A week and a half ago a guy I grew up with passed away. He took his own life. I found out a few days later, via a mutual friend over email, as is the custom. And, also as is the custom, I can't stop thinking about him. His name was Mike, and he was very smart, and very nice, and also very handsome. I'm not going to lie, the latter is really sticking with me. The photos of him that have been posted are just too poignant. I mean, he was dreamy.

At the risk of getting lost on caveat lane, I do want to say that I don't think it's any less sad or terrible when someone not handsome, not nice, and not smart passes away, let alone takes their own life. In the search for a reason, though - a reason that is sorely lacking when you haven't talked to someone since high school - it's that much more baffling when the person seems to have had a great life. Mike had a girlfriend, as far as I can tell from Facebook. In a lot of photos there's a dog, a black lab. I know he had good friends, because I kept in touch with some of them. I know he had a good job, because I have been Googling. And I know how depression is, because I have been close to it. But still. But still.

Mike played the Beast in our sixth grade performance of Beauty and the Beast. My best friend Stef played Belle; I played a plate (the head plate, I was told, but I later learned that was just because I was the tallest). Later, when we were in high school, I thought about getting my pilot's license. Mike, who later wound up at Embry-Riddle, an aeronautics college, encouraged me. He convinced me it was the best thing I could do. My parents disagreed, and I lost that battle. But over the last week and a half I haven't been able to stop thinking about the teenage boy who checked in with a classmate in the halls on a dream, who handed her pamphlets and told her she could do it, that she'd love being on the wing. It was a much greater show of care and energy than was seemly at the time, and I can't shake it now.

From what I've pieced together, Mike did not become a pilot, as he had wanted in high school, but went into the Marines. He did a long tour of duty in Iraq, where he continued to be nicer than was even close to required. He came home and got what to me appears to have been a fancy job in DC. His girlfriend (again based on Facebook stalking) clearly adored him, and he her. When she changed her profile picture a few days after he died to a photo of him kissing her, someone commented, "Who is that movie star smooching you?" Enough people changed their photos last week to pictures of him that I thought he had gotten married, until I got the news.

I know this is how life goes sometimes. We get older, life gets complex, sadder in many ways, and people pass away. This one rankles though. It really does.

Memory lane

Flickr has opened up the photo archives of its users, so I can now go back and look at everything I posted back to 2005. Damn, we were BABIES.

This one is from 7 years ago; I was 22 and Mike was 28.

And another oldie-goodie. Plus ça change...

New post up on Haighteration

I wrote a piece for Haighteration, my neighborhood's blog, that was posted last week. It took me AGES to write because for the first time I recorded an interview instead of taking written notes, and it turns out I hate the sound of my voice enough to avoid transcribing it for months. I'm happy with how the interview turned out, though, and it's getting some nice feedback in the Haighteration comments. Check it out here. 

A dinner party and a sunburn

On Friday we hosted a small dinner to welcome Caitlin to San Francisco. She starts a fancy new job today. Yay, Caitlin!

The only pictures I took are blurry, a testament to the strength of the cocktails. (I made a big jar o'cocktail with St. George's gin, soda water, simple syrup, rosemary and cucumber. After dinner I added Campari and called it a digestif.) See?

I wanted to share the menu despite my lack of gorgeous food and tablescape photos because most of the dishes were delightful. I've gotten pretty good at prepping my ingredients over the few days before a party so that the day-of isn't insane, but I'm still working out some kinks on actually prepping my house for guests. I bought a few strings of pretty lights that I had plans to hang, but handing early arrivals a hammer, some nails and minimal instruction is a recipe for broken glass, it turns out.

The company couldn't have been better - it's nice to remember where the phrase "busting a gut" comes from every once in a while - and I think we sent Caitlin off to work with some good juju behind her.

Hors d'oeuvres:

• raw oysters with lemon
• baked ricotta with lemon and chives
• homemade bread - my first attempt, a boule, and it came out well!

Appetizer:

• cauliflower soup with fresh sweet corn, tarragon oil, and arugula from our garden

Dinner:

• grilled sausages (from Bi Rite - so good) with grainy mustard
• roasted vegetables with brown butter and lemon
• orange pan-glazed tempeh

Dessert:

• lemon olive oil cake (inspired by this one) with fresh whipped cream

The weekend also included a readthrough of a friend's screenplay in the park, a housewarming bbq, and an A's game. I am all kinds of sunburnt, but it was worth it.

