Climate Control

I finally bit the bullet and bought an air conditionner. Istanbul is very hot and humid from June through September and this flat used to be an attic. I really suffered when I first arrived; we West Coasters are not habituated to 35 degrees of sweaty heat. True, I will be gone for two of those months, but since someone will be living in my flat with Libby all summer, it only seemed right to make the place livable for all of us.

The weather isn't hot enough yet to turn it on, but it gives me pleasure just to look at the thing and know I'm ready for it. Come on, summer!

Actually, that's a lie. It drives me crazy to look at it. It cost me 1,500 Turkish lira ($840), and will you LOOK at all the slopes and angles! What is level? The blind, the two holes where they installed the blind wrong on the first try, or the air conditionner? What is perception and what reality? It doesn't really matter. I don't own a level, and can't do anything about it. All will be forgiven when it cools me off.