Chapter 6 - The Count Down

October, 1989

Writing is like pulling teeth. My head is full of silly little things - Bob Meyerson is trying to squirm out of a week he owes me; Eric Semler, the brash American journalist from the NY Times working with MN, took off Friday without returning the library's Herald Tribune; Peach (Pichugin) tried to make me do some free translating for some American journalists; Volodya's Saturday evening video show with (probably gay) friends is cancelled; D is sexually fixated on his old flame Annia - they come together over the phone and he gleefully tells me about it.

Two nightmares last night. In one, I was trying to flee from a killer. I put on a life (lie?)jacket and swim in the river to escape. I woke up crying out as he bore down on me.
In the other, I'm having dinner with PB, another guy and 3 women. PB's is black and in negligee with cunt visible. Mine is motherly.

I made contact with Sugath, a Sri Lankan medical student, asked about going to Sri Lanka in Jan/Feb to a Buddhist retreat. Maybe I can make a breakthrough there. Today was the old anxiety and depression - alone reading and doing subtitles. D didn't phone. He's sick, so I didn't plan anything. We're uneasy with each other now. He says he fears my moods. I feel he's cold and unresponsive. He's basically straight and really just humours me, responding minimally to my sexual desires. I feel guilty trying to force more from him. Not a great time for our relationship. On hold as we await word about the army. I am losing my other contacts here because of our hold on each other. I long for a more gutsy sexual relationship.

My latest film subtitles are for A Rock Tragedy, which is pretty reactionary. The villain is a caricature of me corrupting D with religion and drugs as he abandons a sterile nuclear family.

October 5, 1989

A dead day at work buried in Tribs and Times. Empathize with the 34 yr. old Paul O'Doherty, former IRA terrorist who renounced violence in prison and gained his release, to start studying English. "Nothing seemed so romantically self-sacrificial as a fight against the odds for an ideal. But I didn't realize that militarist activities repudiated the democratic process and the will of the people," he said in a public self-criticism. "There is no way you can create a just society by wounding people, maiming people, killing people."

October 7, 1989

A dead Saturday. "Waiting for D". He got his army notice yesterday and threw it away. He still has vain hopes of pulling strings to stay in Moscow. At War Press as a subeditor, or a late entry into an institute. I hope we can pull off a quick trip to Odessa.

Went to U Fontana Wednesday, a rock disco, with his drop-out rocker friends. They're great dancers and dress 50s style. None of them reads or has any intellectual pursuits; it's drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Very 50s existential. What I missed out on. My 5 months with D has been living those lost years, as was my SEE school teaching.

Hornier than ever. D has been sick for a week. Can we stoke the fires again? He really is straight at heart if he could only overcome his misogyny. 'For his sake' (i.e., to make a long life bearable for him) I hope he does. 'For my sake' (so I don't lose him), I hope he doesn't.

A former student, Kevin, wrote and told me what an important influence I've been for him: "It wasn't necessarily what you taught, but your whole life style and personality." Rejecting the slavish pursuit of wealth, getting high on friendship and camaraderie, fighting the dead weight of the establishment, maybe my struggle to obliterate the age gap and be one of them, rather than teaching down to them. You can turn it all around and dismiss me as juvenile, immature, neurotic, misogynistic, selfish and self-denigrating. But where's the proof? Is it in my bankbook, my intellectual recognition, my position in society, or my solid friendships and loves, my image in others' minds, or success in my struggle to find internal peace? Even the word success I find unpleasant. You grow through failure. Maybe my success at being a failure is my talent.

October 9, 1989

Yesterday dropped some LSD with 2 rocker friends of D's. Misha - tall, athletic, dressed as a pirate with earring, boots, headband and a maddeningly attractive androgeny. Volodya, who made a brief appearance here last month. - a natural clown with an elusive smile, enormous nose and long gangly legs and arms. We had a bachelor's lunch at my place - I can still see Misha chomping on a whole beet with a puzzled look on his face, framed in his swashbuckling head band and large earring: "I didn't know you could eat beets like this," beet juice dribbling down his chin, like some bloodthirsty pirate. We cleaned our shoes by the Moscow River after sliding down the Lenin/Swallow Hills. Took the bus from Gorky Park along the Sadovoe Koltso (inner ring road) and visited Bulgakov's flat, the Margarita Cafe and Patriarshy Pond. Almost got mugged in the rockers' 'catacombs' near Red Square. Felt their angst and resentment of 'mazhory' and 'shishky' and the hypocrisy of communism. A bittersweet day.

