I used to like Joy Reid. And then I turn on the news to wake myself before my very early flight and hear her announce with Glee that Roy Moore is a bigot because his wife said their lawyer is a Jew and “it turned out – get this! – that he’s a Christian!” As a Soviet dissident writer once said facetiously, “we thought he was a Jew but he turned out to be a drinking person.”

I understand it’s super crucial to prove Roy Moore is a bigot because he hasn’t yet lost the election in Alabama but would it be possible to do that without outdoing his presumed bigotry? ‘Cause this crap stinks to high heaven. 

During our daytime date, N and I discussed what it feels like when one’s cherished plans collapse (like my NYC trip). N says he doesn’t get angry or stressed out if he knows the issue that foiled his plans is not his fault. That stunned me because for me it’s the other way round. 

If something doesn’t work because I fucked up, I wasn’t organized, I failed to do what I needed, then I accept it and feel at peace. What bugs me if I did everything right but things didn’t work out because of factors outside of my control. 

His reaction is a product of an angry, castigating parent and mine of an emotionally chaotic, unpredictable one. 

But hey, if you saw how calm I am right now, in the face of not being able to get to a conference that I dreamt about for 14 years, you’d be stunned. That’s personal growth, folks. 

Yes, Woody Allen’s so-called art is all about his severe erectile dysfunction. You don’t need to read mountains of the crap he’s scribbled to figure that out. I knew it after suffering through ten minutes each of two of his films. The guy is a textbook ED sufferer who never found medical help for his very obvious issue. 

Re: preceding post, it’s interesting how such extremely ignorant people love to publish lists of prohibitory commands. As if anybody were eagerly expecting their commands as to what not to do. 

Such folks’ horizons are limited by their ignorance. The world is confusing and scary. By yelling “don’t! stop! avoid! cease and desist!” they create an illusion of being in control. 

A good liberal arts education is crucial because without it you get aggressively ignorant people like the author of this shameful screed. The saddest thing is that this poor creature doesn’t have a friend or an acquaintance to help her understand that she needs to stop writing and start reading instead. 

I’m not in New York, but instead I’ll get to have a daytime date with N, after which we’ll go pick up Klara together. So I’m having a good time no matter what. Bite it, JFK, LaGuardia, Delta, and American Airlines.

The latest update on the MLA trip is that I’ll try to leave tomorrow at 5 am. If it works out, I’ll at least be able to give my talk, which is better than nothing.

To raise everyone’s spirits, here is another cute story about Klara. I was driving her home yesterday and suddenly she started saying, in a very exasperated, sarcastic tone, “Oh, OK, all right. Oooh-key! All right!” And then I realized that this was the spot in our daily route where the cars ahead of us usually start to slow down to take a turn towards the supermarket. And I always react with exasperated, “Oh, OK, all right.” Klara must have thought it was required to make these noises at that spot in the road, and since I was quiet for once, she supplemented the soundtrack.

It’s very funny to hear how one sounds when a toddler imitates one’s speech patterns. 

The bright blue cupcake is a gift that keeps on giving. Klara threw it up all over the sofa, my pants, and her dress. It’s not surprising because I’m not sure even I’d be able to keep down something this aggressively colored. Something tells me we are not the only family in town who wants to strangle the blue cupcake parents.