Godammit, I’m Mad!

In response to my last post about rock bands, I received the following comment by someone using the name Gene Simmons:

i hate that old dried up cunt, the one who´s son died

~

Here are my thoughts. It’s wrong to attack someone like this, online or otherwise. Why the hell would a total stranger try to hurt me in this way?? Just because they could get away with it?  It is beyond my understanding.

So I wrote back to this person, and said:

What a horrible thing to write to me!   May I ask what moves you to write such a hateful comment to someone you have never met?  I hope you never experience the loss of a child.   Meanwhile, I’d like to know why you would invoke the loss of mine in response to an innocuous blog post about rock bands?   Sister Wolf

The next day, she replied:

you know what you are right
I´m deeply sorry
your loss is way too big for me to understand, and i was outta line
this is what made me write that:
“that girl whose boyfriend punched her in the face”
when a person suffers through abuse, besides the beatings and insults and humiliation
what hurts the most is the scorn of those around her,
things like
“that would never happen to me”
“that happens only to stupid bitches”
and it pissed me off that while you demand compassion about your situation,
you show none towards someone who was fucking publicly punched in the face and then mocked endlessly for it
sometimes the only person who doesn´t shit on you for being in that situation
(that looks so simple but it´s not)
is your abuser
so you go back because in that moment he is being sweet, when deep down you know that it won´t last
and it was a mistake I´m sorry
I know things don´t get better by insulting someone else in pain
and there i was trying to put you down to make myself feel better
when we are all fighting something
that random comment just struck a cord, felt personal you know?
óbviously I´m not without fault myself
I hope this makes you feel less insulted

yours truly
Gene Simmons

~

Having read and reread this explanation, I don’t feel Gene Simmons knows the difference between a pop star and a blogger who lost a child.  I don’t “demand compassion” as Gene Simmons states. I have no demands. I merely expect human decency from those who wish to leave comments.

Gene Simmons is actually a 31 year old aspiring artist named Gabriela who lives in Mexico. There she is, above. She needs to take responsibility for the things she writes.  She’s not 12 years old, after all.

I don’t want to hear ONE MORE WORD about my vag, which in fact does not suffer from dryness. And I don’t want to be taunted with the death of my child.

Please explain to Gabriela why her apology is worthless, since I don’t feel adequate to the task. Explain to her that the cause of abused women isn’t furthered by grotesque insults lobbed at other women, under cover of a pseudonym.

And if you want more of Gabriela in your life, you can visit her here.

Saturday is Max’s birthday. I can’t Let Go, and I can’t Say Goodbye. He was my gift to the world and my partner in arms and my higher power. I miss him so much.

Omelette

I don’t know where I’d be without it.  I found this here.

And you can still find me here.

I confided to my psychiatrist that I’m obsessed with the nuclear reactor crisis in Japan and that I’ll be disappointed when they get it under control. I was shocked when he said he felt the same. “Of course.” he agreed, “We all crave this drama, it’s great. It lets us externalize all our feelings of anger and chaos.”  We both agreed that we weren’t actually hoping for something apocalyptic, although I am personally ready for the world to end.

A better way to distract myself has been tumblr, where I can scroll through images for hours.  I’ve learned to avoid the ones with the aggressively teen-aged nihilism: All those morbid photos of skinny kids with septum rings and animated gifs from horror films and topless hippies with guns in their mouths.

There is so much beauty out there. Visual stimulation excites some pleasure center in the brain, like eating chocolate or listening to an aria. Tonight my tumbler stopped working and it was horrifying to be cut off from my new addiction.  I have a lot of avoidance to accomplish. Max’s birthday is coming up at the end of the month.

Can we distract ourselves from everything serious with a focus on beauty products? I’ve always found them comforting, their promise of transforming us from ugly ducklings into flawless supermodels. Okay, so, what is your favorite beauty product that has surprised you by actually doing something good? I really want to know (remember: I’m desperate,)

My favorite product is Kate Sommerville Sunblock 55.  It’s light, greaseless, no fragrance, and leaves a dewy glow.  You don’t have to wear make up and you don’t have to get skin cancer.  I prosthelytize about it to everyone.

Okay, what’s yours?

I tried to write about Max tonight but it made me cry so I gave up. Instead, I made this suicide prevention poster.  When my webmaster wakes up tomorrow, maybe he’ll help me to put it on that side panel on the right.

Suicide prevention should be a wider campaign, with more visibility.  I’ve spend a lot of time reading about it here.  I wish I had known more about it, especially risk assessment. More communities should make it a  priority, like San Louis Obispo, which came up with this video to reduce the stigma of mental illness.

Watching events in Egypt, I’ve been aware of how petty most of our concerns are. But it’s so uplifting to see people exercising their power! Why didn’t that happen in the US when Bush was president?!

People DO have the power to make change. The least we bloggers and our readers can do is unite to boycott the website that is poaching on the-coveted.  You can write to them at info@thecoveted.com and tell them what you think.

Freedom of speech is a huge issue for me.  So is keeping people alive.

Let’s practice being Egyptian instead of rolling over or expecting someone else to take action! I’m ready to be of service to anyone I can help.

