A Surviving Facts Blog (though it feels like the end of the world as we know it)
My depression looks like a half eaten Ho Ho, an imitation one because this came from a bakery rather than a box. I’ve been eating healthy— make good choices, I say to myself— but I succumbed yesterday just about the time Trump turned into Schwarzenegger’s Terminator promising, “there’s no going back”— only a slight variation of “I’ll be back”— when asked about his threat to takeover Greenland. The healthiest coping mechanism I could find was the store-made Ho Hos glistening innocently and sweetly in their cellophane packaging. Surely these will prevent the third World War, I said to myself, as I loaded them in my mini shopping cart along with carrots, onions, shallots, bananas, green beans, dried butter beans, eggs and lactose-free half and half.
I waited until I got home to open the package. I nibbled on one while I prepared beef stew in the slow cooker, along with homemade mashed potatoes. Did the Ho Hos help relieve my fear of war and annihilation? Absolutely not. They left me with a tummy ache, sugar high and the firm knowledge I hadn’t learned my lesson and would eat another one.
I am eating out of fear and depression. Is this our modern-day Bay of Pigs, with the disturbing realization that we are not on the side of good but rather have turned against NATO and are now the Great A-Hole of the World, usurping North Korea and Putin for the honor. Eloquently, yesterday, the Danish MP told Trump to F*** Off, a surprisingly concise yet clear message.
My joy at this effectiveness of the ever versatile F word was short lived, however. I read Trump was riding the rage wave continued from Stephen Colbert’s take down by revealing Trump’s grades. The ridicule will go down in roast the pig history but didn’t and won’t contain Trumpmeister’s end-the-world agenda in any way.
Between redrafting my book because of changed EEOC guidelines— thanks, Trump— and scarfing down imitation Ho Hos, I research moving to every country in Europe, searching for land in the midst of wilderness, far from civilization, and contemplating whether I’ll get my goals completed before untrained fingers hit certain buttons no one wants to be hit.
I also spend as much time as I can surrounding myself with our five dogs who cleave to me for warmth in this crazy 13 degree weather. Or perhaps like most animals, they know what will happen long before it does. In 2025, the San Diego Zoo elephants predicted a massive earthquake, encircling their young to protect against the shock of a 5.2 scale quake. Likewise, in 2011, elephants at the National Zoo did the same— smarty pants, those beasts. My much smaller beasts are likely hoping I’ll shield them from impending doom so they can outlive me and feed from my bones when food sources become scarce.
To my MAGA friends, I warn, “don’t call me snowflake.” I’m tougher than a mango seed— every try to actually extract one of those suckers— and more wiley than my cats hopped up on catnip. I am listening to rhetoric. The power of language is something I know a lot about. Words are currency, spent in exchange for something else— a reaction, a concession, money. They also are precursors and predictors of damage, sending signals and nuances long before events happen. They are the elephants of communications. So don’t tell me words mean nothing. Words mean everything.
Which is why I embarrassingly nibble chemically laden rolled desserts when I hear the political linguistic pitch rising. Or when our orange in chief begins using Terminator-like phrases. In addition to “no going back,” he also ominously warned “you’ll find out” when asked how far he is willing to go to take the mineral-rich Greenland from our NATO allies, which have stood by us in a united front against imperialism, fascism, communism and border control for decades.
Soon, possibly, that alliance could be over and we will stand alone with our mounting debt as nations call their loans to be repaid. The entire world will turn against us militarily, economically and politically. No amount of Ho Ho Hoing— which I’m sure would be banned in EU countries because of the forever crap baked into them— consumption will manage anxiety over this one. I’ll be building a bunker in my backyard or fleeing to some wilderness yet to be identified.
What are your plans?
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