1992-1993

October 1991 - April 1992

A break in my writing. GP took over my life and I continued smoking dope and retreating into my shell. I welcomed Denis back from the army, but our sex didn't survive the break. I found an outdoor toilet in Kuskovo Park in the autumn and met Volodya, a tall, muscular blond worker - tough and cool - with a great cock, who loves to be sucked off. The winter was 'dry' there but it's wonderful cruising in a park the rest of the year.

May 10, 1992

Volodya has electrified me. The first time I saw him, he was squatting on the outdoor toilet (there are two holes), his beautiful cock hanging down gracefully. I followed him around the park, not knowing the accepted procedure. He returned and squatted again. I joined him, and soon there were fireworks. He went from flacid to hard in a minute, holding his cock and groaning, as if he was blowing up a balloon. I went home and jacked off 5 times after this first miraculous time, and went back every night for 3 weeks till we connected again. I don't care about anyone that I can't connect with sexually. With Denis, there isn't this raw sexuality. I love his magical smile of delight and sense of humour, but feel helpless before the tidal wave of sexual desire for V.

I've gone from passive to active and back, but fantasize Lyonia giving me head and me fucking him. I almost phoned to invite him over but checked myself. These ecstatic hyperactive (masochistic) highs are always followed by dead suicidal (masochistic?) lows. I need balance to make it through, to be able to enjoy the fresh idealism of early morning again (ah, my ingenuous, communistic, learn-Russian days at 96 Wells, when I was 25, and got up at 5:00am to cram Russian).

I was caught giving Volodya head in the toilet by an old geyser and must try to be discrete for a while. I've shaved my beard and changed my glasses. Being caught was a bit like coming out to my mother (society) and then being able to melt back into the crowd, to undo the damage and embarrassment. Having your cake and eating it.

Happy Mother's Day!

*** [Two week trip on the Volga - Clear Water Rock - with Joanna Stingray, ChaiF, Brigada S and others, but mainly with Denis and Paul, a funny, ex-Maoist Greenpeace organizer from London. Two weeks in Amsterdam for a GP conference, staying at a fellow-GPer’s house, riding her bike, smoking wild dope, but making no friends nor finding the supposedly great gay sex life there.]

December 20, 1992

It's hard to believe I ever wrote a diary earlier. GP has soured for me - the 2-day train trip to Murmansk and the anti-nuke action there was too much - and my 2 1/2 months of gastritis has deadened me emotionally and physically. None of the former restlessness to go out and score. My sporadic sessions with Volodya or Lyonia seem hard to imagine now.

It's the same feeling of tough personal transition I felt prior to coming here, and I remember my idyllic doped leisurely days reading and listening to classical music at 21 Olive and 81 Walnut fondly. My illness and dope contact have let me renew them here - Tolstoi's War and Peace, with its theories of history, and theme of altruism vs self-preservation, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and now a third reading of Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. All from the Library of Foreign Literature. Reading Zen the last time as a fiery Marxist, I was disdainful, but then I followed my own Quixotic quest for quality and dialectic, and here I am - also a hazard of the PhD mill, and having been through my own burn-out teaching, beard period, motorcycling, even father-son relations.

Am I a washed-out version of the fellow who seduced and spoiled Denis so shamelessly 3 1/2 years ago? He is so depressed, talking of how nostalgic he is for Stroitelei [Builders’ Street - my old place near Moscow State University and Lenin (now Sparrow) Hills, our LSD and other adventures. I hope we eventually get to Canada. I'm refalling in love with - his unselfconscious "Yup", his nickname for me - "Lusiki", and his singing and chuckling at the oddest little details on the street or in me. He makes me feel important, needed, yet complains "No one needs me." How I need him! And he asks timidly "You won't desert me ever, will you?" "No, never!" That I know after our disasterous Saturday party at GP, which Steve Shallhorn dubbed "the Bolshoi Puke Fest". A good 1/3 of the puke was D's, and he didn't seem to hit the toilet once. I was dead and disgusted, and dreamed D died that night. I was devastated, just like when Dad died, and knew I would die too if D was dead. That adds a new ending to my ominous dream portending Dad's death.

