Summer locked in

Today I brought a book and camping chair to go hang out at the rec center to get the kids signed up for camp. As soon as I dropped them at school I headed over - I was about 12th or so in line. At 8:15, I was 45 minutes before online sales opened and an hour 45 before the office opened for in-person sign ups. I was able to get Theo in on my phone, but there was no online sign up for CITs, so I had to wait until 10. 10:45, really, since it took forever for the people in front of me to get signed up and paid. But I got them both in for the final four weeks before school. Phew.

All the parents around me were having the same conversations - how impossible this system is, how crazy last year’s sign up day was, what life is like after the fires, how much we hate Trump and how much everything sucks. 

Yesterday was fucking brutal - between the orange turd intentionally tanking our economy and infuriating all our trading partners, to the sudden announcement that my rival (or sister, depending) dance competition on the east coast decided to cancel, I started really spiraling. This event canceled because they’re very dependent on international visitors and of course no one feels safe coming here right now (although they moved their event to be just a month before mine), but I also have insider knowledge that since an ownership handover last year their management has been a bit of a shit show and the new owner probably was looking for a convenient out (I had a similar situation when I had agreed to host the World Lindy Hop Championship in 2001 and was able to get out of it because of 9/11). So they are not in the same situation as me, but it did give me pause, plus flashbacks to 2020 of watching other events fold one by one. I’ve been worried all along that a bad economy could affect me - how could it not? - but now I’m really worried, like, crunching numbers and trying to figure out just how bad I could potentially eat it this year. I decided to cancel the remodel of my pool (desperately needed - after 21 years, the whole thing is crumbling) and just save that money I had put aside to potentially live on. 

It could be really, really bad. I could lose hundreds of people, and this, of all years, as I’m taking on $30,000 in extra expenses adding a day. How horrible. 

I don’t really see a scenario in which I don’t lose customers - it’s now just a question of how many. My room block is full, the contests are full, registration is about where it was this time last year. But all of that could easily change. People could start canceling. My international instructors could decide not to come and I’d have to replace them. Just like in 2020, everyone is just waiting and watching in terror - but if things don’t start to look less dire in a month or two (and I don’t see how this is possible) people are going to decide they just can’t afford a dance camp right now, no matter how fun it may be. 

And this is all assuming that things don’t go really apeshit in the next six months. Invasions, empty shelves, unemployment, riots in the streets…? I can’t help but feel like we’re careening towards an America we couldn’t possibly imagine right now, after decades of peace and prosperity; will we even recognize ourselves by summer…? Will I look back on this post and think, “wow, remember when I thought I’d even have an event??” I was just here five years ago. I still remember that tentative optimism. And the hideous realization that I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

Add to this the announcement today that a friend from the dance scene, who had been missing for a few weeks, was reported as deceased and believed to have died around January 20th. He was a troubled soul, although I liked him a great deal. No cause of death will be released for some time, but I’m going to guess suicide. I just saw him in December at one of our Christmas gigs. We’re all shattered by the news. A friend of mine and I were talking about how all this shit that’s happening is going to take down the most vulnerable people - people like him, who were always on the edge emotionally and financially. They’re just not going to survive this. Another friend posted that she’s in a desperate situation and is trying to sell things; I sent her $100 to her Venmo. Only the strong will make it through this - which is some eugenics / lord of the flies / survival of the fittest Nazi bullshit if I’ve ever heard it. 

We decided to stay in town this weekend - the H really needs to work, and I really want to go to the big downtown rally. Luckily he’ll come with me for the first time. It looks like there’s finally real momentum for these protests, and I’m here for it. Sad to miss possibly our last desert trip for months but also glad not to be missing this giant protest. 

I’m glad summer is locked in now, everything mostly paid for, plans made. I don’t know how successful some of these things will be - from the volunteering camp to sleepaway camp to the cruise to Bobby’s first stint at being a CIT (which he balked at, initially, when I brought it up again a couple of days ago - too bad, you’re doing it!) - but you have to try things. And I’m trying to prepare myself for a shitty turnout at my event but still hold my head high and do my best for the people who did pay the money and show up, and set myself up to just bloody well persevere like I have so many times before. It’s all about survival now.

