Cehennem, Cennet ve ölü rahibeleri.

Hell, Heaven, and dead nuns.

Yes, yes, I still live. I'd apologize for my absence, but I'm Catholic, so I have enough guilt to worry about without this.

OK. So, picture it: Bloomington, Friday (2/25) morning. Domonic's alarm is set to go off at 8 even though he has class at 11:15: this is because he must pick up Zeke Whippet from the Happy Kennel Place a few miles outside town. Domonic has figured strategically that this would be the latest astral moment he could wake up and be on time to his other obligations, namely, finishing the Turkish (for two classes) and the Ottoman for classes that day.

Domonic awakens not to his alarm but via biorythm. Absently, he glances at the clock.

8 effing 45.

Apparently, Domonic set his alarm for 8 PM! That makes mothertouching sense! He flings himself into his shower, lathers, rinses and *gasp!* does not repeat. Wet, mumbling and incensed at his own ineptitude, he drives at 90 mph to the Happy Kennel Place and retrieves a grateful Zeke, who promptly falls asleep in the backseat whilst lathing his male-parts with his nimble tongue. Once safely ensconsed at Keith's, Zeke is left to his fate with a chewybone and two bone-biscuits as Domonic drives at 125 mph to class whilst finishing his Turkish homework frantically on his lap in traffic. Once in class, Abbas bey is extra super-special flippy; this particular Friday, he was to be observed by two of his supervisors! What, Abbas? We're going to listen to fun folk music? What, Abbas? We're going to be looking at cartoons and talking about jokes? You mean, you're not going to slam chalk on the board so hard that it atomizes? You mean that you're not going to roll your eyes so far back in your head that it exposes that rosy-colored optic nerve when we talk? Well, I'll be dipped!

Now: Domonic has class on Fridays from 11:15-12:05, and then from 3:30-6. However, this particular Friday, because of a missed Turkish Literature in Translation class, Kemal bey decided that, since he'd be on campus anyway for my Ottoman class at 3:30, to go ahead and have the makeup class at 1. Fancy!

1 PM rolls around and Domonic is ready to take his own life with a coathanger rather than endure FIVE HOURS OF NON-STOP CLASS on a SUNNY FRIDAY AFTERNOON. He refrains from doing so because there's the promise of delight on the morrow. He quickly begins to rue his inaction when, five minutes before the end of the Turkish Literature in Translation class, Kemal bey dramatically closes the book they've been translating for a half a semester and says:

"We're finished with this book. I can't take it anymore"

Burcu hanım and Domonic look at each other with naked horror. Eight weeks of work! Flushed like a wad of snot-befouled tissue down the storm-drain if apathy! How many nights spent toiling into the wee hours? How many carbonated fructose beverages gave their lives so that this book could see the light of Anglophone day? Kemal asks them if that decision frustrates them; meekly, they reply that no, hocam, they aren't frustrated; deep inside each one knows that the other will go home to beat a kitten to death with a meat-tenderizer.

[Side note: As of 3/1, Kemal bey wants to translate a PLAY written by the same author, Nazim Hikmet. Oh yes. That won't be utterly futile. Or dull. *swig from hip-flask*]

Then, after a ten minute break wherein Domonic consumes a Pop-Tart and a Coke, Ottoman Turkish! Yay for languages that haven't been used by a living person since 1850! Kemal, weary from the Turkish Literature in Translation class, begins to explain to Domonic that he'd like to begin lessons on

ARABIC AND PERSIAN GRAMMAR.

Now, Domonic's all for learning. He's come all the way from Maine to the corn specifially to do so. The arcane is his medium, and in it he is a master. However, the thought of wading into the grammar of two more languages makes Domonic's addled brain turn into something resembling hominy grits. Yes, hocam! Bring it on! After all, won't they make a lovely complement for:

Turkish.
Ottoman.
French.
Latin.
5th Century Attic Greek.
Modern demotic (koine) Greek.
Classical Latin.
Mandarin Chinese.
Punjabi (Gurmukhi).

[Domonic pauses in horror]

On the bus ride home, Domonic watches a young woman rub her woman parts, slowly, lovingly, through her sweatpants for a good ten minutes. No, he is not making this up. It was like watching a Discovery Channel (hahahahaha! Discovery!) documentary about bonobos. One watches because hey, it's there, it's on. But all will be well soon, Domonic thinks: tonight, Keith will be home from Texas and they will meet up for dinner! Yay! Human interaction!

Keith comes home from the airport and calls Domonic to confirm dinner plans. He drives to Domonic's home and they get into Domonic's car to go out for pizza. They pull into a small parking lot behind the Buskirk-Chumley, and, once parked in a spot, they notice that it is 24 hour 7 Day-a-WeekTow Spot. Good times. Domonic puts his keys and the ignition and turns the key so as to move the vehicle, fearing the fines and the tow truck.

And by "turns", one means "attempts, in vain, to turn." Both the wheel and the ignition are locked solid. Domonic pauses, takes a deep breath, and takes the keys out of the ignition. He puts them back in and tries to turn them again. And again. And again and again and again.

He takes out his cellphone. The hair on the back of his neck hackles as he dials AAA. The phone rings on the other end. "Thank you for calling AAA", the recording begins. "Please hold as we transfer you to a customer service representative."

Had Domonic known that the "customer service representative" would instead be a "cracked-out vapid troglodyte whore", he would have just sat in his car and waited for the icy refreshment of the Big Dirt Nap. The conversation lasted, no lying, for ten minutes. Fantastic! That's helpful! Had Keith not been there, and been so patient, and been such a calming influence, Domonic knows he would have had to kill again. And damn, he's misplaced his hacksaw.

A hour and a half later, at nearly 11 PM...

Keith and Domonic watch as Domonic's car is dragged onto an awaiting towtruck. The ignition shaft needed to be entirely gutted and replaced and two new keys needed to be made; all of this to the merry tune of $415.

Then, once actually eating, Keith has an allergic reaction to something in the pizza and his lip begins to erupt with a single weal whilst his hands begin uncontrollably itching.

Domonic became exceedingly happy that Indiana has a seven day waiting period for the purchase of firearms.

******************************

However!

Saturday night, 8 PM. With Thai peanut chicken and teriyaki chicken (Dom and Keith, respectively) holding court in their guts, our protagonists go

TO THE OPERA.

I loved it. I loved it so goddamn much it's criminal. There were many reasons for this.

1) One of my best friends from last year, Stephanie Bain (of New Zealand), had a leading role.

2) The opera was about nuns.

3) The opera was about nuns, who then got guillotined during the Reign of Terror.

4) One of the nuns drops a statuette of the Baby Jesus and it shatters.

Beheading. Judeo-Christian statuary. My Kiwi. It was a night of enchantment I shan't soon forget. Moved me to effing tears, and I only have a husk for a heart.

More blogs shall follow in short order, now that I have the will to live following an illness that can only be likened to consumption.

I remain, as always,

Domonic