Today is a national holiday, so there is a fascist march down Nevsky. My plan is to stay home and not go out as much as possible. There's always more violence around the national holidays. And also probably because the fascists have a permit to march and the antifascists aren't so much fans of the fascists and will probably start some big rumpus. I was hoping for a huge cool-looking bruise on my ass from my aborted love affair with the escalator, but no such luck.

I talked to Alex this morning about grad school and personal statements and all that kind of good stuff. This was actually the first time I'd talked to him since before I left and it was pretty good. I forgot how much I like to talk to him, and the amazing capacity that we both have to talk about nothing for so long. Anyway, it was really nice to talk to him and he had some good advice for me and helped me pin down what I'm going to write about a little better.

I still don't have any cell phone service. Surprise surprise.

Then Meg called and invited me to come over for dinner. Yay dinner. Nobody is home and I like some company sometimes. I headed out for Meg's a little bit early so that I could swing by the Megaphone store and attempt to figure out why my phone doesn't work. I was all ready to use the phrase "This isn't service, this is shit" if they tried to tell me that they didn't know what the deal was. Unfortunately, they did know exactly what the problem was: I still owed them money. I think that that's a big pile of shit because they keep a running balance as you use your minutes and it's pretty hard to go way over because they just turn off your phone. But rather than listen to more incomprehensible explanations, I decided to fork over the cash and get the hell out of there. And then they turned my phone on a half hour later!

This was good because I got hopelessly confused trying to find Meg's house. But all was well and we hung out a little bit before everyone else started arriving. Tevon took over the role of doorman, which was excellent when James (!) arrived and Tevon wouldn't let him up. It was really excellent to see James. I hadn't quite realized how much I missed people from home and how excited I was that somebody else who understands me and the proper way to roll was here with me. This is also mostly because the other kids in my group are a bunch of fucking squares. I don't think of myself as particularly "extracurricularly experienced," but these kids make me look like a fucking expert and it makes me really sad. AuTumn brought this super annoying ex-pat named Michael that she'd met at a bar somewhere. James and I started the skype-age as soon as we heard that he was an English major from Princeton with a shelved (unfinished and unpublished) novel about South America (written while he was living there, of course) and currently working on a collection of short stories, fictional of course, set in Russia. Anyway, I had a great time being an asshole to this poor man who absolutely deserved it for being such an perfect example of why everyone around the world thinks that Americans are know-it-all jerks. Jen and AuTumn had the misfortune of misinterpreting James' question: "Have you ever played Mortal Kombat?" as a pickup line, and then Meg felt compelled to elucidate the nature of past relations. Boo.

But it was a pretty excellent night, including a mad dash through the snow to catch the very last metro home.