Monday Miscellany or How Can I Blog About the S&P 500 Index and Kim Kardashian in the Same Post?

During my Christmas break, I actually "talked" to people and I've been such a writing hermit that I realized how out of the loop I really was. So, I set out to fix that. I started reading the New York Times again, I read three articles in Forbes and, just for balance, People Magazine--two whole pages of that.

Here's what I now know:

• The US is in deep goat poo. 

Gross generalization, but terrible and true. We're about to see a half-trillion dollar tax increase--this will affect every working American. In case you've never written a check for a half a trillion, here's how I finally was able to grasp the meaning of all those zeroes. I posted this on fb and here last year.

Start at birth and you have 0.
1 million seconds= your are 10 days old
1 billion seconds= you are 31 years old
1 trillion seconds= you've been dead for 30,000 years
10 trillion seconds (closer to the national debt figure)=you've been dead for 317,000 years
I'm not a political activist. I'm just a very scared tax payer--well, actually I'm just a writer who doesn't like the idea of leaving our kids with all this debt.

To HELP us even more, our retired and elderly are likely to see cuts in programs like Social Security. But that's okay, really. Because the senators  and representative aren't on Social Security.

• 2012 was a great year for the S&P 500 Index 

Did you invest last year? Wish I had.

• Katie Holmes is the best dressed star for the week of December 29.

• Kim Kardashian is pregnant.

Any 2013 plans for keeping up with what's going on in this world? After all of this "research" I'm going back to reading books by Alex Cavanugh, Mary Pax, Lynn Kelley, Stephen Tremp and Nancy Thompson. Then I'm going for a long hike.