Cappadocia

Welcome to post #2 in my dispatches from our April trip to Turkey. Post #1, on Istanbul, is here (or, you know, just scroll down). I'm rolling these out slowly, mostly because I really can't be snarky or wry about this trip, and I'm disgusted by my own use of "wonderful" and "divine". Hyperbole does not become me, but such is the price I'm paying for having my mind blow on this trip.

Cappadocia (cap-uh-dokey-yu, ish), a desert region in the center of Turkey, is wildly different from anywhere else I've been, or even seen in photos. Because of its geological makeup, it has a hundreds of thousands of caves, both natural and manmade, as well as alien-looking rock spires.

Face in the rock!

Cave church

Looking out at one cave church from inside another cave church

You guessed it: cave church

Mike in a...fill in the blank

Don't think we didn't giggle at these "fairy chimneys"

Aw, Eddie's

Why Does Coffee Just Taste Better Out of a Boob Mug?

Oh, Istanbul

I miss Turkey, guys. I was ready for my home and cats and bed when we left, but now I would give so many lira to be able to pop into a cafe in Istanbul for a bottle of Bomonti and some people watching. Istanbul is exciting and amazing and stunning, and its people watching equals its sights. For those not in the know, i.e. me before we went, the city sits between three bodies of water: the Bosphorus halves it into European and Asian sides (it straddles two continents!), the Golden Horn (a Bosphorous inlet) divides the European side into north and south, and the Sea of Marmara hugs its southern shores. Everywhere you look there is water, there are hills, and there are mosques. A sea of mosques, minarets bristling the skyline. I got used to the minarets, but not the calls to prayer, at least not the pre-dawn ones, and especially not when multiple mosques would have the muezzin version of rap battles.

A quick note: this post is long, and made longer by all the photos. Where possible I made them large, because I think Istanbul deserves to be shown in high res. That said, all photos were taken with my phone - I haven't even begun to tackle the photos on my camera. Anything that I didn't Instagram is higher res, and therefore larger. Think of it as inconsistency for consistency's sake.

Before we left I tried to gauge what it was going to be like traveling with my boyfriend and my parents for 10 days. It turned out to be lovely - there were more than a few times that I looked around the table after a good meal and thought how lucky I was to be on the other side of the world with three of the people I most enjoy talking to. The time passed quickly, too quickly. Like any vacation, it now seems a little like a dream. So, in an attempt to recapture it, I'm going to post a bit on what we did, what we saw, and (way more important to me than it probably should be) what we ate. First up: Istanbul.

The view from our rented apartment by Galata Tower

Our first days in Istanbul, we rented an apartment in the "new" city, new only in contrast to the southern half of the European side, Sultanahmet, which hosts more of the historical tourist sites. Our neighborhood, Beyoglu, is hip and secular, and is known more for its bars than its mosques. The area of Beyoglu that we stayed in, near Galata Tower and the very cool Tunel area, was packed with restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, boutiques, and people. People people people. The primary street that runs through Beyoglu is Istiklal Caddesi, a pedestrian thoroughfare that was shoulder-to-shoulder with bodies whether it was noon or two a.m. It didn't make for the speediest passage, but it was perfect for strolling. The shops on the main street were mostly chain stores, but the small alleys of Istiklal Caddesi were line with meyhanes (taverns), nargile (hookah) cafes, and every kind of bar you can think of. We found a bar blasting heavy metal, which made Mike very happy.

Folks in Istanbul were so, so nice. Helpful, friendly, knowledgeable, and funny, even when communicating mostly via hand gestures. Most people spoke English, but the quality of it varied, and my Turkish never really made it past thank you (tesekkur ederim, which sounded to me like tesh-eh-gooyah ed-er-em, in case you were wondering).

We were told that Istanbul is quite secular, and found that to be true, at least in the areas we were wandering. The call to prayer goes out five times a day (even with earplugs in it would wake me for a few minutes each morning) but people continue to go about their business. Men wore what men everywhere wear - jeans, tshirts, button downs - but women's clothing varied more widely. Wildly might be the word. We saw everything from women entirely covered up, to (much more common) women in headscarves with their face uncovered but wearing these belted shoe-length trenchcoats that were chic and modest at the same time. On the more secular end of the spectrum, women in headscarves wore regular street clothes, or even teensy little skirts and stripper heels (or stripper heels with the trenchcoat dresses, which tickled me), but always with skin colored pantyhose. Even when wearing jeans and flats. I thought it was a pretty clever workaround - giving the impression of showing skin even if you're not.

