Kindergarten tour

Today was the day I've been anticipating with bated breath for years - the day I get a registration packet for and a tour of the kids' future school, which Bobby will join in just a few months. 

Walking on to the campus I've walked by countless times (it's on a main drag that I used to walk a couple of times a week) was surreal. Can it be I am the parent of a *gulp* school-aged kid? At last? And that by the time both kids leave this school, I will be in my late fifties? Who knows what will be going on in my life then? Will I still be running this camp, living in this house, in this relationship? Who knows?

I started the orientation with that vaguely panicky and overwhelmed feeling I get whenever I'm embarking on a new social experience...I feel entirely unprepared for the rigors of "real" school; helping with homework and school projects, fund raising, having to get up early and be places on time. I feel like I've just been playing at being a parent all this time...now it's the real deal. Am I up to the challenge? Still, my level of discomfort with all these new responsibilities can't possibly match my son's. This is a big leap for him. I'm going to try to be there for him emotionally as much as possible. Big changes!

In other news, my estranged father left me a voicemail tonight asking me to call him. So often I give thanks that I don't have the burden of both young children and ailing parents at the same time; then things like this happen and suddenly I'm thrust back into the role of Adult Daughter of a Crazy Person. Good times. 

 

School Daze

Bobby's future elementary school is having tours on Thursday. It's a good thing I randomly called to find out when the tours are, otherwise I would have missed it. It's at 8:30 AM so I will most likely go by myself rather than hauling two sleepy kids out of bed. It's a big moment. These kids will hopefully be at this school until 6th grade (I say "hopefully" because at this moment I'm not entirely convinced there will be public schools - or even any living things on earth - by the end of this administration that shall remain nameless). I so hope both the kids get good groups of kids in their grades. There's one little bully in B's preschool class - who at the same time is kind of B's friend - who I notice messes up the dynamic of the whole class. B tells me whenever this kid is absent all the kids have a much better day and behave better. Sigh. I remember that from when I was a kid - the charismatic "leader" who was nonetheless an instigator and trouble maker, and how we were all oddly afraid of and yet seduced by him/her. I've explained to B what a "frenemy" is. Again, the current president comes to mind.

The kids' zoned elementary school is one of the best in Los Angeles, and for that I am profoundly grateful. I remember buying this house at 29 and my realtor singing the praises of the school district and how people come to the neighborhood just for that school; at the time, children seemed centuries away, and yet here we are. Based on the neighborhood demographics, the school should be made up of largely white affluent hippies and Hispanic immigrants or children of immigrants. Sounds like a good mix to me. I love that already most of B's friends are non-white. It's a good start to a hopefully diverse experience for him, even though he already is way more sheltered and privileged than I was at his age. 

So Thursday I get a glimpse into my future - the kids' teachers, environment, and other important information, like is there a school bus? What are the options for after school? And what about PTA involvement? I'm sure I'll be a very involved parent since most of the year I have the free time. 

Our leisurely preschool days are coming to a close. Three and a half more months left there, then swim camp at the Y for summer, then kindergarten in August. Here we go!

 

Take No Prisoners

Theo's first day in underpants didn't go so hot. I walked in to school and saw his pants and underpants wadded up in a plastic baggie on top of his stuff, and said to him, "Theo, did you pee in your underpants??" and he gleefully shouted out, "yeah!!!" Uh boy. This may not be the slam-dunk I was hoping for!!!

In other news, I got slut shamed on Facebook late Tuesday night. Yep. It was my old "friends" at it again - the two guys who have had a hard on for me since one of them didn't make finals in my contests in September. In this episode, it was a picture of them and an old boyfriend of mine that I dated about 17 years ago, who later became a real menace and is the one I just had to ban from my event for sexual assault. Although he's been around I haven't actually spoken to him since about 2001 because I think he's just a big jerk (and apparently a sexual assaulter now too). We were never really together - it was a kind of dance partner/friends with benefits type deal. So anyway, my "friends" focus on this guy in the picture and start talking about how they'd never seen me happier than when I was with him, maybe I need to get with him again so I can be happy again, and a variety of other wink-wink nasty put downs of me, how they have video "evidence" (of some dance routine we did but the implication of something else), and of course bringing my event into it to trash it again. 

