c ard bo ar d w in gs

2011-06-04T11:10:00.000-06:00

even when i close my eyes i must be careful how i dream and of what, for now only the thinnest veil separates dream from reality

2010-07-02T22:12:00.002-06:00

DON'T WORRY

2010-02-13T16:57:00.001-07:00

dagny had a good week.

still working on my comp 1.

it is nice to breathe.

2010-02-09T07:52:00.001-07:00

she is so strange.

she has strange dreams.

she thinks they are telling her things.

she thinks she needs to jump the fence and run through the field.

2010-01-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

wrinkles in my brain show no sign on my face.

as i walk the streets of buenos aires i see other faces, the prettiest ones having the lines...

i see stories to be told, stories connecting with me only for brief moments on streets i will never see again,

at least not in the same light, not with the same birds watching me from the tree tops.

this too shall pass

2010-01-05T23:42:00.000-07:00

   well. who would have known that the test would come so soon.
   today i was in 3 separate incidents, during which i criticized, i was disappointed and locked to no other choice....
   i. dagny skipped school. her father does not care. i must interfere. i have to figure out a way to raise a 15 year old with someone who i get along with least out of all people walking on this planet.

   ii. i had to vote to fire our new executive artistic director at the theater. he just started but pissed off too many people. i HATE having power over other people's lives. it gives me no pleasure and leaves me feeling uncertain. i would make the worst judge ever!

   iii. got home - a friend stopped by who is going through divorce. his wife wants a lot of money from him. she doesn't work, he does. they have no children. it is totally unfair. i had to tell him it was unfair. she is using him. he is blind.

today i feel helpless, judgmental and critical.
i realize new thing about me - i do not enjoy having power over other people. i didn't really know that about myself

2010-01-04T22:54:00.003-07:00

I will allow myself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism

2010-01-03T23:16:00.003-07:00

2010. i really believe it. will i do it or am i doing it already?

None of us deserve the love we expect

2009-04-03T15:09:00.001-06:00

leonard cohen said that. wow.

to learn of pine, go to the pine

2009-02-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

my day yesterday went from mediocre to shit. there are so many things and people that i seem to not able to deal with lately. i am not sure if this has always been like this. as it has many times before, i hope it all shall pass too. i am trying really hard to understand myself. i am also trying really hard to understand those around me. this must end here.

if you want honesty you must turn it all inside out

2009-02-15T23:43:00.000-07:00

i went to a dress rehearsal of a play and watched director and actor go at it. it was SO beautiful.
whenever i work on my film projects, i always get really tense and very serious. i always thought of it as my flaw. watching this director make an issue out of so much more made me feel good.

san francisco conference

2009-01-10T23:32:00.000-07:00

the conference was 'quick and dirty' as dr. di paolo would say. i love olivia, kara and dan. we had such a great time two summers ago, the bond is strong! i also had a great time with walt. we walked, we talked, we joked and had some awesome conversations, about life, love, peace and linguistics. i went to dinner with my committee member alice. it was really nice, except i relayed a joke that someone else said that if someone blew up the hilton lobby full of linguists, there would actually be jobs in linguistics. i thought it was funny. alice didn't think it was so funny. at some point i got lost wondering around the city. downtown san francisco at night is a trip. i have never stayed right downtown before. it is so different from the rest of the city. every single person could have been a character, was a character in a movie. this picture is in a vietnamese restaurant, that had screaming waiter, tables filled with very famous linguists that olivia kept leaving us for, most delicious seafood soup i've ever had, friends.

dagny is 14

2009-01-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

you are so lovely. the way you move, talk to others, take care of your father and your friends, the way you plan your life, it is all so full of elegance. you may ask, elegance? yes exactly elegance. your thoughtfulness and kinderness continues to amaze me. i hope one day all the wisdom that you have accumulated turns out to protect you. to save you from major heart breaks that are inevitable, jealous friends, loveless marriage. you truly were the best baby ever. you came with to my classes; stayed up with me into the crazy hours of morning, while i studied; laid next to me as i cried exhausted; never complained when i made christmas decorations from a newspaper and had nothing under the tree; i have never treated you like a little kid, your opinions have always been asked for, in many ways you've had to grow up much faster than many of your peers. now at 14, as you roll your eyes at me and most of the time 'bark' at me rather than talk, as you only want to hang out with your dad, as you make me run around and forget to say please or thank you, as you have stopped saying 'i love you' to me, i will not hold any of this against you. because when i look at you, i see an amazing beautiful thoughtful and intelligent young woman in front of me. i see a young woman who is trying so hard to break away from her mother who has been such a dominant and constant figure, whom you are always compared to. you are constantly told that you look just like me, you sound just like me, you act just like me. well, what i see is a young woman who is an individual, who has an identity that is uniquely her. i can only hold my breath thinking of what you will do, where you will go. as for me, you have brought me fulfillment in my life that i didn't know existed. nothing would have been the same without you in my life. i would have never known how much love i am capable of. thank you.

this city is silver

2009-01-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

silver with love and hate,
another break in in the diner!
come on people, if you are going to take someone' hard earned money make it someone like starbucks or village inn.
it is violating.
i just wanted to be ok today, except the call at 4:30 am about the missing register and broken door...
it amazes me that you can figure out how to break the door lock but not the register lock, so what happened? they took the whole register with 100 bucks in it.

although mind and spirit was occupied, my body was taken care of: i did yoga, had a heavenly massage and got a tan! and it all felt soooo good!

just got a call from girls, the voices in my head are telling me:
"... must have beer..."
would that be taking care of my body because of satisfying my desire for thirst or mind satisfying it by the ingenious conversation between coley , sof and i or perhaps the spirit for giving me the strength to get up and leave my writing session?

victories of last year

2009-01-07T08:01:00.001-07:00

in my yoga class, the teacher asked to think about last year's victories.
i guess we forget to think about the great events that surround us, we especially forget to think about them as victories.
1. got through another year of graduate school
2. survived dagny's 7th/8th grade
3. went back to georgia after the august war
4. made 48 hour film
5. presented at the first linguistic conference
6. blue plate business has been great
7. went to african continent

i got my hair done with emmaly today. it is so nice to be in touch with high school friends. there is something very special when the friendships have began at such a young age...

after picking a color for dagny's room yet another time (she seems to want to re paint it every 6 months), we went to dinner at spaghetti factory. it was their anniversary, so everything was $2.00. curt came with us, john and him had been having drinks. in fact they were both fucked up. it was funny. dagny drew pictures of them, its john and curt about to make out.

another victory: i feel closer to john and to dagny than a year before. i feel closer to some dear friends, like curt.

just got a call from girls, the voices in my head are telling me:
"... must have beer..."
would that be taking care of my body because of satisfying my desire for thirst or mind satisfying it by the ingenious conversation between coley , sof and i or perhaps the spirit for giving me the strength to get up and leave my writing session?

i love my dogs

2009-01-04T22:02:00.000-07:00

planet earth with my books and my friends, like paco.

earlier yoga with dagny (her first ever!). it is cool to go to a yoga class with a teenage daughter. she even wanted to go eat afterwards. what a shocker, when it wasn't to go and we stayed at the restaurant.

and before that a long working sunday at the diner.

... over 500 palestinians dead in gaza, about 1 israeli casualty... seems so unfair ad wrong.
i feel helpless.

this is this and that is that

2009-01-04T00:53:00.000-07:00

as always the day began gloriously. it usually does. i love the mornings.
i dropped dagny, ola(picture), nancy and braidon at solitude this morning.
the mountains looked magnificent.
it was nice to see everyone so happy to be on top, sliding, climbing, walking the handsome beasts...

there will be a winter when i only snowboard and eat lettuce sandwiches with earphones in my ears.

i spent afternoon after work talking with scotty, lisa and jared. we worked on our idea for the little film. i feel fortunate to have these people in my life and their trust to work on projects together.

azadeh and chris made us lovely, almost all raw dinner. we spoke about unjust steps that israel has been taking toward palestine. those guys believe it is the biggest tragedy that has faced our history thus far.

open arms were calling. night out with dear tower friends at the red door. however surprisingly (i was so looking forward to it) my heart was not there.

it felt as though i was in someone else's skin.

i spilled the wine on a girl with breasts
it is a bad evening to go have drinks
i must cover the blankets over my head today, playing with my fingers in the sheets...

somebody has a long way to go

2009-01-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

that would be me.

although i began with a yoga class at freaking 6:00 am, it didn't help for the day to go totally down hills from that point on.

i knew something was up when i literally dropped everything i touched for the duration of about one hour.

the bad day included fighting with my professor who basically controls my funding. smart move huh?

preparing for a radio show that was cancelled.

i haven't felt this unsure about school for a while. perhaps it is that doubt i am experiencing that i wrote about.

evening ended with beautiful, unpretencious, delicious etheopean food with lovely friends like craig, melinda, shawna, erik and elle.

although the evening was nice, the day like today shows me "somebody has a long way to go..."

