Безам, ва безам, хьаьган массо хьо кара1амо.
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June 17th, 2008
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| Ach. I'm getting rid of my journal. (For the hell of it ... I'm just sick of using the name of the guy from Roman s kokainom.) add me, druzhki. ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} volk | ||||
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June 16th, 2008
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| I finally managed to get that fucking sliver of glass out of my foot. I had to peel back three layers of flesh, clean the dirt out, and there was blood fucking everywhere but at least I won't go limping around anymore. Taped it up and went on my way, but I don't know if it's going to heal up right. The cut was pretty deep, hasn't healed yet, but maybe that was because the sliver was still inside. I oughta go to the clinic and get it checked out, but I've got all of fifteen dollars and there's probably a cost. come on socialized medicine You know, I like that punk Ilyukha, probably way more than I should, but I wish he hadn't gotten to know me better himself. All we ever do is talk about Mikel and now he knows what sins I'm capable of, what a bad person I am. Or at least weak. I sincerely never meant to hurt him, I keep repeating, "I rather would have died than hurt him." But it's true, I hurt him, we both have to bear this shit now, and that, at very least, makes me weak. I had never thought of myself as weak until the other winter, when I was still with Sasha. Marina Matveyevna decided that she didn't want me in her house and was driving me home. She wanted to talk to me and she told me, "You both are very weak." And I didn't realize it until she said it, but when she said it I knew that it was true. Back then I was a fucking psychopath, I'd get angry and violent at the drop of a hat, and I thought it made me strong because at least I didn't feel hurt or start to cry. I just got mad. Like my body metabolized all my other emotions and turned them into blinding rage. I just remember things as months of anger and hate. No happiness, no love. And the feeling of captivity. Confinement. I used to hallucinate the steppes whenever I got sick. Wide-open deserts. And the oceans. I'd see them in my dreams. I'd talk about freedom all the time - whatever that meant. I was feral. Still am, really. I don't know if that's good or bad. Ahmed and Ruslan and I, we used to go into the mountains and just disappear for days. Drugs and sex and killing and eating wild animals if we got hungry. Sleeping wherever we fell. Like wolves. Like wolves. And some days it's not Mikel and his trendy city and health insurance that I want more than life itself, but Ahmed and heroin and my rifle and the mountains. Where I didn't have time to think. Where nothing else mattered. Just compassion. Sostradanie. I've seen so many people die. Slowly. Quickly. So much death. My whole life. Just so much death. What the hell makes him think I need to be protected from his? The thing about drug use, and drinking, and shit, is not that it's irresistible. It's that sometimes you see no compelling reason not to. I left school when I was thirteen. Never had a job. Sell my body when there's bills to pay. (can't do that shit no more, it would kill Mikel.) What shining future am I saving myself for? I'll never go to college. I'll never make any films. Probably never see Russia again, never go back home. And you know, I've stopped giving a damn. Years of hopelessness and you stop caring, you know? I don't give a shit about my work. I don't give a shit about having my own factory job, apartment in the bad part of town with bars on the windows. I don't give a shit about Russia. I don't give a shit about anything but Mikel anymore. I realized that. Like the night before he left me. The other night a thought came into my mind, needle to my vein, trying to make up my mind whether to let it push in - "It's okay. It's okay. It's all right. You didn't make it. It already happened. It turns out you didn't make it. You can let go now. It's all right." And I felt a little bit more free. моя работа, моя работа, работа ... oh, and here is some DDT, because I just found out the other night that angela likes them. | ||||||||
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June 13th, 2008
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| Зато меня любят собаки. И я их люблю. "Чем больше узнаю людей, тем больше нравятся собаки". Я не люблю людей. Совсем. В общей их массе. За очень редкими исключениями. Я не могу любить людей, которые говорят мне: "Ты не смог отмазаться от армии? Значит, ты бедный. А если ты бедный, значит, ты глупый". Я не могу любить людей, которые говорят мне: "Ты еще молодой и сопливый, вот поживи с мое...". Я не могу любить людей, которые каждый день обедают в дорогих ресторанах. Пускай это всего лишь зависть с моей стороны, пускай мне говорят, что можно честно заработать такие деньги. Все равно я не могу любить таких людей. Я не могу любить людей, которые могут ударить собаку. Я не могу любить людей с пустыми глазами. Я не умру молодым, я знаю это. Потому что мне уже поздно умирать молодым. Я уже не молод. "Нам по двадцать семь лет и все, что было, не смыть ни водкой, ни мылом с наших душ...". Мне еще даже не двадцать семь. Я даже не вклеил еще вторую фотографию в паспорт. Но я уже не молод. Я никому не говорю этого, потому что люди будут смеяться. Я не люблю этих людей. А еще я не люблю людей, которые меня жалеют. А еще