A letter from Oct 10, 2025

I've officially been doing these letters for half my life now. They never get any easier. 28. Jesus. That's, like, not even a real age. You did it, though, you've outlived the rock stars. You made it to adulthood. Isn't that something? Hopefully you've outlived some other folks, too. Everything's fine here. I am the dog in the room on fire and this is fine. Yep, so if you'll recall, the US has upgraded from fascism-lite to fascism-proper, where people like me are getting systematically cleansed from society more and more, and Latino folks are getting ICEd and taken to concentration camps or just straight-up ******. Also thoughtcrime exists now, which is cool. Coolcoolcool. No immediate plans to move, though. Because I'm stupid. AI's gotten crazy. The computers can officially do enough surveillance that they know what we're talking about. The good news is computers are not actually sentient. They're not making decisions or reports yet. They're just full of data. That's not true. AI's making hiring decisions. Hiring is computers talking to computers until a job offer is made. Let me talk to a person, dipsh*t. (Censoring because I'm sharing this publicly. And we do censorship now, as a society. As a culture.) I've learned I love seasonal retail. I kinda hate Michaels, though. Nine an hour is not enough and they screw you at every chance they get. Hobby Lobby somehow has fairer employee policies. I'm dating a new girl. Her name's Steph. It's been like a couple months but I feel like we could go somewhere. I've been telling people I want to marry her, honestly, but I'm not confident enough to tell you, 28. I just worry things are going to have fallen apart for you. (Dang. Using the future-perfect tense. It's my future, how perfect can it be?) I'm a caregiver right now, but I'm looking for something new. I actually just put in an application at a boarding school, of all things, and it's making me think about, like, branching timelines and crazy what-ifs. I feel like you could be doing anything, 28, and I'd believe it. Including rotting at Dad's house. Or on the street, or in a shelter, or a concentration camp without access to a phone to read this. Or dead! ...Steph gets upset when I get that dark. Steph wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me. This is something I like about her but also something I fear deeply. Anyway, uh, congrats on reading this. Means you're *not* dead or in a camp, probably. Keep... doing what you're doing. Whatever it is, it's gotten you this far, so just keep doing it. That's never been my advice for myself before, has it? To keep doing what I'm doing? Time we gave it a try, I guess. Have fun with that. Cheers, 27