back from USSR

THIS is where I come from. THIS is fucked up. Is it any wonder than I feal like a misfit in most circumstances ?.. Growing up in the most unreal city where sun was barely out 6 months in a year yet it never got dark in summer, I still remember this sickly feeling, always cold hands and feet, exhausting long commutes in crammed buses and trains, this crippling fear of huge red banners hung atop the roofs and on the side walls--some monsterous angry lumpen and a she-male with their fists clenched under a PEACE sign (!!)..or equally scary obnoxious old loons picking fights in bread lines. BREAD LINES. ANYTHING lines. Adults'seeming self-righteousness and my own utter incomprehension of THEIR cause, the most bizzare messages put up in the dumbest places, like this "Hands off Angola !!!" placard in first-graders classroom corner where little hulligans were made to stand facing the wall in punishment (I knew that corner well..)..of having to repeatedly sing this grave song about "Buhenwalde Bell"(a nazy concentration camp), then march for hours to a drum beat..the pioneer bootcamps all summer long..that gnawing feeling of dull sadness and hopelessness that accompanied what was supposed to be (and still was, amazingly..) best years of my life, of constantly being drilled, intimidated, your loyalty to this mythical and frightening"cause" tested ceaselessly. A mass cult of glorified bullies, jocks, imbecills... No dignity, no normalcy. I never though this would end. I was 10. I never KNEW then there can be something else, I really thought there was something wrong with me for hating all that cheer..I'm still weary of uniforms and PC lingo, just for that :)