Sundowner 07/21

Jetlag into Europe from the US is always so much harder than on the way back. Yosef and I struggled to get up before noon, and then went to the Aldi across the street to grab yogurt, as well as the bag of muesli and box of tea mentioned in a previous post. I also accidentally bought fresh yeast thinking it was butter with honey in it. In my defense, it was yeast that was made with honey, so, I had read part of it correctly. And it was in the butter section. Misdirection via context clues.

We then made our way to the Old Masters Picture Gallery which frankly is a great museum. I noted many artists with whom I was not familiar to look up later and got postcards, which is my standard museum procedure while traveling. We then doubled back to a touristy stretch of restaurants and ate a decent meal at Wilma Wunder, though again with disappointing frothy milky drink. 

So I haven’t mentioned yet my impetus for traveling to Europe. It is this: my friend from college Bianca, with whom I have maintained a connection across the Atlantic for nine years, was getting married. Or having a ceremony: logistically they had to get married for her husband to enter Ireland where she had found a job. I actually have a post which gives me the last time I saw her before she went to get her Masters in London. Nine years! Crazy. This was later followed by a PhD in Cape Town, South Africa, where she met her now-husband. She has family in Germany ergo the German destination. I offered Yosef to make a sibling trip of it, since he was musing about travel already, and so he became my plus-one.

To start off the celebratory festivities they arranged for a Sundowner gathering by the river. Sundowner is the South African tradition of having drinks at sunset. It was also an opportunity to meet her husband for the first time before the actual wedding ceremony. I was the only person from our college to attend the wedding, and so everyone else there was a stranger to me. Yosef struck it up with an urban designer from Amsterdam, I chatted with an art teacher at a high-needs school in NYC. Then, just around the planned end time, it started to pour rain: one of the grooms’ friends from Cape Town lent me his sweater and Yosef and I trotted away to the Sbahn.

My mother told me the last post was too long but perhaps reflected the first day of long travel. Lucky for her I had already written this one out before she told me this and it turned out shorter! Hurrah! 

Kefir and Muesli

I will later perhaps try and make sense of my abrupt return here.

Later, too, I will outline in greater detail the actual details of my trip, which spanned Dresden, Prague, and Berlin. 

But right now I am trying to grasp the things that I gained from my vacation: long walks, kefir in the morning, good meals out, art museums, my traveling companion (my brother, a month shy of 25, who requested we spend most of the time speaking Russian, which we did until we got to Berlin), writing, photography, seeing friends I hadn't seen in a decade or so, meeting strangers, coffee, beer, taking in the streets...hoping to hold onto these things and bring them home. 

Kefir was easy to arrange, the muesli slightly less easy but I was able to create an approximation of my own. The American cereal aisle is dessert for breakfast: from unabashedly candy-flavored, to sugar-coated raisins feigning a balanced start to the day. I was able to find something with flakes and granola to mix in with oats, flax, and hemp. Blackberries were more affordable this grocery trip than they usually are, and the nectarines were on sale. I don't think about the cost of fruit when traveling. Red and Black currant was in season and readily available in Europe. It is such a rarity in the US, especially since black current was illegal for almost a century and continues to be highly regulated as a crop. And so, I can recreate the breakfast Yosef and I had every day in Europe. We had carried a bag of muesli we got in Dresden to Prague and then back up to Berlin, eating exactly one bag between the two of us during the whole trip, and drinking through a box of English Breakfast tea. It is hotter in Chicago than it was in Europe, so here I have been brewing a large amount of chai and sticking it in the fridge for iced chai in the morning.

I realize, dear reader, this is a very literal way to try and capture a vacation to extend it into “regular” life. I do believe though, that some of our life is informed by the ways in which we follow day-to-day actions. And there may be something to be learned from observing what one does when plucked from those rhythms which we neglect to otherwise examine. Some of the ways in which we are in life will not be shaken when we travel, no matter what we hope, sure, but I found more affirmations than disappointments.

Many of the things I did differently were less ... self-indulgent? hedonistic? in nature, than one might expect. These terms have baggage – Protestant ethic morality versus Pagan debauchery comes to mind. But here in 2023: when tired at the end of a long week, I am more likely to fall into watching a show or YouTube endlessly, and sometimes believe that if given the opportunity to exist without responsibilities, this is the sad place I would find myself. And perhaps, sometimes, that is true. But not always. What I am thinking of is Pleasure Paradox/Hedonistic Treadmill. (My father texted me on the trip asking if these terms were mainstream – I said I don’t know, and that I am not a good measure of what is mainstream knowledge in psychology.) I was surprised how much I wanted to do things, even the things that are not the most direct path the pleasure. 

Yes of course some combination of vacation-magic and necessity meant eating out for most of our meals, and this is not something I want to or can do otherwise, though about half of these meals were very enjoyable. At the same time, it seems I found more energy to do the work of finding slower burning contentment, which has been evading me lately. I remember last time I was in Berlin I felt inspired to stop eating meat again - I had started eating it again at the end of my first year of college, feeling unable to push back on the chaotic selection at the college dining hall. But I felt inspired again in Berlin - found the energy to pursue this small bit of idealism after a year break. I continue this way still, eating meat about once a year, the rest of the time automatically defaulting to the way I have eaten since I was 14. Two of the most recent carnivorous instances in the past two years were on this vacation, in Prague, when I found myself sprung out of rhythms. I see a lot online about motivation versus discipline, but personally, life would be easier if I had a better practiced thoughtlessness. Good habits have always felt like the slipperiest of eels thrashing out of my grip.

