October

It’s October, which means my event is now a month behind me. Yesterday I wired the hotel the payment of their bill, which officially puts the event to bed. It feels like a million years ago now, even though not much has happened in the intervening weeks other than me getting the kids to school, getting them home from school, and sleeping and eating a lot. I’ve put on four pounds. Ugh. 

We’ve ordered the kids’ Halloween costumes. After much debate, Bobby is going to be the black knight from The Holy Grail (which delights me to no end), and Theo’s going to be an inflatable T Rex. I’m excited to have a (relatively) covid-free Halloween; last year half the houses didn’t participate due to covid fears. But with new variants on the rise again, who knows what it’ll be like a month from now? We also have the mid terms coming in a month, which I’m already calling The End of Democracy as we know it. We’ll for sure lose the House, which means Biden will never be allowed to pass any legislation ever again. We’re unlikely to lose the Senate, but if for some reason we do, Biden will be impeached and all hell will break loose. I’m trying to enjoy every minute of this perhaps last time ever of political quiet before everything goes pear-shaped. I’m so not ready to spend years with the kind of agitation that existed under Trump. But I have no doubt this is where everything going our way ends.

I’ve ordered a small propane cook top, a solar lantern, and a rolling cart with a metal top for use in cooking at the cabin. I’m determined to get a decent kitchen set up in there so that when we go we don’t have to bring all our camping stuff but just clothes and bedding. I’m going to go to ikea next week and buy some kitchen things - pans, mixing bowls, utensils - and leave them there in a plastic tub. 

We still have not figured out a toilet. I think the H thinks we can just build one ourselves - but I’ve looked at some videos and it looks pretty gnarly to me. If we had a full week to work on it every day, maybe. But one or two days a month? It’ll take a year to get done under those conditions. And it’ll get ruined while we’re not there and it’s half-built. Tbh I don’t really mind - I’m perfectly content driving to the community center’s port-o-potty once a day for my particular needs; but it’s not a permanent solution. I figure if we can go in two weeks we should really focus on windows and insulation so we can stay there in the winter somewhat comfortably. 

I’m forging ahead with getting the house painted next week, which also entails a long overdue, very expensive whole yard tree trimming. This place really went to shit during the pandemic so there’s a ton of catching up to do. The pool is a broken down mess - the heater hasn’t worked for weeks and the pool was full of dirt all summer so I never felt like swimming in it; I finally called the pool guy to figure out why it was so dirty all the time and he’s working on it, and the H will fix the heater with the help of the pool guy. All the paint is faded and peeling and wood is cracking; I haven’t painted this place in probably 15 years which is way too long. I hired a guy a friend with a similar house used and loved. I hope he works out. It’s a lot of money to entrust in a stranger; there were many things the last painter did that I didn’t like. But boy will it be great to have a nice clean fresh-painted house again. I’m not thrilled about strange men looking through my windows for weeks - it sure was nice not having contractors here for a couple of years. But maybe it’ll be a good excuse to get back to exercising. 

September desert trip

We made it out to the desert and had a swell time. Despite having to switch gears because of extreme heat (it was 100° plus all weekend) - I had to rent a place rather than stay at our place, and we couldn’t do any of the outdoorsy things I wanted so I had to scramble for alternate plans - we enjoyed it.

The main focus of the trip was to attend the Night Sky Festival which I’d bought tickets to months ago. Unfortunately we missed most of it because we got there so late - we arrived Saturday afternoon and missed all the lectures, so all we got to do was look through telescopes at the observatory, which, while mildly interesting, probably wasn’t worth it. It was a lot of stumbling around in the dark to wait on long lines to see the same blurry image of Saturn or Jupiter over and over. Theo was exhausted and bored. Again, if we’d planned better and spent more time at it it might have been worth it, but I doubt I’d spring for it again. 

The reason we were late on Saturday and didn’t come in Friday night as was originally planned was we had to pick up this 1800s cowboy tub from am eBay seller in Rancho Cucamonga Saturday morning. I’ve wanted one of these since I saw one at the Rose Bowl some months ago - they’re super light (30 lbs) so can be easily stored and then dragged out to the middle of the desert, filled with water, and then you can enjoy a cool or warm bath out in the open, dump it out, and drag it back to storage. I figure it’s the only way to have a bathtub out there without worrying about it getting stolen or vandalized. So we picked that up in a Bass Pros parking lot and ferried it to our shipping container. 

