What you pay to play the game

Sign I saw on the highway on the way back from PA:

Abstain from sex
Attain your goals
*picture of smiling children*

LTotW:

- I don't think it's ever totally occurred to me (besides on the level that it's really, really obvious) that people change over time. Because I'm not clairvoyant enough to know what to expect, I don't account for it, so when it happens, I'm perturbed. Actually, I think a portion of my personality is significantly shaped by the fact that I think I'm pretty concreted in who I am, and only years after the fact do I realize that I somehow became pretty freaking different despite that.

- I registered to vote a little while ago, and, because I'm the female, tophat-less equivalent of Jiminy Cricket, now feel like I need to know something about politics before I cast a ballot. Thus far, my attempts to achieve that end have been insufferably frustrating. There's a reason people are polarly divided into rabid political nutcases or apathetic failures of America's democratic system. There appears to be no way to be only passably informed about politics, thanks to a vicious cycle of 1) looking up relatively general information, 2) either not being able to understand or determine impartiality of information thanks to lack of background information, 3) looking up more information.

- What's up with spinach? Hasn't the crisis passed yet? Iceberg lettuce really doesn't do it for me and this anti-Popeye diet isn't helping my sometimes-anemia, Planet Earth.

- I do things out of principle/spite disproportionately frequently. I love doing things specifically because someone told me I can't, and not doing things just because everyone else does them. Reverse psychology, if done in a not brick-to-the-side-of-the-head blatant way, would probably work wonders on me.