What’s Going On Here

Summer’s here. I went out for a jog this morning. It was a lame jog because I’m still recovering from a cold, but I went out and came back dripping with sweat thirty minutes later. Humidity sucks. I signed up for a 5K in two weeks, so I had better get out there every morning.

Typically, I don’t get much work done in the summer, because I usually have a ton of driving duties as I take the kids to camps or work. But this summer, my driving duties are light.

Jonah is driving himself around; my parents gave him their old Toyota. He’s taking a summer class at his college right now. He’s living in his off-campus house four days a week, and then coming home for three days. I send him off on Monday morning with tubs of leftovers and he returns with moldy containers and dirty laundry on Friday morning.

He’s redoing his bio class that gave him some issues last fall. With another year of maturity, he’s doing great now.

Jonah has surprised us all with a sudden passion for agriculture. And not little organic farming stuff. He likes genetically modified, better living through chemicals, sort of agriculture. His teacher recommended that he get an internship with Dow or Dupont next year. Around the dinner table, he gives us hour-long lectures on wheat that can be engineered to feed all of Africa. He’s adorable.

The class ends on Thursday. He still has to decide if he’s going to do one more summer class until mid-August or get a job as a busboy until the fall.

With one foot in special ed and one foot in the regular world, it’s always tricky to find something appropriate for Ian. Last week, we put him in a 9 to 5 computer camp. We were very worried, because he’s never done a full day program aimed at typical kids. Would he be too weird for them? Would he be able to function without an aide keeping him on task?

He did great. Sure, the first day, the teacher had to get used to him, but then there was nothing but smiles at pickup time for the rest of the week. He kicked ass. He learned the computer program, Unreal Script, which is the engine used to program Fortnight. I’ll sign him up for the entire summer next year. It’s a crap-load of money, but it’s worth it.  Computers are Ian’s ticket out of autism.

In fact, he’s doing so well that I’m not sure what our next step will be. Could he do college? I’m not sure.

Now, he’s got two weeks of summer school at the local high school, with an internship in the computer lab. After a couple of weeks off, he’ll have three weeks of social skills camp and then band camp.

I have some driving duties, but it’s so minimal compared to the past. So, I’m working. I’m working on long term projects, book proposals, and reviving old pitches that fell flat.