Artichoke

Artichokes and I have always had a conflicted relationship. They're fascinating because they're so complex, and they're really unique among vegetables, but all the same I just can't stomach them.

One of the first things Artichoke said to me, a Кальян the first night I was there, was "What are you running from?" I answered noncommitally and it got swept under by the rest of the conversation. The running-from theme is one he returns to a lot though. Not about me necessarily, but he thinks a lot about people and their reasons for being here. His theory is that happy, functional people stay in their own countries, and everyone else has some sort of damage they're trying to escape, but they can't, obviously, because they're carrying it around. I'm not sure to what extent he thinks of himself in those terms. I bet if he's honest with himself, his theory was tailor-made to his own self-image.

He's studied a ton of math, and yet is surprisingly socially lubricated. When he's in a room with people there's almost always some sort of noise coming out of his mouth. About 30% of it is complete and utter bullshit, maybe 60% masquerades as bullshit but conveys something truthful that he's thinking about, and about 10% is brilliant and insightful. I'm often in the crosshairs of his bullshit ("We all HATE you." "Rhubarb's got that alcoholic tendency." "Shut up, we don't like you THAT much" (on my birthday), and others I've lost track of). But then, he goes out of his way to help me learn Russian, help me plan my lessons, make sure I'm ok with other things, etc. Artichoke even told my FCE class when it was my birthday, and they brought me a cake. He's toned down the vicious variety of bullshit, I think, now that he's seen that he can't pick a fight with me and I don't want to compete with him. Lately his bullshit, of the 60% variety, has taken a different turn. ("Rhubarb, will you marry me?" "I like girls who speak softly and read books and use words like [some big word I had used earlier]"). I know I occupy an above-average portion of his mental space, I just don't know what with.

His girlfriend's one of my students. He's told me he's not in love with her, but she's crazy about him. She's really smart and motivated, but has a modus operandi (Artichoke's phrase) of being hypercritical and disdainful of everything. Once that drops, though, she's cool. I think he wishes he were in love with her. In a way I feel sorry for men whose incapacitating need for sex ties them to people they don't actually like all that much. Or maybe that's not even what's happening with him, I don't know.

Artichoke almost left the company a couple weeks ago. He was all ready to get on train to Helsinki to get his other visa, then Giant Midwestern Underground Fungus made him an offer he absolutely couldn't refuse, so he stayed. He was really torn. His friend started calling him Hamlet, which was (and perhaps continues to be) about the aptest thing ever. In all, I'm glad he stuck around. We're falling into a tenuous sort of friendship, and if someone's that interesting, I'll forgive him a lot.