switching sides

now i must concede defeat. how can i not love the fact that, every day, i commute to a bank of a river wholly other than the one closest to my flat? just when i was beginning to forget this vitality, another of its effects emerged in stark relief this morning: the snow from yesterday stayed for about five seconds in Novi Beograd (for practical purposes, west of both rivers), before turning to slushy seeping-shoe soggy. in Beograd proper, however, it had actually been allowed to accumulate, albeit slightly. we surely do get the wind over here, but, apparently, have got to be on better longitudinal terms with the winding rivers in order to reap its humid benefits.

i am, more often than not, asked for logistical favours (directions, information about the bus (its destination, its country of origin ("can't you read the Greek on all the signs??"), its state of disrepair)), time of day or night, general inquiries about the nature of life in Beograd, etcetera))). do i look like i either know (oh, wait...) or can explain these things (oh, wait...and if you do, you will be in for the most detailed and breathlessly enthusiastic garble of your life)? i've found that certain middle-aged women are those who least seem to regret their decision to single me out as a source of information; this is also the subset of the population that actually seems to grasp the intended content of my words.

language class tonight (6-9) and then stayed later to help Tijana with some translation from her work (organising a classical guitar festival for February, 2006; date already marked on my calendar). we would make a decent team, in this regard. the additional aspect that i did not make explicit in my earlier torrent, loosely related to the Remnick (which i passed on to Tijana), is that "where two or more are gathered"...the potential for accuracy increases: the resulting translation is better, in nuance and definable phrase, and, simply, more bodies are swept up into the Realm of Language. in any case, we almost got there last night, except for the incessant eruption into laughter.