A Fireside Chat

I apologize for my absence. Forgive me! It was not fair to lure you (beg you, really) to read this thing and then head for the hills as soon as I got an audience. But all I did was take a little vacation from writing. My reasons were threefold:

1) Not that much interesting stuff was happening. In other words, I ran out of material. It got so bad I was hoping people would cut me off on the road or give me funny looks in the gym so I could have something to blog about. But when folks have been rude or obnoxious recently, it's been in the ho-hum type of manner. If you are going to ram your shopping cart into my Focus at least put some pizazz into it. Like, throw a scarf or something.

2) I got busy. Hardly a surprise--the demands on my time are legendary. Watch out Murphy Brown! From television watching to television recording, I am a dynamic go-getter with nary a moment to spare. Blogging? That's for people without lives.

3) My back hurts! I need the ergonomics person to come by and fix my home office workstation so that I don't spasm every time I reach all the way over for the 'escape' key. I'm fine if I stick to the letters in the center, but I know I am pushing my luck if I have to type a word with a 'Q' in it or if I need the backspace key. F12? Forget it! (Ouch)

So, there you have it. But the "good" news is that there are currently less demands on my time, given that this spring's TV season is nearly over. Also, everyone around me seems to be going more or less crazy. I am hoping that will take care of reason #1.

Not that anyone really cares, but I will try to blog at least once every week or two over the summer. As always, I encourage the people in my life to do interesting things that will not annoy me but might provide some inspiration.

I Am Not Pathetic Just Because I Enjoy Doing My Taxes

There is always something new with the tax code, and the anticipation keeps my batteries charged during the other eleven months of the year. That IRS site is great for finding forms and updated tax statutes 24/7 in June, October and January. Still, nothing beats the excitement leading up to the big April one-five.

I am a very dynamic individual, after all--and my taxes reflect this. Back when I used to do script coverage, there was the self-employment tax to figure out. At one point I worked a professional job at the university where I was getting my MA degree, and this meant I was eligible for the Lifetime Learning Credit OR the Hope Credit--not both. Figuring out which benefited me slightly more took the better part of a weekend, but the extra $13 felt great in my pocket four months later when it was direct deposited into my checking account.

A few years back I started playing the stock market with the spare change I remembered burying in my back yard next to the ficus. Schedule D's charms were slow to reveal themselves, at first, but soon we became regular chums. Short-term and long-term losses--and if I need more room I can use schedule D-1 you say? There is a spot right on Schedule D to carry over the amount? Handy.

I make so little money I could probably fill out 1040EZ or whatever the short form is called, but if it's not the full 1040 regular form with all the spaces for farm depreciation and mining income it just does not feel the same. I prefer the envelope to be heavy when I send it off to the IRS, too, to make everyone think I am real important-like so I do enjoy having the additional schedules and forms for their added bulk and weight.

When I do start making actual money (slated for when I'm seventy) maybe I will hire someone to do my taxes for me. I plan on shadowing this lucky person like white on rice, of course, and I am sure he or she will find my excitement for U.S. tax law to be a breath of fresh air. Maybe we could gossip about those idiots who forget to sign their returns.

This year I am considering trying my hand at "domestic production activities" to see if I can give line 35 a run for its money come next April 15th. Wish me luck!

Dissertation Dissertation Dissertation

Oh graduate school, you naughty enchantress.

First you invite us to sop up knowledge like a sponge. Now, only a few years later, my classmates and I are expected to repay the debt--contributing knowledge of our own by writing book-length dissertations. You stand, ready and willing to wring these out of us, shouting “no!” to our excuses of high sodium and water retention; pails of typing paper and ink-jet cartridges at your feet to collect the fluids begotten from our grey matter.

Fine. But what to write?

They say x will be the next big thing to study. But in order to be marketable for the academic job market, dissertations should take y approach, within the context of z. But this would be for dissertations completed one minute ago. By the time we finish writing in three or four years, the winds will have shifted. “That is so 2008,” men and women in hipster glasses will inform us at the annual conference.

Behind their backs we snarl about their myopia, but of course we desperately want to become these professors ourselves one day--fretting about the graduate students and how they go on and on about this and that. Nor do I think I am the only one in my cohort who leafs wistfully through eyeglasses catalogs, in search of future nerdy-funky academic headgear. Though I believe I have a leg up on my 20/20 classmates; my prescription is already strong and my astigmatism adequately distorting.

