Category: Just Shelley

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Just Shelley

It never rains but it pours

I just had an unexpected visit from the IRS. They showed up at my door with no warnings. I had no idea there was any problem, or anything wrong.

It would seem they don’t have the last form 940 for my corporation, which I closed in 2002. I had a letter to this effect last year, about not getting this form. That was cool, so sent them a copy. Didn’t hear another word. Not another word in over six months.

I also filed on time for my individual taxes for 2002 (filed in 2003) and 2003 (filed in 2004). Since I didn’t have the cash to pay the taxes owed, I sent in the form requesting payments, and have been making payments for my taxes owed last year ever since. I also just now received a letter from the IRS, on Friday, accepting my payment plan for both years and giving me a form to make first payment for the combined liability. But then Monday I received a note that all taxes were due, because none had been paid, and forms not filed.

And then I received a visit this morning from the IRS.

I hope I can find my copies of everything. Luckily the bank maintains copies of the checks, and I found my returns. I hope that none of the paperwork I need was in the unit that I sold off. I can’t afford a lawyer to represent me.

The bizarre thing about form 940 is that it would have nothing to do with taxes paid. I was an S corporation, and therefore didn’t pay corporate taxes. I paid my unemployment, and my social security, too. I paid income taxes through my individual tax return, and she said I did pay for all monies on my individual account – but I didn’t file the 940.

So now I’ll spend my day going through all my papers again, and faxing anything I can think of–because if I don’t she told me she will pursue financial and criminal avenues by the end of the week. So I’ll fax everything! Everything! And then hope this isn’t seen as a nuisance and therefore also make me criminally liable.

And it was a nice day, today, too. I thought about going for a walk.

At least there’s one good thing: it wasn’t someone from Ashcroft’s office, investigating me for my past critical writing about him and the President.

(Ooops! Well, now I’ve done it, haven’t I?)

If I end up in jail, will you bake me a cake?

update

Sorry for ’sharing too much’ with this post. I was finishing up my previous post when the IRS agent came by, and just sort of wrote my reactions. I realize, though, that this can fall into that category of “information you’d rather I not share”.

It does look like I have all the paperwork needed. Still rattled though. But will try and post happy writing later. Except that I was going to write about how amazed I am that no one seems to be questioning the Spirit of America. I can’t be the only person hesitant about the premise behind this operation, am I?

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Just Shelley

Salt and Pepper

I don’t follow too many traditions when it comes to holidays. Without strong family ties or kids, I don’t celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving; and since I lack a religious foundation, I don’t celebrate Easter or Christmas. However, I still make fried chicken and my three favorite cold salads on the Friday before Memorial weekend, ready to eat when anyone is hungry. Since the food is already made, there’s no cooking, and few dishes. Tomorrow I’ll pack some up in a cooler and take some of it with me on my explorations; the rest I’ll leave for my roommate, to nosh on while I give him some private time in the house.

I love to cook, but I’m not a fancy cook. I seldom use more than one or two spices in any dish, and rarely use any that are considered ‘hot’. I like the food to speak for itself, and my salads–potato, three bean, and antipasto–and chicken reflect this.

When I worked at Boeing in Seattle, I used to go with one of the groups I worked with to a Chinese restaurant not far from my house. I liked the place because the food was fresh and flavorful, and attractive; my workmates liked it because it served hot, hot Szechuan style of food. They’d sit eating the food and sweating from the spiciness as they good naturedly gave me a bad time for staying with the simple, lightly seasoned dishes.

I have no doubts, none, not one of them has a taste bud left, now.

No, I don’t like heavily spiced meals. A little salt, a little pepper, maybe a little garlic and onion, and you have about the perfect enhancement for almost any dish. Well, except cookies. But then you can use both salt and pepper in cookies. And garlic in ice cream.