Friend desert visits

I had a friend desert visit this last weekend that, despite the ongoing issue with my oil light popping on and off (I’ve taken the car in for this three times), went swimmingly. I did make the executive decision to keep us close to Joshua Tree on Saturday, which was teeming with people, rather than head up to Amboy where there’s no people and no service. I’m pretty sure it’s just a sensor issue, but it’s still pretty anxiety producing. Of all times, now is not a good time to ruin my engine and potentially have to get a new car.

It feels weird and guilt-inducing to try to have a normal life while all around us things are crumbling. A political pundit summed it up well recently when he said one minute you’re protesting, the next you’re buying new placemats…and it all seems so ridiculous. And yet everyone says you need to take breaks for your own sanity, and tune out so you don’t get overwhelmed; you have to balance your life otherwise you’ll spiral into inaction. Also, when you have kids, you have to keep up some semblance of normal life so they don’t just get scared and anxious. But you also have to stay engaged and keep fighting. There is a lot of conflicting messaging right now. It’s hard to know what’s the right thing to do. I made a tone deaf post on FB recently decrying the lack of basic decency in America right now - and unsurprisingly all my POC friends swooped in to tell me it’s always been this way and express their annoyance with me that I’m only now just noticing it, because of my white privilege. And I get that, but also, I’m not only just now seeing it, and the point I was trying to make was about how this cruel and sadistic regime enables people’s cruelty and racism in ways we haven’t seen (publicly) in decades; I don’t think that can be debated. But I can’t explain that, because it makes me sound defensive, and I can’t delete the post because it’s “dirty deleting”, so I have to just leave it up there for people to misread and continue to paint me as just another clueless white lady who thought we solved racism when Obama was elected. Sigh. This is where we are. And I hate it. From now on I’m going to more carefully vet my posts because this one was definitely a mistake and not at all the message I was trying to convey and not at all how I see things. Lesson learned.

In other news, I started the terzepatide pills yesterday. Just took pill #2. So I can say with some certitude that a) I am not allergic to it, and b) I’m not so sensitive to it that I instantly start projectile vomiting. I can already see a problem, though - since it’s a pill that you’re supposed to dissolve under your tongue and not chew or swallow, so far what I see happening is it pretty much just dissolves into your saliva and then you swallow it so you’re pretty much just swallowing the pill anyway. I’ve seen people complain about this online. So my prediction at this point is that these pills will be largely ineffective - I’m going to guess I’ll take these for a month with zero results, then switch to shots. Most people seem to go this route and notice an instant change. 

I have *some* of our summer figured out. I was able to get the kids registered for one week of a local inexpensive camp in June that focuses on volunteering efforts. It’s definitely an experiment; it was recommended to me but nobody had actually had their kids there. Still, it’s local, cheap, and just one week right after school ends. Then I booked a cruise that straddles two weeks in June and gets us back on July 1, so I can just not book any camps during that time since we’ll be gone too many days each week for camp to be worthwhile. So now I only have to find a camp for four weeks, and the one I have my sites on is the one they barely got into last year, which opens for registration on Thursday. I called and they have a CIT program for older kids that you just sign up for, no interview process. So I’ve got my fingers crossed that I will be able to get both kids in there. I suppose I’ll just go camp out on the sidewalk like I did last year. Stressful! 

We’re headed to the desert as a family next weekend, and it might be our last, sadly, as the only available weekend after that is Memorial Day, and odds are we’ll be playing Knott’s that night (also, it’s going to be wicked hot). I’d like to go the weekend after, too, to shut the place down for the summer, but again, wicked hot, and Knott’s. I’ll miss that place. I hope we can spend lots of time there in the fall.