Sunday we went for brunch at the Palms and had the serendipitous experience of meeting a woman who’s YouTube videos we’ve been following - she’s another neighbor, just north of us, and a) was the woman we saw walk by our place on our cameras on our wedding day, b) also has a contractor boyfriend we may be able to hire, and c) had all kinds of useful tips for us about power and water and heating, the most interesting being she recently bought a drill to dig a well and is looking to dig wells for friends. I got her number.

We had a blast teaching the kids to play pool at the Palms. Pool was a huge part of my misspent youth - I spent a couple of summers playing 9 ball with Chinese gangs at Tekk Billiards on Christopher St in NY when I was 15 & 16 - so the idea of getting the kids into it is very cool. Bobby was a natural. 

Then we went to an artist’s pop up mini golf course in which you could paint an abandoned house after - despite the extreme heat, it was a blast. I painted a Bowie portrait (the same one that’s on my phone case). 

Later we checked out a local bowling alley - old school and cheap - and as we drove out the following day, we finally visited a musician friend who lives out there and did what we want to do, rehab an old shack for living purposes. He showed us his whole set up for solar and water and sewer. While we can’t do all the things he did - he’s hooked up to city water and has septic - we got some good tips. 

We came back from the desert with a renewed sense of purpose and a surprising return to our original concept after weighing other options; I’m glad we’re of like minds about this stuff. At the moment I am considering a return to a wood burning stove for heating, and a traditional wooden outhouse rather than having the bathroom in the container. Now that we know that the place is not, in fact, rife with criminals trying to steal our stuff (while that element is for sure there and something to be wary of, five months of security cameras tells me pretty much nobody goes out there), I’m less worried about having a small break-in-able bathroom than I used to be. And the H is ok with an old school pit toilet if it’s not in a container with other things stored in it that could get contaminated. So, now we just have to get that going somehow! I feel like we could conceivably build it ourselves - it’s just a tiny shed - it’s the digging the pit I’m concerned about. Maybe we can recruit this new guy to do it for us. 

I’m on the hunt for a vintage parlor stove like the one my friend has used for the last couple of years to heat his place. I’m worried about fires and carbon monoxide poisoning - but the lady we met also heats her place with wood, and has had no issues. I also spent a long Connecticut winter in a house heated entirely by a single wood burning stove and was toasty all season and none of us died of carbon monoxide. So maybe I’m being overly cautious. Some detectors placed strategically is probably the way to go. 

The woman we met at the Palms said everyone comes out here thinking they can throw a cheap place together in weeks and just be done, but that it never works out like that; it always takes years, and that’s to be expected. Makes me feel a little better about what a roller coaster this place has been. I’m ok with a long-term project, especially if we can still use it in the meantime. 

We finally got some quality family time, which reminds me of why I wanted this place - without it, the H would literally work around the clock seven days a week. His insane schedule has always been a huge bone of contention for me, and it falls under the same category as managing his adhd - how much of this is just inevitable (he has to make money and in his industry this is the only way) and how much of it is his “fault” (allowing himself to be exploited, not being efficient, being addicted to hard work). It’s easy for me to sit here with my cush setup and judge others for their shitty work situations - and nearly everyone I know has issues with coworkers, bosses, company policies, etc etc - when I’ve been the boss since I was 26 and can no longer conceive of a time when my destiny was under someone else’s control. The fact is, people are really struggling out there, and he’s one of them. He’s basically working two full time jobs just to make a basic existence, running himself ragged so that when he is around he’s exhausted and stressed. But when I force him to take these trips - and he’s always apprehensive about not getting to work all weekend - you can see this whole other side to him. And I know he’s grateful (during my crunch time, I’m always glad I have a family to give me something else to focus on. I used to be annoyed by the distraction, but now I realize it’s important for my mental health). I’m aiming for one, maybe two trips out there next month, and one in November. Have not heard from our neighbor contractor so I’ll try him again this week. But he might be back by then. 

Our hotel meeting wasn’t bad but wasn’t great. I accomplished the goal of being assigned a new contact person, which I knew wouldn’t be an issue. But the extra charges will stay, and the $10,000 bill will be north of $20,000, in fact, since as I suspected, the initial bill I got was missing a bunch of stuff. I kind of knew it was too good to be true, but I’m still pretty gutted. Consensus among my hotel venue renting friends is that the industry is just terrible right now - hotels are scrambling to make up for lost revenue, and they don’t give a fuck. The GM even said most of the contracts they have now they would never agree to in this environment…which says to me when it’s time to renew in a couple of years, I could be in for a rude awakening. We pointed out the failures on their end - the many ceiling leaks, the downed systems, things that in the past would have earned me an apology and credits off my bill - and they were like, “yeah”. And…that was it. So I think at this point I should just count my blessings, raise my prices, and hope I can clear 1000+ people every year, because that’s what it’s going to take to make an even basic living from now on. 

