hello hello

I keep falling in love with everywhere, anywhere I go.
I miss Istanbul, and the rest.

"There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars."
— Jack Kerouac

Also, not just the places, but the people!
I have met enough people who take my heart and breath away, it's a miracle that I'm sitting here, a healthy nineteen year old on the verge of something.

Saying Goodbye

(from "The Muppets Take Manhattan")

Saying goodbye, going away
Seems like goodbye's such a hard thing to say
Touching our hands, wondering why
It's time for saying goodbye.

Saying goodbye, why is it sad?
Makes us remember the good times we've had
Much more to say, foolish to try
It's time for saying goodbye.

Don't want to leave, but we both know
Sometimes its better to go
Somehow I know, we'll meet again
Not sure quite where and I don't know just when

You're in my heart, so until then
It's time for saying goodbye.

invalid

Let's discuss 90's movies, sip on our expensive whiskey, listened to signed records and try to polish off the two dozen gluten free donuts in their shiny pink box.

anything goes

saw the closeted Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed Without Really Trying,




saw the fabulous Sutton Foster in Anything Goes,



saw some friends in some colleges,





saw some colleges,




saw the hyperintelligent By The Way, Meet Vera Stark.

W.A.M.

The ABC's of a white american male.

A: Let's go smoke 5...
B: Hundred....
A: Thousand....
C: Million....
A: A million cigarettes?
B: That's not possible.
C: and 5 hundred thousand cigarettes is?
B: well, it's more possible.
A: Yeah, it's like, twice as possible
B: (laughing) Hah I know!
A: uh yeah, math major over here.
B: woaa, yeah I forgot.
C: you should be proud.
A: I mean, I pat myself on the back at least daily.
B: yeah, I can imagine.

And even in contemporary advertising there is still an impulse to use masculinity as a brand. One recent ad campaign for Dockers khakis reads:

“ Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that’s what they did. But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny. But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown-ups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It’s time to get your hands dirty. It’s time to answer the call of manhood. It’s time to WEAR THE PANTS." [[1]

(http://www.us.dockers.com/season/landing.aspx) ].

Aside from being offensive to women and gay men, the ad reads like a pathetic cry of a brand of masculinity that is rapidly dying out. The Dockers ad, while all together nasty, overgeneralized, and in poor taste, does contain a grain of truth in its statements on the “genderless society” we live in and that the new type of male is “stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny”. The lessening of “men have to be men” attitudes is indeed an increasingly accepted facet of our society than in previous decades.

teenager

Büyükada (Big Island; Greek: Πρίγκηπος, Prínkēpos) is the largest of the nine islands comprising the Princes' Islands in the Marmara Sea, close to Istanbul.

I wish I could say that I spent every weekend in Istanbul on the streets of Taksim, with a gaggle of hostelers, traipsing through the avenues between the high heels clicking on the imported Chinese granite.

I would say that if I could, but I'd be a big liar.

I went to bed at about 7 last night, slept for 14 hours. Glorious hours.

Long hot shower,

tea,

took messages for guests,

breakfast of avocado slathered over rice/corn crackers, and fresh tomato slices on top,

exchanging stories with 2 american boys,

giggling over French with two girls from Paris,

meant to check email and do research for new york,

ended up listening to Tallest Man On Earth on tumblr,

looked up 30 rock quotes,

Sunday is good.

Marja's

(pronounced Maya's) Interpretation of Istanbul is so absolutely romantic and fabulous, I had to post some of her photos.

içiyorum

Absurd Istanbul:

'...We’re talking solarium-tanned girls with nose jobs wearing DKNY sunglasses, walking ridiculous little dogs that match their designer jeans, and talking on cell-phones with noisome nasal tones before getting into daddy’s-birthday-present-car to drive off either to a brasserie, a hairdresser, or back to the tanning salon for a little touch up on that skin cancer she’s been working on since summer. They usually congregate around Nisantasi, armed with credit cards and armored with make-up....

...If you want to have some fun, yell “POLIS!” (police) or “ZABITA” (patrol car) when they pass by. There’s nothing funnier than seeing a guy trying to run as fast as he can while pushing a cart full of oranges...

...These Gypsy’s just sitting there with their flowers watching the world go by, are the closest Istanbul has to Zen masters. They’re like the only true embodiment of wisdom in a volatile and absurd city of millennia... '

CLICK HERE for a hilarious, if somewhat profane, synopsis of Istanbul.

The Tophane Art Walk is nice.

Also, this is interesting:

In Turkish, The verbs for drinking (alcohol, tea)

and smoking (cigarettes, hookah)

are the same word.

(içiyorum.)

Now it's Turkish delight

on a moonlit night

'yes, it's a different type of mentality for me,'

I explain to the sweet shop lady, eager to use her accented English.

I'm watching the flock of taxis and minibuses diving around the street out of the shop window.

'Yes, yes, it's the Turkish mentality,' she gloats, with a sort of maternal pride. 'We think about today,' hand gesture, gloat turns into a carefree pout, 'and tomorrow we will think about tomorrow.'

A silver van is trying to make a right turn onto the street, directly across from my cute, well-lit shop. Isn't it a one way?

'I'm not used to it, especially after Germany,'

we exchange meaningful looks, as I figure I'm supposed to, discussing such a Northern, European-bound country,

'I am always asking my boss,' voice rises a decible or two, ' 'This? Did I do okay? What can I do better next time?' '

Self-imitation completed, I relax into an exaggerated Altug pose, hips forward and eyes softly looking towards my belly. 'It's good, you do fine. No stress.'

Shopkeeper smiles, hand on her hip; it's a knowing smile, a patriotic lean.

'We think about today,' she informs me happily. 'What comes tomorrow? We don't know. That's tomorrow.'

The gleaming cars parry their way down the steeply inclined road, busily bustling, rarely honking.

I watch the continuous stream of near-misses over her shoulder.