free to dissolve in streaming in summer

stealing a lovely meme from extemporally: comment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you - they might make sense or they might be totally random. then post that list, with your commentary, to your LJ (or just add a reply back to me). other people (including me) can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

i got from extemporally:
( moscow, hurt/comfort, being brave, chatfic, travelling )

and from laeria
( the friendly neighbourhood crack dealer, but in the nice way, aragorn, black and silver, minimalistic tattoos, kindness )

and from arsenicjade
( kittehs, soul-deep strength, selflessness, learning to be loved, joy )

from rufus
( glasnost is working, patience, сat-herding, postcards from far away, lines on maps )

soooo. want to play?

christmas service (four hours long, oh my poor legs; i need to do it more often, maybe), and choir with heavenly voices, and christmas dinner with family (the last of my lazy evenings, train tomorrow), and brodsky to cap the evening, with his hopeless and hopeful beauty. merry jesus birthday to those of you who celebrate it today, and year is firmly turned ♥

There floats in an abiding gloom,
among immensities of brick,
a little boat of night: it seems
to sail through Alexander Park.
It's just a lonely streetlamp, though,
a yellow rose against the night,
for lovers strolling down below
the busy street.

There floats in an abiding gloom
a drone of bees: men drunk, asleep.
In the dark capital a lone
tourist takes another snap.
Now out onto Ordynka turns
a taxicab, with sticky faces;
dead men lean into the arms
of the low houses.

There floats in an abiding gloom
a poet in sorrow; over here
a round-faced man sells kerosene,
the sad custodian of his store.
Along a dull deserted street
an old Lothario hurries. Soon
the midnight-riding newlyweds
sail through the gloom.

There floats in outer Moscow one
who swims at random to his loss,
and Jewish accents wander down
a dismal yellow flight of stairs.
From love toward unhappiness,
to New Year's Eve, to Sunday, floats
a good-time girl: she can't express
what's lost inside.

Cold evening floats within your eyes
and snow is fluttering on the panes
of carriages; the wind is ice
and pale, it seals your reddened palms.
Evening lights like honey seep;
the scent of halvah's everywhere,
as Christmas Eve lifts up its sweet-
meats in the air.

Now drifting on a dark-blue wave
across the city's gloomy sea,
there floating by, your New Year's Eve--
as if life could restart, could be
a thing of light with each day lived
successfully, and food to eat,
-- as if, life having rolled to left,
it could roll right.

...being as it made of joy, food, utter laziness and irresponsibility and digging through yesterday piles of gifts and candy. and this time, for a bonus, bbs did the dishes before i even woke up, which is a nice plus. but before that we had the new year eve all proper and merry, holiday tree, table, wishes burned and drank with the champagne and chinese lanterns let to soar afterwards included, and home being home, and us being us, despite everything and forever, etc. for the new year, may it be light for everybody.

( scant pictorial evidence )

sort of postscriptum: there's been an increasing push to forbid new year celebrations altogether from more extremist religious fractions - get a gift from ded moroz, burn in hell for an eternity - that's hilarious and terrifying all at once (when i say 'more extremist' i mean 'for example, blowing up or threatening to blow up secular shops selling alcohol during ramadan' course of action, for all that more mainstream followers will, of course, deny any solidarity - but i digress, and it's all complicated and not that interesting, from the outside), and i was... scared, in a way, of it taking, as many things did. but then on the twelfth clock the city predictably and comfortably exploded in fireworks, and somebody shouted 'happy new year!' out of nearest window, and it was my hometown again, for a bit. happy end.

december is always such a heavy month for me for some reason: it accumulates all big and little troubles, all problems, all the fears and loneliness and heaviness and crying myself to sleep every night, and feeling just as hopeless as it's possible to be. and then - if i hang on and crawl through and keep being just patient enough - it just suddenly... clears up, and it's possible to breathe again. and it happens, more or less, around this time, not my christmas yet, but a celebration and a joy anyway. letting go. so dears mine, happy christmas for those of you who celebrates, and happy (continuing) hanukkah, and happy yule, and just happy holidays, and let everything be lighter and easier, this year. love you all.

via arsenicjade: ror those of you who haven't been around in years past, the deal is this: the list can contain anything, from the reasonable to completely unreasonable. when you see this, if you feel so inclined, post yours/look around for others. if you can help someone, say, they want something you want to get rid of, or whatevs, do so. If not, oh well. Basically, it's just letting your desires be known by the universe and hoping it creates good energy.

