My Favorite Things

As I mentioned in my first post, my girlfriend El has been blogging for years. Her site is over at erigby.com, and she kindly mentioned my humble page a couple of weeks ago. She occasionally mentions me in her posts including snippets of our more humorous conversations covering such wide topics as dorkiness, post titles, and personality types. Of course, not all of our conversations make one of her posts. In response to my comments on her television viewing habits, she told me that she does not actively follow the Ghost Whisperer. I know that she likes to have the TV on for background noise particularly while she is busy in the kitchen or on her computer. She ends up on the Ghost Whisperer because it always seems to be on. Reruns of the show are in constant rotation on SyFy, WE and ION networks. I think she is also fascinated by Jennifer Love Hewitt's (a.k.a. J-Love or some such) complete lack of acting ability. Of course, J-Love is also know for lacking of any discernible musical ability.

There are only two things that El and her family really know that I like. Those two favorite things of mine being books and beer. On gift-giving occasions, El's family tends to give me books, beer, and of course, books on beer. That is pretty fine by me. This past Christmas, El's mom gave me When We Were Wolves which is a collection of short stories by Jon Billman who is suppose to be an up-and-coming new author. The stories that he spins are based in the western United States, primarily in Wyoming, but also in Utah, Montana and South Dakota. The eponymous story involves a hockey team from a Wyoming state penitentiary and their coach who is the prison's priest. Other stories cover trout fishing, smuggling honey out of and alcohol into Utah (the Beehive State), and passing time with idle U.S. Forest Service firefighters. All in all, the stories opened doors to ways of life that were outside my personal experience, and yet in some ways, quite familiar.

In other news, I was chatting with my friend Alan today, and we were discussing doing our taxes. Two months ago, Alan's wife gave birth to their first baby, a little girl name Ashlee. Alan mentioned how they get to claim Ashlee as a dependent for the whole of 2009 even though she was only born in mid-November. Of course, he did not so much care for my idea that newborns should be prorated as dependents for tax purposes. Then again, I also think tax credits for children should be dropped in favor of child luxury taxes.