I’ve been back in LA for a few days. My timing was miserable, showing up just as the forested hills around the city decided to burst into flames.
There have been fires here before, and they’ve aggravated my lungs a bit, but nothing’s set off my asthma like the giant fire that’s still burning almost completely out of control tonight.
My one attempt to work out since getting home ended rather disastrously after half an hour on Thursday, having to come home and use my inhaler like I used to when I was a kid and just a little exercise would set my lungs off.
I haven’t had to use my inhaler daily in years, but I’ve had to every day since then. And that’s without working out at all.
What gets me is that the smoke really isn’t that bad in my neighborhood – It’s certainly not as bad as when there was a smaller, much closer fire a couple of years ago. That fire was only three or four miles away at its worst point (I could smell the smoke much more distinctly), and I don’t think I had to use my inhaler once.
I don’t know if it’s the lack of transition after being up in the bracingly clear, thin air of Idaho for a week, or if there’s something in my air conditioner (running non-stop for the first time in well over a year) that’s making my lungs even angrier.
The bottom line is, I’m stuck at home, waiting for the air to clear out, unable to get my stress out through working out, and feeling like my old, fat, sickly self as I manage to need a hit off the inhaler from the strenuous effort of watching TV.
I thought I was losing my mind before I left. I thought the walls were closing in on me before.
I’d been a little reluctant to go to a family event in Denver this coming weekend. Now I wish I’d decided to spend this week there, because at least I could fucking breathe.
OK, dumb question — why are they call it the Station fire, with the S capitalized, too?
They do that whenever there’s a fire – they give it a name based on where it broke out, and then write it like it’s a proper name. Sort of like a hurricane, I suppose.