The Rubik’s Cube: or how cupcake finally admitted her Simply Ripping Qualities.

Cupcake has always admired and puzzled over people who have vast reserves of unquestioning self-esteem.

In wonderment, she has watched shows like Springer, where women Cupcake perceives as decidedly unattractive get dumped on national television but have no visible resulting thump in the stomach to their self-esteem. She has seen them say to the man leaving them (usually for her best friend or sister, or sometimes his best friend or his sister) –“Oh, really? Well screw you! It’s your loss, asshole, because who needs you? I’m hot and I’ll get a new one of you in ten minutes. A better one.”

Cupcake admires this attitude, but has never experienced it herself.

In writing workshops, people whose writing Cupcake found decidedly mediocre have extolled their own literary genius with such sincerity that though she first thought they were kidding, she went on to credit them with a laudable ingenuity, if an unfortunate lack of talent and standards.

Be it noted: Cupcake, in her rigorous pursuit of accurate self-appraisal, does concede that she's a good writer. In that way, she excels. And is confident. And is willing to stick her neck out in self-admiration. But this is because she is an excellent judge of writing, not an excellent judge of herself. And if she were not a good writer, she would admit it, just as she acknowledges sadly that she cannot draw to save her life.

(Be it also noted: Cupcake’s vanity, so rarely allowed to take the podium, demands that this blog's reading public be reminded that Cupcake is also a damn good actress.)

But other than for acting or writing, Cupcake permits herself little self-congratulation. This is perplexing to her, as she lives in the United States of America, a country that takes self-congratulation very, very seriously. (A little too seriously, in Cupcake's opinion.)

Whenever Cupcake bolts out into the world to blow her own horn, she stumbles on the front porch before she can sound a note. Her coat gets caught on the doorknob of perspective. She is handicapped and held back by her wish to examine things from all angles. So she sits on the porch and looks at the horn, and rarely does she blow it.

For example-

Suppose Cupcake says to herself:

"I am very intelligent. That’s cool."

She then says, "“Ah, yes, but what have you DONE with said intelligence? By their fruits shall you know them. Your accomplishments fail to measure up to your potential. And so, at the end of the day, Cupcake—isn’t that a sign that for practical purposes, you (or I, for that matter), are pretty DUMB?"

So I lay that assertion on the table.

Then I say to myself,

"Cupcake, you know you are an extremely loyal friend.”

To which Cupcake answers, “ Oh yes. Oh, undeniably so. You stand by friends come hell or high water. They sleep with your boyfriend—you stand by them. They offer small poisonous barbs at your self esteem, you stand by them. You show no discretion in your loyalty, Cupcake. In fact, one wonders if it's loyalty at all. Perhaps, my dear, the correct term for your brand of loyalty is CO-DEPENDENCE.”"

At this I sputter a little. I begin to assert that most of my friends are wonderful, that the examples mentioned were outside the norm— And then I think,“Yes, but that’s where loyalties are questioned, isn’t it? When there is a challenge to them? When one must choose to stay or to sever? Like a gardener who carries both the watering can and the pruning shears to work.

And so I lay that on the table, too.

I consider many qualities. Ambition becomes selfishness. Generosity becomes a way to deal with guilt. Being laid back becomes laziness. Honesty becomes a lack of tact.

All the virtues twist themselves into vices if you look at them too long. Even the intention of perspicacity can be seen as a failure to committ.

So this is the problem: Cupcake tries extremely hard to be fair in her assessments. Especially when assessing herself. And because I look at things from so many angles, I sometimes forget my own point of view.

Like, am I living my life in the first person, or is Cupcake living hers in the third?

But the Rubik’s cube is solved. From now on, I will simply choose the point of view that makes me happy. And if I am slightly unfair, well—indulge me. I have been such a harsh judge of myself that I deserve a little leniency for a time. (But I still reserve the right to write in the third person. Because I like it. And for the record, it stems from literary playfulness, not psychosis. Honest.)

And so, friends, Cupcake bows before you and most humbly asserts that she is a Simply Ripping girl, full of admirable qualities. And that anyone who wishes to contradict her in this may email her, putting in the subject line: Contradiction. And Cupcake will delete your comments, because she's decided to stick with her own opinion on this one, in the most blatantly self-congratulatory way.

Otherwise, the terrorists win.

Or something like that.