Final review

The grant I’ve been waiting for since December has moved me from “submitted” (status since April) to “under review” (last week) to “final review” (this afternoon). It’s rare in life I’m in a position to be at the mercy of others - in fact, I’ve pretty much set up my entire life so that I am in charge of almost everything that happens to me (own my home, had kids alone, own my business, own my band that my business hires, etc). My future being in the hands of a government entity is extremely stressful and crazy-making. Especially now that a friend of mine with the same business type applied after me and has already been approved. It would be such a punch in the gut if after all this I was denied. Ugh. I can’t wait for this to be over so I can stop stressing about it. It’s been a long road. 

Everything lately has been an exercise in how weird and unresolved everything still is this summer. My sister is here, and although things seem kinda normal, they’re also kinda not. Restaurants are either closed or open limited hours. Places to visit require advance tickets. People are doffing masks but also many people are not, which makes me not want to be the person that makes everyone uncomfortable by not wearing a mask even if they’re not required nor medically necessary for me, personally, anymore. Travel is still up in the air - I don’t know if my one European teaching couple will be allowed into the US; most of my international visitors are preemptively delaying until next year. Now I’m worried the Delta variant will take over this summer and spike numbers so badly that I’ll have to cancel at the last second. Or even if it only affects unvaccinated people - right now everyone’s so traumatized they don’t know how to properly assess risk; if the vaccine we have in the US is still effective against the Delta variant, my event is still safe. And yet there are those out there convinced my event will be this huge super-spreader, which is pretty much physically impossible even under today’s conditions. Will everyone panic and want refunds? Who knows. I’ve never wished more for my event to be tomorrow and not still two and a half months away. So much can still go wrong. It’s scary.

The boys went to their first day of camp today at their old Rec center. I believe they haven’t been to summer camp there since 2018. When I drove up it was just a handful of glum masked kids sitting six feet apart at outdoor tables and I feared the worst, that they would hate it and not want to go anymore. Thankfully this was not the case. They enjoyed it and brought home the usual collection of crappy little crafts that will soon see the bottom of my kitchen garbage. Ah, summer. So they go this week to give me some time to decompress, then they don’t return until August. I’m going to make the most of this week to get organized and relax. In two weeks our Month of Camping begins and I want to make sure I’m ready for it.