I thought for a second that it might be because I've changed my ways and started doing so much of my work on time, that I actually have to plan time to procrastinate these days. As I thought about what I was working on when I started reading blog comments in my email today and thought, "oh yeah, I haven't done a blog entry in a couple of days," that it's just all the procrastinating coming home to roost.
For example....I'm in the midst of finishing mine now, so should I take some of the precious minutes off to write about taxes? I certainly have put them off till the last minute, but I hate to talk about things when everyone else is. Today I'm listening to Amy Goodman interview a tax protester. Taxes are on my mind. I hate adding up all my internet purchases in order to calculate how much I owe in sales taxes. Jeez, I buy a lot of stuff online - all in amounts of about $8.00. It's been enlightening to see how much money I spent on books and CDs and when. I think I should be able to deduct coffee as a work expense.
My favorite tax-paying procrastination experience was near midnight in Minnesota in April 1993, when I rushed to the central post office to throw my envelope in the mailbag. What a scene it was: tax protesters, a person dressed up as a bottle of aspirin handing out free samples, and inside, hunched over those big black tables: people assembling their tax forms in a frenzy of folding, spindling, and correction-fluid besmattering. There was a similar, though much warmer, late night scene at the Birmingham post office, where I rushed my tax envelopes last year - as I had carried them with me all the way there on an airplane instead of dumping them in the mailbox in the corner before leaving town.
Corrections:
content: Apparently I did not accurately represent the Lancet study's method- maybe because I read the Iraq Body Count's explanation of the study. The Lancet study was based on "33 clusters of 30 households each." Thanks for the note, dsquared.
style: I've been informed by one reader that my wit and personality do not come through clearly enough on the blog, but that she is not sure how I could insert my personality more fully. I'm taking this as a compliment, as it must mean that my personality is so magnetic, scintillating, and charming that it is impossible to capture in such a medium. My natural modesty does however, come through, in my continuing understatement of said qualities. I plan on working to correct this problem, though it's true that I'm not always at my most witty and magnetic when I write these entries, sniffling, pajam-ed, and surrounded by piles of postponed work to which I really should give my full attention.
Thus, in lieu of providing commentary on important events myself today, I will link to others who are more on the ball at the moment:
First of all, Andy Borowitz is funny today.
And Susie Bright's column about Andrewa Dworkin's death on April 11th is one of the most interesting comments that Bright has yet produced. If you're looking for wit, Tom Engelhardt's "George's Amazing Alphabet Book" provides critique, an orderly format, and humor.
I, on the other hand, must get back to adding up the online purchases. sigh.
Open questions, readers:
What should you be allowed to deduct? What's your favorite tax-paying story?
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