On a spree of productivity, I decided to do my taxes. I have a fellowship which means that they are weird and tax it but don’t actually take out the taxes for you during the year. It’s weird and awful because that means that I have to take out taxes myself and pay estimated taxes every 3 months. Wait, no, every 2-4 months because the government is quirky and for some reason has something against making it in standard three month intervals. It makes it super frustrating when you have to save up 3 months worth of taxes during a 2-month period. Anyway. I’ve been a good kid. I paid all of my estimated taxes for the federal government. Despite my attempt at diligence, I missed paying a wee bit of taxes for an awkward transition period between switching from University of Washington to Michigan State. On top of that, I forgot that Michigan has income tax as opposed to Seattle which just has a higher sales tax and no income tax at all.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not opposed to taxes. I get it. They pay for important things. But oh my goodness, it sucks. I’m glad that I decided to put some money in savings because I can now turn around it use it to pay my taxes. Otherwise, I’m not entirely sure what I would have done. The most frustrating part of the entire thing is that while I’m filling out of my state taxes online, I get a notice at the end that tells me that the state isn’t done putting together it’s tax forms for the year so I can’t file my taxes yet. I kind of feel like that should have maybe been finished… say… at least at the end of December. Come on, why do they have to prolong my suffering? Can’t I just empty my savings account now and have it be done with? Don’t they want my money now? Goodness.
In other news, I had my first can of Coca Cola in a long time (which may or may not have just been a couple of weeks). It was delicious. I even paced myself so I didn’t finish the whole thing in one gulp. I’m actually quite surprised that I made it this long. I ate lettuce last night like it was a bowl of chips. What is wrong with me???
Now onto spiders. If you know me, you know that I have paralyzing arachnophobia. If you know me really well, you know my reasons are legit. Anyway. It’s been getting better over the years. It used to be such that if there was a teeny tiny spider in a corner, I couldn’t even be in the room (of course, after I got over standing there rigidly in fear, afraid to move). When I moved into my current apartment, it was spider city during the summer. Every single room had them in the corners, and despite my best efforts with my bugzooka, I could never beat it. So, I learned to pretend that they didn’t exist, and therefore, we could coexist. Yes, I had the friends that told me that I was selecting for the most hardy spider when I left them all in the bugzooka or that if I didn’t kill the ones in the corners, they would get larger and again, I’d be selecting for the best spiders. It was a good system for me though, and that’s all that mattered.
Now, today, at 4AM, I decided to get up and take a shower. There was a spider in the shower. Normally, I would either kill it or just not take a shower at the time, waiting it out. Today, I decided I could just get in and watch it. If it moved close to me, I’d kill it with water. I’d make sure I didn’t accidentally get shampoo in my eyes and then I wouldn’t ever have to close them.
A crazy thing happened. The spider had long legs. When the water was on, it kept shakily trying to move, and it kept failing. Honestly, it looked like it was scared with the way that it was shaking. I’ve been super scared of spiders for over 20+ years, and this spider had my sympathy. I found myself actually hoping that it would get out of the way.
It died. It got caught in a stream of water and drowned. Admittedly, I jumped in fear when it fell to the floor. You know what, though? That is a big step for me to be able to stand there and breathe through the fear and rationally think about it. It feels nice. It’s probably just the adrenaline, but hey, a girl’s got to drive home and I can use all the adrenaline to get me there.