Joshua Tree

Yesterday we returned from our long weekend trip to Joshua Tree. In a word, it was great. I have to say I’m really getting the hang of plotting out trips for the family. It definitely helps that the kids are capable of doing just about anything now - there’s no more messing about with strollers or nap times or diapers. Don’t miss those days, not one bit. 

I booked us a basic cabin - a hut, really - in an isolated area off a long dirt road. It wasn’t quite as isolated as our water tank experience in Cuyama - you could still see houses in the distance. I had opted for a device-free weekend, and I’m so glad I did. The kids entertained themselves for hours playing Uno and swinging in the hammock. There’s pretty much constant proof that the decision to bring about a sibling was a good one.

The first day we went to the Noah Purifoy museum, which was amazing. I’m not sure what the kids made of it; but I tried to give some cultural context.

Then we spent the day at the National Park, which luckily was having a free day. It was very hot, and I frequently questioned the wisdom of being out there in the sun all day, but the boys particularly enjoyed climbing the rocks and exploring caves, and I got my kicks listening to The Joshua Tree album and marveling at what a massive impact that album had on me at 15, and how relevant it still is today. It was amazing to be in the very place that inspired such artistry. 

The next day we went to Pioneertown and explored the little town a bit. It’s odd traveling during Coronavirus - so many things are unexpectedly closed, browsing through stores is stressful or impossible, and ordering food is an ordeal of long lines and stressed, overworked servers. 

As always my favorite parts of the trip involved being in nature or being in the quiet of our funky homestead. I enjoyed a long soak in the outdoor tub filled with warm well water, hung in the hammock, and played Chinese checkers and Uno with the family. 

It was delightful and very relaxing. As is often the case, I spent our drive home looking for opportunities to come back. I’m dreading a long winter with no camping. I think I found us a heated cabin out there for our next cool weather trip, however. I’d love to go back in the next few months. 

Now, back to distance learning and tonight’s debate...honestly, I’m feeling pretty good about the election at the moment; we’re so close now, I just don’t see Trump being able to turn things around at this point. Oh, I see him cheating, for sure - but I pledge to hit the streets and not let up if he tries any shit. I’m ready for it. 

Countdown to JT

Tomorrow after school wraps up for both boys, we head out to Joshua Tree for another in a series of “glamping” trips. I have no idea what we’re getting into. It’s the desert. There’s no water to play in. It’s quite a bit hotter than I had hoped - mid-high 90s each day. Considering the only thing to do is go on long hikes and scramble up rocks, I’m not so sure everyone else will be as into it as I am. Well, it’s an adventure. Much like all of our other trips, if we decide we hate it, there’s nothing to prevent us from packing up and going home. We’ll be staying in a makeshift cabin with an outdoor kitchen, so packing up will be quick and easy! 

Yesterday I had my second pandemic haircut, and today I had my first teeth cleaning in a year after my March appointment was canceled and never rescheduled. Next week the boys will have their first dental appointment in a year after their March appointments were canceled and never rescheduled. Their teeth are horribly stained in the front despite religiously brushing morning and night. What’s up with that? Theo had some tooth staining when he was a toddler and a cleaning got rid of it. I’m hoping the same will happen next week. 

Bobby had some kind of assessment last week for reading and math - math put him on the high side of average (a few months ahead of his current grade level) and reading two and a half years ahead (almost to sixth grade!). I was pretty proud. He has some more testing tomorrow. I’m not sure if this is normal for 3rd grade or is a result of distance learning. Either way, it’s a relief to know he’s not falling behind. 

This upcoming month marks the end of my actual money, and the beginning of living on loans. Any hope I had of handing back the money I’ve borrowed, unused, is gone. If it were a normal year and I could start my income stream in February by opening registration, and I’d only be in the hole three months. But I’ll be lucky if I can open for registration by summer; even luckier if I can run the event and actually make some money. But I’m not 100% confident that I will be able to have a live event next year. Will I make it to 2022? Sure. The loan money is there. But every penny has to be paid back, with interest. Starting in May. Sigh.

I’ve managed to send myself into various anxiety spirals this week thinking about the election, voter suppression, the Supreme Court, Drump saying he won’t leave, more civil unrest, Covid numbers no longer decreasing in California, etc etc etc. It’s all too much. Time to escape to the desert! 

We’ll make great pets

I don’t normally swear on Facebook. It’s odd because I swear pretty much constantly in real life (hello, NYC childhood), yet for me seeing actual swear words written in people’s posts to me is akin to swearing loudly in front of children or old people - it’s just sort of jarring and unpleasant. And yet I’ve typed the word “fuck” more times than I care to count on FB in the last 48 hours. I just didn’t care anymore.