Back to Persig: Zen an obsessive search for an answer to "What is quality?" Is Quality subjective or objective? Neither. It is not a thing, but resides in the relation of the subject and object. It is an event. It is the invisible factor which once united subject/ object, mind/ body, spirit/ nature, before man's fall (which started with the Greek's empiricism (Aristotle) and the rise of quantity). There are still remnants of it in Plato - the 'good'. Quality is virtue, right behaviour, dharma, the way.

Each society, and hence each person in it, defines it/him/herself by a 'mythos'. To step outside this mythos is to be defined as insane. The mythos defines the individual, i.e., religion invents man. You can replace the previous mythos, but in doing so, you redefine yourself. You are a heretic according to the old mythos, not a man. The best we can do is to strive for a mythos which overcomes the subject/ object distinction and puts us into harmony with ourselves, each other, and nature. This would be a return to quality, presumably at a higher level than in 'primitive' society.

Our Judeo-Greek-Christian mythos is man confronting nature, standing above it with his rationalism, supposedly value-free technology, and mechanical classical reason. This, as Nietzsche bemoaned to no avail, tends to drive out the intuitive, artistic, romantic nonrational side of man and his relation to nature, creating a dangerous technology/ art dichotomy. Techne in Greek means skill or art, just as ecology and economy derive from the Greek oikos meaning home (ecology = home study, economy = home management). We must break down the technology/ art dichotomy. This conclusion is arrived at by JK Galbraith in Economics and the Public Purpose, where he calls for artists to control technology and the dualistic thinking (classical/ romantic, rational/ spiritual, technological/ artistic, economic/ ecological) to end). Technology must be the fusion of nature and spirit, not that which sunders, just as people must become the fusion of mind/ body, being/ doing. The present western technology is classical - divorced from nature, sugar-coated in commercial packaging of phony romantic hype. It opposes and tries to conquer nature as opposed to being at one with it.

December 27, 1992

I've managed to completely cut myself off this Xmas. It's as if it doesn't exist (which is true: just as with 'quality', Xmas is a relation between people and between people and things, and it isn't part of life here, thank God!). But am I going crazy, or cleansing my soul? I turned down Lyonia for the nth time today, since the gastritis got worse, I've not had sex, and not had any obsessive desire.

Moscow News stylist Patricia invited me to a friend's place for Xmas eve dinner. A dull Dutch teacher asked Pat "What is keeping you here?"
P:"I like human relations here. I like the fact that people are a bit crazy, that the society is a bit crazy. I like communicating in another language. I've come here to stay. London doesn't hold any appeal anymore."

I guess that sums it up for me. I told Denis and he said "Yes, but after a while it must get tiresome. You're watching, observing, but it will lose its fascination."

I have a feeling of revulsion to the political strategizing and office politics at GP. Listening to Steve Shallhorn's tape of rock peacenik music reminds me how far from this I was, growing up. I was immersed in classical music, skating, reading, fantasizing fucking with the guys around me, while my closest high school friend, Ian Young was already organizing discussions of Vietnam, and was soon to jump into the hardcore left and become a Maoist. Classical music keeps me sane, especially opera. My politicking - communism, demos, lobbying - leaves me depressed. But yet I still need that link with society, even as an outcast.

January 6, 1993

Dreams: 1/ I will give birth. 2/ Last night I dreamed I had a boarder, a woman with a 1-year-old boy. I come home late at night and only the baby is there. I put it with me in bed and eventually come with it on top of me. It clearly enjoys this. Next day, Anne/ Carole drive me to a canteen where the baby's mother, Sabini, is working, laying out a radical women's newspaper. I leave the baby, who is now 5-7 years old. He is jealous of my attention to others.

Meaning: A new stage in my life is opening up. The boy should mean career. The mother (Italian, southern?) is the f side of me; being radical sexually perhaps portends coming out.

January 9, 1993

Dream: I try to open a gym locker but can't remember the combination - E20-46-33? - before locking clothes in. It turns out to be unlockable, i.e., it will stay unlocked no matter what the combination.

Meaning: The locker room dream is a recurring one. It reflects sexual desire, changing clothes means changing my persona. I can't hide my self away. The lock doesn't work. The number may be ages of significance [I'm editing all this a few days before my 46th birthday] - 33 is the age Christ died.

