The Idiot

I finished reading The Idiot earlier this week. I'd been so frustrated with it. My reading speed in Russian is slow, slow enough that I had already been reading it when I interviewed for the apartment in December. When you read that slowly, the fact that Aglaia was blushing for two pages and then it is stated explicitly that she, was, in fact, embarrassed - it feels like the author is condescending to my ability to comprehend the redness in her cheek. I got why she was red when you started, Dostoevsky, and three pages later I'm quite sure I don't need an explicit statement. I'm sure if the process had been less painstakingly slow it wouldn't be so glaringly annoying.

And I'm not as enamored with Knaz Mishkin as I ought to be. I do not like that he conflates pity with love. I do not like Dostoevsky's hysterical women, strange caricatures of some Russian ideal. But I love when, near the end, (here, I found a translated text) Knaz says he loves both and that he just needs to explain everything to Aglaya, and receives in response "No, prince, she will not. Aglaya loved like a woman, like a human being, not like an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? The most probable explanation of the matter is that you never loved either the one or the other in reality."

And I did quite enjoy the way the writing changed nearing Mishkin's epileptic fit, flickering like something quite modern - Faulkner? - and the change the fit caused in Knaz. I think the rambling of Ippolit in his letter reading is quite great too, though I never figured out what Ippolit is, as a character, and ended disappointed in him.

And then, nearing the end of the book, I decided that Knaz Mishkin and Rogozhin are the same person. Rogozhin is like a shadow: eyes imagined in a crowd, a spirit met at first after many sleepless nights, a knife sneaking up right when a fit is about to occur. His being present in all these moments is not a mere coincidence, nor, I think, because Rogozhin as a person is fixated on Mishkin. Rather, it is Mishkin fixated on himself, but it is his dark side, one that her refuses to acknowledged as himself.

They are so similar, in some ways: both abandoned at the alter, both feverish in temperament, both preoccupied with Anastasia Filipovna, both feverishly passionate at times. Mishkin knows Rogozhin so well he states at the very beginning that he is likely to kill Anastasia Filipovna. At the end, on that fateful day in St. Petersburg, Rogozhin answers in synchrony: Here was a question Knaz had while trying to track down Rogozhin - and Here is the thought Rogozhin had, exactly relating to the thought Knaz had, almost as if they had a conversation throughout the day. After a day of the two of them being in the same place at the same time with almost the same thoughts, Knaz is not surprised to find Anastasia dead, remaining calm as Rogozhin tells him what happened, asking the wrong questions but overall acting as if he already knew, he just had to realize he already knew. Rogozhin insists on sleeping near Knaz - the two souls need to mingle in proximity, finally the two sides of the same coin together.

However, once Knaz, filled with goodness and naiveté, has killed Anastasia (as Rogozhin) he can no longer exist as the image of goodness. Knaz looses himself fully to his epileptic idiocy, unable to exist as a murderer. Rogozhin, loosing half of himself, (as Knaz ceases to exist) suffers an inflammation of the brain, but survives as himself, a dark murderous shadow still in synchrony with its own identity.

so in the end, I did manage to keep myself entertained, albeit with a rather modernest take on the novel.

Jetlag 7th Ed. 

kaleidoscope

I keep having words but not putting them together here, like a moving kaleidoscope and I can't quite snatch up the shapes and colors before they disappear from before me.

green glass - I went to the Somerville porch fest with Adian and Margo. We shifted from venue to venue, and with the change in location came a change in population. Old married couples with grandchildren in one place, people in their late 30's at another, those in their 20's and early 30's at a third. It's kind-of perfect though, the idea of a porch fest. People come out and share their own music with the people living around them, using the cross of urban and suburban space: tightly packed houses stacked next to each other -- creating a town-wide bbq-party. Green bottles filled with beer in hand, music dances in the air.

teal strand - I dyed my hair. People keep asking way and I say "I just felt like it" except to Paras to whom I said "whenever I change my hair it's because of a boy" and didn't repeat myself when he didn't hear.


a feather, refracted - we went camping: the boy who used to live in the room I live in now, Therese, Paras, and Amy. I had never gone camping without the supervision of those a generation above me! I had never gone camping without Russians! We snuck around trying to scare each other throughout the day, like real adults. We had about 7 different types of 'dogs' to accommodated so many different dietary restrictions. We pitched a couple tents and didn't get wet when it rained. We toasted marshmallows for breakfast and swam in a lake with ducklings.

a mirror slate - at work, I now only have 32h schedueled per week, and only work day shift, which means I no longer feel like I'm chronically jetlagged. Unless I pick up a shift, I always work on 3South, on of the acute units, like I had asked. All of this makes me much happier, I didn't even realize how much weight had been placed on my chest until it lifted. Two days ago I had a few tears escape my eyes while at the nurses station, in front of people. One of the patients had screamed and called me a bitch, and I also found out that I was almost certainly mandated. Usually I am ashamed when people see me cry, but this time I apologized and it felt okay. "Relax" Cole told me, and gave me a one-armed hug. I didn't get mandated. She apologized to me the next day "you know you are one of my favorite staff! I was waiting for you to come in after yesterday so I could apologize!" I said, yes, thank you, but wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to apologize? Think about what you think will help you to control your temper, before it boils over. "You are right!" she said. We will see.


how many times have I turned the kaleidescope?

