As of Halloween eve

Yesterday was not as exhausting as I’d anticipated. We went to a birthday party in a park, which was a nice return to normalcy, then Theo and the F went to another party while Bobby and I stayed home because it was too late to drive to El Segundo for their festival. Then we went to their school’s Halloween Creep Thru (short spooky drive thru in the tiny staff parking lot), then they got dinner while I returned alone to help clean up. I always volunteer for clean up because nobody wants to do that - they want the fun part; the set up, the performing. Sure enough, other than two guys tasked with taking down the major set pieces, it was only me and one other woman plus the two main PTA people actually putting everything away. Everyone was exhausted from having been there for twelve hours, and I got a lot of appreciation which felt good. I don’t know how these full time PTA types do it - they all deserve a medal. 

Funnily enough, after filling out and sending in my application for middle school and mentioning to a school mom friend how I was strategizing it, I discovered I had done everything wrong and had in fact been wrong about the whole process for years. Ha. As would make more sense, you don’t actually apply for middle school every year. You apply the year before you go. Duh. But what you’re supposed to do is apply for elementary school magnet programs you know you can’t possibly get into so you can be waitlisted and rack up points. You won’t even be considered for most good middle school magnets if you don’t have points in your pocket. So you basically have to figure out which these coveted elementary schools are and apply year after year - if you’re wrong and you get accepted and decline, you lose points. Huh. So in a roundabout way my application may actually help me - I accidentally applied for Eagle Rock Elementary, but most likely we won’t get in and I’ll get those points. So…yay? In the Eagle Rock Jr/Sr High zoom, I learned a lot. Most importantly, I learned that while their magnet program is highly coveted, their regular school is excellent, too, and still part of the International Baccalaureate program. So as much as my kid, who is white, stands a good chance of not making it into the magnet, I can still easily get a permit to be allowed into the regular school population and get all the benefits of attending there. This was at the end of a two hour zoom. I was like, why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place? Fuck the magnet program! But at least now I’ll have a plan. B will stay on at this elementary through 6th grade, and that year I’ll apply to the magnet, and if he doesn’t make it (most likely), I’ll go the permit route. And if for whatever reason that fails, he can start at one of two or three other middle schools for 7th grade. And I can keep trying to get him into that school for high school, which is also a possibility. So at least there’s a plan of action now. Funny how no one ever in all these years just simply told me you apply to impossible to get into elementary schools every year in order to rack up points for the one chance you get to apply to middle school. That would have made everything make way more sense and I would have started applying in 2nd grade like I was supposed to. Ugh. 

In other news, kids may be able to get their shots as soon as end of this week or the week after! So excited. Everyone is buzzing about it, but I know vaccination rates for little kids are going to be very low. Well, we’ll be part of it. Sign me up.

After several attempts, I finally spoke to the wedding planner, and everything that came out of that conversation was terrible and disappointing. First, she told me to expect to at least double my wedding budget. Gulp. Then she poo-pooed our idea of a taco truck - referred to them as “fuck you tacos”, as in, we get all these people to drive out to the desert and dress up and then serve them two tacos on a paper plate, fuck you - and then said the catering company we were thinking of will charge us double what was quoted and probably will show up hours late if they show up at all. And didn’t offer any alternatives or other ideas. Then said she had sixteen weddings in the next two weeks so she wouldn’t be available to talk until then, but I really need to mail down a caterer right away, also hair and makeup (ugh). Then said she’d send me a list of the expenses I can expect at this particular venue which she’s worked several times so I could see all the unexpected costs - she never sent it. Now, I can call other wedding planners, and probably will. But the whole conversation was a huge shock, and I’ve been paralyzed ever since. I told the F about it and he said we need to cancel that venue, lose our $10,000 deposit, and start over. I said absolutely not. Like most men, he has zero concept of what things actually cost and how the world actually works. Such as, you don’t get to dictate the terms of a contract when you hire a catering company - they do what they want and you pay or end up in court. He thinks we can get an iron clad contract with the caterer in which we won’t pay one penny more than they quote us. I said it doesn’t work like that. They’ll build in a million caveats in which they can charge more on the day of if they see fit. We came to a stalemate on it. Nothing has happened all week. But recognizing this is now going to cost life changing more money than I’ve anticipated, I sat down and re-wrote an entire new budget for the next thirty years, which no longer includes paying off the house early (sigh), but does include a college fund for the kids, which was the whole purpose of paying off the house anyway. So seeing that made me feel better about everything. Yes, in principle I hate spending a ton of money on a wedding; it’s stupid and wasteful. But we’re committed to this venue, and this venue comes with costs. And the reality is weddings are expensive unless you go tiny, and even if we did cancel and move to somewhere cheap and local and boring, we probably wouldn’t save that much anyway. So, fuck it.

