The Fall

This time - mid-September through October - is really my best time of year. My event is freshly over, and although I have ideas for next year, I don’t have to implement any of them yet. The boys are in school, it’s time to plan for the holidays, we have Southern California delayed summer. It’s a whole thing. I see my usual flood of emails instantly reduce to a mere trickle, and while this is jarring, it’s also kind of great.

I spent the weekend in Chicago at a dance event we’re hired for every year. It was a good time. Thanks to my new expanded event schedule which left me less exhausted and fed up, I had more energy going in to this event, so had the spoons to have lots of good conversations and bonding time with people I don’t get to see very often. I only have four days at home and then I head up to a jazz festival in northern Cal next weekend. That event for me has been a bit isolating because my band leader, who has the car, works at the event a lot more than I do, so I find myself alone and stranded much of the time. However, a close friend is coming this time, and we’re planning on getting out to see the redwoods, which would be amazing. So I expect this trip will be better than the previous. 

Yesterday while I was bored at the airport, I got alerted that someone was on the porch, so I had a look, and it was Bobby on his phone. I could hear some loud voices - not angry or anything, just loud - coming from the phone, then he got up and walked around to one side of the house, then immediately went around to the other side, then must have gone back into the house through the back door (why was that open?). The H was at work at this time. It was puzzling. What the heck was he doing? I’m dying to ask him, but I don’t want him to know I was watching him. It just reminded me that sometimes with teenagers you just don’t want to know what they’re up to. Lord knows my mother would have died if she’d known all the dangerous shit I got up to when I was just a year older than him. We trust these kids to be home alone and outside of our purview - we trust that they won’t eat things they’re not supposed to or go through our things or steal money or do anything dangerous or destructive - but the fact is, we have no idea what they do when we’re not here. I like to think they’re just playing video games or scrolling through YouTube shorts, but who knows? I was such a hyper vigilant mother when they were little - unless they were in their room at night, they were never out of my sight, not even for a minute - but it’s hit me that those days of constant surveillance are over. At some point these kids will want to hang out with their friends after school, or on weekends, and there’s nothing I can do to keep them safe. Theo already has been going to stores after school and buying pizza and boba with his friends without asking or telling us; I wondered if I should tell him not to do this, but honestly, he’s old enough. I did the same at his age, and it’s time he learned a little independence. After all, next year they’ll be at the same school, and I might have them start taking the public bus home, since it picks them up right in front of school and drops them really close to home. 

Speaking of being at the same school, in just two days I apply for Theo to get into the gifted magnet at Bobby’s school, and we get an answer in March. I have a (perhaps) irrational fear that he won’t make it, based on the fact that he’s been waitlisted for the gifted program every year up until now (even though that’s a different situation since that program at his current school doesn’t have much space). He has tons of “points” thanks to my having applied every year, and he has sibling points thanks to his brother, but I still worry. He’s a smart kid and I don’t want to see him fall behind. Already I’m not thrilled with how 6th grade is starting out - he rarely has homework, and talks about the movies they watch at school. Huh? I guess I’ll withhold judgment until I meet this teacher at the parent-teacher conference. 

It appears the bots are at it again - I noticed this phenomenon during the 2016 election, wherein my blog posts that normally get about 50-60 views suddenly started getting hundreds, and then this sharply dropped off the minute the election was over. The same thing is happening here - hundreds of views on all my most recent posts, but no comments or followers. I know at this point after all these years I probably only have a tiny group of people who check in occasionally to see what’s happening in our mundane lives (thank you!), so there’s no way my post on Bobby’s new girlfriend got 800 page views. Crazy. 

It’s happening….!

So yesterday as I was driving the kids home from school, I noticed Bobby was wearing this black bracelet that I’d been seeing around the house. “Where did you get that?” I casually asked. “My girlfriend gave it to me.” Theo piped in from the back seat, “oh yeah, Bobby has a girlfriend.”

I’m not ashamed to admit I sputtered like Daffy Duck for a few minutes. How-? When-? And most importantly, who-??? All the while looking at my tiny baby’s goofy grin as he told me some basic details that I only half heard because I was being deafened by the sound of one of my ovaries dying. 

