January 2020

This year started slow and cozy, as it should. January was rainy and I was jet lagged, so I lit a lot of candles and cooked a lot of food and left my house very little during the month’s first weeks. I like a deliberate beginning to a new year, and carving out some space for quiet.

Best Of The Month

The rain was mostly relentless in the beginning of the month, but when it briefly stopped, I made a discovery: my apartment is perfect for watching rainbows! I saw four of them in two days and every time I was giddy.

A friend and I took a two-day one-night trip to Bolu and Lake Abant, just to be in snow. And oh, what snow! It was a proper winter wonderland, and we stayed in a bungalow with a crackling fireplace, and I had time to read and sketch and write. Just lovely.

And on the very last day of the month, I went to see the Turkish electro pop band Jakuzi with my friend Özge. We’ve been talking about going to see them for months, and the concert was SO good… we were feeling so high afterwards that we ended up going to a Turkish drag show, just to keep such a fun night going.

Worst Of The Month

The worst wetness of this month was a solid 3+ days of drenching rain, from Sunday night to Wednesday morning. I listened to the rain as I fell asleep Sunday night, and Monday morning I went into my office to start working… and my brand new computer was sitting in a puddle on my desk. I freaked out, and the computer was fine, but water was leaking in everywhere from my windows. I moved everything away from the windows and laid down towels (which quickly soaked through, and I have no dryer) and messaged my landlord. By Tuesday morning, water was also coming in through the ceiling. And nothing could be fixed until the rain stopped. It was a very stressful few days. Now it is (hopefully) fixed…

What I’m Loving

Reads: Clearly the best thing to do when you’re home alone is to read books about prolific serial killers. I devoured Michelle McNamara’s book I’ll Be Gone in the Dark this month, which was published posthumously after her unexpected death. It’s riveting, made even more so because the killer was caught two years after the book was published.

Music: Back in November, I heard the song R.O.B.Y.N. by Luke De-Sciscio on my favorite Cerys Matthews BBC show, and I immediately LOVED it— and I knew my sister would too. I sent it to her and I was excited to listen to it together when I arrived in the US about a week later. Then suddenly, the day my sister arrived at my parents’ house, the song was no longer on Spotify— it had vanished. I have a lot of issues with Spotify in general (ask me to rant about the algorithm sometime!) but the fact that music just comes and goes is definitely one of them. I thought that was that, but the song reappeared in early January, and I have been listening to it over and over again throughout the month.

TV/Film: I watched the film Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten, a documentary about the vibrant Cambodian rock scene that existed before the Khmer Rouge. It is both fascinating and (predictably) devastating.

Podcasts: My mom recommended the podcast The Shrink Next Door, about a guy who is completely controlled for 30 years by his psychiatrist. It is a crazy story.

Song Exploder is a podcast I only listen to sporadically, where they take one song and break it down with the artist, analyzing the evolution of the song from idea to finished product. And they had a perfect episode about (of all songs) Closing Time by Semisonic.

The Film Files

I spent a day on a photo walk with my friend Gamze, which was complicated by the weather (it was cold and rainy) but was still fun. I shot with some of the expired film that was mailed to me in California, and the results were underexposed and hazy, exactly what I was hoping for.

Ephemera

For some reason, I got it in my head to make ramen eggs this month (not ramen— ramen EGGS) and I found a recipe, made a batch, and they were delicious. You can find the recipe here.

Upcoming

My plans for February involved staying in Istanbul, at the moment. Though who knows! Adventures bubble up quickly here.