Yaramaz Went Away

Drove to the emniyet this morning in Claire and Sebastan’s rattletrap old diesel car which he smuggled in illegally from England after driving it all the way across Europe.  None of the door handles worked, and we got a lot of odd looks from other cars for the UK license plate and right hand drive. We made an accidental mindless wrong turnoff somewhere in Laleli, into the backstreets where everything is in cyrillic. We drove past a sign reading Arse Otomotiv, which made me happy.  At the emniyet, the man behind the table in front of the wall of filing cabinets refused to believe I was the same person as the picture in my ikamet. Given that this was a renewal and all they had done was stamp a new expiry date into my residence booklet, the fact that the photo was three years old and that I no longer have short red hair shouldn’t have surprised him. Sometimes people grow their hair over a period of time. Sometimes women dye their hair. It happens, effendim. It does. Allahallah!

Had an odd conversation with rachel. My office has turned into a therapy room of sorts, with the padded leather chair with the broken back that leans out too far being used as a psychiatric couch for anguished teachers. I’ve bought a big tin of hazelnut cream filled wafers to hand out to ease whatever pain happens to plunk its ass down before me. We were discussing the upcoming bayram and its inevitable bloodshed.

She: I remember in a village in Indonesia when I was there they sacrificed a pig for bayram
I: A pig? Isn’t that haram?
She: Oh yes, it was a pig, I am sure of it. 
I: But how could it be a pig if they were Muslim? Are you sure it was a pig?
She: Oh yes, definitely a pig, though it might have been a goat.
I: A goat would be more likely
She: But I am sure it was a pig. Or a goat. I’m not sure. What other animals are there around that size?
I: Badgers. Sheep. Ponies. Maybe it was a sacrificial pony?
She: I think it was a pig. Or a goat. But it might have been something else. They keep shifting in my memory. And it was wearing an apron. And offering me biscuits. 
I: And saying, oooaaahhr do have some tea, me darlin’. Ah go on now, luv, go on. Jaysus Joseph an’ Mary, I t’ink it may even have been me late great Aunt Mamie. 
She: Or a pig. It was a pig. And it was for bayram, I am sure of it.
*pause*
She: Or maybe it wasn’t bayram. Bali is Hindu isn’t it? What are the Hindu holidays?
I: Diwali perhaps?
She: Yeah! It was Diwali!  That makes sense now, dunnit?  Wrong religion, I did have there. 

Windows XP a la Turca

Woke to Lola’s irrationally early, predawn call-to-breakfast, up on the dresser, pushing D’s receipts and coins and Advil silver strips and deodorant slowly and methodically off the edge, waiting for the satisfyingly loud fall, systematically timed. When I still huddled under the covers, with growing awareness of a headache in my nose and eye sockets, she moved on to the seagrass laundry basket  next to my bedside, which I use as a bedside table. She lunged at it, swatting off books and water bottles, shouting adamantly for her kibble. I emerged dopily and poured out enough to last a week then stumbled back to bed to enjoy my headache in peace. Then the phone started to ring with tales of sick teachers who have forgotten that Steph is back and I am no longer DoS and I should not be called at the crack of dawn to arrange cover.  I returned to bed, headache in full bloom, my upper nose and eye sockets full to bursting with ache, and dreamed wild dreams about the teachers who had called in sick, who had inexplicably also agreed to catsit Lola in my fabulous huge house-flat-farmhouse in Istanbul-SomewhereInEurope-Cowichan. They kept changing identities and new cats kept appearing and I went camping in the rain and Lola and a million other cats followed and I ouldn’t figure out why they weren’t being sat in my fabulous old mansion off the side of the TransCanada Highway near MillBay, which looked like  Nisantasi done up for New Year. I drank salted coffee and woke to a bigger forehead ache and pounding rain and an insistent phone call from my student Aylin who wanted an early lesson in 30 minutes.  Sigh.

I’m on the new inflatable mattress now,  with a big mug of tea in me, feeling a little better. Feeling insanely exhausted and stupid and my nose and eyes and cheeks ache in the bones. It’s still raining. I will go to work soon. I told Aylin I was busy until afternoon.  Afternnon is better.  I may feel sane by then.

