I have no photographic evidence.

I went snorkeling at Shark Ray Alley today.

Right after we fed the sharks and the fishies, we went swimming with them.

Oddly enough, I was less scared among a bunch of sharks and stingrays compared to when I saw one shark earlier in the day. (By the by, nurse sharks have better shit to do than chase after snorkelers.)

Our guide caught a shark by its tail and held it for a while. I got to hold it, too. Its skin is surprisingly rough.

Then, I held a stingray...alas, not for very long. In contrast to the shark, the stingray is extremely slippery.

And right as we were swimming back to our boat, I spotted a sea turtle.

I ♥ Belize.

The longass SFO-BZE saga

American Airlines has hit a whole new level of incompetence.

They turned me down at the check-in counter because they were convinced (and arrogantly so) that I need a visa to enter Belize. Rather than go home, I bought a day-pass to have interweb access and got online to double check visa requirements. I called a friend on my Badass Women list to ask her do the research with me. When I saw a site that said I did indeed need a visa, I texted my friend with the bad news, then called American Airlines reservations to see if I could still cancel my ticket. Certain restrictions applied, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. While I was on the phone, Kickass friend emailed me two links that said I did NOT need a visa. This info confused me, sure, but it also gave me the tiiiiiiny bit of hope I needed to fight bullshit.

I asked the lady on the phone if she could check Belize visa requirements for a Turkish citizen, and she said that I could fly as long as I had a form I512 -- Parole for Reentry into the US.

— Um, I have that form.
— You do? Then you can fly!
— Are you sure? They told me very firmly I couldn't.

So the lady stayed on the phone with me and I went to the desk to talk to a supervisor. Turns out the arrogant guy who wouldn't listen to me was the supervisor. Super.

I tried to explain myself to him, and he kept insisting I couldn't fly. I handed the Angel on the Phone, Kim (Angel for short) over to Arrogant Supervisor, Salesh (ASS for short). He was a jerk to her, too, and he just wouldn't listen. Big surprise.

At some point, ASS just gave me back my phone and walked away. Hold music. When Angel came back online with "Sir, are you still there?" I had to tell her that he had walked away to the other side of the check-in desks. She told me I had to find someone else to talk to because he was hugely misinformed. She said that he was convinced I couldn't go because he had it in his head that my trip originated in Turkey. (I thought I heard him say something like that on the phone, but I dismissed it thinking I must have heard him wrong.) "Aren't you standing right there in front of him in San Francisco?" Why yes; yes, I am. This man was creating his own reality, it seemed, to make sure I could not get on the plane.

I suddenly found myself thinking of this man as an allegorical figure in the story that is my life. No mere human being could embody this much malevolence against little ol' me, right? I mean, doesn't this shit happen as a normal occurrence in countries that are in the middle of war? Then again, I realized, when has SFO not been a war zone for me? When has the US been safe for immigrants? Sometimes I wonder if I'm better off not being clued into these insights and life lessons.

Angel kept talking to me. "No matter what happens at the end of all this," she said, "you must file a complaint. I am so sorry that what you're going through is appalling." I felt a tiny bit of sanity settle into my body in that moment. Someone else was out there witnessing this. I needed her. "Listen," she said, in a tone that made me feel once again like I was in a movie—this was the scene in which I was about to given the highly confidential information for which my life was in danger. (I recently watched Enemy of the State, can you tell?) "You need to find someone else to talk to. Is there another supervisor there?" There wasn't. ASS was it, unfortunately. "Any other agents?" There was the surly woman who had initially refused to check me in and who had also refused to double check that the information she had was correct. There was the other lady who refused to talk to me because I wasn't flying First Class. And then there was the man whom I hadn't had any interaction with yet; he was tall, and he used his height to look over my head and not acknowledge me when I stood in front of him earlier. So I guess you could say we had had an interaction. Still, he was my only hope.

Tall Guy pulled the same move. He looked over my head and tried to signal to the person in line in front of him. I told him I had been in the same damn line and it's not my fault if the supervisor who was assisting me walked away. "Do you really think I should have to move to the back of each line every time someone walks away from me, sir?" He didn't respond. I remembered Angel, who was still with me on the phone. I told Tall Guy that I had an American Airlines rep on the phone with me that wanted to speak with him. "I don't talk on the cell phone," he said. "What???" He repeated, "I don't talk .. phones. You can try my supervisor." I sighed. "Yes, but the whole point is, the lady on the phone would like to talk to you, or someone other than your supervisor." His answer? "I don't talk .. phones." We had this same exact conversation two more times before I returned to Angel, my witness. She asked me to get his name. Charlie. Angel asked for his last name. "What's your last name?" I spelled it for him. He put in my info and told me nothing was showing up. "I know. That's why this lady would like to speak with you. She needs you to reissue the ticket." You can probably predict his response. "I don't talk on the phone. If you'd like to, I can pass you over to my supervisor."

(This interaction, by the way, is why I think my life resembles Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." I'm not even going to identify all the parallels. If you've read the play and don't see the parallels, I'd love to buy you're a drink sometime, explain & discuss.)

I gathered my shitº and walked over to the supervisor. I told him Angel would like to speak with him again. I don't know what they talked about during this time. All I heard from ASS was, "Ma'am, if you'd like to go ahead and try to tell me how to do my job…"

Well. Fortunately, Angel must have wanted to go ahead and teach him how to do his job, because ASS hung up the phone, walked over to me, gave me my phone back, and when I asked him why he hung up, upset to have lost Angel, he told me to go over to the desk at the end of the section to check in.
I walked back to Surly Lady. In front of her was a line with an older guy in a suit (your stereotypical rich white guy type) and a big family behind him. I turned to the line and asked with a desperate look, "What time is your flight?" The guy in the fornt answered with "No." Wha? "No. I need to… You've already cut the line once." Oh, really? "Look, I've been in this line two hours before you even got here, going between three different desks. Besides, I was just asking, so there's no need for you to snap at me, sir." I felt myself fuming, the tears finally coming. I walked to the back of the line. The guy who was with the big family turned to me and smiled. "You can go in front of us." I thanked him again and again, dragged my shit and walked to the front of the line. And that's when my tears finally let themselves out. Kindness. That's what moves me to tears.

At the counter, Surly Lady couldn't figure shit out, so ASS returned and punched in some stuff that made my reissued ticket appear on the screen. He tagged my bag and literally threw it onto the conveyor belt. Duly noted. All right, ASS, I thought to myself; whatever makes your emasculated self feel better. I'm going to Belize, dammit.

I got to my gate just in time for boarding. Unfortunately, my flight was delayed. I began sending texts and calling friends to give updates. I emailed mom; the last she heard from me was when I called her to tell her I wasn't able to check in. She was half asleep and sad for me, I could tell.

While I was commiserating with V. on the phone, I heard another call come in. An 800 number. Angel! In my wisdom, I had asked for her number in case we lost connection. Since she didn't have a direct line, I had given her my number. I told V "I gotta go! I gotta go! Bye!" and managed to switch on over to Angel. She said my name with a question mark at the end, and I thought I was going to cry. "It's Kim." I didn't need her to tell me. "Hi! Thank you soooooo much!!!" She told me she was just calling to make sure everything worked out. I asked her about the complaint letter and how to go about submitting it. She took the time and talked me through everything I should mention and coached me through the process. She gave me ASS's full name (Why protect the guilty? His name is Salesh Narain.) and told me he had hung up on her. "My supervisor and I had to talk him through how to read the information he was looking at correctly. He sorely lacks training, and we'll take care of that part on our own end." So she had literally gone ahead and told him how to do his job. I asked for her full name, so I could shower her with the praise she deserves in my complaint letter. Thank you, Kim Lauber, for being a NICE human being and for bearing witness. Thank you for calling back. Thank you for being kind, and for knowing the basic rule about customer service—treat the customer like she's a fellow human being. Thank you for being an Angel.



My flight got delayed. And more delayed. And more delayed. I was told my best bet was to stay on this flight to LAX since it was the holidays, and lots of people were traveling, and the connecting flight would know there were a number of us coming from a delayed flight, the weather sucked, etc., etc. Turns out this was bad advice. My connecting flight was not delayed. I called American Airlines once again to see what options I had at this point. Meanwhile, my flight's gate finally opened. We were about to board. So there I was on the phone with a sales rep, trying to figure out if my best bet was to fly and be stranded in LAX or Miami, or to stay and fly out the next day with a completely rerouted flight. The lady on the phone finally figured out my best bet was to spend the night in SF, fly to Dallas the next day, spend the night (on my own dime!) in Dallas, and fly out to Belize the next morning. Fine. Just get me to Belize as soon as possible.

I got a ride from another angel in my life—the angel who had dropped me off at the airport five hours earlier, and who had to drop me off too early for the flight because he had a gig to rush to. If he hadn't dropped me off with time to spare, I know that by the time ASS figured out how to read my documents and the visa requirements correctly, he would have been able to tell me the flight must already be boarding and drop it all right there and then.

