My Private I

Kidnapping Deductions

I just discovered the Twiction of "arjunbasu" who writes short fiction via twitter. His posts read like your knee when the doctor used to hit it with the plastic hammer- a satisfying, jerk reaction that takes on a life of its own. You want him to do it again just so you can watch.

Here's a sampling from today...  

arjunbasu He can hold them for ransom or he can just let them go and hope for the best. He weighs the after effects of both. And then returns the candy.

Speaking of kidnapping, the IRS offers some guidance on whether you can claim your snatched child as a dependent on your tax return.

Kidnapped child.   You can treat your child as meeting the residency test even if the child has been kidnapped, but both of the following statements must be true.

1.     The child is presumed by law enforcement authorities to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or the child's family.

2.     In the year the kidnapping occurred, the child lived with you for more than half of the part of the year before the date of the kidnapping.

  This treatment applies for all years until the child is returned. However, the last year this treatment can apply is the earlier of:

1.     The year there is a determination that the child is dead, or

2.     The year the child would have reached age 18.

 

Blinded

A few nights ago, I ran into my NYC ex-boyfriend in a dream. He was blind from taking too many naked pictures of himself with a Polaroid camera. The flash finally did him in and he was using his penis to feel his away around. It sensed when the sidewalk stopped and the street began. Crowds gave him a large berth, so he wouldn't accidentally brush against them.

Even my waking life has recently taken on an air of surrealism. A pitbull with lipstick and rimless eyewear with is running for the US Vice Presidency with the slogan "drill baby drill" (which if taken out of context of her speech could be the badly translated subtitle of a baby being aborted or an amateur Alaskan porno title featuring a guy hammering a girl from behind on a polar bear rug).  Millions of Americans will cast their vote in November for an 80's beauty queen runner-up who believes the Iraq War and the national gas pipeline is God's Will.  Hurricane Ike barreled through the Texas Gulf Coast but turned East instead of West, leaving Austin untouched except for an afternoon slow-motion breeze. It left the trees swaying like a supermodel shaking her hair out from a pony=tail.

Full Tilt

I can't keep score. Eight, no nine months have passed since I posted thoughts pinballing inside my head.  I don't know when my lips turned into rubber paddles and my life went flip-flip-flip. The flashing red lights of phone messages while the days climb higher.

I dreamed last night I picked up my ex-lover's book in a waiting room. It was handwritten in black ink and so jammed with words the pages were without margins. Someone kept saying my name softly and when I looked up from the book, I realized it was him. Only I couldn't recognize my own name in his mouth, so I never said yes, I'm here. 

The last time I dreamt of him I was 20 and back then, we threw our clothes from the bed like stones out to sea.      

I googled his name tonight and fuck me, he's writing a book.   

Sicko hits home

My brother works for a non-profit, local community recreation center that only covers medical benefits for employees, but not their spouse, common-law partner or children. 

My brother's wife telecommutes from home, working 35-40 hours a week doing group sales, events and meeting logistics for a large multi-national hotel corporation.  They can't afford childcare, so working from home allows her to bring in income without the high cost of childcare or the worry of leaving her kid in the hands of a stranger who makes $5.75/hr. Since she does not "work on the premises", the company she is employed by does not cover her healthcare benefits. So, two months ago she signed up for private insurance to cover both her and their 2-year old son. They were accepted.

4 weeks ago she discovered she was pregnant and today, she learned the private insurance company that accepted her two months ago, suddenly dropped her like a sack of hot potatoes because in the US, motherhood is a "pre-existing condition." She wasn't aware she was pregnant at the time she first applied for private insurance but they refused her appeal. They offered to continue coverage of her 2-year old son (which on principle she said thanks but no thanks!), but kicked her and her slightly swelling belly to the curb. 

This news comes on the very same day that the president vetoed the child health insurance plan. Why?

"Poor kids first," Bush said. "Secondly, I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system."

Poor kids begin with mothers who get blackballed from private insurance and are forced to rack up credit card debt to pay for prenatal care in the US health system, asshole.  I'm ashamed to be born in the US. There's a serious fucking problem in a first world country when tax-paying, middle class working parents get screwed #1 by their employers, #2 by the private health insurance industry and #3 by the government that gets kickbacks from #2.  All because a sperm met my sister-in-law's egg.