I got on and told them what would make me happiest is if they would leave the scene permanently. One of them said "we were talking about Hillary Clinton". Then I told them I was officially dropping them from my Hall of Fame - which I followed by immediately taking them off the list of Hall of Famers on my website. Being a Hall of Fame member also means lifetime free entrance to my event. Like I'm going to keep that privilege for people who treat me like this? What kind of a fucking doormat do they take me for?

At this point it was 2 AM so I just went to bed. The next morning the entire thread had been deleted, but some friends in my feminist group shared screenshots with me in which their stupid brain dead girlfriends vilified me for taking away their status that they "earned". Whatever. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. 

One of the guys involved sent me a groveling private apology, which I answered today in very harsh tones. He's done this many times - gone off online and then sends a private apology that his friend, the other guy, will never know about and think he's a pussy for sending. I told him it means nothing unless he makes it public. Which he won't. So that's that.

This whole situation to me is very similar to that guy who emailed to tell me I need to be removed from the stage when waiting to sing because I'm not constantly smiling. It's not about not being a good performer. It's about men desperately needing to control women - their appearance, their bodies, their sexual lives. These guys know how embarassed I am that I ever dated that asshole, and they know I banned him, so they did this solely to humiliate and discredit me (hence the term slut shame). It had nothing to do with kidding around. It was an intentional jab and character assassination. 

So I hurt them in the best way I could - took away the one legacy they could have left this world, their Hall of Fame status. Oh, they can still come to my event. But from now on they fucking pay me.

So I'm continuing my post-election Take No Prisoners attitude. I created a playlist for music on my phone called "Rage" and it's been my soundtrack. Here is my new FB profile picture:

 

Potties and Hotties

Today Theo's preschool teachers asked if I'd be willing to send him to school in underpants starting next week. Woo-hoo!

Truth be told Theo has been peeing and pooping on the potty for some time now, but I've been pretty inconsistent about keeping it going, partly because every time I ask if he wants to try he says no, and I don't want to force it, so I just leave it alone. But the babysitter has him on the potty every time she's here and he does great. I need to really commit to making potty training happen. I want to make sure he's able to advance to the next class at school which can only happen if he's out of diapers. Here we go! 

The craziness of my opening night settled pretty quickly - a few days of intense paperwork and all 340 people were manually typed into the system by me, and now I can go back to focusing on preparing for this year's taxes which is going to be extremely complicated. 

So tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I have a singing gig so there will be no big romantic plans, but I'll say things are really good between me and the BF and I'm really pleased with the way things are going. This time last year I was not in such a great place - I was seven pounds heavier and none of my clothes fit, I was fed up to the gills with his smoking, and not feeling very good about us. I never would have imagined a year later he'd be a non-smoker, living with me, and that I would feel really good about it all. So for that I am truly thankful.

 

Opening night, part XX

So I opened for registration on Wednesday night.

The good news is, as opposed to last year's record of 125 people, this year I got over 300 people, about 200 in just a couple of minutes.

The bad news is, I was offering tiered pricing (as I have for the past few years), and the first two tiers sold out in about a minute. And people freaked out. I spent the entire night until about two AM fielding furious emails, phone calls and Facebook messages accusing me of running a scam, because "there's no way they sold out that fast". The meanness and conspiracy theory nature of these people seems to be coming from our general political environment. I had to offer several refunds, and offer many explanations and some apologies. About 50 people were happy (they got the big discount), and then another 300 or so were pissed off. And all I got out of it was a loss of $5,000 in how cheap those early prices were. So what, exactly, is the point?

Next year I think I'll offer a "24 hour sale" - think of a price I can live with, and offer it for the first day only, which is something people grasp a lot better than a tier that sells out. That way I'll get the money I need up front and people won't feel cheated. Win-win. 

So opening night was great and it also fucking sucked. Which I think is going to be the mantra for this difficult, giant year I have ahead of me - my big 20th anniversary - it's going to be huge, and it's going to be insanely stressful. 

I went to a march for healthcare on Saturday. Is there a chance California could enact its own universal healthcare? It's a long shot, but I am interested in the possibility. I met some interesting people, and one weird woman who hated the women's march and thought our pink hats were stupid. Pffft whatever, lady! Nobody asked you.

