The Foo, Smiths, Smashed Pumpkins, and a 15-year-old--birthday edition

Dear G,

Boy howdy! 

If I didn't know any better or hadn't witnessed the last couple years with my own eyes, I would think that a master race of aliens had visited our home and did a little switcheroo with the boy who used to live here. He has been replaced by a young man who is cool, able to laugh at himself, and better able to handle his emotions. 

Trying out your sister's boyfriend's sweet new ride. 

Today you are 15, an age that I might not have expected you to live to mostly because I thought I was gonna ring your neck with my bare hands many, many times during your earlier years. 

You love a Great Lake. 

Your fashion sense is...interesting.

You handsomed it up for 8th grade promotion in the spring. 

You started high school last month, and while your first days were not great, you have since gotten used to the flow, even being able to sleep on the bus going to school. You keep your earbuds at the ready and listen to a panoply of music that you are happy to share with me. You are, in fact, the official disc jockey of the car whenever we go anywhere. 

You've listened to the Foo Fighters, The Smiths, Radiohead, and are now on Smashing Pumpkins, and it is really great to know the sounds you like. Listening to it has helped me know you better as well as remind me of some really great music I'd forgotten. You are a blend of what I always called "whiny British music" that your dad always enjoyed and the grunge that I tended to lean towards. 

Your favorite class is Philosophy, and you're always telling me interesting things you learn there. Last week, you brought up the Trolley Problem and are now writing about the ethics of Mikhail Gorbachev. You have always been a deep thinker so it doesn't surprise me in the least that this is the class you most enjoy.

You continue to be a hard worker in school who doesn't procrastinate. You inherited many, many of my not-great qualities, but I admit I like that you don't put things off. (Ask your sister how crazy I make her because she tends to be less "in a hurry" than I am, and I have trouble controlling my anxiety. But I'm working on it.) I think you're like me in that you want your to-do list to be as short as possible or nonexistent.

Look at those lovely, expensive teeth. 

Since last year, you have gotten a girlfriend, and that has been a learning experience for both of us. You have tried more and different food in the last six months (which is annoying since you would NEVER try new foods when I asked). But you've also had some confusing and uncertain moments, and I'm so glad you talked to me about them. You are learning that relationships can be great, and they can be awful, and they can be confusing. 

I am incredibly proud of the young man you are and the one you will transform into during the next year. You have always followed the beat of your own drummer, from your long hair to your Steve Jobs-like commitment to wearing the same type of clothes day-in and day-out. That isn't always an easy road to walk, but you have never seemed to care what other people think (including me sometimes). That is admirable in a lot of ways and something it takes other people much longer to understand the freedom of. 

I'm glad you had a good celebration yesterday, and I hope the homework gods smile on you today and you aren't overwhelmed with work,

I love you,

Momma

I'm the teacher with the complaints

I have been at the cottage school for a decade, and sometimes I'm surprised that they've kept me around as long as they have since I am the one whose classes parents seem to have the most issues with. 

My high school classes, really.

And it's the texts I select for students to read.

I love teaching the classics but I have tried to add a little bit more modern classics to my list over the years because classic literature can be really hard for students to get, especially those who don't have the weird love of English that I do. 

For a lot of students, Wuthering Heights (1847), Great Expectations (1860),  Pride and Prejudice (1813), and anything Shakespeare is utter torture. 

So this year I am teaching Rebecca by Daphe Du Maurier (1938). Several years ago, I started teaching   The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (1990), A Raisin in the Sun (1959), and Long Day's Journey Into Night (1939-1941). 

Because I can potentially teach the same student all four years of high school, I have to rotate books so as not to repeat. After a several years hiatus, I am teaching The Things They Carried again. 

This is a book about the Vietnam War. About young men (in their 20s) in the Vietnam War. Young men, in general, think about sex. And war is about killing and death and raping and destroying and dying. All unpleasant topics. 

(It is at this point that I like to mention that all of these things--sex, rape, war, killing, dying--are also in the Bible. Like 2 Samuel 13:1-39.)

Some parents homeschool because their kids have food allergies or because their kids are involved in activities that require more flexibility than what traditional school gives. Some parents homeschool because their kids have had socially unpleasant traditional school experiences. Some parents homeschool because they want more control over what their kids learn. Probably some homeschoolers are a combination of these. 

It was due to this last group that we determined, a couple years after I began teaching, that we needed to add a disclaimer to my English classes to warn parents that there is often content that they may find troubling and that they should review the books in advance (like before registering for my classes). The ones who complain are generally the ones who fail to do this.

