Everything I write in here is COMPLETELY TRUE, except the stuff I exaggerate to make it funnier. Which is most everything.
Saturday, June 1, 2019
I think that this short story, cleverly disguised as "Computer and Desk Stretches" is really brilliant. I've annotated it below for folks who are having trouble interpreting the story's message.
Scene #1: The murderer flexes his fingers in anticipation.
Scene #2: She sees him! She screams!
Scene #3: He shrugs. Little does she know that her screams are music to his ears.
Scene #4: “Put your hands behind your head,” he hisses. “And maybe I’ll let you live.”
Scene #5: It’s not enough. He snaps her neck. And cuts her hair.
Scene #6: And then he breaks her friend’s neck.
Scene #7: He reattaches her hair as a pony tail. He props up her body so he can pretend she is still alive and he can kill her again.
Scene #9: Christ, his back is killing him. Hauling bodies takes muscle.
Scene #10: He puts on a skirt and leans against the wall to sob.
Scene #11: Well, back to work.
Scene #12: He puts on creepy glasses, so he doesn’t forget that he’s a creepy murderer guy. Are you happy, father? Are you happy now?
Scene #13: He attaches her hair to his own head. He is a princess. A pretty, pretty princess. Pats himself on the back. Damn his father anyway!
Scene #14: He takes off his skirt and the hair. No! He must remember! He is a man! With his hands zip-tied behind his back, he is helpless to change himself back into his true self. His female self.
Scene #15: He is too flexible from stretching. He works his hands around to the front of his body.
Scene #16: He returns to his women’s dress and hair. He crosses his legs daintily. It’s what he wants, what he needs . . . but he can’t face himself. He will roll away on his wheeled chair . . . to another life? Or another murder.
I never finished writing about Turkey -- now 4 years ago -- because I lost the flash drive with all the pictures and I was just too depressed to go on. But today I found an old email I sent to someone about something that had happened one of our last nights there, and it's definitely worth sharing:
Tonight after the whirling dervishes, Marc and I were going to stop for a cup of coffee on the way home. We spotted a likely looking place, and a man came up to us, very friendly as everyone here is when they want to sell you something, and asked if we were interested. We said yes, and he led us -- to the restaurant across the alley. Ah, well.
We did have a lovely dinner (okay, I had a lovely dinner, and Marc had a beer). As we were leaving, the man told us we were a lovely couple. We smiled politely and he said, "Couple? You are a couple, yes?"
We both denied it vehemently. We're good friends, but the thought of being perceived as a couple has just pissed us off ever since our college days. The man's eyes lit up -- then went to my breasts.
"Ah!" he said. "I thought you were a couple! If I had known -- I left you alone because couples are to be left together -- it would not be honorable -- are you married?" He took my hand in both of his. Oh, they were warm, and strong, and manly, and . . .
No, I replied, and I confess to you, I did smile at him somewhat invitingly.
"Not married!" he exclaimed. "But why not?"
I just haven't found to right one, I suppose, I sighed.
"Ah! And where are you going now?"
We told him we were just going back to the hotel, as I have an early flight tomorrow.
"What! But I have coffees and tea, and I would talk to you more now, but I mustwork. And you! Do you have a mother and father? Brother and sisters?"
Yes, I have both parents, and five sisters and a brother.
"Ah! And I have 9 brothers, and one of them has 11 children. Children, I love children, but 11 is too many. I think maybe three. And family! I am ready for family! My family, they say to me, when will you have a family? It is time for you to have a family! And I say, I am ready! Are you ready?"
I blushed, and admitted that perhaps it is time for me to have a family as well.
"Yes! And what do you think of me?"
You're very kind, I answered, with more shy but beguiling smiles.
"Very good! We must speak more. But I mustwork. Come back with me, and I will give you my email address and we will speak in that way."
Well . . . I hesitated.
"Please, we must speak more. It is time for the family."
Here! I said. I have a pen in my bag. And here's a card to write it on.
"Yes! Thank you! Thank you so much! You" -- to Marc -- "turn, please." And we used Marc's back as a table to write on.
The man wrote his email address on the card and we bid our fond farewells. He didn't kiss me, but his eyes said volumes -- when they weren't focused on my breasts. With a final squeeze of my hand, we parted.
I'm still not used to this "living with other humans" thing, but today may have been my most embarrassing moment so far since I moved in with my boyfriend (code name: "Saint" since he was named for a saint).
I walked through the kitchen on my way upstairs and noticed the jar of Cheez Whiz on the counter (his). I started talking out loud as I climbed the stairs:
"Cheese Wiz. Cheese Wizard. Wizard of CheeeeeEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeesEEEEEEse!"
And from above me I hear
"Uh -- what?" And there he is at the top of the stairs. Heard every bit of it. Thinks I'm a freak. Loves me anyway.
I didn't realize how much I talk to myself until I moved in here.
This has been a really very good year. (At this point, those of you who have not had good years should take a moment to pull out your Megan voodoo dolls and give me a good stabbing.)
*Work: I was promoted to director this year, which is cool. I became my own department, which is also cool. I haven't worked to midnight even once this year. Yup, not even once.
*Life: I moved to a very pretty little apartment in a very pretty little neighborhood. No more drive by shootings! No more getting mugged! This is the high life.
*School: It continued. My grades are high, but I have to admit that I am a little bitter about attending a school that counts the minus in an A- against you. I should totally have a 4.0, but instead I have a 3.92. Ah, well.
*As all sensible 21st century babes do, I turned to okcupid to bolster my sad little love life. And it worked. I had a grand total of 2 (maybe 3? I've sort of forgotten now) dud dates, and then I met Mr. Awesome. (That's not a very creative nickname, is it. He's very Irish, so maybe Mr. O' . . . something. Ok, going to have to work on that a bit.) We've now been dating for 3 months and 8 days, and I'm really, really happy with him. And he seems happy with me. So that is very good.