Settling in

The last week has been pretty much me just sleeping. I forget how much the event takes out of me. Even if I feel “fine”, I find myself compelled to go back to bed after dropping the kids at school, sleep until eleven, still need a nap in the afternoon, and am still tired at night. This could also be just a) habit, b) being 50, or c) covid. It’s probably a mix of a and b, though.

I feel myself with a profound sense of satisfaction about how things went, still. After all that’s transpired in the last three years, it’s sort of hard to believe that we pulled this off. We came back, hardly missing a beat, and it felt like we’d never even been shut down. That was exactly the results I’d wanted but didn’t dare wish for. And I wasn’t left in the red. Huh.

Right now I’m straddling finishing up and planning for next year, plus planning our family life as we approach another holiday trifecta - what the kids want to be for Halloween (Bobby has become obsessed with Kermit the frog and wants to be him for Halloween, but sadly all available Kermit costumes are either for toddlers or adults), how to structure our Death Valley thanksgiving trip (mostly figuring out food, knowing as I do now that options are extremely limited in the area). And then Christmas break - can we afford a trip to Florida? I don’t know yet. 

Mainly, my thoughts are on the cabin. I figure we need to get it wired up if we’re going to be able to stay there at all this winter, so I feel some sense of urgency about that - winter temperatures at night are extreme, so we need to be able to plug in a space heater of sorts, and we can only do that with solar power. The H told me he can’t install panels himself, so I’m not sure where to go from here. I texted our contractor neighbor yesterday just checking in to see when he’d be back in town - originally the plan was November or December - but he hasn’t written back yet. What if we never hear from him again?? We’d be so screwed. I’m so desperate to get this place basically livable, but there’s so much that has to happen before that - first, power, then a water system of some kind so we can have a toilet and shower, then insulation, walls, flooring, windows, a porch. If our contractor comes back and has time for us it can happen fairly quickly at the end of this year or beginning of next…if not, well, it could be a long time coming. But regardless of next weekend’s high temps, we’re headed out there on Saturday, and will go check out a friend’s solar set up, and go to the astronomy festival, and have brunch at The Palms, and everything will be dandy. I ordered myself a custom “Rancho Saudade” key chain for keys to the place since that’s the only thing I personally can make happen right now; it gives me some small (silly) feeling of control. 

Soon it’ll be time to apply for kids’ schools again to earn points to hopefully make it into Eagle Rock jr high. Now that I understand the system I know what to do - apply for the most impossible schools and get points for not making it in. I do wish I had started this earlier - I think at this late stage Bobby doesn’t have a big chance of making it into their gifted program; but it’s not impossible, either. Either way he can still attend the school with an intradistrict permit. So many kids have vanished from LAUSD that it’s possible he won’t have as much competition to get in when he applies for real next year. 

For now both kids appear to be doing well at school - Theo’s teacher is a lot more intense than his was last year; I have to sign off on his 30 minute reading and homework each night, and his class work every week. I’m interested to see how the parent teacher conference goes in November. 

We came home last night from a rare date night to find Bobby sitting up with the baby sitter making origami weapons at 1:30 AM. This child needs no sleep. It’s bizarre. I mean I was a night owl at his age but I doubt at 10 I could have stayed up that late and not even be tired. Another way he and Theo are so different. Bobby eats like a bird, never sleeps, can zone out on something for hours; Theo needs his sleep, eats like a champ, and is easily bored. You wonder how much of this is natural and how much is them playing off of each other as siblings. 

Hopefully I will start to feel more normal in the coming weeks - I am determined to stop sleeping all day come Monday, and we finally have the two times delayed hotel meeting on Thursday which means I can pay my hotel bill and be done with that, which means I can put this event to bed finally. Then it’s time to plan next year. Oy. 

Done and done

My event has been over for nearly a week now and I’m still not quite able to sift through the FB posts and tags…it’s so much these days as everyone feels obligated to write long thank you posts after every event…but the TL/DR version is, the event went on, it was great, and was everything I had hoped for. 

