At tax time, the stacks of papers explode and go everywhere.

For me, doing taxes is like one of those little puzzles where you have to slide the numbered tiles around. It’s pretty much a 15-hour task every time. I start at one little corner and something sets me off looking for a statement or receipt. And then I discover some other items that need doing, filing, entering, shredding or ignoring into a special pile for later. And so on. Until the room looks like a puzzle of piles of paper. That’s when I start staring off into space, dreaming about having a goat farm in northern Sonoma, making cheese, maybe some olive trees, and some quince…

So it’s no wonder I haven’t been posting much, or getting much of anything else done. As previously reported, the highly sophisticated procrastination involved in all this takes huge amounts of mental energy. The good news is that I actually managed to complete and file the goddamn taxes tonight. Not only that, we’re getting money back. The bad news is that I still have my mom’s taxes to do. And that won’t be easy without the the SSA 1099. I wonder if I’ll be able to get anyone on the phone at the Social Security office tomorrow… or what the price of land around Guerneville is these days…