Alien Judas

My backyard was overgrown, so I went to Home Depot for a weed whacker. After I tied the dog to the fence because he was hell bent on getting a Glasgow Smile from the whipping twine, I slayed the overgrown grass. Toward the end of the spool, the twine got loose, and came out much too long. So the whacker had an 8 inch diameter. When this started, shrapnel flung about, and my legs were cut up. The small gashes on my legs, and the quick accompanying pain wasn’t completely unwelcome. It was sort of invigorating.

It reminded me of this stupid thing we used to do in high school. First, we’d rip the safety out of a Bic lighter, then light the flame and hold the lighter upside down so the metal heats up. Once the metal was hot, we'd take the metal and smash it into our skin, branding ourselves with what looks like a smiley face.  A barbaric practice, but I don’t think it was really like “cutting” because there was nothing therapeutic or shameful about it. It was just crazy young people stuff. Maybe we did it to forget how bored we were.

My daughter was sent home from school last Thursday because she had allergies. I didn’t realize this was something that warranted a nurse’s visit, but I enjoy the company, and my kids’ sick days are really the only way we have one-on-one time. On the drive home, I asked her to go on a walk, and in a raspy voice she said, “I need to be inside because of my allergies.”

I replied, “I think you need more exposure, Kiki, thats why you’re having this sensitivity.”

She told me allergies don’t work that way… she sounded pretty confident, so I believed her.

My daughter wakes up every morning like she’s going off to a work camp, not elementary school. She gives very colorful speeches, about the campus and students. A personal favorite is when she screamed from her bed, “MY SCHOOL IS FULL OF HOBOS AND IDIOTS!!”

Between 6:30 and 7:30 am my daughter forgets all the perks of school, like free lunch and free counseling, instead she focuses on the awful. Ironically, she finds their “Positive Thinking” campaign to be a load of horse-shit, and laments in a mocking tone how they respond to any complaint with a blanket statement, “Think positive.”

It warms my heart I don’t have to give her a discussion on toxic positivity. She innately understands Buddha’s quote, “Life is suffering.” I’m not against positive thinking, and encourage it, but I don’t think “positive thinking” is an indoctrination, and it certainly shouldn’t be attributed as the root of success.

A few years ago, in a statistics class I taught, I started a project with the students about positive affirmations, but I had to stop the project because I read studies that showed this is very harmful because it encourages the belief that their lack or crappy circumstances is the result of their own thoughts. These are young adults, only 18-21 years old, so they are still reeling off the tides of their upbringing. It is not the same as life-coaching a thirty year old. So students in financial hardship, or dealing with family issues, are led to believe that these are the result of their own shitty thinking.

Wallowing in misery is also ill-advised. There’s no benefit to negative thinking, however, once you acknowledge feeling sad is sort of normal, then it makes feeling good great! Besides, I really believe great things are accomplished by interior suffering. That’s the Catholic in me.

I watched YouTube videos from people who micro-dosed shrooms. This was all first-hand accounts, and there wasn’t any science to it. The videos were entertaining enough, and the influencer discussed how after they took the micro-dose colors seemed brighter and there wasn’t any sadness in their heart.

I thought, “I’ve got to try this shit.” So we got a shroom chocolate bar that came in an Wonka wrapper. I ate the smallest dose and watched TV. It wasn’t any more enjoyable than watching TV after a gummy, and in the end I got a massive headache. So micro-dosing shrooms wasn’t some sadness-ridding ritual for me, but maybe I should have done something more meditative than four episodes of Shark Tank.

The kids and I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory recently because G read the book in school. We were deciding which characters from the movie we’d all be. G is Mike TV, Kiki is Veruca Salt, and I thought I should be Charlie. They both nixed that idea straight away, but when I told them that I would share my birthday chocolate bar (traditional chocolate bar here) they countered I’m more like Violet because I punch them when they’re bad. These are not actual punches, I’d like to add. They are playful, non violent punches, but obviously Charlie doesn't embody such jest.

Geoffrey does like to go on walks with me, and we generally talk about Minecraft. The mosquitos have been out lately, and after we came back from a walk he counted five bites, and feverishly scratched them. I almost came at him with a punch, but stopped, and just said, “Stop scratching those bites.” And sounding like a Christian Scientist I added, “Leave it alone, and trust that your body is healing.”

On this walk Geoffrey and I were talking about aliens, and we carried on the chat at home. With Kiki in earshot, Geoffrey told us he watched a YouTube video about a Tic-Tac shaped UFO. I said I saw a YouTube video about a cube-shaped UFO that shot out of the ocean.

Kiki was silent and wide-eyed, then she looked at me and asked, “Is the front door locked?”

I believe aliens exist, and will tell any available ear about a dream I had where I was sucked up by a beam of light, and then felt terrible pain while something was digging though my organs. When I woke up, my body hurt, and I thought, "Could it be?!”

It didn’t scare me, actually it was the opposite. I thought, “Holy shit, I’m important enough for aliens!”

But, when I looked at my daughter, and her heightening anxiety, I told her, “This is all baloney, Kiki. Aliens don’t exist, never have, and never will!”

I sounded pretty confident, so she believed me.