Now That's Taxing

VendingMachineRoom, originally uploaded by carolsLittleWorld.

In the “gee, there’s nothing like waiting until the absolute last minute” department, I have yet to file my taxes. Now, I know what you’re thinking (“She’s not going to make it. She’s lazy and she’s not going to make it. Idiot should have started sooner.”) but it’s not actually my lazy self this time. This year, in fact, it’s less a matter of April 15th sneaking up and biting me in the ass, and more a case of I just don’t know what to do.

Last year, you see, we had that entire “rebate” thing and Motive, a company I used to work for, got purchased by Lucent. What does all of this have to do with my taxes? Well, as it turns out, in order to file this years’ taxes, you need to know how much of last years’ rebates you got and, since Lucent purchased Motive, I technically sold some stock options last year, which really complicates my return. Oh the horror! I shall now grant you three guesses, two of which do not count, as to what I’ll be doing tonight. (Hint: It will probably start with me banging my head against a wall and end with me filing for an extension of some kind.)

To prevent the tax man from being the only one around here enjoying himself, and appreciating a “New Beginning” I thought today might be a good time to tell you a bit more about my new project as well. A long time friend of the documentary photography group I belong to happens to be a professor of art over at Concordia University. Concordia University has recently moved to a new location in Austin-they’ve purchased what was once the old Schlumberger site on the west side of town, and converted it into their new campus. As part of the move, our professor friend invited us to the new campus on Monday evening.

The “New Beginnings” project will be a long running photographic project where we document aspects of the new campus. Culminating in a show sometime in the fall, the project will attempt to highlight and sort of “show off” the University’s “hot new digs.” I’m very excited about the project because the new campus backs up to a nature preserve and is quite “wooded” so it not only affords something for the nature photographer, but the architecture of the buildings is very interesting and modern too. With all of the students (people,) architecture, nature, night work, and other potential aspects of the project, well, let’s just say, it’s my cup of tea. I’ll all over this one like a cheap dress, which, as luck would have it, is probably all I’ll be able to afford when the tax man gets through with me tonight.

Oh the horror! Does anybody have a sharpened pencil? It’s going to be a long evening.

Until next time…