Spent all day doing taxes...

So really I am drained. I don't have much to offer today especially after a particularly enthusiastically German night with friends last night which involved copious amounts of Black Tower German white and home-made rose aka blush wine. It was all I could do to drag out all the tax year documents to put together, once again, all the horrible paperwork that the Internal Revenue Service requires.

Not to sound un-American, but taxes. Really? What is the use of filing a US tax return every single year? Why don't they do like many other countries around the world and automatically figure the taxes properly in a pay-as-you-earn format and bish-bash-bosh, the process is painless. No precious time spent searching for a 1099 or a W-2 to fill in Schedule A of form 1040, and entering a Zen-like state of meditation trying to distinguish between the intricate and web-like structures of Form 2555 and Form 2555-EZ. I have now officially spent a ridiculous amount of time out of my day (about 5 hours) checking and rechecking and re-rechecking these documents and then fighting with the printer to print them up, because, of course the IRS doesn't accept online tax returns from U.S. citizens who live abroad.

And the fact that I must file a US tax return at all, considering the fact that I earn no money in the US, due to my residency abroad, really grinds my gears.

That said, I would like to mention that I have finished reading the last book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. To sum it up in one word: amazing.

To think that Larsson died before he ever got to see his books in print, or even have an idea of the way it has swept the world, is a real shame. His works are a tribute to the ways in which the victims of the world - those who have been through domestic abuse, or violence against women, or spent time as political prisoners or lived the unspeakable fear of the refugee - are given a voice and the sweet, sweet justice that they deserve.