Today, while at a meeting to discuss the issues facing the "support staff", which I, as a graduate assistant am currently, I found myself teetering on the brink of manic laughter. I don't know why, but for a brief moment I remembered a "fun" kid's song that I used to sing whilst be-uniformed on the asphalt "playground" of the Knights of Columbus parking lot, filled as it was with cigarette butts and broken glass. To the tune of "Alouette":
Suffocation takes coordination!
Suffocation! A game we all can play!
First, you take a plastic bag
Then, you put it on your head
Go to bed
Wake up dead
Ohhhhh!
We'd sing this until one of the supervising "mothers" would come and beat us with a croquet mallet. Hahahaha, no, that's not true. It was a monkey-wrench soaked in horse urine. Thanks be that it wasn't a nun: they'd beat us unconscious, wake us up with smelling-salts and take us to confession, where we would be spiritually cleansed of our misdeeds and made to do our "penance", which often involved being fettered sin agua y sin cumida in a room beyond the dank passageway between the school and the church. The room always smelled vaguely of stale urine, skunked beer and tears; apparently, the local Alcoholics Anonymous met there weekly.
Truth be told, I can't remember much that was strange about having gone to Catholic school; this, surely, is because I have nothing to compare it to, since the first time I encountered the plebe was my first day of high school. As a "St.Mary's fairy" dressed in sweatpants and ill-fitting shoes, you can be sure that I spent many an afternoon enjoying the delights of wet-willies, toilet swirlies and the rapture of being randomly jumped by hoods with chains and piercings whilst walking that long mile home. Of course, that's because I haven't always looked the way I do now (ie, like a flannel-wearing Middle Eastern-cum-Mediterranean lumberjack). As a small bird-child, I was often the victim of overly-hormoned pubescent mutants, whose lack of mental faculties were more than made up for by their propensity to stomp people. My first year of high school I spent flitting in-beween "safe", well-lit classrooms trying desperately to avoid being noticed at all. I failed. I failed a lot. Being picked to answer something in class was always my death-sentence; punishment, apparently, for having previously gotten a very sound education. Two summers ago I went back to Hackettstown (home of M&M Mars, the only such plant in the Northern Hemisphere) with my best friend-turned Marine, Mary. In a bar that used to be a very old, beautiful hotel lobby, I met one of my tormentors.
Tormentor: Oh my God, it's you, isn't it?
Me: Yes. *bristles menacingly*
Tormentor: Wait a minute. How did I know you? Were you in my history class?
Me: No.
Tormentor: Math?
Me: Try again.
Tormentor: I give up. Damn, that was a long time ago.
Me: Let me set the scene for you. It's a Thursday afternoon, and I am taking the shortcut home because I'm not feeling well. Ordinarily, I would take the main roads out of abject fear. You and two of your chummies were waiting in a bush. The three of you step out of the bush, and I pretend that I haven't just soiled my undergarments. I try to get to the other side of the road but your friend lopes over and blocks me. You demand that I give you money for smokes, and I say that I don't have any. When I regained consciousness, you were just about to extinguish a Marlboro under my armpit.
Tormentor: Oh.
Me: Yes.
Tormentor: Dude, I am so sorry. God! What an ass I was then! I was so young and stupid!
Me: Here's $4.
Tormentor: What for?
Me: The smokes.
Tormentor: <muffled choking sound as he swallows the teeth I punched down his ugly cake-hole>
The night in jail did me some good. I learned how to crochet from a 6'7", 350lb man named Muffy who lost his man-parts in an unfortunate encounter with someone he called "The Armadillo." I guess I will never drink Wild Turkey straight out of the bottle again.
One of the things I do miss, however, is my class. There were only twenty of us, strong together as a family through the beatings and the endless weeping. Some days I will be walking down a street here in the corn and I will turn around and think, just for a moment, that I had seen one of them. I smile for a moment.
Then I think: What they be doin' on my turf? Man, I'll cut'choo. Cut'choo real bad.
Well, I have about three hours of work to do, and yay, it's 10 PM. As a matter of disclaimer, no, I was never touched in grade school, by nuns or otherwise. Leave that to public schools, eh?
Also: my bed currently rests, sans frame, on my floor in what I call "college ghetto dorm chic." So there aren't any clowns under there.
They live in my closet.
Good night.
Dom (Demir)
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
'O Aghios Elektherios.
In the dimly-lit grotto of my computer desk where my monitor and my speakers rest, begging to be dusted, there hangs on the wall above said monitor something special. I bought it whilst in exile in Raleigh, North Carolina, year-before-last. Every weekend while there, rain or shine, they would have a gigantic flea market out at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds. I, missing the special atmosphere of bazaars in Turkey, went religiously every Saturday. By "special", I mean "socially acceptable to give the shiv to old ladies who grab something you want; also, you can bicker with people you don't know for something you need like you need holes drilled into your head with sidewalk-breakers." It was fantastic. I became very, very familiar with several of the vendors; namely, the ones who sold freak ethnographic artifacts. There was the Thai man who would show me his new merchandise, having ordered it specifically to suit my very desires; the Nepalese man who knew of my propensity for buying anything that was made to look like Ganesh, the Hindu god who removes obstacles and possessed of an elephant-head, and of course, the Turkish lady who would bring me food every weekend and who called me her lost American son. The Nepalese man was shrewdest. As I walked by on a crisp autumn afternoon, he fanned his wares attractively as he met my eye. New this week: a bumper-crop of masks.
Now, as you all know, I collect masks. Some people collect expensive purses or shoes or baseball cards; I collect masks, and the more hideous, the better. I have masks from more than seventeen countries, totalling more than eighty at this point. The funny part is how I get them: most are gifts from my friends and family, who delight me at every chance by getting me increasingly more disturbing masks as the years go by. One of my friends said once: "If I see a mask that I would never allow into my own home, I know I need to buy it for you." Tenderness!
So anyway, the Nepalese man knew he had me by the cojones. I stood there, bathed in the smoke from the incense he was always burning. Nothing says "weird" in North Carolina like when them ferriners burn that crazy crap. He eyed me and smiled his broad, blindingly white smile. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the "O.K. Corral" theme-song. A tumbleweed tattered past. He dramatically unveiled thirteen plaster masks of Nepalese demons and minor deities. My poker-face was about to be lost. He gestured grandly.
Hello, good sir. I have new masks today. How about you coming over here...for a look?
Look I did. In vivid colors I recognized Hanumaman, the monkey-god; Shiva, the destroyer, and many others. Amongst them were not one, but two masks of Ganesh. There was no going back.
With my bazaar mindset in place, I prepared for a battle that would rival the Bhagavad Gita. I asked how much he wanted for the two Ganesh masks. He shrugged. "Look", he said, "you have been buying my stuff for months. Nobody else does. I will give you all thirteen for twenty dollars."
For a brief moment I thought I was going insane. In that instant, he began packing them into sacks; he knew that I could not, nay, would not refuse such an offer. When I regained myself, I looked to his grin and his open palm, put a fresh twenty in it, and walked away before what I assumed would be a mugging took place.
Loyalty is rewarded sometimes.
So anyway, back to the original story. One day, I get to the fairgrounds and there is loud, non-English music coming from the agricultural display building. Emblazoned on the side of the corrugated steel building was, in fancy blue letters, the words "Raleigh Greek Festival." Now, I thought, THIS could be interesting. I carefully concealed my tattoo and made my way in. The air was thick with the smell of grilling meat, coffee and baklava. THOUSANDS of Greeks were inside, eating, smoking, drinking, and having a blast, right there in the middle of Piedmont North Carolina. In the corner of the building, Greek vendors hawked their wares. I knew what I wanted. OK, so a tee-shirt with Apollo all nekkid would have been fun, but having been to Greece once already, I knew what I had missed getting while there. An icon. An old man and his wife sat in a dim corner with hundreds of hand-painted Byzantine icons of thousands of saints. Of course I could have selected a baleful Virgin Mary or Saint Nicholas, but I wanted something more obscure. Partially obstructed by an icon depicting the crucifixion, a tiny icon lay gleaming. I thought; hmm, now that saint is more handsome than the rest. Maybe I will get him.
*sound of one-way ticket to Hell being punched*
Turns out he is Saint Elektherios. Saint Elektherios is the patron saint of the incurably ill. More interesting still, he is the patron saint of lost, hopeless causes.
As I sit here, my Turkish homework and Ottoman homework and French homework not doing itself and the beginnings of what I think is some sort of avian flu setting itself into my lungs, I look into the semidarkness to Saint Elektherios, whom I purchased because he was more handsome than St. Joseph, and wonder if even HE can help me now.
I think he just winked.
All the best for a night that is restful, peaceful and punctuated by sleep of some kind.
Dom (Demir)
Now, as you all know, I collect masks. Some people collect expensive purses or shoes or baseball cards; I collect masks, and the more hideous, the better. I have masks from more than seventeen countries, totalling more than eighty at this point. The funny part is how I get them: most are gifts from my friends and family, who delight me at every chance by getting me increasingly more disturbing masks as the years go by. One of my friends said once: "If I see a mask that I would never allow into my own home, I know I need to buy it for you." Tenderness!
So anyway, the Nepalese man knew he had me by the cojones. I stood there, bathed in the smoke from the incense he was always burning. Nothing says "weird" in North Carolina like when them ferriners burn that crazy crap. He eyed me and smiled his broad, blindingly white smile. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the "O.K. Corral" theme-song. A tumbleweed tattered past. He dramatically unveiled thirteen plaster masks of Nepalese demons and minor deities. My poker-face was about to be lost. He gestured grandly.
Hello, good sir. I have new masks today. How about you coming over here...for a look?
Look I did. In vivid colors I recognized Hanumaman, the monkey-god; Shiva, the destroyer, and many others. Amongst them were not one, but two masks of Ganesh. There was no going back.
With my bazaar mindset in place, I prepared for a battle that would rival the Bhagavad Gita. I asked how much he wanted for the two Ganesh masks. He shrugged. "Look", he said, "you have been buying my stuff for months. Nobody else does. I will give you all thirteen for twenty dollars."
For a brief moment I thought I was going insane. In that instant, he began packing them into sacks; he knew that I could not, nay, would not refuse such an offer. When I regained myself, I looked to his grin and his open palm, put a fresh twenty in it, and walked away before what I assumed would be a mugging took place.
Loyalty is rewarded sometimes.
So anyway, back to the original story. One day, I get to the fairgrounds and there is loud, non-English music coming from the agricultural display building. Emblazoned on the side of the corrugated steel building was, in fancy blue letters, the words "Raleigh Greek Festival." Now, I thought, THIS could be interesting. I carefully concealed my tattoo and made my way in. The air was thick with the smell of grilling meat, coffee and baklava. THOUSANDS of Greeks were inside, eating, smoking, drinking, and having a blast, right there in the middle of Piedmont North Carolina. In the corner of the building, Greek vendors hawked their wares. I knew what I wanted. OK, so a tee-shirt with Apollo all nekkid would have been fun, but having been to Greece once already, I knew what I had missed getting while there. An icon. An old man and his wife sat in a dim corner with hundreds of hand-painted Byzantine icons of thousands of saints. Of course I could have selected a baleful Virgin Mary or Saint Nicholas, but I wanted something more obscure. Partially obstructed by an icon depicting the crucifixion, a tiny icon lay gleaming. I thought; hmm, now that saint is more handsome than the rest. Maybe I will get him.
*sound of one-way ticket to Hell being punched*
Turns out he is Saint Elektherios. Saint Elektherios is the patron saint of the incurably ill. More interesting still, he is the patron saint of lost, hopeless causes.
As I sit here, my Turkish homework and Ottoman homework and French homework not doing itself and the beginnings of what I think is some sort of avian flu setting itself into my lungs, I look into the semidarkness to Saint Elektherios, whom I purchased because he was more handsome than St. Joseph, and wonder if even HE can help me now.
I think he just winked.
All the best for a night that is restful, peaceful and punctuated by sleep of some kind.
Dom (Demir)
Monday, September 27, 2004
Waiting for my ship to come in.
