On: 24, Notes on A Magical Year

on my 25th Birthday

Time can be measured in any number of ways, and while a calendar year may be most common, my favorite is to count the days between my birthdays. August to August, I make mental notes of progress and orient myself and wherever I may be in life to the coming of the 15th.

My 24th was a very special year for me. It was magical for the single reason that that was the age at which my mother gave birth to me, in another time and world, in Tver, Russia. So, in my mind, those 365 days received a fine and invisible layer of meaning.

That summer, as I turned 24, was my first in this magical city where I've made a home. On that August 15th, I was wrapping up a whirlwind summer of moving to a new state, of knowing no one, of stumbling into the top-tier of the wedding industry and then unexpected graphic design work. How I earned enough to live on that summer is still a mystery, as I was quite bad at my job. But my boss saw potential and was very patient and forgiving. She even gave me more work. By that birthday, I went to Ohio for a friend's wedding where I designed the invites and learned an important lesson.

And then - fall. Networking, working, long hours, weddings. Some art, then winter, more of the same, more design, Facebook-ing, social media and more. Then more and more and more of the same. And it was glorious and wonderful and while not always fun - it gave me quite a base on which I am working off of now.


Here are the highlights.

• Seeing Shara Worden perform at Millennium Park with a full orchestra on my 25th birthday - a life-affirming, mind-melting performance.
• Being in the wedding of my best friend from college- I was the "maid of honor" and it was quite an honor to see her walk that aisle. And yes, I cried.
• Also, this year I've met some truly great, talented, inspiring people - several of whom are now my friends.
• Seeing the amazing Zoe Keating. While the music is haunting and beautiful, hearing her speak about finding success was the most wonderful gift.
• Networking. So. Much. Networking. There are so many amazing people in the wedding industry - and they all love hanging out, drinking wine and passing business cards. Working at a venue meant they all wanted to know me.
• This was also a year of a lot of self-discovery and while I now see and know myself better than before, there remains a lot to work through - I suppose that's part of the bargain, when it comes to life, and although the process may be daunting - there's little to do but roll up the sleeves and dive in.
• Spending my first Christmas and New Year with my mom in Chicago - and Thanksgiving with dear friends in Columbus.
• Mom & I also took a two-week road-trip to Colorado. Outside of seeing many people once very special and close to me, the trip also felt like a closing of a huge and terrible chapter of my life. My first 9 years living in America came to an end there, as mom & said goodbyes, took all our things and drove into the sunrise.


It was quite a year. But I'm glad it's history. The year I'm on is a different, more difficult, beast, but I am happy to be living it. Every day.

30 Second Review: Half of a Yellow Sun

By now, I can sense if I will like the book I am reading within the first few sentences. It does not matter what genre, what characters or who is the author. With these books, there is a certain tone, a crispness and texture to the words, that when they lift off the page and into my head, I know right away that I am in danger of falling in love.

Such was the case with this novel, written by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, a young Nigerian writer who, for her second novel, chose a dangerous subject, with very personal connotations, a story of five people caught in the War of Biafra.

But this is not a story of horror. Biafra, after all, was where the images of the fly-covered starved African children came from. This is a different sort of story. It is a nuanced and beautiful character study. These people may very well have existed, because within these pages they breathe, live and feel and we with them. Beautiful Olanna, her sister Kainene, her lover Richard, fiery Odenigbo and his houseboy Ugwu, and all those around them are all as painfully human. These five represent the upper middle class of just-independent Nigeria and live, work and play - until the war comes.

The story is told in four parts, with Part A followed by C, then by B and then D. This creates an interesting tension and mystery, because even though by the time what is mentioned in the second part unfolds in the third, and even though you may have it figured out, Adichie still makes it into an unexpected and exciting reveal. Also sprinkled throughout are clippings of a book being written in the novel's world, which brilliantly add foreboding to otherwise cheery parts of the book and were pleasant asides.These devices do wonders for the pace and without them, this would have been a lesser novel. This, and how she also sprinkled many hints throughout, reminded me of how Gabriel Garcia-Marquez can travel decades in one sentence, to my delight.

At all times, though, Biafra is the reason for the book and is always at the fore. Still, what propels this novel is how Adichie chose not to sink the novel into the horrors of this war, which there were many, without avoiding them. She does not place blame on any one country or source, not even entirely the Nigerians and has her characters dismiss Biafra's own propaganda without wavering in their devotion. Her main purpose with this novel is to tell the story of a people who had dreamt of sovereignty and safety, but were themselves misguided and mistrusted by the world and so were punishingly defeated through inaction by their neighbors and starvation by the Nigerians. Really, the ones she blames most are the British, who for the sake of their convenience, in decades made blood enemies of tribes friendly for centuries. In this, her story remains humane, never idealistic, felt by the reader through the characters.

In this, Adichie treats the reader with intelligence and respect, while teaching them about something that very few anymore care about. In this, she wishes that what happened will not be forgotten and maybe never be repeated again.

On why I the US Holocaust Museum was disappointing

While in Washington D.C. for the Inauguration, I had time to visit most of the museums the city is so well known for. One of them, was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which I thought was especially important to see, not only as a human being, but being both Russian and gay, I would have not only been deported and gassed, but most likely suffered the Nazis' worst medicinal experiments because, while Jews were barely human, for Nazis, gays were something far worse. Also, having heard my grandmother's stories of surviving the war, I simply HAD to go.

So I went.

And it was exactly what I had expected. A big, moving, space that tells one of humanity's darkest stories in a succinct, moving, and powerful way. It was an experience I was glad I had.

Still, I was disappointed, because in the end it seemed like not even the museum could wrap itself around the meaning and impact of the genocide it commemorates. It's design, may be solid, with the top floor being dedicated to the build up of antisemitism before the war, and where the concept of racial purity arose. Then, there's a floor for the opening years of the war, for the ghettos, the pogroms and the beginnings of the genocide, and finally there is a floor for the final years, for the concentration camps and the eventual liberation. This design works, but the museum doesn't mention how between the wars, the German state was essentially dismantled by the Allies as retribution for the immense cost of the first world war. The museum doesn't mention how with their cities destroyed, no jobs or food, massive wartime casualties and post-war demoralization, the German people flocked to Hitler as their savior, instead portraying them as innately anti-Semitic.

That's only a minor quibble compared to what I felt was a glaring omission from the exhibit. Mentioned only once, and briefly, were the bizarre, disturbing and horrendous experiments conducted by the Nazis on everybody from twins to the mentally ill, to the handicapped and specifically on the Roma. I can image they don't want kids seeing it, but you know, it happened, and also wait until your kid is older or even better, explain it to them. Also not covered was the ethical question of using the Nazi's research, sometimes the only data available, in modern science.

Essentially, the museum did not do enough to convey the absolute maltreatment of human beings and the complete disregard and loss of humanity inflicted in the concentration camps. It came close, with videos of the camps' liberation, and a room filled with victims' shoes, but otherwise it relied on the numbers to tell the story and chose to end on a feel-good note of a survivor marrying her liberator. It's enough for most, I suppose, but this is the Holocaust and what was done must in no way be edited or watered down because the droves of people and school groups that visit everyday can not comprehend the meaning of it without first seeing it's extent.

One of the people I went with said she's noticed the exhibit being toned down over the years, because people couldn't deal with it's unabashed portrayal and that's truly disappointing.