forward motion

three things.

one. submitted the final homework assignment for the class i am taking online while on the road. not only is this the final requirement for this class, this class is the final requirement for my degree with the exception of my thesis (see picture of albatross, right).

two. decided on a return date.

three. cleaned up at backgammon this morning.

<< baby i'm still hurting -- i can't turn the other cheek >>

at the moment we are in a city called Bursa, first capital of the ottoman empire. now it is the carpart capital of asia minor, which is lucky because we have had trouble with the alfa romeo and have to get it fixed. last night the emergency brake froze or broke in place and we could not get going again after stopping for dinner. we spent the night in a thermal spa hotel where the water is very hot but the bathtubs are very small. played backgammon over dinner -- durem, which are like meatballs rolled in heavy pita bread, and spicy tomato paste and spicy peppers. my room is small and has a slanted roof. there is a double bed and a single bed. the bedclothes are rose. the patterened wall paper is mauve. there are sliver and glass light fixtures. furniture is again dark wood, and a tiny table and a mirror, and a wardrobe. the floors are new laminate. i see blue sky but also some cloud. it is cold, always cold here.

today we will try again to make it to burhaniye. this whole trip has been an adventure. adventures are about character and character is about change.

often i say i wish i was more sparkling, or more irresistable, or purer of heart, or more upstanding. or more aware, unable to be played, like Sam Spade when he said, "oh right, your story. that's ok, we didn't really believe your story, we believed your two hundred dollars."

the reason i like the experiment with the cards and the numbers and the pairing off is because that is almost what love is. the people who hold high cards are swarmed. the people who hold low cards are brushed off.

in love, if you discover you get attention, you either aim high because you realize you have your pick, or you aim low because you realize you hold a high card and good love is scary. if you get no attention, you learn to aim lower and lower til someone will take you.

i have buzzed with the rest of them around the pretty and the easy and the stretchy, but i am not sure anymore that those things are what the number represents.

i wish people couldn't get enough of me and my unique and beautiful pain. i wish i felt like i held the high card. or that my number was a nice-looking number like 96, or traced out something geometric like 95 which is almost the golden ratio. or something musical like 92, intervals adjacent to the octave. or a square number like 81, or something lucky like 77, or something mathematical like 60.

i like love songs that hold together when you substitute the woman in the song for the divine, like you can in this one: i look for you in everyone, and they called me on that too -- i lived alone, but i was only coming back to you. so play this number game with the divine. in this game only you know your number and no one else will ever see it. and you can make your number whatever you want. what is the most delightful, fragrant, lyrical, gentle, loving way you can imagine your divine self to be? lift up your eyes and love in the most pure way you can. where did i learn to aim my heart so low?

the shakedown

in turkish he asked me for the time. when i showed him my watch (for not speaking turkish) he said, "english?" and so we got to talking, although, seriously, like, i do not need more clutter in my life, but whatever.

he told me i look turkish and he thought i was turkish. he had an umbrella and he held it over me as well as himself.

he told me one day he wants to come to canada. he would walk with me up the street. told me his name was kennel.

and did i want to get a drink, his treat. "you ever try turkish beer? efes?"

i had not. i didn't really want one. i was cold from the rain and wet. but he said, it will be quick, and his treat, for he was going to see a soccer game. did i know such and such a player. i did not. in canada it's all hockey. whatever. not that i even like hockey although i said i don't mind it. he had ugly teeth, that is what i noticed about him, and he spoke english poorly.

"will you show me where to get some yoghourt?" i said.

"sank-you," he answered.

i could have corrected him politely but i did not. he kept saying sank-you to everything. LEARN TO SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THE CONQUERING TRIBE, WHELP. off we went.

yoghourt was a dollar and some, from an honest-feeling little shop that also sold cheese, fruit, nuts, milk, and so on. i planned to come back because you can do a lot of inexpensive eating with yoghourt when you are in a hostel, and it was close to where i was staying.

he insisted that i come for a drink with him.

so there is this little voice in my head that i am trying to learn to listen to. my brother also had told me about a standard scam in istanbul, and my travel guide warned about it too. it starts with someone inviting you for a drink with them. i knew this. off we went.

in the bar, techno, and there was a picture of the new york skyline including the twin towers. we sat in a booth with a little dish of peanuts. there were two bored-looking girls standing on the dancefloor dancing badly. seriously badly. the guy started smoking. he ordered two beers for us.

