life!
I don't know, man, I'm just so happy. I have a lot of work and things, and the Jewish holidays (and my spontaneous decision to keep them) didn't help much, but everything here remains incroyable. I was in a stand-up show last night and then I stayed up til three a.m. with four friends, talking about our weaknesses and strengths and singing songs on guitars and bringing up religion. I found out that one of my best friends here won the Intel international science fair twice and hadn't bothered to bring it up for the first two months. Life here is rife with mind-fucks like that. Russian continues to sound like a mouthful of glorious throat cold, with a series of strange endings; I'm writing a short story for Jamaica Kincaid to review; I've lost a whole bunch of weight, in a good way; I will spend six hours writing a paper today; at six p.m. one of my favorite comedians will meet with the stand-up comedy society; everyone is exciting here, everyone has interesting things to say, everyone is strange. All the boys hold themselves really oddly. The heat hasn't been turned on yet, and it's freezing. I'm still just surprised by joy impatient as the wind. The other day I walked a few miles down a street that has houses from the 1650s, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's house, the French Consul General's house. The ground was scratchy with dead leaves as I shambled along and the berries were bright on the branches. The old shingles, crooked and shining, grapevine patterns carved into mantels, the broad wind hurtling around my head!