When we landed on Friday (after being delayed, of course) we convened with my parents and Caitlin at our rented apartment to toast the beginning of our vacation with gin and tonics, courtesy of the duty free, and crackers and cheese, courtesy of the Newark airport United lounge. We strolled to dinner, then got some sweet treats, and then headed to a very hip bar near our apartment that had Brooklyn Lager. It was also Mike's birthday!

Lokum - Turkish Delight

Not a bad way to ring in 35

Today is a good day. It is 8 a.m. and already in the high 70s, something that happens a dozen times or fewer in San Francisco each year. You can almost hear everyone sighing in contentment. A dear friend has just moved here, and may turn out to be my neighbor. I've figured out how to make one of my favorite drinks from Turkey. Not only that, but my sleep schedule post-Turkey is actually an improvement on my normal one; when the alarm goes off at 7, I can actually get out of bed with a little spring in my step, instead of my usually fuzzy slog to brush my teeth.

So, Turkey. Turkey was amazing. If you haven't thought about visiting before, add it to your list. If you've always wanted to go, get it done. We hit four places: Istanbul (city), Cappadocia (remote, insane rock formations), Ephesus (coastal Roman ruins) and Bodrum (beach party city). It was an aggressive plan for 10 days, but I'm glad we got to see it all. And I've already got a long list of what I want to see and do when we go back!

Istanbul

Cappadoccia (which is a region - we stayed in the town of Ortahisar)

Ephesus (the name of the ruined town - we stayed nearby in Selcuk)

Bodrum

More detail to come when I've pulled the photos off my camera and have rejoined normal life a bit more.

Hive mind

I am covered in hives, y'all, and have been for 36+ hours. It is not comfortable. They ebb and flow, with some nasty eruptions right before bedtime (yippee), and a lull in the middle of the day that makes me slightly more acceptable to society. But only barely. I have some theories on where they came from - namely a combination of crazy pollen + some Chinese food - but I'm more concerned about them getting gone, asap.

But! I will not let the itchy redness keep me down, because there is so. much. good. going on these days.

1. We leave for Turkey on Thursday! By Friday we will be strolling the streets of Istanbul and eating all the things.

2. I'm booked for Yes by Yes Yes, an "unconference" a friend is putting together in Palm Springs. A lady-run, tech-geek heaven in the desert (caveat: in July, holy heat). It is going to be good.

3. Taxes got done. Hallelujah. I really hate procrastinating.

4. We booked the house for my July 4/birthday celebration: Park Place on the Russian River. Can't wait to be floating in the sun.

5. We spent Friday night with friends. Below is their view, and their baby, and their pig. I love it all.

6. Mah dudes.

New identity?

Maybe I should give the World of Tanks a go? The curse of the gbrennan email address strikes again.

Productivity/avoidance

I have some very real things I need to do - write an article for a local blog, do my taxes, deal with some legal documentation around a shady rental car damage claim - which means I am being super productive in all other ways. For example, last weekend consisted of getting some shit DONE around the house. 

First, we installed a new light fixture in the kitchen so that I no longer feel that I'm cooking or eating under an interrogator's lamp. This was a big step for me, since electricity is scary and dangerous. Nobody got electrocuted, though, so cheers to the Brecki household. I also took on the dumb but satisfying task of corralling all my extension cords and either taping them to the wall with white duct tape or tucking them into a rubber cord protector a la this. This is the most boring thing to talk about on a blog, I am sure, but I'll tell you what: it made a difference in my quality of life. That is probably because something is very wrong with me, but at least I'm dealing with it.

I weeded the garden, which was completely taken over by nasturtium, clover, dandelions, crabgrass, and something I haven't yet identified that has yellow flowers and is, thank god, very easy to pull up by the roots. The work went quickly, and I was able to put in tulips (too late, I know, but I had the damn bulbs) and zinnia seeds that Mike's mother gave us - the seeds' grandparents were from Mike's grandma's garden. There's a lot more work to do, but it felt nice to start. And also to be in the sun in my backyard with the smell of the pine trees in the next yard.