Considering that I am about 15 hours by car from the sea, that could be a long wait. Yet, when I think about the next four years under stewardship of Dubya, it is conceivable that the Eastern seaboard will be consumed by rising waters due to unchecked global warming. Screw the Kyoto Treaty; everyone, go out and buy a Hummer! 2 1/2 miles to the gallon! I am sure that people who live on coral atolls in the Pacific, who have never even ridden in a car, will appreciate watching their homes and their nations disappear, Atlantis-like, under the waves. That wouldn't make ME bitter at all. We needn't watch out for terror from the Middle East and North Africa as much; indeed, I'd think that, given a chance, someone from Vanuatu or Mauritius would just as easily want to blow our skulls off our necks with a bazooka.
It's been a strange day. I haven't felt like myself since I woke up this morning. Bio-rhythms? Shorter, cooler days? My gradual descent into stark madness? Maybe I just need a hug.
I got up this morning and got into the shower; ten minutes later I realized I was just standing there, staring at my bar of Irish Spring soap (May the road rise up to meet ye', and ye' be in Heaven a half hour before the Devil knows your fresh, clean-scented carcass is dead: this should be their motto). I hadn't even wetted my hair or my increasingly Islamic fundamentalist-looking beard. Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam) and I have more in common than Bangor now, let me tell you. Where was I? Did I go to the place where there is tasty candy all around and pretty unicorns to ride? More than likely, I was flipping the pages of my mental planner. Class. Work. Test. Class. Test. Work. Paper. Class. Pencil in "eat" and "defecate" every once in a while, and "sleep" less frequently. I'm really really happy that this weekend was the picture of perfection; had it reeked, I don't think I could face this coming week with my gnomish good-will.
This weekend I tried South African wine. It was called "Goat Roti", which, if you know anything about Indian food, "roti" is a kind of bread. I ordered it simply because of the name. It narrowly edged out a wine from California called "Fat Bastard." Anyway, I have a perverse fascination with goats.
I can hear you all sniggering. Put your minds back in your skulls and out of the vomit-crusted gutters.
So yeah. I like goats. My entire experience in Turkey was enhanced, time and time again, by the lives of our horn-ed friends. For example, one night, at a small restaurant in downtown Ankara:
Me: Bilaal, I can't read the menu.
Bilaal: Neither can I.
Me: But you're Pakistani; can't you read this?
Bilaal: I speak Urdu, ass.
Me: *unpleasant gesture* Who has the degree in anthropology, you waste of skin?
Bilaal: So, we're screwed.
Me: Let's just point and hope.
We point. We hope. The meal was, quite simply, one of the best meals I have ever eaten.
Me: So, I wonder what that was.
Bilaal: Do you care?
Me: I want to order it again.
The waiter takes his index fingers and places them, pointing backwards, on the sides of his head. He then makes a terrifying bleating sound; this is not the "baa, baa" of a lamb.
Me: Oh my God! He fed us cat!
Bilaal: You douche. He meant "goat."
Me: I know. I was kidding, hobgoblin. Prepare to have your ass whooped by a Christian.
*brief scuffle; Bilaal now permanently carries a dent where I smashed his infidel forehead with my BHS class ring. I did not escape without casualty; he bites.*
I have been questioned by Turkish policemen for taking pictures of the "cement sheep"--representations of Angora goats that litter Ankara (formerly Angora). I have been attacked by rabid goats that were guarding the ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Perge. And here in the US, I gave a rather portly goat that was chained in the courtyard of bar in Memphis a Coors Light. It held the neck of the bottle in its mouth, lifted its head and chugged the whole thing, snaking its tongue inside for the last drops.
Yeah.
It's 7 PM and, carrying on the soft, cool autumnal zephyrs is the sound of a high school football game. Bloomington South is within visual distance of my apartment complex. Bloomington South is bigger than most community colleges. It is, without exagerration (me? exaggerate? Never!), the largest high school I have ever seen in my life. I'm suddenly missing home again. The golden and crimson leaves tumbling into the icy sea and the rivers, who brace themselves for the winter's chill. The camelback mountains, speckled with color amidst the evergreens and the bare stone. The tourists all having gone home in their obnoxious gas-guzzling forty-ton "RVs", which are basically ghetto apartments on wheels; no longer do people in ridiculously expensive sandals order chardonnay in places where lobstah is served on paper; you can actually drive from Bangor to Bar Harbor in 45 minutes instead of two and a half hours.
Well, I have to go. There's homework to be done. I can feel my will to live leak slowly out of my fingers.
Have a great night; see you all tomorrow.
Dom (Demir)
It's been a strange day. I haven't felt like myself since I woke up this morning. Bio-rhythms? Shorter, cooler days? My gradual descent into stark madness? Maybe I just need a hug.
I got up this morning and got into the shower; ten minutes later I realized I was just standing there, staring at my bar of Irish Spring soap (May the road rise up to meet ye', and ye' be in Heaven a half hour before the Devil knows your fresh, clean-scented carcass is dead: this should be their motto). I hadn't even wetted my hair or my increasingly Islamic fundamentalist-looking beard. Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam) and I have more in common than Bangor now, let me tell you. Where was I? Did I go to the place where there is tasty candy all around and pretty unicorns to ride? More than likely, I was flipping the pages of my mental planner. Class. Work. Test. Class. Test. Work. Paper. Class. Pencil in "eat" and "defecate" every once in a while, and "sleep" less frequently. I'm really really happy that this weekend was the picture of perfection; had it reeked, I don't think I could face this coming week with my gnomish good-will.
This weekend I tried South African wine. It was called "Goat Roti", which, if you know anything about Indian food, "roti" is a kind of bread. I ordered it simply because of the name. It narrowly edged out a wine from California called "Fat Bastard." Anyway, I have a perverse fascination with goats.
I can hear you all sniggering. Put your minds back in your skulls and out of the vomit-crusted gutters.
So yeah. I like goats. My entire experience in Turkey was enhanced, time and time again, by the lives of our horn-ed friends. For example, one night, at a small restaurant in downtown Ankara:
Me: Bilaal, I can't read the menu.
Bilaal: Neither can I.
Me: But you're Pakistani; can't you read this?
Bilaal: I speak Urdu, ass.
Me: *unpleasant gesture* Who has the degree in anthropology, you waste of skin?
Bilaal: So, we're screwed.
Me: Let's just point and hope.
We point. We hope. The meal was, quite simply, one of the best meals I have ever eaten.
Me:
Bilaal: Do you care?
Me: I want to order it again.
The waiter takes his index fingers and places them, pointing backwards, on the sides of his head. He then makes a terrifying bleating sound; this is not the "baa, baa" of a lamb.
Me: Oh my God! He fed us cat!
Bilaal:
Me: I know. I was kidding, hobgoblin. Prepare to have your ass whooped by a Christian.
*brief scuffle; Bilaal now permanently carries a dent where I smashed his infidel forehead with my BHS class ring. I did not escape without casualty; he bites.*
I have been questioned by Turkish policemen for taking pictures of the "cement sheep"--representations of Angora goats that litter Ankara (formerly Angora). I have been attacked by rabid goats that were guarding the ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Perge. And here in the US, I gave a rather portly goat that was chained in the courtyard of bar in Memphis a Coors Light. It held the neck of the bottle in its mouth, lifted its head and chugged the whole thing, snaking its tongue inside for the last drops.
Yeah.
It's 7 PM and, carrying on the soft, cool autumnal zephyrs is the sound of a high school football game. Bloomington South is within visual distance of my apartment complex. Bloomington South is bigger than most community colleges. It is, without exagerration (me? exaggerate? Never!), the largest high school I have ever seen in my life. I'm suddenly missing home again. The golden and crimson leaves tumbling into the icy sea and the rivers, who brace themselves for the winter's chill. The camelback mountains, speckled with color amidst the evergreens and the bare stone. The tourists all having gone home in their obnoxious gas-guzzling forty-ton "RVs", which are basically ghetto apartments on wheels; no longer do people in ridiculously expensive sandals order chardonnay in places where lobstah is served on paper; you can actually drive from Bangor to Bar Harbor in 45 minutes instead of two and a half hours.
Well, I have to go. There's homework to be done. I can feel my will to live leak slowly out of my fingers.
Have a great night; see you all tomorrow.
Dom (Demir)
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Osmanlica = Vefat.
"Ottoman (Turkish) = Death."
I am going to bitch for a second, and you (as captive audience) have but to read.
So, let's conceptualize something fun for you so that you properly feel my anguish. So, let's go to the World of Pretend and say that all of you are area studies people. I sent this 'blog to more than 200 people; wow, that would be a glut of us, eh? Anyway, so you are studying the culture, religion, politics and language of a country you have come to be very passionate about. (Dangling participle: Grammar Police shall soon break down my door and take me in fetters to a dank dungeon for Language Dissidents). So, one day, your mentor tells you:
Hey there! I am offering a class that you must take because if you don't, you will be laughed out of the field, only to end your days unemployed and a broken husk of a human, starving to death in a pay-by-the-hour hotel on the outskirts of a Las Vegas, clutching a bottle of Ripple to your chest pathetically as you weep. They won't find your body for a week.
What choice did you have? None, I assure you. So, register you did. It's a language class, and you're thinking, surely, since I am already taking two other languages simultaneously, this will be a piece of red-velvet cake. What you hadn't anticipated (or, maybe you did but were in denial) was that the language hasn't ever been spoken, is written in an impossibly difficult and fickle character set and only resembles the modern language you are studying about a third of the time, if you get it transliterated correctly; the rest of the time it is TWO other languages you have never studied. Added to this, the only two people with you in the room (no pressure!) are FLUENT NATIVE SPEAKERS of the modern language that the new, foul one became.
I've taken difficult languages before. I study Mandarin Chinese for giggles (more accurately, written Chinese). I took four years of high school Latin, culminating in reading the Latin epic "The Aeneid", the first ten lines of which I still can remember when I am thinking in the grocery store about what I need to be buying.
Arma virumque cano
Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam
Fata profugis
Laviniaque venit litora
Multa illa et quoquet bello passum
*something something* saeve memoris Iunonis ob iram.
Or something like that. There's more, of course. I apologize deeply to Magistra Poolensis, who reads this, for butchering the Latin. It's been six years and considering that I can't remember people's names whom I have met moments before, I think that remembering the vague gist of the sounds and word order after all that time is testament you your skills, Magistra.
Everyone: go hug your favorite teacher right now.
Anyway, so I am totally screwed. Ottoman Turkish is going to be the death of my academic career, and *joy!* he's offering it in the Spring, too, and of course, who will be there? Me. Three languages at the same time for a whole academic year. It's my firm belief that when you learn a new word in a foreign language, you lose one of English. If I become a simpering idiot, just pat me on the head and buy me a plane ticket to Turkey, where I shall live a simple existence selling fish on the Golden Horn. Balıkçı olmayı çok istiyorum.
It's Saturday morning and, if I listen hard enough, I can hear my beard whiskers growing. Tony (my roommate) is gone to play with his rugby team somewhere in another corn state (Illinois, I think), and the house is mine. What I am proposing to myself is this: stay in your jammies. Cook something rank and comforting, put in a mindless movie, perhaps Red Corner. That's the one with Richard Gere as an accused man struggling through the Chinese legal system; it's his big middle finger to China for not allowing him entrance to the country. Yes. He is barred from entering Chinese airspace for being buddy-buddy with the Dalai Lama and constantly telling people how much the PRC bites.
Tonight: tapas and wine at Tutto Bene. Whoo-hoo! But until then, I plan on mentally and physically decomposing in my fancy new apartment with bad movies, comfort food and my warm bed.
Those pointy-shoed Ottoman freaks can't touch me now.
It's my wish that your Saturday will be as restful and delightful. We deserve it.
Dom (Demir)
I am going to bitch for a second, and you (as captive audience) have but to read.
So, let's conceptualize something fun for you so that you properly feel my anguish. So, let's go to the World of Pretend and say that all of you are area studies people. I sent this 'blog to more than 200 people; wow, that would be a glut of us, eh? Anyway, so you are studying the culture, religion, politics and language of a country you have come to be very passionate about. (Dangling participle: Grammar Police shall soon break down my door and take me in fetters to a dank dungeon for Language Dissidents). So, one day, your mentor tells you:
Hey there! I am offering a class that you must take because if you don't, you will be laughed out of the field, only to end your days unemployed and a broken husk of a human, starving to death in a pay-by-the-hour hotel on the outskirts of a Las Vegas, clutching a bottle of Ripple to your chest pathetically as you weep. They won't find your body for a week.
