March 2, 2002 I so don't get how they can do the shit they're doing. For money we made in California, we're getting charged the same rate of taxes as for our federal taxes. What sucks about that is that despite the fact that when living in California, we were butt-poor, we're having to pay like a lot o' moolah. I think that legally, it could be challenged, in that one could say that California is charging taxes on income not earned within the confines of their state, but it's only $219, so I'm paying them this one last time and then I'm thumbing my nose at them next year. They can't charge me shit next year. In fact, they'll be refunding my $12 and I'll be waiting around with a rolling pin for someone to try and tell me that I can't have it. Taxation without representation sucks. The federal taxes were sort of easy, but they've got a lot of law changes. However, I found it a lot more simple to contend with the federal taxes than the state taxes which have columns A-E to fill out. Can you say way daunting? I think the thing that has been the biggest hitch in all of this is that you have to refer to about 5 different documents at once and they're all pdf files. So you're basically learning all about minimizing and maximizing files with terribly similar names and terribly similar formats. I finally decided I'd just get a federal tax booklet to make my life easier. I went to the library, the post office, and a local tax preparer's office. No one had a stinking tax booklet. One of the tax guys at the preparer's office apparently moonlights as a post office guy and he called his post office and asked if they had books. So we drove 45 minutes on winding mountain roads and got the stupid tax book. This in and of itself wasn't too bad. The scenery was breathtaking and the snow melting was kind of reassuring. Spring is just around the corner and all. It's just that I have to remember to pack everyone's drugs including my own. Lately, I feel like a walking pharmacy. So many drugs and things to do to care for myself. It sucks. I packed my needles, my insulin, glucometer, prednisone, and remembered Bear's ritalin. After lunch, when I went to poke my finger for blood to see how much insulin to pull up, I couldn't get blood at first. We're in the mountains, it's cold and I wasn't bleeding. I kept having to squeeze my finger (no, not *pull* my finger) and then I kept getting readings like 75-85, which after a meal and prednisone were well nigh impossible, which meant that the squeezing was a bad thing. Then as I'm trying to get stuff ready, Mike's harrying me impatiently and I'm trying to hurry and hold my fingers right to get the needed drop of blood. By this time, I've poked myself three times in an attempt to get a bleeder, so my phalanges were veritable pincushions. Then they decided to bleed, and I had blood all over my hands. (Echoes of Lady Macbeth -- "Out, out, damned spot.")I get in the car and try one last time with all these bleeding fingers to get a reading and finally get something more reasonable. I inject the needed insulin and off we go. I was sucking blood off my fingers for half an hour -- self vampiring...must be a freakish name for that. Then tonight, I couldn't find the stupid bloodkit from the car. I finally found the yucky backup one that always gives me errors and got a reading for my insulin after dinner. The finger poker on that one just pricks really hard, i.e., hurts like hell. I had this big gob of blood running down the end of my finger and about drowning my stick. Of course it took me a few tries to get the damned thing to give me a reading without giving me an error message. Some days, I really hate this lifetime disease shit. I really really do. I still haven't been able to get back to walking, but I think tomorrow is likely. I wasn't so gaspy, coughy today, so if I actually sleep tonight and the breathing holds, I'll try a half hour walk tomorrow. If I still feel good a few hours after I walk, I'll try another half hour later in the day. All, I know is I'm exhausted, so I'm going to bed.
| ||||