"it's nice place, yes?"

"not bad." it sucked.

they brought our drinks.

the girls came over and sat down.

"can we sit here?"

the waiter brought their drinks, glass bottles with gold foil wrap in a bucket under the table. the little voice.

if these girls were prostitutes, i would have paid, perhaps fifty cents for the services that followed. where am i from. what do you do there. is it cold where you come from. how long is the flight. the titillation.

one was named layla. i told her there was a song about a layla. at least i did not start singing it.

they finished their drinks. layla said, "can i have another." kennel said yes. the one next to me asked if she could too. kennel said he was paying. the little voice again, intuition. but what did i care if he was paying?

a big man in a black suit brought a menu and said, "because it may be too expensive for you." kennel looked at it, pushed it my way, i did not know what i was looking at really, he took it and handed it back to our acne'd waiter who was also quick to light kennel's cigarette.

the waiter brought two more bottles and fired the corks into the corner: champagne. unease.

kennel put on his coat. layla: "you are not leaving?"

"no, i am just cold."

i suppose that was the signal for the waiter to bring the bill. kennel looked at it. he put it on the table where i looked at it, twelve hundred dollars.

so this is the scam and i fell for it. this is what intuition sounds like when it says danger. i have learned to listen to intuition in some parts of life but i did not know so much what it sounds like when it says danger. i have never really been in danger before.

"my friend," said kennel, "i do not have this kind of money and my credit card has a limit of six hundred, so we are going to have to share this."

i told him i was not paying. i knew the scam. i knew i was being scammed, now. i did not connect then that he would have beeen working for them too. but either way he could deal with it, i was leaving.

the waiter told me no, i was not.

kennel was my friend, of course. "please, my brother, we go talk to the manager." so we went in to speak to the manager in the little room, the one who'd brought the menu, a guy twice my size in a black suit and black shirt and black tie, a little room done up in red. the waiter came too and closed the door. (don't go into the little room.)

"what seems to be the problem?" said the 'manager' as if he didn't know.

stress hormones keep me from remembering the exact dialogue but the way the scam goes is that in the end you either pay the bill cash, or credit card, or they persuade you to let them take you to and from a bank machine. the waiter stood scrunched-up looking between me and the door. he looked down. he looked like the dog that would lose in a fight and knew he would lose if he had to fight.

so what do you do. they wanted money from me. i told him to talk to the girls (they were still outside in their own booth). the manager said those girls worked for him and it was their job to sit with customers and drink. and he had even brought us the menu. i told him kennel said he was paying, he should talk to kennel. the manager said i was paying. i said i had one drink, all i would pay for was one drink. he said his line, i said mine until finally he shouted "FUCK the one drink."

i told them i was not paying. i was scared but not too scared. i knew that if i showed i was scared i would be done for. i told them i was leaving. i got up to go.

the waiter, looking up, pushed me back down.

the manager started using words like "or i'm gonna take it by force." up to what point do you bluff? kennel said, "no, no, please, we" -- we -- "don't want any trouble." i told kennel i was not paying. "no," he said, "you are not paying, we are paying, my credit card limit is seven hundred" -- before it was six hundred -- "we will share it." later his limit would be eight hundred. i was not paying.

the big guy came out from behind his desk, pulled my up by my coat. he was twice my size. i don't think he would have hit me. he told me to take out my wallet. i took out my wallet.

he said, "you have a credit card." i said i was not paying.

he took my fifty dollars and told me i could go. i left fast thinking i was abandoning kennel but later i figured out he was working for them too. the girls were in a booth of their own. i thought about teaching them a new word or two but figured best to leave before someone changed their mind about letting me go. so i left.

angry. it has been a long time since i have been genuinely angry. also angry at myself.

i understand how people get scammed and no one ever hears about it, because i felt ashamed that i'd been played and what's more that i walked right into it. back at the hostel i sat alone. i wrote a postcard to a friend who has picked me up before when i have been down, haven't addressed it though. i thought about why things happen and why this happened to me and why much worse things happen to people. and why worse things happened to a beautiful friend back home.

it could have been much worse. i am ok, fully completely ok.