What choice did you have? None, I assure you. So, register you did. It's a language class, and you're thinking, surely, since I am already taking two other languages simultaneously, this will be a piece of red-velvet cake. What you hadn't anticipated (or, maybe you did but were in denial) was that the language hasn't ever been spoken, is written in an impossibly difficult and fickle character set and only resembles the modern language you are studying about a third of the time, if you get it transliterated correctly; the rest of the time it is TWO other languages you have never studied. Added to this, the only two people with you in the room (no pressure!) are FLUENT NATIVE SPEAKERS of the modern language that the new, foul one became.
I've taken difficult languages before. I study Mandarin Chinese for giggles (more accurately, written Chinese). I took four years of high school Latin, culminating in reading the Latin epic "The Aeneid", the first ten lines of which I still can remember when I am thinking in the grocery store about what I need to be buying.
Arma virumque cano
Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam
Fata profugis
Laviniaque venit litora
Multa illa et quoquet bello passum
*something something* saeve memoris Iunonis ob iram.
Or something like that. There's more, of course. I apologize deeply to Magistra Poolensis, who reads this, for butchering the Latin. It's been six years and considering that I can't remember people's names whom I have met moments before, I think that remembering the vague gist of the sounds and word order after all that time is testament you your skills, Magistra.
Everyone: go hug your favorite teacher right now.
Anyway, so I am totally screwed. Ottoman Turkish is going to be the death of my academic career, and *joy!* he's offering it in the Spring, too, and of course, who will be there? Me. Three languages at the same time for a whole academic year. It's my firm belief that when you learn a new word in a foreign language, you lose one of English. If I become a simpering idiot, just pat me on the head and buy me a plane ticket to Turkey, where I shall live a simple existence selling fish on the Golden Horn. Balıkçı olmayı çok istiyorum.
It's Saturday morning and, if I listen hard enough, I can hear my beard whiskers growing. Tony (my roommate) is gone to play with his rugby team somewhere in another corn state (Illinois, I think), and the house is mine. What I am proposing to myself is this: stay in your jammies. Cook something rank and comforting, put in a mindless movie, perhaps Red Corner. That's the one with Richard Gere as an accused man struggling through the Chinese legal system; it's his big middle finger to China for not allowing him entrance to the country. Yes. He is barred from entering Chinese airspace for being buddy-buddy with the Dalai Lama and constantly telling people how much the PRC bites.
Tonight: tapas and wine at Tutto Bene. Whoo-hoo! But until then, I plan on mentally and physically decomposing in my fancy new apartment with bad movies, comfort food and my warm bed.
Those pointy-shoed Ottoman freaks can't touch me now.
It's my wish that your Saturday will be as restful and delightful. We deserve it.
Dom (Demir)
Friday, September 24, 2004
The world is a vampire.
Today, as I was attempting to do something constructive (like, oh, Ottoman homework), I instead went to CNN.com to read more about the Cat Stevens thing. If you have been living in a dimly-lit cave for the past week and a half, Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam) was detained in the US after his transAtlantic flight was diverted because his name triggered a "no-fly" alert with the Department of Homeland Security.
Where did they divert his plane and eventually detain Mr. Stevens? That's right: Bangor, Maine. My hometown. If I had been home I would have heard his plane land as my house is less than a half-mile from the tarmac of the airport. Bangor. Third longest runway in the United States. Bangor. Northeastern-most airport in the United States.
Bangor: apparently, somewhere to send the world's detritus. Suppose he was some sort of freak with a bomb: my MOTHER lives within visual distance of that airport! Oh, we have to protect the BoWash megalopolis from harm; let Bangor burn. *hackling*
OK, well, Cat Stevens aside (he's not detritus; the DHS sure is getting a lot of phone calls about that one as divine retribution--the man sang "Peace Train", for the love of all that is sacred), strange things happen in Maine. Maine, which is usually a place one thinks about in association with seafood, pine trees, responsible upstanding politicians (well, comparatively) and sleet, has become the setting, fictional and otherwise, for utter randomness. Behold:
Murder, She Wrote. If we believed that randy Jessica Fletcher hag's show, Maine's murder rate would be approaching that of Dade County, Florida. Portland and Miami. Sister cities. Oh yes.
The Allagash Five. When I tell X-Files-type people that I live in Maine, this is the first thing out of their mouths. The Allagash Five were a group of men who went camping in the forasken wilderness of Allagash State Park in north-west Maine. They went expecting to get tanked every night and urinate into a roaring campfire, drink Tang, eat Dinty Moore "beef" stew and go back to their lives. Instead they were sodomized by aliens.
Unruly foreigners. Do you remember that rash of plane diversions that took place a few summers ago? Where drunken Eurotrash got frisky/handsy/punchy with flight attendants and then their Atlantic flights got diverted? Guess where they ended up (!). Penobscot County Jail in the Penobscot County Seat, Bangor, Maine.
Last, and certainly most signifcant, is the legacy of:
Stephen King. If Maine was the touched-up tapestry woven by Mr. King (who, incidentally, partly paid for my undergraduate education: he gave me $2,000 for college through a Bangor High School scholarship for "the humanities"), Maine would be a place where:
There is a store where you can have anything--for a price.
When the snow falls on tiny isolated islands, fanged visitors come and demand child sacrifice.
In the shadowy forests in the South, the undead swarm amidst an unholy town with a Biblical name.
Worst of all, Bangor, Maine is the setting of the book "It." Do you know what it's like to live in a town where, after dark, you can't bring yourself to look into the canals downtown for fear of seeing a balloon? Or worse, that be-fanged clown face staring up at you from the brackish water? Oh how about living a block away from a fiberglass statue of Paul Bunyan that comes to life and attempts to hack you to pieces with his axe and log-holder?
Good times.
1.8 million people. More than a thousand miles of coastline. 90% covered in forest. And, apparently, swarming with vampires, murderers, animated statues that kill, sodomite aliens and clowns who lust for blood.
How I ever slept there is beyond me.
I bid you farewell for tonight, and I shall join thee again tomorrow.
Dom (aka, Moose)
Where did they divert his plane and eventually detain Mr. Stevens? That's right: Bangor, Maine. My hometown. If I had been home I would have heard his plane land as my house is less than a half-mile from the tarmac of the airport. Bangor. Third longest runway in the United States. Bangor. Northeastern-most airport in the United States.
Bangor: apparently, somewhere to send the world's detritus. Suppose he was some sort of freak with a bomb: my MOTHER lives within visual distance of that airport! Oh, we have to protect the BoWash megalopolis from harm; let Bangor burn. *hackling*
OK, well, Cat Stevens aside (he's not detritus; the DHS sure is getting a lot of phone calls about that one as divine retribution--the man sang "Peace Train", for the love of all that is sacred), strange things happen in Maine. Maine, which is usually a place one thinks about in association with seafood, pine trees, responsible upstanding politicians (well, comparatively) and sleet, has become the setting, fictional and otherwise, for utter randomness. Behold:
Murder, She Wrote. If we believed that randy Jessica Fletcher hag's show, Maine's murder rate would be approaching that of Dade County, Florida. Portland and Miami. Sister cities. Oh yes.
The Allagash Five. When I tell X-Files-type people that I live in Maine, this is the first thing out of their mouths. The Allagash Five were a group of men who went camping in the forasken wilderness of Allagash State Park in north-west Maine. They went expecting to get tanked every night and urinate into a roaring campfire, drink Tang, eat Dinty Moore "beef" stew and go back to their lives. Instead they were sodomized by aliens.
Unruly foreigners. Do you remember that rash of plane diversions that took place a few summers ago? Where drunken Eurotrash got frisky/handsy/punchy with flight attendants and then their Atlantic flights got diverted? Guess where they ended up (!). Penobscot County Jail in the Penobscot County Seat, Bangor, Maine.
Last, and certainly most signifcant, is the legacy of:
Stephen King. If Maine was the touched-up tapestry woven by Mr. King (who, incidentally, partly paid for my undergraduate education: he gave me $2,000 for college through a Bangor High School scholarship for "the humanities"), Maine would be a place where:
There is a store where you can have anything--for a price.
When the snow falls on tiny isolated islands, fanged visitors come and demand child sacrifice.
In the shadowy forests in the South, the undead swarm amidst an unholy town with a Biblical name.
Worst of all, Bangor, Maine is the setting of the book "It." Do you know what it's like to live in a town where, after dark, you can't bring yourself to look into the canals downtown for fear of seeing a balloon? Or worse, that be-fanged clown face staring up at you from the brackish water? Oh how about living a block away from a fiberglass statue of Paul Bunyan that comes to life and attempts to hack you to pieces with his axe and log-holder?
Good times.
1.8 million people. More than a thousand miles of coastline. 90% covered in forest. And, apparently, swarming with vampires, murderers, animated statues that kill, sodomite aliens and clowns who lust for blood.
How I ever slept there is beyond me.
I bid you farewell for tonight, and I shall join thee again tomorrow.
Dom (aka, Moose)
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Monastic self-flagellation.
De profundis clamavi ad Te, Domine.
Ever seen The Sixth Sense? Of course you have. If you haven't, it's because you have been living in a Highland New Guinea thatched hut for the past ten years with only a healthy case of jungle-rot and fancy cassawary headdresses to show for it. Of course, there are the days when you get in your prop airplane to pick up supplies in Wewak or Port Moresby, but you'd kill to see a Rambo movie.
Anyway, as I was walking through yet another Indiana "First People's Summer" day (Elizabeth, you are a goddess for making THAT up), and that quote was my brain regurgitation. Ok, ok, so I did take four years of high-school Latin, so I was probably more prone to remembering that than most people. By the way, for all of you bone-nosed Highlanders--hey, stop scratching that! It'll spread!--it means "From the abyss I cry out to Thee, O Lord." Fun, huh? Certainly uplifting. So, what I realized was this: it was a sign. You know, when you talk to nuns and they tell you, while strumming on their acoustic guitars, that they got "the call" one day whilst, oh, I dunno, weeding their beet patch or whitewater rafting down the Zambezi. That kind of sign.
As a kid I went to a Catholic school for my entire pre-high school education. Every Friday we would all gather as a school and have Mass. I looked forward to Fridays because hey, no math class. I would kneel on shards of broken glass and uncooked rice whilst harpies sprayed lemon juice and detergent on my hobbled limbs to get out of math class. Plus, and here's the fun part:
I was an altarboy.
I guess the correct term now is "altar server" or even "acolyte", but back ages ago when I was a pup you had to be possessed of a "y" chromosome to work for the Lord. So there we were. We got to play with matches. We fussed with incense and chrism (holy balm for Confirmation) and we got to fiddle with unblessed hosts (those bread-like wafer things you get at Communion). Best of all was Scary Jesus Man. Our church had a crucifix with a very realistic Jesus hanging from it. From the main hall of the church, his head rested on his left shoulder and you could only see his profile. From where the altar boys got to sit, Jesus was looking right at you. This was, surely, to prevent us from snickering when that one woman with the huge hair decided to go soprano during a rousing rendition of "Nearer My God to Thee." Anyway, here's what was scary about the Lord Jesus:
His eyes were rolled back in his head in agony. Yes. Completely white. In the semidarkness of the sanctuary before lights were turned on for morning mass, it was terrifying. I guess if I had thought about it too much I would have been really, really afraid. At any rate, I was a faithful altar boy for years. Dozens of weddings, hundreds of funerals, thousands of masses. They called me "The Little Priest."
I can hear you all laughing at me. Oh, you'll get yours. Smell that sulfur?
Everyone expected me to don the cloth and take vows after high school. Instead, I moved to Protestant Maine, became best friends with a lesbian, got a degree in anthropology and went to go live in a Muslim country for half a year.
It all catches up to you. I guess I just have to shave my head, fetch a loom and sell my earthly, pagan goods and move to a monestary.
Or, uh, not.
