The Price of the Ticket

Well, boys and girls, tonight Cupcake is having a Bad Night.

It's four a.m., and in the cellar of Cupcake's emotions, fierce dogs are barking. Their howling is high-pitched, intolerable and loud. Cupcake wishes fervently that she knew someone else who stays up as late as she does (i.e.-- pretty much always)-- because then she'd call that person and bawl her eyes out. However, it's a casualty of aging that, as time passes, one's friends grow older and inevitably go to bed earlier. Even Cupcake's friends in California will have long since turned out the lights.

No real reason for this Bad Night. At least, no new reason. It's simply the Price of the Ticket.

That's the bit of consolation that's keeping Cupcake at the keyboard instead of perched on the railing of the Bayonne Bridge.

What price? What ticket? Oh...It doesn't matter.

A friend said to Cupcake recently on another Bad Night-- "But didn't you know, somehow, when it began, that at some point you'd be standing exactly where you are?"

Cupcake admitted that yes, that had crossed her mind.

"But even so, you needed to be there, right? To see what would happen?"

Cupcake admitted that that too was true.

"Then," said Cupcake's wise friend, "At least you know that this was a choice. This pain wasn't thrust on you accidentally. You knew you'd end up here. And knowing that you'd end up here, you still thought it would be worth it to see what would happen if you went after the thing you chose."

She was right.

This wrenching agony Cupcake feels is simply The Price of the Ticket.

Was it worth it? Kinda. Sorta. You betcha.

If the thing Cupcake chose hadn't have happened, her life would be so boring that -- well, she doesn't know what. But it did happen. She swallowed the red pill. And here she sits, agonized but at least alive.

Because the opposite of Death is Pain, right? William Goldman wrote that, in The Princess Bride.

He also wrote, "As you wish." The sword upon which Cupcake has fallen.

Wrong time, wrong place. Fuck. I should have been born in a different time, and then the way I feel would make sense and I wouldn't have to defend myself constantly to the few people who know what I'm talking about in these rambling posts.

The Bayonne Bridge is looking better and better.

Just kidding. Kinda. Sorta. FUCK.

I hate you for this. I HATE you. (Don't worry, readers. Not you. The person for whom those words were written will never read them.)

And Cupcake's going to stomp off to bed and growl alongside the tigers that come at night with their voices full of thunder. It's not that she thinks she'll fall asleep. It's that she's a practical girl, and a somewhat lazy one, and she knows that if she gets horizontal she'll probably not find the wherewithal to drive to the Bayonne Bridge. At least not before sunrise, and once the sun rises all this shit will seem less important. Kinda. Sorta.

I hate you so fucking much, but I can't stop crying.

Proof of Life

Lately, every night I have a dream asserting that something or someone isn't really dead.

As one might suppose, when I wake up, I remember that-- oh, yeah, he, she or it really IS dead. There's an hour or two of head-scratching "huh?" disorientation.

This, presumably, is simply because it's only dead people that my subconscious mind feels a need to go to bat for. Those still living can generally speak for themselves.

Here are some recent subjects of dreams:
Errol Flynn
According to my dreams, Errol Flynn has left his body but has not passed on to the Other World. He's floating around this one waiting for his posthumous Oscar. At night, he visits people who admire him. I've recently enjoyed his company on two nights. The first, he took me to Disneyland. We shouldn't have had to stand in line (because he's a celebrity) but we did (because he's dead and none of the 20-something ride attendants knew who he was, anyway). He was a perfect gentleman about all of it.

In the second dream, he wanted to take me scuba diving. When we got to the water, it was frozen, so I demurred. He went on it. Said it was "refreshing." I suppose when you're not incarnate, subzero temperatures are less daunting. There's something to look forward to for all of us.

Long-time readers of this blog (and hail to you, if you have persevered through my inconsistant publishing record) will not be surprised to learn that my subconscious mind also refutes the death of Casey, my beloved border collie.



In a series of recent dreams, I learned that in fact she's been staying with a Boston-based lesbian couple that (apparently) I'm good friends with in my dreamlife. It seems that I asked them to take care of her for a while while I went to Poland to buy shoes. The trip took longer than expected because I couldn't find any pairs of shoes that matched. (Please regard my international shopping trip as a compliment to the Poland's excellent leather craftsmen, and overlook the implied insult to Polish intelligence. It was my fault I couldn't find matching pairs, as I was in a huge hurry.) But by the time I got back from Poland, I'd forgotten where Casey was and I never went back to get her.

That was a sad dream. She looked at me with such melancoly eyes when I ran into the gay couple walking her.

Another night, she was also seen running with the Wildebeest on the African savannah. That was a much happier dream. I was in a helicopter and saw her amongst the herd, stampeding. She looked happy. I debated about whether or not to bring her back to Jersey City. The helicopter pilot pointed out that it would be difficult to lassoe a running border collie in a herd of wildebeest. I reflected on whether I was being selfish...but I woke up before I made a decision.

Also, I've had some strange dreams about Clover, my rabbit who died last month. It doesn't seem to matter if she's dead or not. She's taken on a sort of Yoda personality in my mind. She's mentoring me in being stronger and wiser than I am. (If you haven't known a rabbit, you may suffer from the misconception that they are timid. To that I say, "Ha!" It takes a brave soul to be born in a relatively defenseless body, and Clover was one of the most amazing personalities I've been priviledged to meet. Think Gandhi meets Stephen Frye. She was profound and powerful, and sassy as all get out. When alive, she was able to convey all this with only body language and expressive eyes. Now that she's communicating through dreams, she gets a lot more oomph behind her message.

I don't think this is a very interesting post, and I doubt you will either. But my conscious mind felt I needed to assert that I too am actually alive. And I found a cool picture of Wildebeest, which Blogger wouldn't upload. But here I am. Alive, for what it's worth, and dreaming.

I'll write more soon. With any luck, it will be interesting.