Pelagic

:: Wednesday ::

2009-06-17T02:50:00.000-07:00

Wish list:

• Sleep, as soon as I am done with this list.
• Focus and stamina—I want to relish the finish; I want to enjoy cleaning my desk at work.
• An appreciation of the process, the getting there.
• Making time to do/pick up laundry.
• Good food. Not just eat, but eat well.
• Reconnect with someone I have not seen for (as far as I'm concerned) too long. • Phone conversation with someone who makes me feel loved.
• A moment that makes me love this city all over again.
• Real mail—a postcard, sent to me or received by me today.
• Sevgilim, kollarimda.

:: Tuesday ::

2009-06-16T02:21:00.000-07:00

Here's what I want from today:

• Sleep...as soon as I am done with this list.

• To get up and get out of the house at a reasonable time.
• A good decision about where to grade/write reports so I can focus and be productive.
• Be done with B period reports, so that all I can have left to do are sophomore advisee letters.

• Time to do (or drop off and pick up) laundry.
• An email from Lucci, accepting the sublet for at least $500.

• A phone call from a friend that energizes and refocuses.

• Patience with other people's process and time lines, but with the acknowledgment that too much patience is not a virtue—that's just being a pushover.

• A random, beautiful encounter.
• To notice something beautiful, especially if it is mundanely so.

• And, as always: the courage of James Baldwin.

:: Monday ::

2009-06-15T17:46:00.001-07:00

Today I wish for myself:

• this time that I have right now to make a wish list without any interruptions
• ability to concentrate on grading & writing reports, not obsessing about every word that I write—moving quickly, efficiently
• not obsessing about the unknowns—patience and compassion in a time of standstill
• strength, courage, and wisdom to "set my house in order"—and then just be, knowing I did my part
• ability to follow the voice I heard at Moshe's grave: So live.
• dinner—I need to remember to eat!
• connection with friends who make me feel loved
• openness
• ...at the same time, resistance to hyper-empathy
• once again, be able to follow in Baldwin's footsteps and find in myself today (and everyday this week—small steps!), the courage necessary for love—boundless, uninhibited, guilt-free, doubt-free love, both as a giver and a receiver. Yesyes.

:: wish list ::

2009-06-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

The more I take photographs, the more my eye notices the photo-worthy details.

The more I write down haiku moments in a notebook, the more my attention becomes trained to recognize haiku moments in my daily life.

A couple of weeks ago, I changed my Facebook status to declare I was going to let love rule. And indeed, on the days that I updated my status to that declaration, so much love flowed into my life and into me.

Also on FB that same week, I began keeping a "superstars/gratitude" list everyday. Acknowledging people and encounters that made me feel grateful helped me focus on the awesomeness of everyday.

It's all the same story: perspective. Change your perspective, and you begin noticing what was there all along.

So...

This week, I am going to track what I wish for my day, no matter how trivial, or how unwieldy and vague.

Today I wish for myself:
• a peace of mind
• the ability to focus so I can get a good chunk of work done today
• whatever form of connection with friends who make me feel loved
• openness to receive love
• resistance to judging myself too critically
• resistance to over-empathy
• the courage of James Baldwin to love and be loved—more more more love: boundless, uninhibited, guilt-free, doubt-free, both as a giver and a receiver.

Can this just be over already. Please???

2009-01-13T13:48:00.000-08:00

Instead of good news, I received this from my lawyer today.

Hi [Pelagic],

Your medical exam was returned to me because apparently pages 3 and 4 were not submitted in the sealed envelope (pages related to your immunization history). They want your doctor to fill out a complete I-693 that properly documents your vaccination history. They have returned the original medical examination, you need to take it back to your doctor and have him prepare a new I-693 in a sealed envelope.

I am sending you the medical by overnight mail. We have until February 8, 2009 to submit the completed exam.

The Lawyer Lady

FUCK.

update on "stalkees"

2009-01-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I heard back from the writer; she wrote a sweeeeet message back. It's so awesome! I have been too in awe to write back. I'll do so today, I think.

This morning, I heard back from Berk of öykü & Berk. This, I wasn't sure was going to come.

Now, if I can just figure out why we're supposed to meet...

He seems less willing to roll with the ambiguity. Can't blame him—I know he must be getting women writing to him all the time. And I'm sure others also think "but I'm different!"

But I'm different. (!)

I don't want an autographed copy of anything. I don't want keys to his house or to his heart. I don't even know the man. But it's one of those times when I think I'm supposed to get to know him.

Well.

We shall see. Maybe when I return to TR, I'll try him again sometime. And maybe I'm supposed to give him some info. The Alchemist style... I think he thinks I need something from him. I don't. At least not that I know of.

???

Anyway, 2009 has proven to be awesome already: you put an intention out there and make a genuine effort to connect, the effort will return to you.

(not exactly) fan letters

2009-01-08T07:58:00.001-08:00

I wrote two fan letters of sorts today.

In both cases, I had to email someone else and hope the message gets to the actual recipient.

The first one is a message to a writer whose book is out of print. I want to get in touch with the writer and bring the book back to life, and even teach it. It's a book I am emotionally attached to, so writing the letter was kind of an intense experience. It made me think of my 17-year-old self, the person I was when I first read this book.

The second message was to a musician who lived in Spain and returned to Turkey. It's not a celebrity crush I have on him; it's just that something tells me I'm supposed to get in touch with him...like we'd actually be good friends if we could ever get in touch. Or something. Imagine getting an email that says something vague like this, and you're famous. Would YOU write back?

I don't care as much about the results. I tried to make contact, and that's all I really needed to do. Any response will be amazing, but I already feel good.

I have no photographic evidence.

2008-12-28T19:57:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-22T13:30:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-10T12:49:00.001-08:00

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?

2008-11-17T20:21:00.001-08:00

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?

2008-11-17T07:38:00.002-08:00

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

2008-11-13T00:26:00.001-08:00

(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

2008-11-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-11T08:24:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-08T01:12:00.000-08:00

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...

2008-11-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.

:: who else but James Baldwin ::

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?

2008-11-04T01:52:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-03T23:51:00.000-08:00

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...

2008-11-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

Obama cites James Baldwin among writers most significant to him.

Another take on the candidates.

:: r a i n ::

2008-11-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-11-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-31T06:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-10-24T18:19:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-09T17:06:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

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 ..:∴.

2008-10-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-10-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-02T20:22:00.000-07:00

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 ::

2008-09-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-27T06:15:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-09-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-09-16T06:41:00.001-07:00

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 ::

2008-08-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

Is anyone actually reading this version of my blog?

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

tk

Ya.

2008-08-26T16:44:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-18T13:08:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

• 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.

2008-08-10T12:09:00.001-07:00

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.

2008-08-08T09:43:00.001-07:00

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.

2008-08-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

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 !

2008-08-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

Oh. Yes.

So live.

2008-07-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

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.

The mighty ice-cream cone.

2008-07-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

This is a story about ice-cream.

For people who like a story only if it has some sort of moral, I'll tell you this: the great thing about ice-cream is that it can put a smile on the face of a fiercely independent woman who has lost the ability to walk due to a freak accident. Now go read someone else's blog.

. . .

Last night, when the sky got to be a darker blue and I began feeling an occasional breeze, I decided to turn down Tant Röne's invitation to go to the beach together and take a walk to the waterfront on my own, camera in hand, to watch the sunset & the surfers, get some ice-cream. I'd hung out with my aunt and had lunch with her earlier during the day, so I felt OK with my decision.

When I told my grandmother I was thinking of going for a walk by myself, she surprised the shit out of me by telling me if I'm going solo, maybe she could join me if I took her out on her wheelchair.

Now, in case you (?) missed the previous posts, once again, I'm talking about a fiercely independent woman who has reconciled herself to being homebound. She says she's gotten used to it—having a leg that's missing enough bone structure to support the mechanics of walking, moving slowly throughout her house with a walker, being dependent on others to do her shopping for her, and not leaving the house except for doctor's visits. During her last visit, my mom moved everything my grandmother might need in the kitchen to the lower cupboards, so she spends a lot of time cooking and cleaning and not sitting still as usual. At the same time, as far as I know, since February when she returned home to Israel from the hospital in Turkey, she's only left the house once for pleasure: my mother convinced her to go out for dinner on the last night my parents were visiting her, to celebrate both father's day with my dad and my aunt's birthday.

It's a production for her to leave the house. She lives up one flight of stairs. In order to go downstairs, she has to use her walker to get to the top of the stairs at the end of the hall. Once she gets there, I bring her a tiny stool to lower herself from the walker to a sitting position on top of the stairs. Then, she descends the stairs, one by one, on her behind. When she reaches the bottom, she drags herself on the floor from the bottom of the stairs to the door of the building. She says she will never allow anyone to carry her—not me, not any burly man, not any trained EMTs. I know she won't.

Meanwhile, while she's been cleaning the floors with her behind (she puts on loose yoga pants over her dress for this step of the process, which she takes off and puts in her bag once she's in the wheelchair), I've taken her wheelchair downstairs, put the tiny stool and the walker back into the apartment. I meet her downstairs, open the wheelchair, put the breaks on, and watch her pull herself into the chair. Then, we're off—grandma with her bag in hand, me, leaning in forward a bit so I can hear her while pushing her down the street, hoping the cars see us, and grateful I'm wearing a white skirt. The sidewalks are even more uneven than the streets and much narrower, even without asshole drivers parking on sidewalks.

