It has already begun.

Trump is afraid.

The security is ever tightening in D.C., and on Wednesday night there were a ton of police out as well as groups of 12-14 National Guard posted in Metro stations near the White House. Some will say he’s not afraid, and that he’s just trying to goad people into a reaction so he can declare martial law. Well, he may be trying to goad people, but when narcissists feel even remotely threatened, they lash out and behave the way he’s behaving. Secure Presidents don’t expand jersey walls and perimiters ever outward from the White House.

I posted about this on Threads and it went semi-viral, with thousands of likes, hundreds of comments, and hundreds of reposts and shares. VERY few people disagreed with me, and those who did seemed to think the increased military presence had to do with a high-speed chase that killed a photojournalist that night. But that doesn’t explain the increased Guard presence in Metro stations near the White House, or the military aircraft flying all over the place from Fairfax and Alexandria, Virginia, to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, or the drone patrolling the waterways. Once I made my post, people began reporting in from all over DC, sharing that they saw increased Guard and police presence, too.

I considered that it might have been leftover security from the idiotic J6 MAGA fools who were in town on Tuesday, too, but this was a full day later.

Oh, that. I’ve seen video clips of them harassing, haranguing, and even threatening police officers with bodily harm. How no one got arrested, I don’t know, but it was bad optics because those jackasses were all White men, and we all know what would have happened if they were Black. There must have been a standing order not to escalate, but dang, threatening a police officer is a felony, no?

At any rate, things are getting ugly in the U.S., and I don’t think anyone but the poorest of poor who are just struggling to get through every day can or should carry on each day as though it was a normal day. We’re at the point in history where when people look back on today, they may very well ask why no one did anything to stop it. The excuse that “well, we need to work and our health care is tied to our jobs” no longer applies—and I used to feel that way, myself. But things have changed so much in the last 48 hours that to sit there and do nothing is tantamount to aiding the rise of fascism.

But he wants us to react because he wants a reason to use the Insurrection Act and cancel the mid-term elections.

Yes, I thought that way, too, until an attorney made a post about how this is actually misinformation that helps Drumpf because it keeps people from rising up. The Insurrection Act is not about canceling elections. It’s more an exception to the Comitatus Act, which prohibits using the U.S. military for domestic policing. To cancel an election would require a Constitutional Amendment and that will never happen because the Blue states would never ratify it. In fact, only Red states would consider going along with any call to cancel an election, until they figured out that Blue states would basically take over.

At any rate, ICE clearly has orders to incite. One jackass kicked over a candle at a memorial for Renee Good. Another one took a rose off a memorial, put it in his lapel, and then offered it to a female ICE jackass.

Yeah, well, my father and his buddies came home with mementos from WWII, too, like arm bands, patches, epaulettes, and sabers. They used to loot the Nazis’ homes after they killed them or took them prisoner, bring everything out to the town square, and help themselves to what they like, then burned the rest. When the Reich fell, they took the flags and wrote their names and addresses on the white part so they could keep in touch when they got home. Just a little reminder that it works both ways. As it is, Jonathan Ross, the man who murdered Renee Good, has been doxxed, complete with a picture of his house, where he had been known to fly the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, which has become a code for MAGA fascists who support the regime. One person joked that it was wrong to do that—because whoever doxxed him should have included information about parking in the neighborhood, heh.

But this what it will come down to, friends. It took a multinational effort and a World War to rid the world of Hitler and the Nazis, and it will be the same with Drumpf and American Nazis. There will have to be a sustained resistance inside the U.S., and people will indeed die. They’re dying already.

A journalist in Kyiv, Chris York, explained things very well. The planet is about to be divided in three, with the US taking over the western hemisphere, China taking over Asia and likely Africa, and Russia taking over Europe. He said words that broke my heart: “The United States has effectively abandoned Europe.” And it’s true. We have. In fact, we likely will attack Greenland and Denmark, and when we do, it will be out of our bases in Europe, likely bases in Great Britain. That will be the end of NATO, which is exactly what Putin wants, and he will make a press to take over Europe.

But we can still stop this. It will require more than inconvenience. It will require sacrifice, and it will require everyone. But it’s the only way.

So what are you going to do for the next phase of Project 2025, when ICE goes door-to-door and knocks on yours?

Or if a DoorDasher being chased by ICE runs into your home when you answer the door to get your food, like I saw on a video today?

Will you open the door and let them take her? Or will you protect her to the best of your ability?

Will you be Miep Gies, who hid Anne Frank and her family? Or will you have blood on your hands?

Will you stand up for what is right, or be an accomplice to evil?

This isn’t hyperbole, folks. If you ever wondered what you would have done as an average German citizen in 1939, you’re doing it now.

Watch this space, and join the resistance. We’re stronger together.

Meh-ry Christmas

After dealing with several days of aggravation regarding a lease that had discrepancies compared with what I had discussed with the leasing agent, fees that were not mentioned, and requirements he did not tell me about (i.e., needing to cover 75% of the wood flooring with rugs, when of course the ones I already have aren’t the right sizes), all I wanted after I got home from my office holiday party this afternoon was to turn on my tree, have a mug of peppermint tea, and relax in the soft, pinkish glow of the lights.

Except the tree was already plugged in.

And the lights were all off.

I would not leave the tree lit overnight, so it must have blown while I was in the home office writing before I went to bed, and I didn’t unplug it, thinking I had already pulled the plug.

I had extra lights, so I thought I would just take everything off the tree, put fresh lights on, and redecorate.

And then taking the lights off became like a cage match, so I quite literally cut the lights off the tree, being that they aren’t working anymore anyway.

