extra batteries

(Batteries not included - epilogue)

Here at Casa de What's-My-Name it's always a holiday. We can take a single Hallmark moment and stretch it into a couple months. We LOVE holidays.

Or, one of us loves holidays. I just smile and continue to fill the trick-or-treat buckets with pretend candy until Thanksgiving. For weeks after Chrismakah Amelia wraps plastic animals and Polly Pockets in tissue for Josie.

Valentines Day begins in the second week of January, just after the Christmas tree at Scott's comes down. The tree comes down, the hearts go up. Amelia is a slave-driver. More hearts Mommy, cut out more hearts. I said MORE HEARTS, bitch. NOW.

She ducks into her room on Valentines Day. End of the day, we've already discussed that the presents in the car were left by Daddy. "Well," she asks, "if daddy left the balloons and toys what did cupid bring?"

"Cupid doesn't bring things," I tell her.

"When did cupid come," she's not getting it. "Did he come when I was sleeping?"

"No. It was dad. Dad left the toy in the car for you. Cupid is pretend."

Oh.

She ducks into the bedroom, demanding privacy and shuts the door behind her. Mid-week the floor in her room could be the photo shoot for an I Spy book. If I wanted to find anything of mine that's been left in the girls' room the search would go longer than the marathon holiday.

If there is no cupid, Amelia's taking over. She re-emerges with packages for Josie and me. Josie gets a plastic dog, a plastic girl and a plastic chair that belong with the plastic house at Scott's.

She hands me a tote bag.

"Here mom," she pushes into my belly. "These are all your things. They shouldn't be in my room. They are not for kids."

I open the bag. What does cupid have for me? One sock, a screw driver and three AA batteries.

Happy Valentine's Day Senoir Bunny.

how

i compensate

*Instead of my workshop re-write this morning, I wrote this.

I hate my brain.

My spirit, I'm good with my spirit. Myself, me, whoever, whatever it is stuck inside all of this. I'm good with her, too. I like her.

But, my brain. I fucking hate my brain.

A wise woman once told me that twice exceptional means smart enough to know how fucked-up you are. Yeah, well. Plllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. If I could choose, give me some physical impairment. Take my hearing. God, how peaceful it would be to have quiet. To not have to hear everything all at once, all the time. And need respond simultainiously to all of it? Take my hearing, please.

My brain hates repetition.
But, guess what?
Every time you eat, there are dishes. Dishes all day long. They never stop.
Wear clothes? There's always laundry. Even as you pull six clean loads from three industrial dryers, the clothes on your body are getting dirty. It never, never stops.

Eat food? Back to the grocery store. Eat the food. More dishes. The food is gone. The dishes are dirty again. More grocery store. On and on and on and on. It never fucking stops. Life in my head.

There is no break from life and the things it takes to power through it? All repetitive.

Specialist after specialist explains it to me, I'm not stupid. Thanks. Well, you know what? You can have twice exceptional. If I have to have a gigantic deficit in half of my brain, I'd rather just be plain old dumb. Some days.

Thirty-years of specialists. And nothing they tell me makes this muscle run more smoothly. Nothing. So, I smile. They all say the same things.

I'm 7-years-old when they tell my parents there is no logical explanation for the way my over the top verbal compensates for my retarded visual. Can I just say retarded? Because I'm tired of semantics. Typical? How is that different from normal? And why does it matter?

Compensate? Um, it's called survival. Surviving. Of course. Of course I can get by on what I have. Of course you can too. That's what life is, surviving on what you have. It's ALL compensation.

It's the trees along the coast. The ones that grow through impossible circumstance - slowly from the rocks, twisting beautifully to compensate for the wind. Gorgeous torment. Where there is no soil the roots grab rock, bare rock, and cling with every thread to keep growing. Beauty from the most impossible circumstance, because the circumstance is so impossible.

That's the rub, isn't it? Hardship grows beauty and hard is life and life is irrepressible. Build a city in the jungle, leave it unattended and the earth reclaims it in a moment. Grows through it, over it, buries it in green tangles of truth. We sit on the limestone tops of man made remains wondering at the nothing surrounds it.

It's all a breath and you can't stop breathing. Concentrate on it. Meditate on this. Hold your breath. But the air just keeps flowing in and out. Life is bigger than we are. And we are life. And it just keeps coming.