By the waterfront, we stop to listen to live music for a while—apparently, the city pays musicians to play by the waterfront, winter and summer alike. Pretty impressive. The band is playing Gypsy Kings covers, and anything in Spanish is attractive to a Ladino speaker. We hang out for a bit, trying to see if my grandmother can understand the words. She tells me she enjoys watching the percussionist because he's moving to the beat the whole time while the guitar player, in contrast, just plays without seeming to enjoy what he's doing, at least visibly.

As we "stroll," my grandmother points out restaurants she used to frequent, places she had resolved to go to every week with her friends. Then, she points out a good ice-cream place. It takes me a second to realize this isn't a landmark of nostalgia; it's a possibility for the present.

—Want some?
—Yes.

And in true grandmother fashion, with the pretext that she needs change, she refuses to let me pay. I put on her breaks, leave her facing the water, and run across the street to get her a mocha ice-cream cone. By the time I get back to her, our ice-creams are dripping, and I'm strangely grateful that they are. We promptly lick the sides of our cones and wipe our hands on the huge piece of paper towel the ice-cream guy gave me when I asked for a couple of napkins. She looks happy even though the mocha ice-cream is a little less flavorful than she'd like. She even lets me take her pictures licking the cone—the power of persuasion: I tell her I'll send these to mom and it'll make her happy to see my grandmother went out. Of course, there is the required gadget-arm shot, which is difficult to pull off with a bulky camera and in dim street lighting.

I don't mind.

I also don't mind that I threw out my back today or that it hurts to do pretty much anything. I only hope I don't have to sneeze for a couple of days.

We are Matilda & Tilda, blurry & blissful in this moment.

F a m i l y

2008-07-26T04:06:00.000-07:00

º

My last night in Turkey, my parents and I went out to my favorite restaurant to get lamb shish kebabs. Once dad got some food into his system, the crankiness subsided, and he actually seemed to be in an OK mood. I, on the other hand, still had weird cramps after two days of drinking herbal tea and eating light. Finally, mom figured it out: it's the pre-travel bug I've gotten twice before. The first time I had it, we went to the hospital at night, where I eventually signed a book saying I "refused treatment"—there are some things that need to be reserved for someone I'm sleeping with. I don't even know why it happens since this time, I wasn't feeling particularly nervous about logistics or the actual journey. Or so I think. Maybe I was sad to leave the Aegean Sea and wanted more alone time with my family after all my friends left Izmir. Maybe I was worried about having a ridiculous amount of reading I need to do for work while in Israel, or about having too much time to kill in Israel with relatives, with no specific plan of getting away. I don't know.

It didn't help that dinner ended with marriage talk, the topic that's been pervading the last three days of my life.

My next door neighbor has a good friend who's married to a Turkish Jew. He is the son of a famous photographer in Turkey. The only Turkish photographer, in fact, whose name I know. When I told this to my parents earlier this year, they brought up the time they tried to set me up with a Turkish Jew living in San Francisco.

The guy was a computer programmer or some shit, right in the height of the Silicon Valley boom. I was hanging out with a Turkish (and not Jewish) friend the day I was supposed to (begrudgingly) meet him in a café, and I decided to bring her along to ease the awkwardness. What? This is not a date, and I'm bringing a Turkish friend along. Fuck the matchmaking plots. I ain't playing, brother. So we sat down together. I don't know how long this whole thing was, if my friend eventually left or not. All I remember is that I had nothing to talk about with this man. I was bored. It was obvious this was a failure from the start, maybe because I approached it as such, but probably not just because of any prejudice I had. Apparently, later, the guy complained to his mom about how I brought a friend and that I wasn't serious. I complained to my mom about how he was too serious and had nothing to talk about, and yelled at both my parents and demanded they never ever EVER try this shit again because it would be embarrassing for them too if they did. (A year later, my grandmother tried to set something up all the way from Israel. The guy she was trying to set me up with called me drunk around midnight and said some stupid shit—exactly what I needed to get those in my family with ambitions to be matchmakers off my back. No one has ever tried a set-up since then, and my parents have even refused some acquaintance's proposal to "get our kids in San Francisco together" at the cost of creating social awkwardness at a dinner table with a group of friends because according to my dad, "we're scared of you now." Excellent.)

So it was years after this non-date with the computer programmer guy that I found out the guy who is the son of the famous photographer now married to my neighbor's very cool friend and the too-serious guy with nothing interesting to say were the same man. Maybe he's got issues about being identified as his famous father's son, but fuck, man, you should have mentioned who your dad was—then, we could have talked about something that I find exciting (photography, not your dad's photography) and eased the awkwardness for a few minutes, and maybe eve made our parents think we actually tried to have a conversation. (I still wouldn't have married you though.) More importantly, the time I spent sitting there at that cafe wouldn't have been a complete waste of my time.

At the dinner table, my father looked sad. He finally admitted how he had his hopes up, how sad he was the set-up didn't work. "He's a man from a good family," he said, as if that explained everything, and that fact alone was reason to drop everything else and marry a man. I acknowledged that what he said was exactly the way things worked in his generation and his Jewish community at the time, maybe, and pointed out they don't work like that anymore. A good family name isn't reason to commit to someone you don't even like, let alone love. He sighed a sad sigh of disagreement. We paid the bill and got up.

On the cab from the airport to my grandmother's house in Israel, the cab driver turned around and looked at me like he was physically incapable of continuing to drive (to my relief, there wasn't much traffic on the road) when I told him I wasn't married, revealed that I was in my 30s, not 20s, and that I'm not sure that I would ever want to get married or have kids. "WHY????" he asked, baffled and with a sense of urgency like unless he convinced me during the remainder of the cab ride, he would fail to save my soul and lose whatever privileges he had from a special covenant. I tried to explain in a language he could understand. I told him I like my independence, my freedom, traveling, doing my own thing, and I don't want to replace all that with doing some guy's laundry and washing his dishes and making a baby the center of my universe. I compromised with a "maybe someday I'll want a family; thanks for the ride."

And my first day visiting my aunts, once again with marriage talk. I already had my diatribe ready. I told them both that I am single because I am still looking for someone who knows I'm amazing (not the complete story, of course: there are other, more private considerations I wasn't going to share just yet with my aunts). Tant Diamante said that ultimately, it was all about finding someone who would respect you, that everything else would work out if a man truly respected a woman. I loved her for saying that. By way of persuasion, Tant Röne reminded me it's nice having a companion in life. I reminded her how old she was when she finally found the man who would love and respect her for who she is to be a good companion in life. She smiled—she was in her sixties.

When they mentioned having kids and raising a family, I told them what I told the cab driver—that I loved my independence and my freedom to travel. My aunt said that her son, my cousin Moshe, who died in a motorcycle accident when he was my age, was just that kind of guy. She went on telling me about how he would strap his baby girl to his back and go climb a mountain.

I knew. He was my favorite cousin among five, a brother, my kindred free spirit & world traveler. He and I had so little time together, but each time we hung out, I felt at home with him. I miss him so much more than anyone knows.

"Yes," I said; "…when I find a guy like Moshe, I'll marry him."

And then we sat there in consenting silence for a moment and sipped our Turkish coffee until Moshe's daughter came in with her dad's beautiful, smiling eyes.

Tant Röne, Dad's older sister.

Tant Diamante, Dad's sister-in-law, Moshe's mother.

Snir, Moshe's daughter, now 8 years old.

Cancelled until further notice.

2008-07-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

I seem to have misplaced a memory card in the process of packing and unpacking.
Ephesus photos, some of my favorites ever: g.o.n.e.

The posting of my "old shit" album is cancelled until further notice.

Super.

I see vivid losses in the recent past—material shit I can't replace :: opportunities to make quality time for my parents :: dreams of a fresh start :: my faith in words :: the comfort I used to find in the silence of a loved one :: my perspective :: bits and pieces of myself, even.

A plea to the universe: I am tired of losing. Shouldn't there be a better balance? I want to win.

A horoscope blurb I read somewhere today suggested I write out a gratitude list. Maybe I will, horoscope; maaaaybe I will.

Sea-lion woman

2008-07-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

There is so much to write about.

I keep making lists for myself, knowing all the while that my writing will never be able to catch up to my living. (In case there is any doubt, that's a good thing, even for a wordy broad like me.)

I've spent one full day in Israel so far, and already I'm overwhelmed with how behind I am in documenting my experiences here. Blog coming soonly.

I'm realizing it'll be much easier to limit the words and post photos when I can. So here are a few I just received from my last day in Çesme.

Photo and "foreword" credit: Garland.

My friend the sea lioness in her element - friend of the dolphins, shell collector, long distance swimmer, bathed in the salty embrace of the Aegean Sea...

Last breath before diving.

Orange and Blue.

G

N

I

G

R

E

M

E

Another beautiful day ahead.

2008-07-24T01:24:00.000-07:00

Since I've been bringing back old blogs...

Having hung out in Ephesus, I realize this post still applies.

Ah, too many photographs, not enough space on my hard drive. I'm behind in documenting my life here, and I don't think I'll ever catch up, esp. with the Ephesus trip's details.

All friends are in town as scheduled, minus one, who seems to have a warped sense of time and distance in Turkey. She's booked a package deal and her hotel is in a town that's about 2 hours by car (which means about 3 hours by bus with all the transfers, etc).

I've been having a great time. Checking out antique bazaars in Izmir and Alaçati has been a beautiful (and dangerous!) experience. I just might end up keeping the stuff I got as presents for someone who I thought was hard to buy presents for until I saw the antique stands. It's challenging to be the kind of gift giver who gives of herself, who gives things to people that she thinks are beautiful…

I will spend today, again, watching the seagulls flying just above my head, splashing around in turquoise waters, and holding on to my bikini at the end of each dive from the side of a boat, swimming away from people, topless, and diving in for sea urchin shells and mother of pearl. $15 gets us: a boat that leaves at 10:30 am, which will take us to 4 inlets that we can't get to by car, feed us lunch (salad, pasta, and a pretty decent fish), and take our sun-kissed and exhausted bodies back to the harbor at 5:30 pm.

