When Jake and I bought tickets to go to West Palm Beach, Florida, I emailed the three people I’d love to meet.
The next day, on Aim, I asked Rony if he was sure he’d like to meet us.
He said, “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Sometimes people don’t like to meet web-people.”
“But I’m not just a web-person, I’m person-person, too,” he replied.
Which of course made me laugh.
I’ve met web-people before. By web-people, I mean people whom I first interacted with over the web. Each time I hung out with people whom I’d conversed on the net with, I worried that we might feel awkward when the opportunity for face-to-face interaction arose.
But I never did.
The fact is, as many impostors as there may be on the web, every person I ever met was more real than most people I call friends today. The web creates a barrier through which people feel comfortable releasing their true self. It takes the place of the mask we wear in our day-to-day interactions. This causes the conversation to be more real, deeper and accelerates the friendship process. By the time you meet the person, you already know so much about them that it’s nearly impossible not to get along.
But none of this prepared me for how easy it would be for Jake and I to hang out with Daphna and Rony. We met at 5pm on Saturday afternoon and chatted till after 10pm. Conversation flew like water, not even one single awkward silence in five hours.
   
We then coaxed six into meeting with us at 10pm on Sunday evening. Here’s a person whose name I didn’t even know until a few days ago, but whose life I’d followed for months. Someone who helped me do a lot of soul-searching. Another encounter that surpassed our already high expectations.
As if we hadn’t taken up enough of their weekend, Rony and Daphne met up with us once more on Monday to introduce us to the pleasures of Cuban cuisine. And it really wasn’t spicy! They were way too kind and generous. It was as if we’d met long ago.
The great thing is that, to me, Daphne, Rony and Six are no longer web people.
They are real and I have the pictures to prove it.
Previously? South Beach.
I don’t think I could ever live in Florida.
We drive down streets surrounded by palm trees. The sky is covered with soft, white clouds like dots on a Dalmatian. The buildings are a rainbow of pastels.
We leave the jacked-up air conditioning to be taken over by the humid heat. A block from our hotel, we can see locals walking on the beach, colorful bikinis showing much of their perfect bodies. People are suntanned. People are dancing on tables while they sip fruit drinks. They’re laughing, chatting, partying.
It all seems too good to be true.
I stare at my surroundings and mentally compare the environment to the one at home, in New York. New York is just as hot right now. But it has no palm trees. The buildings are much taller and they are brown, gray or mirrored. They tower over you and pierce the sky. People have no time to chitchat. They’re walking down the street in hurried steps while talking on the phone about an urgent matter.
Women wear stockings. Men are in suits and ties. Each person is carrying a nondescript briefcase and looking at their watches every three minutes. Most of them don’t acknowledge their surroundings. Who has the time to look around? They all have things to do, places to go.
No one notices the trees on Wall Street.
Life here seems so different. People are relaxed, they try to enjoy life. They don’t seem to spend their time running from meeting to meeting and even if they were, the streets and the weather make running so much more fun here. The entire place feels like a continual summer resort. How can anyone be miserable in this weather, in these surroundings?
I look at the beach again. I wonder what I was thinking when I turned down the job offer in Florida.
And then I realize that I could never live here. This feels too much like vacation. If I lived here where would I go for vacation? If these beaches were the norm for me, I’d be so spoiled. I’d probably end up taking it all for granted.
And then I’d have nothing to whine about.
Previously? Spontaneity.
Jake and I are not the most spontaneous people in the world.
I tend to enjoy mulling over issues for weeks before I come to a decision (even though the big decisions seem to invariably be decided during inspired whims). I spend hours considering the benefits and disadvantages of even buying a sweater.
I’ve always considered this to be a negative personality trait. Some small voice inside me insisted that as a teenager, and then as a twenty-some-year-old, I should be more creative and less logical. I should be able to act on a whim. I should do crazy things. I mean if I didn’t do them now when would I ever do them?
As with most of my recognized weaknesses, I tried to find ways to remedy the lacking by looking for opportunities to show that I could be spontaneous.
