dear state of wisconsin, please stop calling. we're just going two different places right now, you know? and I mean, this is for the best. really.

Here's a fun fact: if you leave the state of Wisconsin--say, you move there and work there for a little while, but then you're offered a job in Michigan, so you move away on a hot day in July--you get to spend fifteen minutes answering a series of questions on Wisconsin tax form 1NPR.

There are at least ten, and they ask you, among other things, when you moved to Wisconsin, what date you left Wisconsin, why you left Wisconsin, if you sought residency in other state, if yes, which state, if you ever came back after to vote, if you came back to attend school, if you came back to hunt or get a hunting license, if you came back to fish or get a fishing license, what sort of work you did in Wisconsin, what sort of work you left Wisconsin for, and then, finally, why. Almost pleadingly. It's a little like breaking up with someone and then running into them at the grocery store a month later, when they, let's be honest, look like hell and they're pushing a cart filled with root beer and frozen Red Barons. Wisconsin hasn't shaved. You suspect it's taken up smoking again. You try to duck behind the bananas, but Wisconsin spots you, and it wants to talk for a little bit. It just needs to know: what could it have done differently?

As a bonus, though, these questions, will give you and your community accountant volunteer, a nice man named Erich with a German accent, something to laugh about. You will be grateful for the relief, because what with the freelancing and the moving and the rentals and the reciprocal state laws, your taxes have taken over an hour already, and the room is filling with crabby people who only get crabbier when the community volunteers point out that it will be difficult to help them with their taxes seeing as they have not brought any W2s or forms of identification with them. Hoooo, said Erich at one point. You are complicated. But I think Wisconsin is more so!

The real kicker is that before the Wisconsin onslaught started, I had spent a rather pleasant, if windy, afternoon curled up on the floor reading Michael Perry and feeling somewhat nostaglic for cheese curds. Oh, the irony.



Sad Wisconsin. Don't worry, bud, you're going to bounce back real soon. It's gonna get warm. I bet that sexy neighbor of yours will come out to mow her lawn or wash her car. Maybe she'll be wearing that pink bikini you like so much. Give it time, man. Just ... give it time.