Like I said, too many images, not enough time or hard drive space.

Bringing "H o p e" back.

2008-07-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

Inspired by my friends Hip C and Garland's reminders that at any given point, there are other folks out there who could benefit from reading this poem, I think it's timely to bring back this old blog I posted. Enjoy Mr. Hughes' brilliance.

H o p e

Sometimes when i'm lonely,
Don't know why,
Keep thinkin' i won't be lonely,
By and by.

:: Langston Hughes ::

funny how certain things come across your path, return to you after a long absence. . .

Her uncle’s assimilated Turkish name, Miles spelled backwards.

2008-07-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

And suddenly she realized that she had been writing for five years without knowing whether or not her missives became dead letters in the end. She had only seen one letter through to its final destination; others, she had mailed on faith. In that same moment of realization, a mosquito bit her forearm. Distracted from the epiphany she knew she was destined to have, she thought of Oedipus, who ran closer towards his destiny the more he fought it. She often had literary flashes in response to serendipitous incidents. Had she spent any time pondering this correlation, the series of contemplations would have yielded the answer to the question that had formed its own dendrites in her brain and lodged itself in permanently since that time in the fair when her parents lost her and a stranger took her to the police station: do I prefer to be alone or with other people? She scratched her arm. It was a quarter to three in the morning and she was feeling too wide-awake to submit to wistful reflection. No matter what the time, she sensed it was too late to think about more clever comebacks for past injustices. She licked the back of a stamp and immediately grimaced; she made sure the face of the nation's savior on the other side was now facing her, upright, before she smoothed the poorly shaded portrait over the envelope. The call for prayer began echoing from the mosques within hearing distance. She lifted the needle from her Miles Davis record. Selim. Miles spelled backwards.

A day in the life of Pelagic and friends

2008-07-14T02:22:00.000-07:00

The still jet-lagged friend wakes up at 11 am.
—I'm starving; let's go get breakfast.
The still jet-lagged friend takes another forty minutes getting ready to go out.
—Are you ready yet? Let's go!

We finally walk over to Ilica to eat katmer and drink tea at Kumrucu Hüseyin ("Hüseyin the Kumru seller" -- kumru is a sandwich that's a Çes(h)me specialty; it's all in the sesame bread). Soooo delicious.

Here's katmer: it's fried dough stuffed with eggs and cheese and parsley.

On the way back, we stop by the supermarket to pick up some snacks and so my friends can see what Turkish junk food looks like. Some stuff is very different. Some stuff is just like what there is in the US, except entirely oblivious to such things as racism. Here are some cookies that are kinda like Oreos, except they're...

(pronounced "neh-gro", not "knee-gro")
In the US, the cookies came before the racial epithet. Here, my peoples have unwittingly just cut to the chase. I don't think anyone else ever thinks about the foreign languages he/she might speak, think of what a black person is called in that language, make the connection to the cookies made by Eti, and notice anything potentially wrong. I think if they called the cookies "Zenci" ("black person" in Turkish), they would still not see anything wrong with that but think it cute. People are just not race-conscious here. It's all about nationalism. You can go to jail for "insulting Turkishness" so watch out.

Back at home, we chill out for a bit, have a discussion about the weather/how windy it is to decide which beach would be best, then get ready to go to the beach of choice for the day.

Here's my soul captured in a photograph at the beach:

The primary snack on the beach is corn on the cob. A second one used to be candied apples, but apparently, people are just not buying them anymore. So says Nusret. We ran into him on the beach. He was one of the guys who painted the house we live in now when it was first constructed. That was over 25 years ago. The man has not changed a bit. I recognized his face immediately. Weird.

After the beach, we usually have linner since it's about 6:00 pm or so by the time we get back, and shower takes a while with 3+ people. Yesterday, we came back from the beach at around 8 pm; the sun was still warm. We went from beach to shower to dinner. Now, that's a good day.

After dinner and either drinks or a post-prandial Turkish coffee, the usual would be to just chill out, but the unusual happened the other night. My dad came in saying he thought he saw a mouse outside in the front yard. No one moved until I said "Where? I wanna see!" He warned me and said it's very big. (He was getting a mouse and a rat confused.) Even more fascinated now, I went outside. There was a big blob of a creature against the flowers in the front. Despite dad's warnings, I walked towards it and....

—Awwww. It's a porcupine!!!

—?????

...was the family's response. My mom and dad kept insisting it couldn't be. Dad kept repeating mouse and rat interchangeably. Mom pointed out "this is not a zoo" and wondered what a porcupine be doing here. Then, a light bulb went on in two genius minds: if we scare it, it will put up its porcupine shield, and I know what will scare it—the flash of a camera.

By the time we got our cameras, it had trudged into the bushes.

Sigh.

We went back to the living room. Dad kept getting up and looking through the screen door at the dark front yard, still wondering what the creature was. I tried not to get annoyed that 10 minutes later, my parents were still having the same conversation as if I had never uttered the word porcupine. If they don't know something, they can't possibly believe that I might have the answer. Welcome to being the youngest in the family. 15 minutes later, I was still explaining the difference between a mouse, a rat, and a porcupine (their sizes and their tails) to my dad.

Then, it came out again. I grabbed a camera. Late again. Here's the best shot I could take:

After the porcupine disappeared one last time, everyone else eventually went to sleep. As usual these days, I stayed up until about 3 am or so—this time, watching Celebrity Poker out of all things.

I'm enjoying the alone time at night, esp. once I turn the tv off (and once I've killed the offending mosquitoes).

The facts of tonight's matter.

2008-07-13T02:19:00.000-07:00

• Sometimes, I find myself in a bad mood for no apparent reason. I give it some alone time, and it passes eventually.

• I don't like that sometimes, taking care of myself comes at the expense of being a good friend and a good daughter.

yesyes

2008-07-10T23:17:00.000-07:00

Friend no. 2 is also here.

The three of us went out to have a Turkish breakfast yesterday: fried, crunchy dough stuffed with eggs, cheese, and parsley. Turkish tea in the little hourglass-shaped traditional glasses. So fucking good.

Happily full, we walked around a bit by the water, scoped out some of the seaside bars that have tables on the sidewalk three feet from the water we might want to check out later this week. We'll have to come back in the evening to figure out which of this strip of cafe/bars is not throbbing with too loud bass after 11 pm.

By the time we got home from our walk, my family was ready to head to the beach, and so was I. Quick change. Beach—the same one I went to on my first day here, where I swim across from one side of the inlet to the other topless everytime. When I came back from my swim, mom expected to see some sea urchin shells or mother of pearl. "I saw you dive in a couple of times in the distance," she explained. It was a good assumption—over the years, we've collected two big bowls of these things from my dives that decorate the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room and the table in the front yard. But no, not this time. "I was just diving in to put my top back on," I said. She grinned. She knows how I am in the water.

My sister just came back from the front yard and told me the shells in the front just fell off the table and mostly broke. It's fucking windy out this morning. Ah well. Over a decade worth of loot from beneath the sea—there's plenty more left.

Preceded by dad's broken-English tour of the backyard plants peppered with shouts across the yard for agrilinguistic help ("Tildaaaa! How do you say pomegranate tree in English?" "TILDA! What's apricot in English??"), linner was amazing. Whole fish (mmmm, fish cheeeeeeks), artichokes, semizotu salad (which made me realize I cannot tolerate low fat yogurt; to me, it's a waste of milk the same way decaf coffee is a waste of water, not to mention labor). While others had wine, dad and I had raki (Turkish version of ouzo). Half an hour later, dad had a buzz on, was cracking himself up joking around and being goofy. At some point, when I said there was something in his teeth, he started making fun of his fake teeth. He cracked up and told me he could just take them off and started pretending to pick the imaginary teeth in his hand with a toothpick. This was all in Turkish. Sis and mom were laughing, but dad and I were on a different wavelength together (well, maybe not—dad was definitely on the I am no longer sober wavelength whereas I was more on the I love dad when he puts on his goofy self because I have friends over, and he's hilarious when he's got a buzz wavelength). Dad was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes, which, of course, made me laugh harder. Meanwhile, the non-Turkish speakers at the table hadn't waited for the laughter to subside and the interpretation to begin; they were laughing at their own version of what was happening at the table.

Turkish coffee and watermelon came to the aid of our post-prandial blahs. Then, someone began craving ice-cream. The three of us hopped on a dolmu(s)h, the public transportation minivan that takes people waiting on the side of a street on its route to wherever they need to go for a dollar and some change, and went to downtown Çes(h)me.º We checked out the touristy tchotchke stores, got delicious ice-cream cones for $1, and ate our gelato as we walked by the sea, by the boats that go on daily tours around the coast (we'll be doing that sometime next week). The moon was out and gorgeous over the dark sea. (Remember my favorite word, yakamoz? If not, I'll gladly explain.) Two guys were out with their telescopes and charging 75 cents for promenaders to look at the moon. Brilliant.

A little recap of the day over drinks at a quieter bar in Çes(h)me central, and we get lucky with our timing: the dolmus(h) we catch on the way back is the last van of the night, and I realize it's already past 1 am.

Ah, it's a hard life here...

º s(h) = my substitute for an S that should have a cedilla under it; the letter makes the 'sh' sound.

Aaahhhhh. Yes.

