[Seth Says] IRS: It Really Sucks!

Hi there, kids! 

I've used the same picture as last fortnight. I'd love to be responsible for bringing the word fortnight back into the common parlance, but sadly a certain video game has already done that. Albeit misspelled. (A word that, itself, looks misspelled.) Then again, I'm sure many kids grew up spelling fruit as F R O O T, thanks to a certainly overly sugared breakfast cereal. (Of course, I'm referring to Lucky Charms. Eat enough of those sugar marshmallows, you won't spell anything right.)

I forget if I mentioned that one of the original names I considered for this email newsletter was "Seth and Taxes". But then I thought, why would I want to have people associate me with ANOTHER unavoidable annoying thing, aside from bad puns? Oh, which reminds me: Why don't they smoke tobacco in Canterbury? Because they only have chaw, sir.

Anyway, taxes! That's the topic of one of...
 

Doubling down on the fortnightly! It's just a fun word. Maybe I'd like months more if they were castledays. I dunno, I was a sucker for medieval times as a kid. Chainmail and morningstars, what's not to love? Of course, if I was actually alive in medieval times, I doubt I'd be a knight. I'd probably be a dead jester, who maybe went too far in insulting the king. Also, the fact that I said, "If I were alive in medieval times, I'd be dead" totally proves that jester is the right job for me. 

In spite of all that though, I don't actually like pranks. Quite dislike them, in fact. Hence my column last week: Pranks, But No Pranks

Of course, one thing I like even less than pranks is taxes. Taxes are, of course, terribly necessary, but also unnecessarily terrible. I get a bit more into specifics in my latest column, an open letter to MA State Legislators suggesting that they adopt a return-free filing system and make our state into Easy Taxachusetts.

Even had someone from a political coalition email me after that column. But he wanted to have a phone call, and if there's one thing I like less than pranks and taxes...

It's murder.
 

April is National Poetry Month, and so like every year, I've been doing the 30/30 challenge where I try to write a poem a day all month long. Since I haven't written much poetry since last April, this is a very useful event for me, since it pushes me to actually write poems, instead of only writing things I'm being paid for. Samuel Johnson might call me a blockhead, but I did gather some of my favorite poems from the last few years into a book:
The Disapproval Of My Toaster

Thanks again to those of you who have already read it, especially those of you who have enjoyed it and told me so. It's not clear to me if I will ever put out a second poetry book, but I have still been writing my daily poems this month; here's the one I wrote yesterday:

*_*_*

"The American Dream"

While walking in my neighborhood,
Just a few streets over,
I came across a house
With a white picket fence
And an American flag
Flying proudly behind it.
And I thought to myself,
"Look, it's the American Dream!
They probably have 2.3 children!"
And then I saw
That the corner fencepost
Looked like it had exploded
Or at least
Had received a shotgun blast
From the inside
Because there was a giant hole in the center
With the surrounding material
Bent outwards and away
Which is when I realized
The white picket fence
Was actually made of plastic
And was hollow
And I thought to myself,
"Look, it's the American Dream!
That's just perfect. 
I should write a poem about it.
But it's so on the nose
That if I put it in a poem
no one would believe it."
But I did anyway
Because it's true
And if you come walking with me next week
I will god damn show you.

*_*_*

Truth. Truth truth truth, truth. Truth truth truth truth truth, truth truth.
 

In addition to the hollow fence being an actual thing I encountered up the street, it's also true that with weather warming once again, I hope to resume walking more regularly. So while I'm still avoiding indoor socializing, if any of you friends who are local (or who will be temporarily local during times I exist) care to join me for a stroll, drop me a line and let me know.

Thanks as always for reading my fortnightly missive, and tune in next fortnight for another pair of columns from yours truly.

Yours Truly,
Seth

P.S.  Truth! Truth truth truth!