I went away for a while.

Did AirBnB, in two cities over four days.

Some vacations are all about taking in. This one was all about emptying out. Not that I planned it that way. I didn’t plan it at all. I said yes to an invitation, packed a bag, chipped in for costs, and went. With a good friend and the friend of my friend.

She brought her Ugly Doll. Meet Winkolina. Reunited with Peaco. My friend adopted Winky many years ago during the height of the Ugly Doll Movement. Clearly we are still moving. Car was loaded. Uglies aboard. Friend of my friend was picked up on the way out of town.

By the end of the trip, the friend of my friend was my friend too. I see an Ugly Doll in his future.

Day one, we talked for 16 hours. I think I emptied out a couple of years’ worth of stored words. Maybe not years. Maybe a year and some months. It’s easy to exaggerate when your vocal chords are sore because your tired voice sounds like a different version of you; the huskier you. I’d say like an actress but it was all too honest and authentic for that. By day two I felt lighter, brighter, and nude.

Bare.

Empty.

Stripped.

But in that deep clean way. No violence of the soul.

And since I was the only one in the house who didn’t sleep in, there was also nourishing silence while they slumbered. Nights of merriment. Mornings of zen. I drank coffee and felt calm in a tiny nook under the stairs. Like Savasana before the practice rather than after.

The Chef went somewhere else, on his own trip, with his own friend. He did not take an Ugly Doll. He laughed at me from afar when I told him my travel companions chose a roadside barbecue shack for lunch. The only vegan options available were a bag of potato chips and a pickle.

We arrived at the wrong address for our first AirBnB location. We tried like hell to get in, assuming we were doing something wrong. Even went around to the back door, stomped around the backyard, looked in the windows, tried the security code a bajillion different ways. We couldn’t raise the host on the phone so we just kept trying. Eventually we figured out we were trying to break into the wrong house. Somehow the neighbors didn’t call the police on us and we left without incident. The correct location was miles away.

Instead of going to jail we went out for a drink. Yes, a vegan drink. And a better meal than chips and a pickle.

The waitress asked, “What’s the story with the little monsters?” She admitted she’d heard of Ugly Dolls before but had never seen any this ugly. It’s true; some Ugly Dolls are cute.

My friend had a wardrobe malfunction with tons of time left for fun and frolic but no back-ups packed. We panicked not. We shopped. The Uglies behaved like they were on vacation.

Later that night while we were gone to a baseball game the Uglies cut loose in the condo. Lacking fingers and toes they still managed to make a remarkable amount of mischief.

We made sure to take them along to the next baseball game. We saw three games total. Two in Oklahoma City, one in Tulsa.

After my travel-mates cycled through barbecue, cheesesteaks, pizza, fancy bagel sandwiches, and burgers, we had brunch in a yoga studio on day three. It was a wellness center with a cafe. Full-on crunchy granola kind of place. I think my friends felt sorry for me and made this concession but truthfully, I found plenty of vegan noms everywhere except the bagel shop and the aforementioned barbecue place. Click the links to explore.

Same day, after the game, while walking back to our parking spot we stumbled directly into a LGBT pride picnic in the city park. With partner yoga. The Uglies got schooled.

Day four, we journeyed home.

Now I’m home. All is well.

— Mercy