2008-07-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

Friend no. 1 arrived tonight.

We did the YAY! dance (you know, the one where you stretch your arms up to the sky and grin wide) and got over the novelty pretty soon after that. It's like we've been here together before, probably because we used to live together (which we did for six years). Strange that I suddenly feel more at home here once someone who's never been here arrives. Makes me realize how much I needed someone other than family here to hang out and be goofy with.

I'm sooooooo excited for tomorrow!

Awesomeness will ensue.

Just being/being seen.

2008-07-07T01:51:00.000-07:00

That's right. I almost forgot that it always takes a while (at least a week) for me to get used to being on vacation somewhere familiarº, used to not having to be "productive," to not feeling guilty/anxious/ restless/bored when all I need to "do" is just be.

So I'm working on relaxing into relaxing without getting restless.

...

Ah, I'm sooooo psyched for the "first batch" of my visitors to arrive tomorrow night!!!

I can't even begin to explain how much a friend's seeing my original home means to me.
Seeing my home is seeing me. And being seen always feels good.

Yesyes.

º the unfamiliar places come with their own schedule of explorations and adventures.

Time for me to start this vacation, bitches.

2008-07-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

A while back, I wrote a post about transitions.

I've been thinking about transitions once again—ever since I left NY and arrived in Turkey. This one seems especially hard, and I've been trying to figure out how come. After all, I ought to be used to these cross-cultural shifts and code switching by now. So what's going on this time?

A bunch of things.

• The unfamiliar in re-integration. When I arrived in Izmir, so did my sister's partner and a friend of his who is going through divorce. Even if I don't know the former all that well, I do know his sense of humor, and he is family. But the distressed buddy, I've only hung out with once, and I don't think we ever exchanged any words the whole night (at a Passover dinner in Istanbul with two families I don't know—f.u.n.). So coming to Izmir and having a near stranger in my home did not help me feel at home, well, at home.

• Logistics. I fucking hate logistics. I have 7 friends from the US coming to visit me in Turkey this summer. They all have different dates of arrival and departure. In my ideal world, they would have all stayed at my grandmother's house since she will no longer be able to leave her home in Israel to vacation in Turkey in the summers (see post from a year ago about the bus accident that crippled her forever). Alas, my uncle has rented out my grandmother's place, and I have had to figure out how to host all these people in our tiny home.

Complications to figuring out logistics: 4 of my visitors have not given me specific dates; 2 of these have yet to buy their tickets, and the other 2 don't seem that concerned that unless I make hotel reservation for them, they will have to pay a whole lot more money than they think on a room. Many emails later, I have finally made arrangements for the people who have their dates down and given the undecided four the info for the hotel I chose for the others, and told them to take care of themselves. Stick a fork in me, I am d. o. n. e playing travel agent.

One of the more annoying things has been how everyone in my family suddenly began stressing about my friends' plans, their lodgings, when we should take them to see what, who will room with whom… If there is anything I hate more than dealing with logistics is having to deal with other people's logistics. If there is anything I hate more than that, it's my family chatting at a loud and high pitch amongst themselves about my friends' logistics.

Can't we just plan the first night and plan the rest of it all by ear? That's what I would do. Oh, right. These are not my travel plans. So why am I making them again??? Oh. Turks are hospitable and shit; that's why. Right. (I'm feeling terrible already that one of my guests will be sleeping on the living room couch. Fucking cultural values.)

Bottom line: I've been so tense about future plans that I've been unable to just chill and be present in the present.

• Missed connections. I have no friends here; the very few people I am still in touch with from high school do not live in Izmir. I miss having friends to be silly with; I miss my partners in crime. I miss yapping over drinks with someone who gets me. Shit, I miss friends who don't always get me.

Despite all the stress I mentioned above, I've had awesome experiences too. I love the time in The Aegean as always. I am reminded again and again how much I love the food here. Even though I would have much rather hugged a dolphin in the wild in a sea, getting to hold onto one and riding her in a pool with a lameass life jacket on was, I have to admit despite the sadness I feel for the dolphins that live in a pool, a pretty amazing feeling. Every time I come back here, there are some things that I just can't describe to someone else. I don't know how to describe the food or the way the sea appears when you dive in and flip around to look at the surface from below to someone who hasn't been here.

I experience a lot while I am here that changes me somehow, things I want to bring back with me from one home to the other one, things I want to hold onto, things I need everyone who knows me to know. Being gone for two months is a weird thing. I am starkly aware of the distance between this home and the one in San Francisco. I am painfully aware of my friends' absence in my life right now. When I go back, it always turns out –understandably– that my friends, who have been in their daily grind as usual, have been less aware of my absence for two months. To them, two months have flown like water (ah, I am already using Turkish idioms in translation), like any other two months—much like two months during the school year come and go without my feeling a need to think a whole lot about them. I get back and it's like I've never left. I, meanwhile, feel an ineffable distance between us, which only I can close by forgoing all the things I could try to share about what being in Turkey was like. I ask about their two months, about what's new, and I usually get the answer that I never get used to: that it's been the same old, same old. It's hard for me to imagine how two months can go by without some new thought, a new spark of inspiration, a new photo, a new haiku moment, a new beauty among the muckheap up mundaneness can cross someone's path. So I give the typical high school student answer when it's my turn to say something. You know, the "How was school?" and "Fine" routine. . . And we move on. And some things get left behind and put aside that only I know about, like some furnishings and ornaments that don't quite fit in my other home or go with the rest of the stuff already there.

• My damn pride. The only person I have called in the US since I have left NY is a woman I've never met. Enough said.

. . .

Nah. Who am I kidding? I've always been too verbose for the "Enough said" line.

So…

Sure, her awesomeness deserves the phone card investment. At the same time, I know at least one more person who admittedly has "stories coming out of my ears." But no. No sign of weakness shall be made visible for people I love whom I know I might actually see soon. Damn my damn Kapuya stubbornness and our "show no vulnerability" pride.

Of course, I write about it all here. How do I even begin to make sense of the paradox before it appears before me as hypocrisy? Very well. Maybe I'm OK with putting down what makes me feel vulnerable in writing because I am also stubborn about protecting the illusion that whatever I post here is ultimately for me.

...

I like them apples just fine, thank you.

And now that the logistics are done, the new plan: to get out of the house early and start this vacation, bitches.

R e : i n t e g r a t i n g

2008-07-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about how to throw myself into where I am now, how to just dive in. Eventually, NYC came to mind. I have such a visceral reaction to being there and an odd ability to feel comfortable in it, even with the realization that I will never feel like I know the city well enough. I thought about the week I spent there in April, and the week I just had there just a couple of weeks ago.

S o o o o o

In addition to the beach time, I think tomorrow needs to involve a photo safari.

The procedure:
1. Pretend this is new territory.
2. Walk and walk and walk.
3. Pause to appreciate the haiku moments; take photos if you feel so moved.
4. Walk some more.
5. If DSL cooperates, upload & post photos. (I still have more from NYC.)

" H o m e "

2008-07-01T01:52:00.000-07:00

A longass trip later, I arrived in Istanbul. After 7 hours layover in London, I had no patience left in me to wait another minute extra for anything. Fortunately, my bag made it to Istanbul OK (unlike the JFK/British Airways fiasco). My sister had set up a car to pick me up, so I was ready for smooth sailing to her apartment, check email, go to bed, try to get some sleep, and be up in the morning for the final segment of the odyssey: a short flight from Istanbul to Izmir (about the same distance as SFO-LAX).

But no.

Flights before mine were delayed, and, in turn, so were the shuttles that were picking up/dropping off passengers. I sat outside the arrivals gate for half an hour, cranky as hell, waiting for my damn ride. It was past midnight in Turkey by the time I reached my sister's place; I had left NY over 21 hours ago.

On the 26th, I arrived in Izmir, and took one more trip that night to the beach town, Çesme, where the heat is a little more bearable. This is my last stop for a bit until the gang from SF & LA comes to visit. It's nice to put my bag down for a bit and put my shit in drawers rather than live out of a bag. At the same time, the sawdust smell of my bags makes me feel all wistful. A wonder.

The first few days "back home" have been hard. The first day, I did nothing. I had no motivation to begin lesson planning; shit, I didn't even have motivation to go to the beach, and that should tell you something.

The second day, I made myself go swimming, knowing I don't feel quite at home until my nostrils and my chapped lips burn with salt. It helped to swim from one shore of the inlet to the opposite one. Quality alone time—just me, topless, and the sea. I also began withdrawing to read in solitude…appropriately, One Hundred Years of Solitude. I thought I was in the clear, but the following day, more of the same: I was ready to go to the beach; then, I passed out on the couch in my bikini and never made it out of the house.

V. reminded me I am in no woman's land; I relaxed into the discomfort a bit after I remembered that this is not the first time I am having a hard time adjusting to being away from one home to arriving and integrating myself into another one. I think last summer was a little like this, too, but I was only here for a short time, and I don't think I gave myself the time to feel awkward in my liminality. (And this time around, it hasn't helped that thanks to the wonders of Verizon in particular and our DSL problems here in general, I have not been able to connect with my life back in the US while beginning to nest here.)

I am writing this now so I remember this transition period next time. I used to give myself a hard time thinking that these transitions that take longer and longer for me to make might be signs I am getting too old for the nomadic life. Well, that was stupid. I've said this before and I'll say it again: I'm in my PRIME! So I have a different perspective now. I think San Francisco/the US has become more and more of a home. I can still make transitions into new places in a short time, yet going between one home and another is an entirely different process.

(Try me: give me tickets to two different countries I have never been to. Brazil and Argentina would be just fine, thanks.)