So apparently her name is Jasmeen (I think) and at the end of school last year her friend passed him a note. They still do that??? How charming. He showed me a picture of a cute Asian girl taking a picture of herself in the mirror. He says they mostly just walk around school and talk. He said she plays video games but mostly is “really different”. I’m going to guess not many kids his age listen to Devo, so no surprises there. I said if he ever wanted to take her on a proper date that we’d drop him off and give him money and stuff. And that was pretty much it. Of course I wanted tons of information, but I sensed there wasn’t much to be had. I reiterated my speech about no nudes being asked for nor sent. He said he would never do that. Ok then. 

I asked Theo if kids in his class had boyfriends or girlfriends and he said some, but it’s mostly kids talking about liking each other. I asked if there was anyone he liked and he said no. 

I did not have “Bobby gets a girlfriend” on my fall 2025 bingo card. Neither did I have CK’s killer as most likely doing that because he was in love with a trans person and felt the need to do some grand defensive act, but here we are. I always imagined Bobby as being a late bloomer due to his shyness…but I have to admit, the kid’s got swagger. He just does. My prayer for these boys is that their early relationships, unlike mine, will be devoid of the gut wrenching terror of abandonment that being repeatedly abandoned by both parents causes. May they have normal relationship drama and make good choices, unlike me at that age. 

Just a few days ago Bobby had become obsessed with finding a bag of watch parts I said I had, and so we went through some of my old boxes of childhood stuff. In one I found a long lost wallet, one my mother had made in home ec class in high school in the 50s that I then went on to use in high school in the 80s. In it was a fascinating time capsule - an old subway pass, my Amnesty International card, my church membership card, a pass to the teen club The Saint, and a name tag tagged by a graffiti artist that probably had some significance I no longer remember. As time moves forward, I become more and more disconnected from that girl, even though she’s still me. Will Bobby even remember this first girlfriend when he’s my age? Will he even remember himself? I wonder. 

Season opening

This weekend we returned to the desert for the first time in three months to open the place back up. Thankfully, much like last year, the only damage in the place was the usual dust and a couple of dead bugs. It was clear water had pooled all around the place from recent storms, which was a bit worrying, but didn’t get inside. We only went for one night - I took Bobby to a Grandaddy concert on Friday, which was wonderful - and that’s probably for the best, because even in the low 90s, with no power, it’s just too damned hot. 

The main purpose for this visit, other than squeezing in a visit this month before we’re occupied the next three weekends, was to meet with the mural painter, who came by this morning. He’s going to knock out a mural on our container featuring our favorite desert animal, the kangaroo rat, during our next visit in October. I’m thrilled at the prospect. Post-event present to myself, unlocked!

I have a couple more big payments to make before I can officially close the books on this year - and I’m a little alarmed at how little money I have left. I’ll still survive, but I think it’s safe to say there will be no splurging of any kind - I only hope I’m not hit with some sudden expensive home repair or healthcare cost or something like that. I’m going to have to seriously rein it in as far as travel for us. Again, not hard to do. We can spend Thanksgiving week and spring break at the cabin (that’s what it’s for, after all), Christmas break in Florida, and by summer I’ll have some sense of what I’m looking at for next year’s event. We’re all going to have to just buckle up for 2026, I’m afraid. Things are going to get crazy, and not in a good way. 

How it went

So. Here we are, about a week after the event. How do I feel about it? Good! Honestly, other than one horrible incident, everything went the smoothest it’s ever gone, even with the extra day, even with all the new things I added in. Turns out pretty much everything I added, worked - people loved the new contests, the new schedule, the extra things I added in. Every bet I made succeeded - spreading things out and allowing for breaks completely changed the feel of the event. It no longer felt like a steamroller out of control - I felt like I could pace myself, take breaks, and tackle each day with new energy. It was great. 

Despite my fears for the state of affairs in 2026, I will keep the extra day. The hotel contract people finally got back to me during the event and gave me a really shitty offer if I took off Thursday, raising my rates and taking off staff rooms, etc etc. That sealed the deal. Thursday stays. 