Thanks to those who posted! You have a special place in my heart. It's near the place that got very happy yesterday when I ate SEVEN PIECES OF BACON for breakfast. You know, the clogged-up part. ;)
Off to French. Or, as I like to say it, "Off for something I utterly loathe but am compelled to do." It IS the adult thing, right? Right? Come on.
Dom (Demir)
Ever seen The Sixth Sense? Of course you have. If you haven't, it's because you have been living in a Highland New Guinea thatched hut for the past ten years with only a healthy case of jungle-rot and fancy cassawary headdresses to show for it. Of course, there are the days when you get in your prop airplane to pick up supplies in Wewak or Port Moresby, but you'd kill to see a Rambo movie.
Anyway, as I was walking through yet another Indiana "First People's Summer" day (Elizabeth, you are a goddess for making THAT up), and that quote was my brain regurgitation. Ok, ok, so I did take four years of high-school Latin, so I was probably more prone to remembering that than most people. By the way, for all of you bone-nosed Highlanders--hey, stop scratching that! It'll spread!--it means "From the abyss I cry out to Thee, O Lord." Fun, huh? Certainly uplifting. So, what I realized was this: it was a sign. You know, when you talk to nuns and they tell you, while strumming on their acoustic guitars, that they got "the call" one day whilst, oh, I dunno, weeding their beet patch or whitewater rafting down the Zambezi. That kind of sign.
As a kid I went to a Catholic school for my entire pre-high school education. Every Friday we would all gather as a school and have Mass. I looked forward to Fridays because hey, no math class. I would kneel on shards of broken glass and uncooked rice whilst harpies sprayed lemon juice and detergent on my hobbled limbs to get out of math class. Plus, and here's the fun part:
I was an altarboy.
I guess the correct term now is "altar server" or even "acolyte", but back ages ago when I was a pup you had to be possessed of a "y" chromosome to work for the Lord. So there we were. We got to play with matches. We fussed with incense and chrism (holy balm for Confirmation) and we got to fiddle with unblessed hosts (those bread-like wafer things you get at Communion). Best of all was Scary Jesus Man. Our church had a crucifix with a very realistic Jesus hanging from it. From the main hall of the church, his head rested on his left shoulder and you could only see his profile. From where the altar boys got to sit, Jesus was looking right at you. This was, surely, to prevent us from snickering when that one woman with the huge hair decided to go soprano during a rousing rendition of "Nearer My God to Thee." Anyway, here's what was scary about the Lord Jesus:
His eyes were rolled back in his head in agony. Yes. Completely white. In the semidarkness of the sanctuary before lights were turned on for morning mass, it was terrifying. I guess if I had thought about it too much I would have been really, really afraid. At any rate, I was a faithful altar boy for years. Dozens of weddings, hundreds of funerals, thousands of masses. They called me "The Little Priest."
I can hear you all laughing at me. Oh, you'll get yours. Smell that sulfur?
Everyone expected me to don the cloth and take vows after high school. Instead, I moved to Protestant Maine, became best friends with a lesbian, got a degree in anthropology and went to go live in a Muslim country for half a year.
It all catches up to you. I guess I just have to shave my head, fetch a loom and sell my earthly, pagan goods and move to a monestary.
Or, uh, not.
Thanks to those who posted! You have a special place in my heart. It's near the place that got very happy yesterday when I ate SEVEN PIECES OF BACON for breakfast. You know, the clogged-up part. ;)
Off to French. Or, as I like to say it, "Off for something I utterly loathe but am compelled to do." It IS the adult thing, right? Right? Come on.
Dom (Demir)
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Doktora gittim.
"I went to the doctor."
Today my coworkers formed a small posse (mostly Jenny; she is one formidable woman) and told me that I should, in no uncertain terms, see a physician. I gave a sigh and resigned myself to their wisdom; it needed to be done. I have been feeling like a freshly-incarnated Haitian undead for weeks and yesterday, when I almost completely went around the bend and they sent me home from work at 4:30, they knew SOMETHING was afoot. I usually don't clench my fists and gnash my teeth when talking on the phone to needy internationals. Nor do I usually collect their hairs from our "lounge" furniture, weave it into wee dolls, and burn them into tiny reeking piles of ash with my Zippo. It happens to the best of us, surely.
So I went with heavy heart to Indiana University's Death Center. I say that because I need to be at the point of death to go there. Thankfully, these doctors and nurses are better equipped to handle the myriad problems that the IU population could encounter than the Death Center at my alma mater, UMaine. At UMaine, they have but three kinds of "issues" that they deal with properly.
1) They can help if you have gotten yourself knocked up.
2) They can help if you have a venereal disease and are currently leaking something dread into your undergarments.
3) They can help if you have the flu.
That's about it. For everything else they had these rather large, blue football-shaped pills that they gave out like candy. I think they WERE candy. After going to the Death Center once and getting a gallon bucket of them to treat my sinus problems, I used the remainder (after my body killed whatever it was naturally) to sweeten my tea. Placebos have their uses, too.
So I go to see the doctor, and--here's where you need to gasp--he came out to get me EXACTLY ON TIME. The clock hit 4:10, my appointment time, and I heard my name. Of course it was butchered, but Dominique Potato was eager to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. He ushered me into his office and started asking questions the minute the door closed.
Doctor-man: What seems to be the problem?
Me: Problemproblemproblemproblemproblemproblem.
Doctor-man: I see.
Me: Good.
Doctor-man: Have you been camping recently?
Me: Uh, no.
Doctor-man: Ah. Have you recently drunken anything that could have contained untreated human sewage?
Me: No. I am currently only drinking the treated kind. The kind with "extra pulp."
Doctor-man: Hmm. Have you recently eaten any rancid meat?
Me: Well, there WAS that flyblown carcass I peeled off I-37 the other day. Made a hell of a brisket.
Doctor-man: Have you been bathing in unorthodox places?
Me: Define "unorthodox."
Doctor-man: Like, under a cow while it relieves itself.
Me: What have they told you? No man, I gave that up.
Doctor-man: Uh-huh. When you cough, do your teeth hurt at the roots?
Me: What the hell kind of question is that?
Doctor-man: You have mad-cow disease and cholera. Here's a prescription for Flonase.
It was then that I noticed the small bone that he had piercing the bridge of his nose. Witch-doctor! I stood up and dressed hastily as he discarded his latex gloves and I uttered an incantation to protect myself from his spell; he pulled back his lips in a vulpine sneer and hissed at me. Using my bag as a shield and broken tongue-depressors as blades, I made my way to the door and beat a hasty retreat. That was a close one.
I guess I should have noticed the monkey's paw keychain sooner. Damn, for an anthropologist I can be so dense.
Sigh. No worries, readers: I am fine. With some medication and time I will be just as loveable as I was before. And by "loveable" I mean "bizarre."
I leave you with a quote from Noemi, with whom I work at the Office of International Whiny People. She picked up the phone, spoke briefly with a student and gave the phone to Jenny, for the student had told her that s/he "had just been talking to Jenny and had gotten cut off." Of course, nothing of the sort had happened. It was a plot to get Jenny on the phone. Noemi, who is currently battling her own dread illness, walked into the breakroom, scarf around her sore throat, and said:
"My God, they are so evil." Noemi is from Mallorca, Spain, and they way she pronounced "evil" was the proper, civilized European way: "eh-vil", not "eee-vil." I about made trouser-chili laughing. She's the best. My props to you, my Spanish sistah. You keep me laughing.
All the best to y'all. Post, please! Is anyone out there?
Dom (Demir)
Today my coworkers formed a small posse (mostly Jenny; she is one formidable woman) and told me that I should, in no uncertain terms, see a physician. I gave a sigh and resigned myself to their wisdom; it needed to be done. I have been feeling like a freshly-incarnated Haitian undead for weeks and yesterday, when I almost completely went around the bend and they sent me home from work at 4:30, they knew SOMETHING was afoot. I usually don't clench my fists and gnash my teeth when talking on the phone to needy internationals. Nor do I usually collect their hairs from our "lounge" furniture, weave it into wee dolls, and burn them into tiny reeking piles of ash with my Zippo. It happens to the best of us, surely.
So I went with heavy heart to Indiana University's Death Center. I say that because I need to be at the point of death to go there. Thankfully, these doctors and nurses are better equipped to handle the myriad problems that the IU population could encounter than the Death Center at my alma mater, UMaine. At UMaine, they have but three kinds of "issues" that they deal with properly.
1) They can help if you have gotten yourself knocked up.
2) They can help if you have a venereal disease and are currently leaking something dread into your undergarments.
3) They can help if you have the flu.
That's about it. For everything else they had these rather large, blue football-shaped pills that they gave out like candy. I think they WERE candy. After going to the Death Center once and getting a gallon bucket of them to treat my sinus problems, I used the remainder (after my body killed whatever it was naturally) to sweeten my tea. Placebos have their uses, too.
So I go to see the doctor, and--here's where you need to gasp--he came out to get me EXACTLY ON TIME. The clock hit 4:10, my appointment time, and I heard my name. Of course it was butchered, but Dominique Potato was eager to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. He ushered me into his office and started asking questions the minute the door closed.
Doctor-man: What seems to be the problem?
Me: Problemproblemproblemproblemproblemproblem.
Doctor-man: I see.
Me: Good.
Doctor-man: Have you been camping recently?
Me: Uh, no.
Doctor-man: Ah. Have you recently drunken anything that could have contained untreated human sewage?
Me: No. I am currently only drinking the treated kind. The kind with "extra pulp."
Doctor-man: Hmm. Have you recently eaten any rancid meat?
Me: Well, there WAS that flyblown carcass I peeled off I-37 the other day. Made a hell of a brisket.
Doctor-man: Have you been bathing in unorthodox places?
Me: Define "unorthodox."
Doctor-man: Like, under a cow while it relieves itself.
Me: What have they told you? No man, I gave that up.
Doctor-man: Uh-huh. When you cough, do your teeth hurt at the roots?
Me: What the hell kind of question is that?
Doctor-man: You have mad-cow disease and cholera. Here's a prescription for Flonase.
It was then that I noticed the small bone that he had piercing the bridge of his nose. Witch-doctor! I stood up and dressed hastily as he discarded his latex gloves and I uttered an incantation to protect myself from his spell; he pulled back his lips in a vulpine sneer and hissed at me. Using my bag as a shield and broken tongue-depressors as blades, I made my way to the door and beat a hasty retreat. That was a close one.
I guess I should have noticed the monkey's paw keychain sooner. Damn, for an anthropologist I can be so dense.
Sigh. No worries, readers: I am fine. With some medication and time I will be just as loveable as I was before. And by "loveable" I mean "bizarre."
I leave you with a quote from Noemi, with whom I work at the Office of International Whiny People. She picked up the phone, spoke briefly with a student and gave the phone to Jenny, for the student had told her that s/he "had just been talking to Jenny and had gotten cut off." Of course, nothing of the sort had happened. It was a plot to get Jenny on the phone. Noemi, who is currently battling her own dread illness, walked into the breakroom, scarf around her sore throat, and said:
"My God, they are so evil." Noemi is from Mallorca, Spain, and they way she pronounced "evil" was the proper, civilized European way: "eh-vil", not "eee-vil." I about made trouser-chili laughing. She's the best. My props to you, my Spanish sistah. You keep me laughing.
All the best to y'all. Post, please! Is anyone out there?
Dom (Demir)
Monday, September 20, 2004
Once again, the cluster.
If you were wondering, yes, it is still dank. Yes, it fairly reeks. Yes, the stench of desperation hangs like a pall of smog over a dusty desert-Southwest city. It's only 9: oh, the humanity.
While driving home from Indianapolis (surprise: 9th largest American city) this morning through fields and then, uh, more fields, hung with morning fog and ready for the harvest, I thought: what I wouldn't give right now for some bacon. Yes, you read right--bacon. About three or four times a year I simply must have it or I feel as though all that I hold dear will fly into pieces. So, upon entering the Union Building, I followed the smell of frying hog to the little breakfast nook place, where a bright, gleaming smile greeted me.
Hostess: Good morning! What can I getcha?