"when you are lost you are not alone"

2009-01-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

in the spirit of new years, i spent this morning writing all the things that i think about when i think about if there was just more time... they are not achievable in 2009 or 2010, at least not all of them. definitely not all of them. but it is nice to remember what those dreams (goals ?) are.

one of the 'decisions' was to write this blog every single day. also to take a photo every single day to have a photo journal, telling the story. i also decided to write about the films i see and books i read.

after a crazy long hectic day at the diner (the busiest day a year), john and i went to broadway. it was lovely. he was being super sweet, although later he almost lost it because he couldn't find a can opener. i think he was tiered.

we saw 'doubt'. what a powerful character development narrative drama. editing is nice. i also doubt he did it. but i was doubting a lot when i came out. i need to find someone who has seen the movie. religion can sit so deep in our hearts, in our minds, from childhood. i have no emotional attachment, or even understanding of it, but it fascinates me. the main character said:
"a doubt can be as powerful as certainty. when you are lost you are not alone."

i began to think how when i doubt something, that doubt in a way brings me closer to that thing. doubt is good. doubt means questioning. doubt means learning. certainty seems stagnant. when i am lost, i need to look around. i need to realize i am probably not alone. also others might be lost, when i am not. being compassionate, really compassionate to what one might be experiencing is humbling.

dags and nancy came in to the diner to have breakfast this morning. they were soooo cute. they were checking out a beautiful curly blond long haired boy, sitting at the counter. i hope dagny appreciates her female friendships.

the truth is struggling to be said

2008-12-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

i lost a friend in the avalanche yesterday. her name is heather gross. she was skiing inbound and got hit by the avalance... by the time they found her (an hour later) it was too late. although she was still alive, she died soon after she was flown to the hospital.
last time i spoke to her she told me how funny it was because she got asked on a ski date by 2 different guys who were best friends and they didn't know they both asked her out. she thought it was hilarious. so did i. her last facebook comment said "heather is skiing freshness for the next mannny days and maybe does not have to drop out of school". she was soo excited about the snow. i love people that get excited about the weather. she studied linguistics and was good at it, but never took herself too seriously, like so many of us like to do. she seemed to realize it was all temporary...
heather i am glad, we saw obama win together and shared that night...
i know this will sound cliche but i swear it happens to the best people out there. i know none of us are immune to it, but it always seems so untimely to the best ...
she was probably the easiest person to get along with in the department.
"I hear in my mind all of this music, and it breaks my heart", that was her religion, she said.
i am sorry heather. i wish i believed in some type of afterworld and i could say things like, you are better off there or you are in a better place or i will see you there, and all the other stuff people say and i wish i could say it too, because it would sure make me feel better. but i know it is all bs, i know you were here and now you are not. you were a beautiful girl heather. that i know. you said skiing was your your favorite thing in the world. i am glad you were skiing heather when it happened.

a secret (or me trying to wink)

2008-12-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

ironically on my radio show today i am interviewing three bloggers.
in fact the whole show is about blogging.
and they don't even know about mine...
does anybody?

today is not just another day

2008-12-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

today:

1. it is snowing (finally) beautifying everything it covers, like the first kiss or even the first fight...

2. this morning i dropped dagny off at a high school, where she is 'shadowing' another student. although her mind is set on another high school, this is the one i went to. this building and its' occupants were my fist experiences with this country, this language, this people, in every possible way. as i walked the halls with dagny next to me this morning, it felt odd, hurried, fast. the time has gone by so fast, is it possible that i have a 14 year old daughter? is this really my life, i wondered. oddly, as i stepped outside i realized that i actually have a lot of life ahead of me... instead of feeling old, i felt surprisingly young.

3. at 10:05, by which time i had finished my coffee at least 40 minutes prior, i had a strong urge, need, want to have tea and almonds. i scraped my pockets and found $6.00 exactly. as i ran to a little store in the student housing building by my office, i was wondering if the mean lady who is always there would be working today. there is no way she would let me get away with being few cents short. well, she was there, being her typical self as ever, but my total was $5.97.

4. the snow has not stopped falling...

this is not just another day

he+i

2008-12-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

... you grow up the day you have your first real laugh, at yourself...
Ethel Barrymore

well not really the first one, but...

i can hardly wait for

2008-11-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

orgasm. the moment i lock my eyes with a friend in total trust, over coffee. first time i get off the train/bus/plane in a new country. reading when there are 5 pages left to the end of the book. going on a road trip with johnny, especially if we end up in torrey. sound of a projector firing up as the lights go dark in the movie theater. first snow. first sip of coffee in the morning on a snowy day, any day. the sound of georgian language, especially randomly heard on the streets of New York. being sad to have woken up because i was dreaming about my grandmother. seeing dagny smile and have a good time with her friends. seeing dagny taking photos. being at a great live music show.

last show i saw was Old Crow Medicine Show. here are some of their lyrics. beautiful.

If the river was whiskey and I was a duck
I'd dive to the bottom boys I'd never come up

I cried last night and the night before
I swore not to cry anymore

2008-11-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

tonight i realized that it has been a while since i have been sad. like really down. i have been so busy running around that i have forgotten to enjoy my own sad days. so tonight i will pretend to be really sad.

obama-ration

2008-11-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

today in my class, as different people presented different activities in front of the whole classroom, as they were loading up their power points, their computer desktops showed images of obama. wow! i can't think at any other point in my life when i have seen young people's screen savers being their country's president. that's really exciting.

dive

2008-10-28T13:11:00.000-06:00

i love radio.

thus radioactive 6:00 pm on krcl every friday and occasional 'dirty boulevard' on mondays at 10:30pm, sitting in for jionny.

our music tastes are similar, we are 'salt lake friends' which is this general term that i have come up with referring to that special bond that one builds with another over years in this city, without ever being 'best friends' or 'lovers' but somehow the bond is strong, in fact in some ways impenetrable. perhaps this happens in every city, but it is different in this city. anyway that's another topic. here is what i did want to say

i often dive in the water, not wondering if i am a good swimmer. i dive in because i really want to swim. i want it so badly that i forget to ask myself: toma do you know how to swim? i often can't wait and don't even take my dress off. this spontaneity is exciting to my body, my brain. in fact i feel really natural in the water, i feel as though i have always been swimming. but is what seems always what is? i start thinking maybe this is not good, maybe i will drown. i don't want to drown, i want to stay in the water for a long long time, swimming. beautifully. i want to charm the beasts. i want to go as deep as i can, in the darkest parts of the ocean. i act fearless of the darkness and the cold water and the beasts in the water, but reality is i have always been scared to drown.

i love radio. that is how

mexico day G

2008-10-26T09:53:00.001-06:00

great greater golden

mexico day F

2008-10-25T09:48:00.000-06:00

fearless

free

full

mexico day E

2008-10-24T09:46:00.000-06:00

early easy exciting

mexico day D

2008-10-23T09:42:00.000-06:00

dark deadly devine

mexico day C

2008-10-22T09:37:00.000-06:00

calm

conversational

conscious

mexico day B

2008-10-21T09:07:00.000-06:00

bloody
bold
brilliant

mexico day A

2008-10-20T09:04:00.000-06:00

afloat
alive
alone

conference

2008-10-14T07:45:00.000-06:00

it was great! meeting everyone was great, especially bernard, a french priest with perfect georgian, sasha a young extremely smart student who spoke in georgian so well that he was correcting my speech (or trying to) plus, he spoke many other dialects that I can't even pretend to understand. Mr. Gippert, a german professor also with immaculate georgian, etc. my presentation was fine, but nothing compared to the dancing and conversations that went on, in between the presentations.

