COCKROACHES
31 August 2000 — God protect me from demons & other flotsam — Your friend perhaps cannot help being a cockroach but he should not forget that I am a goddess. — Drawn on one of the worst nights of my life — [Phone numbers] — Just a bunch feral Kurdish rug floggers… or a pack of cards… after all—— Ismael borrowed my phone to set up hookers for these clowns. For months later, in the hospital, I got calls from horny Turks.—— What was I doing with such people?
WHITE SIDE
1 September 2000 — Side. I think I could have loved it here. — “Thank you, but I am too sad.”
TIME BANDIT
Deniz — His English was excellent but his hands had no lines in the palm. He took me to a fabulous ruin in Side, but gave me no time to draw anything but his portrait. Was he some sort of demon? — Or just a waste of time? —— Yeah, the latter.
CELAR, NIZAM & FEAR
29 August 2000 — Nizam — The night before the final denouement, he walked past me in the doorway & I caught a smile of such genuine sweetness that I momentarily forgot how perfectly sociopaths can counterfeit human emotions. — FEAR MAKES PEOPLE UGLY — Celar – One of the all-time great faces —- I told him he should go get pictures & an agent. Gangster films- A sweet guy, at least to me—— Afraid of what? Poverty, angst, the yawning uncertainty of life…
BAD MEMORY
“A FINISH with you!!” “Yeah? Well I’m DONE with YOU!!” — I ran upstairs & stood at the window watching him walk stately up the street & merge into the darkness. — That night: I turned the phone so I couldn’t hear him and let him have it. —- FINALLY & FOREVER The end. I really thought so. 3 days later he called as I was on my way to the hospital. “No one ever take you place.” Hadn’t been outta the room. He took my hand and beat himself over the head with it. “AİAİAİAİAİAİ” “What was all that about?” — It’s worse than quitting smoking. — From memory, May 2001—— Many knee-jerk reactions to this story (1.e: “I can’t believe you of all people got involved in something so squalid”) made me wary about sharing it, but if you are in a similar obsession I feel your pain and there is hope. Women don’t talk about this shit because it’s like getting battered twice: first by the original asshole, and then by the person you’re talking to. I stayed sober and recovered because I turned it into art.
ONLY ELEVEN
3 September 2000 — Amazing looking boy on the bus – SELAMI – Age 11 — Eleven, swear to God. His father is the bus driver. His mother – “Çok guzel!” — Rayan at the beauty shop in Kaş — My pedicured, deeply tanned left foot. If I am to contemplate it 5 hours on the bus, it should be beautiful, dammit.——
TWO CUTIES IN KAŞ
SATYR
1 September 2000 — Ubiquitous cleaning ladies – Always scarved – Seldom grumpy — MEHMET – Manager, Yaşa Motel in Side — One year ago today I flew to Europe & started this odyssey – Here I am now victim of my own sentiment, crippled and finally alone. Both are temporary. There is something to be said for going through one’s greatest fears. A crucible. When I am most vulnerable, I feel the Shitstorm Angels. What could possibly be coming next from him?——- Yaşa Motel was a little haven in the sea of terrors. Nizam & his friends had become vicious & I knew nobody else in town.
MOON WOMAN
2 September 2000 — Back to Kaş before surgery — Cleaning lady at Yaşa. — You could build a civilization on that noble butt — Night Bus to Kaş to see friends before going into the hospital. —- Driver & bus boy listening to futbol game. —- My 4th bus trip with my foot propped up (3-4 hours) Thanks to massage it’s the first time it’s not swollen. & of course the ride is spectacularly beautiful.–— Snooty world travelers have sneered at my naiveté and subsequent disaster but I really did the best I could. I mean, I could still be behind that picket fence in Venice, California.
FAMILY OF THE PLAIN
Rendering this ruined city quietly in hospital while the [Shitstorm] Angels hold my head fiercely – What in God’s name is going down — Staff (Family!) at YAŞA Motel in SIDE with PERGE a few kilometers away. —- TÜBA – FEHMI – TUÇE – BARIŞ -IBRAHIM — The city is only a magnificent plain of broken marble but the people remain. —— The city was drawn after I had run out of paper, so transposed this drawing from a photo onto the family portrait.