Please help turn America BLUE!

Halloween was great fun, and I am so thankful that our neighborhood organized such a fun, safe way for the kids to still enjoy the holiday. Making Ol’s Han Solo belt and holster was a delightfully escapist project, and he was truly thrilled with the outcome. Pics at a less important time.

The election. It’s pretty much here. I know you’re freaking out, terrified, furious, disgusted, scared, exhausted, eating poorly, sleeping worse, drinking too much, and just getting by minute to minute. Me too. But there are still voters out there who MUST be reached. The GOP is doing all it can to suppress the shit out of the vote.

Look at Harris County, Texas, for example. That’s where Houston is. Harris County is the 3rd largest county in America. It is huge. And the GOP is filing suit after suit attempting to disenfranchise voters who have cast their ballots already. Governor Abbott himself said that drive-through voting sites were absolutely legal. Now?

Thank god for Marc Elias and Democracy Docket who have counter-filed suit after suit and have so far protected these votes.

Don’t believe me or these blue-checked Twitter accounts? Read this new article from a Republican lawyer who spent “four decades in the Republican trenches, representing GOP presidential and congressional campaigns." In his words:

Nearly every Election Day since 1984 I’ve worked with Republican poll watchers, observers and lawyers to record and litigate any fraud or election irregularities discovered.

The truth is that over all those years Republicans found only isolated incidents of fraud. Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesn’t exist.

As he confronts losing, Trump has devoted his campaign and the Republican Party to this myth of voter fraud. Absent being able to articulate a cogent plan for a second term or find an attack against Joe Biden that will stick, disenfranchising enough voters has become key to his reelection strategy.

So, what can we do? If you are a lawyer, please, PLEASE volunteer your time and expertise to help ensure that everyone can exercise their right to vote. Need a way to do that? Look no further. Democracy Docket NEEDS YOU!

Hate phone-banking? Me too. Pull up your big-girl/big-boy undies with me and make calls. I’ll be dialing into PA tomorrow and beg you to help with similar efforts. Need a way to do that? Look no further. NOPE Neighbors NEEDS YOU!

So do: WisDems, SwingLeft, Indivisible, and so many more. Look specifically for ways to help in NC, PA, WI, MI, MN, GA…

Please do something. Call, donate, drive voters, bring voters in line a pizza. Doom scrolling can use up a lot of time. I know! But don’t wake up on 11/4 and regret inaction.

Vote BLUE like your lives and our country depend on it. They do.

Four days

This was the best find two days ago. I was, and continue to be, Maude. Without apology, but with appreciation for relocating cats and teaching pigeons to shit on pedestrians (of certain stripes).

I feel this is 100% true.

Meanwhile, Mom and Dad are about 50% moved into their darling rental home, have flown back to Louisiana to vote proudly for Biden/Harris, and are really such troopers.

Jack and Ol are eager for Halloween; both are participating in our neighborhood’s socially-distant, individually-wrapped-treat festivities tomorrow. After angstily detailing my kitchen cabinets today, bringing Mom and Dad to the airport, getting Ol off to school for the first time since March 13, and angstily detailing the interior of my fridge, I began obsessively, perhaps angstily, creating a bespoke Han Solo a la Solo belt and holster for Ol to wear for Halloween tomorrow. He is, as you have surmised, going as Han Solo from Solo: a Star Wars story. Jack is some character from some video game and it involves a suit and a mustache and a bullet-proof vest. #IDon’tKnow

Anyway, I guess I just needed more to obsess about as my NC voter hotline shifts got canceled (so many volunteers! yay!), so I ordered random shit from Michael’s for curbside pick-up and then got busy. I am extremely pleased so far as I really cannot even sew a new button onto anything that is then worn.

the real deal, my attempt

Tomorrow I will add snaps and figure out how to fully attach the holster to the belt and so forth, but it’s all leather and hand-sewn so I imagine it’ll last at least until next Halloween. Fingers crossed.

VOTE LIKE YOUR MOTHER EFFING LIVES DEPEND ON IT BECAUSE THEY DO! VOTE BLUE ALL THE WAY UP AND DOWN THE TICKET. THROW THE GOP BUMS OUT. WE GOTTA BURN THIS SHIT DOWN AND START FRESH, Y’ALL.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

(Can you even imagine what it would be like to sleep well and read books -actually read them- and not be freaking out all the time? I am losing the sense of what that would be like, so again, VOTE BLUE!)

17 Oct 2020: To and fro, and 16 days to go

Yesterday morning at the crack of dawn, I flew to Atlanta to meet up with Dad. We visited with my almost-94-year-old grandmother for a few hours and then got in Dad’s car which was hitched to a Uhaul and started the drive back up to Maryland.

We made it to Raleigh last night just after 8, and into Chevy Chase this afternoon around 2:30. Dad was hellbent on making it back in time to return the Uhaul and watch the Georgia-Alabama game, and I’m glad we will ultimately accomplish both. That said, I admit to being a bit tuckered out right now, y’all. And so sad I couldn’t march in DC this morning.

In any case, 16 days until the election! When you read this, it’ll be 15. I have finished my election judge training and will be working 11/3 from 6a-10:30p. My only dismay about that is that I have to leave my phone in my car so will have no idea how anything is going until I leave the polling center that night. I’ll do some more phone banking and vibe-sending but feel I’ve done my part. And I guess that’s all I can do, or could have done.

Hope y’all are well.