While I personally think it is ridiculous to censor what kids read, especially once they reach high school, parents have the right to do whatever they want including marking out things from books or keeping certain books from their kids. However, they would save themselves a lot of headache (and me too) if they would check out the books in advance. Or if they are so concerned, read the books with their kids and have whatever discussions they feel compelled to have. That is entirely their business, and we encourage it in our disclaimer. 

The parent who has had the most recent issue with the first book of the year is concerned because I am not explicitly talking about language and sexual content with the students, which he seems to think is my responsibility since I am assigning the book to read. I, on the other hand, think it is my job to assign the book and teach the students the rhetorical devices and complexities of how the book was written (you know, the ENGLISH part of it), and it is the parents' job to discuss any particular issues their children bring to them related to curse words or sexual content if they have concerns about these things. 

If I were to discuss these things, I would be overstepping, which isn't my job, and on this point, the parent and I agree. 

I think the parent's basic argument is that I should have picked a book that this particular parent feels is a better book.

But I picked this book in February and we listed the book choices and the disclaimer in March and this parent apparently enrolled in April and now it is September. Now is not really the time to be complaining that you didn't know what was in the book. 

One of the things I discuss with students while reading The Things They Carry is ethos and pathos, two types of rhetorical devices. Ethos is what gives something credibility; why can we trust an argument that someone makes? Pathos is the emotional language someone uses in an argument that makes the reader feel a certain thing and, therefore, reinforces the argument. 

Tim O'Brien, the author of this Pulitzer Prize-finalist story, served in Vietnam so he has lots of credibility as to what the Vietnam War was like (and this is what the entire book is about). He also writes stories and uses a great deal of pathos to help the reader feel what soldiers felt. 

One thing I explained to this parent is that my job is to prepare high schoolers for college English classes. And I don't know where my students will go to college. Some of them go to private college or Christian colleges, but some of them go to state schools. 

I went to a private Catholic college where I know some of my former students now attend, and I read books that had curse words and sex in them. I actually took a THEOLOGY course in college in which the books we were assigned had cursing and sex in them. 

My point is that keeping a high schooler away from things in the real world (like cursing and sex) doesn't prepare them for when they will be introduced to these things (and they will if they leave the house or if they currently have a cell phone and the Internet). 

I completely understand the desire to protect one's children. I completely understand the parent's argument that kids can't unsee or unthink the things they read. But I think it is better and safer to let them experience the world through books when they can discuss with parents how to address these things that confuse or scare them. Better this that to keep them so protected they have zero reference point and no concept of how to handle it when they do have to handle it in real life. 

Because they will. 

Here's to all the first-day sucks

Normally, I do a first day of school photo, but not this year. 

This year I didn't care. 

Partly because my schedule this month is insane.

But mostly because I know this is a hard year for G since he started high school. Most people dislike change, but he REALLY dislikes change. And like his mother, his anxiety just becomes a horribly shitty mood. I'm old enough now to know that I need to shut the fuck up, but he is 14 and hasn't learned or instilled this habit in himself. 

G had a fairly horrible first day. Now, was it actually fairly horrible? Not sure. If 100 people had his first day, would they agree that it was horrible? I don't know that either. G is a bit of a drama queen and has a low frustration tolerance. 

But several things worked against him:

1--He dressed like he was going on a hike in Siberia when he lives in the South in August (despite his mother urging him NOT to dress this way).

Hoodie=check
Long pants=check
T-shirt under the hoodie=check

Plus a mask (since our area is in COVID red)

2--The bus was packed and it took a long time for all the buses to arrive.

3--Another kid threw up on the bus.

So G got a little motion sick and a lot hot and frustrated. (Although I told him his first day could have been worse because he could have actually puked on the bus like the other kid.)

And then he felt overwhelmed with the 7 classes and the new building and the syllabi and the "Here is what we're going to do this semester" which to G sounds like:

HERE IS WHAT WE EXPECT YOU TO KNOW RIGHT THIS SECOND AND YOU HAVE 10 PAPERS AND THEY ARE ALL DUE IN 2 WEEKS. 

During the school days I was wondering how he was doing, which caused me anxiety. And then after school, I had to listen to him complain and be out of sorts.

There is a saying that a mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child, which means my first three days weren't as stellar as they might have been. 

I've been paid

Today I have been paid the full amount I was owed--April, May, June, and even July.

It took more emails and texts than was necessary, and I even contacted an attorney to find out what my legal options were. But before I made that move, I decided I had nothing to lose and emailed the head honcho of the company directly. It led to a not totally comfortable Zoom meeting with the head honcho and the office manager (who I had emailed a ton and who had been unable to get anything done until this point).

I'm not sure what the problem was or why it took so long to get resolved, but it stressed me the heck out and made me feel devalued. 