While I went in expecting a bit of a mess, it actually wasn’t - for the most part, the competitors were on their game; nobody got injured; the contests were not a mess of old sign ups from 2020 - pretty much everyone who signed up did actually compete; there were a few flight delays but everyone made it in time; nobody canceled due to covid; vaccine requirements became a non-issue as we looked the other way on boosters and no unvaccinated people showed up demanding entrance; maybe 10% of people wore masks, almost no one consistently, and yet here we are the Friday after and not one of the people in my circles who hadn’t caught it yet have tested positive, and only one guy mentioned he did on FB and he didn’t even say he’d been at the event. How is this possible? I’m still holding my breath a bit for any positives coming in over the weekend…but at this point, if you’re first having symptoms a full week after the event, odds are you caught it somewhere else during the week. I think I was correct in that a large percentage of people at the event had decent immunity from recent infections or boosters, so the odds of covid circling enough to cause a massive outbreak were slim to none. I’m just glad my close friends, all of whom are over 50, so far are negative. I would feel really guilty if any of them got very sick since they were there to support me personally. But they also were the more vigilant mask wearers, so there you go. 

The event had exactly the joyous reunion feel I had wanted for last year and never got. I doubt we’ll be able to replicate the positive feelings and joy we had this year, since (hopefully) we won’t have another time when we’ve been shut down for years again anytime soon. I really have no complaints on how things went. On our end, smooth as silk.

On the hotel’s end, not so much. I absolutely hated our combative, defensive new contact person, as did all of my staff, and am going to ask for her to be removed from our account if I can ever get her superior to have a chat with me about that and all the extra charges they’re threatening this year. The contact person stressed me out so bad that by Saturday morning I made the decision that for my mental health I need to just not talk to her anymore about anything. There were multiple pipe leaks from the ceiling throughout the weekend - a massive one the day we were due to arrive right where our merchandise table was supposed to go, one in our storage room thankfully not on any of our stuff, and one collected in garbage cans outside our vendor room for the entire weekend. I get the feeling the hotel itself is really falling apart, which worries me. The hotel’s computer system was down all day Friday so no one could check into their rooms, the bars’ credit card systems were down so no one could buy a drink (and these bars are one of the extra charges I’m being threatened with), they shut down the bathroom for cleaning right in the middle of one of our main dances for an hour one night, they turned off the AC to fix a leak early in the morning and then never turned it back on, etc etc. It’s funny how we as this tiny operation can come back after two years with nary a hitch and yet this giant corporation has so many hiccups. All of this will be discussed when this meeting ever happens. 

This week has been about recovering and paying people - despite being surprised with a sound and flooring bill that was nearly double what I was originally quoted, which was a rude awakening Monday night - it actually looks like I might just be ok financially. I don’t know for sure yet - the hotel bill is a massive wild card. But I heard from the California grant today, asking for some more paperwork from me; it’s the first communication I’ve had since they told me I was ineligible back in April or whenever that was. I feel like that grant could be imminent, finally. If that happens and the hotel bill isn’t more than $20,000 I could be ok. I just returned my EIDL loan finally - and much to my horror discovered I owe an additional $12,000 in interest. So it cost me $12,000 to have that loan sit there. Sigh. I wish I’d just returned it when I got the big federal grant, but I had no way of predicting all this back then. Oh well, lesson learned. That’ll set me back a bit but it’s not catastrophic. 

Having the boys at the event was actually somewhat enjoyable - the H had them watch the more entertaining contests, and I sincerely felt like they were interested in all this. They’re still humming some of the songs. A highlight for me was sitting with Bobby on stage and talking about the music and just enjoying the moment. It’s funny to think of these kids finally getting to see what I do for a living and really get it; that all this time during the shut down, this is what I’ve been talking about. It’s funny to see myself through their eyes. I don’t know what, if any, role this event will have in their lives going forward. But it’s good to know from now on they can be there with us and at least get a taste of the thing I’ve devoted my life to. 

Almost

I am counting the seconds until my customer service days are over - just two more full days, then we’re off to the hotel. As per usual, we will be enduring a wicked heat spell all weekend and in to next week, so we’ll be carrying heavy boxes up and down stairs for hours in the sun in triple digit temperatures tomorrow and Tuesday. Sigh.