Me: Bacon. Lots of it and as foul as possible. *muted grunting sound*
Hostess: I'm sorry, we're out of bacon until this afternoon.
Me: Bacon. Lots of it and as foul as possible.
Hostess: Sir? We don't have any. You can try the Burger King; I bet they have some for their sammiches.
Me: In the dark of some dread night, I will steal to your place of residence and level a pointy finger of reckoning that will shudder you!
Hostess: Do you want some Canadian bacon instead? It's hot.
By this time, the moon had waxed or waned or whatever the hell moons do and I no longer felt as though I needed to once again take a human life. It's a good thing: I am out of rope and quicklime and I sure am not in the mood to dig yet another shallow grave. Plus, she looked like she had kids: that's extra work to find THEM and take them out. My clown suit is at the dry-cleaner, anyway.
Sigh.
So I settled down with a bagel and some veggie cream cheese. Across the room sat a man who obviously got here before they ran out; as he raised a crispy hunk of pork to his lips I had to overcome this insane urge to yell "Fire!" As he abandoned the treats, I would shove every shard into my overly salivated mouth.
This has happened before. The last time it was this bad was when I was in Turkey. Now, people, gather round: *whispers* Turks are Muslims. Like Jewish people, Muslims have dietary rules that forbid them from eating mammals that do not have chambered stomachs.
So: There I was on a bright sunny Ankaran Saturday. I awoke refreshed from a sound slumber only to hear a ringing in my ears: that ringing surely is the sound of the portal to Hell being opened. It was coming from inside my locker. "Go FORTH and consumeth much of the forbidden SWINE!", a breathy voice said. It was then that I realized that I would starve to death if I couldn't have bacon. Yes. To death. So I showered and dressed and prepared to take the bus down to the Real, which is sortof a Super Wal*Mart, Turkish style, to fetch some bacon. Then I realized: Oh my God! They won't sell bacon there! I live in a country where even touching a pig is considered to be polluting! I had to try, though. When I got there, the meat section was vast. Above each species' niche was the Turkish word for what it was: pilic (chicken), et (lamb, some beef), balik (fish), sucuk (sausage)... and then, in the back, unlit and beetling with spiderwebs, was the section that must not be named. They hadn't even deigned to write the word "pork" there; instead, a crude handmade drawing of a hog adorned the cooler. One lonely package of bacon beckoned to me. I snatched it up and looked at the expiration date; all systems go! I was halfway to the register when I realized with a start that I would have never been able to cook it in any pan that my friends owned as it would pollute it beyond their future use. I would need my own. I didn't want my own pan. With profound sadness, I returned my find to the cooler, where it lies in repose to this day if I imagine right.
Later that week I went with friends to a place that served "Italian" food, and spaghetti carbonara was on the menu. I ordered with gusto and got a dish garnished with what appeared to be bacon. It was not. It was LAMB bacon. I ate it with little pleasure once I had quieted the dry-heaves.
Well, I have work to do. I hope all of you in Readerland have a great day--and, for the love of all that you hold dear, barring dietary restrictions, go forth and eat a rasher of bacon for me.
Dom (Demir)
While driving home from Indianapolis (surprise: 9th largest American city) this morning through fields and then, uh, more fields, hung with morning fog and ready for the harvest, I thought: what I wouldn't give right now for some bacon. Yes, you read right--bacon. About three or four times a year I simply must have it or I feel as though all that I hold dear will fly into pieces. So, upon entering the Union Building, I followed the smell of frying hog to the little breakfast nook place, where a bright, gleaming smile greeted me.
Hostess: Good morning! What can I getcha?
Me: Bacon. Lots of it and as foul as possible. *muted grunting sound*
Hostess: I'm sorry, we're out of bacon until this afternoon.
Me: Bacon. Lots of it and as foul as possible.
Hostess: Sir? We don't have any. You can try the Burger King; I bet they have some for their sammiches.
Me: In the dark of some dread night, I will steal to your place of residence and level a pointy finger of reckoning that will shudder you!
Hostess: Do you want some Canadian bacon instead? It's hot.
By this time, the moon had waxed or waned or whatever the hell moons do and I no longer felt as though I needed to once again take a human life. It's a good thing: I am out of rope and quicklime and I sure am not in the mood to dig yet another shallow grave. Plus, she looked like she had kids: that's extra work to find THEM and take them out. My clown suit is at the dry-cleaner, anyway.
Sigh.
So I settled down with a bagel and some veggie cream cheese. Across the room sat a man who obviously got here before they ran out; as he raised a crispy hunk of pork to his lips I had to overcome this insane urge to yell "Fire!" As he abandoned the treats, I would shove every shard into my overly salivated mouth.
This has happened before. The last time it was this bad was when I was in Turkey. Now, people, gather round: *whispers* Turks are Muslims. Like Jewish people, Muslims have dietary rules that forbid them from eating mammals that do not have chambered stomachs.
So: There I was on a bright sunny Ankaran Saturday. I awoke refreshed from a sound slumber only to hear a ringing in my ears: that ringing surely is the sound of the portal to Hell being opened. It was coming from inside my locker. "Go FORTH and consumeth much of the forbidden SWINE!", a breathy voice said. It was then that I realized that I would starve to death if I couldn't have bacon. Yes. To death. So I showered and dressed and prepared to take the bus down to the Real, which is sortof a Super Wal*Mart, Turkish style, to fetch some bacon. Then I realized: Oh my God! They won't sell bacon there! I live in a country where even touching a pig is considered to be polluting! I had to try, though. When I got there, the meat section was vast. Above each species' niche was the Turkish word for what it was: pilic (chicken), et (lamb, some beef), balik (fish), sucuk (sausage)... and then, in the back, unlit and beetling with spiderwebs, was the section that must not be named. They hadn't even deigned to write the word "pork" there; instead, a crude handmade drawing of a hog adorned the cooler. One lonely package of bacon beckoned to me. I snatched it up and looked at the expiration date; all systems go! I was halfway to the register when I realized with a start that I would have never been able to cook it in any pan that my friends owned as it would pollute it beyond their future use. I would need my own. I didn't want my own pan. With profound sadness, I returned my find to the cooler, where it lies in repose to this day if I imagine right.
Later that week I went with friends to a place that served "Italian" food, and spaghetti carbonara was on the menu. I ordered with gusto and got a dish garnished with what appeared to be bacon. It was not. It was LAMB bacon. I ate it with little pleasure once I had quieted the dry-heaves.
Well, I have work to do. I hope all of you in Readerland have a great day--and, for the love of all that you hold dear, barring dietary restrictions, go forth and eat a rasher of bacon for me.
Dom (Demir)
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Damn the title line.
Saturday night. All the lights are off in my sleepy neighborhood; the only sound that can be heard is the steady "whum, whum, whum" of the washing machine as it launders my whites and the sound of two feral cats caught up in late summer copulation.
It's been a strange, contemplative day. Until about two hours ago, I haven't had a bit of human companionship all day--by phone, by email, in the flesh--and after I got over the initial "So, am I the last person on the planet?" sensation, I began to embrace it. Of course, when one wakes up at noon and watches the complete first season of Sex and the City, most of the day has passed you by. Anyway, I decided that it was time to bite the wax tadpole and reformat my hard drive. My computer, which is but a tender two years, was barely usable. When a coworker came to hook up our internet router, he looked at me like a vet looks at a distraught pet owner before he tells you that Fluffy has rabies. "Spyware", he said, tutting ever-so-faintly. I wanted to say that it wasn't my fault; indeed, I barely ever download things. But yes, my computer was terminally infected to the point that one merely had to attempt to bring up Microsoft Word and it would crash like the Hindenberg. So, like that pet owner, I put my computer to sleep and resurrected a fresh new incarnation through my own sheer will. "Sheer will", in translation, involved shrieks that caused migrating birds to plummet to the earth and surely will cause mass pilot whale strandings off Cape Cod. Now it is running like the day I bought it. I sometimes surprise the hell out of myself: nobody ever taught me how to do this. It's probably because the whole time I was channeling a dead accountant named "Jim" through my Ouija board, who told me what to do. Observe:
Dom: Ok, it's telling me to "Rename my computer and establish my company name." What the hell?
Jim: D...o...i...t...d...u...m...b...a...s...s...
Dom: Hey, you are the one who went and got himself killed in a mosh pit at a Whitesnake concert.
Jim: $%^*!@
*sound of board being flung across room*
Jim is a little bitter. Anyway, that's his damage. Then, at 5, I showered (the protracted battle with my computer was Herculean; blood was spilled, hostages taken, and at one point, I think someone clubbed a baby seal--and lord was I sweaty at the end) and dressed in shirt, tie, and Dockers to go see the dervishes.
One of the things I love about Bloomington is that there are so many people willing to see and do anything that they possibly can. There's no "maybe that will be boring" attitude here; the line to see the dervishes, which was part of the grander Lotus Music Festival that blocked off five city streets here, was 600+ strong. If that had taken place in my beloved Bangor, there would have been me, the dervishes, and a confused woman who thought (due to acid flashbacks) that she was going to see Flock of Seagulls. When I went to see Margaret Cho at the Maine Center for the Arts on UMaine's flagship (Orono) campus, it was basically the GLBQTA crowd and townies who didn't know she was going to be talking about the woman who washes your vagina at the o.b.g.y.n. They were aghast. Come on, people, live a little! Of course, I am not your average Joe when it comes to trying new things. I lived in the Middle East for fun. I've voluntarily eaten bugs. 1/4 of my CDs are not in English. It just makes me a little sad when people won't take opportunities that they should, because I mean, come on, how often will dervishes be out here, dancing with me in the corn?
Of course, all the Turks were there. I am somewhat of a celebrity with them. I know them all by name, and their spouses. Part of it is working in an office where they have to, at some point, encounter me; part of it is that I stalk all 80 of them. It's time-consuming and I use up a lot of petrol, but I bet you that you can't tell me what brand of shampoo YOUR friends use?
*Disclaimer* I am kidding. I don't know where any of the Turks live, and lord, I am too lazy to go get the mail out of my own mailbox right now.
Tonight, another earthly pleasure, as mentioned: my laundry. Such excitement! Such enchantment! I need a corndog, and I need it now.
Oh, yeah. The dervishes were amazing, as one might imagine. I went into an altered state and briefly relived my six months in Turkey; nights spent eating lightly spiced, grilled octopus looking out across the Aegean at the lights of the Greek island of Lesbos; the heady smell of thousands of herbs and spices in a dusty bazaar whose Western embankment is a tumbled-down Roman temple; the sound at dusk of hundreds of Ankaran muezzins calling the faithful to prayer from the city's mosques and mezcits; the crimson and saffron sunset fading to purple over the snow-dusted peaks of the Taurus Mountains, guardians of Antalya.
When they were done, I walked to my car and drove home in that dream-state. I don't remember how I got here at all.
****
Dom (Demir)
It's been a strange, contemplative day. Until about two hours ago, I haven't had a bit of human companionship all day--by phone, by email, in the flesh--and after I got over the initial "So, am I the last person on the planet?" sensation, I began to embrace it. Of course, when one wakes up at noon and watches the complete first season of Sex and the City, most of the day has passed you by. Anyway, I decided that it was time to bite the wax tadpole and reformat my hard drive. My computer, which is but a tender two years, was barely usable. When a coworker came to hook up our internet router, he looked at me like a vet looks at a distraught pet owner before he tells you that Fluffy has rabies. "Spyware", he said, tutting ever-so-faintly. I wanted to say that it wasn't my fault; indeed, I barely ever download things. But yes, my computer was terminally infected to the point that one merely had to attempt to bring up Microsoft Word and it would crash like the Hindenberg. So, like that pet owner, I put my computer to sleep and resurrected a fresh new incarnation through my own sheer will. "Sheer will", in translation, involved shrieks that caused migrating birds to plummet to the earth and surely will cause mass pilot whale strandings off Cape Cod. Now it is running like the day I bought it. I sometimes surprise the hell out of myself: nobody ever taught me how to do this. It's probably because the whole time I was channeling a dead accountant named "Jim" through my Ouija board, who told me what to do. Observe:
Dom: Ok, it's telling me to "Rename my computer and establish my company name." What the hell?
