Last fall in Moscow, my host mother would sometimes take me to see places and do things I never thought I would see or do in my life.  At those times, it wasn’t only the general and sustained joy of being in Russia that I felt, as when I walked through Red Square or over the Moscow  River as the sky was cold and purple and everyone around me was speaking the language I loved–it was also the particular elation of rare privilege, as she took me on private guided tours to Pasternak’s estate, or to dinner at a dacha that held a helicopter landing pad in its front yard and was guarded by armed security, or to relax in the banya of a remote community to which she donated charitably.  I felt extraordinarily special.  I felt that I was so, so lucky, and in those times I would tell myself: this can’t be chance, this must mean something, I’m not being shown all this just as a tease, I ought to see it because one day I’ll earn this lifestyle, too.  It’s not only the wealth that was so alluring and exciting, although that certainly was part of it.  It was also the sense of exclusivity and importance.  The way people treated her at the rural community–that was power.  The way she could pass through gates no one else could–that was freedom.  And just to be with her for a time, that must mean that one day I could have that, too.  I couldn’t just have that once, and borrowed.  It must be coming back.

Tonight, too, I went to a cocktail party in a restaurant that held celebrities and stars, and I tilted my glass in my hand and balanced on my high heels.  Tried to look like I belonged there.  In honor of a birthday girl, six or seven of us piled into a limousine and drove around the city.  On the waterfront next to the Brooklyn bridge we tumbled out and took pictures of the skyline.  One girl, a young, beautiful Broadway actress, handed me her camera and posed in front of the Empire State Building, and as I snapped the photo I thought again, This can’t just be chance.  I must be lucky.  I must be such a lucky person who leads such a lucky life.

I know it’s a logical fallacy to believe that because I’ve experienced such unlikely happinesses already I’ll continue to see them throughout my life.  I know there probably isn’t such a thing as cosmic justice, and if there is, I haven’t done anything to deserve its favor.  But people around me keep offering chances I never expected to see, joys I always dreamed of, all the happiness I could ever think of and exactly the life I want.  And I keep thinking, this has to last forever.  These can’t be the few greatest, strangest, most magical years of my life.  I have to keep it going forever…I have to keep it going somehow…

Fact overheard on a crowded New York street that concerns a stranger’s vagina #547:

Stranger 1: “…aghkdjgfhs…and then he said…and I said, listen, straight up, do you want me to keep this baby?  And he said, honestly, I don’t think you’re ready for it.  So I said okay, that’s fine, and I went ahead with it, so yeah, I did it for him but I also did it for me.”

Stranger 2: “Ooh…so what was your abortion like?”

Me: “OO GIRL!”

Sometimes friends come over to my dorm room and say, “What, you don’t have a TV?”  All astonished.  Then I just laugh.

1.

Lee and I sat on my porch tonight and handed out candy to babies.  I could not stop freaking out at little kids.  ”AND WHAT ARE YOU!!  ARE YOU A LION CUB!!  I LIKE YOUR COSTUME!!!!  I LIKE YOUR COSTUME!!!!!!”  As soon as they started to walk away I’d turn to Lee and say things like, “I’M GOING TO EAT THAT BABY UP NYAM NYAM!!”  Then Lee would look uncomfortable and I’d eat another piece of chocolate.  It was awesome.

We saw one girl walking up a sidewalk across the street.  She was about twelve years old and wearing a drop-waisted flowered dress and white gloves, and I pointed her out to Lee because that true-to-the-era shit is exactly what my mom and I would think would be an awesome costume when I was little, and then I’d get horribly embarrassed once I arrived in costume to my friends’ houses and had to talk to their parents.  ”Oh, Julia, and what are you?”  ”I’m a 1950s English runway model…OH GOD KILL ME NOW.”  Well, an hour or so passed and this girl came up my sidewalk, and I poked Lee’s arm with happiness because now we were going to see the whole outfit.  As she got closer to the porch lights, I saw she had a handmade button on that read, “GIVE WOMEN THE VOTE.”

