Adrift?

It's tax season again, so I'm at Wegmans on a double service day in Syracuse entering in all of our income from tax year 2014.

We made a lot of money, it turns out. And now we have the privilege of paying taxes on it.

In theory I am okay with this, because I prefer civilization to savagery in general, and I wish to drive in safety on paved and well-lit roads.

But sitting back and taking a bird's eye view of our income for the last year reinforces the sensation that after so many months of holding to one course with our current scheme of jobs, travel, and goals it's about time to pause, find our bearings and see which waters we're aiming at next.

And we have options. J is looking into another potential job offer. She wouldn't need to drop anything she's currently doing, but we'd need to reshuffle. I was just awarded tenure with the orchestra, and I recently found out that some of my substitute work has entered a special protected status. I have more job security now, if I want to keep on doing the balance of steady work and freelancing that I've relied on for the past two years.

If I want to.

We love our house. We travel a lot. We wonder if it would be smarter to move much further east, much further west, or stay where we are.

This isn't a place we're particularly keen to be. We'd like to just hold the course that we've set and not worry about whether we've made the right decisions or not, whether or not we could do better if we changed this or that.

You know, like all the adults do, since they've got this figured out.

Another List

I’m currently sitting in a Tim Horton’s in Buffalo. I’ve been here for the last 7 hours waiting for an evening concert and working on our 2013 taxes. The internet has currently pooped out, so I have plenty of time to think about the top 10 things I’d rather be doing, such as:

10) Playing about 340 high Bs in a row on a stuffy rotary trumpet that I’ve only ever played once before in my life. (Don’t worry, I’ll have a chance to do this in about two hours at the concert.)

9) Slowly flushing $1,006 of small bills down the toilet in the men’s room here. (That would be more enjoyable than writing checks in that amount to New York State and Uncle Sam)

8) Calculating the parabola of the total number of gas stations I passed while driving on the thruway this year divided by the hypotenuse of regular unleaded, so as to more accurately render my standard mileage expense. (It wouldn’t take me long, since I’ve already figured out the miles)

7) Answering questions from strangers about whether I’ve ever received rental income from a farm that owned the royalty rights to any business losses from Hurricane Sandy. (Answer: No)

6) Changing into a tuxedo without ever actually making skin contact with any surface of the money-flushing men’s room. (I’ll do this in about an hour)

5) Reading the enormous book that I brought with me because I thought that the taxes wouldn’t take 7 hours.

4) Taking a community course on how depreciation works for business inventory on a schedule C, since I have no earthly idea what any of the questions in that category are about

3) Having an hour or two alone with my wife to get a good look at her deductions and give her a very thorough Federal Review.

2) Attempting to give cellphone instructions to James on how to ride the New York City subway. (This is sort of what Turbo Tax is going through with me right now.)

1) Actually playing trains with James