Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Twin Terrors of Tomoholism and Taxes Take Their Toll

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Mom-boss fled the land in search of younger rowdier climes and the frenzied stillness seeped through the heavily disclaimed non-kegger of Englettlaw. "Frick!" they roared in terror and torment, pushing ever forth to extinguish exigencies and reach the attorney deep in the caverns of boy-strewn Gramma Pam. But no race against time could truly save it from the cure itself. Daylight lost in cruel twists of fate. Toes are twisted and widows made as the cerulean cockrel crowed its eery orison to the nameless gods of Shaolin sporting. 

Coming up: Darkness unfurls over the land, casting shadow on the "simple" "easy" tax form planted on the desk. Will our plucky heroes survive a battle with the IRS Dragon? Will the loss of exemptions tear this connubial bliss asunder? Will anyone be able to fit all the required "information" on a single form or check without several tons of white hout? Will the government just take our money already? Adella, goaded by mother and lover alike, falls prey to her addictions, succumbing to the tantalizing tome of Eternal Humor. As the kindle churns on, will she be able to step away from the ghastly transfixion of The Entertainment? Will love and life survive addiction and obsession? How can the pieces be picked  up again at the end? 

Only those of great derring do are advised to inquire further below... 




Ask Not for Whom the Check is Drafted It's not for you

Our taxes are inches away from done (to death, then resurrection, then into a coma and back to irrevocable death). Forms have been poached and snared (the sneakiest of prey are IRS forms: far more daunting and challenging than man), checks have been written, small novels have been inscribed on said checks (10-0545DCIE Form Instruction Z(b)(*&): To Write a Check make check out to U.S. Treasury, then make sure to write on the check "1040 2013", your name, address, weight, ideal weight, body fat percentage, a brief account of your first notable sexual experience, your user id and password for the first email service you ever used, and a brief history of your relationship with pecan pie), the requisite additional form required when paying by check has been added, attached stubs and other worksheets have been "attached" but "not attached" according to contradictory definitions in the directions. All we need now is a stamp on our gravid envelop.

Being equipped with a sanguineous cardio-system, I don't mind paying taxes. It's kind of great actually to be doing well enough that I'm in a tax-paying income bracket of a sudden. And while I'm not super patriotic per se (and perhaps disagree with several of the spending decisions at the top), I grok why it is fully logical for me to essentially pay dues as a member of a country. But I must say, the IRS seems hell bent on making it challenging to actually give my damned money to them. I cavil of course, but I feel that if two fairly intelligent people with advanced degrees inevitably need a can of white out to finish their 1040-fairly-EZ forms, well I can see why there's an entire industry devoted to churning through these babies. 

Regardless, I'm happy to have them handled (almost). And while I wouldn't say it takes a huge load off my mind necessarily, I'd just as soon not forget about them and get caught up in the April madness. Besides, it's a bonding experience every married couple should cherish their first time out. Realizing that by marrying each other we actually have each lost an exemption on our W-4s (to avoid future liability) just makes us realize how much we must value each other. Or something... 

In other grueling-but-beneficial activities, I happily had no hobble with which to contend on our tandem treadmill trainings yesterday. My bruised big toe appears to be just that: bruised. It's always hard to tell the distinctions between a variety of podal maladies except hindsightedly reviewing the mending trajectory. And on the bright side, it distracted my concerned attention just enough that I didn't even conjure up the chimerical potential pangs and sirens of an achy arch. All in all a winning session with a smidge less walking in my run-walk performance. 

And here we are. In the dark. Mourning our lost mornings and puzzling over the inexplicable performance artistry of our mad-cleaning lady (reorganize the entire desk fastidiously, yet leave a moldy cup of tea sitting in the middle of the desk? I get it: it's like a comment on society and sterility and like how life like emerges from the muck and mire and uh penicillin and the mix of modern medicine with classical chinese tradition and um... squirrel! Wait what?).

Boss-lady's gone for another week so the uneasy quiet disquietude persists. I have not creaked open pandora's box o' emails just yet, but it's next on the list. Better attach that emergency stop pulley to myself before hitting GO.






The Person You are Trying To Reach Is Not Available -Away in my head, vacation message on autoreply today

I've reached the torrid, co-dependent portion of my literary love affair with Infinite Jest. I'd gush this is exceptional and I've never felt like this before, but I frequently get this way when I connect with a book. Hence, why I've had spells in which I read 60 books in a brief summer vacation and why other times I maybe don't have a "book I'm reading" (recovering from an affair takes a little of time, you know).

 I tend to call it the "shit got real" (SGR) portion of the book. Most books have some variant of the SGR. It's usually about 75% - 80% through a book when the story speeds at hyperbolic rates, all individual strands reticulating into one grand CLIMAX. We hope it's an earth-shattering, sheet grabbing, thrash of a petit mort, but will settle for at least having turned the magical hat trick involved in crafting a satisfying ending. The effects of the SGR moment are less of an issue with shorter books, of course. One can easily neglect "life" for a few hours to ride the cresting wave. It's a pretty common reading pattern for me to read the last third of the book in the same or shorter duration than it took to read the first two thirds. Or really, to read the last two-thirds of the book in the same time it took to read the first third. There's some kind of mathy something involved in the increasing cadence of my literary trots, is what I'm saying. 

In a book of exceptional girth and breadth, the SGR needs quite the capacious unfurling. I'm already looking at the symbolically slim percentages  remaining (not quite as visceral as sheer heft of pages, but equally uncertain in a book that carries much of the plot in footnoted endnote) and remembering all the myriad questions marks awaiting answers. All the connections yet to be made. The farrago of characters, times, and events which must be summarized into a singular unitary finality.