January 17, 1993

A constant trickle of fascinating documentary films on TV, reminiscing about the Gulag and people's lives - Dom s rytsarami, Sneg - sud'ba moia, Monstr, Prokliataya voina [House with knights, Snow - my fate, Monster, Cursed War].

I'm enjoying my convalescence, a couple days a week to GP, and long hours reading, smoking, playing the piano, with occasional visits by Denis, trips to the Bolshoi (Korsakov's Night before Christmas and Golden Cockerel, and Vainberg's Idiot at the Pokrovskii Chamber Theater).

I will have to move at the end of June. This already looms before me.

March 3, 1993

My themes:
1/ my love for teenagers
-each one unique, and beautiful, even perfect, in his youthful bloom, the flash of their smiles, their easy intimacy (not focused and hardened towards a narrow (conjugal) object), their openness to experimentation and lack of prejudice against something different
-learning how far and how to go with them (they are almost all bisexual)
2/ nostalgia for zastoi [literally, stagnation or the good ol’ days here]
3/ being sick and growing old

March 8, 1993

Dream: PB and I had befriended a hooker (tall, thin - Dorothy?) who agreed to come to our office to give us a blow job. I come to the office but Paul and others are unloading apples. There is a 2-way mirror that works the wrong way which would let everyone watch us. I take the prostitute away and want to pay her 100 rbls. I pull out 1 rbl by mistake. She pulls out 100 rbls.

Meaning: Rehashing my hang-up about women. Ashamed of my own sexuality - I don't really want the blow job. PB is unloading his sexuality while I worry about being caught. I owe my inner feminine, undervaluing it (1 rbl).

March 11, 1993

Am dreading the move back to Toronto. I feel I'm more alive, more relevant here than in Canada. Am visiting my old haunts - the music store with the kind old ladies, the Sandunovsky Baths with the elegant 19th c pool and its glass roof and pseudo-Roman decorations, not to mention the cool graceful toughs, stretching their powerful arms, smoking Yava and drinking cheap beer, MN with its rickety dark hallways and lazy, chatty secretaries and translators.

March 15, 1993

Dream: Paul Theroux speaks to me: "Write!"

March 16, 1993

Rereading Paul Goodwin's Elementary Economics from a Higher Standpoint, recalling my fascination with his 2-sector planned economy. He attempts to solve the economic problem without prices, and yet producing efficiently to get the desired net outputs, 'justly' available to all, according to some social decision-making process, without profits going to capitalists, everyone getting labour units. Goodwin's geometric tour de force recaps Kapital, starting with prices (essential to an abstract understanding) and moving to the concrete production process in terms of values, and then the reality requiring the conversion of values into prices, as does Marx, following Hegel's logic of being-essence-notion.

Nice theory, but Russia is cracking open, and greedy 'mercantilitists' are tumbling out of the golden socialist egg, beginning the squalid process of primitive accumulation that sparked Marx's thinking in the first place. It confirms my yearning for a world (be it my own) which obviates the need for human greed-for-profit as the essential link in the economic sphere. Looking at the outputs that characterize the capitalist system, the commodity madness that makes people sacrifice their precious few years on earth to the mindless pursuit of things, I feel confirmed in my instincts.

Unfortunately for us radicals, Russia failed to do a better job without that greed link. Sure, it was subverted by a hostile capitalist system, and Reagan's mad arms push was probably the straw that broke the camel's back. Perhaps there is truth to the wistful Oliver Stone myth that Kennedy would have withdrawn from Vietnam and made peace with the Soviet Union, and we all would have moved forward to some ecologically sound, happy UN-controlled world. There may even be hope yet: maybe the global environmental crisis has awakened humanity enough to let it see its foolishness and go beyond profit as the ultimate regulator. GP certainly is the most respected organization here. But everything boils down to the fact that we must decide socially what outputs we want, and make the system provide them in as ecologically sound a way as possible, ecologically meaning with as little harm to nature (which includes mankind) as possible. This may mean distributing work 'inefficiently' to give everyone something productive to do, or it may mean allowing for an unemployed class, i.e., a class of people not producing things (but still doing SOMETHING). This can't avoid politics (incentives, laws on emissions, subsidies and ceilings, planning technology...). There are so many 'things' that prices alone can't deal with.

