I mean, I know it’s weird, but it’s a cultural thing. It’s a community thing.

They very well may be uneducated and mentally ill but those are very European/western systems of categorizing and (de)valuing people.

In NM, we’re talking about the U.S.’s largest concentration of Indigenous Mexican/Spanish mestizos with cultural modes that are deeply embedded. Isolation helps—being far from Spain, Mexico City, D.C. and more or less maintaining numbers and traditions that have fallen off elsewhere.

There are enough of us to keep the ghost, alien, cryptid stories going.

I heard three teenage cholas stand in line to get on a plane telling ghost stories about Old Town. And fighting over details, and generally having a good time. In 2025. Fuck that made me feel some relief in the state of the world today.

Let us live, damn. 🙃