samovar
The brass one in the corner of the kitchen, polished roughly twice a year and working anyway. The cezve is for the desk; the samovar is for company, for Sunday calls that need sitting through, for winters. If a post reads warm in January, this is why.
14 entries, newest first.
2026
Two weeks out
· In two weeks Ternary Dreams meets the world. The first time the title and a real date sit together on this blog.
Ternary on the Kitchen Table
· Late structural revision at the kitchen table: a notebook of ternary-logic diagrams, and the click when the book's three-way spine finally behaves.
The Pitch That Got a No
· On a side project politely declined, the usefulness of a clean refusal, and why I am not staging a grievance from Bishkek.
A week I did not write much
· A bad cold, a quiet desk, and the unglamorous decision to stop treating rest like a moral failure.
2025
A difficult phone call
· A slightly tense call from Bishkek about a family matter I cannot fully rearrange from here: no neat ending, only the sound of the line and what I can actually do.
Almost nothing to report
· A quiet stretch of thin royalties and thinner pages six weeks before the first book exists, and the discipline of not performing panic for an audience.
2024
2023
2022
Parcels on the Bed
· An afternoon of locked doors, tissue paper, one defeated bodysuit, and the black slip that finally looked like me. Also a question.
The Lit Window on a Dark Street
· A late-lockdown walk through empty Bishkek, a closed lingerie shop still glowing, and a quiet click I was not ready to name.
2021
The day the drain won
· A Saturday spent on a clogged drain, heavy bazaar bags, damp laundry, and a hallway bulb that chose the worst moment to die.
The First Time We Sat in a Room Again
· Nearly a year on: tea with Aigerim and Dinara, masks half-managed, gratitude braided with a wariness that will not simply switch off.
2020
The Quarter From the Kitchen
· An autumn quarter attended from a kitchen table thirteen hours out of step, and the particular shame of losing the middle of a sentence to a stuttering line.
The Middle of It
· High summer indoors, closed banyas, thin video calls, and the flat stretch where writing is the only thing that still has edges.