From a conversation with my 5-year-old:

“Ryan seemed a little irritable on the playground today.”

“I wouldn’t say irritable, mommy. He’s irascible, which is different.”

I asked her to explain the difference, and she did so with ease.

And before people say that expensive kid shoes last longer, the previous post was prompted by me having to throw away a pair of – and I feel idiotic even writing it – $48 shoes I bought her in September. They were sturdy but. . . She’s an active 5-year-old who spends hours outside each day. There’s no shoe can survive that.

I’m kind of upset over the $48.

I used to buy Klara shoes at Walmart. She is very active, and any shoe, sneaker or boot I get her gets shredded within 2-3 months. At Walmart, I’d get her a pair for $9, she’d destroy it, I’d buy a new one, and that would be it.

Now there are no more kids’ shoes at Walmart. Their selection has dwindled to almost nothing. There’s never anything in her size. On Amazon, kid shoes cost insane amounts. $45! $30! They are cute and all but they will last her 5 weeks at the most.

I want my Walmart kid shoes back.

This is the very heart of many of our problems:

Yes, if the demographic subgroup of infants has different outcomes than the demographic subgroup of retirees, that’s bigotry. People are interchangeable widgets. Groups are all identical in everything except moral value. And that’s called diversity! Everybody is an identical cog!

We have allowed people who are congenital idiots to terrorize us into compliance.

Friends, a little note on Alex Berenson’s recently released book Pandemia. I was a dedicated Twitter follower of his before he was censored. I’m now a Substack subscriber. I also bought his brochures.

When I pre-ordered Pandemia, it was mostly as a sign of gratitude to the man who saved my sanity in 2020. I didn’t expect to find anything particularly new and interesting in the book because I read him every day already. What else can he say that will be new to me?

But guess what? I’m underlining things on every page. There’s a boatload of stuff he says that I didn’t know. It’s a very well-written, clear, valuable book. And such a pleasure to read!

In a small aside, there are three men in the world you can never criticize in my presence: my husband, my analyst, and Alex Berenson. You can absolutely criticize the book but not him as a person. When I say he saved my sanity, it’s not a figure of speech. It’s a statement of fact. I know myself, and it was possible that I’d become one of those cowering idiots who haven’t let their kid outside in two years. We all have our burdens to carry, and mine tends towards neurotic hypochondria.

Klara’s school sent out a flyer saying “Come shop at our race store,” and I almost flipped because I need a little respite from race at least on a weekend.

Then I realized that they are talking about a charity race of the kind where people run for charitable purposes.

One day, I’m going to have a heart attack, and it will probably be caused by an invitation to a “white Christmas party” or “race to cure diabetes.”