Ready or not, here it comes

Because whatever magic fairy controls Chicago's weather has a tremendous sense of humor, the temperature dropped 30 degrees from yesterday to today. Yeah, it's my fault for not looking at Weatherbug in the morning and just assuming, even though it's October, that it would still be 80 degrees, and it's equally my fault for not running back upstairs and grabbing my jacket. But still! 30 degrees in one day!

The one thing I don't miss about not working (aside from the sleep) is all this goddamn tax I have to pay. Yeah, that's better than not making any money at all, but when I'm only pulling in 450 dollars a week and I'm losing fully 18% of that - nearly a fifth! - to taxes? What the fuck is that? In particular, I don't understand how they calculate this shit. Two weeks ago I made just under 250 dollars because I only worked three days (and one was short), and my "federal w/h tax" was 7.50, or about three percent. Last week I made 450 dollars. Was the tax 13.55? No, it was not! It was 34.52! What the FUCK? Sorry, I didn't realize making 12 dollars an hour for all five days of a week instead of three put you into a higher tax bracket! Fuckers.

I can live on this kind of money, of course, but then hopefully I can eventually parlay one of these temp jobs into a full-time position that pays more than temp money.

One thing I can't do is buy things that aren't necessary and cost more than a little bit. One of these things is an iPod, which I desperately want now that I have to ride the bus for 45 minutes to an hour every day. Anyone know about off-brand MP3 players that cost less and aren't total shit? Let me know.

I just saw there's a Chipotle two doors down from the Subway at which I've been standardly eating lunch. Subway is good because it's generally low-fat and it provides ample nutrition facts. Neither is true of Chipotle, but it's so good and I haven't been in so long. Unfortunately, I have to use my "flex points" on eating at Alma's (since I'm not going to ask her mother how many points are in her egg rolls), so trying to shoehorn in even one Chipotle visit every other week will prove challenging. If I get the exercise rolling, maybe I can go.

If you made it this far, a reminder to the Lost fans that Drew and I are blogging the experience now. Yes, I managed to get Drew - Captain Anti-Blog - involved in the process. Next thing you know he'll spend 30 minutes a day writing what he had for lunch and complaining about politics.