Ultram and Me

My cell phone rings. I roll over and peer, one-eyed, at my alarm clock. 3:45 am. The phone rings again, playing some dopey tune I programmed specially for someone, but I can’t remember who. I lift it with the one hand not entangled in my velvety sheets.

“Ice Dad,” says the screen, all innocent. As if Ice Dad has any business calling me from Portugal at 3:45 am. Someone must have died, I think. I answer it.

“Hello?” I hear nothing. “Hello? Dad?” Background noise. Won’t Dad be pleased to hear his pocket called me, to the tune of $1.75 a minute, with that fancy European inclusive plan of his. I hang up, setting the phone back on the nightstand in easy reach, in case he really wanted to talk to me.

I roll over on my back, looking at the levered city shadows on the ceiling, listening to the sounds of pre-pre-dawn on Sackett St. Someone rummages through the recycle bins for deposit-worthy items. They roll away trailing a squeaky cart. A truck rolls loudly by. A giggle erupts from the last patron at the sports bar around the corner. Someone must have hung out in front even well after it closed. After a week of sleeping in the woods in a tent, all these things sound peculiar to my ear.

I’ll probably have to use the bathroom, now, I think. I do my usual woken-in-the-middle-of-the-night scan of my body to see what it says. I’m dizzy and I itch all over, says my body.

But I. Feel. Wonnnnderful!

What?

Oh, the Ultram. After giving up the one drug which ever made a dent in my pain due to its annoying side effects, (namely nausea, constipation and – shall me just say high -ness), I gave it another try last night. A week of sleeping on the ground, followed by 10 hours in the car and going back to work today just about ground me into dust. I needed a drug. Something good.

What, you don’t have to pee? I say to my still half-slumbering corporal self. Oh, maybe that, says my body. Maybe in a minute… I’m not desperate. But, um, hey Niki wake up! Did I mention I don’t hurt anywhere? I. Feel. Wonnnn-

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Don’t get used to it.

But it is Heaven. I imagine all the vastness of the universe twinkling inside me, in the new space opened up in my body between the sinews, within the joints, inside each cell, at the ends of bones. I took that pill 8 hours ago and I still feel this way. That may be a good thing or a bad thing..

Hey, Hey Niki look at this! My body rolls over to a seldom used position for sleeping because it puts too much pressure on my left hip. Wow, I think, very good, that’s impressive. And check this out! Another position. I feel like I could stay here for hours.

I scratch at another itch on my left forearm. I gave this drug up as a daily thing for everything but the itching. I’d always been so high I’d basically forgotten about the itching. Maybe I’m actually allergic to it. Maybe I feel so good I don’t care.

My body is busy luxuriating in yet another position, not because it had to but because it wanted to try out another one.

You know you’re high, right?

Hell, Yeah! I. Feel. Wooonnnnn-

Go back to sleep.

And I do, and it’s dreamless.

Believe it or not, Colin won tickets to the Mountain Jam festival this weekend!

Let me share my little bit of joy...

My partner, Colin turned 40 this month. He's been really bummed about it, being not where he wants to be in his career, and seeing growth in the belly and not so much on the top of the head, etc.

Colin loves a singer named Micheal Franti. This guy is a real activist with singing - he went to Iraq and all over the Middle East with his guitar, just singing peace and love, you know.

We saw Micheal was playing at the Jazz festival in New Orleans, a city that's very special to Colin. (he grew up in Pensacola, three hours away, and kicked back many a good cocktail there.) We bought plane tickets and made hotel reservations, hoping for a nice balm to colin's small mid-life, uh, downward correction.

Then the economy totally tanked. Colin has worked a total of maybe 7 days in 2009. His work went bye-bye with Citibank. With my illness, we have about 3/4 of one job between us.

We cancelled New Orleans, ate $150 each per ticket (which cost only $220 in the first place), and sat at home and made rice noodles instead of paying for a hotel.

Knowing Micheal travels, we checked out his touring schedule and saw that he's playing -not once, but twice!- at the Mountain jam Festival in Hunter Mountain, NY this weekend. We figured a trip to someplace drivable would be cheaper. And we could camp. We made a reservation for the campsite - and paid for it.

Still, as the festival approached we looked askance at the $89 one-day tickets. Should we cancel yet another musical adventure? Where is mortgage and rent going to come from June 1?

Then Colin twisted his ankle - badly - in his first "sports photography-related" injury (he was taking pics of an old-fashioned baseball game and tripped. Go figure.) Did we really want to drive up there, camp and have him hobble all over, to the cost of over 100 bucks each?

Then one day last week we were listening to the radio in the car - we always listen as far as we can on the way upstate, because we don't get much radio at our house - WDST out of woodstock would be giving away tickets all weekend!

So we made our calling plan. Saturday we couldn't be near a radio or wi-fi. But Sunday we called several times, only to get busy signals. We mastered the repetitive dialing technique on our cell phones - which also barely work up there - to dial at least once every 10 seconds - that's one call every 5 seconds between the two of us. We just had to get through.

On Monday we realized because we were listening to the radio on line, there was a delay, but we didn't know how long. So when we felt they were about to offer tickets, we started calling.

I got ring tone instead of a dial tone! Excitement! Then I heard the contest announced - the 8th caller would get free tix! Finally some guy came on the line and said, "you're number 2, keep trying!" Was it the DJ? I jumped up and down like a maniac. "Call! call!" I demanded of Colin, who of course already was.

We both continued pressing "end" and "send" on our phones as fast as we could. We dialed and dialed. It was like junior high, all over again. Except i think neither of us really had the guts to talk to a DJ in Jr. High. We both got busy signals. I began to suspect the whole contest was a sham.

Then i heard Colin saying, in matter-of-fact tones, "why, no, I haven't won anything from WDST in the past 30 days."

Did he win? did he? Then I see him hustling, as fast as his limpy leg will carry him, out the front door and onto the very edge of the deck. He's lost his Stage Manager Voice, as I call it. "Wait! Sorry, hold on, I'm up in Fleischmanns, I have bad reception!"

Oh, noooo! Was he caller #8, only to be doomed by the fact that the Verizon tower is behind the hill and in Spring the leaves are sooo beautiful, but their blooming hinders the already wimpy signal?

But the call stayed true. And Colin did a victory hop on the deck, screaming, "I've been trying to do this for at least 20 years! I won! I won! I won!"

And thus, my friends, your energy, spun with fate and a little determination on our part, has brought our household...not a good landlord, not the perfect job, not a miracle cure to my illness...but maybe the thing in the world which would actually cheer us most. FREE tickets to the Hunter Mountain Jam at Hunter Mountain this weekend.

And good things come in threes. Then we came home, and there was a new tree planted in front of our building in Brooklyn. A Japanese something-or-other. (Colin had called 311 and requested one months ago through the "Million trees NYC" Program, like, ages ago...) Really? A tree? In front of our slum building?

And ...we brought a bike home from upstate, (a donation from my dad, who happens to be about Colin's size,) and locked it up with a good, sturdy lock and hope to get it tuned up at Bespoke Bicycles in Ft. green within the week.

Thank you all for reading in. Sunday I'll be in my tie-dye stringy dress with a happy Colin and yodeling Micheal Franti. Should keep me from getting too caught up in being poor and old.

Bless!

Niki