a taste of life

Work, Work, Work (double), Work, (off), Work, Work (double), (off), Work, Work, Work, Work.
The snow hit hard and I ended up staying at Rita's, sledding in the morning before going to work and getting stuck there because people didn't come in for the night shift, and with the exception of me and one other person, everyone working evening was working a double from the day shift. Which meant that, five days after being mandated to do a double, I got mandated to do a double again. 3pm-7:30am. Not something I ever wanted to do or desire to repeat.

But one good thing: one Sunday the mbta was canceled and I had already gotten home on Saturday, so I had to call off work. Therese and I went to Aeronaut Brewing Co. for a beer & cheese tasting. We walked through the snow for half an hour and it was so beautiful, the snow falling softly, the roads mostly void of cars, and street lamps casting yellow-pink light. The brewery was gorgeous too: a huge hall with high ceilings and a bar, large Christmas-tree bulbs hanging on the rafters, which made it feel both spacious and intimate. And another hall where the beer and cheese was presented to us, pleasant strangers to talk to and we walked home through the snow satisfied.

My apartment just had the fire alarm go off. Everyone evacuated and a girl from one of the apartments started organizing a party for next Saturday. Amen to taking advantage of the situation.

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. 

Matt

I welcome the rain. The humidity and heat have been steadily edging into my brain, with only one brief reprise for a few hours one night this entire week. I welcome the rain, though of course it’s not just rain, we got an e-mail with a tornado warning, and the light just flickered and the thunder was a crack right by my ear.

The semester is off to a good start, but I will write about that later.

The Sunday before I left home, I went to climb Mt. Washington with Папа, Yosef, and his best friend. The peak is at 6,288 ft (1,917 m) and the highest wind recorded there was 231 mph (372 km/h), which was the world record until a few years ago. For me these numbers only make sense when Папа told me that the air is thinner at the top, though unlike many of the mountains he's climbed, I can actually manage this one. The day we went wasn’t too hot or too cold, and there was hardly any wind. Папа  says he has never seen such perfect conditions there, ever. Granted, he has a tendency to climb it when there’s snow. The mountain does tend to attract clouds though, that’s true. 

I hadn’t climbed the mountain since I was nine, and then we had arrived at the top soaking wet from the rain and took the last train down. Last time I remember Папа bought me hot cocoa at the top, which burnt my tongue as I too-eagerly tried to drink it. It was strange arriving at the top this time, because many of the people up there had driven, and we still had ways to go before the end of our journey.This time I bought a banana and stole sips of cocoa from my brother.

On the way down, when there was only about twenty minutes left to go (we had started around eleven in the morning, and it was near eight, the sun was setting) we bumped into two other hikers, an old man and a young man. My dad started talking to the older guy, probably in his 60’s, and we soon left them behind, catching up to the two 13-year-olds that had decided to run off ahead. 

The guy I ended up talking to was twenty-something, from Oxford, MA. Shorter than me, with braces and a beard and he introduced himself as Matt at the end of our conversation. He has a job painting lines on the road. His father and grandfather had done the same, and he likes it, says it pays well. In the winter, he gets laid off and gets unemployment until the weather clears up and he can paint lines again. He was planning on staying in his jeep for night and hiking another peak in the morning. He turned out not to be the adopted Russian son of the 60-year-old man, and in fact had just met the man half an hour ago. The old man had looked slightly confused so he was walking down with him and was going to give him a ride to his car, since it wasn’t on the main lot. We were talking about New England* and skiing came up and he said something about being a loser for not knowing how to ski, which was absurd, and he was looking forward to moving to Maine (his job moves him around, you can’t paint road lines in the same place all the time) because of the solitude and mountains, and how photography allows you to remove yourself from a social scene without actually leaving it. We talked about psychology and orphans and the fact that he likes to go to the Middle East café in Cambridge for music concerts, though he generally shies away from the city (and, it seems, people in general.) 

Eventually my dad came down carrying the old man, whose legs had given way from exhaustion.

Matt went to get his jeep and drove the old man to his car. And that was that, and it left me thinking, yet again, about how narrow a world I live in, and how few people I meet.

*fun fact: when I was little I thought New England was just another name for the USA. The fact that my dad’s map of New England was different from what other maps of the USA did cause a moment of pause for me, even then.

