my mom after drifting in and out of sleep during a movie: “that was really episodic”

so much of being back in new york is realizing that I never learned how to Have a Youth

just saw a field mouse at the pub, that’s how I know I’m getting the authentic seventeenth century experience

it’s getting late in Ankara and my Turkish is fading so my host mother just asked me, through the automated voice on google translate, “have you ever had a day where you felt at ease?”

bir kanepede oturuyorum, bir elimde Sait Faik var ve diğer elimde küçük bir sözlük var. Türk kahvesi içiyorum ve bu gece karpuzu yiyeceğim. Türkçem mükemmel değil ama öğreniyorum. hayatım çok güzel çok güzel

tuned into masterchef Türkiye and they’re literally making kebabs, on beş temmuz “demokrası ve milli birlik günü” kutlu olsun

why haven't they, then?

started reading what i believed was “çiz-meli kedi” but turned out to be (far more understandably) “çizme-li kedi.” thought the booted cat on the cover was just an example of how a cat who should draw should dress.

it’s official, the streets of Ankara have been baptized with my blood

today a man turned around multiple times to stare & look me up and down as he walked hand in hand between his wife and daughter… this happened maybe an hour after I finished a ferrante novel, the female experience is alive and unwell

this Halloween i am dressing up as the scariest thing imaginable: a grad student applying to yet more graduate school in the fall of 2025

people rolling up to the Boston International Antiquarian BOOK FAIR looking and dressed exActly like how you’d expect people rolling up to the Boston International Antiquarian BOOK FAIR to look and dress

went to a play and turns out my greatest fear isn’t failure it’s being involved in crowd work

the closest i've ever come to cyberbullying is when i mistakenly read bad/stupid/vapid letterboxd reviews of films i like and have the incredibly strong urge to respond "you are dumb as rocks"

told someone at a dinner party about some mistakes i made as a kid (thought the company Hanna-Barbera & the composer béla bártok were women & that Chopin was gay bc of george sand) & she looked at me and went “… what sort of child were you”

harvard isn’t gonna produce much veritas if it keeps making me leave widener library at 5 pm on saturdays

was talking to a friend who believes me to be extremely unfit about lifting and he went “mental weight?? the weight of your existence??”

red line going express to Harvard perhaps the only W I’ve had this year