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REFLECTING ON 2005 I figure the last day of the year is an appropriate time to look back and reflect. And we can save the resolutions for the first day of the year. Here's to a year of not drinking Diet Coke. That, in itself, is a huge accomplishment for me. Just wanted to make sure that didn't go unacknowledged. This year, like a few before, brought many changes for me and my little family. The most substantial being the uneventful and quick birth of our little son. David has brought nothing but joy into our lives. Last year, I wrote that I couldn't remember life before being pregnant. This year, I feel the same way about being a mother. I can't remember what my life was like before I had a little boy to worry about. To be honest, there are moments when I miss the quiet solitude that I imagine my life to have been before we became a family of three. However those moments are always overshadowed by David's laughter and beautiful face. Our tiny family of two became a little family of three in 2005 and that will be with us for the rest of our lives. May each of our children turn out as sweet and joyful as David. So February brought home our little one. March and April passed like a blur as I figured out how to get David to nurse properly and how to balance my job and my new life. Spring brought new friends thanks to a mom's group. My first group of friends in San Diego. David didn't really like to sleep so we took a lot of walks and read. Jake started preparing the paperwork to finally open his fund. He talked to lawyers, auditors, accountants. The second set of big changes came in August as Jake formally opened his doors and I decided to start a small business of my own. This meant much more driving for me and I was lucky that the small venture prospered very quickly. David grew up and became even more fun to be around. We all worked and worked some more. He finally figured out how to sleep through the night and forgot about it all over again when the teeth started peeking out. He looked like he was never going to crawl and just when we thought he'd walk instead, he tricked us and started crawling overnight. As the year came to a close, Jake and I finally fell into a groove and we have figured out how to achieve some sort of balance with our new family setup. I don't know what 2006 is going to bring us but I imagine it won't be as substantial as 2005. Having a baby and starting two businesses is enough activity for several years if you ask me. All I want next year it for us to keep being healthy, for our businesses to be successful (especially Jake's) and for the year to bring a lot of laughter. So here's to a quiet, peaceful, healthy, happy, and prosperous 2006!  YEAR OF DISAPPOINTING BOOKS While I didn't acheive my goal of reading fifty books this year, I have managed to read 46 and, my, what a disappointment they've been. Out of the 46, maybe three are what I would call expectionally good reading. The list contains The Kite Runner, My Friend Leonard, and How We are Hungry. The Kite Runner was simply an exceptional read. A book I would normally wouldn't have even considered buying. My mother in law told me it was great and bought it for me for my birthday. The same week, I heard about it from six other people ranomly and decided it was a sign. When I finally sat down to read it, I finished it it in two days. I couldn't put it down. The boys' lives had me constantly thinking about the book. While some parts were unrealistically optimistic, the book overall is pretty depressing and eye-opening. However, the best part is how universal the story is and how much one can relate to the grief and regret. The beautifully flowing and engrossing writing doesn't hurt either. My Friend Leonard was another fantastic book by Daniel Frey who wrote A Million Little Pieces, one of the best reads of 2004. What's amazing about this book is that most of the time, sequals are not interesting. I used to love Chuck Palahniuk but after three of the same , his books started to get old and the style was more annoying than interesting. Not so with Frey. The raw, short, and honest style of this author is fantastic and the story is amazing in the true sense of the word. And finally Dave Eggers. I've been a fan of Eggers for many many years abut I'll admit that I always thought his fiction wasn't that great. I loved the Staggering Genius but not so much the Velocity. So when the New York Times said this short story collection was good, I was skeptical. But since it is Eggers, I bought the book anyhow. I'm not a short story fan in general. I am not sure exactly why but I can't ever seem to get into them and always feel shortchanged by the end. So imagine my surprise when I loved this book. And I mean, loved it! I really enjoyed each story and found them unique and I couldn't even tell you what it as about these stories that reached out to me but I did love the book. What's sad is that those are the only three that somehow stand out. There are a bunch (like the shopaholic stuff) that I expected to be stupid. A bunch that were so so like the Didion book and the Coelho one. Ones that I wished would be better like the Hornby one and Melissa Banks and John Irving - each authors I truly cherish and love the work of. A few non-fcition ones that were interesting like the