I used to drag out on old chestnut on postcards, "take care of the nickels, the dollars will take care of themselves" back when people still sent things in the mail from far off lands. It felt like the wisest thing to say, for any occasion. But there is another side to that coin. It is the little things that can drive a person mad. A terrible cup of overpriced coffee. The neighbor that never stops drilling into their walls. The familiar face in the street that pretends not to see you. And for me, my old film lab that promised to have new cans of Kodak Ektar, and Agfa APX 100 within a week, but it has been six months and someone behind the counter finally admitted that no film is coming, and they have no idea when that will change. I have reserved tickets for a war re-enactment, a famous battle against Napoleon in Borodino. There was a big idea to pack a collection of cameras in bags, E would ride shotgun and we would have an old-fashioned father/daughter adventure out of the city, taking pictures of horses and sweaty faced men in costumes. But with no film, it is an empty plan.
On the way home from the lab, I stare off into the dusty streets. A massive woman lumbers onto the trolleybus, with a cardboard box crammed with cooked corn, a cell phone dangling from her wrist. She wheezes and sighs, a handful of teeth in her mouth. She leans towards me, muttering something I cannot decipher. "I don't know." I answer. She barks into her phone, "Foreigners! They are stupid - like zombies." Then, she steps on my foot a few times before I shove my way a few inches towards the back of the bus. I am tired, sad and angry. A little voice in my head says, maybe she is feeling all of those things too. Maybe she has some sad rented room to retreat to, with nothing but cold corn to gnaw on. I have a family, bright faces, laughter, dancing in the kitchen, wisecracks by the barrel, beauty and music to greet me every time I open the door and announce "I'm home."
The idea of an unofficial embargo against still camera film is a bitter pill to swallow. I only need so much to remain sane in this place. A few guitars, some cameras, a little white table to write at and I can scrape across the belly of my worst days here.
I turn the page, do some digging, make some awkward calls in the best Russian I can muster. There is one place that has my favorite film, and they even deliver. The price is not terrifying, you pay for what you get here - as one taxi driver shouted on my very first visit to Moscow "spend your Yankee dollars, man!" So I spend them, and we load the cameras, make sandwiches, take that long peaceful ride into the country and have a perfect day.
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