taxes and other signs of possible maturity

Jamie and I spent the morning at a nonprofit training seminar, the highlight of which was running into my old Daily Bruin editor, Edina. When I think back to my Bruin years, I picture myself and my fellow A&E section staffers running around like vulgar little monkeys, doing interpretive dance in our cubicle, immortalizing our own hilarity on our Quote Wall and not returning calls from hardworking arts publicists, because we believed publicists were the devil incarnate, and because we were lazy. Edina was a grownup amidst the chaos, laughing good naturedly at our absurdity, then going about the business of getting the fucking paper out.

So when I say she seemed exactly the same 14 (oh my god) years later, it’s a compliment. She was a very mature 20-year-old. Me, not so much. I felt like I needed to be on really good behavior today. I’m proud to say I didn’t pick all my black nail polish off and leave the chips in a little pile on the table or leave the meeting to go buy myself a Panda Bowl even once.

The other highlight was dim sum with Jamie across the street afterward. A while ago, I remember a friend saying to me, “Dim sum is one of those perpetually overrated things. People rave about it, but it’s just food.” It’s probably good that I don’t remember who said it because we’d need to have a talk about how they are wrong. Shrimp dumplings are tiny rice-wrapped packages of genius.

Then I came home and did some work and paid my taxes. As all you freelancers out there know, 1099’s, well, they perform the financial equivalent of an act commonly featured in prison movies.

Not really, I guess—I know it all amounts to the same thing, but when taxes are taken out on the front end, it’s just so much more pleasant than taking it in the back end. (Okay, enough with the weird anal sex metaphors. I’m sounding like some homophobic dude with an “exit only” tattoo on his lower back. Anal sex can be a very loving act! [And now, thanks to this little diversion, I may get some new visitors to my blog courtesy of certain Google searches.])

Anyway, I just hope the government builds some really good roads with my money. That is all.