A space odyssey.

I remember the last Christmas my auntie Laura sent us all gifts. It was, well, last Christmas. So almost a year ago. Anyway, we all got books. Mine was pretty funny. It has penguins on the cover and is titled something like "How to Make People Think You're Normal". It makes Oregon jokes. Ha.

Dad got a book called "A Million Little Pieces", a memoir about some dude's serious drug abuse problem. Dad got about 10 pages into it and immediately started snorting and guffawing because, as he said, "There's no way. This guy's a liar. He's making it up, and here's why", at which point he launched into every single reason this memoir-write could NOT have done what he said he did. Months and months later it turned out dad was right. It WAS made up. How did dad know? His own somewhat extensive drug history and knowledge of pharmaceuticals (as he likes to call them). He knew what was and was not possible, basically. Even when you're blitzed out of your gourd there are limits to what can happen to you, and dad recognized those limits were being pushed out of bounds by the writer and called it.

Auntie Laura had a pretty extensive drug history as well. Granny likes to think Laura just drank a lot, and maybe smoked some weed, but I remember being young and Laura going in and out of the house, leaving her son with us, with rapid weight fluctuations and totally bizarre behavior. If that doesn't scream "drugs", what does? Well, she often had bizarre behavior. She always reeked like alcohol and sometimes, later, couldn't talk for the slurring and the twitching (which I think was actually from a medication, at a certain point). But Laura loved Oprah, so much, and "A Million Little Pieces" was an Oprah Book Club book, plus I think there was some sort of dig on Laura's part toward dad (if this guy can do it, so can you!), so it became a present.

Auntie Laura died in June of this year, from liver failure. She was pretty torn up, liver-wise, and possibly combining bipolar medications with alcohol and over-the-border Vicodin, which is a recipe for disaster if ever there is one. Dad's about to start 59 days of house arrest; he drove under the influence and assaulted a police officer on the night of Auntie Laura's funeral while mom and family were still in Arizona attending to matters.

Whenever my family tells me I'm like anybody, it's either my Auntie Laura or my dad. Usually I'm the "better days" version of either of them, but every once in awhile I can't help but think my family is just trying to warn me that I've got nothing to look forward to except dying in a trailer in Arizona, or getting tazed by police every couple of months. I have cleaned up my act, 99% anyway, but it's like this constant looming monolith of doom and I'm the monkey rushing for it.