Clarissa's Blog

I’m so bored by the second season of Making a Murderer that I Googled the Central Park jogger story, mostly because of the Trump angle. My mind is officially blown. I saw something like this on Law & Order but I didn’t know the details.

“Klara, we are going to the petting zoo. There will be a real camel there. Do you like camels?”

“Actually, I have never seen a real camel, Mommy, so I don’t know. But I would like to see one. I think we should go to the petting zoo. Definitely.”

I find it hilarious that she knows how to use Present Perfect. And “should.”

The downside of this is that at the end of the day I’m completely hoarse and my vocal cords are raw. I’m a teacher! I’ve done workshops on how to protect the vocal cords when you speak a lot! And it’s not enough. I speak all the time! I have to narrate everything that happens to us during the day in the form of a “once upon a time” story several times in a row.

The camel was great, by the way. There was also a llama and something called a zebu.

It is mind-boggling that serious news outlets would dedicate a story to the horrible scandal of a teenager using the word “queer” in a tweet six years ago:

When Murray was 15 years old, he tweeted at his friends (via his since-verified Twitter account) using an anti-gay slur to defame them. Four offensive tweets remained active on his account late Saturday night but were eventually deleted by Sunday morning — when Murray apologized for his insensitive language in a tweet.

Who was it that told me this summer that nobody would think of using gauche teenage writings against people who aren’t trying to get hired for serious governmental positions? This kind isn’t trying to work for the government. He simply played a good game of football.

No, slippery slope is not real. No, it will never happen to anybody else. (And when it will, they will totally deserve it, the bastards.)

I was right the whole time.

Klara is a very cautious child.

“Mommy, if I go on this play bus, will it move? Will it move fast? Will it make noises? Will they be loud? Will the lights flash? How long will they flash for? Will you be able to make them stop if I don’t like them?”

We dithered by the bus for so long that a very modestly dressed young African American dad with a toddler took pity on me and offered me two quarters for the bus. He thought that we were skulking around the bus because we had no money to go on.

By huge popular demand: people! What are your favorite books?

The favorite books I don’t think I mentioned on this blog are:

– La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas. 19th century, exists in the English translation, like Madame Bovary (sorry, professor, I don’t really mean it, I’m just popularizing) but a lot lot better.

– Time of Silence by Luis Martín-Santos. Also available in English. The great novel of the Franco era.

– The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, nerds of the world, unite!

– and for something lighter, Guilt by John Lescroart who writes very solid courtroom dramas. This is his best one.

– Honour Thy Father by Leslie Glaister for those who like psychoanalytic Gothic. OK, forget it, it’s just fun to read. Very engrossing. I read it a quarter of a century ago and still can’t get over it. That’s saying something. Maybe I should reread it.

Which are your favorites? But don’t give me the obvious ones. I want to be surprised.

Educators hate the word “merit.” It messes with their messianic belief in their omnipotence.

As I’m going over the old RSS feed (or a blogroll, as it’s more commonly called), I’m remembering the times where all these 1,300+ blogs were alive. 90% died since then. Many of them were bullied out of existence. Many more were eaten by Facebook (which is pretty much the same thing. There is no controversy inside an echo chamber.)