And by the way, I already have an idea for book #3. Please prepare to be bugged by something other than fluidity. 

So do you know how people have an Acknowledgments section in academic books? Where they thank those who talked to them, and argued, and objected, and pointed out inconsistencies in their argument? Because intellectual product is not a monologue. It’s usually a result of a conversation with many different people.

I don’t have anybody to put in my Acknowledgments because I didn’t discuss this research with anybody. It wasn’t like I was about to pin down a nurse at the hospital or an Uber driver and bug them with fluidity and the collapse of the nation-state.

The only people I talked to about this are my blog readers. The blog readers were the ones who helped me figure out what I wanted to say, kept on me until my arguments made sense, pointed out every inconsistency and weakness. It looks like I was stuck at home alone writing this book, but that’s not true. I had a whole bunch of people helping me at all times.

Thank you, my friends! This is our shared achievement. I’m totally putting this in the Acknowledgments section.

I got the reports on my book back, and the editor says he will be recommending it for publication at the next board meeting. One of the reports is glowing, the other is less so, but both are super helpful. They give reading recommendations and stuff. 

Now, the only way I’m not getting published is if my response to the readers stinks or if there are budget limitations. 

I’m very proud of myself, folks. The book was written while I was pregnant and either completely exhausted and nauseous in early pregnancy or traveling to the hospital 3 times a week and managing a raging diabetes. Plus, I was writing and submitting 3 articles on entirely different subjects at the same time. (They have all been accepted, by the way.)

Oh, I’m good. Oh, I’m very good. 

She gets paid 78 cents to a man’s dollar because she chose a lower paying profession.

She didn’t get tenure because she chose to concentrate on anything but research. 

She has sex with hundreds of men she finds repulsive because that’s her career choice. 

She didn’t go for a promotion because she chose to be the primary caretaker for the children. 

She quit her job to take care of her Alzheimer mother because she chose to let her brother concentrate on his PhD.

She gets hit in the face because it’s her choice to be in that relationship. 

She lies on a beach in a burqa because that’s her fashion choice. 

Isn’t it great to have all these choices?

Men in my blogroll agree that only the males who paid for merchandise should be entitled to unwrap it. Everything else, they say, is un-feminist.

Are you a super-recognizer of faces? Take the short test to find out. 

Predictably, I’m not. And that’s putting it very mildly. I couldn’t shake the feeling that everybody was #4 and voted accordingly. 

By now everybody has heard of Cajun Navy, the army of volunteers in Baton Rouge who are rescuing people in the flood zone. While some of us admire these good folks, others immediately decided to slap nanny state regulations on them to ensure that they don’t dare help others without undergoing certification, paying fees, and complying with state requirements. 

Who is trying to do such an atrocity? A Republican state Representative, of course. The party of small government strikes again. 

I got confused as to how long the class lasts and tried to let students go 30 minutes earlier. They refused to leave. I love my students. 

Overall, I don’t get historical resentments over events that happened before the living memory. Being upset over World War II makes sense. But going nuts over the Napoleonic Wars? Well, that’s. . . clearly nuts. And getting overwrought over the battle of Thermopylae makes one certifiable. 

That the Russians tried outlawing the Ukrainian language in the 19th century was wrong. But if they had left immediately after that and minded their business since then, running after them and yelling, “But how could you do that to us?” in 2016 would be deranged. Because it’s not “them” or “us” by any stretch of imagination. 

Also, the Russians are clearly to blame that the Donetsk Airport is a smouldering ruin. But they are in no way to blame for the insane Ukrainian corruption. And the Soviet Union is not to blame. Everybody who takes and gives bribes is. 

What I find annoying is how actively many Latin Americans are clinging to their grudge against Spain. Gosh, Spaniards left 200 years ago. Since then, they haven’t tried invading, they haven’t set up referendums on the Yucatan Peninsula, they haven’t sent Basque terrorists into Mendoza, they haven’t hired Paul Manafort to get Aznar elected president of Peru, they haven’t invested millions into trashing Latin American culture, they haven’t imprisoned and tortured any Chilean or Ecuadoran filmmakers or journalists, they haven’t accused Nicaraguans of crucifying Spanish toddlers or raping epileptic Spanish retirees. 

They are a model former colonizer. I know a country that would kill for a colonizer like that. 

Happy Ukraine Independence Day!