these are the answers, you feel me?

I spent this week wearing a mask, trying to avoid an asthmatic spiral despite the smokiness of the California air. I was mostly successful; and I have inhalers, and can afford doctors if the interventions don’t work. I have not lost anything in these fires, and all I have to deal with is the guilt of being relatively unaffected.

How long will that continue to be true?

I lost sleep night because of a spam call that demanded making contact with the “Social Security Office” immediately at the (fraudulent) number provided; deportation or worse was imminent if I failed to comply. I am a person who is knowledgeable about the mechanics of abusive charlatanism and propaganda; I knew how to check the veracity or lack thereof. And still for hours I lay awake after thinking about the precariousness of whatever time I might have left.

There are no good immigrants, there are no good brown people, there are no good black people, there are no good trans people, there are no good gay people, there is only the demonised other. There is only them and if you think you are still in the us I wonder whose safety you are trading for yours.