9.11.09
It’s quarter to five and already pretty dark in my apartment. I think my psyche was feeling the lack of sun-light earlier, or that might have been from a relatively restless night last night - not that it was very restless, but up to then I had been sleeping very well. Strange, since I went running for the first time yesterday in over two weeks, and I had always thought that exercise improves sleep. Or maybe it was the fourteen loses I took at the chess club. The four victories and one draw were too few and far between to vanquish my suffering ego.
Never before had there been so many people there. You would think that more competition means more fresh meat for those starving for a victory, but alas, you end the day wondering where the hell all those chess players came from. There were three young guys, each maybe about twenty years old: one Asian looking fellow, and two others who appeared to be brothers.
As I played the first brother, he might have noticed some uncertainty in my attack. After some of my moves, he would declare the move correct, until finally, with no declaration necessary, he took my rook for free and I ran out of time trying to make up for the loss. The Asian guy didn’t show many signs of weakness. After abolishing my queen side he muttered something to me which I didn’t really understand, I think that I should’ve protected one pawn over the other.
Gilbert Godfrey tied my pieces one to the other as usual, and smirked at me when I managed to pin and doubly attack a piece in front of his queen. There was blood for the next three moves and I surprisingly came out of it only a bishop down. He also muttered something after the end of the match, but I didn’t understand him.
Another player, who I’ll call John Candy, although he looks a lot more like the jungle scientist from Garry Larson comics, I beat for the second time in my career. He’s a good player. I think he plays a little easy on me. He’s true to his name, Dobravolski, which I think denotes wishing well.
I played the Turk for the first time. I don’t know where he’s from, but he looks Turkish, and he won the tempo tournament last week. I gave him a good game for ten moves or so, then lost a piece and collapsed. I lose pieces all the time, regardless of whom I’m playing. The people I beat are firstly those who take too much time thinking about how to finish me off and secondly those on whom I might manage to make up a lost piece if they‘re not careful. The Turk doesn’t doesn‘t fall into either category.
I don’t know if I remember correctly, but I think I saw stoneface lose a game yesterday. Or maybe it was a dream. Regardless, I think he won the tournament.

I had an easy week last week. We were supposed to have the 4th of November off. It was some holiday that Russia started celebrating a few years ago. Now they celebrate some event long ago the significance of which many Russians seem to not know. I understand that Russia used to celebrate the October Revolution in the beginning of Novermber, but for some reason that holiday has been officially replaced with this other one.
I only had one lesson on the fourth, and it was early in the morning, so I had time to buy tickets to the theater that evening and check out one of the gyms. At the gym I asked a woman at a counter what I needed to do to go swimming. I needed shoes for the gym, a swimsuit and towel, and a note from a doctor. It was the latter that troubled me most. It turns out, they had a doctor at the gym who gives people the notes they need. I paid a dollar for the note, a dollar to borrow some shoes, and five rubles for a plastic bag to contain my real shoes.
Evidently, on the door to the doctor’s office was written that you should knock before entering. I had seen the note, but not understood, and barged on in without hesitating. There was only one small room, like an apartment, and the doctor was sitting in the corner, eating lunch and watching TV. He was upset that I hadn’t knocked, but I explained that I hardly understand Russian and he calmed down. He had a look at my back for some reason, and in between my toes to see if there was fungus growing there, then he signed my note and said do svidania. I left the gym foolishly without going to see the pool. I didn’t have my stuff with me, so I figured why bother. At least now I can go there and swim if I feel so inclined.
The thing is, I haven’t felt extremely inclined. In Napa, swimming was a nice complement to other things that were occupying my time. Here, it doesn’t feel so necessary. I was telling my mom the other day: what exercise was to me in the past, music has become.
I play on the guitar when I get the chance. I’m learning slowly but surely. There are several Russian ditties I can play with no sharps and no flats, but after awhile they all start to sound the same. I found a new song with a key signature in two flats. It gives a fresh new flavor of music.
I think of the violin from time to time. I really went at it for a few weeks over the summer before my brothers came home, playing some really hard Bach sonatas that I’d been listening to over the course of the year. My efforts didn’t amount to much, but I tell myself that it’s not as important how it sounds as how you think it sounds. When I played, I didn’t hear the slipped cords and the off notes, I heard Joshua Bell playing Bach’s Violin Sonatas.
There are times when you listen to music that you wonder how nice it would be to be able to create those sounds yourself. There are passages in classical music that just blow me away with their beauty to the extent that no modern music ever has. Some music comes close. Some works on the classical guitar affect me almost as much as the famous European composers, but other than that, music has lost something over the years, hasn’t it? Why would anyone want to listen to pop?
Anyway, I miss the violin again. I’m glad I rented one over the summer. Had I not rented one, I‘d never have known that I‘m still capable of something. I haven’t completely forgotten how to play, and at times, I can play it close enough for my imagination to take over.

As I said above, the days are getting shorter. Accordingly, tomatoes are getting more expensive. I made the switch over to the carrot and beet salad that I ate so often last winter. So far it consists of boiled carrots, beats, diced raw garlic, and plenty of kefir. The kefir adds a nice touch, not just to cool the garlic off, but it also complements the veggies quite well.
In the carrot and beet salad, kefir comes across like sour cream, except it’s less creamy and more sour. Now who would ever think to use sour cream with cereal? I don’t know, but kefir goes very well with muesli. It’s almost the blandest thing you’ve ever tasted, which I’ve come to really appreciate. The lack of flavor is also a flavor, isn’t it? Indeed, kefir takes blandness to a new level, where it’s not just a lack of flavor, but even an anti-flavor.
Kefir is cleansing somehow. It reminds you of what other things taste like. Try tasting an apple after drinking, for example, coca-cola. The sugar content nukes you taste buds and the apple feels like paper in your mouth. But the pureness of kefir leaves you ready to taste the sugar in even the bitterest of green apples! I love it.