( for this new year i want )

we have a family tradition, for the new year eve: to write the wish of the year on a tiny piece of paper, burn it while the clock beats twelve, drown ashes in the champagne and drink it while the year changes. i can't even say if it works or no, but it's important for us, and feels right, complete: to let your wishes be seen and known. just because.

just seven days left!

cesaria evora died today. my grandmother loved her songs fiercely; feels like - another bit of her world slipping away. worlds, worlds and worlds inside of a person, and when they die only parts we knew about are left. and songs, sometimes.

regular blogging is a habit i fall out of so easily, but every time new year is coming closer i start miss everything and everybody, and so try to come back. it's, of course, already at this point of 'late sunday evening' where it start to threatens my 'working monday morning', so - disjointed bits and pieces, but here i am, with a little of everything.

0) (there were elections in russia and protests and much movement and other things that i have a lot of feelings about and probably don't want to discuss anymore. it's big and important and happening right now and takes a lot of mind space, and... let's stop at that, for now.)

1) rrrecs. ever since delicious' subscriptions broke down (hey, they fixed almost everything else back! i'm just waiting for subscriptions to return, and all will be fine again with my universe) my fic-reading took a sharp nosedive, but there're some fics that still found me. firstly, a suits runaway au from closer on ao3: the new deal, which is a pretty much perfect combination of smart plot and subtle, understated h/c and slow and inexorable feel of people becoming a family. a very holiday reading, if you know my meaning. secondly, arsenicjade finished and re-posted from kinkmeme her all in, kind of ridiculously grandiose slavefic au of epic proportions. arsenicjade+"slavefic" is kind of a rec in itself, but if you need an additional incentive - it's a slow and careful and weirdly tender story exploring the borders of power and rebuilding of self and learning to live again from more or less burned and salted ground. heed the content warnings, but if you won't mind them - oh, read. and thirdly, i was trying to make up a rec of this verse forever, but somebody did it for me in epic_recs, so i'm cheating and just linking. chosen and defined verse, st. trinian fic that takes movies' shiny pile of crowning moments of awesome and jokes and weaves them into one glorious, glorious pattern. if you saw the movie, read it, and if you didn't - see it first, and then read it. so worth it.

2) my thread on secret santa holiday love meme, because yes, i can't resist.


3) ( kitty photos, just because )

4) (i've made myself a spiffy new layout with the layout generator, and feel pretty awesome about it).

5) hey, bbs. november kinda - sucked, but december must be better, and the year is almost up. and it was a good year, after all. how are you?

saturday we three spent like cabbages: vegetating and wrapped up in layers (i think i was awake for maybe four hours in total, and that's wildly optimistic). it's kind of my favorite way of spending saturday, so i have no regrets. but today was full of sun, i was, for once, actually not sleepy, n. demanded a return match for the lanterns party, so i herded the kids and we four went to see an old war planes graveyard in hodynka, and it was crisp and cold and kind of weird and wonderful (dervish_candela, i think you might like this place, if you haven't been there already).

patya got a new camera recently, so our wanderings are all documented now. very self-indulgent and everything.

( planes, planes everywhere. well, mostly us and then planes )

delicious, WHY. WHY. WHAT IS THAT. i take back every last bad word i said about yahoo last time, because at least they didn't break it while they had it!

where're my subscriptions? where're my tags? where's my ability to EDIT my tags? where're my bundles? why won't '/' tags work? why can i see only ten tags at once? what the fuck is going on?

*WAILS*

i sent an e-mail to their complaints e-mail, and i just - hope that if enough people complain loudly, they might change their minds and at least roll back on some of this? because. jfc.

eta. uh. did anybody read their TOS? this article kinda worries me:

The New AVOS-Delicious Terms have new rules - rules that change Delicious in a serious way:

You agree not to do any of the following: post, upload, publish, submit or transmit any Content that: (…) violates, or encourages any conduct that would violate, any applicable law or regulation or would give rise to civil liability; (iii) is fraudulent, false, misleading or deceptive; (iv) is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, vulgar or offensive (…)

um.