A Hell of a Week

Jessica Morrigan

Snow. Public Executions. Taxes.

There's a massive snow storm targeting the East Coast. The winds have been so blustery we got lake effect snow from Lake Michigan. Again. Plus, we're having record cold in Northwest Ohio. The kind of frigid temps that when you step outside, any exposed skin hurts!

There's too much going on in the world and at home, and I need a break. You know it's bad when I get an hour and a half, and I write to relieve the tension building inside of me.

So, I'm going to do something I haven't done in years. I'm taking the last day of January off.

Totally off. No writing. No marketing. No prep for the planned Kickstarters for 2026. Nothing.

I'm going to brew a cup of Irish Breakfast tea, curl up on the couch, and read. What will I read? I'm not sure yet. I've got several books by Jonathan Moeller and Lilith Saintcrow, two of my favorite authors, that I haven't devoured yet. The hardback of the latest Dresden Files arrived last week. And there's literally thousands of titles on my Kindle and in the boxes I've been unpacking, all waiting for me to consume them.

Oh, and the Princess Pup will probably be under the blanket with me, snoring away as she uses me as her personal heater. 

See y'all on Monday!

 

P.S. Apparently, the fascists in the country haven't realized everyone's designing these logos to resemble the Rebel Alliance symbol. You know, the movie where Antifa are fighting the Space Nazis. Seriously, that's why George Lucas called the henchmen Stormtroopers!

SAD, Terror, and Death

Depression sucks in the best of times. Now, this time, there's a specific trigger. The United States is a full-blown fascist nation now.

Yeah, I've heard it before. Don't talk politics. You'll lose your readers.

Frankly, if you believe the wave of recent murders by ICE is good, well, you're not going to like my books anyway.

I don't believe murdering people is a good thing. I still believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I've taken the oath to uphold them three times in my life.

But the guys on the street wearing masks (which they refused to do five years ago in the middle of a Goddess-damned pandemic) and carrying weapons (which they claimed they needed to protect themselves from the government five years ago) are gleefully killing people exercising their constitutional rights on the streets in broad daylight.

I've heard "fucking bitch" in that same tone aimed at me. The only difference is that I'm alive and Renee Good isn't.

And the worst part is if I post a picture of Renee or the man who murdered her on my blog, I'll be harassed by the same people who say Charlie Kirk didn't deserve to be shot in cold blood, but Renee Good did.

How fucked up is that?

So now, I'm struggling through depression. I'm awake all night wondering if the neighbors I've been polite to, even though they've flown Trump flags for the last 10 years, will bust into my house and kill my husband and dogs.

I'm honestly questioning if any of us will survive this decade. And I will still be questioning it even when my SAD eases up in February. 

Depressing as Fuck

I admit it. It's getting harder to get out of bed in the morning, harder to finish a heroic tale, harder to deal with people thriving on hate.

But I still climb of bed. I still buckle down and write my words everyday. And I'm clapping back even when an alleged ally spouts the same lies the MAGA crowd as been treating as the gospel for the last ten or more years.

Someone asked me what do we do to keep the U.S. from turning into Nazi Germany. Frankly, it's too late. We're already worse than Nazi Germany.

You see people knew what they were getting when the voted for Tribblehead the second time. He has never hidden his agenda. The first time was practice. He learned how to circumvent the system by destroying it from within. And he takes great glee in doing so.

Children are arrested in school based on their skin color, regardless of their legal status. Men covered head to toe so you can't see who they are, with weapons and no identification, prowl the cities and grab people off the streets. A concentration camp has been built in Florida. Politicians and civilians are threatened and beaten up for being on the opposing side.

And like every other abuser in my life, Tribblehead counts on wearing us down until we're too tired and broken to fight anymore.

Just one problem with that plan. I'm post-menopausal, and I no longer have any fucks to give. If the only way I can keep fighting is by writing stories about people who do the right thing, then by all the deities that ever were, ever are, and ever will be, I will keep getting out of bed and spreading hope.

Because when hope dies, so does the human race. 

Health, Loss, and Fascism

It's been a rough week. Watching the disintegration of the American legal system while fighting a severe bacterial infection has not been fun.

I swore oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America three times in my life: when I was sworn in as an attorney in Texas, when I was sworn in as an attorney in Ohio, and when I was sworn as an attorney in to the Eastern District of Texas Federal Court.

To watch the total disregard of our rule of law by the clown circus in D.C. is heartbreaking and rage-inducing at the same time.

Maybe the chaos is why I started writing more stories in The Enchanted Bakery series.  I needed something humorous in my soul to get through this week.

But what happens after Easter?

There are already men on the streets snatching people in broad daylight for saying the things we are all thinking. Unmarked planes are carrying people to other countries.

"But those are illegals!" I hear some of you cry.

Are you absolutely sure about this? There's rarely any evidence. Even fewer court records. So the talking heads are spinning these people's stories any way they see fit. This is exactly why the current adminstration is denying independent reporters access to government briefings. Heaven forbid anyone question the god-king!

The American legal system isn't perfect by any means. But it stood as a beacon of the possibilities of a fair system. There was a time I truly believed total fairness could be achieved.

Not any more.

While I was on my road trip at the end of March, a friend asked if I thought the U.S. was becoming fascist. My answer was "We already are."

I'm just not sure how we can stop it without a tons of blood shed in the process. But I do know hate isn't the answer. That's how we ended up here in the first place.