Politics

I think I’ve been busier in the last four months, especially the last few weeks, than I have been at any other point in my life, including while I was studying for my exams. The pace of trying to fit campaigning in with the rest of my life is just relentless. It’s certainly tiring — […]

Coming home from the candidate forum to find that your husband is fast asleep, leading to your doing wild contortions trying get the zipper down on the back of the dress you wore with the hope you’d look serious, like someone who could be trusted with millions of taxpayer dollars… #campaigningwhilefemale

Thanks SO MUCH to Amanda Daly for hosting a trivia night meet-and-greet for me. Delicious food (those tomato bruschetta! that chili! those chocolate chip cookies, that were, frankly, the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tasted). Interesting conversations with interesting people. Just a terrific and fun time all around — if only all civic engagement

Canvassing is way more fun with Kavya along.  When we set out, Kavi wasn’t quite sure it was appropriate to be knocking on people’s doors and bothering them, but nevertheless, she persisted. Evidence of actual canvassing. 🙂 I need to stuff quite a few of those little bags — I would normally order pizza and do it

Okay. I have my coat with ‘Mohanraj for Library Board’ button. I have my bag with paper products and more buttons and door hanger bags. I have a clipboard and pen to take down interested people’s names. I have a Kavya beside me, who refuses to wear a coat even though it is not even

How did we get into this mess?  I’ve been seeing that question a lot on Facebook groups, so I thought it might help to draw some connections. 1) Illinois is in a severe budget crisis.  Previous administrations borrowed from the pension fund and overspent, and then were told by a judge that they couldn’t simply

I have now poured myself a bubble bath and a cup of tea, and am ready to answer the question people have been asking me a lot lately — “When do you sleep???” And the answer is, I sleep eight hours a night — I protect that time jealously, because I am totally useless when

I am somewhat frustrated by how frequently people at local forums use ‘diversity’ when they’re talking about higher taxes. There’s language that goes like this: “If we raise taxes, we’ll be reducing diversity!” And I want to unpack that a little, because what they’re actually saying is that if we raise taxes, then housing (whether

We’re just about one month out from the election, and the schedule is getting intense. There are now enough events happening that I physically can’t make it to all of them — they’re often cross-scheduled, as with tonight’s voter registration drive hosted by Suburban Unity Alliance and the library board candidate forum hosted by Buzz

I’m forty-five. What should I do with the next ten years? a) raise my children to college age b) be an English professor c) write books — ideally, at least one a year d) run for office and serve e) create and run a community arts space and cafe I’m pretty sure I can do