Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Normal sleeping schedule

I'm a night person. My whole body makeup is geared to me going to bed between 2 and 3 am and sleeping till 10 or 11. I've never been happy working the 9-5 schtick, and when I was freelancing I got a lot done by just letting myself do what body wanted to. I felt more rested and brighter. But I can't do that because I have to earn a living, and the job sets the hours worked. I can't just feed off my investments like some of the people who're whining about how their taxes are going to go up at the end of the year.

Seriously, the latest is Ben Stein, who lives in Beverly Hills and has investment properties in other states and is really upset his taxes might take an additional 2% of his income. Never mind all the deductions he gets before taxes apply. Never mind the ways a good CPA can reduce his tax burden since he's in an world where he has money enough to afford a Tax Attorney. No, he's being punished for being successful and rich by his tax rate returning to what is was in 2001. And he's really, really upset about it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/19/sunday/commentaries/main6881440.shtml

I don't even make 8% of what he does and I'll bet, once the CPA and his Tax Attorneys get done, he doesn't pay a whole lot more tax than I have to. And the rich wonder why people aren't being nice to them. I seem to recall a full-scale revolution in France a couple hundred years back, where those rich people wound up losing everything, including their lives, thanks to their selfish indifference to the suffering going on around them. Now we got kids graduating from college but not finding decent jobs available. People in their 30's and 40's barely scraping by thanks to health insurance premiums exploding and wages decreasing and the collapse of the housing market. Men and women in their 50's being laid off at a time in their lives when it's hard as hell to find another job.

I discovered that when I went looking for work back in San Antonio, before I took on this job. I was "overqualified" for every position I applied for and "not right for the few that were just up my alley." Every excuse in the book. I kept things together by selling off my collection of books and DVDs on Amazon, getting about .25 on the dollar but still making my bills and insurance premiums. I hated doing it. But that's not something Mr. Stein needs to worry about doing. Not him or any others like him who're worth seven figures and think that just because they can't afford an $8.00 cupcake every day for their coffee break, their lives have become hard.

And these are the same people who supported our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars costing the US treasury trillions of dollars. It sickens me.

Of course, I'm whining about having to earn a living instead of being able to focus on my writing like I used to. It comes in all shapes and sizes, whining does. I guess that means I'm just as bad as Mr. Stein, and he would probably say, "Quityerbitchin'. At least you HAVE a job."

True. But I still want to slap the bastard's face.

Now off to wrestle with Allan and his version of BC-3...and I think I'm finally in the proper frame of mind.

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