Do I want to post to the blog, or keep doing the paperwork for my taxes?
I’ll tell you this much — I am astounded by all my business-related expenses from last year. I am hoping the IRS will not feel similarly. They get sort of funny when your business expenses seem a little disproportionate to your business’s income…
However. I feel confident they will have plenty of reasons to tax me a whole lot more in 2020, so onward, gang!!
And in the middle of “crunching the numbers,” I got the much-anticipated text from the director of Tell My Bones. He loved the new character arc. He is going to try to pin down Sandra’s schedule (she starts rehearsals in Stratford, Canada in 5 days), and he wants to pin down the other actors and finally get the first table-read at the Dramatists Guild in NYC underway.
Which means, coincidentally, more intense contracts that I have to sign.
Which means also another business-related trip to NYC, almost immediately. (I just went through all my receipts from this past trip to NYC, for gas stations, restaurants, the Airbnb, Amtrak trains, many many many Lyft cabs — I got kind of exhausted, looking at all that stuff. And now I’m going to do it all over again. Although I think I will fly there… Right.)
I’m just getting so accustomed to being squirreled away in the peace & quiet of my sanctuary in the middle of nowhere…
Plus — did you know I maintain five websites now?? Well, I do. Funny how that happened. It seems like it was only yesterday when I sort of lost my mind and dismantled a ton of websites, stepped down from my many Executive Director positions, yadda, yadda, yadda, and maintained a single blog. And that was it.
And now it is, once again, five websites later. (Of course, none of them are anywhere near as time consuming as the old ones were. Just nowhere close to it.) (Which is why I’m not on prescription meds, I guess! Yay!) (And I sleep through the night now. Like a baby. Only occasionally waking up to wonder what Nick Cave might be wearing, but other than that, I sleep!)
Well, the Booty Core class went up a notch yesterday. Wow, did I feel the burn. But it’s okay. It’s still fun. I’m really liking it a lot. But it is definitely intense now. To the point that, late last evening, I realized I had burned through more calories than I usually do and my tummy was empty. And wanting ice cream, of all things. So off to the dollar store I went!!
And, boy, did I stand there and ponder. Because, you know, I don’t want to bombard myself with junk. But I really, really wanted ice cream. It’s great that they put the calorie count right on the front of the tubs now. So I went for the lowest-calorie one with the least amount of bad stuff in it that would still be considered delicious ice cream.
And as I was getting ready to pay for it, a wee tiny voice in the far back of my brain cried out plaintively: buy milk! buy milk!
But for some fucking reason, I did not buy milk!! And now I am out again! But I still have coffee to drink!!
Aaaarrrgggh… Back to the dollar store I shall have to go.
A few days ago, at the store in town, I bought a really cool looking jar of instant coffee. I never drink instant coffee. But this jar had the coolest shape to it, and it was actually made of glass. And it didn’t cost much. I was just so attracted to the jar itself. And the instant coffee made me think of my friend/colleague in Exeter, England — the musician/artist who is a Croatian war exile. (I’ve blogged about him before.) But when I stayed with him in his place in Exeter, we always drank instant coffee and had very long, wonderful conversations. So it made me think very fondly of him.
So I bought the instant coffee, and I’m actually drinking it now in the afternoons, which means I’m going through way more milk than usual. (Because instant coffee tastes terrible, so you have to put a lot of milk in it.)
I’m guessing you think I’m insane, but my point here is that it’s an hour there & back, to the fucking market, because I live in the fucking middle of nowhere. I’d really rather not buy milk from the dollar store or the gas station, unless it’s, like, right now, and I fucking have to because I’m out of it. Again.
Which sort of reminds me (only because my Croatian friend in Exeter is gay)… if loyal readers of this lofty blog recall that, early last summer, a deaf guy made me that guitar-pick necklace? Well, he is also mentally handicapped. He can speak, but he’s loaded with stuff to enable him to hear.
I saw him the other day. He said, “Do you still have that necklace I made for you?”
And of course, I do. I just treasure that thing. So much. I was astounded when he gave it to me. Out of the clear blue sky. That he even thought of me at all.
Well, he looked depressed. I mean, he actually looked on the verge of tears. I said, “What’s wrong?” And he was very angry at his girl friend because she had called him a homosexual. And then he said, “But I’m bisexual. I’m not homosexual. It’s not the same thing. I like boys and girls.”
I was just astounded that he was telling me this. (But I blogged about this recently — how young guys have always seemed to feel very comfortable telling me about their sexuality.) I was very supportive of him, you know. Obviously. And it sounds like his girlfriend is a bitch. I didn’t tell him that, but I did tell him that his girlfriend sounded ignorant and he might want to break up with her. But I thought to myself: wow, this is so amazing; he’s deaf and mentally handicapped and yet in touch with bisexuality.
Just kind of awesome, right? (Oh, plus, I’m old enough to be his grandmother.) Anyway, I told him that I understood what he was saying about himself because I was bisexual, too. That I like both guys and gals but that I’m not a lesbian.
And he said, “You’re bisexual?!”
I said, “Yes.”
And then he hugged me and he said, “I will keep this to myself.”
Oh my god. It was just too precious. Just so sweet. It made my day.
Okay, well. I’m gonna grab lunch. Finish the taxes. (I think. Maybe.) (In fact, Wayne, my ex-husband in NYC, just now texted me my old accountant’s current phone number in NYC because, clearly, this is the last time I should attempt to do my own taxes!) And then I’m gonna feel a little bit more of the Booty Core burn!!
Oh, and last night, as Kansas City was winning the Superbowl, oddly enough, I was watching the episode of Ken Burns’ Jazz that’s all about Count Basie and the Kansas City stomp/jazz/blues/swing era. Another really great episode!! So much stuff that I didn’t know about Kansas City. So I’m gonna leave you today with “One O’clock Jump”! By Count Basie and his Orchestra, from 1937. Enjoy, gang. It really swings.
Okay, thanks for visiting. Have a terrific Monday, okay? I love you guys. See ya!
Marilyn's Room 