On Halloween last night, my friend Cristie delivered cupcakes to my house that had tiny little tombstones with hilarious sayings: RIP Travel 2020, Social Life 2020, Hugs 2020, RIP Trumps Term… (That one lifted my spirits.) The cupcakes were surrounded by little bloody bones, like a graveyard. I love Cristie’s witty and creative mind and her baking skills are unparalleled. My teens had a few friends over so I was banished to my bedroom where I watched The Haunting of Hill House by myself. I couldn’t decide if it was fantastic or sad that I was by myself watching a movie on Halloween night. I went with fantastic. Also I could hear the kids screaming and laughing in the other room so that made me happy.
Also, I just received a deep cortisone injection in my hip joint so I couldn’t go skipping around outside anyway.
Thank you Mistress Arthritis! I actually call her Mistress Arty for short.
I think of Mistress Arty as living in my hip in her thigh-high black boots with piercing knife-like heels, a leather body suit, a high slick ponytail, cat-eye liner and of course her whip in hand. She’s a vicious dominatrix, gleefully wreaking havoc in my hip joints.
But doesn’t it seem so apropos that I received a cortisone injection deep in my bones on Halloween? Bones! Skeletons! The shot was guided by imaging and I asked the doctor if he could see my arthritis. He said no, he could only see the bone, and if I opened my eyes, I could see it too. I shook my head. I have no interest in seeing my own bones thank you very much. Although I smiled to myself, wondering if I opened my eyes, would I see Mistress Arty in there doing her karate kicks while swinging her whip? I took a peek at the imaging board, felt like I might pass out, and closed my eyes again.
The doctor said, “You will feel a tiny pinch,” and I again snickered to myself thinking, “What if he said what I was really feeling, a tiny prick? But that would have been bad because I would have burst out laughing and I definitely would have moved. You don’t want to when someone is piercing you with a giant needle. I’m glad he stuck with the less descriptive “pinch”.
I felt the prick, I mean pinch, and asked, “Is it over?”
He said, “No, that was just the numbing agent.”
Greeeeaaaaat.
And then he missed the spot and had to move the needle WHILE IT WAS DEEP IN MY HIP!
Let’s just say it was a most unpleasant experience.
Although Mistress Arty probably loved it—she loves pain. It’s her business after all. When she saw that needle coming she probably did a roundhouse kick followed by a hip bump. (Little does she know that needle will hopefully be her demise. I’m preparing her own tombstone cupcake as I write.)
So last night as I drove through my little New England village, I saw skeletons and zombies and mutilated corpses walking the streets. And I thought, “I don’t need to dress up–I actually am a skeleton.”
But if you know me, you know I LOVE to dress up, I dress up all the time, even when costumes aren’t required. And honestly, even though I was banished to my room, I dressed up anyway in my favorite Halloween costume, a Fancy Witch, wearing a sequin apron trimmed in feathers and a gorgeous red witch hat trimmed in jewels and lace. Mistress Arty wouldn’t allow me to wear my purple velvet witch shoes because they have a heel, and only she is allowed to wear heels. Bitch.
So I grabbed a tombstone cupcake and put on my fuzzy socks and climbed into my big bed and watched my movie.
Halloween is a nice way to fool ourselves into thinking, “See? The scariest things are actually not so scary.”
Even though we know they actually are incredibly scary.
But we may as well do what we can to make light of the things that go bump in the night.
And that’s what I did when I created Mistress Arty. I like to turn Pain into something funny–it makes me feel better, it helps me cope.
I’ve actually never seen a dominatrix in real life, but I performed in a show back in the 90’s called Eating Raoul the Musical and one of the main characters was Donna the Dominatrix, brilliantly played by Lisa Passero. My parents came to see the show five times over the six month run (eight shows a week for six months at an Equity Theater! It was a dream!) and they laughed the hardest at Donna the Dominatrix’s big musical number. I could literally hear my Mom’s loud witch cackle and my Dad’s guffaws from backstage. In the musical, I played one of the “Raoulettes.” There were five of us and we performed in eleven musical numbers with nine costume changes. Sharing a dressing room for that many shows bonds you with the other actors and they become your family. The other girls and I spent many a pre-show time stretching and singing “I Will Survive” as our vocal warm-up. It’s funny how “I Will Survive” has been my anthem over and over again over the last thirty years.
So do your best Mistress Arty! I will survive! And when this cortisone shot finally works its anti-inflammatory wonders, I will make Mistress Arty her very own tombstone cupcake and then I will eat it and skip around my pink living room, because I’ll finally be able to skip.
