One good thing about distance learning, and maybe I’ve already referenced this in an earlier post, is how much time I have during the day to play music in the background. If I ever tried to do that at school, I’d first have to be very careful I didn’t play any inappropriate songs (even though some of the most offensive music listen to would pass for Disney princess anthems when compared to a lot of the stuff 5th graders listen to and claim to enjoy). Once I had steered around all the bad words that would get the wrong parent on my back, the issue would fall to how distracting it would be for the class. There’s no way I wouldn’t have a little snark monster or two finding ways to criticize what I had chosen to play. Doing so could almost pass as a creative writing prompt for some: “Describe at least 5 ways Mr. Mulroy’s playlist today is a fail.”
Here at home, there’s no one to complain. I can have the music up to a reasonable level in the other room and it won’t be heard even during a video conference. I’ve asked people if they could hear it, and it’s rare they can even tell it’s on.
I’ve been in the habit for a long time of crafting playlists for the days I’ve been at school without any kids around. It’s almost a hobby, trying to put together the perfect combination of songs, usually arranged around some kind of theme. These days, if I have the time, I’ll put together a playlist somewhere between seven and ten hours long the night before, then give it an appropriately-identifiable name. A few examples from the past week or so: “Soundtrack to The Apocalyse,” “College Time Capsule,” Starter Pack,” or “Chill Out, It’s Only a Pandemic,” along with things like “Bruce Hornsby Live,” “Yes: The Trevor Rabin Years,” “Studio Tesla,” or the imaginatively titled “May 11,” which was actually pretty good so I should go back give it a name. Most of these don’t get played through more than once or twice and consequently have brief shelf lives, but half the fun is putting it together in the first place, so I don’t see it as wasted time.
If I don’t have enough time to get obsessive about my playistism, I’ll just pick a particular artist and shuffle through a collection of their albums. That’s especially fun if it’s someone who hasn’t been in my rotation for awhile. I have to say, it was a surprise to discover how much better mid-80s Night Ranger held up to the test of time compared to something like late-80s Bon Jovi. (I’m sorry, but until you play six or so Bon Jovi albums one after another, you don’t fully realize how much every song sounds alike and how much there sound was dictated by the times.)
I’m still looking at three school days this week, and as of now I don’t have any ideas about what to listen to next. I saw a story on the news about a local artist who was creating sketches for people by request and sending them out for a small price; to give him a start, the customer had to provide him with a word or a phrase to build around. I thought that was a cool idea. I might have to look for some random words or sources to inspire my lists for the rest of the week.
Or I might fall back on something like “Rush Studio Albums from Between 1977 and 1992.”
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Monday, May 11, 2020
May 11: Summer Plans!
I haven’t left my house more than ten times in the past two months. As of yesterday, there are 74 miles on my car since I last filled the gas tank…two months ago, and nearly half of them were from driving out to my parents’ house for Mother’s Day yesterday. From a certain point of view, I have become one of the people Tommy Shaw sang about in the slightly better than mediocre Styx song, “Too Much Time on My Hands.” You’d think, especially during a month when I proclaimed a week and a half ago I was going to be productive, that I’d manage to get a lot, or at least a little, writing done. I’d appreciate it if nobody asks how that’s going.
I hate to sound like this guy, but sometimes I am: My headspace has a lot to say about whether or not I’m able to get any writing done. I don’t mean words on a page; I could sit down and push myself for an hour and have a thousand new words to show for it. The problem right now is that when the emotional/intellectual/physical/spiritual drain of working from the teaching end of distance learning is paired with the constant, yet vaguely mild, presence of the existential threat to self and society that comes with living in the days of COVID-19, it’s a struggle to put what’s left of yourself into making those words any good. You want proof? Two sentences back I wrote a sentence that was sixty-three words long. I mean, who does that?
Writing good words is a singular feeling. If you’re familiar with the flow state, imagine riding atop the flow on a surfboard with perfect, unshakeable balance. Things come at you so fast you have to fight to keep up. I haven’t been able to catch that wave in months. Maybe in short spurts, but not with the kind of sustained effort it takes to get any real work done.
