Summer locked in

Today I brought a book and camping chair to go hang out at the rec center to get the kids signed up for camp. As soon as I dropped them at school I headed over - I was about 12th or so in line. At 8:15, I was 45 minutes before online sales opened and an hour 45 before the office opened for in-person sign ups. I was able to get Theo in on my phone, but there was no online sign up for CITs, so I had to wait until 10. 10:45, really, since it took forever for the people in front of me to get signed up and paid. But I got them both in for the final four weeks before school. Phew.

All the parents around me were having the same conversations - how impossible this system is, how crazy last year’s sign up day was, what life is like after the fires, how much we hate Trump and how much everything sucks. 

Yesterday was fucking brutal - between the orange turd intentionally tanking our economy and infuriating all our trading partners, to the sudden announcement that my rival (or sister, depending) dance competition on the east coast decided to cancel, I started really spiraling. This event canceled because they’re very dependent on international visitors and of course no one feels safe coming here right now (although they moved their event to be just a month before mine), but I also have insider knowledge that since an ownership handover last year their management has been a bit of a shit show and the new owner probably was looking for a convenient out (I had a similar situation when I had agreed to host the World Lindy Hop Championship in 2001 and was able to get out of it because of 9/11). So they are not in the same situation as me, but it did give me pause, plus flashbacks to 2020 of watching other events fold one by one. I’ve been worried all along that a bad economy could affect me - how could it not? - but now I’m really worried, like, crunching numbers and trying to figure out just how bad I could potentially eat it this year. I decided to cancel the remodel of my pool (desperately needed - after 21 years, the whole thing is crumbling) and just save that money I had put aside to potentially live on. 

It could be really, really bad. I could lose hundreds of people, and this, of all years, as I’m taking on $30,000 in extra expenses adding a day. How horrible. 

I don’t really see a scenario in which I don’t lose customers - it’s now just a question of how many. My room block is full, the contests are full, registration is about where it was this time last year. But all of that could easily change. People could start canceling. My international instructors could decide not to come and I’d have to replace them. Just like in 2020, everyone is just waiting and watching in terror - but if things don’t start to look less dire in a month or two (and I don’t see how this is possible) people are going to decide they just can’t afford a dance camp right now, no matter how fun it may be. 

And this is all assuming that things don’t go really apeshit in the next six months. Invasions, empty shelves, unemployment, riots in the streets…? I can’t help but feel like we’re careening towards an America we couldn’t possibly imagine right now, after decades of peace and prosperity; will we even recognize ourselves by summer…? Will I look back on this post and think, “wow, remember when I thought I’d even have an event??” I was just here five years ago. I still remember that tentative optimism. And the hideous realization that I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

Add to this the announcement today that a friend from the dance scene, who had been missing for a few weeks, was reported as deceased and believed to have died around January 20th. He was a troubled soul, although I liked him a great deal. No cause of death will be released for some time, but I’m going to guess suicide. I just saw him in December at one of our Christmas gigs. We’re all shattered by the news. A friend of mine and I were talking about how all this shit that’s happening is going to take down the most vulnerable people - people like him, who were always on the edge emotionally and financially. They’re just not going to survive this. Another friend posted that she’s in a desperate situation and is trying to sell things; I sent her $100 to her Venmo. Only the strong will make it through this - which is some eugenics / lord of the flies / survival of the fittest Nazi bullshit if I’ve ever heard it. 

We decided to stay in town this weekend - the H really needs to work, and I really want to go to the big downtown rally. Luckily he’ll come with me for the first time. It looks like there’s finally real momentum for these protests, and I’m here for it. Sad to miss possibly our last desert trip for months but also glad not to be missing this giant protest. 

