Fuck budgets

Good morning gorgeous. It's so lovely to see your face on this weirdly humid fall morning. Grab a mug of caffeine and pull up a chair, it's time we caught up.

A lot is happening in our political dumpster fire and it's hard to keep up, so it makes sense to talk about fuck-budgets

It's been a tough ride for us these last couple of years— we care about people, the environment, progressive politics, women, and, kindness. Between Trump, Ford, Scheer, Trudeau not being able to remember how many times he did black and brownface, and the planet warming towards a Mad Max situation, it feels like a constant barrage of hot wet garbage to the face.

When there is too much to feel, sometimes it's easier to turn it off. To numb our emotions with blanket forts, Riesling, and cookies. It's easier to choose not to read the article, engage in the discussion, vote in the election, pay attention to yet another democracy-eroding scandal. Sometimes it's just too damn much, amirite?

But then I heard Cory Booker say something that shook me out of my funk:

Too often we allow our inability to do everything prevent us from doing anything.

The blanket fort is easy, but it doesn't help, and no one ever made a bad situation better by binging Brooklyn Nine-Nine in their PJs. When we feel responsible for every single issue, it's too much— we need to break it down to keep from drowning in it. You can give a fuck without having to give all of your fucks. We need to budget our fucks, so we can impact change without getting the urge to hide.

Remember, people without any fucks left aren't cool, they're powerless.

We need to use our fucks wisely, and not give up our power in the face of so much nonsense. There is one key way we can take out power back. We can vote.

Even when the choices suck, we deserve to have a say in who leads us, and the policies we are down for or against. We can research our local leaders, and vote for the ones who align with our values. We can text our friends and remind them to vote too. We can host a dinner party to celebrate participating in the kind of imperfect, fucked up democracy some people dream of having. We have skin in the game, so at the very least, we need to play.

We've created a guide to voting in the Canadian Federal Election, and also gin cocktails.