Bats

I think this photo is kinda awesome. Might have something to do with me thinking that bats are kinda awesome. Have you ever seen them all preserved in a museum of natural history? They look like little woodland faeries, smiling with their teeth. Neither evil nor good, but definitely mischievous and magical.

I'm home. It's stressing me out. I have 6 weeks off and I have to do something with them and family ... I didn't find any winter courses I wanted to take and I don't want to go to Israel right now because I want to go in the summer and it's too sudden to go now and I might not be able to go skiing because I have to watch Sima while Osya and Mama go to LA
and shoot me now.

I'm going to go to Yulka's today to start our cloths-making/remaking projects. Taking the train, haven't done that in a while.

edit: I'm now signed up for this class  
though I still have to wait for it to clear the payment and stuff.
it's a new-years present (which makes me feel better about the money), and hopefully I'll be able to make the credits transfer. 

Waverly

 I wrote this for June 22nd of this summer, for a writing project a few friends and I had (it died pretty quickly-we stopped responding to the prompts) This was the first prompt "Describe a place. Tell us how it smells, looks, feels, is, how does time work there, what was the first or last time you where there, how did you discover it ect. Associations you have with it, emotions, memories. You can go in all or none of these veins. You can go on a tangent, but in the end, I want to know the place." I will discuss my weekend in my next post-after I have taken my Adult Psychopathology Exam (tomorrow)

 

Waverly

I’d like to say "I’d never given it much thought before," because I like the way it sounds. It implies a sort of philosophical view and discovery: “I have not thought about it before, but now am willing to examine the full depth and beauty of this wonderful idea or thing and discover something that is ultimately life-changing.” But the truth is, I have. I’ve given it a lot more thought than would seem necessary to give a train station.

There are stagnant puddles that never seem to evaporate on the landings that break up the stairs to the rest of the town above. I am suspicious of these and avoid stepping in them, because the station smells slightly of urine, though I’ve never seen anyone pissing there and can’t imagine why anyone would.  To my knowledge, there are no homeless fellows that live down there; Belmont isn’t that kind of town. And since I have stood, on the platform, waiting, at 12:27 am, if there were any homeless people living there, I probably would have seen them. However, there is usually no one but me, or me and a friend who walked me there, and once or twice, me and a couple of teenagers makingout.

The conductors, of course, have a tendency to think that I was up to something, because there’s no good reason to be going home that late from Waverly to Kendal Green. And maybe rightly so, for it did gave me the independence a teenager from boring white suburbia wanted-a way to hang out with friends that lived a couple towns over, and a venue to photograph them, on the rooftop above the bench and stairs, at night. Fun, and maybe even possibly illegal (oh the thrill of barely doing anything wrong, ever!)

The walls are salmon pink, which is a much more interesting color than any of the other stations I get off at. Sometimes, if I stay the night and am waiting in the morning, I study the wall on my side of the tracks in greater detail: I can see the crackles, the orange sparks and red veins, and where the paint has been chipped away, the blue gray of the cement underneath.  On the opposite side, there are streaks of lighter pink (or…more accurately, they exist on both sides but I can see them more clearly from a distance,) formed from the greater flow of water due to the way the hand rail above is structured. The water collects on the metal rectangles, runs down to the corners, and washed down the wall. In two places this pattern is broken, where fresh paint has been applied to cover up graffiti. For a very long time it said “yoonder” on the left hand side of the station, underneath the road-bridge. More recently, in big letters, left to right, bottom down, above the roof that covers the stairs that go up, it said:

from     save

heaven me

                -which is one of those flexible things that can be interpreted by me for myself. I can think….here, this town, is my heaven. My haven from home, an accessible taste of independence for a person without a car, and here I am waiting for the train to save me from it and bring me to a good nights’ rest. Though somehow I seriously doubt that the writer meant anything like that.

                I don’t mind the drunk sports fans on some nights, but I do mind the throw up that is caused by them. I like eavesdropping on conversations, but I hate looking for a set of seats that’s empty and finding none. I don’t enjoy shelling out money to the conductor, but I like it when they don’t bother to come to collect the fare. The worst is though, when fresh snow is lying all around and still coming down, seeing the tracks are clean, and trying to convince myself that, maybe, perhaps, possibly, I have not missed the train, have not lost a sliver of independence, and don’t have to irritate my parents by asking them to disrupt their plans and pick me up after the last train has gone.That there is still a 'next train' coming to this pink, stinking platform.

