freedom to rock

Both of my Russian finals are over, most of the wedding prep is done, and the weather is fine.

When I got home from my finals I started work on the Rasputin story again. I wrote three sentences, but that's three more than I wrote during this past semester. I'm hoping to write the final 250 pages before June 24, we'll see what kind of success I have. It's easier to read it than to write it - I was reading this page the other night:

"those voices, those cats, or maybe they’re birds. People don’t like me to talk about it, but good heavens, if you were hearing voices wouldn’t you talk about it?"

“What do the voices want?” whispered Felix.

“Oh, one thing and another,” said Arkady, “Sometimes their suggestions are ridiculous and sometimes they’re stabs of genius. Sometimes the most ridiculous things they say have got a dash of cleverness in them. They’ll say, ‘Put some grass into the samovar instead of tea,’ ordinary lawn cuttings, you see? I’ve never dared, but maybe it would be good. Has anyone ever tried it? Maybe the cavemen. Once a voice told me to poison the ducks, and what do you think, I almost did it! I don’t like the way the ducks clean themselves, it makes me uncomfortable, if you want to know the truth, and I try not to watch. Can a duck have fleas? Who knows. It’s one of those mysteries that we’ll never understand, not in our lifetimes anyway. Why are the ducks driven to behave the way they do, and why do human beings hear voices? These are two mysteries. God created His world and ours, with mysteries built into both, perhaps to tease us or something, hey? Maybe our modern world with its horrors deserves some teasing and poking just to keep us wondering if there really is a God, to keep us listening for God’s voice in our nightmares.”

“I never have nightmares,” Felix said, prevaricating, "On the contrary, I-"

“You are a nightmare yourself, to others,” said Arkady."

Tonight is brother Jim's birthday dinner and I can't schedule myself a trip to the gym today, I'm going to eat Japanese food instead. However, without classes my schedule is much liberated. I'll have to resume bringing a book to the gym for occasions when I stay so long I wear myself out and need to take a break, soggy with perspiration.

And soon I'll have my summer Netflix program scheduled. It'll be so nice to have someone to watch movies with.

If you can believe it, the bride has never seen "Blood Simple" before, and I would certainly enjoy watching it again. Then Nicole will know who I'm imitating when I scream like M. Emmet Walsh after Frances McDormand stabs him in the hand.

As for me, I've never seen "The Lost Weekend". N. tells me that there's a scene in which alcoholic Ray Milland catches the delirium tremens and he dreams that a bat attacks a mouse and blood dribbles down the wall. I'm ready!