And then I saw that the tree was shedding like a real one that had been kept up for three months and carted to the curb in February.

And then I was done. Done with 2025. Done with smarmy landlords. Done with packing and making arrangements and worrying about where I’m going to be living two weeks from Monday. Done with everything.

I cut the lights off the tree, stuffed the tree in the box, and threw it all into a dumpster, which I then proceeded to half-fill with all kinds of crap. Journals with the first ten pages torn out after I gave up writing in the things by the first weekend in January. Old clothes. Old sheets. Old towels except for some of the little ones that I used for Inigo’s bed on his shelf in his cage and for him to stand on when I gave him a bath so he wouldn’t slip off my finger. Kitchen gadgets I was given in the 90s that I haven’t used in at least 15 years that I keep lugging from apartment to apartment. Five years of Forks Over Knives, from which I made approximately two recipes. Vegan protein powder because let’s face it, it’s gross. The half-full bag of Inigo’s food, that I bought about a month before our goodbye in March 2023, which had expired a year ago but I just couldn’t bear to part with because the smell reminded me of him. Jigsaw puzzles I put together once and knew I wouldn’t put together again, though I kept the bird-themed ones friends have given me because I haven’t put them together yet.

There will probably be at least another half-dumpster full of stuff to throw out, but I’ll get to that this weekend.

At any rate, I still haven’t signed the lease and I’m about to apply for another apartment tomorrow but I want to take another look at it on my lunch break. If I had any courage at all, I would throw out every dang thing I own except for some clothes, mementos, documents, and cherished feathers, and go live off-grid in a yurt. Seriously, I’m just that done with everything.

So here are all of my ornaments, which I will pack up tomorrow.

A pile of Christmas ornaments.

I did go to see the State Christmas trees on Sunday, though I couldn’t get all the pictures I wanted because the Forest Service police ran everyone out of there as soon as the sun set. I don’t know if it was because a crew was still taking the scaffolding from last Friday’s ceremony down, which wouldn’t make sense because it was far from the trees, or if it’s some kind of Trumpian bullshit to go along with the roving quartets of National Guardsmen in D.C., but it put a damper on things. The little kiosk shop where they sell the White House ornaments was closed, too, so I wasn’t able to get this year’s ornament.

Not that I have a tree to hang it on.

I’ll try to post more to Holidailies, but this move is the worst of my life and it’s sucking every ounce of holiday spirit out of me. It’s involuntary (hooray, mold) and it’s a downsizing of pretty decent proportions as I can’t get the same size and type of place I live in now because my salary was frozen for three years while rents kept going up. These giant corporate landlords own the vast majority of apartment buildings around here and they put you through the wringer with criminal background checks, looking in your bank account, calling your employer, on and on like it’s a matter of national security—which is the height of irony because Virginia has the quickest eviction proceedings in the country and they can just throw you out. No joke, if you are just six days late on your rent, in Virginia they’ll give you a “five-day-or quit” notice and if you don’t either pay up or move out in five days, they’ll have your stuff on the curb by the end of the month, if not sooner. There have been news stories and documentaries about how fast evictions take place in Virginia.

Then at least where I live, they often hike the rents at LEAST 10%, often 15%, sometimes 20% when you get a renewal letter, so that you either accept price gouging or have to keep moving and can’t put roots down. Imagine paying $2,500 a month for a 700 sq. ft. apartment and getting a renewal letter telling you your rent is going up to $2,750 or even $3,000. Then the day after you move out, your apartment will go onto the market for what you were paying. It’s quite a racket, and many tenants just move to a different unit in the same building, but what a hassle that is in terms of changing your address on everything, including your license.

So I’m dealing with all of that and am moving two weeks from Monday but don’t know where I’m moving to.

In other words, bah humbug.

Purple Christmas

Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2026 is “Cloud Dancer.”

Or, more accurately, white.

I think this captures it:

Oh, how deadly dull. Haven’t we had enough of white, beige, and Millennial gray home decor? Bland decor has gone from trend to standard, and I absolutely hate it. It’s a snooze-fest, and heaven forbid you spill anything on it and it’s not Scotchguarded. I’ll give a slight nod to bland bedrooms, as then the snooze-festiness is an advantage. My own is done in gray, black, and white, though it has purple accents, but that’s all. Otherwise, give me color, a whole riot of ’em.

Just for Pantone’s aesthetic offense, I’m going to share my holiday wallpaper with you, which is decidedly NOT Blah White.

Christmas ornaments and a candle on top of a book.
Image by Zoe on Unsplash

My choice is a bit defiant. Purple is my favorite color. About 12 or 13 years ago, while looking at Christmas decorations in a store with one of my sisters, I picked up a purple ornament.

“NO, Zenzalei,” she said. “Not purple. That’s not a Christmas color. NO.”

It was like she was talking to a dog.

Well, here’s one of my favorite ornaments. It’s from a set of five that belonged to my parents and featured different magical townspeople. The other colors are pink, blue, green, and yellow. My mother used to say that the green was Coco, the blue was Jehanne, the pink was Annette, the yellow was herself, the purple was me, as those were all of our respective favorite colors or variations thereof. (Annette’s is red.)

A purple Christmas ornament with a small figure of a dark-haired girl inside.
The only case you can put me in. Mom said.

Oh, and the ornament I picked up? I went back and bought it when my sister wasn’t around. I keep it as a reminder not to let other people tell me how to express myself, and instead to create a world of my own, one that brings me comfort, joy, and peace, one where I can be me, purple and all.

A purple and gold Christmas ornament.
So there.