Out with the old in with the new...

The first session of SLS 2006 will be over tomorrow. The departures are beginning and will continue throughout the weekend. The arrivals have started, just on here, on there, the bulk of them will be arriving saturday and sunday. This marks the official half way point, or rather when we survive this weekend. This is why I'm here, I guess, to help get these people oriented, situated and accomodated. Once all of that is over, I pack my bags and head to brussels on monday for MAAWG. Its going to be dreadfully difficult to get my head out of St. Pete's. If last year was a kind of "heart of darkness" then this year is definately "days of our lives". I suppose you would have to go back and read my blogs from last year. This one definately feels a little calmer than the previous year, but there's something overly emotional about it. Maybe I'm just empathisizing too much with my recently heart broken friend, maybe its a bit of the dead romantic in me poking his head out from under the manhole cover and wondering if its safe to come out, but it has been an emotional rollercoaster, even from the sidelines.

The last couple days have been mostly mellow. I don't know if its been 2 days or 1 since my last post, I'm at the Internet cafe Players right now... everyone else is at Misha's apartment here on Kazanskaya, its way too packed in there, and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and boxed in by people. I got the rather large group there, and then snuck out as they were getting situated. I gave Tanya a hug and said, I'm gone, she understood, mostly, but she can be all business. She said to me in Russian, take some people home then, I said to her with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, its not my night for night duty darling, I'm off, and I did a marvelous job last night, making sure Swafford, Wendy & Nancy all made it home safely along with jenya and Stacy... done, done done. Stacy is leaving tomorrow, Nancy is here for the month, Wendy left this afternoon, I keep teasing Stacy that I won't miss her and refer to her as a cold hearted bitch for what she did to Tom, but truth be known, she is marvelously quick tongued and that I will miss...

Today was a good banya trip... took three guys down there and beat the crap out of them until they were gelatin. Albeit I didn't get worked over, working them over, gave me a hell of a workout. I should've waited longer between the first and the second, I was a little eager to get it done thinking I would have time to do some nice heatin' myself, but iI became dizzy. Dad was right, its far more stressful to do the work than to get the punmishment so to speak. The boys were very thankful for my efforts and took me to dinner, or that after banya, afternoon, meal thing where you have 1 shot of vodka, 1 beer, and are ready for a glorious nap. Saly my nap came in the thick of the afternoon heat when I was listening to Matthew Zapruder, Eugene Osteshevsky and Anne Lauterbach read... I dozed in and out. The previous night, slam dancing with Zapruder, took a lot out of me. Yeah, we were slammin' to billy idol at Datcha, I know, we shouldn't have been there, but fuck it, we speak the language... and what's more, it was my bloody night off!

Well I can keep going like this for hours, telling you the sordid details how a drunk skinhead fuck accosted us as I was taking Jenya and Stacy back to the dorms, but I'll skip that. I don't think I'll soon forget his yellow toothey drunken leer as he laughed and forgot the basic rules of proximics entering our safe little triangle, then he harassed the gypsy cab driver who picked us up... the nerve of him... good thing I managed to spill most of my violence on the dance floor, otherwise, I might've beat his ass. I did see one glorious thing last night though... as my little tajik cab driver, the one who drove Swafford home first, then came back and grabbed me and Wendy so I could escort her to the Astoria, as he rounded the corner, I thought I was being driven around by Short-Round from the temple of doom. he turned on that street that runs parallel to the gardens in front of the admiralty, the street runs into Nevsky prospect right infront of Aleksander Plaza and the winter palace. The sun was seconds from bursting over the top of the hermitage. The building is already gilded and golden in all the right places, but at 5:30 in the morning, with the sun ready to explode, maybe it was earlier, I can't remember, it was nothing short of divine... a truly marvelous sight... I think I might've even swallowed harder and taken a deeper breath than normal in that moment, forgetting my driver thought he was evil kanevil...

-L