July Accomplishments and Failures
You can stand under my umbrella
A rainy July has come and gone, and it seems like forever ago I finally saw Hamilton on Disney+. We have been home in Mexico for over three months now, during which time my daughter has hardly seen any other kids. Her best friend is a hairball she collected after I did a home haircut - who she named Harry. These are weird times.
I was slightly less useless in July than June. I have a tendency towards extremism, where I can’t do anything at less than 120% then tend to get exhausted and discouraged. It’s a problem.
We have been swimming in pomegranates from our garden
One thing I have learned: I’m not a great fundraiser. At least not for politicians. My event did raise over $16k for North Carolina state legislature candidates, but my co-hosts pulled in way more people and likely way more of the money than I did.
Since only Americans can donate, and many of my friends are not and those who are I haven’t been in touch with much in the past few years, my pool was not very big and only my closest friends and my mom (and my close friend’s mom) were easily guilted. I also understand that many people my age are struggling financially right now. Thank god for the rich traditional-age retirees!
I’ve pivoted to other ways to use my time to attempt to save America from abroad. While I did not meet my goal of being the top caller for Democrats Abroad Mexico, I did break into the top 10 a few times and helped some people get their absentee ballots, which was fun. I also wrote an article for the Democrats Abroad website - if you have questions on how to get an illegal abortion, check it out.
I am dabbling in texting for Resistance Labs and Open Progress - you send a lot of texts, most don’t reply, half that do just say MAGA, a few creative insults, and then a handful of people actually interested in whichever campaign you’re doing that day. It can make you feel productive because you reach a ton of people at once but also can wear on you after a while, particularly the horrible people. Why do Trump supporters have to be so aggressive? I do a few days on, a few days off.
Also, wine. We went to Mexico’s highest vineyard this month.
It’s good to know she doesn’t need to have any wine at the vineyard to jump into the fountain and show everyone her Peppa Pig underwear.
August is somehow almost half over already - my daughter’s 5th birthday is tomorrow and luckily my sister-in-law is here with her cousins so she will actually have some kids at her ‘party’. We are also getting a teacher from her old school to come for a few hours a day starting next week - I never thought her first day of kindergarten would be in a treehouse with just her cousin, but here we are.
My pipe dream for August is establishing some kind of schedule that includes exercise, meditation, and writing...we will see how that goes with houseguests staying for an indeterminate amount of time!