If anyone is still reading this

This is--no joke--my immediate superior or "мини босс" (mini-boss):

... anyway, I'm sorry I haven't been posting much lately.  But I think it may simply be the symptom of an overall good thing (for me), in that I've really begun enjoying it here and I've been spending a lot more time out of the apartment and consequently not thinking quite so constantly about home (as was really the case for most of the fall).

It's basically spring here already.  In fact the Russians think spring started on March 1st, even though--I'm always trying to explain--the vernal equinox isn't actually for another week and a half...

So, what's new?  I guess there are two particularly major points.  First, I've been seeing a Russian girl for a few weeks now (those were her knees in that picture with marker drawings which she commissioned me to draw... beyond that, I understand them probably about as much as you do... oh, except that at first she wanted to name them "Monday" and "Friday", but I convinced her those weren't real names so it was better to name them "Mona" and "Frido" respectively...).  But her name is Люба/Liuba (the 'iu' is pronounced 'you'--so yeah, it's really fucking hard to say), she's in her last year at МГУ (Moscow State University), studying journalism, and yes she speaks English thank god.

The other bit of news is that I've been seriously looking at coming back to Moscow for another (as my mom already likes to call it) 'tour'.  No matter what, I'll be home (probably pretty evenly distributed between Beloit and Madison) sometime in August.  Then, if things work out, I'll be trying to get back here sometime in October.  So, I'll have plenty of time (I hope) to a.) see everyone b.) eat a ton of american food and c.) fill out all of my grad-school apps.

I've just realized that I haven't posted any pictures of the winter here at all (though it's just as well, since it's probably the most pitiful winter I've experienced in recent memory).  But I'll be posting a back-log of pictures accumulated over the past couple of months in the near future.

Send me emails or something.  I want to know how you all are doing.  What's the dish?  Any new tattoos and/or scars?  Who isn't speaking to who anymore?  Deaths/births/marriages?

"Yes, I was there.

I observed that circus.  Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing 'We Shall Overcome . . . Suum Day . . .' while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against?  Who ever heard of angry revolutionists swinging their bare feet together with their oppressor in lily-pad park pools, with gospels and guitars and 'I Have A Dream' speeches?"

The Work Week

это не нормально

this is exactly what it is like every time i go to a club.

a dream

last night i had a dream that began harmlessly enough.  i was just hanging out somewhere by the road when garrett came speeding by, waving and honking the horn of his little tiny italian convertible sports car or whatever.  but he was driving really fast and then just as he was approaching, he had to swerve for something and his car flipped and tumbled down the street toward me.

when i ran over to see if he was alright, i found him between some heaps of what was left of the car, on the ground, completely severed at his waist, with blood and guts all over the place.  he was conscious though and trying to halfway sit up.  then he looked at me and got really angry and yelled that he didn't want any help, that i should leave him alone and just let him die because his life would be over now anyway because of his disfigurement.  so, freaked out as i was anyway, i ran away.

later on (i guess the next day?  i'm not really sure how to account for time passing suddenly in a dream), i come to find out that two people actually did try to help garrett out--a father and son who were driving along.  but that garrett had somehow gotten hold of a hatchet, which he then used to murder them both.  then i find out (i don't know how i'm finding any of this out really) that i am now supposed to represent garrett in court, where he'll be tried for murder.  on top of that, barack obama is the prosecution--who i meet and try to talk to, but he's all business and pissed off at me for representing such a scum bag as garrett.

garrett meanwhile comes walking into the room, as pissed as when i left him before, with fresh scars wrapping all the way around his waist where the doctors eventually put him back together.  i'm scared as hell, thinking that if i don't represent garrett he'll murder me with a hatchet too (somehow after his surgery, garrett is like 6.5 feet tall and buff).  but at the same time barack obama is standing there scowling at us both.

i have never had such a stressful dream before.

tom cruise

i have a new student named nelly and she's a middle-aged woman who i teach privately in her office on the second floor of one of the biggest casinos in moscow (there are quite a few here).  she doesn't actually work for the casino, but she runs the 15-screen movie theatre (moscow's and probably russia's biggest) that's annexed to the place.

so anyway, nelly is pretty loaded.  she has her own personal driver, her husband is one of russia's top plastic surgeons (she's had a bit of work done herself), and at the end of every lesson we go and sit in a restaurant that overlooks the casino and she buys me sushi and mineral water.

now, i know what you're thinking, and yes, nelly is hitting on me.  but i don't even care.  i get free sushi (and mineral water) twice a week, and teaching her is really easy because all we ever talk about is verb tenses (she's all about those for some reason), growing up in russia vs. growing up in america, and how she loves learning english but only from men.  also, she has already asked me to teach her husband and son english (outside of language link, meaning big bucks, but hush-hush).

and today, over sushi, she told me that i'm welcome to come to the movie theatre and see movies for free, even though i probably won't be able to understand most of them because they're all either in russian or poorly dubbed into russian (i think the dubbing thing is a lot more popular than subtitles for whatever reason... probably just to help thwart the existence of outsiders in russia).  but whatever, i'll see free movies, even if i don't know what they're about.

and then nelly dropped the bombshell.  she fucking invited me to come with her on monday to the russian premiere of valkyrie, which will be at her theatre and which tom cruise will apparently be attending...!  she said if i came, we could probably get our pictures taken with him!  (what's the big idea russia.  just when i thought i sort of hated you, you put tom cruise potentially within arm's reach.  this place just isn't real.)

but it's no big deal, nelly says, because big stars are always coming to premieres at her theatre.  they've gotten just about everyone except, according to her, leonardo decaprio, who i guess asked for too much money.

anyway, it's a new year(!) and things are looking up.  except garrett's cigarette wound is still there.