An occasionally resurgent meme has been going around on LiveJournal: “comment on this post, and I’ll give you five words that I associate with you. Then you write about them.” I asked, and I received, and so here they are.

Home. Ooh, this is a good one. I’ve been looking for that for a while. Thought I’d found it with Ethan, but that turns out not to be the case. I miss the home we had [in|with] each other in the first year and a half or so of our relationship. This is somewhat, though not even close to entirely, balanced by not missing the relationship in the months leading to its rather abrupt (for me) end.

When I stayed in Boston after graduating from BU, and commuted to Providence for grad school, initially I lived with Colleen. And other people too, but emotionally it was mostly with her When in late 1997 I abruptly needed to move from where I was living and posted about it to the Moxy Früvous newsgroup, a fellow Fruhead told me she was moving up to Boston in the next five months, and maybe we should think about getting a place together? Five months seemed like a long time, but we did meet at a Früvous show in December with the specific intention of finding out whether this was a good idea, and then wrote each other 300Kb of emails a month or something crazy like that, and in February of 1998 we moved in together. With some geographically and head-spatially induced ebbs and flows, Cee has been one of my closest people for longer than anyone who isn’t my immediate family (brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and mom).

(I have the hardest time calling Jo Ann my sister-in-law. It sounds so… remote. Usually I refer to her and my brother collectively as my siblings.)

In many ways, and up until very recently, that was a unique occurrence in my life. We weren’t related but were quite close, without being romantically involved. It was the quintessential Boston marriage. We seemed to have similar ideas of what we wanted out of a living arrangement, or in some cases we worked it out then. Cee had romantic relationships, and I did too, and eventually, when our adorable quirky 210-year-old house got sold, we moved apart because I wanted to move in with my then-boyfriend. I’ve wondered how differently shaped my life might be had we moved somewhere else together, but ultimately it might’ve been good for our relationship at that particular time. I certainly don’t regret the experiences I did have as a result of that move, either: namely, moving in with a boyfriend who didn’t turn all evil on me in three months’ time, being proposed to and accepting, living together for a while, deciding together that getting married wasn’t a good idea, and eventually deciding together that we didn’t want to be involved, and had in fact grown apart.

All of the time I lived with Chris was hugely educational in that almost completely non-traumatic way, but it wasn’t home in the way that it had been with Cee. We gave it a good try, but ultimately it just didn’t work. I think that one of the reasons for that is my desire to live with other people in community. After some years of living with him, I moved to London to live with my siblings and help raise my nephew for a year, as I was applying for the special-studies PhD program at Brown. That was nostalgic in many ways, I missed my people in Boston, but it was in no way lonely. That was another unique experience in that we bonded, the nephew and I, ooh boy, we did. And I’d lived with Zhenya and Jo before, and we knew we all liked it, and frankly, if circumstances were right (which isn’t likely), I’d live with them again in a heartbeat.

Then I lived alone in Providence for a year and a half. That was perfect, some of my favorite time. I definitely had a home then. Found my feet in that way that’s only possible when you live alone, found my professional feet doing the now-approved PhD in humanities computing, found that having Talan living just downstairs was a good reminder of what it was that I liked about living with other people, without actually living together.

Then Ethan moved in from all the way across the country in Pullman, WA. Someday I’ll write about the arc of that as home, but today is not that day.

The day after I graduated in 2007, we moved to Somerville, a close neighbor of Boston that would be one of its boroughs, were this New York City. We were two humans and two cats in a house of seven humans and five cats (and a dog, and a bird). And/Or was and remains a great place, and was good to live in, but wasn’t that default, deep-down home unless I was actively working to keep my own rhythm aligned to the house’s. Ethan lived there for six months, and I stayed for two years; when I started thinking of how, some years from now, I’d like to be raising a child without a primary partner, And/Or didn’t feel like the right place for that.

So in May I moved to Something Completely Different. We’re experimenting, it’s too early to know, but for now it feels like it felt to live with Cee. People drop by and hang out, from the apartment upstairs and from the outside; a lot of cooking and significant communal eating goes on, insofar as our schedules permit it; there’s both a stated intent and an emotional sense of crafting a home. I’m comfortable here, and even if it doesn’t work, I’ll still have had this amazing reminder, in some ways maybe a crystallization, of knowing what I want in a home.