Generally I’m okay with this. I’d like to be using this time better, but I know that in times like these self care and all that, blah blah blah, so I have to allow myself to let a few things slide to focus more on the things I’m being paid to do, even if I’d rather not.
But. That’s all going to change relatively soon. In less than a month, the donkey fest that was the 2020 school year will finally stumble over the finish line and my summer, such as it is, will be open. To be clear, by open I mean I won’t have any distance learning to deal with, not that I think the economy is going to be fixed and I’ll feel safe actually going anywhere. I always do what I can to get some writing done during the summer, but this year I think it’s going to be different.
I have two projects I want to work one, one writing and one revising. My school day during this remote teaching gig has had two sets of office hours built into my schedule, the times when I had to be available online so they were the more productive parts of my day: 9-11 AM, and 1-3 PM. It struck me today that maintaining that same routine during the summer could be exactly what I need to get some real work done. Two hours in the morning, a mental break to recharge, then two more in the afternoon, then the rest of the day to do whatever needs to be done, or just wants to be done.
Before that idea occurred to me, I was thinking how transitioning from school to summer this year was going to be pretty anticlimactic. Now I’ve got something about summer to look forward to again. I have to say, it feels pretty good.
I hate to sound like this guy, but sometimes I am: My headspace has a lot to say about whether or not I’m able to get any writing done. I don’t mean words on a page; I could sit down and push myself for an hour and have a thousand new words to show for it. The problem right now is that when the emotional/intellectual/physical/spiritual drain of working from the teaching end of distance learning is paired with the constant, yet vaguely mild, presence of the existential threat to self and society that comes with living in the days of COVID-19, it’s a struggle to put what’s left of yourself into making those words any good. You want proof? Two sentences back I wrote a sentence that was sixty-three words long. I mean, who does that?
Writing good words is a singular feeling. If you’re familiar with the flow state, imagine riding atop the flow on a surfboard with perfect, unshakeable balance. Things come at you so fast you have to fight to keep up. I haven’t been able to catch that wave in months. Maybe in short spurts, but not with the kind of sustained effort it takes to get any real work done.
Generally I’m okay with this. I’d like to be using this time better, but I know that in times like these self care and all that, blah blah blah, so I have to allow myself to let a few things slide to focus more on the things I’m being paid to do, even if I’d rather not.
But. That’s all going to change relatively soon. In less than a month, the donkey fest that was the 2020 school year will finally stumble over the finish line and my summer, such as it is, will be open. To be clear, by open I mean I won’t have any distance learning to deal with, not that I think the economy is going to be fixed and I’ll feel safe actually going anywhere. I always do what I can to get some writing done during the summer, but this year I think it’s going to be different.
I have two projects I want to work one, one writing and one revising. My school day during this remote teaching gig has had two sets of office hours built into my schedule, the times when I had to be available online so they were the more productive parts of my day: 9-11 AM, and 1-3 PM. It struck me today that maintaining that same routine during the summer could be exactly what I need to get some real work done. Two hours in the morning, a mental break to recharge, then two more in the afternoon, then the rest of the day to do whatever needs to be done, or just wants to be done.
Before that idea occurred to me, I was thinking how transitioning from school to summer this year was going to be pretty anticlimactic. Now I’ve got something about summer to look forward to again. I have to say, it feels pretty good.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
May 10: Mother's Day
Pandemic celebrations have been subdued for my family, to say the least. We didn’t get together for Easter. We’ve already missed three birthdays, with another one this month set to either be postponed or bypassed altogether. As of today, we’ve missed Mother’s Day.
I almost started this paragraph by writing “Everyone’s mother is special to them,” but after so many years of teaching and witnessing so many either fractured or completely broken mother/child relationships, I know that isn’t necessarily true. I have known of mothers who wanted to try their best, but weren't even able to take care of themselves. I’ve known mothers who have given up on being any kind of a parent, because they either didn't understand or have any love for their children. I know of mothers who have essentially abandoned their families to move several states away in search of a second try. I’ve had students who were only alive to be in my classroom by the grace of God. I’ll spare you the details, because frankly, I know too many things from my years as a teacher that would leave most people sickened or walking around with waking nightmares. The world is not always a good place, and many of the people who live in it have considerable problems.
