My thoughts on distance learning precisely.

About two weeks into our public school's new distance learning program - approximately on the date when the above photo was taken - I lost it.

My daughter, who's in a learning pod with a classmate and bounces between our house and theirs, seems to sort of enjoy distance learning, or at least tolerate it. Not that she's actually *learning* much - holy god, the muting and un-muting and kids with their microphones turned up to 10,000% and tl;dr teachers are superheroes and I don't know how any of them are holding onto even a tiny shred of patience or sanity - but she's basically fine. (Not that distance learning is in any way, shape or form fine for me, or for any working parent - just saying, she seems fine.)

me. 2009.

That's the general consensus on bloggers who share about their personal lives, right? We don't "owe" our readers anything? It's what I've heard countless times over the years, anyway: Whenever a reader asks me about a topic I don't feel comfortable touching - the specifics of my finances, for example, or the precise reasons behind my divorce - other readers will jump in, reminding me that what I choose to share (and not share) is...well, my choice. I don't owe anyone my story.

Except that's never how I've really felt. I do owe you. So very much. And so what I owe you, right now, is an explanation.

This. Is. Not. Okay.

We're two weeks into our personal experience of the grand national experiment that is Distance Learning, and spoiler: Nothing about it is even close to workable.

My kids and I are enormously privileged. We have WiFi (when it feels like working, which is about 60% of the time). Computers. One work-from-home parent and two who are deeply invested in their education. A school with resources and incredible teachers. Plenty of outdoor space.

This whole post is basically an ad for my next book

Ohhhhkay, so today? Was one big reminder why I am so super glad I am not a teenage girl anymore. Because teenage boys are the fucking worst. And they're so adorably charming-when-they-want-to-be that you forget! But then you remember. Because they do something that's the fucking worst, and they could have really just HAD A LITTLE FORESIGHT or DISPLAYED A MODICUM OF RESPONSIBILITY, but NOPE.

I have this couch. Or rather my landlord has this couch, and when I moved in he asked if he could leave it in the family room because it was apparently a twelve thousand dollar couch when it was new (!!) and one day he might want to recover it. And I said sure, fine, because a) it wasn't terrible, and b) I'm not in the business of buying anything that I don't absolutely need to buy these days. I had it steam-cleaned when I moved in, and I tried to be okay with it, I swear...but what it came down to was that perhaps it was worth 12 thousand dollars in, oh, I dunno, 1981, but it is now the same age as me and neither of us are quite as sprightly as we were back in the day.