I have a few viewpoints which are outside of the norm. A few ideas that it seems no one else is on board with. A few wacky notions that garner me strange looks whenever I bring them up. This is one of them:
I believe that a chocolate milkshake should be made with chocolate ice cream. By default.
This seems so self-evident to me, I am honestly bewildered that other folks don't view it the same way. Making a chocolate shake of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup is not just odd to me; it screams fraudulent selling techniques. In fact, it makes me so angry, if I were in a political position, I would absolutely try to pass a law saying that restaurants must explicitly state on menus if chocolate shakes contain chocolate ice cream. And then I would get ripped to shreds for wasting tax payer dollars on pointless laws, and I would never be elected again, but WHO CARES so long as I can make this one thing a reality?
Also, is "milk shake" one word or two? I honestly can't decide.
Why do restaurants do that? It would take less effort to make it out of chocolate ice cream in the first place than to scoop vanilla AND add syrup. It makes a far better product. I truly cannot think of a single incentive to deliberately do a shitty job making a chocolate milkshake -- and yet it is considered proper to do just that. Why? WHY?
Tonight I was a model of efficiency. I did my homework while my laundry was washing, got my masturbation out of the way while the laundry was drying, and now I'm ready to go to bed!
I really don't. My homework tonight is something I have been postponing for most of the semester. "Write 4 reading responses to the readings . . ." Bleh. I have done three, and the last one is due in no more than 4 hours.
The problem is that my first three were truly excellent. They were amazing pieces of research and tied disparate events, readings, and techniques together with grace and panache.
(What's that? You think I'm being arrogant? Bitch, please. This is me being humble!)
But tonight I'm unmotivated. I'm far more interested in staring out the window and counting how many times the police pass by after Papa Bear called them to report the five gun shots we heard earlier. That's how a lazy Sunday night ought to be spent. None of this malingering over dull homework. Sigh.
The cat seems to think that because she spent 30 seconds licking my hand, I am either morally or legally obligated to scratch her head with that hand.
I refused. She insisted. I ignored her. She bit me.
She can take this to the courts, but as she is lacking a signed contract and now has a history of using violence to resolve disagreements, I am confident that my side will prevail.
You’re curious about that subject line, aren’t you? I figured it would draw the page views. Trust me – it’ll work.
Now, on to the real topic at hand.
I really, REALLY want an English accent. This is partly because I’ve been watching Doctor Who so much recently. How fantastic is it to have your favorite television show streaming on Netflix? Pretty darned, my friends, pretty darned. It is also partly because of all the fantastic Britishy words I want to be able to say without being mocked. I like “mental” as a descriptor for someone insane. It sounds very intelligent, doesn’t it? And “blimey” is also quite expressive. Try it out. Linger over the first syllable: “Bliiiiiiiimey.” Oh, it works.
Sort of like having glasses, a British accent fools the average bystander into believing that you are just awfully clever. I can’t tell you how much having glasses has helped my reputation, at least after the little bump in grade school when they were just a source of mockery. And now that I have the bifocals without the line, people don’t even try to attribute my obvious intelligence to the wisdom of old age anymore. That’s nice too.
When I was in college, an acquaintance of mine went off to England to study for a semester and came back with a very noticeable British accent. As I was speaking to her one day, I commented “Picked up a bit of accent there, didn’t you?” Her response was positively scathing. “It’s not an ACCENT,” she hissed. “It’s just speaking PROPERLY.”
Do you think that’s what everyone in England thinks about us? Not that we have a different accent, but that we’re just too stupid or lazy to speak properly? Do you think our cultural gap is so great, that even me having glasses wouldn’t make them think me smart so long as I have an American accent?
Also, for you Twilight fans who stuck with me: the movie was okay. Jacob had his shirt off in about the first eight seconds. The scene with the werewolves mentally chatting with each other was dopey. The sex scene made me blush. And they skipped the part where Bella projectile vomits blood. Darn.
I woke up this morning to the cat vigorously licking my fingers. I do find this disturbing. What if she gets tired of licking and goes in for a nibble? Sure, a little scrap of flesh is nothing I’ll miss, but once you have the taste for Megan, that craving doesn’t just go away. It’s one short step from the nibble to the full-out “I hanker for a hunk of, a slab or slice or chunk of, I hanker for a hunk of hand,” and bob’s your uncle, my pinky finger is gone, down her throat, and me left with a stump and an innocent looking cat staring at me wide-eyed and contemplating my toes for a midnight snack.
This is one reason why I am being very careful to feed her regularly while Papa Bear is in Korea (by the way, did you know Papa Bear went to Korea for Thanksgiving?). You would think I’d be conscientious because she is, after all, one of God’s creatures and I am the embodiment of all that is good and kind and right in this world, but it’s all just a self-defense tactic to keep from being eaten in my sleep.
In other news, here’s a snapshot of what I made for dessert today.
I am always surprised that when I tell my friends of the culinary delicacy that is meat spread they respond by blanching, swooning, barfing, or fainting. Cultureless cretins!
Let me tell you about meat spread, the most succulent dish of my childhood.
First, take some leftover pot roast. The pot roast should have been cooked the night before and stashed in the fridge in a Ziploc overnight. When you take it out of the fridge, the Ziploc transparency should be obscured by a layer of grease. That's how you know it's ready.
Screw your meat grinder to the edge of the counter (you do have a meat grinder, don't you?). Start to feed chunks of the leftover meat into the grinder, swearing vociferously as you do so. Those piquant phrases add a little extra spice to this recipe. You could trim some of the fat from the meat before you begin, but honestly, you don't have time for that, so let's not bother.
Once you have a bowl of succulent ground meat, it's time for the Miracle Whip. What's that? You want to know if mayo is a good substitute? God, no! That's sick. Miracle Whip or nothing.