Jim: D...o...i...t...d...u...m...b...a...s...s...
Dom: Hey, you are the one who went and got himself killed in a mosh pit at a Whitesnake concert.
Jim: $%^*!@
*sound of board being flung across room*
Jim is a little bitter. Anyway, that's his damage. Then, at 5, I showered (the protracted battle with my computer was Herculean; blood was spilled, hostages taken, and at one point, I think someone clubbed a baby seal--and lord was I sweaty at the end) and dressed in shirt, tie, and Dockers to go see the dervishes.
One of the things I love about Bloomington is that there are so many people willing to see and do anything that they possibly can. There's no "maybe that will be boring" attitude here; the line to see the dervishes, which was part of the grander Lotus Music Festival that blocked off five city streets here, was 600+ strong. If that had taken place in my beloved Bangor, there would have been me, the dervishes, and a confused woman who thought (due to acid flashbacks) that she was going to see Flock of Seagulls. When I went to see Margaret Cho at the Maine Center for the Arts on UMaine's flagship (Orono) campus, it was basically the GLBQTA crowd and townies who didn't know she was going to be talking about the woman who washes your vagina at the o.b.g.y.n. They were aghast. Come on, people, live a little! Of course, I am not your average Joe when it comes to trying new things. I lived in the Middle East for fun. I've voluntarily eaten bugs. 1/4 of my CDs are not in English. It just makes me a little sad when people won't take opportunities that they should, because I mean, come on, how often will dervishes be out here, dancing with me in the corn?
Of course, all the Turks were there. I am somewhat of a celebrity with them. I know them all by name, and their spouses. Part of it is working in an office where they have to, at some point, encounter me; part of it is that I stalk all 80 of them. It's time-consuming and I use up a lot of petrol, but I bet you that you can't tell me what brand of shampoo YOUR friends use?
*Disclaimer* I am kidding. I don't know where any of the Turks live, and lord, I am too lazy to go get the mail out of my own mailbox right now.
Tonight, another earthly pleasure, as mentioned: my laundry. Such excitement! Such enchantment! I need a corndog, and I need it now.
Oh, yeah. The dervishes were amazing, as one might imagine. I went into an altered state and briefly relived my six months in Turkey; nights spent eating lightly spiced, grilled octopus looking out across the Aegean at the lights of the Greek island of Lesbos; the heady smell of thousands of herbs and spices in a dusty bazaar whose Western embankment is a tumbled-down Roman temple; the sound at dusk of hundreds of Ankaran muezzins calling the faithful to prayer from the city's mosques and mezcits; the crimson and saffron sunset fading to purple over the snow-dusted peaks of the Taurus Mountains, guardians of Antalya.
When they were done, I walked to my car and drove home in that dream-state. I don't remember how I got here at all.
****
Dom (Demir)
Friday, September 17, 2004
Gonna be some changes made.
Ok, so I will go out on a limb here.
I LOVE Bruce Hornsby. Oh yes. Not that way, of course.
Today I talked to my Turks, who confirmed my worst fears: not only would Chicago be expensive, but also that I would be there until we left SUNDAY NIGHT. That just won't do. With a measure of sadness, I told them that I would have to take a raincheck. I be po', and I fervently desire some much-needed sleep.
Oh GOD, did I turn down Turkish fun in the nation's third largest city for SLEEP??! I just took that turn down the road to being old and decrepit.
To bring soothing salve to my open wounds, I went to Borders. Oh yes, Borders. Whilst there frolicking amongst thousands of tasty desireables, I found Bruce Hornsby's latest two efforts, a greatest hits album called Greatest Radio Hits and his most recent album, Halcyon Days. Let me tell you: they are both intensely delightful.
You counter: couldn't you have used that money to go to Chicago? Haven't you been reading? Sleep, my friends, lots of it. You are going to have to water me and turn me towards a natural light source.
At any rate, as a consolation prize, I have managed to procure a ticket to see the Mevlevi dervishes perform their Sufi rituals (ie, whirling) tomorrow night. No, I am not going to tell you how I got the tickets.
*sound of knife being cleansed*
So, you don't know about the dervishes? Send me an email if you are curious. That's right: it's bedtime for Bonzo. How pathetic. I need to be executed.
Zzzzzz....
Demir (Dom)
I LOVE Bruce Hornsby. Oh yes. Not that way, of course.
Today I talked to my Turks, who confirmed my worst fears: not only would Chicago be expensive, but also that I would be there until we left SUNDAY NIGHT. That just won't do. With a measure of sadness, I told them that I would have to take a raincheck. I be po', and I fervently desire some much-needed sleep.
Oh GOD, did I turn down Turkish fun in the nation's third largest city for SLEEP??! I just took that turn down the road to being old and decrepit.
To bring soothing salve to my open wounds, I went to Borders. Oh yes, Borders. Whilst there frolicking amongst thousands of tasty desireables, I found Bruce Hornsby's latest two efforts, a greatest hits album called Greatest Radio Hits and his most recent album, Halcyon Days. Let me tell you: they are both intensely delightful.
You counter: couldn't you have used that money to go to Chicago? Haven't you been reading? Sleep, my friends, lots of it. You are going to have to water me and turn me towards a natural light source.
At any rate, as a consolation prize, I have managed to procure a ticket to see the Mevlevi dervishes perform their Sufi rituals (ie, whirling) tomorrow night. No, I am not going to tell you how I got the tickets.
*sound of knife being cleansed*
So, you don't know about the dervishes? Send me an email if you are curious. That's right: it's bedtime for Bonzo. How pathetic. I need to be executed.
Zzzzzz....
Demir (Dom)
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Fransizca'dan nefret ediyorum.
Well, I didn't perish. My GPA, though...my poor GPA. I feel like stroking its head and telling it that I tried; hale and strong now, this French class (and Ottoman, with certainty) will surely infect it and drain it of its energy, like being bitten by a tsetse fly or contracting schistosomaiasis. My GPA has malaria, I tell you! I weep, I weep.
Today's exam has historical precedent. Behold:
The Black Death.
The Rape of Nanjing (Nanking).
Hurricane Andrew.
The dropping of atomic weaponry on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Ebola.
The 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
That TV show, Amish in the City.
Oh, there are more. You think I am overly dramatic; it's true. Nobody, including me, will perish if I fail out of French. Humor me, OK? Gad, you people: always down on me. I should become a monk.
Ottoman homework calls. Sounds like fun, huh?
Till tomorrow, I remain,
Demir (Dom)
Today's exam has historical precedent. Behold:
The Black Death.
The Rape of Nanjing (Nanking).
Hurricane Andrew.
The dropping of atomic weaponry on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Ebola.
The 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
That TV show, Amish in the City.
Oh, there are more. You think I am overly dramatic; it's true. Nobody, including me, will perish if I fail out of French. Humor me, OK? Gad, you people: always down on me. I should become a monk.
Ottoman homework calls. Sounds like fun, huh?
Till tomorrow, I remain,
Demir (Dom)
Anti-Semitism...in the crapper?
Today, whilst preparing (read: frantically digging, clutching at straws, invoking deities I don't even have alliance with, etc.) for my French exam, I retired to one of the restrooms in Sycamore Hall to answer a call of nature.
Written in the stall in what appears to have been a black Sharpie, a stark bit of graffiti.
"America is Americans. Washington, DC is not for Americans, for it is Jewish."
What the $*@#? I thought crap like this was only part-and-parcel for Martinsville (for all of you who have never been to IN, "Martintucky" is a small town about 21 miles from The Republic of Bloomington. Martinsville is famous for spawning Nascar drivers and had, up until a year and a half or so ago, one of the nation's largest gatherings of Klan members).
*Note* I am in no way correlating Nascar with the Klan. It's just something to chew on.
Two hours to go. I feel like I am about to be sacrificed to an Aztec god upon a gore-strewn altar rimmed with still-warm human skulls.
*uneasy gurgle in belly audible*
Off to meet my maker!
Dom
Written in the stall in what appears to have been a black Sharpie, a stark bit of graffiti.
"America is Americans. Washington, DC is not for Americans, for it is Jewish."
What the $*@#? I thought crap like this was only part-and-parcel for Martinsville (for all of you who have never been to IN, "Martintucky" is a small town about 21 miles from The Republic of Bloomington. Martinsville is famous for spawning Nascar drivers and had, up until a year and a half or so ago, one of the nation's largest gatherings of Klan members).
*Note* I am in no way correlating Nascar with the Klan. It's just something to chew on.
Two hours to go. I feel like I am about to be sacrificed to an Aztec god upon a gore-strewn altar rimmed with still-warm human skulls.
*uneasy gurgle in belly audible*
Off to meet my maker!
Dom
Nothing compares/Noth-ING compares..to you....
Sing it, Sinead. I do so love that bald lesbian minister. She rocks my world. I just heard this song as--brace yourself--a ringtone. Is it just me, or are ringtones getting entirely too obnoxious for human comprehension? Whatever happened to "ring, ring?" Now it seems that if you don't have Ride of the Valkyries or your new favorite Jessica Simpson song to disturb everyone in your immediate environs, you have been snacking on dog "nuggets" and brain tumors. Today a Korean student was at the front desk and his ring tone was actually a real song, with real words. It was CD quality. It won't be long before these things just say, "Hey. Loser. Your best friend is calling. Pick up, moron."
*steps down off of soap box; small bow*
It's overcast and looking like it's not going to even try to remedy that. That's fine: Indiana heat presses on you like hearthstones and makes you want to move to Nunavut. I'll never have a pimple again: I sweat from every possible pore, 24-7. (Ok, so maybe that isn't the most pleasant image; what can I say? Like the Delphic sibyll, I speak only the truth).
I'm in a cramped little computer cluster in the nation's largest (so I have been told) Student Union building. It's dank, it smells funny, and the line to get in goes all the way back to Terre Haute (oblique reference to A Christmas Story). I always like to see what people are doing in here. Most are working like dogs to finish the paper that they should have been doing for weeks and neglected; nine times out of ten the network crashes and the gutteral howls that issue forth from these sad creatures is like the sound of the banshee, wailing over the moors. Both mean someone is going to die. In this case, it's academic death, and to some people that is far more fear-worthy than the actual corporal one. Anyway, the young lady beside me is shopping for--get this--Hello Kitty merchandise. I don't get it. I mean, I don't have to get it--believe you me, when I tell people I have more than 80 masks from 17 countries, that elicits a strong response--but Hello Kitty? Oh my. I saw a shirt once--a baby tee--that had Hello Kitty with x'es for eyes and a bleeding bullet-hole in her forehead. It said "Goodbye Kitty." I giggled like a schoolgirl.
Ok, so now you all think I am an insensitive freak who advocates the slaughter of our feline friends. Far from it! How I love and miss my cat at home, Po. Po is the most bizarre cat who has ever lived. I and my sister picked her out for my mother simply because, of all the rest of the kittens, she was the one who acted the most like a Potorti. She was eating her own tail until it hurt, and then she would stop, forget that eating her tail hurt a lot, and then resume. Then she passed out as if she had been shot with a tranquilizer dart. Her name is Po because her markings are tortoiseshell--abbreviated "torti"--and we are the POtortis. It works. We also be po'. My sister and I horse around and say that her theme-song is the Friday the 13th theme. You all know the one. Jason is about to vivisect some scantily-clad coed, when you hear:
Chh-chh-chh-chh
Ah ah ah ah ah
I just ate some Chinese food, courtesy of Chris Viers (Dean of International Programs), and if there was any justice in the world I would be able to go home and bed myself properly. As it is, I have jihad class AND a French exam.
*Side note on French: HATING it.*
C'est la vie. Eww, there I go, using it! Wrong, so wrong! Give me the dulcet, melodious sounds of Turkish! Turkish, which actually makes sense! Turkish, where every word is writted EXACTLY how it is pronounced! Turkish... well, I just adore it. I guess I should back off before I get stabby.
I will try to post again tonight and let the earth know just how badly I bomb my French exam. It should be Chernobyl-worthy.
