vote

Good Week

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! Although I have had a bit of a struggle keeping track of my days this week, it’s been a good week overall:

  • I seem to be over the worst of the queasiness I was dealing with last week.
  • My husband is home again, so Nova has been much less anxious (and therefore less vocal).
  • On Monday, my best friend moved into our building! I’m so excited to have her as a neighbor.
  • I managed to get a song done for my songwriting class this week, and I’m actually reasonably pleased with it.
  • I had a really affirming appointment with my doctor yesterday.

Also, this weekend it looks like I’m going to get to play D&D, hopefully, so that’s exciting.

I don’t actually have a lot of thoughts this week. I will leave you with two things:

First, an admonition to please VOTE if you’re in the US – election day is next Tuesday, early voting is available in many places right now, and while voting won’t fix everything, it’s one of the tools we have to try to get things back on the rails.

And finally, here are photos of Nova in her Halloween costumes (which, as you can see, she was *thrilled* to wear, lol):

Vote!

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, friends! I’ve been struggling to think about what to write this week, but the obvious answer is this: if you live in the United States, as I do, you (hopefully) know that the time has arrived to make your voice heard in politics. Election day is next Tuesday, November 6. In many places, early voting is already taking place.

I know it might seem like your voice doesn’t matter. I know voting can be overwhelming (and downright scary – I admittedly did not vote in the midterm election that happened just before I changed my name and got a new ID, because I was scared of what would happen if I brought myself to the polls and tried to vote under a name I wasn’t really using anymore). It can be hard to know who you’re voting for an why, particularly in a midterm. But if you’re able to, I am asking that you please, please, please get to your polling place or an early voting site. News aggregator theSkimm put together this helpful guide about why voting in this midterm election is so important. Please read it (or give it a listen here).

Additionally, here are some resources I have found incredibly helpful in figuring out my ballot:

BallotReady.org is my favorite. They have information on the platforms of basically every candidate who has a platform. And to fill in the gaps…

VoteForJudges.org has information on all the judges on your ballot that are up for retention – recommendations from various bar associations. This is super important to pay attention to – don’t just skip or blaze past this section of your ballot!

If you, like me, are in Cook County, here are some bonus resources:

InjusticeWatch.org has additional info on judges, taking into consideration more factors that just the bar association recommendations.

Girl I Guess: Progressive Voting Guide for November 2018 – this guide digs into the big races on our ballots, and gives you recommendations as well as the reasons behind them. It’s incredibly informative while also being accessible.