Progression

A few mornings back, one of my fellow teachers wandered down the hall toward my room. As is her custom in the mornings, she had her phone playing not music but NPR news. In a school that was otherwise still and quiet, the echoes of the tragedy in Beirut bounced around our little sanctum. There I was, preparing to enroll students for their back to school without actually being back, and I was being treated to the discussion of the overwhelming and sudden loss of life half a world away. 

Oh, how I hate 2020.

Part of the game we are currently playing is trying to find a reason to keep going. My son has a favorite bit of Twitter (Twit?) that gives a regular update on our progress through the year. It appears as a green bar steadily filling up a black void like the one you stare at as you wait for your computer to load that new version of Candy Crush. If you are like me, you are quite anxious to see the blackness disappear completely as we prepare to move on to the new year with possibly the most enthusiasm I can remember for a holiday that is noted primarily by throwing away old calendars. 

I, for one, will look forward to the bonfire we might enjoy when it is time to rid ourselves of all things 2020. Riots, plague, natural disasters and because we are all kept inside we have not choice but to have our collective nose rubbed in it. Over and over again. Every time the "president" opens that slit just below his nose, fresh hell is unleashed upon us as thinking humans stare at each other in wonder. Which reminds me of the stoning scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian. As the chained prisoner is being admonished that he is "only making it worse" for himself, he asks, "Worse? How could it be worse?"

This used to be somewhat of a rhetorical question. These days, it seems to beg creative minds to imagine new and different ways to spread torment. Confusion. Disbelief. Kanye West is running for president? It's all a part of God's plan. 

Or something. 

We are being treated to "baseball" and streaming movies that might have been found in the local movie palace, but for now we are asked to use these as the dull moments before the next of the seven seals to be broken. Yes, the clock is ticking, but somehow it feels a lot like walking through pudding. And not in a good way. In a really horrible, smelly, painful and annoying way. Horrible, smelly painful and annoying pudding. 

Yuck.