There is a number of small things (like candles in the city).

It's amazing when you meet people who remind and straight encourage you of why and who you are. Breath-giving. The sort of people who just from общение (talk and hanging-outing..) reinforce the friendships you have with other people far away while piling and sorting the base of another new one, all complementing the entire structure. The sort of people that are as necessary in life. Even more than an electric kettle.
I am physically incredibly tired (this post is post-12 something hours of straight uninterrupted sleep party), and mentally in an ecstatic state. The simple way of viewing things, your perspective on other people and things swirling through the tidal pool of life itself, sharp and active.. brought alert and awake from a drowse.
Such is a progressive result of the three days I just spent hanging about and regarding life with Amy the American (figures sold together with Splippy the Seagull Coke Dealer and Antwerp the Archetypal Ant). It's invigorating when a friend appears in the way most comfortable.. everything screamed Minneapolis (though admittedly emerges from Florida.. we all face overexposure, be it to sun or cold). Met in a cafe and share the ability to make an entire day appear and dissolute through conversation and beers on a balcony. At the same time refreshes myself and tastes like a long sip of Hope & King with the company usually around.. something I feel will catch up with me in a few days in full force. Has the possibility to set me into work-planning mode (a single sip of beer will do that, be it before writing your thesis, talking politics or reconstructive neurological surgery) for the coming fall. Not to give away the still-forming plot (planning as of now includes sorting the options at hand), and there won't be a trailer out for a while, though this should involve a change of address. And country code. And a daily change of boxers, as usual. The story unfolds..

Here's a pint raised to all who just know it's to them. And to Obama.. he's facing an opponent who would refuse to recognize losing at Scrabble when she had two tiles left and both were X (personally I would use them with another existing X and argue that it stands for moonshine or other jugged liquors (самогон). Totally legit.)

Also, a rousing shout of grand Soviet-style applause and admiration to Ian for getting his position at UW River Falls.. Amazing! Really encouraging in a personal sense hearing about it as well.. he's just landed what sounds like one of the sweetest possible setups in the grand sense of location plus self development and interest at work. Well done. Check up on it on his Magyarishness blog if you aren't already on it. Again, well done man!

Edasi, вперёд..

Bureaucratic Baltic Ass-Clownery.

Right. Here's a legitimate question:

Estonia's Migration Board (Migratsiooniamet): useless, or fucking worthless?

My residency permit would be most likely be further along, faster along, or already fucking processed by now (more than three and a half months later!) if most of the workers there suddenly decided to take a lunch break and while on said excursion thew themselves off of a goddamn bridge.

More on this soon, though for now the news stands as:

More documents necessary. Decision postponed to mid-July.

Fuck off.

..just needed a short vent.

Вперед..

Brilliance..

Ну, чтож.. This has been some time in the making. Thus you should enjoy the post like a fine wine. Left open for a few days, and initially fumbled off the bottom shelf because the label was enticing (note: this is actually a legitimate wine selection method, because.. I do it.) and all after already consuming some vodka, bez zakusok. Appreciate it.

Set, davai..

So.

I moved.

Should be mentioned that all of it took place in Russian as well. Hardcore awesomeprekrasno.

Setting the entire amalgam of various widely-sourced reasons behind.. I moved. It's done, and that's where it stays. Overall though, I felt a wider need for movement.. be it across the Atlantic or across the city (basically another country). Given that I still have no idea on any possible progress on my elamisluba (Estonian residency permit: soon to be pegged to the kidney exchange rate on the black market), I decided to roll with what I could here. I may not fully enjoy what I am doing (kohvik job working with young'ns is not surprisingly not fufilling), though I enjoy where I am doing it now.

Speedy background (timewarpwarpwarpwarpwarp.. 'will there be dinosauurs?') on Lasnamäe.

It's basically Russia. Every day I take a twenty minute bus ride to the Schengenized version of Stalingrad, where every step crackles with delight (due to the broken vodka bottles) and life is jubilantly enacted and displayed on every corner (the local Roma children, flocks of denim jackets, and general staggering). Корочье, fucking brilliant. My apartment itself is clean and just remodeled. The bathroom is somewhat of an exception, though after a few added touches the abandoned-hospital aura quickly gave way to a comfortable-Soviet-hospital (just garnished with a copy of my chest x-rays I found in the move. Eesti demanded it before I could start working (--not that I work, officially--) so they could check if I had TB or not. Apparently being cleared for not having TB is still not enough for the residency permit, though.). I digress multiple times.

The area used to just be empty fields that were undeveloped for.. well.. over half a millenia. Then the CCCP happened. Around the late 70's and early 80's the Soviets went on this mad overenergized trip and built loads of panel housing, before massive protests in the mid-80's forced development to stop. As for myself, I live on the eighth floor of one of the early ones.. judging by the rate of decomposition of the exterior of the building. The Soviet Union really focused on efficiency. For example; my faucet in the bathroom doubles over between the sink and the tub, and the (actually somewhat amazing) use of hot water pipes sticking out of the wall and zagging (with a few zigs) around provides a towel rack.. dries and heats. My television only speaks Russian. Having one of the two exterior doors open provides light into the small hallway outside my door, so you can lock or unlock said doors with a selection of my five apartment keys (alright; four.. one is for the post). Also, the exterior of Soviet buildings serves as a visible short-term method of carbon dating. Efficiency.

I mean it though.. it is beautiful. Things are falling apart here and there, and the population lives amongst various ruins and relics often splashed with the sprayed art of youth.. though everyone is together in it. On warm days, people are sitting out, with babushki, kids and young parents alike making the way to the Russian stall-markets (basically second hand shops with more character and far more slippers). The horizon stretches out, and up, unfurled and dotted with thousands of lights, each representing people, and lives. It's the best place to feel part of something larger.. a mass of others.., and the best place to feel alone at the same time. I feel and am savouring a strong taste of settlement. Not to mention drinking on the street generally flies here.

Ian, felt I should mention and make you proud of the fact that I decided to rig up my balcony into a map room. Somewhat tempted to move the stove and my bed onto the balcony, though.

My windows face a different direction, with a calm collected view of the flurrying fury of life moving and intermoving afront, aside and below.. Rippling and surging. Кажется, что мне пора же купаться.

Edasi, вперёд..

Lõpuks (uus vaatanurk).

More, and what preceded it, very soon.