand conservative Ann Coulter late Tuesday, just moments before its scheduled start, because organizers feared protesters would turn violent.

As people were still making their way into the venue, the building had to be evacuated when a fire alarm was triggered.

The incident followed a Monday night lecture at the University of Western Ontario, where Coulter told a Muslim student to "take a camel" as an alternative to flying.””

Oh GAWD. I’ve just become a conspiracy theorist.

Taylor Swift won Artist of the Year.

Clearly I should start making records. I can use the money from all those record sales, concerts, and such. And a sparkly guitar would be REALLY cool.

American Music Awards Nominees and Winners 2009 | HULIQ

Why, God, WHY?!?!

ABC.com - 2009 American Music Awards – Home

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091015/ap_on_re_us/us_interracial_rebuff

“NEW ORLEANS – A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.”

FAVORITE (bad) QUOTE: “I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Sheer insanity. What year is it?

Just recently I drove several hours east of my home to fetch a friend who was being evicted from her place of residence. She’d lived there for 16 years and while she hadn’t accumulated as much stuff as I have (you’d have to really try to do that), she certainly had some belongings. The people who were evicting her told her that she needed to take what she wanted; no guarantees regarding anything she left behind.

Her belongings –everything that would fit in my PT Cruiser and 9 plastic bins another friend had been able to take for her (and drop off on my porch)- were in my garage for about 5 days and she slept on the floor on my featherbed.

It amazed and frightened me to see that one’s possessions –the things that most mattered to a person, collected items, family memories, important papers, etc.- could line one side of a garage. Knowing that we left a bunch of stuff behind added to my worries. This friend is 58.

I have another friend who owns a house but I’m sure earns far less than what she needs to pay her mortgage. She sometimes has to have her cable turned off, or maybe the internet connection, so that she can make ends meet. She often pawns jewelry for the same reason. Her family has means, so I don’t think that she’ll end up on the streets. This friend is a social person and enjoys inexpensive lunches with her friends, an expense that probably puts her closer to the edge that most of us realize. She’s in her late 50s and that she has to pawn her belongings or do without such simple stuff as cable, for crying out loud… it pisses me off.

Of course you all remember my mother, homeless at the age of 71, her boxes being shipped to and fro across the country. She’s still at my aunt & uncle’s house and they’re none too pleased about it. They’d like to have their house back; neither is well and they’d like to live out the rest of their days as a couple, not a couple with a roommate. She’s got an income made up solely of social security and for reasons only she knows, is not willing to do anything for work. Physical restrictions do play a part – with her knees having had surgery and still needing more, of course, she can’t stand for any length of time, for example.

When my mother was staying with us, I got annoyed sometimes because I thought, “Here she is, on

a fixed income, and yet she has to have a really good (read: expensive) bottle of Irish whiskey; she has to have a $50 salon haircut rather than a less expensive one at a budget-friendly shop; she wants to dine out all the time, buy the best cuts of meat,” and on and on. I wanted her to live on a real budget, save her money, get ready to be independent again.

Yet at the same time, I’d sometimes feel bad for even thinking those things. At her age, why CAN’T she enjoy a good bottle of whiskey or a really good haircut?

Naturally, these stories worry me because they give me cause to think ahead to my own older years. (And those late 50’s aren’t THAT far away, folks.)

But when I can stop thinking of myself for a minute, the real and original source of my anxiety splashes through the surface: How can it be that I know three women over the age of 55 who have recently either become homeless or are living so close to the edge that they have to pawn their belongings to keep the water on? What’s going on that someone can reach a more mature age, perhaps a time of life that I think should allow one some simple pleasures (lunching with friends, good haircuts, keeping ALL of one’s belongings), and have one’s security so unstable?

I’m sure there are plenty of men in the same boat, but I know women dealing with this. I think a bit of research is in order.

Sue was my friend. She fell ill suddenly, got better, then got worse. Strokes, a bunch of them, pushed her down. It didn’t help that she also had lung cancer. I visited her, brushed her hair, put lotion on her hands, and did my usual Feline Warrior thing. That is, I chattered on and on, threw in the occasional song - like that. I also gave her permission to clobber me when she got out for driving her crazy, given that she was trapped in the hospital bed and therefore forced to listen to me.

In any case, she did not get better. Her family took her a few hours away to a nursing facility. We were just planning a caravan to see her this coming Saturday when the word came.

And there she lay, in the coffin. Her nails had been repaired (I’d teased her about needing to bring a manicurist in to see her, to fix those glamorous nails), her hair cut and styled, and she had more makeup on than I’d ever seen on her. Still, she looked peaceful. At rest.

And so she is, at rest. No longer suffering. I know with absolute certainty that she would not have wanted to live as she was. She was too smart, too vibrant, to be trapped inside her own head, unable to say the words she meant to say, forced to rely on others to take care of her. No, no, no - she wouldn’t have wanted it.

I’m reminded that funerals and memorial services are for the living. It’s how we try to make ourselves feel better in those moments when it seems so weird -so wrong- that the sun would dare still shine, when it hits us that we won’t have another conversation with the deceased again.

*sigh*

From the Lancaster Gazette:

COLUMBUS: Sue Ann Mills, 60 of Columbus, passed away, Friday, July 3, 2009 at Heartland of Centerville Nursing Home. She was a 1967 Lancaster High School Graduate and Ohio University Graduate. Sue worked in the paper recycling industry for 33 years.

She is survived by her cousin, Joyce and Ray Mincer; aunts, Judy Boyer and Lois Horn; several cousins; special friends, Anne Taylor Risch, Doug Richardson and Paulette Maravich.