The death of RGB hit me hard as I know it did all progressives. I mourned, and continue to mourn her as a trailblazer, a fighter, and one who wanted everything but what is about to happen - another shitty conservative judge being given a lifetime appointment in her place, just WEEKS before this piece of shit so-called president might be kicked to the curb. Oh, if only she could have held on just a few more months! And yet, here we are. The conservatives rub their hands with glee, and the very thought of that makes me want to tear my skin off with rage. As I said on FB...when, exactly, do the bad people stop winning?

And then, in the midst of my intense rage and sadness and desire to break things and scream into the void...the earth decides to pick up our house and shake it like an etch-a-sketch. Massive earthquake at 11:30 at night as we were getting ready for bed - centered very close to us, and by far the biggest quake I’ve felt since 1994. It was over in a few seconds and shockingly nothing broken...kids didn’t even wake up. But that adrenaline on top of already coursing adrenaline was just too much.

OH MY GOD 2020 JUST FUCK OFF ALREADY!!!

As usual I turned to my echo chamber on FB and laughed as I saw pretty much everyone I knew had posted the exact same sentiment. 

I’m so comforted when I see other people as emotionally unhinged as I am by all this political stuff...I’m not crazy, I’m not overreacting; how I’m feeling is a normal, actually healthy reaction to the hell that life in America has become (and has actually been for many people as we white folk fooled ourselves into thinking we had solved racism by electing Obama twice). I’ve helped my mental state a lot this weekend by getting out for long punishing walks every day, drinking a lot of water, and falling back on my favorite coping mechanism I’ve had since my 80s childhood which was rife with the horrors of potential nuclear war and apocalypse; sinking comfortably into dull, numb acceptance of our coming demise as a species on this earth. 

The Porno for Pyros song “We’ll Make Great Pets” has been on my playlist since all of this began in March; it hits just the right note of playful, sad, grim acceptance that is the most safe place for me to rest right now. I’m at my best when I can have a sense of humor about all this shit; I become unbearable to be around when I don’t. What’s more fun to live with - a witty, wry Oscar Wilde-type throwing out glib rejoinders and then sauntering into the kitchen for a strong cup of tea, or a snarling honey badger who tears apart upholstery with its teeth and poops in the corner? I’m going to venture it’s Wilde. 

We’ll make great pets 

It’s funny because when I first got that album I was a brand new LA transplant, all alone here, totally lost and aimless, seeing zero road from where I was to where I wanted to be. It was a terrible time - lonely, sad, hopeless - and yet every day was the impossibly blinding California sun and toxic west Coast positivity mocking my grim reality. It’s funny how nearly thirty years later this same song, frozen in time, can mean similar things yet slightly different; I’m not alone, I’m not aimless...and yet this time we’re facing a real humanitarian crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen...a malignant narcissist and sociopath in the White House, and a whole new brand of superbugs that actually could wipe us out more completely than a Russian warhead ever could have in the 80s. And all of this preventable if people weren’t such racists. It’s maddening and enraging. But I don’t like myself when I feel like I need to do something about it, because short of driving to the houses of the remaining  few right wingers in my FB friend list, ringing their doorbells, and personally punching them in the face, there is nothing to be done except vote, which is a given. 

So I settle in to sad, bored, grim resignation, because it’s the only way to get by.

Will there be another race to

Come along and take over for us

Maybe Martians can do better than we’ve done?

We’ll make great pets...

From zen to gah

I had a bit of a freak out yesterday. I blame three things - a) it being Monday (pandemic Mondays are the WORST) b) fasting and c) having been cooped up and unable to exercise for about two weeks due to poor air quality, with no end in sight. 

There was just something about these loooong pandemic, post-virtual event days that got to me...the kids’ school days start at 9, and with lunch and making them run around outside (while constantly second-guessing myself about the air quality) and after school work, we weren’t really done until about four, and by then I was just completely wiped out. I’ve been extraordinarily tired lately, but I do think this is a direct result of not getting out for my walks. I’ve turned into a three-toed ground sloth who trades her nighttime pajamas for her daytime pajamas and spends maybe six or seven hours a day not in bed. I told the BF that the very thought of months of this going on - just dragging kids through “school” every day, cooking and cleaning up after three meals, nothing to do on weekends, kids running around screaming and breaking things or watching inane gamer videos - positively fills me with despair. This was one thing I was reminded of during my virtual event - we all need balance to feel like whole human beings. For me, I need my home life with children and domestic tasks, I need a romantic life, I need a life of friends, I need work and challenges, and I need a creative life with colleagues. I’ve been stripped of three of those things, so I feel very unbalanced and out of sorts. And the uncertainty of any of those things returning any time soon is very stressful. It makes me less grateful for the parts I do have left. 

