Jeff’s Journal

I know I’m posting this awfully late, but yeah.

Ann’s fine. Surgery went swimmingly, high compliments from the surgeon and such. Took a little while longer to get discharged than anticipated, and a snowstorm didn’t help matters. Ann’s still pretty sore at times, tonight should be interesting, but we’re glad that we’re home and everyone’s okay.

Thanks for all the supportive words and such. I’ve burned off enough antsiness and I’m heading to bed now.

1) So this weekend, we bring Ann in for gallbladder surgery. She’s nervous, and the fact that she keeps reading up on the surgery doesn’t help much for what’s generally a routine situation that will more than likely result in us spending 6 hours at the hospital and being done with it. If there’s one flaw in our relationship, it’s that we’re both generally worrywarts, but rarely at the same time and never for ourselves, just for each other. Thus, I sound like the rational human being whenever something’s going wrong for her, but I become the illogical moron and she ends up having to talk me down when it has to do with me. Maybe it’s not actually a flaw, but simply amusing.

2) I have another funny relationship story, but it’ll become funnier in a couple weeks, so I’ll come back to it.

3) The fun news for us was that Michelle and Josh, two of our closest friends in Massachusetts, finally got engaged this past weekend. We’ve been giving Josh a bit of a hard time about it, but he kept everyone in the dark and it sounded like a lovely proposal. I’ve known Michelle since I was 11 or 12, and we’ve been good friends ever since we re-met in college, so we’re very happy for her.

4) I also heard from an old friend who I’ve been trying to get in contact with a few weeks ago. I finally got around to writing back last night, so that was pleasant.

5) “Pleasant” is a good word for my state of mind currently. Things are generally good, and I can’t really complain about anything much. I’m just waiting for it to get warmer at this point.

Today is a good day, even if I do have to work. So much to talk about, but no time for it. I’ll post something more detailed soon, enjoy some Presidential videos:

1) I love tax season, really.

Usually, I’ll do my taxes online. Takes 30 minutes, just a lot of number plugging and not getting distracted. Of course, when you a) get married, and b) move to a new state because of c) a new job that d) doesn’t deduct state taxes for the arbitrary amount of time your primary residence is in your old state, it’s almost worth saving the hassle and paying other people to do it.

The key word of this exchange is “hassle.” As in, I don’t want one.

You’ll recall my noting that I scheduled our taxes to be done by H & R Block this year, since they’re 3 minutes away from the condo and they’re H & R Block. What you won’t recall is my own distaste with the whole affair to begin with. I like being self-sufficient in these areas, and something didn’t sit well with me, but I was able to brush it aside as a residual from my whole issue with paying people $100 to do something I can do myself. Frankly, I should have listened to myself.

The first strike was late Friday night. Late being around 6:45ish - I get a call from the H & R Block people saying that the person I scheduled with doesn’t work Sundays even though the website form claimed she did and allowed me to set an appointment. Now, I didn’t care that much - the differences between the folks on the website that were listed (we’ll get to that) were minimal for me, I just wanted to get my taxes done. But anyway, the person I’m scheduled with doesn’t exist on Sundays, so do I want to switch to a day she’ll be there or what? Well, I tell them I want the Sunday for a reason (the reason being that Ann goes away this coming weekend, she goes in for surgery next weekend, and then it’s February vacation), and to just swap me to someone who’s there. Okay then.

So we fast-forward to today, we head there a little early to a near-empty office. Two “tax professionals” in cubes with their clients finishing up, and that’s it. So we take a seat in front of reception and wait. One of the people there poke their head out and see us with a semi-bewildered look on her face, and we tell her we have an appointment scheduled. She seems unaware. Great.

Our preparing protagonist takes another 10 or 15 minutes, finishes up with the young couple she had, and talks to us. We tell her the situation (new marriage, new state, no withholding at the new job for me, odd investment income, etc), and, well…she pawns us off on the other woman working. Since, you know, she doesn’t have that much experience with that many complex schedules and doesn’t want to screw it up. On one hand, I can accept that - if you’re not 100%, hand it off to someone who knows. On the other hand, you work at H & R Block. This isn’t “I don’t know what the best book for your 60 year old grandmother is, let me ask the other clerk,” this is “You are a paid tax professional who doesn’t know how to deal with a new marriage in a state where people move from Massachusetts all the time.” So now I’m angry, but hey, I really want to get this out of the way. So we sit back down and wait for the other woman.