I did still end up 100 people behind last year, but thankfully financially it doesn’t seem to have mattered much - I sold more night dance tickets, and I’m still ahead with a small cushion similar to last year. I will still express caution, however - no big expenditures this year until we know how next year is going to go. Next year could still be rough. 

Despite all the good vibes this year, there was one horrible racial incident that I knew was bound to happen sooner or later. One of my teaching couples also runs teams, and this year on Friday night they presented a team that started with an older black actress, a friend of mine, playing the role of Tituba (the team routine had a Crucible theme - why anyone thought this was appropriate, baffles me to no end). Her costume was very jarring - clearly she was dressed as a slave - and everyone freaked out. Within a day, someone had spread it all over the internet, with of course my event taking the hit, not the people involved, which is how it goes. I found the actress in the hallway and pulled her aside to tell her what was going on, and she was immediately sobbing and embarrassed. To her, she was playing a historical character and didn’t see why anyone would be offended by that. And that was part of my conflict with it, too, was that she played that character with her own free will, and who are we to judge her choices, as a black woman? Let’s just say it was more complicated than if a white woman had played that role in blackface, or something like that. Suffice it to say, from that moment forward, the entire event for me was mitigating this crisis - calling people into meetings, trying to figure out a strategy on how to address it, long conversations with everyone involved. I deferred to an elder black woman who was there to run a discussion panel on race and is a board member of the NAACP. Her advice initially was that both she and the choreographer, a white man, should make a public speech about the intent of the piece, probably during awards. But then by Monday morning she had changed her mind and decided she didn’t want to “feed the bear” - that her take was it was art, it was about historical figures, and nobody should be offended by it. So we did not make a social media statement about it nor address it during the event. The video of the routine was taken down, and the team got last place (because that’s where the judges put them). There was literally nothing I could have done that would have pleased everyone, and so I deferred to this person who I respect a great deal who is also very respected within the community.

Once I got home, there was a FB thread from fans of this white teacher/choreographer stating their annoyance that the video was still down, with the actress chiming in as well. I reached out to her to ask if it was her wish that I re-post the video. Let me make it very clear that every decision I made all along was to protect HER - keeping it quiet, not making a big statement, taking down the video - because she was so mortified and so afraid of being held up as some kind of traitor, etc. The whole time she was in the meetings I was hugging her and comforting her and telling her it wasn’t her fault and she did nothing wrong and that she gave a great performance. She responded to the text that she would only want the video posted if she could be edited out. We tried this, but it was pretty much impossible, so left it down. That was the last contact we had.

A day later she posted a live video on FB and IG which I watched with utter disbelief. Somehow she managed to twist this whole story around to paint me as this cold, money-grubbing organizer who only ever gave a shit about my reputation and my bottom line, and I believe she even called me a racist at one point. Gone were the hours I spent comforting her and building her up and protecting her at my own reputational expense - now I’m just some heartless white bitch who was only concerned about myself the whole time. How I became a villain in this I have no idea - I can only speculate she’s trying to deflect responsibility for taking on that role on to me and the other guy (who certainly deserves more blame than I do!!). The way she made up things I said, and went into this ugly, mocking tone every time she quoted me, was really high school and gross. She was just painting me as the typical racist white lady - all sing-songy and “nice” but secretly a snake and a racist. Wtf. I was absolutely FURIOUS. 

One of the elements of this was the fact that both this lady and the other lady I deferred to were convinced only white people were offended (on behalf of black people), and they found that offensive. I knew it was a variety of people, based on what my safety manager told me. Much to my enjoyment, at the end of her video she invites a younger black woman on to the video with her who, despite declaring me and the event as a whole racist, also points out that black people were offended by the performance. You can see the surprise on the actress’ face when she says this. Within 24 hours the live video mysteriously disappeared from both FB and IG. I can only speculate that the videos didn’t get her the attention and praise she was seeking, or that the woman I deferred to all weekend told her to take them down. 