Among the stacks of books on bookbinding and various other topics picked up recently from my local libraries, I also found a cookbook titled, “Salt & Pepper”. Among the intriguing recipes and beautiful photographs are stories about the history of both salt and pepper, in addition to a detailed discussion about the varieties in each.

I have used more esoteric salts and peppercorns in cooking, but this book introduced me to exotics such as fleur de sel, a French salt that forms as a thin layer on seaside ponds in France and prized for it’s flavor, appearance, and texture; or pink Hawaiian sea salt. And the recipes!

There was salted tangerines with a black pepper dipping sauce, classic red sandwich, or deep fried lima beans. Salt and Pepper Candied Pecans. It even featured chocolate cookies spiced with pink peppercorns; all recipes light on spice except for salt and pepper, depending more on the other ingredients and the unusual and balanced combinations of foods to generate the flavor.

Salt and pepper. You might look down you nose at them as plain and simple, but lose them, and you might as well loose your joy in food.

A vegetarian friend of mine from long ago was also a gourmet cook and would have us over for these fantasic meals. She would add a pinch of this a dash of that until you could barely taste the ingredients of the dishes. Of course, tofu figured heavily, so I didn’t mind.

She would laugh, though, about my stinginess when it came to using spices. After all, it was she who introduced me to cilantro and curries, and chilis and whatnot, only to have her lessons go for naught. One day on the way to work, I said that she’d be proud of me, I was finally starting to branch out in my use of spices. She asked what spice. I answered, “Pepper”, and she laughed until I thought she was going to wreck the car.

But that’s just it — I was exploring with pepper. Different kinds of pepper and using pepper in different ways. For instance, you might know about putting salt on watermelon, but how about pepper on a granita (slushy) made of the watermelon’s juice? The same people that will add 23 different types of spices to a dish will look blankly at you when you talk about putting pepper on watermelon.

 

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Just Shelley

What made my day today

Gord, at poeticgeek.net.

All this writing makes me questions Shelley’s humanity. I have come to the conclusion that she is actually a sophisticated robot using a markov generator to make compelling entries. There is no way a human being can consistently produce witty, helpful, and well-written articles. I swear that women like Shelley make me question the benefits of being gay.

Thank you, Gord. That is the best compliment I’ve ever had.

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Writing

Rose garden

I can’t just ‘do’ technology. The longer I don’t feed that other half of me, the more somber I become.

The weather was too nice to stay inside pasting, cutting, and folding for my Art of Book projects, so it was a good time to visit the rose gardens; take some pictures, though I know it must seem like the only photographs I take are those of flower and weed, with an occasional aside into something that doesn’t have roots.

I hope to explore with my photography this summer, with different subjects including local bikers and river rats (human that is). Or not, and take a break from it. But for now, just plain flowers.

I also looked for something to go with the flowers, some writing. A poem or two, and if you search on poems with roses, you’ll find hundreds. But they all seemed so weepy, and sentimental. I don’t like sentimental poems, and I don’t need weepy.

So I guess I’ll stick with just flowers.

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Writing

It’s not all dark matter

I usually agree with Mark Morford but rarely have I found myself in such strong agreement with him, as I did with his column today.

He writes in response to the question: how can he write about dogs or yoga or sex in cars when there is so much evil in the world. He responds with:

The world’s tragedies absolutely deserve our immediate attention. And our hope. And our divine raw funky sexed-up intellectual perspective. This is not a question.

But what it needs even more is the counter-energy. For us all to remember to shut it all off and get the hell away from the computer and go have a glass of wine and a deep tongue kiss and a romp and a an intense book and a hot sweaty yoga class and a soft swoon to an incredible blues singer. This fuels the resistance. Rekindles meaning. Steals life back from those who would deign to devour it with pitchforks and judiciary committees and heavy artillery.

After all, real life is not in the dour headlines

Though I could have wished that he had left off his anger with Bush, because it detracts from his message, overall it is compelling reading with one important point: all of life is not dark matter, all the time.