My tomato plants which had started to carry green berries when I flew out are now holding ripe tomatoes. I made my first harvest on Friday, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and mixed in with burrata cheese which I shared with a studio friend before we went to a small gallery near me. Two small rooms, a stream of people going in and out, it was free. Art museums are harder to arrange at home. They are certainly one of the planned indulgences of travel. We bought three-day art tickets in Berlin, and saw art in every city. But at home, as large as the Art Institute in Chicago is - and it is, it is massive - I have many of the rooms memorized by now. Perhaps next time I will return with a sketchbook. Do a better job of tracking down smaller galleries – and so on.  

I read half of Erwin Mortiers Shutterspeed on my flight back, and finished it my first day home, with a slow realization that I must have already read it, possibly all the way through, when I purchased it - I think in 2015 on a trip to NYC. The graphics on the cover are perhaps, then, more memorable than the text itself. Regardless of my enjoyment of the novel, the act of reading was less laborious than it has been of late. 

I have walked at least four miles every day since returning to Chicago but want to learn to run - time saving relative to walking for a couple hours, some flexibility to do it in the morning before it gets too hot after the effects of my jetlag run out. Yesterday it was raining but I still went, after an apartment viewing fell through, to watch the waves of Lake Michigan crash into the rocks and cement steps that make up the lakeshore. I thought: if I take in Chicago as if it is a new city to me, or a city I love, perhaps living here will be easier. I am good at appreciating the alleyways, the graffiti, the light, but sometimes Chicago feels gray and desolate, its industrial roots mean occasional vacant stretches within the city itself, breaking up life. My experience here, too, is broken up by the plague, the often fleeting or superficial social connections of grad school, and my own personal upheavals. I am trying - started to before I left - to have a true Chicago summer. Everybody here says summer is the best time but I dread the sticky heat. It melts my brain and makes me sick. But I still endeavor to steal some of its spirit for myself; swimming in the lake, attending some of the dozens of farmers markets and festivals that spring up, and eating ice cream. Perhaps these are avenues to fall into conversations with strangers and see the city with new eyes. Bring a camera with me, write about it here. 

 Wish me luck.

ny winter

Another one that got lost in the anneals of the draft box, regarding the end of 2017

I am starting to think that lyricism is a frame of mind, a lens to look through at the world. It is something I have been struggling with lately. To lose the ability to look at the world cinematically is also the loss of ability to take photographs and write; and it is daunting to try and find that lens, misplaced somewhere in the attic of the mind.

After lengthy and long overdue conversation on the phone with Esther, during which she mentioned that she was going to NYC and said that I should come, I made some arrangements to take the trip. Canada, where she lives, is far away; NYC less so. The practice where I work had no patients that week anyway, so on Wednesday morning I took the subway over to south station and started my long bus ride over. I got off by FIT and entered the first place that served food. I scarfed down what amounted to two lunches; a large soup with bread, and a large piece of greasy spinach cake which was more delicious when I started it than when I took the last bite. Having completed this meal, I headed towards Wall Street. 

Leonid had warned me, somewhat embarrassed, "it's very posh". I entered the building from the wrong side, and a hotel-visitor pointed me towards the check-in desk for the apartments. Everything is gilded gold, with sweeping stone floors and an enormous Christmas tree lit up in the hall. The concierge rung up to the apartment, got Leonid's ok to let me in and buzzed the turnstiles. To my right, a couple rooms were sectioned off with slow arches, separating the postal boxes from everything else to hogwartsian effect. Finally, I made my way up in the pho-Greek style elevators to the sleek apartment with impressively large windows reaching all the way up to the tall ceilings. I claimed one of the couches to sleep on and met a flat mate that had not yet left for winter holidays. Leonid made us some drinks - a skill he's been honing recently. Eloosha swung by and it was funny to think; how different and how the same we all are, that we have known each other for more than half our lives. Once Eloosha had left Leonid and I went to get dinner; poke bowls close by, a fad that is not quite caught on in Boston. Then drinks. Then sleep.

When I got up in the morning I had the place to myself. I made myself some coffee and fell asleep again. There was something very nice about this; I often wake up tired but I am never able to do anything about it - waking up a second time well rested was lovely. I lounged around the apartment for the entire morning, reading Jean Gadget's Prisoners of Love and arranging my thoughts. For lunch, I met Leonid and Kostya by Union Sq., Dorado's and I can only remember that we ended the conversation discussing spelling. Writing now, I remember that my New Year's resolution a few years ago was to improve my spelling, the results of this resolution, like of many New Year’s resolutions, are very limited. On top of that, difficult for me to evaluate: even if my spelling has improved, my ability to catch misspellings has not so I can't do a comparison and see how far along I am.

