Tax day!

In point of fact, I have no idea where I stand with regard to taxes. I had been under the impression that I'd be filing them this year for the first time, but the post office failed to forward the W-2 form from my summer job to my apartment, and my parents apparently misplaced it. It further transpires that my father might still be claiming me as a dependant, although neither of us is certain about that.

For that matter, given my income level (around $4.5K, including my scholarship and stuff), I'm very likely below the IRS's notice anyway.

Anyway, I may or may not have to file, and my father's accountant may or may not have filed for an extension for me. I suppose I'll find out. On the bright side, I found out late tonight that my W-2 form has just been located. I guess we'll see what happens...

The bit that's certain is that my father has gotten his annual extension. And if I'm really lucky, he may actually file early enough this year that I'll actually be able to apply for a student loan. But I wouldn't bank on it.

The odd thing about this is that I have three major columns I want to write, but I keep putting them off until I'm ready to do them properly. So this week was something of a "filler" week, with bits and pieces from here and there.

Next week is gonna be interesting, though, as I take on the issue of printing ads from Holocaust revisionists. I expect to finally get my first piece of hate mail shortly after that hits the stands.

(You'll be hearing more about that. I've already written an entry on it, in fact, but I'm debating how much I can post before the relevant issue goes to press.)

On the other hand, I haven't heard anything from the philosophy professor in question. I'm taking that as a good sign.

Rather than doing my homework, which would have required more mental alertness than I had at the time, I lettered one of those T-shirts I bought a few weeks back. In neat, Roman letters, in blue marker on a yellow background, it read "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. --Timothy Leary"

(I'd wanted to do something with that quote for ages, it being a favorite of mine. And we were covering some feminist criticism in class that day, so it fit nicely, I thought. I love it when I can coordinate my attire with the day's agenda...)

For the first time, I was also wearing the jeans I bought at the same time I got the shirt. Well, the first time in public, anyway. So, feeling all cool and froody, and, okay, maybe just a bit apprehensive, I ventured out into the world.

She's fine, which is the important thing. I'm feeling more than a little concerned, though. And sympathetic. The whole idea of having one's place broken into... brr. I'd feel utterly violated. And I don't live far from her, so I figure it could just have easily have been me, which, I have to admit, is giving me the heebie-jeebies just a bit.

For that matter, half of my life is stored on my computer. A few weeks ago, when asked what I'd take out with me if my house were on fire, my immediate response was "my hard drive." Having it stolen...

I've gotta back up my files already.

(Is that too self-centered? Perhaps. But what else is an online journal for?)

So the professor comes in with a boom box, and announces that today, we'll be painting with music, with the idea being to somehow use the music to guide our painting, representing what the music meant to us. Specifically, he'd be playing Brahms.

Oh, lovely, I thought. Brahms. Just exactly what I need when I'm already half-asleep.

But it wasn't that bad.

Except that I somehow got a nice red blotch on my shirt somewhere along the way. I'm still not sure how I managed it; my best guess is that I did it while leaning over my pallette. Anyway, I tried rinsing it out, but all I did was spread the stain a bit more. Then, skipping ahead a bit, I tried soaking it some more when I got home, with the net result being that the ink from the lettering first smeared a bit, and then imprinted itself elsewhere. To make a long story short, I think my repair attempts did more mess up the shirt than the original stain did, especially as the stain had been below waist level, and theoretically could have been negated by simply tucking the shirt in.

(This was a big shirt, especially for a supposed "size large." Sometimes I wish there were an actual standard for these things. Virtually all of my T-shirts are "large." In practice, however, they're all sorts of sizes.)

On the bright side, it's a good thing I do wear my T-shirts untucked. Otherwise, instead of messing up a $1.99 shirt, I would've gotten paint on the $12.99 jeans. So I suppose things could've been worse.

But... well, I asked him, "On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being 'pathetic,' and 10 being 'really pathetic,' how would you rate this?"

He refused to dignify that with an answer, but said that it wasn't that bad. He didn't think the colors worked, but he liked the division of space, and the relationships between the shapes chosen.

I then pointed out that I'd noticed midway through this that I was, in fact, painting the same design over and over this semester, with minor variations on the theme. Wasn't something wrong there?

He agreed that that was what I was doing, but added that I'd keep doing it until I got it right. Pointing at the quote on my shirt, he added that "people who are satisfied with the way their painting works on the first try lack ambition." Okay, point taken.