Bobby is 13

I have a teenager. I HAVE A TEENAGER. What is happening. How can I have a teenager when I’m a teenager…?

Bobby turned thirteen yesterday. When I went into their room to sing “happy birthday” in the morning, the first thing he said was, “I shouldn’t have to go to school,” and I can’t argue that one. Unfortunately, since he’s thirteen on a Monday, he’s going to spend pretty much his remaining childhood birthdays in school. Booo.

In the evening we went to a fish taco place for dinner, then I gave him my old phone wrapped in a Trouble board game box, which didn’t fool him one bit. He said he knew he was getting a phone. Dammit. He was happy about it, though, and, bonus for me, I don’t have to hear him ask for a phone every day of my life anymore. So, there’s that. 

What is Bobby like, at thirteen? He’s a smart, quiet boy who talks with this distinctive lilt probably from his friend group which is almost entirely Latino and Asian (there’s a little Mexican-Spanish upturn in his speech, which I find charming). He’s polite and kind, but also very introverted and awkward (I can’t imagine who he gets that from). I would say he’s a bit mopey, but who isn’t right now? He’s entitled to a bit of dark introspection, in my opinion. At the moment he doesn’t show any interest in anything but video games, which pains me to no end, but so it is. I wanted him to have a normal childhood, and I guess that’s what a normal childhood is in 2025.

During dinner, the H randomly brought up a story about Amy Schumer having success with a new weight loss drug, which was the perfect opener to tell him I have, in fact, also signed up for said drug. I actually changed from semaglutide to terzepatide after freaking out a bit about potential nausea; I contacted the company about my fears and they switched me. The drugs are in the mail now, so I may start next week. The H was supportive, thankfully - he knows how closely I’ve been watching the development of these drugs over the years, and how I was waiting for shortages to end and a pill form to become widely available. So I figure one of three things are possible here - 1, they don’t work at all; 2, I become so horribly nauseated that I quit in disgust, or 3, they become a useful tool in finally reaching a healthy weight and maybe even staying there for a little while. I don’t have much to lose - 10 lbs would be amazing - so hopefully I can use it and then taper off fairly quickly. I really don’t know what to expect. But I’m just curious enough to at least try. 

Technology encroaches

One of the biggest parenting hurdles of our age is technology, and how to manage it for your children. Anyone with a kid right now knows this struggle, especially if you’re cough older and are baffled by technology in general. 

Since B started jr high last summer, the entreaties for a phone have been constant and irritating. The H and I have held out in the belief that phones are bad for kids, and people I respect say “hold out as long as you can”. And I stand by this - I have no regrets not giving Bobby a phone up until this point. But. He’s turning 13 on Monday. Literally everyone he knows has a phone. He’s still nursing his rickety kid’s watch from probably 4th grade (?). I had bought him a refurbished Apple Watch on prime day back in October with the intention of giving it to him on his birthday to at least step up to an actual phone at some point.

But. I went to set it up yesterday, and, surprise, it’s locked by the previous user. Took it to a TMobile store - they said there’s no way to get into the watch; I’d have to return it. Talked to Amazon - they won’t take it back because it’s been too long. Fair enough, although shitty because I spent $200 on something that legitimately can’t be used and never should have been sold, who cares if it’s been a few months?? Whatever. I contacted the business of origin, some family run electronics company in NY. I don’t have high hopes. Left a one star rating. Boy do I wish I’d opened it and tried all this back in October. 

But. On the way back from the store I called the H to discuss options, and thankfully he suggested I just give him my old phone, fuck it. What happened was he saw that all the kids at the birthday party last weekend had phones, and realized we were being unreasonable. I’m all about not being that parent that sets up non-sensical arbitrary rules just because. And the fact is, these kids have been terminally online for years (largely at the H’s insistence, as in getting them IPads and then VRs, which they’re on constantly). Bobby’s had a laptop for over a year now, and although I installed parental controls on it, to be honest I don’t have the slightest idea if they’re even set up properly or doing anything at all. Bobby has also had a very old phone of mine in his room that he’s been able to roam the web with freely for years (I gave it to him to listen to music, not realizing he could access the web with it). So…what’s the danger of having a phone, actually? That he can finally fit in with his friends? Text people outside of the family? Ugh, I give up. Just give the kid a phone already. I’ve been paying the extra line for months, and the phone is free.

