Yaramaz Went Away

On my balcony in the dusk, with a week’s worth of cold virus simmering in my bones and veins and a cat ass pointed in my direction (Lola is meditating: Waaaaaaaallllllllllllllllll  Waaaaaaaaaalllllllllllll Biiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrd Waaaaalllllllllll) and air so lovely and light and warm yet cool after a week of ups and downs and double duvets at night. I have my sunflower dress on and a medicinal beer ‘n bag of chips with yogurt and am trying to wind down after a week of slight lunacy.  I got in just half an hour ago after a 90 minute drive from Maslak (oral tested Suzan Sabanci’s personal assistant for 15 minutes in her millionth floor office in the posh-o Sabanci Centre, in car to and fro over two hours). The driver existed in a world where every street was accessible and curbs are for driving on and meridians are for mid traffic u-turns and oncoming lanes are for driving in as long as the traffic isn’t too heavy and driving backwards in heavy traffic is really cool.  And strangely enough, I fear I have been here so long that when he veered out into the oncoming lane and started driving down the street into oncoming traffic and calmly manoevered around the vehicles and no one sounded a horn and no one was surprised and we managed to inch our way into a complete jam at the end and somehow Parisianly nudged cars out of the way until we  reached Levent and I wasn’t surprised at all.  I continued chatting with my parents on the phone as we careered through stalled traffic bckwards up a one way street.

I am feeling quite wretched this week, with all things above the neck loathing me and going totally haywire.  Banu brought me ihlamur tea during our exhausted nth schedule meeting this morning after we lost three teachers last night for various reasons and I had to somehow incorporate their hours into the existing schedule, just hours after I’d sent out the original schedule. Can’t say people were delighted to find extra hours tagged on.  I was too wiped out from coming in to work early despite being ill to find teachers to fill in for other ill teachers (but not me because I cant call myself) and dealing with all the usual chaos as well as giving a voluntary workshop for the Kelkit teachers that stretched into infinity from the originally projected 45 minutes.  All the schedule madness fell just as I left the workshop. I somehow got myself out sometime around seven, hauled myself home, and let Doug play nursemaid/dishwasher/tea-brewer.  That was good. I liked being looked after for once.

Am sneezing in a loop now, can’t stop, feel dire.  Said I’d go to Pano later but not sure its a good idea.  Bed looks good.

Stolen from

spyrals

1. Do you have a tattoo?  Not yet but it will come eventually
2. How old are you? 33
3. Are you single or taken?  somewhere in between
4. Fish?  no, human
5. Do you dream in color?  i’m not sure but i think so– it feel like it
6. Ever seen a corpse?  yes, a few
7. Hipsters or Hillbillies? hipsters
8. How did we meet?  we haven’t
9. What’s your philosophy on life and death?  eh.
10. If you could do anything with me, and have no one know, what would it be?  eh, must think
11. Do you trust the police? not in istanbul, no
12. Do you like musicals? no
13. What is your fondest memory of me? i don’t know you
14. If you could change anything about yourself what would it be?   less tone deaf
15. Would you cheat ? about being tone deaf? how?
16. What are you wearing?  sunflower dress
17. Have you ever peed in a pool?  not that I’d ever admit
18. Would you hide evidence for me if I asked you to? possibly
19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?  eat, drink, be merry
20. Which do you prefer – short or long hair?  it depends on the hour, the day, the moment
21. What’s your favorite day of the week?  sunday
22. What’s your favorite color?  green or purple
23. If you could bring back anyone that has passed, who would it be?  frieda kahlo might be fun and a good chat
24. Tell me one interesting/odd fact about you?  i am scarily double jointed
25. What was your first impression of me?  mmm none yet
26. Have you ever done drugs?  some but not many

After a mad intense morning, I am settled back in my desk to watch the rain fall, to sip my absurdly strong coffee, to contemplate lesson planning, to wish I was back at home snuggled up under the covers reading and drinking tea and eating far more raisin cookies than a girl ought to injest.  My weekend was very lazy, prompted by a mélange de beaucoup de choses- the weather was grey and über kapal and intermittently yamurlu, soaking the balcony and the towels hanging to dry from the wrought iron railings and the dead tailless lizards that Lola stalked and killed (again), and I was floored by a Saturday cold, which kept me in bed or near bed until this morning with only a break Sunday morning for a noon breakfast in Polo’s  back patio with Björn and Doug.  We had a contest to see who could draw the most convincing fried egg (because I couldn’t remember the word in Turkish–sahanda, for the record– and Doug was sick of the usual boiled eggs so we needed something to show the exceptionally dim waiter).  I won. Apparently I am also good at spontaneously drawing racing bicycles.

I made a fierce pair of hallucinatory spontaneous Indian thingies that afternoon, as we debated whether or not to leave the flat again (we didn’t).  I roasted a newly bought kilo or so of tomatoes in the oven with two and a half heads of garlic and three eggplants. These turned into a lovely fiery eggplant garam masala and a lovely fiery chicken tikka (is it tikka masala if you stew it in scrunched up roasted tomatoes and a head of garlic and browned onion and a loty of Hunan chili paste as well as tikka paste??) and a big pot of rice. I haven’t cooked so much in ages but it was wonderfully cathartic.  Pleased to note that Doug can handle the obscene amount of heat I prefer for food. He had to lie down after eating and had strange visions and a few spontaneous out of body experiences but was otherwise pleased with it.  Björn as well. This is good.  I will cook more. It feels good. 

