Goodbye, Desert. Hello, different Desert.

Tomorrow, I am leaving Dubai for Bangkok.  I didn't pay for the plane ticket.  I'm getting picked up at the airport and I'm getting chauffeured to my new apartment, including MAID service, which I don't have to pay for, and I'm going to settle in for the next two years.  You may ask, Why didn't he have to pay for any of this?  Tim is certainly less qualified, has a lot less going for him, and is quite possibly retarded.  I'll tell you why:  Because, when I leave tomorrow, I will only have 2 bags (technically I will be carrying on 1 additional).  I won't have anyone weeping at the security gate when I leave, I won't have anyone giving me a gratuitous kiss when I arrive, and if my 2 bags get lost in transit I won't care.  Because I don't own those bags, and those bags don't own me.

The reason I keep moving, even as I enter my sunset years, is neither to "remake myself" (as every American expat will tell you) nor to get rich (as all the other ones twaddle on about).  I move to feel real.  After I finally graduated college (and yes, I have the diploma), I moved back to Richfield Springs to feel the fear of the unemployed.  I left RS and moved to Delaware for a real job.  I left DE and moved to Indianapolis for a real love.  I left Indy and moved to Suffern due to real fear.  I left Suffern for Brooklyn for real friends.  I left Brooklyn for Central Islip for a real girl.  I left CI for Dubai for a real wakeup call; I'm leaving the Dubs for Bangkok for a real change.  I keep leaving for something which makes me feel real.  Perhaps if I had an actual definition of what "feeling real" means, or at least a substantive, personal relationship with that "real," I would stop moving.  But it's elusive.  And I am enamored with it.

So, that being said, I'm going to start a new "Living in Thailand" blog.  Here are some names I like:  Thailand Daze, Bangkok Knights; The Curmudgeon Express; Smith-ereens; Dissolute isn't a Bad Thing; The Lowbrow Life; Constantly Entertaining Strangers.  I'm not sure which one is the winner, but once I've lived there for 3 days, I'll have my answer.  Anyway, I've been here for 2 years, and I made 2 lists: Things I didn't do which I thought I would, and Things I did but never dreamed I would do.

Things I didn't do but thought I would:
Learn Arabic.
I can't speak a non-coherent sentence, let alone a comprehensible one.  Arabic isn't the lingua franca here.  I can insert some appropriate words, but I've never been forced to learn anything beyond Ramadan and Haraam.  That'll give you a pretty decent idea about how Arabic is spoken here.  Even when I was in Saudi, the language on the street was Hindi, not Arabic.  Because the men on the street were from India, not the desert.  I'm not upset I didn't learn the language.  It's guttural (pejorative).
Enter a Mosque:
The first year I was here, I didn't enter a mosque because I was scared I might offend everyone.  My second year, I didn't enter one because I knew I would.
Go on a Desert Safari:
Driving from Dubai to Ras Al Khaimah several times (enough already....really) was plenty safari for me.  I didn't stop to take pictures, because sand is always photogenic.  The feral camels lining Emirates Road like sentries were enough for me.  I didn't need to pay to go see the same thing.
Go to the top of the Burj Khalifa (nee Dubai):
The first week the tallest building in the world was open, the elevators broke.  As in, they BROKE.  Yeah, I've seen the slave labored buildings here, and I wouldn't trust any of them.  I may be stupid, but I'm not dumb.  Wait...I may be dumb but I'm not...hold on...
Only eat local food:
Dates.  Dates are the local food.  And camel.  I've had both.  But after a moment, the palate yearns for more.  Something more...not desert.  Because Dubai is a desert and historically speaking, deserts aren't known for their culinary bounty.  I've become a huge fan of grills, kebabs, hummous, hammour, and other Lebanese cuisine.  I like me some good Indian food.  But local?  No thanks.  Palm fronds are good for waving, not for making soup.
Visit the Burj al Arab:
The Sailboat Hotel.  The 7 Star wonder.  Within 1 week of living here, I knew I would never go see it.  Gilt and poor craftsmanship.  The difference between Gatsby and the Buchanans.  I didn't truly understand that difference until I was in England and saw...old buildings.  Then, when I was in Armenia, I saw older buildings.  And those buildings are still standing.  Here's my prediction:  The Burj al Arab won't be standing in 10 years.  The roof is already leaking, and it doesn't rain here.  Tell me how that happens.
Mix with the Locals:
The Emiratis are a completely closed population.  I was propositioned by a local once, but then I asked him what the book had to say about extra-terrestrials.    No more free drinks after that.  That'll teach you to look a drink-horse in the belief.
Quit my job in fury and rage:
Usually I tend to do that.  This time I didn't.  Weird.  It's probably because I like what I'm doing, but just didn't like the people I was working for...thus, Bangkok.  Doing the same thing, but for different people.