Leonid and I then headed towards the winter market and went hunting for a supplementary Christmas gift for his girlfriend. We both bought some tights from an energetic group of Israeli women doing convincing demonstrations. More coffee and then to a party somewhere in midtown, with his law-student friends. I was immediately served an old-fashioned - his friend also honing his cocktail-making skills. A log burning in a fireplace filled the room up with smoke. Chips and another drink and talking; stories about a terrible house guest, discussions about identity. It got late and then later and then we departed. 

Leonid left early the next morning and I waved him a sleepy goodbye from the couch. Another lounging morning and then headed towards Union Sq. to drop off my backpack with Kostya who had kindly agreed to hold onto it. Then I walked 25 blocks to meet Esther and Niko. A tight warm hug! Lots of bread for lunch. A face sorely missed. And then, after a few hours, I walked back to Kostya and to my backpack, talking to Matt on the phone - it was already snowing in Boston.

Kostya continued to work and I went back to the winter market to pick out a couple of gifts and track down the artist name for a ring that was beautiful but much too expensive to buy. Twinkling lights and postcards and sweaters, mulled cider and felted ornaments. For my mother: Brooklyn truffle oil, for Matt: NY made ghost pepper hot sauce. Once Kostya was done we got pizza and headed towards the main event - Eloosha's birthday party at Olivia's place in Brooklyn. Immaculately decorated and hosted, rooms filled with people and mulled wine. Here too: it got late and then it got later, and Kostya Rebecca and I got a ride back to Kostya's place where I now again claimed a couch as my bed.

I had slept in later than usual: the living in which I slept had no windows, so no light woke me. Soon we had gathered ourselves for brunch; hipstery eggs Benedict. Then we went to get Eloosha and Olivia and some bags and back to wintry Massachusetts (though I had bought a bus ticket, but a car ride with friends won out).

Now I’m home.

Valentine's Day

Yesterday Matt and I went to the ICA: he wanted to take me out for Valentin's day, even though I don't care about it but it was nice to go, which I guess is the point. We saw the short animated films nominated for the Oscar, of which we both will highly recommend: Negative Space (Max Porter and Ru Kawahata). He wanted to see some of the museum as well, but we just ate and went home on account of a headache. Planning on returning this Thursday.

Thinking back on past Valentin's day's: one year Kostya got me roses, which I accepted and felt like I was doing him a favor by not being cruel and turning down. So long ago. One year I went with a roommate to eat cheese and drink beer at Aeronaut. I want to go there again; the roommate and I no longer talk. When Matt and I started dating, February rolled up fast so we ran away to Canada, where it was too cold for all the little red hearts. Last year we did go out: Wednesday night I think. I got drunk though, I didn't like myself that night. This year I got got him small things over weeks: vinyl of an artist we will be seeing this summer (hear), we made palmiers (taste), a scented candle (smell), poems (feel), flowers (see). About half way through he said "are these gifts for me, or is this an art project?" "both - and you are my muse"

A couple days ago I finished reading Cities I've Never Lived In by Sara Majka. I'm going to send it to Luisa, I think she'll like it.

Tonight Matt and I spent an hour reading old pieces we had written, leaving us pensive. I am falling asleep now. good night.

Fenway Garden

Yesterday I went to small photo exhibit which had the work of my high school photo teacher. I quickly reverted to how awkward I was back then; felt odd in my body and stilted in conversation. Almost funny.

Now I'm home and making dinner. Most of today I walked Boston with Anna: the Christian Church of Science was a strange place to stop on our way to the MFA's exhibit on The Summer of Love (hyper-saturated posters and black and white photos from San Francisco)

self portrait in pot of rice

The best part of the day though, by far, was going by this expansive garden called The Fenway Garden Society. Hundreds of plots, each curated in a different way: some lovingly cultivated flowers, others have very pragmatic vegetable plots, still others have little fountains and arched veins over benches, some with Asian influences with lily-pads and bamboo, others European down to little bird baths (and a very striking bird dancing around the edge) and even spruce and other trees. And it's sizable, so you can walk up and down the rows and feel lost in the little worlds: passed a man reading a book, Labrador by his side, an older couple watering their garden and a young woman watering hers across the path, one garden on the edge audibly buzzing from bees attracted to spearmint.

Geysir, Gullfoss and a Hydroelectric Dam

I was genuinely hoping that WOW air would refund us some of the money we lost getting a last minute room in Reykjavik and getting toiletries. Our plan was to start driving the first day and camp out but since our tent was still in US along with our toothbrushes and most everything else, we had to find a place to sleep. Unfortunately, as of now, nothing. We e-mailed them multiple times to get only initial responses, and called only to be told to wait even longer than we already have. *UGH*

also the second Yucca plant is now also gone for the worse. Help?

We slept that night at Captain Reykjavik, took sulfer-scented showers and headed over to the Sandholt bakery. The museum ticket we had bought yesterday lasted for 24hrs and allowed entry to 3 museums, so we headed to the sculpture museum. It's in an artists house and though it was at that time simply filled with his work, there where three small things I liked about it.
1) the dome upstairs had the strangest acoustics. It felt like I was walking ahead of myself, the way of the echo of Matt's shoes lined up exactly with when I was about to step. Like the opposite of a thunderclap being delayed after lightening strikes, or an auditory version of the rubber hand illusion. 

