How come when I go to a store and buy an expensive swimsuit in person, it always turns out to fit me horribly but when I buy a cheaper swimsuit online, it turns out to fit me ideally?

Look at this great swimsuit I bought on Amazon. It cost me $39.99, which I consider to be a fantastic price. It fits me like a glove, holds everything firmly in place, and feels super comfortable.

And it’s available in a variety of larger sizes.

To answer the question I asked at the beginning of this post, I guess that having to try on swimsuits at a store is so stressful that I just grab whatever feels remotely fitting and run. There is no such pressure in online shopping.

This is the second time I’ve bought a swimsuit online, and both purchases have been an unqualified success.

As you probably already know, I’m translating a mystery novel by a Russian writer who wants to capture the North American market. I decided not to read it before translating because I can’t read something like this twice in a row and preserve my sanity. So I read it as I go along with my translation and discover the plot gradually. This system really works because I’m curious how the novel will end and this motivates me to translate faster.

Somewhere around page 80 of the translation, I felt that something extremely strange was happening in the text. By page 150, this feeling intensified to the point where I could barely translate any longer.

When I got to page 200, I knew what it was. Women. The female characters of this novel are engaged in two activities, to the exclusion of absolutely anything else. If they are under the age of fifty, they exhibit an insistent and constant readiness to have sex with anybody they see in any context whatsoever. If they are older than fifty, they exhibit an insistent and constant readiness to make food for anybody they see in any context whatsoever.

Some women offer sex and food at the same time.

That’s it, people. There is not a single female character in the novel who doesn’t offer either sex or food within seconds of her appearance in the novel. Even completely secondary, unimportant female characters do nothing but that. It’s getting really bizarre. The male protagonist gets on the bus. A woman offers sex. The male protagonist walks into a store. A woman offers sex. The male protagonist goes to a hospital to visit a sick friend. A woman offers sex. When the male protagonist refuses sex, she offers food. And then sex.

I’ve started to wish passionately that finally a female character would appear who sells socks, treats patients, takes a bus, walks down the street – just does anything completely mundane – without offering sex. Or food.

You all know me here by now, right? I’m sure you have all figured out that I’m not in the least opposed to either sex or food. But I’m now on page 316 (out of 437) of the book, and these sex-offering women are getting to me. I’ve started having nightmares where there are crowds of women who lick their lips, stick out their tongues and unbutton their blouses (like they do in the novel) all day long without stopping for a second.

Given that women buy 80% of all fiction published in this country, I’m having serious doubts as to whether this author is likely to get his work sold to a US publisher.

Should I offer him a hint?

One psychological trick to unblock a blocked brain is getting rid of old stuff you don’t use any more and that has been cluttering your space.

I have now decided to accept the painful truth that I’m never going to fit into the clothes I used to wear 5 years ago and get rid of them. Actually, I will get rid of anything I haven’t worn in a year. I’m having a panic attack just imagining it but I will do it anyway. It feels kind of defeatist to do this (what am I, just accepting that I will never be size 10 again??) but I realize that this is just stupid.

After that, I will recycle all papers I haven’t consulted in over 3 years. I still have my notes from my undergrad courses that I’ve been lugging around since 2001. I always felt that I might use them one day until I finally leafed through them and realized that I now know so much more than what the notes contain that keeping them has become ridiculous.

Then I will clean up my computer.

I just discovered that my former BFF is at this moment staying at the same hotel in Punta Cana where I’m going next week. Of all the all-inclusive hotels in the world, we go and choose the same one! Can you believe that?

We might not be in touch more than twice a year but we still think the same.

A brilliant article on how overprotective hysterical parents damage their children: “In addition to denying them rich, meaningful relationships as well as a sense of independence and self-worth among other things, our hysteria and unfounded fears mean we are actually putting our children in harm’s way. Even though children have never been safer, child abduction and pedophilia fear mongering have reached such a state that we are endangering our children precisely because we are being too careful.”

What is there to celebrate on Canada Day?

A historian attempts to explain that the Apartheid wasn’t that bad.

A doctor’s license is taken away for not forcing a 10-year-old girl to have her rapist’s baby. The so-called pro-lifers are the most disgusting, vile creatures ever. They have no heart, no brain, no human entrails.

“To credit sexual violence with the creation of heroes robs them of their agency. And, worse yet, it gives the credit to rapists.” Hear, hear! The “she was raped and that made her turn into a hero” trope is very offensive to victims of sexual violence.

You go, Argentina! “Argentina’s president personally delivered the nation’s first identity cards on Monday to people who legally switched their genders under a law that sets a global precedent. President Cristina Fernandez said she’s proud of setting a new global standard with the gender identity law, which overwhelmingly passed congress, enabling anyone to change their gender without first having to win approval from judges or doctors.”

That’s not the only reason to feel proud of Argentina today. Here is another major one.

A link for my Russian-speaking readers. Schools in Russia teach that Stalin was a great leader and here are the results of that system of teaching history. How fast they forget, eh?

A colleague travels outside of the US and realizes that something is seriously wrong with the American food.

“Researchers examined data from more than 34,000 adults and found that being spanked significantly increased the risk of developing mental health issues as adults. According to their results, corporal punishment is associated with mood disorders, including depression and anxiety, as well as personality disorders and alcohol and drug abuse. They estimate that as much as 7 percent of adult mental illness may be attributable to childhood physical punishment, including slapping, shoving, grabbing, and hitting. The study reports that spanking ups the risk of major depression by 41 percent, alcohol and drug abuse by 59 percent, and mania by 93 percent, among other findings.” I especially like this coy language of “spanking.” Beating is the right term. Beating children who are completely dependent on you and can’t respond. And if you do that for whatever reason, you are a horrible, vile creature.