BAH! ((She’s a temptress.))

2008-06-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

I had brunch with Michael and Lauren today. If it weren't for the time I spent with them in April, I ~~probably~~ wouldn't be here now. After last night's dinner and drinks with two high school friends from Turkey, too, I have been asked so many times already when I might move to NYC. I've been asking myself the same question since before I got here.

I don't know for certain. I have some ideas, and I am not quite ready to have you read about these yet. Uncharted territory needs to remain uncharted for now.

Anyhow, the intention is now out there in the world. I may decide to stay put in SF indefinitely after all this possibility-exploring, but to take the NYC option seriously for myself, to really consider it an option, I need to figure out what I would do here if not teach. Yes, I could teach. I don't think it would be that hard for me to get a job in a NYC independent high school. (Yes, I am arrogant. I know what I know about myself.)

But…

If I am going to go through a major life change, I kinda want to think outside the box. I mean, I first thought of wanting to be a teacher in 6th grade. That was about two decades ago. If I am going to uproot myself and start new, I want to think about what else I might want to do to really start fresh. In the end, I might decide to keep teaching. I do love what I do. Still, it's kinda exciting to brainstorm, no strings attached.

And terrifying.

(If you know me, you know that if I notice myself feeling fear or anxiety about something, I pursue it all the more.)

Things will become clear eventually. The present is what it is, and everything is everything.

a green card is not green...and other falsities

2008-06-08T14:14:00.001-07:00

I did some research because I don't trust people.
Turns out the Green Card lottery notification was a scam.

(Keep breathing. It's fine.)

I am more disappointed that Kamau does not come out of this as an affirmed prophet than I am in the false news.

And in case you're wondering:

No, I actually don't feel like an idiot for dreaming for a minute about the possibilities. I feel pretty happy that I double and triple checked the legitimacy of the correspondences I received (yes, there were multiple emails, which did not ask for money right away, which made it all seem more legit). Besides, I already have a green card application in the works, and as some of you know, I immediately felt stressed about having to open a new file and pour money and time into this process simultaneously (which would happen even if the win was a legit one). So...oddly enough, I feel relieved now.

Apologies to all whom I have disappointed in my ninja powers of being ridiculously lucky.

I'm seriously OK with thisº. I hope you are, too.

º ...that is, with not actually having won the lottery. I certainly am not OK with the fact that there are assholes out there scamming people and playing with their hopes.

June 8, 2008

2008-06-07T23:06:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about how I just graduated my 9th class at the same job.
Next year, this time, I can say I've been at the same job for a decade.

:: shudder ::

What's a relief to others is just scaryass shit to me: security, being grounded in happily doing the same job for a decade, no matter how different each class and each day and each year is.

...

I just realized minutes ago that tomorrow is June 8th, 2008, and that tomorrow is less than an hour away. Tomorrow is the day I will have been in this city for exactly a decade.

More and more, I am feeling like it is almost time to start something new elsewhere.

(Is there anything that you've been doing contentedly for 10 years?)

In a post on May 26...

2008-06-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

on a different blog, I wrote:

I want the word awesome back.

As in AWEsome. As in awe inspiring. As in oozing with enough awe to last you a week in a city.
I thought about adding a new suffix to the root, but "-ful" is already taken...for the fucking antonym! What's up with that?

I want "Wow, that was awesome" to once again be a very specific, flattering compliment, not a synonym for the generic "cool, dude!"

Got it? Good (not awesome).

....

On May 27:
Jon Stewart spoke about AWEsome on The Daily Show.

Coincidence? I think not. (Brilliant minds think alike.)

h i s t o r y

2008-06-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

HOLY SHIT.

I just witnessed history in the making, and I don't even understand my reaction, but I am totally teary eyed. What the fuck, a Turkish girl, "alien," multiple green card applications in process, now all teary eyed, all proud and shit...

Well, I'm weird. And I am so glad millions of people were also just a little weird enough to vote with their conscience.

Obama Claims Nomination; First Black to Lead a Major Party Ticket

Now, I'm speechless.

tk

Ever wonder...

2008-06-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

...why your friends remain your friends,
how come people hold on to you and work to keep you in their lives,
what space you fill?

I think about the flip side quite a bit. I know exactly why I've gone years without letting some friends silently forget themselves out of my life—despite long distances, despite infrequent/nonexistent communication, despite the fact that we have ~~occasionally~~ annoyed the shit out of each other consistently over the years, despite how much work it is sometimes to catch up, despite marriages and babies that get in the way of our friendship, and no matter how much we each change over time.

I also have put myself through the torture chambers and have thought a lot about the ex-friends who did let me go. Then, I realized, I got better shit to do than dwell on them. Sometimes, you fulfill a need, and your job is done.

So...

I wonder about folks who are still around. What's their story? What's their story of us? It's not like there is a shortage of ambiguously ethnic, annoyingly independent, smart-mouthed women who think way too much in this town.

Kamau was right.

2008-05-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

He had said that the revolution will not be televised, that it would be sent to you as an attachment and go directly to your junk mail, where it will be silently deleted.

Well.

That's exactly what happened.

I just saw this note in my hotmail junk mail folder that tells me I won the green card lottery (I have been entering it for the past decade).

My first thought: shit; the photo I submitted was a horrible one. I will not hear the end of it from my friends. (I am not kidding.)

Second (more rational) thought: Don't panic. Send this to your lawyerº.

So...we shall see what this all means.

º I just emailed her today about renewing my work authorization card and travel documents since the final step of the green card approval was still another two months or so away (which means the green card is another year away, at least).

Just...NO.

2008-05-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

I love a good city that offers me good food, good freaks, good stories.
I love sex.
I love the movies.

But I am NOT going to see Sex and the City. Everº. Not even on DVD.

I cannot stand the privileged whiny bitches who pretend to be all about women power and sisterhood, and whose lives revolve, at the end of the day, around men's whim.

Very well. I'll be the first to admit that a man's whim can be charming and piss you off into a state of ceaseless desire. But you should know yourself enough, woman, to meet that man at the door with your own damn whim.

So let me continue: I cannot stand that the source of pride and envy for the skinnyass WhatsHerNameº in the show is that she is a woman who spends more on a pair of shoes (that are butt ugly) than I spend on my rent each month.º

I'm all for Sisterhood. I miss the sisterfriends I used to have (one moved out of town; the other went crazy and became a ghost) and the Monday wine and cheese nights. I miss the Friday Supper Club. (Yes, food is important to sisterhood.) But what I miss has nothing to do with having shit loads of money and having vaginas without knowing in what direction to throw either one of these things. (I know exactly what I want to do with my vagina, thank you.)

So get those ads for the movie out of my face.

º If you have a Sex and the City gathering at your house, it's OK for you not to invite me. In fact, I would be offended if you invited me. I'd rather watch infomercials...online (I don't have a tv).

º Seriously, I don't remember her name. Carrie something-something? OR is that her tv show name? I think so. Fuck, I don't care. I need my brain cells to imagine nomadic plots and plans. According to a student of mine, she redeems all the anti-womanness of the show by being a writer who is processing these stories at the end of each episode. "Isn't that empowering? She's writing out her stories, owning them." You almost got me there, little girl... But NO. She is annoying. She has no will power. She is a self-indulgent whiner.

º 1% of the population in this country control 47% of the wealth therein. That same 1% controls education in this country. And 5 corporations in the US control the media.

tk the Terrible

2008-05-30T06:02:00.000-07:00

Today, in my junior/seminar elective The Theater of Ideas, Sally asked me a question, her voice an usually high pitch for her. I've given her shit about her timid, high pitched "Tiiiilda?"s before with "Saaaalllyyyy?" in the same tone. I smiled. She caught herself and said, "There is something about this class or you...it makes me talk in a high pitch." I told her I often have that effect on people. Then, Thomas joined in the conversation with "I was terrified of you last year in Shakespeare." I just looked at him and said nothing. Silence. He looked back at me. Silence. Then, "Um...I'm still terrified* of you."

YESSS!

My favorite tk the Terrible story was reported to me by a teacher who drove some students somewhere in a van. For some reason, kids in a van always forget there is still a teacher within hearing distance; you end up hearing what you never wanted to hear sometimes.

On this occasion, my coworker told me, the students were talking about my hardassness: "tk would give Shakespeare a B."

HellyeaIwould...if he also didn't proofread his essays before turning them in.

Little shits. (I love them.)

* My dad, a decade of such stories later, still says he can't imagine me being a hardass in the classroom. I'm the goofy girl my parents and my aunt used to call maymun: monkey.

He. Has. No. Idea.

An AWEsome match

2008-05-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

Today, I got a surprise in the mail from Vanessa...whom I cannot wait to meet someday.

Tomorrow, she will come back and swim among the waves.
Maybe la gitana will join her.

THANK. YOU. THANK. YOU. THANK. YOU.

And even, ♥Thank You♥. *

* I can't believe I just did that. You are turning me into a monster. A gay as fuck monster.

m e m o r y .

2008-05-27T10:26:00.000-07:00

And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget/That history puts a saint in every dream*. I am so intrigued by memory. Years can go by and my body refuses to forget certain things. I wonder why—I would have imagined the path of least resistance would be to forget. But my body stubbornly remembers. Maybe the least resistance is the most expedient but not the most meaningful way; this body just knows it would rather remember than avoid disequilibrium.

So I am compelled to think about people and places and conversations and food I can't ever forget.

