☆paging doctor gorgeous☆

Oh my GOD.

I spent hours trying to get my taxes done today, and I don't know why it got so complicated, because it's just a simple W-2. I should have been able to just type in the numbers from all the boxes and be done, right? WRONG.

I ended up owing on Federal, which doesn't make any sense??? Again, it's just a simple W-2. I worked for the same business January through December, no deductions, no weird shit. Just very simple and straight forward. It was also telling me I owed almost a thousand dollars to the state, also? Which, like...??? No??? Why???

I took the time to painstakingly enter all my information in three separate services, trying to find a) some numbers I actually agreed with, and b) which service would try to screw me over the least in terms of fees. I started out with the Free Edition on all three, and of course wouldn't you know it, by the end all of them claimed the only way they could file my returns for me is if I paid extra.

ANYWAY. This stupid health insurance form kept throwing up errors. "There is a zero here! There can't be a zero here! Refer to your healthcare marketplace tax form 1095-A!" I referred to the form. Zeroes. "But you have to enter the amount of the monthly premium for every month! Why for you have zeroes in January?"

Consult form. Because I was not covered by insurance during the month of January. Hey, I already clicked the little box that said I was only covered for some of the year. I even clicked all the little ticky boxes of the months that I was covered for. You already know I wasn't covered in January.

"But it can't be zero!!! Please fix or we cannot submit return!!!"

I called my healthcare marketplace. As you can imagine, I was on hold for a long time. They said they didn't know why my taxes couldn't be filed but confirmed I was in fact not covered for January and that the zero amounts in that column were correct. I called the provider of my healthcare for last year to see if maybe I was still covered over there in January. Yes, yes I was! But then my tax software provided absolutely no option for noting that in 2024, I was covered by two separate healthcare companies.

I have never wanted to cry and scream while doing my taxes before, not even when I was self-employed.

Fortunately, because TurboTax said they needed one (1) extra form to file my return, and I was no longer eligible for Free Edition and had to pay, the upgrade did include the ability to call a tax specialist and get help. The woman I was connected with was very nice and patient and helpful, shared screens with me, and was able to help me finally submit my returns (which have now already been accepted, thank FUCK).

I spent over four hours trying to get my taxes done today. My brain is fried, my blood pressure is probably still up, and I feel like I wasted a lot of my afternoon where I could have been getting other things done. I'm also pissed that I owe. It's not a lot, but what the fuck? People with simple W-2s are supposed to get a tax return! No one can explain to me why I get nothing.

But they are DONE.

And, on the upside, my Valentine package from Blair showed up this evening, containing a beautiful, high quality water bottle (I've been wanting a nice one), and some red velvet cookie sandwiches, along with a beautiful card that made me cry, and accompanying lipstick kiss print and spritz of her perfume. Mmmm, I love her so much and am loved by her in return. <3

I've been sleeping poorly and spending all my free time googling apartment rentals and roommate ads, and I'm not finding anything useful. My god, imagine charging $900-1000 a month for a tiny ass 10 x 10 room and then charging utilities on top of that and then telling your potential tenant that they also have to still share a bathroom.

It is so depressing how greedy and delusional people are. It's insane to see how much people think things are worth. And that's just private home owners renting out rooms in their house. Actual corporations that own and run apartment buildings will charge even more than that, plus a deposit, and then demand that a potential tenant makes three times the cost of rent.

Sweetheart. Baby. Darling. If I made $4,000 a month I would not need to live in a shitty studio in a bad neighborhood.

My maybe-good news I mentioned last time was that my mother got in touch with a cousin of hers (which makes this my second cousin?) and got us in contact with one another. I haven't seen this woman since I was about twelve or so! Anyway, she has a home in a 55+ community and invited me to move in with her for a very reasonable price, and I was ready to jump on that, but unfortunately because I am myself not at least 45 years old, I can't stay with my cousin for longer than sixty days, because that's the rules of the 55+ community.

It's bad news, but it's good that I know for sure I can at least live there for two months, which is not unsubstantial! While I figure out what to do next. Besides, maybe I can squeeze a little more time out of it if nobody is going around actively enforcing that rule, you know? She said her neighbor's 30-something daughters have been living there for months, so? Maybe there's some sort of loophole or technicality. We're not sure. But she did say she would work on things behind the scenes, and that we will catch up later.

Things feel a little awkward around here. I'm still not talking to my roommates much, except in passing. I'm not rude about it, or short with them, it's just that they've been busy planning their wedding and I've been busy with my nose stuck in google and my headphones on, and we haven't really had any chats.

I have a lot of phone calls to make in the morning. SIGH.

IS2G it never ends.

Just a long string of inconveniences.

First I get home from vacation and I get really sick, then the fiasco with food getting left in my baking hot car for a week, then the rear driver's side window breaking, then my laptop almost exploding, and now my tire pressure sensor is on and one of my front tires looks very low like I definitely punctured it or in some other way developed a serious leak.

I've got to get my car to the tire center tomorrow, which is about 15 minutes away. Just gotta get there without anything bad happening, and they will assess/fix my tire for free (they do that, if you originally bought your tires from them). I'm really hoping I don't need new tires because yo I cannot afford that right now but also I've had these ones on there for a really really long time so honestly? It's probably time.

In other news, I'm about halfway through a new movie called Trap. Since it's an M. Night Shyamalan movie I know there will be a twist here someplace that will determine whether or not I end up liking it as a whole, but it's definitely keeping me riveted so far!

In other other news, at the store I found, of all things, S'mores flavored instant ramen and I could not resist buying one to try. I opened it and found tiny marshmallows inside, and chocolate powder. It's literally ramen noodles in chocolate water and mini marshmallows and I expected it to be nasty but y'all it's not. I'm so bewildered. I actually want to pick up a couple more???