Clarissa's Blog

Klara has learned to throw tantrums. Her whole nature is in how she conducts them. She gets down on the floor very carefully, making sure she doesn’t hurt herself, arranges herself on the floor with meticulous care, and begins to scream.

I move to another room and start collecting the toys. She gets up, finds me, arranges herself very carefully on the floor again, and resumes the screaming. Then she notices that I’m doing something fun, switches off the screaming, giggles, and joins me.

I have no idea where she learned the laying down on the floor in protest strategy.

I went to the Yale University Library website to see what I need to be able to access it during my visit next week. There is a tab on the left side of the screen that lists “Living in New Haven” as one of the options. I caught a glimpse of it and immediately had this nasty feeling in my stomach like I’d been punched.

I have unfinished emotional business with that place.

So, how narcissistic can you get? You want to have all the benefits of having all of the benefits, and you want to have all the benefits of having none of the benefits, because just having all the benefits isn’t enough for you.

This is about all the rich gits at Yale and Middlebury and Co who like to pose as the downtrodden. 

This is what the new economy will be like: online platforms, apps, videoconferencing for pets. The recipe to success is unburdening oneself of attachments to anything tangible and moving all operations to the “space of flows.”

It’s neither good nor bad. It just is. 

Are the Paris Accords really this unimportant? Is it true that the US can’t even really withdraw until the end of Trump’s term? Is Trump making a hoopla out of this to mask an utter lack of accomplishments and a failure to carry out any of his campaign promises?

There is a great stigma about discussing one’s own mental health in our society. . .

This is a serious problem, especially in academia.

There is an even greater stigma attached to discussing your digestive troubles at work. Or sexual dysfunction. Or reproductive issues. Or any illness, to be honest. 

I have to confess that I wouldn’t be super happy if colleagues started regaling me with any details of their medical histories. The only thing I welcome even less is hearing about the health issues of students. 

God, can nothing just be private any more? Not every issue of one’s personal life requires a discussion group in the workplace. 

I showed Klara a picture of herself when she was little. She lit up and said, “Baby!” She loves babies. 

I tried to explain to her that it was Klara. She gave me a very superior look, pointed at herself and said, “Kava!” And then pointed to the photo and said, “Baby!” If she knew the word “dummy”, she surely would have added it. 

Stores are filled with beautiful clothes. The bookstore is filled with books I urgently need. Teavana is filled with delicious teas. Wasabi Sushi offers tons of fantastic rolls. 

Woe be onto me.

“Hackers are free people, just like artists who wake up in the morning in a good mood and start painting,” Putin told news agencies.

What a piece of vile trash. 

And here is a comment to the post I linked to this morning:

It’s a recurrent feeling I get whenever you talk about how your kids are growing up 100% American, they don’t speak your native language and don’t have any ties to your culture: you are very adamant that this is good for them, being full Americans and not having to carry the background of your immigrant past. I feel a pang of sadness for them, for what they are missing and don’t even know; and for you, for what you’re losing of yourself by raising children in an alien culture, even one in which you are completely integrated.

It really got on my nerves, to be honest. It’s preachy and condescending, and I hate that kind of thing. Don’t perform sadness in front of people who didn’t ask for it. It’s beyond obnoxious when somebody starts expressing unwanted and and unwarranted compassion. Oh, poor you, it must suck so badly to be you, I’m dying of pity right here.

If that blogger’s children or my Klara decide to learn the language of their parents in adulthood (or any other language), there’s nothing to prevent them from doing that. If they decide they want to explore that culture (or any other culture), they most surely will. I learned Spanish and everything I know about Hispanic civilization in adulthood, didn’t I? 

Among all the kinds of damage parents can do to a child, learning or not learning a language is simply not there at all. And by the way, the best manner to guarantee that a child will detest a language and a culture is to have the parents pester them with how important their knowledge is. I say, gosh, just let the kids be. They have a lifetime to figure out what they do and don’t need to learn.