Cupcake and more Readers' Questions

Readers, Cupcake is flattered and touched by the numbers of you who confidingly share your secrets and ask her for advice. She thanks you for your belief in her sagacity, and she aspires to deserve the admiration and trust you've so lavishly brought to her feet. Certainly, she is very fond of you for doing so.

Still, the sheer volume of correspondance required for Cupcake to answer her many admirers means that she must write only cursory replies, like that of C.S. Lewis to an admirer:

"Mr. Lewis acknowledges your letter and states that he has simply nothing to say in response."

(Cupcake apologizes to the many who've received similar replies from her. Her computer came with a program that spits out such emails, but she only just discovered it and isn't sure how to rectify the situation, being not at all technical.)

So here, Cupcake will answer a few more questions that seem to be a common theme amongst her readership, in the hopes that the generosity of her inevitably lengthy reply will smooth the wounded spirits of those who apply to her for succor.

"Cupcake, what is to be done about love? I'm all in a muddle over it."

Ah, my poor, dear reader. Cupcake offers you her sympathy. And if you were here, she'd offer you tea to go along with it.

Cupcake has many theories about love. In fact, if love were physics, Cupcake reckons she'd be a pioneer of Quantum. She thinks that because her perceptions of love so radically jar with the concepts she observes in the world around her. And so she warns you that applying to her for advice on the subject will not give you a pat rule, like "Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle of matter," or "Object A and Object B cannot occupy the same space."

Cupcake thinks the Newtonian theory of love has long since been supplanted, but that few people have caught up with her on that idea.

What's that, you say?

(Because Cupcake believes that Object A and Object B actually can inhabit the same space, she sometimes overhears readers' thoughts.)

Somewhere, a reader is snidely thinking that perhaps Cupcake thinks she has such a highly evolved and complex understanding of love because she's struck out so very many times in that particular game.

Well, quite so, reader. That's exactly it. Cupcake has spent many an idle hour daydreaming over her desk at the patents office, and staring into space while the game goes on before her as she's sitting on the bench. (Cupcake wryly notes that she's so far removed from the game that she's actually been sitting in the nosebleed section in recent years, nowhere near the bench. This thought is a private joke, funny only to herself and another person as likely to read this blog as Kenneth Lay is likely to get his passport stamped at the Pearly Gates.)

But here's what Cupcake thinks about love.

Love is not about being with someone forever. She thinks Love is about seeing them for who they really are. If you see that, and appreciate it -- if you really really get them-- then it doesn't matter if you see them every day, or even ever again. You carry a hologram of them in your heart.

"But, Cupcake, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Of course you want to be with the people that you love."

You're probably right. Cupcake agrees that a hologram scarcely keeps one warm on a cold night, nor is it much fun to bounce ideas off of when, for example, you're thinking of taking a new job. But a hologram is complete. And if you can take the hologram out, you'll see how beautiful it is. Rather than being irked, for example, that the hologram left dishes in the sink, or used the last bit of toilet tissue and didn't replace the roll, or said the wrong thing. Those sorts of things obscure the beauty of the person you love. They keep you locked into small, incomplete pieces rather than the glorious whole, which is what you really love about them.

"Cupcake, you're just being silly. One wants to be with the person one loves."

Yes, but Reader-- if you think that Object A and Object B can't occupy the same space, and if you're always with this person that you love, then you're always apart from them too.

"Cupcake, you're missing the point. A relationship is just that: the way two people relate. It's about interaction. Which means you stick around to -- you know, interact."

It's true. Cupcake doesn't understand attachments. She's very Zen that way. (At least, that's the positive spin she puts on her commitmentphobia. Because remember, Cupcake's determined to focus on her Simply Ripping Qualities.)

Cupcake doesn't really understand Quantum Physics, either. But as it gives her an excuse to zone out of the world around her and stare into space in deep meditation, she's been contemplating Quantum lately. She finds it soothing, and certainly the odd concepts of "spooky actions at a distance" are easier to grabble with than the vicissitudes of the human heart.

Cupcake likes the quote from Lawrence Durrell:

"Who invented the human heart, I wonder? Tell me, and then show me the place where he was hanged."

Still. Cupcake thinks physics and love have a lot in common, and in both topics, she thinks she must see things in a very peculiar way. Like, even in conventional physics, Cupcake observes that the most interesting part of the equation is often overlooked: that just as the apple was drawn to the earth, the earth was drawn to the apple.

"Cupcake, you said you were going to answer my questions, not drone on randomly about love and physics."

How right you are reader. Cupcake digresses. You were saying--?

"Oh, never mind. You're pissing me off."

Oh, dear. Cupcake regrets this. But as there's not a lot she can do about it at this point, she thinks perhaps it's best if she ventures outside for a walk in the park. If it makes you feel any better, the crows will surely scold her, and you can pretend that all their screeching is the result of her vexing you.