I don't wish them ill, but I don't want to be part of their chaos. 

And so now, I'm reshuffling and reevaluating and maybe this is good even though nobody likes to feel like the carpet has been pulled out from under them. I just figured out that this part-time work I did made up about 24% of my total income so it's not nothing. 

Maybe this empty spot will fill with something I hadn't planned but that ends up being something great. 

I don't believe that humans are puppets on a god string or that god moves things in certain ways. But I do think that humans are very good at making meaning. 

And so I will make meaning from this.

10-year-olds, abortion, child abuse, and CPS in my yard

I admittedly live a privileged life. My parents did not abuse me or neglect me in any way. I was sheltered, and I shelter my children from harmful things as much as I can within my own home. 

We don't have the news on nonstop. We don't yell at our children. We have never spanked our children. We don't do drugs or abuse alcohol and there is no domestic violence in our home. My husband and I have gotten therapy on our own and together as a couple to ensure we provided our children with love and stability. 

Within that secure foundation, though, I have thought it wise to let them experience the world. They go to public school and meet all kinds of kids. They can read whatever they want. They have phones and Internet access, and I encourage them to talk to me about what they see or hear and educate them to verify everything. They do not get in trouble or lectured for asking questions or being naturally curious. 

But their home is secure. 

This week, I got to see up close and personal what it is like for kids whose lives are very, very different from my children's. 

Without going into detail that would violate privacy, I can say that child protective services was in my yard this week. I can say that I was a witness to the sadness of a mother who chooses a man over a child (which is probably because she is abused too), a woman who loves her child as best she can but has problems of her own and is not meeting her child's needs. 

Most importantly, I saw a child who is in need of a lot of counseling because the adults who are supposed to protect her and love her are not doing it in the way it needs to be done.

With this on my mind, it makes me furious to read about the rigamarole over the 10-year-old in Ohio who got a medication abortion for 6 weeks of pregnancy that resulted from rape by an adult. Having looked at the face of a neglected and emotionally abused child this week IN MY FUCKING FRONT YARD, I take the side of that 10-year-old over a 6-week fetus that is the size of a Chiclet piece of gum.

How do I know a 6-week fetus is the size of a Chiclet? I looked it up. 

And it INFURIATES me that people are choosing something that doesn't speak and has no consciousness and cannot eat or breathe on its own OVER the life of a 10-year-old child who can walk, talk, eat, shit, and feel. 

How can we do this to living, breathing, outside-the-womb children?

My vague-posting (and employment)

A week or so ago, I posted something on social media about how being honest often means a person is subject to criticism or worse, such as lost employment. 

I suspect some people who know I can cuss like a sailor if necessary and have an opinion about most things that I am willing to share might suspect that I maybe did something on the order of this and got fired.

I mean, I did make international news several years ago over dress code bullshit, so anything is possible when it comes to my mouth. 

I have not gotten fired.

All I did was send an email before I chickened out that basically said the following:

"I am a dependable, high-quality producer, and if you value this dependable, high-quality producer you need to pay me in a more timely manner."

I don't think it is being unreasonable to expect that by July 4, I should have been paid the $725 that is owed me for APRIL. (And the remaining $2,200 owed me should come sooner rather than later.)

More or less, I don't trust this employer anymore. I don't think this employer values my work and my dependability. And if I don't trust you, there is no point continuing a relationship whether it is personal or professional. 

While I was honest (and civil) in my email, I guess the bigger point is that I stood up for myself. 

And I'm glad.

But I'm also flailing a bit, and I'm not sure why.

Because they didn't fire me. I'm just about 99.9% sure I'm firing them. I have a swimming pool full of tolerance for young people and kids, but I do not babysit adults. 

But this marks a change, and I'm going to have to adapt, and that is always uncomfortable and scary. I got comfortable and, admittedly, lazy. 

Now I'm having to think about whether I'll actively seek something new or do what I've done in every professional experience for the past 13 years....hang out and let things kind of organically happen and go where they will. 

2022 like 2019

 In 2019, we went on a lot of small trips. 

Spring Break was spent in Atlanta visiting my cousins and exploring the city, which we had driven through a million times but never stayed in for anything more than a night while en route to or from Florida.

That summer, we visited Cape San Blas, a small peninsula in Florida.

That fall, we went to Michigan City, Indiana and took the train to Chicago.

This was all for the good because COVID made us very eager to go nowhere outside our state. We went to Land Between the Lakes, Cumberland Falls, and Red River Gorge until we had all been vaccinated when I felt it was probably a little more safe to go beyond the borders.

Since December 18, 2021, I've traveled quite a bit and failed to write about any of it. Until now.