So, I go my friends' house last night. I can't go home to the dishes in the sink and the toys on the floor. Always with the toys and dishes. Never stops.

So I go to my friends house and attack my brain with everything I can, to anesthesize it. Make it numb. Shut it up. Ah, the quiet.

It doesn't matter that I hate my brain.

So I Compensate.

solstice shows

"Mama, mama many worlds I've come since I first left home."
~Robert Hunter

May 1993

It's different the way they treat you at 6 o'clock on Saturday morning dressed just as yourself on the same stretch of sidewalk you cover five days a week looking just like them. There's no good reason to be hanging out across from the State House now, checking the morning paper in the box. I'm alone on the sidewalk and it's already full sunlight but not bright enough to burn the cold. Jeans busted out at the knees, flowy skirt over jeans, t-shirt under Guatemalan sweater - purples,blues, pinks. I'm not thinking about the morning paper, looking past the State Capitol dome, Ohio flag hanging limp, to the building across the street, where I need to be in a few hours, showered and changed and dressed as my other self. The reporter this cop would breeze by without a nod. Definitely not more than a "good morning." This way, this me, I'm out of place. He sees uncertainty, me looking like I'm not sure I should be here, and I'm not. There is no sign of anyone else coming for tickets.

I should not be here. Should have, would have, mail order tickets, if I
hadn't missed the first day of mail order. If my hostage, the guy who's
story I'd been following last month, whose mother I'd been talking to
for days, hadn't been released on day six of the longest prison riot in
history, I'd be right where I should be now: home beneath the covers
hours away from waking. That's not how it went down.

It went down like this. Friday morning, April 16, I stop by my friend Craig's house early to pick up his mail order for Deer Creek Solstice shows. We go, line by line, over the 3x5 index cards, make sure everything is just so. If it's not exactly right there Grateful Dead Productions won't process. If it's not postmarked on the day mail order opens, forget it.

The 3x5 card says:
Grateful Dead Ticket Sales – Deer Creek Music Center
P.O. Box C-S 8190
San Rafael, CA 94912

Craig pulls smoke through a purple Graffix so the cloud lifts past a Europe 72 sticker and fills in the lighting bolt of a Steal Your Face, then passes the "Bad Cop, No Donut" sticker wrapped just below the mouth. Bobby sings from the speakers "… alone in the rush of the drivers that won't pick me up…"

Craig's belly sucks in under his ribs.

" …the highway, the clouds, the moon and the stars …"

Smoke pushes into the room and Craig's belly pushes back out into his shirt.

"… Ah, mother, American night. I'm lost from the light …"

I fit the card into a #10 envelope, any other size will be returned unopened, with a money order and another #10 addressed to me, with 55 cents in postage to cover the cost of mailing six tickets.

"So pavilion for Solstice and lawn for the second two nights, right?" Taking the bong and lighter both into one hand, envelope in the other.

"Yeah. Ohhhh. Solstice is going to be so smoking." He takes the envelope from me and seals it while I fill and clear the tube.

And Bobby's still at it on the stereo "whats to be found racing around? You carry your burden wherever you go. All full of the blues, trying to lose. You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know …"

"OK Bro." I'm standing, setting the Graffix on this mess of a painted table that has that same lyric across it in blue marker: You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know.

"I'm going taking this to the post office. But, one more first."

Stuff the whole number 10 set up into my briefcase and I'm down the hall out into the sunlight of my day off. The thing is this prison riot. Half the staff in on it and no one really has a day off. I stop in to the paper to quick check on something before the post office. Too stoned to be there, I'm on the fourth floor where no one works. Where I can get in and out without a conversation. Why didn't I run errands first, let the buzz fade and then come here?

Doesn't matter now. Before I escape, Tony Demons is walking free from the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, skull cap on his head, cops flanking him as he passes through the chain link to the media area. Suddenly my day off is up in smoke. The number 10 never leaves my bag.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Good morning," the cop says, leaning almost to my face, "What's going on?" Not exactly accusing, but in this tone that has me feeling like, actually, I'm about to throw a rock through the one-story glass front of Players Theater.

I'm not sure whether to be pissed of at his judgment, his narrow assumptions, based on the cloths that look like I've slept on the sidewalk, or proud that he thinks I could be committing a crime. I probably walk past this guy six times a week.