A few years ago, my company had a Valentine’s Day special where you could go to Paris for the Valentine’s Day weekend at a pretty low cost. This was my chance! I grabbed the phone and excitedly explained the plan to Jake. I told him how romantic it would be and how we would just pick up and go. And he brought me right back to earth. How would I get a visa so quickly? Did I really want to spend fourteen hours on a plane to be there for about the same amount of time? February wasn’t really the best time of year to visit France. And so on.
I felt deflated.
Even though I knew he was right, and that this wasn’t the best idea, I was mad at Jake for ruining my chance to be out-of-character. A few more opportunities rose in the last few years, but we turned them down pretty quickly.
Spontaneity simply wasn’t in our blood.
The last few weeks have been very taxing on both of us. Due to a change of arrangement at work, I found out that I’d get a five-day weekend this weekend and Jake wouldn’t be working on Monday and Tuesday for the first time in over a year. This time, we seized the opportunity. Last night at 11pm, we bought last-minute-deal tickets to Ft Lauderdale, Florida and made car rental reservations. Today, we booked a hotel. Tomorrow morning at 6am, we will be leaving for Florida.
Our first spontaneous trip.
We have no set plans. We didn’t book it months in advance. As of 10pm tonight, we haven’t even packed, yet. Our only mission is to have a great weekend. No matter what.
Maybe there’s room for change in us after all.
Previously? Anonymity.
My friend Manu talks about writing personal entries.
I’ve had my own battle about this subject matter.
I started writing this site about a year ago. For the first few months, I didn’t really know what to say and I spent too much time reading different logs and emulating their styles. I wavered back and forth between posting links and short vignettes and opinions, etc. I was very aware of my audience and the need to please them. And pleasing an invisible audience is a very difficult task.
I spent the first few months concentrating so much on how many hits I got and whether my visitors came back for more, that it didn’t occur to me to worry about divulging personal information. I remember telling a few coworkers about my page and feeling slightly weird about it for a little while.
And then everything went downhill from there. I went through a bout of utter discomfort about my content. I kept questioning every idea, pausing on every word and it got to a point where writing a post became more torture than fun. And what’s the point of doing this if it’s not gonna be fun?
I emailed some of the people whose sites I read, ones who published content that I considered very personal. I asked them how they managed to feel comfortable divulging so much about themselves and the people in their lives. I read their thoughts and I thought.
I thought for a long time.
Finally I came to the conclusion that it’s a lot of work to read my site daily. Or even once a week. I write long entries that require more than glance and a click. Most people would probably get bored before they hit the third line. So if anyone actually bothered to read my site religiously to find out my personal thoughts, opinions, feelings on things, they can be my guests. At that level of dedication, they deserve to know everything about me.
As someone intelligent once said, “If you stopped worrying about what people think of you, you’d notice how little time they spend thinking about you.”
So I made a few rules; I rarely mention names (since my friends might not share my opinions on not needing anonymity and they deserve their right to privacy), I don’t say anything that I would mind someone repeating back to me, I don’t post issues that I am extremely touchy on or news that I’m not ready to tell the world, yet. I also choose the people I tell about my site. I don’t explicitly tell any family member, work mate, or really close friend about it.
That’s about it.
If people track me down using a search engine and find the site on their own, than they’re welcome to read all about me. So far, this system has worked wonderfully for me. I write what I want and I really haven’t gotten email or comments about anyone that made me anything short of proud of what I write.
I think the call on how much you divulge is totally yours. If you don’t want to get personal, don’t. But if you do and feel constrained by an invisible audience maybe you should rethink.
After all, like your life, you should be the one who has control over the contents of your site.
Previously? Meanie.
I’m not mean.
I’m sure most people would say that’s a cocky thing to say about myself. After all people aren’t allowed to make self-personality assessments unless it’s deprecating. Who am I to judge my own self? No one would really say they’re mean, would they now? So obviously I shouldn’t be allowed to defend myself on this subject matter.
Maybe in the past, I would have agreed with the above opinion. I might have said that other people’s opinions of me are what matter as you are who people think you are.
Wanna know how I feel now?
I don’t give a flying fuck.