я не люблю себя. Только не надо меня жалеть. Оставьте себе шанс. english Ahahaha ... I had an interesting day. I was crawling around Waterbury looking for one dollar and three cents. And of course you go after people like "Heeyyyy mama ... " and state your business, and they go no, but what suspicious thing can you possibly be doing with one dollar and three cents? A dealer isn't going to throw away the whole thing for one dollar and three cents short, there's clearly some official business going on here, a chain store with set and regulated prices. As it was I had ordered a book by the Kazakh writer Chingiz Aitmatov (who is lying dying in a hospital bed as we speak, unless he is already gone) and I was a little short. So, there I was crawling around Waterbury, swearing good-naturedly at the latest klassnaya amerikanskaya suka who won't even give me a damn quarter (I later bummed the whole amount off some grandmother, but it took me a while to get there) and starting to eye the pizduzki running around unattended, but of course the fancy American bitches have trained them to be heartless, and things being how they are, I'm likely to be arrested for child molestation - so, there I was, when I come across a glittery blonde who's plastic from her tits to her teeth to her soul, standing outside a restaurant with a D.A.R.E. table. In Waterbury. Let me remind you that this is the city that elected a Latin King for their mayor. "You're fighting a losing battle there, mamacita ... " I mumbled to myself. Unfortunately, she caught my eye and started glittering in my general direction. "Hi! How are you doing today?" "Hi." "That's good! Have you heard of the D.A.R.E. program?" "Yeah. I'm familiar." "So that's what we're doing here today, passing it on to future generat - " And then my heart opened up like a window in summer, and suddenly I felt that I had to correct her ways. Or, not correct her ways, exactly, but I wanted her to know about my joy. Eagerly, I interrupted her. "I'm a heroin addict!" "Well, I'm very sorry to hear that!" she said, all smiles, completely soulless. And then my heart opened up like the ocean in summer, and suddenly I felt that I had to correct her ways. "No, no, no!" I said, beaming at her, adoration in my eyes, my heart full of compassion and love, "Is FANTASTIK!" The caps-lock was audible. I threw my hands up in the air, like embracing the entire world, and walked off joyfully singing some old Russian rock song that I forgot the title of, and in truth I hadn't been that happy in years. | ||||||
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June 12th, 2008
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| I dream a lot about Mikel and Ilya together, but I almost never remember it waking up. I can remember their presence, the way they feel. Only last night I dreamt I was a shark, or some other ugly thing with dead eyes (Ilyukha was also a shark, but a more beautiful one - it suited him somehow), and there was something chasing me that I didn't know how to fight against, and didn't even know what it was. There was nothing to do but keep running, Ilyukha leading me down away from the surface of the water, down to the blackest and most cold parts of the ocean where hardly anything else could survive. It was never far enough. Whenever I thought we had reached the bottom of the ocean floor, there was always some chasm, and it would turn out to go down deeper, for miles and miles that I couldn't even have imagined. But it was never far enough, and Mikel was up there somewhere (in what form I don't know) closer to the air, to the warmth and the light, so far that I couldn't see him or contact him, and I'm sure he didn't know where I went or why ... ... Of course we're in a bad way. Mikel is sick and won't talk to me until he's feeling better. I worry about him. I don't want to do anything in life but treat him well. I realized the other day, right before I was going to sleep, it just came into my mind - "I don't give a shit about anything but Mikel." Somehow or another, I just gave up. If I hadn't met him, I don't know where I'd be, or in what form. Probably I would be dead, or close to it. I don't know why I keep hurting him. I'll say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing, never on purpose, and although it kills me every time, it keeps on happening, almost every night these past few weeks I talk to him, and although I'm always gentle with him, and don't lash out or yell he ends up crying. (And poor Ilyukha somehow winds up hearing all of the details. He must think I'm a terrible person, or at least pathetic and weak.) It's as if I can't avoid it somehow. Everything was perfect up until a few weeks ago. We were in a bad way maybe twice before - no, I think three times. And the first time I hurt him it cut so deep into my heart that for a minute I thought, "No, I can't talk to him again, I can't bear looking at him now that I've done this to him." For a minute I even thought I stopped loving him, because I just couldn't bear to love him having hurt him like that. It felt like dying, worse than dying ... it was the worst I had ever felt in my life. Like a piece of my soul withered away, or rotted. I don't ever mean to hurt him. I don't know why I'm not put together as well as other people, that I can't say "I don't want to hurt him" and simply don't, like normal people do. I'm too weak and I keep on making mistakes. I'm not a very good person, or I'm not experienced enough, or I have no self-control or don't the hell think things through ... I almost wish he'd leave me. I don't know if I have it together enough to keep from hurting him. Why do I have to treat him so badly? My whole heart wants to keep from hurting him, I'm not doing it because I'm a bad person or because I want to, but it seems the situation is unavoidable. I don't really know what it means to be faithful. Am I supposed to be disgusted when anyone else touches me, or not find anyone else attractive? If a good-looking guy touches me I'm not going to hate it. Does that make me a bad person? I really can't help how my body responds. A good-looking guy kissed me, when I was drunk, I got hard, and for a minute I was longing to have real sex, because I am so lonely without Mishenka, without his touch and without ever really having him, but not with him, so I pushed him away. I didn't take him because I want only Mikel. I'm not saying that there was no sin, or that I wasn't in the wrong. But does it mean that I don't love him enough, that he's not enough for me, does that make me such a bad person that he has to leave me now? A khotet' mal'chika po-vashemu, ne prestuplenie? Ya ne ponimayu, pro chego ty govorish' - Da, khochu seksa (s toboj tol'ko), da, ya khochu lyubov' na samom dele, da, ya neudovletvoryonnyj, da, ya neschastnyj! Ochen' trudno, zhivite tol'ko slovami lyubvi. Does that mean "I'm not enough for you" like he says, that I don't love him in such a way that I can simply talk to him and that burns out all desire to want to lay him or hold him, kiss him, breathe him in? Is this failing on either of our parts, or a crime? It doesn't mean that I want to leave him, because whatever I have with him makes me happier than anything I could have with anyone else, and in this he's more than enough. I don't understand it ... I don't know what to think about myself. What I do know is that unless he makes me I am not going to leave him, and don't want to leave him, and I don't want him to make me go, not over this. I don't know what to do. | ||||||
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June 10th, 2008
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| aw, fuck, I almost cheated on Mikel last night. Key word being almost, thank the fucking lord god. I did come close though. I was piss-drunk but that's never any excuse. I am such a fucking slut ( chert voz'mi ) Anyway, he's gone now. We were going to go party up in NYC, go look up Zhenya in Brighton Beach and take some E or at least smoke pot, but his ma called up all "what the fuck are you doing at his house" and shit. I don't know. *rubs face* Probably a good thing we didn't hang out anymore. He'll be in Russia in a couple days anyway, won't have to deal with him. | ||||||
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June 9th, 2008
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| You know, I'm one of those people who will vehemently insist that they're not drunk in spite of the fact that they just consumed about a quart of vodka. Note to self: If you are at a party, and the Hymn of the Soviet Union comes on, and you burst into tears and start passionately kissing the faces of everyone in the room and sobbing, "I love you, brother ... " That is a good sign you are very drunk. ahahahaha ya muzhik, p'yanyj v stel'ki!! | ||||||||
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![[mood icon]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/blackbox/drunk.gif){kind=small}
drunkJune 8th, 2008
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 ( Rained today. So here are a couple more pictures of me drenched to the skin. ) | ||||||||
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![[mood icon]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/blackbox/thirsty.gif){kind=small}
rejuvenatedJune 6th, 2008
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| Oh, FUUUUCK. Colin just flat-out fucking punched Mikel, sent him into an outdoor table, broke glass and he was cut up and bleeding all over, and I guess Joe's response (he knows someone who works there and saw the whole thing) was to run home and email me. Can't get a hold of Mikel, his cell phone's off. They're putting a thing together, fifteen men ... just wish I could be there myself ... I don't understand why the fuck Mikel didn't fight back! He's a good fucking fighter, he broke the face of this guy once ... Aw, shit, I don't know what to do ... My exact response, translated from Ruslish into English proper: "... what kind of bullshit are you making me listen to?! The hell why?! You're a fucking rotting corpse, Colin, I'll fuck you up with my dick in your mouth! How dare that fucking faggot lay his goddamn motherfucking hands on him? How dare he? I'll punch all his fucking teeth into his eyes, and then I'll rip his motherfucking throat to pieces and make him watch me drink the blood! You're a fucked up bastard heading straight back up the cunt, faggot! I'll fuck him in the ass and slam his head into the fucking wall before I pull out and jump on his motherfucking skull! But our dear little cunt-souled girl isn't good enough for this prick. Aaakhh, what a complete clusterfuck ... I'll fucking kill him if I ever run into him ... don't know why the fuck I can't be up there, defending him, protecting him ... if he touches Mishenka again I will goddamn hunt him down like a dog." And I stand by that. Kind of comforting typing it all up again since I can't go and do it myself ... | ||||||
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![[mood icon]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/blackbox/angry.gif){kind=small}