I got home from my soul crushing experience at SFO, wrote an email to friends I don't mind turning to for help asking if anyone could give me a ride back to SFO the next day because I knew I'dl be an emotional mess on my way there, dreading going through the same thing all over again.

As soon as I hit Send, I started sobbing.

It felt like I was letting out years of frustration and anger. And years of pure hurt. Yes. More than anything, all this bureaucratic nightmare hurts me. Deep.

I caught myself, once again, thinking "I'm tired of being Turkish" when what I really meant was something quite different. My soul is tired of going through absurd amounts of red tape and being subjected to arrogant assholes who think my foreign passport translates to "please treat this woman like shit, with the least amount of respect you can get away with."

It's pretty amazing when I think about it that I still love traveling so much. I am grateful for my stubbornness.


And today, in about half an hour, Kickass Friend, who sent me the email with the links that showed I did not need a visa to Belize, is going to pick me up and take me back to SFO. I have sharpened my knives and tended to my soul since last night.



I'm going to Belize, dammit.













º jackets (I was fuming and didn't need jackets to keep me warm anymore), laptop, passport, bag yet to be checked in—all this shit that I had been dragging back and forth between desks the whole time, by the way. And lest you think this is bad, I've done this same thing pre-cell phone and on crutches before.

gushing and blushing

I.

I read my horoscope today.

This is what it said:

There's a new elective surgery that makes it impossible to ever blush again. It's an expensive procedure that involves boring a hole in your armpit and cutting the nerve endings that are responsible. I wouldn't recommend it for you, even though you're entering a phase when you'll be more prone than usual to blushing. Why? Because, according to my projections, your main reason for blushing in the coming days will be due to receiving sudden, unexpected, or long-withheld praise. I believe it'll be a time when you're acknowledged for the good things you do. Blush away!


I thought, great. Bring on the praises. I could use the boost this week.






II.

During lunch, a parent volunteer came up to me and asked if I had a minute. She said I've changed her life and she wanted to tell me about it. Uh, hell yeah, I have a minute. This lady is the mother of a sophomore I had in my class last term, and she said she waited until he was no longer in my class to tell me this story.

When she was here for the open house two years ago, when her son was applying as an 8th grader, she ended up in my class. I taught a poem—either Genny Lim's "Sweet n' Sour" or W. H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Artes," I think. The mom told me that she learned English as a second language in high school, and she was traumatized as a student of English by a terrible English teacher. She did not know until the last minute if she was going to pass her class; at the same time, ironically, she was the valedictorian of her class on graduation day because of her amazing accomplishment—mastering English in three years. (Interestingly enough, I also was the student who gave the graduation address in English to my high school classmates in Turkey.)

For the first time after all those years, this woman sat in my class, read and discussed a poem, and she was surprised to find herself thinking "I can do this!" She told me this story today because "I had to let you know," she said, and because inspired by me, my class and her experience in it, she's gone back to college, is now taking English courses, and she says "I never want to stop taking English classes."

Nothing new under the sun?

A musical "woa" moment:

Ever seen Cinema Paradiso? Best final scene ever. Beautiful theme song (search for "Cinema Paradiso" and "Love Theme" on iTunes).

I was listening to Chet Baker sing "I've Never Been in Love Before" (and wondering how he feels singing those words, but that's a different topic)...The song ends with 7 notes on the piano that I am sure are the same 7 notes in "The Love Theme from Cinema Paradiso."



. . .



Yeah, that's all.


Nothing to see here; bye.

Are you familiar with The Red Poppy Art House?

It's a fantastic place to meet like-minded people who are into the arts/world music/jazz/the combination of all of the three. I suppose it depends on you. The amazing people are there whether you talk to them or not.

Anyhow...


I volunteer to maintain the Myspace page—feel free to add The Poppy to your friends if you're on Myspace. The official concert calendar is here.


Good show coming up, one close to my heart: NEFASHA AYER—The Space of In Between.



Enjoy.



tk

morning commute musings

(scribbled on my morning commute into my haiku moments notebook, this is the longest entry I've ever put in there—they're generally fragments)

• • •


CREATE.
S c h e m e.
Remember.

• • •

11/11/2008

Bike ride to the beach w/ Lori.
I take that last right turn to the street that will lead me to the water. I smell woodchips. I love that smell. I feel the excitement building in my body before I even see the water. I needed this.

And there it is. I see it; then, I hear its rough murmurs, gurgles.

I needed this.


There's green and white foam on the beach, thick. Lori and I observe that they look like creatures in a sci-fi movie as they move with the wind and inch closer towards the shore. We joke that what we dismiss as sea foam are really undercover aliens in disguise.


The moon rises at dusk & moves in and out of clouds.


On the way back, I stop and call at Lori to turn around and look at the sky behind us. The trees are dark against the orangebluegray sky. We keep riding. Beyond the trees in front of us now is the moon again (& the yellowish red rings around it), glowing. I take a deep breath and grin. We ride past the aging bison.

the body, reset

It's pretty amazing to me what our bodies are capable of storing up.

I've written about body memory before.
These days, I've been thinking about the rhythms the body creates to sustain itself.

I can tell myself all I want that expectations are unhealthy, that they lead to disappointment, but my body has its own rhythmic logic. My body wouldn't calm down until I read the Talking Points Memo each morning leading up to the elections. It expects to find itself in a new environment every break I get from work; otherwise, it gets stir crazy. I feel this very physically in my body, not just psychologically.

I also just realized that my body sets up its patterns with people. It expects to make contact with people it likes somewhat regularly once even a vague pattern has been established. During the elections week, I struggled with changes to one such pattern. It was a hectic week for everyone, and someone I/my body expected to see had a change in plans. My body had a visceral reaction. I felt anxiety and began wondering what was up. I think finding absence when I looked forward to presence stirs up some old, old shit in my body (=baggage leftover from being cheated on in a relationship, and probably some stuff about growing up with family members I loved living in another country).

Once I became conscious of these patterns, I knew my body needed a "reset." I needed beach time. Perspective. Fast.

I couldn't have picked a better day to ride my bike to the beach. Yesterday, at dusk, the moon and the sky and the ocean were gorgeous. I read aloud the bit about hope that I posted yesterday. And I honestly felt calm in my body for the first time in a while.

Body resetting mission: accomplished.

I know I have managed to erase the patterns my body had built up. I feel more grounded and less programmed now. My body feels more aligned with how I feel and how I perceive myself: it feels open to spontaneity again rather than privileging patterns that don't really exist.

Nothing like nature to show you even the natural rhythms possess an inherent variation and randomness within.



:: exhales ::

but I think hope is like a crush.

not the resigned hope, like -i hope things get better -- but the hope that feels like suspended disbelief. where spaces open up and everything is possible again, and you're pushed to adventure, pushed out of your regular boxes, pushed to show off, to be the person you want to be the most, working hard to show your best sides, your secret scars, your hidden dreams.


hope is like a crush, making things as beautiful as possible even knowing you'll get hurt.


it won't sustain you, not like the hard work of love will, but it pushes you beyond what you thought you were capable of.

i am not optimistic, but hope, yes, hope.







I added more to my previous post in the comments section, but I wanted to keep this separate.

This is from a zine called Doris. Issue 26. I like reading and rereading this section. I find it soothing, grounding, and inspiring. I feel like the writer lived in my head at some point and took notes, and now here she is, reminding me what I've always known.

You have no idea how much hope I suddenly have. I feel my body pushing anxiety out and embracing the lightness of being once more.


I am so crushed out on these words.

I am so crushed out.

on L/love

Fuck it. I know exactly what's wrong within my body, what I need to alleviate all the anxiety and sadness stored up in there for months and months. I think too many people look for explanations when it's clear what we need. But let me make I statements, as vulnerable as I feel writing this post. You know what would make me feel better?


L.O.V.E.


Not "love ya," not a dutiful "I love you." Not something at the end of an email or in a text message (no matter how genuine those may be, too), but a genuine and in-person "I love you," in any and all its variations.


I want to feel in my body that I am loved.



Yes.




.
.
.


Love. Been thinking about all its paradoxes. This will get lost in translation, but as the Turkish saying goes, it's too bad that love has become a piece of gum in people's mouths, at least in this country. People throw it around all the time, so it's hard to know the difference between love and Love. I do think there needs to be a difference between "I love my new corkscrew" and "I love you."

And yet, and yet…

I do think I have come to take "Love" too seriously; when I'm in a relationship, I do wait for the other person to say the L-word before I open up. I have also gotten so sucked into all the semantics of love that I am not certain I can tell the difference between loving and being in love. The distinction in Turkish is a lot clearer to me. You have one word for the person you are in a romantic relationship with, and another you can use for your new corkscrew, playing hooky, your grandma…


.
.
.

