Clarissa's Blog

I used to want more readers in the early years of this blog. I self-promoted, participated in link fairs, etc.

These days, it’s the opposite. All I want is to not be noticed. I find it useful and fun to be able to post random things that occur to me throughout the day. I love the people we have here right now. Nobody is an idiot, nobody agrees with everything I say, nobody tries to make me swear allegiance to their dogma. Everybody has something of value to say and when they don’t, they stay silent.

I literally don’t know a place online that is so devoid of eager idiots. I’m very scared of eager idiots re-discovering my blog.

I often meet people around here who offer to pray for or with me, ask me to pray for them, or say they need to take a moment to pray. What I find culturally curious is that praying means something entirely different to them than it does to us.

For us, praying is done through a set statement that you recite, usually to yourself and not aloud. It has a cadence, a rhythm that is not only soothing but has numerical, mystical qualities. The text can’t be changed, it is what it is. You are not supposed to roll out a list of demands because you can’t know better than God.

And here people improvise and create their own little statements tailored to a specific occasion.

Neither method is better or worse. They simply serve entirely different purposes.

Klara says “thank you, you are welcome, excuse me, I apologize, and I’m sorry” very easily and often. But she never says “please” and stares at us in confusion when we ask her to say it.

This is obviously because she’s imitating my speech patterns. I’m a teacher, so I don’t ask. I give commands. Hence, no “please.”

But there are perks to being a professor’s kid. Today she said, for instance, “initially, he didn’t want to do it but then he did.” Initially, eh?

On Fox News, all commercials are for hearing aids, dentures and prostate problems. In the same time slot, the MSNBC ads are Uber, Facebook, and travel.

At the local beauty store, my sister, my niece and I got into the wrong line and debated loudly in Russian. Then we spilled a huge amount of coffee and made an enormous puddle on the floor.

“There is not a single person in this line who isn’t experiencing anti-immigrant sentiments right now,” I told my sister. “We just created several more Trump voters here at the store.”

What I don’t get about Facebook is what possesses normally reasonable people to inform the same tiny group of relatives and friends how much they detest Trump day after day after endless day, often many times a day. I mean, how is it possible that people don’t realize that communicating the same inane Hitler analogy to the same group of folks six times in a week is a bit redundant.

I wish I knew any Republicans so I could ask them if it was the same for them during the Obama years. It had to be, right?

A fellow around here bought a million dollar house without ever being inside. The buyer and the seller never clapped eyes on each other until the signing. The seller told me that when he came in to the notary to sign, he had no idea which of the guys there was the buyer and which the notary.

The house wasn’t for sale and wasn’t advertised on Zillow, so the buyer never saw any pictures. He just wanted it and kept sending offers until the owner agreed.

Other women stare at photos of handbags and shoes they dream about, and I have spent years coveting cassoulet gift boxes. If I had to choose between this and any outfit or accessory on the planet, the choice would be very clear.

People try so hard to find nice gifts for me when the best gift has always been located in the charcuterie department.

This “best tweet ever” is why I detest Twitter. It reminds me of those really unpopular, sad, nerdy kids in high school who were desperate to ingratiate themselves with the popular crowd. They’d act like clowns, crack dumb jokes, make outlandish compliments and look with forlorn, hopeful eyes at the popular kids, hoping to get noticed and approved.

I was the most unpopular kid known to humanity but I wouldn’t stoop to being servile to the class’s aristocracy. And it always felt like a huge betrayal when my brother and sister rejects simpered and begged for approval.

It’s only now that I finally figured out why political Twitter makes my blood boil. I still feel vicarious shame for people who are so desperate for approval.