Fuzzy Math

We finally got around to doing our taxes a.k.a. funding the bank rescue/bankrolling poor people with six kids/bailing out GM/saving McMansions from foreclosure/plunging ourselves into an existential quandry over our dwindling value as contributors to the financial marketplace/I'll stop there.
If that comment sounds snarky or bitter, that's because it was meant to be exactly that. After scrutinizing the numbers and squeezing every last credit and deduction legally possible, we came to one inevitable conclusion:
I am worth more unemployed.
That's preposterous, you say. Well, consider the numbers. In the microeconomy of our household my wife is clearly the breadwinner. She makes substantially more than I do.
And that's great. Don't get me wrong; I'm not one of these dudes who feels emasculated because my wife makes more than me. No, I feel emasculated because she's constantly reminding me of it.
But seriously, girl power - yay! I'm actually all about female empowerment. They can do anything that men can do. Except real push-ups. But it's great if they have careers and break through the glass ceiling and breastfeed in public (as long as they still do the dishes and don't speak unless spoken to).
So this isn't a commentary on women's lib. No, it's a backhanded reproach of my employer: The government.
As a public servant, I earn about a third of a what a factory line worker in Detroit makes. I have no pension or benefits, I'm not protected by a union, and I can't work overtime. I'm kinda proud of that. I'm pretty good at what I do and I do it for the greater good, so my paycheck really doesn't get me down. That's not the point I'm trying to make.
But consider this: By fully satsifying our tax liability to the government, my wife and I are essentially paying the amount of my annual salary. So in a hideously depressing way, I'm basically self-employed.
But what's more - by earning the little income that I do, I am pushing us over the limit for being able to claim some key deductions. For example, because I'm employed, we make just a little too much to write off the out-of-pocket medical expenses for the treatment of my wife's cancer (by the way, in the future, St. Obama's health care reform won't even begin to solve this problem because it's only aimed toward the poor and currently uninsured). However, we could claim this deduction if I didn't work.
More infuriatingly, we fall just outside the threshold for writing off our student loan interest. About a quarter of my take-home pay goes to pay off the ridiculously expensive and ineffective law degree I have. This, of course, was my own fault. I chose to go to law school. But only because I was promised an average immediate post-graduation salary about twenty thousand dollars more than what I currently make. Those loans made sense considering that. But of all the attorneys I know, only a handful make that average promised salary or more. Again, if I didn't work, we could claim that interest.
So if I didn't work, she could claim me as a dependent. We could deduct the student loan interest, the medical expenses and have no liability on my income. We'd save on my commute, my lunch expenses and my wardrobe. If she would pop out a kid or two, we'd be living high on the hog. I could be a stay-at-home dad. My lazy side loves this idea. My intellectual, quasi-ambitious side is crying inside.
Of course, technically, I'm worth more dead. But as my wife was writing out the check to the IRS she downplayed the idea. Half-heartedly.
If all this sounds silly and you think I'm taking my employment for granted in this time of economic turmoil, you'd probably be right. I mean, we live comfortably and have nice things, so I'd be wise not to complain.
But then I think, 12.5 million Americans are struggling to find jobs right now. If you're one of them, and reading this, you're probably cursing me for having a secure job.
Well, it's all yours if you want it.

My February

Hey folks. Good to be back.
If you look around the Web, normally when bloggers are away for some time and they return to writing they say something like "I was sooooo busy. My life is so very exciting that I couldn't find time to blog".
The opposite is true for me. Last month was so very soul-crushingly boring that I honestly couldn't think of anything to write about. At least nothing that could sustain an entire blog post. I tried. Everytime I started an essay, I would get about two paragraphs in and fall asleep. It gets so very tiring writing about myself. Even I get sick of me. And I know you do too.

So here is a recap of my month of February:

1. My sister scored me sixth-row, corporate suite tickets to an Indiana Pacers basketball game. The Indiana Pacers are my favorite sports team in the world. They've been pretty down the last few years, and even though I'm the only Pacer fan left anywhere, I've been an ardent supporter. I got Larry Bird's autograph and met Sam 'Big Smooth' Perkins. This was the ultimate highlight of my sports fandom. I take back all the things I've ever said about my sister (not really).