How much damage was done because of all this? It’s hard to say. If what the younger woman on the video says is true, there is damage to my reputation in the black community that I may never be able to repair. But I also know I have a lot of fans in that community who see all the work I’ve been doing and see this situation for what it is - the fault of the choreographer, not me. Now I have the unpleasant task of deciding if I should fire this particular teacher who I have a long time relationship with but who is also known to be kind of clueless and behind the times, and who has both devoted fans and people who hate his guts. One of my more prominent black teachers asked to speak with me next week and I’m wondering if the teachers of color are going to say they won’t work for me if he’s on the payroll. I would respect that, and it certainly would make my decision easier. But no matter what I do here, people are going to be mad. And I’m really pissed I was put in this position. 

I feel horribly betrayed by this woman I thought was a friend - we had lunch some time ago, so she’s not someone I didn’t know at all - and believe me, when you’ve spent your entire life being aware of racial issues and championing causes for oppressed people, to have your character publicly assassinated and be made to look like one of those nice-on-the-outside-fake-as-fuck white women who I also despise, is utterly infuriating, especially when you know she’s just throwing you under the bus to cover her own ass. You can only hope and pray that people who think critically will see through it, while also accepting that many people will not and will always just think of you as “that racist who profits off of a black dance”. Sigh. 

Anywayyyyy…I refuse to let this stupid incident stain the weekend for me - other than one other odd moment in which an old friend made these hideous AI posters for me that were supposed to be making fun of how bad AI is (huh?) and everyone got all angry at me for using AI art which I also absolutely hate, everything else was pretty much flawless. 

And at least in this moment I feel financially secure, although I’m preparing to lose more people next year as prices go up and economics continue to get worse. 

Now I’m just finishing up paying people, planning next year, and preparing to head out to the desert to see about getting that mural painted on our container. These are things I care about right now. 

Closing in

First let me say that, although I’m sure nobody but me cares about this, the app I’ve been using to blog on my phone has crapped out (being phased out? Who knows. All I know is it deleted an existing post and won’t post anything anymore) so now I’m posting via the web which is just wonky enough that it makes me less inclined to post. I’m sure I’ll get past the general inconvenience of it, but that’s why I haven’t said much despite a lot going on.

As I think I noted last time, my attendance has fallen off a cliff - I’ve still probably only gotten 20 or so people registered this entire month, when usually it’s 200-300 people. I’m currently down anywhere from 150-200 people from last year, depending on the day, and with people still only sliding in at one or less a day, I don’t see this dramatically changing in the next five days. So the thing I feared all along since the election but never saw the slightest indication of has finally happened in the 11th hour - I’m down about 15%. Which, surprisingly, I can manage to weather financially just this one time - the event is paid for as of a couple of days ago, and my early ticket sales will pay for me to live until February as long as I live frugally. Beyond that is a giant black hole.

But I did make the executive decision to pull the extra day from my remaining two contracts. At this point I think I’d be crazy to assume things will magically be better next year - I think they’ll be far, far worse, honestly - so I need to really gird my loins and cut corners and just try to survive the next few years. I hate that this is where my business is at at nearly 30 years - at this point I should be successful and thriving and just coasting - but as the H reminds me, every business is suffering under Trump, especially ones like mine that aren’t essential in people’s lives and involve tourism. And ups and downs are to be expected - I’ve seen many. So it’s time to retract. I think I found a way to keep most of the new things without the extra day. It can be done. 

I reached out to my new contract lady, who answered me via WhatsApp because she’s on vacation in Australia (thankfully she answered!). She said she’d take my request to whatever team handles it - there’s still a chance they’ll just straight up say no or try to penalize me in some way - I just hope I get an answer before the event starts and I have to start selling tickets. I think it shouldn’t be a problem, though - I’ve done it before, and they know my numbers are down, and my contact told me the hotel has been very slow this summer. So everyone’s feeling it.

Beyond the annoyance of all that (and knowing if Kamala were president none of this would be happening), the operations of the event are fine, I guess? I’ve never had teachers be so flaky about getting me class titles - at this point for the first time ever I may just have to print up schedules with blanks on them. Everyone is being very last minute and it’s driving me nuts. So my work has also been dragged out far later than usual because of everyone else’s slacking, so I have more last minute tasks than I normally allow. But it’s all under control. I have a fairly low key weekend, thankfully, except for having to be bandleader in the scorching heat tomorrow (last Knott’s appearance, thank god) so I can get a lot of the more fiddly tasks done. Then two more days and then I pack up and head to the hotel Wednesday. Honestly, I’m relieved this is the last year starting on Thursday - I think it’s going to be exhausting, and I think at the end of it all of us are going to be secretly or not-so secretly wishing it still started on Friday. So now we (hopefully) get to return to that after just one year. Everyone will understand, especially if I keep the extra stuff they like, which I will. This also makes the school situation much better for us since this year it’s super complicated getting me to the hotel Wednesday but the kids still have school Thursday. It’s messy.

