Perking the Pansies: He's Written A Book, Folks!

Today I am most pleased to have a guest post from fellow Turkey blogger Jack Scott over at Perking The Pansies, and it's not just because I can't think of anything of my own to write at the moment. Or maybe I have too much and it's just clogged at the gates, who knows?

The book.

I've been hooked on Jack's blog for several months now. It's my first-thing-in-the-morning pleasure, or just-before-sacking-out thrill to read his musings every day, always posted at midnight our time. For a guy who hasn't been here super-long, his perceptions of Turkey and the folks therein are incisive yet loving, with none of the Western imperialism nor the jaded expat-ness one often comes across in yabancı friends. The man can turn a phrase, seriously.

I very much look forward to reading the book, which is getting the kind of sincere and intriguing reviews that make me willing to throw my money at the the Internet.

Though what I really want to know is if I'm more of a semigrey or a VOMIT. Somewhere in the middle I suppose. I never fit into boxes very well.

Anyway, the guest post. It's just about the nicest thing I've seen a Brit ever say about my homeland, and he captures DC spot-on without being snarky:

A youthful Jack. I'd totally do him.

Yankee Tales

I was really pleased when Istanbul's Stranger asked me to guest on her blog as part of my virtual book tour. She’s deliciously witty, calls a spade a spade and her sharp observations about her life in Old Constantinople are a joy to read. She’s American but I think her writing style has a distinctive British, ironic twist. Maybe she was a Brit in a former life. I’m here to plug my book but, as this isn’t Oprah’s Book Club, I thought I’d regale you with tales of my first visit to the good old US of A.

I’ve been to the States four times – to New York, Boston, LA and my first visit was to the District of Columbia at the tender age of 20. I had dallied with a travelling Yank who worked for the Federal Government and was attending a conference in London. He invited me to stay with him in the US, so I did. I had tired of a dull, dead end job as chief pound counter for Habitat in Chelsea and fancied emulating the millions of others who had sought their fortune in the land of opportunity. I saved my pennies, quit my job, booked a one way ticket on Freddy Laker’s Skytrain to New York and off I went. I flew out of the Big Apple and down to Washington DC.

My host got a shock when I called. It seemed his invitation hadn't been entirely genuine; still, he was good enough to let me stay for a few weeks in return for occasional sexual favours. Springtime in Washington is very agreeable - a riot of cherry blossom. The federal heart of the city is laid out in imperial style and built in monumental neo-classical majesty as befits the capital of the most powerful nation in history. The grand design is best appreciated from the top of the Monument, the world’s tallest true obelisk. I did the obligatory tour of the White House and the Capitol and strolled along the Mall popping in and out of the various museums along the way. It struck me how everything was described in the definite article – The White House, The Monument, The Capitol as if no others exist. It’s a sign of a confident young nation with a touch of teenage arrogance.

Gay life in Washington was a world away from recession-ravaged buttoned up Britain with its grubby backstreet gay bars. It's taken London thirty years to catch up. I loved it and it loved me. I was young and handsome with cheekbones that could slice cheese. My hosts lapped me up and I let them. I wowed the randy scamps in Rascals, a popular watering hole and pick up joint for federal employees near Dupont Circle. They seemed to love my accent, along with my uncut assets.

Eventually, I sensed I was overstaying my welcome and my reluctant landlord feared I might claim squatters rights. After several weeks living the American dream, I pined for the old country and flew home on BA. I often wonder what would have become of me if I‘d stayed Stateside?

So now you’ve read about my Yankee tales, why not read about my Turkish tales in my book, Perking the Pansies – Jack and Liam move to Turkey? It’s available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. If you buy it via my website I’ll make a few extra pennies. No pressure.

