Paul Thorax is No Longer Welcome in This House

The first couple of weeks went by surprisingly fast.  I rode that awful Chromebook from work like it was my bitch, assigning stuff, putting cool things up.  I couldn't believe it when the first two weeks were done, then the next week leading up to "Spring Break".  The weird, daydream nation strange dent in my couch was obvious.

I thought back to Alejandra, in the days before the school shut down.
"Did you watch him last night?  You know, Donald Trump?"  I whispered while we worked on phonics.
"Yes.  We don't like him, but feel like we have to listen."
"I feel the same way,"  I responded.
"We have to know what's going on."

As I sat on my couch, trying to create a decent learning situation for my students, alternating between my $25 school issued computer and my Macbook, as well as paper and pencil, I felt like it was some odd mission control station.  I had to clear off the couch when Alec would come in.

Surrounded by mission control, I watched The View at 11:00, hoping it would make me feel like I was a housewife.  Then, the local news, to find out any pertinent Georgia information and how many more were infected or dead.  Then, Donald Trump would come on.  And I watched, because I felt like I had to listen.

I would look at social media, after 3:00, my sign-off time.  And yes, we did have to sign-off.  I got pissed at parents referring to "homeschooling" or that their children were "self-schooling".  Isn't homeschooling when you all teach them yourselves, instead of pushing play on all the lessons I have been making?  All the stupid videos that the crappy internet in my house can hardly handle that I post online for you?  Lessons, materials, etc.?  You want to home school?  Great, count me out.

I've heard people arguing inside houses.
Alec and I have fought during this time, mainly when he reads me parts of Paul Theroux's new book.  Some idiot in that book actually mistook his last name for Thorax, which actually makes me smile.

I walk around my neighborhood, trying to get some exercise.  I don't go in the park anymore, because social distancing appears to be optional for a lot of people and I'm sick of jumping walls and climbing through bushes.  I see lots of boxes piled up behind people's houses, Amazon boxes and oddly, a lot of new giant TV boxes.  I guess they decided if they needed to be locked in, a big TV would help.  Sometimes I try to be carefree, think of funny things.  Then, I think of all the people dying around me and I can't really do it.

I sat through another Zoom meeting at work.  Praying is becoming very regular and though I don't really agree with that, I figure my discomfort of it pales in comparison to the relief my coworkers apparently get from it.  One of my coworkers put up a picture of his wife, in full protective gear, ready to enter the room of a COVID patient.  I was horrified.

Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race.  I am not a bro.  I have voted my opinion and am absolutely sick of being told that wanting someone except for Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden is some sort of act of treason.  I have never attacked people online or in person.  To the contrary, I feel like I have received some of the most divisive rhetoric coming out of the DNC camp - did you take your ball and go home?  What about your marbles?  You know what I have to say?  You get more bees with honey, bitches and I am not a child.  I am a forty-eight year old woman and just because you settled for a the guy that told you everything 'Merica can't do, you better quit attacking me for wanting something better for all of us. 

Our refrigerator broke the same day.  Alec and I have stayed in and stocked up and I felt freaked out watching all that food rot.  He called repair men, went online, did it all and the end result was a new fridge, expensive, though I am not being paid by my second job and he's on unemployment.  The fridge couldn't be delivered for a solid week.  A friend of my sister's did a huge act of kindness and delivered two giant coolers onto our front porch within thirty minutes and Alec went out into the COVID world and bought thirty dollars worth of ice.  We put the food in the coolers, closed the blinds to the kitchen and turned on the air conditioning.  The kitchen tomb reminded me of Ferdinand and Isabel, way down in that crypt in Spain.

I added one of the last segments of The One and Only Ivan onto my virtual learning page.  I have been trying to finish that read-along with one of my groups for over a year.  I listened to the recording of Ivan exploring the outside for the first time in decades and started to cry.

"Alec,"  I yelled.
"Paul Thorax is no longer welcome in this house!"