Glop several heaping spoonfuls of Miracle Whip into the bowl. Don't be shy, pile it on in. Now, add a bunch of relish. I forget if it's dill or sweet, so maybe try some of both.
Mix, mix, mix.
Next, get two slices of white bread. Not the fancy artisanal stuff -- make it Wonder bread. Better, make it a grocery store knock-off of Wonder bread. It must be cheap!
Spread your meaty concoction (now you know where we get the name!) over the white bread. Don't miss the corners! You ruin the sandwich if you miss the corners.
Now consume. Masticate. Delight in the slight crunch of the relish. Swirl the bolus in your mouth, let it mingle with your spit. Swallow.
Yeahhhhhhh. That's good eats.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Today I was supposed to go on a tour of a Montessori school.I was excited because our class has been reading a lot about Montessori schools and I wanted to see how the classroom is set up.Is Montessori a better education model than traditional public schools?If I ever have kids, I really like the idea of home schooling, but the sad fact is that I would get bored with it very quickly.So I like the idea of exploring other models.
Our class was greeted outside the building by a woman who, I think, owned the school.She handed us each a clipboard, and I thought that it would be a survey or something.You know, “Have you ever visited a Montessori school?” or “Do your children go to Montessori schools?”To my surprise, it was a release form.
Among other things, the form advised me that by signing it I would be agreeing not to sue the school for any injury caused to me either by my own negligence or theirs.Furthermore, I would be agreeing to pay for any damage caused to the school by me – or anyone else!
I swear, that was honestly on there.I spend a lot of time at my day job reading various contracts and parsing out the tiny details, and I am quite sure I was interpreting this correctly.
Why, pray tell, would I agree to pay for damages caused by someone else?Am I a charity? Am I Uncle Moneybags?What the hell? And there were no limiting factors even, such as time periods, that would release me after the visit.I simply would agree to this for all time.
I laughed and laughed and laughed, and returned my unsigned waiver to the insane woman who seemed to think that taking a tour was worth me risking receiving a bill from her anytime from today until the end of time.Funny, she seemed a bit offended by my laughter and by me pointing out to my classmates that her terms
were batshit crazy.I can’t imagine why.
I do not blame my classmates for signing the waiver.Some of them are deeply interested in Montessori schools for professional reasons, and they decided signing the waiver was worth the calculated risk.It is, after all, extremely unlikely that anything will ever come of that waiver.Very unlikely.Very extremely unlikely.And some of them had come from very far away for the class.So I can understand their perspective.
However, my points are these:
1. I make a practice of reading everything I sign in full.I am not going to sign without reading first.
2. I don’t see the point to signing away my rights unnecessarily.
3. I don’t want to encourage batshit crazy lady by seeming to approve with her form.
So silly.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Sometimes I just want to share really inappropriate things with the world, like how I cut myself with my fingernail while masturbating rather agressively last night and how now it kind of hurts to walk, and I feel sad because I can't post that to Facebook, and then I remember that I have this blog and no one here will judge me.
Last night was the last episode of this season of Doctor Who. I don't have cable, so I bought it off of Amazon.com this morning and watched it on my laptop. I love, love, LOVE that we live in a world where I can do that. I watch only one television show, so paying for any cable package would be a massive waste of money. But for just $1.99/episode, I can watch the whole 13 or 14 episode season and be out less than 30 bucks. Why, yes, I do sound like an advertisement today. Don't care; I'm stoked to get that much entertainment for so little money. Suck it, cable companies. I will never, ever pay your extortionist prices ever again.
So the episode was fantastic. Before I go on, I'm going to explain my policy about spoilers. I don't declare that there will be spoilers. I don't hide behind a cut. I don't make them invisible until you highlight them. If I start off by saying that I watched the last episode last night, I expect you to be intelligent enough to realize that I am going to talk about Doctor Who in detail, and you need to not be a whiny baby about what I say.
And the episode was great. I really loved every bit of it. I went in knowing that the Doctor had to die to save the universe, and I also knew that he's currently filming the Christmas special so some jiggery pokery must've gone on to keep him alive for that, but I wasn't sure what it would be. I assumed his Ganger had returned and died in his place. Or that his Ganger returned and that he died, but the Ganger went on. I was so happy to find out that it was neither, but the return of the shape-shifting time police instead. Like the Doctor, I will never get tired of tiny time traveling people in a shape-shifting body. Not one bit.
I loved that the Doctor married River Song, I really loved when River and Amy had a glass of wine together in their backyard, I LOVED Amy's office in the train (I desperately want an office in a train), I was appalled by the train tracks running through the Pyramids, but totally in love with the idea as well (oh, I'm a bad historian), I loved Madam Kovarian getting killed but I wish it had been with much more blood and gore, I loved it all.
So all that said, you'll understand when I say that I am really tired of reading things online bagging on the show, the scripts, the writers, the directors, blah, blah, blah. This is television. And while I'm not saying television isn't art, it is art that is created under a pretty fucking intense timeline. I am sick to death of absolutely everyone on the internet being such a goddamn critic. No, it wasn't perfect. But the focus is always on what wasn't ideal, complete with such overdramatic statements as "oh, now that character is ruined" and "Now I'll never watch this show again" and "it was cheap" and "it was a copout."
Television isn't perfect! It's imaginary! Suck it up and get over it!
So, I'm part of a group who has to give a presentation on "Challenges to User Privacy, e.g. RFID" next Thursday. We have 8 minutes. We're meeting tomorrow to start planning.
This is part of a Masters of Science program in Library and Information Sciences, so we'll likely approach it from a librarian point of view. We're NOT being graded on it because they want to encourage us to experiment and go crazy.
I am open to any ideas anyone may have, whether they be content or technologies you've used in the past for presentations! If we film it, we'll probably put it on YouTube so everyone can watch it.