i called mo and told him what happened. he came to pick me up. he felt bad too. i am going to stay with him at his hotel tonight. he may take me with him where he is going tomorrow which is a tourism trade show.

this was the song in my head after i steadied myself -- the lonesome death of Hattie Caroll:

Hattie Caroll was a maid in the kitchen:
fifty-one years, she gave birth to ten children
who carried the dishes, and took out the garbage
and never once sat at the head of the table
and who just cleared off all of the food from the table
and who didn't much talk to the people at the table
and who emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level --

but you who philosophize disgrace
and criticize all fears
take the rag away from your face
now ain't the time for your tears.

in the world there is such misery and i don't know the half of it. i wonder what they thought after i left. high fives? probably not. probably the guy in the black suit was angry.

just today i was thinking how istanbul is not at all scary and what is there left in the world that can surprise me.

i keep playing this over in my head. i know what i should have done differently. part of me thinks it is my fault. part of me knows that fundamentally it is not. i am trying not to philosophize disgrace.

number thirty-three

burhaniye has a girls' college basketball team. today we went to go watch them play.

i have been reading one of mo's books called The Red Queen which is about how attraction and sexual selection affected the evolution of the human body and mind. mo told me, and ugur overheard, that there is one girl on the team who gets all of the particular attention from boys, and who enjoys being the object of their attention. and did i want to be introduced? i declined to answer.

the game started at four. it was just ugur and me -- mo is in ankarra. we arrived early. friends as we are of the mayor (who also came to see), we went in through the side door, same as the players. ugur had to phone someone on her cell to get us past the man who was keeping just anyone from going in that way. as we got sorted a woman went through in front of us with a little girl in tow. the girl was bundled right up in a huge pink fuzzy scarf -- it was cold today. cute! i watched her go two steps in. then i saw her face light up and i followed her gaze way up and there was one of the players who'd seen and come over to say hi and who made big shining eyes -- must have been sisters or cousins or something -- and reflexively i smiled too and my stomach lifted and it dawned on me, oh yeah, there's gonna be girls here. and tall, which (i've read) signals reproductive fitness.

yes. when we got there the two teams were warming up already, running laps around their halves of the court, forwards and backwards and side to side. the gym was painted yellow and in the middle of the floor it said Burhaniye. the arena was mostly empty when we got there but quickly filled up. on the far wall hung banners that were a cross between the turkish flag and a portrait of Attaturk in a fez. twenty minutes before the game started they powered up the scoreboards and started playing music, R&B in turkish. the girls started their drills, shots from up close, from far, trapping rebounds, blocking, passing. layers started coming off as they got warmer. then more layers. they stretched. one girl was the stretchiest. the refs came on, one male and one female. they stood facing each other on the centre line as the start time drew near. they kept their whistles in their mouths the entire game.

last thing before the first jumptoss, two paramedics rolled in a stretcher and i thought, that's right -- these girls are gonna try to kill each other. the game began. to keep from getting called foul they'd hold their hands behinds their backs and try to shoulder into the other players. and one girl faked a shot right at the face of the girl who was blocking her, made her flinch. every now and then one of them would bite the dust. but then the player who knocked her over would often help her up. the refs blew their whistles like they were used to being in charge. they indicated penalties with abrupt hand gestures. the crowd went quiet for our foul shots, not so quiet for theirs. then the game would start again and you'd hear the shoes squeak on top of the noise of the crowd. someone had brought an airhorn, someone else a tambourine.

two teams of girls. lots of group dynamic. lots of hand touching. every shot they'd give a little five low down as the shooter headed back to home turf. every foul shot got one or two whether the shot was good or missed. coming on or off the court, again. the girls also touched bums. i swear i am not lying. and at time-out more than one of them used the same towel to wipe their glistening bodies, their heaving chests.

i had to ask. number eleven, ugur told me.

i'd guessed number thirty-three. but somehow number thirty-three did not leave the bench the entire game (i closely watched).

our team did not win. there was a moment when i thought we might close the gap, but we did not. the game was over after forty minutes of play. i do not know what happened after the girls left the court to head for the showers. i decline to speculate.

the red queen

mo has been teaching me to play backgammon.

i am starting to get the basic gist. tend not to leave unguarded columns as you approach your home quarter. tend not to move pieces further in than necessary once you get there. tend to shore up the home quarter with unbreakable columns to be able to capture and trap your opponent (mo).

