Geiger Counter

S’mores Magazine   Being on the cover of Forbes magazine is a horrendous life goal. The only way to get there is to have a lot of money and having a lot of money is the easiest way to be miserable, vapid and depressed. Yet Forbes is name dropped in pop songs all the time as a vital waypoint of success.  This is the world.  My daughter, who is blissfully unaware of the silly things people care about, was singing a hit song the other day, but she thought they were bragging about being on the cover of “S’mores magazine.” “I wanna’ be on the cover of S’mores magazine!” Hadley crooned with a smile.  I relish the thought of living in a better world, where the latter, rather than the former, is viewed as a noble goal. A place where sitting around a campfire with your family, as the flickering light crackles in applause of your ghost stories, its glow pushing back the black eternity of night and space, is what we all aspire to, rather than financial conquest.  There are only two certainties in this life. One is that most people care about ridiculous things; things like power and wealth and influence. A little kid told me the other day she hopes to grow up and become a senator. “You poor thing,” I thought. “What a sad dream.” To be an “influencer” is currently considered admirable, as if changing other people’s behavior and beliefs is a good thing.  The second certainty is that, if you wear socks with sandals, people are going to make fun of you, and rightly so.  That’s why I was surprised when Hadley approached me last night and informed me she would be wearing socks and sandals to school today. “That’s a, uh, bold aesthetic decision,” I said. “Why?” “One of my friends wore socks and sandals to school today, and people made fun of her, so I told her I would wear them today to make her feel better,” she explained.  It seemed like a very Old Testament way to deal with the issue. Like, “Perhaps more suffering is the answer to this particular problem!” Like the kind of advice a doctor would give to a patient in an old Russian novel: “Take a large dose of suffering and call me in the morning.” I nodded, grimaced a little, and said what I felt, rather than what I thought: “I love you.” The first part of the current school year was an absolute nightmare; a brutal hellscape of trauma and anxiety. But as some degree of normalcy has returned, and as she has been able to see the faces of her friends (and enemies), I’ve seen the strength of youth returning, and even growing. She is lucky, because her teacher, a former collegiate basketball player, has a wonderful temperament coupled with the physical ability to box out or dunk on any unruly children to instill in them a level of respect mere words cannot. It’s very popular to claim that all teachers are heroes, which of course is ridiculous. You can’t say that about any profession. Not astronauts. Not roofers. Not neurosurgeons. And not teachers. But our daughter’s teacher really IS a hero, at least to me, because she is stoic and funny and seems to have guided a ship full of small lunatics through a storm of epic proportions. Her name is Ms. Sieja, and if your kid ends up in her care, you are very, very lucky.  Playground and classroom trauma that used to make my daughter cry are now much more likely to be the subject matter of a glorious, exciting story on the way home from school, which I absolutely love. If Irish literature has taught us anything, it’s that a great tragedy is many things, chief among them the most solid foundation for a wonderful yarn.  “Guess who threw up on their desk today?” Hadley will say as we drive away. “And guess who tried to smuggle their cat into school?” “Sounds like an exciting day!” I reply.  Several months ago, Hadley used to sit silently, in morose contemplation, on the way home, with tears brimming her brown eyes. Now, she smiles and babbles: “Dad, guess who got yelled at for pouring glue down the slide at recess?” The ability to enjoy our imperfect world has returned.  I hope all the kids are currently finding themselves, again. When we went to Hadley’s recent parent-teacher conference, I scanned the walls and saw that the pupils had been asked to write about the “great” things in their lives. “I have a great mom, and a great dog, and a great school…” they all wrote. Each one was identical, except for a single list compiled by a boy my daughter is friends with.  “I have a great mom, and a great dog,” he wrote. “My school is okay.”  “That kid is hilarious,” I said.  Hadley concurred when I brought it up later. “He says ‘funny’ is his favorite sight word because it describes him,” he explained.  While Hadley has grown, both physically and emotionally, I’ve shrunk. I’ve lost 30 pounds so far this year, and I’m happy to share my weight-loss technique with you here: If you are deciding between two foods, look at the nutrition information and decide which has more calories, then make a note of the carbohydrates and sugars. Also make sure to read the fiber content. See if they contain any high fructose corn syrup. For the final and most important step, take both foods, throw them right in the trash, and go for a walk. While you walk, think about the state of the world and cry. If you have trouble with this part, just log onto Facebook and read the first three things that pop up. You will burst into tears. I promise. As you walk, your famished body will burn calories you didn’t eat, while your constant bawling dehydrates you and significantly decreases your weight. I seem to remember that our bodies are mostly water, so I think you can shed many pounds by sobbing alone. I call it the “2022 diet.” It works and is fairly inexpensive.  Before you jump to conclusions and think I’m bragging, please note that I did not claim to have “gotten in shape.” I lost 30 pounds and am still fat, but I am at least less fat than I was before. I was prompted to lose weight by the fact that I stepped on a scale for the first time in years and was surprised by both the large number and the audible groan of the metal plate on which I was standing. When I saw the number in pounds, I realized I was in danger of needing to begin using a different unit of measurement to describe my weight. “I only weigh 16 Sagans!” I would say. Or perhaps, “I’m down to three-and-a-half donkeys!” My goal is not to live forever. To pursue immortality is nearly as great a folly as trying to get on the cover of Forbes magazine. We are here for a short time, and then we are gone. This is the world.  I only lost weight so I could regain it, again, which I recall being a very enjoyable experience the last time around. And now, just a little lighter, I’m ready for summer, for fires around which we gather, our little family, warm and together, snapping thin sticks off of trees, jamming them through marshmallows, and roasting them over the flames that lick and crackle in applause for the short time we have each other, then sliding the gooey sugar onto a slab of chocolate, on a platform of graham cracker. Around the fire we will tell stories, and our daughter will sing songs, enjoying the time we have together, dreaming of being on the cover of S’mores magazine.