Summer 2014

                                                                  

Summer is definitely the greatest season … in theory.  As a teacher, I have the summer “off”.  I use the quotes, because my brain never turns off, so I’ll still planning and doing stuff all summer, but I don’t have to physically go to work.  Don’t get me wrong; it’s a beautiful thing having a 2½ month break (otherwise, I’d probably be in an institution somewhere), but it’s not like I just get to kick back and do whatever I want all the time. 

Example:  My kids are also out of school.  While the older one is off doing his thing most of the time, the younger one has no ability to entertain herself.  I am the entertainment provider (and the bank, for said entertainment).  She sleeps until noon or one and then lies in bed for an hour catching up on whatever riveting social media posts might have happened in the dark hours.  Then she gets up and does … pretty much nothing.  (Maybe I’m just jealous…) She has no hobbies.  She doesn’t play an instrument or read books or create things.  During the school year, she plays sports all the time, but this summer … nothing.  Nada.  She won’t go to the YMCA with me.  She won’t go for a run.  She won’t walk on our basement treadmill (which is directly under an air conditioning vent!).  The most action I’ve seen out of her is when I connected the old-school Wii sports the other day, and she played a little tennis.   (Again, I’m probably just jealous, because I’m old and getting fat.)

Another Example:  I live in Nebraska.  So the weather goes from being too cold to go outside … to torrential rainstorms which scare the shit out of the youngest one and flood my basement … to humidity so high that even gardening is a sweaty shitfest.  Right this second, the temperature outside is absolutely beautiful – like 75 degrees and not all that humid.  I went outside for about 10 minutes, and I now have at least two dozen mosquito bites.  (Bastards.)  All I want to do is go outside and hang out in the haven I’ve created out there, but the subsequent malaria or Lyme Disease doesn’t seem worth it. 

But summer is also sleeping in and the College World Series (except I didn’t get to go this year), and vacations (except I couldn’t afford one this summer), and the pool (except mine is currently green because of all the recent rain).  Lots of POTENTIAL good to be had in the summer. 

If I was in California, where I belong, I’d just go play outside, but for now, I’m just gonna go join the little one for another match of Wii tennis.  Maybe do some Wii Fit yoga or something.  I guess not everyone can have the beach summer from the catalogue.

ADD Theater

I have three children.  They were all preteens at some point.  They all bridged the gap to 13.  This last one – the youngest, of course – is the pinnacle of teenage lunacy.  She talks roughly 1000 miles per hour.  All of her stories have a 100-1 ratio of words which are irrelevant to words which are necessary.   While I definitely want to hear what’s going on in her life, I just wish we could eliminate all the unnecessary verbiage and get to the god damn point. 

My (totally un-expert) opinion is that she is a victim of the 21^st Century.  All of the short attention span bullshit that happens inhibits her ability to articulate clearly and concisely.  Young people are more likely to say a bunch of meaningless shit than actually possess (and subsequently utter) coherent thoughts.  In an age where a six-second Vine is the entertainment norm, it’s not necessary (apparently) to make any sense. 

The Shovel Girl video is a perfect example of this short attention span phenomenon.  I’ll admit … I’ve watched the youtube video and subsequent Vine.  Rather than being amused, I was totally appalled.  The fact that these two stupid little bitches planned a fight, fixed their hair in the middle of said fight, and had “friends” recording the entire thing makes me physically ill.  What the fuck were they all thinking?!  Why is a girl-on-girl fistfight something to encourage and record?  Why the hell would a person go retrieve a SHOVEL and throw it at another person’s head?! 

Civilized society is apparently dead. 

All I really want is for my (beautiful, intelligent) children to take their fucking faces out of their screens and LIVE.  Life is so much more than what other people post on vapid social media sites.  And when my youngest tells me a story, all I hear is OTHER.  Her personality evaporates into a constant stream of online bullshit, leaving me to wonder what I’ve done wrong as a parent.   She has potential which is being sucked into the online vacuum of useless group-think.

READ BOOKS.  HAVE HOBBIES.  CREATE SOMETHING.  

R(eading) I(s) F(undamental)

I have three children. 

Child number one just graduated from college with an English/philosophy BA.  Always a reader – always a thinker.

Child number two is extremely smart, but the only thing he reads for fun is twitter.  He will, however, read books assigned at school.

Child number three might be the smartest one, but I’ll never know, because I have to bribe her to read anything that isn’t on Instagram.  I finally got her to “read” yesterday, then I realized she had a Wreck This Journal book, which TOTALLY doesn’t count as “reading”.   She read only one book in all of seventh grade, and she only read it because she didn’t need to read the books to do any of the assigned work.  So I literally forced her to read one (I read it in one day and then asked ridiculously specific questions about the plot so I would know if she was lying – which she totally would do to get out of reading).

So, let’s put this in perspective:  I’m a teacher of English who inspired exactly one-third of my children to read books. 

What I’m about to say makes me sound like a fossil and a technophobe, but technology is seriously destroying people’s minds.  I’m not about to be a hypocrite and say that I don’t play games on my phone, but this 30-second-attention-span society that’s blossoming all around us is not PROGRESS.  We might have more information and accessibility at our fingertips, but we are losing true communication.  My youngest will have friends over, and when I come in the room, they’re all staring at their phones.  It’s pretty bleak.

I have no solution to this problem, I might add.  I get it.  Technology is cool.  But we went from a youtube trend to a vine trend, and I seriously think it’s just because vine is shorter.  Less time spent trying to sort something out.   THINKING is out of the question.  We’re becoming a bunch of fucking drooling idiots who would rather be distracted for a minute than actually do something productive – something which is fine SOMETIMES, but not ALL THE TIME. 

It’s a mystery.   I’ll keep digging, and perhaps we will all come out on the other side of this distraction.