By the way, I am NOT leaving this to the last minute; we were just assigned our groups and topics today.
Today at work, I felt a cool breeze carressing my cheek. This is bad. It means that despite my granny sweater and the space heater and the plastic on the windows, some errant winter has crept in and is . . . blowing on my face from a vent?
But wait! No cool creeze should be coming from the vent. We keep the heat in there this time of year.
I got up and checked the thermostat. Some utter dillhole had turned on the air conditioning. I turned it off and sent the following email to my office:
"All,
It is March in Chicago. Do NOT turn on the air conditioning. If you are hot, take off a sweater, bring in a fan, crack a window, ask to have the heat lowered, or step outside for a moment. But do not, not, not turn on the air conditioning!
Cordially,
Megan"
Pissy? Yep.
I shortly received a response:
"Megan – I turned on the AC yesterday as I was burning up and needed to cool it down. We need to think about the plastic on the windows when it warms up and we can’t open the windows."
Signed? My boss.
Oh, fucksticks.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Someday we'll all find out what happened next in Turkey. Meanwhile, if you find that you have a red flash drive you don't recall owning, you should probably send it to me as it has all the pictures and the next chapter of the trip on it.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Just to save you the effort of desperately refreshing this page every ten minutes, the next section of the Turkey trip won't post until Friday or Saturday. Between work and school, I haven't had a second to resize the pictures the next part calls for, so I haven't been able to post. Sorry about that!
I’ll speak only occasionally after this about the food in Turkey. I assure you, friends, one does not visit Turkey for the cuisine. As my soon to be friend Jameel called it, Turkey is the Land of the Kebab, and when you’re a vegetarian, the land of the kebab doesn’t have all that much to offer you, I’m afraid.
We went looking for food that night, just wandering down the street with the tram to see what we could find. We eventually settled on a place where they were just in love with us. There is a such a thing as too good customer service, I think. The proprietor and a couple waiters absolutely hovered over us the whole meal, and I couldn’t finish fast enough, I was just so nervous at being watched while I ate. The most outstanding thing in that mind about that meal was the bread they brought us as a starter. Here it is:
It was fine, not so tasty as naan, but okay. It was mostly distinctive for its shape: a massive hollow football resting on, not sitting in, a wicker basket. We tore off bits of it and dunked it in various sauces, and that was nice.
It’s hard to remember exactly what we did the rest of our time in Istanbul. See, we got to Istanbul on 7/23, then left for Selçuk on the 25th. I think for those couple days we just saw the palace and poked around a bit. Oh, and we went to the Hippodrome, which is about as anticlimactic as the London Bridge; we had no idea we’d walked across it until we focused on the map and realized that must’ve been it. I’d tell you to skip it if you go, but you’d probably accidentally cross it like we did on your way to the Blue Mosque or something. We came back to Istanbul a week later and did an absolutely shit ton more, so we’ll be back here.
So on the 25th, we took a bus from Istanbul to Selçuk, about a 10 hour ride. Buses in Turkey are a major part of transportation. The bus station is massive -- sort of like an airport. There must be 30 or 40 different bus lines. The one we chose was CamilCoch. Yeah -- Camel Coach. I snickered over the name. The bus had a steward, just like an airplane would, who came around and gave us a cookie and su and a little moist towelette to clean up with. He was very sweet to us. And the cookie was delicious! A shortbread cookie, with a thin layer of orange jam, and then a layer of chocolate sprinkles on top. Num. On the bus, we met a sweet girl from Turkey on her way home after finishing the school year in England. She'd just done her exams in what was the equivalent of senior year of high school. She had to take 20 or 25 exams she said, on 7 different subjects. Crazy. Her British accent was amusing though, kind of a lower class accent where she said "fink" for "think" and so on. I wonder how she wound up with that variety of accent? Did she learn that way, or did she pick it up from her schoolmates?
In Selçuk we stayed at the Kiwi Pension Hotel. Kiwi? you might be asking yourself. Is Turkey known for its kiwi or something? Not so much. You see, there’s a very strong Australian contingent in Turkey. Selçuk is quite close to where the Battle of Gallipoli was fought and it’s a big tourist attraction for Australians, especially college students on vacation. It’s a big, big deal to them, so there are a lot of little motels around there owned and run by Australians catering to the Australian populace. We happened to get one of them.
Here’re a few pictures of my room in the Kiwi Pension:
Looking at that bathroom, you will note that it VERY happily has an actual flush toilet. I'll talk at greater length another day about the horrors of the squat toilets. The shower was also distinctive for being just a corner of the room with a drain in it. One day the curtain bar fell down, and there went the shower.
We stayed in Selçuk for 4 days because there was SO FREAKIN’ MUCH to see. The first night we went out and found some little sidewalk dive to eat at. The food was fine, but again, I can’t remember what it was. There were a zillion little kitties begging for food, and they were just adorable. Honestly, if you don’t like cats, you should probably avoid Turkey. You’ll go insane.
The first day we had to figure out how to get to the attractions we wanted to see that day, the House of the Virgin Mary and the ruins of Ephesus. We ended up getting a taxi that took us to both, though the driver ABSOLUTELY butt-raped us by charging 120 liras. Madness! Happily, I think that was the worst pocket violation we suffered on the trip.
We hit Mary’s House first. The legend behind the place is that after Jesus died, his disciple John headed on over to Turkey to Ephesus to convert the folks there, and he built Mary a house in the hills near Ephesus. See, you couldn’t have Mary, mom of God, living in the same town as a whole bunch of Artemis worshippers, right? So she got a house on Mt. Koressos, and there she chilled until she got Assumed. Assumpted. Whatever.
So, here’s a picture of Mary’s House – sort of. This is a pic of what they rebuilt in the spot where they found ruins of another house. Am I the only one here opposed to rebuilding sacred shrines? It just doesn’t seem right. “Restoring” sounds nicer, but honestly, hardly any of this is original stuff; most of it was rebuilt in the 1950’s.
