Unknowingly Unrequited

Lo, my chirping sparrow, my songbird of life;

Won’t you grace me with your presence and bestow a kindly word;

To put to rest my anguish and assuage my piercing strife;

And blessed be my mortal ears to the sweetest song they heard.

The golden crest and wing of down cover gently my resting eyes;

Within your radiant light and mollifying warmth I long to be;

Such justice disarms me deeply and strips of all disguise;

So vulnerable I stand before you, a shameful sight to see.

A broken fool in rags and chains, I present myself to you;

Waiting to be swept up with the debris of yesterday;

I drug myself till senseless on what you cannot do;

And block my ringing eardrums to what you will not say.

My dear sweet singing, valiant aviary joy;

Flee not from my aching breastbone and seek not to be coy.

A mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees...

So where is that big ol' orange spherical thing way up in the sky? I do believe I've caught a couple quick glimpses over the course of this past month, but an ash-colored sky has become the norm around here, to say the least. It definately has an unavoidable hypnogogic effect; I really do want to sleep all the time- especially during the so-called 'daylight' hours. I have come to the conclusion that Moscow is the City That Almost Never Sleeps (but good luck catching the metro between 1:30 and 5:30), and so, effectively, there are more streetlights surrounding my apartment building than in the entire Okinski Rayone, with double the wattage, I'm sure. Additionally, all the pollution this damn city emits into the air positively captures all that artificial electric light and clinging to it with a death grip, so it never escapes into the atmosphere. All this rambling, distracted describing is just to further suggest that the conditions in the day and night time are arguably rather negligible and so I shall try to use that as an excuse for becoming entirely nocturnal these days (hence, it's 12:40 AM and I'm not particularly tired, though in 12 hours' time, you can bet I'll be struggling to appear coherent, a generally losing battle down a slippery slope). I really do hope I'll catch some sun while I'm home, though I may just splurge and try one of those disgusting beds- I know generally they're not healthy, but just once or twice probably won't kill me any more than light deprivation disorder, right?

what do all y'all do for fun 'round these here parts?

Oi! Just thought I'd recap a special scene from this weekend before it gets too fuzzy in my mind: in the eternal quest to answer the query "how does one entertain ones' self on a Saturday night in Moscow?" Sam (my darling buddy and a positively delightful bloke) and I took to the streets by Sportivnaya for that elusive Something To Do. After wandering around the river's edge for half the night in temperatures not possible for early December prior to the melting of the polar ice caps and refusal to take any responsibility for it, we came upon a posse and a pizza stand. While I could just as easily have made better quality pizza at home with aerosal cheese and a microwave, I give the poor chaps full credit for effort. It's not easy to go up against decades of top-down enforcement of shunning all things 'Western' in effort to assert socialist superiority- albeit, even as such for pizza recipes. I furthermore give the grandest credit to the shopkeeper for maintaining his cool and keeping head held high through & through juxtaposed against the scene to follow: double-parked in front of the pizza stand sat this little ol' clunker of aluminum, fire and brimstone, with all the doors and windows open, blasting inescapable techno music into the street, bouncing off of every building, corner or other object massive and stagnant enough to repel its advances. Shuffling and stumbling in and out of the instrument of obstruction was a wayward throng of shiftless mal'chiki- barely 18 years to his name each had, as was apparent from the unseasoned faces and unbridled gestures before us. Wearing summer-seemly short sleeves abutting the ghastly wind that had picked up since the clock's new day, each lad swaggered and leapt, as though attached to puppet strings repeatedly twisted and twirled in the wind and made to dance by a puppeteer inebriated nearly to unconsciousness; the puppets danced, though nearly inebriated to unconsciousness. Even the most argumentative post-modern dance critic would be distraught by their apparent complete lack of rhythym, positioning and simple intent; their legs would merely sway continuously until a sudden burst of inspiration, revelation or possibly urination caused each toy to spring up as if to immitate the stride and cadence of a springbok or jack rabbit. Their elbows stayed tucked in and bent, like some strange beast with limbs sown into place until a wave of emotion would cause them to cry out and thrust their arms around in a windmill gesture- not entirely unlike those of an electric chair victim in action, I can only suppose. To put it lightly, the choreography was nothing to write home about. At the same time, as Sam pointed out, these kids put dignity, health and all other concerns aside for the sake of a jovial evening of spirit and laughter. They didn't care what anyone thought of them, said to them or did to them; in that moment, they had found vibrant solace. Unfortunately, the militsiya did not concur.

what's in a name?

Just a little background clarification on my title: about a month ago, while I was out running in the park/ghetto/junkyard/nature preserve (ever notice how in this city they always seem to be one & the same?) some nasty little half-stray mangey mutt saw it fitting to sample a bite-sized morsel of my hamstring as I passed through its domain. While the bite appeared rather ghastly and deep (gotta love those massive half-surfaced blood clots and the distinctly shaped carvings in the flesh, like the ever-elusive hole in the middle of the green; so close to victory and yet so far- putt away!) can't say it hurt especially at the time and I quite seriously forget about it for several hours (and miles) after the fact; I merely hope the little mofo found it appetizng. There must've been about 50 (err...6, but who's counting?) old pooches surrounding my feet at the time, so I guess I'll never quite know which was the guilty party. Since then, to minimize the possibility of contracting rabies I've been frequenting the clinic to wait around with embarassing Westerners and pay a killing to get fun little injections in the shoulder every few days/weeks/months just for kicks. That and a technical excuse for being a perpetual tea-tottler. January 22nd, man, January 22nd- only then can I once again partake in the unabashed National Passtime. Ah, well, it's been educational and while I don't feel it, particularly, I suppose it's been a lesson in health as well. So as a result, my liver rests well and I probably won't find myself having highly hydrophobic tendencies and frothing at the mouth in the imminent future, but even without rabies, I still bare the mark of a semi-valid canis lupus in hot pursuit of plights unseemly. All I can say is be very, very glad of two things: that I do not eat meat and that the moon is ner any more visible than the sun in these parts, so even when it's full, I won't know it and I shall not morph into the being that makes your blood freeze and stop dead in its tracks. Grrr...

Pilot blog- here goes nothing...

Yeah, so I've always turned my nose up at this whole 'blog' thing, as I consider them narcissistic and inane. It's time I come clean: so am I. Also I've read some pretty decent blogspots lately which were enough to push me over the edge. Ah well- you win; ya vam pozdravlyayu. So I'm off to a rather late start with this here 'window to the world' shit. I've been here closing in on three months already and haven't said a word to all y'all in cyberspace. I'll try to embellish past details as they arise, but do excuse me (for your sake and mine) if I don't give a full, uninterrupted synopsis of my life these past 88 days- ask me and detailed knowledge you shall receive. Otherwise, let's say we all take this on faith, cappicce?