In other “men don’t understand how things work” news, my desert contractor was supposed to start last week, said he’d start next week. Then last night he texted me he’s still closing out his dad’s home (I guess the dad is the one who died of covid) and he needs more time. He still says he’ll finish the place by Thanksgiving. But…all these delays. The F is convinced he’s a complete con artist who is never going to do the job and just robbed us with the full intention of never doing the job. I highly doubt this. I think his life is a mess and he can’t get his shit together. And what do you say to someone who’s dad died of covid?? Unless it’s all an elaborate lie, but honestly, if he really only intended to rob us he would have disappeared ages ago. I still have faith he’ll finish up, I just think it’s going to take fucking forever. And, again, every single weekend for the entire rest of the year is full of stuff to do so we couldn’t go out there before January anyway. It’s telling the F, who’s full of rage about this and convinced we’ve been conned, that’s the hard part. I absolutely hate those conversations. He just doesn’t get it because he’s never hired a contractor for anything ever. Everyone else I tell this story to says “sounds about right”. Sigh. 

Here’s a picture of Theo his teacher sent me from the school’s no-parents Halloween parade.

Halloweening

This weekend was a rush of Halloween stuff, and yet next weekend is even more packed. You wanted the pandemic over so we can all get back to life as it was? Be careful what you wish for. I can honestly say, though, do I find social gatherings more exhausting now because I haven’t done them in eighteen months? No, they were always exhausting. Everything is exhausting when you’re middle aged. 

After a couple of weeks of back and forth and printers failing and children failing to remember to return evaluation request forms…turns out Bobby doesn’t need to be evaluated after all; apparently his OLSAT score still qualifies him to apply for gifted programs. He’s “high ability”. I sure wish someone had just told me this in the first place. But, no harm, no foul - I still have time to apply for the schools we want. Right now I’m focusing on Eagle Rock jr/sr high as my first choice. It’s an International Baccalaureate program, has high college placement, and excellent scores (especially for this area). My only concern is it may be too intense for us - the last thing I want is my kid bogged down with hours and hours of homework like I was at that age; it was miserable. But we’ll never know if Bobby can rise to the challenge if we don’t at least try to have him in an intense program. Also, he may not even be accepted. So there’s that. But in discussing with other parents it does seem the smart thing to do is apply to Eagle Rock only this year (it doesn’t start until 7th grade) and then apply again next year, and next year list the back up schools, which would be Luther Burbank and one other, possibly Washington Irving, which apparently can be gotten into even late. So Bobby will either go to Eagle Rock for 7th and if he doesn’t get in, Luther Burbank for 6th. So at least I have some clarity now. I’m going to an Eagle Rock zoom tonight to get a better picture of the place, and then on Thursday I’ll drive around to look at other schools at least from the outside. 

The city of LA grant was supposed to have launched today - it has not. Also, I was supposed to have a wedding planner from the desert call yesterday after two; she didn’t. And two places I’m waiting on for estimates for catering never answered me. The contractor was supposed to start the cabin this week after two months of neglect; he now says it’ll be next week. Sigh. And so it goes. 

We’re all really “doing” Halloween this year - everyone’s dressing up (me - bumble bee, the F - a frog, Theo - blow up alien carrying kid, Bobby - some scary Harry Potter thing that I don’t know about because Gen X); we’re going back to our Before Times trick or treat spot; I’m going to a Halloween dance on Thursday that I’ve not attended in years; I’m helping out at the school’s drive-through Halloween thing (called In N Ouch - see what they did there??). It’s a lot. But it’s also a lot of fun. It’s not lost on me that one day soon these Halloween-with-kids days will be over forever, so I’m going to enjoy the heck out of every single one we have left. 