As I set it up for him, I discovered there’s tons of restrictions I can put on it as his parent anyway, even shutting it down at night and restricting what kind of photos can be sent or received or what kind of websites can be accessed. And he’s going to be soooo happy. I’m excited to give it to him. 

I feel like he has the maturity to handle a phone (I would never give one to Theo right now) and is probably way more interested in his VR anyway. Also, the school has enlisted a total phone ban as of a week or two ago, so he can’t get in trouble at school with it. Now I just hope my crappy old phone holds up!

In other news, I’ve done something that’s either the smartest or stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I’m still questioning my sanity about it, so no judgment, please! I’ve signed up for semaglutide pills from an online pharmacy. Gasp!! Why? Well, I’ve been fascinated by these weight loss drugs for years - and was always very curious about them (since results are all over the place). I was waiting to see a) how safe & effective they were over time (it’s been years and we’re not seeing people drop dead or develop tumors!), b) if a pill form would appear, and c) if shortages would end, opening up the market for non-diabetics like me. All of these things have now happened. So I thought…why not? The food noise in my head causing me to compulsively eat when I’m not hungry is intense and never-ending. There aren’t enough hobbies or activities in the world to distract me enough from this. My pattern for years now is to diet for a couple of months, lose most of the weight I want to, and then slowly gain it all back. So every year I spend about two months at a healthy weight and then ten months 5-10 lbs overweight. I’m fucking over it. 

If I could predict the outcome of this experiment now, I think what’s most likely to happen is it will make me so horribly nauseated that I’ll quit within days and then spend weeks or months battling with this online company to cancel my subscription. I am terrified of the nausea. I would rather be fat than constantly nauseated, any time. However, I may not feel nauseated at all, it may just be temporary, or may be mild. Who knows? You don’t know until you try it. Also, it may just straight up not work. I have heard people claim that because they already eat when they’re not hungry, the drug making them not hungry doesn’t help. At all. So odds are this will be a spectacular, expensive failure, like the very expensive hair transplant I bought for the H as a wedding present that, in my opinion, did absolutely nothing. But. I’ve been obsessed with the idea of these drugs for years and I just want to try it out. I’m curious to see how, or if, my body responds to these GLP-1 inhibitors. And I do realize once you go off them that you gain all the weight back. But maybe, just maybe, I could lose enough weight and feel so fabulous that I’d be more motivated to keep up good habits…? It’s hard to stay motivated when you starve yourself for months at a time and lose some weight but are still ten pounds heavier than you were five years ago and still can’t fit in to half your closet. I don’t want to be super skinny, but I feel like being 135-140 pounds at 5’4” is a perfectly healthy weight. And it would take nearly a year of intense every day overeating to go from there back to the weight I am now. So, we shall see. I don’t know when I’m actually going to get these drugs - a couple of weeks? - and I want to be feeling good in Hawaii next month, so I probably won’t start for another month, so end of April. Maybe I’ll change my mind before then, or I’ll tell the H and he’ll talk me out of it. But boy does the prospect of possibly losing weight with some assistance, instead of raw dogging it like I do everything in life, sound appealing right now!

Theo is eleven

Theo turned eleven yesterday. When I went into his room to wake him up, he gave me the 10 + 1 sign with his hands, and I started singing happy birthday, and sleepy Bobby joined in, which I thought was very sweet. 

Later the whole family went to a conveyer belt sushi place in Little Tokyo which, despite my fears (I read a review that said it had a 2+ hour wait for dinner, typically) ended up being really fun and only a short wait. I’m glad I could cobble together a quick and fun plan for him so he could feel special. We did cake and candles when we got home, and I forgot to give him his lone present (some Percy Jackson books, his only request). Maybe we’ll open it after his party Sunday.