Another 5 or 10 minutes pass by, and nothing’s finishing up yet, but our new woman comes out of her cubicle looking at us funny. Tells us (paraphrased) “so this is going a while, and I don’t want to hold you guys for lunch or anything, so we’ll hold your spot for you until you get back.” I tell her that we had an appointment for 1:00pm, and her response is that she can’t get to us for “at least another half hour or so.” Strike three. I tell her to cancel the appointment, and I tell Ann that we’re leaving. She gave me an extremely odd look as if it was absurd of me to not want to be held up further because her co-worker doesn’t know how to do what they’re paying her for, and that was that.

A little overboard? Perhaps. But as I expect even a basic level of competence, the fact that I walked into a business who’s entire existence is to deal with tax returns and I a) couldn’t find more than two people on a weekend during tax season, and b) of those two people, half of them didn’t know how to deal with my “complex” return, enough is enough. Was I going to wait 30 more minutes to find out that this person couldn’t do our return properly and have wasted an entire afternoon in the process? And, hello, H & R Block? YOU DO TAXES. THAT IS YOUR VALUE TO SOCIETY. That’s the part that irritated me the most.

So now our taxes will have to wait until March. That’s annoying, but that’s life. Granted, we won’t be going to H & R Block for it, but yeah. At least I know I won’t be blowing my money on something I’m uncomfortable with who can’t even do my return because it’s apparently too hard.

2) Enough bad stuff, here’s some questions for people:

a) I’m still plugging away at the book (I’m hoping to take a HUGE step this weekend if I can make it work out), but part of my goal in terms of getting a Real Life Publisher is proving that I can write and actually having some sort of consistent writing schedule to show for it. Sure, blogging’s a very informal medium by nature, but since I’m not a journalist and more of an enthusiast, it’s a bit of an uphill climb. Essentially, I want to run a film blog of sorts for really bad movies like the kind Kroger made his millions on. Anyone have an idea as to what a good name for it would be? Anything I come up with sounds lame.

b) Related to a, anyone want to help contribute on it? Flesh things out a bit? Chelsea, Mike, Stacey, I’m looking in your general directions, I wouldn’t be looking for more than a post a week or something. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll give you more information vision-wise.

3) Dustin Pedroia cracks me up. I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a baseball season in 4 years.

And another week begins…

Well, not really.

1) I got to hear the new R.E.M. song last night, it appears to be streaming at Pitchfork today. I like it, I don’t love it, but I didn’t like it much the first listen. It’s a grower, I suppose. Even expecting a bit more of a “rock” effort from them, this was a bit of a jarring listen for me. Considering the leanings of “I’m Gonna DJ” and the fact that Snow Patrol’s newer producer took care of this one, it’ll be fascinating to see what happens. Commence R.E.M. freakout in 3…2…

2) I was productive today:

* Made my first car payment, which got me lost in Manchester again - I’ve lived here 10 months and still can’t find my way around.

* Scheduled our taxes for Sunday at H & R Block, which is annoying but kind of necessary - between the state move and the wedding and the fact that we can suddenly deduct a whole ton of new things, we’re kind of clueless and would rather waste some money and get it done somewhat correctly than anything else. I can already hear the howls from people, but the end result is that too many things changed for us this year, we’re definitely getting a refund of some sort, and we’ll be able to go back to doing it ourselves online next year. I hate spending the money, though, but they don’t make it easy.

* Scheduled a dentist appointment. Because I’m long overdue. Teeth are weird - mine don’t bother me, but they probably should, and I’m very paranoid, but whatever.

3) Big snowstorm tonight, that’s news.

I don’t have a lot going on, obviously. More later, I suppose.

Well, that sucked.

Ann: “Fuck you very muchfor getting me into sports, Jeff.”