Spending most of his last 6 months in bed, Max starting using Facebook, and sent friend requests to everyone else who had his name. He was so pleased by the visual effect of Max Wolf leaving a comment for Max Wolf. He told me he’d started a Facebook group called People Named Max Wolf.  I loved this; it was so Max of him to think of this.

I didn’t even look at that page until after he died. I love the purpose of the group – “Exploring what it means to be a Max Wolf.”  I love that all those Max Wolf’s were able to appreciate  his gentle wit.  As a tribute to Max, I sent 37 friend requests to Facebook users who share my name. Only one of them accepted.

No one had a mind quite like Max’s. One of his college professors once wrote, “I am always eager to know what Max has to say.” I think all of us felt that way.

Sometime I wonder what he would think about something and I try to hear his voice. The one thing I can hear distinctly is that he forgives me. I don’t know why this is and I know how self-serving it seems but it’s still true.  And when I play the CD mixes he made for me, I feel his love.  I hope more than anything that he can still feel mine.

A long time ago, I wrote a story about my dad called “Smell the Leather.”  My parents divorced when I was 3, and my dad fulfilled his fatherly obligations by taking me and my sister out on Saturday afternoons. He bought a new car every year, and on these occasions, he would drive us around, commanding in a loud voice: “Smell the leather!” He was a happy, narcissistic man who fancied himself a Rat Pack kind of guy. It was a poignant story, as I recall.

Now, I have a different story but it’s still kind of the same.

My dad became seriously ill in June, and in my state of traumatized shock, I went to the city where he lives and helped out. In fact, I got the hospital to admit him after they refused all appeals to do so. Anyway, I joined my 6 siblings, from three marriages, in caring for our dad, who was shockingly frail and had to have a permanent feeding tube in his stomach.

Even though he’d been a terrible father, I wanted to help take care of him and make him feel surrounded by love. The doctors seemed to think he was close to dying. I slept on his couch a few times, listening to him cough all night through a baby monitor. He finally met my 17 year old son.

Now, miraculously, he has improved so much that his feeding tube was removed and he can eat again. He still needs care though, so I made plans to stay with him for a few days, thinking it would be nice to escape my life at home.

Then he called me. He started out complaining about this and that and then got to the point. He didn’t want me to stay with him because I “have too many problems.” He explained that it upsets him, as a father, to see one of his children so unhappy. It especially upset him to see me cry.

It was a surreal conversation but there was no way out. I said, “I can try not to cry, then.” He was skeptical. I reminded him that I had experienced the worst thing that can happen to anyone. He said he understood but asked pointedly, “How long are you going to be like this? Twenty years?!” I thought about it and said, “Yes.”

Trying to keep my voice even, I asked, “Well, how about if I just come visit for a few hours?” He replied: “We’ll talk.” and hung up.

Hahahahahaha! People don’t change! My father was always a fucker and he still is! The fantasy of a loving father was nice for a while, but I’m over it.

A rejecting father is forever, like a diamond.

There is nothing worse than feeling powerless.

Mothers always believe they have the power to make things okay for their children. If they scrape a knee, you know how to make it better. If they have a fever, you know how to lower it. If it’s something worse, you know how to go to the emergency room. If they hate a teacher, you arrange a meeting.  If someone steals their bike, you get it back. Whatever the problem is, you solve it.

If your child jumps of a cliff, you vow to make sure he’ll survive. If he’s not breathing, you still believe you can blow life into his lungs and bring him back.

Then, you keep pretending you have the power to punish the negligent or to force an apology or to find a grief group or to sleep soundly, or to hang on to your friends, or to get anything done that needs doing. But you are powerless.

Then after six months you ask the ex-husband if you can have some of your child’s belongings from before he got hurt but the ex says No, sorry.  BUT, you say to him, but this but that, but I’m the Mother! No, he’s not ready because he’s too busy because he doesn’t trust you and  anyway he’s going away for Christmas, just No. Sorry, but no, he simply can’t.  He’ll “look through” the stuff but not now and not with you.

A hundred years ago, I married a rigid controlling person who was wrong for me in every way except for the fact of our beautful son, and now I am powerless against his need to say no to me.

This is why I could never accomplish Step One. I can’t accept that I have no power, even when it’s so painfully and irrevocably obvious.

Here is a photo posted on a popular style blog today. The others in the series were NSFW. The handful of comments were enthusiastic.

A light finally went on in my head.

It’s the fucking decadence that I hate! Not really hipsters in general so much as the ones promoting decadence.

Nipple rings,  blurred sexuality, tattooes, shaved heads, pseudo bondage, jaded topless girls with cigarettes, Gareth Pugh this and Gareth Pugh that, it’s all so tragic and played out.  There’s just nowhere to go with this shit.

I’m aware that young people must shock their elders. But it seems like too many people aren’t growing out of it. I don’t want to call out bloggers because it’s not their fault. They’re just deluded. The images they’re purveying have been around in some form for centuries, but now it’s so joyless and commercialized. Just take it away.

I’ve been scrolling through paintings of angels and religious allegories for hours, trying to elevate my soul through beauty and sincerity but it’s hard to find a strong enough antidote to the sadness of everything tonight.

Just to keep hipsters in the loop, though, please enjoy this: