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My cat who hates me is stalking me as though she likes me

IMG_20190627_190901509_PORTRAIT~2 — *“When 900 years old, you reach… Look as good, you will not.”*

I mentioned in a previous post that I have an old house. By old, I don’t mean cool, mid-century-modern old, like with a little Pledge it’ll look like a Design Within Reach catalog in here. No, by “old,” I mean, didn’t-start-with-running-water old. Also, what is Pledge?

When I first toured the place, after noticing the more newly added walk-in closets upstairs and two-year-old central air, I checked out the basement. These are a dodgy proposition in any house, let alone one that’s been standing more than a century. Got lucky. It was in pretty good shape, the bones of it anyway, and it still is, considering its age.

In the basement were a number of storage areas added hastily by the family who owned the place for 80 years or so. The place had been rented out for about two years by the time I showed up. I can’t recall why the original owners had left it. I do recall the renters being unhappy to see me. I also recall them being even more unhappy to see me set free a black cat trapped in one of those storage areas.

It was an accident. I didn’t know. I was shocked, though, by the amount of cat shit stuffed in that room. It’s one thing to keep your pet in the basement – I guess – but another to never clean up after it, ever. She was desperate to get upstairs, probably out of curiosity more than escaping all that shit. It was a tiny space for creature meant to roam. Of course she wasn’t mine; I had to shove her back in there. I left, heartbroken by the everyday neglect of everyday people.

IMG_20190627_190851042_PORTRAIT — *What she does when I call her.*

“I’ll take the house and the cat,” I said to my realtor. “The renters can leave her there after they vacate. I’ll check on her until I’m all moved in. Put her in the offer.”

“The renters would like to stay.”

“The renters are not staying.”

The cat’s really old these days. She was an adult when I moved in and it’s been 12 years now; in that time she’s gone through phases of hating me and hating me more. Cats, man. I respect her for it.

IMG_20190627_190646507 — *The fart face.*

More recently I think she’s become senile enough to follow me around as though she wants my attention. This is new. I’ll bend down, pet her, she’ll bite, she’ll swat, she’ll follow again, I’ll try again. Her hair is getting gummy, matted in spots, falling out in chunks. I know what that means.

Love takes a lot different forms if you’re open to it. The hard part is appreciating it while it’s around. This old lady, this gassy old bag of bones skulking around the house like she was here when it was built, I’m just not sure I’ve noticed her enough.

And it’s getting late.

On a lighter note: Big East news

The longer I can keep this up, and the longer you stick around, the more you’ll understand that outside my emotional maelstrom I can talk about normal things. These are my favorite:

Making people laugh
Boxing
College basketball

And specifically, Big East basketball.

In what’s been the worst-kept secret for about a week it today became official that the UConn Huskies would again be joining the Big East, the conference its administration once felt fine abandoning for its woebegone football program. Well.

I don’t know if the same administration has any understanding about sunk costs and throwing good money after bad and things that just aren’t going to happen, like a successful Connecticut FBS football program, but it’s nice to have a founding member of the Big East back home, even if home is now on the side of the street with the big cathedral on it.

The Big East is different now.

I get it though. A Big East alumni who grew accustomed to watching her team play Louisville through various conferences for around 30-odd years, I know it sucks when a serious rivalry goes away in the name of ESPN conference alignment goals.

So to my Big East sister schools who’ve been playing UConn since the early 80s? Freeze ’em out at the Dunk, Cooley. Jay Wright, just do your super-model thing. Georgetown, if you could pull one out, that’d be great. Make them as welcome as ever in Jersey, Seton Hall. St. John’s, um, I kinda don’t know what to say to you right now.

Or vice versa! It’s great either way. Plus, I’m looking forward to seeing UConn play new foe Xavier. That’s probably gonna hurt for a while.

Women’s basketball

Here’s where UConn really helps the Big East basketball product if it doesn’t eat it alive first.

It’s not as though the better women’s teams aren’t spread out anyway, but only two have stood out of late in the Big East: DePaul, which does nothing else right, and Marquette, which has two state-of-the-art athletic facilities across the street from each other. Which is to say, the women’s game may have improved there despite what Marquette hasn’t done for it.

With UConn women’s basketball in the fold, shining a big bright Maglite on how little gets put into women’s sports everywhere but there, we may see some additional resources allocated to the women’s game. I’d like to think so. The Big East might be focused exclusively on basketball, and that’s great for those of us who could care less about football. But it’s the men’s game. And see, women play basketball, too.

I watch a lot of boxing, including (or especially) women’s boxing. Unlike many of the men (Anthony Joshua?), I’ve not seen one woman boxer lack heart. They all want to win. Bad. Man, do they work. (Same’s true for women MMA fighters, if that’s your gig.) But training resources? There’s a wide gulf between a lot of them, and it shows up in skill and entertainment value.

Imagine what women’s basketball might look like if more were invested in it nationwide. Or just conference-wide. If there was a palpable sense that the NCAA, university and fans cared. By “palpable,” of course, I mean American dollars. The outcomes may never be the same. The product may never be as “good” as the men’s game. It’d be nice to have the opportunity to judge for myself.

Welcome, UConn!

Ok, enough time on the soapbox. Bring your heathen fans, UConn! Bring your mean women’s team, tall in their black hats, to kill us all! Bring your rebuilding men’s team which, no doubt, is on the way up. Get Shabazz Napier to some of the games – I always liked that guy. Any lacrosse? Bring your bad grammar to our small-school message boards. A good time will be had by all, I know. Here’s to 2020-21! It can’t get here fast enough.

MacGregor, Mayweather, my ex

An ex of mine, whose default position was flat on the couch, was an MMA fan. For someone so lazy he could not have chosen a more physically demanding sport to follow. It requires strength and smarts to solve each puzzle of an opponent, whose skills may complement or conquer the other’s. For this the sport is admirable. There’s an opening for almost everyone.

Now gyms that smell like sweat and toilets are all over the country, in strip malls and old warehouses, and my ex went to one, at least for a while, to learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu – one of MMA’s primary martial arts. I don’t know what color belt he left with, or why he stopped going. But I can’t imagine a man who ran out of breath a minute into missionary making it five minutes on the mat. With anyone.

mac — *Hey, Conor. How ’bout some pants? Photo:* The Sun

It was through him that I was introduced to the sport at all. I’d not seen much of it. just enough to find it so much more brutal than boxing. It was often much more boring than boxing, too, with 10, sometimes 20 minutes of two people rolling around in shorts like underwear preceded by five minutes of pat-a-cake. I didn’t get it. Constant commentary would come from the couch. Ah, that’s where all his breath went. I was nice about it. It wasn’t until watching Conor MacGregor, as much an entertainer as a fighter, that I stopped pretending to listen.

It was Friday Night Fights or something like that. MacGregor was wiry and little. Too short for me to date, to be honest. He’s a ginger. Of course, I thought, and there’s the Irish flag. The Irish usually box, I’d said out loud, but was told that wasn’t true anymore because Conor MacGregor.

“Does he have more of a stand-up game?”

“You mean, is he a striker? He does everything right, you’ll see. He’s really fast.”

MacGregor’s got a neck tattoo, a crown declaring his collarbone king, and I thought this career had better work out for him. He would fight in those tiny shorts, the kind sold in the ladies’ department. I felt awkward watching MacGregor go on about his business in such little leprechaun shorts.

My ex was right, though. MacGregor was fast. He was powerful, maybe fighting a weight class lower than what was natural for him. He was flash and not without flaws – he grated. And yet he was thrilling in a sport that silenced its audience because so often there was nothing to cheer for.

Yeah, and fast. Or rather, his decisions were fast. And in the long five-minute rounds of MMA, fast decisions look like lightning.

It must be said that fast in MMA is slow in boxing. Witness the difference between MacGregor’s speed, future opponent Floyd Mayweather, and some children boxing in the dirt:

This is important because Conor MacGregor is set to box Floyd Mayweather (49-0) on Aug. 26. No kicking, no striking, no grappling, no choking. No fighting. Boxing.

MacGregor, as seen in the video, is working on a different bag and different skill set than Mayweather. He’s not on a speed bag. He’s on a heavy bag. OK.

But look more closely. Look at MacGregor, punching in a way that made me understand, finally, that punching isn’t striking and he’s trying desperately not to strike. He punches with forethought, solving the puzzle of an opponent who’s long gone while his legs plant heavy, stalking the octagon in his head.

Shields — *Note: MacGregor, this is how you punch. Photo: Tom Hogan.*

But look more closely. Look at MacGregor, punching in a way that made me understand, finally, that punching isn’t striking and he’s trying desperately not to. He punches with forethought, solving the puzzle of an opponent who’s long gone while his legs plant heavy, stalking the octagon in his head.