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.

small summer

Yosef and I met the falling sun on the front steps, trying to scrub away the black crust from camp pots. We'd gone canoing earlier, past people jumping from trees into the water under the beating heat. Summer is coming to a close; the geese plump enough for flight, the trees whispering "we are still green but not for long", the period of convalescence from the academic year not quite enough for those returning to high school, but already too long for those not going anywhere at all.

the rain

I want to go outside because the downpour smells warm through my window. The trees are relishing the wind and the lightning is tearing the thunder asunder.


Went to Baxter State Park with my family for the fourth of July weekend but the tornado made us too miserable to stay a third night. We canoed in the rain and walked quickly in a vain attempt to escape the gnats and mosquitoes (they do so relish our blood).

The prodigal daughter has returned to write again.

movies: Cabare (1972, USA), Blade Runner (1982, USA), F for Fake (1973, France, in English), Magnolia (1999, USA).

CC 2013

1. It occurred to me that I have spent a week of the summer with these people for 8 of the 9 past years. An imperfect track record of change.
2. We watched the meteor shower the first night. There were too many of us for tranquility but the Milky Way stretched out above and I haven’t seen that many stars in ages. (5 years ago I made a wish on a shooting star and it came true. I haven’t made one since).
3. Only four people in my age group were there the full week. Yulka and Valya had internships, Myron joined the army, Sasha was preparing for his wedding, Liza and Kirill had work. (Who will be here next year?)
4. The last night we were presented with three plays: Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Little Prince, Деревья Умирают Стоя (trees die standing).
5. We sang around the campfire late into the night (пять лет назад когда мы пели «выйду я на поле с конем» Даша сказала Илюши «нет, не любишь»).(five years ago we sang a song which contains the words “I love you Russia” to which Dasha said to Eloosha “no, you don’t”).
6. I watched Shimon for most of the week. He was tense from all the people and ran to me at 2am one night, in his underwear and barefoot. Five minutes after we were in our sleeping bags he was dreaming. 
   
7. 
   I feel no real connection to many people there but this is not surprising; the number hovers around 100. I had an interesting conversation with one adult one night when he drank more than usual. Noma and I named another caterpillar this year. Some conversations did not happen. 
8. Yosef had plans to swim everyday so that he could pass the swim test and join the crew team, but it was too cold to stay in the water for long. He passed the test anyway.
9. Made decorations for the plays, swam and attended the poetry club. Did yoga, worked the dinner-shift, and listened in on conversations. Collected firewood in the middle of the night, drank tea & not tea, celebrated birthdays.

Baxter State Park 2013

Wednesday after my internship I went to Penn Station and took a bus home. The next day my family and I packed and drove up to Baxter State Park, as we have for years. Since we last went, both Sima and Yosef have grown quite a bit, so the tent is getting a bit tight. But the weather was warm and there were plenty of gnats to go round. We swam, hiked, canoed, and sat around the camp fire drinking tea and fishing mosquitoes out of the soup.

Sima kept telling me the following joke -What do vegetarian zombies say? -What? -GRAAAAAAAINS

fuzzy white caterpillars

The first day we pitched tents and raised tarps as it started to rain. I listened to the rain come down, lashing against the blue plastic so that it was hard to hear people raising their voices to speak.

The last night there were eighteen people sleeping in a ten-person-tent, like sprats. We smelled like smoke from the campfire, staying up until five with our voices and an acoustic guitar. Russian bard songs rose from everyone’s lips, and songs written after the 70’s only from the lips of those who don’t consider themselves adults. The port and boxed wine went quickly at night. By day we listened to lectures on ageing, social & neural networking, and the history of China. The younger kids rehearsed their plays: the Odyssey, Winnie-the-Poo, and Ciao by Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon. Thousands of photographs throughout the week resulted in a mystical stop motion video.

Before arriving we had gone to watch a theater production of “A Month in the Country” and in the middle of the week we went to Mass MoCa to see the exhibits there. For the first time I felt like the adults where taking us more seriously in conversation, and I spoke more to the younger generation as well.

Eloosha was jetlagged from Paris and I woke up early, so we did yoga in the grass and swam in the lake. I spoke about writing to Valya and Sasha, and about change, Liza recounted her drama for the year, and Kirill some of his. Esther surprised us by appearing on her birthday, a gift. We played zoo and drank tea and ate oatmeal. I only looked at the stars one night, and not for long; I only saw two shooting stars. The campground was full of fuzzy white caterpillars and bright orange salamanders. 

