11.11.14

{graffiti in istanbul}

i finally purchased a pad for the beauteous turkish rug i sort of haggled for* in cappadocia and then stuffed into overhead compartments all the way back to new york city! of course, the suitcase i lugged beside said rug is still sitting next to our front door and serving (as most of turkey did) as a makeshift cat-home, but we're leaving for a week in madrid next friday, so it almost makes sense. that trip has nothing to do with my new career as an international woman of mystery, at least not directly; joe and i decided months ago that we wanted to get out of town for thanksgiving this year. the trip was to be even longer, actually, but as i've raked in about $500 in the last month and joe hasn't had much of a chance to accrue vacation time at his new job (we keep things exciting around here), we're sticking to spain. i refuse to haggle there, though.

on transactions, i've set some parameters for myself in my post-office life (run >5 km/day, volunteer >8 hrs/week, write >1 draft/day, NO PAJAMA PANTS, and so on). the drafts are a bit of a bitch—you know you need to fine-tune your process when you find yourself thinking fondly of the wide-open, tech-free hours you had to yourself at jury duty—but i've been told that these things take time. several colleagues have made the transitions associated with becoming a freelancer sound rather like the transitions associated with becoming a vampire, actually, which i take to mean that it's bewildering and painful at first and you have to crouch in the dark and catch rats for food, but eventually you realize that time was a threadbare human construct and enjoy unlimited power.

Not that I have the slightest desire to leave any lasting mark, of course. One barely casts a shadow even while the sun's out. But I shouldn't mind doing something that temporarily engages me. Actually, I should like to lose myself totally in a piece of work, but I can't imagine what it would be. And whatever it is I'm damned sure nobody would pay me to do it. In the meantime, then, is one to go on tossing fanciful recipes and fanciful arias into the face of despair? Is one to go on writing asinine books about asinine people with a few felicities thrown in to relieve the private torment? Answer: Yes. Keep bearing in mind that tunnel at the end of the light, Samper, the one that goes on for ever.

(james hamilton-paterson, from the exquisite cooking with fernet branca)

*surely i was the worst haggler in all of turkey; on several occasions i was perfectly content with a price, a shadow would pass over the face of the gentleman i was dealing with, and he'd duck into his shop and come back with some lower amount or a freebie to accompany my purchase. in ürgüp a guy actually dashed down the street to hand my friends and me pairs of free socks post-deal.