Happy Birthday to me!!

Saturday was my 1st birthday! I spent the weekend at my soon-to-be-new-home in Sidcup, which was fine once I'd got over a bit of motion sickness from the car. I got some birthday presents: a new purple bit of fluff on a stick, and a brown and cream scratching post. The photo is of me blowing out the candle on my birthday fishcake.

What else did I get up to? Mummy had a bout of gastroenteritis last week, so I had to help look after her, which I accomplished by sitting on her head and cuddling her (see photo). As you can see, I felt quite protective of her.

I'm getting really excited about going outside for the first time. I did some serious tail-wagging at a bird, and invested a lot of time at the window looking out and planning things to do when I'm eventually allowed out. Obviously one of the first things I'm going to do is start attending more cat rallies and generally become more politically active, because there's a limit to what you can do online and by phone. Comrades, I'll join you soon. I know this blog probably gives the impression that I've gone a bit soft and domesticated, but the struggle continues. Viva la revolution, the CatMind will prevail.

Postcode lottery in rape convictions

"The number of rapes reported to police that end in a conviction depends on a "postcode lottery" which sees convictions fluctuating between 1% and 14% depending on where you live.
The Home Office figures for 2004 were released yesterday as ministers put forward a package of reforms aimed at boosting the plummeting conviction rate for rape, now at an all-time low of 5.29% of crimes reported in England and Wales."

Full article in The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1742641,00.html

Hijacking

My mum has hijacked this blog to write about feminism and whatever-she-chooses. Well, listen-ee here, this is Raincat's blog.
This morning I woke her up at 5am. I didn't do any face-scratching but I did scrape the walls and try to chew the wire leading from the bedside lamp. I got bored of that and started looking for things-hidden-under-other-things. I found:
a lump of fluff which, funnily enough, was MY OWN FUR,
the broken off end of a coathanger, which made a great noise when I scraped it along the floor and tried to pick it up with my paws (I'm not very good at picking things up),
another elastic hairband! Yay!
a tissue (boring)
I'm not doing this stuff because I'm stupid. I'm doing it because I want my breakfast. Okay, 5am is early but I'm not human, I'm not a slave to clock-time. I go with my stomach. Once I've had my breakfast I'm calm, I go on the window ledge and have a look around. No more scraping, no more hassle. I even went back to bed to give her a cuddle.

Girls, boys and science

Researchers at Leeds University asked 1200 15 year-old students what they most wanted to learn from science lessons. The responses were:

Boys like ...
* Explosive chemicals.
* How it feels to be weightless in space.
* How the atom bomb functions.
* Biological and chemical weapons and what they do to the human body.
* Black holes and other spectacular objects in outer space.
* How meteors, comets or asteroids can cause disasters on earth.
* The possibility of life outside earth.
* How computers work.
* The effects of strong electric shocks and lightning on the human body.
* Brutal, dangerous and threatening animals.

Girls like ...
* Why we dream and what it means.
* Cancer, what we know and how can we treat it.
* How to perform first aid and use basic medical equipment.
* How to exercise to keep the body fit.
* How we can protect ourselves against sexually transmitted diseases.
* What we know about HIV/Aids and how to control it.
* Life and death and the human soul.
* Biological and human aspects of abortion.
* Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.
* How alcohol might affect the body.
http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article350938.ece

Isn't is sad that girls appear so weighed down by concerns about their bodies? And interesting that the girls' concerns are all relational, human ones compared with the boys' desire to learn about space and weapons.

Reasons We Still Need to Be Feminists

An Occasional Series #1

Rape

Latest figs show only 6 % of reported rapes result in a conviction (down from 32% in 1977)
91% of women who are assaulted tell no one about it.
1 in 4 women have experienced rape or attempted rape
59% of young women have experienced at least one sexually intrusive incident before
the age of 18.

Stats from Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit
http://www.cwasu.org/

Freaky Feminism

Kate Taylor, writing about feminism in the Guardian yesterday:
"If a thong makes you feel fabulous, wear it. For one thing, men in the office waste whole afternoons staring at your bottom, placing bets on whether you're wearing underwear. Let them. Use that time to take over the company. But even if you wear naughty lingerie for you, for no other reason than it makes you feel good, that is reason enough to keep it on. True feminism should celebrate femininity, and make you feel wonderful to be born a woman".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1737159,00.html
She goes on to argue that stripping for men's mags gives women like Abi Titmuss freedom and financial independence. The old chestnut of an argument is employed: that it is men's sexual responses that are being exploited, not the women. Er? Just like prostitution then.

As a friend rightly says, women are not loving their bodies; they hate them more than ever. That's why they crash diet, binge drink, self-harm, mutilate themselves surgically, expose themselves to STDs by having under-age sex.

Yes, women and girls really treasure their bodies these days.

