DarrenConley.com

So, it’s been almost exactly four years since I’ve written about dreams on my blog. By the way, for those of you reading this on the Facebook RSS feed and not on my actual website, I have a category called Dream Journals which I was planning to use to post a log of my dreams regularly. Turns out I didn’t.

Anyway, while I don’t have an actual dream to write about today, I do want to say a few words about my dreams in general. Back in this post, I said that “My dreams usually involve flying, people from my high school who I haven’t seen or thought about in 12 years, and infant children who think and speak like adults”. In the 4 years or so since that post was written, that’s still generally true. I still fly a lot, I still see people from my high school far more often then I think about them in waking life, and while I don’t dream of infants who speak like adults very often, they still sneak in there now and then.

One thing I don’t experience often (dream-wise) is nightmares. I could not tell you when the last time I woke up scared from a dream was, although the last time I can recall right now was probably sometime in the junior high stage of things. But the closest thing I currently experience to nightmares (and this comes up a LOT in my dreams) is dreams involving bathrooms.

I can honestly say, without exaggeration, that I experience a bathroom-related situation in my dreams about 3 nights per week on average. That’s almost half my dream-time. And usually it’s not a pleasant bathroom situation. Usually it involves having the urgent need to visit a bathroom, only to find that its facilities are horribly disgusting, completely non-existent, or (worst of all) out of order due to the fluctuating nature of the fabric of reality in dream-land.

Usually it goes something like this. I have to pee. I locate a bathroom. I start to pee in a urinal, only to find that it suddenly contains a banzai tree, and is causing horrible splash-back due to stream-ricochet and the awkward angle of the branches. Or the stall I’m using is suddenly right in the middle of a restaurant. Or that I’m actually peeing into a garbage can, or a sink, or onto a counter with a small drain which I can’t seem to hit because the counter is slightly too high. It can be very traumatizing.

Now, it makes sense that one would often dream about peeing. After all, aside from eating, what other activity do we do so regularly every single day of our entire existence? I’m sure that if you added up all of the time that I have spent peeing over the course of almost 35 years, the number of hours (or days… or weeks!) would be mind boggling. So certainly I won’t begrudge my brain the semi-regular occurrence of this activity finding its way into my dreams.

But why does it always have to be so weird and traumatic?! Why can’t I dream about having a really amazing peeing experience, the same way that I might dream of having a really good kiss with someone from my high school, or a really interesting conversation with an infant?

I believe that I can identify two major causes for the constant recurrence of scary bathroom situations in my dreams. First, and most obviously, is the fact that these dreams often come when I actually need to use the bathroom in real life. It’s like my subconscious (or unconscious?) brain is saying to itself “if presented with the options of letting this grown man wet the bed or informing him of the need to pee through freakin’ wacked-out bathroom situations in dream-land, I’m going to choose the latter.” And I appreciate that (although I don’t appreciate having to drag my sleepy butt out of bed to use the toilet at 3am).

The other cause, and the more deeply psychological one, I believe goes back to my childhood. You see, sometime when I was very young (probably about 6 or 7 years old), I remember being taken to Roller Gardens (a local Hamilton rollerskating rink that, sadly, no longer exists) for some sort of special occasion. I want to say that I was being babysat by my aunt. Which doesn’t seem so special, now that I think about it.

At this roller skating rink, I ended up in a bathroom stall with the need to take a pee. I don’t remember actually peeing (although I’m sure I did), but what I do remember was that when I flushed the toilet, it vomited all over the floor. I don’t mean that the water slowly rose up until it overflowed – I mean it practically exploded. And as a 6 or 7 year old (who by this point in his life had a fairly good “handle” on how to properly use a toilet) I was completely overwhelmed by the fact that a toilet COULD EVEN DO such a thing. It was this incident that created in me a slight fear of flushing the toilet.

I very clearly remember that, for many years as a child, whenever I had to pee at night, I would finish my business, push on the flushing handle, and run as fast as I could back to bed so that I wouldn’t need to see if it overflowed or not. This fear only happened at night – I had no fear of daytime flushing – and I’m fully aware that not seeing it overflow had no bearing on whether or not it actually did. But it was SEEING it overflow, like I saw it that day in Roller Gardens, that was the terrifying part of the operation.