Recently I’ve been told that I’m mean. It was a patronizing conversation. One that involved the words “I would never want to be a person like you. You’re so mean.” This wasn’t a close friend. It wasn’t even someone who can claim to know me well. However, it was a person with whom I deal with daily and it completely broke my heart.
My feelings for this person aside, the fact that he felt comfortable calling me mean angered me. Mostly cause it injured my feelings. If I were truly mean, surely his words wouldn’t have affected me, would they? For the next few weeks, I gave him several chances to retract his statements, but he never did.
And I kept caring and I kept feeling bad and I kept apologizing to him in different ways. I figured if he thought I was mean, I must be a bad person, and I kept trying to overcompensate. I bent low and lower. I tried to talk to him many times. And it went nowhere.
Well, that’s not exactly true.
It got to a point where I started having a low opinion of myself. I started believing that I was mean. I got frustrated and unhappy and actually became meaner. Which, of course, made matters even worse.
Today I got so fed up and so miserable that I hit my lowest point. And you know what’s great about being there? It can’t get any worse.
So I took a good look at myself, decided that this guy was full of shit, and started believing in myself again. I know who I am and I know who I am not. I know my weaknesses and I’m open to suggestions on how to fix them, but when it comes to abuse, I’m not your gal.
Not anymore.
Previously? New New Thing.
I’ve always had bad luck with crushes.
At 11, I had a crush on one of the guys in my group. I guess over here, it would be called my “circle”. Anyhow this guy was two years older than I and we were friends. He was always nice to me but never in the way I actually wanted him to be. I never really knew whether he was aware of my crush or not.
Until one summer day, we were chatting in the disco at the club in Burgaz. (the island where we live in the summer) He asks me who my crush is.
I, very coyly, say, “I’m not telling you.”
“Well is he in our group?” he hollers over the music.
“Yep.” I say softly, snuggling closer so he can hear me. Any excuse to be physically close to him.
“Is he my age or older?”
“Yep.”
He smirks. “I’m the only guy in our group who fits in that category.”
DOH!
Talk about stupid. Amazingly, even after my totally moronic give away we never dated. A few years later, I got the impression that he might have been interested in me, but it was way too late.
At fifteen, I moved on to concentrate all my efforts on another completely unreachable goal. This one wouldn’t even talk to me unless it was for a cordial greeting. Sadly, we never moved beyond that and eventually my interest waned. To this day, no one knows that I had a crush on this guy. Our mothers were good friends and after the previous disaster, I’d sworn that I wasn’t telling anyone. Twelve years later, it’s still my little secret. It’s going to the grave with me.
At eighteen, it took me all of ten days to construct a huge crush on a classmate in Calculus. A quarterback nonetheless. He and I were good friends for a while. We did the math assignments together and it seemed to work well and it gave me a reason to see him regularly. The football program I mentioned a few days ago was purchased due to this crush.
My best friend and I ran all around campus trying to buy one of these game brochures once we discovered that this guy’s picture was in it. But the game had already started and the school wasn’t selling them anymore. So we walked around the benches and my friend flips out a ten-dollar bill and says that she will give it to the first person who gives her the program (which had been worth only five). Three people rushed in at once and one very happy man gave us the coveted booklet. Which I still have.
One of my friends in high school had told me about how she used the codename 143 to say I love you. So I figured it might be a good idea to embarrass myself thoroughly once more, cause it had been a while since the last time I did that. So, I wrote a letter to this guy. I can’t even remember what it said, but it wasn’t a declaration of love or anything. All I did was put a “P.S.” on the bottom that simply said 143.
Wasn’t I clever?
Well, not really. He figured it out. And yet once more, surprisingly, he stayed friends with me so much so that he confided in me about his crush on my roommate. And then proceeded to date her best friend.
After him, I swore off crushes.
Previously? The Right Moment.
Here’s what’s been on my mind for a few days:
What’s a good time to let go?
When do you know that you’re in over your head?
There is such a thing as caring too much. There are people who suck your emotions and sacrifices out of you, enough to wipe you clean. Enough to drag you down with them. Enough for you to lose control of your life and not even notice it.
