Wow thank you! Interesting comment @magaft! I revise and revise my non-freewrite stuff so that they will be more readable for a non-native speaker. Sometimes I have to leave a turn of phrase as is, knowing it will not be understood, just because it's so perfect - colloquiallisms can say the unsayable. But for the most part I try to be so grammatically simple that all of the ESL readers on steem are not confused.
Also interesting that you choose the word "squalid" to talk about. That word was slow in coming to me and made its way into the story towards the end of my two days of putting this thing together. I probably even found it finally when I looked something else up in a thesaurus.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments! And of course for your continued support of my musings.