Alien Rom-Coms, Silver Pendants, and Slingshots of Justice: Finding Resilience in the Absurd and the Sacred

In I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com, by Kimberly Lemming, Dory contemplates the age at which she should be ready to have bad knees. She hopes the houses they have just trekked to have hot water. Intern, the owl-like alien, responds proudly that he was on the human enrichment team that focused on their living areas.

Fiery reds and blazing orange race against waves of ocean in a swirling pattern, surrounding the houses in the center. Intern wants to know if they got the houses right. Dory creeps forward look at the grass that blends into the first wave of yellow rock.

This book is hilarious. Can you imagine being abducted by aliens, and hauled to a far-away planet where you were expected to reproduce with another alien race because the first group was so incompetent it wiped out another planet, grabbed only males, and then had to go to another planet to grab women to mate with them—only they spent a total of three days studying the planet. Needless to say, their generative AI got everything wrong, and our characters are on a quest to punch an administrator, steel a spaceship and find a way home.

Not knowing what the future may hold, they find some awe and respite in the landscapes that were created. Sometimes, we are in such a hurry to get to where we are going, we fail to appreciate what is around us.

Another lesson here is that people’s lives are complex. You don’t want someone doing a quick study without realizing how things interrelate before arbitrarily deciding how things are done and that you are smarter that the experts. That’s not genius—it’s incompetence, and a complete lack of regard. Slowing down, appreciating what we have, makes it easier to preserve it in the long run.

In another section of the same book, embers sparkle uselessly across the Gruulorak’s thick hide. The Gruulorak crouches low, and Dory yells at Sol to run. Their forms disappear when Lok throws Dory over his shoulder and takes off down the stairs.

When Dory wakes up on a bench in a chapel, Intern and Sol are nowhere to be seen. In the main hall, they are both standing near a Steamboat Willie statue. Intern tells Sol that there is no telling how quickly the poison will take effect.

According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, by Courtney Tanner, the University of Utah has asked faculty to comply with the Utah’s new state law banning displaying the Pride Flag on campus, or any other government facility. Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne warned that the state legislature has a lot of power over the school. The provisions are scheduled to take effect on May 7.

Last Thursday, I picked up the new pendant to hang side-by-side with the pendant containing my mother’s ashes. It is a silver couple’s heart with my name, my mother’s name, and our birthstones. They look elegant hanging side-by-side.

I dreamed about my mother Friday night. She was helping me pick out a console TV. I considered one that would also play records, but it was too expensive for my taste. Outside in a storage area, I stood on a moving track that was designed for moving heavy objects. I’ve moved my new mint, bay laurel, lavender, rosemary plants, and lavender plants to their new pots. The weather has warmed up to the point that the mint, bay laurel, and rosemary can be out on the porch now, but I need to bring the rosemary back in for a few days as it is expected to dip to 32 degrees. I still find myself looking forward to telling my mother things before I realize I can’t. My sister is now the person I reach out to share the mundane details of life with.

In The Nightmare Before Kissmas, by Sarah Rausch, Coal’s dad tells him that the fact that Coal chose to get nothing out of the training opportunity that was provided to Coal only confirms his reservations in trusting him. When he’d started training under various North Pole department heads, Coal thought it had sounded great to be involved behind all the public relations. Not being able to actually do anything, he came to see the “training” as a sham.

In “Dancing with Haters,” published in Banned Together, Ashley Hope Perez tells how having the chance to put the many hardships that teens face on page and transform them is difficult and often uncomfortable, but what she writes matters. To Ashley, “Sure the haters will be back, but I will free myself from their words as many times as I need to.” In her poem, she shares how hate mail and notes of support sound in her head as she tries to write.

Saturday, I got hugged by the congresswoman from Delaware—twice. The first hug came when she recognized me (and may have asked about me) in the private room before her speech. She asked what I was up to. I told her I was the President of the ACLU of Utah, and she replied that I really was in the middle of it all. I introduced her to my friends, and let her be amazed by the fantastic work that they are doing.

The second hug came almost spontaneously as she just happened to be passing me on the way to her next appointment after delivering a message of rekindling hope, and telling how those who desire to misgender her do it so badly. Sarah also used the metaphor of the slingshot of justice, that when a stone is pushed backed far enough and the pressure is released, the stone will fly farther than it ever has before.

I can’t stop thinking about those hugs. I met Sarah McBride in Portland, Oregon in 2014 for the LGBT Victory Institute training. We crossed paths again at the 2016 Democratic Convention in Utah, and then again at the Equality Utah Allies Dinner in 2017 when I was running for Midvale City Mayor and was sitting at a table with other transgender veterans being honored. I loved seeing her again, and am thankful to the Salt Lake County Democratic Party Executive Committee for making sure we could connect again.

