One more round of proofreading, and the Busy Period draws to a close. This will be followed by a Fallow Period, then a Broke Period, then a Panic Period, followed by another Busy Period.

Ah, the circle of life.

My goal is to become John Scalzi, freelancer and blogger, who just revealed the shocking news — to me, anyway — that he typically tops 100K in a single year. Most of it, he says, is for “corporate work,” which may have the disadvantage of being highly boring, but hey — cash money has a way of taking the sting away.

(Note: This Busy Period will also be followed by a Housecleaning Period; a tumbleweed of dog hair just blew past my feet near the kitchen door. And the sunshine is bright and clear today, revelatory of every flaw in my rather lackadaisical housekeeping. Best start Swiffering. Today.)

So what’s on the agenda on this unscheduled Wednesday? How about a little Sopranos dish?

I think David Chase writes these shows with all the high-quality screenwriting bells and whistles, including Big Themes and Seasonal Arcs. In the past, they’ve been, of course, the Nature of Good and Evil, Corruption, the Bystanders, etc. We’ve had it shown to us time and again, starting in season two, that Tony is not just a big suburban shlub with an unusual line of work and a fondness for animals, but a true monster, bred by monsters, breeding more monsters, fouling all that he touches. If some mobster entertainments have taken pains to show these guys are only playing a game that everyone enters with open eyes, give “The Sopranos” credit for showing that there really are innocents in “our thing.”

Look at what being a Soprano has done for Tony’s children. Remember the second-season plotline with David Scatino, Tony’s old high-school buddy with the sporting-goods store? Scatino joins Tony’s “executive card game,” loses big and opens the door for a bust-out of his business. Tony takes Scatino’s kid’s car in partial payment and tries to make a gift of it to Meadow, who rejects it — she knows it belongs to one of her classmates. But when that classmate, Eric, yells at her about his father’s indebtedness to her father, she defends him. Daddy’s girl, and not even out of high school.

This season, I suspect, will be All About Choice. And I think the person to watch will be Carmela, who has obviously found the salve for her tortured conscience, and it has lots and lots of zeros on the end. Because I saw a lot of old episodes in the run-up to this one, I remembered the one where Tony buys her a giant sapphire ring for her birthday, out of guilt over his new mistress. She knows what’s behind it, not the specifics, but the general idea, and can’t look at the ring without a little frown, and finally puts it away in her dresser drawer.

But look at how she pees her pants when Tony gives her a new Porsche Cayenne in the first episode, how she flaunts it to her less-fortunate friends. No more tortured confessions to Father Phil for her. She’s decided a possible eternity in hell is nothing compared to a lifetime of Manolo Blahnik shoes.

And I suspect the last victim will be revealed this season, and it will be A.J. He’s the last one left who’s still somewhat salvageable, if only because he’s dumb enough that he could be steered in another direction. But he never had a father to do that, and his mother just gave up the job, too.

I like his new hair this season. He’ll make a fine mobster. Discuss.

Of course everything there is good to say about “Big Love” is now a cup of thin gruel, because “The Sopranos” rocked the llama’s ass last night. I mean. Discuss.

P.S. Thank God for DVRs.

I watch less TV than you may think, reading this space. Sunday nights on HBO are pretty much my only appointment viewing, and everything else pops up on my screen when I’m too tired to do much of anything else. However, it seems I write about everything I watch, so.

Last night we watched the American Idol audition show. God knows why, but it seemed like the closest thing to family TV on in the 8 p.m. time slot, and Kate thinks Simon is funny. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with some of the people we saw and the things they said, bleeped or not, and I’m relieved they saved Rhonetta for the last moments of the 9 o’clock hour, by which time Kate was long abed. But on the whole, it was amusing to see the parade of Idol aspirants and their atrocious singing. Where did they ever get the idea they were good at it? Bad shower acoustics, or karaoke? Or do they know they suck, and are just hoping to get a particularly pungent poke from Simon? I know that’s why I’d be there.

Anyway, I think Tom Shales gets it just right: ‘Idol’ is the newest reiteration of American vaudeville. We can’t throw rotten tomatoes, so Simon does it for us.

Something else I’ve been watching lately: “Sopranos” reruns. HBO is showing the last season and the earliest ones on two different nights. I’m struck, watching the first two seasons from a distance of five years or so, how clearly you see the shift in David Chase’s writing (or instructions to the writers). About a third of the way through season two, you can see where he got fed up with hearing critics and viewers describe Tony as a nice guy, and started underlining precisely what he is — not a nice guy. Not nice at all. The season two wrapup, which ends with a Mafia-movie cliche, a montage of evil images intercut with the crime boss’ above-board, “good” life, was particularly well-done (for a cliche). All the season’s plot lines were wrapped up, in a parade of lonely images that were all aftermath, after Tony has done his dirty work — Meadow’s friend’s father, packing up his car to start his life over as a ranch hand, after Tony busted out his business over gambling debts; the junkie nodding out in the lobby of the Hasidic-run hotel, once a respectable business, now a whore’s nest; the parade of lonesome losers going in and out of the porno book stores; and, finally, the waves crashing on the shore, under which Tony’s best friend, Big Pussy the FBI informant, sleeps with the fishes, sent there by Tony Himself.

I think the series could have ended right there. But I’m glad it didn’t. I think the further explorations of how the evil permeates his life and corrupts everything it touches — his wife, his children — were worthwhile. Over and over again, Tony sees this — the episode where he briefly adopts his late father’s mistress was wonderful — but can’t quite accept it, and chooses to turn away. It’s the choice that kills you.