state of the union.

he mentioned the bailout, and it made me think of this quote:

"The borrowing must some day be repaid. The government cannot keep piling up debt indefinitely; for if it tries, it will some day become bankrupt. As Adam Smith observed in 1776:

When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid. The liberation of the public revenue, if it has even been brought about at all, has always been brought about by a bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, but always by a real one, though frequently by a pretended payment.

Yet when the government comes to repay the debt it has accumulated for public works, it must necessarily tax more heavily than it spends. In this later period, therefore, it must necessarily destroy more jobs than it creates. The extra-heavy taxation then required does not merely take away purchasing power; it also lowers or destroys incentives to production, and so reduces the total wealth and income of the country."

- Henry Hazlitt, Economics In One Lesson
1946

bold emphasis mine.

i could cry.

i was supposed to have a 4 hour staff meeting today. saturday. i woke up to my alarm, and discovered my boss had texted me and said it was cancelled.

ugh.

i decided to be productive, since i was already up. my ride arrived shortly and took me to the grocery store. then i did laundry, and cleaned my kitchen. eventually, i ate lunch.

all was fine. normal.

i decided to take a nap. reclaim the hours i lost.

when i woke up...

ahhh...

there was a spider hovering above my bed.

i do not like spiders. no i do not. i trace the fear back to watching arachniphobia as a 9 year old. at a slumber party. i'm not sure why we chose to watch that instead of cinderella.

i do not feel that this fear is irrational. spiders do bad things.

what a terrible way to wake up. i go to great lengths to keep spiders out of my bed. don't ask. i did not think about the ceiling, and their evil, web-spinning powers.

what was it doing. what did it want with me.

i went to youtube to find the final scene of arachniphobia, so we could all be on the same page here. the wine cellar. the giant spiders. flying through the air in a ball of fire, screaming.

the egg sac.

i feel ill.

but i couldn't find it. this will do.



"look at the red stripe on its face! if you can call that a face."

shiver.

it's after 10pm...

- i cut myself on a rusty nail, again. the same one. shut up.

it was significantly less dramatic this time, since i'm immune to tetanus. like some kind of superhero. whose powers have to be restored every 10 years.

- i twisted my ankle, because i trip a lot. and every time i say that, i want to make a joke about doing drugs.

- i got my tax information from my student loan company today. i paid almost $2800...in interest...last year. that makes me want to throw up all over someone. it is so true that borrowers are servants to lenders. they own me.

- i'm getting a new, old car on february 5th. i'm afraid i'm going to get in an accident because the brakes work properly. you read that right.

i'm used to my car and all its quirks.

i might be stubborn and refuse to use the air conditioning, just because i've gone without it for 3 summers and i know i can. i'm like that.

the door where i put gas in (is there a name for that?), has been open for a year. it will not close. nobody stole my gas! for a whole year. thanks, nashville.

i will not miss:

having to wrestle my key out of the ignition during the winter.

every. time. i. drive.

having to turn on the defrost-a-ma-jigger every time i breathe, in the winter.

the weird noises.

the vibrating.

the broken speakers. i love singing along to music in my car. i feel uninhibited. even though my neighbors have never complained, i'm sure they tire of hearing me sing bohemian rhapsody at the top of my lungs. these walls are thin. if i can hear their clock chime...

sorry neighbors.

- i took a nap at 8pm tonight. foolish. i am, for the first time, honestly, taking cold medicine just to help me sleep. i blew my nose twice today though. so...

packrat FAIL.

i like scarves.

i didn't use to like them. my mom and older sister, over the years, have given me scarf and glove sets as gifts. i'd thank them politely, and store them away.

i became a scarf person this winter. i don't remember why. i just remember thinking "i want a scarf. but i want it to have more than one color on it, so it can be worn with more than one outfit."

that's how i shop. practically. and quickly. like a man.

so i got my multi-colored scarf.



i've worn it many times. it made me remember that my best friend knitted me a purple scarf once. i've been searching for it all winter, because i have the perfect outfit to wear it with.

i may shop like a man, but i am still a girl.

anyway. i went into my closet today to do some cleaning. i know i have a lot of clothes in there that i never wear, so i figured...it's donation time.

not only did i find the purple scarf (yay!), but i also found an entire box full of scarves and gloves that i stored away at some point. soft ones. pink ones. white ones. texas a&m ones.

and one that looks almost exactly like the one i just bought a couple months ago.



i am ashamed.

is it really bad that i can't decide which one to keep and which one to donate?

r.i.p. albino batmobile.

july 2002.

$2200.

approximately 175,000 miles.



january 2010.

