Aurora Borealis and Seriously, I Hate Ticks

Most important things first, I accidentally saw an aurora borealis in Moab. I was there for my cousin's wedding, which I'll talk about in a sec, and the night after, we all decided to drive up to arches to see the Milky Way. My family and I found this bunch of benches, and once I found one that didn't smell like pee, I leaned back on it and looked up. And, well, I live in LA, so just seeing the Milky Way is like going to Mars for me. It's enough to make one feel awe, and then panic about how unimportant you are, and then go back to awe about how unimportant you are. Then, I stood up to stretch my legs, and I looked over, and the sky was moving.

To the naked eye, it didn't look like the photo above. It looked a little bit like a black and white TV on static, only instead of white and black it was red and white. And the part of the sky that was moving looked a bit like sky geysers – it didn't take the whole sky, just a part of it, and that part of it was intense.

For a moment, I thought that maybe someone had tricked me into taking some drugs, or maybe this tick disease was screwing up my brain in ways I didn't want to think about. So I said, "What is that?" And everyone who'd been looking just up looked to where I was looking, and there were some confused noises, but the kind of confused noises that indicated I wasn't the only one seeing it. And a thought went through my head that the aliens were finally coming to save us from ourselves. But then some stranger, someone who just also happened to be there, said, "Oh my God, it's an aurora!"

And when I looked at it through my phone, it looked like this (which, if anyone needs an album cover photo, I got ya). And I mean, just, the aurora almost never goes this far south, which is why it's red instead of the usual blue or purple, I was later told. It is so incredibly rare, and for me to just happen to be there that night? I just ...

Which is all just to say, I couldn't think of a more fitting end to this wedding. There are a few things to feel hopeless about lately, but seeing these two together. Man, they are both journalists, both smart as all hell, both good-hearted and loving. They wrote their own vows, and holy wow, professional writers writing their own vows is something. And sometimes, you see people together and it makes you feel hopeful about that world, and it was that kind of wedding. We might not need aliens – maybe these two can save the world themselves.

I am still slowly recovering from whatever tick got me in Europe. UCLA Infectious Disease is flummoxed. They honestly have no idea what it is. I feel somewhat better, but my brain still doesn't really work, and I can only do like one thing per day. I can't say I recommend this experience. Sometimes it's incredible to remember how little we really know, us humans, and how (thx to my friend Indu who just said this to me) we are all just little systems that can only do what our systems can do.

I'm under a lot of pressure at the moment. I got some great feedback from my adviser on my book, and she seemed really excited about it. I, too, am really excited about it, but it is hard to write a book about many of your most traumatic experiences when your brain doesn't work. But also, I am going to be okay, even if I am not going to be okay. Even if, in a few weeks, we are all not going to be okay. Because this little bit of stardust is too tired to panic right now.

Speaking of panicking, I'll leave with this little anecdote: I'm teaching one of my favorite novels, Nevada by Imogen Binnie. I sort of got that my students were lost, so I asked about queer history. Not a single one of them had received any lessons in queer history. They didn't know Harvey Milk or Magnus Hirschfeld or Brenda Howard, they had maybe vaguely heard of Stonewall and Pride, but not from high school. These kids who right wingers claim were "brainwashed" by the left had never even heard of the history they were afraid they were being brainwashed by. What I'm saying is the kind of stuff DeSantis is pulling is having an effect nationwide, that teachers are afraid to teach it everywhere. So I stopped my whole plan and gave them a lesson in queer history, because if the election goes the wrong way, giving that lesson could jeopardize USCs funding, if the Republicans do what they say they're going to do, the lesson could cause USC to lose all of its funding. For simply teaching about a history that people don't want to hear about. Anyway, the students were super interested. And it went really well. But just if you need an easy way to remember what's on the line for many of us, I like this quote from Imogen Binnie:

If you find yourself interacting with someone who is “critical” of “the transgender movement” or whatever, ask them what they think trans people should do. If the only thing they can come up with is “not be trans,” point out that the vast majority of trans people have already tried that, and it tends to make us suicidal. If they can’t come up with anything better than “don’t be trans,” please understand that they very literally want me and at least 1.4 million other Americans—not to mention way, way more people outside the U.S.—to die.
Don’t let them equivocate. “What should trans people do?”
All they’ve got is “die.”
It’s kind of intense.

It makes one tired.