Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Staycation 2010(R) Day Two, and a bit of Day Three (or, a not so exciting thing happened on the way to the Forum)

I woke up this morning thinking about my taxes. Or rather, the Herculean feat that will be my taxes, circa 2009, circa waiting-on-the-w2-to-work-out-the-two-state-nightmare form filing season. Let me recap.

January. New Year. Living in California. The state practically falls apart fiscally. June rolls around. I roll out.

Now New York. First need to figure out the new tax system. Next need to figure out the calculations for Calif. Then need to figure out the calculations for New York. Pro-rating twice, city tax and not to mention write-offs (where to apply?) and applicable laws and debits and donations and slovenly, break-your-calculator-type worksheets and side forms.

I woke up to this today. After the nightmare of moving to Florida.

* * *

About The White Ribbon. I took the time out of my busy neuroses yesterday to view this film, running down to the Film Forum to check it out.

First off, it looks lovely. Black & white, pre-WWI farm village, slightly European pastoral, if you take European pastoral to mean a slight distrust for the more rural of settings and people to the point that everything surrounding is banal to the point of creepy. (Side note: replace banal with folksy in that sentence and you get the American version of this phenomenon.)

Anyway, the movie is a lot to digest, essentially a frame around a teacher's growing disenchantment in this village where a bunch of bizarre incidents and brutalities happen, and the weirdest bunch of kids since either Village of the Damned or Children of the Corn.

I can recommend, but don't be afraid to be disappointed.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Staycation 2010(R) Day One (or, how I literally poured my time down a slime-caked sink hole)



That was day one. Not any debauched party replete with hookers, strippers, lawn gnomes and marmots and/or ferrets. No, I played with a dirty, stopped up sink.

I am going to leave now, let the chemicals work their magic. Or sit and eat at the porcelain.

Debauched, chemical-hued stories to come (probably from the fumes now permeating the suite). The scent of failure has never smelled so...heady and bleachy? The room smells like coffee made from pool water. As in swimming pool.

UPDATE:
So apparently, during the writing of this post, the drain found itself to be responsive and subsequently, well, drained. As of yet, there are no reports of wet tracks on the wall below, the wall in the kitchen. Score one for 1970s and $40-worth of domestic technology. And if it does end up in the kitchen that will make for some interesting meatballs. I'll keep you posted.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Staycation, 2010

So I've embarked on a Staycation, having one for this entire week. A week to myself. As distressing as that will sound to anybody who has actually had the pleasure of spending fifteen minutes with me will surely identify, and as unfortunate as having to pull that odious portmanteau out does signify. But I digress. I will have a week for this.

Do I have any goals? I hear the sirens' chorus invoke. There will be a list, but I'm not about to let this post delve into the ruminative sort. The short form:
1) declare martial law in Calif (sorry, that bad breakup will not completely end, although it's a goal).
2) delete "Thanks!" from the lexicon unless a service has actually been rendered, after the fact, and adequately so.
3) spread puppies and kittens, love and joy to everyone.

And what will I really accomplish? Stay tuned. The bloody, horrific details will be chronicled. Until then, teasers from NYE: