Take It To The Taxman

Events of eventfulness in recent days include:

Getting our taxes back from the tax guy. The terror I feel holding that envelope is unlike any I’ve felt since, oh, applying for colleges, or my first two or three ever rejection letters . (Or, well, last year, holding the envelope from the tax guy. Or the year before that. Or…) But in the end, the damage wasn’t too extensive. We owe a bit less than my own best-case-scenario back-of-an-envelope calculation suggested, which means we can actually afford to pay taxes without going to a guy named Slick Eddie and taking out a loan with kneecap collateral. (Because as bad as it is to owe Slick Eddie, it’s better than owing the government. The government doesn’t screw around.) Don’t get me wrong, paying what we owe pretty well wipes out my savings, but that’s fine. Having no money in the bank is pretty typical. And now that’s done for another year, at least. For once I’m not paying last year’s taxes with this year’s income, which is a nice change.

I wrote: only about 8,000 words over the weekend instead of the 10K I’d hoped for, but it’s fine. They’re good words, and I should still finish the first draft in a week or so. I think the book’s structure is solid, so revision should be limited to cleaning up character stuff, seeding in some foreshadowing, line-editing, etc.

I played video games: still playing Oblivion, a game which contains vastnesses. I did the Mage Guild quest-line this weekend, and am now the Arch-Mage. Nothing like shooting necromancers in the back with arrows and blasting liches in the face with magical fire. Quite satisfying.

I played with my kid: he is awesome. He actually spontaneously apologized to his mother after he had a tantrumy tired freak-out meltdown. He was all screams and kicking, and after he calmed down, he said, “I’m sorry I yelled mommy,” and went on to specifically apologize for the specific things he’d yelled at her about. We were stunned. We always try to tell him we’re sorry if we do mean loud things, and apparently that’s made an impression on him.

So, really, another wonderful weekend. Library books were acquired, and brunch was eaten (at La Note — yum), and the kid and I dug in the muddy back yard and discussed the beneficial qualities of earthworms, and generally enjoyed life.