Closer

The grant I thought had disappeared, reappeared with its own website and opens for applications next week, hurrah! I also got a notification about a city of LA grant that’s starting next week - it’s very small, only $5000, and done by lottery so not everyone who applies and is eligible will get it - but you best believe I’ll be applying. As the pandemic winds down all this free money will disappear, so I’m going to take advantage of every opportunity I can. Right now my full time job is applying for grants and selling my old stuff on Etsy. Both have turned out to be quite lucrative.

I finally got through to the school principal about having Bobby evaluated for “intellectual ability” and had a frustrating week of back and forth trying to print forms that won’t print, then having to get Bobby to remember to get a paper copy from his teacher (he remembered) then getting him to remember to turn it in (he forgot). Time is running out. I don’t know how, in the vast red-taped bureaucracy that is LAUSD, we can actually get this evaluation done in time for me to apply to schools before the cut off. Also? He may turn out to not actually have any intellectual ability, after all this. I am still utterly clueless as far as what schools to actually apply to. I’m pretty much leaning towards the local school, Luther Burbank, if only for ease of dropping two kids at two different schools for two years. But again this is a big decision and I don’t want to just rush through it without sitting down to consider all the options. It’s weird for me because middle school was not a transition time for me - after shuttling to various elementary schools, when we finally settled in NY I got a scholarship to a small performing arts school that included all grades, so I was there from 5th-8th grade and then opted for a public high school because I was sick of being the poor kid, also because by then my desire to be a child actor had waned so there was really no reason to stay there. So “middle school” being 6th-8th grade only, with no other grades at that school, is not something I personally experienced. 

I have taken a two week break from exercise. I know this isn’t good for me and is not sustainable, so I’ll start back up maybe tomorrow or Monday. Last week I was told to stay off my foot after the skin cancer surgery; this week I threw out my back really bad and could barely walk on Monday and have been slowly regaining mobility since. I guess this is my life now…? Pretty much constant aches and pains, always the same and/or different - my frozen shoulder still persists more than a year and a half later; I have pretty much non-stop skin cancer episodes now, and I tweak my back or neck every few weeks; right now I have a weird knot on my palm that hurts every time I touch anything, which is all of the time. On Monday I visited my 97-year-old friend in the hospital as she needs a heart procedure; she admonished me, as many of the old time dancers before her had, to “never get old”. Too late, apparently! I like to think of myself as healthy and pure - no smoking or drugs or alcohol ever in my life, vegetarian diet since I was 14, exercise (somewhat) regularly, never more than a pound or two “overweight”, surely I’m in better shape than most people my age? I like to think I’ll live a long life and remain relatively healthy, but sometimes I wonder. I often laugh that my F who still smokes all day, eats mostly fast food, and lived a wild life when he was younger, will probably end up outliving me. Who knows? 

After a prolonged process, we finally got a hold of the F’s birth certificate (the original disappeared in the storage unit he stopped paying when we first met, along with all his other belongings). It arrived yesterday, and I was so overjoyed! It means he can get his first passport and finally leave the country, which he’s never done (except to Mexico back in the days when you didn’t need a passport). We need this for our honeymoon trip to Fiji in July which is already bought and paid for. Thinking about him having a passport - and I want to get the boys’ theirs soon, too - makes me think about in a few years’ time starting to take the family on exotic world trips every year. It will be expensive AF so I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be able to afford something like that, but boy would that be the fulfillment of a life dream. I miss going on tours to far-flung places; that’s a part of my pre-children life I’d really like to revisit. And with the F’s natural curiosity and wonder at the world, I can see him losing his mind at some of these places. He doesn’t know what he’s been missing all this time. I think the best trips for us could include: Nile River tour with all the hot spots (I’ve been to Egypt but only one day for the pyramids), Galápagos Islands, Machu Picchu, Costa Rica, Vietnam and Cambodia (my favorite trip), Greek islands, Iceland, Morocco. Now I just need to find tours that aren’t full of Trump supporters. Ha. 

Here are the boys’ school pictures this year. Bobby looks slightly drunk, but otherwise I think these are a decent representation of them.

Updates (aren’t they all…?)