So what is Theo like, at eleven? This is what I’ll want to know if I ever read this again, and Theo may want to know if he ever finds it. Theo is an extroverted, fun-loving kid with a great sense of humor who never seems to take anything personally and is pretty much always upbeat and friendly. So, the polar opposite of me at his age. He’s so different from me and Bobby, in fact, that if I hadn’t birthed him myself I would wonder who his genes came from, because they couldn’t have been mine, ha! I think the only thing we have in common is a sardonic sense of humor, which  to be fair, we all have. In observing the brother dynamic, I often wonder how different each child would be if the other never existed. How different would things be if it were still, thirteen years later, just me and Bobby in this house - or if there had never been a Bobby? How much of Theo’s personality is just little brother energy - bouncing off of, reacting to, and filling any vacuums left by his big brother, who is probably a more important figure than even I am to him, at this point? I often point out to Bobby how bored and lonely he’d be without this constant companion, and he only shrugs, but the response is quite different when I say the same thing to Theo. Younger siblings are so formed by their birth order…and yet, at least in Theo’s case, manage to forge their own way in the world and be fierce, free individuals. Free of parental expectations and anxieties, free of having to do certain things or be a certain way. I used to say, at the worst, Bobby got my anxiety and Theo got my exhaustion…but the other side of that coin is Bobby got my enthusiasm and Theo got my experience. I’m so glad I made that (admittedly) crazy leap to attempt a second child as a single mother by choice. He is a delight and our worlds just wouldn’t be the same without him. I now present to you my last 40-year-old egg.

Birthday season

For the H’s birthday, I bought us all a tour of the windmills near Palm Springs. It was not cheap, and conflicted with several other things I would rather have been doing (like the Women’s March - wahhh!). It turned out to be a total ripoff - just a short trip on a golf cart to look at some windmill blades, with not a lot of information given…and…that was it. Thankfully the H got a kick out of how bad it was and we all had a good laugh about it. Then we saw Mickey 17 at the drive in (which was meh, but the desert drive in experience is always fun). 

The next day we finally had the water guy out to fill our two tanks, which *I think* means we now have about 500 gallons at our disposal, which means getting to fill my cowboy tub and also nice hot showers.

However, after he left, we discovered the bigger tank had a leak around one of the nozzles, which then meant hours and hours of attempted repairs on our part, which unfortunately never really took. So we have a slow leak which means possible mold and of course loss of water. But by 6 pm we just had to leave it. Also, inexplicably, the plan to attach a hose at the bottom to use gravity for water pressure apparently doesn’t work - the H claims the water is coming out of the hose at barely a trickle. Which makes zero sense to me - I’m convinced he has a nozzle turned off somewhere, and I might just check that myself when I go out there with a friend in three weeks. But if this is true, it means having to get a water pump, which will need a power source. Sigh. Nothing can ever be simple. 

It’s birthday season, and I’m determined to not let it sneak up on me like it did last year. I decided to lean into it in this final week, and today went and bought goody bag supplies and ordered a cake at Costco. It’s the first year I don’t really have a theme - last year I made it after their favorite VR game at the time, Gorilla Tag, but this year there really isn’t a stand-out idea, so I’m just doing generic things, like candy and the ubiquitous Takis for the goody bags and a basic chocolate cake. Also I’m trying not to order anything on Amazon, which severely limits my theme-related purchasing (I went to my local Party City store but it’s closing in weeks and the shelves were all but bare). 

Nearly everyone Theo invited is coming, but Bobby’s friend attendance is a lot more vague; I don’t have any parental contact info for most of the kids, and several I did have can’t make it for whatever reason. I figure Theo will probably have about 10-12 friends there and Bobby will have 3-5. This will cost me about $1200. Help. 