pissed off
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| ETA: Okay, forget whatever I was babbling on about here, Russian music or something. This is fucking EPIC PWNAGE. ETA ETA: This is funnier if you know that it's true. Colin's like two inches. ( This? This is why I'm dating Mikel. ) | ||||||||
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May 30th, 2008
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| (from the Macedonian folk song.) Jana The falcon flies over the River Solza Why does the wolf lie in the rushes? It was the maiden Jana her fair hair, her flashing eyes White throat, red lips Why did you falter by my den? White lips, red throat Why did you falter by my den? Go and tell them That I am dying of love. Go and tell them That I am dying of love. Four dark wounds are in my lover's side. Astaghfir Allah! Four dark wounds are in my lover's side. The first from birth The second from life The third from death And the fourth is mine. ( two more poems ) | ||||||
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May 29th, 2008
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| ah, fuck, I miss my Chechen friends. If Akhmedka and Lanka were still alive we'd kidnap his ass so I can marry him. Yeah, that's why I'm glad I'm not in Montreal right now. Canadians would fucking freak if a Russian guy and a bunch of blackasses burst into the workplace waving submachine guns. What the fuck is with the so-called "civilized" Western world where the guy goes down on bended knee with a rock? (The significance of which, by the way, is totally made up.) We will shoot a bitch. That's love. ( In case anybody's wanting a visual, this is Mikel. Also, it took way too much rummaging to find SFW photos that Photobucket wouldn't delete. ) Nu, Ilyukha. Ty ne narkoman, da? Mikel sprosil menya. Ya skazal chestno: nyet, on nikogda ne upominal o ney. Tol'ko, on govoril, chto budut proveryat' na narkotiki. Khorosho? By the way, if you touch him, I'm going to kill you. Otherwise, bratochka, have fun. | ||||
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May 27th, 2008
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| ( Had this conversation with Mikel the other day, cross-posted from my LJ ) I miss Chechnya. I fucking miss Chechnya. Most days I just want to live the way I used to. Nothing but Afghan heroin and the mountains and the steppes. Sex with Ruslan and Akhmed. Instinct. Endlessness. Modern life doesn't suit me. I hate hanging out with the so-called intellectuals. They want to stay locked up in their ivory tower and wail on about art and philosophy. Who gives a shit, honestly? I don't like philosophy. I don't even like art. I only like to live. Dogs live and love and fight and fuck better than any human, but they don't know philosophy, don't know art. I'm a dog. Nokhchi bworz. Kavkazskyy volk, Chechen wolf. Ya tvoy nebelyy volk, skazal, ya volchok Mikela. La illah ha il Allah. What is it that I need? It's not freedom, but ferality. Some days I just want to let go. Do every drug I come across, fuck guys, fuck girls, get in fights. (Never take PCP and watch Fight Club in a room full of murderous Albanians.) Forget about everything. Forget myself. Forget my work. It's my work. It's always my work. Whatever else happens, I need to make these films, write these poems. That is still the first priority. I need to give up drinking and already I stopped experimenting with hard drugs. I just can't do anything that's going to risk that. I need to live a long life, finish my work, finish my work, finish my work ... And, what, what if I decide that in order to continue this I need to do something that'll fuck Mikel up? I'll need to go home to Grozny to film A Thousand Years of Peace. How long am I going to stay there? He can't come with me. It's too dangerous. I wish I were a musician. Then I would only live and work for Mikel. I would write something like Beethoven, or like Mahler's Second Symphony, or Berlioz. That I would do for you, immortal beloved. But what garbage is writing, are films? Too complex, too pointless. Only maybe Tarkovsky and Majidi is not garbage when compared to music, or Makanin, that's it. Music is just sheer power. Instinct, instinct - it's instinctual, and therefore the highest form of anything, any human accomplishment. I have no respect for other - I don't know, what's the word, "artists," what a stupid word, I have no respect for us, only composers, musicians. I wonder what would happen if I tried? Learned piano or violin at this age. I am just nineteen, but it's already too late. Truly I would give twenty years off my life for music. I told him once that if I could sing I would go up into the mountains and sing nasheeds for the rest of my life. I wouldn't see or look at another human being, only Allah. Maybe it's a blessing that I have no talent at all. The night I killed myself. (I forgot the "tried to." Let it stand.) Right before I went crazy, picked up a new surname, and fucked off to Grozny for a while. I tried to cut my own throat out. My boyfriend at the time, Sasha, called the cops. Ma yelled at him. She wanted me to die. They threw me in a mental institution. The first night I stood there staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, blood still all over me, and said, like Babel, "I am asking you only one thing. Let me finish my work." Because of Chechnya. Because of that boy who still haunts me sometimes. Because of that mistake. Death fetish. Untruth, untruth, untruth. I am never going