ode to my friends

wow! i've been writing so dark. so time to cheer up..i would like you to meet my gals.

i still hang out with my friends from high school. they are funny and unique bunch of people. we try to come together whenever i go back to istanbul. but, i'm not the only one living abroad. one lives in london. and the other is in africa for the last couple of months. the other six have been in istanbul for the most part of their lives.
it's been a pleasure for me to watch them grow in the last 20 years. but, it's not their careers, successful marriages, or great children that make them beautiful. it's the bond between us. after 5 years of not seeing one another (me and the london lady) we started from where we left off, as if we've been in the same room all this time.
we are so different from one another when it comes to idelogical or personal matters. yet we are very similar. we blend well together.
one is eternally depressed, the other is mercilessly trapped,
one is unbelievably positive, the other is incredibly spiritual,
one is social for some reason, the other is an ever-changing iguana,
one is breathtakingly intrepid, the other is painfully apathetic,
one is sickeningly loving..at the end of the day all of us are trying to get through the day.

poem of the day

i could never write serious poetry. whenever i tried, the first verse would be warm and sincere. second somewhat in the middle, then would give in to temptation to be foolish in an attempt to cover deeply rooted feelings. at that point i generally wouldn't bear to let everything hang out and the poem-in-progress would turn into something funny. i'm not a comic but i would add jokes here and there and close the blinds on the subject for another time. here, i would be very brave and put out a poem i wrote a while back.
p.s: i can't even imagine writing poetry in another language other than your own.
so..

nereye estigini bilmedigim ruzgar..
aklimi cel, kafami al, ama izin verme
birak caresizligime kol kanat germe
esintin icinde kaybet, bellegimi kurut
bogazin yanmasini, dilin kurumasini
gozlerin delifisek haylazliginda tut
alginin perdesi yok, cekmesen de olur
ne hissedersen, neye inanirsan odur
alacagini al, birak yaralari kanatma
uctum saniyor bu divane yandirma
ruzgarin seyrine kapilmak icten degil
seyri hos eyle, beni yalniz basina sefil

dissapointed in humanity

i'm having trouble understanding people.
a while ago a friend told me that my writing turned gloomy. i thought about it and decided that i was not less optimistic than before, but needed to write when something felt wrong.
now, something is awfully wrong.
..
...

there she is again. the weather is heavenly, sea is magnificent and i'm enjoying myself. life couldn't be any better.
she looks very comfortable with her family and friends. she chats a lot, smiles a lot, and is unbelievably lovely and down to earth in this cockiness...definitely a breath of fresh air.
i have a pressing urge to get up and walk around when she is standing somewhere near. i want her to see me, to smile at me, and say something to me. i might be swagger with the way i dress and walk but this is what women want. i need to make some kind of contact with her. just look into her eyes and let her know. even if it takes the whole time we're both here.
..
she acts indifferently. i want her to look at me and see me for once goddammit. she generally sits and reads in the breeze where the other guys are playing volleyball. this is a great opportunity. so i take off my shirt rather arrogantly and join the play. she will definitely look at me now.
..
there are mixed signs. she says hi. but she says that to everybody. to me, she also bowed her head a little. yes, she is interested.
...
she is alone in the park. i should follow her closely and whenever i find an opportunity i need to let her know. but how do i do it?
..
she is at the beach, timing is perfect.
i almost sneak up on her and in an amateurish way hold out a piece of paper and say "i think you dropped this".
finally she looks at me and sees me for who i really am.
goddamit. even her sunglasses are icy cold. with a deadly serious tone, she says "no".
what in the world is happening?
there were signs. she should have been into me.
i was completely baffled and immersed in my own thoughts when my 6 year old daughter said "dad, it's time to go. mom is waiting in the car with my brother."

comment of the day

is there no right or wrong? can anything and everything be subjective?

even the most condemned act across all sorts of religions and ideological views on all moral grounds, which is supposed to be killing innocent people, can be subjective for the "fair" media.

this is the world we live in today.

if whoever has strong lobby-ing skills can go around twisting the truth then why bother trying to "fit" in?

no matter how much you try, you will never fit in unless you change who you are.
and if you end up changing yourself; what you believe in, how you react to events around you, how you dress, how you live your life, and such.. then it's fine, because you would not be desperately trying anymore. you're already evolved with necessary justifications along the way to keep your mental health intact.
however, if you are still in a great dilemma as to be having all these "right" ideas while consistently living in "wrong" places to express them, try opening up your mouth for a change. because, unless you truly accept who you are nobody is sincerely gonna be nice to you. you would always wonder about the "other" motives behind others' acts.
so do it. utter the words; say what you really believe. hmm you might be an outcast for a while, but it will pass. at least people will accept who you are, where you come from, and respect what you think.
"you're different" and "not like the others like you" would not be a compliment anymore. you would be free of the sub-consciously engraved complex for your "kind". you can hang out with whoever you want without suspicion to lose yourself, because you have just found yourself.

icimden geldi

i can't easily make friends.
-my daughter is the contrary. she communicates with people; touches them, waves at them, makes eye contact, calls out their name, smiles a lot..whatever it takes.

i don't really care about what the others think about me.
-my daughter does. she wants people to like her and is a petite buffoon walking around charming humankind.

i don't miss people.
-my daughter picks up the phone and goes through photos of relatives and friends she saw for only a handful of times, expressing various sounds of joy.

following on the previous note, i am not that loyal either. i don't feel the urge to call someone.
-following on the previous note, my daughter asks me to call someone. also, she does not forget people who have brought her presents.