Kendine cok iyi bak,
Dom
*steps down off of soap box; small bow*
It's overcast and looking like it's not going to even try to remedy that. That's fine: Indiana heat presses on you like hearthstones and makes you want to move to Nunavut. I'll never have a pimple again: I sweat from every possible pore, 24-7. (Ok, so maybe that isn't the most pleasant image; what can I say? Like the Delphic sibyll, I speak only the truth).
I'm in a cramped little computer cluster in the nation's largest (so I have been told) Student Union building. It's dank, it smells funny, and the line to get in goes all the way back to Terre Haute (oblique reference to A Christmas Story). I always like to see what people are doing in here. Most are working like dogs to finish the paper that they should have been doing for weeks and neglected; nine times out of ten the network crashes and the gutteral howls that issue forth from these sad creatures is like the sound of the banshee, wailing over the moors. Both mean someone is going to die. In this case, it's academic death, and to some people that is far more fear-worthy than the actual corporal one. Anyway, the young lady beside me is shopping for--get this--Hello Kitty merchandise. I don't get it. I mean, I don't have to get it--believe you me, when I tell people I have more than 80 masks from 17 countries, that elicits a strong response--but Hello Kitty? Oh my. I saw a shirt once--a baby tee--that had Hello Kitty with x'es for eyes and a bleeding bullet-hole in her forehead. It said "Goodbye Kitty." I giggled like a schoolgirl.
Ok, so now you all think I am an insensitive freak who advocates the slaughter of our feline friends. Far from it! How I love and miss my cat at home, Po. Po is the most bizarre cat who has ever lived. I and my sister picked her out for my mother simply because, of all the rest of the kittens, she was the one who acted the most like a Potorti. She was eating her own tail until it hurt, and then she would stop, forget that eating her tail hurt a lot, and then resume. Then she passed out as if she had been shot with a tranquilizer dart. Her name is Po because her markings are tortoiseshell--abbreviated "torti"--and we are the POtortis. It works. We also be po'. My sister and I horse around and say that her theme-song is the Friday the 13th theme. You all know the one. Jason is about to vivisect some scantily-clad coed, when you hear:
Chh-chh-chh-chh
Ah ah ah ah ah
I just ate some Chinese food, courtesy of Chris Viers (Dean of International Programs), and if there was any justice in the world I would be able to go home and bed myself properly. As it is, I have jihad class AND a French exam.
*Side note on French: HATING it.*
C'est la vie. Eww, there I go, using it! Wrong, so wrong! Give me the dulcet, melodious sounds of Turkish! Turkish, which actually makes sense! Turkish, where every word is writted EXACTLY how it is pronounced! Turkish... well, I just adore it. I guess I should back off before I get stabby.
I will try to post again tonight and let the earth know just how badly I bomb my French exam. It should be Chernobyl-worthy.
Kendine cok iyi bak,
Dom
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
He travelled East, he travelled west...
...he sailed into proud Turkey. OK, so I totally don't know who said that. I could get up off my porcine bottom and look it up, but I don't wanna. I've been in work all day and class for the past two hours. Yes, folks, it's almost 9 and I just got into comfy clothes. I know what you are thinking:
* Well, at least I am not a small African child who witnessed the ruthless slaughter of his entire family at the hand of a mobile paramilitary death squad. I did not sustain machete slashes to my head and abdomen only to pretend I was dead under the oppressive heat of dozens of rapidly decomposing bodies, only to escape under cover of darkness to the nearest town, where I stowed aboard a U.S.-bound aircraft, losing several small appendages in the intense cold before seeking asylum. *
You uncharitable freaks. My suffering, it is tres grand!
Working in my office has given me quite a perspective on my own really wonderful life. Some of the people who come here for an education come from places where they have so little chance to be viable adults, should they live that long. The sacrifices some of them make are so profound: leaving home, family and familiarity, they come in the thousands to a very liberal American institution jutting like a radioactive mushroom out of nearby cornfields to learn. I may be out of my heavily forested, ocean-adjacent element, but when push comes to shove, I could be home with $200 and a four-hour plane trip. I have fantastic friends, a great job that pays for my education, a loving (we put the fun! in dysfunctional) family and my Horoz.
This weekend, I will be going to Chicago for the first time. Oh yes. How pathetic is it that I have been to Ames, Iowa since I have been here (9 hours) and not Chicago (4 hours)? Apparently there is a Turkish festival of some kind this weekend. I have gotten about twelve plaintive emails entreating me to join my Turkish kindred in the Windy City for some baklava, kebaps and as little English-speaking as possible. I must go: I mean, come on. I have Turkey tattooed onto my skin. I have a red shirt with the white crescent and star; the Turkish flag. I am a novelty to most of my Turkish friends. A Turkish buddy of mine came into work today and pointed at me and laughed. I ducked under the desk and combed my beard with my fingers in a desperate search for boogers. When I emerged, he was leaning over the desk grinning like a lunatic. He said:
"Every time I see you, you look more like a Turk."
It was the beard again. When I wore my Muslim skullcap once while sporting the beard, a Turk stopped me and looked into my eyes very deeply. "You are my father's doppleganger," she breathed almost inaudibly. Once, while roving about the ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Ephesus (near Izmir), I sat down and was attacking some Algida (Good Humor). An older man came and sat down next to me; his distance from me was not the kind of distance that we American folk can appreciate. I could smell his skin. He smiled broadly and clapped me on my shoulder. Our conversation follows.
Random Turkish Man: "Mehmet! It's been far too long! How the hell are you?"
Me: "Eh?"
RTM: "What? You don't even recognize your own brother-in-law?"
Me: "Eh?"
RTM: "Mehmet, you've always been a joker. So funny! Surye lucked out when she met you. "
Me: "Sir, I am not Mehmet."
RTM: "What, you don't think I would recognize my own brother-in-law?"
Me: "My Turkish is really bad. I am an American."
This went on for some time. Dinçer, my buddy, toddled over with his ice-cream. He asked me in English who my new friend was. I told him that his guess was as good as mine. The man looked slightly mortified: apparently, his brother-in-law would not have been, for all his graces, an Anglophone. Dinçer gently explained that I was some random American and not his long-lost relative. He was crestfallen, and I wanted to repair his shattered fun. I told him in broken Turkish that he should call Mehmet and talk to him, as it was apparent that they hadn't spoken in some time. He said he would, shook my hand, did the Turkish cheek-kissing thing, and bade me to enjoy his beautiful country. He disappeared into the crowd of Japanese tourists and was gone like he had never been there.
Those are the moments you know you belong somewhere.
If I don't get to Turkey again soon I think I am going to jump out of my skin.
Anyway, I am exhausted. I need my sleep and I need it bad. I won't be posting tomorrow night; surely you all will forgive me that.
Here's to dreams of arid islets jutting out from azure seas filled with the rubble of dozens of civilizations; of broad plateaux of waving grain and the wild crags of mountains still filled with ibex and the cry of eagles large enough to steal lambs; to the minaret-studded skylines of cities that were ancient when the horsemen thundered across the mare's head of my adopted homeland.
Hoscakalin, arkadaslar.
* Well, at least I am not a small African child who witnessed the ruthless slaughter of his entire family at the hand of a mobile paramilitary death squad. I did not sustain machete slashes to my head and abdomen only to pretend I was dead under the oppressive heat of dozens of rapidly decomposing bodies, only to escape under cover of darkness to the nearest town, where I stowed aboard a U.S.-bound aircraft, losing several small appendages in the intense cold before seeking asylum. *
You uncharitable freaks. My suffering, it is tres grand!
Working in my office has given me quite a perspective on my own really wonderful life. Some of the people who come here for an education come from places where they have so little chance to be viable adults, should they live that long. The sacrifices some of them make are so profound: leaving home, family and familiarity, they come in the thousands to a very liberal American institution jutting like a radioactive mushroom out of nearby cornfields to learn. I may be out of my heavily forested, ocean-adjacent element, but when push comes to shove, I could be home with $200 and a four-hour plane trip. I have fantastic friends, a great job that pays for my education, a loving (we put the fun! in dysfunctional) family and my Horoz.
This weekend, I will be going to Chicago for the first time. Oh yes. How pathetic is it that I have been to Ames, Iowa since I have been here (9 hours) and not Chicago (4 hours)? Apparently there is a Turkish festival of some kind this weekend. I have gotten about twelve plaintive emails entreating me to join my Turkish kindred in the Windy City for some baklava, kebaps and as little English-speaking as possible. I must go: I mean, come on. I have Turkey tattooed onto my skin. I have a red shirt with the white crescent and star; the Turkish flag. I am a novelty to most of my Turkish friends. A Turkish buddy of mine came into work today and pointed at me and laughed. I ducked under the desk and combed my beard with my fingers in a desperate search for boogers. When I emerged, he was leaning over the desk grinning like a lunatic. He said:
"Every time I see you, you look more like a Turk."
It was the beard again. When I wore my Muslim skullcap once while sporting the beard, a Turk stopped me and looked into my eyes very deeply. "You are my father's doppleganger," she breathed almost inaudibly. Once, while roving about the ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Ephesus (near Izmir), I sat down and was attacking some Algida (Good Humor). An older man came and sat down next to me; his distance from me was not the kind of distance that we American folk can appreciate. I could smell his skin. He smiled broadly and clapped me on my shoulder. Our conversation follows.
Random Turkish Man: "Mehmet! It's been far too long! How the hell are you?"
Me: "Eh?"
RTM: "What? You don't even recognize your own brother-in-law?"
Me: "Eh?"
RTM: "Mehmet, you've always been a joker. So funny! Surye lucked out when she met you. "
Me: "Sir, I am not Mehmet."
RTM: "What, you don't think I would recognize my own brother-in-law?"
Me: "My Turkish is really bad. I am an American."
This went on for some time. Dinçer, my buddy, toddled over with his ice-cream. He asked me in English who my new friend was. I told him that his guess was as good as mine. The man looked slightly mortified: apparently, his brother-in-law would not have been, for all his graces, an Anglophone. Dinçer gently explained that I was some random American and not his long-lost relative. He was crestfallen, and I wanted to repair his shattered fun. I told him in broken Turkish that he should call Mehmet and talk to him, as it was apparent that they hadn't spoken in some time. He said he would, shook my hand, did the Turkish cheek-kissing thing, and bade me to enjoy his beautiful country. He disappeared into the crowd of Japanese tourists and was gone like he had never been there.
Those are the moments you know you belong somewhere.
If I don't get to Turkey again soon I think I am going to jump out of my skin.
Anyway, I am exhausted. I need my sleep and I need it bad. I won't be posting tomorrow night; surely you all will forgive me that.
Here's to dreams of arid islets jutting out from azure seas filled with the rubble of dozens of civilizations; of broad plateaux of waving grain and the wild crags of mountains still filled with ibex and the cry of eagles large enough to steal lambs; to the minaret-studded skylines of cities that were ancient when the horsemen thundered across the mare's head of my adopted homeland.
Hoscakalin, arkadaslar.
Monday, September 13, 2004
Guh?
As I had anticipated, the Angel of Slumber was about as elusive as a "friendly, helpful" sales associate in those cookie-smelling crematorium-hot mall stores during the Holiday Season. I intend to write a very strongly worded letter to the Make-Believe Creatures Union; that hag's going on welfare in a month if I have anything to do with it.
Today, Turkish. It was a really really bad lesson. Well, let me rephrase: the lesson itself wasn't bad, but my two compadres in the class hadn't really done the homework. And by "really" I mean "at all." So it was me, watching in horror as my Black Sea/Istanbulli teacher grew more and more agitated. Chalk should not shatter when it is pressed on the board. His eyes rolled back in his head so far that you could see his retinas and his optic nerve. Hey, at least it wasn't me this time. Nothing makes you want to projectile-vomit out your nose more than when your teacher finally realizes your shortcomings and has fantasies about smothering your Anglophone, Turkic-butchering cake-hole into oblivion whilst you slumber. What makes the experience of having him as my teacher fun is that we are classmates twice a week, in French class and in the Glorifcation of Jihad class. Tonight I got an email from him asking if we could study French together. Nothing reeks of chewy, chocolatey brownie points like helping your instructor as a friend. I would like to say that I am just a nice guy, but grad school is like the Serengeti. David Attenborough is NOT going to film me being torn asunder by hyenas. What a nature-porn hound he is. I don't care if he HAS been knighted.