I heard from my friend. She of course read my blog and will no doubt read this. She apologized and said she has, in fact, had a life-changing event that she can’t talk about yet. So it’s not me. And now I feel terrible that, as a friend, I can’t be some kind of help or comfort in what’s obviously a terrible time. I told her I’m here for her if she needs me and she said thanks. It’s funny how quickly one’s incandescent rage can melt under just a few words. I feel relieved but also sad and concerned. It must be something pretty terrible because she’s a tough cookie and isn’t thrown by much in life. I’ll be holding her in my thoughts.

Yesterday we went to our first “tasting” of potential wedding food. It was a bit of a bagunça. The place was far as fuck - Temecula - and the woman there was flustered and somewhat unprepared for us. There were three tiny meat tacos for us to try - so, nothing for vegetarian me, although that’s my fault because I didn’t tell them - and everything was super basic. But, that was kind of the point; this is the cheap option. The woman said they probably don’t go to Yucca Valley although that was the first thing I confirmed with whoever I was texting. I think this business is a) blowing up a little too fast and they’re unprepared and overwhelmed, and b) suffering the help/supply shortages that are happening right now. I’m a little reluctant to put my wedding in their hands, honestly. But it doesn’t matter - we’ve got another tasting today and one in Nov as well and I’m also waiting on a couple more estimates. I’ll be happy when this catering stuff is done. It’s a huge amount of work for me and I’m pretty out of my depth with this stuff.

Friday my band spent the day filming some videos, something we’ve never done. But a friend in Korea wanted some videos for his wedding, and we needed some promo material, so we crashed the house of a wealthy dancer in Brentwood and shot some songs with dancers in attendance. It was really nice. I do miss that aspect of my life even though I enjoy my gig-free weekends. I so hope we can get back to international travel. I don’t know if that part of our band life will ever return, but I’m hoping. 

In thinking about the boys and sports and activities, I’ve decided to look into capoeira for them. It’s the perfect combo of dance, music, martial arts and culture - how much would it thrill me for these kids to learn about their 1/4 Brazilian background - and there’s a highly rated studio near us that’s having a special next month. So I’ll get us started on that. 

I’m still completely flummoxed about what to do about applying for middle schools for B. The principal never answered my request to have Bobby evaluated - I may go over her head to his actual teacher who is the person in charge of evaluations at their school - or hit her up one more time. I have to submit applications in about three weeks. Time is of the essence. 

One more week, maybe, until the contractor re-starts our cabin…? I find myself thinking about it all the time. I miss the desert, and Theo keeps asking when we’re going on a trip again. I hope I’m not overestimating what it’s going to feel like to go out there. What if it’s boring and we hate it? What if it’s constantly vandalized? What if we never have time to spend out there? So many things can go wrong. Or, we could love it and it could enhance our family life in a positive way. Which I think is more likely.

A letter to you

Today’s going to be a little different. This post is for my friend who most certainly will be reading this, to explain my take on what happened.

For everyone else - this is about my hairdresser/friend who was one of the first people I met when I started swing dancing in 1996. We were on a dance team together; she’s a hairdresser so became my hairdresser shortly thereafter. We bonded over our narcissistic mothers, traveled to Hawaii and New Orleans, usually had dinner after our appointment and talked about anything and everything. You can imagine the ups and downs that happen in two people’s lives over 25 years. Is this person my best friend? No, and I’m sure she’d say the same. But I definitely consider her an important person in my life, no doubt. 

At our last appointment a couple of weeks ago I brought up the subject of her doing my hair for the wedding, and I thought made it clear that this was not a pre-condition for being there, that she’s my hairdresser so of course I want her to do my hair for it but also I want to invite her and her husband as my guests whether she does my hair or not, and asked her rates for something like that (I in no way expected this to be free or discounted). She said we’d talk about my ideas. I said cool. Again I did not expect her to definitely do this for me - maybe she didn’t want to work, maybe doing brides is a drag, who knows. No expectations, just discussion. 

So over the following days she texted me with questions about my ideas, pictures, if I’m using a veil, etc. Then out of nowhere I get this weird, bot-like text on Saturday saying “I’m not available for your June 4 wedding” followed by a recommendation for someone else. I text thanks. Then it dawns on me what’s really happening here.

