Why I love my computer (and hate being an American)

Oh this list could be sooooooo long, but gleefully, I will limit myself to the bare bones.

I love my computer, her name is Lucy (which of course is a pun stemming from her light-emitting tendency), I realize that this is completely infantile, much like naming one's car (I always wished I had such a loving relationship with a car as to have it name itself, like Lucía's "Carmen" - only, I have yet to feel the love), but I don't care... it is better than naming one's breasts, or genitals, I say.

Why do I love her so??? Well today because she has made it possible to file instantaneously the dreaded yearly gauging... only in my case it is reversed. I sent off my taxes! Yay me. I know, my puerile gaiety will amuse you, but this is the very first time that I have filed my own damn taxes, all by my lonesome, and I get to bask in a moment of hubris, I'll allow myself that. You only lose your tax virginity once, and well, it should always be this pleasureable.

Here is why I hate being American... No, the government is actually giving me a couple thousand dollars back this year (money would never be a motivation for hate in me). Would that we could all live this well, in a poverty-stricken state, in fact I wonder how it is - beyond student loan credit - that I manage to live so comfortably... All the essentials are covered: good food, good books, good music and film and a beautiful environs to caress my soul. No, I hate being an American because I finally, finally got my hands on "La mala educación" only to find that it had been mutilated to an R-rated version. AGHHHHHH. Fuck censorship. I wanted to see the real thing, not a watered-down version, and now, I won't even know what it is that I am missing.

Things like this remind me why I can't possibly live in this country for more than a few more years. (Sure I say that now, you can dangle this, like the sword of Damacles, over my head if I back down, please, please...)

But there it is. I also wish to comment on my continued waffling. I firmly believe in the validity of paying taxes, and I am fully willing to pay such taxes to help the less fortunate, yet I still feel elated by the thought of a "free" check in my mailbox, larger this year than others. And I absolutely support people's right to organize and yet I have yet to join a union myself. I know, and I call myself a leftist... its just that... well, I am also a control freak and I don't trust that my money would be used for things of which I would really approve, nor do I have the time or energy to assure that it be so - maybe I am really more of a libertarian? Maybe it doesn't really matter what the hell I am anyway, because it is how we live and treat others that counts. So tomorrow there will be a strike, and while I hope that the workers attain their goals, better wages and benefits, I am also mildly annoyed because I now have to invent a last minute childcare option for little I. Ah well, nothing worth getting upset about, perhaps she will just come to class with me, as it is a "cultural" day... she can be the cultural artefact.