April

I had a bit of a spiral this week upon learning that a dance organizer friend is being sued over his event requiring vaccines - this is in Tennessee which recently enacted a law forbidding this; what happened to Republicans being pro-business and anti-government interference…? While I doubt that could happen here in CA, a local dance studio has been threatened with a similar lawsuit (nothing filed yet), and there are certain aspects of requiring vaccines for a business that could potentially get you into a sticky legal area (not going to point these out here). Suffice it to say we’re all enraged and frustrated - the group being sued has a GoFundMe that hit its $10,000 goal almost immediately, and there’s been tons of support. So I find out about this lawsuit, and am all triggered and angry all day, then go to dinner with some book club friends in the hopes of wiping that out of my brain. In a bizarre coincidence, one of the right-leaning members, who is a healthcare worker who is vaccinated but doesn’t want the booster because of some health issues she’s convinced were because of the vaccine but are probably more likely from the two times she caught covid (my opinion), started railing about CA’s law that all healthcare workers need to be boosted and how the TN law is so amazing and the way things should be everywhere, and how she’s sick of Big Pharma controlling everything and how everything is a conspiracy and how her family took ivermectin for their covid and it worked great (not a thing), and how she applied to one of these right wing organizations for a bogus religious exemption to keep her job and how she’s sick of being discriminated against (white person’s concept of discrimination). It was like listening to an Alex Jones podcast in real life. I could barely contain myself, but did point out that friends of mine are being sued because they are trying to keep their events safe and I hate that stupid law. We kept it civil, and it was fine, but boy oh boy have I been triggered all week. All of this only adds to my abject terror of opening up my event in just one month and what harassment, legal or otherwise, I’m opening myself up to. 

I finally talked myself off the ledge by reminding myself that, just like with the TN event, I have tons of support - I’m sure if I found myself sued over covid policies, I could get legal help and financial help to see my way through. I keep reminding myself it’s not like when I was sued in 1999 - I had no money and no support and no coping mechanisms, and it was all horrendous. I still have terrible ptsd from that, which is manifesting itself now. The anti-vaxxers are organized, funded, and vicious. They 100% will come after me if it occurs to them to do so. But there are far more of us than them. I think the best I can tell myself is, yes, there’s a higher probability this year that I’ll be sued than any other, but it won’t be the end of me or my business, and I’ll get through it. Still doesn’t exactly help me sleep at night, though. 

At least one stressor is (mostly) behind me, which is the prenup discussion, which went as simply as, “sure, whatever makes you comfortable”. Now I’m waiting on a second draft, and he has to read it, and that may make it a lot more real to him and may bring up some issues, but I doubt it. He knows how paranoid I am about protecting these assets, and is also not an entitled person. And odds of divorce at our age I think are pretty slim, considering where we’re at in our lives. Suffice it to say I think we’ll breeze through the prenup process, which is a huge relief. 

Contractor #2 is leaving in two weeks, and I’m not sure what’s going to get done before he goes. He still has to finish the roof, and says he wants to start on a toilet for us, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen with windows and a door. I don’t know if he’s going to leave it in any position to be used before he’s gone until the end of the year. Does it matter? Will we even get out there this summer with the heat and all we have going on? The future of the place is very uncertain at the moment. For now we are heading out there a week from tomorrow and I’m not sure what condition we’ll find it in, or what, if anything, we’ll be able to get done out there for the five days we’re there. I keep seeing FB memories of last year’s spring break trip to Anza Borrego and I’m dying of FOMO to be doing something fun like that instead. I wish we were able to have adventures this year, but unfortunately the wedding and the return of my event have rendered all of that impossible. I’m longing for that day in September when all of this is behind me - maybe even covid is on an extended retreat - and I can finally exhale.