I suspect you know you are my least favorite month, so I do appreciate you trying today with an extra hour of sleep and some sharp sunshine this morning.

But on the whole, you are grey and brown and 53º with rain. You do have two bright spots, though.

Thanksgiving. One of my favorite holidays. Family and food. Excessive amounts of cheese. 5 stars.

The end of election season. The morning of November 4th cannot get here fast enough.

I am over and done with the constant text messages from candidates in places I’ve never even heard of, much less could vote for.* The incessant “vote harder” screeching from the blue side of the internet. I voted a week and a half ago, please leave me alone. The hand wringing and/or cheering over polls that mean nothing until the votes are counted. And for fucks sake, can we stop shaming people who don’t vote early, acting like they somehow don’t care because they vote ON election day?

Civic engagement is incredibly important. Voting is vital. Encouraging others to vote is awesome. But the incessant drumbeat of “whatever you’re doing, it’s not enough” is exhausting – and becomes counterproductive, because there will be people who keep hearing it over and over and think, “Well, if whatever I do isn’t enough, then why bother with any of it.”

So, I need November 4th to get here, and hopefully we flip Congress and the party decides that continuing to appeasement-minded be milquetoast hand-wringers is not an effective way forward.

If you’re in the US, I have faith in you that you have either already voted or have set aside time on Tuesday to tend to it – you got this.

* I swear to gawd, Dem candidates & ActBlue, if you do not get your shit together and stop sharing my contact info with everyone under the sun…