(no subject)

Oh, bite me. How's that for aggression?

I did, at least, manage to trim my own bangs today. I did not manage to do push ups or dishes, but then, neither did the boy. Do dishes, that is, not push-ups.

It was raining out but of course the second I call my aunt to confirm that she'll come pick me up so I don't get soaked, the sun comes out and it's all happy and shining. Of course. Sigh.

Not much else to report. Still feel off. We're looking at Kias on what promises to be an event-filled Saturday, gee, fun. I'd really like to sleep sometime this year.

To-Do today, writingwise.

1. One essay
2. Work on Corsair outline.
2a. Do the meme, since I now have enough information to do so.
3. Expand on Nameless outline so I know what I need to know.
4. Contemplate madness a third Nanonovel
5. When home, edit PolyBigBangs

( Russian )

(no subject)

No, I'm not okay, why do you ask?

(no subject)

When I was very little, up until the last few years, really, my grandfather worked for the World Bank. I don't know what his actual title was, but as far as I knew then he traveled around the world helping countries rebuild their economies. For me, this meant he was gone for weeks at a time, and when he came back he had stories and books and things like that. Little toys. Trinkets. Not the plastic tourist shit, though some of it was your standard fare. But also, strange things. He also brought me back travel soap. And travel bags. He flew first class or business class, and back then that meant that they gave you a little pleather or canvas bag with single serving shampoos, soaps. I had a bunch of those little bottles of "eau de toilette" and I didn't know what it meant but it smelled real pretty. This was right at the end of Pan Am, and I had a couple little bags with Pan Am on them. I don't know where they are now. Probably got thrown away. I remember their logo was white and blue. I think, a white globe.

I used those stupid little canvas travel bags for bloody everything.

When I was little, he would go to the Soviet Union. It took me for freakin' ever to stop calling it the Soviet Union. And after that I never knew what to call it because "former Soviet Socialist Republics" sounded way too clumsy but that's what it was. And saying just the Ukraine or Kazakhstan or whatever might have been inaccurate because it wasn't always just the one country.

He brought back all kinds of things from Russia and the Ukraine. Including, I think, stories of meeting with Gorbachev and the cabinet. I don't remember this very clearly anymore, but I remember he brought back two big books, one white, one red and green and gold, of Russian and Ukranian fairy tales. "Tales of Russia and the Ukraine" I think was the title of one of them. The only title I can remember now is Bash Tislek (sp?) the Man of Steel, but I can't remember what it was about. It was all full of three brothers who did tasks and combs that turned into forests and wolves that spoke and let you ride on them. I loved those stories as a kid. I absolutely adored them. I wanted to be a princess in the stories, but the kind that had adventures of riding on wolves and breaking magic eggs and things like that.

I also did want to be a ballerina.

At some point, we acquired a videotape of the Bolshoi Ballet performing the Nutcracker. I still need to get that on DVD. I can't remember who the choreographer was but I could if I saw it again, and it's probably the most common copy anyway, so its' got to be around here somewhere. Anyway, I must have watched that video a thousand times. I can still picture it in my head. And by then I was already taking ballet classes but that was one of the videos that made me want to become a ballerina. I wanted to run away and join the Bolshoi Ballet. My grandmother actually took me to see them when they came to the STates. I remember seeing Giselle at the Barns of Wolf Trap. I didn't go to sleep till three, four hours after the performance. I must have been eight or nine.

Grandpa brought back some more videotapes of the Bolshoi Ballet from his travels, but we couldn't play them. Stupid different formatting. We kept meaning to find a place that would convert them for us but we never did.

He also brought back matrioshka dolls. Lots of them. I think we had four or five sets at the very least. I remember we had two sets of Russian politicians, one that ended with Gorbachev and one that ended with Yeltsin. We had one set of American politicians, and at least one set of ordinary babushkas. That one was red, I remember. Predominantly red, with gold workings and then all the colors in the flowers and things. They were made out of... balsawood, I think, or something similar. They were very light and thin, but lovely and painted. They were on a cabinet near all the books, white and pressboard wood with glass shelves. I used to take them out and play with them, just arranging them in different ways.

Really, that's probably where my fascination with or want to learn Russian came from. Those dolls, and those Russian/Ukranian fairy tales. Maybe someday I can read them in the original. Maybe someday soon. Grandpa spoke a little Russian, I think, possibly enough to get by in the city, but I don't think he was ever fluent enough to conduct business in it. I asked him once, but he said he was never very good. I think, though, that he was proud of the rest of us because we all spoke Spanish. I don't know how good he was at that. Grandma was fluent; she translated at a free prenatal/post partum clinic in DC for a while until very near her death. Come to think of it, I think Grandpa is, too. I don't know if he remembers any Russian, though. But I think he can still speak Spanish with the family.

I forget a lot of things about my childhood, I think. Kind of like when Grandma died I whitewashed them over so I wouldn't be sad. But now I want to remember them. I remember that Grandpa taught me all kinds of high-minded-sounding ways to pad my papers with fancy language. He said economists and politicians talked that way. I was twelve. Thirteen. He told me that bankers really walked that way, when I saw Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke and the rest of them were doing their Very Serious Walk in the song about ... whatever. In the bank. He sort of translated it for me. I thought that was so cool.

I shoudl remember that I don't have to remember this all at once.