It happens nearly every night: I feel I may actually sit down and write something, after Marta falls asleep, but then it takes hours to calm her down, and by the time she's finally dreaming her baby dreams, I'm so exhausted, I don't really have any languages left in my head.

She's a night owl - cranky in the morning, full of energy after sunset. I'm like that myself, so I pity her - because it's so much easier to be a morning person, so much more practical.

What makes it even worse for me is that Mishah has given me this beautiful Moleskine diary for New Year's - and I'm totally obsessed with all kinds of notebooks, I can never keep to just one, I have to write in at least half a dozen, it feels so awesome, even though it's hard to locate specific notes afterwards - but I've decided to write in this Moleskine diary every day, write anything, force myself to think of something cool to write about every single day, even if the day felt empty and not interesting, and if there's too much stuff, if it's overflowing, I've decided to use other notebooks for that, as many as I want, total freedom there, as long as I write in the Moleskine every day... Ah, but now I'm so tired, and yesterday I didn't write anything either, because, as I said, my birthday sucked and I don't want it to be remembered...

So anyway, here're some more Istanbul pictures that need no explaining, from that same Dec. 31 walk...