"Do you know if Players is selling tickets this morning?" I have one hand on the newspaper box so my upper body is almost entirely over it. "I went across the street and called, I work at the paper, so I went over there and called, but I couldn't find out if they are selling Dead tickets here today."

I make a point of telling this guy, whose opinion means nothing, that I work at the newspaper, that I'm a reporter, to justify that it's OK to be me. That I can look like this, and he can be completely wrong. Really, it's just, I like the idea of being dangerous, of looking the hippie-rebel better than I like actually rebelling. A compulsive rule-follower masquerading.

"Yeah, I don't know," he says, easing back.

Why does he believe me so easily? I'm fidgeting and nervous and arrogant in a way that must be yelling "LIE! LIE! LIE!"

But he lets it go and I circle the newspaper box again debating, go somewhere else or chance it on staying here where I will be first in line, if there is a line, if there are tickets being sold. My head slowly swings from a little drunk to the edge of hungover. I want a cigarette. Should have bought smokes on the way down here. I'll go get a pack and find an open TicketBastard. For sure there would be someone else here if it were opening.

I turn to go, there is.

Three people, two men and a woman, all long hairs, round the corner and closing in from down the block. The blonds are obviously a couple and the other guy, brown hair down past his shoulders, green and black plaid flannel jacket, khaki shorts, Birkenstocks, is a half-step ahead of the others. His arms hang forward from his shoulders, swinging in a funny uncertainty, like his body can't decide between lumbering and swaggering. I'm watching like the cop, my own judgments coming quick
and then easily dismissed.

The other guy, the brown-haired guy looks good. The closer they get the better he looks. So by the time he's right up to me, I've totally forgotten his funny, lumbering walk. There's a short exchange about whether we should stay or go to another TicketBastard.

Then me: "It's such bullshit. This cop was just hassling me a minute ago and there's no way he would have done that if I was dressed for work. Total bullshit that he's watching me because of my cloths… I hate cops."

The brown-haired guy is agreeing, rocking back on his heels. "I fucking hate cops." He palms a whole cantaloupe in his hand and reaches out with other. "Hi. I'm Scott. You want a slice of cantaloupe?"

I hate cantaloupe. "Yeah. I'd love one."

To be continued … and continued … and continued ... and continued

batteries not included

Let me tell you about the length of seven months. Seven months are 210 days, but whose counting? Oh, yeah. Right. Me. I’m counting. I’m counting that seven months can fly right on by, but 210 days?

Two hundred and ten days are a back road Sunday drive, interrupted by a washed out road, blockaded, detoured and … you get it. S-L-O-W. That’s seven months in my body. Without another body.

I’m at my friend Heidi’s the other day, have I mentioned how much I love my friends?

Anyway, I’m Heidi’s and Josie is shadowing Georgie. Josie adores George – the older man at three. It’s George and Josie jumping off the chairs and laughing, over and over. George in his blond hair, Superman boxers, Buzz Light Year shades and nothing else. Josie peeling shoes and socks, getting to bare feet before I stop the shedding.

Josie putting pirates on the Play Mobile ship: “OK. Piwate you go up here. Play piwates, Geowgie. Wanna play with me.”

George waving his light saber: “No, Josie. I’m a super hero.”

Heidi and I at the table, steam rising from the teacups between us.

In another life, not so distant past, she was a Passion Parties rep. Sales, like Tupperware parties, but with sex toys instead of airtight leftover containers. And now that she’s gotten away from it, there’s this whole box of lonely, unwanted, untouched samples somewhere in her house. Somewhere. But, where?

I’ve been asking that question for months. Where, where, where is that box, girl? And, she’s stumped. In the back of a closet? Buried behind her husband’s guitars? WHERE? See? See those capital letters? Those big letters mean URGENT. Desperation.

It’s nearly time to get Amelia from school and I need to go, but I am not leaving empty handed.

Trail Heidi down the basement stairs after her laundry.

“Ok, you NEED to find the box,” now it’s just "the box" and we both know what I’m talking about. “I’m going to rip your house apart, girl. SEVEN MONTHS. It’s been seven months,” I say. “Seriously, I’m going to rip the walls out to find that box.”

“Oh my god, I forgot to tell you. I FOUND IT! I was going to call you yesterday, but I was on the way out and I knew if I called you’d want to come over.” A pause, stuffing wet cloths into the dryer. “Oh my god. Seven months. I’m so sorry. That’s so long.”

