Hola Darling Ones,

How are you? Is Spring springing where you are? It is here and I’m giving it 90% of the credit for why I keep passing the open windows. The other 10% goes to Valerie June’s “Owls, Omens, and Oracles” record mostly for the song “Joy, Joy!” and a little for that Oxford comma in the title.

It’s not been the best week here at Supergenius HQ. It started with a dental emergency and ended with doing my taxes.

Uffda!

I have a lot of shame about my Play-Doh-like teeth that have not gotten the best care throughout much of my life. While my oral hygiene is A+, my routine dental care by a professional is C- at best, more like D+. Childhood poverty, shame, lack of dental insurance are all reasons I can give for the shoddy state of my mouth. However, I know better and one of my goals for 2025 is to get my mouth in order.

Thanks to some wiggling by my back left molar that goal got started Wednesday. As I dramatically said to Mortimer while he was fucking with the Sadness Garden, “I just had a bone ripped from my face!”

A tall man (UGH, yes, I asked him how tall he was (6’6″) and hated myself for it) pulled the sucker because there was no saving it. I swear I have about six teeth left. I go back at the end of June to get those six teeth cleaned and keep working on my goal. Look at me, being all accountable to myself.

The whole thing was fine and only deemed an emergency by the dentist’s office for insurance purposes.

The tax situation is fine too, I guess? I mean, at least I can afford my tax bill without having to borrow money from my mom, so that’s nice. This year I owe about $650. So, a mortgage payment. What’s gutting is that my adjusted income was only $8,750. I think I made about $10K this year.

Seeing that number made me realize I am, in fact, poor poor. I knew the realization was coming. I’ve been cutting all frivolity from my budget — things like letting domain names expire, cancelling subscriptions, switching from my beloved Peace Coffee to whatever’s on sale, etc. These are not hardships. Domains for fictional characters I made up in my head are not a necessity.

Still. . . seeing that number – 8,750 – was a slap in the face. It makes my stomach hurt and my cheeks burn with shame. I feel like a loser, a slacker, a failure, and I hate that so much of my self-worth is tied to being a good capitalist cog.

Bleh.

I keep reminding myself that I’m ok. I’ll be ok. That I won’t be homeless 10 minutes from now. There’s still a chance I’ll get on the dole. It’ll all work out, right?

Keep passing the open windows,
Jodi

The post Poor, Poor appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

I did my taxes last night. It was not pretty.

To be fair, my taxes are never pretty. I’m a self-employed freelancer. This means I’m responsible for all of the taxes and social security and other things I probably should know.

Every year my taxes are pretty hefty and while it hurts I always remind myself about the existence of public libraries and then I don’t feel so bad paying my taxes. I love the public library, and a few days a week I rock my What’s more punk than the public library shirt. Public libraries are the best thing about this dumpster fire of a country. I’ve written about my library love before, so today I’ll write about this dumpster fire of a country.

The “health”care system in this country is fucking garbage. Straight up trash covered in barf.

It’s expensive, inefficient, and frequently inhumane.

As you well know I had a stroke last year that left me with limited ability to work. The stroke cost me roughly $21,000, and that’s just the hospital stay part. That doesn’t count follow-ups, prescriptions, and all that jazz. When I was in the hospital I was diagnosed with diabetes. I had to pay $340 out of my pocket to take a “diabetic education” class where a condescending lady saw the I was fat and told me I’d had to stop drinking Coke (I don’t drink soda) and start eating vegetables (which I already did).

Ugh. I still hate that lady.

So I did my taxes last night and my income for 2023 was $5000 less than what my stroke cost. I originally thought it was $3K, but my eyes are bad and I misread a 6 as an 8. Oh, and I still have to pay in $2500.

America!

I’m literally getting by on GoFundMe donations and the fact that I’m really good at being poor. I can’t go anywhere because I can’t drive which makes not spending money even easier. Plus, the only debt I have is medical debt.

We’re supposed to be the greatest country in the world with the best healthcare and that’s a bunch of hooey.

Today, I FINALLY got to make an appointment with a neurologist that my primary care doctor wants me to see. I took the first available appointment. It’s on August 7th.

That’s right I had to wait more than three weeks to make an appointment that’s four months away.

AMERICA!

I hate it here.

Jodi

P.S. I stole the title from the Allen Ginsberg poem “America”. If you don’t know the poem be forewarned that it uses the N-word and other racially insensitive language.

The post America Why are Your Libraries Full of Tears? appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

I’m not sure if it’s a generational thing or it’s a jodirational thing, but every time I think about my taxes Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly pops into my head and narrates all my taxation thoughts with various images from the Community Chest and Chance cards. This is probably because Monopoly was my first experience of taxes.

The other day before I had to give the first of three presentations I was so anxious I decided to distract myself by doing my taxes. This was a whole four days earlier than I planned. I was ahead of the game like an actual professional business woman. For the most part, taxes are just a pain in my ass. I’m constantly afraid I will hit the wrong button and my computer will sound the alarms and the IRS will be at my doorstep in moments to arrest me for crime.

IRS, if you’re listening, I am much too poor and stupid to do a tax crime.

Taxes only annoy me rather than enrage me, because I magical think my way into believing all my tax money goes towards funding public libraries.