D meanwhile got laid by his Annia. An abrupt apologetic phone call last night and silence today. No point in trying to crowd him but he's died for me in a way. How to hold onto sex? It's impossible.

October 13 (Friday!), 1989

My fear of abandonment was needless, though D is definitely doing his own thing more. Visiting girl friends and not showing up, or making alternate plans. He hasn't come with me since he fucked with Annia ("I don't feel like it") but claims he likes being with me and feels better than he does with Annia. He was afraid she might get pregnant if she swallowed his cum; asked if I wanted him to fuck her with a safe. I said only if it didn't mean he would make love with me less often. He's going to 'see' her again on Sunday, so I'll go to an old monastery town - Volokolamsk. I almost went crazy with desire to really fuck last night, and feel drawn to the Donskaya Banya. How to use my 'ace' as D calls it (being a foreigner) to get laid? Tonight we went to the Tsakadzor Coop Restaurant after champagne at Intourist with Wendy, a delightful 50ish single British teacher at the American school. D and I took a taxi back to my place - I was obsessed and came quickly but not D.

October 15, 1989

Renewed contact with another Volodya (bridge player) at the MGU residence and met his roommates - two Olegs. One I saw on the street and felt eye-contact. Handsome and fresh. I'm his first foreign acquaintance. He's from Noriilsk. Talked about the army, Volodya's train travels in the summer. Dima rushed in trying to interest someone to go harvest cabbage with him through a Korean coop - 35 rbls a day outside Moscow. Oleg thinks extraterrestrials play with us like we play with ants. 20,000 years of humanity for them is like a few days in the life of ants for us.

Realized on the lift that I like the nameless goods here - functional, no-nonsense. But Soviets like our brand names. The names personalize commodities for them, somehow dealienate them. I don't like the fetishism of brands. This alienates the good (i.e., even the lift I'm in), falsifies it as a useful commodity. For them, the value aspect of the good is lost when the good is nameless, merely functional (useful). True, goods here are uniformly of lower quality. Is that because the value aspect is suppressed?

D has been off fucking meanwhile.

October 19, 1989

I had a premonition that D and I would fall out today and it came true with a vengeance, literally. The bastard showed his lude caricatures of me to his farsovshik friend Volodya. What does he say about me behind my back? It's my own insecurity that leads me to think the worst, but I can't help thinking he can easily dismiss me as a fag that he uses just for some western goodies. It seems so obvious. His unresponsiveness sexually is because he's straight. His stories about only feeling comfortable sexually with me are lies (even if he sees them as white ones). I need some response, which I finally got at the baths today, though very fleeting. I was so horny, and took the first empty spot, sharing a double room. I finally sucked him, a slightly fat 30ish guy, dark and tall, though he came in seconds, not fully erect, and pushed me away, so it all left something to be desired, again literally. And MGU Valerii and Volodya came over, which meant I didn't get 'it' tonight, but instead am full of anger and pain at D. The continuing adventures of Tom and Jerry.

October 24, 1989

We finally got it together, sort of. Standing me up is becoming a habit of D's, but I've reconciled myself to our crazy relationship. He doesn't come anymore - only on Annia's face, and more or less puts up with me coming. And he still wants to marry me!

It seems a bit empty. Not much physical intimacy, though maybe I'd get bored after a while even with that. I find myself fantasizing him coming in my mouth to get off.

Started reading a Bible commentary last night when he stood me up yet again. Keep thinking maybe my hunger for orgasm is limiting, and a substitute for a greater ecstasy. My other fantasies are anonymous abandonment with rough sex - a kind of worship of male ecstasy. But later, this cutting myself off from basic intimacy with others terrifies me.

October 27, 1989

The Lavalin sour gas team, Andy and Helen, were booted from their job in Astrakhan after two difficult years by a new American boss. Helen, very repressed, quietly domineering, but basically boring and unimaginative, waxed eloquent at the Embassy about the lack of drive, imagination and initiative of the Russkies, and how much they pitied their prison-like existence. "It hurts to know I'll soon be able to get whatever I want, and that my Russian friends will never feel this, nor will their children." etc., etc. The fatalism necessary to survive here escapes them. A nice, hokey Canadian slice-of-life.

