occupy wall street

it's 3 and i haven't been up this late in a long time but i've been sitting here reading everything about the real-time police brutality happening at zuccotti park and my blood is boiling

animalistic endurance

There's a homeless man who is always reading in Melrose Starbucks. He's definitely one of the fixtures of the location, along with the shoestore owner from next door who's always coming in for refills; Преподаватель, the sad-looking grad student who's always grading papers and looking around; and Ilya, the Russian-speaking boy who never seems to make any progress in his book. You can sit next to him for ages and he'll barely turn a page. I was there at Melrose Starbucks doing some homework before class today and asked The Homeless Man to watch my things (laptop, purse, and the rest of my worldly belongings) while I went to the restroom. When I came back, he asked me why I'd purchased the particular Russian-English dictionary that I had on my table, and then proceeded to talk about different dictionary brands and their strengths and weaknesses for learning foreign languages. He told me he used to be a professor of German language and over the course of the next hour told me in great detail about the migration of the Germanic and Turkic tribes throughout Europe, modern day Icelandic in comparison to Old Norse, the two existing forms of Norwegian, and more. He was very kindly and had a full, long and unrestricted laugh and every time he let it out I would start to wonder if he was actually crazy, but then he would settle back in to his steady stream of effusive knowledge and he was completely normal. He compared the world of academia to life as a "street person," and I very badly wanted to ask why exactly he was a street person but it wouldn't have been proper. When I left he thanked me for indulging his rambling, saying that he doesn't get to talk to people very often.

Today, Nelly (a different Nelly from the one mentioned a few times before - this Nelly is younger, from Armenia, half Armenian and half Russian) brought a big tray of медовый торт, honey cake, from the Armenian bakery for everyone in the class. I asked her what the occasion was and she said it was because our teacher had mentioned that she'd never tried медовый торт, and that it was totally unheard of for someone from the Soviet Union to have never had any.

sad because i don't have

caramel stuffed apple cider cookies

sour cherry vareniki

in conversational russian we're supposed to conversate about a new topic every week, but somehow we've been talking about russian food for three weeks now. everyone is very passionate about naming yet another very traditional dish and the real way to make it. this week nelly turned her entire desk into an imaginary counter and demonstrated how to roll out and pinch the dough for herring pie according to her babushka's recipe. long discussion on the best places to buy sourdough for a good price in los angeles (the armenian bakery at sunset and serrano). at this point i think i'm an expert on national dishes and i swear to god the ingredients for every one are always described as, oh, potatoes...meat...mushrooms...dill...beets...carrots...sour cream 

where have all the night owls gone

???why am i the only one on gchat???
guys, it's only 1:30 in the morning 

11/11/11

happy 60th birthday to my dad! i love him so much

i've been thinking about how i've seen a lot of very major car accidents on the road in the past few days (i've been driving a lot, but the number has still surprised me) and then i found out today that a good friend's father got into an accident and totaled her car. (he's okay. RIP, car.) i'm not normally one to cast public service announcements, but it's supposed to pour tomorrow (i can already see the storm clouds outside of my window) so i hope everyone is extra careful this weekend.

uh

i have a real affinity for names ending in uh, like christina, luca, yuliya, my bike nina, my houseplant stine; the sound is like the pause before something great

clam dreams

last night i fell asleep while lying on my bed eating clam chowder. i don't know how it's possible to fall asleep in the middle of eating something but i woke up with my face next to a bowl i was lucky to have not tipped over with the whack of an arm or leg. in the morning pa laughed at me and asked if i had had an all-you-can-eat buffet

beautiful spoons

operation rhino relocation

on people leveraging their digital social networks

I'm tired of people using their Facebooks to advertise their personal business ventures - I don't want to see your real estate postings or vote for your friend's shitty youtube ballad, I'm just 1/1,000 of your penniless friends okay so unless it's a ten-dollar microwave or you're giving away shoes in 8.5 I'd like to be treated like a friend or at least someone you'd show cool shit to or someone you'd have a conversation with if we were stuck in a windowless room and not a potential customer/buy-in. jesus.

sea nymph

i missed this while working in china last year and i'm still sad about it

where is my depression medicine

Why did I hope we would be happy abroad? A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely. 
nabokov 254

sleepingtime snacktime

this morning i dreamt that i was standing in the kitchen of my house drinking a very large bowl of soup, which was cold despite the fact that i'd just taken it out of the microwave (with 4:48 left on the timer). when i woke up, bagel said i'd been smacking my lips in my sleep.