to know what happened to me when I was a kid. Where was I in Russia? What is this accent? Who fucked me when I was a kid? Why did I think I would know the truth if I went to Chechnya? Did I just go there to die? So, what are you? Russian? Chechen? American? What? Ruslan gave me a gun. Not because I would need it (inshallah.) Her name was Gloria. The night Akhmed died and we thought we had to run I threw her from the jeep. I miss her. Do you know, I'm a pacifist? I came there because I wanted to know the truth. I came there because I wanted to forgive. Because I do not have my own truth, I learned theirs. Now Akhmed is dead and I can't shake the feeling that its my fault. I am grieving, but it is not for Akhmed. I am grieving, but I do not know why. I should have killed that man. But instead I forgave him. Why did I do that? He really should be dead. My work. Why is it the only thing I live for? I don't give a shit about that question and I never did. It's just the way that it is. I keep on working and whenever I think it would be better to die I simply think, "No, instead of dying you should keep on working" and this is what I do. It's nothing profound. I don't care if I get published, don't think I'm doing anything important, don't even know if it's good or not, don't care, don't care. When I was a kid, before I knew how to make letters (although the superstitious Polaks in my family say I was born knowing how to read, and in truth, I do not remember learning how) I wrote out stories with stick figures. It's instinct to me. I don't trust anything else but my own instincts. This, at very least ... | ||||||||||
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![[mood icon]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/blackbox/determined.gif){kind=small}
predatory
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| At least things are better with Mikel. I was afraid that his friend Joe was a fucking psychopath, but no, apparently he's under the impression that I myself am a fucking psychopath. Or at least that Mikel loves me far, far too much. He's scared that I'm going to betray him like his old boyfriends, especially Colin. ("That hurt Mikel bad. Wrecked his life. But you? If you do something like this? It wouldn't wreck his life, it'd end it.") Fortunately, Mikha talked to him, and now he's stopped trying to break us up. At least his heart's in the right place. Of course, he keeps getting drunk and emailing me now that we are BONNES AMIS and offering to tell me all of Mikel's erotic secrets (which he doesn't know). Mostly in French, because apparently I speak French better than I speak English. Which is a bit endearing. He's not a bad kid. An annoying little shit, and I'll beat the everloving hell out of him probably someday, but a bad kid, no. | ||||||
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May 20th, 2008
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| (Cross-posted from my LJ because fuuuuck.) OH MY FUCKING GOD. That fucking bitch. Background: So. Mikel. We love each other, but we can't be together for complicated reasons. We're still into each other. He turns other guys down, hasn't even jerked off to anyone but me in months. And this kid, Joe. He's been trying to seduce Mikel. And yeah, he's not interested. Especially not in a guy who looks and acts like a little kid. So when Joe turned eighteen a few days ago, he sent Mikel these "erotic" pictures. Mikel got totally disgusted. (I was somewhere between irritated and gently amused.) Whenever Mikel comes home complaining about guys hitting on him or his friends trying to set him up, I'll joke and say "Tell him you've got a very jealous Russian army guy with a machine gun." Or something like that. So we decided that I'd write an email to the kid, pretending like I was a big dumb intimidating Slav about to beat the shit out of him for moving in on his territory. We thought we'd scare the kid away, or at least convince him that Mikel does have a guy. Mikel and I were laughing and making jokes the whole time. I felt sorry for the kid, I didn't want Mikel himself to have to break his heart. Joe sends me back this email about my ignorant illiterate immigrant cock, which I thought was hilarious. Mikel got kinda mad, but it was still funny. So I sent him back this email like "IN MY HOME COUNTRY I VAS GREAT POET. >(" Then he sends me ( this email. ) Yeah, that hit kinda close to home. I didn't get too upset, but Mikel got really mad that he was speaking to me that way. He said "You know I haven't slept with him, right?" And I waved that off, yeah, of course I know that nothing's happened between them, it hadn't even occurred to me to interpret it that way. I figured now that I'd talk to him calmly, explain that Mikel really wasn't interested in him, that I myself had no animosity towards him and just thought that trying to scare him off would be easier on his feelings, but I decide against it. We probably wouldn't gain much by it. About an hour after his last email he sent me an email saying simply "Ah. Well I see that shut you up." ("BUUUUURN," I commented. Mikel complained about what a child he was being.) I figured that would be the end of it. But no. NOW I'm pissed. He sent me an email titled "Sorry, buddy." saying "I sent Mikel this picture about two hours ago of an email you supposedly sent me." The attachment read ( as follows. ) So I sent an email off to Mikel all casual-like, saying "Okay, your little friend is a fucking psychopath" ... "Obviously, it's doctored. (Apparently he thinks we