I been havin a snake

I've moved to a new URL. Email me for it, if you like: daisers at gmail dot com

This would be Daisers and Menckles wearing goofy hats. Notice also that my tits are all akimbo.

My favorite book of 2006 is unquestionably Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (2005). I have a hard-on for boarding school stories to begin with, which is probably why the review for Prep caught my eye, but this one was particularly awesome. It's low on actual plot, although there are some twists I didn't see coming (Sin Jun!); it follows the life of Lee, a girl from Indiana that get into a prestigious East Coast prep school, for the four years she's there.

Lee's biggest problem is that she wants to be cool but isn't. How pedestrian, right? And yet, the way she works that out, and the way it's expressed via her narration, is totally right on. I crawled right up inside her head and stayed there for hundreds of pages, relating to everything that happened to her. I cringed during Parents' Weekend, and I laughed out loud with glee on page 287. I didn't want to put the book down when it was over; I held it in my hands for a couple of minutes, and then wished I could read about how Lee did in college.

Several hundred pages in, I glanced at the author's name so I could investigate her other books, and was stunned to see that the first name was Curtis. I couldn't imagine a man having written this, but when I checked online, Curtis is a woman. I guess that makes sense since her protagonist's name is Lee.

But I totally don't get this: I saw a teenage girl having lunch at Ruby Tuesday's yesterday, and she was wearing a t-shirt that read I LOVE MY BOYFRIEND. I have several ideas why this might be, but none of them is satisfying.

1. She's wearing it to advertise her "taken" status so no one hits on her. Maybe, and I'm certainly not above claiming I'm married in order to get rid of some lecherous fuck, but it was noon at a chain restaurant on a weekday, and she was eating lunch with a boy.

2. Her boyfriend gave it to her and she's wearing it to lunch with him to show him she likes it. Again, maybe, and we all pretend to like gifts we don't like, but how moronic do you have to be to buy your girlfriend a shirt like that that doesn't even have your name on it? I'd break up with someone that gave me that shirt. Probably.

3. She wants the world to know, or believe, that she has a boyfriend, but she doesn't. If this one is true, I'm never leaving the house again, and I'm only ever eating toothpaste and I hate all of you.

I'm going to be moving out of this space shortly and into new digs. I won't be publishing the new URL here. If you want to know what it is, send me an email at daisers at gmail dot com and I'll add you to the list.

I discovered this note while pulling easy books (picture books) off the shelves for a project. It was stuck between the pages of Goodnight Moon.

There's this girl who works here. I can't remember her name. I want to have sex with her. Or I want to see her naked. Or I want to watch her have sex. Her body is beautiful, perfect. I want to strip her down & look at her beautiful tanned flesh. She shelved Juv. Easy's today and I watched her the whole time. I love the way the crack in her denim shorts crept up her ass. She had on tight, short shorts. I'm in lust with her body. I'd pay her to have sex or even just to let me look at her body. I want her! I want her!

I miss being a public librarian for a lot of reasons, but one is that I don't have tales of stupidity to post. I must get my fix elsewhere, like via this post by the Foxy Librarian about stoners in the library.

Even funnier is Chuck's applause of a cataloger's response to Richard Cravatts, a journalist that wrote a whiny, misinformed piece about how librarians are protecting terrorists by not censoring Internet use and giving up patron records.

Dear Sirs and Ma'ams,

Frankly, I am almost at a loss for words, but I think I can choke a few out.

As with some other "libraries" that have not accepted my application, you have seriously fucked yourselves. Whoever does your hiring needs to pull his head out of his ass and get to fucking work. I thought that only a fucking retard would have the decision-making skills that someone at your "library" apparently uses to hire people.

I guess you'll find out the hard way that I was your ONLY clear choice. In the next couple of days, I will be sending my pitbull, Susie, to personally perform plastic surgery procedures upon all of your employees. I hope you realize that this could have been easily avoided.

Yeah, I got two more rejection letters. But I also have two more interviews -- NYPL by phone on Monday, and director of a small-town library on Saturday -- so it all evens out.

2005 was the first year that I worked as a freelancer, which to the IRS means that I ran my own business, so I had to fill out a 1040 instead of a 1040A or EZ for the first time. I had no idea what a mess that would be. It took me hours instead of ten minutes. I had to fill out all kinds of schedules for self-employment taxes, etc., but I also got to deduct part of my utilities since I run my business out of my home, and I got to deduct moving expenses from New Orleans since I was laid off. Overall, I owe less than I'd budgeted.

I also was a part-year resident in both Louisiana and Illinois, so state taxes were a mess as well. The most amusing part, though, was the differences between the LA and IL forms. As you'd expect (well, I would), the Illinois form was a simple, straightforward document. It was even attractive, and it was easy to fill out. In fact, I could fill it out online and then print it to sign and mail. (I didn't qualify for e-filing.)

The Louisiana form was, also predictably, a nightmare. It was ugly, for one thing -- why orange? And I had to fill out like 900 schedules that ended up being totally useless. And while it was possible to type my data in online, I couldn't save it to print at work; I had to print it using the nearly-dead ink cartridges in my home inkjet. The most astonishing part is that Louisiana does not provide you with one critical form. You're told to do your own math and create a schedule on a separate sheet of paper. It's a pretty straightforward bit of math, so why not make a form, State of Louisiana? I know you're busy right now, but why didn't you do this in, say, 2004? Or 1904?

Probably the stupidest part of the LA form was the blanks to enter numbers. On the federal and Illinois forms, you simply type, say, the standard deduction into the boxes. On the IL form, you'd type 5000 and then hit Tab and the form would magically change this into $5,000.00. On the federal form, it was slightly more complicated -- you had to type in 5000 and then hit Tab and then type 00 in the cents field. In the Louisiana form, however, life got stupider. Each digit was set as a separate field, so to type 5000.00, you had to type 5, then Tab, then 0, then Tab, then 0, then Tab, then 0, then Tab, then 0, then Tab, then 0, then Tab. I shit you not.

The funniest distinction, though, was a question included on the Illinois form but omitted from Louisiana's. I'd like to know what percentage of state tax forms ask this. It's right near the top, in high priority, right after you fill out your name, address, and filing status. It instructs you to check a box "if you were a member of a professional athletic team during 2005."