I began making a list of things that make me feel loved and alive. Once I feel I have my list down, I plan on going through it and giving each item some time to the extent that I am able—in other words, it's not like I can manipulate someone into making me dinner or reading to me. It happens when it happens. I thought of what has gotten me out of a funk in the past and made me feel love/beauty/inspiration/alive in my body. Here's the list so far (when I think of something else, I'll add it to the comments section):

• 1 am trip to the beach

• a trip to the beach anytime

• swimming in a sea

• "That's it; I'm taking you out for sushi."

• Octojelly
(=my biracial kite)
• Bubbles

• being pissed off out of my funk

• crying the stress out of my body

• um, sex...kisses and bites and cuddling. (Duh.)

• someone's beautiful words in a blog post

• The Stendhal Syndrome—being moved by art and music.

• traveling elsewhere
• being read to

• reading the zines Tomas gave me
• recording haiku moments

• the wisdom of Chip Thomas

• writing postcards to people I love everyday for a month (I need to go buy some stamps pronto!)

• bourbon and conversation with Todd, or sometimes just sitting together in silence

• reading James Baldwin









What makes you feel loved and alive?

bicycle dreams

Within the last three nights, I had two dreams of a stolen bicycle.
So I did some dream research.


To dream that you are riding a bicycle signifies your desires to attain a balance in your life. You need to balance work and pleasure in order to succeed in your current undertakings. If you have difficulties riding the bicycle, then it suggests that you are experiencing anxieties about making it on your own.

To see a bicycle in your dream, indicates that you need to devote time to leisurely pursuits and recreation.


To dream that you are a witness to a theft, indicates that others are wasting and stealing your time, energy, and ideas.





So...when I find my own bicycle stripped (wheels and seat etc. gone), I am seeing my ability to devote time to recreation stripped away from me because my time/energy are stolen from me? Or maybe I'm feeling like I am not well equipped right now to attain balance in my life because there are things that are competing for my time/energy/ideas?


Well: NO SHIT.


And what does it mean when I dream someone else's bike is gone and I feel responsible even though I know it wasn't my fault?

After the win...

Every​thing​ now, we must assum​e,​ is in our hands​;​ we have no right​ to assum​e other​wise.​ If we—an​d now I mean the relat​ively​ consc​ious white​s and the relat​ively​ consc​ious black​s,​ who must,​ like lover​s,​ insis​t on, or creat​e,​ the consc​iousn​ess of other​s—do not falte​r in our duty now, we may be able,​ handf​ul that we are, to end the racia​l night​mare,​ and achie​ve our count​ry,​ and change the history of the world​.​


:: who else but James​ Baldw​in ::





In the meantime—a necessarily incomplete gratitude list that got me this far...


Thank you for giving a shit.
Thank you for doing your part.
Thank you for voting.
Thank you for emailing/texting me after you voted.
Thank you for donating to my Obama fundraiser and for making me feel empowered, "alien" as I may be.
Thank you to the folks who raised you, friends alongside family.
Thank you to the folks who pissed you off and challenged you along the way if only to strengthen the values and views you already held.
Thank you for sharing those values and views with your community.
Thank you for calling me on my BS and keeping me honest with myself.
Thank you for reading my blog posts because you care about what's on my mind, because you know your reading these thoughts put into words means the world to me.
Thank you for being literate and literary people; thank you for playing with words.
Thank you for sending me postcards, CDs, photos, Obama stickers (my favorite: the one I can't even read from the Navajo reservation in AZ).
Thank you for making bubbles.
Thank you for trusting me with your spare keys.
Thank you for acknowledging your privilege as husband and wife as a part of your wedding ceremony, for acknowledging ongoing injustice.
Thank you for supporting the arts and local artists.
Thank you for being community organizers.
Thank you for being my community.
Thank you for putting out zines.
Thank you for raising children the best way you know how.
Thank you for knowing we all fuck up sometimes and that we get to.
Thank you for being educators.
Thank you for following world news.
Thank you for making world news.
Thank you for looking at maps.
Thank you for knowing some words and phrases in my mother tongue.
Thank you for visiting my birthplace, for swimming in the Aegean Sea with me.
Thank you for talking to strangers.
Thank you for giving me support when I get down about all this INS bureaucracy bullshit; thank you for having a sense of humor so I can lighten up, too.
Thank you for jumping photos.
Thank you for taking me to the beach.
Thank you for jazz.
Thank you for cooking; thank you for sharing a table.
Thank you for knowing some desserts must be had two days in a row.
Thank you for making art with your hands.
Thank you for holding mine...even when they're sweaty.
Thank you for giving me a sense of home.


tk

Should I include this in her letter of rec for college?

The one in blue is a senior I am teaching right now...and this would be why -even when I'm fucking stressed out- I love my job.



"Hey Sarah Palin."

Poll tax (aka I fucking love this woman)

I love it when articulate people express what's been on my mind for a while.

At the same time, I always get a little disappointed and frustrated when I do come across someone finally articulating what I've been thinking about. Why? Because I find it disconcerting that I, a non-citizen, who is so new at caring about following politics/elections in the US and about educating myself, that I, an alien, who feels like she could never educate herself enough about enough issues quickly enough could wonder and worry about how aaaaaalllll these people will be able to afford to take this much time off to vote, and go weeks without hearing anyone else mention a similar concern.

Let me try to explain with another example.

I was 21 when I observed a "Special Education" classroom while working towards my teacher certification and noticed all the students were students of color. I was 21 when I wrote a paper arguing that what was "Special" here was that the teacher, a white guy, talked to these children about the body building career of Arnold Schwarzenegger rather than about anything that could be relevant to their experience; what was Special here was that the students were not Special Ed. students, but students most of whom spoke English as their second language, being taught by a guy who couldn't speak their first language. What was Special here was that the girl in the wheelchair didn't fit into the student desks, so she sat at the teacher's desk while the teacher leaned against it to address the rest of the class—with his back to the girl in the wheelchair the entire class period.

I was 32 when I went to a national conference for/about people of color in independent school when a keynote speaker got a standing ovation for talking about his new book in which he explains Special Education programs are rooted in racism and prejudice.

I'm sorry, but I wasn't impressed. How is it that my newbie ass could figure this shit out in 30 minutes by paying attention to classroom dynamics, and we were still talking about the same shit over a decade later as if it all was some new revelation? How is it that this book is just now coming out and selling out and impressing people with its newly formed theories?

And should you need a more pop-culture example, I have two words: Halle Barry. I was not at all psyched or happy when she got an Oscar. I was livid. This wasn't an achievement I could be all proud of and excited about; I was pissed it took this long for a black woman to be recognized as having talent and to be given a chance in a traditionally racist industry (find the documentary "Slaying the Dragon" if you can).


I'm not sure what my point is exactly. I just know that I want more people to be paying more attention to injustice everywhere and to raise hell about what they notice more frequently, especially when they have the power and the privilege to do so.

I want men to call each other and institutions on sexism; I want the wealthy to call each other and institutions on classism; I want straight folks to acknowledge their privilege during their wedding ceremonies. I want my American friends with the means to travel to go and see the world, to realize it is a privilege to be able to show up at a country's airport without a visa, to be able make travel plans based on best fares, not on what country would allow them to enter without making them jump through hoops made of red tape and dollar bills. I want white folks to call each other and institutions on racism. I want to remember the weeks I was on crutches and couldn't always take public transportation or walk comfortably down the street, I want to remember the frustrations I felt trying to wheel my grandmother around her neighborhood and having no sidewalk space not to mention consistent access to the sidewalk....you get the idea.


Now go vote, dammit.

not surprisingly...

Obama cites James Baldwin among writers most significant to him.


Another take on the candidates.

:: r a i n ::

I love the rain when it really rains.

I don't use an umbrella. (Umbrellas have always annoyed me.)
I stay away from people with umbrellas. (I like my eyes and having some space on the sidewalk too much.)

When I stand in the rain; I can't help but grin.




Other than the rain, today started kinda shitty. I had to go to an all-day Students of Color conference as a chaperone. I wasn't really in the mood to be in workshops and listen to speakers all day. But I went. Eventually. First, I had to take the train in the opposite direction out of habit because I was spacing out and moving on autopilot—this, of course, meant that I got to the conference way later than I should have been there. It was OK.

I didn't feel very present. I left early.



Waiting for the J train in the rain, I once again found myself spacing out, thinking about the rest of my hectic day, wondering when I would have the time to grade this weekend.

A car stopped in front of me. I couldn't really see inside, nor was I trying to. At a quick glance, it just looked like the driver was wiping the windshield from the inside. Glass fogging up, I guess. I heard a honk, which made me shift my gaze, and I began looking not at the car but in the car. And it was then that I realized the older guy in the car was not holding a cloth but an umbrella. He hadn't been wiping the windshield but waving the umbrella to get my attention. When I looked at him directly, he pointed to the umbrella, then at me.

I snapped out of my daze and smiled. I mouthed, No, thank you, still smiling. He smiled back and drove off.

A part of me wanted to rewind the scene and go up to him, not take the umbrella but give him a hug, or at least shake his hand, or at the very least exchange spoken words.

Not really.

