I woke up with a wicked hangover, completely forgetting that I was supposed to go to the movies with Jenna at 11, but did manage to be up and moving for the 1pm movie. I also met Jenna's roommate Autumn, who's here on a Fogherty fellowship and doesn't speak much Russian. She seems okay--probably nobody I would ever call up and say "Hey, let's hang out!" but fine to talk to at a party or something. Anyway, the occasion of going to the movies was prompted by the British film festival at Dom Kino (advertised as MOVIES IN ENGLISH!!!!!), and movies in English without horrific dubbing are few and far between. I missed the movie about some kind of festival while I was busy being hungover and talking on the phone with Katie. We saw Kinky Boots, which was much better than I expected. The blurb was something like "A shoe factory in a conservative town in Northern England is saved from bankruptcy by a cross dresser" and didn't inspire much confidence, but it was a cute little feel-good film with really great music. And it was in English. Which was the best part of all.

I hung out with Lena for a little bit since it was her last day for two months. I didn't finish the hat, which makes me sad, but now I can finish it and take a picture. Anyway, I'm sad to lose my one Russian friend.

Then I went home and nobody was home then either. So I hung out for a while being grumpy by myself, and then fed myself and debated calling Meg and saying that I was too tired to go to the concert. But then I decided to go, because I was lonely all by myself watching MTV, and there's only so many bad dubbed movies that I can watch, and they have only have about 20 different music videos in rotation. So I went to the concert. And I was actually very glad that I did, because it was pretty cool. One of Meg's friends, Jennifer, sings in a couple of different bands, and the one that we went to see is called "JD & the Blenders." They do a lot of old soul stuff, like James Brown and whatever. Which is just good music, and watching Russians try to dance to stuff like that is well worth whatever cover they're charging.

Watching Russians dance is really strange anyway, but they haven't really figured out the whole moving the hips thing. They really want to dance to this stuff, but it's just so strange to see them bopping along with their bodies moving as a unit from the hips to the shoulders. Of course there are bad dancers everywhere and I'm definitely one of them, but still... Anyway, I guess all I'm really trying to say is that I'm endlessly entertained watching Russians dance.

Meg also knew some great bar snack that's sticks of bread fried in garlic, oil, and salt until they taste like croutons. Throw some cheese on there and it's about the best drunk food ever. Well, short of the Hot-Cake House, and you should never eat there anyway unless you're drunk off your ass. I feel like half of what I write on here is about getting drunk, or how much I wish I could be getting drunk, and it makes me feel like a lush. And that's not really the way it is. I'm way more sober than I am drunk, and I still don't particularly like being here and having to be responsible all the time. I think it's more the inability to let loose here that gets me, more than anything else.

And being responsible, I had only one beer and went home on the last metro instead of hanging out with Jennifer after her show. I really really liked her. She's an ACTR alumna who ended up staying in Petersburg. She's in her early 30s and she's got her shit so much together, it's cool to talk to her. She actually reminds me a lot of Stephanie, who I babysat for a bunch last year. Good people all around.