Thanks for popping by, Jack! It's been my pleasure. Take care, and my very best to you and Liam.

xx
Stranger

Unloading a Whole Bunch of Shit: It's Like A Cheesy TV Show Where I Learn Important Stuff About Life Or Whatever

I can't decide if I love or hate writing. Sometimes I make writing my bitch and sometimes she makes me her bitch. Sometimes we're each others' bitches and things seem to go okay. Since I don't keep a journal or anything and most of what I write gets published for my dear handful of readers, I try to avoid the writing that's like taking a big huge fucking dump-- that boring, overly personal shit detailing all of my stupid issues.

No, I mean that other boring shit I keep to myself.

But, like a big huge fucking dump, writing doesn't let one alone until one lets it out.

Minus the stomach cramps. Mostly. There has been some stomach cramping lately that's not related to periods or eggs or big huge fucking dumps, making me thing there's something in my head fucking with my stomach.

And no, it's not that either. Concern trolls, kindly piss off please. Because unless I'm the Virgin fucking Mary, it's definitely not that. As much as I might find that cool, getting stricken by the hand of God, or whatever he strikes the abstinent with. I'd rather not know, quite frankly. Explaining the inexplicable baby seems related to my other big hopefear, which is having the Shaolin monks turn up at my doorstep telling me LE is the Chosen One or whatever and the inner turmoil that might ensue when they want to take him away to some temple in the mountains to teach him how to fly and smash bricks with his head. Do you suppose the monks would let me come and hang out near the temple? Would they let me send presents from time to time? It's quite a dilemma.

The way the Virgin Mary thing relates to the Shaolin monks thing is if it were the Catholics on my doorstep instead of the Shaolin monks, that would be totally fucking scary and way worse. The only thing worse than Catholics would be Adnan Oktar minions.

This business about virgin birth and Shaolin monks and the chosen one and Adnan Oktar also goes a long way to explaining why religion doesn't quite work for me.

You see what happens when I start writing shit?

My living room?

Speaking of holidays, ours were grand. Seriously. My mom and dad came here on Christmas Eve day and we had a proper Christmas the way Christmas is meant to be. For me, I mean. Making Christmas in Turkey is challenging, at best, requiring a monumental effort of imagination and tinsel and deliberate self-delusion because Christmas in my atheist planet is way more important than it should be. If it weren't for LE, I wouldn't bother, but making Christmas through his eyes makes the whole thing super cool and totally worth it. And you can believe our house looked like freaking Vegas for a month. If the damn kittens hadn't started chewing through the cords, I'd have left the lights up forever because Christmas lights are great and a fine addition to any decor. Especially ones that do the alternate-y flashing thing.

The damn kittens are another story. They're fucking cute, let me tell you. I'm thinking of making a movie about their antics. You know, because there aren't nearly enough kitten antics on You Tube. But I might not get around to the movie. Just so you know.

It's going a little bit this way from here on out.

Last year, I made the hell out of Christmas. Starting the first week of December, I began going out of my way to thrill LE with Christmas stuff. Decorations, hauled from the US and bought here. Christmas songs. Christmas stories. Incredible lies about Santa, who I swore I'd never lie to LE about but it's way too much fun. Christmas cookies. A digital animated advent calendar. A special night of Christmas tree decoration (sabotaged by BE, who just couldn't manage to leave his tea drinking buddies in time to bring LE home early enough). A special Christmas gift I had made LE wait for since summer to receive (sabotaged by BE's parents, who bought him the same gift a week before Christmas, claiming they'd forgotten I'd asked them several times not to buy it for him but apparently he'd cried in the toy store and goodness knows a child must never cry).

Hooray! Christmas!

All of this, of course, building up to Christmas day itself (sabotaged by BE, who after numerous promises he'd be home for the day, suddenly left for work shortly after the presents had been opened, claiming the whole family would be at the factory that day filling a big order-- he sent me pictures in case I didn't believe him, just sealing my deep-down belief they were all going out of their way to sabotage my one fucking yabancı holiday I care about, oh, and by the way, did you know Christmas is our anniversary?). All this in the face of everyone in Turkey carrying on like Christmas is on New Year's Day and BE's endless comments about how silly it is to make a such fuss over one day.

Nevertheless, I made the hell out of Christmas and I fucking liked it even with all that. Remember the gecekondu gingerbread house?

