parallel

I hadn't seen Sara in over two years, and in Moscow at that, but it didn't feel like it. She is bright and warm and beautiful. She borrowed a book she loves and which I finished earlier this month (Salinger's Franny and Zooey) in addition to a biography of Brodski. We ate and walked and I told her about the parallel lives I imagine*, and she told me about her future plans. When she was leaving, she offered me her scarf as a gift but I said "no"; "why?"; "because you need it!" She left it on my bed anyway, folded neatly, brown bikes on cyan cloth.

* I don't know if this is an immigrant thing or just me, but I wonder what would have happened had I grown up in Moscow. It's important not to do this too much, otherwise one can go a bit mad. Interestingly, I don't really do it for Israel (though the chance of ending up there is just as real, if not more so). Maybe I would have been a bit more chill, and I know a couple of the people I would know better had I lived there (Ilya whom I met two years ago, and Manya - people used to tell us we look like sisters before she moved to Israel in middle school) but it doesn't seem like I would be fundamentally different. I also haven't been there in a really long time, so perhaps I simply don't have enough information to fantasize.
I also don't really imagine what it would be like if I had gone to Clark University or UMass Amherst (the other two colleges I had been considering for my bachelors), or if I hadn't met the specific part of the Russian-Jewish community I'm part of in 8th grade. It doesn't make sense to, because I can't imagine anything in it's place except misery. 

I think with Moscow it's due to a string of 'coincidences'.
I met a boy Danya from St. Petersburg about a month ago, and he introduced me to his friend, who knew my cousins because they go to the 57th school (it seems that about 50% of the Russian-speakers I know went there). When Andrej came to camp in 2008, I already had been him four years prior in Karelia, and of all the people there, I had made sure to get his address for correspondences (though never wrote to him). In Berlin, I was staying with Sasha and his apartment mates. Mama had a friend through live journal but never met her in person, and this woman knew Sasha had a room. When Dasha Sh. visited me for a day it turned out she knew Sasha's sister. In Moscow I was brought to the same alternative-space by two different people, and it was best put by Varya: this place is widely known in narrow circles. There are others. I may be wrong, there are circles that don't quite overlap. The people I know from MGU who studied mathematics don't know all these people, though Sima is the reason I ended up in Karelia.

And that's where it is: that moment. Some things I have no idea about - how would I have been different had I grown up in a city, specifically Moscow - more neurotic? aggressive? sexually focused? feminine? cruel? educated? What has been lost and what has been acquired by me leading the life I lead, and not the life I don't lead (as Sara noted, there is inevitably a touch of sadness in considering the alternative. like maybe those things are missing from me.)
But some things are fixed. I may not have known the same exact people, but I would have almost known them. Known someone they know or gone to the same space and held the same political and social views. In a world of over seven billion, there are not that many that I could know, even if I had ended up living 4,500 miles away.

goes on

this weekend Hannah came and visited me. I also saw Sam in Boston, soon to leave on his tentatively year-long trip along the coast, on a sailboat he cobbled together himself.

I went to a gallery opening of my photo teacher from highschool, who retired this last year. Her eyes are a sharp blue, and her show was on female beauty and aging (Marky Kauffmann).

Everyone is well.

helix

what?
a helix piercing, followed by vegan milkshakes and watching The One I Love (2014, USA, McDowell).

when?
The 14th of September, it was a lovely day.

where?
Stingray Body Art, then FoMu and finally West Newton Cinema (the theater is slightly decrepit, but I like it).

why?
because I've wanted to for so long it felt like I already had it done years ago. I told Dasha Sh when I was in Moscow in February of 2009, and she sent me a letter with a little hoop earring, which took about two months to come but did make it (surprisingly, happily).

who?
me, the writer, with her lovely friend Yulka.

how?
with a needle. with money. with pressure. with choice. with a hand. with a deep breath in and a deep breath out. with advice. with memory. with metal in flesh.

which?
the right one.

The Mall

For most of my life I viewed buying clothes as an unpleasant but necessary part of existence. Society demands I wear clothes, and so does the weather (most of the time, around here anyway). Eventually, clothes shopping stopped being so horrible, clothes more interesting. I never really started liking malls, other places are nicer, but I will admit that they are an efficient way for the many to get clothes and kill time. Mama often has me tag along to help her choose outfits. Yesterday's trip was like this.

One of the restaurants at the mall Is called Wasabi, and has one of those futuristic Japanese conveyor belts with portions: inari sushi, sashimi, seaweed, wasabi peas. Different colored plates are different prices, ranging from 2-5$ a plate, all going round and round. It's very efficient - the waitresses can deal with more customers at a time and don't have to take an order, and it's easier to decide on what you want when it's passing by you - and easier to take more than you should if the temptation keeps flickering past. It reminds me of the Charlie Chaplin feeding machine, except making leisure more efficient instead of the workplace.

Across from the Wasabi a store had recently opened - Uniqlo, also from Japan (I'm sure its placement is not an accident.) It's had an aggressive ad campaign and the store was abuzz. It is larger than most spaces at the mall, lined with identically repeating plain articles of clothing. Thirty gray puffy vests on one side of a rack, thirty maroon, otherwise identical puffy vests on the other side. More on the walls. Square shelves all the way to the ceiling with socks, different patterns in each square cube. As new-time costumers, they asked us to fill out a short questioner about our experience. Usually I wouldn't have, but this time I did, write in comment: The set-up is alientating. Repetitive and robotic.

but maybe these leggings will last?

hot peanuts cold beer

In NYC for labor day weekend, I arrived at Luisa's and Sasha's apartment a little before midnight. I had the pleasure of meetings Sasha's ginger kitten Filibuster, and in the morning we made pancakes (with Sasha, not with Filibuster). Sasha and I went to meet Hannah and Will, we walked the highline and hung out in a posh village apartment where Will was temporarily staying.

