Like the one in Central Perk

There’s been something not right (or in Russian: shto-to ne to - which I love for its literal translation: “what-that (is) not that”) in my life for the past couple of days.

I think. I ponder. I wonder.

I contemplate the snow. Picture everything that’s great about snow: how it hangs on tree branches, its great wide flakes caught upon your tongue, you frolick in it and play football that starts out as two-hand touch and quickly ends in “you’re not down until you’ve been tackled to the ground and had three-liquid-ounces-of-snow-down-your-shirt,” you go inside and have hot chocolate and wrap up in about fifty thousand wool blankets in front of a fireplace.

Ok, that last bit is just fantasy. Usually it’s in front of some Vh1 reality series rerun. If we’re lucky, we can switch to a Bravo Cirque or Top Chef marathon. And eat some Christmas cookies. Om nom nom nom.

Then I compare that ideal scenario to Moscow. I think about the general lack of trees in this industrial quarter of Moscow. But there are trees; I can get to parks very quickly. So that’s not what-that (is) not that.

I don’t really want to catch snowflakes on my tongue as…well. That’s usually a rare activity for me in America, too.

Football. This could actually be a promising candidate for that-what-not-that. I could also fix it if such were the case. I’m afraid, slightly, that those people I know who a) would be game b) are in Moscow are mostly like Jude and are about 135812397523 my size. And play sports semi-professionally. I can deal without the football, I guess.

And that leaves us with going inside and wrapping up in blankets. I have lovely warm blankets but they’re on my bed! And the bed is for sleeping and resting! Here we find the problem.

I need a couch. Yes. The couch. The couch is for sitting in warmth and heat and looking outside at the zombie rev—I mean snowfall.

I’ll ask some homeless people in the ‘tro today if they know where I can get a free couch.