work, not sex work

i am exhausted, not sure why. i sleep enough. there is definitely no 4:30 am wake up. for some reason it is difficult to get anyone into the office before 10. we dont have a key and must rely on jonbek and farzona to let us in, and they like arrivng at 11. so i get up at 7:30 and jack around the house, watch russian morning shows, drink my instant coffee, transcribe things. i dont know if it's the mattress and the springs, or constant walking, or lack of solid food, but its the middle of teh day and i want to take a nap. i fall asleep on teh train. never thought it was possible to fall asleep while standing, but it is. the train is nice for naps, if it wasnt for all teh people around and my constant fear of leaning agianst not so sanitary things. it lulls and rocks and makes a loud noise that drowns everything. adn the heat adn stuffiness puts you to sleep immediately.
work is going ok. we never have a plan. we arrive in the office, check emails, write things. and then jonbek will peek in and ask how much longer, "why? do we have an interview?" 'yes they're waiting for us." "why didn't you say that?" there is no plan, we are contacted whenever. whenever someone gets a hold of someone, whenever someone calls back. i feel like a callgirl myself, waiting for clients to call me so i can set off across town for a meeting somewhere in teh forest. we're supposed ot be doing 2 interviews a day, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. usually it is late, we set off to find some lady at 6pm, navigating moscow metro rush hour traffic. last night we came home at 10:30. i have forgotten what it's like to have dinner at dinner time. yes, i realize my dinner time is very different from most, but even non-grandma normal people dinners are non-existent.
the ladies are different. they are of all different nationalities: tajiks, ukrainians, azeri, uzbek. tajiks are secretive and talking to them is like pulling teeth. they have language difficulties. i've noticed in general tajiks, even those that speak russian well, forgot to conjugate verbs, or change tenses, or change endings on their adjectives based on gender. so sometimes i'll be caught in the middle of a story and i am completely confused as to when the story took place, whether someone came or went, and who he or she is/was/is going to be. sometimes there are multiple he-s, and later it turns out that the person in the story was actually a she. and she hasnt gone anywhere yet, and all that has happened, didn't really happen but will maybe occur if the circumstance are right. but that's all semantics.
i ahve had 3 fabulous interviews with frinedly open and talkative women who discussed their work adn their clients in details i am not exactly comfortable transcribing. do i transcribe word for word and is profanity part of research? they're great! yesterday's lady, i kind of want to be her friend. although i'm worried she'll get me too drunk. they are open and unashamed about what they do, although still their families and neighbors dont' know what tehy do.
i discovered teh duel (or the island, dont remember the name) on russian mtv. it is dubbed. i am now afraid i will get sucked in adn won't be able to leave the apartment. i found teh first episode this morning. dan got drunk, gay ryan made out with a bunch of girls, and kellyanne yarfed next to her bed. i was wondering, watching this, what do russians think of americans? based on mtv and music videos, it can't be good. i also did my laundry! there is no laundry rack and as europeans lack dryers, my clothes are hanging on hangers in various closets, with socks and underwear scattered on furniture around the apartment. i hope the cleaning lady does not come until tomorrow, otherwise, she too will have an odd conception of americans and their laundry drying antics.