Heritage. I’m Russian by birth, grew up speaking Russian in a Soviet Republic capital where, like in all of the USSR, the predominant language was Russian. I also grew up in Moldova, where people speak Moldovan (pretty much Romanian) and have Moldovan culture and holidays and food and way of life—and all of that was alongside me, not part of my primary experience. So that’s weird. And it’s weird, too, that I am Jewish (ethnically if not religiously), but didn’t even know my dad spoke fluent Yiddish until I was thirteen and we went to visit his home village and his parents’ graves in the Ukraine before emigrating to the U.S. So I grew up with the Barry Sisters, but still don’t have most of the holidays straight, and don’t like gefilte fish. So that’s weird too.

I was never able to refer to myself as an American, though more than half my life (and therefore part of my heritage) has been spent here. It just didn’t feel like that’s what I was. Oddly, the entire last presidential election season changed that. Then again, I’m a fully vested citizen of the internet, so U.S. national boundaries are about as meaningful as other places in the world.

Dark. A place of introspection, and introversion. A season that’s difficult for me. A time when fun things happen. A time when, and I’m accepting this in stages, I need to take care of myself above most other things in order to remain functional. Also a time when having responsibilities to others (like small-girl-sitting once a week) gets me out of my head and supplies a kind of joy that’s unavailable elsewhere.

Curious. I am! Curious Vika is curious. This sort of gets me in trouble, though not in the way I’m making it sound. I ask people questions and listen to the answers more than I tell stories. In conversation, I tend more toward learning than toward teaching (unless I’m thinking my way through an issue by arguing, which can be great with the right conversation partner). There was just so damn much to learn from Ethan that I fell into this odd and stupid learned helplessness, looking to him for information when I should have relied on myself. When there’s stuff to be learned by talking to someone, I vastly prefer that to finding out on my own. It’s more fun. Unfortunately, it can get on a partner’s nerves.

These days I am re-discovering my curiosity, and pay more attention to balancing out asking questions and telling stories.

Joy. Something I feel quite frequently, in short intense bursts, usually unrelated to any one thing but being rather a confluence of thoughts coming together in my consciousness. Perfect moments, like sunshine and Davis Square and ice cream, or walking under the flame umbrella in pouring rain, singing along with the stuff in my headphones, feeling the air that smells of ocean. Or even snow shoveling during the quiet, voluminous snowfall, under the night streetlights. Or that rare occurrence of having hours on end to do with as I please.

Is there an organization that’ll take me abroad to… do whatever, really, as long as they pay for most or all of it? And here’s the catch: it needs to be non-religious. Like, if a church organizes it, fine, good deeds and all. But if they so much as peep to the natives about Jesus (or whatever), or even hold prayer meetings with the already-converted, I don’t want any part of it.

I know there’s a lot to do locally. Right now I’m exploring international options. I’m particularly interested in Latin America, but would consider other places.

Somehow, New Year’s didn’t get touched by this. It makes sense emotionally, but not logically – how is it that I deeply, viscerally relate to both? And I decided that they’re different markers. The Solstice is, for me, a turning point in the natural cycle. I move within it, and with it, and am happier following a moon calendar that changes ever so slightly to keep in tune with the planets and star and galaxy around us. Solstice/Yule is a social thing only because I happen to be surrounded by people who keep time by it, too, and for some of whom it is – as it is for me – a holy day. Not all of us have that privilege, and I’m thankful to live where I live.

New Year’s is a social thing in a larger sense. I’m part of a larger human community that keeps a 365ish-day calendar, and that by and large marks the midnight of December 31st into January 1st. I’ve taken part in that since I was little, staying up past midnight for the first time when I was six or so. (And stayed up until 6am! I should ask my mom exactly how insufferable I was the next day. If she doesn’t remember, that’s probably a good sign.)

Tonight I was with acquaintances and beloveds, eating good food and drinking goofy-making drinks and enjoying my brand-blue hair and petting the love cat, talking, listening, taking it all in. At midnight I was napping in a warm happy bed upstairs from the party. The new year is here, and it is welcome. My personal newest chapter began over a week ago; but the passing of 2008 actually closed the previous one. Couldn’t have happened soon enough.

Good night, fellow humans. Happy new year.

Moaned about, got out of bed like an hour late, went to work and stayed there for ten hours, in part because the first half of the day I was mostly useless. (Enh. It happens. It’s SAD season, and I do what I can, and somehow work-blogging after hours feels different, calmer, with nobody around.) And near the end of the business day I found out I’d made some people unhappy, and had to deal with that, and it wasn’t a big deal—in fact, the conversation with a third party was helpful and reassuring—but it’s never a good feeling to know you’ve screwed up. On the other hand, learning experience, and a mild one as such things go.

