USSR journal, setting up the modem

12 Jan. The children woke up quarreling today, it’s drizzling, I’m drenched in sweat from the night before. I stayed up late reading and woke early. My back is unstable and keeps popping was it when the chiropractor came over and threw me about like a sack of potatoes. And I feel rotten. Oleg fries eggs and kilbasa each morning for breakfast—it makes me nauseous.

When I was showing Oleg how to use the modem, Nadia came in and was hanging all over him. And he was translating everything I said to him, how it worked, etc., and I was getting furious. I was having a hard enough time showing him, remembering all the steps, and it was a distraction that I didn’t need.

She sensed my anger and left. I felt badly, and explained that when I’m giving technical information I can’t handle a three-way conversation—especially a bilingual one. He apologized kissed my hand. He’s very sick, chills, but we go downtown to make phone calls.

Finally we get through to Pan Am to change my airline tickets to the 26th. Now we have to deal with visas all over again. Verlinski won’t give me the Leningrad visa, or is just seriously stalling, saying if I were here on a personal invitation I could easily get a visa. I’m going insane from all this bureaucracy.

When we finally get through to SF/MT, the original number I had, no one answers. Oleg tries the Institute for audio information and gets the number. We get another bureaucratic run around in supreme Soviet style. I am ready to thrash someone, threatening to make trouble on both sides of the ocean. But getting sick take some of the piss and vinegar out of me.

I manage to write the modem article for Rotor. The photos I wanted to use didn’t come out. I could’ve done more, but being sick definitely cramps my style.