2) The artist had created the building, it's white and stark . He said he wanted to make it like the stark land around him, that Icelandic architecture is often made of wood even though there are no trees, and that this is not the way it is supposed to be; that architecture is supposed to expand off of the landscape. It made me pay more attention to the buildings for the rest of the trip. 

3) There was a sculpture garden outside with little windy paths and thickets of trees, and I always find those types of nooks warm and inviting. Not very expansive, but still nice. 

We walked around a golf course before heading to get groceries (always great in a new place: the aisles are wider, and the carts are four-wheel drive), sushi for lunch, propane and our luggage.


From Reykjavik we started on the Golden Circle and the Southwest of Iceland. First stop was Þingvellir. Two things attract people to it. Firstly it's a rift between tectonic plates, though that comes across more clearly in ariel shots. Secondly it is by Alþing, the location of the first parliament in the world, which isn't really much to look at. We walked to Öxarárfoss (foss is always waterfall) in the area. Iceland has so many gorgeous waterfalls, and we started ranking them as we carved our way around the coast: this one consistently stayed in last place. In sum, mostly a tourist destination with a pool in which a bunch of women where drowned. 

After that we tried to find our first natural-hot-water. Our guide book had mentioned a municipal geothermal pool. We came to the Laugarvatn, consisting of two residential streets intercepting. The village pool was closed: we wandered around the building and saw the pool, which looked like a standard swimming pool but did not smell of chlorine. All the lights were off in the building and a family was just leaving. It felt like we were snooping around a YMCA. There was a place we could have paid 40$ but that seemed a bit much so after finding the YMCA bathroom, we moved on. 

Next stop was Geysir: the gyser after which all other geysers are named. It was freezing outside but we did not have to wait long for it to spout. The water is blue in the pit, and before it gets ready to spray it gets sucked in a bit. Ten minutes in between expulsions builds up appropriate suspense. The one that was spouting was actually not THE Great Geysir but Strokkur, which is younger and erupts more frequently but with less intensity. The pictures I took turned out fairly terribly, so here's one of me with the snarky entrance sign too. 

And then we went to Gullfoss. Foss is waterfall, remember? Gull is gold - gold waterfall. As, again, with the wind so cold we were spared the thicket of tourists that should have followed us everywhere on this trip, but also we did not have the light that perhaps contributed to the waterfall's name. Gullfoss is really large, and I while I did take pictures they don't capture how small we felt standing next to it. We spent some time in existential trepidation staring at the water crashing down.

One of the places my father had really talked up in Iceland was this meeting of two rivers in the Fjallbank Nature Reserve, specifically the Landmannalauger area. Even the handy guidebook highlighted the hot streams in the area, along with some hiking through gorgeous rhyolite peaks. The specific area my parents had enjoyed there was a cold river that met a hot river, and a lot of cool people where hanging out there: bikers, hikers and such, and the water was perfect for relaxing in. So we headed towards there, into the highlands where civilization became even sparser.

We drove for a while. At some point late we stopped at an old stone Skaftholtsréttir (sheep fold) no longer in use. It used to sort the sheep in the south but now they use a more modern one closer to the capital. It was 11pm. I was too tired to even get out of the car but Matt was intrigued by the random-maze we found and stopped to explore and figure out what it is. There was nobody else there. Even though there was an official plaque it isn't marked on any maps. Long-day induced magic. We kept driving.

We came up on a hydroelectric dam. It was menacing but the road forward was roped off. We set up our tent for the first time, the wind blowing, no trees to protect us. I had been thinking this whole time that park meant trees but it was now that it dawned on me that this word mapping did not apply in this strange land. We set up our tent; it was cold and the sun had set but it was still light out even at 1am. Just as we entered the tent for the night, it began to snow.

Yucca Cane

At the Kjarvalsstaðir art museum, we stumble for a second time on the work of Ragnar Kjartansson. The entire museum was a retrospective on him, the big one being an almost endless opera piece with multiple pianos and singers set up surround-sound in a large hall. Walking around the hall allowed for interaction of music/space and the social aspect that comes with knowing that the performers are there for the whole day and so walk in and out to supply themselves with more water and switch pairings and stop playing for a little bit; the dance of life happening during a concert you could walk through.  

This was exciting because on our first trip together, Matt and I had seen the same artists work in Montreal. And though I'm still more excited about the piece we saw in Canada, it was pleasantly serendipitous. (and, still without a tent, we used the museum's wifi to book a room for the night.) Now - another hall had photographs hung on the walls, and yucca cane plants and boom boxes on the floor. I don't remember if there was any sound but I'm going to take a step back to the Yucca cane.