actually go around calling each other "comrade." Good lord.) I don't think you bought it even for a minute, mind, especially since he writes me like a bad Soviet villain, but I figured you'd want me to confirm things for you, that it's faked. Like fuck I have other guys! Nobody does it for me but you." I didn't want to show him how pissed off I really am. How fucking dare he try to hurt Mikel like that? How fucking dare he? I don't know if he's fucking crazy or if it's just that he's such a child that he doesn't understand what he's trying to do. I hope that he's just not considered it fully. I'm already fucking worried about what he might to do to Mikha if he's a nutcase. God, why tonight, of all nights? Mikel is going to be really upset and vulnerable because he's got some shit going on tonight. I hope there's no chance that he actually takes this kid seriously. ETA: And, of course, he does. Murphy's Law. He practically raised this kid, knew him as a sweet guy. And Joe is leaving him voicemail messages, sobbing and saying how sorry he is that he's being fucked over, saying that he wants to come over and cook for him, go out and buy cheesecake. He really is a fucking sociopath, how can he act so well? And I myself swore on the Koran that he was lying. I swore on the Koran that I love him, that I want him still, that I have no other man, and everything else. That is serious, serious business. I never thought that I'd be in a situation where I'd have to swear on the Koran. So now Mikel either has to believe that I'm lying to him, or he has to believe that the kid he's known from birth is a sociopath. I hate this. Why tonight, of all nights? He can't handle this, not now ... ETA ETA: This is a fucking nightmare. Mikel's upset. I'm fucking terrified for him. I tried to make him promise that he wouldn't do anything crazy tonight and he said, "I can't." I'm scared. This is beyond anything else - you don't know what it would do to him if he honestly believed that I said that. I'm all he's got. God, why doesn't he believe me? | ||||||
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April 25th, 2008
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| (Dream journal, cross-posted from my LJ.) I had a dream last night that I was traveling along the shore in a very old pickup truck, with half the paint stripped off and wind whistling through the gaps where the doors and the dashboard and the brakes were no longer firmly fastened. I wasn't driving, but sitting in the passenger seat with my AK-47, Gloria, cradled on my lap like a toy. The man next to me was somebody's uncle - not mine - and he would interrupt a long, rambling narrative in both English and Russian that I no longer remember to recite Pushkin in a booming voice, mostly from the play Mozart & Salieri. He was a writer. "I had a friend once," he said thoughtfully, "named Pustin. I'd like to name a character after him, but it wouldn't work out. Everyone would think he was named after - eh. Well. I don't want to get thrown in prison." I wanted to suggest that he change a few letters and sounds. Plushkin. Pyalin. Luzhin, presumably from the English word, but I was intimidated by him like I was intimidated by all adults as a child (and really, even now) and if I said anything it was just to confirm that I understood both his languages. I got out somewhere along the dry and miserable docks, either because this was as far as we was willing to take me or because riding with that old man had become unbearable. I was by the shore; the exact location didn't matter. I hate beyond anything else those weary and forgotten seaside towns with their white paint, moored boats that hadn't touched the water in decades, poverty and the omnipresent smell of fish. Roadsides littered with crumbling doo-wop architecture, the relics of fifties optimism. I lay down somewhere, far enough from the water that the ground was more pebble than sand, and there were patches of grass. I could hear the ocean, but I couldn't see it. White buildings were in my way - some used car lot, with a sign ten feet tall in faded blue letters. The sign read "Bresson," like the filmmaker. I had the idea that since I had come here to die I should not get up and move any closer, even though there was a beautiful sight just around the corner. I tried to arrange (and this was awkward) the machine gun under my chin. I was having trouble firing it. I tried to slip a branch in the trigger guard (getting inventive). But then it occurred to me that this was the last image that I'd have of this world, that was it, the sum total of beautiful images I had seen in my life. And after that keeping on living didn't seem too bad ... So, in essence I just didn't want to die looking at an ugly building. Go figure. | ||||||||||
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listlessApril 24th, 2008
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| Last night I saw Tarkovsky's Mirror. This was like Mother & Son in that although it was technically brilliant it did nothing for me. Interesting in that the plot also (more or less) revolved around mothers, motherhood. I think I'm just going to have to plan my Netflix queue around my hangups. *sigh* What did strike me (rather accidentally on Tarkovsky's part) was one scene during the military training. When I When I was very young - this must have been during some war - my mother would be so busy that she'd bring back to the apartment boxes and boxes of what looked, to me, like macaroni made out of metal, and she told me to look through them and set aside any that were mangled. It was fun to me. As a child I liked being helpful and it was not difficult work. She always called them "parts," I guess because whatever the parts were, it was still the same job. For some reason, for all these years, I didn't realize until I saw them in the film that I had been inspecting and passing bullet cases. | ||||||
