lists

the goods

1. take offs in airplanes
2. orange blossom smell in springtime
3. barefoot
4. riding fast downhill and not being scared
5. waking up outside


the needs

1. motion
2. wandering
3. outside
4. writing
5. finding out something new
6. something new


the first day in russia we were in that weird retirement home in repina and the elevator was a broom closet and the sheets in all of our rooms were mismatched and like a yard sale and we walked to the ocean. and then we walked farther and farther down the beach and to a really large rock we didn't think the sea would touch but it did it anyway and then farther and we all got a lot of sand in our shoes but we made it to a tiny cluster of graffitti rocks and they were rainbows and hearts and sara and liz were the only ones there with me except for those two russian boys who finally followed all the way and told us we had to go back.

in saratoga there was that really dirty teepee in the middle of the woods and we brought a laptop and watched welcome to the doll house which wasnt like we were expecting and i was too dirty to get any mosquito bites.

the goods

1. funsavers
2. rolands
3. W
4.

please please please

never have i ever







been this anxious for a returned phone call.

won't stop after all

i promise. russia is gone but its not over.
sometimes i like the desert. things i like about the desert: bike weather, occasional plants and animals

actually the other day and by the other day i mean twoorthreeweeksago i was riding under the bridge by the lake after the green belt ends as the sun was low and everything was kind of brownishgreyishblueish and there were three shadowy figures and i thought they were kyotes but closer they were three javelins and i didn't know if i should stop and wait for them to go along their way or zip by and hope i'd be invisible and i couldn't process it all fast enough and so i just skidded my way up to their feet and crossed my fingers i was invisible but no such luck and i scared #1 so bad he started scurrying as fast as possible like a cartoon trapped in the air and he was going so fast he turned sideways and i was super horrified and stopped moving at some point but wasn't sure when because i was so mesmerized and he finally makes it to his feet and launches himself up this nearly vertical embankment and i just know he's gunna snowball down and hit me. then #2 does the same run in place and loose his shit and turn on his side like a top or a plastic pass the pig and then up the embankment and then #3 and this is all happening so slow and i know i'm just about to be avalanched by javelins and wind up in the river and not be able to lift my bike out and the whole time all i could think was what if one of them has rabies then its def the end of me and i knew all along i'd die at the hands of a wild animal and how silly that it'd be what is essentially a slim and hairy desert pig but i'm clearly out numbered.

i should really get over rabies. its not very rational.
i should also write more. and get out the desert. at least for a little while.


and maybe stop being so dramatic

im an old broad

for my birthday sveta got me a kiwi gelatin cake and a bunch of yellow roses. they sang happy birthday in russian. i never really thought of how silly it is until they sang it in russian and vodik didnt really get it and he sang a solo that was kind of him just saying the same thing without breathing or smiling or taking his eyes off me. then he set the kitchen table cloth on fire.

cheating at this again

here i go again ripping off my own writing. i started writing in the hotel because i was exhausted and the light was so yellowy and i was so robbed of sleep that i looked at the silvery styrofoam balls hanging from the ceiling and the parade of obnoxious fakey folk costumed russians and this obnoxious comedy sized balalaika and i felt like maybe i had slept in a closet standing up or something and i kind of wondered if i'd ingested something. yellow lights will make you crazy. we had a pretty long night and i sang so loud the same chorus and then i woke and wandered back to where i belonged and we rushed downtown and were the first in line to see Lenin's dead body. Like disneyland or something. i also started writing to legitimize myself. i was holding all of my stuff in my hands and sleeping in a large leather chair. i wouldn't trust me if i saw me. im pretty sure i was sleeping with my face nestled in my own neck.

its this place, cosmos hotel, and its right across from the space museum which is, of course, sucks because , of course, I can't see the cosmosabaki like I wanted and there's a vitamin conference and everyone is wearing black pleather heel boots and drinking protein shakes and it smells like hard boiled eggs. and i hate hard boiled eggs.
oh and its also a casino. the hotel i mean. lights and jackpot noise and everytime my eyelids get too heavy that same guy is still at that same machine and he just doesnt have a soul anymore. and olympic swimmers are here and they keep sitting next to me and keep talking about buying houses and doing commercials. maybe one of them will maybe marry me. the funnest lot are the japanese and their trainer has a white board on his room that says Japantrainer but of course i read it Japanther and got overly excited and tried to peek in and succeeded eventually and wished i hadn't and felt uncomfortable.
oh and there's a hanging circles sculpture of the solar system sort of in blue and purple styrofoam balls the size of tractor wheels and everything is bathed in this sickly yellow light and my face hurts.
i can officially sleep anywhere. today: face up one boot on my suitcase one dangling kind of off the chair face up and surrounded by 13 year old russian girls singing and my purse in my armpit.
and i still love you. and by you i mean moscow.
oh and i just found a really heavy silver bobbypin in my hair and i just dont know where it came from. russia's getting confusing.

im not thatthat obsessed with the space dogs (theres a movie called that and i dont mean the movie) and im not really even into Japanther but i mean they're both kind of interesting. especially when they're in russia.

reading disorder

i think i maybe liked moscow a tad bit better than st.petes even though that girl suggested that i shove my train ticket down my shirt so no one would steal it. yeah, a tad bit better. now that the sun isnt showing up things are more monotonous and im only going to halfway halfass this post. because its pretty much a message that i sent to bradley after reading his bradley oliver blog and he likes it and his taste level is pretty refined so ima spit it out again.

we were staying at this really gross {nice but super trashy} hotel called cosmos that had all these flashing lights and was next to the cosmonaut musuem featuring the stuffed deceased cosmonaut dogs {which was of course closed for renovation like everthing else in russia of course}. but anyway a large group of international olympic swimmers was also staying there and we were looking for our coordinator irina and we passed a room with a handwritten sign in english and japanese and i read it too fast and read "Japanther" and was all at once confused and excited and passed by the room several times very slyly trying to take a peek until i finally spied inside a japanese man lying naked face down on his bed and then another japanese man in jockey underwear and i think the one was giving the other a massage because it makes the most sense realised "Japanther" actually read "Japanesetrainer." they both made eye contact with me but nothing happened. the end.

i really wanted to see the cosmonaut sabaki Belka and Strelka real real bad and who would have thought that the cosmos hotel is directly adjacent to the cosmonaut museum. there's a rather beautiful sculpture of a rocket launching against the sky and when the sunset the light hit it right and it glistened. and then the moon came out and the cosmos hotel lit up. like they have flashing lights all over it. i was a little scared the show might keep me up or give me horrid nightmares or the other kinds of bad things that happen with flashing lights. none of that happened. i slept like a baby. although the carpet in all the other floors was space themed and i believe the furniture was metallic. ours wasn't. some vomity color carpet i believe and the furniture looked like it was bought at a yard sale. and the door shocked us every time we opened it.
i also just looked up the cosmonaut sabaki and figured i would share about about animals in space that i looked at. a monkey was the first animal in space. i mean they sent up fruitflies, but i just dont think that counts. The first was Albert the second and he died on impact. Besides dogs the USSR sent up mice, guinea pigs and frogs. And then they decided to send a tortoise in orbit around the moon. The french sent a rat and then two cats, one of which died. And thats my bookreport on animalsinspace. I dunno, i kind of think its interesting about these animals in space and "first spiderweb in space" and things. one night my fake dad talked about the theory that america never went to the moon. and then he said something awkward about black people. like most dinners.