I remember it.

But BE's leaving for work on Christmas Day kind of killed it for me. It was rather a crushing blow, actually. It's not the reason we're separated now (Hah! See how I just threw that in there?), though obviously it's a brick in the wall. In fact, I just pushed that particular Big Hurt out of my mind, along with a bunch of other ones, and had almost forgotten about it until my mom asked me something a few moths ago that made me remember. It's just that the other Big Hurts were far more significant and pressing.

So this year when I started making Christmas, I was kind of pretending at first. It was a lot of extra work I didn't need because of the crap going on at my job, but I did it nonetheless. By the third week of December I started getting into it, because by then I knew my parents were coming. LE, of course, was completely batshit by December 3rd and Santa is the best disciplinary tool ever. I'll miss it, and might just save it for a big gun if I can trust myself not to abuse it. Then Christmas Eve involved fondue and Christmas morning involved side pork my folks had brought from the States and it was great and normal and easy to feel the way you're supposed to feel on Christmas.

*cue sentimental piano music, or something like at the end of Doogie Howser, M.D.*

By about 10am on Christmas Day, two things had occurred to me. One, was that my parents being here at a time I really needed them and hadn't even realized how much, more or less erased whatever sad black Christmas clouds I had because of last year. Second, because I know my parents can't come here every year to make Christmas normal for me means I'm the fucking grown-up who has to make Christmas normal for LE. In fact, it's all some fucking atheist parable reminding me I'm the one who has to make the whole world normal for LE. Which means, for Christmas at least, I can make it however suits us and we'll do just fine. The possibilities are endless in kind of a fun way. His Christmas will never be my Christmas because of all these damn choices I've made in my life, some of them cool and some of them less so and some of them hardly thought-out at all.

As for the world, I think we'll have to work together on that one. And it's working out okay with us. So far. He's only four, after all.

Progress

This isn't it.

Give your seat to old people, women with children, and veterans.

Our gentlemen passengers carrying children, should they exist, are kindly requested to stand. Or better yet, they can cease to exist and thereby help us maintain the status quo, through polite signage.

A Big Day Out: Let's Never Speak Of It To The MIL

So today I packed off the boy to Taksim. It's been ages since we've gone there together. Just to add to the challenge of the whole thing I took us to the Şişhane metro station which I hate because it's way too far underground for my tastes. By the time we reached the third escalator, we were already in a heated argument as to whether it was the second or the third. LE didn't count the second one because he'd wanted to take the stairs. By the time we got to the fifth escalator, we were arguing about whether an uphill moving walkway counted as an escalator.

He was in a mood. So was I.

Last time I was in Şişhane metro station I almost died because a cleaner at the top of the longest escalator suddenly decided to pick something up off the floor with his mop crossing the top of the escalator just as I was about to get off. I did some super quick Bruce Lee move to get around the cleaner and under the mop in a split second and lived to tell the tale.

I told this story to LE and he patiently explained to me that it wasn't a Bruce Lee move at all because Bruce Lee would have jumped over the mop.

So we went to meet our friend outside the metro station and, hooray! A demonstration was just getting ready to march off.

Lucky for us, it was a peace demonstration. Or a gay peace demonstration, judging by the flags. The marchers may or may not have known about the gay rainbow thing, it's hard to say. Much of the language on the peace signs wasn't Turkish, and in fact was in a language I couldn't figure out at all. Maybe it was Basque or something? So some of the subtleties of the demonstration may have been lost on me.

The US Consulate is forever sending out these terrifying emails about how US citizens should avoid demonstrations because they can turn on you at any second. Eminent danger is ongoing. Aside from the embassy warnings, which my MIL would never know about, we were definitely heading into the sort of day she would have a shitfit about. Commoners! Germs! Public transportation! Demonstrations! Taksim is the most dangerous place on earth because once like10 years ago some guys tried to rob FIL but then his cousin showed up and chased them off.

LE didn't give a shit because he'd found a pile of sand on the street.

