Clarissa's Blog

One of my syllabi is so outdated that it had the word “diskette” in it.

Remember floppy disks, folks? Good times.

I’m tired of being judged by people for leaving our state healthcare plan. I don’t run around telling people about it and trying to get them to follow my example. But I did reveal this decision publicly for the state legislature testimony. And this, of course, has awakened the anxieties of many people who’d rather not know what’s happening. 

I have explained, in as patient a voice as God has given me the strength to fake, that I have this great personal flaw of not being able to tolerate the anxiety of wondering whether I will be able to see a doctor when I need, whether I’ll start getting huge bills, or whether my credit will be ruined. I have said that I fully recognize that this is a great personal failing of mine and that other people have more robust psyches for which I applaud them. I obviously don’t mean any of it but I want to be left in peace with my decision. 

I can’t be expected to continue existing in this situation for the sake of not intruding on the need people have for obliviousness.

Of course, there is a lot of in-your-faceness in Ukrainians’ sudden embrace of progressive values. Since Russians are anti-gay, we’ll be pro-gay! Since Russians are anti-Muslim, we’ll be pro-Muslim!

But you know what? I’ll take it. Because ultimately, what matters is that this will start the process of making the lives of the gay minority and sizable Muslim community in Ukraine more secure and appreciated. And once it begins, there is no turning back.

Folks, I promise, the next giveaway will require having neither a Twitter nor an Amazon account. I will do it myself. But that means I’ll have to control the random selection of winners, and you will have to trust that I’m doing it honestly and without any favoritism.

This is what I don’t get. American celebrities rent themselves out to Russian oligarchs to come to their parties and serve as exotic poodles that the rich guests stare at. Yes, they get paid for it but aren’t they rich enough already? Why would somebody like Demi Moore, for instance, demean herself like this for a few bucks?

I’m not talking about B-list starlets like Brittany Murphy who overdosed at a Russian oligarch’s party and died as a result*. Or Mila Jovovich, who rents herself out for really sad, paltry sums to go to drunken parties organized by these oligarchs. These characters don’t have a choice but to trawl parties in hopes of a payout. But the truly famous ones, how come they don’t believe it makes sense to preserve their dignity intact and refuse this sort of jobs? It’s humiliating as shit to have bored rich ladies and gentlemen gawp at you, point their fingers and laugh, like you are a freak. Or is nothing humiliating if you are getting paid?

I don’t get this.

* Make sure you look at the Wikipedia entry about Murphy and the causes of her death. It’s beyond ridiculous.

To thank you for being great readers, I have organized our very first blog giveaway. For those of you who like Panera or know somebody who likes it, this giveaway will randomly give out a $25 gift card.

Follow the link and enter the sweepstakes. The results will be known in 3 days.

Unfortunately, it’s only available for US residents for now. Let’s see how it goes and if it works, there will be more giveaways in the future.

Another giveaway will be organized soon for international readers. International readers, what would you like to see in the giveaway? It has to be something I can give you over the Internet. Will an Amazon gift card work?

I’ll leave this post at the top of the page for the moment.

P.S. Since there are already 776 entries in the giveaway, I removed the post’s stickiness.

For the first time in years, N and I have a chance to go to the movies. What should we see, Wonder Woman or Beatriz is at Dinner? 

I’d like to see All Eyez on Me about Tupac but the times don’t work for us at all. 

And another cutesy baby story. Klara is very excited about her new skill of identifying and naming objects and phenomena. 

Yesterday, she fell and scraped her knee. Of course, she started crying, and I picked her up, and she was crying, and then suddenly a neighbor turned on his lawnmower. Immediately, Klara interrupted the crying and announced, “Mower!” She kept repeating the word “mower” for the next 5 minutes, having completely forgotten all about the scrape. 

All of these inexplicable things and loud noises that used to scare her lose their capacity to terrify once she can name them. Language is truly an awe-inspiring thing.

When she woke up today, Klara started demanding that I wash her toes. I wasn’t going to do it because she’d been sleeping, and the toes were completely clean. 

She kept repeating, “Toes! Wash water! Wash! Water!” as I dressed her. 

Once she realized I wasn’t in any hurry to wash her toes, Klara thought for a second and said, “Please!” So of course I washed them. 

I honestly had no idea such little kids could communicate so well. 

This glowing belief in one’s own extraordinary virtue and the obsession with denouncing the sinful nature of others that you can see in the article linked in the previous post are the scariest things I know. 

I remember watching George W. Bush on TV and feeling terrified of the luminous conviction in his own goodness that seemed immune to reason or logic. A few months later, he started bombing Iraq.

Or these senators who want to cut Medicaid. They are convinced that nothing like poverty and indigent illness could have happened to them because they know how to live correctly, they are too good for this to happen to them. 

The political flavor these fanatics happen to have at any given time is irrelevant. At the core of their being lies a narcissistic wound that requires that spectacles of punishing the sinful and rewarding the righteous be constantly staged.