March 19, 1993

Reading Laing's Society, Madness and the Family. Claire's case is very close to me. She has no feeling towards her mother, realizing in her youth that her mother didn't love her real self, that kissing and smiles were all hypocrisy. I recall mother's hate and rage after I told her acquaintance Mrs. Lighthouse that I didn't like her, how passionately she kissed me when I came first in grade 6 (beating the elite professor's son), how she cried over a C in English from the hated Miss Brent and humiliated me into going early for special classes. Maybe Miss Brent was right - I reread my Cambridge Diploma thesis, my York University paper on Marx's volume III, and other doped mullings from my university years, and sometimes wonder at their poor quality. I'm not the Cambridge egghead, the first class scholar mother wanted. My real self is buried under this patina of accomplishments. It's just not the real me, too bad! (Or thank God!!)

The real trouble is the distortion this creates within - the perversion (not just the undermining of a hypocritical society's and mother's standards, but of standards true to ME (Hegel? Marx? Freud?)). My masochistic streak, spurning my real affectionate self, fucks up my sex life royally, and was definitely leading me towards Claire's fate (psychologicial paralysis). Thank God I could grasp enough intellectually to use the tools of H-M-F against the dark forces, building enough self-confidence and independence to finally say "Enough!" Thank God dad's death provided the chance to begin the healing process sooner than later.

Dad did love the real me, even when I rejected his politics, declaring myself NDP and then Communist, and even when he suspected I might be gay (helping me move to the basement in a gay professor's house on Roehampton in the ‘70s), though he still tried to convince me to marry, settle down, toe the line.

Laing sees through the manipulating, subject-changing mother. When the mother-daughter dialogue gets too close to the truth, the mother interjects "Claire, the sun isn't too much in your eyes?" I always loathed the blatant way mother would change the topic when a conversation was too honest, and fought it. Claire gave in, recognizing her mother's authority to close off her (Claire's) feelings. I have to watch myself in this psychological trap, as I am still my mother's son. My mother is like Claire's, dominated by her own mother, immature, repressed. How did dad stand it? Is it because he saw women as incapable of being anything else? Was his own mother the same? Most of his five sisters certainly are neurotic - two childless, one divorced and the best of the lot - a closet lesbian (Doosa, who once actually told me never to get married, that she had several cultured, gay friends who were quite happy without women). My own neurotic attachment to mother, my lack of sustained intimacy with anyone are not chance traits. But maybe it's Carole I should be pointing the finger at, or rather Carole/ mother/ father (and Fred/ Anne/ Jim) - the whole older cohort. I remember the trauma of Sharon's birth - mother's leg ulcers, the screaming and physical blows as Carole broke away, according to Fred and Anne, becoming a prostitute, with Anne playing the Virgin Mary, and Jim eventually molesting me and trying to commit suicide. There really are no 'good' and 'bad' guys; it's far more complicated. Even Fred, whom I remember wrestling with me and throwing me up in the air at times and whom I adored as a youngster. When I finally took the leap and told Fred I was gay at my last meeting with him, he told me not to tell mother. Just imagine if he had been supportive; it might have changed everything. Or it might not have. Anyway, at least ‘time heals’. When it comes down to it, it's all we've got. After a certain point, you must take responsibility for yourself. That point has passed for me.

Looking back, what do I have to show for 5 years here? It's hard to say - I'm trying to remove the mental scabs, to accept the lack of love, to deal with the loss and emptiness (Mother writes: "If you only knew the loneliness I feel." Well mother, maybe I just do). Laing identifies schizophrenia as characterized by lack of affection combined with incongruity of thought and affect. My nervousness now with Denis and lack of sexual interest look familiar. I still love him somehow, especially after I leave him or he goes home after a day here. I feel his absence as a deep pain. I can love, even if in a halting, inconsistent way. But I see my incongruity of thought and affect. Can I overcome it?

I know I can't stand close relations if they're hypocritical. Better to be alone. Much better. Hence my fleeting orgasms with Lyonia, Volodya or at Donskaya Banya. Short and to the point. And maybe the masochistic thrill with fear of being beaten or robbed in anonymous sex is a kind of penance or retribution for sinning, confirmation of my worthlessness. Is this changing or is it an exaggeration which I shouldn’t worry about? Just the way of the world? Lyonia and Volodya are simple, relatively honest, not mean or cruel. I'm not impotent with them, though orgasm can be difficult sometimes. I'm not totally dysfunctional. But it's far from first-class living.

