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Tuesday October 9th, 2012 – Fox Lake, IL

   What a world class flaming idiot I am - and a blooming one at that. I need a good old fashioned no nonsense back alley grab the ankles swift kick in the ass. It’s one thing to make a mistake, but to keep doing it over and over is totally unacceptable. I’m self employed but I should fire myself.

   I have always had a huge mental block when it comes to income taxes. I wish I knew why, but I know that I definitely do. For whatever reason, I have an extremely difficult time keeping up to date with filing my returns and it’s been a source of major pain for many years. Why is this so?

   I wish I had an answer. It’s a big time tweak, and I’ve promised myself over and over I’ll never let it happen again…but then it does and I start the cycle all over again. I’m back in this nasty rut I can’t seem to escape, and I’m really disappointed in myself. I need to find a way to fix this fast.

   It’s not like I’m cheating the government out of anything. I’m too stupid to be able to come up with any schemes to do that, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did. I’ll gladly toss in my fair share and be able to sleep at night than try to put one over on Uncle Sam. That’s not me.

   And why would I want to risk one minute of prison time for the few shekles I haul down every year? That’s not a smart business move. If I knew how to make smart business moves I wouldn’t keep coming back to roost in this personal hell like a fly returns to a piping hot piece of pig poo.

   I have the receipts and all my paperwork, it’s just that they’re all in a big unorganized pile and somewhere deep down in that pile is the tweak I have that doesn’t allow me to take care of this in a timely manner like I know I should. My accountant warns me every year, but here I am again.

   Maybe I can blame some of this on the fact that I’m gone all the time and that makes it a whole lot harder to stay in a groove, but I’m not buying it. I do get and save receipts, but throwing them all into a big pile rather than organizing them into categories immediately is where it all gets lost.

   Before I know it, there’s this disgustingly disorganized accumulation of scrap paper that I don’t even want to look at, and the trap door in my head shuts and I just block it out. I tell myself all of the same excuses I’ve been telling myself for years, and pretty soon I’ve got myself in this putrid perpetual pickle. It took me several hours to attack the pile, but I managed to get it all sorted out.

   I did have my health issues last year, and I wasn’t working much at all for several months, but none of that is ever an excuse to let this happen again. The pain of having to catch up is just way too excruciating, and I don’t ever want to be in this situation again. I’m sick of being sick of this.

   In theory, the best way to fix this would be to take care of it at the end of every week. I should put all my receipts in order, and keep track of what’s deductible and total everything up. But for some reason I just haven’t been able to do that, and it’s been a lifelong source of absolute agony. I have an appointment with my accountant on Thursday, and I’m going to ask him what I can do to stop this from happening again. Maybe he’ll be the one to give me that kick in the ass I need.