In addition to specifying exactly how to report your Nobel Prize, IRS Publication 525 includes the following important note:

Illegal income. Illegal income, such as stolen or embezzled funds, must be included in your income on line 21 of Form 1040, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.

They announced (recently, perhaps today) that Howl’s voice actor in the new Ghibli movie will be Kimura Takuya.

*pause to run around squealing like the mad fangirl that I am*

I’ve had a soft spot for SMAP ever since Hime-chan.

Mom had two tales to tell while we were over for Easter.

Tale the First:
Madam Psycho-Next-Door has recently had another child. A baby girl. One day, Jeff’s friend Zach cut across the far part of their yard to get to the high school fence so he could climb over it. Madam PND’s head appeared promptly in the window and she began to scream at him for polluting her yard with his foul presence. Then she added the accusation, “You woke up my baby!”. To which Zach, not being stupid, replied, “If you hadn’t been screaming, she wouldn’t have woken up!”

Later, my mom related this story to her friend Clara. When it came time for Clara to depart, she told my mom not to pay attention. She backed her car partway down the driveway, then, ever so casually, leaned on the horn for a very long time.

Tale the Second:
The Saturday the clocks changed, Jeff and some of his friends arrived at the house around 10pm. They went into the basement where there is a computer and a large television and many many video games. Mom stayed in her room, not caring to parade around in front of everyone in her pajamas and bathrobe. After a little while, she hears the door and then the sound of the car, and she thinks that Jeff must have gone to drive everyone home. But then she still hears people in the house, so she is puzzled — until Jeff and one of the girls returns with some donuts. Ah, she thinks, they went to get a snack. A bit later they again depart and come back. And later still they leave for a final time.

But, of course, the story is not so simple as that, or else it would not be interesting. The first trip was occasioned by one of the girls getting a call on her cell — several friends of theirs, it seems, were drunk and needed a lift back to civilisation. However, after driving out to look for them, they were unable to locate the drunken fools, so purchased donuts and returned to the house. The second time, having acquired better directions, they managed to collect the intoxicated trio, who then proceeded to behave so poorly that Jeff, rather than take them all the way to their homes, was forced to expell them from his car on the side of the road.

Later, as he brought everyone back home, they passed the place where the boys had been left and found it teeming with policecars. Naturally curious, they wheeled back around to investigate. Unfortunately for them, the people living in the area had given the police a description of the car which had so rudely dumped the drunken boys on their doorsteps, and so the police pulled Jeff and his pals over, patted them down and started to take their information. And then, suddenly, they all raced back to their cop cars and took off, stealing Jeff’s keys and leaving everyone stranded on the side of the road at 2am.

At this point, mom was called and filled in on the salient details of the evening’s events. Vastly irritated [read: tired and cranky], she called the police station to demand what the hell was going on. She was informed that there was some sort of fight going on at the beach, which was what had pulled all of the police away, and that someone would be right back with the keys. Time passed and no keys were returned, but someone did take pity on the stranded kids and bring them home. So mom and Jeff headed out to retrieve his car with his spare keys, arriving again just as the police did. Everyone went home again.

Mom called the police station again to express her annoyance at this harrassment and the policeman she talked to made a curious (and possibly legally actionable) statement. He said (among other things): Kid X is a known drug dealer in the area.

Not ‘alleged’, not ’suspected’, but ‘known’. Except that Kid X has 1) never been arrested and 2) is a MINOR.

What. The. Fuck.

Scene: Easter Dinner
Starring: My brother

Jonathan: Well, I wanted to go see The Passion of the Christ, but it’s not like I could go today. The Red Sox are on.

Oh, and a Cold Stone Creamery is going in next to PF Chang’s. Yummmy.

Unfortunately, this year I’d neither the time nor the money to attend AnimeBoston. But E is working it as usual, so went down there today to have lunch with her and Carl and allow myself to be talked into taking a spin around the Dealers’ Room.

I misestimated the length of time it would take to drive in — I came in past Alewife with the original intent of parking there and taking the T to Park Street, but en route decided instead to drive all the way in and park at the garage. The weather was nice and I wanted to get some walking exercise. Unfortunately, it’s a very solid 10-15 minute walk from the garage down to the con hotel and I was late by the time I’d parked.

But I eventually arrived, sneaking in through an unexpected door to the surprise of E and Carl who were waiting at the other. Lunch was spinach, avocado and chicken quesadillas, which, in spite of being from Bennigans, were really good. Then to the Dealers’ Room, where I was exceptionally picky and resisted the lure of: Tsubasa hardcover editions, Kaidoh plushies, CCS cels and 50% off Rurouni Kenshin DVDs. But I did give in and purchase a Rat!Yuki. Because he is ever so much cuter than Wormtail.