I met up with Bianca the next morning: she's leaving for graduate school in London soon. She told me about Central Park's designer and commented on how weird some the new architecture coming up is. In the afternoon I traveled down from midtown to Brooklyn to meet Shinno. We walked around and right as it started raining, we were inside eating ramen (for the first time, for me). When it stopped we walked and walked until we stopped at Skinny Denis, where an all female modern mariachi band was playing, and in hand-lettering, it said "hot peanuts cold beer" across the entrance window. Alligator lounge later, where each drink came with a complimentary personal pizza, and we were joined by Shinno's friends who'd I'd never met but they seemed familiar anyway.  

Monday was another parting with Hannah and Will, the heat had gotten to us and as we ate froyo a crime scene was being set up across the street.

I've shot three rolls and have only scanned the second one I shot. 

Brimfield Flea Market

Sunday we went to a flea market the size of a few blocks. broken wind-up wristwatches, giant heavy tables made out of found wood and factory parts, jewelry, door knobs, plates, dresses, a giant antique yellow sofa (the kind with the arms splayed out), bells, cameras, Buddhas, all things rust (like old-fashioned apple peelers), vases, glass figurines, posters, step stools, postcards (with and without writing, I got one sent in 1908), scales, glass bottles, suitcases and storage trunks, wooden cases with tons of tiny little drawers, cameo and other pins, and 'open' sign with an arrow (like those seen in movies about old Vegas or old NYC), lamps from many different eras, cigarette lighters with wicks, baskets, furniture keys, chairs, books, Life magazine and Playboy, spools of thread, type keys and other stamps, more tables, rugs, satchels, large coral, shoes, photo enlarger that just needed a light bulb, machine oil, school lockers, mirrors, and so many things that I didn't even know what they were. I  don't know if I saw things just once and they impressed me, or multiple times. If I saw them multiple times in different places, or just past the same place more than once. Like the city of Zirma, a blind black man shouting in the crowd, a lunatic teetering on a skyscraper's cornice, a girl walking with a puma on a leash.

We got Polish food from a man who moved here 25 years ago but still wears Polish crest necklace, and got lemonade somewhere else. I sent the postcard from 1908 to Hannah, the vendor told me all he knew about Marshall McLuhan, which was a lot; About how he predicted that it was information that was valuable, not computers, and that he coined the terms "global village" and "the medium is the message". We also talked about how they no longer are teaching cursive in schools, which I read about as well, and how because of that one of the guys who came by looking to buy (and sell) autographs was freaking out because what happens to autographs when penmanship dies. How writing by hand will be an upper class thing again. "Wait one second, I have to finish" he said "this is one of my favorite topics". Though, in spite all this, Sima came from school today and told me that they are going to start teaching them cursive in third grade, same as they did with me. The vendor was so caught up in his own speech that he gave me an extra dollar back in change.

Some boy tried to get my attention (which caught me off guard more than usual) and Mama said "I know! you can't meet boys at bars. They are too standard and basic for you. You need to meet boys at places like antique fairs, where they are strange and inadequate"

Birthday Queen

Yulka's birthday, as usual, was during our camping trip. She had considered not coming - but something about being alone on the day she turns 22, after spending it with us for most of those years, turned her against the decision (thankfully.) For me the night was perfect in a way words cannot quite describe, though I will pitifully try.

The four of us (Yulka, me, Lizza, Veta) celebrated, first sitting on top of the playground structure, trying to get enough reception to play a Miley Cyrus song from when she was still Hannah Montana. We watched the sun set and felt the chill set in. Most everyone went to the theater that day, but we drove to a gas station instead; played a mix cd on the way, got chips and the saccharine poison Red Bull. Ordered a Dominoes pizza and consumed it, crouching in front of Yulka's car on the pavement. Lizza and Veta presented the Birthday Queen with cards and flowers and a bracelet. I was happy, and I think they were too.

CC 2014

I wrote to Sorrel about camping this year, and she agreed that this is what it's like when you meet up with old friends: everything is exactly the same, yet different.

We did things, as usual - same people with a few variations, and the kids are growing. KVN, climbed in the trees of an adventure park, swam. We put on plays, played music, cooked, played games, attended classes, hugged, slept, stayed awake, drank, recited poetry. Part of the time I felt anxious like a crumpled piece of paper. Part of it I was as gleeful as a soon-to-expire spark of fire, singeing joyously against the cold summer night. Sometime I will be back again, but not to this place, not quite.

coconut cake

DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT

says the banner in the middle of town. I'm not sure what they want me to vote for. People have been standing on the corners of streets with signs -- waving and smiling, but their waving and their smiling is so peculiar that I have yet to read what the sign says.

Yesterday Yosef and I sat in the car after buying him school supplies, ate Reese's cups and debated who has a bigger nose. He turned 16 the day before, complaining about school the second day in, but I hope he enjoyed the coconut cake.

Tomorrow I'll be helping at a 3D printing booth at Sudbury Fair.