2. I took Friday the 13th off. Not because of superstition, but because if I had gone into work that day, I would have committed some kind of mass murder. Work's been rough. And I hate complaining about work all the time, so I chose to sleep in. Then for breakfast I went to my local diner where I got scrambled eggs, grits, pancakes and massive diarrhea. Then I installed a ceiling fan and did some concrete work. Which were not easy tasks given the crippling diarrhea issues.

3. I went with a friend to an Indiana Hoosiers basketball game. They are my second favorite sports team in the world. They are down this year as well so the game on the court wasn't much to look at, but Bloomington always has some lovely co-eds in the stands, so it was totally worth the trip.

4. I celebrated the four-year anniversary of the time I got mugged in Detroit. I haven't really been in any life-threatening situations since, so that's saying something for a dude like me who's pretty much oblivious to his surroundings. For example, this month I will celebrate the six-year anniversary of the time I accidentally bought crack at gunpoint in Baltimore.

These were the only four things I did during the month of February. The other twenty-four days were spent in a semi-conscious malaise. Good thing it wasn't a leap year.
But this month has started off considerably better.
At least compared to last March that is.

not fade away

As my wife's hair grows back from the chemo treatments, she's become extremely insecure about her appearance. She wears hats or a wig, but her actual hair isn't much longer than mine. She refuses to have it styled or trimmed as she's trying to grow it out to pre-cancer lengths. And I think it's really getting her down.

This was exacerbated the other day when I told her that she looked like Michael Richards.

That's pretty mean. Even for me. So I softened the blow by telling her instead that she looked more like a young Bob Dylan. That didn't go over well idea either. So we settled on "Teenaged Jewish Boy Preparing for his Bah Mitzvah". Which is just about right.

So although she's goyim, she keeps kvetching about her hairstyle, which I keep telling her I don't mind because I'm strangely attracted to teenaged Jewish boys (not true). But that doesn't keep her from calling me a schmuck and a nudnik and we end up getting into a big shemozzle over it.

Oy vey.

Call me meshuggah, but I seem to remember vowing to love her through sickness and health. Now I take that also to mean through looking-like-a-Jewish-teen and health, but no amount of convincing will do. We joke about it, but I know how important it is for a woman to take pride in her appearance.

I apologize if this comes across as schmaltz, but it's not bubkes, I promise.

I come home every night and I see my beautiful wife. I see her regardless if she's wearing a bandana or a wig or a ballcap or sporting her Kramer haircut. She's still my wife.

I don't care if she puts on her glasses and looks just like Buddy Holly.

I see my wife and am attracted to her as much as if she had hair down to her knees.

Soon enough - maybe it'll be a few months or another year - her hair will grow back and she'll be back to looking like the girl I married. But that doesn't matter to me though.

One day we'll both lose our looks for good. One day she'll be shriveled and old and saggy. She'll shuffle around with rheumy eyes and false teeth. Her hair will be thin or gone and liver spots will mark her hands.

And I'll still see my beautiful wife.

Appearance is fleeting.

In time, looks fade away.

But in the words of Buddy Holly - who died 50 years ago today - my love will not.