Theo just wanted some Percy Jackson books, so I got those. And Bobby of course wants a phone, which he’s not getting, so instead he’s getting an Apple Watch which I bought months ago and have been paying monthly fees for this whole time. It’s connected to my old phone, which I have in a drawer, and at some point next week I’m going to have to go to the TMobile store to get it all set up which I don’t have the slightest idea how to do. I’m not convinced it’s even going to work out, honestly. I jumped at the chance for a cheap early generation Apple Watch but with it having to be connected to a phone, to me it’s pretty much like just handing him a phone. I don’t know. I don’t have the slightest idea how to navigate all this shit. Apparently, nobody else does, either. 

March-ing

Protest, protest, protest. I haven’t given this many people the finger since the No Values punk festival last year.

Protested at SpaceX Saturday and then up in Ventura today. It’s been gratifying - unlike the sad little City Hall protests I went to before people started getting their shit together, these have been really well-attended. I’d say about 90% support from passing cars and 10% idiots giving us the finger which I enthusiastically returned. Fuck them all. I hope their grandmas lose Medicaid and end up on the street. Seriously. I hope every one of them dies in horrible ways. 

In other news, I’m going to have to pack up my protest boots this weekend (darn it) for a desert weekend ostensibly for the H’s birthday tomorrow. I bought us all a tour of the windmills by Palm Springs. And hopefully we can have the water hauler guy come fill our tanks. And a movie I really want to see is playing at the Drive In. So I’m excited about that.

Unfortunately his birthday tomorrow and our trip are a bit darkened for me right now over a fight we got into yesterday. It’s far too boring and stupid to get into, but suffice it to say I feel like he waaaay overreacted to something that shouldn’t have been even a problem, got really snotty and jerky about it, and I’m pretty sure still thinks he’s right even though he apologized. I’ve noticed he does this - apologizes really fast just to end the fight, but we never clarify what happened and I know he just goes off thinking I’m wrong but he’s keeping the peace so whatevs. What happens is it leaves me feeling unsafe, because how do I know when he’s going to get all pissy about the next stupid thing that wasn’t even remotely a problem? So I don’t know when, but I feel like this needs to be addressed. I won’t feel good about it until we talk it out. And I don’t know when that’s going to happen with tomorrow being his birthday and his working non-stop all other times. To be fair, incidents like this are extremely rare - once a year? But still a drag. Sigh. L’enfer, c’est des autres. 

I think we will do a cruise - maybe a shorter, cheaper one, and book interesting non-cruise related excursions ourselves? - since I can’t think of anything else to do for the summer and I know everyone except me will love it. Maybe I’ll just go on the water slide over and over. I haven’t pulled the trigger because of all the financial bullshit going on. It’s very difficult to commit to a big expense like that. But I think we’re going to do it. 

Summer does hang over me like the Sword of Damocles - I went to a summer camp expo on Saturday, but, unsurprisingly, all of the camps were too far away to drive to every day in rush hour traffic, and also prohibitively expensive. I’m torn between a) trying to get Theo and Bobby at the same rec enter camp, with Bobby as a CIT, which will be difficult to pull off for many reasons, b) having just Theo go to rec enter camp which will also be difficult, or c) saying fuck it and having a feral summer. A feral summer wouldn’t be the end of the world - they still have a week of sleepaway camp - but the very idea of spending SEVEN WEEKS with two kids at home in their pyjamas, haranguing them to brush their teeth, playing video games all day every day while I cook and clean up three meals, all at my absolute busiest and most stressful time of the year, makes me want to slowly peel my skin off with a ham key. The reason the rec center camps would be tough is it’s just so hard to get a spot now. Remember what happened last year? Even showing up an hour early to wait in line was about three hours too late; I barely got them the spots I did, after sitting on concrete for three hours. I don’t even know what the CIT program process is like, but I do know it involves an interview to be selected, and he may just not make it. I could handle Bobby at home alone with me all day more than I could handle both of them. But getting Theo a spot at any camp is not guaranteed. Sigh. I hate it.