D and I spent a great evening together last night. Lay together for a while, sang some Elvis and Ukrainian folk songs together, and came (on separate couches). He came tonight before I, then Valentin and Vicky arrived. Valentin, I flew over with from Montreal in January, a short stocky, gentle, and not unattractive Jew from Lvov, with a glistening gold incisor which is very attractive. I was a wreck then, of course, and he was comforting. D was quite animated, discussing with Valentin the ways and means of how to emigrate to Canada.

I'll have to resign myself to remote sex with D, but maybe that's the best way to maintain a healthy tension. If we went 'all the way', perhaps I'd get bored, with nothing left to conquer. I do feel a bit more peaceful now.

Dream: Decide to do PhD in education in TO. Jim Baker encourages me. Meanwhile, D is kissing me. I take elevator down but hurry back, getting off at 8th floor because door wouldn't close. It does when I press button from the outside. I rush to climb steps. Dangerous, some missing, then they become a ladder. I look down and realize I could die, but resolve to forge on up at 12th floor. At 13th, I am inside Lenin/Brezhnev exhibit. It's like I'm Lenin reincarnate. I realize it's worth the climb.
Meaning: My life now is a re-education through love. 8 represents death and resurrection. My climb is dangerous and frightening. I am becoming something different.
Dream: At opera. Woman singing about mother's breast. Huge breasts on stage, but look like eyes. Disappointing. Singer a bitch but music gorgeous. Have 2 ? yr old in my arms. Want to have orgasm. Hold him so he looks at his mother and is comforted.
Meaning: A variation on releasing emotional life, rebirth, reconnecting and comforting the child within.

November 3, 1989

I get sudden waves of terrible sadness for people here, some limping along, others desperately trying to look fashionable with wildly died hair or pseudo-fashionable clothes. D's rather hopeless situation and delight in little trinkets - a cap, gum, a smoke, a taxi ride - anything to stand out, to sparkle in a dull, gray, hopeless swamp. Reality seems so pathetic. But then the West's glossy, smoothly functioning reality is, underneath, the same. As am I. Empathy is not necessarily such a bad thing, though it is painful and makes me crave oblivion. I can't write the hard cold journalism of Handelman at the Toronto Star, with his high-tech info-overload style of writing. What the West demands and prides itself on. My plodding and rather static prose strives to sound pleasant and perhaps provoke some thought, above all my own.

Am now press officer for the Global Forum on Ecology and Development of Political and Spiritual Leaders - whew! A big bash sponsored by a wealthy Japanese philanthropist, which takes place every few years somewhere in the world. Whether I'll learn email, faxing, Word 4 is yet to be seen, but I should be able to get out 3 press releases, which is the bottom line. My boss - Libby Bassett - is an uncomfortable image of myself in another 10 years: a rather silly, forgetful, well-meaning, bright has-been with lots of successful contacts to rub it in.

More freelance work: researching for a CBC news special on glasnost, forcing me to get out of my rut, pry open some reluctant Soviet doors and be resourceful. I have to develop a more relaxed style so I don't burn out, or lose my temper at undiplomatic moments.

D and I are leading more and more separate lives though we still manage to jack off together occasionally. I guess that's as far as our sex life will ever go.

November 8, 1989

Yesterday's celebration - the nadir of the revolution. Even Gorbie was apologetic. "This year's celebration lacked the old pomp. The slogans were simple: 'Renew socialism a la Lenin.' People are justified for being fed up."

I feel terribly sad. D merrily lives each moment to the full as he heads into the army's vortex. Next week he must have a mental health test, as his medical record includes his voluntary test at a psychiatric clinic a few years back. He wants to move in still - my instinct is to withdraw, fearing it won't work. We slept yesterday afternoon together. It was great, but I can't help feeling the terror of the emptiness when he's gone.

Responsibilities crowd in - CBC, the Global Forum, D. I have LSD flashes - occasionally hear voices calling me when D plays loud music. Quite a few dreams of mother. Calm down!

Kundera's Joke is no balm. Ludvik, a bitter persecuted Communist sees the pompous hypocrisy of socialist realist music (social content in national form - pseudo-folk music of happy collective farmers which discredits genuine folk traditions as did Nazism) and the Communist hero Fucik who couldn't bear to suffer his fate quietly, but had to smuggle out manifestoes to feel recognized. I guess the moral is to be able to bear the loneliness of one's existence with dignity. The egotism of journalists and media-addicts nauseates me, but therein lies my bread and butter. At least it's stories of the little man and people struggling for peace and nature.

