I am leaving on thursday, august 7th. oh holy planeride across a continent. I have stopped eating and sleeping, almost. I am becoming more efficient in using my resources.

I need to stop asking and start giving. Zina said, "My tongue would never turn to say 'Pay me.'" [russa and soul] you must give everything, create another world where anything is possible.

tomorrow when i wake up i'm finding my brother and i'll make him take me back down to the water that lake where we sailed and we laughed with our father i will not desert him i will not desert him.

"Lenin said Russia was at the edge of a precipice; now we have leapt forward."

This week both my aunt and my brother�s girlfriend are visiting. It's going to be like a big family thing, like in the old days... my mom's side of the family is Carpatho-Russian, and my aunt is extremely involved in the orthodox church. She lives in Chicago and goes to the old church in the Ukrainian Village all the time, and paints intricate designs on empty eggshells.

When I was little I was always thinking about "the olden days" and reading books about pioneers and medieval forests and children in England at the turn of the century. "The Stolen Lake" by Joan Aiken was one of my favorites. I made a castle out of our refrigerator box, with gothic arched windows and a door. I put all my favorite things in there, put on my princess costume, and read in the castle all day.

surely some revelation is at hand.

Things I�m having trouble believing: I�m leaving in 5 days. I only have one more page to write on this paper. And oh, how I love the russian soul.

My memories are the strangest colors. Things that meant nothing to me before, when I remember them, seem like lovely dreams. The pacific northwest astounds me with the size of things. When donna and I walked all the way from sauvie island to the saint johns bridge, along the st. helens highway. West hills to our right, river to our left, crashing through the darkness and trees with cars flying by. We saw faces in the cliff and didn�t know if they were real.

Suffering strengthens the soul, makes it have more depth.

The nice thing about truly unpleasant experiences is that there�s one less thing to get nostalgic about. I swear I can be nostalgic about anything, no matter how trivial or unmemorable. But I don�t think I will ever miss this summer. I�ve never been so glad at the passage of time. Although the bike rides were nice.

I have been sitting inside staring at this screen for three fucking days. When I go out to get the mail the outside is so dazzling, I forgot... tomorrow I�m going somewhere in the light. Non sequitur. I didn�t get my period this month. I always waste money on pregnancy tests and I�m never pregnant. I think I would know anyway, if I were.

our fairy tale life. a charmed life.

Ok, I�m done, for now. I�ll edit it later. 11 pages. Usually that would have been easy. But I had to reread 7 books, take notes, think of the hardest possible topic, and figure out how to write it, while spending 95% of my time procrastinating, daydreaming, riding bikes, and generally avoiding. I�m so good at avoiding. I�m going to go celebrate by sleeping.