I’m glad summer is locked in now, everything mostly paid for, plans made. I don’t know how successful some of these things will be - from the volunteering camp to sleepaway camp to the cruise to Bobby’s first stint at being a CIT (which he balked at, initially, when I brought it up again a couple of days ago - too bad, you’re doing it!) - but you have to try things. And I’m trying to prepare myself for a shitty turnout at my event but still hold my head high and do my best for the people who did pay the money and show up, and set myself up to just bloody well persevere like I have so many times before. It’s all about survival now.

Friend desert visits

I had a friend desert visit this last weekend that, despite the ongoing issue with my oil light popping on and off (I’ve taken the car in for this three times), went swimmingly. I did make the executive decision to keep us close to Joshua Tree on Saturday, which was teeming with people, rather than head up to Amboy where there’s no people and no service. I’m pretty sure it’s just a sensor issue, but it’s still pretty anxiety producing. Of all times, now is not a good time to ruin my engine and potentially have to get a new car.

It feels weird and guilt-inducing to try to have a normal life while all around us things are crumbling. A political pundit summed it up well recently when he said one minute you’re protesting, the next you’re buying new placemats…and it all seems so ridiculous. And yet everyone says you need to take breaks for your own sanity, and tune out so you don’t get overwhelmed; you have to balance your life otherwise you’ll spiral into inaction. Also, when you have kids, you have to keep up some semblance of normal life so they don’t just get scared and anxious. But you also have to stay engaged and keep fighting. There is a lot of conflicting messaging right now. It’s hard to know what’s the right thing to do. I made a tone deaf post on FB recently decrying the lack of basic decency in America right now - and unsurprisingly all my POC friends swooped in to tell me it’s always been this way and express their annoyance with me that I’m only now just noticing it, because of my white privilege. And I get that, but also, I’m not only just now seeing it, and the point I was trying to make was about how this cruel and sadistic regime enables people’s cruelty and racism in ways we haven’t seen (publicly) in decades; I don’t think that can be debated. But I can’t explain that, because it makes me sound defensive, and I can’t delete the post because it’s “dirty deleting”, so I have to just leave it up there for people to misread and continue to paint me as just another clueless white lady who thought we solved racism when Obama was elected. Sigh. This is where we are. And I hate it. From now on I’m going to more carefully vet my posts because this one was definitely a mistake and not at all the message I was trying to convey and not at all how I see things. Lesson learned.

In other news, I started the terzepatide pills yesterday. Just took pill #2. So I can say with some certitude that a) I am not allergic to it, and b) I’m not so sensitive to it that I instantly start projectile vomiting. I can already see a problem, though - since it’s a pill that you’re supposed to dissolve under your tongue and not chew or swallow, so far what I see happening is it pretty much just dissolves into your saliva and then you swallow it so you’re pretty much just swallowing the pill anyway. I’ve seen people complain about this online. So my prediction at this point is that these pills will be largely ineffective - I’m going to guess I’ll take these for a month with zero results, then switch to shots. Most people seem to go this route and notice an instant change. 

I have *some* of our summer figured out. I was able to get the kids registered for one week of a local inexpensive camp in June that focuses on volunteering efforts. It’s definitely an experiment; it was recommended to me but nobody had actually had their kids there. Still, it’s local, cheap, and just one week right after school ends. Then I booked a cruise that straddles two weeks in June and gets us back on July 1, so I can just not book any camps during that time since we’ll be gone too many days each week for camp to be worthwhile. So now I only have to find a camp for four weeks, and the one I have my sites on is the one they barely got into last year, which opens for registration on Thursday. I called and they have a CIT program for older kids that you just sign up for, no interview process. So I’ve got my fingers crossed that I will be able to get both kids in there. I suppose I’ll just go camp out on the sidewalk like I did last year. Stressful! 

We’re headed to the desert as a family next weekend, and it might be our last, sadly, as the only available weekend after that is Memorial Day, and odds are we’ll be playing Knott’s that night (also, it’s going to be wicked hot). I’d like to go the weekend after, too, to shut the place down for the summer, but again, wicked hot, and Knott’s. I’ll miss that place. I hope we can spend lots of time there in the fall.