My Upcoming Week Without Meat
Filed Under: My Writing, personal
Starting today, I am going to attempt to live a week without eating any animal flesh. I’m not going vegan, but I want to see if my tastes have broadened enough that I can get by on fruits, nuts, veggies, cheese, and bread. We just stocked our fridge with a small jungle of fruits. I imagine some of you have some questions about this.
Why are you doing this? Aren’t you practically a carnivore?
Yes. I love meat. I famously love meat. How many other people do you know that keep a running tally of the number of species they have eaten? (In fairness, I keep a list of what has bitten me too). And I find ethical ideas about not eating meat mostly suspect (all food is alive, unless we find a way to consume raw carbon). I’m not doing this because I care deeply about cows or chickens. This is about putting myself in an uncomfortable situation and seeing how I do. Challenging myself to make do with a different kind of food than I would usually take.
And for my health. If I could adjust my diet to have less meat, I’m likely to live longer. This is really kind of what I am aiming at, beyond the nebulous goals of personal growth.
Why should Catholics have all the fun of giving stuff up for a period of time? I want to play too.
Cheese? You’re eating cheese? I bet you’re eating eggs too, you MONSTER.
That’s right. The only thing I love more than meat is cheese. I will never give it up. Abandon all hope, ye who think you can convert me to veganism. In fact, there’s a 95% certainty I’ll go right back to meat again next Sunday.
No offense. I respect you non-meat-eating folks. Anyone who can decide, deliberately and willfully, “I will never eat bacon again in my entire life” after having tasted it even once, is a tougher mofo than I am.
Can I send you some vegetarian/vegan recipes to help you out?
Sure! Drop me an email or use the contact form. If I try it and like it, I’ll write it up on the blog. Here are some caveats though; I won’t eat lettuce or onions (I do eat baby spinach though). I very much like fruit more than vegetables, but when I do eat vegetables, I mostly prefer them cooked.
Ha! There’s no way you’re going to make it through the week. Can we start placing bets on when you give up and go to McDonalds?
Sure, use the comments session and place your bets. It’s entirely possible that I will fail. I have no idea if I have the willpower to make this work or not. Again, it’s an experiment to see how I do. I’m not sure that a lapse will really be a failure. Just an indication that I don’t do “extremes” well.
Do you have plans to tinker weirdly with other aspects of your life?
Yep. I have a lot of ideas of one week life-shifting projects that I want to attempt in the name of SCIENCE! It should all make lovely blog fodder as well. So that’s a bonus.
Wanted: Sigma 50-500mm for Olympus Four Thirds
Filed Under: Photography, personal
ETA: I heard from Sigma and they’re hooking me up with a way to purchase a lens. Thanks everyone!
Tobias Buckell suggested I post this on my blog, so here goes. I’m looking to buy a Sigma 50-500mm lens for my camera. I’ve in fact been saving and scraping to get this lens for 2 years now. Frankly, I need more reach to continue to grow in the direction I want as a photographer.
My problem is, all the usual retailers, Amazon, B&H Photo, Adorama, and so on, have the lens listed as “backordered.” I found one place, Unique Photo, that had it listed, and I placed my order despite not knowing anything about them. What do you know, they don’t have it, they cancel my order and send me an email telling me that the lens has been discontinued. Funny, the Sigma website doesn’t mention that. That’s the first and last time I’ll order via them. They were the ONLY ones listing it on froogle.
Anyone know where I can get one of these lenses? Slightly used even would be fine. I am not paying $400 more to buy the one on eBay listed from Hong Kong–that pushes it out of my range.
This is ridiculous that I’m in tears over this. It’s just a stupid lens. But it makes me feel like I should never actually try to save for anything, because if I do, by the time I can afford it, I won’t be able to find it anywhere. It’s the first god damned time in my life I showed some financial restraint over something I really, really wanted. And right now, it’s as if the lens never even existed. Guess I learned my lesson.
Freelance Tax Annoyances
Filed Under: Uncategorized
I’m paranoid about taxes. I’m constantly afraid that I’m going to end up magically owing twice what I think I owe to the point where I save nearly every penny in anticipation of the tax bill. Freelancer taxes are really screwed up, you see. Sure, we get to deduct a lot of things like home office space, but we end up paying double the social security/medicare taxes that the employed pay, because the employer pays half of that usually. And then there’s the state income taxes, and the federal income taxes, which are normal, except we don’t have the luxury of having them withheld for us.
I was not set up this year to pay estimated taxes because I had not intended when I started out to be freelancing for the entire year. I spent half the year looking for a job before finally giving up on that and settling into being a full time freelance designer. I’ve done alright for myself in those last 6 months. But I’m looking at my savings and knowing that a considerable chunk of it is owed in taxes. How much exactly is what I would like to know. I don’t even begin to understand how the tax system truly works.
That’s all a long way of getting around to saying, I file early every year. As soon as I have the paperwork. I almost never fail to have my taxes done by the second week of February. This year, I’m not sure what to do, because of a bunch of 1099 forms from my clients are slow to arrive. Several have not even been sent yet, despite the fact that the government requires that 1099s be mailed no later than January 31st. Now, I have very detailed records of my income thanks to using fantastic invoicing software. I don’t need the 1099s to know what I made. But I think the government expects me to send them in.
Any tax experts out there know what the requirements are regarding 1099s that are so damned slow in arriving? If I report the income myself, does it matter if I don’t send a 1099 that didn’t come in time?
Ugh. It’s enough to give me an ulcer. You know, it’s not like freelancers don’t have enough to worry about. The complete lack of income security is plenty!
Ahem
Filed Under: Site News
So in my last post, I said that it’s rare to let my blog go without an update for 3 weeks. Today’s the one month anniversary of that post. So I set a new record. Yay for me?
I guess when I gave up writing, I *really* gave up writing. I hadn’t intended to stop blogging, but here we are. I need a fresh start in blogging anyway. My interests have changed a bit, or at least the focus has.
So. Another filler post just to say that I am still here, and that I still think about you all. I miss your attention.
Remember that I’m posting a photo a day over here though, so if you want to keep up on at least one of my projects, there you go.
At this point, it’s clear I shouldn’t have set up a different blog to run the 365 project. Lesson learned.