I enjoyed the experience the way it was—so ephemeral in its beauty, not unlike the raindrops.

I've been so blue recently, and this little moment in the rain reminded me to focus on the everyday beauties to keep going. I am hoping the collective sigh of November 5th (for which I am so fucking ready) will bring some levity into my life. In the meantime, and always, there are these beautiful moments around me waiting for me to shift my gaze and notice them.

Dia de los Muertos

Today I celebrate the lives of Nina Simone for keeping me company; James Baldwin for being a mentor who knew that home ≠ birthplace, that it "is not simply a place, but an irrevocable condition," who reminds me again and again that we all have the capacity to love and we ought to be taking full advantage of this capacity since there is already so much hatred in the world, who reminds me to approach the people I am wont to dismiss with love as well.

I am grateful, too, for all the women and men who worked for the liberation of people they would never know.

I privately whisper my gratitude to the mothers and fathers who have created lives that have inspired and sustained my vitality with their friendship, with their words. Thank you for the people you have brought into my life. (You, who are reading this, know who you are.)

Thank you Nesim, my father's father whom I've never met; Rashel, Gramama, my father's mother, who could create infinite stories inspired by the same three paintings in her living room; Leon, my mother's father, my Grampapa, who believed (or at least told me) eating bananas would give me strong biceps and who, I found after he died, loved traveling and going on road trips.


And I celebrate once again the life of my cousin Moshe, who was my age when he died—for reminding me each day and each night when I look at his picture above my bed: I am alive. No matter what anxieties and pettiness might distract me from this fact, I am alive.



"So live."

SF Jazz revelation

My favorite friend I've never met was going to fly from AZ to here to see a bunch of SF Jazz shows.

He couldn't make it. (I still don't know why, dude.)

A couple of weeks ago, I got a mixed CD in the mail and in the case was a ticket to see a show Wednesday night: Peter Apfelbaum & the NY Hieroglyphics. He's awesome like that.




While I was listening, I had a weird epiphany of sorts. A total moment of clarity, an omen...I'm not sure what it was. In any case, suddenly, I thought...no, I perceived, almost ("thought" sounds too cogitative and conscious for what the experience was like), Obama will be president. I don't know where this came from; I sure as hell don't believe that it's in the bag by any means until it is, but...



Believe.

I can't take the idiocy anymore.

No, really—I truly can't.


Why do I keep reading this shit???? I don't know, but they find their way in through whatever filters I thought I had.

And now, I'm having a hard time breathing. There are knots in the center of my ribcage and I'm hurting.




I bust my ass all week; then it's Friday evening and I feel like I have touched no one, made nothing in the world better, and I don't know what to do with myself except rent a movie like Down By Law to just sit down and be, appreciate the artfulness, listen to Tom Waits' voice, and contemplate the beauty in the human strife to "make it."


OOOOfuckingOOOFFFF.

k n o t t y

I've been feeling...hmm...knotty inside.

It's not quite anxiety.
It's not quite sadness.

Maybe it's old shit, nonbiodegradablebaggage being stirred up—it's that time of the year, with Yom Kippur reflections and all. Old stuff moves closer to the surface. Some, I purge; some yet unnamed detritus remains.

There are bits and pieces of doubts, anxieties, remorse floating in the Pacific (see the :: instant gratification:: post, below), and my body still remembers the vestiges of these experiences even if I cast them out logically, unabashedly.



Side-effects of these days of atonement include:
• sudden need for attention/
• ∴ disappointment in friends who don't return messages/
• inspiration stirring inside without a clear direction (this is not necessarily a negative side-effect)/
• impatience/
• impatience/
• impatience/

5 am

I wake up to my alarm.

The only thing that remains from whatever dream I was having is the sentence that echoes in my head right when I wake up. I don't know the context, the speaker, or the person addressed, just these words:

"Look, my family is like everyone's family—collective noun."

.:∴. d u s t ..:∴.

I should be grading, I could begin; there is, after all, no time other than the summer months when that little broken record is quiet.

"But habit is a great deadener" as Beckett says, so I try to find my true entry point.



I feel inspiration stirring inside me, and I know I just need to give it time and space. I need to quiet down the broken records of doing and just be sometimes to let the next thing I want to do (and do creatively and passionately) rise to the surface.

I feel dust stirring.

I realize even in my frustrations with all the hoopla surrounding Palin, I can't deny that I have been inspired. I've been inspired to read and question and wonder and write and express. This is all new to me, and I take it all for granted so quickly. No one else has questioned my passion, either; I only see momentary puzzlement on a face here and there when I mention something about not being able to vote if the topic ever comes up.

So I slow down and realize these are important times for me personally. A friend of mine and I have been thinking about writing a collaborative essay about current US politics: WWJBD :: What Would James Baldwin Do?© Maybe it is only appropriate that an expat living in the US write this essay.


I've been reading zines for the first time. (Is that weird? Do I care?)

Dust is getting stirred up and these particles need room, baby; they need r o o m .



After a long hiatus, I am finally going back to creating my wall/corner of inspiration in my apartment. Images, words, sketches, bits and pieces of imagined realities and the magical in the mundane, haiku moments both visual and verbal, the texture of leaves, of veiny forearms, typewriter keys, wood, sandpaper, rocks smoothed over by waves, yellow bordering on orange—like mangoes, orange bordering on yellow—like persimmons...


Dust is stirring, and these particles are just gonna have to get some room, baby; they will get some room.

And another 17-year-old's...

Re: "i think he deserves more praise, and she less attention."
AGREED

It pisses me off so much that just because she had coherent sentences, despite only answering 20% of the questions, that everyone is saying that she did so well.

Biden did an amazing job, much better than Obama
and all everyone is talking about is that she didn't completely fuck it up
good job not answering the questions

sorry for swearing

A 17-year-old’s view

This is from the online conference of the girls' group I run...typos and all.



okay so heres my rap on all of this:

palin was FINE. she seemed smart, actually. she was...she was fine. i have no complaints. but heres the deal. BIDEN WAS FINE TOO. and NO ONE is talking about biden because hes ALWAYS been smart

its like, palin PLAYS DUMB for a few weeks and then turns out to be AVERAGE and everyone FREAKS OUT. how is that fair? how is that a good strategy? she wasnt a genius, okay? its like...biden has been using full sentences ALL ALONG so howcome in a debate where they were BOTH OK she seems like this big WINNER? BIDEN HAS BEEN DOING THIS ALL ALONG AND YET FOR PALIN IT IS A BIG IMPROVEMENT SO WHYYYYY WONT ANYONE ON TV SHUT UP ABOU HER?

im SO MAD AT MY TV

:: instant gratification ::

It's hard to believe that I will use the words "green card" in a post that begins with the subject heading "instant gratification."

But I will.


Around sunset, I met my friend Kim at the end of Market Street for a little erev Rosh Hashanah ritual. This traditional ritual of emptying pockets into the water is nothing I used to do while I was growing up, but being far away from any family, you end up making up your own traditions just to have something to hold onto that reminds you of where you come from.

So I arrived with apples, honey, dates, a pomegranate and a print-out of the prayers that go with these in a bag (along with the gratuitous strawberries & raspberries), explained what we were going to do to Kim, and after we had dinner, we went by the water and began talking about all the baggage/worries/faults/mistakes we'd like to atone for and leave behind, and writing these onto little pieces of paper, which we rolled up into even smaller bits. There was something so satisfying already about stuffing our pockets with articulations of what we've been holding on to for too long.

And the flicking them off and blowing them away into the water part? Ineffably fulfilling.

One of the things I let go of was any doubt I had about receiving my green card this year (I think in school years, so...in 2009). I think I get into a cycle about bitching about it, expressing all my anger and documenting all my stories about the lalaland of the INS so that I begin nourishing this doubt without even noticing.

So I wrote "Any doubt that I have about getting my green card in 2009" on a piece of paper, rolled it up into a tiny bit the wind could take away, stuffed it into my pocket, walked up to the pier, and tossed it into the ocean along with all the other unhealthy shit I've been living with, sometimes unwittingly.


Today, I got an email from my lawyer. It said:

Good news, we just received the approval notice for your I-140,
immigrant visa petition
[that's a fancy way of saying my application for a green card].
This means CIS is now in the final stage of
adjudication for your green card. We will probably receive a request for
the medical exam next. After that, you will probably receive an approval
of your green card in the mail, although, there is a small chance you
may be called for an interview in person. While most employment-based
cases get approved in the mail, they do interview a small percentage of
these cases for quality-control purposes. You can probably expect a
decision on your green card within 4-6 months, maybe even sooner. (I had
another client scheduled for a green card interview within two months of
receiving the I-140 approval).

As for your travel, the issue you had coming back seems to be
county-specific. Like I said, we haven't had anyone else have trouble
with the advance parole. I would check with the countries you plan to
visit to see if there is an issue, because you're only other option
would be to renew your H-1b.





Well.
Whaddya know...

a l a r u m

False fire alarm at 6 am on the ONE DAY I have to sleep in during the week:


Not. Cool.




