Another phrase that people use unthinkingly is “family by choice is the best kind of family.” The only reason it’s “the best” is that it facilitates fluidity and makes you more convenient to the fluid markets. The price you pay for erasing the boundary between the concepts of friendship and family is neurosis. Because offering even the most intimate sphere of your life for the fluid markets to consume is traumatic even if you refuse to recognize it.

As Zygmunt Bauman said, the only choice that consumerist societies don’t allow you to make is to stop choosing. 

Fewer things make people spew out a greater number of untruths than immigration. Folks literally go nuts the moment the subject is mentioned. Here is an example:

Essentially everyone who has tried to move to the US has had immigration “problems” and sufficient enough violations that the right (or wrong) person in power could chuck you out if they chose to. 

This is an offensive, ridiculous lie. Crowds of people go through the immigration process legally and honestly without any problems or violations. This vile little piece of trash blogger fakes caring about immigrants but in reality paints us all as sneaky, sniveling and pathetic lawbreakers. 

Try getting a plane ticket/lodging/job start date/Visa all magically timed for the same date when at least one of those things (Visa) tends to appear when the little ball lands on the right number on the wheel.

I tried, my husband tried, any number of my colleagues and acquaintances tried, and we’ve all succeeded without breaking laws. The US immigration system could definitely use improvement  (for instance, by moving away from the stupid lottery system and privileging those who are guaranteed to adapt over those who are guaranteed not to), but immigrants do not need to be condescended to by worthless little pieces of shit who make themselves feel better by imagining us all as victims and losers. 

Hey, so remember that “pro-life, pro-guns, I-have-a-massive-case-of-erectile-dysfunction-but-no-knowledge-or-skills” candidate in Missouri?

He won the primary.

Go to the link if you want to see his ads. It’s not ok to mock people with physical impairments, so try not to giggle too loudly.

Some people are so sloppy and careless with language that what they say ends up having zero meaning. Take, for instance, the currently faddy expression “emotional labor.” Here is somebody for whom clearing the table after a meal is suddenly “emotional labor.” 

It’s as if the whole point of talking, for these people, were not to communicate any information or share ideas but to repeat a dumb cliché as many times as possible. 

This is where the intense dumbness of pothead parents leads. 

The most counterproductive and ridiculous way to defend Khizr Khan. The Khans are clearly in the right. There is no need to construct such ridiculous defenses of them. 

A tragic case of male loneliness. 

The problem with academia is that this sort of ridiculous childishness is worn like a badge of honor by way too many. 

But there are also very happy, well-adjusted and normal people in the world. This post made my day. 

No, academics don’t indoctrinate students. 

Mandatory schooling for senior citizens. 

A great way to make the fight for a higher minimum wage immoral.

The banking system of Canada is very strange. I tried closing an old account today, and the teller told me I had to remember which two pieces of ID I had used when opening the account. Back in 1999.

When I made it clear that this feat was inaccessible to me, the teller asked me if I wanted to be given my remaining balance in $15 bills. I haven’t been in Canada for a while, and for all I know $15 bills might have been introduced. But that was a weird moment. 

It’s so strange to be in Montréal. This is the city where I grew up, became myself. This is the city where everything happened. No place ever will mean as much. 

Everywhere I go in this city I remember being young and dreaming and making plans for how I wanted my life to turn out. And now I’m here and I know how it turned out. It’s as if I finished the book I started reading 18 years ago and I know how it ends. I keep having this feeling that I need to go back to my old apartment and find my young self and give her the answers to her questions and tell her how it all worked out. 

And now I’m starting a new book and once again wondering how it will all turn out. 

By the way, everybody here finds it extremely easy to pronounce Klara’s name. Including my 6-year-old niece Klubnikis who is an English-speaker. 

As I suspected, the problem resided entirely in the typical Midwestern tendency to engage in churlish resistance to anything even slightly unfamiliar. 

A group of men – younger than me, probably, but not by much – were making an infernal ruckus at the hotel until the wee hours. They stood in the hallway, laughing and discussing loudly, banged doors, called out to each other, etc. I came out of the room to tell them they were vile pieces of disgusting trash and they subsided for a while. Then they started on again and security had to be called. 

I could understand how all this could be an exciting way to pass time for a group of teenagers. But adult men? Montréal has a vibrant bar scene, we are right next to the red lights district, the Gay Village is close by. And they choose to spend time roaming the hotel hallway? 

. . . forever together.