Setting free the Bear

My life right now feels like something out of a John Irving novel. There is a gigantic stuffed bear sharing the hotel room with me and Luke. The bear first belonged to Dan, who found it on the street and took it to the rehearsal studio we all practice at, and proceeded to taunt me by humping it and calling it "Boppity Bear."

Needless to say, I was outraged at this cosmic injustice and demanded secretly to the Universe that the bear would end up mine. Specifically, so I could one day sit it in the passenger side of my van (the Boppity Bear mobile) when I go on tour. And it took a lot of patience and trust, but sure enough, one day Dan left his job at the rehearsal studio and left the bear behind. Our debut show was impending, and I very charmingly asked the studio manager where the bear was, and if we might borrow it to take it on stage just for the night. He answered yes, but only if we brought it back, because the bear was actually sort of employed at the studio now.He then led us into room 15, where Boppity Bear was hanging in the corner, crucified, its paws nailed to the wall.

"He's acting as a sound barrier for the drums," the owner explained.

And that, my friends, is why I had absolutely no moral quandary about kidnapping the bear indefinitely from the rehearsal studio. It is currently sitting across from me dressed in a pink tutu and matching hairbows, with the three stuffed ponies, Frillie, Nillie, and Tillie, on its shoulder. It sometimes plays the electric guitar and sleeps in the bed with us. It has a much better life here. Luke tried for a day to keep it in the bathtub, but I wasn't having that at all. I'd rather Luke live in the bathtub. Luke is very aware of his fall in social order now that the bear has moved in... he sometimes eyes me skeptically as I'm dressing the bear in a new hat, or propping it in its chair.

"You don't need me anymore," he says. "You've got one of your own species now." But I do need Luke, because he's a coyote and scavenges leftover food for us from the rooms where he does housekeeping in the Dakota. And I scavenge from the Adelaide, and so we are never short on bath products, cheez-its, half bottles of wine, fruit bars, tea, magazines, bread, and soda.

Our medicine cabinet is stocked with random pilfered necessities, and we have Christmas lights and a disco ball and ponies, and a crown and bull hat, and three electric guitars, two acoustics, one bass, one drum, an amplifier, and a mandolin, and greeting cards and puzzles and games, and a huge painted canvas of a woman, who is propped sideways in the bathroom and stares at you when you're in the shower or looking in the mirror. And of course, we have the bear. Sometimes I wake up to find it lying tucked in next to me in bed when Luke has already gone to work. Or when he's getting in late, I put the bear next to me to act as comfort and also a sound barrier from the street noise. Sound barrier must be part of the bear's karma.

And so we have a fun and silly life in the Dakota, especially since the other staff members of the Adelaide have been moved to the dorms over here, and pop in on their way to and fro, and the lady in the bathroom is going to get re-painted for the next Trickster Salon, and the bear has already been on two cab rides across the city which I will tell you about in the next installment.