Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

When you learn a language the text books and dictionaries can only take you so far.  For the most part, those prove to give you the basis of the understanding the language.  But, as anyone who speaks multiple languages can tell you, really learning the language comes from use and conversing with natives.  The expression that natives always know it best certainly rings true . . .  Such is the case with Turkish. A few years back a friend, who I had just met, was being discussed to me by someone else.  She was a few feet away, and someone (I can't remember who) wanted to know how we met.  This person kept calling my new friend Pembe.  Um, pembe means pink.  So I was utterly confused because I knew my friend as Gözde.  So, in my slightly inebriated American mind, I kinda thought pink was some kind of slang name for women . . . you know, kinda like peaches is used in the American South.  Now that I think back on it, I bet I either came ...

On every trip to Turkey I have come home with some derelicted tale of men making offers, a stack of phone numbers, scarves given to me because my eyes and smile are so charming, and the list goes on. One lamp shop owner, in Istanbul, proclaimed that when I spoke it was "like honey to [his] ears."   Though, when I went and gave an invited talk at Dogus Uni in Istanbul, in December 2008, there I was offered Turk cigarettes, raki, and there may or may not have been a few offers for dates.  Oiy.  Anyone ever noticed that I am something of a magnet for the oddities of life, or that my adventures turn into borderline criminally insane escapes? Yea.  Today's run-of-the-mill errands turned into . . . well, they became an adventure of borderline criminally insane activity. I trotted my happy little self up to Steinway Street this afternoon, not for glitzy reduced priced plastic goods and new sweaters.  Instead, I was headed to have one ring setting resottered, have my ...