Things got a bit messy the last few days as people started trickling in mentioning that they didn’t realize we are requiring boosters - and of course it’s too late to get one. I don’t know why you wouldn’t check a thing like this…but to be fair, in following my epidemiologist friend’s advice, I had just said we’d be “following CDC guidance” as far as what constitutes “fully vaccinated” with a link to their website; even though I mention boosters as well, I can see how this was confusing. Again, you’d think this is something you’d check…and on the actual registration form it does say we require boosters if you’re eligible. But, here we are dealing with human behavior again - people don’t check these things, make assumptions, and then panic and ask for an exception at the last minute. At first I just said no and refunded people…but then it became too many people, and then I thought what if literally hundreds of people just show up with no booster…then what?? And this could very likely happen. So I’m having to pivot and make a contingency plan. I’ve reached out to those I already turned away. It’s a mess.

I wasn’t planning on telling the H about this because he’s against my policy to begin with and has told me over and over how stupid it is and how I need to just drop it. This has lead to many unpleasant conversations as you can imagine. A) I’m following the advice of an actual epidemiologist, B) I can’t pull the rug out from under everyone at the last minute and reverse my vaccine policy, and C) this is the standard of all other dance events right now. So as much as I agree that everyone can catch and spread covid so vaccine mandates are totally useless, I have to stick with what I’ve promised people. Anyway, last night he could tell I was stressing out and asked what was wrong and of course I had to tell him, and of course he started in with, “I told you that whole policy should have been dropped weeks ago-“ and I cut him off telling him he seriously has to stop saying that and I need some fucking support right now. For as much as his male everything-has-to-be-based-on-logic-with-no-nuance thing can drive me utterly bonkers, thankfully when I speak up and tell him that I need support and not criticism, he gets it. It reminds me of that time we stayed up on Mt Baldy and the guy working the chair lift went off on me for stepping in the way of the chair to pull Theo out of danger - just yelling at me like I was a fucking idiot for not wanting my kid to get brained by a giant metal chair - and then when I went to the then BF to tell him how upset I was for being yelled at like that, he just said the guy was right. I was crushed. This was the kind of shit my mother used to do with me -zero support or comfort, just always, “well what were you doing doing that anyway?” I was attacked on the street once by a gang of kids and all she could say to me, in that very boomer mom kind of way, was that it was my fault for being there and I brought it on myself for “shaking my cute little ass”. Yes, she said that to me. Later she tried to comfort me but I just shook her off. So, suffice it to say, I am extremely triggered when the person closest to me does not support me when I’m in trouble and insists it’s my fault!! Thankfully he got it when I told him this - he’s cool like that - and the conversation turned from derision and blame to working on practical solutions. It’s a work in progress. 

For now I have just endless refund requests to handle (I cannot WAIT to reinstate my no refunds policy - I’m literally refunding thousands of dollars to people because their kid has a baseball game) and a few last minute details and then we’re off. Pray for me. 

Back to school night

Tonight was a first for me as I was able to attend my first back to school night, I think ever. Parents are finally allowed back on campus, so it was a joyous reunion of moms and dads I mostly hadn’t seen since fall of 2019. Sometimes I feel like the damage done by the loss of that year of school will never be undone - all the missed opportunities to socialize and get to know these people; Bobby has one foot out of this school, which, sadly, means I do as well, as I feel myself already separating myself emotionally from the place in anticipation of the day it won’t be part of our lives anymore. The majority of people there now are strangers to me, since both my kids are older. I hope we can have the Halloween festival and Christmas pageant again like normal times…it’s things like that that connect you to a place. 

For today, though, I got to see the rooms my kids spend most of their time in, meet their teachers, and look at the walls and out the windows my kids will look at (hopefully) until next June, when things will be so different. It’s interesting - delightful, really - to see how much kids’ emotional well being is addressed  at school these days; I was trying to picture what a back to school night might have been like in the early 80s when I was their age. I can’t imagine any thought whatsoever was given to our mental health. I’m often shocked by the levels of trauma people my age endured just by existing forty or fifty years ago; it’s no wonder everyone is anxious and depressed.

Bobby is pretty much what I would have been minus trauma; there’s no doubt he’s a sensitive, cautious child prone to getting scared or grossed out easily, all traits he no doubt genetically got from me. But there’s a different element there when you take a kid that has those genetic markers but put him in a loving stable home. We’ll see what happens in his adolescence - that’s where it all fell apart for me - but so far he seems like a happy, well-adjusted kid. And Theo doesn’t have my personality at all, so, you know, good for him-!

