P.S. Sad to say, the Russian-processing portion of my brain has become very flabby after several months without regular exercise. (I was spending far too much time on American gay-politics blogs, which is the intellectual equivalent of eating only Big Macs, french fries, and Coke...)
The result is that when I try to write in Russian, I find myself thinking: "I'm sure there's a more natural Russian way to say that, and I'm sure I used to know it, but I can't remember it now, блин!" And everything I write seems very primitive and overly anglicized.
But I've saved the whole thread to my computer, so for now I'll log off and read it... so I can try to think in Russian again.