One of the comments Jake’s brother made at our wedding was about Jake’s tendency to obsess about things. He mentioned how he had a thing for remote control cars. And then he had a thing for something else and he’d obsess about that endlessly. We all laughed at the time, mostly because it was so true. Jake does obsess about things and delve into them wholeheartedly. So much so that it’s as if nothing else exists. He gets to be a complete expert on that particular thing. And then he moves on to the next. Cars, comic books, computers. While this is definitely true about Jake, I’ve been noticing that it’s slightly true about me, too.
I spent five years trying to write novels and short stories. I studied Japanese non-stop for six months and then continued regularly for two more years. I learned to knit and knit anything I could get my hands on. I picked up wire jewelry and made earrings I never wore. I picked up photography and that particular obsession took me all the way to starting a small business. I have always been more breadth oriented than depth, but I still find myself obsessing about things. I find that the initial excitement of learning something new is so intoxicating that I momentarily become unable to think about anything else.
This is also true when I meet new people. I want to know all about them. Their life, their thoughts, their preferences, their ideas of right and wrong. I can talk to them nonstop for several weeks before the newness wears out and I prefer to come up for some air.
I am wondering whether this is a trait particular to people like Jake and me or does everyone experience it to a certain extent. Are we crazy obsessive people or is it just human nature? Does your brain actually secrete something different when you have a new experience or learn something different?
I hope so, cause that way makes me sounds a lot less crazy.
I often miss my college days. There are many reasons for that. Like the lack of major responsibility or the fun of taking classes I really enjoy and being surrounded by intelligent people who have a lot of free time to discuss and relax. But one of my favorite things about college, particularly the one I went to, was the people.
Even with my foreigner naivete, I had some fantastic friends in college. People I really respected and loved. People I looked up to. People who inspired me. People who made me laugh for hours. Some of them, I have been able to keep in touch with. With others, I have sadly lost connection. Every few years, something strikes me and I go searching for my old friends. Sometimes my emails are met with pleasant surprise and sometimes they think I am a freak who needs to move on.
Regardless, one of the hardest things in my life after college has been meeting interesting people and forging solid friendships. Especially now that I have a family and a busy life, it’s almost impossible to have long conversations with people. Long conversations are what I need to bond with people. I miss having that kind of time. I miss talking until the wee hours of the morning. I miss getting to the core of people and having strong friends who are honest and stimulating.
I don’t know how adults make friends like that. If you know, please tell me.
I’ve been putting off posting because I am struggling with what resolutions to create for 2006. Normally, I pick the typical stuff like losing weight, quitting Diet Coke, eating better, exercising more, writing more, reading more, etc. Last year, I knew better than to assume I would have any control on how my year was going to go and I am still quite confident that next year is also going to be as unpredictable and “not under my control” as this year. However, for the sake of having some goals, I’d like to set some resolutions anyway. These are a bit more atypical but quite important.
My main goal for this year is to be more patient and pleasant. I want to be kinder and more about others. I want to listen more closely. Most importantly I want to remember that my “list of things to do” is often crap. It’s stuff that doesn’t matter and such I shouldn’t stress about completing it over being with my family or keeping in touch with friends. I find that I often prefer to stay at home and do my list of items over hanging out with friends or taking a walk with David.
Like other “busy” people, I have a hard time keeping up with my emails and staying in touch with my friends. I want that to change this year. Living here, I’ve learned the importance of good friends and I don’t want to lose touch with the people who mean the most to me just because I am posting on my site or scrapbooking David’s first year. These things are not worth falling out of touch with friends.
I want to work on judging myself less. It’s okay if I am not the best programmer, photographer, mother, wife, or the prettiest woman. Things that make me who I am are unique and they are perfectly fine. I know this sounds like a self-help section but I really have trouble keeping track of what matters sometimes. I often worry that I will be exposed for the fake that I am and will lose my job or the clients will ask for their money back. I didn’t study years of photography after all. I wasn’t a CS major at school, just a simple IS one. I get frustrated with my husband at times and I don’t play with my son enough. I need to lose weight. I have a huge nose and sunken eyes. These are all true. They are facts I try not to stress about but often dwell on at length. I want 2006 to be the beginning of the new me, who dwells less, appreciates more and takes action when possible and necessary.
I want to get influenced by others less often. Things that people say get to me. Someone’s off-hand remark may kill my already low self-image. Someone’s look can cause me to feel small. Even someone’s lack of words can have a negative effect on me. I am too affected by other people’s opinions of me. Or my skewed notion of their opinions of me. I take all the bad to heart and gloss over the good. I want 2006 to be the beginning of the me that realizes people are allowed to have their opinions but it doesn’t mean their opinions are worth more than mine, especially when they are about me. As a friend of mine told me years ago, it’s the person staring back at the mirror that counts the most. I know it sounds cheesy but, to me, it’s important to remember it, so I am writing it down.
Most importantly, I want to be more open, honest, caring, and patient. I want to look, listen, digest it all. I want to take fewer photos but with more meaning. I want to read fewer books but with more substance. Do fewer things but enjoy them more. Really live. So I can be calmer and wiser. I want to be a good example for my son.
I was much happier in 2005 than I’ve ever been in my life. I had really hard and terrible moments but deep inside, I feel happy and content on many levels. I know that was David’s present to me. And I want my present to him in 2006, to be a more grounded and confident mother.
Happy 2006 everyone, may all your dreams and wishes come true this year.
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!
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.
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-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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