Marta and I, fooling around on January 17:

And here's some Moscow on Jan. 15, one of those extremely rare sunny days:

I'm feeling very uninspired, and the only thing I'm good for now is sorting and uploading photos: I've added about 60 leftover ones from Istanbul to the Flickr photo set.

My father would have turned 75 today - if he hadn't disappeared exactly six months ago.

I've been dreading this date for months.

***

Here's papa at Wimbledon, sometime in the late 1970s:

Oh boy, I'm so glued to the New Yorker.

Martha Gellhorn, Hepatitis C, Gertrude Stein.

5:15 A.M.

It's like being back in the States, almost - floating around a college library, my idea of paradise.

I haven't been the happiest person since our return to Moscow yesterday, but things are getting better now that I have The Complete New Yorker DVD set - every issue from 1925 to 2005.

A miracle. Takes my breath away.

A birthday present from Mishah that arrived while we were gone.

Ah, thank you, Mishah, and please forgive me for being such a miserable pain in the ass these past few days.

One day left here, and it's breaking my heart. I wish I could stay in Istanbul until I'm sick of it - the way I eventually get sick of Kyiv or Moscow or St. Pete.

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...

Turkish Flashback, by Trici Venola:



Click on the image to enlarge it.

For a 4000 x 940 copy, click here.

It's hanging on the wall at our hotel. There's more Trici's work there. And Trici herself is often there, too.

I photographed it and then went to Trici's website, to find an online copy of a better quality. Failed, but ended up spending an hour looking at Trici's other pieces.

So interesting, as if I'm seeing them for the first time (I'm not). Made me feel sad, because it's been almost nine years since we came to Istanbul for the first time, and so much has changed, everyone and everything.

And Trici's work is one of the things I remember so well from our first visit in August 1999, right before the earthquake...

In Ortaköy:











And - it turns out that one of my favorite Istanbul mosques - the Ortaköy Mosque - was designed in the mid-19th century by two ethnic Armenian architects - Garabet Amira Balyan and Nigoğayos Balyan - who belonged to a very prominent Ottoman architectural dynasty (more about their work - here):

My birthday sucked, but your greetings made it a little bit more of a joy it should have been, so - thank you!

Here're some pretty gloomy Istanbul pictures:

I'm 34. Well, not until around 10 PM, which is in 18 hours or so, but that doesn't matter. I'm 34. Hard to believe.

A little bit of Istanbul, from my Dec. 31 walk. Photos that don't need any explanation - because right now I'm trying to recover from one of Marta's many temper tantrums, the one that was so catastrophic I almost threw a tantrum of my own.

This has been the funniest New Year's I've had in a long time. We spent the last 30 minutes of 2007 climbing stairs at the hotel, up and down, with Marta. It's her newest hobby, to climb stairs, almost all by herself. She's a very stubborn girl. And so it was pure luck that at midnight we happened to be downstairs, where everyone else was. We all exchanged kisses and greetings, I finished my wine, and followed Marta upstairs again. Then she fell asleep. That's pretty much it - but somehow I totally loved it.

My mother, back home in Kyiv, opened the balcony door at the very end of 2007, to air that damn year out completely. She was wearing an overcoat when 2008 arrived.

Happy New Year to everyone!