Sometimes it was a New York City hotel room. An elevator with multicolored lights fading in, out, in, out. A straw fedora hat. A painting of her (or maybe it was a self-portrait) taken out as trash by the cleaning staff the next morning. A phone that doesn't ring when it was supposed to. Whispered conversations when it wasn't supposed to. Blood, often. A hospital, once. The last time.

Sometimes it was tears on a rooftop. A cab ride. A lingering glance. Beauty. Sushi. A purple flower. A woman named Fatima. Serenades on a guitar. A newspaper read in peaceful silence in another town. Kalimotxos.

These days, it is a street corner. Balsamic vinegar and avocado on ciabatta. Hands, pressing. Raised voices; raised eyebrows. Invisible Man. Sounds from a trumpet. Then, Ahmad Jamal. Flies in smoke. Stencils. A room painted brown. Another painted red. A black hat left behind, returned. Silences.

My body remembers and wonders. I wonder.

I wonder why it is that a forgotten dream rushes to my consciousness when I bend over to tie a shoe or to wrap a towel around my hair. There is a passage in Ulysses, too. A memory while tying a shoe. The upside down brain, the disoriented frontal lobe, the disarmed defenses...

I want to know.

* Yes, once again, Tom Waits. I went from obsessive indulgence in The Little Prince to a Tom Waits kick ever since I realized the intensity of my envy of friends who get to see him in concert in July (I'll be in TR).

AWEsome.

2008-05-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

Back after a long absence..

I need more vampiric friends. People who will go out for dinner at 10 pm. People who will come over at 11 to watch a movie (I have a projector I have been "borrowing" from work for over a year). People who will explore whatever places are actually open after 11 pm in this tiny ass city with me. Biters, too.

Please feel free to nominate yourselves.

* * *

The now-ex is resentful that after crashing at 9:30, 10, 11 pm the whole time we were dating, I am now back to being a night owl. I used to be a night owl before we started dating. He had a hard time believing that, seeing that I was always so exhausted at the end of the work day.

Interestiiiing. My guess: receiving wireless signal/having internet access at home, finally, is the key.

* * *

I have decided life is too short to have mediocre meals when you can help it.*

The same goes for wine.

The same goes for sex.

When in doubt or in an existential crises, call upon hedonism to carry you through. Works for me.

* * *

I want the word awesome back.

As in AWEsome. As in awe inspiring. As in oozing with enough awe to last you a week in a city.
I thought about adding a new suffix to the root, but "-ful" is already taken...for the fucking antonym! What's up with that?

I want "Wow, that was awesome" to once again be a very specific, flattering compliment, not a synonym for the generic "cool, dude!"

Got it? Good (not awesome).

* Sure, it costs more. Sure, sometimes, you're in a hurry, and... Sure, sometimes (like now), you have zero groceries at home. I did say when you can help it.

∴ love in silence

2008-05-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

When I was eight, I found the six differences between two illustrations in the Sunday paper and sent it in for a prize: The Little Prince on tape. I wonder what happened to that tape; I loved the sad music someone chose as the soundtrack. I wonder what happened to my sister's Hans Christian Andersen picture books that she received when she was in the hospital for a severe case of mumps. The Matchstick Girl and The Little Mermaid were the saddest stories I read as a child. I think I read them before I was old enough to find out life isn't fair. Or maybe it's never too early to know this. I miss the smell of my mom's cooking. I miss the smell of the year's first summer night when suddenly, I can smell trees in a concrete jungle of 2.6 million. I miss sitting in the front of an 8-chair row in a class of 35 or 40 and being the only person who gets my teacher's sarcasm. I am proud of the girl I was when I was 17. I think that year, I was the bravest, most driven person I have ever been. Most stubborn, too. That was the year I lived in the same house with dad without saying a word to him for 11 months. It would have gone on longer, but I needed him to fill out the financial aid forms to apply to school in the US. That, and I felt guilty for making mom miserable for my stubbornness. It was the day after my birthday. Since then, I have learned to find peace in silence. The ultimate sign of true friendship for me is being able to spend time with someone in silence without the need to fill it. When I lost the first person I could love in silence to the whims of a long distance relationship, I put idiotic walls around my feelings. In each succeeding relationship, I would occasionally test myself with "If this person dumped you today, would you be all right?" and make sure the answer was always a resounding "Yes." Maybe all I ever wanted from love was to feel consumed by it without actually being consumed. Love is something different now. Love and I have found strength in vulnerability. We wrestle, bear our teeth, bite and show no pain even when we're hurt because we have finally fessed up that fuck it, we actually enjoy the battle. We lie in bed showing each other our battle scars, kissing each other's battle scars, biting around each other's battle scars. We imprint barely legible words on each other's body just by thinking them, and Love traces these words across my skin as it turns a darker shade of brown in the long awaited summer sun.

Isabel Allende

2008-05-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

I am listening to/watching a lecture by Isabel Allende (thanks, David).

She says:

"Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses."

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

This post could use some love.

2008-05-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

(If you're reading this, you are among my trusted friends. And you can show your love with comments or a phone call.)

—I am in the process of becoming single.
Fucking shit up.
Making waves.
Taking a break.
Breaking up.
Breaking a heart.
Prioritizing.
False advertising.
Fantasizing.
Calculating "mathematical possibilities."

—Why?
Because I'm happy and things are fucking great, and I want them (well, it: sex) to be fucking amazing instead.
Because I'm selfish.
Demanding.
Difficult.
Overcommitted.
Overwhelmed.
Undersexed.
Curious.
Socialized.
Deviant.
. . .
Because New York.

—What's next?

Signs and wonders (and bullshit?)

2008-04-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

Have you ever read The Alchemist?

I was talking to my friend Lori about it today, wondering about signs and tests and how to tell the difference between the two.

Sometimes, you see a discouraging sign on your path; you begin to think, what a shame...maybe this isn't the path I am supposed to follow. Supposedly, the discouragement is simply a test. Do you really want to stay on this path?

Now, the assumption is that you have one goal, one path—you don't feel equally passionately about following multiple paths. Tough for the indecisive, or the I-can-be-happy-on-a-variety-of-life-paths kinda people...like moi.

What if the discouraging sign looked really attractive? Maybe what you assume to be the test is actually the omen guiding you, and everything else has been false—the comfort in security ∴ Sartre's notion of bad faith ∴ what you thought you should want ∴ what you have convinced yourself you do want.

Maybe none of it matters. Just gotta pick one path, start walking, and accept the consequences. Do it your way; do it with style. (Maybe not unlike mcp 's "the fat kid.")

What do you think?

At Gate 23

2008-04-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

At Gate 23 this morning, I'm wondering about what inspires me.
I'm thinking about my muse.

Because...

I've been trying recently not to analyze the shit out of what went wrong, what the mistakes have been along the way. Instead, I want to analyze, if anything, the moments when I knew I was happy. What is so right about those times?

Epiphany! (I'm having it right now as I type:) I am inspired when I am in the company of stored up inspiration—the inspiration that just oozes out of the person who can say "I got enough of inspiration to last me a while" and not enough time (mostly time) to give form to all the ideas...I pay attention. (The revised version: by being "in the company of" inspiration, I don't necessarily mean the physical company, come to think of it. Just seeing the artwork, listening to the music, reading the words of my muse inspire me plenty; being in the physical company of the inspired is like seeing a manuscript of your favorite novel.)

I am inspired by you, you who is constantly thinking about creativity or just thinking creativity. I am inspired by the words that the mind and the hand commit to, the words chosen out of all the possible combinations and versions, this version, which pounds into the reader, this is the way I will express myself.

I am inspired by you, who do what you need to do in your life and do it at your own pace. No apologies.

I am inspired by you, who belongs to you alone because "habit is a great deadener," and I've always known and I do know that I cannot ever take you for granted.

I am inspired by your touch, in all its forms, undertones, and textures—my muse's unexpected bite inspires me as much as the easy laying on of hands does. Sometimes, it takes me being punched in the gut to figure out what's going on. There is great tenderness in this seemingly violent image, I know. There always has been, even way back when.

I am inspired by your teeth bearing, feisty fierceness that pounds into me, into the world, sometimes unwittingly

love
love
love

I am inspired by being called on my bullshit:

Nothing above is something I didn't know. There was no epiphany. This is just an acknowledgment. Of my muse. Of me. Of love in the creative spaces, which itself requires creativity and persistencepersistencepersistence to exist in the beautiful muck heap of not yet realized, told, lived ideas.

"Are those Turkish brownies?"

2006-10-25T08:36:00.001-07:00

I help run a group for girls at Urban. It's called Students for Women's Equity and Rights (SWEAR). Helping out with the group involves running their online conference/discussion. I try to keep my voice to a minumum on there to give the students more space; sometimes, I am inspired to post something. What's below is in response to girls writing about their ambivalence on being "feminine."

* * *

Circular narrative ahead...

I made brownies for some friends. One of them asked, "Are those Turkish brownies?" I thought about it for a second. I did follow my mom's recipe, and she is Turkish, but...these are just brownies. I didn't realize brownies had a nationality. I said (insert smartass tone here:), "well, I made them, so yes, I guess they are 'Turkish'." Other times, when I do something that puzzles people and they ask, "Is that a Turkish thing to do?" with a sort of innocence in their voice that comes from lacking information ("ignorance" sounds too harsh here), I say, "Well, I did it, so it must be, I suppose."

I think about what it means to be feminine in the same way. When I climb up to an apartment's balcony to let in a friend who just locked himself out and he says I'm "so butchie," I get annoyed. No. If I am going to fit into one of those dichotomies, it's probably "femmy," and this is what "femmy" looks like because I am feminine and I did just climb up a railing and hoist myself up into a balcony.

