dazed, confused and starry-eyed

For further context: through another character, we saw that tech millionaires/billionaires were living wonderfully comfortable lives elsewhere in the city. Meanwhile, Sanctuary Districts had been set up to keep homeless and mentally ill individuals contained, so those millionaires (and wealthier people in other cities, as well) would never have to think about them.

The last few years have seen a white nationalist gun down nine parishioners at a South Carolina church; an anti-Semite go on a shooting spree at a Pittsburgh temple; a white nationalist run over a peaceful protester with his car; and multiple school shootings by teenagers who expressed racist, hateful views. Overseas, a liberal British politician was assassinated by a far-right extremist shouting “Britain first”; a Norwegian white nationalist murdered 77 people in a coordinated attack; a man plowed a van into Muslim worshippers outside a London mosque; and New Zealand just saw it’s “darkest day” with the Christchurch murders.

I’ve been pregnant. I’ve had sex with a man who’s had sex with men. I can’t sleep. My mother has, my mother’s mother had, asthma. My father had a stroke. My father’s mother has high blood pressure. Both grandfathers died from diabetes. I drink. I don’t smoke. Xanax for flying. Propranolol for anxiety. My eyes are bad. I’m spooked by wind. Cousin Lilly died from an aneurysm. Aunt Hilda, a heart attack. Uncle Ken, wise as he was, was hit by a car as if to disprove whatever theory toward which I write. And, I understand, the stars in the sky are already dead.