I'd also like to point out, thanks to a decade of fire/earthquake/hostile intruder drill practice at work, I was the only person who rushed out of the apartment building. I hung out for a few minutes, saw that there was no fire, admired the new moon, which was soooo fucking beautiful it made me forgive the false alarm, went back inside. As I got

(OH. Alarm just went off again. I'm staying right here.)


up to my apartment, two neighbors on my floor appeared. I told them there was no fire and to go back inside. (We've had false alarms before...but not for a while.)

Two minutes later, the alarm was off.


Now, it's back on, and I'm staying put. If I'm wrong, somebody tell my sister on here. She'll tell the moms and pops.


tk

Who. Knew.

Well.

I certainly had NO IDEA that being from Turkey, which has borders with not only Russia but also European and Middle Eastern countries, I am hella qualified to be the next president of the USA.



tk



..

Yes, can we?

Because every bit counts, and sometimes I gotta stretch to make a change.


A Turkish friend said "Wow. What a commitment...and you can't vote" in response to my sending her the link. She was genuinely surprised I am this into it.


I can't afford not to be. "Alien" or not, with rights or not, I do live here.


Do your part, people. Whatever that looks like within your means, and I don't mean monetary means alone.

Hellooooo? :: echoes ::

Is anyone actually reading this version of my blog?





((The "real thing" is on Myspace.))


tk

Ya.

Just finished compiling my course reader/book selections for Latin American Lit.
12-week course. In addition to the reader, I'm ordering One Hundred Years of Solitude (Márquez) and Death and the Maiden (Dorfman). And for pure joy and inspiration: The Book of Questions (Neruda).

I have more material than I can use, probably, and that's OK. I'm all about flexibility in the plan even (especially) when it means doing less in order to do more.

I'm actually starting to get excited about the results after months of feeling anxious about how much I don't know, and looking forward to finding out what effect my choices will have on the students.






:: Table of Magical Contents ::


Jorge Luis Borges
"The Garden of Forking Paths"
"The Circular Ruins"
"Funes the Memorious"
"Borges and I"

Julio Cortázar
"Axolotl"
"Letter to a Young Lady in Paris"
"A Yellow Flower"
"The Night Face Up"
"Continuity of Parks"

Clarice Lispector
"The Chicken"
"The Imitation of the Rose"
"The Smallest Woman in the World"
"Preciousness"

Luisa Valenzuela
"Dirty Words"
"The Best Shod"
"The Censors"
"Sursum Corda"
"The Gift of Words"
"Vision Out of the Corner of One Eye"
"Legend of the Self Sufficient Child"
"All About Suicide"
"Cat's Eye"

Selections from The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
"Prologue"
"Two Words"
'The Schoolteacher's Guest"
'The Gold of Tomás Vargas"
"Clarisa"
"Tosca"
"The Little Heidelberg"




The Magic and the Real
"An Act of Vengeance" :: Isabel Allende
"Sophie and the Angel" :: Dora Alonso
"Culinary Lesson" :: Rosario Castellanos
"Park Cinema" :: Elena Poniatowska
"The Tale of the Velvet Pillows" :: Marta Traba







WHEW.

in a nutshell

All-day / multiple-day music festivals are fucking exhausting, especially when I happen to see three bands in a row that play music I can dance to.



If I never saw tie-dyed shit ever again in any form, I would die happy.



The 80s are over, people.
So are the 60s, surprisingly enough.
Don't make me break your ironic sunglasses, dude, and choke you with the fucking hairband eclipsing your hippy forehead...right after I put a pair of scissors to your long, flowing hair...or your blond dreads. You look homeless, not stylish.

And no, you can't have a sip of my water. I actually do believe you have cooties. And lice. And probably a flea circus.

.

.

.

I am back on my bike after a very long hiatus. It's literally kicking my ass (and my knees' ass).

On the way back from the festival tonight, my pedals stopped turning. Super. When I shifted gears, the screw on the rack I just put on my bike got stuck in the chain. What the hell? Apparently, I need a smaller screw than the one provided. I know this because a professional biker and an aspiring mechanic happened to be right there when I came to a forced stop. He tried everything he could under my bike's front light. No go. Finally, he tried a last resort before he gave up and sent me walking myself and my bike home: maybe he could unscrew one side of my back tire, loosen the grip the chain had, and get the screw out of that mess. Yep. That was the trick that sent me riding home without switching gears on hills. Ridiculous. Add to the list of things to do: take the bike in for a rack fitting to see if I can use the one I already have and just get away with changing the screws.


OK that was more than the nutshell version.

.

.

.



My apartment is a mess. I blame the free pass I got to Outside Lands. And the fact that
I haven't felt like cleaning or putting shit away. It will need to to get worse before it gets better.



.

.

.





I go back to work tomorrow. I'm not ready. And I don't mean it psychologically. I don't have all my shit together that I need to have together for Tuesday. What a fucking awesome department chair I am turning out to be.


.

.

.


Three birthdays this week. Ah yes, November and December are cold months. I already know I'm going to suck at a timely delivery of presents.


, , , , ,


I got a summons for jury duty in the mail. Fascinating. I've always wondered about them. But, uh, excuse me?...Don't I need to be a citizen to help your honor pass judgment? Let's see that green card, first, INS.º















º Inertial Naturalization Services, not to be confused with Internal Naturalization Services.

OOF.

OK so I am behind in the NYC blog, and I don't know when I will ever catch up.
My priorities are shifting.

15 minutes before I left BK for the airport, I found out from my dad that my sister will probably need to have her uterus removed.


. . .


I don't even know what to say. I don't think that this is the time to express shit in words.

A little perspective.



So in true Pelagic fashion, I'm drowning my worries, my awkward transitional time in hedonism and diving right into being back at one of many homes by meeting up with a badass friend I miss in my life for breakfast tomorrow.


It's time to rebuild, stronger than before.






(So live.)

Once again.

Winding down. I am running out of energy to make an effort to go out and do things. Staying in is not the best comfort either when it's not your own room/apartment.

I need to write a blog about the last few days, esp. yesterday.
• Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings awesomeness
• my phil- and misanthropic tendencies
• Blue Note--fits right in with the above.
• goodbyes and old shit (I think I wrote about this one years ago; I'll have do dig into the archives)
• waterfalls



Today's plan:
• laundry...whenever I get myself out the door
• lunch...ditto
• kill time until my Chocolate Room date doing I don't know what. Suggestions? Call/text.

Skipping the Caribbean Night show at Wingate Field. Don't feel like standing in line for half an hour and carrying a lawn chair they encourage you to bring.


Tomorrow is my last day.
• Mail shit.
• Have brunch with Josina.
• Then, nothing in the works. Once again, call or text if you got anything. I am free from 1 or 2 pm on.

August 14

I'm late on this one because my compooper crashed right when I was about to finish the post, so we weren't talking yesterday.



So...


Apparently, at about 3 am while I was talking to Michael half asleep, we made plans to go boating in Central Park. Alas, I woke up thinking we were meeting for breakfast. I had the place picked out and everything. It was only when he began walking towards the park that I remembered: right! Boating. Not pancakes. Shit.




Such a good time (after I picked up a bite to eat until I could take myself out for brunch). We went into every little corner of the pond that we probably weren't meant to go near, including a little too close to some turtles and under a bridge to a spot where the pond abruptly stops being a pond and becomes green sludge. Maybe it wouldn't have been so abrupt if either one of us was good about looking behind us to see where we were headed.

I love Michael because he can be as whimsical as my imagination: when I pointed to a corner of the pond that was taken over by a tree and mused "Oooo! it would be so amazing to be able to squeeze in there and be right under the tree!" Michael didn't waste a second: "We're going there!"







So we went under trees and over rocks and found the most beautiful, green-shaded spot in the whole pond...






and watched our boat make beautiful trails in the algae...



...right after which we watched a building burning, a trail of black smoke. This is the second fire I am witnessing from water (see photos from July ("T e m m u z" album). Interestiiiiing.




Meanwhile, we came up with a new money-making ploy. I think we might have a new business idea for whenever it is that I move here. $25 per person for a 10-minute ride on this thing, 4 people at a time. Do the math. 9 am to 2 pm should suffice. Does one need a license to "drive" a tethered balloon?





Afterwards, Michael took me to Jacques Torres and bought me edible and potable spicy chocolate. ♥ He's for keeps.

When Michael split, I took myself out for lemon ricotta pancakes, which I shared with my neighbors who were greedily eying my food (because I'm that nice. . . sometimes). I'm for keeps, too.


Next, Brooklyn Museum. The exhibit I wanted to see was no longer there, and I had already paid, so I checked out From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith and went back through the Amer exhibit once again (I'd already seen it in April or June).

Modern Cuff Bracelet:



The Reign of Terror (this is wallpaper with multiple dictionary definitions of "terror" underlying the pattern):




The museum ultimately was not a disappointment: while no one was looking, I got to sneak a peak into a new exhibition that was in the process of being installed, saw some Kara Walker pieces and got some photos. Notice a pattern here. I am a bad museum goer...or, I'm very good. Depends on how you look at it and how you feel about rules.