more of tbilisi

2008-10-14T07:38:00.000-06:00

more of my hometown. this is the area i went to school in. it is near downtown. the last building is opera house. we went to a performance few nights ago, instead of opera we got a lot of ethnic dancing and some opera. it was great. those are the streets keti (my best friend) and i wondered as we skipped school back in 1991. not much has changed, it all looks the same as we skip the conference and wonder the streets.

dancing

2008-10-09T20:20:00.000-06:00

http://tvali.ge/index.php?action=watch&v=16708

watch this!!

it is really stupid that i can't figure out how to do this (if there is anyone out there that can help, it would much appreciated and needed :)) meanwhile please copy and paste the link. this happened in a russian restaurant, they got them to play traditional georgian music.

there is a lot of pride (vulnerability) in the air right now.

p.s. the guys are much better in this clip than girls, however don't think that is always the case!

reading

2008-10-09T20:01:00.000-06:00

this is another long time friend. he has been a poet for a long time here in tbilisi. i went to a bookstore and the cashier was reading his book. it was nice. all of my friends from that circle are still writing and publishing sometimes (it's much easier here) and doing readings and experimental theater. i went to a reading where a german guy read a part of his story, it was about the caucasus. the german guy is doing his dissertation about georgian mythology and if the heros from them translate into the modern times in Georgia. i thought it was pretty cool. they asked me to translate some of the contemporary georgian poetry, i might. but somehow that seems intrusive right now. i like just reading it and returning to tbilisi and seeing the names of friends and classmates and acquaintances on the shelves of the local bookstores.

old tbilisi

2008-10-09T19:42:00.000-06:00

this is where i would like to film the script that i have been writing for (?) years.
life here has not changed for long time. or at least it seems that way.

war

2008-10-07T20:35:00.000-06:00

there has been so much suffering in georgia in the last few years. people here are amazing, because i still see them smiling and opening their doors to strangers and on the streets treating russian people with so much love. it is not people's fault, as my aunt told me. georgia use to be the country of so many ethnicities and religions. it is so sad to see a place like this to be torn by a political war. i grew up spending summers in abkhazia and in ossetia. The escalation of the conflict into normal georgian territory has brought countless harms to georgia's infrastructure, economy, and - most imoportantly - people. people have worked so hard to rebuild this place since the 1990s, this has put everything back by countless years.

dagny on a shelf

2008-10-07T03:21:00.000-06:00

this is a photo i found on a shelf of my aunt's apartment. there must be so much of filling in the gaps, they know so little about all of us. they knew me when i was 15, the funny thing is i don't think we all really change that much. certain essence of who we are stays the same. when i am back i realize how not changed i am. i hope my daughter will have a desire to find her roots one day.

kindergarten friends

2008-10-07T03:15:00.001-06:00

these are some of the girls i grew up with. they are so sweet and nice to me, it is hard to imagine i had ever left them.

a view so familiar

2008-10-07T03:02:00.000-06:00

this is a view that is so familiar to me. it is taken from our apartment's balcony. the caucasus mountains surround the whole city. war or no war, they stand high. we live on the 5th floor. "mtkvari" river flows in front of the apartment building. the sound of traffic from outside makes me think of every single night falling asleep. these are the same sounds my grandma must have heard in the last few years, while i have been away.

On the way to Tbilisi!

2008-10-04T18:24:00.000-06:00

Chicago airport - at first the hummus snacks and random conversationalists such as a strange icelandic man, two french guys in way too nice of clothes and nice minneapolis lady who would not shut up, was all endearing, but now i have been here too long.

contrast

2008-10-01T19:41:00.000-06:00

rough and tumble of urban streets, overflowing daladalas, speeding fruit vendor bicyclists, sidewalk hawkers, paddle stoned arabic towns, masai selling jewelry and natural remedies, young suit wearing obama supporters, muslim children with kuran books under their arms and modern high rises. The culture and society here has so many layers, so much more complex than we often give it a credit for, by calling it a general term like "3rd world country"...

transportation

2008-09-04T18:40:00.000-06:00

everything, EVERYTHING seems to evolve around transportation here.

watching fishermen return home on boobooboo beach, as the moon rose bright orange

getting from the mainland to zanzibar, during which most of those people threw up

be it walking to the water to do laundry, carrying goods to sell at the market, daladala ride (minivens, crowded to the point where you feel and breath every human being in that minivan which usually consists of many of those human beings), fishing on a tiny boat or taking a jet plain from Dar to Kiganza for which you just show up in the morning, because at times they cancel it and at other times they leave in the morning rather than afternoon and they are surprised how "uptight" we are in America. ... transportation is the pulse of Tanzania. the boats took my breath away.

T.I.A. - this is africa

2008-07-13T13:12:00.000-06:00

laughing, hard working women are the backbone, yet marginalized in politics and education

this was at the wedding, where the bride looked really really sad and wouldn't talk. later it was explained to us that it would be very inconsiderate of her to act happy to be leaving her siblings and family. weddings are all day all night events, with much dancing and singing, even if brides are pretending to be sad.

my very first impression of tanzania was the ride from the airport to the hostel. everything seemed to move in slow motion. fabric fabric everywhere, yellow, green, purple, nothing matches, instead it's more like wild flowers in the field. every woman is wrapped in combinations of congas to cover lower body, the top, some hair, some to carry babies on the back, some to hold things on the head. where is all this fabric made anyway? we pass women moving, men standing in groups. seems to be the norm, women with loads of water, fruit, children, men standing, watching... children everywhere, on women's backs, in the dirt, on the roads. as we approach the actual city, it becomes faster paced just like any city. dar resembles american industrial city from the 70s. it is full of bodies, like no other city i have seen. the skin color is shades of brown and black, many women are fully covered in burkas, others covered except the face. endless pattern and color combinations drape everyone's bodies. dar is a bland of africa, arabia and india. indian women don't wear congas, their fabrics are thinner and airier, with less patterns, yet as colorful. the city is beautiful, not because it is pretty, because it is not, but because it is full of activity, bussle, full of chaos. the most fascinating part was to watch people transport things. huge, enormous size produces were carried on people's heads, bicycles, backs. one of my favorite times in dar is when we first got there. dagny and john passed out in our hostel "jumbo inn" (which by the way i totally recommend), i couldn't sleep. without knowing the city at all, i decided i needed the explore it alone, boldly, unknowingly. i began to walk and soon ended up in even busier part of the city. i walked fast passed the friendly: "jumbos", stares. i felt like i couldn't stop, i just had to keep walking. there are very few street signs in dar, so of course within 30 minutes i was lost. i kept walking without wanting to stop. as the minutes ticked away, i felt like i was breathing something that i had never breathed before, it was exciting and black and completely unknown. as i tried not to get hit by cars and dala-dalas coming from all directions with seemingly no sense, i walked and walked, trying hard to hide a huge grin on my face. i did eventually recognize the mosque that was near the hotel. it was difficult to miss it, muslim or not the prayer sang through the speakers five times a day lures you near.

the beginning of time

2008-07-12T08:51:00.000-06:00

i lost my journal. it is crazy how violating that feels. nobody stole from me, i just lost it. i spend the first day in dar es salaam looking for a notebook. i feel like i need to rewrite, recreate at least some of the event from the journal. so, here it is day 1. the travel in general was long and semi stressful. we couldn't get on the flight from new york to cairo. the quite and empty area of that specific terminal literally turned into the most hectic, crazy, busy part of the airport. the seats were oversolled and there was much hussling, angriness and confusion going on. we pretty much stayed on the side, but as the result didn't get on. instead we decided to call every friend we had in new york and see who was around. dear amila was the first one. we walked through beautiful, hot (i didn't know really what was coming ahead) brooklyn, walking around the street, having delicious morroccan food with delicious morrocan server and taking zoy for a walk. in the morning we met up with another friend cara, who lives in east village and had breakfast together. it was lovely to catch up with both of those beuatiful ladies. john stayed stressed making many calls trying to figure out if we need to switch our connecting flights or if we could just go with things. it was a huge relieve when we found we got on the flight next day and it was first class. see, one should never complaint, but feel lucky when nice things happen to them...

dear diary, what is wrong with my family?