I've Discovered Craigslist. My House Will Soon Be Empty

Do you know about Craigslist? If you don't, you are woefully lost. I was like you until last week. But now I am found. Because it was last week that I discovered Craigslist.
For those who are still stumbling around in the darkness, Craigslist is like an online garage sale. You post listings of all the junk you want to sell and, through some glorious Internet magic, emails start to pop into your inbox asking about your used Foreman grill. It's amazing.
I woke up this morning and checked my account. Some Asian woman wants my dishwasher. I don't know her, but she digs my Kenmore Ultra Wash. Some fella named Neil likes it too. Willing to pay asking price, even. Score.*
Craigslist almost makes a dude wanna become a used widget entrepeneur. If there's anything I have in spades, it's used widgets. Matchbox cars, baseball cards, underwear - I have tons of used junk to sell. And until now, I haven't found a willing buyer. So yes, furbylover4evah3000@craigslist.com, you can have my popcorn popper.
And now it is time to say goodbye to my wife, my dog and my vintage action figures. They will all be sold. I will keep my turtle Mr. Jenkins, however, because he is an indespensible lifelong companion.
These are tough economic times. One cannot afford to have useless stuff just lying around. I don't know why I kept all that Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia, but I did and it fills up several boxes (I am NOT making this up).
Nor can one turn to a site like Ebay where bidding wars force prices up, up, up. No, these tough times call for cheap wares. From an online consignment shop.
President Obama has pledged to shore up the economy with a far-reaching stimulus package. Chances are, because I don't have seven children, didn't make bad fiscal choices and I don't live way beyond my means via credit cards, it will never actually reach me, per se.
However, if your house is in foreclosure, there's more money to be found in your couch cushions than in your 401(k), and Uncle Sam has his hands deep in your pockets, you can rest easy that there is a website out there where you can sell your antique glass harmonica.
So thank you Craig.
For your generosity. And for your eponymous list.
You sir, are a true American hero.


*UPDATE: Neil got the dishwasher.

The Tortfeezor will return shortly

Triple Word Score

If you're like me, you like to party.

Hard.

By playing Scrabble.

Ain't no party like a Scrabble party, cause a Scrabble party don't stop. Until you run out of letters to play. Then it stops. But you can always shuffle the tiles and play again. All night long.

And tonight, on New Year's Eve - the biggest party night of the year - you'll know where I'll be: Sitting on the living room rug, Scrabble board on the coffee table, and Dick Clark on the telly. And there will be some snacks.

Oh yes, there will be snacks.

There was a time - not so long ago - when New Year's Eve meant dancing and drinking, music and celebrating. But my wife's 30 now. That's like 108 in cool people years. So despite my pleas to the contrary, she wants to stay in. And play board games. Like senior citizens in a long term care facility.

But that's okay. Because I am the world's greatest Scrabble player. And I love to beat my wife (at Scrabble; don't take that out of context).

I am unbeatable at Scrabble. She takes me to task at remedial games like Sorry or Connect Four, but when it comes to an alphagramized rack of jumbled letters, I'm a savant.

I'm like the Bobby Fisher of Scrabble. Except I'm not an dead ex-pat anti-American recluse who hates Jews. Other than that, I'm just like Bobby Fisher. That is, if Bobby Fisher played Scrabble instead of chess. But he didn't. So I guess we'll just leave Bobby Fisher out of this. But you get the point. Maybe.

And because I am a sore loser, I cheat mercilessly. I use proper names, acronyms, Spanish obscenities, abbreviations, slang, words with no vowels, I'll hide tiles or flip them over and use them as blanks - I'm ruthless in my no-holds-barred Scrabble play. If I'm challenged, I pout and quit. It's an effective strategy. If I find myself losing, I spill Diet Coke on the playing board or "accidentally" sweep all the tiles off with my sleeve. Fistfights are not uncommon.

It's Contact Scrabble, really.
So tonight, while you're ringing in 2009 with noisemakers and merriment, clinking champagne glasses and singing Auld Lang Syne, we'll be recalling the list of words which have a Q but no U and racing for the dictionary.

But either way, we'll all be bidding adieu to 2008 and hoping for a glorious 2009. And that's a good thing.

Because 2008 has - to use a 58-point word - SUCKED.

