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.

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.