Look at Mayweather Look at MacGregor. Look at the kids.

MacGregor could be publishing dummy footage to stack the odds. The Irish love to gamble and win or lose, he could get paid twice. He would not be the first Irish to gamble on his own fight. But is he in league, then, with his sparring partner to publish the same damning evidence? No. Or maybe. I don’t know. MacGregor’s a great fighter but he’s annoying. It’s the tale of his tape. And anything could happen anyway. If Mayweather’s not ready for Irish gamesmanship after 20 years, then shame on him.

I could say the same. My ex, who like MacGregor wore his Irish ancestry like cape and would also not shut up about anything, was exactly who he was, always. This didn’t happen to me when I was 20. This happened when I was 40. I knew his game somehow but like a paying crowd he gave me what I was looking for until I would always seek it. Like sugar. Like booze. Did he leave some in the couch cushions? He didn’t even shower on Sundays, but I was high enough until the next fight. Anticipating, replaying knockout in a sport I merely tolerated for too long.

Until I didn’t. I drew him in then tiptoed away. A fight’s a fight and I won.

To Ron Livingston, Richie Woodhall, and my hero, Claressa Shields (pictured above). Shields fights for the WBC Super Middleweight World Championship at 10 p.m. Aug. 4 on Showtime.

Missing

I subscribe to a website written by a couple of kids who call themselves soul-workers. There’s stuff about chakras and Solfeggio frequencies and twin flames. At first blush the grownup in you might think you’ve landed at the wrong place; you were looking up “how to stop crying all the time.” But the site has a great deal of good, practical advice and information, crystals notwithstanding.

This includes types of muscle tension, or which emotions get stuck in which parts of the body. I don’t know how true it is that guilt, shame and unworthiness congregate only in the lower back, but I’d believe it because my lower back hurts and I feel all those things.

And I have headaches. I get them all the time.

I wake up with them. If I don’t wake up with them I get them by the middle of the day, end of the day at the latest. I work with them, although I’m not as good at working with a headache as I used to be. I’ve been getting them for nearly 20 years. There’s not much choice in the matter. And it doesn’t matter what kind of headache it is. They all hurt.

I take a cocktail of anticonvulsants and muscle relaxants at night to control – or try to – one source of the daily trauma: TMJ. I have my ex-husband and a car accident to thank for the TMJ. (Thank you!) Some days I don’t know what’s worse: The fear of waking up, painfully, or the struggle to forgive the man and what was a true accident.

I work at mitigating the symptoms. Feverfew, heat, trigger-pointing knots across my back until I’m tearful, sweaty, and nauseous. I’m impatient. I meditate at night. It’s not helping yet. It’s supposed to but it’s not. Is five months enough?

I frequently swallow too many triptans, too many days in a row. These are migraine abortives, in case you didn’t know, and you’re only supposed to take them twice a week, tops. But you try having a migraine every day and see how long you last. They’re expensive and I’ll pay anything to have enough.

The worse part? It’s not the physical pain. It’s missing.

I miss work. Calling in yet again is heartbreaking in its normal abnormality. A frequently deformed workweek, the stress of failure. Talent wasted. No one is as sick as I am.

I miss people. There is an encompassing fear of making a friend then revealing that in fact, there’s something she should know so she can decide if she wants to be friends with someone who, when asked How are you? will probably lie. I’m OK.

I miss love. See above, making friends. Then multiply it times infinity: How could someone ever love a woman who can’t get her head on straight? Who takes a senior citizen-sized handful of pills each night? You can only hide that for so long.

I miss days. Sunshine hurts my eyes. Rain swells my sinuses. My shades are drawn and I wish the days to pass with a singular purpose, like a line of worker ants with their one job. Then like time they’re gone.

This website, with its talk of shamanism and spiritual teachers, would advise me to attack the root and symptoms by being kind to myself in practical ways. It’s in a book I bought from them: Do some yoga, wear bright colors, discuss every day with myself what is good about myself.

But I don’t know what that is anymore.

Many thanks to lonerwolf, a truly lovely site written and run by truly lovely people. It’s full of free and affordable advice anyone can use. Check them out if you’re stuck. Note: I have no affiliation with the site.