people have tried to teach me this game before and it's never stuck, so i wonder if it's something about my wiring, something, like, visuo-spatial. half the time i have to consciously think about which way the pieces are moving around the board. for me they move counterclockwise, means that for mo they move clockwise from my point of view. practice, mo says. part of it is that he's always moving for me. meanwhile i am trying to count aloud as well as play. i roll the dice. bir. iki. üč. dört (by now mo has strategized and moved on my behalf and is rolling the dice himself.) bez. alti.

practice.

another game that takes practice is -- i read this last night --

you and ninety-nine other people are randomly dealt one hundred cards that are sequentially numbered. you hold your card to your forehead so that everyone can see your number but you.

everybody: marks, get set, go. "mate" with the highest number you can pair up with.

looking out for number one

the power came back late in the afternoon in time for dinner, which was glitzey and prepared by our panel of judges, many of whom spoke english and french. i chewed pistaccios with a journalist from Food & Wine who through red lipstick gushed about burnt milk yoghourt -- you put milk in a pottery jug, heat up a stone in a fire, put the stone in the milk, and mix the milk down til you just get the aroma, like the when a custard goes just golden on top. there was the dean of culinary studies at an istanbul university, professors, an artist. i met mehmet's mother. someone produced a pumpkin. nicholas cartier who spoke the french of paris brought a side of beef and carved thick steaks out of it. a chef who represents the nation in competitions abroad roasted eggplant on the gas burner, noodles and olives and cream sauce. a professor made salad with pomegranites and a crisp dressing. more of the cold tapas appeared such as we had before, bright vegetables, beans with mussels. a spinach dish -- i don't like it, too salty, said one of the judges who got to talking about macramé and his two cats, and who sang to himself over dinner. everyone brought wine. mehmet brought several bottles made with his own grapes from the island of Bozcaada, north and west of here.

and as for the baklava? i saw it on the dinner table. i could almost taste it. we dined. they refilled and refilled my glass. i bided my time.

alas: i got to talking to a girl ("you can call me Zee, everybody does") who kept looking up at me from under the dark lid of her eyeshadow, but who also took a message on her blackberry beneath the table at dinner. she is from istanbul, talks english with a new england accent, never been to canada, doesn't know the word tuque, finds the sheer amount of antiquity in turkey to be distracting. wore black nail polish near perfectly applied and i told her so. it wasn't til i got home that i realized i'd forgotten to look out for number one. i'd forgotten the baklava.

as they say in french, désolé: to learn to look out for number one was half my reason for coming here. i redeemed myself at poker. i _destroyed my opponents. the final hands of the game: i was nearly out. mehmet and ruçhan were going head to head. mehmet's deal. he dealt two cards to each of us, looked at his two, and bet everything he had. ruçhan looked his opponent in the eye, and pushed all his chips in to match. i played everything i had left. mehmet dealt out the rest of the hand. we turned over our cards. mehmet was bluffing. ruçhan was bluffing. i held the high card: a six. i took it all. i would have traded it for some baklava.

Lilly called another bet

so it turns out i am better than i thought at poker.

the girl who stole girls from boys in my one-time scene: she played poker. she played poker with many boys i knew. she made sure all of them wanted her. i kept clear. how do you win at a game like that? something about self-confidence, and that _i wanted that girl, myself. the guy who kept her for a while made certain we knew she was not his only girlfriend. How Do You Win At A Game Like That. his avatar has since been the jack of hearts.

rainey wet evening. i was upstairs. the TV was on downstairs where the other four were. i have moved an oil lamp into my room to give softer light than the fluorescent. i was reading. uğur came up and asked me if I knew how to play texas hold 'em. i said kinda.

pistachio shells and backgammon pieces for currency. icecream and walnuts for desert partway through -- vanilla icecream but it had a licorice flavour.

i did not lose. i won an early hand. i folded when appropriate. we stopped when uğur ran out of shells. ruçhan won comfortably. arif was nearly out then. mehmet and i were close.

the house is quiet now. i hear the noise of the wind and rain. the oil lamp burns low.

i did not have to bluff in turkish. that mighta made it easier, i don't know. i bluff pretty well when i think about it.