So the gist of all this is I did my taxes early for the first time since like 2009. I submitted them on Tuesday and on Friday I got a notice that Scott County messed up my property tax statement. This is why you never do anything early. Ever. However, it worked in my favor because now I qualify for a rebate which will help me pay my stupid property taxes.

I hate this for me, and you. I hate that I’m a nearly fifty-year-old woman who talks about her fucking taxes. Ain’t nothing sexy about that, no matter how cute the Joan Jett shirt I’m wearing is. I should not be talking about taxes. I should be talking about the new Wet Leg record and how much I love singing the line I went to school and I got the big D. Or the recurring dream I have where a bunch of guys I went to college with are chastising me for not being prepared for moving to a new house.

Or my new Medusa shirt.
Or how I’ve started calling my favorite ginger cookies emotional support cookies.
Or how I’m a little bit in love with Rodney Mullen.
Or how the ever-rising cost of groceries is super freaking me out.
Or how I had three Random Replacements’ sightings* yesterday
Or anything else, really.

But, I talked about my boring taxes because they’ve been on my mind. Somehow there seemed to be more meat to that story than to the one about how I didn’t swear in any of my presentations even though I was really worried I was gonna and I had Rockin’ the Suburbs stuck in my head all week because of that fear.

Taxingly yours,
Jodi

 
*A Random Replacements Sighting is when you run into a reference, a mention, or a song by The Replacements when you least expect it. A man I’ve had a crush on for twenty years once told me I was inescapable because The Replacements are inescapable. I told him he should be happy because I’m a fucking delight.

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Hi Darling Ones,

Yesterday I was a twenty-two-year-old dum dum in Eau Claire with hot plans to use her financial aid money to get a tattoo at that place on Water Street and then celebrating that bonehead move by drinking bloody marys for dinner. After all, I had already made the choice between actual food and a tattoo. And who says that a pickle and two olives plus some free lemon-peppered popcorn isn’t a healthy meal? The drink had tomato juice in it. So much health.

Today I woke up and wrote a check* for my property taxes because the credit union that holds my mortgage doesn’t do escrow.

Also, I know what escrow is. Also, I have enough money in my checking account to pay my property taxes. Also, how did this all happen?

Do the granters of mortgages know I spent my very-high interest student loan money on tattoos? Apparently that doesn’t show up on your credit report. I once maxed out an entire Target credit card buying a very expensive CD-boom box in 1992. Like I think that thing cost $300 or $400. The nineties were ridiculous and so was I.

I’m not sure why paying my property taxes this month has sent me into a “where did all the time go/how did this all happen” spiral, but here we are. When I paid them in May I must have been still high on that Moderna vaccine and all the optimism it brought. Or I blocked the whole ordeal out because property taxes and income taxes were due the same day and despite my many, many plants and Funko Pops! and records, I am not made of money. I am, however, still made of stupid financial decisions.

That’s mostly a joke. The only debt I have is my mortgage and I really do live frugally. When people express admiration or awe at my angry hermit lifestyle I tell them it’s not glamourous. Sure it sounds decadent — the sleeping until I wake up, the reading books whenever I feel like it, afternoon orgasms, so many donuts. But, I make a lot of conscious decisions so I can afford this way of life. I drive a twenty-two-year-old truck that would probably qualify for collector plates if it were in better condition. I rarely eat out. I haven’t taken a vacation in like seven years.

It sounds kind of sad, but it makes me happy. I grew up in poverty and being able to pay all my bills when they’re due is still a trip. Being able to earn and save enough money for my property taxes thrills me. Of course, this is America so I’m one accident or medical catastrophe away from bankruptcy and homelessness. I’m no fool. I know how precarious this all is.

Once again this went someplace I did not intend it to go. I was gonna make funny jokes about aging and the passing of time, but instead I got all defensive about my finances. Weird. Now I’m kinda drunk on biscuits & gravy and, sadly, not bloody marys. I don’t feel like editing this into something more coherent.

Feel free to file complaints with the management,
Jodi

 
* I didn’t actually write a check. I might be an adult, but I’m not a luddite. I beep-booped that shizz into my bank’s website and they’re gonna send the property taxes to the appropriate authorities.

The post Financial Decisions appeared first on I Will Dare.

Speaking of poor economic choices. When I logged into H&R Block for tax preparation nonsense it asked me if I wanted to login with Facebook. I cannot imagine two sites I’d least like connected. In my head Facebook was fed a steady set of status updates:
Jodi Chromey entered a 1099 for $600.
Jodi Chromey entered a 1099 for $5000.
Jodi Chromey is claiming $418 for meals and entertainment expenses.
Jodi Chromey is claiming she bought a monitor for business purposes for $149.
Jodi Chromey’s taxable income for 2011 was $182.
Jodi Chromey owes a ridiculous sum of money to the IRS.

Of course, some jerky cousin or someone I used to know would like just about every other update.

Doesn’t just the thought of that make your stomach kind of jittery? Facebook + Tax Software are NOT a match made in heaven. What were they thinking? And what are the people who actually login with Facebook thinking?

Also, I thought taxes were due today so I spent a lot of time being smug about not waiting for the last minute to do my taxes but the next to the last minute.

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