I am a woman. Whatever I do, then, is womanly/feminine.

tk

_________________________
The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.
:: James Baldwin ::

a half-baked idea...

2006-10-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about not teaching full time
...because I value time more than money.

I want time to read, write, be guiltfree on a beach on a Sunday (grading day!), do art.
15 essays fewer a week means over 6 hours of additional free time -- that's huge! That's an entire Sunday afternoon reading Baldwin instead of essays on "Othello" by adolescents who think they can analyze a man's internalized racism in two double-spaced pages.

I mentioned the idea to my department chair today. As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt a little scared. The idea is now out there in the world; it's a real possibility now.

It sounds simple maybe...

It's not.

If this doesn't work financially, and I am finding that I am not able to make ends meet, I can't just get a job at a cafe. I can't temp. I can't register as a sub. I am on a work visa, and the only employer that can -legally- give me money for my work is my current employer.

If I commit to being part time and it doesn't quite work out the way I am hoping it will...well, I guess there is always dog walking and baby sitting and tutoring folks on Craigslist for cash.

Yes, the idea of going part time and voicing it in front of my department chair scared me, oddly...and that is precisely how come I think I need to consider the option.

(Any comments?)

Rain and leaf stencils in San Francisco

2006-10-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

Ever since I went back to Fort Funston and spent some hours in a late afternoon's mist and an early evening's fire-lit quietude, I've been ready for the rain.

At the end of a long day of classes and meetings, on my way back home, I walked up Dolores Street in the light rain and smiled. Up the hill from 18th Street to my block were the haiku moments I had been missing in my life and more, all within a three-block walk.

The negative-space trace of trees on the concrete made from rain falling between leaves.
Leaves so yellow they seem to insist on their color even lying still on the gray sidewalk in the dark.

I have been in this city long enough to know that several of these leaves will be stepped on with just enough force, just enough times, by just enough people, at just the right pace, and the rain will cease and the sun will come out from behind the clouds for just long enough that the concrete sidewalk will be stenciled with dry fallen leaves for a couple of days.

There is no such thing as a passive witness.

2006-09-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

Some reflections on Illusion 5: Fuera del Barrio Beyond Our Block...

There is so much to say, and I really want to say these things to either folks who were at the De Young today, or to a man who up and left this city, fuera de su barrio, and ended up surrounded by art.

I came home tonight, with my white dress and my white suitcase touched here and there with blue paint from someone's artwork. My job was to go between artists' work and "integrate" separate pieces with my writing. When I got home, I was exhausted and drained. It takes a lot of energy to be around a ceaseless stream of people, integrate all of them into the project as well as integrate the seemingly disparate works of different artists into a whole. I observed and absorbed a great deal. I am filled with what I experienced, and I feel drained. At the end of it all, though, I am utterly rejuvenated beyond words.

I can see there is a journey coming...the figurative kind. I can sense my life is about to take me to a new place even if I can't see the path yet. I am where I had set out to arrive 12 years ago when I left home. I teach. I travel. I know what home is and what it isn't.

I am also where I did not imagine. I am surrounded by artists and musicians. I am surrounded by people who give back. I am surrounded by good food, good music, many languages and nationalities, and just simply, by good people.

Surprising to me is how I have become a participant in what surrounds me, how I have been absorbed into a community of creativity and imagination explored daily in conversation, in cooking, in hanging out and being, in playing, in swimming in the freezing Pacific Ocean, in being silent on the beach, in making art to be taken down the next day

I don't know where the path leads, and (not but) I am happy.

There is no such thing as a passive witness.

Half past beach o'clock.

2006-09-21T23:38:00.000-07:00

When it's time for me to have some beach time, my body can tell.

And recently, I've been feeling something unsettled in me. Today, I finally named it. It's time. It's been time, beach o'clock, for a while now. I have been needing to touch a body of water, taste the salt. And I just identified this need today, while I was writing to Caleb.

Then, I realized something else. It's Rosh Hashanah tonight. The Jewish New Year. No one said "Shana Tova"; no one said anything until I got an "e-card" from my family from Turkey and Israel.

***

"On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, after the afternoon services, Jews visit a body of water or pond, containing live fish*, to symbolically "cast away" their sins into the river.

*The fish's dependence on water symbolizes the Jews dependence on G-d, as a fish's eyes never close, G-d's watchful eyes never cease."

***
I am a cultural Jew. I don't practice every custom, only the ones I grew up with in Turkey. And we didn't grow up visiting a body of water on Rosh Hashanah. But somehow, my body knows its religion, it seems.

Maybe I'm making this up. I can't explain it. Science can't explain it either, but there IS something there:

***

"An average adult body is 50 to 65 percent water -- that's roughly 45 quarts.

Water content differs throughout the body. Blood is made up of 83 percent water, bones are 22 percent water, and muscle is 75 percent water."

***

Either way, I find this epiphany about my/my body's need to be by the water beautiful.

Sunday. Beach.

I'll bring in the new year right.

Q: What is the dilemma that drives the action of your life's plot?

2006-07-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have been quiet this summer, and less spontaneous than I would like to be.

Having class every single day, sometimes at 9 am (and being in the only class that meets everyday) has a great deal to do with my lack of venturesomeness in Oxford. Once again, I confirm silently to myself that I travel best when I am on my own. Add other people into the scenery, and I get distracted. I forget about how I would go about exploring a city left to my own devices and go along with others' plans. In the end, I notice something missing. A sense of adventure, curiosity, the unexpected. When I hang out with others, the unexpected encounters, the haiku moments, the impromptu conversations I refer back to wistfully sometime in the future seem to be so rare.

Sure, there is time enough to hang out at the pub up the street, but if that's what we do every time we go out, I just might want to stay in, read for a while, and go to sleep early for once. And yes, when I stay in, sometimes I will end up missing out on future plans. Today, I found myself wishing that I had gone out last night so I could have known about the morning punting excursion that followed the pub outing. The wish lasts for a second or two, no more. I am well rested, the river and the little boats are there still, and they will be there until I leave this city.

The primary dilemma of my life, I thought, was deciding between familiarity and adventure. Now, I realize that this dilemma is merely a manifestation of a larger one: seeking happiness alone, independently, in many transient interactions and in moments that are beautiful because they are passing moments, OR in developing relationships with people and places that become familiar and comfortable in time. Disequilibrium or comfort?

Outside, a kid is crying. The mother yells all of a sudden: "SHUT. UP. Just shut up!" Some city soundscapes are comforting; some are pollution.

I miss swimming.

tk

Why I didn't go to the World Cup: adventures in Bureaucracyland.

2006-07-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

Part I.

I had a ticket to see a World Cup home game for Germany.
I didn't go.
Some people I have told think I must be crazy.
No. Just trying to sustain my patience in a long-term-relationship with bureaucracy.

In April, during the 10-day spring break I had, I flew all the way to Turkey to renew my American visa. I now have to do this once a year. Fun.

Back in the US with a valid visa, in May, I applied for and just in time received my UK visa so I could attend my graduate school program in Oxford.

Once I had that, I had to then get an EU visa so I could go to the World Cup Games with my friends and travel around in EU after the grad school program is over. I looked at the list of requirements for a visa, and I just didn't have it in me anymore to deal once again with gathering bank statements, letters from my employer and my grad school, a statement from my health insurance company...I had no joy left in me about traveling, and when that joy is gone, what's the point?

Part II.
At the passport check point in the UK, the man who looked over my paperwork asked if I knew about the whole registering at the police station thing. I didn't; it was written across my visa, apparently, but having gotten so many visas over the years, I just don't read them as literature anymore. It says: "No recourse to public funds - Work (and any changes) must be authorised. Police Registration within 7 days of Arrival." The kind man told me that I would have to go to a police station because citizens from certain countries have to, within a week, and Turkey is one of those countries. "Of course it is," I said. He smiled and asked me how long I would be staying. Six weeks. Well, he said, since you will be studying and only staying for a short time, I will leave that up to your discretion. That is all I can say. -- In other words, he meant, You won't get into trouble and no one will know if you do not register. I thanked him, and went on my way.

I thought about whether or not to register for a while; then, I decided I should do it (but after at least 9 days, just because) for the experience and to add to my many bureaucracy stories. I have also been working on a painting that is "fertilized" with documents about immigration, visas, etc. in its background, so I thought it would be nice to have a UK document to add to the painting's texture.

My friend Kim volunteered to join me for "moral support, just in case." She in fact suggested that I dress up in a cocktail dress for the occasion. I'm glad we didn't go that far. We tried to make it a fun occasion and get a story out of it.

Here's the story.

We walked in and picked a number: E85. When it was my turn, I pulled out my passport and told the kind man I apparently had to register because I am Turkish. I asked him (because people have been asking me) what the actual reason for this registration was since I am already in the system after the passport checkpoint. He said something very very vague about our countries' not having a mutual agreement. About what, I asked, but he gave me another vague answer about how the government relies on the local police to keep track of immigrants since it doesn't do a good job on a national level for one reason or another. He tells me I need to fill out a form, and I get very excited. This is exactly what I wanted. But wait, he tells me, you have to pay £34 with this form, submit a passport photo as well as a letter from the graduate school you are attending.

I can't even describe the feeling that overcomes me at that point. I think crestfallen fits pretty well. I feel stupid for trying to do the "right" thing and registering. I feel silly for thinking this could possibly be a light and fun excursion to share with a friend. I turn to Kim, who has been witnessing the entire episode, and tell her that this is the story I came for. I am angry and frustrated and trying to hold back the tears. This episode is emblematic of my experience in the past 12 or so years -- being excited about traveling, having stories to tell, and then having that excitement be crushed by nonsensical paper work, ridiculous amounts of money, and stress.