Here’s a picture of the Prayer Wall of the Virgin Mary. For those of you curious, toilet paper or tissue is the preferred medium for your requests for miracles.
Here's a picture of an unanswered prayer. Sorry, Timmy, maybe you can find another saint to cure your cancer. Mary suggests you not use a knock-off brand of Scotch tape next time.
Here’s a picture of the Garden Hose of the Virgin Mary. There wasn't a plaque anywhere to tell me if this was the original garden hose or a reconstruction of the original.
And that was the House of the Virgin Mary. We did get a couple drinks at the Café at the House of the Virgin Mary and Marc posed for a couple shots. Then we headed back down the hill to where our taxi driver was waiting and chatting with another driver, walking past about a dozen different booths set up to sell souvenirs to the faithful. We passed on those.
Honestly, the thing I disliked most about Mary’s House was the excessive use of crosses in the rebuilt version. Imagine if you will that you had a son who was killed by a murderer wielding a gun. Then imagine that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition feels sorry for you and builds you a house – that they decorate from top to bottom with guns. A little insensitive, right? When you get right down to it, this whole cross-as-sacred-thing is a bit shady. Why the hell are people venerating the murder weapon? People are fucked up, yo.
Moving on. Our driver took us next to . . . THE RUINS OF EPHESUS! This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Funny, until this moment, I’ve been thinking of them as my first ruins, completely discounting the ruins at Mary’s House, which just don’t count at all. Sucky, sucky ruins at Mary’s. I liked the place, but there wasn't much ruiny about it.
Here’s what Turkey looks like as you drive from Mary’s House to Ephesus:
You might be thinking right now that you have no idea what Ephesus is, but if you happen to be Catholic, try imagining a priest intoning “And now, a letter from Paul to the Ephesians.” Sound familiar? Yeah! Those Ephesian folks lived in Ephesus. Ephesus used to be this major port city, with more than 250,000 people. It was the second largest city in the world for a while (at least the western world). Now you really don’t know why you’d never heard of it and you’re deploring your shoddy education, aren’t you? It had many crazy adventures – earthquakes, conquerings, fires and all – but it eventually died out because of its harbor. See, they had this great harbor which gave them access to the Aegean Sea (which meant trade and prosperity; trust me when I say "invest in harbors," kids; they're gonna be big ), but this river feeding into the harbor kept filling it up with silt. They tried to empty it, but you can only fight nature for so long (I’m talking to you here, Venice), and the populace shrank and shrank and shrank until the 1400s when everyone finally left.
And now, a ton of photos from Ephesus.
This is Marc with a cat. As I was ready to dash off into the ruins, Marc spotted this feller, shrieked “KITTY!” and skipped over to greet it.
Ruins!
Animal ruins!
Odeion ruins! Yeah, I totally slipped and fell. It was completely inevitable and I was glad to do it and get it done with. This place was used for shows and sometimes meetings. At the time it was used, it would've had a cover overhead and 1200 people could've sat there.
From upper Ephasus, you can wander on down to lower Ephasus via Curetes Way. The Curetes pop up in a few different places in mythology and ancient history, but in this context they were these folks whose job was to help out in the recreation of the birth of Artemis. Heavy Artemis worshippers, remember? Their specific task was to make a lot of noise with their weapons so that while Zeus was busy doing it with Leto, or maybe while Leto was giving birth, Hera would be totally distracted and not realize what was going on behind her back. Poor Hera.
Greek inscription! Ephasus was Greek before it was Roman, and anyway, they were a major port and had to be multi-lingual. Ten bucks to the first person to correctly translate it.
Marc reading something. Is that a letter? A letter to the Ephisians, perhaps?
We will have our little jokes.
Okay, I thought I could get us through Ephasus tonight, but I was wrong. We'll pick up here tomorrow. Everything is all written out; it's resizing the photos that's taking forever!
We stayed in our rooms until the heat of the day had passed and then we ventured out to eat. We were in a quite good location; just a short walk from the Bazaar, the palace, and so much more. Out at dinner, I got a tomato salad of some sort. The plate came heaped with tomatoes -- awesome! Then when I starter eating it, I realized the tomatoes were drowning in olive oil. Meh. I did eat the top part, which was quite a lot, but the bottom where everything was completely covered, I left.
On our way back to the hotel, we decided to stop in the Grand Bazaar. We just couldn’t wait any longer! In case you don’t know, the Bazaar is this mall that’s been open since 1461. It’s an immense place with twisty-turny paths through store after store. Wikipedia will tell you it has 1200 shops, but the pamphlet I picked up in Istanbul says over 4000. No one really knows, I guess, since even after you’re outside the main walls, the stores just keep going, and I think those are counted as part of the Bazaar as well. When it comes to counts, though, I think all authorities will agree that the Grand Bazaar has 75,000,000 cats. They were everywhere. Spot the cat in the picture below:
As malls go, the Grand Bazaar is very intimidating. You know that scene in Aladdin where Princess Jasmine is wandering through the marketplace and everyone is trying to sell her something? Yup, it’s just like that, only more aggressive. Being very obviously from another country didn’t help, either. It was like we were wearing signs on our backs that said “I am a rich foreigner desperate to give you my money! Just keep asking and I’m sure to hand it over!” We ended up dashing through much faster than we had wanted since to stop by a shop was almost like agreeing to buy something. Very sticky to deal with! We headed home for the night, stopping only at a stand on the way to buy a Magnum.
A note on Magnums: reading this, you think I’m telling you that we bought condoms or guns (or both). In Turkey and most of Europe, the Magnum is the most magnificent ice cream bar imaginable. Picture it: a chocolate shell, a thin layer of caramel, another chocolate shell, and then chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks mixed in. Fantastic. You can buy a Magnum in England, Turkey, China, or Australia, but NOT HERE! Truly, we are the most deprived country in the world.
