Crunch time

My, how many lifetimes we’ve lived in the last two weeks! Between an assassination attempt, an historic step down, and a new presumptive nominee, my head is whirling just like everyone else’s. The combination of anxiety over “will he or won’t he” last week plus lingering jet lag led to many sleepless nights and days ruined by long naps; it’s been hard to get back in the swing of things. I have been tackling the more complicated event tasks methodically day by day, but trying to make it to exercise classes has suffered (the timing is just off with the camp schedule) and I’m still procrastinating on certain things. But now that Kamala is the presumptive new Democratic nominee, I feel like I can breathe a big sigh of relief - the intense anxiety I’ve felt since that disastrous debate a month ago has subsided, and I feel like everything is going as it should. We had to see Biden for what he’d become - as painful as it was - and thankfully he was able to put ego aside and make way for a female POC presidential nominee. I’m pretty confident she’ll win. And I’m over the moon about it. 

Each day upon my return has been a struggle - getting out of bed is tough, making the kids breakfast is a drag (Bobby is fine with cereal, but Theo’s become impossibly picky and will only eat applesauce or egg and cheese quesadillas which are a whole multi-pan production to make), and just picking my way through each day has been exhausting and difficult. I’m hoping I rally soon, but also, this is the hard time of year whether I’m jet lagged or not. There’s work 24 hours a day right now, whether I choose to do it or not, and my stress level is now something that needs to be managed daily so it doesn’t get out of control. 

The kids are on week two of camp - in just a couple of weeks we have Bobby’s school orientation and then it’s all school stuff after that point. Supplies, clothes, shoes, backpacks, paperwork, figuring out pick ups and drop offs. It’s a whole thing.

Last night I took a chance and took the kids to see the 1970s Invasion of the Body Snatchers at the local revival theater. It was definitely too scary for them, especially Theo, who alternated between hiding in his shirt and saying, “oh, I don’t like this”. But nobody cried or seemed especially distressed or asked to leave, so we stayed. Both boys thought it was a good movie - and both said it was really, really scary. I gave them some context about McCarthyism and the red scare of the 1950s which was the inspiration for the original film; we talked about how it was about the dangers of conformity and how people will never stop fighting for their right to humanity and individualism. Nobody had nightmares. But I do think I probably should have waited another year or two for this one! Next week we have Time Bandits and Rocky. Definitely not scary. 

I’m worried about money, but that’s no surprise to anyone who reads this. Sign ups are still slow as molasses and cancellations are flooding in. I’ve come to accept that my worst suspicions may be true - that the mediocre numbers I got last year were, in fact, an actual “bump” for the 25th, and what I’m looking at right now - being 300-400 people less than my best years before the pandemic - may be my new normal. Can I live with that? Yes, if I can manage to wipe out my mortgage, live frugally, and cancel plans to expand. But it’s certainly troubling that I could be back to my post-2008 crash numbers, especially when I’ve had two other long-term organizers tell me they had record turnouts this year. I shouldn’t be struggling to return after covid if no one else is. And yet. Is there a chance I’ll get a last minute bump? Well, I think it’s unlikely, based on the fact that I haven’t had anything like that the last two years; based on ‘22 and ‘23 at this time, I’ll be lucky to get *maybe* 100 more people dribbling in over the next six weeks, and that’s just not enough. Mostly it’s because there’s no cheap rooms at the hotel. I need to find a way to mitigate that; there has to be some strategy going forward so everyone doesn’t book all the rooms a year in advance and then cancel them all the day before when it’s too late to re-sell them, which disincentivizes any new people from signing up. I’m going to just have to lick my wounds this year and see what changes I can make next year to try to kick up my numbers again.