Waiting for NY

Eloosha came over and we went off to play tennis, so my legs ached the next day (and papa and I played yesterday too). There was also a giant icecream social on the town green...between the two of us we ate three scoops of blackberry frozen yogurt, one scoop of cherry garcia, and one scoop of cookie dough. yum.

My parents and I watched 2001: ASpace Odyssey, because Sabina gave papa a set of Kubrick dvd's for his birthday, and now we are almost done with Barry Lyndon. So lots of slow film lately. 

Right now I am waiting for Eloosha and his parents (and Kostya) to come by and pick me up at drive us to NY to Sasha's [21st, oo-la-la] birthday party. I only found out a couple days ago....so I'm bringing a mango as a present, I had nothing else. And I like mangos, and I assume everyone else likes mangos too, and thus it is a good present.
I was going to take the rail, but there were over 20 bruins fans waiting to get on as well (because they won? and there's a parade? thats what Eloosha said) and so the trains delayed.

dream-I don't remember most of it, but I do remember that Cat dyed the top of her hair black, and then bleached the very top. It looked bad. And her hair is already black, so it was more like the top part was slightly blue black and of a bad texture

a few outings

I name my stop
-5$. Wait...2$?
-2.50
-I haven't done this in a year.
-Well, then welcome back.
-heh, I guess. Actually, I like this route, one and a half hours and you're done for the day. It's not so bad.
-As long as there isn't any throw up
-exactly.

Arsenal mall with Yulka, and we painted our nails all different colors at forever 21. there was even scented nail-polish, but it chipped pretty quickly. and we got each other nearly identical birthday gifts. and then we went to Waltham to watch Midnight in Paris.

Harvard sq with Kathleen. We mostly avoided the heat by going from store to store (filled out two job apps...). Entered two bookstores that were closing-the Curious George one at the corner, and the Global Bookstore across from the Garage.

The next day I went to Portor and found another bookstore that had closed, and met up with Valya at Harvard (starbucks). We walked to MIT to meet up with Kostya and his McGill people (contact, burrito, ect.) Val left and then we went back to Belmont, and met up with Yulka (starbucks again).
We walked from Kostya's house back to Yulka's place, but instead of telling Sisi and Nikita (the McGill people) where to turn we just followed them around. Somehow they got to Yulka's house, but then they kept walking and ended up almost going all the way back to Kostya's before realizing something was up. it was amusing. At Yulkas (ddr...Chinese checkers...) and then they left and I slept over.

We fell asleep around four and got up at 11 and made waffles from scratch for brunch. Watched 10 Things I Hate About You and painted our nails and were girly, but then I went home and in the evening my parents and I went to see The Tree of Life. The theater was packed. I was the youngest person there, and we all had to sit alone because there was no good place for three people to sit next to each other, or even two. Other than the cgi it was a great film...though it made me very tense, and made me want to curl up into a ball before anything really upsetting had even been shown onscreen-it made me tense.

Other than that...I cut Папа's and Yosef's hair, and I'm at that point in A Clockwork Orange when you go "wait...so he's not a 30 year old man in post soviet russia who for some reason knows a weird version of english pretty well...he's a schoolboy who is surrounded by people who speak english fluently, and his parents are useless and...and...what?!"

Paint Dance

Back from a party at Eloosha's. I took the 5:32 train in, because it was the one that arrived the closest to 8 (when people where actually invited). He wasn't home yet, but another kid who came back from college with him was (he lives in Mississippi and is going back to New Haven take a summer class....so going home didn't make sense).
I came in and started cleaning, because apparently that's what I do? Eloosha's parents and sister are in Europe right now, so I loaded the dishwasher and cleaned of the table and...yeah. The Mississippi kid tried helping but didn't know what to do and I didn't want to boss him around and it was wonderfully awkward.
Cleaning was so worth the reaction. Eloosha entered through the back door, took a couple steps. Stopped in his tracks, started looking around, and had a 'why is clean?' expression on his face. I was trying not to break out laughing on the couch.
Eventually Eloosha's hs friends came. For a bit it was just me...and like, 5 guys I've met twice before but don't know. So. Awkward. I just sat silently eating chips. Thankfully Yulka came and saved me. And then other girls that I also kinda know but who I'm less awkward with than with the boys.

