What do you DO?

Who's asking: My neighbor Monte

Too damn much, is what, and I need to raise my rates. But this is one of those questions that people never really want the answer to, because it's too hard to explain and their eyes glaze over.

I am a writer, researcher and editor for a wide range of clients. This week my projects included a market research report, a couple of newsletters, a draft of Congressional testimony for a nonprofit organization, and website maintenance and strategy for a bestselling author. Still on my to-do list for the week are a proposal to draft marketing materials for a corporate training program and the editing of an author's work-in-progress.

Not all of these things will get done between now and 4:00 p.m., when I plan to meet Mrs. Lechner for margaritas on the deck at Gritty's in Freeport. But I'm working as hard as I can.

What I Read This Week (and now you know why this list is short)

Christopher Buckley, Boomsday. At a dinner in Washington last week, four of us (age range 36-41) were ranting about the fact that our society is starting to look like ancient Egypt, putting a disproportionate and unsustainable (and growing) percentage of resources into its least productive citizens. My friend Megan said, "Hey, have you read Boomsday?" Christopher Buckley's latest satire is about this very issue, and is so angry and brilliant and funny that I want to require every Presidential candidate to read it. 30ish PR executive and blogger Cassandra Devine is obsessed with the fact that her generation is being forced to pay for the excesses of the baby boomers, and offers a simple proposal: Voluntary Transitioning, which would save Social Security by offering massive tax breaks to those who choose suicide at age 70. She's not serious -- not really -- but the proposal takes on a life of its own, and Buckley plays it out with a story that's only too plausible.