Things I did but didn't imagine I could:
This list is pretty boring, but I'll sum it up:  it's all pretty awful stuff.  I didn't know I had the capacity.  Apparently I do.  Ahhh well.  At least the kid I fathered...oh...whoops, can't say that anymore.  Perhaps that one time...nope, I lost all dignity there, too.  Of course, I've never had a huge store of dignity.  So I move on.  And I try to be truer to myself.  And I will continue to try and make myself feel real.

If you are of the Abrahamic bent, you are necessarily nuts.  The recent attacks in Norway, the constant suicidal bombings in Pakistan, and the Israel/Palestinian conflict all prove my main thesis.  If you believe in a singular, judgmental god you are a crazy person.  And I hate your belief.  All of it.  I am willing to say that there is NOTHING GOOD about what you believe, and I'm willing to say your belief is singularly poisonous.  The Sun-god faiths rely on judgement, but that judgement is placed into the hands of an indecipherable and unknowable god.  How do you know what your god actually thinks?  How?  From a book which brooks no amendment, from a christ who wasn't, from a kingdom which hasn't happened?  As soon as you tell me "god thinks" I know you are retarded.  It would be better for you if you had a genetic disorder, because then you would have a reason for saying something so entirely stupid.

My friend Brian posted this entry on his blog (eloquent and thoughtful as ever):
http://sojourney.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/ramadan-in-jordan-2011-an-outsiders-perspective-ramadan-basics-part-1/

He, also, is retarded.  Religion should no longer be under the "divine edict" clause.  If it's stupid, it's stupid.  If it's hateful, it's hateful.  There's nothing worse than reading about the way "one side" is right and the other side "is wrong" but heaven forbid if you denigrate the other side.  Heinous.  The whole idea is heinous.  Sectarian violence is religious violence: Darfur's situation is the result of islamic, religious warfare, Somalia's famine is a direct result of the Catholic Church's refusal to ok birth control, 12 people were killed in Afghanistan because of the burning of the book, Thailand's southern tip is torn apart by Malay islamists demanding...something stupid.  It's all so stupid.  Somewhere in the belief of a loving god, all abrahamists have gone astray and cleaved to the judgement and the righteousness.  I am sickened.

I think there are two amazing things which have happened to the Western World:  The Plague (because it weeded out a lot of the unnecessary children and their procreaters) and the Enlightenment.  Not the schism of East vs. West high churches, not Luther's nailed theses, but the event which killed 1/3 of Europe and the event which showed the remaining few how to think.  Unfortunately, those of the Abraham faiths have stopped thinking.

I am currently living in an Islamic country, and I challenge anyone, who thinks his government should be anything other than secular, to live here.  Then, and only then, would that person understand that while it's swell to be in the religious majority, it really stinks to be in the minority.  I am, literally, prohibited from drinking water in public here during R*m*d*n.  I also couldn't buy alcohol in Delaware on Sundays.  You tell me which law makes more sense.  R* has 28-30 days, depending on the moon, but every year has 52 Sundays.  Which is more onerous?  Which is more stupid?  New Jersey closes retail outlets on Sunday, the Middle East stops working for a month.  Sure...that other one makes sense.  If you deny a prophet, you deny a new truth.  Ugh.



The problem with the faiths of the desert is there is such a forced dichotomy between "believer" and "not really a believer" and "apostate."  No christian wants to acknowledge that Anders Behring Breivik may have...gasp...believed in Jesus and his saving grace.  Musta been a different Jesus.  That's the same rhetoric Muslims claim about terrorist attacks.  Its all so savage.  So savage.  