We’re up in her room, highest back corner of the closet is a pretty pink case, white polka-dots, stuffed with black silk bags that are stuffed with vibrators. Choose your style. The Monarch. The Rabbit. The Jelly Osaka. The bullet. The G. Choose your size. Choose your features. Long? Stubby? Straight? Curved?

Anything. Anything will do now.

George is in the doorway, curious, and I’m feeling around the bags but not pulling anything out with Superman hovering.

“Go play with Josie. She came over to play with you,” Heidi says, leading curious George back to the family room.

“But, what are you looking at?”

We’re talking features and functions, but I’m an easily influenced consumer, Sex In the City girl. So, it’s The Rabbit. No point in discussing the others.

My friends take good care of me. I leave with the black silk bag, lubricant, a two-cup coffee maker and a can of powdered kitten formula she wants me to pass on to this animal rescue woman I’m supposed to interview later in the week. All of it mingling in a plastic Freddy’s bag.

Can’t get this kind of variety at Freddy’s.

“There’s no batteries in it,” she says as I’m sliding Josie’s shoes back onto her feet. “You need to get C batteries. I think it needs three.”

The whole bag hits the back of the car and I don’t think about it, or the three C batteries, until it’s dark outside. Dinnertime, then baths and stories and bed. Too late for battery shopping now, the rabbit sleeps in its perfect silk sac.

But, this is a kids’ house. Kids’ houses have kids toys. Kids toys, the kind my parents send - the talking, bleeping, blaring plastic kind I hate - they have batteries. The kids are sleeping, the toys are silent and I’ve got the screw driver out, gutting the Winnie The Pooh talking phone, the Backyardagins radio, the Diego drawing board that Josie calls her “Ego (com)puter.”

AA. AA. AA. Doesn’t anything in this house take an effing size C?

Let me tell you about necessity. There’s a little bit of McIver in all of us, even me. And you know what, three AAs may be a bit longer and a lot thinner than Cs, but line them end to end and viola, power.

Now I have power, but these things don’t fit right, keep popping out. They’ll need something to hold them in place. Think, Holly, think. Tape, can’t find the tape.

BAND-AIDS! Of course. A bright green band-aid, crossed with a blue one, reinforced with another green and now the rabbit is running.

Let me tell you about just one more thing: it’s amazing what a Band-Aid can fix.

all that's still unsung

Here's this line that keeps going through my head now that I've been obsessively listening to the Dead again. I was one of those Deadheads who spent years, at least three years, listening to almost nothing else. And then, nothing. Hardly ever even put a single song in rotation anymore. I've been writing some back story and I know the tunes are all going to figure into the bigger story, if only as a soundtrack to my writing. A few well placed guitar licks to coax the memories.

But for now this just this line, this one verse from Stella Blue:

"I've stayed in every blue light, cheap hotel
can't win for trying,
Dust off these rusty strings just one more time
gonna make them shine, shine"

Certain lines, the crowd always erupted, like when Jerry sang that one. Cheesy as this sounds, I will miss Jerry Garcia for the rest of my life.

I've been playing with this thing in my head about the Dead and spirituality, trying to figure out how to write it without just coming off as the cliche.

Scott said this thing about us meeting in line for Dead tickets and me knowing who he is, he said, "You met me in line for Dead tickets. Who did you think you were marrying?" He said it in therapy. Led to this discussion with the therapist about how she always had gotten that there was this certain commonality that drew people to the Dead but never understood what.

It is spirituality, hunger for it. Always that was so clear to me. It's so simple. The words and the guitar work scream it, and here were all these mostly 20-something, upper middle class white kids struggling to find something. Raised on dogma in a plastic wasteland and knowing there is so much more. Something. That we are that, but with no way to get to it. Just a wanting. Wanting to be OK with themselves and the hardness of life and the connectedness of everyone, everything. The synchronicity. Ask any Deadhead what they loved about tour and they'll tell the tale of synchroncity.

All these lost people searching and believing in something. Screaming out to lines like these:

"I have spent my life seeking all that's still unsung
bent my ear to hear the tune and closed my eyes to see
when there were no strings to play
You played to me."

and:

"In another time's forgotten space
your eyes looked from your mothers face
wildfire seed in sand and stone
may the four winds blow you safely home"

and simple like:

"I'm still walking, so I'm sure that I can dance."

Weird, I know. But does it make any sense?