An author of mystery series always runs into the problem of writing more slowly than the time runs. The detective that the series revolves around simply gets too old to do any detecting long before the author is ready to retire.

Some authors simply pretend that human chronology doesn’t exist. This is the case with Elizabeth George who’s been writing for two decades about characters that have aged just a few years in the meantime. It’s all pretty weird given that the technology changes massively while the characters seem frozen in time.

Other writers try to transition to younger lead characters. This almost always fails. One such writer is John Lescroart whose recent novel Poison I finished today. Lescroart had tried to ditch his series’ protagonist Dismas Hardy for a young character Wyatt Hunt. The result was so bad that Lescroart is now back with Hardy, even though the poor fellow is well into his sixties. Because of the smart move of going back to the old and trusty Hardy, the novel is quite good. But not as good as the series was in its heyday.

Lisa Gardner’s Look for Me that I also just finished revolves around detective DD Warren who is one of those extremely typical heroines of female procedurals. She’s a manly gruff workaholic who suddenly remembers how old she is at the exact age of 39, gets married, has a kid, and then spends the next five million novels avoiding the painful need to spend any time with the husband and the child. There are so many such characters that I keep getting confused among them. But in spite of all this, Gardner’s most recent novel is enormously better than her horrible Find Her where a character gets repeatedly raped inside a wooden box for 350 endless pages.

The author who pleasantly surprised me with her effort to transition from an aged series protagonist is Aleksandra Marinina. The Russian author has recently published Cost of the Issue where she shrewdly displaced attention from the lead detective to exploring a specific theme her readers might find more interesting than any character.

I also recently finished her 3-volume Return Power. The first volume was do horrifically bad that I didn’t even finish it. But the second volume is the most powerful writing this author has ever done. I always avoid any novels or movies about the Holocaust because they all massively collectively stink. But somehow Marinina managed to come up with a novelistic treatment of the Holocaust that is actually good.

I have two more releases by mystery writers to catch up on. OK, it’s actually three but one is not a series, so it doesn’t count.

On our way to the citizenship ceremony, N and I drove past a huge factory. I’m from the Soviet Union, so I find enormous factories very aesthetically pleasing and intellectually stimulating.

“This is solid capital,” I said pointing to the factory. “And we are agents of fluidity, whizzing by on our way to yet another citizenship.”

When nationalism first arose in the 19th century, a huge part of its appeal was that it helped people articulate and legitimize the nostalgia they felt for the time before modernity uprooted, destroyed and swept away. Then, as now, the progressive forces unanimously rejected nationalism and scoffed at the antiquated country bumpkins who chose their bond with the neighbor over that with the international proletariat.

The inventors of nationalism very shrewdly turned it backwards towards the exaltation of the familiar. And the internationalist forces lost, every single time. Even Stalin realized that the only way to defeat Hitler was to being back the vocabulary and the imagery of nationalism. (And he did, and it worked.)

I feel incredibly rested after spending 3,5 hours reading at the auto dealership yesterday. It’s like I’ve been to a spa but better because nobody was touching me.

Here is the sad paradox of my life. If I spend 3 hours watching Dr Phil reruns, rereading a dumb mystery for the fifth time, or stupidly browsing the internet, I won’t feel guilty and uncomfortable and I won’t devise complex avoidance strategies.

But if I try to spend the same 3 hours reading something work-related or intellectual, I will. And this is crazy because I enjoy it a lot more than browsing, rereading crap and watching reruns. But the guilt is stronger than enjoyment.

So unless somebody forces me into a car dealership that I can’t escape from, I’ll avoid, self-sabotage and interrupt.

It’s the struggle of my life.

I know somebody – a tenured professor – who routinely teaches 5 and once even 6 courses instead of 3. For no extra pay. The reason why she does this is that every semester she’s told “If you don’t do it, there’s nobody else to cover these courses. The majors won’t be able to graduate and the program will die.”

This is not an isolated case. Many tenured academics teach above their contractual load at no extra pay because they are told that otherwise their program will be closed down and they will be fired.

Literally, the only thing that can prevent this is unionization of tenure-track and tenured professors. An administrator will not make these threats in front of a union rep who, of course, will make sure the conversation is recorded.

What could Trump actually do for Putin, if he wanted to do the fellow a solid?

1. The absolute #1 favor would be stop or at least curb fracking in the US. In order for Russian economy to do well, the oil price needs to stand at $105-110 per barrel. The absolute disaster point for Russia is if it drops to under $30.

The current price is $65. It’s bad but not the end of everything that Putin cares about. The only thing right now that can bring it lower is the US fracking.

2. The second best thing Trump could do for Putin is to say something to the effect that “it’s time to accept that the Crimea is part of Russia.” And please don’t think this is minor. This single statement would cause enormous upheaval and a lot of really bad shit happening. And unlike curbing fracking, this is not unrealistic.

Of course, it would be an absolute dream come true for Putin if Trump asked him to sit down and divide spheres of influence in the world between the two of them but that’s a total pipe dream, so it’s ridiculous even to discuss.

3. What else? Well, it would give some fleeting pleasure to Putin if Trump got himself impeached. But the practical value of that would be nil.

Trump would please Putin if he performed some public act of contrition, recognizing the [completely imaginary] harm that the US has done to Russia. But yet again, anybody who knows anything about Trump can see that this is not happening.

4. Create some massive instability in the US. Something like a major economic collapse, starving crowds roaming the streets, etc. Again, zero practical value for Putin but it wouldn’t be unpleasant for him to watch.

I can’t think of anything else because the previous administrations have already given him everything else.

This is where you look if you want to find out whether he’s trying to repay some debt he consciously contracted.

Maybe I should stop checking email in addition to avoiding all TV and newspaper news. Because I need to be able to register to vote before I start detesting Democrats to the point where I’ll spend 20 more years without voting.

I just got a DNC email saying “I’m a Parkland student survivor. . . It’s time to elect Democrats.”

I hope that, as they say in 3rd world commercials, no children were harmed in the testing of this product, and no actual students were used in this process but still, it’s very off-putting.

In the 19th century, when the new class of bourgeoisie arose in response to the industrial revolution, one of the main markers of belonging to this prestigious new class was having free time. New and conspicuous ways of enjoying that free time were devised, giving birth to tourism, consumption of long novels, etc.

Today, it’s all been reversed. The mark of one’s prestigious status as a participant in the liquid economy who is in demand and won’t be discarded by liquid capital is having no free time, being too busy to take vacations, and being higely overscheduled. It’s all silly, though, because the capital doesn’t care about our performative business.

N needed me to take his car to the dealership and sit there for 3,5 hours while it’s being seen to.

It’s the perfect excuse for me to spend 3,5 hours with my Modern Basque History book feeling no guilt whatsoever for not doing anything more important.

I love my husband for giving me this opportunity.