I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

I have a general rule that I don't blog about my family. Although the material is often times priceless (see: incident in which my dad pooped in the woods at a local golf course), I would hate it if they got their feelings hurt. Because then they would stop paying on my undergraduate loans.
But seeing as how I don't technically consider my sister family, she's fair game. And so our story begins.
With only hours to go before my parents' Christmas Eve celebration - an epic event of foosball, sparkling cider and awkward small talk - the little sister Carly calls and relays some troubling news: She has pink eye.
Okay, that's gross, I say. So I guess you're not coming tonight, right?
No, she tells me. I still have food to make for the party.
A little background on this holiday get-together: For my folks, life is basically the annual Christmas Eve party interuppted by the other 364 days of the year. They spend weeks on the planning, invitations and cooking. It's a big deal.
But long ago, Mom abandoned the kitchen and left my sister in charge of the food. Well, it's not so much food as a series of experimental hors d'oeuvres and desserts - lots of them. Every year she spends the days and weeks before the party cooking and fussing over the food. So when Carly tells me the day of an event that she's come down with conjunctivitis after preparing a meal for dozens of people, I get a little grossed out.
You see, she's a kindergarten teacher, which means she's a walking inoculant. With little kids sneezing, coughing and snotting all over her each day, she carries more communicable diseases than a Detroit prostitute.
And she's making me dinner.
Apparently in her world, bacterial infections are a way of life. But I don't want her nasty pus all over my prosciutto, purulent discharge on my bruschetta, or crusty eye mucus in my tapas.
So as she's rubbing her eyes and setting out the silverware this evening, as her airborne pathogens contaminate Mom's good china, and as her swollen eyelids drip infected tears all over the finger food, I'll be returning her Christmas present for an economy-sized bottle of Visene, a bottle of Purell and some latex gloves. And maybe - just maybe - a court order for isolation and quarantine.
And hey Carly, don't be surprised if I show up tonight with an extra large Papa John's pizza and encouraging people to eat that instead.
Because I'll just be looking out for the health of our guests.
And you'll just be dirty.

Nutcracker

We keep our Christmas decorations in the attic.
There is nowhere in the world I hate more than the attic.
At the top of a set of rickety pull-down stairs on a plywood floor in dozens of Rubbermaid bins are scores of ornaments and lights, wreaths, garland, Nativity scenes, bells, stockings and reams of wrapping paper.

Each year after Thanksgiving, I am instructed to trudge up those wooden pull-down stairs and haul all of that gaudy stuff down from above the garage. Inevitably, I miss a step and turn my ankle, or scrape my knuckles squeezing a bin through the doorframe, or throw out my back lifting the unreasonably heavy tree box. Usually I'll get poked with an ornament hook or cut my finger on a shattered bauble. I'll get sick on wassail and cheeseball and end up reaking of peppermint well into the new year.

Growing up, my mother turned our home into a winter landscape that would rival even the most spirited of department store displays. She would meticulously place untold numbers of Santa and snowmen figurines, wooden sleighs, wise men, bells, candles, angels and reindeer. Each were wrapped with tissue paper and boxed carefully making decorating an all-day affair. It was all kept in either the attic or the crawlspace and it was up to yours truly to fetch it.

After I'd retrieved the goods, she would put on a Perry Como holiday album and a garish Christmas sweater and force me to stage the crèche while shouting orders from under mounds of plastic pine branches, ribbon and fake snow.

Therefore I came to dread the holiday season because I am:

A.) Unapologetically lazy; and

B.) See A.

My wife chose to continue my yuletide misery by hoarding a collection of Christmas decorations of her own. No matter how much I protest, each year the stack of Rubbermaid bins gets larger, the ornaments more plentiful, and the outdoor lights more elaborate. And guess whose job it was to schlep it all out? And then after having to stare at it until January, I'd have to box it back up and carry it back into the attic where it would take up space for another year.

However, this year the tables have turned. As she headed out of town for two weeks in early December, the decorating was left unfinished. When she returned from overseas, nary a mistletoe adorned our doorway, not a poinsettia in sight, no tinsel to be found. No one would ever guess a couple of Gentiles lived here.

Bah Humbug, and to all a good night!

But as December 25th rounded the corner and our mantle had nothing to show for it but a gathering of dust, even I of the Dickensian Scrooge-ness became a bit wistful over the lack of at least a rudimentary tannenbaum.

So we took a trip to Menards and purchased decorations the Tortfeezor way:

Two $0.88 12-inch fake trees.

Two $1.39 strands of lights.

One $0.99 box of discount baubles.

