In the room the cats come and go / talking of Macavity, oh no!
In the throes of a bucolic screening of Cats (2019) at the Carleton Cinema with my lads, an anxious thought crossed my mind:
Who will be MY date to the Jellicle Ball this year
You may be asking yourself: what is the Jellicle Ball? Where is it being held? Can I go to the Jellicle Ball? To these questions I give you one answer:
Are you blind when you’re born? Can you see in the dark?
Can you look at a king? Would you sit on his throne?
Can you say of your bite that it’s worse than your bark?
Are you cock of the walk when you’re walking alone?
My high school had a Junior Prom. I looked like this back then. I went with friends; we had a good time. No drama. We listened to black metal on the way to our conservative high school in Southern New Hampshire. It was subversive. Cheeky, even.
Times have changed since then. I have grown older, more mature, wiser. I have become a fourth-year university student worried about my future. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, screaming loudly in a hot sweat, “Oh! Old Deuteronomy—can you PLEASE take me to the Heaviside layer???” I realized then, that this would be the year I needed to go to the Jellicle Ball, in the hopes that I could be the Jellicle choice.
However, I quickly realized that I could not make this leap of faith alone. No, I could never perform in front of Old Deut alone, against the likes of the pathetic Magic Mistoffelees, the ever-horny Rum Tum Tugger, the crafty Macavity.
I need a date to the Jellicle Ball. Someone to lift me up, to be my wing-cat. Someone stronger than every lunk at Goldring, sharper than all the Trin kids who use “obfuscate” to obfuscate simple conversations in tutorial, and heartier than a bowl of minestrone from Ned’s.
I need to escape my problems. I need to go to the Heaviside Layer. I’m not ready to graduate. I need to be reborn as the son of a CEO or something so I don’t need to go to school and get by on nepotism alone or some shit. I don’t fucking know man, why do you always ask me this? I’m just trying to have a good time, it’s a Saturday, I’m at a party, we should keep these convos in school. I don’t want to worry about this right now you feel me???