Then, work. Today a slim Asian woman came up to me and I helped her understand her visa and her brand-spanking new I-20. She asked a few questions and then looked me in the eyes and said, "Do you think I am obsessive-compulsive?" It caught me off-guard, mostly because it's something I often think about some of our more..uh..frequent "customers." I mean, I understand that living here as a non-immigrant must really suck a lot, especially with new Department of Homeland Security rules enforced. But some of these people are like the plagues of Egypt. They just keep coming, and with stranger and more dread problems. Some people you see once a year so that you can sign their travel documents; I can count on two hands people who come in to the office at least twice a week. I'd like to think it's because of the sexy bearded Italian staffing the front desk, but they probably just are lonely. I'm really glad that I got to have such close, great friends in Turkey. Seni seviyorum, Turk arkadaslari. Anyway, back to the story. So I told her, no, in fact she was not obsessive-compulsive and was merely concerned about matters that, to an international, could be very scary. At least, that's what I said to her face. Muahahahahahahahaha. Just kidding. She was a sweetheart. I've taken to wearing my nametag at work to make it harder for people to call me "the bearded guy" when I am not there. I guess that's better than "that lardy Mediterranean hair-whale."
Tonight, some much-needed sleep, aided by some random allergy coctail. Will Benadryl and Tylenol Sinus and Nyquil taken together be enough put me into a coma? One can only hope. Tomorrow I have a full workday and French, which is better than death by spiked wheel, methinks.
All my love to my readers, far-flung across three continents. All of you are dear to me, even if I don't tell you so.
Demir (Dom)
Today, Turkish. It was a really really bad lesson. Well, let me rephrase: the lesson itself wasn't bad, but my two compadres in the class hadn't really done the homework. And by "really" I mean "at all." So it was me, watching in horror as my Black Sea/Istanbulli teacher grew more and more agitated. Chalk should not shatter when it is pressed on the board. His eyes rolled back in his head so far that you could see his retinas and his optic nerve. Hey, at least it wasn't me this time. Nothing makes you want to projectile-vomit out your nose more than when your teacher finally realizes your shortcomings and has fantasies about smothering your Anglophone, Turkic-butchering cake-hole into oblivion whilst you slumber. What makes the experience of having him as my teacher fun is that we are classmates twice a week, in French class and in the Glorifcation of Jihad class. Tonight I got an email from him asking if we could study French together. Nothing reeks of chewy, chocolatey brownie points like helping your instructor as a friend. I would like to say that I am just a nice guy, but grad school is like the Serengeti. David Attenborough is NOT going to film me being torn asunder by hyenas. What a nature-porn hound he is. I don't care if he HAS been knighted.
Then, work. Today a slim Asian woman came up to me and I helped her understand her visa and her brand-spanking new I-20. She asked a few questions and then looked me in the eyes and said, "Do you think I am obsessive-compulsive?" It caught me off-guard, mostly because it's something I often think about some of our more..uh..frequent "customers." I mean, I understand that living here as a non-immigrant must really suck a lot, especially with new Department of Homeland Security rules enforced. But some of these people are like the plagues of Egypt. They just keep coming, and with stranger and more dread problems. Some people you see once a year so that you can sign their travel documents; I can count on two hands people who come in to the office at least twice a week. I'd like to think it's because of the sexy bearded Italian staffing the front desk, but they probably just are lonely. I'm really glad that I got to have such close, great friends in Turkey. Seni seviyorum, Turk arkadaslari. Anyway, back to the story. So I told her, no, in fact she was not obsessive-compulsive and was merely concerned about matters that, to an international, could be very scary. At least, that's what I said to her face. Muahahahahahahahaha. Just kidding. She was a sweetheart. I've taken to wearing my nametag at work to make it harder for people to call me "the bearded guy" when I am not there. I guess that's better than "that lardy Mediterranean hair-whale."
Tonight, some much-needed sleep, aided by some random allergy coctail. Will Benadryl and Tylenol Sinus and Nyquil taken together be enough put me into a coma? One can only hope. Tomorrow I have a full workday and French, which is better than death by spiked wheel, methinks.
All my love to my readers, far-flung across three continents. All of you are dear to me, even if I don't tell you so.
Demir (Dom)
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Argh.
I laid down for a nap fully intending to wake up in about an hour. That was four hours ago. It's going to be a good time not sleeping tonight. I'll love it, I tell you, love it.
I entreat each one of you out there in Readerland: take $15 and go out to your local music selling-type establishment and buy the CD Flutterby by Butterfly Boucher. Never heard of her? Me neither, until she opened up for the Sarah McLachlan concert I went to last month. She is amazing. It's "Bow-cherr", by the way, not the French "Boo-shay." She says she isn't that fancy. She's British, which makes this even more fun. So, go forth, minions!
You're still here.
This Spring Break, my friend and I are trying to go to see another of our friends who is doing his Ph.D in Aberdeen, Scotland. Yes, Scotland. Don't go all Braveheart on me. I am not sure where Aberdeen is located, but it'll most likely be a flight from Indy to Chicago, and from thence to Edinburgh via London. I will need to renew my passport, which is currently very expired. That makes me uneasy: I guess I have it in my head that someone is going to offer me a trip somewhere hopelessly exotic and I won't be able to go. If I have to turn down a trip to Namibia because of my passport inadequacies, I will chew a revolver.
Here's me, dreaming of lochs and lonely, brooding fortresses and mountains men fought and died for. OK, there's the Braveheart reference.
All the best to my people,
Dom
I entreat each one of you out there in Readerland: take $15 and go out to your local music selling-type establishment and buy the CD Flutterby by Butterfly Boucher. Never heard of her? Me neither, until she opened up for the Sarah McLachlan concert I went to last month. She is amazing. It's "Bow-cherr", by the way, not the French "Boo-shay." She says she isn't that fancy. She's British, which makes this even more fun. So, go forth, minions!
You're still here.
This Spring Break, my friend and I are trying to go to see another of our friends who is doing his Ph.D in Aberdeen, Scotland. Yes, Scotland. Don't go all Braveheart on me. I am not sure where Aberdeen is located, but it'll most likely be a flight from Indy to Chicago, and from thence to Edinburgh via London. I will need to renew my passport, which is currently very expired. That makes me uneasy: I guess I have it in my head that someone is going to offer me a trip somewhere hopelessly exotic and I won't be able to go. If I have to turn down a trip to Namibia because of my passport inadequacies, I will chew a revolver.
Here's me, dreaming of lochs and lonely, brooding fortresses and mountains men fought and died for. OK, there's the Braveheart reference.
All the best to my people,
Dom
Home is the sailor, / home from the sea
Yeah. I bloody wish there was sea out here. Some days I wake up and I've yet again left my window open again, and for a split moment I think that I smell it. Of course, that's just me, going quietly insane.
Today's been a great day. I woke up late and then I and my friend went hiking on a 2.2 mile trail in Brown County State Park, about 17 miles from Bloomington. Indiana is flat like a giant green mirror until you get south of Bloomington, where the hills that eventually become the Kentucky Smokies begin. It made me miss West Virginia and those endless childhood summers (and those loveable Thackers) a lot. Well, there I go, talking like I am in the home having someone give me a sponge bath. Anyway, I am quite sweat-covered and very pleasantly exhausted. 2.2 miles may sound like a joke, but the life of a grad student is lived indoors...in the library, in your room studying, in class. A nap may be in order. It is, after all, Sunday.
I'm really pleased to see so many people have posted comments to my blog. It makes me feel incredibly fuzzy inside. Thanks, my people. *tearing up*
Monday, oh argh, Monday. Turkish class and work. Sigh. For those of you who don't know, I work at the Office of International Services at IU... and it's one of the busiest at the whole school. When I tell a fellow University employee where I work, he or she will grasp my forearm and look sad. They always say something like "Oh, I am so sorry" or "Oh my, you are so brave." I love it, but let me tell you: Orientation Week as the only Front Desk person was, to put it mildly, like having postage-stamp size pieces of skin scraped off by sea-lampreys.
My bed, she is calling.
Hosca kalin,
Domonic
Today's been a great day. I woke up late and then I and my friend went hiking on a 2.2 mile trail in Brown County State Park, about 17 miles from Bloomington. Indiana is flat like a giant green mirror until you get south of Bloomington, where the hills that eventually become the Kentucky Smokies begin. It made me miss West Virginia and those endless childhood summers (and those loveable Thackers) a lot. Well, there I go, talking like I am in the home having someone give me a sponge bath. Anyway, I am quite sweat-covered and very pleasantly exhausted. 2.2 miles may sound like a joke, but the life of a grad student is lived indoors...in the library, in your room studying, in class. A nap may be in order. It is, after all, Sunday.
I'm really pleased to see so many people have posted comments to my blog. It makes me feel incredibly fuzzy inside. Thanks, my people. *tearing up*
Monday, oh argh, Monday. Turkish class and work. Sigh. For those of you who don't know, I work at the Office of International Services at IU... and it's one of the busiest at the whole school. When I tell a fellow University employee where I work, he or she will grasp my forearm and look sad. They always say something like "Oh, I am so sorry" or "Oh my, you are so brave." I love it, but let me tell you: Orientation Week as the only Front Desk person was, to put it mildly, like having postage-stamp size pieces of skin scraped off by sea-lampreys.
My bed, she is calling.
Hosca kalin,
Domonic
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Eww.
So, technically it's September 11th. I'd like to give a moment of pause to my cousin, James (Jim) Potorti, who lost his life in those fiery towers three years ago.
Here's a sincere wish that his life's abrupt ending wasn't in vain.
Dom
Here's a sincere wish that his life's abrupt ending wasn't in vain.
Dom
Friday, September 10, 2004
It's 10:45 and...well, hey, I don't have kids.
The time has come, sayeth I, to publicly humiliate myself more than I usually do. So, here it is. My own little piece of cyberspace. Oh *God* I am getting misty.
Anyway, it's Friday night and I'm listening to my roommate and his buddy commenting loudly about the Miami vs. Florida State game. I wish I could bring myself to care a lick about sports, but as most of you who know me well are aware, I would rather have my bowels torn out by weasels than watch most sports. That's probably why I never got a date till I was 21. Hahaha, I am kidding. Maybe.
This week did not end soon enough. It's the second week of classes and I thought, Hey: won't the second week of classes be easier than the first? Sinister crack of thunder on that one. I'm taking not one, not two, but three languages (Turkish, Ottoman Turkish and French) and another class as well. So this is what it feels like to be sodomized by draft horses. To make things more fun, I've recently decided that I am going to shoot for my Ph.D... good times.
This weekend I am going to be spending lots of time with my buddy up in Indianapolis--Oktoberfest, here I come!--and that should be just what the witch doctor ordered.
The game is over. Someone won. Me, I am listening to Enya and getting ready to settle down with a book about the Athenian Acropolis and how it impacts modern Greek's feelings of national identity. Ok, so I am a mutant.
Kendine cok iyi bak, arkadaslar, ve gorusmek uzere.
Dom (Demir)
Anyway, it's Friday night and I'm listening to my roommate and his buddy commenting loudly about the Miami vs. Florida State game. I wish I could bring myself to care a lick about sports, but as most of you who know me well are aware, I would rather have my bowels torn out by weasels than watch most sports. That's probably why I never got a date till I was 21. Hahaha, I am kidding. Maybe.
This week did not end soon enough. It's the second week of classes and I thought, Hey: won't the second week of classes be easier than the first? Sinister crack of thunder on that one. I'm taking not one, not two, but three languages (Turkish, Ottoman Turkish and French) and another class as well. So this is what it feels like to be sodomized by draft horses. To make things more fun, I've recently decided that I am going to shoot for my Ph.D... good times.
This weekend I am going to be spending lots of time with my buddy up in Indianapolis--Oktoberfest, here I come!--and that should be just what the witch doctor ordered.
The game is over. Someone won. Me, I am listening to Enya and getting ready to settle down with a book about the Athenian Acropolis and how it impacts modern Greek's feelings of national identity. Ok, so I am a mutant.
Kendine cok iyi bak, arkadaslar, ve gorusmek uzere.
Dom (Demir)
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