206,007 miles.

it's so far gone the mechanic didn't even try to convince me to repair it.

when i realized i was going to drive it for the last time, that made me sad. i bought it with my own money when i graduated high school. it's my first car. it's so familiar...

it's done.

it's not exactly safe to drive, but i had to drive it back to my apartment. on normal days, i get so irritated with people trying to get me to drive faster. i usually go 5mph over the limit. which technically, folks, is speeding. slow to everyone else, but still, actually...speeding.

today i had to drive under the speed limit (because it wouldn't go any faster), and i got honked at a lot. i laughed. i don't even know why. it was lurching around, and vibrating. and people were honking at me. i wanted to yell "don't you know this is the last time i'm going to drive my car! i'm taking it home to die, ok!" instead, i laughed. it was just one of those absurd life moments, you know.



those bumper stickers say a lot to me.

but it's just a thing.

april. probably.

grandpa hamilton.

facts about my life:

my grandparents think we're related to alexander hamilton. i'm mostly sure that's not true. my dad is working on figuring out the truth right now, but we've agreed not to tell them if we discover they've been lied to for their whole lives. they're 90 and 91. we'll just let them take that to the grave.

there was also a period of time when my grandma referred to the ten dollar bill as a "grandpa hamilton."

as in,

"i sent you a few grandpa hamiltons to spend for your birthday!"

why do we doubt their claim, you ask?

1) you don't know my grandparents. i have not the time or the words to explain them to you.

2) my younger sister did a project in school that required use of the family tree. they sent her a copy. the tree is laid out in the typical fashion, and his name was not on it. until they inserted it at the bottom, with no connection to anyone around him.

i've been thinking about this because...

i'm reading the federalist papers.

which he wrote, with the help of james madison and john jay. i'm not reading this simply because i'm awesome, though that is a contributing factor. when i say i'm trying to learn more about politics and our government...i really mean that. so i'm starting at the beginning.

the last election made me want to be more educated about it, because i didn't decide who to vote for until the night before. (ron paul!) so i started paying more attention to things going on in the world, but felt overwhelmed. so many different opinions. so much trash talking. then a friend recommended that i read
this blog, and i love it.

his latest posts about terrorism...QUALITY.

and i also read "economics in one lesson" based on a recommendation, a few months ago. it was written in the 40s or 50s, and it was really good. easy to understand. "Inflation is the opium of the people."

but i decided to read the federalist papers on my own.

here are a few quotes from grandpa hamilton:

"Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments..."

"When the people of America reflect that they are now called upon to decide a question, which in its consequences must prove one of the most important that ever engaged their attention, the propriety of their taking a very comprehensive, as well as a very serious, view of it will be evident." - Jay

"There is, perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of nations than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For it is an observation, as true as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money."

"Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free."

grandpa hamilton did some damage with that quill.

coherent ramblings.

snow makes me feel conflicted.

"but it's so pretty!" - everyone i know.

ok, i get that. there is nothing else that's good about it. even if you have fun building snowmen, your fingers start hurting after a couple minutes...because snow is so

so

cold.

if you spend too much time with it, you'll die.

in other news,

i had to cut out pictures of real food to hang up at school. i saw a picture of an avocado, and craved one immediately. and bought one after work. so as it turns out, i'm incredibly susceptible to advertising.

tonight i planned to read and watch tv. except there are are only two shows i watch regularly, and they aren't back on yet. so i started reading plot descriptions for other shows i've never seen. read this one from "vampire diaries":

"Damon reveals to Stefan the actual reason why he returned to Mystic Falls and the news stuns Stefan. Meanwhile, Bonnie is disturbed by terrifying dreams about one of her ancestors, and she and Caroline hold a seance. And Jeremy introduces his new history teacher to his aunt Jenna."

sounds riveting. especially that last line. gotta watch me some of that.

i suppose i could turn the BCS championship game on in the background, while i read something awesome.

beat the hell outta t.u., alabama.

i retell jokes.

my status on facebook and gmail has said:

2010. there's something about that number that makes it seem like my car should fly, and my coworkers should be robots.

it sounds like "the future." do you know what i mean?

but it's the present, and it's not entirely unremarkable.

our cars don't fly, but if you're an iphone person, your phone does a bunch of crap it doesn't need to simply because it can. so that's something, i guess. also, there's the internet. and rockets that explode less.

my 2009 highlights:

- visiting my best friend in D.C.!!!



it was a relaxing week. i took vacation a couple weeks after the big evaluation at work. and i got to see a place i've never seen, which is one of my favorite things to do.

- the 4th of july. it was magical. it's not my favorite holiday or anything, it was just a series of neat moments. watching fireworks in the rain in the middle of nashville. stuff like that.

- my niece knows my name now. and i just found out i'm getting another one.



it's a girl! you see two heads too, right?

- read 30 books. i'm still beating that drum.

- lived with less desire to control my life, and more gratefulness that i don't have to.