Roasted red pepper pasta recipe. I haven’t tried it yet but it looks beautiful.

“Every article I’ve read on the student loan debate seems to be missing one very crucial, simple way to completely eliminate student loan debt.  It’s so painfully obvious that it flabbergasts me that no one, I mean no one, has pointed this out. Many ideas are put forward. Lower tuition. Let students discharge their student loans in bankruptcy.  Offer more Pell Grants, don’t cut them. Limit the amount of aid that goes to for-profit colleges. Push for more disclosure of student loans and the cost of college. None of those are the best solution to this problem. The real answer is simple and unpopular. It lies not with Congress, or the president, or the colleges and universities, but with the students. Students have to stop borrowing money to pay for college.”

Traveling makes you smart and not traveling makes you reactionary and stupid: “Lack of experience with the world seems to track pretty closely with strong opinions about how to deal with the rest of the world. It also tracks with socially reactionary views.”

The concept of software training is dead. Yay!

The hypocrisy of Texas Republicans. I know that nobody is surprised but the more we hear about this, the better.

““Oh but men and women are different.” And this is the crux of it. Stereotypes and the belief in differences between men and women. This is the pivot of sexism; and the nut and bolt that holds it all in place.”

“As men who wish to be called men, you have no role in the abortion debate other than to unquestioningly support women in whatever choice they might choose to make. ” That’s all anybody needs to say about abortion. I’d never have any sort of a relationship with a man who took a position different from this one.

“The goal of a parent who homeschools for religious reasons is not simply raising competent, happy adults but rather training children into adults who fit a specific mold and hold a certain set of beliefs. There really is a difference between “raising” children and “training” them. Thus those who homeschool for religious reasons are going for a very specific outcome. That generally means starting by training children to be obedient, quiet, respectful, etc, and that training generally takes place using the threat of punishment for disobedience. And there is also the fact that these parents believe that the Bible commands parents to spank their children.”

The children who are “spanked” (which is a hypocritical term for beating) become mentally damaged, have lower IQs, a higher incidence of mental disorders, etc. Those who refuse to believe this should get beaten, sorry, “spanked” at least once a day by somebody three times bigger than they are.

People in this puritanical culture are so ignorant about sexuality that it’s scary: “Sex is the only one of the basic drives that a person can go without for a whole lifetime and not die.” Erm, how would this unintelligent creature know that since nobody can possible arrange things in such a way as to go through life without sexual release? You can impose celibacy on yourself, yet the body will find sexual release in dreams. The only way to avoid that is never to sleep, and how possible is that? Or does this strange person fail to understand that a sexual release one experiences alone is still sex?

Some people know how to sell their science to the general public. Now we need something like this in Hispanic Studies and we are set for the next few decades, at least.

The WordPress app needs to get with the program. It keeps changing “Google ” to “tootle.” Has anybody even heard such a word?

And it changes “blog ” to “blot. ” What sense does that make in a blogging app?

A race between women running in high heels took place on Moscow’s Red Square:

Here is another picture:

About 100 women participated in the race to win $3,500 to spend at a fashion store.

I’m not even Russian but I feel hugely embarrassed for these women.

The bank teller greeted my request for $200 in bills of $5 and $80 in bills of $1 with suspicion. She probably thought I needed them to pay ransom. We are a very small town, so everything is small scale.

Can anybody guess the real reason I need all these bills?

I’ll need to start giving out prizes for solving these riddles soon.

OK, a stupid question here. As a person who lived the greatest part of her life in two cold countries (Ukraine and Quebec), I know very well what to eat when it’s cold. I have a collection of amazing recipes for the Fall, the winter, the first snow, the biting frost, being snowed in for two weeks, etc.

But what do you eat when it’s +44C (+111F)? I detest cold soups, so any gazpacho-like recipes are out. What else? Salads? That’s great but how many salads can you eat a day? I feel like I have cucumbers growing out of my ears already.

Any suggestions? I have to buy groceries and I have no idea what to get.

And the most important question of all: “Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère”? That’s a question from my favorite playwright Jean-Baptiste Molière and it means, “What possessed you, stupid Clarissa, to move to such an intolerably hot climate, you brainless thing?” Or something of the kind. I read so much Molière as a child that I feel I know his plays by heart.

I keep getting messages and letters asking me to donate money to political campaigns. For instance, there is something going on in Wisconsin that averages two donation-seeking messages per day. Plus there is always the presidential campaign. And there is that extremely weird homophobe guy who, for some unfathomable reason, has decided that I’m one of his followers and keeps asking me to give him money to help sponsor his homophobic political activities.

I never donate money to politicians because I don’t see the point. Where is the money supposed to go? To buy advertisement? It seems really weird to me that candidates should win on the basis of how many billboards and TV spots they manage to buy. And what is there to advertise, anyway? People who are unaware of Obama and Romney are those who will probably not vote anyway. I mean, do you know anybody who has watched a campaign ad and changed their mind as to who they wanted to vote for?

Is this drive to hit people for money part of the consumerist mentality or is there a real reason to donate money to political campaigns?