As I’ve been saying this whole time, Biden is more like Trump than like Obama by a wide margin. Dude will build us the wall after all.

I use Venmo to pay the lawnmower but I noticed that Venmo allows me to see what sums an acquaintance sends to his contacts and even read the messages they send to each other. “A little gift for Mom in Canada!” “Let’s support our cheerleaders!”

Is that normal? I feel weird that I’m inadvertently spying on these people. Is that how Venmo is supposed to work?

Since people are asking about nails, here is my Halloween appropriate nail design:

My dental work costs even more, so I can’t afford to ruin either on a $6 package of scissors.

I need scissors in my office. It’s impossible to work without scissors but all of mine mysteriously disappeared.

I asked the secretary to buy me some scissors. When they arrived, I grabbed the package and joyously dragged them to my office.

And then I realized that to open the package with the scissors I need … scissors.

I learned the 2+2+2 formula from my mentor who helped me organize a very productive and enjoyable life as a scholar, and it never let me down.

If you are a research scholar in the humanities, here’s how the formula works.

At any given time, you need to have:

2 pieces out for publication (e.g. 1 submitted and awaiting decision + 1 accepted and getting prepared for publication)

2 pieces you are writing at different stages (e.g. a new article you are writing + an article where you are introducing requested changes)

2 pieces you are preparing to write (reading primary sources for a new book + gathering secondary sources for a future article).

This way, you won’t have any holes in your CV no matter what happens.

And, most importantly, you’ll always remain a scholar and won’t let life drag you into being everything else except the only thing you actually want to be.

The bombing of the grocery store in the Kharkiv region isn’t an unusual development. Something like this happens every week. Russians target areas where civilians congregate. High-rise apartment buildings, hospitals, supermarkets, maternity wards. Time and again, for 18 months. Yet there are people who think this is good and should continue.

Lidia Falcón, a writer and the leader of Spain’s Feminist Party, looks at all this and writes an open letter supporting… Russia and blaming Ukraine into provoking Russia into doing this. She’s an old-school feminist in her seventies. She should know that a rape victim doesn’t provoke the rapist. This should be an instinctive response on her part. Falcón suffered from the Franco dictatorship. Her whole family was destroyed by it. Men executed, women driven to suicide. There’s literally no logical reason for her to be on Russia’s side. I know Falcón in person. I talked to her and she seemed completely normal. What glitched? Which wires got crossed in an otherwise normal brain of an otherwise good, moral person?

And while I’m moaning about my troubles, Russians bombed a grocery store in a small village in the Kharkiv region. 48 51 dead, including a 6-year-old boy.

I will never understand how anybody can side with the people who bomb village grocery stores at the time when groceries get delivered and the entire village gathers at the store to get food. I don’t get what happens in the heads of the human beings who support this.

Yesterday was one of those days. I was rejected for summer teaching and for publication. My translation got terribly garbled on the way to the client who now thinks I’m useless. An instructor from overseas has mental issues and will now probably leave without finishing out her teaching, and she’s the only person we have in this language.

Today I have a day off for romantic events with my husband. Let’s hope the bad luck streak has been broken and this doesn’t end in divorce.

I’d love to see Tucker Carlson’s face when he finds out. The poor dude made a mega big deal out of this Russian military ad and how it meant the Russian army was much stronger than the US army.

The next step would be to let him know how many of the children of the Russian officials and propagandists are gay and non-binary.

Few things are as funny as the fact that some people associate Russia with traditional values.

This is a great town, my friends. There was a festival next to the local library today organized by the police. Free hot dogs, free ice-cream, snacks, activity books for kids, face-painting, balloon animals, syrupy ices, bouncy castles, everything free. No money was exchanged at any time.

Kids got to climb into armored vehicles and fire trucks. A police officer gave a demonstration of how to fly a drone. Live music. Local farmers brought tiny cute calves for kids to pet, which I don’t know how it’s related to police work but hey, why not?

Just a regular Tuesday.

Last Friday, we had another festival in town where, again, everything was free including food from the local food trucks.

I ran into both events completely by chance. I’m sure there are others I don’t even know about. One truly needs to try hard around here to get one’s kid to veg out in front of the TV. There’s so much to do outdoors all the time. And again, much of it is free.

God bless America, is what I’m saying.