I am off for 2 weeks on a pilgrimage to the wilds of eastern Ukraine (sans visa) to the home of Porfiri Ivanov, a prophet who died in Moscow in 1981.

May 2, 1993

Three weeks of dousing in cold water and dry fasting from Friday pm till Sunday pm has noticeably calmed my sex drive, for better or worse, and cleared up my skin allergies, definitely for the better. One visit to Lyonia - his mother, Natasha, slightly drunk and shouting hoarsely about the irresistible charms of Russian womanhood, prancing about athletically and not without some natural lusty attraction, while Lyonia looked on, slouching and grinning attractively in the corner. We finally got rid of her and had sex quickly, both slightly afraid she might descend on us at any moment. Once before, she had tried to barge in while we were at it. Fortunately Lyonia had the door locked. We quickly zipped up and opened up. "What were you up to? Having sex?" she asked, not pleasantly that time. "How could we without a woman?" Lyonia replied.

N is chunky, squat, with a loud deep voice, build a bit like the mythical Soviet tractor-driving kolkhoznitsa. This is not by chance. L’s grandfather was thrust into high level Moscow politics in the early 50s, on the backs of those who disappeared in Stalin's last purges in the late ‘40s, and no doubt came from the countryside, a devoted, zealous, uncultured Stalinist. He became assistant mayor, received a flat across from the City Hall, and promptly died, leaving a daughter and eventually grandson, Lyonia, who was diagnosed as mentally incompetent, probably due to a trauma during pregnancy or birth, as he is an awkward left-hander and physically undeveloped (almost no body hair or beard and barely literate). No doubt his upbringing left much to be desired in terms of physical and intellectual care, though in her defense, I can say truthfully there's no hypocrisy in N. Lyonia has no trouble keeping a good erection and coming both with me and various women.

No sign of Volodya. I fantasize his fleeting visits. As I was leaving for the train station to go to Ukraine, he arrived suddenly, awkwardly. I was a bit freaked - it couldn't have been a worse time. "Did I do right to come over?" he said gingerly. Now I could kick myself for not risking being late (what are taxis for?) and spending a half hour with him. Oh, well. I realize we have a lot of trouble communicating outside of the sex act. Too bad. The story of my life.

I'm still alone on these interminable Soviet holidays. My planned trip to the Volga with Sasha Z, a handsome, young GP supporter, did not materialize. At least I was successful in getting the Derechinskys to adopt Senya, a Daschund puppy from my neighbours. How to combine the joys of a family hearth with the independence and calm of batchelorhood. I can't seem to make an intimate relation work to bridge the gulf of family and independence. Denis? PB? I must stop idolizing, with the inevitable letdown. It's as if I masochistically relish the cycle. It at least keeps me free and whole (if unbalanced and unfulfilled). Be less demanding? More tolerant? Less intense?

My experiments sexually over the last few years at least have made me aware of my own sexual nature and the roles I can play in a balanced, not exclusively sexual world - as father, mother, brother, sister, lover, friend, son, and when it comes down to it male or female. Just sucking cock, or being fucked leaves me unbalanced, empty, as does only fucking or being sucked. It's hard to combine all the roles in one relation, although each relation has aspects of some roles - with Denis it's mostly father and mother, though he tries to assert a mothering protectiveness and provide fatherly advice, especially since he returned from the army. With Lyonia, it's mostly brother and father. I no longer expect to find 'the one' or to make Denis 'the one'. It will be hard to keep filling all the roles to make for a balanced sex life. More likely I'll finally embrace celibacy.

May 6, 1993

The collapse of Communism has left Russians with an inferiority complex - 70 years down the drain. But those 70 years have been rich ones - Russia has been inspiring us and to a large extent shaping our destiny, whether we like it or not, pulling our irons out of the fire.

There have been 4 great waves in Russia’s history this century:

1/ the revolution - Its romance remains, though now tempered by realism. Lenin and others were cynical and ruthless, as well as passionate romantics. Art, music, politics, the economy have all been shaped since the rev by a dialectical pas de deux between East and West. The rev was possible because of the openhearted, childlike simplicity of the Russian people, and their terrible suffering and degradation was largely the result.