She doesn’t want to do my hair, fine. I find it very difficult to believe she actually magically has a conflict on that day that she suddenly can’t get out of, so I think that’s total bullshit. But she’s also telling me, I’ve decided I’m not going to your wedding. For no other reason than she just doesn’t want to go.

This ate at me all weekend and was the reason I was upset but I just couldn’t articulate it even to myself at the time. I was saying to myself, it’s fine, she doesn’t want to go, that’s cool. Then I realized - wait, what? She’s deciding for something nine months from now that she’s just out because she just doesn’t feel like it…? This person I’ve known for half my life, who I’ve traveled with and cried with and seen go through sobriety…? And she can’t even do me the courtesy of an actual explanation or apology or anything other than “I’m unavailable” like I’m some fucking walk in client she’s never met before? Are you fucking kidding me???

Naturally I ran this by some friends to see if I was crazy for suddenly feeling really hurt and angry. One pointed out maybe she was offended I asked her to work. Ok…maybe, despite how clear I thought I was being, that’s it? I also thought the weird bot-like text might have been an actual mistake. So I sent a text saying I was bummed that she couldn’t be at the wedding because I was looking forward to having my oldest friends all together but I understand if she has a conflict. Hoping, again, to get a rational explanation - my brother’s getting married on that day, I’m going to be out of the country on the trip of a lifetime, I’m planning on having cancer next June, anything. What do I get? A heart on my text. That’s it. 

Is she still offended I asked her to work? Let me ask you this - wouldn’t it be way, way more offensive to not ask the person who’s done your hair for 25 years to do your hair for your wedding? I understand this kind of stuff can be messy, but come on. 

There’s another layer to this that makes me question what happened. At our last appointment the conversation - and it was a good one - revolved around her working with a business coach-type person who’s encouraging her to work towards molding her clientele to what she wants and not just take every job and client. Basically, a few clients were on the chopping block (not me, she stressed). She’s learning to say no and not take on things that are inconvenient. I encouraged all this, as I’m on a similar track with my business. I can only imagine that somewhere between texting me for wedding hair ideas and that weekend she just decided I don’t want to do this and decided to tell me in the coldest, shittiest way possible, without even the courtesy of an elaborate lie to save my feelings (I’m planning on having cancer next June).

But really none of this matters - the real question is…why don’t you want to go to your friend’s wedding? Because it’s too far to drive, because there’s alcohol there, because it’s old friends you don’t want to deal with, because the whole thing is just not interesting to you? Or what this whole episode actually says to me - you just don’t care about me enough to go. And that tells me everything I need to know.

I had an appointment scheduled for next month. I texted telling her I was canceling. Once again, no do you want to reschedule, is everything ok, no nothing, just an infuriatingly happy “okay!” What the actual fuck. Wow. So this is all I mean to you. Just a pain in the ass client to be discarded without a second thought. While you’re on this coach-inspired scorched earth tear you might want to think about the things and people you’ll alienate along the way on this journey of everything now being only about what works for you.

You are a shitty friend. 

In this life you fucking show up for people. You wish them happy birthday, you check in on them when they’re sick, you visit their new baby (as you did with me), you comfort them when a loved one dies, and you fucking go to their wedding. You go even if it’s far and you tell them they look beautiful even if they don’t and tell them you’re having a great time even if you’re not. 

I think I fooled myself into thinking it’s ok if people don’t show up for me for this, that it’s just a wedding, it’s not a big deal. But you know what? It’s a big fucking deal. I’m going to be 50, spent my entire adult life single and alone so much so that I had to go to extraordinary lengths to have children by myself, and now I’m getting married which is making me happy and I really want a day of your time to come celebrate me. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. And once again…why wouldn’t you want to come…? That’s the real question.

So I’m writing this mainly to get it out of my system (I am furious) but also to tell how this feels and looks to me. And why maybe at first I was ok but after really thinking about it it occurred to me that this is complete and utter bullshit. You’re acting like I don’t matter to you and you don’t really care about me. You certainly have zero interest in attempting to explain, or to rescue this friendship. You’re happy to see me just walk away after 25 years. What is wrong with you??