In other news, the start of school has gone well - Theo fills me in every day about his “kinder helper” tasks which is beyond adorable; Bobby is annoyed he has to put his phone in a pouch every day (I also think this is stupid) and complains a lot about having to be back at school and all the homework; I guess I can’t blame him, I’m sure I did the same. Especially when I was in 8th grade and things started to get really hard and involve a lot more work, which they have for him, too. 

So this may be my last post before my event. I’m sure we’ll have the usual dramas and failures but I’m just hoping everything runs as it should, people buy tickets for next year, and I can exhale for a few months. See you on the other side. 

First day of 6th & 8th grade

Summer is officially over - the boys started 6th and 8th grade today. It’s the first year in two years that nobody is starting a new school, which means the anxiety level is much lower than usual. Since the kids are apparently past the school supply age (neither class had any info on what was needed), I just stuffed their back packs with left over folders, spiral notebooks, pens and pencils from previous years, and left it at that. I figure as long as they have something to write with and write on, we’re good.

Theo’s school didn’t announce the teacher assignments until yesterday, so on our way to lunch we all dropped by the school to see who Theo got. It’s another teacher I’ve never heard of; I hope this year goes better than last. Bobby, in a rare moment of affection, said it was weird that this was the last year we would ever be looking for teacher assignments for Theo - he said, to him, Theo would always be in third grade. Hard agree. 

This morning we were all discombobulated and off our game, and we weren’t the only ones - there was a horrific traffic jam leading up to Theo’s school, to the point that I had Theo hop out and walk (I’m going to guess he barely made it by the final bell). Bobby’s school, further down the road a few blocks, was also pandemonium. I don’t remember it being like that last year, although we may have come a different way. 

This year as his elective Bobby chose something called Music Lab, which of course delighted me. Although most likely it’s just composing music on software which is something he already does (one of his songs was chosen for use by a video game he plays), I’m hoping it’ll spark something in him. 

So now we’re back to our old habits. Even though it’s only been two months, it feels like an eternity since I was getting up this early, picking up kids from the library, making sure they do homework, etc etc. I’m kind of glad they started on Thursday so we can ease into it. I’m guessing not much will happen at school in these two days. 

For me, I’m in the thick of it with my event - long to do lists every day that keep getting put off by endless customer service emails. The latest mess was messaging everyone to remind them that the new Thursday night dance is not included in the weekend pass, after seeing that only about 10% of attendees had bought tickets for that night. This unfortunately caused a flood of angry emails of people feeling like they were being ripped off and swearing this was never advertised (it was, clearly, from day one). I had to call an emergency meeting with my staff to figure out what to do when 800 angry people show up on Thursday, shocked that they’re being required to shell out even more money. Because I guarantee only a small portion of people even read that email. Some thought they had a special pass that included the dance (there’s no such thing). Others thought because they were in a dance contest that night that they didn’t need a ticket (what? How…?). Chalk this up to an endless series of “how could you possibly think that??” To me all of this was crystal clear - but obviously not understood by 90% of attendees. I realized I can’t do this this way ever again - but then that eliminates much needed revenue from those tickets (and no, raising the weekend pass price won’t help, because I’m already doing that next year to cover other expenses, and I can only raise it so much). 