Things really are getting apocalyptic. Mass exodus from East Germany, government resigning, 100,000s demonstrating. Sergei, an economist friend, was over and explained that it's widely accepted that the mafia is responsible for the soap and detergent shortage - they want to destabilize the situation, show their power, make speculation more acceptable. No furniture, TVs...

The joke about the SU having the highest AIDS rate because they do everything here 'through the ass' makes clear my rather masochistic attraction to the place (and that of most 'Sov-symps'). It comes down to 'talking dirty', enjoying being desired. But I'm attracted to simple, hard, cold types - knowing I can transform their reality like magic, knowing that they're living, burning human souls. It's a kind of crazy democratic, communistic, fairy tale leveling desire - to transform my and their reality and fuse in orgasm.

November 12, 1989

I woke up early this morning, realizing the egotistical journalist's word-masturbation is not what I want to write or read. I would rather write and read about my interactions and growth here, and try to capture the feeling of the place.

D and then Volodya Shtukun and Angelika came over. We arranged to take CBC to a 'matory' cafe, visit 'utiugi' (young speculators) at the Rossia, go to a heavy metal concert and then to 'U Fontana' for their documentary shorts on Russia today. That should give them enough 'youth.' D's mother as housewife, the environment groups for social conditions, and MN and Pushkin Square as Hyde Park.

I keep getting the creepy feeling that it's time to stop running around. Reading about Prabavananda: "give up the random waste of one's spirit, control the storm of one's thoughts to see the sea of truth." In a way I'm ripe for the transformation - not particularly tied down to a lot of material things. Homosexuality already identifies 'the fruit in the center of the garden' as a sin. I'm single, have with experimenting with intellect, politics, music, drugs, sex, travel, and found them all dead-ends in terms of happiness or contentment. I seem to find life rather boring now, and yearn for the peace and joy of religious enlightenment that I remember brother Bob talking about (and all of us being skeptical of, except Sharon). I remember our arguments about the intellectual path vs faith and meditation, and how I praised Hegel and Marx. Time to go beyond the intellect.

November 19, 1989

A hectic week. GF (Global Forum) press work, learning and storing on the Mac computer, trying to be part of the global village jetsetters, working with eager Russians culture-shocked by suddenly being thrown in with the Westerners here. And CBC - Peter Mansbridge and co. The National is supposedly THE most popular Canadian show, with 2m+ viewers. We taped the 'Volodya and Angelika' documentary at Bulgakov's flat. 'D and mother Svetlana and father Alexander' documentary shopping. I felt quite depressed by Saturday pm which D and I spent jacking off and watching Russian version of The 3 Mustketeers: "Life is meaningless even with adventures, only our being together makes us happy" (Artaud) and "All for one and one for all."

Today again overcast; maybe I'll visit Valeri at the MGU residence and then go to the New Zealand Embassy Club with Dorothy from Greenpeace, an incredibly gangly, clownish-looking American rake with bulging eyes, NO breasts, a gurgly whiney voice - NO SEX APPEAL, but fun and no threat. GP's office is just down the hall from the GF and we immediately recognized our common zeitgeist.

I feel that the SU has been choked by its overly heroic, insanely tragic history. The coming disintegration can only help clear away the rubble of secular revolution, though it won't be easy.

November 26, 1989

How to hold back the tears. I'm an insufferable romantic. The thought of D leaving tears me apart - only a few days and I'll face the terror and anxiety again. I must deal with it somehow, grow up, find peace. Letters or calls will be few and with my present frame of mind, only make things worse. "Lusiki, pelusiki, oguiki, adanoiki" as he calls me - sweet nothings for me alone. How precious is human love, and how impossible to live without it, especially after experiencing it. D's given me self-respect and self-love, which my masochistic sexuality seems designed to deny.

But the transitory nature of human love makes it self-defeating. D goes, and my self-respect, self-love disappear. All is maya! Mother Theresa's answer to Anuradhi Vittachi's question "Shouldn't we love ourselves rather than deny our ego?" seems the only one: "But you're precious to God." Looking for love in God can't be a cop-out; for me it's a painful truth, after searching in learning, music, family, sex, and human love. Placing all my eggs in any one of those baskets leads me to self-annihilation. And meanwhile, I repeat like a mantra: life is beautiful and I'm healthy and talented." Something's wrong if all this searching leads me to nothing. I don't want to reject any of the facets of maya, just not be fooled by them, become their prisoner. D's love will always be precious to me, but it must not be lethal.

