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I've been looking at them online and knew it was just time to dive into. . . a Levenger Circa system! I am the world's biggest office supply addict so any cute notebook that has been on the clearance aisle the last seven years has ended up in my office. This has resulted in me using many different notebooks, folders, and index cards for my stories and research. Now with Circa, I can combine everything in its appropriate place.

Jennifer in our writers' network has a Circa and it always just seemed like such a good idea. So I went all the way to the Levenger store in Marshall, oops, Macy's downtown Chicago and the clerk made me a junior notebook to show me how it works. And then, of course, I proceeded to buy $50 worth of stuff. But it's great because I have a planner with a sheet size that you can actually write something besides your grocery list on and I can punch anything to add to it. I've had Day Timers, Day Runners, and a bunch of other stuff, but I hope this works. I'm tired of looking for notes, stories I started, and research I did the last time I was at the library!

It is a lovely day in paradise. Unfortunately, I am inside downloading tax forms. The forms are available online (that's how I'm downloading them, duh) at DepartmentOfFinance .

The CNMI has a wonky tax form, especially if you're doing the full CM (as I do). There are a lot of places where you have to move forward, do some computation, and then come back and insert it into the form. At times, it appears nonsensical. But I'm almost adept at this.

I trace my ability to follow these arcane types of instructions, back and forth, to the missal I got in fifth grade. I felt so grown up, with a big thick missal for church, with pretty colored ribbons. And then I found out why there were ribbons--to mark your place so you could flip back and forth as you went through the Mass. One ribbon for the basic service, one for the first reading, one for the second reading, one for the gospel, and extras for inserted prayers--all of which vary from Sunday to Sunday. I became good at this kind of spatial "logic."

And then I took tax in law school. I was busy with a social life and didn't like to attend class very much. Fortunately, a very nice classmate loaned me his notebook. He had illustrated many of the legal principals with funny drawings that I found very helpful. And of course, I knew how to mark my tax code (with ribbons!) so that I could flip around and find just what I needed.

And now, I am facing the CNMI tax form, which I've done enough times to find it familiar and almost easy. But still I procrastinate.

Thank goodness for the most requested tax form-#4868--not found on the CNMI Department of Finance's site, but found here.