Politics is Real Life
Let's talk about it
Hey.
It makes me sad to know that, just because of its title, you might delete this email without even opening it.
I read on Twitter (the unequivocal source for Truth) a few months ago a tweet where someone admonished Stephen King for getting "involved in politics." Indeed, I managed to get through my entire young adulthood believing "politics" is a condition with clean margins that you can excise from everyday conversation in order to keep the peace.
I know better now. Yes, like many people, it was the 2016 election that got me interested in politics, but I've come to understand something very important since then: Politics is real life. Politics is money and freedom and health care and bodily autonomy. Politics is marriage and racial integration and clean drinking water. Politics is so many things that affect us on a daily basis, and it is a fallacy that any one of us can exist outside of it.
As I sit here in my nice warm house, I'm aware that politics determine the taxes I pay each year on said house, which support my local schools and infrastructure. They determine the standards to which my children and their teachers are held and whether or not I feel comfortable bringing my toddler out to the supermarket during a pandemic. (Spoiler alert: nope.) Politics determine whether or not my family has access to the medications that keep us safe and healthy and the extent to which the cars we drive are allowed damage the environment.
A lot goes in to all these decisions at the local, state, and federal level, and in the legislative versus judicial branches of our government. But it's all politics, and it's all important.
Politics is in the fabric of everything we do and everything we have.
Now, I'm thinking about this because we have a local election coming up and I'm involved in local government. Also, and here is the inevitable book tie-in, politics got Lucinda and her contemporaries into the mess they're in. If you don't know what I mean, go back and take a look at that deleted scene I sent a while back.
But equally I think YOU and everyone you know should also be involved in local government. Notice I'm not telling you how to vote, or even how I'm planning to vote. I just want you to be involved. I want you to be aware. Because the more of us show up to participate in our society, the more reflective of our society our laws and institutions will be.
*Steps down from soapbox, but reserves the right to tiptoe back on from time to time.*
Updates? I've got 'em.
#1 - Rejections abound. I'm not nervous, but I'm nervous. Four rejections last week, one of which really stabbed me in the gut. Something about not seeing a clear path to selling the book to a publisher. tl;dr: "Great story, great writing, no one will want to publish it." I hope she's wrong and that someone else sees the light. Fingers are still crossed, as there are still many many agents who haven't replied yet.
#2 - Still only five hens are laying eggs, BUT! I know which one isn't. So I did a lil' sweet talking today, and I think she got it. By next week, I bet she'll be laying them left and right. Here are all my late layers standing in a row: Ivy, Pecan, and that little stinker, Snowball. Ivy and Pecan came through in the last week of December. Snowball, don't fail me now!
#3 - It snowed a lot here this weekend, in case you didn't know. It's actually still pretty fluffy and fun to play with, and fun to watch the baby and the dog run around and throw snow all over the place. I think everyone near me kept power, thank goodness.
I'll close out for now. I promise I won't bore you with political stuff all the time, but I do hope I have also made a good case for at least putting your ear to the ground to see how your local government works and how it's performing vis-a-vis what you care about most.