The Russian colleague pre-empted any action on my part by showing up at my office right after I arrived. I managed to steer the conversation away from anything political, at least, because the last thing I need right before class is to have a confrontation about Putin.

The worst thing about my job is that so many people in my profession are total, irredeemable and utter freaks.

This is why the three people I’m closest to (N, my sister and my BFF) are not in academia. It’s not that all academics are like this, of course, but the risk of running into a freak are too high. 

I just got an email from somebody who is a Russian-speaker and who works at my university. She suggests we meet for lunch, and I normally wouldn’t mind, but I always fear a Russian-speaker turning out to be a Putinoid. She refers to herself as a “Russian colleague”, which might be a bad sign. 

Should I go decked out in my Ukrainian patriot attire, just to make things clear from the start?

Klara took her first steps yesterday. Everybody asks me if I filmed it but I don’t understand how it could have been done. She’s been standing on her own for a while, and save for filming her constantly, there was no way of knowing that this was going to be the time she’d decide to take the first step. 

Besides, I almost never even have the phone when I’m around her because she’ll try to grab it, and it’s an expensive phone. 

N gives her his phone to play with because it’s a $20 burner he’s had for years. What’s hilarious I’d that she asks us to open it and when we do, she presses it to her ear and pretends to talk. I have no idea where she learned it because she almost never sees us talk on the phone. Maybe she saw me a couple of times but she does a fantastic impression of me talking. She raises her eyes and looks up and to the right when she “talks,” just like I do. And she says, “Da. . . da,” which is “yes” in Russian. (She only ever heard me speak Russian on the phone.) It’s hilarious. 

Ah, so Trump finally stood up for the working classes and eliminated the estate tax! The working stiffs everywhere have breathed a sigh of relief. 

Reading a lot while looking after an active toddler is easy. Here is what you need to do:

1. Place books in all rooms or spaces where the toddler might want to go. 

2. Learn to follow several plots or lines of argument simultaneously. 

3. Learn to read in short bursts that last under 1 minute. 

4. Learn to find your place in every one of these books instantly. 

5. Learn to read in a way that doesn’t prevent you from closely observing the toddler. 

And you are done!

That was a joke about it being easy, by the way. 

N finds it hard to figure out the Llama Llama story books. 

When Mama Llama tells her little son, “I think shopping is boring, too, but at least I’m here with you,” N thought she was guilt-tripping little llama, as in “I made such an effort to be here with you, you little brat, but you don’t even appreciate it.” When I explained that what Mama Llama is saying is that the company of her son makes even boring chores fun, N was stunned. 

In the same story book, Llama Llama throws a tantrum at the grocery store and Mama Llama says, “Llama Llama, that’s enough!” When we first read the book, N was sure that Mama Llama was going to beat or humiliate the boy and was touched to the point of tears when she didn’t. 

In all honesty, I also haven’t been able to find the right intonation to read, “Llama Llama, that’s enough! Please stop fussing, little llama and be patient for your mama.” I can either make it sound to aggressive or like I’m mocking the story. 

By the way, N asked me to write about this. I wouldn’t do it otherwise. 

We had really bad hail earlier in the month, and many roofs are damaged. Now most houses have teams of workers on the roofs. The house in front of us managed to find a rare group of Hispanic workers who are making me very happy by filling the neighborhood with welcome sounds of Spanish speech. 

Klara and I are sitting on the porch and enjoying the summer day. Earlier, we’d gone to the Dollar Tree to get more art supplies. 

Summer is good, especially until May.

Ah, interesting developments. A reality TV star vs a wannabe reality TV star. Politics is dead; long live social media. 

I have no idea why people choose to teach the kind of material that’s related to their deepest traumas. She is sadistically setting students up for a failure while masochistically torturing herself. 

I’d never teach works of literature that mention late-term fetal loss, stillbirth, or gestational diabetes because I know I can’t be unemotional about it. Students should not be subjected to projections if they unwittingly touch a sore place in a teacher’s psyche.