I thought I’d get some work done while I’m waiting for the refrigerator to be delivered but the view, together with the sounds of birdsong and the creek splashing, is very distracting.

What’s funny is that even 5 years ago the view would have made me detest the house. I only wanted to see concrete out of the window, and a lot of it. I feel very weird to myself.

The war in Ukraine continues. The Russian terrorists have kidnapped 16 Ukrainian orphans and brought them to Russia.

One of the main points of Russia’s official ideology is that the “brown and yellow threats” are coming, and there are not enough white babies to hold the invading hordes at bay. Hence, the kidnapped Ukrainian kids. This racial paranoia is one of the reasons the invasion is happening. Russia doesn’t need more territories. It’s white, Russian-speaking people it seeks.

Also, several armored vehicles with Russian flags crossed the border today and continued moving across the Donetsk region. The Internet is awash in photos and videos of these vehicles, but, as usual, there is no response from the Ukrainian army.

Spain’s GNP will jump up by 4,5% this year. Before you get too happy, let me tell you that this isn’t because the country’s economy suddenly became more productive. The EU is demanding that all member nations change the way they calculate the GNP in order to show growth where there’s none.

Spain will now move the military spending from the “Expenses” to the “investment” category. Also, the production of the fields such as prostitution, drug trade and contraband will count as the GNP.

You gotta love the EU, folks. I mean, really, instead of figuring out how to become more productive (because that’s a total drag), one can just futz with the numbers and pretend like the productivity is soaring.

I disovered that the new house lacks one crucial item: the thingy next to the front entrance where you stick a flag is absent.

This will teach me to buy houses from foreign professors.

Now that I’m a real driver, I’ve gotten into listening to the radio. Unfortunately, I detest the kind of stations that play music because I need radio with words. So at first, I listened only to commercials. Then I got tired of hearing about the magic pill that would help me feel like the man I want to be in the bedroom and at the gym.

So I found a talking radio station from St Louis. From that station, I learned that men find it emasculating when:

1. A woman asks them to open a jar and they can’t.
2. A woman drives the car while they sit in the passenger seat.
3. They have to ask a mechanic how to change a tire. I’m guessing that if the mechanic happens to be a woman, that’s an absolute end of the world.

I’m now feeling extremely grateful for my husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who would not even understand the structure of the above-listed sentences.

I feel very sorry for people who endure this castration complex and don’t realize they don’t have to. Poor freaks. Do you realize it’s the same idiots who have been coming to the blog to insist that “men and women are different”? This neurosis is all they have in terms of individualty, the fools.

I can’t even remotely imagine anything that would make me feel “less of a woman,” or whatever. The whole idea is baffling.

I don’t want to be writing this post because it’s very painful but I’m getting emails from people who experienced a similar loss, asking for help and advice, and I do want to help. I think it will be good for me to do it.

I have experienced a horrible tragedy. My son Eric died in utero five days before the due date. No medical reason has been found for this. The doctors say it’s just something that happens. I have met several women who have had the same loss, and there is nothing we have in common other than this tragedy. We are all of different ages, different body types, different health histories, different ethnic origins. It just happens.

My doctor tells me that 100 years ago, a woman would get pregnant between 20 and 25 times in her lifetime. 30% of pregnancies would end in miscarriage, 30% would end in stillbirth, and 30% of babies would die in infancy. Somehow, it really helped me to hear this, so I’m sharing it with you.

There were four pre-existing conditions, so to speak, that helped me deal with the loss better than I would have otherwise:

1. As you know, I’m religious, so the question of “Why me? Why did it have to happen?” did not visit me at all.

2. I’d been undergoing psychoanalysis, which makes me very resilient to everything.

3. I’m surrounded by some really brilliant people who know exactly what to say to help.

4. I have the best husband in the world.

Here are some of the things I did to help myself absorb the loss. These are obviously non-prescriptive because everybody is different. I’m simply sharing.

I decided to fill the time that I had been hoping to dedicate to the baby with projects and activities. I learned to drive, started going to the gym, bought a house, got into home decoration, began a new research project. The day after I got out of the hospital, my sister and I sat down and created an Excel file with a detailed plan of everything I was going to do to get better. The process of making this plan was very helpful. Doing something future-oriented helped a lot.

I also chose not to indulge my need for avoidance. I live in a very small town, and if I’d started avoiding every bus driver, secretary, shop assistant, hairdresser, etc. who’d seen me pregnant and was going to ask cheerfully, “So did you give birth to your baby?”, I’d go nuts. So I pretty much forced myself to go to all the places where I’d be recognized and face the situation. Of course, there were always the unexpected instances of people stopping their cars to yell, “So how is the baby?” The unexpected has been the worst, especially since this was a tragedy of the “entirely unexpected” variety, and now every unanticipated moment of pain brings me back into it.

My identity is built on the idea of me being powerful and indomitable and, as I said, I take enormous pride in not turning my tragedy into the bane of everybody else’s existence. I always hated people who crucify others on the cross that is solely theirs to bear, and now I hate them even more.

About depression. I hope everybody here realizes that depression is not caused by the horrible things that happens to us. The horrible things trigger a condition that is already there. If one has a tendency towards depressive episodes, it is crucial to get treated before anything tragic occurs. Because after it occurs (and it’s the nature of the human condition that we experience loss and misery), a person will have a lot less energy to resist the depressive episode. Even if one doesn’t think he or she has depressive tendencies, psychological hygiene is crucial. There are moments in our lives (such as, major change, menopause/andropause, illness, childbirth, etc.)  when our energy gets depleted and we need really good psychological health to withstand the trauma.

It’s OK to ask questions.

I’m sorry, folks, I know it’s boring but I have relatives all over the world, and they need to see this. Feel free to ignore the endless home decor photos I will be posting.

“Good j. . .” I started saying to the furniture delivery guy but caught myself in time and faked a fit of coughing. I’m going to go grade some papers now and will apply my newfound skill there. I’ve been scaring my husband with attempts to praise him for boiling the kettle and doing the dishes. This course needs to end soon.

So who’s with me on watching the World Cup?

Which team do you want to win? Which team do you really want to lose?

I wanted to do it as a riddle where you’d guess my answers but they are too self-evident.

“Christianity should just be renamed Hypocrisy once and for all because this name would transmit what it’s all about.”

“Francisco de Quevedo is a Baroque poet who doesn’t have an optimistic bone in his body.”

“Latin Americans highly value the Baroque art even today because it’s good for attracting tourists.”

. . . just goes to show, yet again, that money and clout don’t win elections.

Just a reminder for those who are still unaware.