My sisters and I had all the luck in the world to be born to our parents. I’m giving my father half the credit here because he certainly deserves it, but since today is Mother’s Day, we’re going to focus on my mom instead. Her patience got me through being a very sick and injured child; I think it’s only because of the law of averages that I haven’t been in a hospital for so long, because I probably used up most of my allotted turns before turning eight. She was the one who could read me well enough to occasionally let me stay home from school when I faked being sick; I didn’t do it often, so she figured I probably had reasons why I didn’t want to go on those few particular days. She drove me where I needed to go, even if I didn’t want to be there. She told me what I needed to hear, even when I was positive she was completely wrong. She was the one who subtly changed the direction of my life when I expressed a small bit of reluctance about teaching high school English, by suggesting I spend the day in her classroom with her and her second graders to see what elementary was like. The highest compliment I can think to give my mother would be to say how much she reminds me of hers.
I didn’t buy her any presents this year. If we’d had the chance to get the family together for a celebration, of course I would have had a gift and a card. This year though, things felt different. Sure, I could have had candles or flowers or new socks or a book she’d like or something similar delivered for the day (and I’m not saying I won’t; there is an important date still coming up later this week), but gifts like those things dropped off at her front door by someone else felt like impersonal tokens. Instead, I drove out to my parents’ house and stood in their front yard, with my mask on, while they stood on their front patio, wearing their masks and winter jackets because even though it’s May it’s still 2020 and few things about the world makes sense right now.
I did get to spend part of Mother’s Day with my mom though, and I got to spend time talking with my parents face to face for the first time in about three months. At least that made sense.
I almost started this paragraph by writing “Everyone’s mother is special to them,” but after so many years of teaching and witnessing so many either fractured or completely broken mother/child relationships, I know that isn’t necessarily true. I have known of mothers who wanted to try their best, but weren't even able to take care of themselves. I’ve known mothers who have given up on being any kind of a parent, because they either didn't understand or have any love for their children. I know of mothers who have essentially abandoned their families to move several states away in search of a second try. I’ve had students who were only alive to be in my classroom by the grace of God. I’ll spare you the details, because frankly, I know too many things from my years as a teacher that would leave most people sickened or walking around with waking nightmares. The world is not always a good place, and many of the people who live in it have considerable problems.
My sisters and I had all the luck in the world to be born to our parents. I’m giving my father half the credit here because he certainly deserves it, but since today is Mother’s Day, we’re going to focus on my mom instead. Her patience got me through being a very sick and injured child; I think it’s only because of the law of averages that I haven’t been in a hospital for so long, because I probably used up most of my allotted turns before turning eight. She was the one who could read me well enough to occasionally let me stay home from school when I faked being sick; I didn’t do it often, so she figured I probably had reasons why I didn’t want to go on those few particular days. She drove me where I needed to go, even if I didn’t want to be there. She told me what I needed to hear, even when I was positive she was completely wrong. She was the one who subtly changed the direction of my life when I expressed a small bit of reluctance about teaching high school English, by suggesting I spend the day in her classroom with her and her second graders to see what elementary was like. The highest compliment I can think to give my mother would be to say how much she reminds me of hers.
I didn’t buy her any presents this year. If we’d had the chance to get the family together for a celebration, of course I would have had a gift and a card. This year though, things felt different. Sure, I could have had candles or flowers or new socks or a book she’d like or something similar delivered for the day (and I’m not saying I won’t; there is an important date still coming up later this week), but gifts like those things dropped off at her front door by someone else felt like impersonal tokens. Instead, I drove out to my parents’ house and stood in their front yard, with my mask on, while they stood on their front patio, wearing their masks and winter jackets because even though it’s May it’s still 2020 and few things about the world makes sense right now.
I did get to spend part of Mother’s Day with my mom though, and I got to spend time talking with my parents face to face for the first time in about three months. At least that made sense.
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