The world's an illusion, all the pain and beauty are outward manifestations, temptations, leading away from God and inner peace. Enjoy them, but don't tie yourself to them or risk drowning. Matter is just a transitory manifestation of energy/ light.

I've been forced by D to watch one video after another of Elvis, the bard of hopeless love, a great example of maya. His career burned fast and his life seemed meaningless - a sad joke. He scattered his energy rather than focusing it. He watched 3 TVs so as not to miss anything, drowning in Cadillacs, fans, music, drugs, food, and sex. He didn't fit into society, but was tied to it. He had a strong religious feeling but the consumer society he was trapped in smothered it. In his last concert, his tragic presence contrasts jarringly with the glitz and adulation around him. The Beatles were more intellectual (coming from a more civilized country helped) and managed to rise above the maya of consumerism. [The Grateful Dead (Phil's icon), and American counterculture generally, broke away more cleanly than did Elvis and his followers, but are more or less arrested in drugs. Irony: little does the American establishment realize how useful drugs are to deaden the spontaneous protest of people as they become aware of the meaninglessness of consumer culture.]

So is the army maya? And D and I, and the SU and its strivings and obviously meaningless struggle for world revolution, and my trip here? The pain involved in rising above the material and human chains? My friendships and travels, even partings, should be doors opening, not painful wrenching experiences. I've been coasting (very comfortably) since I fell in love with D. He's off now, with a smile and no tears. It's time to develop more depth to my life. I've long known that material desires are maya - illusion. But I've resisted opening up spiritually, forcing myself to focus on creating an earthly communism.

I'm reminded of what Bob wrote me before I left about Jim and I being a reincarnation of women - sisters of mother in another life. With D going to the army, I feel like the woman he left behind emotionally (and hate it). But peacefulness/ gentleness in a male body is not a bad thing. I'm also reminded of the feeling I experienced when I came here (thank God I did come!), earlier, when Dad died (thank God I woke up!), and earlier yet, when I was not accepted into the PhD program at Cambridge (thank God I wasn't!).

East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary this summer have shown communism to be maya as well. Things may slide back into our more liberal form of maya, but the political cynicism seen there may be an indication that, on the other hand, a new social stage may be in the works.

The Buddhist teaching 'don't be attached to work' (but do it well) suggests 'don't be attached to a person' (but love him deeply).

Dream: A dead man in a car. We must drive it somewhere. To go skiing or be dropped off to ski by Roman Waschyk (young, cool but attractive 3rd secretary at the Embassy). Am in a bank/ locker room (no lock). To go swimming. Older man appears and disappears. I'm afraid I offended him.
Meaning: I am the car, the dead man is my soul dying as D leaves. The skiing is sexual (I was slightly attracted to RW). RW represents society, the superego: let society dictate my life? The locker rm is where I bare myself before immersing in the water (u). I've offended accepted wisdom - society, family, tradition.

November 30, 1989

9:00 am. Just saw D off at Akademicheskaya metro in the gloomy morning darkeness. We slept together last night - no protest from his parents. Other groups of new recruits dancing and playing guitar and accordion. Tears streamed down my face as I took the bus home to Stroiteli. I'll miss his sweet voice, and his delight in little details. A dog is transformed by D: "Look at the dog, he's curious, sniffs everywhere. And there's Kitty, hurrying, stopping to scratch, looking around, hurrying on." He looked so small and defenseless in his telegreka [literally 'body warmer', the cheap, gray cotton coat worn by workers and prisoners]. How pathetic that he had to pack the oldest, ugliest things to wear, cutting back to the bone, expecting the worst. Reminds me of a story by Yogananda of how Babaji materialized a gold palace for disciple Lahiri Mahasaya to satisfy his material cravings from a past life. I was doing this for D as he prepared for the monastic discipline of the army. D: "Sometimes the future looks so cloudy and uncertain, I want to either be a monk or hang myself."

I've been trying to prepare myself for life without D by having as much sex as possible and at the same time, trying to focus myself and meditate. I haven't come now in a week (though no doubt will soon to relieve anxiety). Maya! The failure of 'the October Revolution' and my own disillusionment with so much can produce something good. Must try.