Transition

Spring break is over, I led a very informal Passover Seder on Friday out of the book Бабушка gave me, and we had an enormous amount of food leftover afterwards.
at the end of break, Бабушка offered to set me up with a 'really nice' guy from the little hill in Israel were she lives. I guess she thinks I'm of marrying age.

I made lentil soup last night, and Adrienne had some with me, and then Amanda came over and we studied together for an exam we had today. I handed in my paper Monday, I finished the portrait of my grandmother on Saturday

I'll be halfway done with college in less than two months.

Before break I had a dream in which my body was disconnected. My ear was trying to crawl up onto my hand because all of my body was trying to get to the campsite where I was staying. It wasn't bleeding or anything. I think "I" was an eyeball, because I could see, but don't remember hearing or smelling or feeling much.

packing

camp is soon. my room looks ridiculous because I was looking for stuff for peoples costumes. I was helping shimon pack earlier...and cutting onions. 5 to be exact. 

6 pounds of ground beef will be arriving shortly, with my mom.

add 12 decrusted pieces of bread soaked in 6 eggs, salt and mix: that makes a ton of katleti (kinda like salisbury steak).

and of course I get the honor of standing over the pan frying everything.

I should be more excited, hopefully I'll be less meh once I get to the camp grounds.

I'll be back in 9 days. 

edit: one e-mail from Lenya about the costumes and im already more excited. still have to actually read the script, though. 
 we (the older teens/youthful adults) chose to do the snark as a play (Loise Carol poem)
http://www.lib.ru/CARROLL/snarkeng.txt english
http://www.nunu.ru/carroll4.zip russian
I'm playing the beaver.

Baxter State Park 2011

I've been going to Baxter almost every 4th of July weekend since I was two, and my parents decided to go camping. They thought all the green parts of the map would be campable, but most of it turned out to be paper mill land, and so they drove all the way to northern Maine until they hit Baxter, and we've been returning ever since.

Last time we got cabins, but we never make reservations, since the only way to make one is to go there, and early. The reservations can only start being made in January. Togo all the way up there in the winter to wait and then drive back is just not realistic. Sometimes it means moving around a lot. This time we got a lean-to for a couple of days.

A thing about lean-to's: they are great when its raining, but when its not, they mean lots of bugs. Mosquitoes, gnats, horse flies. Tent+lean-to combination works well though, though our tent barely fit.

I don't know why, but this time we were simply exhausted most of the time we were there. Kept waking up in the middle of the night, but by evening we would wake up...

The people in the lean-to next to us seemed to eat, drink and collect wood all day, but they went to bed pretty early and got up early too. They spent part of the days building a raised rock-bridge in the river in front of us to get to all the dead logs across it. It was funny watching them walk across it when they were drunk, attempting to keep balance and not fall in. They kept a crate full of beer in the river as well (very effective cooling mechanism, though Mama said it was a standard way, but I was impressed.) They tried opening wine bottles by putting them in shoes and slamming them against trees. When Папа offered a bottle opener they said "No thankyou! we are having fun!"
We came home on the 4th, and watched Independence Day :P.

Yosef wasn't with us, which was weird. He left to Israel with Бабушка (she lives there), as a barmitzvah-esk present, except that he isn't actually having any ceremony.  He was complaining that this summer was going to be like all others, so we sent him off. He hasn't really been in contact, except for the first night when he was being plagued by jetlag. Hopefully he's enjoying himself now.

(Shimon pouring sweetened condensed milk over buckwheat in the morning)

JetЛАГ 2011

If a tree falls in a forest, and you hear the sound, and then someone tells you that it didn't fall and that it didn't make a sound, and you believe them, then to you it didn't fall. I just finished Nineteen Eighty-Four, can you tell?

embarrassingly enough, I hadn't done so before.

JetЛАГ was fun! I went to bed really early the 2nd night though (at one) while most of my friends went to bed at 8:30, or didn't go to bed at all. Even the first night Yulka Liza and I nearly went to bed at 3am, but then Valya came by and said that they were going off to roast marshmellows, and we jolted upright and said "WOW" in unison. and jumped into our shoes. typical.

Also there were less teenagers at this one (than at say KSP or some other slet) presumably because the tickets cost more.

Photo 1: there were four stages, one of them was at 'burning man' camp, though that was more of a turntable set up, there were no bands, but there were djs, and people played along if they felt like it. Eloosha and I came across them in the morning doing yoga. I giggled inside, and then we joined them.

Photo 2: liza eating bread with sweetened condensed milk out of a shotglass. People came around asking for water. As usual, most of what was brought for drinking was alcohol and juice for the smaller kids...I guess we had watermelon, that's hydrating, right? There was plenty of food though, and somehow there was always tea as well.