I stayed in at night; it was kinda nice to get some alone time again.

Got no plans today. None on Monday until the evening. None on Tuesday.

W. T. F.







Guess I am starting to get a little drained from being on the go for so long.

Don't tell anyone.

August 13

• Stan's Place.
• Stendhal Syndrome, II.
• Adventures among the medieval armor at The Met.
• Back in the LES for burlesque that doesn't suck.


I took myself out for brunch. Chicory au lait (only because my waitress was cute—otherwise, I would never have drunk decaf coffee: waste of water). Beignets. Already blogged about that. Moving on.


I went to The Met from there. Everyone had been telling me about the Turner exhibit, so I started there, knowing full well this isn't my kind of art. I was right. It isn't. I used my Stendhal Syndrome strategy: walk right on until a piece stops you.

I moved on to the photography exhibit. The early moderns are more "me." Gawd, I love some of Atget's and Cartier-Bresson's prints. I love Walker Evans' subway photographs.


Water Lillies, Atget



Versailles, The Orangerie Staircase, Atget



Hyères, France, 1932 , Henri Cartier-Bresson




Mexico, Mexico City. Calle Cuauhtemoctzin, Cartier-Bresson



Der Fotograf [The Photographer], 1931, Willi Ruge




From there, on to the Superheroes exhibit.

Then, the bookstore, where I saw a postcard of the painting that taught me about Stendhal Syndrome in the first place yyyyeeeaaaars ago. I thought the painting was in Paris or Italy. Apparently, it's here in NYC. I asked a guard where I might find it, expecting the guy to look at me with "How the fuck am I supposed to know? Even if you knew the title of the piece or the artist's name..." but he knew exactly what I was talking about.


And there it was. And there she was.


And there was I, again, having the same intense reaction to the painting. Shortness of breath. A smile and tears right below the surface. Nearly tangible tightness over sternum—like love.


Then, 15 minutes until closing time, I went up to the roof to see the Jeff Koons sculptures.

Coloring Book






Balloon Dog


..






Sacred Heart








When the museum was closing, guards began nagging me to stop photographing stuff (the photos above are not mine) and get in the elevator and leave the museum. So I did.

I mean, I did get in the elevator.

Then, other people who were in the elevator and I began walking towards an exit. I ended up following a guy who was walking in front of me, then lost him. Suddenly, I found myself alone, wandering galleries and looking for an Exit that wasn't cordoned off.

This is funny, I thought. I am alone in a closed museum and no one seems to care. You would think someone would have seen me via some camera tucked in somewhere in here. I walked past the medieval armors, resisting touching anything lest whoever was watching me on camera appear out of nowhere and begin yelling at me.


But no one came. I kept walking and looking for an/the exit.


—Hello?
— . . .
—HELLO???


Eventually, a door somewhere opened and out came a bunch of guards getting off work. I quickly walked over to one of the ladies.

—Hi. Excuse me, where...
—Oh my god! What are...?!? Oh god. What's your name??
—Tilda.
—Tina? Who left you here?
—No one. Why is she talking to me like I'm five?? She's at least five years younger than I am.I was with the last group coming from the roof, then I lost everyone else, and I've been looking for the exit, wondering how come no one was seeing me on some camera or something...
—Oh my god. Come this way. I'm so sorry.


She grabbed my arm and began walking with me...while still holding my arm.

—Um, excuse me. You don't have to keep holding on to me. I want to leave. You can just point me towards the door.
—Oh. Sorry. There it is. I'll come with you. God, so sorry.
(She reaches, then pulls her hand back, remembering.)
—It's OK. I see the exit; I can go from here, thanks. If it makes you feel any better, I didn't touch anything.


She doesn't let me go solo. No way she's letting me out of her sight now. I realize she and other guards can get into serious trouble because of me. She's freaked out. As I'm walking out the door, I hear her talking to another guard, "There was a straggler..."


I think this was the most thrilling museum experience I have ever had anywhere.




At night, I went with my temp housemate et al to a burlesque show at the Slipper Room . Glad it didn't suck. The best thing about the whole thing: The Wet Spots. You can see a video of "Do You Take It?" here.


The worst thing about the whole thing: looking for a bite to eat, ending up at a Mexican (?) restaurant, where I had the most bland, untacolike taco ever.


...Reason 1 to stay put in SF for a bit longer.

Distance.

I try to remember what it was like not to rely on email to communicate with people, what it was like to have to yell into the receiver so that a relative in Israel could hear me. The distance between us seemed so much greater then. I think about the times when we didn't have voice mail or call waiting and how I kept trying a friend or a relative until I didn't get the annoying busy signal and until the person I was calling returned home from wherever she was and picked up the phone.

I can't remember if I was able to get on with my life for a couple of hours before I tried the number again or if I went back to the phone every five minutes until the person picked up. I think it was the latter. How did I get to be this way?

Not being able to get a hold of someone has always unsettled me. I used to write this off to the times I was cheated on, but now I'm remembering it goes farther back. Much farther.

I think I was driven by Persistence. Stubbornness against the odds. Wanting to connect with the people I loved who uprooted themselves while I was young. Not "abandonment issues," no. I didn't feel abandoned. I just had a hard time with the growing distance between me and the people I love.

I still do.

Ah, the possibilities...updates coming daily if not hourly.

Comments & volunteerism welcome.
99.8% of these are just a brainstorm of possibilities.

tk


August 8
• Take a long ass time to get out of the room into the world. It's OK. You need the alone time. It's been a while. √
• Post office. Mail the gitana's card already or else she'll call you "Whore" or something. And mail that other stuff, too.
• Explore the neighborhood...sans camera today. Oof. (My back still hurts too much to carry my camera all day.)
• Sylvia's with Debbie.√
• Kamau's show. Or rather, the show Kamau directed. 9 pm.
• Smalls. Bliss.

August 9
• 2008 International Yo-Yo Open & N.Y. State Yo-Yo Contest with special performance by Peelander-Z! TIME: 11:00am
• D e l i c i o u s n e s s.





August 10
• Regina Carter & Simone

• Smalls: 10:30 & 12:00 AM - Spike Wilner with Ryan Kisor & Joel Frahm


August 11
• The day begins with lunch with Josina. Then, the world's our oyster. Weeeee.




August 12
• I scored a free ticket to see Eliasson's waterfalls exhibit from a boat right around sunset. Awesome.
•Time permitting: Movie Nights on the Elevated Acre: "Manhattan." free Jill Scott show and I'm double booked. Such is New York.

August 13
• Jimmy Delgado y Orquesta featuring Renzo Padilla. 7 pm; Wagner Park

August 16
• Battery Dance Company presents: The 27th Annual Downtown Dance Festival.
TIME: 1:00pm
LOCATION: Governors Island Chase Plaza (Nassau & Pine) The Lawn at Battery Park (State & Pearl)


August 17
• Blue Note: Latin Side of Herbie Hancock featuring Conrad Herwig with special guests Eddie Palmieri (yes!) & Randy Brecker.

August 19
• Smalls special show: Kurt Rosenwinkle group.


August 20
Back to SF. Sigh.





Things to squeeze in there somewhere:

• Smalls and other various jazz joints. (At some point, with Doc Long. Yes?)
• Kicking a Dead Horse at the Public Theater
• Pretty Ugly—630 Greenwich St B/w morton and leroy (bookmarked)
• PS1= that was then, this is now (bookmarked)
• "Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition" Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Pkwy (at Washington Ave) 
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn | Map
Subway: 2, 3 to Eastern Pkwy–Brooklyn
•Tetsumi Kudo
Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 W 24th St (between Tenth and Eleventh Aves)
• The Bourgeois Pig
• BK promenade at night.
• Good times with Joselin.
• More good times with Jamieson.
• Doing whatever Michael and Lauren want to do.
• Reunion with Debbie the fabulous & Brandon my graduate.
• Turks being Turks fun with Ays(h)e & Sinem.
• Arepas! Preferably with :: mcp:: and preferably more than once.
• the zoo, the aquarium, something.
• Batch. Cupcakes. Oh yes.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art (bookmarked)
• Bobo: Bobo's Mead (?? not sure, but it is bookmarked)
• Prospect Park.
• Botanical Gardens.
• getting lost—intentionally and otherwise; location to be determined upon being found.
• Haiku moments will be photographed; words will be duly noted as usual.


...and nothing and no one is set in stone.

...until I can.

Once again copying and pasting from an email.
(Sorry, sister. You give me too much fodder for your own reading pleasure.)


It's 9:23 pm.
Today was a wasted day, and wasted days depress me.
Most of the day, I was so frustrated I couldn't even cry. Or eat.


If I had the energy I would make a long gratitude list. Instead, I will just put down what would be on top of the list this evening.