Preceded in death by her parents, Emaline and Murrell Mills; aunts and uncles, Virgil and Bessy Bradford, Dick and June Boyer, Jerry Boyer and Gerald Horn.

Friends may call Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. at Halteman-Fett & Dyer Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. at the funeral home. Burial will follow at Forest Rose Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Sue’s memory to Capital Area Humane Society, 3015 Scioto Darby Executive Ct, Hilliard, OH 43026. She will be missed!

Michael Jackson, pop music legend, dead at 50 - CNN.com

Wow, a music icon, gone, just like that: *poof*

Here’s a fun old video, featuring Michael and his sister Janet. Back when he looked more like himself.

This might be my favorite headline regarding Jackson:

Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/06/26/michael.jackson.internet/index.html#cnnSTCText

Oh, hell, here’s the story:

By Linnie Rawlinson and Nick Hunt
CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) — How many people does it take to break the Internet? On June 25, we found out it’s just one — if that one is Michael Jackson.

The biggest showbiz story of the year saw the troubled star take a good slice of the Internet with him, as the ripples caused by the news of his death swept around the globe.

"Between approximately 2:40 p.m. PDT and 3:15 p.m. PDT today, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson," a Google spokesman told CNET, which also reported that Google News users complained that the service was inaccessible for a time. At its peak, Google Trends rated the Jackson story as "volcanic."

As sites fell, users raced to other sites: TechCrunch reported that TMZ, which broke the story, had several outages; users then switched to Perez Hilton’s blog, which also struggled to deal with t

he requests it received.

CNN reported a fivefold rise in traffic and visitors in just over an hour, receiving 20 million page views in the hour the story broke.

Twitter crashed as users saw multiple "fail whales" — the illustrations the site uses as error messages — user FoieGrasie posting, "Irony: The protesters in Iran using twitter as com are unable to get online because of all the posts of ‘Michael Jackson RIP.’ Well done." The site’s status blog said that Twitter had had to temporarily disable its search results, saved searches and trend topics.

Wikipedia saw a flurry of activity, with close to 500 edits made to Jackson’s entry in less than 24 hours. CNET reported that by 3:15pm PDT, Wikipedia seemed to be "temporarily overloaded."

The LA Times, the first news organization to confirm Jackson’s death, suffered outages. The site also reported that AOL’s instant messenger service had been hit, quoting an AOL statement that said, "AIM was down for approximately 40 minutes this afternoon." The statement said, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We’ve never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."

That was backed up by AOL consumer adviser Regina Lewis, who told CNN that, although the numbers weren’t in yet, the day should prove an historic milestone for mobile internet traffic.

"It could go down as the biggest mobile event in history," Lewis said. She felt that was down in part to people checking news headlines from work. "People wanted to keep tabs on this story, but if you’re an accountant you’re supposed to be working on your spreadsheet. So they were using their personal cellphones to do so," she explained.

Watch Lewis explain the overload »

While the scale of response to Jackson’s death might be unprecedented, the pattern of it was not, Lewis added.

"With the advent of social networking, we saw a sequence that we traditionally see around the death of celebrities," she said.

"One, people clamour for the latest news; two, they share it; three, they react; and then the next stage, which we’re seeing alive and well on video sites … are tributes. In the case of Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett, (people have) a lot to work with in terms of images and video," she said.

By Friday morning, news sites seemed to be coping with traffic but Jackson fan site mjfanclub.net was still performing sluggishly. Mashable.com reported that tributes to, and remarks upon, Michael Jackson’s death were responsible for 30 percent of tweets.

As with any breaking piece of news on the Web, the reports of Jackson’s death sparked something of a feeding frenzy — and with that came rumor that dragged in other celebrities completely unconnected to the King of Pop’s death.

One Wikipedia prankster wrote that Jackson had been "savagely murdered" by his brother Tito, who had strangled him "with a microphone cord."

Soon rumors spread online that movie star Jeff Goldblum had fallen from the Kauri Cliffs in New Zealand while filming his latest movie. On several search engines, "Jeff Goldblum" soon became the only non-Jackson-related term to crop up in the top 10.

The rumors forced Goldblum’s publicist to issue a statement to media outlets, saying: "Reports that Jeff Goldblum has passed away are completely untrue. He is fine and in Los Angeles."

At the same time Harrison Ford was also rumored to have fallen from a yacht off the south of France.

Web site snopes.com, which shoots down rumors, gossip and urban legends — and how they originated — said the likely culprit was a Web site which allows users to input celebrity names — and then inserts them into fake templated stories (a further variant has stars dying in a plane crash).

In a sense the feeding frenzy was understandable — Jackson’s death, coming only hours after that of 1970s icon Farah Fawcett, left many Web users, shocked by the news of Jackson’s death, asking what would happen next. In this febrile climate any rumor runs the risk of being seized on, believed and treated with more credulity than usual.

The need of the professional media to be first with the news — many did for a short time report the Goldblum rumor as fact — adds further veracity. And, of course, the whole process is speeded up by the Web.

There is also, of course, the old adage that celebrities die in threes, with the deaths of Gianni Versace, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa in 1997 frequently held up as an example of this.

But while Diana and Teresa passed away with seven days of each other in August and September, Versace was killed in early July. Their deaths were most keenly mourned by the same broad sections of the public — and hence were inextricably interlinked.

The Web can link disseminate news — but like any form of communication it can also help us create what we expect to see next.

CNN’s Tom Peck contributed to this report.