Then departed to the car. Took a different path through the commons on the way back. Surprise: etched in a square on the cement sidewalk was Totoro! (Will have to go back with a camera at some point.) It was hot and I was dying of thirst, so I got a slurpee and then drove home.

Went to see Ella Enchanted.

Good
Cary Elwes, Hugh Dancy, Parminder Nagra, special effects

Very good
Leather Pants, interesting costumes (other than the leather pants)

Bad
Mad Shrek plagiarism, trying too hard to be clever and satiric and failing, changing things from the book when the book’s event would have been more interesting

Also saw previews for Prisoner of Azkaban [the same one where Hermione punches Draco; better on a big screen, but for some reason felt very slow moving] and Around the World in 80 Days [which I must see, because what that book REALLY needed was some NINJA ATTACKS XD XD XD]. Also notable was the preview for Shall We Dance? Will not be seeing it as it features JLo but impressed: Susan Sarandon cast as wife of Richard Gere. Has Hollywood realized that in general men tend to be wed to women of like age?

As we were driving back from the theatre last weekend we came through Cambridge by way of Mass Ave. To my eternal surprise, he turned to me upon the approach to Porter and said “I can’t see Sasuga yet, but I know it’s here.” [Though not for long. Lesigh. I wonder how much the burgeoning English manga market has cut into sales.]

I didn’t bother to hide the fact that I was startled — he is notorious for not remembering where things are, and he has never been a Sasuga customer himself. Then he went onto explain. “I always see the store there and think it says ‘White Strange Pantry’.”

So I’d mostly stopped doing WW at the end of last summer. There were many reasons for this: I’d hit a big milestone and it was hard to raise more enthusiasm to keep going; I was feeling much healthier; I could fit comfortably into a large fraction of my clothing again. So I stopped keeping track and just sort of estimating. Maintaining.

And that worked pretty well. Finally, back in January, I cancelled my online account with them because $15/month for something I wasn’t using was just a waste of funds.

But with stress and other things, I’ve been being worse recently about keeping the amount of food I eat to a more reasonble amount. And so, rather than hovering around the same weight, I was now hovering around a point 5lbs higher than that. Now, this was still much less than where I’d started, but it was enough to be noticeable. And I don’t want to be moving in the wrong direction. All of the weight related health issues have not been resolved by a long shot.

Thus, rather than continue to put it off (why?) I am now paying close attention once again to how much and what I’m eating. I’ve still got nearly 40lbs to go before I’ll actually no longer be considered overweight.

I’ve been reminded by this article that this was something I wanted to write about.

It expresses (aside from the alcoholism fears) a good number of my concerns about the mad overmedication that’s been going on in this country. This quote especially resonates with me, but also describes a lot of people.

There’s another twist. I have spent most of my life learning how to cope with my moods. I’m deeply invested in figuring out how to glean something useful from my depressions as well as learning how to manage and make the most of my periods of elation. I have found ways to minimize the damage and disruption that my periods of gloom and nameless grief can cause. My moodiness is — and has always been — my “self.” Perhaps there’s some benefit to living with, rather than medicating, my temperament. I’ve certainly learned a lot about the range of ways reality can feel. What does it mean for me to start defining myself as “mood-disordered” or “chemically imbalanced” or “borderline personality disordered” or “ADHD”?

By whose story should I live? Am I simply an especially emotionally responsive person, or have I squandered most of my life trying to compensate for biological dysfunctions that modern medicine now allows me to correct?

This is an important question. And it’s one that people don’t seem to like or want an answer for a lot of the time. My mother, for instance, started taking Paxil several years ago, for anxiety. Among other difficulties, she had found it impossible for many years to even consider driving on a highway; it was simply not something she could do any longer. She had been able to do it when she was younger, but (and this is my opinion) as a SAHM whose husband did all the driving on family trips of any length she did not need to do it on a regular basis. And so it became something unusual and thus anxiety inducing. After my father died she began taking the Paxil to try and overcome these somewhat irrational fears. And overcome them she has: she can now drive on the highway and feels freer than she has for many years. But it is a fact that she also makes herself drive on the highway on a regular basis now, and thus does not allow it to become something out of the ordinary. So was it really the Paxil or was it necessity that did the trick? Does she really need the Paxil any longer? Is it just a placebo effect? That she believes it works?

Both of my brothers were also prescribed Paxil as well. And, frankly, I am absolutely certain if I went to a doctor and asked, I could get some. Or Zoloft or something. But… that makes me uneasy.

What I do know is having spoken with mom, she believes that her and my brothers’ problems were ‘worse’ than mine because they were prescribed medicine for them. I find this attitude outrageous; she cannot know my mental state any more than I can know hers, so who is she to determine whose anxiety is really worse? Perhaps it is true and perhaps it isn’t. I’m not better than them because I haven’t taken the stuff.