Put this together with the fact that, as of this month, my registration is falling off a cliff. There is now no doubt that I will lose people - I’m guessing 100, possibly 150. Which is not good, and what I had feared all along, yet, bizarrely, was not apparent until two weeks ago. Up until end of July I had consistently had exactly the same amount of people as last year, and then BAM, I’m now 50+ people behind. There’s no way I’m going to catch up in two weeks; I’ll be lucky to not lose 150 people. It really sucks, because if I’d had any kind of heads-up I at least could have prepared more. But here we are two weeks out and I’m suddenly looking at being behind by $30,000 - $50,000. I’m just hoping the money I make during the event is enough to just pay for it, and that I sell enough advance tickets during the weekend to survive until February. I hope I just hang in there, although I fear economic and political situations will only get worse by 2026. I don’t feel a need to cancel the extra things I’ve added, although if it gets to February and my attendance is tanking, I may not have a choice. I’ve been through economic downturns before and always survived - I have no mortgage anymore, we can do cheap camping trips, I can tighten the belt as needed. But the worry with events is always that you’ll lose that momentum - as people stop coming, people stop coming - nobody wants to go to a dying event that everyone’s decided isn’t the place to be anymore. I hope to god that isn’t my fate! I need this thing to at least last another 17 years!!

Three weeks out

The event is three weeks away and I’ve got the usual “oh my god how am I going to get all of this done” panic, with the knowledge that it will all get done, actually, like it always does. Friday I went out to the shed and poked around in last year’s boxes, which is always an odd time capsule. The boxes themselves were filthy, and it took me over two hours in the stifling heat to inventory and select the band t shirts which annoyed me to no end. I also discovered that a couple hundred dollars in unsold jackets got ruined by being placed in front of a window in a clear box, something I would have been mindful of but obviously whoever stacked that there didn’t think about. Sigh.

Right now the thing I had been worried about all year might actually, finally, be coming true, which is my sales have completely dried up since the price increase on the 1st, and I am now about 50 people behind last year, the biggest gap I’ve seen yet. I’m starting to think that prediction that I could lose 100-200 people because of Trump’s bullshit just might finally start happening in these last three weeks, despite being completely at par up until ten days ago. It’s mind blowing that there was zero indication of anything amiss until just now at the 11th hour, but here we are. Could it still turn around? Maybe, but that hasn’t been the case since the pandemic - usually the final month is pretty slow. I think there’s a chance I could break 1000, but that still puts me 100 people behind the last three years (and $30,000 less in revenue, plus the $30,000 extra I’m paying for the extra year, putting me $60,000 less than last year. Ugh). It’s been dead as a doornail for nearly two weeks; I think I’ve gotten maybe ten people? So I might have to accept that I’m going to lose a significant amount of people this year, and prepare for more as this country continues to go down the shitter. God, what does 2026 have in store for us?? I don’t even want to think about it.

We have three days at home with no school this week before the kids start school - tomorrow we’re spending the day at a waterpark (probably not a great idea since Mondays are busy for me - it’s going to be hard to turn off and relax), then hanging around at home, then school. Bobby still has to do one of his summer reading book reports, and I still have to get information about what they’re doing Thursday (Bobby’s classes, Theo’s teacher). I figure I’ll just send them in with a few supplies we have at home - notebooks, pens, pencils - and take it from there. Boy is this school start less stressful than last year!! Everyone is familiar with their environment, and we have a system in place for timely pickups (remember last year how I spent two hours each afternoon driving back and forth to pick them up? Omg!), so unlike last year I’m barely focused on their return to school. Weird how that changes.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m coming to realize I had some wrong ideas about parenting, as far as, how long I would actually be an involved parent. I think based on my own experience - remember, I was pretty much on my own at fourteen - I thought that once these kids are college-aged, I basically would never see them again. So I’ve been planning every vacation like it’s our last, and feeling like time is running out for us to exist as a family; but I’m starting to realize that that doesn’t have to be true. I mean, sure, I could cut them loose and just let them live private lives at a certain point, and some element of that is healthy and necessary. But certainly we can continue to do family trips well into their adulthood - why not? And with housing as it is and college as expensive as it is, there’s a very real possibility that they will both be living here a lot longer than just through high school. I don’t see any scenario in which either of these kids will be able to live in a dorm for four years; and moving out at all is going to be challenging. So as much as they’ll continue to grow and be independent and I’ll of course encourage that, it’s also not the late eighties/early nineties in which young adults can get a low-wage job and have their own apartments, not in LA, anyway. Not now. Maybe in five years if we overthrow this fascist regime, but I’m not going to hold my breath.