Armstrong books and Graham - of course- and Blink. I did enjoy the Curious Incident... quite a bit actually. And Saturday was much better than I expected. But none were amazing. And then there are those that I was really saddened by. The amazing Michael Cunningham who wrote The Hours did a sub-par job with Specimen Days. The author of the wonderful The Secret Life of Bees did a terrible job with The Mermaid Chair. Both of which made me want to cry. In this year when so many of my favorite authors came out with new books (Irving, Hornby, Banks, Cunningham, Coelho, Gladwell, Eggers, Frey) it's terribly sad that only three books really stood out. What books have you read in 2005 that spoke to you? DIDION I just finished The Year of Magical Thinking and enjoyed it but kept thinking that something was bothering me throughout the book. For some reason I seem to enjoy reading books about grief. Maybe because it feels so human and so raw. That's exactly what I felt was missing from Didion's book. Despitate the fact that I am sure she must have fallen apart miserably as both her husband and her daughter died so suddenly, I didn't feel any of the raw emotion I expected. The book still had a calm and collected air about it for me. It was wonderful reading and I swallowed it up in a day but I just dind't feel moved like I expected to. I'm sure it's incredibly difficult to put the raw emotion on paper but I guess I expected better from such a skilled writer. CHRISTMAS BITTERNESS  In my experience Christmas is considered a lovely holiday in Turkey. Back when I was dating my former boyfriend and he came home with me during Christmas, my friends couldn't understand why he wouldn't want to go to church to light candles. Despite the fact that a very tiny percentage of people in Turkey actually celebrate the birth of Christ, we all have Christmas trees. Or New Year's trees as we call them. We have Santa Claus. We buy, wrap and exchange presents. Instead of Christmas Day, we do it on New Year's Day. And either my family was not religious enough, or we were cheated out of the Chanukah tradition of exchanging gifts for multiple nights. For us that was only candles. Nothing more than that. I am often amazed when I see how bitter non-Christians are about Christmas. I am also amazed that people choose to do stupid things like get mad at a store that uses Happy Holidays over Merry Christmas. If you're really so religious then you should remember that this season is not about shopping at all! You should also remember that Jesus wouldn't have been so spiteful and petty. If you're not so religious and actually do more than just celebrate His birth, then why the fuck do you care what people call it? Just be merry and happy. 'Tis the season to give, not to bicker. Now back to the non-Christians. I must not be religious enough because the idea of celebrating Christmas doesn't bother me one bit. Maybe a ton of years ago, it was about Christianity and Christ but now it's all about Hallmark, shopping, and carols. Christmas is one big Hallmark card. It's time for family to get together and laugh, bicker and watch as the kids go crazy over the presents they got. Nothing more. If I were a truly religious Christian, I'd be very disappointed at the current state of Christmas and what it now has come to symbolize. So if you're a Jew or Muslim, why not do it the Turkish way? Get a New Year's tree, fill it with presents that you open on Christmas day. And remember, you get all those amazing Bar-Mitzva gifts that the Christians never do! All joking aside, I don't want David to grow up bitter and I want to stick to my roots a bit. So we will have a bit of everything. We will have New Year's trees. We will open one present Christmas eve, two presents Christmas day, and the rest on New Year's Day. We will also light the candles on the Menorah. I'm sure he'll find a reason to be bitter with that too. But at least this way it's all inclusive. NOT PAYING IT FORWARD I've been making an effort not to pass my weird culinary distastes to the little one. And I think I have been succeeding because in the last two weeks David's eaten cauliflower and brussel sprouts, neither of which I will go anywhere near. I work really hard not to make a face while I feed him and try to ignore what I consider to be a putrid smell. Mini Update  Last two months have been a blur to me. November was family month with my parents here for three weeks and Jake's parents here for Thanksgiving. David spent most of the month not sleeping through the night. And then he started sleeping for 12 hours and then he got sick and the teeth came out and we're back to square three. Thanks to the holiday season end of November and first three weeks of December were a photography craziness here. I am happy I started this business and I guess I wasn't mentally prepared for its taking off so quickly so all the work wore me down. I can't really complain though since it also meant I got to buy a new camera and a nice flash. An unexpected side benefit. I was telling Jake the other day that I never imagined myself as a business-owner. I always thought I'd work for someone else sotake contracts. I never imagined that within weeks, I'd create and run my own little thing and actually turn a profit. Life's been good to me. Hectic but good. |
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