So I just got news that my article has been rejected for publication because it’s not original enough.

On the positive side, this is a good journal that sent me three detailed reviews which said very good things about my knowledge of the subject matter and my writing style. They also gave useful suggestions for future revisions of the article. At least, this isn’t one of those cases where reviewers are either mean to you or just tell you “Not acceptable” with no explanation.

Of course, I’m still very sad about this. So now I’m accepting compassion and encouragement of the “Oh no, Clarissa, you are super brilliant and we adore you” variety.

In the meanwhile, I will be weeping quietly in the corner.

An important law has been passed by a progressive governor in California:

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation prohibiting minors from using tanning beds, he announced this afternoon, making California the first state in the nation to adopt such a ban.

Senate Bill 746, by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, was supported by doctors, nurses and the American Cancer Society. The tanning industry argued current law – requiring parental consent for children between age 14 and 18 – was sufficient.

It’s great to see a politician who dares to go against a powerful industry to protect children from grievous harm.

Of course, many conservatives who believe children should remain their parents’ toys in perpetuity are protesting. “I should have the exclusive right to decide if my kid gets cancer,” they screech. I’m glad to see that California isn’t listening.

Blogger Z keeps churning out those posts that are so good I want to kiss them:

What if those who say they are having such a hard time with research and writing and suffering so greatly, are faking it completely?

What if the ones who want me to use my blog space to discuss suffering even more than I already do, alleging that only in this way can I convince the legislature that what we do is work, are precisely those fat, entitled types the legislature is complaining about?

What if going on about how much we are suffering just makes us look silly to the legislature? I want to emphasize that research and writing, if work, are not onerous requirements but what we came for.

I seriously think that people who do not like to write, should not have gone to graduate school in the humanities, and people who are not interested in research, should not have gone to graduate school at all.

Academia can hope for a very bright future while we have academics like Z defending it. Z’s blog is a breath of fresh air in more ways than one, so I highly recommend. After one reads all those miserable academic blogs about research being “effectively gendered male“, it is such a relief to find a passionate, undefeated, powerful scholar like Z to serve as one’s role model.

Many bloggers are kind enough to answer questions that bring readers to their blog. I decided to be nice, too, and provide some answers to frequent searches that bring people here.

american and eastern european women: differences and similarities – I don’t know about differences, but we all have one thing in common: we hate it when people generalize about us.

libertarianism is applied autism – Is a statement made by complete idiots. It’s a good idea not to be one of them.

who accepts guest posts? – Not me. I find that readers ignore even the most brilliant guest posts with daunting dedication.

what is poverty like – You really want to find out or are you just into slumming? Be careful what you wish for, buddy.

what people are invited to amazon vine? – Nobody really knows but it seems like being a very popular and prolific reviewer who resides in the US helps.

“spanish prof” blog – Is located right here.

is creative class dead – No. It’s growing thanks to the advances in technology.

“tenured radical” “profacero” – Are two completely different bloggers.

who googling me – Not me. I don’t even Google myself. Of course, if your name is Pilar Sinues de Marco, I might have Googled you today. In that case, I have bad news for you: you’ve been dead for a long time. But I also have good news: you used to be a bestselling writer in the XIXth-century Spain.

hard wiring, the brain – Anybody who speaks of “hard-wiring” in relation to the brain is a useless quack. E.g. Dr. Phil.

what do you like about san francisco – I like the food and the fog. Also, it’s a great place for walking and shopping. And, of course, the writer John Lescroart.

why can’t we be more like canada – Because “we” are probably a different country.

tall women dating short men – Happens just as often as short men dating tall women.

who’s clarissa of clarissa’s blog? – A brilliant blogger.

If there are any more questions, just ask.

I want to warn everybody that here, as in all of my other posts and comments, I offer an opinion inspired by my worldview. People who find this worldview upsetting or disturbing should feel free to move on to other resources.

You know these annoying people who meet, click instantly, and become obnoxiously inseparable? Those two creatures who, years into a relationship, hide in a corner at a party or sit at a restaurant, chattering away like they haven’t had a chance to talk to each other for a decade?  Who – if they are very considerate – make efforts not to tell everybody about how they finish each other’s thoughts and have the same dreams? Who seem to be so completely different, yet somehow manage to remain together and have lots of fun over the years? And who behave like this charming couple from Chapter XII of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat?

What is it that makes these couples work and preserve their feelings for each other for years?

Two things: a powerful sexual attraction plus a coincidence in what I will call family scenarios. A family scenario is a pattern of relationships between family members that exists within each family and is reproduced by each generation without even being consciously aware that such a pattern exists. When I started researching my own family scenario, I discovered, to my infinite surprise, that most of the things I was going through were not that unique. My mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother (and probably all those women who came before them) already dealt with these issues, felt these emotions, experienced these situations, and even said the same words.

So here is what I discovered about my family scenario:

• it usually involves one gregarious, authoritative, slightly (yeah, right) domineering partner and one kind, gentle, patient partner.
• one of the partners is usually involved with languages and writing while the other works with numbers (mathematics, statistics, accounting).
• one partner is usually autistic and another mitigates his or her autism.
• one is usually creative and messy while the other is meticulous and organized.
• there is usually an ethnic or a class difference between the partners.
• one has a very close relationship with their extended family while the other has none.
• one is sarcastic while the other one is sincere and honest.
• one attracts a huge social circle without even trying while the other one needs no social circle.

As you walk through life with your scenario, you look for a person who will want to play the role of the other partner in it. So when you meet a person who needs somebody precisely like you to play the starring role in their scenario and they are eager to play a role in yours, you click like two pieces of a Lego puzzle. The more points of coincidence there are in your scenarios, the stronger your relationship will be.

Of course, if you analyze your scenario and decide you are very happy with it and don’t want to change it, like I did, then things are easy. It becomes more difficult when you realize that your scenario sucks and decide you don’t want to perpetuate it. People usually try to address this situation by applying their willpower. Which is pretty much as silly as trying to stop overeating or cure depression with one’s force of will.

A guy I know grew up with an abusive alcoholic father who beat both him and his mother into a bloody pulp. When the guy grew up, he hated alcohol, abhorred alcoholics, and decided never to follow in his father’s footsteps. Twenty years have passed since then. He is now a violent alcoholic who is probably never sober enough to remember his youthful resolutions.

Pretending that the scenario isn’t there is pretty much like choosing not to believe in climate change. It isn’t going away no matter how many times you tell yourself it’s all a conspiracy by nasty people who want to keep you down.

The very first step on this journey is, of course, finding out as much as you can about your family history and analyzing it in terms of patterns you can spot. If you see, for example, that women in your family usually have a three-year-long first marriage, that’s a pattern that is worth noting. Such knowledge is central for understanding why one always keeps ending up in a certain type of relationship without trying to. This is why I always say that people who conceal their children’s true paternity from them are the vilest jerks imaginable. They effectively rob their children of a chance of engaging in this sort of analysis.

P.S. I really hope people will not start responding to this post with “I’m nothing like my mother!” This will be very boring.