I'm not sure whether Stephanie would approve or not

Today, I paid a visit to my neighborhood library. I was long overdue to pay such a call, and it was nice to reunite like this. I paid this visit to get books, of course, but there were two other factors driving my call. You see, one rather fortunate timing coincidence is that each year as I resolve to do better with the list project, I also get re-motivated to use the library for a completely unrelated reason: I get my W-2 form.

Now, I am not one of those people who opposes taxes. I'm all for the safety net, I think that one of the great failings of humanity is that in a time of such excess there can be such need, I don't think that privatization and deregulation are always the answer, etc. So in theory, don't oppose taxes. In practice, definitely resent them. To help get over my resentment, annually I vow to get the most out of my tax dollars and break even somehow. I'm pretty sure I've always been a net gain for the government, which is largely my parents' fault (though for a reason I'm always grateful for, so...).

When I first moved to DC, I thought "YES! Public transit is the way I will milk the system!" The joke was on me, though. WMATA managed to be so terrible so consistently that basically it is a punishment, not a perk (I never thought I'd be that girl who seriously contemplates, "Metro or Uber?"; life-style creep is real, y'all). Thus, I'm left with the library.

It's a bit challenging, though, to get my money's worth. I seem to have paid about $10,000 in taxes this year (that's a lot) (I may be reading my W-2 wrong) (I really hope I get a refund). If we assume about $7.5 per book (used bookstores, Project Gutenberg, Dover Thrift, etc. bringing it down), that's 1,333.3333 books to break even. I'm sure that you noticed that is sort of past my whole project goal, as it were. I need to find another way.

Now, I'm sure you are wondering how the visit went. Pretty well, I'd say! Monday is, in my opinion, a great day to visit the library since it is the day they are open late, and thus the day I can actually, you know, visit the library.

Though, as I walked in I had to pass a tiny little 20-something librarian yelling at four much bigger teenage guys about their refusal to stop eating candy in the library. I, of course, am on her side: I want a candy-free library as much as the next person, and for multiple reasons I identify with her and not them (I am much more likely to be on the side of impotently trying to enforce arbitrary rules than blatantly and obnoxiously defying them). That said, however, honey, you really lose a lot of your authority when you start screaming in a high-pitched voice to the other librarian about it.

This random, stream-of-consciousness post is brought to you by lonely winter nights when Josh isn't here to entertain me.