We gave the new mixer its first go-round with dough: Smitten Kitchen's cinnamon buns, which Mike pulled off quite nicely. 

Lest other appliances feel neglected, I juiced a ton of fruits and vegetables from the farmer's market and mixed them with sparkling water (thanks to our much-loved SodaStream) for spritzers. If you alternate cinnamon buns and fresh juice, that's kind of like a cleanse, right? Sure.

I also went to Beth's dance competition, which was absolutely delightful. Beth is a master tapper, and seeing her dressed up as a genie/flirty teenager/sassy old lady was a sight.

Isn't she adorable with her jazz hands, even in her normal people clothes? Anyway, another weekend is rolling around, and my to do list hasn't gotten shorter. Which means I'm going to get a ton done. Just none of the right things.

Oh well.

It is possible

That tonight I went to a pilates-type class where everyone (else) was skinny, strong, and wearing a giant diamond engagement ring, then I called in some sushi, rode the subway, picked up the sushi, and ate it at home, still in my yoga pants, while sipping a dirty martini.

Hey, these are the last months of my 20s. I can be a cliche all that I want.

Stingy tech

This East Bay Express article on the tech economy is a really worthwhile read. It has its flaws, but I think it gets to the heart of the things that make me most uncomfortable about Bay Area culture. In my mind, it buries the lede by having this passage two thirds of the way through:

But the thing about this particular brand of low-key wealth is that it can lead to a false sense of self, on both a micro and a macro level. Consumption is still consumption even if it's less conspicuous. Class may be harder to see here, but that doesn't make it any less real. Mark Zuckerberg's still a billionaire, even if he's wearing a hoodie and jeans. And if you don't feel or look rich, you don't necessarily feel the same sense of obligation that a traditional rich person does or should: Noblesse oblige is, after all, dependent on a classical idea of who is and is not the nobility. As that starts to fall away, obligation — to culture, to the future, to each other — begins to disappear, too.

That really sums it up for me. Even the older tech guys - Bill Gates etc - took a more old school approach to charity. The newbies are not so into it, the cheap bastards.

As much as I can get het up about Ayn Randian dudebro billionaires, though, I also know that I'm not nearly as generous as I should be. Why? Because I don't feel rich. And that's because I'm not rich! But I'm also making a good living, and I need to be much more rigorous about giving it away. Working on it.

The class aspect of it is most interesting to me. The article is saying - and I, in my limited knowledge, think it seems correct - that if you were born into the upper class, and were raised to believe you deserved to be there, then you also thought it was your duty to help your lessers. It's a weird inversion of how I normally think about class, but an interesting one.

Anyway, it seems like this is something the maker/tech culture should be able to solve. Start some education campaigns, build some apps, let Kickstarter do its thing, and there you go. Boom! Instant generosity.

By the way, I really disagree with the article's argument that Kickstarter is a sign of a culture of consumption, as opposed to cultural philanthropy like the opera or symphony. Relevant passage:

The self-described "world's largest funding platform for creative projects" has, in its three-year existence, raised more than half a billion dollars for more than 90,000 projects and is getting more popular by the day; at this point, it metes out roughly twice as much money as the National Endowment for the Arts...Kickstarter is entirely in and of the web, and possibly for that reason, it tends to attract people who are interested in starting and funding projects that are oriented toward DIY and nerd culture..."A lot of this is about the difference between consuming culture and supporting culture," a startup-world refugee told me a few weeks ago: If Old Money is investing in season tickets to the symphony and writing checks to the Legion of Honor, New Money is buying ultra-limited-edition indie-rock LPs and contributing to art projects on IndieGoGo in exchange for early prints. And if the old conception of art and philanthropy was about, essentially, building a civilization — about funding institutions without expecting anything in return, simply because they present an inherent, sometimes ineffable, sometimes free market-defying value to society, present and future, because they help us understand ourselves and our world in a way that can occasionally transcend popular opinion— the new one is, for better or for worse, about voting with your dollars.

I think that's ass backwards. Rich people don't get anything out of donating to the ballet? Bullshit! They get to go to the ballet, for one, which is something I'd do more often if it wasn't so damn expensive. They get to feel like they're fancy shmancy, and they get to develop a community around other people that are hoity toity like them (hoity toity and fancy shmancy in the same sentence, lucky you, reader). Um, hello, glossy photos in the society pages.