2/ the war - In spite of the horrors of the Stalin Thermidor, the Russian people transcended the perverse Stalinist regime to tip the balance against Hitler.

3/ the 3rd world anti-imperialism of the 1950-70s and detente - This gave political focus to the West's anticapitalist opposition, and no doubt hastened the collapse of British, French and (in its blatant form) US imperialism. Meanwhile Khrushchev was able to salvage something from the Stalinist reign of terror, giving the system some time to reform itself.

4/ glasnost and perestroika - Gorbachev bravely risked collapse of the system by pricking the ideological boil, in spite of the weakness of the Soviet system economically. He lost, but maybe the Russian spirit will provide more suprises.

May 12(?), 1993

I've lost track of the day of the week. No immediate obligations and virtual solitude has brought time to a stop, though in reality, it's rushing along. Procrastination plus. Shall I stay a few more weeks until my visa runs out?

I noticed in McDonald's how I seemed to pick the slowest line, and how angry I immediately became. The 18 year-olds were terrified, counting out money slowly with a foreman hovering in the background. Even as I got angry, I realized how silly it was - I had rushed with Yergor to the opera (Ruslan and Ludmilla), only to find an empty theater. I had misplaced a whole day, 24 hours, and yet how vital those few seconds in McD's seemed. Fortunately, I didn't complain, though I ordered my milkshake with a harrumph.

I realize I bury my head in a newspaper in the metro to avoid being pressured into giving up my seat, but I should be happy when an older person enters - to give up my seat to someone who really needs it more.

Both my attitude in McD's and on the metro are selfish and no doubt contribute to my gastritis. Losing them will calm me emotionally and be good for my health at the same time. It's time to throw out my harmful baggage, just as my move here and impending return give me a chance to leave the dross of my life behind and give me a fresh start. Instead of dreading and fearing the move, I should embrace it.

May 27, 1993

Yesterday, mother phoned out of the blue. The same voice, though a bit childish. She listened when I said "I want to be on my own and if there is any change I will contact you," and answered "OK" and goodbye.

Dreamed last night that I was a barber, and at work I wanted my hair cut, so I went to the women barbers' room, asked Marina (sweet and gentle) from MN to cut it. It turned out to be Natasha (vixen), who was doing a poor job. I could see the back and asked her to cut more.

Meaning: All women are Dalilas, and the aggressive one gets her own way. I am held back, castrated still. Or maybe my feminine side is bitchy, and not nice.

I enjoy doing the bridge exercises in the Herald Tribune, looking out for the dangerous opposition hand and avoiding giving it the lead (the dangerous parent?). Do I repeat my neurotic relations with others, even in my bridge games?

June 11, 1993

Met a gentle intelligent Russian on the Volga from Chernogolovka when I went windsurfing for a few days a while back. We had a thoughtful discussion on the electrichka returning home. Said he: "I think the Americans come here pushing their system out of a kind of inferiority complex. They need others to embrace their superficial commercialism, their lack of any tradition and culture of their own, to reassure themselves that their society really is superior to others." The American expat newspaper Moscow Times reeks of this flatulent American egotism. A trite OpEd on the latest McDonalds to open actually coins the acronym 'AWS' - American withdrawal syndrome, describing the hardship Americans experience here. So why is the columnist here? Because to feel superior and respected, he must leave America and bask in his privileged origins.

My trip to Staraya Ladoga, near Leningrad, in search of communes was unsettling. I had nausea constantly for 2 days, which I'm sure was mostly psychological. Yuri in Orekhovka, Ukraine, was the cult despot - delusions of grandeur, racist, dangerous, fanatical. Anatoli, one of the founders of Ekopolis, an intentional community harking back to hippy days, is not so heavy-handed, but nonetheless, subtly forces you to follow his lead. He organizes summer camping programs with inner city teens, his only apparent purpose being to give them a chance to dialogue with nature. His gentle cheerfulness hides a strong will and anger, reminding me of brother Bob: he always has the right, laid-back, wise, nonviolent answer which you can't argue with. I feel like a spoiled child whom the parent can see through and pities, still tied to drinking, smoking, the city, perverse sex and politics. Of course, this makes me uncomfortable. Still, A is trying to fulfill his destiny, to live out his principles.