December 5, 1989

A whirlwind tour of Riga Sunday with Valery, a first yr economics student at MGU. I was immediately attracted to his sexy smile, much like the old picture of Fred at 18 that Granny keeps by her bed to this day - thick lips, brushed back 50s style hair, a firm jaw. V bought us one-way tickets to the Latvian capital for the Saturday train (returns are impossible to get) with no guarantee as to how we could get back. I got the name of a train attendant who would try to squeeze us on the train back Sunday night for a small price. I also got a shot at a polyclinic for my skin allergy, which I figure is due to anxiety with D's absence.

It was good therapy to get away and spend some time getting to know V and reflecting, without cooping myself up in my room. We wrote his letter to an American girl, Denise (!), from a peace group Destroy the Enemy Image at the U of Maryland. He has dreams of hitch-hiking around the States and Canada someday.

Sleeping on the train was comforting - like being tossed around helplessly in the womb - and produced some strange dreams, one with father. The night seemed enjoyably endless, though we were aroused before 5:00 am (4:00 am local time). After an unpleasant wait to get late night tickets, we walked through some of the old town, through low long passageways, beside the old city wall, "like knights of old" as V said. Then went to sleep in the soldiers' waiting room till 8:30 am. We phone the parents of a friend of V's - Olga. Her father, Andrei Nikolaevich, promptly picked us up and after waiting for him to have his Sunday swim, we toured the city, noting the changes in street names, the churches now functioning, and learning about local politics.

The main cathedral appears to be sunken, though this is rather a result of the land being built up around it. We visited the marine history museum, had Latvian food at a family restaurant, toured the old town and Yurmala, made a fleeting visit to Andrei's home, and managed to squeeze on the 6:45 pm train back to Moscow as 'rabbits', having tracked down the 'provodnik' (a friend of a friend of gay Volodya's!) and coughed up several packs of Marlboros and more than two full fares.

December 8, 1989

Spoke at a slide show about Canada at Valeri's MGU residence and saw "Night of Clowns" by Fellini. Trying to get paid by CBC, getting a visa to Sri Lanka, braving the ticket maze at Aeroflot, extracting my Mosfilm wages from my bank... Trying to fill the void D has left behind.

An enjoyable afternoon with V and Max at Max's place. Max, a lanky rather silly student with huge glasses whose father is a filmmaker-shishka [literally pinecone, meaningfat cat], who for some reason turns me on. I can feel his sexual current, like I have a sixth sense. Coppola's Apocalypse Now (Kurtz/ Stalin, American decadence vs Vietnamese 'primitive' culture) and Tarkovsky's Solaris (me creating D and living in fantasy/ allegory of eternal life rejected for human love), and Airplane, all for the third time! My Russia is taped on slow speed and won't show on a multisystem - too bad. Wanted to hold/ make love to Max, but fear his upbringing makes him too straight, though he likes Elvis. Realize what a special person D is for me.

Not jacking off much, but the urge for sex fills my dreams (dream: being sucked off though not coming, child sitting on lap and me coming). Will be going to the Donskoi Banya sometime soon out of desperation.

December 10, 1989

The fruits of glasnost - a Makareev film festival: Mystery of the Orgasm, Coca Cola Kid, Montenegro, Manifesto, and a meeting with Makareev himself. Which is the way: orgasm therapy or abstinence?
Yogananda: abstinence, concentration, charity, tenderness.
Reich: promiscuity, release of energy, be like an animal (no sense of evil)

December 14, 1989

Learned about dedovshchina [hazing]: a dukh [spirit]is what you're called in the first 6 months; a cherepakha [turtle] till 1 1/2 years; a ded [uncle] for the last 6 months. It's like the fagging system of English public schools. Have run down the list of my time-fillers - V etal, MGU and bridge, Embassy. Back to reading and Donskaya.

December 16, 1989

A wild, full, empty day - Donskaya and 2 blow jobs in fast succession. Empty feeling after I came, but who is using whom? Thinking about the beautiful dark cock and muscular thighs, intoxicating smell and hypnotic rhythm makes me hard. But they left without a word or sign, as if nothing had happened. And I feel even hungrier for the moment of their ecstasy now. That sacred fluid from their loins - it's cannibalistic - a dark and powerful feeling - evil? Beyond good and evil? The forbidden 'garden in the middle'.

A tour of Dostoevsky's house with a chance acquaintance on the metro (str8s like the chance acquaintance too), then bridge at MGU for some human contact.

