My 6-Year-Old's Electoral College Prediction - Empathy For the Win! #51 by Darcy Reeder
Plus a Carnival, and a Funeral
Weekly Newsletter #51
Today in Party School, I taught Tzivia about the electoral college. Then I let her play with The New York Times’ electoral college simulator. My kid’s only 6, but she understands probably as well as the average American about safe states and swing states and possible electoral college outcomes. But her very favorite thing about the simulator was how she could drag every single state’s electors over to Biden. She was falling over laughing while dragging those last red states over to the left.
You heard it here first, folks. Tzivia’s predicting a Blue Wave of epic proportions:
Vote. Did you vote? If you didn’t vote yet, vote.
If you live in the US and have a question about how to vote, hit me up. Doesn’t matter what state you’re in; I’ll try to help you figure it out.
Meanwhile, in my county in Washington State (where we have both universal mail-in voting and automatic voter registration—Yes, these things are possible), most people have already voted!!! A week after ballots were mailed out, 56% had already been returned. That’s as of Friday, so I’m sure when today’s returns get posted, the percent will be even more epic.
Vote vote vote vote vote vote!
A Carnival, and a Funeral
A year ago, the day of my daughter’s Halloween Carnival, our beloved dog Lupin died. I wrote about it here, one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. I tried to capture the surreality of it all, and I think I actually succeeded. Here it is:
When My Dog Died, I Felt the Surreal Dichotomy of Life and Death
Here are links to two other things I wrote about Lupin:
Love Letter to My Dog (written while he was still alive)
What My Dog Left Behind When He Died (a poem right after he died)
Me with My Littles:
Our pandemic pup Violet (pictured with Tzivia and I) looks an awful lot like Lupin RIP. But personality-wise, they are very different.
It’s Pumpkin Spice Season, Y’all.
So let’s all remind ourselves: Women Aren’t Basic Just Because They Like Popular Things (essay by one of my favorite Medium writers: the clever, kind, and hilarious Kyrie Gray.
And I Repeat: VOTE VOTE VOTE!
Thanks for reading, friends! I seriously appreciate all your reads, claps—you can clap up to 50 times per piece—highlights, comments, and shares.
I’m on a hiatus from publishing on Medium right now while I full-time pandemic-parent and homeschool my kiddo. But all of my old writing continues to earn money when Medium members read it. If you enjoyed these Medium essays, please share my writing on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else you’d like!
Love,
Darcy