A Mighty Fine Life

So I did my taxes. Between state and federal I ended up paying about $30. That was unexpected.

AND THEN I got another bill for my non-existant T-Mobil account, which means this is not a one time fluke, and someone is using my name and address to open a pay-as-you-go account every couple of months. But they don't have my SSN or bank information or anything, so... Bzuh? I need to report it to T-Mobil's fraud department. (I've already checked my bank account; no weird happenings there.)

And now I'm going to go pay up all my bills for the month. Student loans, Con Ed, phone, credit card. You know, this whole "being a grown up" thing is waaaaay overrated.

My cat was so confused about why we insisted it wasn't dinner time for her an hour ago. Lilly doesn't understand springing ahead. But to be fair, springing ahead sucks.

This weekend pretty much epitomizes "lazy" in that I've been wearing my pajamas since I changed into them friday night. I should probably shower. I've been kind of sick, though; I finally seem to have caught the cough Rachel's had for the last month, so I keep breaking into coughing fits. Meh.

I was goign to run laundry, but that hasn't happened yet. We'll see. It probably won't.

However, because I did want to do something productive (other than getting some writing done, finally) I did pay my bills and do my taxes today. Good news on that front! Where as last year I owed a kind of ridiculous amount of money -- I was freelancing for part of the year, and not having anything withheld, which kind of bites you in the ass at tax time -- this year, I am getting a refund! Hooray! Also, I made almost twice as much in 2007 as in 2006, but that's probably because instead of working retail, internships, and freelancing for significantly less than industry standard, I worked two salaried jobs. So I guess I should stop using the "growing up sucks" tag, since that's kind of the good part. I mean, having to have a job and go to work even when I really really really don't want to sucks, but on the other hand, income is good and tax refunds are good.

It will all go into savings, btw. Rachel and I are both saving up to move this summer. Because we're close and all... But a two bedroom apartment would be nice.

Incidentally, Newsies peeps, the most recent post on newspaper_row has a link to Trey Parker's photo gallery, which has a handful of Newsies picture I'd never seen before. The guys playing dice is now my desktop, replacing Lucas and Corbin for the first time since August. They're kind of awesome and totally worth checking out (especially if you, like me, always want more pictures of Blink).

So last weekend's "I suck at being a grownup!!" whine was about trying to do my taxes, and realizing I had thrown out several important documents.

Oops.

Luckily, I hadn't taken the trash out yet, and two of the three were still there. The third was from my current employer, so all I had to do was ask the office manager for another copy. Thank god for her.

So today, I actually filed my taxes. I owed...well, a reasonable amount, given that when I was freelancing nothing was being automatically taken out. It's just that it's more than half of what's currently in my bank account. Sigh.

(Actually, today is pay day, or would be if I'd gone to work...I got the day off for Good Friday. Yes, I'm Jewish and they know that, what with having taken Tuesday off for Passover. But they decided to close the office early, then decided only one person had to come in to answer phones, and that person wasn't me.) So I'll be able to replace some of it Monday.

Just...meh.

That being done is a load off my mind, since I was reeeeally nervous, never having done them myself before. And by "done them myself" I mean I used TurboTax.com, and actually paid for the deluxe personal business version, since that's the one that finds tax deductions for freelancers. It cost more than half of the amount of the deductions it found.

Again, meh.

But it's done; the IRS should take the money on Wednesday (hopefully giving me enough time to deposit a paycheck so I won't, you know, go broke), and thank god my bills are already paid for the month.

Even when I don't lose at being an adult, being an adult sucks.

Today has really not been a good day. I woke up to a phone call from Rachel: she was heading to the emergency room; would I mind meeting her there?

So five hours were spent sitting in the ER waiting room...waiting.

Then I discovered that what I thought was a credit card solicitation was, in fact, a note telling me that my Perkins loan is FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS past due. There's very little charge for it, but it does suck for my credit rating. So I got to pay that, and my other monthly bills. Which wouldn't be such a problem, except that I'm still awaiting a serious paycheck from work, and thus have, hm, no money.

And the Yankees have been shut out through six.

I swear to god, if they don't pull it together, I'll put a fucking foot through my TV screen.

(Oh, FYI, Rachel is fine. She claims to have a fractured spine, just because the doctor told her she does, but that's just crazy talk.)

The back-to-school/college-ness of everything at the moment is very, very werid, because I'm not going back to school, probably ever again, and not really going anywhere else, either. Also, today I learne that when one is in a shitty mood to begin with, Pinkerton is probably not the best album to listen to. Even very loudly.

( Whine. )

( Mod 10 chatter )

I just turned in two job applications and picked up another three. Sigh. While I don't particularly want to be an underwear saleslady (Victoria's Secret being one of the applications I picked up) I do desperately need a second job if I ever want to get out of here (which I do). I'm particularly glad I did this today because I picked up my schedule and, as always, I've got one real shift and one call shift. Fuckers.

I'd wonder if I did something to horribly piss off the managers, except that on the whiteboard where they list the people who are number one for combo sales (etc), I was listed as 100% for cleaning, good job. I can't figure out what this is based on (I cleaned 100% of dirty theaters? I emptied 100% of full trash barrels?) but presumably if I'm listed on the board of people who did good things, they don't hate me. So. Arg. Stupid work.

Being a grown up kind of sucks.