While the mainstream press has been identifying Breivik as a “Christian terrorist,” “Christian fundamentalist,” and “Christian extremist,” several media commentators and actual Christians have been vehemently attempting to set the record straight about “Christian” being used so carelessly.
(full article here: http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-set-record-straight-on-alleged-norway-shooters-faith-53069/)

Islam, a religion of mercy, does not permit terrorism.  In the Quran, God has said:

 God does not forbid you from showing kindness and dealing justly with those who have not fought you about religion and have not driven you out of your homes.  God loves just dealers.  (Quran, 60:8)

(full article here:  http://www.islam-guide.com/ch3-11.htm)

But look how easy it is to twist words, how easy it is to judge.  It's sickening. 

i dream about small, pale things.

small things which eat my tongue,

pale things which turn my fingers into poorly handled knives.

i hope jesus loves me.

i laugh at inappropriate things:

gimme a good dead baby joke

(you can't empty a truck full of bowling balls with a pitchfork),

a too-soon 9-11 one

(the last thing through their minds was an airplane),

and i'm rolling. hahaha. really, really funny.

give me a mumbai terrorism joke, it's not as funny:

two indians walk into a bar, neither one leaves alive;

a muslim asks a girl child for directions to paradise

but before she can answer

he straps a bomb onto her and calls her “map.”

didn't they know jesus loved them?

i told (yet another) a philippina she was beautiful

even though her braces carried traces of an afternoon meal

and her hair was tortured into a bun only monotheists could love.

she said she was sinful and wasn't beautiful.

i tried to tell her she was beautiful because she was sinful.

doesn't she know jesus loves her?

i stumble a lot when i talk.

i don't stutter, i don't lisp, i just stumble.

i feel a boulder of rock-solid hatred

suspended precariously over my left shoulder.

i don't want to start the boulder's inexorable roll,

because once it starts i can hate everyone.

everyone.

i know i can hold that boulder up,

and i know no one can stand withstand it.

so i stumble with my words. and i suffer.

jesus loves me. even me.

i wish i had saved my ring.

yeah, my wedding ring. well, my used-to-be-wedded ring.

i haven't worn a watch since star wars was in the theater;

i didn't have a class ring,

i don't wear necklaces or new shirts.

i keep my memories safe in pictures

and slyly concocted journal entries.

i wish i had something more concrete,

like that slim band of cheap gold that reminded me

i was loved by something real.

shouldn't jesus love me?

perhaps my favorite memory

is of an orphaned squirrel.

that poor, fluffy, doomed, rodent.

or maybe the baby rabbit, also orphaned.

either way, they both died.

heartbreak? starvation? thirst? fear?

i just remember holding them (separately)

cautiously, tenuously, fearfully.

i remember jesus forgot them,

and i remember knowing jesus forgot me too.

i went into the desert and i saw stars,

so drastically different from the ones

i saw when i held her hand.

now i remember i didn't care 

about the sky,

the stars,

jesus,

when i was with her.

and so i was healed.

2nd stupid poem in as many months

when i answered the doorbell,

i found myself face to face with mustafa,

the maintenance guy who scrounges up

extra cash by selling bottled water.

i have a good relationship with him,

but didn't have any cash on me,

so i ordered two bottles on credit.

he peered into my apartment and asked if i was moving out.

i told him there are more things inside my apartment than when i moved in.

mustafa wouldn't deliver the water until i paid him.  upfront.  and in cash.

a pigeon family has roosted on my balcony.

they nest behind an old bicycle and laundry rack.

the chicks start squalling at six in the morning,

the mother starts calling at seven.

i storm onto the porch, shake the bicycle and the rack

in an effort to get some peace and quiet.

the chicks stop making noise but can't fly away,

unlike the mother, who wings away in fear and rage.

in the later hours of the morning i feel terrible

and throw pieces of bread to them to make up for my sins.

the dance continues.

i told the taxi driver to take me someplace to eat.

where? he asked.

i don't know. someplace good.

you like american?

no, i don't. take me to where you eat.

it's far, sir.

it's ok.

he took me to the outskirts of town,

where the buildings melt into the dunes

and streetlights are merely an afterthought.

a concrete block struggled up against the horizon,

industrial fans whirled like falling angels in gash-like windows.

two callow lights glimmered in the blighted night.

here is where i eat.

oh.

i expected him to take me to a place that had running water.

there is a simplicity to cooking rice i never understood:

put your finger into a pot, pour rice in until it's even with your cuticle.

place your finger on top of the rice and add water

until the water is level with the first knuckle of your finger.

boil. perfect rice, every time.

i asked her if she had a simple recipe like that for everything.

she smiled and said “only for food.”

food was the only thing i was asking about.

if i knew i only had twenty four hours to live

i would shoot someone in the leg, just to see what it felt like.

i would pet a dog, hug my sister, feed someone,

and tell that one girl i still love her.

Just a stupid poem

I went to an Indian dance club

and was immediately reminded

of the strip club in Terre Haute

and the scarred dancers

who attacked the pole as if it were

a terrible memory;

I was reminded of the club in Beaverton

where I saw my first full frontal show.

A dancer showed me

her baby-maker, her baby-feeders,

but not her why-baby-why.

I am not immune.

I went for a walk and saw the towering buildings,

the blue garbed sub-continentals

toiling to re-brick this city.

A Nepalese cab driver ferried me

across Sheihk Zayed road,

the vein feeding this desert, deserted kingdom.

I marveled at the amazing ability of sand.

I am not immune.

The call to prayer started at 4 am.

Keening, vowel ridden words

soared in the humid air,

driven by claxons mounted on every corner.

I stood on my balcony, smoking and watching

the faithful, scattered few scurry to the mosque.

And I hated them.

I am not immune.

I walked along the Arabian gulf,

stepping around the jellyfish

which were washed up on the sand

like discarded, translucent pennies.

I wanted to pick one up, hold it to my chest

and embrace the unavoidable sting.

Because I wanted to feel something.

I am not immune.

I taught a girl how to light a fire.

I remember because I had to hold her hand

while she placed the match under the twigs.

A girl taught me how to make vegetable soup.

I remember because she cradled my hand

while she stirred the broth with a broken wooden spoon.

I remember I soaked her hair in tea, colored her toenails with a purple marker,

touched her face with such infinite trepidation.

I remember because I failed.

I am not immune.

Istanbul and Getting Rooked.

So, I visited Yerevan Armania last year.  I swore some allegiance to Mother Armenia, pledged to never hurt the country of my heart.  Then I was invited to visit Turkey.  I kinda forgot my new found Armenian heritage, and flew to Istanbul.  Regardless of the statistics: www.truthandgrace.com/Armenianholocaust.htm (this website is blocked in the uae, so I don't know exactly what it says) and in light of the fact that I had fallen out of love with the Armenian proprietor of the woodcutting museum and her little dog (she was broken nosed hot, and I mean that in the best possible way.  I would have given up everything to pet her dog and kiss her to sleep each night), I didn't think much of the flight to Istanbul, because I was surrounded by Turks.  As I was disembarking the plane, I remembered I had that Armenian Visa on my passport, and the alert Turkish border guard would certainly put up a fuss about my switched allegiance.  Trouble, I was sure.  But $20 later, I strolled onto the the sovereign land of The Islamic Republic of Turkey.

Mother Armenia, may I remind you, has statues regarding the ethnocide delivered by the Turks (I'm coining the word 'ethnocide" here and now):

See?  Sad Armenia.

The first thing I noticed about Istanbul was the chill. It was quite cold (well, cold compared to the arid climes I'm used to).  It's really one of the unheralded wonders of this modern world to be able to walk from a desert, sit down for a while, and walk out into a cold world.  Amazing.  Really.  Anyway, I successfully navigated the currency exchange, the taxi stand (which wasn't as daunting as the one in Thailand), and the tittering Eurotrash who were dressed for the weather better than I, and found myself on the way to The Sultan Eyes Hotel.
Now, I didn't (don't) speak Turkish, and my driver didn't (doesn't) speak English.  All I had to go on was my journal entry regarding my hotel.  We got along famously.
My taxi driver knew where Old Town was (and like it's name, it really was old), but he refused to acknowledge that the car he was driving had a clutch.  If you've ever had to listen to the squeal of gears and brakes and revving engines, I'm assuming you've heard Indian music.

Anyway, we finally found the hotel, and I was shown to my room.  After the initial shock of how small it was (I could brush my teeth and take a shower, and if I needed to I could also evacuate my bowels...at the same time, in the same space), I opened the window and set out for the hilltops.

I thought this was the Blue Mosque, because I was unaware of the way the invading forces had ruined a architecture (invading forces=koraninites--I'm coining that word too). 









From another view, I thought this was a really beautiful mosque.  Then I realized it used to be a real church, without the battle stations errr... minarets.  That being said, I don't blame the m*dians for desecrating this place, and I don't blame them for erecting an even better architecture, the Blue Mosque.

Meaning, this.

After swooning because of the gorgeous architecture, I decided that perhaps I should walk around a little more (as I tend to do).  I saw this wonderful alley lit by green lights, and immediately after I walked past it, I got accosted by a guy who wanted to show me "pretty Turkish girls who no say no."

After that, I headed toward the Sultan's Eye's Hotel, but got caught up in the lights, the smiles, and the Australian coeds swarming the streets.  But then I saw this, found a great meal of goat and cream cheese and finally went to sleep.

