The coat that saved my life

[twopoint]

The coat was a matter of debate for several days.  I carried the photo around in my purse, showed it to various people: clients, friends, strangers.  "Should I buy this coat?"  First, let me say that I spend most of my time dusty, working outside - my clothes have function, namely to keep me from the elements.  I have some lovely things I couldn't live without: my wool camel coat, a tunic from Mavi, some pieces from a designer friend.  I LOVE clothes, I just seldom buy them and when I do I don't form a committee to make the decision for me.  The only time I can wear fun things is the few weeks I'm clean and horseless in Istanbul each year.  And why the hell do I want a coat that looks like a caricature of the gothic atrocity I was at thirteen.  I have this sudden craving to listen to Peter Murphy.

So - I made this huge deal about buying the coat.  And finally at three am, the middle of the night last night, I decide to purchase it.  Content with the decision I went to sleep.

This morning I check my phone and the first email is from the credit card company.  They want to know if I authorize the "atypical" catalog purchase made in the middle of the night.  I laugh and say, "Yes!  That's my coat."  I'm dreaming of my coat as they list off five more suspicious charges - craigslist, apple, etc.  "No - I did not make those charges."  We cancel the card and I start biting my fingernails.

I log on to my lappy to find that I cannot access the internet because I've been inundated with viruses.  Viruses of all shapes and sizes.  Viruses and babies of viruses.  I stare blankly at the screen and feel like I've had an appendage removed.  How do people live without a lappy?  How  will I write?  If I write, how will I post it?  Is it okay to write if I cannot post it?

Eight hours later everything is restored, well, everything except iTunes.  I don't know how I can lose a program, but it's lost.  I did a lot of writing in my notebook for six of those eight hours that I spent on hold with technical support - it was good to realize I could still do that, writing, in notebooks.  In the end it's discovered that the anti-virus stopped working during an update a long time ago and it took the virus inundation before I realized the program was corrupted. 

The moral of this story is that the coat saved my credit score and my identity.  When that coat arrives I'm going to build it its own closet.  I will also give the coat its own mix tape filled with Bauhaus, Christian Death and Cocteau Twins.  I might also buy it a pair of boots with buckles.  And then I will visitahpookishere and make her design a tattoo of the coat to place on my left calf.

 

Comments

[two-point.livejournal.com]

I thought the same thing before visiting, that Istanbul was a conservative country, but it's not at all. Headscarves are outlawed at universities and the country has been a secular democracy since the early twentieth century. They've had a woman president (still wondering if that is possible in the US), prostitution is legal - leading to my latest project: a series of interviews and photos of transvestites from the Beyoglu district - a short block from our house. There are clubs, much alcohol being consumed day and night, and a thriving arts scene. There are 15 million people in Istanbul proper - it's massive. My favorite spots remind me of what Paris would have felt like in the '20's - lots of ex-pats, lots of dark cafes with bedraggled poets scribbling away and lots of activism, every street corner.

I got my nose pierced on the last trip and the gorgeous goddess doing the work was all like: "That's it? Don't you want something better?"

It's far more repressed in my corner of the American south. I've made it my life's work to let the world know what the European side of Turkey is really like. There are parts of Istanbul that remind me of what Prague was like before the tourists got a hold of it (not that I don't want to be in Prague - I will certainly accept a ticket to go there at any moment).

When I look at an icon I'm always seeing the primitive gods that inspired it - your dueling philosophies work. I'm going to show up on your door one day for that tattoo.

[ahpookishere.livejournal.com]

Oh, you are giving me serious wanderlust right now. But, I want to see your Istanbul, the way you describe it.

And, I want to see that project!