May 2019

May was a busy, busy month— much of my work wrapped up and I took off, spending maybe six days in Istanbul and traveling quite a bit. I can’t live like this all the time, but for the month, it was terrific.

Best Of The Month

There are almost too many highlights this month, just by dint of doing SO MUCH.

Hiking the Peloponnese was a clear highlight, with stunningly beautiful scenery and delicious food in every charming village. Afterwards, I spent an extra day in Athens and spent hours sitting on a sunny balcony with my dear friend Bijan, which was a softer sort of joy to wrap up a great Greek week.

The whole purpose of my long US trip was to attend my cousin’s wedding outside of DC, and it was fantastic— I spent the entire time dancing and making terrible jokes with my cousins, and generally enjoying the splendid ceremony.

I spent a lot of time with my sister this month, because after the wedding and DC adventures, she came up to NYC with me. We hadn’t been in the city together since we were kids. I honestly don’t know how we manage to be apart for so much of the year.

I had a special visitor in New York that made Memorial Day weekend so special— my friend Chris flew up from North Carolina to gallivant in Brooklyn with me. Chris and I met in Bushwick 10 years ago but mostly grew our friendship in Charlotte. We talk on the phone regularly but the last time we saw each other in person was summer 2012, before I moved to Turkey. Ten years later, we were back in Bushwick, celebrating our unusually strong and loving friendship. I was very touched by all of it.

Worst Of The Month

I did almost no research before our Greece hike, and while that often turns out in my favor, this time it did not— it was much colder and rainier than I anticipated, and I did not have enough warm clothes or any kind of rain gear. I got through it, but felt pretty stupid about it (and wet, so wet).

The biggest drawback of my US trip was that I spent time in three cities and flew in and out of NYC, so I took four long-haul buses, which is too many buses. I also had to live out of my suitcase for three weeks, which is not ideal.

I don’t usually go back to the US so early in the year; by July or August, summer weather has fully settled in. This time, I arrived in Boston at the end of May and it was SO COLD. I barely had enough clothes for the week, and bought an umbrella. Brrrrr.

What I’m Loving

Reads: I re-read a book that I adored a year ago: Border by Kapka Kassabova. It’s still incredible.

Music: I’ve loved the songs Sour Mango by Gabriel Garzón-Montano, Atlantic Oscillations by Quantic, and Where’d All The Time Go by Dr. Dog. Also, Hillary and I got to see Lizzo perform a Tiny Desk concert at NPR, and I’ve been jamming to her ever since.

Movies/TV: I watched two movies on my flight to NYC, one classic and one wacky. The Apartment is such a beautiful movie, I can’t believe I’d never seen it. Directed by Billy Wilder and clearly an influence on Mad Men, it’s just a perfect, funny, melancholy movie. Meanwhile, Death Becomes Her is problematic and exaggerated and bizarre and pretty much a long exclamation of “how does this even exist?!” It’s from 1992, it stars Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis, and Isabella Rossellini, it’s directed by the guy who did Back To The Future, and the reason you haven’t heard of it (probably) is because it’s INSANE and kind of terrible and kind of great. The best part is creepy sexy Isabella Rossellini bringing her whole world of weird to a movie that’s mostly a cartoon.

I also saw the film The Color of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajanov at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, which I’ve been eager to see ever since the Pera Museum in Istanbul did a retrospective on the director. It’s experimental and poetic, and short, and I dug it.

Podcasts: I’ve been listening to The Ballad of Billy Balls, a podcast from the Crimetown team, and I’ve been really into it— I even read the memoir of the podcaster after I found it at the Harvard Bookstore (though I read it in June, so it doesn’t get into this month’s roundup)..

I’ve also been listening to the Slate podcast Charged, about New York City’s gun court and the way it disproportionately targets black men.

The episode “We Don’t Say That” from Rough Translation is one I’ve been recommending a lot, about the way language can be offensive or complicated, and how people can (or cannot) change that.

The Film Files

When I’m in NYC with Alison, we try to take advantage of our time together to shoot some creative project for a day. This year, we planned to each shoot a roll at the same time for the first half of the day, trade, and shoot doubles over the other person’s roll for the second half of the day. It didn’t quite work, because it turns out the roll in Alison’s camera was probably from our ongoing Istanbul-NYC project. And then we didn’t get through the second half with my roll. So, let’s see what happens with that!

Ephemera

Oh how I love juicy woozy New England IPAs! I miss beer like that when I’m in Istanbul.

Upcoming

Now that I’m back from my US trip… there’s nothing! I have no trips planned at the moment, though that will change. I’ll probably run away to a beach at some point.