I hustled my butt up the hill today and breathed in who knows how many smoke particulates just to snap me out of my ennui and it seemed to have worked. Also, eating helps. In good news, I have broken my six month tableau and have finally dipped below 140 lbs for the first time in ages. It’s going to be difficult staying here, but at least I know it’s possible. I’ve been determined to not gain weight during this miserable quarantine and I’m glad I’ve stuck to that. It’s one of the few things I’m proud of because it’s taken such a concerted effort. I’d like to lose 3-5 more pounds but we’ll see. 

And now it’s fall

Like much of the west coast, we’re under a blanket of smoke at the moment. Relatively speaking it’s not that bad where we are - it rarely is here - but still bad enough that any outdoor activity is discouraged, and I wake up each day to the crispy smell of campfires, and my car is covered in ash (of our hopes and dreams, I wonder?).

The BF has started back at his old job, but only part time. When he asked if it was ok, after determining that it would be flexible and it would allow me for walks in the morning and having him home at night, I agreed to it. It’s time - it would be selfish of me to demand he stay home now that my event is over and clearly the kids’ school is manageable for one person. He needs something else in his life. And I’m ready to have him be somewhere else for a while. Just removing one person from this house reduces the chaos, mess, and noise by 25%, and I’m into it. 

So it looks like this will be our fall life. I have a few loose ends to tie up for my event - I still have to mail the dance contest awards all over the world, and pay a few stragglers - but mostly my work is done for the foreseeable future. Normally I would be hiring people and fleshing our next year’s details, ready to be announced in November...but with no registration opening in sight, there’s no point. I pretty much intend to put on a duplicate of this year, on the assumption that everyone will be available for me. So most of that work was done a year ago. My only job is to sit tight and monitor the Covid situation. I expect to be in this state of flux for at least eight months. 

In the meantime I intend to fill my life with cooking, knitting, and plotting out inexpensive camping trips. I’m trying to have one trip a month so I always have something to look forward to. We’re headed to Joshua Tree in two weeks, then we camp with our “camping pod” over Halloween, then we will hopefully hit Death Valley over Thanksgiving break. Christmas break, I have a few ideas...one of which is cashing in our free Hawaii trip on the assumption that we’ll be able to travel there as long as we get tested right before (supposedly they’re instituting this on Oct 1). But there are many problems with this idea. One - there’s no guarantee that this policy will be in place by late December, or that COVID won’t spiral out of control yet again over the winter (likely) and we’ll just have to cancel everything again. Two - do I want to subject my kids to being tested? What if they freak out? And what if the timing gets all effed up and screws up our trip? Three - what if the whole trip ends up being depressing and awful? Is this really how we want to see Hawaii, everything closed and masked and people hating on us for bringing our mainland disease to their shores? But then again - Hawaii! It’s a tough call. I’ll have to give that a good long think. But not too long, because once those floodgates open, watch out. 

Then we have a mountain cabin booked for January’s one three day weekend, and I’ll think of something for Feb. If Death Valley works out in Nov we can make that a regular getaway for the winter months. And then it’s spring, and who knows what will be happening then? School, my event open, new president? It’s sad that none of those things are a guarantee. I read today that LAUSD has stated there will be no school before November - which we all knew. I’m thinking no school before spring break, and even that’s a stretch. So right now I’m just taking everything in week and then month chunks. My biggest hurdle - my event - is done. Now the next big hurdle - the election. God help us all. 

First and hopefully last

I put on my virtual event this last weekend, in the place of my usual four day event at a hotel by the airport. I had no idea what to expect - I didn’t even know if it would actually happen, which is one of the many reasons I didn’t charge a penny for it but urged donations instead, in the hopes of breaking even. To be fair, my fears of it not happening were not unfounded - just ten minutes before we shut down for the night opening night, YouTube pulled the entire livestream for copyright violation (read: music licensing issues). Thankfully my livestreamer has his own Twitch channel, so the next morning we seamlessly moved over there and had no issues the rest of the weekend (phew).

So much about this was so unknown - would we face criticism for passively encouraging people to get together and dance; would we not get any donations; would hardly anyone participate because online dance events are just too depressing; would the whole thing just be a sad, pathetic shadow of the real thing and remind us of how alone, and, indeed, fucked we all are? 

