CHO, Motha F-er

I've been working on taxes and financial aid forms. My head is a tangled mess from numbers relating to our finances. Insurance premiums, unpaid principles, line items, dependants, claims and all the rest. My head feels all at once like a centrifuge, a roulette wheel and that money sponge at the zoo that you put the quarter in and watch while is goes round and round earning its 25 cent entertainment value.

Once I get going with the numbers I get a strange little rush from all the pieces fitting together. In part because I'm amazed it makes some kind of sideways sense. Any real book keeper would be traumatized for life at my methods. I file in piles, when I file. Most of what I need is in a huge yellow folder that says 'to file' on it. Or in the shoebox next to it.

It goes downhill fast. Its easier to humiliate myself and call the mortgage company ask ask how much a property I own is insured for then to find the paperwork. Yes, I could find it if I HAD to. Then more self loathing at the part on the form where is says parent #2 salary and I write $0. Then underneath where it says occupation and I have to write 'homemaker'.

I only write 'homemaker' because thats what our accountant named me on our tax forms after the 3rd year of calling myself artist brought no income, I'm trying to keep things consistent. It kills me just a little to write that, though. Home maker. What does it MEAN? That I made my home? That I make my home? That I make the beds? I don't.

It reminds me of... I think it was... Still life with Woodpecker by Tom Robins in which the dishwasher preferred to be called an under water ceramic engineer. Homemaker sounds like I need an apron, like I need to know where the broom is at all times. Like I should go churn some butter. How about CHO, Chief home officer. Or just your highness.