My generation's love of Kickstarter isn't a result of getting to show off our generosity while swanning around in a ballgown in a symphony hall. It's quite a bit more humble than that; it's you, a computer, and maybe a Facebook post about the worthy project. For most of the Kickstarters I've funded I've been driven by a sense of charity (and I mean that in the sense of wanting to help, not of pity), not because I'm going to get some shiny new toy. Also! By contributing to a Kickstarter project, you can be contributing to the broader culture - I've funded some of my friends' extremely worthy arts ventures that many people besides the supporters will get to enjoy. Example 1 and Example 2.

In short (ha!): it's a thought-provoking article, and adds another facet to the dialogue around what the tech community's totally insane wealth means for us all, other than cultural apocalypse and selling our organs to make rent.

Colossal

Do you know This Is Colossal? You should. It's an arts site, but one that covers more than just pretty things. What Buzzfeed is for dumb lists that make you go "Awww," (Ten Cutest Cats etc), Colossal is for things that make you go "Damn. Cool." 

Today's example (via my brother): Prince Rupert's drop. Plop molten glass into cold water and it creates a teardrop shape. The drop can't be shattered with force, but nick the skinny end, and the thing explodes outward with force. It looks like it's shattering, but it's actual the mechanical equivalent of the chemical reaction that causes an explosion. Glass go boom. Watch the video; it's rad. And bookmark Colossal.

Fiddlehead!

I have been shamefully neglectful in posting about our March 11 dinner/reading event at Brick & Mortar, mostly because there's so much to say. I finally got a post up on the Fiddlehead Supper Club site, and so there's no longer any excuse. I'm crossposting from Fiddlehead, with some added color since this is my personal blog.

I should also give a quick overview of what Fiddlehead is; you can read more on the Fiddlehead site here and here. I'm aiming to start a dinner party event series that combines a sitdown meal with art, be it literature, performance art, film, music etc. If it works - and I hope it does - we'll be doing this every few months. Maybe even more, if others step up to help. Feedback welcome!

FIDDLEHEAD LAUNCHES!

Two Mondays ago was Fiddlehead's inaugural event: a Middle Eastern-inspired dinner and sci-fi reading at Brick & Mortar in San Francisco for the new ebook company FreemadeSF. It was exciting, exhausting, and a success by our measures. We maxed out on guests, delivered on tasty food and drink, and got to ease people into an event of interesting, fun writing. The bartender at the venue, witness to it all, said he thought it was wonderful. Always trust the bartender.

An ace team came early to help with setup. We had to get the food ready and transform a rock club into a space worthy of a sitdown dinner. Up went tables, down went tablecloths, candles, flowers and place settings. We didn't want to go overboard on the sci fi theme, but we worked it into the table runners, menus and cool glowing flower arrangements. When attendees started arriving, we set out the hors d'ouevres: grilled halloumi toasts with butternut squash puree with honey from my parents' bees, and cheddar gougeres made with our own homebrewed porter. Both went quickly, but the gougeres absolutely flew - I'll be doubling the number I make next time.

A touch I'm glad we incorporated - thanks to Brick & Mortar's bartender Terry - were two signature cocktails to complement the meal, the brainchild of our friends at Spiritworks Distillery. The Buck (named after the first story read out loud that evening) was made with rye, vermouth, lemon juice, grenadine and orange bitters. Served on ice, I saw it getting sipped down all over the room. The Barbarella was also popular - gin, grapefruit juice, Campari, honey and mint. It was smooth and strong, and my personal favorite.

After an hour or so of cocktail hour, we brought out dinner. Sides included shaved asparagus and fennel salad with carrot and sliced almonds, sweet potato fritters with harissa cream, and burnt eggplant with garlic and lemon on cabbage leaves. The main event was a chickpea phyllo pie. We did beef, vegetarian and vegan versions, as well as a gluten-free option. Based on the fact that many people went up for seconds, I'm judging the meal a hit.

The piece de resistance was a tray of chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel icing, on top of which perched edible logos for FreemadeSF.

With a room of full and happy guests, our emcee Kat took us through the rest of the evening: four readings, all set to live music. One writer even played the sitar!

A huge thanks goes out to those who helped with the evening, and to those who attended as well. We can't wait for the next one!