The next day, we went down to breakfast. We took the elevator down to the basement floor from our rooms on the 4th floor. The elevators made me chuckle. It’s very small and tight, and the door into it is a proper door, like you go through to enter your house. No other door; just that one.
Every place we stayed had a free breakfast; this is pretty common. Almost every day I ate cheese, bread, and tomatoes for breakfast. Definitely good! Watermelon, which I unfortunately do not like, was also at every breakfast. Marc loved it.
The first thing we did that day was head down to the docks to get ferry tickets for our trip to Asia later that week. Do you realize that by going to Turkey, I have now visited three continents since Turkey straddles Europe and Asia? That, friends, is efficiency. We trotted on down to the docks, had some difficult conversations, and eventually bought some tickets we couldn’t use for various reasons (really, it was awfully complicated). Then we headed back up to town and went to the Topkapi Sarayi, a Turkish palace.
Before we actually went in, we wandered around the area a bit, checking out the neighborhood, and eventually deciding to get some ice cream from a booth. The boy working the booth was wearing the first fez I saw in Turkey, and for almost the entire time the only people I saw wearing fezes were employees of touristy type shops. The boy put us through this very act someone else put on YouTube. I think Marc was a little less than pleased at first, since he was being made the butt of the joke, but we both got into it before too long. I laughed my fool head off. The whole time the kid was doing it he was saying things like "Yes! He's incredible! He's fantastic! He's amazing!" By the time we left, there was a healthy line behind us, and I think it was partly due to the good cheer we brought to the boy’s act. I confess, I pride myself on being a good audience member.
We ate our ice cream which was tasty and covered in finely crushed pistachios (best idea ever!), but the ice cream itself was a bit chewy. Marc thinks it was because of whatever ingredient was holding it together for the shenanigans.
After that, we went up to the palace. It’s called a palace, but it’s not one building; it’s an estate of different buildings, including the Harem, the Imperial Treasury, the Tower of Justice, the Audience Hall, the Library of Sultan Ahmet III, and my personal favorite, The Circumcision Room. Back in its heyday, over 4000 people lived there. From the fifteenth century though until 1856, the Turkish sultans lived there.
Getting in to the palace was a mere 20 liras, but getting into the Harem and Eunuchs’ Quarters was another 15 liras. I just hate getting double charged like that. In should be in! They do that at the Art Institute here, and it just drives me mad. When I go to Disneyland, I don’t have to pay to get in and then pay more to ride the rides; it should be the same at these other places, by gum. Just be honest with me at the door; I promise I won’t walk away. The harem was worth it, though, and I can at least claim to have visited a harem. The only thing I didn’t like was they had put these mannequins into the rooms to recreate the Queen Mum and her attendants. Mannequins, as all sensible people know, are creepy.
Here is a better shot of where the ladies of the harem chill while they're waiting for something to happen:
And when His Royal Sultaness deigns to pay a visit, this is where he chills:
Speaking of Disneyland, the entrance to the palace really does look a bit like it with towers and parapets and everything you could ask for in a palace.
My favorite thing about the palace grounds was this really awesome tree we saw. Don’t you think the kids who lived there probably played in this tree? The hollowed out part would make the perfect clubhouse.
We hung out in this courtyard area for a while, the Courtyard of the Apartments of the Queen Mother, just chilling and enjoying the ambiance. Plus, our feet were starting to hurt a bit. There were these kids there playing with these crazy tops and I decided to get some for my nieces and nephews first chance I got. And I did, so if you kids are reading this, way to spoil your Christmas surprise.
It was around lunchtime, so we decided to hit the Topkapi café and have some lunch. There was a nice enough buffet set up, so we went and grabbed some food. I had some cheese pastry thing that ended up being much too hot for such a sultry day and some French fries. We went to a table and ate and just enjoyed the day. Before too long, I was having some significant caffeine cravings. Look, on a typical day I drink 2-3 diet Cokes and that gets me through my life. Giving it up cold just because I was in another country was awfully tricky, so I decided to go buy a soda, fully aware that it would cost more than in the US. Marc caved too and asked me to grab him a Fanta.
I bought the two sodas and spent a whopping 18 liras for them. Holy shit. When I went back to the table, Marc asked me how much it was so he could pay me back. I told him 9 liras and he started to hand me 4.5. “No, dude,” I said. “Nine each.” I don’t recall exactly what he said then, but I’m pretty sure it was an expletive of some sort.
We wandered around more after that, hitting some shops. I got a delightful winter hat for some ridiculously cheap price. Before long, it was mid-afternoon and we decided to sit in a coffee shop for a couple hours and let the heat pass us by. Marc was definitely disappointed in me here. Marc, as you can see in the picture below, was smoking a hookah, one of the two definitively Turkish activities in which I declined to participate. “Megan, Megan, Megan,” Marc sighed. “We must shake you out of your comfort zone.” But! I protested. I’m in a whole other country on a whole other continent! I’ve never been so far out of my comfort zone! And we left the argument there.
Marc was kind enough to say “Whoooooooooooo. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaare. Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu?” for me while smoking. Ah, we do have our fun.
Eventually we decided to head back to the hotel on a tram. We hopped into the ridiculously crowded car and were standing, as usual, packed in tight with dozens of other people. And still more people crammed on at each stop. I kept getting pushed farther and farther into the tram, until I had people pressed in on me from all sides. Here's what a tram looks like as it zooms by. You can see the people pressed against the windows.
Okay, here’s the good part! Behind me, I sort of felt something pushing into me. I thought maybe it was a hard-on, but then I thought that was my imagination running away with my horniness. Still, it kept pressing in, sort of rhythmically, like I was being humped a bit. Again, really being humped or just the sway of the train pushing someone into me? I wasn't quite sure.