Don't tell the MIL. Also don't tell her that, after playing in the sand, he gave me his gum to throw away and I said "Put that back in your mouth right now." There are a lot more garbage cans in Taksim than there used to be. That's because there are a lot fewer bombs. But I couldn't see a garbage can around the demonstration and I'll be damned if my kid is the sort of person to throw his trash onto the street.

The demonstration was followed by a parade of peaceful police officers, in full riot gear and carrying all manner of weapons. LE was impressed enough to leave the sand for a few seconds.

Although the cops were kind of scary, the scariest thing is that that's me saying "Yeah," in that video, because LE wanted me to check out a particularly large gun. Yes, it's true. Apparently I've developed a man voice. I had no idea until I saw it on You Tube. Oh well. It was bound to happen.

Thanks to a tip from A Seasonal Cook In Turkey, we were off to the DOBAG carpet sale in the Crimean church down the street. The carpets were astounding. They caused me all manner of stress and consternation because I wanted to be the sort of person who just buys a fucking gorgeous carpet because it's gorgeous and would really bring the room together, but instead I was the sort of person with a kid, an unpaid phone bill, and 173 lira in my bank account. Fortunately, the co-op that made the little carpets that really had me dribbling didn't take credit cards. The credit card is more of a future problem that takes care of current problems, but not all of them. I remember the days when credit cards were for fun.

Even more distracting than my envy and money issues was the fact that this was the first time LE has set foot in a church.

Good thing it was a cool church.

Probably the MIL wouldn't have objected to the church that much. She would have had a good laugh because things like churches and silly yabancı holidays are funny for her. Seriously, one day I would like to walk into a mosque and behave the way I see a lot of young Turkish tourists acting in a church-- being noisy, making jokes about the silly religion, taking pictures of each other pretending to pray... I don't even have any religious feelings to back this up, but there are some things that are just fucking rude. And that might get you beat up if you did them in a mosque.

But the MIL wouldn't have been happy about the big fuzzy cat that lived outside of the church. Or the giant ducks in the garden. I love ducks because they're so hopelessly undignified and they always say the same hilarious thing no matter how they're feeling. LE chased them everywhere and they patiently got away, calmly muttering and sticking together but never panicking.

So it was a good day. Our hands got dirty, we touched animals, and breathed the same air as people we don't know. Then we ate Chinese food. Somehow we all survived, but I think we'll not be talking about the specifics to the MIL. It could kill her. Or make her talk really a lot about boring things.

Either way wouldn't be so good.

It's Boza Season: A Passing Moment of Fleeting Beauty

Boza, in and of itself is something interesting.

Just follow the link, it's worth it.

When I was pregnant, I was crazy for boza and went through like a bottle a day. In subsequent winters, the madness waned, but I still love the stuff. It reminds me of applesauce, especially with the cinnamon on top. Mind you, there's no applesauce in Turkey, except that which I make myself. Applesauce is something you don't really miss until you have to make it yourself, which isn't that hard, but still. As such, I can't think of boza as a drink, like something you chug from a cup. Instead, I put it in a cup and eat it with a spoon.

I'll pass on the roasted chick peas, but thanks for offering.

It's fucking yummy.

Though I would never eat it with leblebi, with a spoon or otherwise. Leblebi suck. No really, they do. They literally suck all traces of moisture from your mouth and get stuck on the way down when you swallow them. Quite why anyone eats these, I'll never know. I trace it to an old-days lack of Doritos, and I don't even like Doritos. Too fucking orange. And they smell orange but not-orange and I associate them with rooms full of boys and video games and that tube-sock freshness that accumulates.

Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!

Anyway, one perk of our neighborhood is that there are street vendor folk. They have a proper milkman out here, by which I mean the guy who's like Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof with the big pail and the scoop. I wouldn't ever get milk from that guy because I'm too entrenched in my American food safety issues, but still. It's cool. Just agree with me.

