oh hi

OH HI!
no  one will see this now that Google+ is dead.

Here's my update:
I AM MOVING TO CHICAGO
I will be attending The Chicago School of Professional Psychology for a PsyD
I went to Chicago three times and Philly twice since I started these interviews at the end of January. Last one was on April Fools day. I put down my deposit on the fifteenth of that same month.

my job is going through the end of JUNE - I am helping in looking for someone to fill my spot - I wounder if that means I can add hiring manager to my resume

I am taking online classes because I didn't have a prereq done for my grad program.
I have been having migraines and think cutting my hair will help.

I am going to Israel in July and then somewhere else. After some back and forth I should be getting my Israeli passport in the mail soon. The second leg of the trip will be with Matt but we haven't planned it yet.

I am coordinating with three girls regarding flatmate living in Chicago. They will all be attending a different psych graduate school which I decided was a worse fit for me, but I met one of the girls through the interview.

My youngest brother is a teenager. My grandmother here for her annual visit.

I will flesh out most of this later.

this is all for now

one microspike

I said I would come back to the ridge between 2018 and 2019, so here is the end of 2018:

the last Friday of 2018 I left work and went to South Station with my weighty backpack and a tube with a painting in it. Did you know that Portland, ME is only two hours away? I didn't, until Sorrel and Hannah started telling me I should meet them there. There's a bus that goes once an hour, which surprised me; 40$ for a round trip ticket, which is valid for a year. Of course I got there five minutes after the bus had left so I had to wait for the next one, but in due time, after watching a very strange animation about a speed-crazy snail, I found myself in Maine - which I insist is supposed to be no fewer than six hours away but somehow I got there in two.

Sorrel and Hannah met me there, bringing with them a much welcome dinner and hugs. We drove about an hour before getting to Sorrel's parents house: they have an interesting home, with a compost toilet and solar power and a wood-stove which heats the house. They were off the grid for years but recently hooked up to it and give their electricity into the system.

In the morning, we went to Portland and met Hannah's brother and poked around the little shops. Hannah left too soon with her brother to Belfast ME. Sorrel and I headed to a used bookshop (which is were I got the previously mentioned White Tiger).

We got home and made dinner and the next morning we got up and went for a walk up a little hill. Maine has snow, which I haven't seen much of this year. There was a dusting in Massachusetts this morning, but even when Papa and I climbed Mt. Monadnock the weekend before there wasn't much snow. Sorrel and I only had one set of microspikes between the two of us, so we each bore weight on one leg as we made our way up the icy slope. At the top, there was a view of some frozen lakes and mountains further out.

At the end of the day the four of us (Sorrel and I, and her parents) watched Dinner with Andre, which makes it the last movie I saw in 2018. The next morning Sorrels father showed me the starts of permaculture plots they had planned out around their land. Being there reminded me that I wanted a goat to get milk from. I imagine being a therapist with a goat and a vegetable patch. I guess I don't have a very good imagination, because mostly I imagine the goat and the vegetable plot in my parent's backyard. Mama had a boy goat named Pashka when she was little, and he's in some of the family photos.

Eventually it was time to go back home and Sorrel drove me back to the Portland station. On the bus I read I Talk Pretty One Day (which I finished later without feeling any accomplishment, and feeling confused as to why Sidaris is so well known). At some point on the bus I got a text form Veta with my Secret Santa; Eloosha, and I started to think of what to give him that I could assemble in the few hours I'd be home, which now leads us to the part of 2018 which is practically 2019 - for next time.

half eaten books

I met the new year surrounded by old friends, having ended 2018 surrounded by slightly less old college friends. But perhaps more on that later: the new year is often a time to reflect. In my case, I am reflecting on the books I have started in my life but not finished. From the bottom:

First: I don't think I will finish this book. Prisoner's of Love has been treacherous, I just can't get into it. I give up. I do.
2nd: The Geographer Drank His Globe Away does not have the same ring to it in English as it does in Russian. My mother gave me this book; I am #blessed with a mother who's book recommendations tend to fall in line with my literary tastes, I guess this is no accident (side note: that is my least favorite hashtag that I see all the time). So I know I should give it another try, in spite of my borderline illiteracy in Russian (I'm exaggerating but still)
3rd: Has anyone ever actually finished this book? Not only is Infinite Jest difficult to carry around, it is also the most depressing thing I have ever read. In some ways like the Bell Jar but longer, without the southern romanticism of The Sound and The Fury to take the edge off, or the Irish romanticism and nationalism of Joyce's Ulysses (see, those books I somehow managed to read!) Because reading it is so mundane, and is lasts forever. Absurd as well, sure, but mostly it feels like waiting in line for your groceries behind someone talking about tennis. We'll see. Not a priority.
4th: The White Tiger is a book I picked up while in Maine at a second hand book shop with Sorrel. It is the first book I ever didn't finish, senior year of high school, because it was a school book and I didn't finish it in time before graduating. Not only do I want to finish it because it has stuck in my head all of these years, and I hold a true curiosity of how it ends, but also perhaps finishing it will allow me to stop this pattern of not finishing books. Except for that bottom one. Nope.
5th: Notes from the Underground. It's really good, the bit of it I have read I've truly enjoyed - though being a classic I guess this is a given. Plus Matt was asking me about it a month or so ago, so I'll have someone to discuss it with once I'm done in addition to my parents. Bonus.