2008-07-05T22:31:00.001-06:00

my father was in town, mr. zurab. as always he was here only for 48 hours and has created utmost chaos.

familiar story: few friends that got to spend some time with him thought he was absolutely fabulous. he is funny, he looks like mafia guy, he buys everyone countless shots, he has traveled around the world, he philosophizes about life... but also my mother and him can't be in the same room for longer than about 24 hours. my mother begins to nag, to bring up past, why he left her, she starts asking questions about his new wife, his travels... he in return wants her to leave him alone, life goes on as he says.

meanwhile each and every time i am about to have a nervous break down and even worse than that, i get really really sad.

you see when i left home at 15, my parents were happily married. in fact very happily married. i have amazing memories of my childhood. i remember countless parties at our house with many of their friends, mom and dad holding hands and exchanging what at that time seemed too many kisses and boob/ass grabbings, i remember bouquets of flowers and much laughter.

as an exchange student after 9 moths i was very happy to return back to all this. although united states was super interesting and different and amazingly plentiful, i was happy to return to my home, my friends, my city and my parents and rest of my family. well, of course everything went upside down. the soviet union broke up, the war broke out in georgia, my parents couldn't handle economic pressure of literally being left on the streets, so they got divorced. there was no country or no family to return to. to this day every time i leave even for short periods of time, i get so scared, like really scared and worried that i won't be able to return to things as i left them.

i love my dad so much. i can't think of another man in my life that i love as much i love him. i find him totally entertaining and wonderful, but i just don't know how to be around him anymore. i definitely don't know how to be around my divorced parents together.

at times like those, i wonder what if i never came to the u.s. on that stupid exchange program, what if we were still all together when the soviet collapsed and everyone was so freaked out, what if the soviet union stayed intact, how different everything would be.

i love my own family here, i love john and dagny and all my friends. in fact i love my life in salt lake, i really do. but i feel completely detached, de rooted from what is part of my soul.

confessions of a football player

2008-06-16T16:40:00.000-06:00

he plays football, american football for university of utah. he is huge. he drives obnoxiously, unnecessarily huge truck. i see girls stare at random parts of his body as he walks into the diner, which he does pretty frequently. most of the time he sits at the counter. most of the time he is alone, other times he is in a group with similar type of dudes. when he sits at the counter, he likes to talk to me and i guess i don't mind talking to him. yesterday it went like this:
- do you like sports?
- yeah sometimes.
- what kind is your favorite?
- i don't like football, i am sorry... when i was little my granpa watched a lot of soccer so i like soccer because it makes me think of him and home in general, i like basketball games too, they are fun to watch and baseball is cool because you can just have hot dogs and beer and watch the sunset.
- (with total excitement) i love soccer!
- really? soccer?
- yeah, i think soccer is so much more fun than football. i can't really usually tell anyone this but i think soccer is awesome. i think its my favorite sport. i don't really like the football fans and cheerleaders and all that shit.
- i agree, soccer is so much better. its kind of funny that you like soccer, don't you think? so, why do you play football?
- i guess i am built for it. have you been watching the euro games going on? Spain was winning...
- yeah, little. here, i think your eggs and toast are up...

later that evening i went to a soccer game with tinisha. it was super fun. as i watched the game, i thought of my grandpa vano yelling 'goooooool' and eating a lot of watermelon and i thought about the regular at the diner and about how much more complex people are than the stereotypes that we form would have us believe...

a farm? a farm. a farm!

2008-06-14T15:26:00.000-06:00

there is a millionaire that lives up above park city and he has a farm. it is not an ordinary type of farm, it is a car and motorcycle farm. it is called ' a farm' i suppose to just be cute. he owns literally hundreds of cars and bikes from the 20s and 30s, sitting there among the beautiful uinta mountains. some of the machines are literally like pieces of art, the colors are of different era, but surprisingly resembling the future. as we rode our motorcycles through the property, it felt surreal, like a movie set. i found this rooster in the abandoned kitchen in one of the barns.

all hikes should end at a bar

2008-06-10T08:33:00.000-06:00

while at torrey, three of us decided to go on a long hike. it was a hike i remember doing with dags and john years ago. both sofe and coley tried to convince me to go on a shorter one, put i was persistent. i remember the narrow red rock that surrounded the most of the walk, the waterfalls, walking in the water on the shiny, poky rocks...

the first 5 hours of the hike we were doing fine, we had enough water, none of us were too tiered yet. in fact we found a skeleton of an elk. the whole thing was still there, it was pretty cool. we saw cougar prints and beautiful flowers. as another hour or so passed and we couldn't see the end of the hike (visitor center), we began to panic a little. it was mostly sofe. she made us get off the hiking trail and we started to head up toward the top of the mountain, very tall mountain, so we could see over and see a road perhaps... after another long hour or so, we found a road that was a dirt road but there were some car tracks on it. as we followed the road in the direction that seemed to make most sense at the moment, but for no particular reason, we walked and walked and walked and ended up at the entrance... to the patio, the only local bar in torrey. not only we didn't anticipate that at all, we thought we were hiking totally different direction. when we walked into the bar, we must have looked pretty bad, because when we asked the bartender if someone could give us a ride to our car, which was back in the park, he said, absolutely no problem but sit and have some water and beer first. which we did. we had one and two and three, happily. we stayed long enough to make friends, i think there was tim who likes to play music, lorain who collects rocks and rollerblades, mr.x who wore his shirt open really low and kept asking us if needed a ride, kile from loa who was really proud of it and said small towns in utah are like mafia families, it is all about which family one comes from, and there was doug who i knew from long ago and who bought us many beers.

although lost for a while, this hike had the best outcome and the best destination ever.

some heels for camping?

2008-06-09T19:43:00.000-06:00

i love outdoors and i love new york city. i love the trash, sirens and dust of the busy streets and i love the serenity, eerie quietness and calmness of remote spots. i love pure beauty of both of them. i feel lucky that i have lived in utah and have had this amazing opportunity to experience the desert, red rock and surreal beauty of lake of salt. there is a chance i would never know this place if it was not for the randomness of me coming to utah and still living here now.

in fact one of my favorite places in the whole wide world is a little town called torrey. torrey is in southern utah, right at the entrance to capital reef. there is something about this place that connects to me in such a deep and at the same casual way, as though we have known each other for a long, long time, known each other well, if you can know a town that way.

johnny and i go to torrey often. this time i went to torrey with some of my favorite girls: sofe and colley.

our adventure started at... target. sofe forgot her swimming suit so why not do some shopping? i am not sure what town we were in, but we saw a polygomist family in the parking lot. i have such an interest in that whole culture, subculture i guess. but that's another story.

eclectic, accumulating, post-modern and sad

2008-06-08T08:38:00.001-06:00

i got woken up by my hone buzzing at 7:00 am, never a good sign. the cook from the diner said there was no opener at the diner. the first server was late, super late. tomas said he can give customers coffee and maybe they'll wait? from that moment on, the day at the diner was truly exhausting, like it in the way that only happens once in while. even the best employees seemed to have gotten up on a wrong foot. by the end of the day and many breakfasts and lunches served, i needed a drink.

the wedding in the afternoon. john is in canada, but i didn't want to miss it. it was elise and travis. and unlike many other people, i actually find weddings kind of interesting. i had two dates. one of my dates scotty LOVES weddings and funerals, as soon as he heard i was going to one, he asked if he could join. my second date was duncan. duncan's dad Utah Phillips, amazing, very respectable, beautiful american folk singer, had just passed away a week ago. i know it has been a crazy time for duncan and we haven't talked since he came back from california, his father's funeral. so much of duncan's life seemed to evolve around going on the road with his dead, help with benefit shows, etc. i figured the wedding might cheer him up and it might be a light place for us to catch up.

before we left for the wedding, we set at my house and drank whiskey. duncan brought me three books from his father's private library. they were about writing systems and one on prague. it was really sweat of duncan. this morning dagny left for virginia, it is strange not to have her at home. it was so nice to hang out with the boys that we showed up at the wedding as the bride was about to enter the back yard, we were right behind her. farley was taking random shots of random people doing the social wedding things, like eating cake, having drinks, laughing and playing with someone else's kids. duncan was in a dark mood. he talked about the funeral, hundreds of people that showed up at the funeral. utah phillips was history, his music, what he stood for and the type of affect he had on his family. he definitely had a strong impact on duncan, this evening it was all coming to surface. scott walked around the wedding consuming drinks and food and saying some of the most bizarre comments i had ever heard.

progressively we got more and more drunk. everyone kept asking where john was, i explained over and over again. salt lake is so small, so protective... we decided to get away and went to .... strip clubs. night continued to get weirder, but super fun. first club was foxy and fancy, the second one was simple and working class with florescent lights. duncan felt comfortable here. scotty felt comfortable in the first one. i felt comfortable... in both.