At church on Sunday, my minister spoke about environmental justice. She talked about all the ways that we care and love our environment, and then she asked us to consider whether we considered whether the environment loved us. With quotes from Robin Kimmerer, she shared that the real breakthrough with our environment comes when we realize that the environment loves us, even we choose to treat it poorly. Once we realize that like a loving parent, our environment exists for us and every living creature, we are more likely to love it in return.

I was planning to attend the Bernie/AOC event at the Huntsman Center, until I learned that people were going to start lining up three hours before the event. I really didn’t have the energy this time to stand in line for that long just waiting to get in. I would also need something to take the pressure off my back if I was going to stand for that amount of time. I heard the crowds were amazing, with over 20,000 in attendance. Bernie and AOC spoke about how a lot of our issues stem from ever-increasing gap of the few wealthy elites over the ever increasing population living on significantly less income. The turnouts at these rallies and protests gives me hope. Protests and rallies are a great starting point. They work best when combined with lobbying, getting out the vote, and supporting organizations that work with the judiciary to help protect our rights. In addition, we need people in the executive branch who will not obey unlawful orders.

A lot of people are frightened right now, especially given the revocation of visas, like the dozens of student visas in the state of Utah. Or legal organizations that have investigated or spoken against Trump that are getting sanctioned. It takes courage, determination, and a moral conscience to stay in the fight. We have fought too hard for the rights we have to have them stripped away with resistance.

Resistance and solidarity give me hope. Watching people come together to band in their struggles and refuse to give in is our path forward. Standing together, watching each others’ back and watching out for the emotional and physical state of one another. It is important to fuel the psyche, whether by reading, or tending plants, or building connections with one another. We all must do what it takes for us to be 100% emotionally resilient.

One of the mint plants is struggling since I had it for a few days in the bathroom. The rest seem to be flourishing. Watching these plants grow, watching their resilience, I know that Mother Nature loves me, and that through Her I can find examples of resilience to make it day by day.

In “O-Town Blues,” by Brendan Kiely, Car Ericson writes that if Maryam’s voice had color, “the room would have glowed from the pure iridescent gold of her words.” She repeats the words from O-Town-Blues, “We grow when we read, and we grow even more the further we stretch from ourselves.” The first time that Car had heard those words, Maryam asked him, “I wonder if books are like love?”

Gabi Hernandez, in Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, by Isabel Quintero, declares, “If words are our weapons, why should we use rocks when we have tanks available!” Thomas Morton was eventually exiled for criticizing Puritan customs in 1637 in his book New English Canaan. Isabel Quintero notes three things: “1. Puritans really hated fun. 2. There have always been people speaking up for themselves, and there have been people who wanted to keep them quiet. 3. Book banning is as American as book banning.”

At the Veterans Committee, we talked about PTSD. You don’t have to have been a combat veteran to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. A lot of non-combat veterans struggle with depression and thoughts of suicide. Some veterans witnessed remains of fallen service members. Some, like myself, had a series of events that allowed the stress to build up, from being deployed to a staging area, knowing that your unit might be the next to deploy to a hostile combat zone, and watching films of missile and mortar attacks; or serving on shore patrol near the base commander’s home hearing gunfire the night of the LA riots. There is also the stress of not knowing which friends you made during basic training or specialist training did not make it back intact, or having two crew members die from either a training accident, like the ship taking a swell, or a foolish mistake like trying to swim back to the ship inebriated.

Part of the difficulty is that for the longest time, everything can be so calm and routine, and every so often chaos sneaks in and takes its prize. After awhile, you no longer know when you can feel safe enough to lower the heightened level of awareness and anxiety. Add to that any anxiety you have if you are not able to express your fundamental identity without losing your job. Being an active duty service member means being constantly alert, even when you’re trying to sleep; and that constant alertness and stress takes a toll.

My father began sleeping on the floor because it was better on his back, and he would have a stack of sci fi and fantasy books he would read to help him sleep. Often, he would wake with a start, trying to rapidly identify if he should defend himself or not. He was an Air Force Commando Photographer from 1965 to 1967. We learned to deal with the stress that stayed with him for many years. It likely was also partly why he was also a chain smoker, having cigarettes shortly after waking up. Even knowing it was creating emphysema, he had a lot of difficulty giving it up, especially in the morning. He didn't live long enough to die from it; the prostate cancer did him in.

Veterans are struggling, whether they have seen combat or not. On top of their anxiety, the federal government is laying off well-trained mission-critical transgender service members and other marginalized service members in leadership roles. The services of the Veterans Administration have also drastically been cut, and the administration is looking at cutting veteran benefits. If you know any veterans, this is a hard time for them. Many of them are struggling for a reason to live. When was the last time you showed your love for a veteran? When was the last time you gave them a hug or picked up a phone and told them you cared? They do matter and they have sacrificed so much for our democracy. They deserve our love, our kindness, our respect, and most of all, our appreciation.