I’ll be the first to say that voting in American elections is both an increasingly urgent civic duty and, let’s face it, a bit of a drag sometimes. Still, I haven’t missed my chance to vote since I turned 18 (no small feat for a chronic procrastinator with ADHD). My secret? Tacking on something more fun—an embarrassingly over-sweetened seasonal latte at my college coffee shop in Ohio, a mani-pedi at my favorite queer salon in Austin, a shopping trip at Wasteland in Los Angeles—to help get me out the door.
My plan for this year’s midterms has been set in stone for weeks. First, I’ll cast my ballot at the Los Angeles LGBT Center—a wonderful community resource for harm-reduction supplies like Narcan and test strips, as well as theater and breakfast burritos. Then I’ll take the bus to LACMA to check out the new David Geffen Galleries and repair to my favorite Ethiopian spot afterward for injera and a glass of tej.
Would I vote in the midterms even if I couldn’t do anything cute after? Of course. But given the overall grimness of the current political climate, I’m snatching pockets of joy where I can—especially if they’re accessible by public transit.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one attaching a little side quest to my voting plan. Sophie, 35, threw a voting party so that she and her friends could fill out their Oregon mail-in ballots together, with her husband dishing out homemade curry and, she says, making “a silly PowerPoint about different issues on the ballot.” Hannah, 39, is going to bring her young child to her polling place and possibly host a party of her own.
For Nina, 26, voting in person has always been “a task I sometimes come close to forgetting, even though I desperately care about our country’s political future.” So she’s resolved to take advantage of the fact that her New York polling place is near Tiny Doll House—arguably the city’s best miniatures store—and buy herself the mini chaise lounge she’s been eyeing after she casts her vote. James, 19, who is voting in New York’s midterm elections for the very first time this year, wants to mark the occasion with a showing of Wicker at Cobble Hill Cinemas, followed by dinner at Sam’s Italian Cuisine on Court Street.
