My Mercedes has filtration. California's gold.

 "and I saw another rider approach on a pale horse...and this one brings disease...and death..."

Watching the billowing smoke and particulate ash pour from the Marin County California sky is getting tiresome.

Not that it matters much in our(my wife and I) situation, after all. I'm here in my Mercedes overlooking the 101 heading towards San Anselmo and Marin General hospital.

No, (*dry cough*) those poor people up north of us are being burned out, again. And unlike before, they face another threat, a problem of magnitudes that is encompassing the world.

If I were here to only talk about them it might be enough to keep me busy for a while. 

But I'm not. As with most of Marin, it's all about me.

Today I'm here to tell you about my Mercedes. Because, after all, you see, it has a Hepa filter. 

Sweet dreams of cool air blasting me and the most current heat wave in the face. Cutting me off from the rest of the populace, while I tailgate the little Honda in front of me.

He was all the way over on the right side of the road to try avoid the exact problem of this ostentatious madness now bearing down on him.

Moving around him on the left(no blinker necessary) I look to see all his windows rolled down, slowly moving towards the canal exit.

"Poor guy" I think. "Oh well, at least I've got a Hepa filter. Maybe if I convince myself that my gas guzzling, air filtering, monstrosity was really actually a service to him; and all of the other poor I need to be around, I'll feel better for him. "thoughts and prayers, compadre..." 

After all, this does have a Hepa filter: My air is good air.

This is a dream, after all. Dreams can come true, and yes even you, little Honda can be a Mercedes. Right after you get crushed and recycled, you too will have a Hepa filter. Cool, clean, purified air will help others.

This sickness is ripping me asunder. 

My mind is reeling with incongruous patterns. Ashen smoke and heat fuelled fever wrecks havoc on everything and produces nightmares without compromise.

The reality is that my Mercedes does not have a Hepa filter. At least not anymore. That went out somewhere in Barstow, which is yet another story. The only filtration is now offered by my coughing lungs. (*cough* *dry *) 

Tonight, my Mercedes is going to be my home, and yes, we will feed on your "thoughts and prayers" because after all the starving, sick, poor, that's what will save us. Only those good intentions and spiritual leadings are...

"if only I can find a driveway. Private. Preferably with a hose." I mumble to myself. 

"No, the hose is not for the newest coffee/ ginger tea enema..." distanced gunfire erupts. 

Must be Richmond again. (sigh) 

It's just nice to have one. (The hose I mean. Connected to clean water.) The little things become most important when you need to figure out how to survive another night without being harassed in any number of possible ways.

Sunset over the Richmond San Rafael exit. The water looks like it's glistening golden like the gilded city of Ross. Even though the Golden state no longer glistens from the shining rock it once produced in abundance. 

Pollution, and corruption. Those tickets are the new gold. So when they rain upon the rest, the illusion kills in mass. Your chevron, upside down. 

Now I see if my intuition will pay off: if my parking spot is a Mercedes accepted: permission granted spot. 

After all, in Marin, if you squint hard enough, the emblem resembles the peace sign. And that just might be all the California richness we need...

Next time on all about me: How to be poor without a crime: or how I learned new breathing techniques using a cardboard straw...