E=mc (squared)

I spend a lot of time looking out my window. 

It is, I suspect, the nature of my occupation. In between the clicking and clacking on the keyboard come long stretches of daydreaming, procrastination and observation. These are not luxuries, these are, and any writer will tell you, necessities.

Ideas need to stew. And boil up. And release steam. Because in the rising steam, synapses can fire and make new an unexpected connections. As well as strained metaphors that make no sense at all.

Yesterday while watching my neighbor wash his car for the 8th time this week, despite our state's mega drought, I noticed the Mexican nanny who has worked across the street for as long as I have lived in this house. For discretionary purposes, let's call her Maria.

Not only did she help raise the three kids, she has spent considerable time at my house. We hired her to help out during our large family gatherings on Passover and Rosh Hashanah. Maria is one of the kindest, sweetest people you will ever meet on this planet. She still speaks little English and I am always amazed how she can navigate life in LA.

I noticed Maria had a little hitch in her walk. It was immediately recognizable because I have the same hitch. And I know a bad hip when I see one. 

Unlike me, Maria will not be having that bum hip joint replaced by UCLA Health, the finest medical team in the land. Also unlike me, she will not be getting Vicodin on the side from my cranky uncle who has enough industrial medicines to fuel a Kentucky Derby winner.

Maria will more than likely suffer in silence and deal with just one more of the adversities that life as an undocumented worker in the US will face.

Before any of you gear up to spew some nonsense about coming into this country the legal way, let's contrast her life with another immigrant woman. 

This one...

She came to the United States in 1996 on a tourist visa. She later obtained a working visa doing "runway modeling" and soft core pornography. In 1998, she started "dating" Grandpa Ramblemouth and later applied for US citizenship under EB-1, a special grant reserved for people who are highly acclaimed in their field.

Maybe she cited her excellent girl-on-girl scene with Irena Slovenka in the smash hit, Czech Girls Take Cash Only. But I fail to see how Ms. Goldigger is highly acclaimed in any field.

Nevertheless, in 2001 she got her Einstein Visa and later brought her parents into the country via chain immigration, you know, the policy Republicans have been railing against since they started wearing white hoods. 

In my mind, there can be no clearer demonstration of the unequal application of the law. A lasting testament to the systemic racism and white privilege whose existence so many in this country want to deny.