Body things

So in the middle of tariff insanity and rollercoaster stock markets, I decided to get another tattoo with the rest of my rapidly diminishing money. It was a nine hour extravaganza on Monday with the same female artist who did my other tattoo. As last time, the planning and designing took about six hours, with a dinner break, and then an hour of outlining and an hour of color. I can say this - unlike last time, this time HURT LIKE FUCKING HELL. Like, unbearable, labor-like hell. Why? In looking at tattoo pain charts, there’s no reason this part of my arm should have been so much worse than the other part of my arm (like really, completely night and day). I was gripping the seat and clenching every part of my body and groaning in misery. I’m very tempted to make this the last tattoo. I know I wanted a New York one, but oh my god. If anything, I would not do both outlining and color in the same session. It’s just too much. I was shaking uncontrollably and then pretty much limp by the end of it. Nope. Not doing that again. 

So what we did was combine elements of the first tattoo - traditional style elements - to make it look like they were intentionally grouped together rather than done years apart with no planning. It’s a bit of a bold move for me, since the idea behind the first tattoo was to hide it under a short sleeve most of the time, whereas this one will be visible most of the time. In other words, it’s more of a commitment to outing myself as a somewhat alternative person. This was a conscious choice. I’ve decided I want to be the kind of woman who has visible tattoos. This is a big shift in my life-long unwillingness to visibly identify with any particular group so I can always blend in unnoticed. Perhaps it’s just so true that as you get older you stop caring about that stuff and just want to do what you want to do. “Why shouldn’t we decorate ourselves?”, my tattoo artist said on our first meeting. Why not, indeed?

So for the next few days I have to keep it under a tight Saran-wrap-type bandage, which unfortunately has been leaking for days, even after I continually expand its borders with extra pieces she gave me. I’m tempted to just rip the whole thing off now, but the last thing I need is an infection as I’m headed to Hawaii for a week (I’m already seriously questioning my judgment about doing it this close to this trip). So I’ll take it off Sunday night before we leave, which is already a day short. Can’t wait to be done with this healing part. Then I just have to keep a good barrier of approved lotion (which I kept from last time) and lots of sunscreen during the trip. Hopefully it’ll all turn out ok. 

In other news, yesterday, ten days into taking the terzepatide pills, I started to feel vaguely nauseated, and this has continued into today. So one would think if it was food poisoning or some kind of virus, I’d already be throwing up or be getting past it. Is it the pill finally kicking in, or just a coincidence? I’m still hungry at normal times, still thinking about food - which tells me it might just be a coincidence. But I’m not 100% sure how these GLP-1s work with regards to nausea and/or losing interest in food…does the nausea come first, then the food noise stops later, or does the food noise stop because you’re nauseated so nothing looks appealing? I kind of have felt like crap in general physically and emotionally the past couple of days, because a) my arm hurts, b) I’m PMSing and bloated and crampy, c) political stuff is getting me down and depressed, and d) I can’t exercise because of my arm. So any number of these things could be contributing to the general bad constitution I’m currently experiencing.

Tomorrow I go to a Bernie Sanders rally downtown, Sunday I go dancing and celebrate a 90 year birthday party, then Monday we leave for The Big Island. I think we were last there in 2017, 2018? The kids were so little then, they don’t even remember it. It’s going to be a very different experience going to Hawaii with a cell phone having teenager and his almost pubescent little brother. No car seats! 

Hands off

So the H had this idea to protest on Saturday as penguins. While I thought the idea was clever, I worried that it was making light of how dire things are, that it was just sort of silly, and I didn’t feel like being silly. But he reserved some rental costumes for us, which I had to go pick up, and he made penguin-related signs, and we packed up snacks and water and went downtown to protest with ? thousands of people (nobody knows for sure, and reports vary wildly. Suffice it to say it had more of the strength and size of the protests I remember from 2017). 

What ended up happening was this. While our costumes delighted everyone and brought some (probably) much-needed levity, it was also a huge drag for me. Mainly, rather than getting to participate fully in the protest, we became just props to be taken pictures with. It was hard to move, or sit down, or take the heads off, without people demanding we stand up and let them take a picture. This was fine initially - it’s not like we didn’t expect lots of attention - but it grew old, fast. Then there was the reality that I couldn’t see or hear anything inside that head, which made me massively anxious because I was hyper vigilant for violence or attacks, and not being able to see anyone around you or hear anything but your own breathing was really awful. I had worried about being too hot - I loaded us up with icy water in our camel backs under the costumes - but really that was the least of our problems. I felt completely removed from everything that was going on - I couldn’t connect with anyone, couldn’t see people’s faces or read any clues - and then (possible) right wing podcasters kept sticking microphones in our faces trying to interview us and ask “gotcha” questions (I refused to speak to anyone but the H tried to engage and just got flustered. I wonder what MAGA video he’s now featured on). 

I felt much better at the end of the march when I stripped everything off and went to walk around the crowd, grab some quick pictures of signs, and share smiles and thumbs up with like-minded people. A friend came with us who went in an inflatable triceratops costume; she said she liked being able to be distant from people inside a costume. I realized that I really don’t. I need to be able to connect with people. Maybe I’m less of an introvert than I thought.

So as much as it was an unpleasant experience, everything was fine - nothing bad happened, people loved our outfits, and the massive swell of resistance all around the world was really great to see, especially for someone like me who’s been at this for months. It was good to be there with the H finally. He agreed the costumes were worth doing but only once. 

I’ve had to tune out a lot of the backlash. I remember this from after the women’s march. When you get loud enough, suddenly everyone has an opinion about what you’re doing. My various desert FB groups have become completely overrun with MAGA idiots mocking and deriding us (that’s really the only online space I still share with Republicans at this point), and that’s to be expected - but of course as always the left has to devour itself, too, mostly on racial lines. Black folks in my feed pointing out how we’re all a bunch of privileged white people not having to worry about the cops coming for us (yes I’m aware of this fact, thank you), my Jewish friend immediately texting me how dismayed she was that I posted some pro-Palestine signs I’d seen, someone bemoaning the fact that most of the protesters are old people (true, but what can you do? It’s not their fault young people feel utterly hopeless), posts again beating the dead corpse of Biden/Harris and if only they hadn’t contributed to genocide, etc etc etc. Just a lot of negativity on a day when we ALL should have come together to fight this travesty of a fake regime, which is going to eventually fuck all of us up one way or another. Yet just like in November, so many preferred to just sit on their asses and tell us what they think about it when nobody asked their stupid opinion. Either be part of the solution or be part of the problem, people. 

A friend pointed out that I’ve become Reddit famous, ha ha. Here I am (everyone of course assumed I was a man):

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.