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)