I Forget to Watch Figure Skating...

Hear, hear! To the commenter who said that About.com is generally shallow and I'm too good a writer for that <grin>. Hear, hear!

Guess you can tell, I don't feel so bad anymore.

I have to comment on that. I really have to put down my present peace of mind to the progesterone creme. Despite being PMSish and despite having a couple career disasters last week, I didn't spiral down into despression. Yeah, I was sad. Of course, I was sad. I felt bad for a day or so, but then just kind of went on with my life. It doesn't seem so much like a major setback as another challenge to overcome.

Oh yes, and I have forgotten to watch figure skating every day this week except for last night, where upon some idiot basketball game went into TRIPLE overtime making it so God damned late that I went to bed rather than watching the skateing which was SUPPOSED to be live but was actually OVER before the coverage ever even BEGAN.

So much for Nationals coverage. I hear that Johnny Weir was just magic and that my sentimental fave Matt Savoie missed his first jump but was otherwise simply sublime.

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I have really been enjoying my tax classes with the AARP. Every year, the AARP runs the Tax Aide program. They provide free tax preparation and e-filing for people over 60, and low to moderate income people. I am going to become a preparer for them this year. The class is really intensive. Boy-oh-boy, I am not used to paying attention that much for that long a period of time! I come home from class exhausted every day! I just finished the first full week, with 3 class days and 2 days for working on the practicum on the computer systems. I actually finished after the sacond day (there are 4 more days available before you HAVE to be finished.). I finished up right at the end of the day and I go to the fellow in charge and say:

"I'm done."

"You mean for the day," he says.

"No, I'd done. Finished. I need to hand this in."

"You need to hand it in? You're done?" he asks me. Turning to the other trainers, he says, his voice heavy with incredulity, "She's done."

Okay, so I shouldn't brag about how good I am with computers, or how I came into the class with a lot of tax prep experience. I've been doing our taxes, which are always MONDO complex for the last decade. But I can't help it. One of the training guys even asked me if I had been a paid preparer before. I can't help it. I always enjoyed being a good student. But it's really nice to be appreciated. Dan, the retired fellow who sits next to me in class, even called me this morning to make sure that I knew that we didn't have class on Monday because it was a holiday. Wasn't that NICE of him?! I try to help him in class with the computer and with some of the arcane stuff.

Speaking of arcane stuff, it NEVER ceases to amaze me how the US tax code heaps complexity on the people LEAST able to cope with it. I am speaking specifically about the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Credit. I have a heck of a time figuring out of a child is "qualifying" or not, which is not the same for both credits. Then, on top of that the Earned Income Credit is hopelessly byzantine and difficult to calculate. The Earned income Credit is specifically for the poor and the Child Tax Credit is for moderate income people at most, since it phases out when income rises over a certain value. My point being that the poor, though not uniformly uneducated, are often ill equiped to deal with the MAZE of rules and cases and situations.

Why does this have to be SO DIFFICULT?

For example, on my test, there was a question about a man, who lived with his mother and his two children, both made $23K in earned income (which is NOT AGI or anything you normally calculate for the return itself, it's something TOTALLY different). Both adults could take the EIC if they had a qualifying child. Who can and should take them? The choices were: a) the man, b)his mother, c) either the man or his mother, d) the man and his mother can each choose a child and both take the credit, e) any of the above. The correct answer, of course, is "any of the above." Sheesh!

Anyway, I am enjoying the class. I hope that I do as well when faced with the average client as most of the information used to file the return has to be elicited from them and they are not always equal to the task. I suppose, at worst, I could be a quality reviewer and go over returns to double check them.

The other thing is, I know a lot of my friends are not totally well off. If you have the time, you can get your taxes done and filed for free. This page SHOULD provide a directory of sites when it starts to work. It was supposed to work on Jan 13, but it doesn't yet.

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So now on to my musing about what to do about my book On the Edge...

If you were reading last week or so, you know my agent dumped me. It's not like I ever had much interest from agents, despite querying 130 of them and getting read about 60 times. The Olympics is coming up... but I'm not going to have About.com as a platform. My site, Private Ice, despite being well known for a small site, really doesn't get all that much traffic. If EVERY regular visitor to the site bought a copy, it would still be only 600 or so books sold. It would be relatively profitable, but it wouldn't be enough sales to make BNYP's sit up and take notice. And frankly, I don't see every one of the 600 people stepping up with the bucks, despite visiting the site twice a week for the last 8 years.

On the other hand, I don't think BNYP's are going to sit up and take notice anyway. OTE and sequels were ALWAYS written for adults. They were never intended to be for 11-15 yr olds, which is where BNYP's peg them based on the SOLE FACT that Elayne is 17 at the beginning of the first novel. Okay, so like 60% of teen aren't virgins by age 17... what about the 40% that ARE? Regardless, OTE was always for women who remembered being young, not for girls who don't know what it's like to be a woman yet. If that makes any sense. At least, if I published the book myself, I could market it to whomever I wished in the manner in which I wished.

So color me not knowing what to do. Also color me VERY busy! With the tax course and still having at least one feature to write this month, I am feeling kind of overwhelmed. Yet at the same time, once the Olympics is over, interest in figure skating will gradually decline over the next year until it craters some time in the end of 2007, where it will stay until the next Olympic build up begins in December of 2010. In short, it's do it NOW or wait another 4 years.

Now... or wait yet ANOTHER 4 years...