My mom has a saying—any problem you can solve with money is not a problem. And today, thanks to a steady paycheck, money I had in my bank account saved my ass. I really have no problem to bitch about when you think about it.

Of course what's getting me down is less the money waste and more the time wasting and the spirit crushing.

Well.

I moved to the US to get the education I wanted; I got a huge amount of financial aid to do just that. Upon graduation, I CHOSE to live in the US; I wasn't seeking political asylum or running away from an abusive family member. I am not an illegal immigrant who can't make waves or even get simple healthcare with fear of getting busted and deported. I have shit loads of free will and agency. I really have no problem.

I have a place to sleep in tonight in Istanbul. A home. Not a problem.


I'm exhausted, yes. But I'm also grateful.




Some shit is so obvious it takes writing it down to realize what a luxury it is to be frustrated with the squeaky mechanics of my immigration process.

I, on the other hand, cannot.

I'm writing this post for me: I have been keeping record of all the red tape shit I go through, esp. while traveling. Most of this won't make sense to anyone including me, and it is not even an interesting read. But I do have friends on here that like to follow my adventures in Absurdia, so I'm keeping this post public. Feel free to skip on to the next thing you were going to do on the interweb.




On my way from NYC to Istanbul, I had a minor scare: the woman at the counter checking me in looked at my passport, saw that I had no British Visa and that my US visa had expired and that I travel with only an INS-issued document that will let me into the country. She wondered for a second if there would be a problem with my connecting flight in London. She checked with a superior, a process that took long enough to make me anxious, and she came back what seemed like hours later, with good news: since it hasn't yet been six months since the expiration of my US visa, which is when I applied for a travel document instead of renewing my visa (a much more painful procedure), I would be allowed into London Heathrow. None of this BS about the six-month window made sense to me, but since I got the answer I wanted, I didn't care. Absurdity only annoys me when it threatens my ability to travel.



Yesterday, in a panic, I finally thought to check when my US visa had expired. Still within the 6-month window? Yes. Whew. I didn't know what I would have done if it had been more than six months.

Today, the first blow came when I asked about how much an upgrade would cost. With my bad back, the thought of having to sit for so long on two different flights was depressing, and I thought I should probably do what is so un-me while I travel: pay more to be more comfortable. Apparently, because I bought my ticket online through some internet page, I don't get to upgrade. Fine. I had booked aisle seats; I'd just have to make sure I get up and stretch more frequently than I would like.

Then, the woman took too long looking through my passport. She went to a superior. They began looking through paperwork. When they came back, I wasn't worried: I told them about the whole 6-month thing. No go. For some reason, on the way back to the US, the same thing doesn't apply. London won't let me in.

—Even for a connecting flight, even if I never leave the airport?
—Even then.
—But I have a travel document&183;
—The problem is not with your entry into the US. You just can't go through London without a transit visa or a US visa.
—But I don't need a US visa. I am OK to get back into the US, so what does London want from me? What do I do now?
—You need to go to the British Embassy and get a transit visa.
—Um, today? Oof.


All I have to say is thank goodness for free wireless at the airport. I checked at the ticket counter first to see if Turkish Airlines and the Star Alliance had any direct flights to NYC. Yes. For about $3000 one way. No thanks. I got online and began looking while frantically instant messaging with my parents. Right when I was about to resign myself to paying a fortune to fly direct to NY, we came up with the idea of flying to just anywhere in the US. Turned out I could buy a ticket to Chicago for about $1400. In the meantime, I was having mom check with THY over the phone to see if she would find anything cheaper than what I was having online. Right as I was about to commit to the Chicago ticket, mom found a ticket to NYC that wasn't showing up on the compooper of the woman at the airport's ticket counter. She found a seat that went from costing $2600 to $1500 within a matter of minutes, made the reservation, gave me the confirmation number, and I bought the ticket from the ticket counter at the airport. This shit has never made sense to me. What I understand is it's all about timing and persistence while hunting.

So. $1500 later, I have a new ticket to NYC for tomorrow.



As mom pointed out, this is partially my shithead lawyer's fault. She had told me that I didn't need to go through the trouble of renewing my work visa in the US since I now have a work permit card and a travel document and I could travel abroad and get back into the US no problem. Technically, she was right. I can get back into the US. I just can't go through anywhere else to get home.


I'm getting so tired of this shit. This is why I have a hard time with Americans who have the privilege of traveling abroad so easily yet don't, especially those for whom money is not a big obstacle. I mean, my friends who visited me this summer just showed up in Turkey with their passports and that was it. I can't imagine what that would feel like—to see a good fare online and just buy the ticket without worrying about whether or not I would be able to get a visa to that country, to whom I would have to sell my soul to get the paperwork done quickly... I understand now that some people are just not into traveling. They look at it as a choice you make to put yourself into uncomfortable situations in places where you know no one, where you do not speak the language or understand the culture. So I think I understand a little bit more now why some of my friends are not into traveling. It makes sense. If you like being comfortable, traveling abroad somewhere is probably not going to make you happy. Me, I like being uncomfortable...while traveling, that is, not before traveling. And I'm jealous of people who never have to go through the patience testing processes that certainly take the joy out of traveling, at least for a while.


Well.

As we say in Turkish, and as my dad reminded me, there is a favor in everything—as in, everything happens for a good reason. I don't know what the reason was. Maybe it's not for me to know. But with each such experience, I'm getting less and less satisfied with this explanation.


I want a green card already, dammit.

She can f l y !

It was Snir's 8th birthday yesterday. We went out to the beach and did a little photo shoot.

The girl can f l y!












She can also take a damn good picture.












I wished Moshe could see her now—he'd be smiling as wide as ever, his dimples in sync with his eyes.

The Magic and The Real: not just for fictional characters.

Yesterday was my last full day in Israel.

I spent most of the day on my way to/at Moshe's grave, alone. I didn't expect to "hear from him" again this time. This time, I just wanted to talk to myself in his "presence" more than anything.


I woke up a bit anxious today. The next trip is days away. I'm almost ready to leave here, but I'm not sure I'm ready to be in NYC.

So I woke up first with a song in my head that has since escaped me. Then, with thoughts about Hancock (which I saw last night with my cousin Darya), wondering if I have known a Hancock (spoiler coming right now; look away until the next paragraph if you care): less the superhero/immortality bit, more the wecannotbetogetherandnothurteachother part. You're flattering yourself, I thought, so I compromised. OK, so maybe it's the Icannotbewithyouandnotgethurt part that resonates within me. (I certainly don't think I'm someone else's timeless love. I'm undecided on whether or not I would want the position if it became available.) Then, disquietude? apprehension? tension? Heaviness-in-the-chest pain. I'm holding shit in. That pain.

The bus ride to the cemetery was painful: more tightness in the chest (and a bad back). I couldn't wait to get to the cemetery to have an excuse to let shit out—however I was going to.


Finally, alone time…I think.





I'm not going to write about it all here. I will say this: in the two hours or so that I spent just sitting by the grave and providing a feast for the stealthiest, weirdest looking mosquitoes I've ever seen, there was a time when I couldn't help but hope for another word, without even knowing what the question was that needed a response other than the pain in my chest that I didn't and still do not fully understand. When I wondered about the ribcage tightness, that sternum knot, I did perceive a word (that's the best way I can put it), yet I think it came from inside, more from within my ribcage, less a resonance that settled into my brain from I don't know where.

Open.


Open? Is open an adjective or a verb, a state of being? Open what? What's open? Open how? Fuck.

...as in, I'm actually amused by the oracular nature of the little voices in my head ribcage. It's just so fucking tk—my own inner voice, which is supposed to make sense to me out of all people, is a voice that confuses its birthmother. Like a wise gnome once said, "sometimes the way [my] mind works is God's own private mystery." What can I say? I love me.

At a standstill and not sure what the hell was going on in my mind, I did what any sensible person would do. I pulled up a chair under the tree in front of Moshe's grave, sat down, took my book out of my bag, and began reading. When I truly love someone, I find immense peace if not bliss in sharing space in silence.

There is something about reading all this Latin American fiction in preparation for the class I'll be teaching this fall that's been at once amazingly soothing and amazingly provocative. No pornography could turn me on like these stories and novels do. I mean, ddddaaaaaamn; the amount of passion the writers and their characters express in all sorts of ways takes my breath away.

These are the things I thought about sitting across from Moshe's grave, reading my book. I wondered how come so many people often shut down or shut themselves in or let doubt supersede passion when they see what was once imagined suddenly appear before them—sometimes, in the form of someone whose only desire is to live passionately (my tendency is the opposite—I believe only too willingly that an imagined possibility can become reality), how come many if not most people don't do everything they can to create magical realism in their lives. Because it ain't just for fictional characters, people; we can render our lives possibly magical, too. I truly believe this. I think we get bogged down by having to pay bills, by scrutinizing shit and trying to do the healthy, logical thing rather than say Fuck You to ol' logic and do whatever the fuck we're passionate about. And the saddest thing is probably people's losing touch with their own passions.

