National politics has become so boring that I’ll probably go ahead and cancel my NY TIMES subscription. All that ever happens now is Trump delivers another kick to the moribund nation-state, just like the voters requested.

If we had collectively chosen to fight for the nation-state, that would be interesting to observe. But seeing it kicked and kicked to death is boring. We all know how the story ends, so who cares?

Teenage years are like the teething period of the soul. They are inevitably painful, and the uniformity of that pain makes them boring. Not everybody gets to hit their teenage years in their actual teens. Some people are terrorized into not even attempting to grow their own soul until they are 30 or 50. Or ever. And if you have to wait that long, the process becomes atrociously hurtful.

I hate reading about teenagers. A good depiction of teenage life is the most boring one. If it’s less boring, then it’s not realistic. The teenagers in Tana French’s novel The Secret Place are realistic but that’s what makes them so soporific. French is a good author but this is a subject that can’t be rescued. No matter what you do, it’s coming out just like the billion and one similar novels written before you.

Klara loves to play with the remote. Whenever she manages to do something with it – turn the TV on, turn it off, change the channel – she gets scared and hides under my arm so that I can hug her and reassure her that everything is good.

She also really loves cords. She only decided to learn to crawl when it became clear that she can’t get to the cords any other way. I spread the most enticing toys around, yet she ignores them and heads directly for the cords. And yesterday she found a very inventive way to switch off my desktop. She tugs on all the cords she can reach until she gets the camera cord. The camera falls and hits the computer’s switch off button.

On weekends, I get to sleep until 11 am. I have the best husband ever.

Single people: follow my example and never settle for anybody but the person who will be perfect for you. Every day of married life brings endless opportunities to grow to detest your partner, and only an absolute, dumb, gooey love for them will save you from that.

And she’s finally got a tooth! 

We went out to a restaurant to celebrate this momentous occasion. Klara loves going out to restaurants. She is so happy to be able to observe all the new people and new surroundings that she sits there, quiet as a mouse, requiring no attention or entertainment. We’ve been going out to restaurants with her since she was barely 2 months old, and there’s never been a problem. We know that we are extraordinarily lucky because a baby is under no obligation to be this kind.

This is what the perfect novel for a high school or a college will be like:

1. Everybody is a eunuch.

2. Nobody ever mentions any distasteful, unpleasant things such as racism, poverty, divorce, violence, species extinction, or disappointing weather.

3. In fact, nobody mentions anything at all because any topic has the potential to offend somebody.

4. There are characters representing all possible identity groups. It’s hard to integrate gay people into the story because, remember, everybody is a eunuch devoid of sexuality. Gayness should be reduced to parenthood because, as we all know, gay people who aren’t mommies and daddies do not exist.

5. The only  topic characters discuss is how important it is to respect everybody’s opinion. Since nobody in the novel ever expresses any opinions, that’s a very easy task.

6. The ending is very happy. And so are the beginning and the middle. 

7. Everybody speaks in clichés. Characters are convinced that perseverance conquers all and the sky is the limit. 

I’m sure we can find a few titles that fit this mold.

Beware this, youngling professors — when you are a committee chair, you will do way more than 100%/N of the committee workload, where N is the number of committee members. You will do 100% – epsilon, where epsilon is an infinitesimally small number.

So true. As I discovered this semester. Being a committee chair is like teaching. You get to work while everybody else gets to lose their homework and forget to show up on time.

Klara learned to crawl. I’m trying to film her to show N but whenever she sees me point the phone at her, she sits up and smiles for the camera. 

An academic in my field – whose work I’m being told to use in my research, by the way – suggests that at the time of hiring professors should be judged not only on their teaching experience and research agenda but also on the “social responsibility” of their work. What is this but a blatant attempt at introducing censorship into a profession that is already censored to the gills?

We will truly police and censor ourselves into extinction one of these days.