Well, I can’t speak for everyone’s experience of course, but only to mine and the many people who told me how they felt about it - it was really, really magical. Everything just came together and everyone was so full of excitement and fun - we need this, they said. At the last minute we decided to make our DJ evenings zoom parties so we could see everyone dancing in their homes; it absolutely made the weekend. People were able to chat and hang out, people dressed for the themes, one woman even danced alone in her house with a mannequin all weekend. We had a virtual pool party on Labor Day where everyone hung out in their yards in kiddie pools. There were lots of slip ups and technical glitches, but none of it mattered - I think in a weird way it added to the down-home-ness of it all. 

It was a weekend full of bizarre calamities - intense 113 degree temperatures on Sunday (105 the day before) that caused our power to go out and our AC to quit (until the BF went up into the attic and took the panels off so it could cool down - it worked!); one of our DJs lost power during his set, and when he went onto his dark porch to play a little guitar instead, there was a massive car accident right in front of his house and we had to get someone to fill in. All of this happened on air. It was nuts.

But we did it, and everything hit just the right note - I sang We’ll Meet Again for everyone at closing and people told me they sang along at home and cried (don’t think this isn’t going to be an annual tradition at our actual event closing from now on); our final DJ night turned into a musical videoclip session that I found fascinating and inspiring, people really dug the classes and panels I put together. 

As I said in my closing speech, I had been afraid of this event because I was afraid that it would hurt - that seeing everyone and seeing people dance and hearing the music after all this time would be unbearable; but it really wasn’t. It was actually great, and made me really optimistic for our future as a community. We’re not going anywhere. We’re just taking a forced break. We’ll be back.

I think by event’s end I had made enough to break even, and sold nearly 500 t shirts to boot. I’m happy with that. 

It’s the least stressed I’ve been during and after the event. But I still feel a bit like I’ve run a marathon. The BF kept the kids out of my hair all weekend...and it occurred to me that they can just come with us next year - they’ll be nine and seven and perfectly capable of hanging out in the ballroom. It’s time they see what a badass their mother is. 

September

It’s September. So many things happen in September that are not happening this year. My event, kids in school, dropping temperatures. Well, it’s been pleasantly cool for a few days, but it’s going to be nearly 110 this weekend. I’m not missing being in a hotel who’s antiquated air conditioning can’t keep up, I can tell you that. 

I’m gearing up for my virtual event starting this Friday. There is still a lot to do, and of course I’ve been frustratingly left with things at the last minute out of my control - typical. And I have to wrestle these kids through home school every day (Bobby is a snap - Theo has a lot of independent work to do, which means I have a lot of independent work to do). It’s going to be really odd sitting in front of my computer all weekend watching my own livestream and just hoping it all goes well. So many pieces that have to come together. I’ll be on pins and needles from about 6 pm until midnight every night. It’s going to be utterly draining. But I hope it hits just the right notes of fun and heartwarming, and I hope people get a kick out of it even if some parts of it aren’t exactly smooth. So many people are saying they’re excited for next year that I’m beginning to have a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, if I can run a live event, people will actually show up. But everything is unknown right now.

I had a minor meltdown over the weekend about the election. Despite my earlier enthusiasm, Biden’s lead has slipped, and we are once again in a tight race, a fact I find infuriating and maddening. How can anyone vote for this cretin. I mean, I get it, last time most people didn’t really know how awful he was, or how much damage he could do in four years. But this time? This time??? Well, if you’re voting for Trump in 2020 it just makes you a horrible person, end of story. This shouldn’t be a close race, at all. We should be winning by a landslide. And yet. Right now it’s a close race. Most likely outcome is once again we’ll win the popular vote but lose the electoral college because somehow rural voters’ votes should count 10x what mine does. Ok. Makes sense...

I just can’t stand the thought of a Trump win. I don’t know how I’m going to survive emotionally. I can’t go through this again, I can’t. I have no fight in me to see a positive side. I asked the BF to please tell me we’ll survive another four years of Trump, and he said we’ll survive, but it’s going to suck. God, as if things could suck worse!!!

Anyway, I’m not going to go on and on about it; just to say every second of my life is tinged with the terror that we’re not going to win this, and that my kids will be 12 and 10 by the time this asshole is finally out of our lives, and god knows what will have happened by the time that moment comes...god knows how much irreparable damage will have been done.

I’m the meantime, I just booked a camping trip over Halloween with our camping friends. I figure it’s the best way to spend the weirdest Halloween ever; it’s hopefully the only time we’ll ever not have access to trick-or-treating, so might as well do something special. We can do our candy-Easter egg-Halloween hunt on the campground rather than in the yard. Got to have some semblance of normalcy even when everything is so not.