So by the time I left work at 8pm I was tired. And… not exactly grumpy, just feeling off. But then.

Then I came home, and there was a circus band rehearsing in my living room. Went upstairs, and housemate Coraline was hanging out in the kitchen with her friend Carolyn. I threw my stuff down and—having had no dinner—declared I needed scotch, and to make a casserole. Why? I dunno. I guess I’d had a fantastic casserole at Molly’s the day before, and I’ve had random foodstuffs hanging around the cupboards for forever, AND I’d never made casserole before.

Yeah, really.

So we broke out the bottle of 12-year-old scotch that I’d taken to Burning Man and we’d never gotten around to opening (there was other alcohol around, but it’s not tempting to drink a lot of dehydrating liquid in that climate). And I made a casserole of frozen artichoke hearts, frozen peas, frozen corn, frozen mixed mushrooms (thank you, bulk food ordering, I have a mushroom invasion in my freezer), chick peas, canned tuna, multi-colored potatoes, cream and two kinds of cheese. And I’m probably forgetting other stuff.

All the while, people around me chatted and sipped tasty alcohol and giggled a lot. And later I ate and felt more human, and around 10:45pm Coraline (ok, Johanna) and Eric and I went out against all better judgment, because spectacularly under-advertised Midnight Madness was going on in Davis Square. We gawked at antique bobbles and boutique-y clothes, but mostly we dropped by Dave’s Fresh Pasta, sampled tasty foods, and brought home mozzarella made that evening by a neighbor of theirs (or something).

Oh. my. gods. Homemade mozzarella with crushed pink peppercorns and a drizzle of truffled olive oil. Yeah, I’d say that, combined with hanging out with my awesome housemates, was a win even though it meant that once again I got too little sleep.

Boy, if that was a bad day, bring them on, you know? Speaking of days, I should probly go face mine. The sun’s rising, a warm shower awaits, and today I get to take tasty casserole to work for lunch. Oh, and tonight I get to see both of my favorite small girls (can’t call them toddlers anymore, as they’re skipping and giggling on either side of three years old), and go to the Museum of Science with one of them and her dad. WOE. Woe is me in this sad season.

Today I’m thankful for good people in my life, and for all the weird bipolar days that, in the end, let me know that things are going to be ok.

Life doesn’t suck! Though maybe a little more sleep would be good.

My job continues to delight me. I suspect it’ll be taking up more of my brain in the next couple of months, as I transition from being almost exclusively computing support to doing more of the balanced mish-mosh of support and digital library work I’m supposed to be doing. This transition is right on schedule; I’m glad for the increased variety, and also glad to have had a reasonably intense introduction to networking and other larger computing issues at BU.

Random students whom I don’t believe I’ve ever actually met grin at me and compliment the blue hair. So do some of the faculty and staff at the school. Nobody has made a huge deal out of it, and nobody seems too weirded out. Also, I may have finally found a community event at work I’d probably feel consistently good participating in: Sabbath space, a sanctuary of sorts on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, in a beautiful chapel space used for prayer, quiet conversation, meditation and… coloring mandalas. Clearly not entirely Christian, for which I’m thankful. It’s been a strange landscape to navigate, this School of Theology. Before I came there, I thought STH was, you know, like majoring in religion except on a graduate level: you learn about as many different religions as you can, and do anthropology and cultural studies and stuff. But no, this is a Methodist seminary, and though they’re all excellent people and extremely tolerant and clearly versed in many religions (several faculty members have artifacts from all over East Asia in their offices), it’s still a Methodist seminary. People learn how to preach, they practice ministry, they graduate and go work in churches and on missions. To me, this is all alien, and the more vociferous Christian contingent hasn’t exactly been sane in this country of late, or anywhere ever. But, you know, so it goes. I’m there to do computer stuff, and to help create digital resources that help people of vastly different backgrounds find out about each other. I work with good people who do good work for their fellow human beings. Ultimately, what they believe in looks like a cross between anthropology, social activism and mythology to me. And I’d be willing to bet that not a single one of them has ever contemplated harming a doctor who performs abortions.

Spiritually speaking, I tend to steer clear of monotheism, and don’t like it around me. But the people at work are fascinating and multifaceted and kind and compassionate and, most of the time, present. I like people who are fully there in the moment with me.