I absolutely couldn’t contain myself.  Obviously.  ”ARE YOU SUSAN B. ANTHONY!!!”

“No,” she said. “I’m just a suffragist.”

“UGH!!”  My jaw dropped and I grabbed Lee’s forearm.  ”I LOVE YOUR COSTUME.  I.  LOVE.  YOUR.  COSTUME.  I LOVE IT!!!!!”

Once she walked back down the sidewalk with her fun-size Hershey’s bars in hand I turned to Lee and said, “A suffragist.  A SUFFRAGIST.  I LOVE IT.  I love this town.”

“That’s what we teach our kids in the Montclair Public School system,” he said.  I leaned back, satisfied, and unwrapped another Take 5.  We sat in silence for a second before he added, “But I’ll guarantee you that girl doesn’t know basic algebra.”

Truth!

2.

We also watched “Red Dawn” tonight.  I’d first heard of this movie last fall while I was in Moscow, and once I heard its plot explained I absolutely couldn’t believe I’d ever missed it.  Uh hello Soviet paratroopers invading the heartland of America??  A guerilla resistance led by Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen???  COME ON!  I knew I had to see it.  

(Side note: kudos for Lee for being movie master of the day.  I forgot the name of the movie at first [sacrilege!] and said that I wanted to watch “The Hunt for Red October,” thinking that was the one with the Communist invasion and the band of plucky high schoolers determined to preserve freedom.  ”Oh,” he said, “I have that,” and we went over to his house to pick it up; when he handed the DVD case to me, I turned it over in both hands and said, “Sean Connery?”  ”Of course Sean Connery,” he said, “he’s the captain of the submarine.”  ”For some reason I thought this had Patrick Swayze in it,” I said.  ”Oh…” he said, “You wanted ‘Red Dawn.’”  ”‘Red DAWN’,” I said, “SHIT.”  ”Actually,” he said, “I have that.”  And he went upstairs and got it.  Turns out, he had every single movie that we mentioned throughout the day, included “Red Dawn” and “The Hunt for Red October,” AND “Heat” with Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, and all three “Bourne” movies, so finally, after I hummed a line from a song in “Mulan,” I said, “What, do you have ‘Mulan’, too?”  ”No,” he admitted.  I crossed my arms, thinking I’d bested him.  ”But I know where we can get it!” he said.)

As we drove back to my house, and he steered carefully around babies in Elmo costumes and one boy dressed like a washing machine, I turned to him in all my excitement and anticipation and said, “The Soviets and the action genre and everything, it’s just that I feel like, you know, if I was a movie, then I would be this movie!!”

Well, if that’s true, then I fucking suck.

Movie was STRAIGHT TERRIBLE.  (And this is coming from someone who liked the film “Soldier” with Kurt Russell.)  HORRIBLE.  I begged him to let me turn it off.  Not allowed.  Here was the absolute best piece of dialogue in all of the two (2!!!) hours:

TOUGHENED AIR-FORCE COLONEL, DISPENSING LIFE ADVICE: “All that hate is gonna burn you up.”
BOY DRIVEN TO PSYCHOSIS BY DEATH OF HIS PARENTS: “It keeps me warm.”  (flips butterfly knife shut)

NOOOO!!!  Okay, and here was my absolute favorite moment, which occurred when the group of guerrilla fighters realizes that one among them has turned Judas:

CHARLIE SHEEN: “AHHH DYLAN HOW COULD YOU” (bats his hands against his head hard enough to FLIP OFF HIS WINTER HAT from sheer anger and betrayal)

Besides that Excellent Acting, the whole movie made me want to eat babies, and NOT IN A POSITIVE WAY.  Not like earlier.  I couldn’t find the hat-flipping moment online but I did find this:

New laptop?  Candy apple for breakfast? 

Yeah, I’m happy.  AND PLUS

I’M ON THE MOON