So that’s it. Adult friendships are hard, and this situation ain’t my first rodeo, for sure. It hurts and I’m sad and I’ll miss my friend but I guess I just have to move on and accept that I grossly overestimated my value in this person’s life. Now excuse me while I go punch a wall. 

On guilt and motherhood

I had an off weekend. I’m not sure what’s going on with me - but as usual I’m sure it’s not one thing but a collection of seemingly small yet triggering things that set me off on a downward spiral. I’m mostly ok now - I think I’ve felt all the feelings and am now sick of them and ready to move on. But I thought it was worth digesting one more time.

Mostly, I feel guilty. I feel like I’m letting my kids down by not having them in activities and not having gotten them into sports when I had the chance. I feel like I’m the only person on earth who doesn’t have their kids engaged in afterschool stuff and sports. I keep telling myself that a) the pandemic fucked everything up in this department and once it winds down for real (spring?) I can make up for lost time, b) I’m not really in any kind of financial position to sign up for hundreds of dollars a month in activities, c) the kids are thriving and happy so who the eff cares? And yet. 

We had a long, boring, unfocused weekend in which the kids were mostly in their pajamas with unbrushed teeth and I puttered around aimlessly. See, what had happened was…this was supposed to be our first weekend in the cabin. Which we all know can’t happen, and won’t happen, for months (contractor told me yesterday he’s not returning to do any work for at least two more weeks. Good times). Because I had to go to a wedding late Friday I couldn’t realistically make plans for us to do anything else - like camping or a short road trip or anything like that (I probably would have used our credit to stay at that cabin in Cambria we got canceled out of last May). And so I just left the weekend open. But that didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. The F is terrible at making plans, so we sat around all day in an endless round of “what do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do?” while he futilely looked up things to do with kids in LA and restaurants, not finding anything for hours, until I suggested we go to this beer garden-type place with a play yard the kids could at least run around in. Upon getting there, the play yard was gone. I spent $120 on a very mediocre lunch (still don’t know how that happened), we went to a park where Theo fell off his bike into a rose bush and tore up his leg something awful, we came home and struggled to figure out what to do about dinner at nine o’clock at night. Then yesterday the F got to the important work of fixing all of our leaking/stuck bathroom fixtures (I’m very grateful he’s up to the task of tackling things like this) while I futzed around and read and de-seeded pomegranates. I somewhat redeemed myself by cooking us all dinner and making apple cider donut holes, but mostly I just felt like a big fat failure all weekend.

Why? Well, mostly dumb reasons - seeing everyone’s family fun pumpkin patch pictures, drive-in pictures, beach day pictures…again, everyone in the world, it seems, did something fun last weekend. Why didn’t we go to a pumpkin patch? Because the half-sisters reached out to us to go, and I’m waiting to make a plan with them. So that was off the table. And again, the home repairs were urgent so that had to happen (we couldn’t turn the cold tap on the bathroom sink hardly at all). But then there was a discussion in one of my mom groups about how to build resilience in children and much of the discussion was about getting kids into sports and activities. And I see how much these things take over adult lives - just Friday night at the wedding I had a discussion with a mom of boys about how much she hates having to drag herself to early morning games and practices and how if her husband hadn’t insisted the kids be in sports, she never would have done it. Some years ago the F suggested I get the boys into little league or some such thing - I said I would if he took full responsibility for all the games and practices and other crap you have to do, and that was the last I heard of it. 

So it was a weekend of social media FOMO and mild shaming - something I typically avoid, but this topic touches a nerve with me because I do feel guilt about it and question if I’m doing the right thing by currently doing nothing. Part of me, too, is so intensely still hurt by our whole violin debacle that I’m just gun shy now about picking something for these kids to do, forcing them to continue when they inevitably don’t want to, dragging it out for everyone, only to be fired at the end anyway and all that work, money, and commitment goes right down the drain and was for absolutely nothing. To say I’m scarred by that whole incident is an understatement. 

The question is, what do you do when your kids don’t seem to show much interest or aptitude in anything? Other than watching gamer videos? I always swore up and down I wouldn’t be the kind of parent that would just let their kids wallow on YouTube all day…and yet that’s exactly how we live, and I’m intensely ashamed of it. Yet I don’t know how to fix it. What, exactly, do you do with kids when they get home from school? I mean when they’ve done homework and eaten and all that? Is it terrible to allow them downtime after a long day? Do you need to constantly engage them like they’re still toddlers? (trust me…they don’t want this). Didn’t we all just veg out in front of the tv every spare minute when we were this age? Was that bad for us?

