December 2015

(Annually, I do a full-year round-up… but this isn’t it. Instead, I post mine on January 29^th, the anniversary of the day I arrived in Turkey in 2013. This is just a regular monthly round-up, albeit for an unusual month!)

I spent almost all of December in California and managed to squeeze so many glorious things into one month. As I write this back in Istanbul, I’ve barely had time to process such a whirlwind month. My film hasn’t even been developed yet! Even though I was still working remotely and living in the suburbs with my parents, I managed to have adventures all over the Bay Area, take trips to Carmel and LA, reconnect with old friends, and spend a lot of time with my family. And then I came back to Istanbul just in time for the most glorious snowstorm.

Best Of The Month

It’s hard to decide what the best part of this month was—it felt at times like a string of highlights and discoveries. A clear highlight was the Sister Adventure to Salvation Mountain with Hillary, something we have been planning for YEARS and which was both more wonderful and far weirder than either of us could have anticipated.

Also, I finally saw the jellyfish at the Monterey Aquarium, and my parents rejoiced that I could finally stop bugging them to take me there.

Worst Of The Month

The trip to Salvation Mountain was a highlight, but the night before was much less electric. I will write a longer post about this later, but somehow Hillary and I ended up alone in a kitschy hipster trailer park called Hicksville, where the sun went down at 4:30pm, the wind blew cold and hard, and everything that seemed cool before suddenly became unbearably creepy. (We did have fun! But we were relieved to leave in the morning.)

Another lowlight: the week I tried to do everything at once and completely exhausted myself. Hillary and I crammed a lot of adventures into my few days in LA, so when I flew back on a Tuesday morning I was already worn out. I went immediately to my mom’s office in Berkeley to work all day, and from there directly to a reading at Book Passage in Corte Madera with my wonderful friend Candace. I worked from home Wednesday morning before heading into San Francisco to spend a long late night out with friends, went directly to brunch with a different friend the next morning, then back to Berkeley to work. By the time I got home Thursday night, I was so exhausted that I practically had to be carried into the house.

I slept for twelve hours straight that night.

Lesson learned: no matter how much you pack in, you can’t do everything. And sleep is awesome.

What I’m Loving

Reads: I meant to haunt the local library in my parents’ town, but instead buried myself in stacks of New Yorker back issues that my dad sweetly saved for me. This article about the logic of cities particularly struck me.  I was also unexpectedly riveted by this profile of John Kerry.

Music: Hillary finally got me hooked on Hamilton. This musical is such a perfect mix of so many things I like: hip hop, geeky American history, theater. We listened on our drive through the desert and didn’t stop for the rest of the month I was in California.

I spent a lot of the month complaining about the ubiquity of Christmas music everywhere in the US in December (I’m a total Grinch) and then fell in love all over again with The Nutcracker. Am I a hypocrite? If so, I don’t care—Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet is so swooningly transcendent, and not just around the holidays.

Also, this old Billie Holiday song became the soundtrack of my subconscious this month. I find it spinning round in my brain like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.

Movies: STAR WARS.  I made my family reserve tickets before I even left Turkey, I forced Hillary to watch the original trilogy with me (because ain’t nobody got time for the prequels), and it ended up being a totally joyful cinema experience. Which is all we really wanted, right?

I also saw Spotlight, which not only filled me with intense Boston longing but was also a fantastic movie. If you want to read a real review before you see it, I recommend Ty Burr’s review in the Globe, which makes no attempt at impartiality and is all the more convincing for it.

The Film Files

I shot 14 rolls of film this month… and haven’t had any of them developed yet! I decided to wait until I returned to Istanbul– it’s like giving myself a present.

Ephemera

I picked up a Decomposition Book at The Last Bookstore in LA, in an attempt to treat myself to pretty things. It’s a lovely addition to my desk.

Upcoming

In a few weeks, I’m going back to Selcuk for this year’s Camel Wrestling Festival! Sometimes I can’t believe that this is an annual tradition in my life. I’m looking forward to a euphoric weekend dancing and drinking with friends, strolling under Selcuk’s orange trees and (hopefully) enjoying some warm January sunshine.