 In the case of Infinite Jest, the first chapter, for instance is one huge exercise in prolepsis, occurring the year following the bulk of the action. One doesn't realize this straight off, due to the complex chronological structure of the story (and the fact that it takes roughly 200-300 pages to reveal there will in fact be a plot, so hope you paid attention to the previous chapters). As the timelines sort themselves into a subsidized ordinality, you realize that certain elements alluded to in the first chapter are the pith of the story itself.

And of course, there are other hints of more of a spoiler nature, thrown into footnotes to give you a context of hindsight and to stoke expectations about where the ending must take us (aside from the questions implicit in the stories that are slowly becoming a single story, and the full knowledge that a cruel but clever author could leave absolutely everything unresolved in some rather brilliant way that doesn't feel cheap but will leave one reeling). 

I have perhaps thrown minor temper tantrums with life that I must put down the kindle to (1) work, (2) prepare meals, (3) interact with real-life human beings, (4) do my physical therapy, (5) sleep. I am an exceptionally dull conversationalist at this point, as I haven't done much other than the most essential basics and my little love affair is too fresh to actually discuss with others (it's mine, all mine!)

My mom jokingly suggested I might be taking the day off today as a "mental health day." I think perhaps that the state of mind I achieve while reading something obsessively is probably not even assymptotic to mental health (she notes, appropriately, that the book itself extensively treats obsession, addiction, and the annular nature of pleasure and attachment including those attachments to various media of "entertainment"... as well as turgidity of prose in general ... as well as the aforementioned aphonia that occurs after too much reading at a time). 

This said, once I put the book down, there is (still) real life. So about that: Life is good. I carry on with my run-walking routine at the gym, having upped my running to four five minute intervals from five four minute intervals. The A-Team is back in force! Azita had been off hulaing in Hilo, but she has returned aglow with inflamed knees and improbable sun sears. My massage assassin was uncharacteristically gentle, even asking me if I'd really tell him if the pressure was too much. Wonder if some less masochistic customer complained?

My lindt ball challenge remains a no-brainer with the whole book-obsession thing going on. It will be interesting to see how I cope once I've finished reading for a spell. I've turned off notifications on my phone. It's actually quite amazing what a difference it makes to have done that. I even know that there may be messages in my inbox or chat etc., but knowing that I won't be notified of them makes me far less urgently interested in what they might be. The risk of mislaying my phone entirely has been exponentially increased in the last few days. After flinging my phone yet again against some hard crackling surface (still functional, but a bit less sleek), I suspect there's some minor portion of self that will weigh the possibility of switching to a stupider but hardier thuggish phone in the the future. 

And tonight is date night, so I won't probably be concluding my tryst just yet. But will be having (knock on wood) a separate tryst with my boyfrianceband, possibly including some variety of viands and the pleasure of each other's company. Perhaps, as summer is coming, it's time to go out in search of Prince Florimund's new summer wardrobe. Imaginary sphinx cats are very sensitive to uv radiation. Prince Florimund will at least required a good sunhat. 





Biblio-Binge and the Bookish Hangover - I'm Adella and I'm a tomeaholic

Well, I dun' finished Infinite Jest -ish. As much as anyone is ever "finished" with a book that was worth picking up in the first place. I'd wax poetic about the intricate reticulation of story and reader, as both become one to create a unique personal transcendence, but I'm a little out of mental juice at the moment.

 Really, for me, reaching that final page (or in this case, the 86% bridge that leads into the footnote section that had been read simultaneously) is a tangible stepping stone, but one far removed from the light at the end of the closure tunnel. My first reaction, for instance, was intense incredulity. I had known the end was nigh. I'd been on the final page of footnotes for a spell. I suspected that the "time left in this chapter" signified the "time left in the final chapter of this book" and had shaken my head repeatedly wondering how on earth it could all finish up as the theoretical minutes ticked by. As I honed in on the final "one minute left in this chapter" I began to tell myself surely I was incorrect and there was another chapter coming!

When I flipped the "page" to see the Heading Endnotes and Errata I broke into laughter,, muttering "what? No! It's over??" I reread the final page, desperate for some recondite endnote within an endnote within a footnote within an easter egg that would propel me forward or backwards or any which way. Unsuccessful, I put the tablet down.

 My brain began to whir, realizing to my equal bemusement that I have apparently (as always) read 2/3 of the book in the third week of my torrid tango with the Incandenzas. I felt underwater and uncertain about negotiating the tangible world. The underwater part clued me into the long-neglected cavils of a terminally full bladder. Attending to my needs for aliments and relief, I returned and... started over. At the first chapter (as I mentioned, occurring some time after the rest of the events in the book). And read the next two or three. Then searched out certain events I just knew held more clues. Then plunged through the footnotes. It's a fascinating book, as it was constructed to be read from a million directions (the heavy use of the word "map" is unlikely to be a throw away since really I don't think much in this book was, even if all the tumescence is thoroughly intentional and highly tongue in cheek, while still somehow being completely heart-felt... enough review, it's too soon, but quite the trick). 

Head splitting and aphasia elbowing in, I was lucky to be rescued from The Entertainment by my congested (allergies) cutie for our date night. I was also lucky to have finished my book before said date night. I admit that while I was speeding home from work - no care for life or limb of passing pedestrians or the crepitations of my kia in conflict - I briefly thought it would certainly be possible to forestall our date night until ... say Thursday. Fortunately I did not have to yield to temptation, and after a thorough extraction - him from his allergenic haze and me from my catatonic post-literary stupor - we had  a lovely evening together. Then he couldn't sleep because the allergies were preventing him from that pesky breathing thing and that meant I couldn't really sleep much either... which was less lovely, but still quite loving at least!

Anyways, it's going to be an interesting day of blinking and aspirin and probably a few more sweeps through my "finished" book between working hours.

Hope all are well! Happy Tippee Toe Thursday!

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