Number nineteen

Well, back to our stupid lives!!!

Number nineteen (my nineteenth event) is in the bag. It went well. I don't even want to look at my bank account until all the checks have been cashed, my $10,000 hotel bill has been paid, and my credit card bill. Only then will I really know how I did. But it was a record year, so I'm not concerned.

The event wasn't without drama. My worst fear - that my bandleader's wife would go into labor two weeks early and leave the entire event rudderless - happened. We had a contingency plan, of course - but it meant a lot of careful guidance on my part; the guy left in charge of the band and contest music was a bit panicked and needed tons of handholding from me, and many disasters were narrowly averted. 

Some of my old friends ended up being real troublemakers. I am faced with the unpleasant task of banning someone who's been to every event since 1998 because apparently he's been preying on women the whole time, unbeknownst to me (oh, hi, Code of Conduct). And one friend attempting a comeback and failing has been railing on Facebook about how my judges suck, I suck, the event sucks, I only care about making money, with resultant sycophants cheering him on.

You know, the usual. 

In the past this kind of stuff would freak me the fuck out. Now? Meh. They'll all settle down. Maybe I'm getting used to handling malignant narcissists.

My tabulator came with his wife who has been battling stage 4 colon cancer. She was thin and frail, but she's here. A shag dancer in our circles who had been battling ovarian cancer died Monday morning. She was 31. 

And my bandleader is a new daddy. Sunrise, sunset. The profundity of this is not lost on me.

For now I'm still scrambling to tie up loose ends, get some rest, and reconnect with the mommy in me that has to be pushed aside for a few weeks each summer. Perhaps later I'll roll around naked in my money. I believe I've earned that.