By the sweat of my brow

Today I went to see my shiny new accountant to celebrate Tax Season '05, tally up my points for the last year, and see what I won. Last year having been my very first year as a full-time (to use the term very loosely) freelancer, I was all a-quiver with anticipation, I can tell you.

We sat there for about an hour amid the fake wood panelling that is apparently required by the American Association of Professional Hand-Holders With Tax Forms and Adding Machines, trying to come up with more deductions. Alas, my work is alarmingly low-tech. If you can believe it, my main tools are, in fact, a red pencil, an eraser, and a pencil sharpener. It gets more exciting (and expensive!) when it's time to ship the great knocking piles of literary genius back to the publishers, because then I can factor in mileage to the UPS store, cost of postage, the celebratory bottle of tequila I buy on the way home after finishing each job...

But alas, my so-called business has almost no expenses. My overhead is almost underfoot, which is pretty hysterical when I remember my last business, which was owning an enormous nightclub/bar/live music venue, and involved nothing but overhead.

Fortunately, to balance out the fact that I spent a laughably miniscule amount of money in support of my business, I managed to earn an even more hysterically tiny amount in income. So everybody's happy. No profit, no problem.

I'm gonna hang that on my office wall.

After my idyll with my beautiful CPA who takes care of everything and makes it all ok, I went to the library to check out some books with pretty pictures of gardens and flowers and stuff, because the snow around here is driving me bat-nutzo-crazy. While I was at our charming little village library, I quickly scanned the New Releases shelf, and found...

The First Book I Ever Edited For Pay.

In its finished version, all pretty and wrapped up in its protective plastic. Of course I had to check it out of the library. Of course I have to read it and make sure I didn't miss anything. Of course I'm all teary and tremulous about it. Of course I'm retarded -- it's not like I wrote the damn thing you know.

Look! There! See?! That comma... I did that.

I love my job.