Ah, but then I felt the hand. On my ass, cupping a cheek. Haha, I was right! I knew it! I love being right! I love when –
-- when I feel a hand start to pull my skirt up? Well, no, not that. Horny and titillated though I might have been, I did have a line, and getting fucked on a train in public is that line. Regretfully, I tried to move away from the person behind me, and I jostled Marc a bit in the process. “Sorry!” he said to me, a bit huffily. He thought I was upset because he had hit me with his elbow, but also clearly thought I was being a bit unreasonable since we were in an overpacked sardine can, and it’s not like he had much control over that, right? I almost laughed right there.
We got off at our stop a moment later and I explained to him that it wasn’t his elbow I was trying to get away from, but a potential father of my children. I turned around to try to see the guy – was I getting groped by a handsome and daring young man? An ancient pervert? Who? Marc says he had seen the guy and he was quite good looking, but I’m still not sure if he was saying that just to spare me the knowledge that a 90 year old camel driver had squeezed my butt. Nevertheless, we agreed that the seed of Onan was certainly being spilt somewhere in Istanbul over me that night.
I suppose I forgot to mention that I have finally managed to finagle a new crush. Finally! It's the first one really since Eye Candy morphed into the Candy Formerly Known As Eye and Metra Man revealed himself to be Gay Bill.
It's a boy I work with and he has the requisite excellent sense of humor. I don't know much else about him, but as I suspect we have little in common, I'm happy keeping it that way.
So, what should we call him in this journal when I sigh and flutter over every single exchange we have? Here are the names to vote on:
1. Eye Candy: The Undiscovered Country
2. Eye Candy: A New Hope
3. Eye Candier
After I got my through customs, snagged my luggage, and got some Turkish liras, it was time to head to the Barin Hotel. But first – Starbucks. Yeah, for reals. See, I had my itinerary on my computer. Owing to the extreme time crunch at the beginning of the trip (see: missed my fucking plane), I hadn’t had a chance to print out the schedule. And my laptop battery was dead. So I went to the Starbucks there in the Ataturk Airport, bought some water (a common theme through this trip), and sat down to charge my battery. I found the email from the hotel telling me I could take a shuttle or the tram and that they were “less than 500 meters from the stop!” Well, that sounded easy.
I decided to take the tram (which is basically just light rail) instead of a car because of the hubris of living in Chicago. If I can navigate my way through the Metra and el and CTA buses and Pace buses and trolleys and water taxis, SURELY I can manage the same in another country whose language I don’t speak, right? Of course I can!
I found an all-too-friendly airport employee and asked him where to go to board the tram. Boy, he did not want me to take the tram. It was, by the way, about 10 in the morning, so it’s not like I was taking trams through a mysterious country in the dead of night. He told me it would take forever and the directions I had been given were ridiculous, but not to worry my little head, he would find a nice strong man to take me to a shuttle to take me to the hotel . . .
I thanked him politely and walked away. He was so dumb! And no, this wasn’t a language barrier thing; this guy spoke great English. I had been told to take the Aksaray tram and get off at the Zeytinburnu stop, then switch to the Kabataş line and get off at Lelai-univercitie. This guy was making a big deal out of the directions telling me to go all the way to Kabataş, when Lelai-univercitie was on the way there. I tried to explain that I thought Kabataş was just the name of the line, but the guy blew me off. Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Airport Guy.
I eventually found my way to the tram, and my next struggle was getting a token. I just couldn’t get to the token machines! If there was a line anywhere, I couldn’t find it; just hoards of people crowding in. It was a conundrum, you know? You’re a stranger in another country and you want to make a good impression and be polite, but the only way to get a token seems to be by shoving everyone aside. I did wait for about 15 minutes, but I finally gave up hope that a way would clear itself for me and I started shoving. I don’t think anyone was too offended, but I did feel bad that I was starting off my trip behaving in a way I consider to be rude.
So, I bought my tokens and boarded the tram. It was about half an hour, I think, to Zeytinburnu, and I made it with no trouble. The tram did get extremely crowded, though. It was a lot like the el on a Cubs game day where you are squished in like sardines. Transferring went off with only a little trouble; I managed to get turned around and exited the station after paying my jeton (token), so I had to buy a new jeton and try again.
Another 20 minutes and I was finally there – Lelai-univercitie! I was in a hilly part of town with lots and lots of stores around. I looked around for my hotel and figured it had to be on that street, either to my left or right. I figured I’d wander in one direction for about 500 meters, and if I didn’t find it, I’d turn around and wander in the other direction for about 500 meters. That was probably my biggest mistake of the trip. I sorts of thought it would be obviously visible after I got off, but I was wrong. I wandered up and down that street, whose name I never did figure out, by the way, despite spending lots of time on and around it during my trip. We just always called it “the street that the tram is on.” Anyway, I wandered all over hells half acre and caught not a glimpse of the Barin Hotel. At about this time, I realized I didn’t even have an address for the place! I was doomed. There were a million tiny hotels in this part of town, all over the street with the tram and all over every tiny little side street. I wandered up and down and down and up. Worse still, the safety pin holding my skirt on had broken, and my clothing was falling off a bit to boot. And it was a million degrees out. I stopped to buy water twice. (About that time was when I learned my second Turkish word – su. Water.)
On the plus side, I got to know the people of Istanbul very well, since I asked all of them for directions. They had trouble understanding my pronunciation of the hotel name -- I must've been butchering it. I was trying to get to the Barin Hotel, and first I was directed to the Berlin Hotel, and then to the Baron Hotel. I nearly cried when I wound up at that second one; I was so sure I was going to the right place that time. Anyway, eventually I wrote the name down and had greater success after that just showing it to people. (In case you’re wondering, “Barin” is correctly pronounced “bah-REEN.” Now you know.)
