I keep forgetting this because it happens only every summer, but for the past, oh, five-to-ten summers, wildfires from Canada and the western United States has been blown this way, creating haze and, in extreme cases, conditions where sensitive groups will have trouble breathing. But this past week or so, dammit, it's been something else. There's a hell of a lot of smoke, and little wind from the south to push it all away. So for the past several days we have had a thick blanket of haze that has gotten to the point where I notice it affecting me.
It got really scary Thursday night. After work, I decided I wanted to watch the NBA Draft at Hooters Mall Of America, then swing by Burnsville to see if ****e is still living there. Driving back (the garage door was open, but the lights inside weren't on, which to me meant a guy was there), under a blood orange sunset but a lattice of dust in the air, I started to hyperventilate -- just a bit, but my heart was racing. To me, even though the temperature dipped, it was still hot and humid enough for me to turn on the air conditioning in the car, and that brought in the outside air which my lungs apparently didn't agree with. So I turned off the AC and recirculated the air, and I suddenly felt better, but warmer. Warm enough whereby I needed to cool off, so I went back to outside air and turned on the AC again, and I cooled down but started to breath in the dirty air. I don't think I'm being a hypochondriac, but a few cycles of this while driving up from the south, and I started to get scared that I literally wasn't going to make it home before passing out behind the wheel.
I made it, but alarmingly, Father decided to not only not turn on the AC (even though we have air filters!), he opened up the windows, too -- you know, to let the air in. Jesus fucking Christ, what is he doing? And so I'm in a double bind in my room similar to one in my car: I have kept my bedroom window closed to keep out the polluted air, but I slept in just my underwear because I'm too hot, and I have decided that's better than opening up my window to cool off with air that might choke me to death.
I'm writing this now in the afternoon with the window still closed, and I'm still bleepin' hot. Meanwhile my parents have all the windows open, for God's sake, probably because my brother and niece are here. Good thing I bought some masks last night at Home Depot. There was ample supply of them, too, which I find odd.
Anyway, the Air Quality Warning which had been in place from Wednesday till Friday afternoon (which itself was on the heels of an Excessive Heat Warning) was extended Friday afternoon till Tuesday. At its worst, on Thursday, the air looked as bad as Beijing. It was better yesterday, and it's better today, but that doesn't mean it's good. And it'll stay bad for the next few days. And, in the long term, these wildfires are going to be a part of every Minnesotan summer -- probably, due to climate change, forever. I hope I live through this, because this is a particular kind of weather problem: How do you get away from the air you need to live?
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