Five more weeks. About the same distance away as the beginning of my Italy trip. It's going to fly. My weekends are already pretty much full--next weekend I'm visiting my college friend who's teaching a few hours away in Владимир (Vladimir), then Natasha and I are going to Сочи (Sochi, the site of the 2014 winter olympics) because we found cheap tickets on Aeroflot, then we're having sort of a going-away party for me and another American who's leaving, then I'm going to Kiev to see Seeded Grapes, then it's March and I'm heading out. I wish time would slow down a little, not that I'd want to extend my stay here much longer.

I feel like I've reached some sort of point of diminishing returns, where I've learned most of what I can without committing myself to staying for the long haul and letting it change me in ways that I'm not sure I want. A real go at repatriation would be a long road of carving out a place for myself and becoming either more Russian in my outlook or miserable. Some expats can stay and not become either, but I don't think I could. For some reason all the people I'm thinking of (my two editors for example) aren't ones I'd want to emulate. Maybe being a little unhinged helps you stay happily in your own detatched bubble. Maybe I'm confusing cause and effect.

Incidentally I've stopped getting hit on. Наташа says she notices that too, with herself. Sometimes you exude a liveliness and openness and interest in everything that makes people want to talk to you, and sometimes you don't. I'm not lamenting that at all, it's just something I've noticed as the reality of being in a place but not of it, and the struggle of communication, starts to wear down my receptivity and I turn inward a little more.

I'm torn between the desires to see everything and do everything I possibly can, and to sit at home and stare a wall and try to process it all while I'm still here. When I'm home, I listen to Dire Straits' 'Brothers in Arms' over and over. Not sure why, though I do like the line 'we have just one world, but we live in different ones.'