Boris, a middle-aged transient, is either the perfect ascetic, boasting of never using money, which enslaves, or is a bum and leech, living off others - take your choice. He speaks as a sage, having experimented with different ways of living and different religions. Over the past 12 years, Boris practiced various life styles - fasting, Indian yoga, became a follower of Ivanov. Sri Arubindo seems to be the major influence besides Ivanov - getting rid of fear and attachment to the material world, cleaning up your act so no one will attack you psychologically. Tai Kwando is for physical attacks - you turn your opponent's force against him.

Is this wisdom or childishness? Life is cyclical, not linear. Is Boris achieving higher consciousness in his cycles of experience? I recognise my own cycles in life already - meditation in Sri Lanka and now again, interest in Russian mysticism. My cycles of sexual arousal, intellectual pursuit, athletics, even dope. As I move through them am I following a spiral towards a higher consciousness?

My own path to enlightenment is crooked, stumbling on Communism, communal living, Buddhism, Ivanov, and primarily intellectual (Hatha) Yoga. I must be patient but firm and positive. Move forward (OK, backward too, living vicariously through my Denis, Valeras, soldiers) to succor my own inner child and help him grow up. My windsurfing, paragliding, hiking, working with teens does help.

June 22, 1993

I just returned from 5 days on the Volga at Konokovo, windsurfing.
Dreams: 1/ Kidnapped by one side in the civil war in Chechnia, by dark-haired mountain people. Someone gave me an attractive shiny ornamented gun which I immediately give to my captors. "I don't even know if it's loaded." I meet a CBC-type reporter there (32 years old). I laugh and say "UofT'71". He says "UofT'83". I don't have any interest in the war or reporting. Just worry for my safety.
2/ Go to the store upon my return to Toronto to buy a bicycle. An attractive Chinese mechanic agrees to sell me a new bike for $175.70. I try to blow up the tires but notice they're big and used. I suspect he's pocketing the money, but I don't care.
Meaning: My political days are over. The bicycle is me starting out new again, needing balance. Trying to return to my old regime in Canada will be disappointing (big and used tires). Maybe there's something Asian in store in the future. 17 is my favourite age, I turned 38 when I met Denis. I'm interested in surviving now, a prisoner or in Toronto.

I feel Russia has been a turning point. I came here looking for myself sexually and now leave, after various adventures, with little hope of a long-term intimate relationship. Denis, I fear, encouraged me on one level in order to fulfill a wild, teenage dream of emigrating. I still cherish my intimacy with him, but I don’t want to stay in Canada. I feel totally unlovable now - dry, cynical, asexual, aging, so I will hold on to any relationship I can. D is obsessed by his wood-carving now, and seems to have an interest in a nondescript fellow artist - Liuba. I think he wants to carve out a str8 life. All the more power to him. Why can't we be honest? His 22 years is such a hard age, not to mention my 42.

I enjoyed active sex with D, Shtukun, Kostya, Lyonia, graphic artist Misha, Hermann, Volodya in the park toilet, and various anonymous pick-ups. Murat and his brother from Mkhachkala whom I picked up at the primarily str8 banya just off Marx Prospect across from the Kremlin and risked bringing home still excite me. Murat came twice that day in my mouth, once in the can as he was shaving, and his brother was horny, but I was too freaked out at the possible fallout from raising their Caucasian tempers if I made a false move, so did not make a move on him. A dangerous (and for that reason) erotic fantasy.

June 23, 1993

Windsurfing at Strogino near the gay beach. Getting hold of the wind is like communicating with God, praying. Feeling the easy, seemingly infinite strength of the ether, the heavens.
Yuri, the cool 40ish attendant, works at a radio technical institute. He has a quiet, attractive sexuality to him, changing unhurriedly from wetsuit into underwear while we maintained an animated conversation. He is balding, does not have a particularly beautiful body, but has a natural warmth and the subtle strength of the true sportsman. He made some very wise observations:
1/ after spending time in LA, he decided, though the Americans are superficially friendly, they are private, narrow in their interests, lacking in culture, and the cities themselves are a historyless mishmash. He would never emigrate. The best situation is to live 'on campus', in the university community, where there is culture, athletic facilities, a mix of ages, and interests... Much like I lived at home.
2/ the healthiest lifestyle is when you decide your own work regime - shepherd, academic, bum(?).