I’ve had loved ones with severe problems. People with substance abuse issues. Anyone who’s been on either side of that kind of a relationship will tell you that there is almost nothing you can do for someone who’s using and abusing unless they’re ready to face the truth.
Talking doesn’t do any good. It might appear as if you’re getting through to someone, and at times the person might even start understanding what you mean, but in the end, the power lies within him. And only him. (or her)
There is a fine line between being there for support and giving up your life for someone.
Let’s take the following scenario. Let’s assume you’re female (Cause I am and it’s a pain in the ass to have to write she or he each time.) You’ve been with your boyfriend Alex for two years. You like him and you’ve even thought of making long-term plans at times. In the last few weeks, Alex has started hanging out with his work friends and drinking. I don’t mean every now and then, but each evening. He always calls and says he won’t be home till late. You’ve tried talking to him a few times, but he gives you good excuses. He says that he needs to go out so that he can fit in at his job.
You can put up with it for a few weeks but after a month or two? You’ll probably eventually decide that it’s simply not going to work out. Hopefully, you’ll have talked to him about this and tried to resolve it before you packed up and left. Either way, no one will blame you for leaving him. You might be sad, but you won’t feel like you deserted him.
Now, imagine the same scenario, but Alex is an abuser. He is hooked on alcohol, drugs, he joined a movement, or he’s gotten fired. In short, his world has twirled out of control and he’s dragging you down with him. He’s depressed, he yells at you, he pushes you away. You know that he’s not doing it purposefully, he’s in pain. He’s not thinking straight. How can you leave him now? When he loves you so much and he’s fallen so low. What an awful creature must you be to even consider leaving.
That’s the thin line. There will never really be a good time to leave.
So you make a decision. Do you say, I’ll stay with him and risk going down the black hole or do you walk away and be the bitch? I’d assume the answer might depend on the nature of your relationship. If you and Alex are married you might have a different answer than if you’ve been dating a while but have no official attachments. Then again, sometimes love is the tightest bond.
Either way, it’s a tough decision and there are no right answers.
Anyone who says that there are hasn’t really been there.
Previously? Four Years.
A random stranger walking up to me and handing me his number while my dad and I are opening a bank account.
A phone conversation where he keeps saying “cool” which simply means between cold and warm to me.
Buying a football game magazine which cost five dollars for ten.
Watching my best friend kiss the freshman picture book.
Bouncing my first check ever. Groveling to the bank to not charge me.
The tray of constipation.
Having my portrait drawn by an art student.
A terrible eighteenth birthday where I find out my crush has a crush on my roommate. And then ten people spending the night in our room.
First time I earn money.
My roommate hollering to me that my alarm is going off.
Our first answering machine recording, made up from parts of songs.
Dammit! I will fuck you!
Painting the fence. Movie nights in DH2210.
Dropping out of sorority rush on day two.
First time I kiss a boy whom I’m not dating and don’t get called the next day.
My first Halloween.
Waking my friend up at three A.M. to start studying for our history final. And non-stop studying for the next two days.
A summer living in Theta Xi.
A night spent sleeping in the hospital’s waiting room.
All nighters. Mountain Dew. Diet Coke.
Spending ten hours in the cafeteria talking. Yuk yuk.
Talking someone out of a depressed suicidal mood.
Taking more than twice as many classes as acceptable. A dean, offering to pay for my class, if only I agree to drop one.
Getting drunk and discovering that I take off my clothes when I get drunk. Never getting drunk again.
Interviewing.
Bell Labs. First real job.
Email. Tons and tons of email.
Friends. Lots and lots of friends.
Teaching. Learning. Crying. Laughing. Growing.
I loved college.
Previously? Happie News.
The odor of alcohol mixed with the rotten food stuck onto the dishes in the sink. It kept attacking my nostrils, forcing my stomach to do flips. My brain yelled at my body for not concentrating on the issue at hand. With his fingers around my neck, was bad smell really my primary concern?
His fingers curled around my neck. Not tight enough to holler for the police, but too tight for comfort. Too tight for me to gulp. His eyes started directly into mine, overcome with anger. Spiteful words sprung from his mouth.
“You’re a piece of garbage.”
