$38

Can we talk? Just a little thing really, as I gratefully type on my new laptop? I really should think about this before I say it.

It's petulant, somewhat...

especially since I'm grateful, really for all the discomfort I've avoided this year -- and how I am and was so well taken care of while I was out of work this summer and I didn't suffer -- which is different from being grateful for all I've received, which is a lot mind you.

Ok, oh, alright, I'll make a list.

I drive weekdays to a job, which I didn't have in the summer in a car that I have salary enough to pay for. I work for a company that has profit sharing, paid vacation, sick leave, insurance...

On weekends I sleep in on Saturdays, and sometimes I have a meeting or work on a set, or rehearse for either my theatre company or someone else's. Often, I go to the theatre, dinner, a movie or any combination of the above in the same weekend. On Sundays, I actually have to warn the youngest beast boy if we're not going to church so that he won't be surprised and terribly disappointed. I annually tithe to my church more than a middle class family makes in a year in Singapore -- and after placing my check in the offering basket and enjoying the music from some of our city's finest talent, I usually go out to lunch.

On weekends I also do portraiture -- using my not so cheap camera and lighting equipment and while my fees for one session would feed a child for a year in Bangladesh, they're very reasonable here in our country.

I am grateful for a frankly, huge, HDTV and the other tv's in two of our three bedrooms in a house on which there is no foreclosure. Everyone is healthy, and even though I've got palpitations caused by anemia... well... we're pretty sure there's a very manageable fix for it.

By most of the world's standards , my car is a honker -- a Mazda6 with a V6 engine that I am able to fill up twice monthly with exorbitantly priced gasoline that is made from a world resource that the next generation may not get to use.

I have satellite, high speed internet, wireless, food in the fridge, heat when it's cold and air when it's hot (which in this part of the world, at this time of year, happens in the same day.) Two dogs that are fed very well -- go Zeta! -- wonderful clothes to wear...

A loving friend, partner and Sexy Beast, and Beast Boys who have never had to, out of necessity, go hungry, without clothing, shelter, or warmth.

I am blessed with friends galore, a loving community that accepts me as I am, and a family that does, too.

Why am I so freekin' pissed that I have to pay the IRS $38???

ARggghhhhhhhhhhhh....

...what IS that???