i like my privacy.
-my daughter does not; she literally pokes my eyes to wake me up.

i'm cool.
-my daughter is cooler.

i am going to be 31 years old and turned out OK.
-my daughter is going to be 21 months old, and i hope she turns out to be a much better person than i am.

note of the day

people shouldn't post their newborns' pics seconds after they're born!!
parents claim it is memorable and beautiful. it IS memorable indeed, but not for all the facebook community. come on!
and it might seem as a surprise to some, but it is not all so beautiful and fairy-tales. baby has possibly underwent the biggest trauma of her life and looks out of this world.. mother looks awfully tired (wonder why) and disastrous.
hence this appearance SHOULD not be made public.

prophecy of the day

it's been a while. but, i have no excuses. well, actually i have some but if i had the urge to write something i would have. so, no..i don't have any excuses.
it bothers me.. not writing for a while yet lacking the aspiration to do so..on top of it all, i seem to find no shame or regret by dully indulging myself in reminiscence. how i used to conceive solid fiction should not make me smile but yearn for more. does/should one motivate herself for this kind of productivity? is it an on/off switch? do you have to have talent, time, energy, and ever-lasting inspiration to be consistently creative and satisfactorily successful (covering all possible meanings of success)? or is one of them enough to be the main force to drive the others along?
when i was in elementary school i (replaceable with any naive person) thought "in the year 2000s" we would be able to fly solo and take all the necessary food intake via pills. wouldn't that be great to have 40% of your daily competence amount with the greatly sought after triangle pill, 50% of motivation and 20% of fecundity with over-the-counter cylindrical ones, 30% of self-consciousness with the herbal-based green capsule which was also proved to increase sense of direction?

even so..the flesh will still be tormented and insatiable and whoever reached that gold standard of productivity and creativity will be faced with serious threat of drug overdose.

revelation of the day

it just dawned on me that i am not as unique as i once aspired to be. i can even be considered as cliché; the way i react to unexpected behaviors, letting off steam by bickering, automatically deciding to tidy the house when leaving for vacation, and most dolefully the way i think.
once i thought i was so unpredictable, extremely cool, and utterly amusing. in retrospect, i was simply immature and didn't know any better. i didn't know myself.
a little later, i will probably look back to me now and think how ungrateful i have been. don't get me wrong. i love my life, and myself. but i need to come to terms with the fact that i am not an eccentric, nor a ground breaker. when i was young(er), i thought being unique meant automatically attracting attention. i loved people who had great presence. little did i know then..having presence meant outlandish demeanor and this lead to great admiration on my behalf. now, being calm took its place. i became so, very cliché. i clichéd the heck out of the terms. everybody seems so stressed now, unique is relaxed and content.

dream of the night

I was seeing such a weird dream that I remember contemplating,while living the ridicule, that I should write about it. should've, would've, could've done it the first thing in the morning while it was so fresh.. when I didn't try to remember, but instead tried to stop recalling it. now, all I can say is there were a lot of people, it had a dark atmosphere both literally and figuratively. someone (it could be me) was slicing meat (it could belong to a person) in equal proportions. there was a guy with a cape, like Zorro. a bad Zorro, though. come to think about it, maybe he was the hero..better yet maybe I was him. this is my bad dream after all, I could claim hero-ship. I would psychoanalyze it here if only I had all the pieces attached. to me, this basically means I'm talking too much and unnecessarily out of place. or as my grandma would rightfully put it, my behind was sticking out of the covers.

recession of the day

words are hard to play with. they come in most eloquent ways if they choose to. unaware of their beauty, you attribute all the credit to your wit and capacity. they have their own memory, their unique way to keep track of where and how you used each one. if you are not as parsimonious, fastidious, or coaxing as they claim they perceive it as betrayal to their kind. and they do not forgive insincerity. they are very much like humans, yet on another level you need to understand what kind of a vessel you are. do you want to convey the truth, set a trend, voice a miracle, reflect beauty, yarn or reprimand everyone you know and recount the utmost details of shame?
words are fickle. humans are ambivalent.

debate of the day..

the everlasting question: nature vs. nurture. and the response is almost always "both".
watching a child grow in front of your eyes opens up the doors of mental debate on this very issue. from the first few months you can unmistakably observe the "nature". she has her own ways of doing things; whatever it is she can accomplish at that point in her life.
sooner or later there comes a time when you want to change her behavioral patterns. for example, the sleeping pattern. she has 16-month of experience to practice not to go to sleep early, especially when she can sleep in with her mom in the mornings. she should have learned that from me. so, that should be "nurture". write a point under the "nurture" column.
but _a big BUT here_ she also has half of my genes. even though daddy is the "chicken/early riser" type or a morning person, it is a solid 50% chance for her to be like me; a "night owl/ sour at early morning". but is that information in the genes? if so, a point is written under the "nature" column. addressing the skepticism about my parental skills then; why should i even try to bother changing her sleeping pattern if she was coded to stay awake significantly later than her peers?
on the hindsight of my decision on letting her walk around the house until 11 pm, there is a practical reason for that as well. and a "nurture" one. if she would go to sleep like any toddler her age, she needs to sleep at approximately 7 pm. this means she would wake up_at the very best_ at 6 am. now, could you remind me what the point of all this practice was since i have no intention of waking up at 6 or 7 am? so, if anyone asks, i will _rebuffing my attackers would be greatly appreciated_ explain that it is in her nature to have this bad habit, which is by definition falls under "nurture".