My sexual feelings are still schizophrenic but they feel more 'true' than orderly, correct, socially acceptable relations. Private, special, transcendental. But there's no fulfillment. It's like ritual worship of the dark unknown. A misguided worship?

December 22, 1989

What a day! I was denounced by Pichugin before the 'collective' for being a razgildai (do-nothing) thanks to Natasha, our shining bitch, and threatened (for the second time) with the ax. The other bitches seemed quite happy with my public flogging. I had gone for a LONG lunch to swim at MGU and held up a non-urgent translation. Wisely, I took Pichugin's flogging without a word of protest. Natasha, as far as I'm concerned, is on the defensive. Her attempts to incite me will go unanswered directly. Fuck office politics with these hens and their nasty pecking order (and victims).

Spinning through my mind are memories of my rather disgusting adventure at the baths - I'm not into 3-somes, or cold big flabby cocks. The third party, a tall, fairly attractive married guy, wanted to be fucked while being blown. When he finally came, I suddenly got cold feet, wondering if it was wise to swallow cum from a guy who routinely gets fucked without a condom. I chose to let him spill it on the floor.

Maybe my unsuccessful Donskaya experience is a lesson in my pointless fantasizing about sex and politics. My u took control at our MN Rossia birthday party when I toasted Kostia and Andrei, D-substitute MN couriers: "To success in sex and politics" Was I being cute, ironic or suggestive?

Then there's the crazy events in Romania. Ceaucescu disappears, is arrested, escapes, is being defended by loyal troups… Moscow Radio supports the people of Romania, reports that the Organization of American States denounces the US invasion of Panama, "and that's the news".

Dream: Watch soccer game with Monks (notice genitals under habits). Soon only children left. I throw the ball to (gay) Volodya and join his friend Pasha. Clear out wallet to find phone numbers. Find theater ticket. V, P and Suzanna come to apt for general meeting. Suzanna says it's pathetic how few people 'come out' each yr.
Meaning: The underlying religious nature of sex, the naturalness of childhood attitudes, before socialization. Rebirth, coming out.

January 6, 1990

A rather empty four days in Vilnius with some Poles - Valera, my handsome blond muzhik with sad eyes from Palanga - gentle and simple. Not out to rip off a foreigner, but to bask in the exotica of my otherness. He phoned me out of the blue one night back in November and my attraction renewed itself in seconds. Ah, love! Only one of his friends had an iota of his attraction. A friend of his, an identical twin and sailor, is off to Peru soon. New Year's Eve - a loud silly drunken party at a dacha, where some fucking bitch called me diadia [uncle] when I indicated I had had enough and only wanted to shut them all out with sleep.

Work relations a real trial. Must swallow pride and bite the bullet. I won't let the office shrews drive me mad.

Really miss D. Got some photos of him and me. Hardly masturbating - occasionally 'rub off' against the sheets. The last Donskaya banya episode was quite disgusting.

Some enjoyable bridge at MGU. Sotsart is now fashionable among students - Lenin, the battle against alcoholism/ corruption, smiling children. Shades of benign totalitarianism. Already nostalgic for a lost innocence as hunger for the dazzling materialism of the West becomes the new unofficial ideology. The utilitarian Soviet prol goods still have a pathetic romantic quality - sugar, boots, soap, milk. Soviet minimalism. Honest, but poor and shoddy. The attraction of garish packaging and false sensuality is just around the corner. I'm a rather pathetic representative of the 'forbidden fruit'. But somehow I feel good about not being the glitzy packaged Western good. Am still learning how to use my exotic being to the mutual advantage of East and West. What I want is the intimacy that I miraculously stumbled upon with D.

An empty apt. - it's both haven and prison. I'm constantly escaping it, only to flail helplessly in the cold currents of Moscow bustle. Unattached students seem to be my most comfortable milieu, but there's little constancy and no depth there. Such infatuations as Max come to nothing, either through their timidity or their parents' suspicion.

Krishnamurti's exhortations to listen completely, to use my discontent with everything to clear my mind of false, deadening security and greed, in order to find my true self, stripped of cravings, accepting myself as I am, independent of the demands of civilization, of dependence on others and on habit, conquering the fear to stand alone and be responsible to and for myself… Very existential.

Am beginning to fear the demands of traveling alone to Sri Lanka. Besides having to battle the bureaucracy and physical transition, will I have the peace of mind to make it a meaningful step in my own quest for self-knowledge?