Alcohol

4 Things I Love: Time is Meaningless!

Posted on by Julie Pearson

 

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Soon. Sandwich.

It is not Wednesday, nor is it last Wednesday (which I skipped), but time is merely a human-designed construct, so LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF I LOVE!

  1. Easy Answers. Most questions in life don’t have easy answers. Why are we here?, for example, or What is the meaning of all of this? But over the weekend, dozens of flies turned up in my house and they were all dying. Gross! Also, unsettling! Poisonous gases? But one quick google of “flies are dying in my house” told me that it’s just cluster flies, which sound fake but are real. The hide in the walls and emerge on a hot day, dying all at once. Gross! But easily explained. But gross.
  2. Anticipation. SandwichQuest is leading me all the way to Chicago next week, and I can’t wait. It’s the kind of excitement that, for me, only comes with getting to go back home and/or eat my favorite sandwich. What I’m saying is, stay tuned for the next installment of SandwichQuest
  3. Drinking Alone. Being at bars by myself makes me extremely anxious, but I was feeling writers block-y this week and coffee shops weren’t doing the trick. I ventured to happy hour at a dark bar by myself, laptop in tow. I sequestered myself away in a dark corner, was ignored by everybody, and got drunk on happy hour old fashioneds. Also it was pretty productive. And I don’t remember the walk home!
  4. This Video. I don’t know, I just like it.

Tax Tips for People Like You

Posted on by Julie Pearson

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Fiscal responsibility.

My favorite thing about taxes is how much work it is to account for the tiny amounts of money I make. It really gives me a chance to examine my life and feel terrible about it. This year I got a 1099 from the State of Illinois for $11! And while some might find this annoying, I see it as an opportunity. Here are my tips to make sure you’re not just doing your taxes, but really experiencing them:

  1. Put it off as long as possible. Theoretically this should mean until April 14, and in a perfect world it would. But at a certain point, the taxes’ looming existence will become paralyzing. This is the point where you need to begin working on it.
  2. Start small and work your way up. Make a TurboTax account, but don’t use it yet. Glance at one of your W2’s for a few minutes before bed every night, just to get familiar. Not too close to bedtime or you’ll have nightmares. Maybe around dinnertime?
  3. Imagine worst case scenarios. Like getting audited over forgetting to report $50 and somehow setting off a chain of events that leads to going to prison. Or forgetting to report $75 and somehow setting off a chain of events that leads to going to prison (all my scenarios end in going to prison).
  4. Drink. This is one of the best-kept productivity secrets, and it works in most situations. It’s hard to panic over those taxes when the edges of the forms have gotten softly blurry. (Disclaimer: If you do your taxes while drunk, refer back to #3 for further panic.)
  5. Cry. It never fails. Also, it’s inevitable so you might as well do it now.
  6. Hyperventilate. The crying might be enough, but if not, breathing too fast is a great way to get worked up into a full panic attack.

I still have not finished my taxes, but my using these simple tricks, I did keep myself from even starting them today! Time to cry in bed.