Bad decisions in love and boxing

junk — ***Rances Barthelemy makes one of two intimate shots on Kyril Relikh. Photo: DBN***

On Saturday, May 20, Cuban boxer Rances Barthelemy won his WBA light welterweight title final eliminator bout against Belorussian Kyril Relikh in a unanimous decision. Each 140-pounder was knocked down by the other, but only Relikh enjoyed several illegal left-hand backfists and two shots to the junk. 116-110, 115-111 and 117-109 were the scores for Barthelemy.

Like his fellow Cubans, Barthelemy held the outside of the ring. Cubans are the ballroom dancers of boxing: They toe about the edges, ceding control of the ring to their opponents, whom they then draw into jabs and uppercuts timed like a Swiss watch. To do this a Cuban can use several rounds to size up his opponent. Who gets bored. I get bored. So opponents are drawn in and I’m glad for it, because boxing is about punching. But the Cubans are experts at defense, precision, getting out the way. They lead the waltz as they appear to be led.

Kyril Relikh was drawn in. Then he out-punched Rances Barthelemy by a ratio of 2:1. 248-137 in overall punches. 190-91 in power punches. An average of 80 punches per round for Relikh versus 43 for Barthelemy. Relikh out-landed Barthelemy in nine out of the 12 rounds.

Still Relikh lost. He had no reason to doubt the outcome because he did everything right, including dropping Barthelemy in the fifth round with enough power punches to kill a cow. He had the numbers, the proof. He had the crowd. And he lost.

636309242803383805-IMG-9118 — *Barthelemy gets the decision, plus a positive reply on OKCupid. Photo: Tom Casino*

At this point, you’re not thinking about boxing anymore, are you? You’re thinking, This is online dating. It’s the kind of recognition I saw on Kyril Relikh’s face he watched Barthelemy fall to his knees in gratitude, knowing he would go home alone without any clue what happened…and never would.

Online dating requires an incredible investment of your time before you ever even meet someone. It’s like a six-month training camp, including an hour a day sparring just to get to coffee. You get pretty tired. So when you come across someone who’s the right height, uses good grammar, has all his teeth, whatever, he gives you the hope of a no. 1 contender.

It doesn’t start out that way. Like the man who contacts you simply because you’ve clicked an interest in their profile. On paper he’s a catch, but he’s checked the tape: so are you. He mentions his ’69 Buick. You know about ’69 Buicks. So you ask questions about the ’69 Buick because what guy doesn’t want to talk about his ’69 Buick with someone who knows about ’69 Buicks? Not this one. Did you ask the wrong questions? Or the right ones? Don’t care. Took a flyer on this one anyway.

Then there’s the man in whom you see a number of commonalities, including but not limited to compatible sun signs. That’s become one of the best signs out there. He’s an Aquarian, like you, and his humor seems uncannily similar. A lefty to your righty, you bet. You send a funny inquiry, and you know it’s funny because you can read. Must’ve been too funny. Or not funny enough. Note to self: test your material.

Then there’s one with the funny hat. Why aren’t you using your photo with the funny hat anymore? He meets your now-minimal standards and you expect even less. Yet, there he is, changing that photo immediately, writing immediately, writing you back immediately. It’s quality work, a conversation filled with the kind of one-liners you think about once a conversation is over except that it’s all happening right now. You ask for him out for coffee. Because you’ve done everything right. Right?

You thought you drew him in. Now you’re six inches from the ropes and Funny Hat is six inches in front you, stepping on your foot. Judges never look at the feet.

Capture — ***Kyril Relikh, right, dislikes the Western Hemisphere, Match.com. Photo: The Mirror***

In October 2016, Kyril Relikh fought Scot Ricky Burns for the WBA World super lightweight title in Glasgow, Scotland. Relikh was the world no. 1 contender; Burns clinched Relikh, ran from Relikh, and failed to land Relikh for much of the fight. He was gassed. He looked to have lost rounds one, two, four, six, nine, 10, 11, and 12. If you’re counting, that’s most of them. Burns said he felt like he’d been hit by a bus. For a boxer to say that after a championship bout means that his opponent truly did everything right.

The judges scored the bout 116-112, 116-112, 118-110 for Ricky Burns.

Kyril Relikh, if you ever step foot in the English-speaking world again, get in touch. I think I’ll be available.

Note: The WBA has recently ordered a Relikh-Barthelemy rematch. No date has been scheduled.

This post is dedicated to Ronald McIntosh, Richie Woodhall, and Claressa Shields, who would be doing quality work on Funny Hat’s face.