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April 22nd, 2008
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| Cross-posted from my LJ: fictions! So, I'm just about done with the first answer for the music meme. I wrote the last bits while half-asleep, and I was originally intending to flesh out Valeria's backstory and her relationship with Alekhin, and all in all the thing could do with another two passes of editing - like for instance everyone's dialogue sounds stupid because I was flailing around trying to write it in both English and Russian - and in the first bit it sorta feels more like Moscow than Peter because I swapped cities a couple pages in - also I changed around the date of Alekhin's military service and failed to double-check how old that would make him and how that would align with the current year - but I have no pride in my work so eh. Better to have critique now before I do my next couple of rewrites. Also, it should be a couple thousand words longer at least, but I figured that as long as I was working on something I might as well submit it to this contest, and there was a 5000 word limit. I was going for a sort of austere, Robert Bresson feel to the prose - hopefully I nailed it and it doesn't come off as just awkward, although I did try to end it at an intentionally awkward, uncomfortable place. For instance, it would have had much better(/more traditional) structure if I cut out Talik and Slava entirely, and structured it to set up his experiences with Valeria as a contrast, finally ending with Alekhin sitting alone drinking and waiting for his sign. But I wanted the story to peter off senselessly, to have pointless diversions that lead to nothing, because I think that expresses everything better. (Although, in rewriting maybe I should still do that? What do you think?) Inspiration for this was from panonychus, Morning Musume ~ Memory Seishun no Hikari. How I managed to get all of this out of it, I don't know.( Theory ) | ||||||||
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contemplativeApril 21st, 2008
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| *snicker* God, I just checked my Google search history. - Information about diabetic needles. (I have decided to become a connoisseur and start caring which gage I'm using to shoot heroin.) - Lou Reed lyrics - an attempt to ascertain if this S&M club in Petersburg that I like is still open - stuff on clinical depression - the quote "Nous sommes tous dans un désert. Personne ne comprend personne." [All of us live in a desert. No one understands anyone else.] - the Pushkin poem with "Иллюзия которая возвеличивает нас, для нас дороже, чем десять тысяч истин." [The illusion which exalts us is dearer than ten thousand truths.] - Mayakovsky's suicide note Why do I have to do just the most existential thing possible every damn second of the day? Reading James Baldwin. I don't read a lot of American authors, but there's some special quality in Baldwin that I can't pin down. I know that part of the reason why I like him is because he genuinely cares about and understands the people around him and the world he lives in. He loves others, not fiercely and boundlessly, but calmly and studiously, with quiet respect for all humanity and without guile or judgment, sort of like a young kid. Even when he's dealing with these turbulent topics, his soul seems peaceful when he writes, like a holy man's. But there's something in the prose, too - some warmth, some light. I was thinking that it might just be by association - remembering the warm summer days in Harlem when I'd take the train. But then I remembered that I got that impression from the first thing I read by him, Giovanni's Room, and that took place on the other side of the world. Well, whatever it is - he's one of the finest writers the country has produced. | ||||||||||
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cheerfulApril 19th, 2008
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| Crossposting this from my LJ, for no real reason other than that I don't think I've tried to force my musical tastes onto anyone on IJ yet and it's high time I got started. I got tagged twice (my flist has astounding faith in my taste) so I will give you fourteen songs instead. Links go to YouTube. List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to. 1. Ilyas Ayubov - Turpal 1o This is what Chechen pop music is like. (It's usually not this creepy and militant, but honestly it's a matter of scale.) Ilyas Ayubov is UNAVOIDABLE over there, everyone at least knows Tesha Kh'o/Do You Believe. I think the title of this song translates to "Hero's Girl" but my Chechen is very bad so I can't provide the lyrics, sorry ... 2. Zubeen Garg - Ya Ali This is a Bollywood song. Ya Ali means something like "God help me" to Islamic people. This is a cover of the Arabic song Ya Ghali except much better and in Urdu. Lyrics and translation here. 3. Ali Dimaev - Noxchijchö (See, I told you it's all like that.) This is my favorite song. I translated the lyrics to this once, I think, but I forget where I put them. Those poor boys. All young Chechen men have very beautiful smiles, but I can't look at them without wanting to start crying. Peace and freedom to our Chechen brothers inshallah ... 