We used bent paper clips for hooks and three small ornaments that my grandparents gave us as early Christmas gifts at Thanksgiving. If you're keeping track, after tax, we spent a total of $5.86 and ten minutes on decorating this year.

Now this was a win-win for all involved. She got to decorate (albeit minimally) and I didn't have to go into the attic.

Christmas miracles, it turns out, really do come true after all.

Happy Holidays everyone!

My Evening with Fancy Muppets

I got into a little bit of trouble the other night. I attended a stage musical of the animated film The Lion King with my wife. She was very much anticipating this production. I nodded off several times during the performance. Therefore I am an inconsiderate jerk. Hear me roar.

Here's the thing, though. I'm a 29-year-old grown man. Maudlin puppet shows adapted from Disney cartoons are not really my thing. I enjoy heavy metal rock music. Football. Red meat. Yard work. Action movies.

So perhaps you can see how I don't feel that it's completely unreasonable to doze during a conversation between a talking baboon and and a gay meerkat. My wife, however, does not find me a reasonable man.

Elaborate animal constuming, Elton John power ballads spontaneously breaking out during spoken dialogue, and cute anthromorphic lion cubs in love. What's a dude not to love, right?

Hakuna Matata!

I thought I was being a good sport about it. We went with two other couples and I did my very best not to complain or show my dismay over being subjected to a three hour cuddle fest on stage. In fact, from the reviews I read, I kind of anticipated a glorious spectacle of majestic performing arts. What I got instead was a bunch of fart jokes by a purple warthog with a highly publicized worry-free philosophy.

And my favorite football team was playing that evening as well. As a diehard fan, I never miss a game. So I bought a new Blackberry with Internet capabilities last week for the sole purpose of streaming it live over my phone during the performance. Unfortunately, it was a dark theater and the bright backlighting of the phone made viewing completely impracticable, so I had to merely check scores during intermission.

But Sunday night, my wife was incensed as to how I could possibly fall asleep during the Battle for Pride Rock. I, however, was equally incensed as to how the Battle for Pride Rock was interrupting my nap.

When I was courting my wife back in college, I bought her tickets to a touring production of Les Miserables. Now listen - no straight man would ever go see a French musical about a disenfranchised tree pruner. But when a boy loves his girl, he'd do just about anything to please her. Even if it means sitting through the worst form of entertainment ever produced. But that doesn't mean he has to like it.

But here's what my clumsy chauvinistic attitude can't quite seem to convey: I don't mind going to these things as long as we're together. There was a time not so long ago, we weren't sure how much time we'd have left together. Well, now that everyone's healthy, it's easy to slip back into old habits of taking each other for granted.

So I very much enjoyed an evening out on the town with my wife.

But I didn't enjoy the stage performance of dancing, singing, personified Disney safari creatures.

Because it was stupid.

This Sedentary Life

Since we last spoke, I left you word of an embarrassing incident in which I threw up in the middle of a trial and spent approximately a week on the couch. I'm fully recovered, but it's seemed to sap all of the energy from my very being.
To add to my malaise, my wife is in England for work for a couple weeks and has left me to my own devices. Since she's been gone, I've rented every new release from the movie store, eaten through every scrap of food in the kitchen, played countless hours of video games, cleared out the Tivo, organized my iPod, re-alphabetized my CDs, and generally driven myself (and the dog) absolutely crazy. I'm bored out of my mind.
I would post more blog entries, but that would require energy and creativity. Right now those are in short supply. I totally missed the one-year anniversary of this blog as well as the milestone five-thousandth visitor.
It's cold and rainy. I immediately change into elastic waistband sweatpants when I get home from work and stare at the TV screen until 8:30 p.m. when, I have rationalized, is the minimum appropriate time to turn in for the night. I did go to a party Saturday, but I was so melancholy I left at 11.
I need to break out of this rut ASAP. I usually don't solicit comments, but I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Until then, I'll be on my couch - shirtless - with the remote control, a jar of Jiffy and a half a loaf of Wonder Bread. I know that sounds weird, but it's all I have left.