About the Blog and Annaleigh

Small-Town Elitist

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About the Blog:

This blog was started in the summer of 2008 while the presidential campaign raged, and every conservative with their irony detector turned off was accusing our now President Obama of being an “elitist,” despite his growing up with a single mother who was once getting welfare, and having spent many years as a community organizer working with the poor and working class in the southside of Chicago.

“Small-Town Elitist” is a blog title that was chosen to mock these folks with broken irony detectors, and present the general idea of this blog. This blog is by yours truly, the Small-Town Elitist (my name is Annaleigh, by the way), who has many things in common with President Obama, in that I come from a humble background, am surrounded by people of humble background, have organized people of humble background, and yet, have inclinations that conservatives would mock as hoity-toity, high falutin’, and elitist.

This blog will cover politics; current events; social issues; issues of race relations and also the lives of multiracial people; women’s issues and feminism; GLBT issues; issues of religion, especially Evangelical Christianity and issues of gender within religions; the lives of people with disabilities; caring for the enviroment; human rights; rape and sexual violence and survivors of these things (including myself); animal rights (including pets and other animals with disabilities); local events and issues around Kern County, California; books and book reviews, and lots more.

There will also be lighter topics, such as a weekly weird news story (posted under the WTF category), posts about DIY and crafting, gardening, cooking, pets, fashion, the gothic subculture, and often there will be personal musings.

Who is the Small-Town Elitist?

My name is Annaleigh, and I will be your elitist host for this blog. I’m a jewelry designer, and a Business Administration & Art major at a Central Valley, California college. I am the owner of Poisoned Hollywood Handmade & Vintage, my jewelry and accessories shop where everything is handmade by myself or my business partner, or is vintage. I used to be a very hoity toity History and Anthroplogy major at college, but my career change shook my educational plans up.

I am a bisexual woman who loves masculine men and feminine women, and I am a multiracial woman of color, a Chicana, and Native American, and an amalgamation of the British Isles and its people. I have a psychiatric disability (bipolar and PTSD) and I am also the pet parent of two pooches with physical disabilities. I am a rape and sexual violence survivor and for 10 years now I have done anti-violence and abuse activism.

I am a member of Amnesty International and the ASPCA, and memberships in NOW and Greenpeace are soon to follow. I love to read all manner of books, I love to write, and I love to create. In addition to designing jewelry and accessories, I am also a mixed media artist, a poet, and I enjoy photography on the side. I have a very nurturing personality, so I have four rescue animals (two cats and two dogs), and if you’re sick or depressed and you’re my friend, you can bet that a TLC package will be showing up in the mail for you. I love to cook, and I grow some of my own veggies, fruits, and herbs. I enjoy baking as well as making homemade candy. I am an ex-Evangelical Christian, and now consider my self a liberal Christian converting to Unitarian Universalism who is open to many other teachings and paths that I can learn from. I love to work with charities and volunteering, and right now I am running a fundraiser for the oldest continuously running library in the USA, I volunteer at my local library, run a website for survivors of sexual violence, and frequently use my jewelry business as a way to help create change. I am also your sweet, friendly, goth girl next door. 😉

But enough about me! Have fun browsing the blog! 🙂