A friend commented that my blog was too much of an insight into my mental life; I didn't mean for it to be the case, I began my blog as an online sketchpad/notebook and forgot to blither about myself.

Just now I started some smarmy metaphor about "me" somehow turning into a group of Russians since left my indigenous ecosystem and came to Baltimore. This "chevra" of Refuseniks are then led away from their (i.e. my), ecosystem/social network/support system/family by the "Truth [i.e., Torah]-Seeking" member of the chevra/dimension of I/We, and how this "me that became we" - wondered into some Gulag Archipelago, incapable of communication between each "island", as well as out to the world beyond the Archipelago (because - like a really great band or dance troupe, we sound our best when we are 'as one' - jeez, what a pretentious metaphor), and how this "Baltimore-Me" is not me, and how "you CAN'T know me from one Shabbos meal now-and-again or from a skyrocketing-bloodsugar-induced rant", and the fact that I have so few peers and people who can finish my sentences and translate for me, who'd send me 'care packages', who'd love me so much they'd kidnap and take me on roadtrips to get me out of a funk, people to engage in spontaneous street theatre with, and all those things Friend Friends can do with you - and how along the way I/We come across these other people (among many other others), who, generally speaking, are from the same shul - and how they're "intuitive" (which I feel they think is comparable to a level of nevius...), and appear to be all about 'nurturing'...but always leave me feeling stiffled and like "Resistance is Futile- Holy Brother" [I mean no 'dis of R. C. - only caution] and stuff, and they completely miss almost everything I actually say to them, and they say I'm "too intellectual" and "analytical", and chant tired mantras about "thinking outside of the box", and "the issue isn't the issue" and all this stuff that makes me feel I'm caught in some eddy behind the "'Baby Boomer' Boulder" in whitewater and it seems like anything of any dimension or contrast I introduce them to is "too abstract" or "too dark" (which means, of course, they miss anything funny about reruns of BTVS), and how sometimes I want to ask them -"are you people on dope?", but I'm horrified that - even though they're 'frum' - I might not be too far off the mark in some cases. And it makes me so reactionary around them.
And please, please please understand that - historically, I am not this worked up or bratty about life - but it's so damn lonely after five years of this and [woe is me] 'You People' have no idea what this is like and you'd probably get a little weird too if you were in such straits that the first way you come describe your inner-self was by describing a group of Russians in the Gulag Archipelago - and I'm sick of writing/reading this and every attempt I make to engage others turns into yet another bridge I burn when I get to it. So...who wants to listen to that?