Click on the image for a very thought-provoking post (in Russian) and several pages of interesting comments.

...Например, пара геев, спорящих о чем-то в зале кухонной утвари магазина «Икея». В руках у одного из них довольно объемная кастрюля, второй рассматривает ее без особого восторга.
— Куда тебе больше? — недовольно спрашивает первый, демонстрируя достоинства кастрюли так и эдак. — Она и так огромная, зачем еще больше!
— Я советская женщина! — строго говорит второй. — Советской женщине полагается иметь в хозяйстве выварку!

(C) Linor Goralik

Mom gets son ready for school in under 5 minutes

Just finished reading a letter from Sir Terry Pratchett in the Daily Mail.
When the sad news of his illness came out, no doubt many had started to wonder if there will never be another great novel from Terry. But I stayed up all night a few weeks ago finishing his latest YA book, The Nation, and it is one of the best he has ever written. A new Discworld novel, Unseen Academicals, is set to come out in October, and a few more are in the works: When I am Old I Shall Wear Midnight and Raising Taxes.

Lenore Skenazy just made my day with her post The Risk of Avoiding All Risk, the best in recent memory on the Free Range Kids blog.  

If you haven't already heard, I am planning to do something crazy this June. I am taking Liz to the Echo Festival - three days of camping, swimming, Russian rock and singer-songwriters. I posted on the rusrock  community asking for others from the DC area who might be interested in sharing the cost of gas and some company for the road. Others with kids around Liz's age (7) would be especially nice. If you followed the link from that posting (or if, after reading this, you have suddenly acquired an overwhelming desire to take part in just such a festival), you can write here and let me know the best way to contact you.

The other day my friend Sara went on craigslist to look for furniture. Bored out of her mind after hours of staring at ugly couches, she started browsing the Casual Encounters section. Now most of us would read a few of the more outrageous posts, make a face, and click away. But Sara, among her many other talents, is a fearless investigative reporter. Over the next few weeks, her curiosity piqued, she posts four ads (one as a man, one as two men looking for a female partner, one as a woman and one as a couple), visits a number of highly specialized websites and personally meets some of their denizens.

It is a strange world, where a Navy officer will include his full resume, rank and serial number in response to a personals ad in hopes of distinguishing himself from the crowd and Double Penetration Experts (we come to your house, we show you the ropes) are only a phone call away. Many books and articles have been written about the swinger lifestyle or the (alleged) differences in how men and women approach sex, but few researchers have looked at it at quite the same angle, and few can match Sara's unique style and her ability to drag the entire lifestory out of everyone she meets. She even attempts to answer the eternal question of internet dating, "Where are all the real women?"

Sara, or azbukivedi as she is known, is already a household name in some circles, with close to 4000 readers of her Russian LJ alone. Her short stories in both languages regularly win awards at various competitions.

There is a lot of good reading in Sara's English LJ even if steamy investigative journalism is not your thing. Click to the beginning of the journal for a short story Melting Pot or, if you prefer real-life immigrant experiences, try The Nail. Sara is not the first Russian-born writer who has tried to explain to American readers what it was really like growing up in the Soviet Union (What, there were no bears in the street, really?) but I find her topics more relatable and her English more palatable than that of Lara Vapnyar, for example. Check out Of Gynecologists and Much Else or The Veterans and you will learn a lot, whether your own background is similar or very different.

I just looked over the previous post and swore I'd never try to write anything at 2 in the morning again. I gave it a serious overhaul and was able to dial down the platitudes somewhat, but some things are just beyond repair. Maybe this "writing in your journal" thing isn't such a great idea. Maybe it's the gas fumes - I hope no-one tries to smoke around me for at least a week.

So much for starting slow. That was a few hours ago. I certainly did not expect I'd be trying to use this journal as a personal soapbox this soon, but I really want to tell this story. I hope you will excuse the lofty tone. I don't usually write like this. This is Hallmark. It is Chicken Soup for the Soul. It has infinitely less literary value than either. I can't help it. 

My car ran out of gas today. This is the third time this has happened in as many years and you'd think I would have learned by now. Each time I promised myself I would never let it go below quarter full ever again, but each time I was also grateful for a chance to see a wonderful demonstration of The Kindness of Strangers. This time topped all of them. One total stranger gave me a ride to the gas station, waited there, drove me back and did not complain when gas from a faulty can splashed all over his car. Other total strangers, a whole family, got out of their car in 15 degree weather and tried to help me when said faulty gas can poured gas all over them, me, the car, anywhere but the gas tank. When the car still would not start, a janitor at the office building down the road got his jumper cables, and a security guard drove to where my car was blocking a busy intersection with said cables. By then, there was police at the scene. The nice young policewoman, who could have had my car towed several times over by that time, was waiting for me. For 15 minutes in 15 degree weather, she shone her big flashlight on my battery while the security guard and I tried to figure out which end goes where. (The car is a hybrid, the tiny battery is located in a hard to reach corner of the trunk, and the knobs aren't marked + and -.) In the meantime, friends who had been drafted on very short notice took care of my child for an hour and a half. 

So, this is what I want to say - to everyone who has ever hesitated to offer a stranger a ride or to accept a ride from a stranger ... to everyone who is afraid to let their children out of their sight because strangers are bad ... to everyone who watches the endless litany of horrors on the news every night and gets up to make sure the door is locked ... People Are Good. People are amazing. Yes, we are not perfect. We can be childish and inconsiderate. Sometimes we don't notice a cry for help, sometimes we hope someone else will take care of it. A small minority of us will intentionally do bad things to others. But it is mind-blowing, it is truly owe-inspiring how many people will help a total stranger without expecting anything in return.

So, I hope I finally learned my lesson this time around. I won't let the gas tank go empty. I might even join AAA. But I will also invest in a set of jumper cables and a leak-proof gas can and keep a look-out for cars stranded in the middle of the road.

Another thing, though I am not sure exactly what purpose it will serve, I want to put together a list of all the good things, big and small, that strangers have done for me throughout my life. Since I can be incredibly stupid and scatterbrained, and at times a bit too willing to burden others with my problems, the list is quite long. I don't know if anyone else will feel inspired to put together this kind of list, but if you do, I'd love to see it.

And finally, if you ever need anything, a ride, a shoulder to cry on, a couch to sleep on, 100 bucks till the next paycheck, call me. Seriously.

When I started this journal several months ago I announced to the world that "Chukcha is a reader"(*), the journal exists solely for the convenience a "Friends" page provides in organizing my online reading material and you'd better not expect to see any actual posts here. Then a few (non-virtual) friends asked why I don't write anything and I got to thinking, why not?

I will start slow, with links to some interesting websites and shameless advertising of the journals of some of my (virtual) friends. If you are not my (virtual) friend yet but you want me to read your journal and write something about it, you can leave a comment here.

Some posts will refer to Russian-language journals (for the benefit of my Russian-speaking friends) but the primary language of this journal will be English (until further notice.)

(*) A pun on a bad Russian ethnic joke. I invite you to learn about Russian humor from Wikipedia. It is a very well-written article (by someone with a lot of time on their hands) and while most jokes were familiar, I did learn a few new things, such as the definition of a meta-joke or why three Ukrainians is such a dangerous combination.