homeschool monday

the day starts easily enough- a steaming pile of fresh cat vomit on the white rug squashed between my long neglected toes. Beautiful. After not being particularly privy to pets for the better part of a quarter of a century, the pandemic has rendered me a cat person. Or a defacto cat person, as it were. But hey , what’s the protocol here? i/m a reformed puker, i/ve barfed the alcoholic rainbow since 1980- a 40 year Technicolor yawnathon. But I have quit drinking, there/s only been a coupla food related portions of barfaroni since. Anyone want a cat? The threat of feeding the feline to the coyotes does not carry the same weight when my spirit animals are not in the back yard. But I digress. I hose off the kibbles and drag the razor across my face and flip on NPR for the early morning delivery of bad news. I fire up the cooker to experiment with the plethora of donated vegetables from the night before. More than junior and I can effectively eat in a week. I try some creative ‘stouping’, you know something etween stock and soup, just hold it by the wings and let it fly. For breakfast, I choke down a coupla stale cupcakes and a mug of tea, in the golden hour of trying to wake the kid up . I cook the food in hopes of coaxing a friend across the freeway for a quick drive by with her dropkick. Wishful thinking- 45 seconds of IRL interaction on a bitter day. And its now 815. First call for the reluctant scholar. First trip to the sleep chamber to raise the dead. I will make no less than 5 more trips over the next 30 minutes to wake the dead. Lately , I have been debating a boat horn. I mean, those work on the rock beardos blissfully farting their ways through ambien flecked anna Kendrick dreams after their previous night’s worth of pbr, Adderall , blown bus calls, and married women, but that/s another story altogether. The teen finally crawls to the table at about 845am, wrapped in a fleece blanket and two days ago/s clothes. He works his way through a simple breakfast of orwashers sourdough toast with vegan butter and commercial grade orange juice. He has 30 minutes to get his ship together, which he mostly does. 30 minutes to scrape the teeth, set up his rig- 30 minutes to the zoom room. The first of 9 each day but Friday, and I am the 1st air cavalry of helicopter parents at this point, and it noramllly works. Breakfast is mostly lovely- shared youtube videos or maybe a song or 3. Home room on Monday is mostly talking about the weekenbd , or lack thereof. We don/t do much. We are covid cautious and covid compliant in our endeavors. Home room is soon over and morphs into algebra, a regular cause of tears. Oh algebra, the one class where parents are useless. I was shit at algebra but crawled to the finish, and the trait has certainly been passed down with more tears and mixed results. And clearly the nuns didn/t beat the equations into his mother, back in the day. algebra is a problem , an dwe are now 3 teachers into the year. First period algebra on a Monday is almost sadistic. Fortunately it is followed by an assisted work period, which today is free for some reason. I use the time to run to staples to send out an ebayed Fernando Valenzuela blanket, that ups then loses. I arrive back for period 3, science. I like to eaves drop, as they are doing elements of geology, volcanoes for the moment. I wish he would do them without headphones so I might learn something, because brian Lehrer is doing my head in. I potter about the kitchen , replying to emails and tidying up some accounting from the previous weeks shows at Brooklyn bowl, dropping in for my hourly snack drop- Pumpkin bread for Spanish today. Proud of him persisting in Spanish after so many years of hating French and the correlative French teachers. Also I can help in Spanish, if need be. I heat up some cream of tomato soup and serve up with oyster crackers. So fortunate to share lunch with my ever growing and slowly maturing teen. This silver lining is one of many that is not lost on me. That 10 seconds of caloric inhalation, a midday check in , before he rushes to roblox to game with his mates spread across the tri state at this point. A moment to breathe and clean up for me, and prep for the post lunch transition, which is sometimes a struggle. But today is Monday, music day. he has had the same music teacher for 4 years now, and for that I am grateful. His teacher generally pulls out some classic rock track if ronan does not provide guidance. This week it is kansas’ ‘dust in the wind’- ronan has a pretty respectable upper range and it is wonderful to listen to him try to work through the piano and vocal parts, though he likes to goof a bit, and I can hear the frustration on behalf of his music teacher, as he attempts to prep all of his students pieces for a remote performance in a few days. Luckily I get a call that says that I need to get some horn mics and a protools rig to a vendor in Bushwick by 3pm. Ergo, I bundle up and hit the bricks to be back by period 8 ELA, and have as few external trasnactions as possible whilst stretching the legs and expanding the lungs. And that I do, with the help of a citibike and simple avoidance of traffic laws, I am back in time for period 8. He is a good participator in his English class, i am proud of him for speaking his mind and bringing good comparisons in from his learned experience. I put on PJ Harvey’s “dry” demos, an essential piece of my 23rd year. Who knew that the gawky songsmith from yeovil with the beautiful neck would have such longevity. These raw demos feel so prescient. I will take anything pure to make me feel 23 again- marginally employed without a care in the world besides a block of hash, a pack of Samson doux, 20 pints of Guinness, and the company of some knockout with a nose ring, combat boots, ripped tights, and v]black cotton panties to span time with, but hey, snap, we are talking about school right now- coming of age to be exact, not time travelling. I ruminate and scroll twitter and wait for period 9. period 9 is vocal ensemble, the last class of the day. pretty wild that the teacher can keep 6 kids together in the zoom room. They/ve done some cool songs in the past, and if you’ve never heard ‘scarborough fair’ as done by jello Biafra, well, you have not lived. I have to turn the PJ Harvey up, I want school to be out so we can leave the house, and it soon is, as we head out into the cold in search of a Christmas tree. Apparently Christmas trees in the 2020 boho Riviera is 60 bucks for a Charlie brown which have been rebranded as a ‘tabletop tree’. I have to audibly laugh at the Carhart guy, as junior even exclaims ‘it/s a mere sapling, how much does a tree cost?” valid question. I wonder where the convicts with the black of the lorry tied up on some corner in a bubble wrapped caravan and a wheezy mongrel whose bark is worse than its bite. Where are my people for this? Instead, dejected, like Charlie brown and his sack of rocks, we shuffle off home- tree less and enjoying the greenpoint Christmas lights on a cold December evening. Out of the house and off our screens, sniffing and sucking in the winter air, just two guys walking back to our house and an evening’s worth of BROOKLYN 9-9 on hulu, a day well spent.