Hanging with the roommie.

Daytime in the new household.

The dog's name is Mags. She is an exceptionally attentive blue healer. Her focus would manifest itself as human autism.

Quang is friendly and acts in earnest to get to know me. He gets a lot of his food from his mother, who sends him carefully tupper-wared left-overs. Without her he may starve or eat exclusively at Burger King.

I don't see much of Will, we have opposite schedules. I think he likes to drink whiskey and play video games.

The library is nearby and I have made my first friend with a spectacular biography about Samuel Steward, an early 20th century sexual renegade, academic, writer, pornographer and tattoo artist. He's the American Jean Jenet. I'm sure you will not be able to find this book there, but be on the look-out for "Secret Historian" by Justin Spring.

This is an image from Dustin's oddly themed "Meow Fest," a catastrophic affair for which I had no prepared costume. Dustin lent me this. We had a pretty lovely time!

Urban Sexuality

I am having enough time, getting dangerously close to this inevitable move, to consider how enjoying sexuality in the city. How will an urban lifestyle inform my sexuality.

Similarly, how does living in a foreign country inform your sexuality. Let's wait and see.

Wedding or Circumcision?

I was riding in the car when Yavuz handed me the phone and Abdullah invited me to his mother's house to pre-func for a wedding.
When I got off the phone, Yavuz told me that Abdullah had really meant to invite me to a circumcision. Now I don't know what to think, but I'm going either way.

Housing!

You won't miss out on visiting me in Bolu, I think.

Trying to satisfy three [American? Do I even want to address that here?] women with one apartment is proving to be a daunting task.

There are no Turkish colleagues/ host families who want to (or can) take us in. Furnished apartments in city centre are a bit sketchy and 700TL/month, which is too much, according to all sources. Unfurnished apartments haven't been easy.

I am thinking of you often, and I totally empathize with your housing-finding situation! Or how it's been.


I haven't had the mental energy to deal with the real business of addressing e-mails, but I may tomorrow after  ten-ish hours of sleep (in response to Steve's query). I've been averaging five in Ankara, and my last two nights there I stayed up conversing until all I got was three each.

A couple people there you would've liked. One of them, Olivia, has gone to Kilis on the Syrian border, and I'm considering whether I want to risk a visit.

I wish I had an epiphany. I'm actually in rather dire need of one right now.

Pornography in public

It was 8:30 or so at TMac's. I guess my favorite part of this encounter was how it started.

I see a sketchy-looking youngish guy peering into the restaurant from the inner-entrance. After I finish up some things, I go out to greet him and find some 30-something Seattle yuppies scoping out the menu. Here's the best part: I ask yuppie guy, "Will it be three of you for this evening?" He was very awkward about this then said rather intentionally rudely, "We are not with him," indicating sketchy guy. Someone with a sense of humor would have had something clever to say about it. I liked making yuppie guy uncomfortable. The couple left and Sketch sneaked his way to the bathroom, which at TMac's requires a journey through every part of the restaurant.

I lost control of the situation and a well-meaning co-worker engaged with Sketch. I guess he ordered and paid for some food, because every time I approached him to ask if he needed something (and subsequently ask him to leave), she intervened. He was making us all uncomfortable hanging out by the server station. He asked me if I drank whiskey. I said no. The last straw came when I came upon him gazing unabashedly at a hard-core pornographic magazine. I asked him to leave immediately, but then once again well-meaning co-worker came to his rescue. No one else there noticed what he was looking at, probably because none of them have an interest in reading.

Anyway, he hung outside the restaurant for some time, making some older ladies afraid to leave so I had to call the cops. They recovered a fork which was on his person and asked me if it was ours, and when I indicated that it was, yes, indeed ours the officer begged me to press theft charged. I refused. Later, I found out the our friend the well-meaner had given him the fork. I think there is a problem with being too nice, or maybe I'm just an asshole. The cop told me that he had been bothering many businesses tonight and they were chomping at the bit for him to commit a crime for which they could lock him up.

In other news, I've found a place to live with some sports fans in Portland and my dad is coming out to help me move. I saw Steve Brooks tonight and he asked me if I'd talked to you lately; he wants to have some updating done on his sign. I suggested that he sent his chalk board to turkey.

This is what desperation looks like:

Yikes! I'm not ready to move into this mess.

