Category: Uncategorized

I guess I thought the bond would be magical. They were wombmates after all.

But the boys so often seem to live parallel lives.

They can’t play games. Patrick has worked his way past Candy Land (thank God) and is into Uno and Sequence Dice; Arlo… is not to Candy Land yet.

They can’t agree on a TV show–garbage on YouTube for Patrick, Garfield (exclusively) for Arlo.

They like different toys. Patrick wanted a solar robot kit for his birthday. Arlo’s favorite toy is this…

(Sometimes he “vacuums” with it. Sometimes he watches its shadow. Sometimes he drags it behind him like a begrudging dog. He carries it from the moment he gets home from school to the moment he goes to bed.

“What is that thang?” asked Earl, the husband of Arlo’s longtime BAYADA nurse, who still visits several times a month.

“Well,” I said, “it used to be a stomp rocket launcher.”

“How much a new one cost?” he asked.

“Fifteen bucks,” I said, “but he doesn’t want a new one. He wants that one.”)

I guess I watched too many viral videos of a kid strumming a guitar and singing to their brother with Down syndrome, or holding hands with him and crossing the stage in cap and gown, or talking about how they’re best friends.

Meanwhile, Arlo and Patrick play separately. They watch TV separately. They shove and whack each other. They yell in each other’s face.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” yells one.

“Buddyyyyyyyyyy, staaaaaaaaaaahhhhhp!” yells the other.

Arlo qualified for free public pre-K at age 3 because of his disability, but I’ve been paying through the nose for Patrick’s childcare since I went back to work when the boys were 10 months old. I jumped through a million hoops trying to get Patrick admitted to Arlo’s preschool for this academic year. It wouldn’t be free (I make too much money–hahahahaha), but it’d be a hell of a lot cheaper than Bright Horizons. I knew the boys wouldn’t be in the same class–Arlo will remain in a self-contained special ed class at least until he’s potty-trained, and maybe forever–but I thought it was worth a shot.

When they finally called me to say Patrick got in, I agonized. Should I actually send him there? Historically, he’s been less than chill about transitions. He’s an anxious guy. (Don’t know where he gets it from.) Would he cry at drop-off for the first two months like he did at Bright Horizons? Would he make new friends? Would public preschool be as academically rigorous as private preschool?

But I went for it, and… it’s been weirdly great. Consolidating the drop-offs and pick-ups has made my days markedly easier, my bank account is breathing a sigh of relief, and Patrick has shed nary a tear. Not on Day 1 or any day after. He comes home talking about what he and his friends did, and what his job is (this week, line leader), and singing the same two lines of eleventy songs I can only sort of decipher. He listens to stories, plays in centers, and writes his name.

And sometimes his teacher sends me pictures of recess

• 

• 

• 

and it’s magical.

I guess there’s still time for guitars and graduation and becoming best friends.

I hate litterers. I mean, I really hate them. I know I should hate the sin and not the sinner, but I have a special loathing for the type of person who thinks it’s somebody else’s responsibility to pick up his/her shit.

When I taught in New York, my students were constantly throwing trash on the floor of the classroom, and I’d have talks with them about being responsible and maintaining a nice environment for ourselves. And I’d make signs for the classroom that said things like

Keep it clean! :)

Then one day, I got on the city bus. It was packed, but I could see that the mother of one of my students stood by the back doors, sipping on a cup of coffee. At the next stop, when somebody exited, she pitched her cup unceremoniously into the street.

And I was like, WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER?

Now I live in a neighborhood that’s kind of sketchy—lots of rentals and low-income folks—and for the most part I love it. It’s close to everything. I love my house. My immediate neighbors—minus the crazy lady and her delinquent son—are cool. Our email listserv has pretty solid participation.

But it’s shitty, in the ways that low-income neighborhoods are. People don’t mow their yards regularly. Landscaping is minimal. And there’s trash all over the place all the time. Four or five times a week, I find discarded food/drink containers or wrappers in my yard, often in the front but also in the back, which has a 6-foot privacy fence around it and is set back from the street. That means that the person has to pitch their garbage twenty feet, or walk up to the fence to toss something over. The dogs inevitably shred it, so pieces get distributed all over the yard, which I then pick up.

I get so pissed. And I think about ordering signs for my front yard and fence that say sunshiny things like

Feel free to use my garbage cans there, neighbor! ;)

Or I consider starting a neighborhood education program about littering.

Instead I think about my student’s mom and post passive-aggressive status updates on Facebook. (Click for bigger.)

And sit around being a grumpus.

But then my nephew comes over and says, “Nunu, why is there a CD in your mulch pile?”

And I think something positive might come out of this whole littering business because whose life is not improved by Earthquake Booty Number 4 (especially after the magna opera of Numbers 1-3)?

But no. It’s scratched.

Note to my sister: If I disappear tomorrow, please explain to the authorities that my Google search history doesn’t usually include links to works by “big-dicked entrepreneur B. Pumper” who “showcas[es] thick black girls with enormous asses”. I was just curious about what I was missing by not being able to play the disc. Swear to god, I thought it was a hip hop CD. (And how apropos! Mine could probably be categorized as an earthquake booty, or at least a tremor trunk.)

But no. It’s porn.

So now I don’t know what my sign should say. Maybe

If you’re going to litter porn in my yard, please make sure it’s a fun hip hop CD instead! :/ 

P.S. “These monster asses are causing tragedies and creating major earthquakes.”