Don’t feel like teaching tonight. This morning was madness and I am tired. I need a nap.

The ramazan drummer seems to be passing directly below my flat, from all angles, front and back, pounding fiercely, setting off all sorts of car alarms.  I have yet to sleep.

A grey day, wet and drizzly. My first stretch of calm in a week of unhurried busyness and no pauses for breath or tea. Steph’s on maternity leave and my office is empty and quiet, save for the afternoons when David camps out here and pretends to be my personal assistant, answering the phone with a thickly Gallic ‘Allo, dis ees MareeAnne’s offees. She is, ‘ow you say eet? Not available at zee moment.  I can take zee message?’ all the while crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out at me. We are a very mature group here, we are. 

It has been a busy week but not a tiring week. I have been moving and speaking and explaining and teaching and crossing things out and going for surreptitious runs in the ManlyGym up the street and calling millions of teachers and hunting for Market Leader CDs and noting cancelled lessons and emailing Steph and rearranging timetables and Make-Up classes and still forgetting to pay my water and phone bills. I have been out every night this week, with Doug or Björn or both, for beers upstairs in Nevizade or mant in Hala or Dixie’s goodbye at Nayah. I have been using the present perfect far more than usual. 

My birthday stretched into a birthweekend, with a gorgeous teras midnight dinner with Doug at the Marmara Pera on the day, then a fearsomly overcrowded night at Pano the following evening (photos posted) and then Nevizade the following evening, then a long and lazy çay filled day at the Biennial, sandwiched by more tea and tavla in Tophane, having my backgammonny ass whupped by Doug, with Björn reclining alongside and Corrinne’s funky travelling ladies marvelling at the wonders of Turkey from a semi horizontal beanbag position. Peach nargile was breathed, several litres of çay sipped, many exhibits contemplated. In all, quite palatable.

And now it’s all grey and cool and calm and I have a hankerin’ for a fine strong coffee but don’t know where or how I can achieve this. Would love a big bowl of soup too. And a jacuzzi. And a weekend now and not tomorrow. I am craving quiet time to wrap up in blankets and read my unread last-weekend’s-Guardian and sip tea and play music and stop thinking and moving and talking.  At least the weather is heavy enough to weigh me down in a good way today. The clouds are keeping me earthbound and stable.

I’ve joined a gym. Actually, Rachel and I have joined a gym. It was her idea, and I was originally just tagging along to act as her translator with the enormous buff desk fellow who only knew the words ‘bodybuilder’,  ’set’ and ‘hello’.  When I somehow got the price down from 130ytl/month to 300ytl for 4 months (too many years in barter-friendly countries?), I figured what the hell, a little movement can only do me good. And I happened to have 300 in cash on me because I finally managed to pry my overtime pay and flight allowance from the accountant Kemal’s delusional little grasping hands.  He was adamant that he’d paid my overtime with my normal salary; I was adamant that he hadn’t (probably because what I received was exactly my base salary and nowt more). 

It went something like this:

The sky is blue
No, it isn’t
The sky is blue
No, it isn’t
Seriously- that’s blue sky up there!
No, it isn’t
Yes, it’s blue! It’s blue!
No, it isn’t.

And so on.

It took a Steph intervention tofinally get my money (he hadn’t realised that my new position as ados paid more and not less than Vodafone and had put me back on my salary from last winter, which was 210ytl/month lower than what I should have received from working half at VF and half here as ados). This is the school accountant!  Who was informed by Michael repeatedly about my new salary and overtime and flight allowance due. They were only 2 weeks late and like pulling teeth to get. I sometimes really miss the fierce accuracy and punctuality of the Suadiye school’s accountant. Bless you, Durdane!  Dang you, Kemal!

So, long story short, I’ve joined a gym just up the street, and this morning before work I ran for half an hour then the very large man took me around the weight machines for another half hour then I had a leisurely shower and blowdry in the deserted ladies changeroom and went to work feeling surprisingly excellent. Ate acl bulgur köfte for lunch with nectarines and sent nonsense texts to Doug and drank lots of narl tea. 

It’s good.

Tomorrow will mark my 33rd annual attempt at being human. A daunting task.

Balkondayim, ikinci bira iciyorum— bloody long day done passed and I feel oddly wired but unwired and just inhaled a stir fry of leftover whatever there was (it involved spuds and an egg and garlic and onion and peppers and corn and egg noodles and lots of piri piri) and am still out there trying to suck in just a bit more outside oxygen after a very long day inside with the far less annoying than on friday Yapi Kredi folk.  Apparently they liked my business emailing writing workshop.  I missed most of the daylight hours, the sunlit hours, the hours not spent in small classrooms teaching things I only somewhat understand.  I am making up for it now out here on the darkened balcony with only 31 minutes left on my battery.

My weekend was a lovely relaxing ball of nothingness after I got over my absent water and repeated cancellations by Rachel for Friday Saturday Sunday lunches and dinners and after dinner drinks.  It was all about stacks of lovely new newspapers and my first round of espressos in the new flat and beers on the balcony above nevizade at Lambo with Doug and late night excellent conversations that led to fierce Sunday marathons in Facebook page creations. If anyone wants to befriend lola, she has a page now (search for Lola Kedi) or if anyone wants to join a completely absurd new religious organisation (Shamans Without Borders), please feel free to link. We were surprised to find that within 12 hours Lola had 14 friends and Shamans had 21 members.  Is this how real religions are started?