The only reason I know what that is is because Matt and I had recently acquired one for our apartment. This happened maybe three weeks before we left for the trip. I love plants. I have a few and I like that they add life the the kitchen, but also decided not to get too many more because Matt likes space to look neat, and visually plants are more chaotic than neat. But one day Matt was looking around and decided that we need a plant, urgently, because there was what felt like a hole in the room. Since I had felt that hole for a while (and in many other places; I like spaces to be crammed) we soon found ourselves at Ricky's Flower Shop a few minutes drive away. The place is like Mary Poppin's handbag: bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, filled with all sorts of leafy-friends to take home. We looked at three different pots filled with three yucca canes each and finally picked one out and took it home with us. A plant is like a pet that you don't need clearance for from your landlord. I was quite happy with our exotic new addition.

I don't know when it happened, but it was sad: perhaps the middle cane came to us ill, or it simply because ill soon upon entering our abode. In either case, it started to wilt and droop and ooz terribly stinky black goop. Trying the clean it up my hands got covered in the stench with the slightest dab of sap. I read up on the internet on how to help the infirm plant, and bought insecticide. And I sprayed it daily with the smelly all-natural insecticide. And when we left for Iceland we had a weak hope that it would make it. The plant only needs to be watered about once every two weeks, so this trip was perfect in terms of watering.When we returned it had clearly made a turn for the worse. It reeked, and as I tried to pull it out of the ground the bark pealed off into my hands. And since the other two were perfectly happy as they were, we went for the kill. It looks like a murder-crime scene, ft yucca plant The other two are still healthy: may they not grow too quickly.

Sleep Deprived in Reykjavik

We landed in Keflavik International Airport at 4:35 am. I had not slept on the plane. Dragging through a bog of exhaustion, we found our way to Joe and the Juice. We drank our shake/juice, and then we made our way down to the baggage claim.

A note on Joe and The Juice: it is a chain, there are two spots at the airport and at least two in Reykjavik. The name, it isn't a good one, refers to the fact that they have both a juicing machine and a coffee machine. The name, and the exact type of terrible that it is, is a good representation of the names of shops we found in Reykjavik. Names are: idontspeakicelandic (tourist shop) bad taste (music shop) farmers and friends (like words with friends! but not a cross-word puzzle game, an expensive clothing store!)

Many tourists are from the US, UK or Canada, insuring a lot of English is spoken around you - and leading to most signs and all tourism workers speaking at least some English. We were lucky: we were earlier in the season and the weather wasn't always great, so we managed to avoid some of the tourist hoards. But they certainly exist, and I think the weirdly English-named shops are a good indication of that. From the USA, more tourists come than there are native Icelanders; and we are hardly the only ones. 

Matt sarcastically approved me putting up this photo if I labeled it as sarcasm. Joe as famous sculpture.

We walked down and looked and looked and did not find our baggage. We filled out forms and found out that the next incoming flight from Boston is not for another 24hrs. So we walked out of the airport with only our backpacks and picked up the 4wd rental (a silver Suzuki Vitara) and drove towards Bergsson Mathús to get breakfast. After this my mind started drifting off to sleep: we managed to climb to the top of Hallgrímskirkja (a contemporary-looking church) but after that I dozed off in the car. 

view from Hallgrímskirkja 

Once I woke up, we headed to the Kjarvalsstaðir art museum. Then we walked along the river, entered the Harpa music building and finally collapsed in our hotel room bed at Captainn Reykjavik (which considering we had found only a few hours previously, was quite nice) 

from inside Harpa music hall

We slept for three hours and went to Matwork for food.  We kept looking around and almost choosing places to eat because they were called Matthis and thisMat(t). Turns out Matur means food, not a shortened Matthew. I fell asleep, after a very long day, at 11:30 pm. Matt fell asleep at 1am, and it was still light out.

Construction

On October the 19th, we were over at Em's. This was the night I had smoked a full cigar, exhaling it through my mouth and inhaling the smoke through my nose into my lungs until I felt too dizzy to sit. I lay down and listened to the sounds of the room, exclamations and roaring laughter gave way to chitter and chatter and quieter conversations, and by then the world had stop spinning so much around my body. Em and Launti had gone to bed. World Matt and I stayed up watching "That's My Boy", which World claims is the movie of his people (set in his hometown of Somerville). I said we should go for a walk, but a little past midnight World fell asleep in his chair, mid-sentence.

It was drizzling outside when we left the apartment. I used a gray blanket from the couch as a cloak and Matt pointed at a building not too far away and said it looked like Christmas lights so we went towards the twinkling, found the gates to the site unlocked, and climbed, ten stories up, with a view of the city spreading out below us on all sides. I wanted to return to take photos so on the 14th of December we did. It was unseasonably warm and rainy, and in two months glass had arrived to the first nine stories of the building, and wooden beams had appeared on the first couple floors. But the gate was still unlocked and the security guard was not doing his job, so we went up and up again. Here are a few of the photos from that hunt -

different building, still twinkled

 

 

 

august nyc

I said I would write about my trip to NYC - kept putting it off. It was unbearably and undeniably summer, my least favorite season, the heaviness of the heat suffocating; fingers prying at my neck.
I went to see Bengi who I had met in Berlin. It's been so many years! She was interning at the Turkish Mission in the UN. She still holds some wounder.  I had been so happy in Berlin and was so forlorn in NYC but it was still good to see her.

