I have conveniently made a shopping list for everyone to purchase my christmas/hannukuh/birthday presents from.  Due to the struggling economy I have selected items below the $300 mark out of consideration for your budget constraints.  You’re welcome.

messenger bag:

Celestron Powerseeker, for looking into the sun:

‘nocs, for birdwatching and neighborwatching:

MET Jewelry (I don’t have a boyfriend and the immediate outlook is not promising, so someone has to pick up the slack in the jewelry department):

Moroccan tea set:

keyboard (full and weighted, more specifically):

Terrarium (didn’t know I needed this til jil told me):

Bike(found here):

There. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.  I know you all won’t let me down.

In high school, I was briefly associated with an extracurricular club called S.H.O.U.T. – Students Helping Others to Understand Tobacco[1].  How I got involved with a topic I felt such indifference toward I do not recall.  Someone probably convinced me that it was great resume fodder.  Anyway.  S.H.O.U.T. would schedule stings during the school’s lunch hour where the students go around to local businesses and attempt to illegally buy cigarettes.  If anyone actually succeeds at doing so they are to inform the guilty business of the impending $300 fine.  What high-schooler would volunteer their spare time for such a completely lame undertaking? The future raging alcoholics of eastern Washington, that’s who. (I’m fairly certain in retrospect that ciggarettes were the least of most S.H.O.U.T. participant’s problems).  My first and only meeting attendance was a prep course for successfully suckering people into selling you ciggs.  The teacher who ran the club advised the girls to wear lipstick and pull their hair back for the big day in order to look older.  A list of cigarette brands was distributed and we were to all take turns doing a practice run-through of our script, which read “Hello, may I please have some insert cigarette brand?”  I am called upon and I say in my most casual voice, “Hello, may I please have some Kools?”  Everyone erupts into laughter and the teacher condescendingly says, “Kaeleigh, Kools are for black people.”  I never returned.  Thus ended my stint in anti-drug activism.

High School- a confusing time for everyone

It's so obvious now

I am amused by all of the people who are reacting to the new health care bill with, “that’s it, I’m moving” because, are you moving to Qatar?  Every place in the world where you would actually want to live has a health care system that you hate.

Read em and weep:

Key details of health overhaul bill

The House health care bill passed Saturday would do the following:

» Require most Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a fine.

»Expand health care coverage to 36 million more people over the next decade.

»Require employers with payrolls above $500,000 to provide insurance to their employees or pay a fine.

»Prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions.

»End premium disparities between men and women.

»Impose a 5.4 percent income tax surcharge on income above $500,000 annually for individuals and above $1 million annually for households.

»Establish a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers beginning in 2013.

»Cost $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

»Cut Medicare spending by more than $400 billion over 10 years.

The Associated Press

How did Utah vote? A trio of nos

 »R Utah’s House members voted against passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

 Rob Bishop » R, ‘no’

Jim Matheson » D, ‘no’

Jason Chaffetz » R, ‘no’

No where does this provide that the upper-tax bracket pay for my abortions.  Democracy fails me again. I AINT PAYIN FOR THE LOW-INCOME LAZY JACKASSES OF THE WORLD TA GET DOCTORED, YOU KEEP THE HEALTH PLAN AND I’LL KEEP THE CHANGE, etc.  Wait, I qualify as low-income? Nevermind. Play on, Pelosi. On to senate! Long live public option. Conclusive fragment.

Halloween ca.1999.  Am I supposed to be a baby?!  I don’t get it.

Just another day at work.

Here are some pictures of the apartment (shall I say, “garbage dump”) that Natalie, Rachael, and I shared before we broke up.  We documented it with pictures…because we were so proud? Only a serious meth addiction could justify this decor, but our meth usage was strictly recreational. 

headed up to washington tomorrow…. booyah!