night ended with duncan having to leave abruptly because he was having a difficult time, scotty and i staying very calm and enjoying ourselves. later we met up with lisa, scotty's girlfriend, who had a really bad day at work. it reminded me about my crazy morning at the diner. lisa said she was ready to give up on her business, beehive tea room. i would probably feel the same, if there was no john and i was doing it alone.

the worst thing that happened today and the most important one is that bob from the diner passed away today. in the middle of the business, we got a strange phone call with the information. really? bob who was so looking forward to going back to alaska, who set at the counter every single day, drank coffee and talked to every single one of us. bob was probably the most simple, nice and polite man that i had ever known. i have no idea how to deal with his death. in fact i have no idea how to deal with anyone's death. it is THE most difficult and confusing topic for me.

i wish i could have gone to tbilisi to see my grandmother before she died. goodbye bob.

jean-luc godard

2008-06-06T23:40:00.001-06:00

i interviewed richard brody from the new yorker magazine, who just finished a biography of jean luc godard. most of the time i was just jealous that he had met a person who made a film that i feel like has changed my life, 'breathless'. i know that sound totally cheesy but it is the truth.

although a simple procedure, i am having super hard time creating a link, here is an address you can paste if you want to hear the interview.
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/krcl/local-krcl-715342.mp3

you need something?

2008-06-04T22:45:00.000-06:00

i lost my check from the university of utah. i went to the payroll services website and it told me that i had to go in person to sign something. when i got there, the day was hot. i rode my scooter, the song that was playing on my ipod as i rode my bike was perfect. i followed the instructions and went exactly where i was told to, to get a new check. the receptionist was on the phone. she pointed her finger in the air, signaling me to wait, wait silently. i did. her conversation of personal nature continued for a while, but i found it amusing, so i waited. finally when she got off the phone, without saying a word she held her finger up in the same manner as previously, again. she walked to her purse and got a bottled water, she unscrewed the top very slowly and took three long sips of water. next she got a make up kit, one of those shadow boxes out, opened it and began to apply make up, looking into a little mirror in the box. i began to open my mouth to ask her a question and her finger went back up into the air, again without uttering a word. when she finished applying her make up and put everything away into her purse, in very slow steps she approached the counter that separated us. she looked at me in that expression that usually means: " yea, you need something?" i told her my name and where i worked and that i was a student and an employee and that i had lost my check and needed it replaced. without looking away from me she said: "what do you mean?" so i repeated everything that i said before. the whole time i was talking, she had her eyebrows expressing the look of utter confusion, like i just fell off another planet. i remember in my head wondering, if i had accidently been talking in georgian. after what seemed like a long explanation on my part, she just said: "did you loose a check?" i wanted to yell, yes, that's what i have been trying to fucking tell you. i can't be the only fucking person employed by the entire university of utah that has ever lost a check. instead i just said: "yes", signed the paper and ran far, far away.

42 years around the sun - for john

2008-06-02T08:20:00.000-06:00

it is amazing how one day can go from absolutely shitty to absolutely beautiful. johnny turned 42. i love surprises, in fact i love anything that is spontaneous with as little planning as possible. i had 42 clues and little presents planned for john to lavish in his bday: massage, beer with friends, sushi, dinner with family, afternoon tea, movie, etc... however perhaps i was trying to plan a perfect toma birthday, because john hates surprises and has a really hard time with things that he doesn't know about. his phone kept ringing and he had to do bunch of stuff for work, diner, etc. in the morning dagny was totally rude to me and i couldn't stop crying for an hour after i dropped her off at school. but as the day progressed and i managed to get john more and more relaxed and dagny got out of school and acted like nothing was wrong, evening somehow turned into a total magical time. farley, lois and lisa dropped off beautiful flower and rum, beautiful rum. roy and anne brought by books, great books. my mom came back from her travels in canada and brought gifts and stories, murry joined us as we set into the late hours at the bakery drinking coffee and listening and laughing and talking. dagny sowed bunch of materials together and wrote a poem for john. the poem said how much she loved him and how hard it was for her to express it sometimes. could this be the same person that told me to fuck off earlier in the day? coffee was sweet, the night felt warm to my skin.

2008-06-01T00:12:00.000-06:00

two great photographic events yesterday and today and no photos. boo... went to a wedding reception for matt and april yesterday. it was funny, because it was all the people that hang out at trolley cart bar, but everyone was dressed up. it is funny to see the same people in different contexts, it is kind of endearing.

tonight was saturday's vooyer 30th party! salt lake acting company is such a great theater company and i think they truly do a great job. i love the theater world, even though i was never the drama girl, i feel really attracted to that whole world. i wonder what it would be like to direct a play vs. films? finley, mary, sofe, colley, eligio came up and worked the party with us. they are awesome!

while we were finishing up serving meatloaf and fancy cocktails, dagny called and wanted to go to some party and her friends' mom was going to pick her up. i finally got the friend's moms number and when i called the mom sounded little too young for me. right away i turned into a suspicious mom and went to check out this party. dagny wasn't there yet, she said she was waiting for irie to finish up her side work at jumba juice. again, being suspicious i rode over there. i saw dagny sitting in the corner waiting for her friend to do her side work. i ended up waiting for her. by the time irie finished it was 11pm, dagny didn't want to go to the party anymore. sometimes i imagine the worst case scenario, i really need to be more trustworthy. but then again, i am a parent and can't help it.

a new place for old things

2008-05-30T00:11:00.000-06:00

this is a purse that i got from my lovely friend colley today for my birthday. although it has been almost two months since my birthday, i kind of like that we never got around it, till now. if colley wasn't so against such things as TVs and computers, she would know that i liked my yellow new purse so much that i even took a picture of it!

in and out of background

2008-05-28T08:52:00.000-06:00

i forgot my camera yesterday, there was so much to photograph, i guess i just had to pay more attention this way because i knew i would have to just remember it all.
there were incredible people whose paths i crossed yesterday.
there was norm cavanaugh. norm is western sheshone. he had me record coming of age story of a young man, who wanted to be a medicine man. we went to breakfast first. he told us about where he was raised in duck reservation and the foster homes that he went through and eventually kind of figured it all out for himself. the sound of shoshone is beautiful. norm is beautiful. toward the end of the afternoon i think we were both getting delirious sitting in front of the computer transcribing his story, he told me my eyes looked purple and that i had a purple band around my head, we decided to would continue another day...
i went to peace rally today. daniel ellsberg, state dept. officer who gave top secret documents about the vietnam war to the new york times in 1971, was in salt lake! there were many people there, mothers of dead solders, solders that have come back from the war, our wonderful ex mayor rocky, and all the wonderful salt lakers and americans that realize that the best way to be a patriot right now and support the troops is not by waving an american flag, but by protesting this awful, illegal war.
on a lighter note, in the evening we went to see a ballet that paggy choreographed and joe mixed music for. peggy is so talented. i loved the whole piece, but i really loved the beginning of it. she was stretching and pushing the boundaries super far. in the first place to have a dj music to accompany ballet is cool, plus she had the dancers wearing tight white pagamas. it looked like a calvin klein commercial.
i was thinking it would be interesting to mix middle eastern type of dance with ballet. for instance georgian dancing is so non european, it would create an interesting contrast with very european ballet. also why doesn't one see a girl dance with a girl in a ballet ever? or boys dance together? i also thought what if the background matched the costume completely and people blended in and out of the background?
i needed this day. yesterday almost broke me in half. but that's another story.

everything is cinema

2008-05-26T21:21:00.000-06:00

i have been reading about young jean-luc. he watched film after film and wrote and wrote and watched more films. that was his way of becoming such an influential filmmaker. when i read about him i get that spark in my stomach and my toes and ends of my hair about making films, about telling stories and creating cinematic forms for the sake of the art form. jared, ryan, troy and i set around and spoke about our aspirations that we seem to still hold. perhaps there is still small tiny chance that i can make films full time, all the time, in all my time.

domestic bliss?