And that, my friends, is why I wouldn't blame anyone for dreaming.
Not even myself.




I pondered all this some more, sitting there, reading yet another fervent story by a Latina. I was calmer, but the chest pain was still kind of there. I had an idea. I got up, traced Moshe's name engraved on the tombstone onto the two blank pages at the end of my book with a pencil, sat back down. It occurred to me that living passionately comes at the cost of heartbreak. Sometimes I hurt, sometimes I get hurt, and most of the time, the two happen simultaneously. And you know what? If I wasn't before, I am OK with that now.

I could indulge all those should haves and could haves, but fuck, sister, what's the point? What I've said and done could have been no other way. My wordy emails, my lengthy explanations as well as my silences, my keeping secrets (maybe even from myself), my rushing into things as well as my taking things too slow…my mistakes: they're all perfect in their imperfections. We get to fuck up; we get to make mistakes. It's a privilege we have. And rather than resent it, I choose to embrace my fortune.

Today, despite all the things I am still confused about, despite my realization that I know very little right now, I think I understand what "So live" means a bit better. It's about acceptance and making peace with myself. It's about tending to a broken heart with compassion whether it is mine or someone else's. It's about writing this hippy dip shit out without editing too much. It's about opening up without being afraid of what or whom I might lose if I do, realizing the most valuable things I could lose are my honesty with myself, my integrity, me.

It's about not being afraid to have enduring faith in honest, unabashed love. Doesn't it always begin in our imagination?




And that, my friends, is why I wouldn't blame anyone for dreaming.
Not even myself.










(I feel more ready for NYC now.)

Akko.

My back is still fucked up, so I'm getting a slow start today. I've begun sleeping on the firmer living room couch and napping on the living room floor. Let's hope for progress before I have to haul my bags and sit on a plane for a million hours, then carry two months of shit and 7892 books up three flights of stairs.


Monday was a long day. Tant Diamante, Tant Röne and I had made plans to meet at 7 am (yes, I know) to take the train to Akko and see the Bahai gardens, which are only open until 1 pm. At 7 am, we found out that the railway was under construction this whole week. Shit.

We had a choice: take the bus and lengthen the trip, or wait until next Monday to take the train. It was a real dilemma. Tant Röne and I especially were all excited to take the train. Tant R. had prepared us a delicious breakfast to eat on the train. She had this whole picture in mind of us huddled around the little foldout tray table on the train, eating in choo choo bliss. I had pretty much the same vision. But Tant Diamante was adamant; she said when she leaves to go somewhere, she just likes to go there, no matter what. She wasn't going to go home and call it a day. I agreed, so I said that maybe we could take the bus somewhere closer, like Jerusalem (you gotta feel privileged when trip to Jerusalem sounds like the less desirable option because you've already been there and done that several times), and live our train ride dreams the following Monday. I think Tant Röne was with me, but Tant Diamante seemed to want to keep going with the plan. She had been really excited to see the Bahai Gardens. "Desire is best served hot," she pointed out. Nuff said. We headed towards the bus station.

Turns out there are no direct buses from Tel-Aviv to Akko. We took 4 buses and a public transportation van (Çesme's dolmus style) each way, which took us about 3 hours.

Oof.



It was worth it. The gardens and the temple were beautiful. What was even more beautiful was watching Tant Diamante, who was so visibly moved by everything she saw. I think she needed this beauty and the calmness surrounding the entire site, the garden & the founder's place of rest alike, to envelop her as they did.















In Akko, we went into the old market and found the famous "Hummus Said," where we had lunch after standing in a line (grumpy sardines style, sweating in the heat, packed into a doorway) for about 10 minutes.

Dear. God.

There is no way to describe the gustatory experience. Just plain tongueasmic. I feel sad that the US doesn't have real hummus.º Even the best hummus I have found in the US (hummus with za'atar by Sabra, an Israeli brand I found in a little international market in the Sunset) pales in comparison to Said's. I wanted to pack up the whole place and bring it with me back to the US.










The plate next to the pickles is hummus, creamy goodness; the other one is Mussabaha…um, chunky hummus.



The line out the door. Now we know why.


A bit of wandering about by the old walls of Akko, then, tired from the heat, my aunts decided to head home. Kind of a bummer since I was ready to go explore, photograph, touch, taste, and even read up on the history. Fuck, I was even ready to go to into the old citadel and check out Napoleon's cannon.


I don't mind. We have a story to tell, I got some good shots (see new album), and I had a wonderful time despite the long bus ride, the heat and the fucked up back. Tant Diamante's pearl of wisdom alone is worth it all.

Desire is best served hot.












º …which is why I rarely ever eat hummus (pronounced with a guttural "H": Hhhh-oo-m-oo-s, not Hum-miss) in the US or go out for Middle Eastern food—those dolmas, by the way? Canned. Yes, even those ones that you loved in that one place. Yup, I'm an annoying snob when it comes to Middle Eastern food. I know what I know.

I. Can't. Wait.

Oh. Yes.

So live.

I had Tant Diamante take me to visit Moshe's grave today. She taught me which buses to take, where to get off so I can find my way to the graveyard alone before I leave Israel. I need some time alone there.

I don't need to sit by his grave to talk to Moshe. At the same time, there is something powerful about being close to where his body lies buried, and the site is so quiet and beautiful. It feels like neutral ground, free from distractions.

Tant Diamante and I watered the plants on and around Moshe's grave as well as those around the surrounding graves, put flowers into the two marble vases on each side of Moshe's grave (I got him sunflowers; it seemed appropriate to bring "Moshe" some yellow to share something of myself with him), lit candles. By the time we were done with the maintenance work, Oncle Çelebi had gotten off work and arrived, prayer books in hand.

We pulled three plastic lawn chairs into the shade under the tree in front of the grave. Oncle Çelebi began reading his prayers under his breath, Tant Diamante sat in silence for a while until she began crying, got up to throw her tissues away, and upon returning to her seat wondered aloud at how much the tree we were sitting by had grown since they planted it six years ago. I, meanwhile, sat behind my uncle listening to his mumbled prayers which seemed to get louder in cadence at the end of distinct sections. I cried behind my sunglasses and wiped my tears away before my aunt, who had said she doesn't cry much at the grave anymore, could see them and cry even more.

I thought about the man Moshe was, a cousin in that old time sense of the word, a brother. I thought about all the qualities in him that I hope to come across again in someone, about how much I miss him, how I wished he could see the woman I have become at 32, stubbornness, opinionated Kapuya thickheadedness and all. I pictured how fun it would be to take the time to discover all those quirky similarities between us that are now mostly up to Tant Diamante and Tant Röne to reveal to me. I imagined laughing with him and giving him a hug. I tried to guess what we would talk about over drinks once again, now, no longer teenagers. I imagined myself telling him about my visit to New York in June. I wondered what insight and perspective he'd give me about the people I love. I wondered if there were signs and wonders around me right then that could give me something, anything. I quieted my mind and just sat there for a while.

And suddenly, it came to me.

Live.


The word resonated in my brain: l i v e.

You're alive. So live.




In that moment, I almost got a bird's eye view of all the thoughts and worries that have been on my mind, especially since April. I thought about relationships, friendships, numerous missives that have gotten me into my head to the point of playing mind games with my own self, to the point of giving myself shit about mistakes I have made with no sense of compassion, to the point of elevating other people's needs above my own, to the point of enduring punishing silence when I obviously love words so much.

So live.º

These words were so simple I couldn't cry anymore. I sat there with a smile of understanding and clarity on my face.

And yet it's hard to know immediately what to do with what I understand. What I know is I'm a woman of words; this is my first step of covering some distance, maybe even recovering something. I can only do my part.

Live.
Love.







I love you. Thank you.



tk





















º I would love to know if any reader of this blog has ever seen or read August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean.

Spoiler:



…the play ends with these words.

The glass menagerie man.

Over the many years I've visited the Tuesday/Friday crafts market on Nahalat Binyamin, the novelty of a street filled with peddlers lined up on each side, bustling with people has worn off. Now, I get pleasure from the lack of novelty, from recognizing vendors I saw four years ago, and before that, six years ago. My taste in different things guides me—I check out some jewelry on a stand, then look up at the vendor at last to ask how much something is, and suddenly I recognize the face. I immediately smile because there is something almost magical about having a conversation with someone who doesn't recognize me. I feel this odd sense of complicity, almost, like I have secret superpowers and can infiltrate a crowd unrecognized.

There is one exception: the glass menagerie man. Even though I visit him every time I'm in Israel, I don't think I've ever spoken to him. I like watching him and what I think are two beautiful hands from a distance (this is where my super zoom lens comes in handy) as he turns flat chips that look like plastic first into colorful globs, then into shapes that resemble tiny faces or wings or flappy ears.

He doesn't look like he's aged a bit over the years. I'm convinced that if anyone has secret superpowers, it's the glass menagerie man.


The making of a swan:










…and an attentive puppy.


The menagerie.


Having fun getting lost in the streets surrounding Nahalat Binyamin.