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)
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