Saturday Night’s Alright For Commenting: 11/14/2020

What’s your favorite cacti? Oh, it’s a hard question most of the time, but for me, it’s an easy answer. It’s the Ocotillo. Its long tendrils grasping out to the sun from a root ball gripped deep within the earth. It doesn’t belong here. It belongs in the bottom of the ocean, floating with the octopuses. It belongs on a different planet. Somewhere red and hot and wild. A different galaxy. We shouldn’t even share the same solar system as it.

Its thorns are little daggers, reminding me of the rose bush that pricked my thumb when I was child; dark and crimson, I squeezed it and watched it trickle. Little birds will make circular nests in the thorns, and the thorns protects the bird’s eggs and little babies.

In the springtime, it blooms later than most desert plants. Red shoots of fire spurt out its tips, like it’s a wand. Like it’s a gun that screams BANG. Like April hearts wild and flustered by the return of the sun, light, color, and feelings again.

This weekend, I’ll be seeing them again. They’ll be dormant. Some will be gray and corroded. Others green and crusty. Sitting. Waving gently. Hanging deep in the ground. Praying for a wet winter to feed stingers and lava flows.

Here’s your S.N.O.T. for the week to discuss anything and everything: Russell Westbrook wanting to leave the Rockets, your new PS5, what you put in your pot of chili, and of course, what Baker Mayfield’s favorite light beer is.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone.