This entry written entirely while unmedicated, as it happens, across two days...

Things seen and not understood: the shoes a woman I saw at a bus stop was wearing. Half-inch spiked heels.

What?

All the non-calves-and-bottom-accentuating state of flats, only with the ankle-threatening instability of spiked heels. It's like someone set out to design the Worst Possible Shoe.

Meanwhile (she says, picking up this entry the following day): This morning velithya's responses to my hyperactive bouncing around became limited to: "BREAKFAST. MEDICATION." Which, obviously, I responded to by calling her an ABLIST OPPRESSIVE JERK etc.

Cue me sitting down to breakfast (just after she left for work), and thinking to myself: Yay! It's happy munchy foods time!

... Which, it occurred to me, may well be proving her point.

Also

I "love" it when wrongness is so blatant, it segfaults my brain and it takes me a second to remember I was chewing my breakfast.

Dammit, Nestle, stop taking away my excuses not to boycott you.

Prescription Sunscreen

News of the World of what the hell are these people thinking:

Birth-Control Pill Lands Fairfax Girl 2-Week Suspension

Key quotes (all emphasis mine):

For two decades, many schools have set zero-tolerance policies on drugs. That means no over-the-counter drugs, no prescription drugs, no pretend drugs in student lockers or pockets.

The Supreme Court will consider this month the case of a 13-year-old Arizona student who was strip-searched in 2003 by an administrator who suspected that she was carrying ibuprofen pills.

Fairfax School Board members have debated over time whether to allow students to carry Tylenol or other over-the-counter medicines without registering them with the school nurse. County policy permits cough drops to be carried on campus, for instance, but not shared.

In Maryland, school systems have more leeway to set their own drug policies. In the District, prescription medications should be confiscated if they are brought to school without a doctor's order, Dena Iverson, a spokeswoman for the school system, wrote in an e-mail.

A 2006 state law in Maryland overturned some local rules requiring a doctor's note for children to use sunscreen at school.

If she had been caught high on LSD, heroin or another illegal drug, she found, she would have been suspended for five days. Taking her prescribed birth-control pill on campus drew the same punishment as bringing a gun to school would have.

"Most people would not know the difference between birth control or some Ritalin or Tylenol or codeine," said Clarence Jones, coordinator for the Fairfax school system's safe and drug-free youth program. "If they are just pulling something out of their pockets and sticking it in their mouths, we don't know what they are taking."

--

You know, I can think of legitimate reasons to be taking all of those. Hell, I have taken codeine, I'm pretty sure I've taken things equivalent to Tylenol, and while I'm not on Ritalin, I daily take ADHD medication - including taking a dose in the middle of the day, often at uni, sometimes in class. If I were in high school I'd still need to do that. (And for the record, the general reaction of the others, including the tutor, in the class in which I have to take meds mid-class, is to ignore it utterly. Because I'm at university, and people assume that if I'm popping some pills during a class, I have a reason to do so, and it's my own damn responsibility.)

When I was in high school, some students took drugs, it's true, but we were allowed all the cough drops we wanted (I'm pretty sure the school canteen sold them, actually) and anyone who had medication to take... took it.

The student, by the way, is waiting, as of time of article, to see if she gets expelled.

(no subject)

Quick recommendation: While it's available, watch this episode of the Daily Show, specifically for the interview with Jehan Sadat on the subject of Middle East peace.