Truth be told I look forward to writing the dissertation. It would be nice to be an expert on something. I only hope my thesis will be relevant, like an archival study on films dealing with cardboard wholesaling from the 1940s, or how I like to make cell phone videos about my furniture.

The world waits with baited breath, no doubt.

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Since I am in an academic-y mood--are there any Battlestar Galactica fans out there who also happen to be nuts over Jacques Lacan? I thought so! In the interest of shameless self-promotion I encourage you to buy Cylons in America: Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica, in which I have contributed a chapter. The book was recently awarded the Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Edited Collection in Popular and American Culture by the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association. Or something.

Mustang "Drivers" Can't Drive!

I do not know which law of the universe decrees this, but whoever attempts to operate a Mustang--somehow--instantly loses all ability to do so competently. (Until I meet an exception to this observation, I will indeed consider it a natural law and not a mere “theory.”)

This particular model of car apparently makes whoever takes the wheel morph into a seventeen year old driver’s education flunkee.

At first I thought Mustang drivers simply enjoyed living life on the edge and taking chances; playing fast and loose with the rules of the road. But if this is the case, their lethargic reflexes and ham-fisted response times are hardly adequate for their Evil Knievel mindsets.

It’s not entirely their fault, the poor dears. The several I have encountered while motoring were clearly overcompensating for something, but must not have had the funds to buy a car that was actually cool.

Today, for example, a bald man sitting rather low in the seat of his white, new-ish looking Mustang cut in front of me at a four-way stop sign, when it was clearly my turn to proceed through the intersection. He must have been quite proud his vehicle was able to outrun my two-door Ford Focus.

At least I know my car is lame. Nor do I have pretenses of being a great driver. Still, I can usually make it down the highway without swerving unintentionally into the automobiles beside me.

I imagine the testosterone of Mustang owners (and I speak here of the women) requires them to challenge the very few cars they might out-muscle. To wit, I noticed Baldie trying to drag-race with a minivan when he continued, shakily, down the road after our chance meeting.

But that soccer mom was not going to give up as easily as I did, and she trounced him and his anemic ride without breaking a sweat. Duh.

Still--and before I get the angry e-mails--I must admit I have one friend who owns a Mustang. Of course he cannot drive his way out of a paper bag, and his car sucks, obviously--but he is nonetheless good people.

Elliot Spitzer: A Sex Scandal Not Involving A Conservative Republican, For Once

Look what I found in the U.S. Journal of Generalizations! Although I am sure there have been more than eight sexual scandals by left-leaning Democrats, I would ask my conservative Republican friends to consider the empirical data, below, which has seemingly held true in a relative sense over the past few decades at least.

I post this as a public service to conservatives everywhere. Do not give in to your raging hypocrisy and become another statistic!

At least when Democrats throw caution to the wind and embark on a sex scandal, we can always say it's the free love thing. Well, not Elliot Spitzer of course, because it did not come cheap for him.

He also gets a deduction in the hypocrisy department, what with his campaign against prostitution and all. Way to cross over to the other side, Ely! Couldn't you just leave the whole not-practicing-what-you-preach thing to the likes of Newt Gingrich and Larry Craig?

Certainly no side has any greater claim to morals or ethics. There are plenty of other tallys and graphs one could draft to show the balance tilted in the other direction. Well, I do not know that for a fact, but let us say it's true for diplomacy's sake. Even though it probably is not.

Anyway--the point is--let he who is without sin cast the first stone...or something. I eat a LOT of red meat--and I do not always check to see what types of plastic are okay to recycle if I am feeling lazy, which is most days. So like my Oscar Meyer salami container, which goes into the bin whether it is supposed to or not, my judgment is likewise going to be tossed underneath the sink and into the darkness.

So I will not judge you, Elliot, Newt and Larry for giving in to your more carnal desires. Unless, of course, you judge others for doing the same. At that point it's fair for everyone to inspect your ethics, like if I were to ever pull that salami packaging back out into the cold, harsh light of my kitchen fluorescents to see if it is the type of plastic that should be thrown out or recycled. I would rather not do that, so hopefully you will keep mouths shut, even if the same cannot always be said about your zippers.