We still don’t know what’s going to happen when we head out to the desert on Sunday. I doubt we’ll be able to get anything accomplished out there. At least it’ll be cool so we can enjoy the outdoors - I’d love to drive up to the Mojave and check out some things there we missed last time. And we have the final walkthrough at the wedding space on Wednesday that was delayed three weeks, so that will be a good door to close finally. I’m going to try to focus on just enjoying some family time and time off. We’re rarely all in one place these days - that’s what the cabin was supposed to be for - so it’ll be nice to eat together and play games and go on hikes.
Yesterday I had a real scare when I finally heard from the state grant I applied for six long months ago…only to be told I have been found ineligible. It took a lot of digging around to discern that the problem was the business activity code on my taxes does not match the ones required for eligibility, even though the description of the business activity is exactly the same. I went nuts calling and emailing everyone I could think of to protest - the company administering the grant unfortunately had zero information - but several hours of rage and adrenaline later, I finally got through to a couple of arts advocacy organizations who both told me that this issue affected more than half the applicants and will be addressed in the CA state legislature (the law has to be re-written and voted on to fix it), and that they hope it will be resolved by June. I can’t tell you the relief. Of course there’s still no guarantees I’ll get the money in the end…but there is hope that I just might, in a couple of months. And wouldn’t that make a lovely wedding present?
While I was busy freaking out about this, I had a scheduled phone call with my epidemiologist friend to help me set the covid policy for my event, which, of course, was far more complicated than I ever would have imagined. There are so many factors this year that didn’t exist last year - boosters, recent infection providing better protection than vaccines, the fact that the vaccine doesn’t protect you from catching or spreading it, the increased transmissibility, etc etc. I borrowed liberally from other event policies and cobbled something together, mostly, that all policies are subject to change as the pandemic changes. In the middle of this I found out two recent events became small superspreaders - at one, almost 50% of attendees caught it. It was a small event so only 20 people, but still. One of the people at it just messaged me urging me to enforce masks and daily testing at my event. Ugh. No. I’ve got to be honest - if I didn’t have a $200,000 hotel contract to worry about breaking, I would be seriously considering not even opening this year just for my own sanity. There is no way people aren’t going to catch covid at my event no matter what I do. The event where 50% of people caught it, they all tested to get in, so obviously the testing didn’t catch it. I fucking give up.
Tonight I’m thinking more and more about the woman who, back in 2020, advised all of us event runners to get new careers, that we’d never be able to do this again. She might just be right, you know? Feeling very defeated and scared.
In a moment of optimism today I went in and adjusted my mortgage to include extra principal along the lines of what I was paying pre-pandemic, in a bid to try to pay off the house completely in seven years, just two years shy of when my original mortgage would have ended, and just as Bobby finishes up his junior year in high school. I have zero idea how I’m going to maintain these payments for seven years - especially while I’m simultaneously considering quitting the business entirely - but I needed a moment of hope, I guess.
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