Five and a half more work days and seven and a half more sleeps until go home for Christmas.  Aside from thoughts of friends and family and real overkill Christmas decorations (as opposed to Turkish New Year decorations labelled misleadingly as Christmas), I am entertaining thoughts of fries and gravy, real beer, stuffing with lots of celery, butter tarts, English language magazines,  trees, ocean, pho, speaking English casually in shops, libraries, breakfasts in cafes with pancakes and maple syrup and butter  and hash browns and eggs over easy and buttered toast and bottomless filter coffee,  shockingly empty streets (compared to Istanbul), morning papers in English,  trousers in shops that fit me,  nanaimo bars, and non-Facebook scrabble games. 

As for here, everything is the same as ever, except that my lingering illness(es) is/are slowly easing up. A few barks here and a rude sniffle there.  Otherwise all is essentially back to normal.  Work is the same; home is the same (which is good); Istanbul is the same. I really need a break, a change, a new backdrop, a new boot to the bum to get my synapses popping.  Am feeling a bit too stable. It’s a bit disconcerting.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, with sun shining down on the eye hospital roof teras, making stark shadows on the bushes and vines and be-scrubbed doctors between surgeries.  A shiny brown halo of autumn leafed trees growing on the hill behind it is fluttering from the weight of wind and birds.  I am at my desk, working on my second fake coffee (with real milk!!!!), the incompatible taste of fresh orange still tainting my tastebuds.  It’s a quiet day today, no crises to resolve, no scary paperwork to tear through. So far this morning two teachers have (separately) told me my talents are totally wasted in this job and that I should run off and be a writer or an artist (ok, sure, but who will pay for my material whims?).  I’m somewhat in agreement,  though I have to say, after a half dozen years of intensive, on-display, exhausting teaching, all this mindless, self-propelled administrative pointlessness is really quite a relief. I like sitting at my desk staring out the window as I sip my crappy coffee and watch the shadows cross the eye hospital roof teras trees.  I like having late starts. I like teaching half time. Teaching exhausts me.  I love it but it fucks with my head and drains me in so many ways.  

So, if wasted in this position, what could I do otherwise, if teaching isn’t the happy-making alternative, nor is anything I’ve done up until now to earn my wine and roses? Sigh.  I’d like to be a potter.  Or a writer- but I am lazy and undisciplined and never finish what I rarely even start.  Or a photographer- but I am shy and terrified of being invasive or obvious.  Or a baker- but I am not an early morning person and having to bake every day on demand would seriously get on my nerves and I’d slowly grow to resent the process. 

Sigh.

But I am okay today. My lungs and sinuses are clearing up and my energy levels are almost normal.  Bill said I looked quite pale this morning but that may be because it is winter and I have been a hermit for months, rarely emerging into daylight.  Saturday was spent in bed watching Simpsons (next Saturday:  Lost season 1 is 30% finished downloading, dribbling in in a trickly torrent of torrents, so fingers are crossed that it will be done by then) and drinking tea; Sunday was in Cevahir tracking down a camping mattress for Val (got it!!!  Val, please bring a sleeping bag though– we have sheets and pillows to spare but no extra blankets yet) and drinking strong coffee and downing chocolate covered espresso beans in Kahve Dunyas then returning home for the last few episodes of the Simpsons. A seriously bed/mattress themed weekend.  My social-interaction motivation is almost nil- we went to Miles’ goodbye party at the wretched MyMoon in Taksim and stayed for two drinks and were gone by midnight, even though we were surrounded by all sorts of people I really like and would like to see more of in a non work atmosphere (i.e. me not giving them extra classes or chasing them up for reports).  I am turning into such a hermit.

I’ve gone through 5 nose rings in the past few months, disappeared from  blown noses and in fever-tossed bedsheets and endless tissues. I’ve now got a ruby-gemmed small silver flower plugged into my right nostril and I am being super careful when I blow my nose or wash my face. It’s not a cheap habit to maintain, since I’m allergic to everything except silver and gold. Between nose-rings, claritin for my never ending lungal/nasal issues, and foreign-brand tampons, I have a not immodest monthly maintenance fee.

I’m starting to feel better now though. My bite is now worse than my bark, and teachers are less able to identify me by sound from the next room.   I spent yesterday entirely under blankets in bed watching Simpsons (season 15 this time, bless those torrents), drinking tea, eating free pizza (because Pizza Bulls brought us double mushroom pizzas 45 minutes late the other night, which was not okay given my total aversion to mushrooms and preference for hot as opposed to cold pizza) and barely moving. Am spending the morning on the kilim wrapped in shawls today, with my tea and online cozy sunday papers and Lola.

Outside it’s all sunshine and lollipops. Freezing but lovely. Going to cevahir to buy a mattress for Val’s new year visit.  Kahve dunyasi and its double espresso con panna beckon.