Saw Kostya , we ate Ukrainian food and I talked about how shitty it is to be with R. and as we parted we passed a memorial for an exploded building.
Saw Shinno who broke his femur in a motorcycle accident a year prior, listening to him tell me how he was bedridden for a month and took two months of waking up with the shakes to get off the pain medication, saying "I decided to come out of it stronger than I went in"

Saw Sasha who saw me cry furiously and powerlessly at an exhibit that aestheticized the bodies of people jumping out of buildings to their deaths, saw me walk out of a restaurant when we were trying to order Chinese to-go, saw me through the lens of her camera and captured me beautifully in spite of all the ugliness inside.
Saw Luisa who works at the Cloisters and let me in for free.
 

perfume

My mother keeps telling me to be kinder to myself. I called her on the phone, after what I thought were tentative plans turned to vapor and left no trace, as if they had not even been tentative. I called her, telling her that it took me two hours to get up out of bed after work and move myself to change and shower, and that the entire time I felt gross because I hate staying in my work clothes, the stink of the hospital still on me, the smell of my least-favorite perfume (necessary to wear if I'm to survive a day filled with the smell of psychotic depression stagnation, or geriatric decrepitude, or withdrawal shakes - but still my least favorite because why would I ruin a nice perfume by wearing it there, putting that complicated misery on a smell I like? One patient kept telling me that I smell like the perfume his mother was buried in, he seemed angry that I kept wearing it and kept refusing zyprexa and anything else). T---, tell yourself that it's okay that you were in bed in those clothes for two hours. You are good. She didn't ask why I didn't love myself more, and she knew that when I said that perhaps I am good because I don't love myself, that it was pointless to carry on that conversation further. This is all to say that my mother is very smart and very loving and that I'm so happy I have her.

Paras moved out last weekend, while I was in NYC (more on that later.) Curtis moved in once I was back already, I was grateful that he had so few boxes (so, I'm sure, were both he and Adrian, as we carried what few things he had up four flights of stairs).

I'm thinking about the things that people take and leave behind. Paras has taken with him a lot: the coffee maker, the sound of him practicing sitar, himself. He has left a few things scattered around the apartment, including two voluptuous plants on the balcony (he knew I would like that), and Amy for a friend. I'm meeting up with her now.

below: I'm trying to draw again. Max and I meet up - in theory every Tuesday, in practice less frequently. We assign homework, we try to hold eachother accountable to keep drawing outside of college. It's hard, but we are trying.

what next?

The first restraint I had to do I didn't feel bad about -- angry males that are just trying to set each other off, even if they are schizophrenic drug addicts, don't make me feel as sad because that behavior, in this case, had little to do with the diagnosis. I think I bruised my rib because about a month later it still hurts, but that night I was running on adrenaline. I joined Paras and Amy after my evening shift had ended, meeting them at Charlie's Kitchen around midnight, and then the three of us went to the The Field. It was a Friday night and for once it felt like it, still wearing work clothes, watching people watching people.

This Friday there was a large goodbye party for a co-worker who left for nursing school, and it feels like everyone who is working here now has either been here forever and is old, or is about to leave, or has already left. We have a new CEO and DON that don't understand that everything they are doing is hurting them (but us first) like trying to increase census without increasing staff first. It means people get mandated (like I did for the overnight last weekend) and are less likely to help patients and more likely to get hurt. Everyone I could learn from is leaving, and that's a problem for me.

I went to the Hakusai exhibit with my family and it was great. It's a totally different type of printmaking than what I've done, and it's strange to realize that this one wave is the face of all East Asian art.

(which is to say, outside the hospital, it is spring and I am happy.)

Spontaneity

One thing I've learned from online dating is that everyone wants someone spontaneous and 'willing to try new things' as well as some standard rotating set of 'has a good sense of humor' or 'can have an interesting conversations'. I on the other hand like humorless boring people.

Regardless, I wouldn't call myself a spontaneous person. Paras and I took a trip to Target a couple weeks ago. He has a theory that older siblings date people who are younger siblings, and that older siblings are less spontaneous, generally smarter and less athletic. I told him that I sometimes set goals for myself to be more spontaneous - and was relieved and surprised when he said he has done the same thing. Not only that, but written down moments of increased impulsiveness, a list of running accomplishments that feel more satisfying than fulfilling expectations of walking up the steps of societal expectation and growth. Yes, I got a positive ninety-day review at work but also I bought pussy-willow at the store on a whim and that's even better. Under the florescent lights, we pathetically looked up reviews for vacuums on amazon and compared prices before, finally, settling on the first one we had looked at.

Last weekend Sara sighed at me as I chose three rings for ten dollars. It was the third time in my life I had ever bought myself jewelery. It took her a few seconds to choose earrings, and I kept trying on one ring, matching colors, wanting to know which fingers I'd wear them on and if on the thumb then it should be bigger but shoot they don't have that color in a bigger size. "Don't you do anything spontaneously?" she asked and I remembered that I had bought a ticket to Moscow what seems not too long ago but is has already been two and half years. But even that was a result of a long-seated desire to do so; the action was not planned, but the intention had been there for years. fuck I thought she's right. As we weaved through Haymarket, I bought a stem of grapes for a dollar and a whole fish for four. Spanish Mackerel, beautiful on ice, not yet gutted. Sara was impressed. 

