doing

reading
The View from the Seventh Layer, stories by Kevin Brockmeier, who is so fucking amazing. Last April, I devoured his novel, A Brief History of the Dead. His stories are even more powerful, and I’m inclined to say this may be his genre. I’ll write more on this later. Let’s just say I’m not plowing through the book. In the first 100 pages, each story has required a moment for rumination as a wave of WOW washes over me. His other backlist titles, Things That Fall from the Sky (stories) and The Truth about Celia (novel) are going on my TBR list. Right. This. Minute.

listening
The Beastie Boys did an instrumental album last year, called The Mix-Up, and I’m all over it for the funk. And, for Adam Yauch’s penetrating bass line. It seems like the right thing for them to do—explore musical styles, evolve. “Suco de Tangerina” is my favorite track, but a few minutes ago when I heard the first track, “B for My Name,” it made me happy.

avoiding
~ taxes
Our accountant doesn’t do much for us beyond asking if we donated any money or saved the receipts for our car tabs. Even I could have figured out those things. Still we end up paying stoopid amounts of money in taxes. This year, we vowed, we would hire a new tax preparer. By mid-March, without a prospect for a new accountant (inertia is to blame) and with encouragement from a few trustworthy folks who use TurboTax, we thought we’d do our own taxes this year. So yesterday, with less than a week before taxes are due, I mailed all our W-2s and 1099s to our usual, useless accountant.

Looking ahead to paying 2008 taxes, I’m getting a jump by asking Do you have a good accountant whose name you’d like to share with me?

~ a birthday party for Winston
Since Winston was spending his birthday away from home, for the third year in a row, we had a family celebration the weekend before the blessed date. Then, my mother threw him a party on his birthday. How much cake and how many presents does a six-year-old need? I don’t mind taking the boys to their friends' birthday parties, but I hate entertaining oodles of loud kids and making small talk with their parents. I know I have a bad attitude about this, but somewhere something went amok with kid parties, and now there’s no going back.

anticipating
Dinner at Meritage tonight with Tracy and the Jills. Mostly I’m looking forward to the big, fat cocktail I’m going to drink at the bar before my friends arrive. A little campari and sweet vermouth, with a splash of soda should revive me.