I also painted about have of my parents room today (they got new tiles, now I'm repainting so that I can take their place sleeping in the basement instead of the bunked bed.)
Yulka and I invented a new 'painting the wall' dance move. too cool.

And my grandmother, youngest brother and I planted some petunias (white and pink) by the azalea.

Micro Adventures

This Isn't A Story.
Commuter rail, subway, walk a bit in the wrong direction as usual, guess the right street to go down, walk past a party bus with strobe lights and drinking and the whole shebang, but it's parked. And already I'm amused because well...I've been living in the middle of the woods, and Cambridge is not the middle of the woods (little girl aint in Kansas anymore). Walk past this guy making a rap video on the steps of MIT, walk into the building and up a flight of stairs were I hope to meet up with Yulka again, (she has play rehearsal there). Look into the room and realize its not the play, but a bunch of (Chinese?) ladies rehearsal a song. One more flight of stairs and everyone is there (lovely people of all ages). Das'ka rattling off as usual in the car while his mom drives us to Emerson. Yulka takes a shower, I get a burrito and shove it down my throat, we run off to the subway station. A bunch of Emerson get on, obviously pre-gamed, feathers in two of the girls hair, dressed up, on of the guys is wearing cut-off jean shorts and then the knee of the jeans, tied around with red ribbon. The adults are looking at all of us, clearly suspicious. They get off and we don't follow them. When we do get off so do a couple other groups, all off us walk up a block, turn the corner, file into the same doorway. A girl leaves saying "I'm drunk enough, but it's really not worth it", and anyway, they aren't letting any more people in because there alcohol is gone (so they can't charge us 5$, and then what's the point?). So Yulka and I decide to walk back. We ran around and danced and skipped from BU to Emerson (took us an hour...we got back at 1am). We paused at an all-ages dance thing (but it looked like there was no one in anyway...except a couple of old men), a temple, and a place that was called a cafe but was a bar. Fell asleep at 4 am. Woke up, went to the dining hall (saw a kid from my high school, but he didn't see me). I got a jasmine tea milkshake in China Town in the morning, she got peach bubble tea. That was goodbye. Subway, missed my first commuter rail train, waited at the station so I read for an hour.

I was home for the rest of the time.

Yulka said there needs to be clarification for my last post: I was not throwing up because I got really drunk. I had a stomach bug that I got from one of my brothers (both got sick) and they got Папа sick too.

Dark Snow

Tuesday I came back from skiing. Wednesday I went to see the Black Swan (Park Street, and not at all alone). We had burritos at Felipe's before the movie. I think it may have been the first rated-R movie I've seen in a theater.

(weird, they have a site).

I had to take the red line to the Porter Sq to catch the commuter rail home.
But I was very riled up from the movie, I guess. I'm impressionable, or hyper empathetic, or something. But my eyebrows where doing the same thing that Natalie Portman's were doing in the movie, and I missed the first subway, got on the 2nd one, realized it was green to BC, got off, walked back to Park Street, found the redline, got to the commuter rail...but was 7 minutes late. Used the pay phone for the first time in my life because my cellphone was broken, and called my dad to pick me up. Kicked a few sizable holes in the snowbank because I was angry with myself. Because how immature to get upset to an extent  that it impedes your functioning from emotions that aren't even really yours? plus I felt bad for asking Papa a ride at 1 am.

Thursday Night Movie Moment[o]

Came back via Commuter Rail
the conductor thought something was up
my point a to point b spelled sketchy in his book, since only one guy got on the same place as me, and I was the only one person got off at my stop.
He said that it was strange for anybody to be going [here] at this time, and asked me if I was up to any trouble, I said "not particularly, watched a movie", and he wasn't convinced.

movie night #2 has passed successfully: we watched the Memento and then argued the last couple scenes (including the VERY last one where he is lying in bed with his..wife? his fantasy? and Teddy dies and then boom..next scene still alive in kicking. definitely an interesting movie.)
yup, because that's what good teenagers do on a Thursday night in the summer.

Kirill came down from Philly and is staying at Eloosha's, and I finally met his gf, who is easy to talk to and so I like her :).