I ask the guy "so I have to pay £34 for being honest when the passport control guy pretty much suggested I not bother?" and I ask if he can pretend he never saw me; I ask what would happen if I took the form and never came back. He says there is always a chance that the station would get its shit together and realize I have yet to register, then come "knocking on [my] school's door" three weeks from now, and it would be likely that I would then be asked to leave the country. I won't know if you came back or not, he says. "I can't say any more than that," he adds, like the passport control guy.

Both men sympathize and try to do their jobs at the same time.

Kim and I walk back, and I decide not to register. Sometimes, I need to do what I think is the right thing.

Let's see what happens.

INS

2006-02-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

INS

Main Entry: INS

Function: abbreviation

1. Immigration and Naturalization Service; 2. inertial navigation system

Well, THAT explains it: INS has really molded itself to suit both definitions; now it is truly "Inertial Naturalization Service." Let me count the seconds until I get deported for this...

Non-American Myspace ends with catty hypocrisy

2006-02-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

If I cared enough, I would come up with an artsier and less American (and less white, but that's a whoooole other topic) version of Myspace.

Reframing no.1: it is somewhat American to describe who you are through movies. I won't lie and say I haven't enjoyed quoting the same lines from certain movies repeatedly (Life Aquatic comes to mind here) -- that would be me assimilating. Growing up, I never watched the same movie twice. I didn't own movies I had already seen. Repeated viewing of a favorite movie was a habit I learned in the US (the paragon of all: Princess Bride taught me everything I needed to know about Americans' relationship with movies). Let's just say, there was zero chance for a Turk to come up with Netflix.

So now I have to wonder, of course, what a non-Americanized Turkish version of Myspace would ask for instead. Favorite soccer team, for sure. Favorite food. (Favorite music would only generate Americanized answers, of course.) Favorite Nasrettin Hoca joke, perhaps?

Reframing no.2: Favorite books. As an English teacher especially, I appreciate the assumption that everyone reads somewhat regularly. But let me limit what I wonder about and work with that assumption for a second. Why only favorite movies, music, and books? Why no room for favorite artists/artwork? If you want to know me and you believe you can know me through some pages on the internet, fine; go look up Carrie Mae Weems' work and Nikki S. Lee's Projects and ask me some questions about them. If you want to know me, go look at a world map, Google "birthplace of Homer," Google "capital of Turkey," Google "Ladino," Google whatever it takes for you to ask me more informed questions so we can have a conversation rather than a one-sided imparting of encyclopedic knowledge.

Meow.

Fine. I just finished watching "24," and if not my identity, I do define my Mondays through my favorite television show. Bite me.

I miss Bruno's!!!

2006-02-08T02:20:00.000-08:00

I took myself out tonight to see Marcus Shelby et al ("et al" including the fantastic Olmos and Marcus). Hanging out chatting with one of the musicians after the show, I realized how much I miss Bruno's, which was my version of Cheers. I'd walk in and hear my name called by three different people (think "Noooorm!"). I could be sitting around doing nothing at home on a Monday night, and I'd walk over to Bruno's to hang out with the bartenders and see the jam session, hang out with Shelby in between sets so we could give each other shit, and any Tuesday was a good night thanks to the Jazz Mafia folks.

Get your shit together already, Bruno's...I miss live jazz I can afford.

Moving

2006-02-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

I measured over seven years in psycho housemate drama (the 5-pairs-of-cops-in-5-years party was a good time), shenanigans that featured yours truly as Anais Nin, broken dishes, broken hearts, fulfilled hearts, secrets that shall remain secrets in my wine-dark room, whale sounds coming from a trumpet slowly starting to sound like a jazz tune, Nintendo until 3 am (mixed with a housemate having sex in the next room), Buffy marathons, rewinding, replaying, rewinding, replaying that one scene from Evil Pink (what? girls watch porn?!??), obsolete chore lists, spills on carpets, wooden beams on the ceilings, trips out the fire escape to the roof to have World Sausage & sunbathe when it was those three days of summer, spontaneous wine and cheese parties with the housemates, the brilliant line "Does anyone know a generous squid?" in response to an empty ink cartridge, many a night of standing in front of a fridge with barely any room and wondering aloud, "What shall I eat?", subletters gone awry, housemates grown friends, friends grown home, a home full of laughter (and forgetting, and nerdiness like this literary allusion)...

I think of all that my red walls have absorbed, and my eyes get ready to cry while my lips start stretching to smile...So I just sit here with this expression that must look nowhere nearly as graceful as La Gioconda's visage in its ambivalence, and notice my chest hurts the same way it does when I leave Turkey after each visit.

Note to self:

2006-01-29T07:54:00.000-08:00

This was a fantastic night/morning (it is 3:06 am).

When you volunteer to spend all day at a workshop on diversity and multiculturalism on a Saturday again, make sure you once again make up for the lost you-time by having a tiny wine-and-cheese-and-Nintendo gathering (I guess it won't be spontaneous as it was tonight if I am planning it now), and stay up until the weeeee hours -- as long as it takes until you have done not-work longer than you have done work.
(It did say "note to self" above; what did you expect?)

Doing my thing...

2006-01-23T06:46:00.000-08:00

I like to do my own thing. I have several "things" and at my best, I do my thing regardless of what others are doing. I like traveling, going to the movies, seeing jazz shows by myself. I like laughing my ass off at a comedy show by myself. Sometimes, I prefer doing these things alone because I truly like the unrestrained me. At a jazz show, being without someone interrupting with, "I'm going to the bar, do you want anything?" feels much more authentic. And while I love sharing laughter with people I love, I don't mind seeing comedy alone because then I don't need to wonder why the person sitting next to me is not laughing at an immensely clever joke (or worse, wonder how come the friend sitting next to me did laugh at a horribly offensive "joke"). I like bumming around in a country I have never been to alone because I blend in more easily than others (it's my ambiguously ethnic look and my ability to fake fluency in a foreign language until I run out of useful vocabulary), and I have an inherent sense of when to be spontaneous and adventurous and when to be safe.

I want more friends who know when to let me go and when to reclaim me -- people who go out and do their own thing, who sometimes invite me along, and sometimes explain without an apology that they're doing something alone or with another group of friends. I want more friends who know to call occasionally out of the blue just 'cause... I guess that's one reason I am on here, one reason I write to strangers persistently, one reason I thought it more productive to write all this down than grade another essay or two...

People who can let a woman do her thing are people worth knowing. People who can go and do their own thing unapologetically as well are people worth knowing even more.

Avuncular Guidance

2006-01-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

I know the difference between a house and a home. I do not have the former, but I have several of the latter. Having multiple homes means that sometimes, I feel homeless; ultimately, I experience this feeling as an advantage. Not belonging in any one place has made me believe I can belong anywhere. Different Me's appear in different places, and I am slightly different in each language I speak. My wit is sharpest in English, my diction makes me strangely vulnerable in Turkish. Or is it the other way around? In Spanish, I am the badass who sits next to the cab driver and chats the whole way as though the fifty-something-year-old man sitting a gear shift away from my were my peer (and as though I were fluent in Spanish).

And when I cannot make sense of my own experience, I read some James Baldwin. Put into his words, inherent complexities seem manageable; I feel so lucky to have him in my life, like a distant uncle, maybe I cry.

"How was your day?"

2006-01-20T15:51:00.000-08:00

[KRB] on Friday, January 20, 2006 at 2:28 PM -0800 wrote:

Dear [Pelagic],

How was your day?

Love,

[KR]

I JUST sent my last interim report in.

Today felt good despite the interims craziness.

We had our MLK Day assembly today -- my favorite meeting of the entire school year. Of course, I cried. I need to process everything, and I am not sure I want to right now. I need to look into how come I cried so much this year -- was it really that much about the content of people's narratives, or was it more about where I am right now? I know it's both. There is so much pain in these stories people share 40 years after MLK's speeches. I know there is progress, but there are a lot of steps backwards, too. One of the speakers today, my friend Tommy, who is the Project Coordinator, did a spoken word piece he just wrote in response to last night's decision to shut down some public schools. His elementary school, where he stood in front of his whole community 16 years ago in a play and acted the part of MLK, which, incidentally, was the first time he started making the conscious commitment to doing the work that we do now around fighting for social justice, was one of the schools that got "cut." With it and several others have gone the public education in the neighborhood (in Western Addition, "Fillmo'") where Tommy grew up.

These meetings give me hope and make me feel a sense of pessimism at the same time. They make me feel proud and ashamed at once.

Then, I go into class and talk about Othello and his multiple identities in Venetian society, how he kills himself like a soldier defending a Venetian against "a malignant and turbaned Turk," and all sorts of things come up for me emotionally. I try to get the students to realize the complexity of Othello without spelling things out for them, and it's a vulnerable place to be. Painful and fulfilling at the same time.

In "The Theater of Ideas," we talk about what it takes to connect with another human by talking about a character who achieves (?) it through an act of violence.

It's a good day. Intense topics, exhausting, draining, but at least meaningful. At least I have not been sitting in a cubicle. At least at the end of the day, I get an e-mail from a graduate asking me how my day was, and I write this.

tk
_________________________

The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.
:: James Baldwin ::

WIN!

2006-01-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

I have already won: a movie ticket, two $10 iTunes certificates, and a $25 Visa gift card.

This is just to say

2005-12-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

It's so hard to be a teacher sometimes when students forget you're a person and hurt you deeeeeep and you have to show up the next day and then the day after that until they graduate and keep caring about each of them and support their learning as if nothing happened.

That's all.