What I should be doing is just picking things for them to do and trying them out, like other parents. But the mental energy this takes - not to mention financial commitment - sounds utterly exhausting to me. What/when/where? How to do research on all these things, where to take them, what teachers to get, and right now with covid still in our lives, too…it’s just complicated. I want them to learn instruments, but they have zero interest in this. Theo might still be into sports - or maybe martial arts. He’s very physical. I could consider getting them into some kind of martial art; I think they’d both respond well to the discipline and physicality of it. But I do worry if they’d then spend all their waking lives beating the crap out of each other. This is the most likely option for them, but again I might wait at least until they’re fully vaccinated before considering this. 

I look ahead to the next couple of months and, until our Thanksgiving trip, we have a lot of weekends with, frustratingly, one or two small things we have to do that make it impossible to go on an actual trip, and yet don’t take up enough time to make an actual fun weekend. We could have been spending time out at the cabin - that’s what this whole fall was supposed to be about. I’m so annoyed. 

I started reading a book called The Lost Daughter which, as promised, has been a real gut punch regarding mothers and daughters, and in particular abandoning mothers and mothers who can’t differentiate between themselves and their daughters. Mothers who tell their daughters they never should have been mothers (WHY) and feel vaguely or not-so-vaguely competitive with them. As much as I often bemoan the fact that I’ll never have a daughter (out of earshot of my boys, of course!) - the F recently asked me if it was hard to be the only girl in the house, and I said emphatically, YES - there’s still a part of me that’s glad I have boys because it’s just so much less complicated. I don’t have to worry about differentiating from them - they are nothing like me; they are aliens. They will only become more alien-like as they get older and turn into men. I don’t understand how their brains work, what they want, what they think about. I do my best to be compassionate and nurturing while they still let me, but mostly I just leave them be because I believe that’s what’s best, and I want them to be independent. So we have the gender gap - they are men, and therefore incomprehensible to me - but, more worryingly, the generation gap, in which these children are growing up with social media and at their age I was still using a (shared) rotary phone. I truly feel like the only time we’re having a similar experience - all doing the same thing at the same time - is when we’re in the wilderness. It’s no wonder that’s where I’m happiest and most satisfied with family life. 

Tomorrow is the middle school fair (zoom), and apparently middle school applications have to be in by mid-November. Schools still aren’t offering any kind of tours (covid), so it looks like I’m stuck doing online research (ugh) and watching tour videos to get any kind of sense of what these schools are like. I had started to get interested in this one hippy-dippy school until I read the Yelp reviews; like often happens with these types of schools,  it looks like it’s loud and chaotic, and all the troubled kids who couldn’t hack normal public schools end up going there and bullying the other kids with zero repercussions. Yeah, no. This is a huge, life changing decision, and I feel completely overwhelmed and out of my depth. I’m so scared of making the wrong call and sending Bobby to a school where he’ll be miserable - or worse, harmed. And I have to make, and commit to, decisions right now that we then have to live with for years. 

It’s just all so hard.

A gradual return

Thursday night I did something I haven’t done in ages - I went dancing. Even before covid times, this is something I had been doing very rarely. I can say it’s because of “the kids”, and that’s partially true, but the reality is more complex. When you go out partner dancing by yourself, you can really only have a good time if you have enough suitable partners to dance with. And as a follow, this is rarely the case. So I had found for years that I would get all dressed up, get a babysitter, leave my house at night, and walk into a club by myself and pay the entry fee, only to stand around all night and not dance. There would only ever be a handful of good guy dancers out, and gaggles of women who would grab them the second they walked off the floor for the next dance. Being naturally rejection-adverse and not competitive nor aggressive, I would just never get to dance. Nevermind the fact that, even if not dancing, you’re stuck dodging weird, creepy guys all night and made to feel extremely uncomfortable. So I gave up. You can see why I’m so interested in the concept of de-gendering this dance (everyone leads, everyone follows). It’s yet another area in which we women are artificially made dependent on men’s presence/aptitude/willingness to seek us out, and I’m not into it. 