Actually, the other reason I wouldn't ever get milk from that guy is because I'm not sure of the protocol. I don't have the basket on a string to dangle off the balcony, and I gather one is expected to provide one's own milk receptacle. What sort of container might that be? I'm sure mine would be all wrong. And then, how do you know how much it costs? How do you know if he's ripping you off because you're foreign? And anyway, do foreigners often shout off the balcony when the milkman passes by?

So many questions, such deep confusion.

Okay, the street vendors. Tonight I'd just got off the phone with my friend and a sound vibrated through the living room. It was all wrong for ezan and not the right time. But there was something to it. Piercing and haunting. It didn't sound like guys fighting or neighbors keening over some tragedy, as they do sometimes. I swear there were some harmonics being hit there. My spine tingled in a good way and I ran outside to check it out.

Turns out it was the bozacı.

Best sound ever. And for a fleeting moment, life was sweet and beautiful.

Fucking Bunion: A Foray Into Foot Ailments

Bunion rhymes with onion. It's one of my favorite words in the English language. It's both evocative and hilarious.

Not only does my toe hair sparkle in this light, I've got fucking bunions.

Yet, until today, I didn't know exactly what a bunion is. Of all the billions of things I've looked up on Google, bunion has never been one of them. It's hard to say why that is.

The bunion thing started thus: One of my co-workers just had a minor foot surgery. She's been padding around in one slipper and one shoe. The slipper is pink and a little bit fuzzy. It's really cute, trust me. So I overheard her telling someone it was a corn.

It wasn't that I was trying so hard to listen-- it's this crap open-plan office we've been poured into. The open-plan office (a nice way of saying "fucking cubicle corral") is just one of the many injustices my job has recently foisted upon us, things that have started to make me hate my job a little bit because one of the things I've always liked about my job is that they they don't treat the prep teachers like crap in the hierarchy of shit that everyone clings to so desperately.

Robots don't need air or toilets.

We've suddenly gone from "respected professionals" to inhuman English teach-bots who don't need boring shit like more than two toilets for 50 people or books or planning time or air in their classrooms. I don't mean A/C. I mean air. The kind you breathe and makes you sick in certain forms. The air thing is a boring story involving Turkish construction and fake ventilation systems and 20 people in a tiny room.

Not this kind of corn.

Anyway, I didn't know what a corn is either. All I know is that the knobs on the sides of my feet have been growing and they remind me of corn. So I asked this co-worker about whatever was on her feet and she described it and it sounded all right, bumpy and sore and that was enough for me. Then I asked her if their removal was covered by insurance and she said it was. Then today she wasn't limping anymore, and I was all, "Wow, amazing recovery time! I should be able to fit that minor surgery into my life, which I no longer have because I have to work all the fucking time because the administration just took a big old dump all over us!"

This kind. Fucking ew.

So tonight I looked up "corn" on Google. Turns out a corn is just a really big callous. I have loads of those. If really big callouses are corns, my pinky toes are like 85% corn. If I had them removed, I wouldn't have pinkie toes anymore. I'd have pinkie sprouts.

Then I looked up "bunion." Then I giggled a bit because bunions are funny and rhyme with onions. Then I found out bunions are weird bony growths and not a snap to have off. Since I don't wear high-heeled or crampy shoes, it means my bunions are genetic.

It's cool. My grandma had wonderfully knobby feet. I got her feet. And her weird hands that can do the weird finger locking thing. LE has her creepy thumb that bends all the way backwards. So does my brother. Genetics are cool.

I'm thankful I got my grandmother's feet, bunions and all. There are a lot of other things I'm thankful for, too numerous to mention and anyway, it's my bedtime. I have to get up fucking early to go to work.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Teachers' Day.

Dear Universe: An Open Letter

Dear Universe,

Fuck you. It's not enough you took my cousin, but now you have to burn up the town where I was born?

Look, I know I've not been perfect, but seriously?

Complete lack of love at the moment,

Stranger

P.S. The least you could could do is give a swift kick in the neck to whoever robbed Wayne's car. Because I'm pretty fucking sure you owe me one.