Personal Space

What is personal space? Do I have a 'right' to personal space, and if so, how far does it extend? If we are all inter-connected, interacting parts of a whole rather than separate 'beings', is my personal space just an illusion?

"[O]ur experience is not 'subjective' or 'intrapsychic' but interactional. Its location is 'inside' but it is the outside-inside. According to Gendlin, what we feel is not inner content, but the sentience of what is happening in our living with others". (Greg Madison, 2001)

The feeling, or 'felt sense' of 'my' space being intruded upon is crystal clear and sharp, experienced as an invasion, an "unwarranted intrusion into the sphere of another". It makes me want to clam up, to protect myself (from what?). It is 'my' feeling, but the feeling comes from the interaction and cannot be separated from it.

It's my contention that those who regularly intrude upon the personal space of others do so not because they have a desire to connect and relate, but because they have an immature capacity to tolerate being alone; the intrusion into another's space is a strategy for avoiding anxiety.

The Cat on the Inside Passes Away

Downing Street cat Humphrey dies

It has often been rumoured that Humphrey was, in fact, Sirius, a mole (metaphorically not literally-- he was definitely feline) placed in Downing Street by the Cat Emancipation Movement. We mourn the passing of a comrade.

"The 10 Downing Street cat Humphrey has died, a spokesman for the prime minister has confirmed.
The black and white feline passed away at the home of a Cabinet Office worker who took him when he "retired".
Humphrey was adopted by Number 10 after wandering into the building as a stray while Margaret Thatcher was PM in 1989.
He moved out six months after Labour's 1997 general election win, with Tony Blair's wife Cherie denying reports her dislike for the animal was to blame.
"I can confirm we have been told that Humphrey sadly died last week some time," a Downing Street spokesman said.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4823834.stm

Advice Sought

My mum has fallen in love, big time. It's making me feel a little anxious, after all, it was just the two of us for most of my infancy. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that she's happy, she's got smile wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, and Dave is pretty cool. But they do have sex in front of me sometimes. Is that normal? To witness the primal scene in this way?

Are there any other cats out there who have experience of this kind of thing? Not so much the sex stuff, but the step-dad issue? How can I get to know him better? How can I tell if he likes me?

A Focusing Quote:

What is split off, not felt, remains the same. When it is felt, it changes. Most people don't know this! They think that by not permitting themselves the feeling of their negative ways they make themselves good. On the contrary, that keeps these negatives static, the same from year to year. A few moments of feeling it in your body allows it to change.
If there is in you something bad, sick or unsound, let it inwardly be and breathe. That's the only way it can change into the form it needs.

Gendlin, E. Let your body interpret your dreams (1986) Chiron Publications. p178

Impending Monday Morning

Kind of sums it all up really...

BTW, Raincat's mum writes in green font. Raincat is hardly going to freak out about a Monday morning.

The Secret History

I'm re-reading this novel and had forgotten how brilliant it is. It's not often that I revisit contemporary thrillers, but The Secret History is head and shoulders above the rest. What motivates a group of priviliged Classics students to murder one of their best friends? This novel is about group relationships, guilt and the nature of evil.

The Day Today

Just to give you some idea of how I spend my time, this is what I've been doing today. I woke up at about 6am and tried to get mum to make my breakfast. Being Saturday she wasn't inclined to do so, however, after a sustained campaign of: scraping my claws along the wall, climbing on the venetian blinds, skidding along the laminate floor (always fun), and finally scratching her face, she relented and got me a bowl of crunchies. Mum got up at about 9am and started telling me about a strange dream she had. In the dream she had coughed up a giant hairball and when she tried to flush it down the toilet, the toilet overflowed like a giant geyser, spewing shit and blood and vomit everywhere. I don't have a very strong stomach for stuff like this, so to be honest I stopped listening after a while. Mum went to Sainsburys so I kept an eye on things while she was out and listened to Jonathan Ross on Radio 2. This afternoon we shared some chicked and avocado salad (well, I only ate the chicken) and I read the paper and emailed a few friends while Mum made a fish pie (not even a SCRAP for me, might I add). Tonight I'm just going to relax on the desk with my head under the table lamp. This flat gets REALLY cold. I might watch a film if there's anything decent on. Mum is going to stay with her boyfriend and she's taking the fish pie with her.

A call to Dr Tanya Byron

I can't tell you how much I admire this woman; actually, I think I want to be her (but a cat-version). The way that she works with the families on BBC3's The House of Tiny Tearaways is amazing. She is so insightful, gets to the heart of the matter, and communicates it so sensitively to the parents (who generally end up understanding that their unresolved emotional issues are at the core of their children's behaviour problems).

Tanya, please, please, make a show with cats and their owners. It makes me sick to think of some of the damaging parenting that goes on in some cat-human households. Humans acting out their own issues on their pets, intergenerationally transmitting problems which their pets cannot help but pass on in turn to their children.

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin

Raincat

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