Follow-Ups, Including One About the Friend Who Brought Her Husband on Our Coffee Date

I was going to write about the difference between me-in-college and my-kids-in-college, politically-speaking, but I got two paragraphs into it and I was starting to wonder if I could have another cup of coffee. They are MORE politically engaged and active, that’s the entire upshot. My sunburn is peeling and I am trying not to pick at it. William is in his third week as a new teacher, and the despair has hit. He is saying things like “We’re teaching NOTHING, to PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT TO LEARN IT, and we’re not even doing it IN A WAY THAT MAKES SENSE!” This is not causing me to panic: it is my understanding that most new teachers hit this point, and that the first year of teaching tends to be rough no matter what. Or maybe this won’t end up being his thing, and he will find something else. But in any case, we have at least temporarily stopped the résumé gap, and he has a salary and benefits, and there is a lot to be glad about there, even if it comes with the cost of disillusionment with…