The next day, I had my meeting with the owner of TPR, Istanbul.  It was pretty boring, and he didn't offer anything other than the chance to be an illegal worker in Turkey.  Not the sharpest move for someone of my advanced age. Anyway, it was a pretty boring meeting.  Afterwards, I went to Taksim square in search of adventure (you would think that, by now, I would be adverse to adventure).  Not true.

I found statues 



.

I found Churches

And , of course, I found the guy who robbed me.  Istanbul is quite hilly, and so I was walking down the hill from Taksim Square (because I'm not normally one to walk UP a hill), in search of the underground train to lead me to the train which would then take me back to Europe (I was on the Asian side of Istanbul).  I found the Underground, but because I couldn't understand how much the trip cost nor where to get off the train, I decided to let gravity take control, and I started down the hill towards the bridge back to The Sultans Eye hotel.  So far, so good.  I managed to semi-stumble my way down the hill and I was on the precipice of the final, unsteady staircase when a shoeshine boy, trudging up the hill, dropped his shining brush.  Because I'm not smart, I picked it up and called out "You dropped something."  Then I continued on my way.  Just as I was about to take that first step onto the perilous staircase, a wooden stool, a boy, and the brush appeared at my feet.
  "Sir, please," I heard.
"These shoes don't take I shine," I said.  I didn't say it because I was being cheap, but because I was wearing sneakers, and historically, Nike's just don't take a shine. Before I stopped speaking, the boy was assiduously scrubbing my right sneaker with a toothbrush.  In my head, I was telling myself the whole situation was bad, but in my heart I was convincing myself that "he's really scrubbing hard, and who cares about wet shoes?"  Like a sucker, as soon as he tapped my left calf, I switched feet on the stool so I could get my left food drenched as good as my right one.
Less than a minute later, he straightened up and said "25."  I thought the price was slightly excessive, but I wasn't in the mood to argue so I pulled out my wallet from my front pocket (a little lesson learned from Thailand) and handed over 15 lira.  (The US dollar is about 1.6 Turkish Lira.)  Then I started thumbing through my wallet for another 10 lira.  I couldn't find the 10 I thought I had, so I produced a 50 lira bill and asked if he had change.  He shook his head sadly and said "Only 15."  I'm magnanimous to a fault, so I said "Ok, 15."  He gave me 15 lira and trudged his way up the hill, and I took my change and carefully navigated the stairs down to "street" level.  Halfway down, I realized exactly what had happened:
Me---->Shoeshine boy:  15
Me:  Looking for 10, Shoeshine boy doesn't return my original 15
Me---->Shoeshine boy: 50
Shoeshine boy---->No change, only 15
Me:  Happy-ish with 15 change.
It was only while I was walking through the open air cheese market (it exists...it exists) that I realized I got rooked, and paid the kid 50 lira (approximately $27) for the honor of having wet socks.  And I realized that I had been taken by the oldest game in the book.   For a while, I thought I should just pin money to my shirt and walk around, thus dispensing with all the formalities people have to go through to take my money away from me.  But looking back, I really admire the innocent face, the ease of working a mark, and the fact that he at least worked on my sneakers for a minute each.  This again reinforces the thing my friends tell me (which I try to disagree with at all times) that I still believe in the better nature of people.  I guess I could be doing worse. 

After getting rooked, I walked across the bridge which connects Asia and Europe, and I saw one of the main attractions (which I had been standing at, prior to the shoe shine debacle) of Istanbul, Galata Tower.  Neat.

On the bridge, there were a lot of folks with fishing poles in the river:

And I could see the Imperial Mosque:

And the Marmara Sea

A statue

A Roman Arch

Thailand II (no pictures)

The next morning, I woke up to her curled up at the head of my bed, flipping through the hotel's phone book. As soon as I rolled over, she passed me a cup of bad coffee and gave me a dazzling smile. For a split second, I forgot the fiscal nature of our relationship, the fact that I was (and still am) trying to escape myself by escaping geographic locations, that I would never see her again. But for that brief second, I was happy. She ruined the moment by getting dressed and putting her face on. After a moment I, ever the sharp one, realized that it was time to show her the door, and my wallet. After putting on some shorts and a shirt (there's nothing worse than being tossed out of your hotel room, naked), I intimated that our night was at an end: “How much?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“You asked me my name, you asked where I was from, you asked about my family, you massaged my feet. Nothing.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhh.” There's nothing like a money transaction gone your way to make you speechless. “Here's some American money.”

“I don't need it.”

“I don't want it.” We stared at each other a moment, then she took the $30 (910 Baht), clapped her hands over her head, bowed, and left. I don't know if I've ever felt worse about myself than when I closed the door.