“You’re worthless.”
Tears filled up my eyes but didn’t dare to fall down. I knew crying was a bad idea. It would only serve to infuriate him further in his intoxicated state. He was so large, and his arms so strong, that all he needed to do was lift his hands slightly and my body would follow. He could easily pick me off of my feet. He hadn’t even bothered to lift his other hand; one was enough to cover the area necessary to grab.
I didn’t like his fingers around my neck. In fact, I worried I might throw up, which would be much worse than crying. But I didn’t panic. I didn’t yell. I didn’t blabber, like I usually did. I whispered softly. There were people in the living room and I wasn’t about to make a scene. I wanted this to end as quickly as possible. I didn’t even disagree.
“You’re no better than the scum in the trashcan,” didn’t sound so far-fetched to me. I really had provoked him, although for the life of me, I couldn’t remember how this particular fight had started. He might have been right. He probably was right.
All I wanted was for this to stop. As the tears started pouring down my cheeks, I apologized. I told him he was right. I’d fix it, whatever it was. I’d make it better. We could work it out. We would work it out. At that moment, nothing mattered besides his happiness. He was right and I was wrong. I needed him to forgive me.
The stench of vodka burned my eyes. The heat in the room made his palm sweat. His voice was getting louder and I worried his friends would overhear. I whispered more, as if to overcompensate for his lack of quiet. I tried to reason with him. I told him that I loved him and that I would fix it. I was there for him. I’d always been there for him. We’d make it work. My mind buzzed, like an overzealous student, trying to find the right words. The magic words.
Anything.
I wasn’t angry. I didn’t doubt him. Nor hate him. All that would come later. For now, I was desperate. Desperate for him to understand. Desperate for him to love me again. For the anger to dissipate. For the hatred to end. I begged. I groveled. I cried.
He let go.
Previously? Competition.
I’ve never been a competitive person.
A month after Jake and I started dating, we ended up taking a class together. Many people assumed that the class would put a strain on our relationship. That our differing grades might give birth to feelings of animosity between us.
But it didn’t.
On the contrary, Jake and I chose to be in the same group and we encouraged each other and studied together. Even at that point, I cared enough about him that his getting a good grade made me happy and not jealous.
I tend not to define my life and successes by others.
I don’t mean that to sound standoffish. It doesn’t imply that I think I’m too good to compare myself to others. It just means that knowing that I’m more successful than so-and-so doesn’t make me feel accomplished.
I don’t want anyone else to be unsuccessful, unhappy or unaccomplished. There’s enough room in the world for all of us to be happy and accomplished in our own ways.
I simply want to be the best that I can be.
This is where things get a bit sticky. It seems my personal requirements for becoming happy and successful are overwhelmingly high. Each time I reach one level of success, I set the next one without spending too much time doting on having accomplished the previous goal. I keep pressing and pushing, determined to see how far I can take it. How much before I break down.
Recently, Jake and I were talking about a success in his family. It was a situation that had done a 180 from the previous year. Last time, we’d wallowed on the sorrow and misfortune for quite some time and the spirits were very low. I was telling Jake that it’s only fair that, this time “We should celebrate.”
I said, “I think life should be all about under-emphasizing failures and over-celebrating successes.”
After the words came out of my mouth, I was surprised at how rarely I listen to my own advice. It’s crucial to learn from your mistakes but wallowing in them only makes you depressed. And it’s important to celebrate the good moments in life. It’s necessary to note having reached a goal. Otherwise, all the work I’ve done to get here doesn’t seem so difficult. Yet it is. Each tiny step that gets one closer to happiness or self-satisfaction is a major accomplishment and requires due attention.
I’ve decided to take some of my own advice. I’ll keep setting personal goals. I’ll keep aiming higher and higher. But I’ll also stop ignoring the importance of small successes. I’m moving from only jumping a series of hurdles to throwing many parties.
And you’re invited.
Previously? Judging.
You are so judgmental.
If you mutter the words “Not me,” you simply fall into the majority of people who don’t admit to doing the very things of which they accuse others.