$450 / 800ft² - room to rent in my apartment (my apartment )

---

Date: 2012-09-11, 11:42AM PDT
 xxxxxx.xxxxx@hous.craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

---

Hi there my name is Anjie, I'm 25 years old and my ex just moved out recently, he had been keeping my half the rent money n not paying so I'm behind from last month and now It's the first again... I have a one bedroom apartment he took the bed so only my dresser really is in the room, I don't use it. I sleep in the living room n need help on rent now... you won't need to worry about electricity or food I get food stamps and the whole place is available for you to hang out in too. I will charge a nonrefundable deposit on top of 450 rent so move in today would be $650 and I will need a extra hundred throughout this month n next here n there if u can help me pay off the fees on late rent so we remain living here lol . lol I also have 2 cats that's it. I'm a very calm chill quite and easy going person I do smoke cigarettes and have my occasional beer nothing crazy I rarely have anyone over even.... if your interested let me know ASAP cuz it is the first and I need this paid between us for this month.... email might be a good contact method or txt to initially get ahold of me so I know the number get a lot of bogus calls on my cell don't answer anymore to numbers I don't know..... 503-XXX-XXXX
Powell Blvd. at S.E. 67th (google map) (yahoo map)

• cats are OK - purrr
• Location: my apartment
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 324492039x

Situation

In retaliation of my ongoing fight to find a home, I created a craigslist performance piece. No luck with this tactic, either:

Jersey Shore-type situation
Date: 2012-09-07, 11:28PM PDT

I've been having a hard time finding a place to live, but what I'm looking for is really simple: 

I'm looking for a "Jersey Shore" type situation. This means you must not only have a hot tub, but it must also not be filled with grenades (grenades: not-so-nice looking ladies). I live by the following acronym: G.T.L., I go to the gym, I tan, and I do laundry. If you're going to get jealous of my eight-pack abs, copious cologne, my fresh fade and my unnaturally constant chestnut tan, we're not going to work out. 

Ideal housemates like hooking up, going out, and throwing objects while drunk. Everybody here on craigslist is looking for a "drama-free" arrangement, so that should leave room enough for me. The more drama that ensues, the more exposure I will get, and let's face it, so will you! I want to live in a place with people encouraging me to drink too much so that I will get into meaningless arguments about aforementioned hooking up, going out and throwing objects while drunk. The perfect housemates support themselves by working in a t-shirt store six or seven hours a week; I'll be happy to commiserate when you come home to complain about how you work too much. Shared land line a must. Don't touch my hair. 

So get back to me, I can't wait to be your housemate so we can have t-shirt time! 

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 3257875354

View from the Back

It's rare that I'll get to keep a picture I take. My camera use has become an exercise in loss and suffering. 

Rooms

I have written about two dozen or more e-mails this week to strangers with rooms in Portland. I have ended up with about 4 responses, had two interviews, and have not found the perfect fit. That is not to say that it won't come along. I just need to cultivate a practice of patience and keep the faith that the right thing will fall into place.

In order to cultivate this process, for each ad I respond I write an individualized e-mail, addressing specific points in the ad and highlighting different desirable qualities. For the various ads that express need for in independent, mostly unseen roommate, I mention that I will be staying with my partner a lot of the time. For people looking for "someone to be a part of our little community, have family dinners, etc.," I mention that I am looking for new friends and a sense of community since I'm new to town. For prospects with dogs, who usually post pictures of their dogs, I self-identify as a dog-lover and go on to praise how particularly cute their dog is. Through this all, I cannot say that I am being deceptive, just not comprehensive. I don't have the time to respond with long, descriptive essays about my values, habits, personality, idiosyncrasies, aspirations, abilities or interests. That sort of information is revealed in increments, and I doubt that the best writers could possibly suggest a sense of this information without being long-winded. So I'm just clinging to my strengths: punctuation, complete sentences, a moderately sophisticated vocabulary and flattery.

I guess we're in the middle of the same project: strangers, homes, new places, and negotiation. There's no guarantee that I am even dealing with people who speak the same language (of course I am being more figurative here). Put the good energy out for my search and I'll do the same for you. Best of luck.

Fragments, Epiphanies

First, I am grateful and glad to be sharing this space with you, Favorite Hipster of Mine.

You'll know I'm working on another, quite diurnal (see Latin relation to journal) blog. I have considered how to format my space here so that I'm not repeating myself unless that process proves useful.

If you remember, at 1304 I was not only collecting Agatha Christie but also immersing myself in James Joyce's Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In these, I found 'the epiphany'-- an event that I had really only experienced before in terms of the Catholic holiday.

I won't get into too much detail yet, but I want to note know that after these few years, I'm developing an issue with idea of epiphany as discrete event instead of process. But we'll see-- perhaps in doing a more in-depth, long-term study of the concept and its occurrence in my experiences, I'll find out something contrary to my expectations.

Last, I want to remind the audience that I'm not a dirty or self-righteous hippie.