Today we had a fun day at a kid's birthday party. The boys' party s set for April 1st, since every weekend is booked at the space I want until then. Luckily the kids are too little to understand when their actual birthdays are, so hopefully they won't mind. Here's a pic from the party today that the boyfriend took while spinning him around. It's pretty much my favorite picture of him ever.

 

Backlash

I think a lot about how radically our lives will change in just a few months. Bobby starts kindergarten in August - his elementary school should have their annual tour in about a month or so. I need to double check with their preschool, but last I heard preschool technically ends for Bobby in June, which means for me finding a summer camp for him. I could keep him there but I'm quite interested in the local YMCA's swim camp. But all this means a radical lifestyle shift for us. We'll all be required to wake up about four hours earlier than we have been, which also means going to bed a lot earlier, too. It's going to be brutal. No more long leisurely mornings. My kids, like every kids on the planet, are the masters of procrastination. The other day I had to tell Bobby, "the answer to I need you to do something isn't yeah but I need to do this first, it's yes, mommy dearest!" Needless to say this fell on deaf ears. I shudder when I think of waking up at the crack of dawn and hustling kids into clothes and breakfast and teeth brushing and shoes...and both of them adjusting to spending full days somewhere instead of just afternoons. It's a lot. 

It's been a difficult week, returning from the march. I rather naively thought it would be nothing but awesome reports of how well everything went - and there was some of that - but there was also a massive, infuriating backlash, mostly from women. Yes, all those awesome white women who voted for Trump. Against my better judgment I found myself engaging in endless ugly confrontations on Facebook - something I never would have done before, but I suddenly find myself completely intolerant of people's ignorant, hateful bullshit - which were both fruitless and utterly demoralizing.

I also discovered something interesting, after banging my head against a brick wall all week. These so-called caring, interested women asking why we marched because they just want to understand - yeah, that is a giant, steaming pile of horseshit. They know why we marched. They don't listen when you explain, and deliberately pretend to not get it. They don't want to hear from us. They want to have a giant gang bang with all their little conservative buddies just for the purposes of confirmation bias, so they can go be all smug and self-satisfied, while we stupidly forward links and articles and give heart-felt personal stories. They don't give a SHIT. 

They're too busy bitching about how we left signs behind. Let's talk about millions of people marching peacefully with zero arrests. Leaving trash is the best you can do? Seriously? Meanwhile that monster rapes our country and the world and everyone cheers. Fuck off.

Anyway, wise to their ploys after falling for it all week, I devised this handy meme I'll use the next time someone pretends to give a shit about our causes. It will save lots of time to just post this instead of trying to have an actual conversation. 

 

And we marched

Recovering from the Women's March in Washington this weekend. I'm proud to be able to say, when asked, that at this terrible time, I was on the right side of history.

The march was so huge and overwhelming that I can't say I ever had that catch-in-your-throat, "I feel so invigorated!" feeling. I had this more at the first LA march because it was new to me then. Mostly this march was a logistical nightmare - trying to circumvent the massive crowds at the Metro station (Uber was our hero all weekend), trying, and failing, to meet up with various groups of people, leaving behind water and food because we weren't allowed to have large bags, only to sorely regret this decision later when we discovered there was nowhere to get food or water all day long, waiting for hours in port-a-potty lines, missing the speakers because we couldn't even get close to where the rally was happening and instead standing around freezing in the mud and cold with no idea what was happening, where we were going, or if the march was even going to happen or if we had managed to miss the whole thing.

Such is the experience of a massive march like this. Doesn't mean it wasn't important, meaningful, and galvanizing. But I think this whole thing was just so much bigger than anyone had imagined - as an event person, I sympathize that not all of our needs could be met and everything didn't run like clockwork. It went, it was safe and positive, and no arrests. The signs were awesome and creative:

 

 

 

And of course there was me:

 

And in the airport on my way. I got over 300 "likes" on this picture on FB:

 

...and...I can't believe LA beat Washington!!! More than a quarter of a million more people marched in my hometown. Apparently it was complete pandemonium - subways so packed they just opened the gates and let everyone in free; many of my friends (including the BF) couldn't find each other; some freaked out in the subway and just had to turn around and go home. CRAZY.

And yet the right wingers think we "should have voted", "don't know what we're marching for", "left behind tons of trash" (um, hello, like after every sporting event...?), are a bunch of snowflakes. Well, guess what, motherfuckers?