4. DJ Smash - Moscow Never Sleeps Питер ещё краше. Haha. Bad dance music is part of the national character ... I wish I were at club Opera right now ... 5. Aleksandr O'Shannon - Moy general (My General) This guy has almost the same genetic makeup as me - part Russian, part Ukrainian, inexplicable Irish grandmother? But listen to him sing, he's pure russki. 6. Orkestr Che - Guten Morgen Mayakovsky Good Morning, Mayakovsky. Mayakovsky is my favorite and most handsome poet except for brother Rimbaud. I also like Don't Know the Sun by the same band. 7. Levon Atayan - Mut gisherner Dark Nights. Armenian music is generally pretty crappy - why are they heavy into R&B over there? - but I like this guy. I actually prefer Geroinovie sni (Heroin Dreams) which I downloaded off his site that is down right now, but if you want it you can download it here. 8. Zdob si zdub - Doina Haiducului Outlaw Song. If you know this band (hello, Central Europe!) you probably know them for the equally awesome but much less serious DJ Vasile. By the way, I have the exact same outfit as the guy in that band (by mistake). I look good in that ruffly shirt. 9. Olypmic - Slzy tvy mamy I suddenly remembered that I picked up my near-encyclopedic knowledge of how to pick up hustlers in Prague (yes, this came up in conversation at some point, more than once, over the past few days) from watching all of these Polish-made documentaries on Czech hustlers. One of them had a song by this band involved somehow. I think it was this song. I remember in English it part of went "you'll live on in your mother's tears" ("slezhy tvoy mami" being "your mother's tears" in Russian, which is a similar language) and it was about the death of a young boy, and impossibly, impossibly sad considering the context. 10. Krematoriy - Malen'kaya devochka Little Girl. I translated Seksualnaya Koshka (Sex Kitten) for everybody a while back but it's not on Youtube. 11. Vladimir Vystovsky - Moya tyganskaya My Gypsy Song. By the way, my mother would like to submit that her grandfather used to sing like this in the bathroom. He was probably singing this exact song because who doesn't love Vystovsky?! Я до рвоты, ребята, за вас хлопочу!!!!! Может, кто-то когда-то поставит свечу мне за голый мой нерв, на котором кричу, и весёлый манер, на которм шучу ... 12. Tatu - Mal'chik gey Gay Boy. I think I've listened to this song about two hundred times since Mikel ... The English version is okay, too. "I long for you to hold me like your boyfriend does ... " (Have you seen their new-ish music video Beliy Plaschik yet? I remember seeing it playing somewhere in Chechnya last summer.) 13. Ochie chernie Dark Eyes. A Russian folk song that I really like. 14. Xiu Xiu - Boy Soprano This is the last thing that I should be listening to right now. Xiu Xiu is one of those bands that never stops being emotionally flaying and yet I can't stop listening. Out of masochism, I guess. Also, file under "songs that are approximately seven thousand times more painful now that they remind me of Mikel." | ||||||
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April 17th, 2008
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| Went to the dentist's. I enjoy the dentist's. God knows why. Probably because my dentist is great and for whatever reason I appreciate the pain of getting my teeth drilled. It's a very clean, clear pain. It's - well, what can I possibly say that won't sound weird? That's it's refreshing, like swimming in cold water? My dentist is great too. We talk about literature. I was reading Hadji Murad, we talked about it a little. Tolstoy surprises me. Prisoner of the Mountains was garbage - check out the film adaptation/modernization with Sergei Bodrov Jr (RIP) - it's a thousand times better - but when he writes about the Chechen people in this novel he does it sympathetically and he actually gets shit right. There's not a lot of cultural fetishization or condescension. Honestly, the Chechen people haven't changed too much. Although it was written a good century ago, this is the cover of the latest English translation. He's sort of a beautiful guy, right? I made an icon out of him for my LJ, I think I'll bring it over here. I miss Chechnya. I like the Chechens. As long as you don't do anything that will make them want to kill you they are nice. Everyone is pretty brotherly, and if you have any problems, or get in trouble with the cops or the Russians, even if you're a total stranger somebody will come along to help you out. I never got the feeling in any other city but Grozny that all of the people there were essentially good. I worry incessantly about Mikel. I still haven't heard from him. Been worrying to the extent that I've been checking the obituaries - ach, really, how paranoid. So far he's not dead, or if he is, nobody bothered to call the paper. I try not to write about the Chechens anymore after what happened with Ahmed, and I don't write poetry as a rule (and if I do it's not in English), but I got bored and wrote a poem for a friendly competition over at some message board. There was a no-politics rule, but I kept it vague, and almost everyone there is an American and probably has no opinion on the Chechen war even if they were able to pick up on the nationality of our friend here. ( Daymohk ) | ||||
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Безам, ва безам, хьаьган массо хьо кара1амо.
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