I wrote this email to my (Scottish (lol)) friend Cara Ellison in December 2015. It took her a year to respond, and she never brought up anything I mentioned in the email I’m about to share with you. I don’t blame her. I’m putting this here because the message is Still True and thus Still Dire. I don’t feel like rewriting it, so here it is. OK:

Listen: this is going to sound like a joke, but unfortunately I actually mean it.

Do you know any masochistic loners who also happen to have UK citizenship who would consider marrying some jerkoff Yank who also happens to be me? I gotta get the hell out of here pronto. And by “here” I mean the flaming wreckage of the once-great American Empire.

I don’t think I can take any more mass shootings. But then who can?

I like rain and I like grass and I like castles and I like lonely windswept beaches. Don’t y’all got a lot of that over there? And way fewer guns?

Yes, OK: let me know, but only if you want to, obviously.

I’m serious as a heart attack, just to reiterate. You’ve got to have a friend or two who has mentioned wanting to marry an American, and hopefully an American who is pretty much just a bad cartoon character come to life. . . ? I can cook and sometimes I’m kind of funny. And I always keep the house clean. Don’t ever let anyone tell you I don’t keep the house clean. Because they are liars.

All right I should probably stop writing this stupid email now!

Also: Sorry about that drunk email. I, uh, was working at a bar back then, and was probably drinking way too much. I’m better now, thank Our Heavenly Father. Yup!

—Rybabe ☆ミ

Yeah, so, for real: are any of y’all (non-Americans) trying to marry me or what?? I don’t know what’s going to kill us first, but whatever it is, it’s gonna hurt big time, dude. I gotta have an escape plan!

And listen, you know me: I ain’t gonna fight for my survival. The world is a rotten hellscape as it is . . . you think I wanna live in something worse than this? So while my plea is desperate, it is not meant to prolong my life, but merely to put off the pain of death. Death itself is fine by me. I think it’s great and all. Just, like I said, I know for sure this particular flavor of death is going to be long and drawn-out, and involve nuclear fallout and white supremacists in gas masks, and so on.

So yeah: Hurry up the hell up, you god darn Europeans, and let’s get hitched already! Let’s live in some miserable godforsaken castle and watch the stars fall from the sky!!