Dude, my taxes are DONE.
Yes, federal AND state.
Yes, including my student loan interest paid, 401(k) rollover, and both W-2s.

Thanks to H&R Block Online Tax stuffity stuff and our very own NJ WebFile system, I’ll be getting my refund via direct deposit within the next 8-15 business days. I paid H&R Block the $20 bucks (though there is a free version available) to have it double-checked and go through my itemized deductions via the “premium” edition of the software. I probably didn’t need it, in retrospect, but I feel better that I did.

Rock.

My refund $$$ takes a bit of the sting out of the whole cost of medication thing, which is nice. Too bad I can’t deduct that on the grounds that without that medication, I cannot function and be a solid, tax-paying member of society. Hrm. Perhaps this is an idea…

I drove into work today and the traffic was atrocious getting back home (90 minutes for a normally 20 minute drive), so I missed the optional online component of tonight’s grad school class. I am going to review the reading, though, and get started on next week’s, then pop into the discussion board and post something. After that, I’ll read the transcript of tonight’s class (so awesome…) and see what I missed.

My tummy hurts. Maybe a warm bath and some hot tea will help ease the strange crampiness.

I wanted to make my friend at work a mix CD, but I’m not feeling the creative spark to make that happen. I was all excited about it when I left work, but that long drive home and the tummy ache have stripped me of my enthusiasm. And maybe doing my taxes also has something to do with it.

Ooooh. Violent Femmes are up in the MP3 playlist… “Add It Up” - and I just finished listening to Peter Gabriel’s “Blood of Eden”, Groove Armada’s “I See Ya Baby”, The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside”, Squeeze’s “Pulling Mussels from the Shell”, and Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.” It’s not the most eclectic “random” playlist selection… there’s usually more wackiness in there. But Winamp can only do so much. And I’m afraid of what those songs say about me…

I swear! I listen to GOOD music sometimes (though I don’t think Squeeze and Peter Gabriel call that into question… the rest, though??? I might have lost some friends by admitting to the Cheap Trick thing.)

Erasure, House of Pain (yes, that House of Pain**) and Prince are coming up next. Does that fix things?

It’s time to be a responsible grad school student. Yes, indeedy.

** “I’m the cream of the crop, I rise to the top / I never eat a pig cause a pig is a cop / Or better yet a terminator / Like Arnold Schwarzenegger / Try’n to play me out like as if my name was Sega.”