My tax preparer, a 30-year IRS veteran before his retirement to private practice helping screwups like me, says I'm going to come out well in the black once all the paperwork is duly delivered, stamped and massaged at the nearest IRS office. My pulse rate went up dangerously on hearing that: good financial news is so rare for me that I worried I was hallucinating. Indeed, the problem I had initially consulted him about seemed hopeless to me. But I've seen the results of his work; my only concern now is how much of my refund he's going to get. At this point I'll be grateful if he doesn't take all of it.
As for my job, it's become apparent that I'm going to have choose between having it and having a life. Now that my tax issues are receding into the blissfully dark horizon, I am free to choose a life. I've applied at Belmont Abbey College to teach a few courses in the summer Adult Degree Program. The signs have been good from the start. The chair of the philosophy department greeted my vita enthusiastically and immediately sent me over to the program director, a thirtyish Italian-American woman from the Northeast. Speaking with her felt like touching base with a schoolmate from the old neighborhood. And as it turned out, the only remaining openings for summer ADP were in...philosophy and theology! She told me that most of the CVs they get are from people wanting to teach business or language courses, and that they always had trouble getting humanities people. It was only at that moment that I could finally revel in the fact that I live in a metro area where, it seems, nobody who is under 70 and not affiliated with a university cares about the things I care about. But I still need those prayers as they await an official copy of my transcript from Penn.
Assuming I can get enough enough sleep tomorrow, which I should do now that I no longer feel the hot breath of the IRS on my neck, I shall post on something intellectually substantive then. In the meantime, thanks for being part of my life, and hang in there with me.
