Last night was one of those special nights that make you feel like Santa Claus.
My concert/musician conoisseur friend Allison, a 38 year old with mild Cerebral Palsy (she can push herself in a manual wheelchair), has literally been stuck in the hospital the last 3 months with these mysterious stomach abscesses that had to be surgically removed.
And since she’s been in bed for 3 months trying to heal, she’s not surprisingly gotten weaker. So now, unfortunately, she’s at a stage where she can’t transfer herself anymore from the floor back into her chair for example (in her studio condo she just has a mattress on the floor…yeah she’s emo like that). So now she’s found herself in the nationally renowned Courage Center: A residential rehab center with PT, OT, and everything else disability-related under the sun. I myself lived there 10 years ago from ’97 – ’98, then moved out into an on-campus dorm.
So long story short, Allison has been seriously jonesing for some “medication” that involves a stage, live music, and some sexy guitar players. And being that’s she’s finally better to leave the hospital for short spurts at a time, and being that she had two FREE (woo!) tickets to see Billy Bragg last night, I was needless to say a more than willing chaperone. So off I went at 5:30pm last night to cross town to pick her up in my hoopdee – my modified, with ramp, lowered-floor 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan – and there was Allison in a freakin’ powerchair (her first time ever in one). She wobbled very unsteadily up my ramp, but blessedly made it inside in one piece, and within 20 mins we were at the venue.
We got the stellar, rock-star esque “gimpy gimp” seats, right by to the stage; far left. And we got a great view of da man himself, Billy Bragg. As per his usual (so says Allison; she’s seen him 12 times), he was great. His set involved a lot of political talk regarding Obama, Gitmo Bay, and then he blabbed about Bob Dylan for awhile too. And after the set, we rushed her back to the rehab center before midnight.
It was a great night. Allison got her much needed concert-fix, I broke her outta rehab and felt like Super Woman, and we got to see a famous musician up-close. What more could two disabled gals ask for?
– Tiff
PS. Billy likes to drink tea during his set. So very adorably British.
PPS. Allison cannot under ANY circumstance keep her eyes open when a camera flashes. lol. Silly CP.
Lately my mind has been elsewhere. On concerts, politics, friend drama, getting costumes ready for CONvergence, the utter lack of decent men in my city, and well, red wine.