five little treats to give yourself bc you finished your taxes

tasty wormholes to shhh your brain

Tax season is kind of activating for me because my parents ran a tax prep business for most of my childhood. Do you know what people unequivocally dislike? That’s right, doing taxes. People would show up with shoe boxes full of receipts, and my parents would tell them things they maybe didn’t really want to hear, and the hot inky smell of toner would almost make the air seem humid, and dammit the printer’s jammed again, #$%@@.

And tax season remains kind of bizarro now because my writer finances are always a bit WTF. Last year, Turbo Tax was convinced that I needed two separate Schedule Cs for my freelance teaching and my freelance writing income, even though I had a single 1099 from Catapult which covered income from both sources, and basically all of my deductions would be the same for both because being a writer means doing a lot of things!! Being a lot of people! Honestly, and not in any tax evasion sense. Idk, Everything Everywhere All At Once really got me with the Schedule C drama.

So anyway. You did it! (If you didn’t do it yet … I guess read this email tomorrow night?)

put your legs up the wall
I don’t know why this feels so good!! It feels really, really good. I know it’s probably just improved circulation or something, but legs-up-the-wall always gives me some bone-deep relaxation feeling that I don’t really know how to explain. It reminds me of the way you feel after a big cry. Maybe it’s cortisol related or something. (obviously: I’m not a doctor, don’t listen to me, etc.)

dance for your cat
I think there’s a distinction between dancing for fun and dancing for your cat. It’s inherently much funnier to dance for a cat because the cat’s like wait, what are you doing. Or your cat’s like Jesus Christ, what fresh hell is this, and they’re both comical in a way that is extremely useful for mental health (because you become impossible to take too seriously).

---

Thank you for reading this sample of white noise maker! All posts are free for 1 week after they go live, at which point they go into the archives available for paying subscribers. If you enjoyed this sample, sign up for a free subscription so you can read posts the week they come out, or become a paying subscriber and read the whole archive. Either way, thank you! ; )