What I like about speaking to Ukrainian audiences is that nobody perceives me as particularly conservative. Here my opinions are far-right and there they are simply normal. I don’t think people even see them as political but more common sense than anything else.

Every time I tell one of my stories about the ideological compliance in North America, people at first look puzzled and then invariably say, “so it’s like in the USSR?” Because yes, it is. Not Stalin’s USSR, of course, but Brezhnev’s and, increasingly, Andropov’s.

“The first thing that neoliberalism does is create a moral and ethical catastrophe on a society-wide level,” said during today’s event the Dean of Liberal Arts of the university that hosted it. I jumped up in my seat because it’s almost literally what I’m saying in the book I’m writing right now. I never hoped to see the day when a Dean would talk about morality like it’s a good thing.

As a result of all these talks in Ukrainian, my Spanish has gone to the absolute dogs. I’m trying to translate my own article from English into Spanish, and the result is so hideous I want to scream. I will now have to restore my language skills by reading huge quantities of Andrés Trapiello whose prose style is inimitable. I’m not going to become as good as he is but at least I hope to stop sounding like my last name is Google Translate.

Today the book tour took me (remotely, of course) to the Ukrainian city of Lutsk. This was the best event of the book tour so far because quite a few people in the audience already read the book, so I didn’t have to give a talk or show slides.

There were some brilliant people there who have read Bauman and Leonidas Donskis, one of Bauman’s favorite interlocutors. Their understanding of neoliberalism’s assault on morality was superb. Finally, somebody brought up neoliberalism during one of my events. Until now, people have been hell-bent on talking about nothing beyond literary criticism.

One of the people in the audience said, “I’m not sure if everybody realizes but our speaker is the daughter of a famous Ukrainian writer who, sadly, died two years ago.” I started bawling and she read some quotes from Ukrainian artists who admired my father. Then I bawled some more. Another person in the audience cried, too, so it wasn’t completely weird.

Then somebody talked about the situation in Kharkiv, and I wept again.

On the positive side, I did remember to wear a different shirt today, and here’s proof:

Klara woke me up at 3 am today because she had a dream that my pet dragon breathed fire on her. It took a while to explain that I’m not planning to get a pet dragon, so I look like I’m 60 as a result.

Yes, welcome to Illinois. Knowing a bit of what goes on in Springfield, I have a nagging suspicion that somebody received a juicy state kickback to come up with this new and sensitive wording or rewrite the papers to include it.

Speaking of local food delivery, every time I tell people that I found a local dude who grows and sells high-quality mushrooms, they misunderstand me completely.

Campus protesters are coming out to protest this horror in 3…2…1… Yes, I know, they will very pointedly not notice.

You know what I intensely envy the British? Especially the British from the past?

Milk floats.

We are a family of inveterate milk-guzzlers. It would be phenomenal to have a little vehicle come by each morning to remove empty bottles and leave fresh ones. I don’t like drinking out of plastic bottles and I definitely don’t appreciate trudging to the grocery store for milk that is probably old every 3 days.

There are delightful descriptions of milk floats making deliveries in British literature and I always feel deprived when I read them.

True. I didn’t get a dime back from my security deposit the last time I rented. There was a roof leak that I had reported to the rental company for months. Nothing was done. And when I moved out, the security deposit was withheld in full to… pay for fixing the roof leak. Which I obviously hadn’t caused.

I didn’t pursue any legal remedy over it because, as the long-time readers know, I was experiencing a terrible personal situation and couldn’t find it in me to face additional unpleasantness.

In my extensive renting experience, you are much more likely to get your security deposit back when you rent from an individual and not a company. N, for instance, had to break his rental agreement when he lost his job and was almost deported. He was renting from a regular guy who understood completely, was very supportive, and returned the deposit which he didn’t even have to do.

After 17 years of elaborate home-cooked meals, I’m badgering N to reveal every culinary dream of his that hasn’t yet been fulfilled. Finally, he comes up with one.

Swedish-style, mashed-potato-stuffed meatballs with homemade tzatziki sauce.

I think this dish will turn out divinely.