It’s oh-gods-late, and I must go to sleep. There is a seven-day candle burning in my room; every one of those that burns down will light the next one until the vernal Equinox. A continuous flame through the darkest part of the year; thanks to Molly for the idea. G’night.

blue some more  by wordsend

Now with matching accessories!

A couple of spots are slightly lighter than the rest, almost turquoise. Dude in a coffee shop said, “Wow, it looks like there’s light coming out of your head.” I think I’ll keep it this way.

Lesson of the evening, learned for the 248th time: don’t drink strong coffee at 8pm if you want your sleep schedule to stay more or less normal.

On the other hand, party! For one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, on the occasion of her moving away to the Wrong Coast. With surprisingly fun karaoke, fantastic people and an impromptu aerial silks performance that, as usual, made me laugh in delight several times.

Conclusion: sleep is for the weak. (“But you’re weak, Vika.” – “Shut up.”)

01-31-07 Never Forget (aka the Great Boston Bomb Scare) from Zebbler on Vimeo.

And don’t forget to visit Zebbler’s site and Sean’s site.

Love you, guys. Keep making blinky shiny love art. And to the rest of you: has anything changed, do you think, in our collective attitude in the last year and a half?

Today my Burner campmates and I, along with some hundreds of others, unloaded the two 53-foot containers whose rental our fearless container leader Cris Wagner organizes every year. They get loaded up with stuff people are taking to the playa two weeks before Burning Man, and unloaded two weeks after the event.

Everything comes back covered with the tenacious, alkaline playa dust, of course. I now have several bins of stuff to de-dust, launder and re-organize, plus a tent and an aerobed; I hope to deal with most of this tomorrow. Ah, the bliss of weekends when I can dedicate so many hours to a project.

On Monday 25 August, I drove the last westbound leg of my road trip, and entered Black Rock City, NV (just northeast of here, in the big white Black Rock desert). I drove in in a dust storm several hours long. It took me an hour or so to get from the ticket-check gates to the greeters’ station, and a good couple of hours more to get to my camp – visibility was that bad, and even though there was an endless caravan of arriving Burners all going 5mph or less, at some point everyone just stopped, got out of their vehicles and hung out for a while. Note to self: do not pack goggles on the Burning Truck. Seriously, bring them with.

I got to camp caked in dust, with my eyes burning and happy as happy could be. Hello, playa, I’d missed you.

The rest of the week proceeded to be gorgeous – only reasonably hot desert days and holy-gods-warm nights when I don’t think it got below 60 – right up until Saturday, when there was another half-a-day-long dust storm. By then I was exhausted and not a little strung out; emotions of all sorts are heightened at Burning Man, and this can be tiring. So I hid from the world for a while with great company of several people in succession. Lucky me – when I returned to Boston, I also returned to most of those people living within a five-mile radius of my house.

In short: on Wednesday the 20th of last month I left home absurdly early and drove westward to Black Rock City, NV. I took a northerly route on the way there and went through Ohio, Duluth MN, Fargo ND, Billings MT, Custer National Forest, Yellowstone and Jackson Hole WY. I got to the burn in the afternoon on Monday the 25th, stayed in the desert until stupid-early in the morning on Monday the 1st, and got home around 4:30pm last Sunday the 7th. On the way home I went south to Las Vegas, and then drove through Albuquerque and Santa Fe NM, Tulsa OK, Little Rock AR, Memphis and Nashville and Knocksville TN, Pretty Everyplace PA and Sleepy Hollow, NY. I drove a total of 7,253.5 miles in my friend Molly’s little 2001 Honda Civic Something Just-Pre-Hybrid, which was a complete doll and got me an average of around 45mpg. I was gone nineteen days (Stephen King, where are you?) (The number 19 carries a huge significance in the Dark Tower series); my cats expressed their unequivocal disgruntlement, and are currently over it.

It was exhausting and exhilarating and exactly the cathartic road trip I wanted. I saw some friends I hadn’t seen for a long time, met new and fantastic people, had the best burn yet (of my meager three), and spent a lot of time thinking and singing, sometimes at the same time.

Neuromancer is a bitch to experience as an audio book if you’ve never read the paper copy before. When I told Mark (who gave me the audiobook for the road) about the difficulty I was having understanding anything that was going on, and mentioned it was my first pass through the novel, he looked downright sheepish. I am glad to report that, after several false starts, I did listen to it all the way through, and am now listening to the whole thing again. It is brilliant and well read.

It’s 11:18pm, and i’m sleepy. Many more thoughts on each of the above-mentioned places.