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!
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?
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.
My friend Cagla sent me a Christmas card today. I was joking with Jake that I am holding a Christmas card from a Muslim to a Jew. I added that if I weren’t living in America, I would have never even noticed that.
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.
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.
I know it’s been ages. I’ve been trying to find ways to make it easier for me to update the site without it beomcing an ordeal that I simply put off. I honestly seem to be running short of time more often than not and I still want to be able to update and keep track of my life because I like having this record. So I am going to try a few different models in the next few weeks and we’ll see if any of them stick.
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.
I feel like most of the up and downs of my life come out of the dichotomies that I create. I talk myself into one thing and then I feel horrible about it so I do ahead and do the opposite and then feel terrible about that. I would like to be thinner and fit into such clothing but every time I go on a diet, I think about how life is short and why the fuck shouldn’t I be able to eat whatever I want. Then I get frustrated and hate life when I can’t buy the clothes I want because I ate that stupid piece of chocolate.
I want to be able to book more photo sessions and have a lot of clients but then I get sad that I am so booked that I don’t have time to do other things I love like read and relax. I want to sign up David for some of the mom and baby courses so he gets to interact with other children but then each time we go to one of those things, he cries all the way there and all the way home. Sometimes he even acts grouchy there. So then I wonder should I have stayed home with him afterall. I want to sleep more but I feel like I am wasting time. I want my work environment to be more intellectually stimulating sometimes but then I don’t want to sacrifice the other parts of my life like time with David. I want to keep writing this site every single day. I think about it constantly. I want to keep up on my email and take the time to keep in touch with my friends. But I don’t want to give up any of the other things that take up all my life and time.
I am constantly plagued by thoughts of one of these struggles. The even more frustrating part is that I am never happy with the option I choose because each time, while I execute the one I picked, I am thinking of the other one, the consequences of the one I picked. The pants I won’t be able to wear because of the chocolate I am eating, the chocolate I don’t get to eat because I want to fit in the pants. The life I don’t get to have, the life I long for. It’s just that I partly always feel like I am missing out. Like I am cheating a part of me.
Not exactly sure how to get out of the loop. I guess the idea is to pick one and just be content with it. But I honestly don’t know how.
If I were superstitious, I’d say I must shut down my site. Since I began rewriting, I threw out my back, I got swamped with work, David got a stuffy nose, I got a sinus infection, I got a fever, David lost his voice, and David got an ear infection. All in a month’s work.
One of the reasons, among many many, that I wanted to nurse is because it’s known that babies who are nursed get sick less often. David made it to eight months without any sickness at all. And then he got a stuffy nose. Everyone told me it was teeth. Well, two weeks passed, and still stuffy nose, still drooling, but no teeth. Then he woke up with no voice. When he cried, all we could hear were tiny squeals. That was so sad, but not even nearly as sad as the small, tiny laughs that came out without a sound.
We went to the doctor a week into the stuffy nose but there was nothing else wrong. So, after a week, when he lost his voice, I wanted to take him back to the doctor and Jake thought I was insane. But I dragged him anyway. Which is when I found out David had an ear infection. And the doctor said it wouldn’t have gone away on its own and I was wise to bring him in now while it’s still mild. Yey for maternal instinct.
Being sick and having a sick baby means everything else goes to shits. Nothing gets done. Mommy feels sorry for herself and she feels sorry for her little boy who’s getting sick for the first time. So now that we’re both feeling better, I’ve been trying to play catchup. I have six shoots in the next six weeks. My parents are coming to town next week for three weeks. I just deleted 4893 spam emails from my work account. I have fifty-seven personal emails to respond to and not the kind that take one or two minutes. The kind where you want to take the time and write a long response to and thus you keep putting off. I have to clean up my house and get it ready for my parents’ arrival. Not to mention, I might have to move in two months and thus look for a new place to live, pack up all of our crap and move and unpack all the crap. Just thinking about it all makes me want to burst into tears.
So that’s my excuse for “coming back” and then disappearing almost right away. How did I do?
I have noticed over the years that whenever I’m in a repeating group setup (like committee meetings, mom’s groups, class, etc.) there are one or two people who immediately stick out to me. These few people give me the vibe that they dislike me. Right away, I feel uneasy around them and go home wondering why they dislike me so much.
Over the years, I’ve often felt self-conscious and sad that people don’t like me. I’ve also noticed a pattern I go through when dealing with them. I first try to be really nice (“suck up”) and see if I can change whatever it is that’s making them unhappy with me. After a few weeks of this, somewhere along the line, I decide I don’t like them either. My dislike then grows stronger and stronger until I can’t stand the person any longer.
Doesn’t that sound fucked up to you? It does to me.
On Sunday, while reading Paolo Coelho’s new novel, I realized something. My current theory is that I’m projecting. When I meet these people for the first time, there’s something about me that I dislike that I see in them. Something about them reminds me of myself and I pick up on it without knowing it.
All those weeks I spend sucking up to them, I am really looking for reasons to blame them for not living up to my expectations of liking me. And then the whole thing, as expected, falls apart and now I hate them. When all along I set the whole thing up without realizing it. I don’t know if this is true but it’s my current theory. So next time I get this feeling, I am going to work hard to pinpoint where it’s coming from.
