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.