2008-05-25T21:54:00.000-06:00

crazy busy day at wok. hungry hungover customers wanting food, lines, music in juke box singing barely heard soothing johnny cash, poker last night. people were getting agro so i left to have dinner at mellow all vegan restaurant with rai. it was a nice switch. with rai we go to tanzania. she is a great inspiration in different ways, more traveling is one of those. after a long day at work, we have a beer with co-blueplaters, sofe and finley. at the bar i ran into 2 people that i haven't seen for 15 years. one of them saiden, was an amazing avant-garde writer and jeff who was little crazy person that i meet through walter and played chess with. he just came back from iraq. he had a lot to say. after beer, we come straight home. john pays bills and chills out, dagny is shopping for a new swimming suit, i blog, dogs play and sleep... domestic bliss?

his panic

2008-05-24T11:38:00.000-06:00

we went out to eat with our kitchen guys and some servers to a mexican place. there was music, much beer, dancing and amazing good time.

i think below the status of women and below the status of african americans, there are mexicans that get treated like shit in this country. it is so ironic that people don't realize that they as well came as emigrants to this country only 2 or 3 generations before, which is nothing in the world history. people also seem to not realize how hard these people work and how much they actually contribute to the economy of this country. beyond that they don't realize how rich and old mexican history is, just like they don't realize the richness of native american history.

my little american dream doesn't consist of the white fence in the suburbs, 2 children and a nice car, perhaps my little american dream would be filled if i could move to a small town in mexico by the water and... write and... dance at night.

it's may and i am back

2008-05-23T11:10:00.000-06:00

damn. many lovely and sad things i am sure have taken place in the last days, like almost 90 days.
i made a little film 'shaken like a rug'. we won best score, which was awesome. working with scotty, lisa, jared and josh was intense and very productive. i hope our little tuesday production continues to make films, that blur reality from cinema, as our papa godard says: 'everything is cinema'.

i got my own permanent show on krcl, 90.9 fm every friday at 6 pm. it is really cool and exciting, i am not sure how it all happened, but somehow now i have my own show! so far i got to interview mormon nudists, playwrite, director and actor of "the tricky part', ex mayor rocky anderson, tanja katan, author of 'my one night stand with cancer' and most excitingly i get to interview new yorker film critic richard brody, who wrote who just finished his biography on jean-luc godard!

i finished my 2nd year of journey called graduate school. as much as i worried not finishing all of my class work, it actually happened and i actually got good grades.

diner, drive ins and dives show from food network came and filmed at the blue plate, which should air in the fall. they mostly filmed john who is good at being in front of the camera. i was hiding, being embarrassed, shy... i am sure there was side of me that wished i was forced to be in front of camera.

dagny is almost done with her 7th grade. nothing 'bad' has happened so far, that's good. i worry always, non stop. last night watched 'juno'. it reminded me of myself. i was so young. so alone, so scared. i hope one day dagny realizes how hard it all was. she has been talking about exhibiting her photographs. i want to help her find a place, but she wants to do it herself. i hope she has thick enough skin, that if people say no, she doesn't give up. some of her photographs are absolutely beautiful. i also accidentally put a cd in a player other day not knowing what it was and it was a song she recorded and sang and wrote. it is so fucking beautiful. she seems to be really talented, but somehow she doesn't give a shit about it. maybe it is just part of being a teenager.

shoshone

2008-03-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

shoshone are bautiful, proud, sad, poor, well spoken, quiet, polite and funny. their history is complicated and sad and long. however they don't think of it that way. they think it is ever changing and they are optimistic. their language is spoken only by very few, but they are happy that at least there are few. they are gracious and thankful when i tell them we are working on documenting their language. they want to participate. there is no anger or resentment, only forgiveness and certain sense of subdued helplessness, or maybe it is just acceptance of things as they are.

valentince

2008-02-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

there are many reasons to go to nevada. first of all one could have a real beer and even better you could be served by an 89 year old bartender who has been bartending at the same bar since he was 16! he doesn't even own the place. although all the money was lost in texas hold em, $35.00 rooms made is all o.k. happy valentince to johnny and toma!

surrealist utah

2008-02-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

my very favorite place in between utah and nevada. many things in this state, in my life in this state seem unreal. perhaps uncommonly real. this tree is beautiful and tall. it has many colors and unusual shapes. what surrounds it is beautiful too, but two don't fit together. it stands odd and estranged, forgotten and ignored by most, adored by some. it is fragile but the stem is solid and simple. some of its shapes have fallen to the ground, thus a fence has been erected, to protect it and perhaps others. however the fence is short. within its estrangement the peace surrounds it.

important historically and completely average

2008-02-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

had dinner with terrence kaufman. his passion for unwritten languages, fieldwork and documentation rubs off for sure. the best part was him wanting to just drink beer. how cool to be that interesting, that important historically and completely average in some other ways. we talked about caucasus a little, but of course his love for the new world and anything latin was obvious. as most of us tried to impress him and make conversation, he kept ending up in the kitchen drinking with john, the only non linguist at lyle's house. it must be exhausting to be so well known in any field that everyone wants to talk just about that and assumes that is all you are. people like him make me love linguistics, because he makes me feel like that linguistics is raw, completely in progress as i write and so hands-on, real.

i miss you amila

2008-02-01T18:45:00.001-07:00

i am the most social loner.
it is a strange feeling to feel so distanced and disassociated from everyone.
even stranger that it is not for any reason.
i miss talking to you for hours, amila.
why did i ever tell you to move to new york?
john is having beer somewhere with boys, usual boys..
dagny is hanging out with her ultra super cool junior high friends, usual friends
i am reading Frege, he says:
'perhaps something non-sensible could also lead us out of the inner world and enable us to grasp thoughts where no sense-impressions were involved'
perhaps

2008-01-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

my body is open
is there anyone anyone sincerely happy for other's happiness?
every day every week i bail myself out
out of sadness out of joy out of confusion
i really rather not dwell on this
as long as there is possibility of unknown

tokyo brown day 3

2008-01-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

this is tokyo i fell in love with
this tokyo is frail and fragile and oh so inviting
this tokyo is gentle and so polite
this tokyo is full of 'just another day'
this tokyo tells me there is something else and there is
this tokyo is silent and quite all at the same time
in this tokyo i want to breath and be for a long long time

tokyo yellow day 2

2008-01-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

this tokyo is bright and fun
in this tokyo i want to wrestle and roll in the mud and giggle
in this tokyo i want to have sweet potato ice cream everyday
in this tokyo i want to see school girls in their blue uniforms and sexy mini skirts
men in black suits, polished black shoes with slick hair.

tokyo red day 1

2008-01-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

this tokyo is like taking a flight into parts of your brain that you didn't know ever existed...
it is expected and completely mysterious all at the same time
this is the tokyo where i know i am the outsider
this is the tokyo where i feel there is a world i don't know

2008-01-07T01:20:00.000-07:00

wow. the first primary won by an african american man and the second one by a woman. what a cool time in history. when i saw obama on stage with his wife, they looked so beautiful. obama, a gifted speaker with so much to offer, so many new ideas and hillary, an amazing, controversial woman, who is so powerful and strong although media (sexist media) tries to keep her down. it is amazing to me that people don't realize how sexist our society still is. i am not sure what picture would go here.

empty happinness?

2008-01-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

new years with ivy, gigi, josh, lola, duncan, babett and johnny. it was quiet but somehow comfortable. the dinner with jen and sinatra was fabulous, it was expensive, fansy, fun and very new yearie! we stopped and had beers at the juniors, running into crazy drunk linguistics students and many other fine folks of salt lake. at home after pinball and new years cheers, everyone dispersed. this night of the year always feels a little sad to me. that was the only holiday that was celebrated back at our house. maybe that's why.

walking

2007-12-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

snow. love when it snows. i always think of one time sitting at the old coffee garden and looking out of the window. that memory is incripted in my head forever. the time passed so slowly and beautifully that afternoon. the sound the snow makes when one steps in it is like biting rice krispy. walking in the snow while it is snowing is probably one of the most dramatic and sexy things one can do. i wonder what its like to make love in the powder.

and i am not even jewish, but it feels like home

2007-12-30T19:24:00.000-07:00

last night danced away to jewish flutes with john's college friend from chicago. i have never been much of a little kid type of gal, babies don't really do it for me usually, but last night i ran around with elise's little girl mia the whole evening. we had so much fun, we did karaoke, ate fondu chocolate gross bread stuff, exchanged little hebrew between each other, danced, rolled around the floor. she looked like dagny when dags was little. it reminded me how much fun dagny and i use to have. i remember we use to turn up music really loud and dance for hours. if i had a camera, today i would take a picture of john, my books, painting of tbilisi, my parents, film strips hanging all around, thor, brutus and paco and most importantly there would be dagny standing in front. her face and body would be bigger and brighter then anything else. she would be smiling and happy.