I also have A Young Doctor's Notebook and Twelve Chairs on my list for Russian ones, and Howards End (EM Forster) in English.

any other good reads I should get to this year?

life as film

Yesterday I got a text from Max, who travels a lot for his new job.
it said:
I am officially a regular at JFK Laguardia airport, gate official recognized me and said, "Hello again Mr Mendelssohn" before he even saw my ticket.

and I thought: this is so great! It's like a scene from a movie. Those small-town feel in a large city scenes the establish a character at the start of a film. It also reminded me of a long conversation Leonid and I had (via letters) about being a 'regular' somewhere; how so many shows are set up around this idea that people meet up at a bar or a coffee shop or comic book store a lot and there's this community there. How little either of us know of establishments that have that. I was edging on that at some point at the 1369 cafe in Central Sq: the people who work there seem cool and there's a lot less turnover than at most places (I even named the blond girl with the dreads in my head, don't know when that happened) . And they recognized me and one even came over to chat one time. I would come three days a week in the morning before work and get the same thing almost every time. And then I moved. But that experience felt like I was filming in a movie, in a really artsy movie that I would maybe like to watch. What other good moments are there like that, where life imitates fiction?

---

The long weekend was taken at it's fullest: on Saturday Matt and I went to Walden pond. He read Walden at Walden Pond. I finished Be Here Now by Ram Dass. We walked around and took a dip in the lake. We talked a bit about Skinner's Walden Two and the like. The kind of day I like. He's spent the whole summer pretending shorts are swim-trunks. I've spent the whole summer without any shorts. Somehow we got by; it is now September.

On Monday Sima and I finished a project we had started the weekend before; that is, we finished bleaching his hair. He just got braces and glasses (Harry Potter style, his choice) and wanted to complete a trio of changes by doing his hair as well. Mama tried at first with a pharmacy kit, but those never work well so I took over after purchasing some more heavy-duty materials at a beauty supply store. He was so excited throughout the process, even biked over to the train station to meet me.

It was also Yosef's birthday, the day before he left to go back to his second year at university. I made him coconut cupcakes; he made everyone Uzbek plov.  I told him "We are both in our 20's!" and he said "you are closer to being 80 that I am!" -- how dastardly! I miss him already.

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.

aquasleep

In case you were thinking; oh wow, T--- did not write for a year, why the sudden post yesterday?
you are misled by my absence here; I wrote letters and even tried to write something for here, but was never satisfied somehow. here is one attempt (from my favorite place - my e-mail draft box):

11/16-17-2017 I woke up early this morning from restless sleep, for the third day in a row and I’m not sure why. I’ve been better about letting things go before bed and falling asleep, sleep through the night. I tell myself “Worrying about tomorrow is not going to help me now or tomorrow. Let it go. Sleep” and this works on some nights. But the last few nights I’m not sure what I’m hanging onto into my slumber which reaches up at four am to say “get up, now is the time. No, you are not rested. Your body wants to stay in bed, your mind wants to return to sleep, but wake up. Wake up” and I do. I spend the next two hours restlessly in bed, dipping my toes into the well of sleep but not being dropped down into the depths to fill up with energy like a bucket fills with water. Yanked up to the surface almost empty to thirsty lips.
after eating some of my pickled tomatoes I remembered: I do not like pickled tomatoes. As a child, I did not like mushrooms, but I told my parents (probably around age six) that I thought I would like them one day. I knew I had the capacity for change, and that is something I am trying to remind myself of now. I made pickled tomatoes, I still do not like them, but other things may change.
I wonder if it startles my mother when I respond to emails she sent me years ago. 48 emails in my inbox not yet responded to, mostly from her and her brother, with only five exceptions. At the crux of it it is because they send me information to review: long stories to read in Russian that I haven't gotten around to, authors to look into but I haven't checked out any books from the library by them, or even glanced at the Wikipedia link - sometimes, that is all the e-mail consists of. A heading and a link to Wikipedia. Sometimes I do get to them - the oldest ones are from 2014. Matt's inbox is the antithesis of this: only two e-mails that are ongoing, everything else archived in as far as I can tell, invisible.
____
I don't have a photo from when I wrote that, so here is some mint that I got to grow from the grocery store

something about nothing

Matt likes order. I try to oblige, sometimes - we now try to go grocery shopping on Thursday. Last trip was therefore almost a week ago. 

We were checking out and the self scan broke. I just wanted the limes! But the belt couldn't sense them. After we had a highschooler try and help us a couple of times to no avail, I told the guy behind me "at this point you should probably switch. You know that cognitive trick that prevents people from switching because they've invested time in a line? That's the only reason to keep standing here." After a couple more minutes, he nodded at me, acknowledging that it was time to break away, and switched to another lane. The girl behind him i convinced to switch as well. The next guy came, two florescent bottles of fanta in hand. "And they aren't helping you?" he asked, skeptical of my statement that it would probably be a good idea to find another lane "well, they are, but it's not something they can resolve with just swiping the card" (one of those employee override cards) - he broke into a smile understanding that this will not be resolved quickly.

These are banal moments on paper. I suppose they add up and make up the majority of a life, though not the parts that are typically documented in ones memoir. The other day I was sending something for the doctor I work for. His sister had come to visit and purchased a couple pieces of furniture she wanted sent to her home in France. One of these things I have arranged a special company to send it - that can insure something as expensive as this antique, and be gentle with it. To send the folding chair I went to UPS, and while waiting for the Doctor to ok the price of shipping asked the two guys who were working: what's the weirdest thing you've shipped?
Right off the bat: a duck corpse. Frozen, being sent to a taxidermist. He said he had called the infection control people and they said it was fine.


Also: live fish. "I told the girl they would probably die and then when they arrived dead, she called and accused me of murdering her fish. You have to have thick skin"
Almost got to send a plaque of cultural significance, but UPS only insures up to 40 dollars, not the million they needed.

And while I feel that perhaps I have lingered to long in this post-undergraduate limbo, I have to say: I have gotten much better at talking to strangers; those standing in line behind me, those who work jobs similar to mine. And I appreciate that, drink it in.

cheers to the everyday and trying to negotiate order in a disordered world