The taxi drivers, as it turned out, were the key to finding the place. I asked one who asked another who started stopping taxis as they went by and asking them where it was. I finally got directed down a twisty side road, up another, and around, and there, at last, was the Barin Hotel. It was the sweetest sight of my life.
My poor friend Marc had been waiting for me there, worrying and worrying. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, so of course it could’ve been much worse, but he knew my plane was supposed to get in at 10ish, he knew there had been trouble getting out of Chicago, and he knew – not a lot else. Of course I had turned off my cell for the trip; no way was I going to get hit with insane international fees! Marc dashed to my room and very sweetly brought me a delicious cheese sandwich his friend’s mom in Bulgaria had made him that morning before he took the train to Turkey, a candy bar, and more water. That cheese sandwich was phenomenal. We have crappy, crappy cheese here, my friends. And crappy bread. We shouldn’t be allowed to host people from other countries, our food is so bad. There should at least be a disclaimer at all our international airports: “WARNING: Our food sucks. Sorry about that.”
So I ate. And I showered. My favorite thing about that room was the bath towels – they came down to mid-calf. I love that! My least favorite thing while I was there was that the TV came on automatically when I entered the room.
I found out later I was wrong about the TV. Electricity in hotels in Turkey (and, I’ve heard, various parts of Europe) works a lot differently than it does here. I had a key to my room (an actual key, not a card), and I also had a plastic bar sort of thing on a ring with the key. When I went into the room, I had to shove the bar into a slot in the wall, and that turned on the electricity. No bar, no power. Definitely no leaving on the lights or (god help me) the air conditioning while you were out. But anything that was on when you left came on when you came back, which is why the TV came on and I thought it was automatic.
The air conditioning everyplace we stayed was also interesting. I spent 20 minutes looking for a thermostat when I got there, and I finally called Marc and he explained to me: there were remote controls for the air that you had to get from the hotel front desk. I was so relieved to have air conditioning, really. It was a very hot and humid time of year in Turkey, and I’m not sure how well I’d’ve done without it.
You know, I take that back. I am a spoiled girl now, but when we were growing up, the air conditioning used to break fairly often. I’d’ve soaked a wash cloth and dealt with the heat. I can survive just fine!
Without going into the whole big song and dance about it, I missed my flight from Chicago to New York on Thursday. That sucked veryvery extremely hard. After being threatened with rebooking fees amounting to about $1000, a little common sense finally came into play, and I only had to pay $50. See, if you miss your domestic flight, you can switch to a flight later in the day for $50. If you miss your international flight, you're supposed to have to rebook the whole thing, pay the difference between your original ticket and the new ticket, pay a $250 penalty . . . The list goes on. I pled with them that I hadn't missed the international flight, just the domestic leg, and if I took the next domestic flight, I'd still have hours to go before the international, so I certainly wasn't going to miss that one. I don't know what turned the tide in my favor -- the logic, the desperation in my voice, the phase of the moon -- but they waived just about everything. I would've had to cancel the whole trip if they hadn't, so major, major relief.
On to the flights! Chicago to New York was a little puddlejumper. The only outstanding thing about that flight was that when we were approaching for a landing, the man to my left was looking out the window to my right so intently that when I turned from the window just to look forward I saw that his head was thisclose to mine. Crazy! Personal space, dude!
There was an amusing interlude in New York. While waiting in the airport for my flight, I overheard a conversation between a guy and the ticket counter. Seemed he needed to take a later flight to Paris because he forgot . . . his suitcase. Yup, just left the whole danged thing at home. Forgotten passport? Fine. Forgotten ID? Who hasn't done that? But your suitcase? Honestly, I don't think you can be trusted alone in a foreign country.
Eventually he decided it would be cheaper to pick up a few changes of clothing in Paris than to take another flight, and considering the $1000 penalty I faced, I had to agree with him.
New York to Istanbul, the flight I feared most, was just plain awesome. I had gambled with booking my seat. A couple days before the flight, I logged on and saw that there were a couple rows of 3 seats together with no one in them. I considered picking a seat on the end, figuring that I'd have a shot at an empty seat between me and someone else, but then I decided to court chance, and court it with flowers and candies and jugglers and balloons I did. I picked a middle seat, thinking that most people wouldn't want a seat next to someone if they could try another row. And it worked! I had three beautiful seats to myself for the 10 hour flight. I raised the arms and slept. It was lovely.
Also of note on this flight was the in-flight trivia game any passenger could play. The flight wound up with me still in first place against many other competitors. I wish they gave out prizes for that, like flight vouchers or something. I wish that they would publicly declare the woman in seat 37D the Queen of the Flight. I wish that everyone realized that the fake name I had used was someone from Ravenclaw house in Harry Potter, so they didn't have a prayer against my brains!
I wish many things.
The plane got into Istanbul relatively on time, and I deboarded into my first foreign country! (We aren't still counting Canada as a foreign country, are we? If so, I guess you could call Turkey my second foreign country, but it just sucks having to declare America Jr. your first foreign country.)
I deplaned and -- I walked. And walked. Walked some more. Little further. Little bit past that. Then a whole bunch more. Customs was far, far away.
I went through Customs and paid my $20 for the the privilege of spending money in their country. Seriously, people, I know that the $20 is just my punishment for coming from a dick country, but I'm still not a fan. Stupid $20.
I am, by the way, officially confused about the Customs and Visas and stuff, so if you' re going to quote me on this stuff -- don't. I stood in one long line, paid $20, and got a sticker. I stood in a second long line and got a stamp.
The second long line was where I first saw the best idea anyone in Turkey has ever had -- fans. As soon as I could, I bought my very own fan to wave at myself. Brilliant! I don't know why these things haven't caught on in Chicago summers, but next summer, I'm making them popular. Stupid to stand on the train platform sweating or waving a book at myself when I could be using a device designed to waft air at me.