bells and balls dominate the music

2007-12-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

diner busy. tight shot on toma's face. tense anticipation to the upcoming holiday. joy of another day interacting with the friends we've made at the diner. derek enters. he is early. oh wait it is a clock at a bar, which is always 10 minutes early for last call. it was snowing earlier. so very pretty. the bar down the street from our house. many men all about the age of santa clause, sit and drink. so do john and i. drink, drank, still stuck. check your voice mail. talk to gary, we just got here. don't have much family in town. here is john. he is on the phone. same girl is at the bar. she is always at the bar. she laughs and has fun. she seems lonely. we meet david. he is skinny. his father works for the paper. david was raised in the press room. david knows i am georgian. david knows i make films. david sees john in front of the house. john thinks david is shane. david likes to dance. cruming, capuera, ballet meld them together, he says. karen is beautiful and not a girl. say a woman. david likes forskin penises. but he wants to have a baby with a beautiful italian waitress. her name is karen. we see mclwein. he stops for a drink. he has to go soon to talk with his korean girlfriend. she is a lawyer. he says they broke up. he seems to be interested in her more then others i have known before. robert stops by. we play pinball. its loud, the sounds of bells and balls dominate the music. robert tells us about his cancer. i put on my skirt. it is christmas eve in salt lake city. dagny is with her father. if i could take a picture it would be of the booth at the bar.

cameraless i am back

2007-12-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

its happened. my camera broke. first there was a huge crack, then i couldn't see out of the screen which kind of made it a cool challenge, now it pretends to take a picture but there is nothing there afterwards. i have decided to blog everyday with or without the camera. maybe santa will be all knowing? diner christmas party was fun, i am always amazed how many cool people live in this city and how close i feel toward some of them. dagny is with her dad, which makes it little more relaxing at home. its crazy how much i miss her when she is not here, but we seem to get along well this way. i probably take the role that walter usually enjoys. john has been super stressed but i am getting used to this reaction around holidays.

last night we partied with elliot and erika in park city. we drank crazy amount of wine and ate crazy expensive food. fun? yes. except today i barely made it to work and top it all off i caught a cold, so i am sick and... hungover.

i watched the spiderman for the first time tonight. i want to be a hero. i guess we all do. the girl is pretty hot. i've had many cups of tea. if i took a picture today it would be of me and my dogs laying on the couch.

trying to fit in

2007-11-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

i always feel so left out on holidays. at times it feels cool because its kind of like i am not doing the traditional crap like everyone else, but after receiving looks of 'pity' from friends when i tell them we don't really celebrate thanksgiving and no i don't want to attend their family thanksgiving, i begin to feel countryless, traditionless. yes, i don't understand thanksgiving, or even if i do understand it, i have 0 emotional connection to it. i don't have family here, dagny always goes to her dad's, i don't really enjoy cooking and if i was going to cook i definately don't want to cook turkey and gravy. but its not like i celebrate many georgian or russian holidays, so once again i just don't fit in anywhere. there seems to be so much tension around holidays in general, families seem to stress out, fight, argue, talk about each other in mean ways afterwards... john however tells me his family never did that. john loves to paint a perfect picture of his family. he says they all just ate,got along, watched tv and fell asleap early. thus i feel double, triple guilty and just bad. i am the wife who doesn't really care to cook big meal and set up a table in a fancy way and create these traditions. instead i want to go play penny slots in wendover or read a good book in bed with a tea pot on all night or eat tv dinners like in 'stranger than paradise' or go see double feature starting in the early afternoon or go have vietnameese food or go around salt lake and take photos of people's houses as they eat from outside or practice piano all nigth long or drink a lot of whisky or spend a day minimizing all my posessions...
maybe i am a bad immigrant, mother and wife?
maybe it is really difficult for me not to feel displaced.
maybe i am just being difficult.
maybe everyone around just can't handle when people don't do what they do.
maybe i should just do my homework.

red state

2007-11-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

regina spector told all of us on friday to shut the fuck up, if we didn't want to listen to her music.
i think as we create 'art' we have to allow people to react / interpret it whatever way they want to.
it was a good show anyway. people think i look like her, it must be the russian thing. i do want to play music...
last night i had a dream dagny started to smoke sigarettes, ironically yesterday was the first day she acted semi normal.
she was less moody compared to general, she actually joked and treated us like we werr pleasant people. what a surprise, huh? my parents are actually cool and funny and young...
today i voted, all democratic votes in this red red state. funny, red country to red state. go figure.

2007-10-28T17:53:00.000-06:00

one of them is an anthropologist and filmmaker the other one runs a television channel and is a screenwriter. i first saw jen's film when i was pregnant with dagny and trying to make my little experimental films. i was totally blown away. i remember going home and looking for her phone number in the phone book. i am not sure what i was going to say to her if i would have found it. i called some numbers but couldn't find the right one. years later i picked her up as a hitchiker as i was driving from sundance film festival. that's when we became friends. i don't think i have ever told her about our stocking past. mary i meet when she was still writing for a small paper in town. i would arrange press screenings at the tower theater. she has done so much since then! and she has always been sooo sweet to me. right now she has written a screenplay that is completely sold out. it deals with atomic testing that was done in utah and nevada, resulting in many premature cancers and other deseases. the was she talked about her own cancer in the play was incredible. i love women like mary and jen!

rat race?

2007-10-25T09:41:00.000-06:00

i have a funny feeling its all going to work out...

i will start making movies
we will move somewhere far far away
dagny will be sweet to me and she won't do drugs or get pregnant (not now i mean as a teen)
georgia will stabilize
we'll all smile a lot

so there, that's all i want

only a rat can win a rat race
(thanks michael franti for a great show)

maybe there is nothing that does that

2007-10-22T00:55:00.000-06:00

last couple of days all i can think about is how much i want to be part of something that transcends everything else. i don't think linguistics does that.

the way in which

2007-10-13T08:15:00.000-06:00

"our burdens may be of such a nature that we feel bound to bear them cheerfully or without complaint. they may arise from the nature of our situation; they may be allotments of Providence; they may be the consequences of our errors. what is upon us, as a load, we commonly carry with greater reluctance or sense of oppression. it is our loads, our burdens that difine who we are by the way in which we accept and carry them."

weeks, days, minutes

2007-10-11T01:02:00.000-06:00

the weekend was spent seeing my host sister with her new dude as she has gone from one rehab to another tracking the steps of california hard way, she and her new guy, who has also gone through rehab and looks like a street thug, i want him in one of my movies
listening to rockabilly legends and legends to be/was, watch rockabilly john dance with a pinup girl
watch my husband watch another girl... like really watch, uncomfortably so.
learn about pakistani school project
house a little girl who is lost and thinks she wants to end her life, wonder what if that was dagny, who would she go to?
serve
have many many men hit on ... not me
i miss dancing oh so much dancing,
i know this city of salty lake like it is a palm of my hand, except i only think i know my palm
even now when i cover my eyes i see tbilisi, it is ironic that i will probably never live there again
in paris men loved me, i have never received as much attention as i did there, uncomfortably so.
maybe i should not care about that
maybe
john wore a brown velvet jacket today, it looked nice.

only some things are reliable

2007-09-13T10:01:00.000-06:00

my hair is long, it is light, my body is long, it is medium color, my breasts are small, most of the time i want to be taken away, i am prone to breathing too fast, i am lucky because i have always liked my body, i have never worried about it or my face or hair or cloths, but this doesn't mean i don't worry, i worry endlessly if i can ever get away from myself, i worry if i am loved by the people that tell me they love me, if i have a place to go when i need to go, if my brain is good enough to do anything important, i wonder what it means to keep up appearances, i don't understand why i cry as much as i do, i have more than i can handle, yet i want more...i don't understand how it is that i was born somewhere so far away with people so different than anyone around me now and i don't understand where they have all gone, i don't understand how i have lived so separately from my family and everything that seemed to be so comfortable to me, i don't understand why i don't make movies, i don't understand why i worry so much about being smart, most of the time i wish i could do myself a favor and...

i do know that i am not a kiss up and will never wear diamonds

i do know that my ankles are small, my lips and eyes are crooked, and my legs are long

lately

2007-09-08T09:56:00.000-06:00

when i go to work and serve eggs and work with the people that i work with i am reminded that everyone i meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something. one day i will make a movie about this.

