Softening and Toughening

Yesterday I was stopped by the police for the first time in Ryazan'. I believe this may put me in double digits for total number of times stopped by Russian police and it is the fourth city where I've been pulled aside. I had my passport with me so it wasn't a big deal and by now I understand that I match the police profile for "illegal immigrant" when I don't shave.

That said, I lose things too often to carry my passport around and I really hate shaving. I've decided I need to soften my image a little. This means doing the little things. If I don't have time to shave, I should try to wear pastels. I'll stop for cotton candy, popcorn or ice cream. Maybe I need to get a man-purse.

You're probably saying, "Hey, that sounds great! But what if you run into some toughs who don't think very much of your softer attire? Will you just abandon the ice cream and the man purse?" I thought about this, too. I'm going to get a tattoo. Two tattoos, actually, on my biceps. On the left, Ь and on the right, Ъ. For those of you who don't read Russian, the former is the Cyrillic unvoiced soft sign (which turns a normally hard sound, like the "l" sound in "mill" to one more like "million") and the latter is the Cyrillic unvoiced hard sign (which turns normally soft sounds hard). When I run into those hoods and they want to throw down, I'll just rip open my button-up and flex ol' Ъ, and I think that should do the trick.