My event looms a week away and I am slowly plugging away at all the last minute projects. Everything will get done. But I’m so sick of it all already - I’m very much looking forward to it all being over. I’m sick of the round-the-clock customer service, the snarky social media bullshit, the now daily experience of discovering something I paid for in 2019 is now double or triple the cost, because, you know, gas prices. Unfortunately I have not experienced a last minute bump in attendance. We close on Tuesday, and right now I’m getting maybe one or two people signing up vs five to ten canceling and wanting their money back each day. I’ve never had a final week like this, ever. Normally I can guarantee about 200 people in the last week. This year I’ll be lucky to get 20. It sucks. So, I’m operating at about 2007 numbers, just over half my normal attendance. Sigh. With over 250 people in free, it’ll still look full. But I’ll know the money is not what I need it to be. I think between costs, anti vaxxers unable to attend, and people still scared of covid, I got hammered this year. My only hope is that by next year, my big 25th anniversary, that I’ll be able to rebuild a bit back to what I had in 2019. In the meantime at least I raised my prices to take some of the sting out of the reduced attendance. It’s still probably the biggest dance event this year, so it’s all relative. 

For now I get up frikken early again tomorrow, get the kids to school, get groceries, do laundry, and work work work. I can’t wait for that moment that we’re in the cabin again next month. Watching our shipping container on our security cameras is the only thing that gives me any peace right now.

First week

We have survived the first week of school, and my event is two weeks away, which is utterly bizarre to me. Much to my chagrin, despite having been told our school is moving towards being a no-homework school, both boys had homework all week starting on Tuesday. Bobby is capable of doing his without much oversight, but Theo is another story. It’s been like pulling teeth all week. His teacher has a list of things they need to do each night which I have to sign, including 30 minutes of reading. This, too, is torture, as he fools around most of the time and asks, “how many more minutes?” way more than he actually reads. I’m hoping these shenanigans calm down as we get past this first week which is always a difficult adjustment. Also, the boys have insisted I pick them up each day because it’s too hot to walk home - and it pretty much is, and probably will be for the next month. Not like it’s some huge inconvenience for me to go get them…but I don’t want them to get too into the habit of me driving up there all the time. I still stand by the fact that they need a little freedom and independence, and walking home is a big part of that.

Yesterday I decided to make that long solo drive out to the desert to check on the cabin, and enjoyed it immensely. As far as damage, there was none, except that one corner of the foundation that I was worried about. I got into the place and was struck by how it was exactly as we left it Memorial Day weekend; that familiar smell of baking hot wood hit me as soon as I cracked open the door and has haunted me ever since. Sigh. I wish I could just stay there. 

But I got in the car for the 2 1/2 hour drive home and have experienced nothing but tsuris since. On the drive I got calls and emails from my new sound/floor guy telling me how incompetent my hotel contact is and my hotel contact calling me to tell me how mean and rude the new sound/floor guy is, and oh by the way this year we’re charging you $800 for him to park his truck all weekend. No. No to all of this. 

Today after much anticipation my scholarship recipients were notified by the outside group that is in charge of the program, and as they began to flood my email with registrations, I noticed an unpleasant pattern - while the majority of the people were the POC the scholarship was intended for, somehow a handful of middle class white people, most of whom have paid for and attended my event for years, managed to be awarded free passes. How did this even happen? I fought literally the entire day via FB messenger with the person in charge, who kept insisting that if the people reviewing the applications (all POC and/or members of the lgbtq community) approved these people then who am I to question it…but then admitted that the application never asked a person’s circumstances, the people reading the applications were discouraged from vetting any of these people, so basically it was just a “why I love swing dancing” essay contest in which apparently almost everyone who applied got accepted. What? This was not at all what I signed on for. The entire purpose of this scholarship program was to “increase diversity” and award people from underrepresented groups. This is not middle class straight able bodied white people. We’ve got plenty of those. The verbal gymnastics this person had to do to try to convince me I was wrong and he was right - the gaslighting, the sarcasm, the accusations - was just awful. I stuck to my guns, though, and kept repeating that if this program isn’t about bringing in underrepresented groups like it says it is then it’s not something I’m interested in continuing. In the meantime it directly affects me because several of these white recipients now have a free pass that otherwise have always paid - so I’m out at least $1000 on this fiasco, maybe more. I’m beside myself. I cannot believe how poorly this was run and put together, and how the application committee was given no guidance, apparently, other than pick people you like. What the hell. After going back and forth about this for about seven hours, all while buying groceries, cleaning the house, doing work, picking up kids, making them dinner, I now have a raging headache and just want to collapse. I got very little else done today. Amazing how much time gets wasted by stupid shit like this. 

Here are some pictures of where I wish I was right now.