2007-09-02T22:41:00.000-06:00

went to our friend's movie tongiht. that's all he does. he makes movies. in between he will work at a coffee shop or record store, but he just makes movies. are they good? they are. they are hip and cool and trendy, they follow conventions of not following conventions. he does his talk, you know, he makes movies because he makes movies. he makes films about pretty girls and pickpocketers. he shoots them in black and white. his characters speak french and italian. but he makes them. i sit here and write blogs about it.

tall like a sycamore

2007-09-02T10:33:00.000-06:00

i don't want to drown

2007-08-31T22:55:00.000-06:00

today i did. i did.

if there were words that were not so loud and clear

2007-08-30T22:59:00.000-06:00

today i got hit by a traffic stoper for the trains. i was on my scooter, music in my ears was loud (i have big, amazing headphones) and i didn't hear all the beeps and sirens and those things usually produce... i was imberassed, scared, my head hurt. i think only two people know about this post, otherwise i would hide this event with due shame. also today while registering dagny for school at the welcome back bbq, we ran into another parent who i went to high school with. we were friends, we are friends, although mostly have been bound together by the teenage pregnancy. as we were making small talk through the sounds of overly excited seventh grad girls hugging each other and under develoloped seventh grade boys still playing some version of hit and run game, this mother told us how she can't stay in wendover overnight. she can go there, but she refuses to stay in the hotels there. why? because its gross. because all kinds of gross people sleap, stay there. i go through out my days and the distance between me and others grow. at times unintentionally, other times intentionally... what the fuck makes someone think they are so much better that somehow them sleaping on a certain bed is ok and when others do it, its gross? is it becaue that other is poor, black, hispanic, uneducated, strange, because they gamble, because their social interactions are not according to the standard? or is it only because they are the other? how does my high school friend breathes the air that we all share? is it truly possible that she has never thought of the possibility that for so many others in this country and around the world there is so much more, ohhh so much more they worry about every morning they get up? i slept in wendover's 3 star hotel couple of nights ago. i felt guilty that after we left they had to wash the sheets as part of protocol. when we were both in high school and got pregnant right out of high school and had to figure out everything, a hotel room would have been a luxury even for her. i don't know if it is the age, money or what changes us so much.

don't stop breathing

2007-08-19T09:54:00.000-06:00

8 years
2 months
17 days
there is one thing that i know and it goes like this:

when john and i are together, it doesn't matter if life has no guarantees

it doesn't matter if other things may never be

i never knew this was possible,
before

back into the routine

2007-08-13T21:55:00.000-06:00

how does one make someone else's dream?
when i get old the only regrets i want to have:
1. i wish i wrote more
2. i wish i visited my friends in other parts of the world more.
what will become of me?

i said

almost 13

2007-08-04T11:26:00.000-06:00

she gets in the car and slams the door. i feel like i should say something, because it would really suck if the door fell off of my mom's car, the car that is the only car she has ever owned and takes a lot of pride in, but i don't say anything. i don't want to sound like a grandma concerned about the door and telling the girls to always be gentle, soft, careful, less rough, more girl like... plus she knows what she is doing, in fact did she not slam the door to get my attention? she never makes an eye contact at those times, times when she is mad at her mom, because it is all her mom's fault, whose else would it be? not surprising that 20 minutes later dagny is just fine. she is acting like nothing has happened and her mood magically, miraculously is happy after-all. while she is laughing and doing all of those things that happy people do, i decide this might be an opportunity to talk about one of the things she does not want to talk about: MAKEUP. she can't wear makeup, until she is older, it is a pretty simple, straight forward policy. this of course is made difficult by the fact that her best friend who is sitting next to her has her eyes painted with thick creamy black eye-shadow and penciled around the contour just like the pictures of egyptian queen, the difference of course it that those girls are 12-14 and live in salt lake. as soon as i mention no make up, the mood changes again and within minutes i get a text from dagny telling me how i am not supportive of her and don't understand her struggles with her identity and how i just make life and everything in general very very difficult. oh yes, and how all the other parents are so much better because... well they just are. of course life goes on and i try to talk and explain that she is just a little too young, that she is beautiful without it, that her talents and thoughts and ideas are what makes her beautiful. i try to do my best to cheer them up again, pretending that i am in a great mood, but of course the reality is that i am actually having a day when i feel totally alone and lost, etc.... in fact my feelings are probably very similar to the ones dagny is experiencing and i wish i could tell her how similar we are, that nothing really changes as you get older, we continue to try to figure ourselves out and her feeling insecure or lost has nothing really to do with me, i am just an easy target right now to be angry at, because i am the mom. i don't say much, instead we go to simpson movie and beach and drive along california coast, eating strawberries we bought on the side of the road, hoping that nothing else sets her off. toward the end of the day i feel like a champion, we are laughing together, making jokes, sharing clothes, i feel like a great success, like i've overcome my almost 13 year old daughter's natural "need" to not quite get along with me, life is great, it will be all o.k.... until she says: "so, mom i have figured everything out, i know what i am going to do when school starts." "oh yeah? great, what is it?" " well, you know how i finish school at 3:30 everyday, between 3:30 and 4:30 everyday i have decided that i am going to play guitar on the streets to make money and express myself..." as imagined, due to my reaction to this plan, i got another few hours of angry, door slamming almost 13 year old. oh well, i did enjoy the shared moments of laughter...

it's got to start somewhere

2007-07-26T00:44:00.000-06:00

this is the life i kind of always wanted and never got and now at 31, i am living in the dorm. what would it be like to have had a chance to apply to colleges? instead of going where i had to because moving wasn't an option at all. just that whole process of choosing a college seems so fantastic and magical. traveling around the country deciding where to attend university. i hear people talk about it and they speak of where they would prefer to live, which city has better art, more mountains, clean air, proximity to the water, prof. they like ... the fact that i somehow got through my bachelor's degree and paid for it in salt lake so dagny can be closer to her dad seemed like an achievement at the time. now i just feel like an underachiever. i get jealous of opportunities people have and don't even realize. i get jealous of people who didn't have to worry about anything other than showing their trascripts and personal essay to admissions... i begin to wonder what school would have i attended, how would i pick, how would it be like to just go to school, go home for christmas, work on the weekends? well i am not sure, but i do know what it is like to be living in roble hall dorm room #216 at stanford this summer, attending five linguistics classes, riding my bike around, connecting with people around me, getting to know palo alto. my dorm has four desks in one room, separate room has two beds each. they are bunk beds. we are lucky, only two of us insted of four showed up. it gives us more space. the beds are covered with red blankets, desks are wood and old, windows large, three in a row, each room has a sink, bathroom is in the hallway, rigth across from our room, at times there is hair stuck in the shower drain, from my windows i see palm trees and a dry lake, i listen to loud music when my roommate is not here and study at moonbeam cafe when she is. she is young and sweet. we all eat together and act like we are all best friends, although we just met three weeks ago. i have enjoyed waking up in my stark dorm room and working at my bare brown befitting desk leting california heat sink into my bones

"we haven't had AC for 30 years"

2007-07-23T01:54:00.001-06:00

that was what the grumpy motel lady told me over the phone. oh well, we fooled her anyway. even after many threats of no visitors, 6 linguists (dagestanian documentarian and descriptivist who will not have premarital sex but dances like she has two minutes left to live living in germany, australian spandex wearing beach hating kite flying anthropologist in an indiana jones hat, ambitious grateful dead loving computational linguist from midwest, sexy blonde jewish new yorker studying vernacular african american english from canada, big eyed french speaking dancing queen linguist anthropologist at heart from oklahoma, and i) were able to sneak into this 1 star paradise. eating and drinking many beers at the mexican dive by the amtrak bus stop only got better when we were joined by a car sales man and a business student. oh my...

"big dog an ugly woman"

2007-07-19T00:31:00.000-06:00

linguistics summer institute at stanford this summer. today is wednesday, day off from the classes. i am at the library of my dorm "roble hall". carpet is burgundy, lights are florescent, there are three of us here, with headphones. between the songs i hear the keyboard typing. we watched walt wolfram movies tonight "the last one" and "american tongues". linguistics combined with documentary film. brilliant. cara and i had sushi in palo alto. we talked about her past, boys. dagny and john were argueing in salt lake, i heard about it over the phone. my stomack hurt, from worry or bad food. probably worry. florescent lights are calling me back.