So after having been asked to DJ at a place that’s been having a largely unadvertised soft opening for a few weeks, and seeing that, hey, in addition to strict covid measures, there is also a very pleasing male to female ratio and plenty of people I know and like, I decided to try showing up as a customer. I had to skip a week because of a cold (tested - no covid) but made myself some dance shoes (bought adhesive suede on Amazon and stuck it to the bottom of some comfortable slip ons - who knew this was possible), put my big girl panties on, and went. And it was fun! I was very surprised to see that it felt like I had just danced yesterday - my stamina was good (thank you, long uphill hikes every day), my frozen shoulder didn’t bother me very much, and my muscle memory kicked right in. I will say I don’t have much confidence in my skills - these young people are so much better than we ever were - but, as when I was in school re: my relative smarts, I can confidently say I’m not the best dancer in the room, but I’m not the worst, either. I managed dancing in a mask all night, as well. I know this short Renaissance won’t last for me - invariably more people will come, plus more girls, and/or the novelty of my being there will wear off and people may not be as interested in dancing with me as they were that night. But I think for this moment I’ve found a safe place to dance for a little while once a week, and I’m pretty chuffed about it. My love for this dance has not diminished in the 25 years I’ve been doing it. It is definitely my longest and most passionate relationship.

This was supposed to be our first weekend in our cabin, and I’m pretty gutted that it wasn’t possible. Instead I drove alone to a wedding in a closer desert town, and just the wide open sky and desert breezes made me so full of longing to spend time out there-! When I try to think of the cabin and what it’ll actually be like, I kind of draw a blank. It’s possible the whole thing will be a total bust - my F’s coworker said he knew someone who did what we’re doing, and the place got broken into so much that she gave up and sold it. That is indeed my worst fear - that we’ll be subject to relentless vandalism and theft and just get fed up. I have to accept that this is among the range of possibilities. Zero progress this week; I didn’t even bother contacting the contractor since he had mentioned he wouldn’t get his crew back until next week. Sigh. 

In other news, I emailed the CA business website that used to have that grant I was looking for, and thankfully they wrote back to explain that no, it has not been canceled but will roll out later. It was supposed to open on Tuesday - clearly that’s not happening. And no indication of when it will roll out - which means nobody actually knows. It’s stressful, but at least it’s not gone. 

Here is a picture of me in a new hairpiece I got for dressy vintage occasions. I think it’s all about fake hair going forward - the little secret our forebears knew.

Socialization

This weekend was all about socialization. Saturday I went to the pro-choice march downtown, having dusted off my protest sign from the last pro-choice march (sigh), and remembering my first pro-choice March on Washington in the 80s in high school, which means I have been officially marching for reproductive rights for five decades. And now, in the fifth decade, our rights are more at risk than they’ve been in that whole time. Sigh, indeed. 

That night the family went out to dinner, something we haven’t done while at home in…I don’t even remember. We had Thai food, which, as always when introducing new things to these kids, went so-so. But I have to admit they are *slowly* getting better at eating new things, which makes life so much better in so many ways. 

Yesterday I did something I also haven’t done in ages, which is dress up and go to a 1920s picnic. A friend had invited the whole family for her birthday, and I got to see people I hadn’t seen in ages and even have my first dance in about two years. As always with this stuff, it felt like I had just done it yesterday. It really is like riding a bicycle. Even my still not great frozen shoulder did ok with the dancing. Thankfully it’s not in my dominant arm.

I am still waiting on my replacement credit cards and debit cards, and currently have a bunch of companies trying, and failing, to charge me their monthly fees. I sincerely hope I get these new cards soon. 

A California arts grant I had been waiting on for months has suddenly disappeared from the website it was featured on, and there is no mention of it anywhere - not on Twitter, YouTube, my news feed, nothing. It’s like it never existed. I’ve emailed that government website to see what happened to it. Im afraid it’s just “gone away” and been re-allocated to other things. If this potential $45,000 is no longer headed my way, this dramatically changes what I will and won’t be able to do next year. It was supposed to open for applications next week. I’m pretty gutted. I realize it’s free money that I’m in no way entitled to, but still. I hate that a carrot was dangled in front of me that’s now (most likely) gone.