For the Record...

For the record, 2010 wasn't all bad...

*  I wrote 363 posts in 2010. Granted, most of them were written in a two-month self-exsanguination that took place from mid-May through mid-July, but I averaged a post a day. Yay for me!

*  By the end of 2010 I had chiseled and whittled and ramen noodled my IRS debt down to less than $15,000.  No, that's not a typo.  I didn't misplace a comma or add an extra zed.  I know 15K is a lot, but if you knew how much it was when I started at the end of 2008, you'd be really impressed.  Let's just say, over the last two years, I've paid the IRS close to $30,000.   I'm putting this out there because in my travels I've learned that one in FOUR Americans has an "issue" with the IRS.  That's 25% of us. Go out to dinner with three pals, look around the table -- one of you is having an "issue" with the IRS.  So, my advice to everyone, well, at least to the others in my 25% of the taxable population, is this:  File your returns.  Even if you can't pay what you owe (and trust me, if you are middle class, you WILL owe. Quoth Leona Helmsley, only the little people pay taxes), file your returns.  I guess I'm lucky I wasn't marched off to the pokey with Wesley Snipes.  Because trust me, the IRS WILL find you. And they do have a way of  making it as uncomfortable as possible for you -- for me, they cleaned out my bank account two weeks before Christmas.  That'll sure get your attention, lemme tellya.

*  I did lose a shitload of weight, so I look decent in clothes again. It's like discovering a whole new wardrobe in my own closet!

*  Most importantly:  Dood came into my life in sort of a happy accident.  Honestly folks, I'm not attributing it to kismet, or the stars aligning, or to anything other than this:  I was in my office on Saturday, July 24th, getting ready for another one of my summer trips out west, and I ended my day by dicking around on the internet. I opened my okCupid account, changed my settings to "anyone from anywhere," and hit that button named, "Roll The Dice."  His was the first profile that came up, he was shirtless and hot, his profile was literate and clever, he was hot, he played the guitar, he was hot, he had useful skills AND he was from New Orleans. You know, now that I think about it, if I were a checklist-makin' gal, he's pretty much got all the toppings I would have ordered from the ice cream sundae guy, you know, the nuts and sprinkles and chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Maybe a little bowl on the side with pineapple.  Most of all, he seems to like me as much as I like him, at least enough to want to actually consider maybe relocating to a northerly, more Penguin-friendly climate.