"It is important for people, for whom part of their identity is being sensible, intelligent and responsible, to know that they can risk being foolish". This is what I told my visitor (or myself) this weekend, a friend of a friend who was here for the sole purpose of trying to see if this thing with a guy would work out. We went to the Isabella Gardner museum during the day and she met him for dinner later. Today we had brunch downtown and walk down Newbury street, and who know what will happen for them? But without spontaneously risking foolishness, one can never find out. I'm turning twenty-three in three days, maybe I'll learn.

wrap up

I was just watching stand-up on youtube with people, but have a hard time getting into it. The go-to explanation is that I'm too pc to laugh, but a lot of it was pretty inoffensive. Just boring. Or sad. Many jokes come from sorrow.
But I'm not a lost cause -- A few of the patients said about me "that one has a sense of humor".
I'll take it.

Welcome in the new year. Here is what happened in the last one (listing off for myself so I can start afresh?):

The next generation was in the second iteration of the Harms play from 2008. I talked to Eloosha, half asleep, after that, and to a half-awake Valya the next morning. Dew-covered thread connect sleeping moment to sleeping moment, new faces on an altered stage.

I went to the Goya exhibit with Max M. There was this beautiful print The Blind Guitarist and some paintings on ivory that had a really interesting effect.

bits of James Bond. The Manchurian Candidate (1962, USA, Frankenheimer); Print the Legend (2011, USA); Footnote (2011, Israel, Cedar); Mazerunner (2014, USA, Ball).

photo by Miriam E

infinite party people

I have been told I look like Lorde, Kate Winslet, Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Hathaway and Miriam Sekhon. But by far the closest anyone has gotten was my boss this morning, when he said I look like a Vrubel demon.

Mikhail Vrubel - Head of Demon

***

dream -- It was daylight but this party was being set up in a field in a city. On the other side of the field I could see people running around, young people, and others from their group were in other places as well. You could tell they were one of the same because there was something mystical about them, and they were so fervently happy and sharp. One looked straight at me (through me) with dark eyes.

But I went indoors and there was this strange creature, like a bird or a dog. Some of these people were there, and everyone was standing around chatting. I came up to the creature and petted it. I felt like there was some chance that it would bite my arm off (it was very large) but it was impressed by me, and I felt like a shock though my system, all my hairs were on end, goosebumps. It's feathers were bristly and it pretended to eat me up whole, because for some reason I needed to appear like this other group of people, and they were already dead.

One boy with a beautiful face and dark eyes whom I had seen earlier in the field had an intestine from someone else. They were like patchwork people, except that they remained youthful and beautiful and intact. Not quite zombies, flitting in and out of here and now [8:05 alarm, back to sleep]

 
Then I woke up in my bed in a room I was sharing with two other people. I was parched from all the drinking of the night, and I took an appetite suppressant because it was cheaper to eat those than to buy food. I was very poor. But I went out and met this woman who was also from the other plain, but not quite, still too attached to this one. A witch. She was trying to find the middle room in this large doll house, but it kept disappearing - it existed when you looked at the roof of the house, but the space contracted when you looked inside. Finally she found it, and there was a chicken inside wired up. She created a path back to the field, and then, to put the (dead, cold, featherless, headless) chicken out of its misery, she snipped just one wire. [8:15 alarm, back to sleep]

I was at this crazy party, no longer in the park, no longer in this world. We had kept walking and walking until I was only surrounded by dead people. The scavenged soul of Zeus was a glow the size of an elephant. People on stilts and in fantastic dresses through all different time periods. A band was playing on the stage, and the party went out and out forever into the dark, but it wasn't the dark of night. But then the band starting singing a song attacking the dead boy who led me there (the one from the field, except now blond instead of a brunette, and with an entirely different facial structure, shorter too. I was also now viewing from third person, so it felt...less). The band said that he was foolish to think he could let me be here, that he shouldn't have brought me. I tried defending him but turned into a cartoon.

Then I woke up in a hospital, wired into life support. Making the connection with the chicken and the immortals, I snipped on wire and hoped that I wasn't going to disappear, but die like they had died, the infinite party people. I started to feel light headed and someone I love, who is familiar (but whom I can't specifically remember) came in and I said good bye and [8:30 alarm] woke up.

voting in the flesh

The church where the vote is held in my town was pretty empty. The light in the tower was lit, the foggy moon hung over it. Inside, everyone looked grumpy. You would think having the "Green-Rainbow Party" on the ballot would cheer them up. Ah well. I filled out my sheet and let the machine gobble it up.

***

I drew for the first time in a while yesterday, finally executing a piece Sasha commissioned me to do when I was last in NYC. If you want a drawing by me, just ask (in the comments I guess?)