There are certain fundamental characteristics that are a part of every human being. While I don’t believe we’re necessarily born judgmental, we certainly develop this discriminatory outlook on life at one point or another.
The same way we discover lying.
I tend to be weary of anyone who claims to never lie. That’s such an obvious lie that either the person is blatantly taking me to be a fool, or, worse, they are not willing to admit the truth to their own selves. We all lie. It’s human nature. Some of us do it more compulsively. Some of us do it only under the pretense that they’re sparing the other person’s feelings. Some people have been doing it for so long that they don’t even notice it anymore.
But everybody lies.
I have never met an adult who has never lied.
Neither have I met one who doesn’t judge.
You think you are open-minded? Think back to the last time you saw someone with seven piercings on her face? How about the girl in pink tight leather pants with high heels and a low-cut blouse? The guy who wears big silver chains around his neck and no t-shirts? The fifty-year-old man who drives a Porsche convertible? The girl in a three-piece suit with a pearl necklace talking on her cell phone? Two men holding hands? A teenager kissing a seventy year old?
No matter how open minded you are, at least one of the above scenarios will make you jump to conclusions about a person. You make judgement calls on how much money she has or whether she works or not. You assume she must be after his money or that he must be not well educated. She must be a bitch and he must be fun to be around.
You might not hate any of the people. Judgmental doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re bigoted. It just means that you judge people on a certain set of criteria. We all have categories that we like to place people in and we use certain cues when we meet them to figure out in which category they best fit.
The most common cues are visual. If you want to test this out, give the same picture to a few friends and ask them to tell you about the person in the picture. How old is she? What does she to for a living? Would you like this person? Why?
I guarantee you that they will have answers. Most likely different ones (unless you have a really homogenous circle) but none of them will say that they cannot answer until they meet the person.
Our categories are defined by our surroundings. Possibly at the beginning by the values of our family, and then school, friends, work, etc. With each new environment and year, we might define the categories more specifically and we might realize that most people can’t be classified easily.
But we do it anyway.
Previously? Fuck.
I curse a lot.
And I mean a lot. My favorite curse word is fuck. I love the way the air gets built up behind my lips before it slowly escapes through my teeth. It’s a word that encourages forward body movement. It gives me a sense of liberty each time it springs from my mouth.
It started in college, but I can’t think of the particular reason or instance. It may have been an imitation of my surroundings. Or not. All I can remember is my first Christmas vacation in college. I returned back to Istanbul and I was in the midst of a heated conversation with my father. We switched to English, as we tended to do when emotions heightened, and the next thing I know my dad’s face turned beet red.
My father has always been a perfect gentleman and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him utter a curse word. He’s the sort of person who knocks on an open door, just to make sure he doesn’t disturb your privacy. He looked at me and said, “I would appreciate if you wouldn’t use that language with me, Karen.”
Now it was my turn to feel embarrassed. I hadn’t even noticed the curse words.
During Junior year, when I was a Resident Assistant for fifty-nine women, the other RAs and our supervisor tried to come up with a replacement word so that I could feel the emotional release without offending any students. The best advice was “fire truck” but even that doesn’t come close. That year, I made an extra effort, at least in front of the girls, as I figured it was my responsibility.
Upon graduation, I started working at the investment bank that still employs me. If you know anything about investment banking, it should be that there aren’t many women in the industry. Same goes for technology. So as a coder in the bank, my cube was surrounded by the cubes of six men. A few weeks into the job, one of the guys walked up to me and asked me if I could lay off on the cursing for a while.
I hadn’t even noticed.
I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m not well mannered. I never curse in front of Jake’s parents and neither with mine. I behave perfectly appropriately in situations that call for it. I would lie if I said I’m ladylike and dainty, but I’m not coarse. I don’t curse at strangers or my clients. I try not to be offensive, but I don’t enjoy people tiptoeing around me because of my gender. There are women who mind curse words and women who don’t. Same goes for men. It doesn’t directly correlate to your gender.
I try to respect the values of the people around me. But when my program craps out with a segmentation fault and the debugger won’t tell me why, I feel a strong urge to abuse my computer.
It might not help me find the problem, but it really makes me feel better.
Previously? Biographies.
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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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