The first trip was when the five of us went to Las Vegas, Nevada and Joshua, Tree, California. It was a pretty darn wonderful trip even though we were still having to mask inside (or should I say, we chose to mask inside even though lots of other people didn't). 

We spent a full day in Joshua Tree National Park and then stopped at Amboy Crater in the middle of the Mojave Desert on our way back to Las Vegas. In Vegas, we went to Meow Wolf and walked all over the strip and then drove to Hoover Dam. It was a trip that sort of wore us out but that I so enjoyed because I was seeing new terrain. It was some 1,856 miles there and back. 

The Mojave Desert at sunset as we were driving from Las Vegas to Joshua Tree.

Found a hole in a boulder where water had frozen overnight. 

Outdoor sculpture at Meow Wolf in Las Vegas. 

At the Hoover Dam

In early April, N and I went to Quito, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, a trip we had been planning and saving for since October 2020, when we thought innocently to ourselves, "This pandemic should be over by April 2022." 

The trip was amazing and exhausting and had I had the energy after puking some 12+ times on the ferry from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz, I would have thrown myself overboard and just drowned because motion sickness on the Pacific is no fucking joke. (I likely puked over 20 times in a 2-hour period but I decided suicide would be a good idea sometime after my 10th puke. I say this not to make suicide funny but to note that when people feel miserable, a wish to just die and get it over with is not irrational but a better option out of all bad options.)

When I finally staggered off the boat and could barely stand, the closest place to lie down was here. I spent the rest of that day in bed.

Pier at Santa Cruz, the Galapagos with another creature 

who may or may not have also been extremely seasick. One of the members of 

the tour took this pick which was only hilarious many days later. 

This was, however, the worst of my trip. Everything else was amazing and awesome, and I was so privileged to see it. It was my first but I hope not my last trip to South America and was some 3,000 miles one way. Plus, it was my girl's first international trip, and I love that she was able to do it. 

A view of Quito from Virgin of El Panecillo. 

A mural in Otavalo, Ecuador

The beach on San Cristobal, the Galapagos

The flight, somewhere over Nicaragua.

Since we've spent a lot of money on those two trips, we decided we needed to keep a summer trip short and therefore, cheaper. 

I'm not a fan of stuff but I value experience and time, and over the years, I've tried to combine both by inviting my parents and/or my MIL on our trips. Due to my dad's health problems in 2020, we asked mom and dad to come on a weekend trip with us to Tennessee in early May since it wasn't as long of a drive for them. I had learned about Pickett State Park and wanted to see it because it is a international dark sky park. It was around 170 miles away. 

As with the massive puke fest in the Galapagos, often you don't plan what happens, and we didn't plan for it to rain the entire weekend except for like 40 minutes on Friday and then another 40 minutes on Saturday of this extended weekend. We got out during those brief windows of time to explore. So much for seeing the dark sky when there was nothing but heavy rainclouds. 

Pickett State Park, Tennessee during one of those 40 minute non-rain windows. 

Big South Fork lookout trail during one of those 40 minute non-rain windows. 

The view from this lookout. 

The lovely cabin we stayed at. 

I also wanted to squeeze in another shortish trip (340 miles) and decided Kelleys Island would take us to water, which we like, and cooler temperatures, which we also like. After visiting Michigan several years ago, I sort of got it in my head to see all the Great Lakes. This took another off our list; only one left (Ontario). 

We spent 4 full days exploring Kelleys Island and seeing the African Safari zoo in Port Clinton, Ohio and Marblehead lighthouse. It felt like the beach without the heat or the salt or the jellyfish. 

Me on a ferry to Kelleys Island and not puking. It is possible. 

Herndon Gallery within walking distance of the house we rented.

Glacial grooves on Kelleys Island. 

African Safari drive where you can feed the animals who 

will stick their big heads in your car and slobber on the doors. 

We ate A LOT of ice cream at Papa T's on Kelleys Island. 

And so now, we are home and will stay home for a good long while to save up and hopefully plan for other adventures down the road to far off places. 

I know my love of travel is an addiction of sorts because I do feel this physical and mental urge to get out of my norm and get away from what I see all the time. I get a release of good-feeling hormones just looking up places I might like to go at some point, and that feeling is compounded by A LOT when I actually get to the someplace new I wanted to see. I tell myself that it is probably a better addiction than illegal drugs and sex with strangers. 

But there are costs to it. It costs time and money. It is tiring. And not everyone in our family loves travel the way I do so it forces me to not see everything I'd like to see and them to see more than what they care to see. 

These are very lowercase privilege problems. I'm thankful that I get to see as much as I've been able to see.