***

I had a dream in which people were shot and infected with this strange bug: their eyes would turn entirely blue and they would start attacking other humans. And somehow I figured out how to stop it, and the I started appearing in different places: space shuttles, huge rivers with candles and people floating around for some party. But then to save everyone, I turned into this octopus thing that filled up the sky and intercepted whatever was shooting people and turning them into blue eyed monsters. But there was a moral dilemma, because the shooters were The Fates, and the reason they were shooting was that humans were just living too long. I was up there in the sky, no longer human, and thinking that maybe The Fates were right, but I no longer had a way of communicating with humans.

I thought I'd share in light of this article about mice and reversing aging.

chronology?

7) Sara said "мне очень нравится как ты обнимаешься. очень крепко"

1) went to the MFA with Max. Saw Jamie Wyeth and didn't like how rubbery his subjects are and structureless his painting.

4) lunch with Tom.

2) drinks and food at Whiskey's with Max. He convinced me to leave my number for the waiter. We tried to go in a straight line and ended up back were we started -- that was before the drinks.

9) read a post Hannah wrote in France. I liked this one.

8) I sent out my resume, interviewed the same day, got a job offer the day after that and declined in the evening, stating a realization that hours of 10:45pm-8:45am wed-sat nights are not optimal for my functioning.

2.5) went blazer shopping at a thrift store with Yosef for his semi-formal. Very difficult task we have yet to succeed.

5) I finished reading Dovlatov's Иностранка (foreigner, or the official title in English A Foreign Woman). Like reading about a familiar zoo, and particularity good because I was just writing about racism in Russia and how it manifests once they emigrate.

3) Sanya is here from Moscow, she brought candy and I remembered that's one of the things I would get most excited about when Dedushka would visit.

6) Sara needed coffee. The girls sitting on the bench were trying to figure out where to go: map in hand, pinpointing a street to orient from. Four in a row, age 13 or so, out in the city.

10) attempted to post from my new and first proper smartphone. 

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.

night blossom

I was the first Russian girl Adrienne was ever friends with, so we have been planning on watching The Russians Are Coming The Russians are Coming (1966 USA) since freshman year and finally followed through today. This morning Amanda and I got brunch and then I had my last class on Joyce's Ulysses (читала, читала, прочитала).

it's been raining and the drops have taken down the apple blossoms, wet petals hitting the ground. Sasha and Luisa visited me for a day and we went to a senior photo show. Yesterday after Hannah's board we went to the Tivoli bakery. Lemon square, coffee, cranberry scone.







--for some reason I don't think I can study parts philosophy without understanding quantum physics, which will never happen. How can I understand choice if I don't understand chance or the splitting of the universe?

aquacities of thought and language

Senior photo exhibit I, Alex's senior opera recital, the senior dance show, Dani's senior music recital. Pill for reduction of lyme disease by 80% if taken within 72 hours of being bitten (the bite itself swollen and itching.) My shoulders have browned and freckled from the sun. The picking of a stem of apple blossoms and putting them into a glass milk bottle. Kelsey said “Brooklyn is the Bard afterlife”. Jono got a bird and it screams at the birds outside. Text from Yulka, 11:59pm 10/3/13: It's ok, understand. I took a picture of the magnolia tree behind my house, after asking Sorrel and Hannah to stand in front of it. Found out that (wood) Sorrel is what I know as заячья капуста (bunny cabbage). Text from Hannah, 5:07pm 3/25/14: Between ny and philly: bleakest train ride ever. Nj a hellscape. Valley of ashes. we were making a film but we could do more complicated things, such as overlay ourselves into previous renditions (so that there could be two of each person in a scene). And we decided that we could each interact with the previous version as we wished, without planning out everything before hand. But then a couple of us started killing us off. And I was upset: not only because we were being murdered (it only half felt like it was only in the movie we were making) but because a horror flick didn't fit my artistic version for the film. I screamed in fear and woke up silent. I need to install my AC again because it's getting hot and humid and my room is right under the roof. I can hear it when the rains, which I like. I tried smiling at someone from class but it he looked away mournfully. Emma is to come around noon and we will walk to the burrito stand. She switched majors from psychology to photography, I never did a senior project for studio art, taking a drawing III class in my final semester. Text from Sasha, 10:48pm 4/21/14: (I know but one soul this romantically damned.) I watched The Garden State (2004 USA) last night alone, and found it irritating. Some say say happiness is the absence of sadness. Farm fest was 4$ chili with bread and rice and we left the music when we came around in the evening. Mass Text from Kelsey, 10:49pm, drunk and standing right next to me 5/2/14: I love you ;) Went to the klezmer concert at Two Boots, eating mediocre pizza with Hannah and Will before going to Kelsey's room to watch ParaNorman (2012 USA). Sang the last full chamber singers concert for the masters choral conductors (Sicut cervus – Palestrina; Trois Chansons – Debussy; Spirit Seeking Light and Beauty – Stuart; Pater Noster – Stravinksy; Agnus Dei – Hassler; Rest – Vaughan Williams; There will be rest – Techeli; No. 8 Wenn so lind dein Auge mir, No.16 Ein dunkeler Schacht ist Liebe – Brahms; The last words of David – Thompson). “you can't make eye contact with half of campus” Emma said as we sat in the grass eating our burritos. This is the final truth.