Or it could just be that they really don’t like me and I am not projecting or being paranoid.
“Blessed are those who are not afraid to admit that they don’t know something.” – The Zahir by Paolo Coelho
One of my biggest pet-peeves is when people don’t admit if they don’t know something. I had a friend like that. There were times when it was obvious he wasn’t following me and yet he’d simply nod and act like he was completely following me.
I find this to be true for both men and women, but for different reasons. Men are too macho and it’s not “macho” to admit that you may not know something. Women are too scared to look stupid, expecially when they talk to someone who isn’t. It drives me absolutely bonkers in both cases. Fact is, won’t you stay stupid if you never admit you don’t know something and thus never ask and never learn?
Somehow I misses the memo that said it was embarrassing to ask questions. I ask shit all the time to everyone. First of all, I find people like talking about stuff they know. Secondly, they love when they have the opportunity to teach you something. It makes them look good. So there’s an opportunity for you to learn something AND to make the other person feel good.
Why, exactly, would you pass that up?
Also, why does not knowing something make you look stupid? None of us know everything and we could all learn from each other if only we weren’t afraid to ask.
So, next time you have the opportunity to learn from someone. Seize it.
And then let me know,too, so I can learn!
I know it’s lame to stop writing a few days after “I’m back” from a break. But it seems things conspired to get in the way. First, my in-laws came to visit for the first time in seven months. This meant we were out all day and not on the computer when we were home. It also meant that Jake and I went on our first dates since David was born. It was weird being out alone. It felt like we were sneaking. I did miss David a lot even though we were only gone for about 2 hours and it was while David was sleeping. I just kept thinking of him and his smile and his breathing.
The night after my in-laws left, David began his weird waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night thing which is still going on. But just to add more fun to the adventure, I threw out my back for the first time since we came to San Diego. The whole time I was pregnant, I was worried about my back suddenly starting to hurt again. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hold David as a baby and burp him. I was worried I’d be stuck in bed while everyone else held him and hugged him. Well none of that happened. I was perfectly, completely, totally fine. No real back-ache to speak of.
A week ago, something felt funny as I bent down and since then I haven’t been able to stand up without excruciating pain. Last time this happened, I was on Vioxx for almost two years and I did a lot of physical therapy and acupuncture for it to get better. Well, now Vioxx is off the market, I am nursing and I can’t take any medication. Except for Tylanol which I only let myself take twice a day since I don’t want to medicate David. Without the medicine to take off the edge of the pain, life’s been a ton of fun. Hence sitting at the computer hasn’t been one of my favorite activities lately.
Hence the no updates. Forgive me yet?
I am hoping that my stupid back will miraculously heal itself since I am determined not to take any pills and have a long long way to go before I am ready to stop nursing (think months in teens not in single digits) so cross your fingers for me and hope that the pain goes away as mysteriously and quickly as it came.
The good side of the pain has been that I’ve been in bed more and thus reading more. And my mother in law bought me six new books for my past birthday. I just finished _Running with Scissors_ which, while nothing compared to _A Million Little Pieces_, was still a very engrossing read. I am now reading the new Paolo Coelho book. He’s always an interesting and worthwhile read for me. As always, open for any and all recommendations.
Monday was my birthday.
It seems there are those who make a big deal of their birthday and those who prefer to completely ignore it. I have always belonged to the former category. I come from a family which makes big deals out of birthdays and I subscribe to the idea. It’s not really because birthdays themselves are all that special. To me, it’s just an excuse to stop and appreciate that person.
Sure we should treat each other like we’re special every day, but fact is life gets in the way. Most days are ordinary and we do our thing and try to treat others with kindness (unless we’re grouchy) but the day passes on and we sit in front of our computers, read our books, watch TV and do all the other things we do to spend time. I don’t know many people who regularly take the time to acknowledge the people in their lives. Most people don’t even work too hard to keep up with their friends. So that’s the point of birthdays, for me.
It’s an excuse to remind someone how much they mean to you. A reason to stop and think of them and dedicate a few or a lot of your time that particular day to them. So even if all the other days come and go, you know that on that day you’ll feel special and talk to all the people you love and take a moment.
For those of you who whine about getting older, I’d hate to break the news to you but you get older every single day. Nothing magical happens on the eve of your birthday to make you older. So stop being whiny on the morning of your birthday about that. Life isn’t about your age, it’s about how you’ve used your days. There are people who live empty lives for 80 years and those who live full ones for only 30. Which would you rather have?
This year was particularly peaceful for me. I woke up feeling exceptionally happy for no reason. David woke up to eat at 3am but then went back down until 6:30. I worked, I prepared for my shoot on Tuesday, I cooked and pureed David’s food. We played and talked and my family called and my friends called and my friends emailed and it was wonderful. Jake bought me presents. We went to eat an early dinner with good food and delicious dessert. It was very ordinary and very magical all in one. I realized on Monday that I am truly happy. I cannot remember feeling this peaceful in years. If ever.
It really was a perfect birthday and thank you for all the good wishes. 31 is looking fantastic so far.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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