Anyway, after taking a quick nap (it's hard to sleep with a Cambodian in you bed....Pol Pot and all that), I took a tour of the city in a TukTuk. Wow.

Golden Pagodas; garlands of exquisite flowers strewn around small altars like after parade confetti; red-robed monks under yellow parasols disembarking from boats, whose provenance and sea-worthiness were questionable at best; a vegetable market so consumed by chaos that after a the first few mesmerizing minutes it actually seemed orderly, like a fractal; an abandoned amusement park; houses cobbled together from the rusty blue hoods of Ford trucks and purloined corrugated metal; the children.

The children half naked and rail thin, limping on a stump or running with a head full of steam with hands stretched out for a baht or two; the children prostrate on the pavement with torn 7-11 cups on the pavement in front of their heads and arms ready to receive alms from this unexpected visit from the bulky red-head foreigner (apparently word spreads quickly in the poorer sections of Bangkok). And of course my heart broke for all of them. But, without tossing a single baht, I ordered the Tuk Tuk to take me to the nearest bar so I could drown out the sorrow and the noise, as per usual. So, I wound up at the The Goose, on Suhkumvit Road.

The Goose was an uneventful, laid back bar (thankfully) and though I was greeted by the smiles and clasped hands of waitresses I just got my drink on. Again, as per usual, I drank too much and ate too little because the little voices of those poor bastards on the road were eating into my heart. After a while, I left and started to weave my way back to S15. Sukhumvit road is underneath the metro tracks, so there are a lot of shadowed overpasses one has to walk through in order to get to where one wants to go, and it was in one of these shadows that I was accosted by “Lisa.”

Lisa was tall and skinny, willowy even, with eyes streaked hazel and grey. Her hair fell in luscious curls (a weave, I'm assuming) onto her bare shoulders, her red dress fitted her body in the exact opposite way my clothes fit mine. In other words...wow.

Anyway, Lisa sidled up to me and told me to take her with me to my hotel. Having been sated the night before, I declined (politely, I might add). As soon as I said that, she gave me a hug, took my hand for a moment and whispered “Sure?” into my ear. I nodded, sagely, just to confirm my previous statement, because I couldn't quite get my other parts to work. She gave me another hug, then asked me to sit with her for a while. Because I can't help myself, I sat down on the curb with her. She smelled like the best possible mix of a candy cane and summer. While we were sitting in an even darker part of the street, the doorstep of a shuttered store, she offered me a breathmint from her handbag. “A true lady,” I thought as I accepted the mint. Almost immediately, Lisa whipped her phone out from some unseen pocket of her dress, mumbled into it for a while then announced that she had to go meet her friend. I wished her well, hauled myself to my feet, and continued to stumble down the street in search of the 7-11 across from my hotel (7-11s are on every corner in Bangkok, just fyi) because I needed cigarettes and a bottle of water.

At the register of the correct store (only 1 mishap on the way), I pulled out my wallet to pay and, to my (continued) amazement, I found I had no cash money. When I left The Goose, I had $200, 4,000 baht, and 150 UAE durhams in my wallet. At that register, at that moment, I had exactly nothing. “The Cunt Robbed Me” I shouted accidentally. Then it hit me: I still had my wallet, I just didn't have any money. My ATM cards were intact, my credit card was still there, my driver license and Dubai work permit and Notary Public and Security Guard Trainer and First Responder cards were all still safely ensconced in their normal spaces. In short, Lisa took my wallet from my pants, snatched the cash, AND replaced it without my knowledge. So I stood there, and even though I had been robbed, I wasn't upset. I was amazed, because she hadn't taken anything of value. Just money.

Sure, I had to walk to an ATM, navigate through the unintelligible menus of the Thai banking system, had to walk back to that 7-11 bashfully and give the cashier the ATM-smelling bills, but I still wasn't upset. Because Lisa had left me with everything that has ever mattered to me: my sister's senior picture (the one she wrote nice things on the back of, not the other one), a love poem Brenna wrote me during my freshman year in college, a short letter I wrote to myself 15 years ago, a weathered card with a fading heart stamped onto it. In short, Lisa only took money and left me the more important things. Money is replaceable, memories that I can place my hands onto aren't. When I'm on my deathbed and I can still put my hands on these little things, things which prove there was a time I could love and be loved, I will thank Lisa for not taking them. And I will be grateful for the lesson I learned: what is precious to me needs to be treated as if it were precious to me.

Which leads me straight into Istanbul.