Of course, as I grew into adulthood, I came to trust that toilets usually flush as well at night as they do during the day. But while my rational, logical mind was able to cope with my childhood toilet fears, perhaps my subconscious mind is still wrestling with suppressed nighttime bathroom traumas. And so these fears haunt my dreams.

I should mention that even now when I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I usually don’t flush the toilet (I flush it when I get up in the morning). But it’s not because I’m afraid. I just don’t want to wake up Larissa with the flushing noise. Yes, that’s it! HA HA HA! That’s exactly it.

Before I came to Qatar, I would never have imagined the possibility of seeing world-class tennis being played live. Mostly because I don’t care very much about tennis. However, after having come to Qatar, I’ve had the opportunity to see many international sporting competitions. Synchronized diving, for instance. Also, gymnastics. And horse-jumping. No, I don’t mean people jumping over horses – I mean horses jumping over fences and poles and stuff. I’m sure it’s called something other than “horse jumping”, but as I am too lazy to look up the actual name on Google, I’m sticking with “horse jumping”.

But why am I talking about horse jumping? What I really want to talk about is tennis. So, this past week there was a major international men’s tennis tournament in Doha, featuring many famous tennis players, such as Federer, Nadal, Davydenko, and that dude from Serbia (Viktor something?) Actually, the only reason I remember the names of those four guys is because those were the four guys we watched play in the semi-finals last Friday night.

But why am I talking about last Friday? What I really want to talk about is last Saturday, when I decided to go to the finals to see Nadal and Davydenko play for the.. uh.. whatever you win when you with this tournament. Is it a cup? I know there’s a chunk of money involved. Maybe you get money and a cup. And a camel? Maybe a camel, folks. This is Doha, after all, and they really like camels here. I have this funny story that involves some of my students secretly watching camel videos on their mobile phones during class one day.

But why am I talking about camels? What I really want to talk about is what happened to me on Saturday – the day I almost didn’t get to see the tennis finals, but did. Mostly.

It all started several days earlier, when the staff at CNA-Q (that’s where I work) received an email saying that we could get into the tennis tournament for free if we showed them our CNA-Q staff ID at the gate. The free seats were not amazing – they were actually fairly high up in the almost nosebleed section of the stadium. But here’s what made them good: they were free.

When we went to see the semi-finals on Friday night, getting into the stadium was no problem – we simply showed our ID badges, and off we went. In fact, it wasn’t even limited to CNA-Q staff – anyone who was with us (employees or not) was able to get in with us too, as long as they were with someone who had an ID badge. Larissa and I spent Friday evening enjoying two wonderful tennis matches with our friend Tatjana and her friend Jia Yu, who is the political secretary at the Singaporean embassy. She told us her job is to “talk to people at various government functions and then write reports about it” for her government. Honestly.

Wow, now I’m talking about Singapore. Seriously, I’m trying to write about tennis on Saturday. Forget about Friday, gentle readers – this post is about Saturday.

Saturday was the day of the final match, and Larissa had decided that she was going to stay home that evening (something about her being pregnant or tired or something, I can’t remember right now), so I decided to go on my own. I had an errand or two to run at one of the gigantic Doha malls (which happens to be fairly close to the tennis stadium), so I went to the mall first. I purchased two things at the mall: one, a prepaid phone card for Larissa’s mobile, and two, a box of about 500 nails and thumbtacks, which Larissa wanted so that she could hang a calender in the kitchen. She actually just wanted one nail, but you can’t buy just one nail. You have to buy 500. Why am I talking about buying nails? It’s actually relevant to the story, if you can believe it.

When I had completed my purchases, I hopped in a Karwa (that’s a taxi, for those of you not familiar with Doha public transportation options) and made it to the tennis stadium in about 5 minutes. This was about 4pm, and the match didn’t start till six, but I thought it started at five. That’s actually not super relevant to the story, but I want you to be able to imagine the whole story as I tell it. So, 4pm, I’m at the stadium, not too many other people around, there I am.

I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so when I saw that there was a Quizno’s nearby (the first Quizno’s that I had seen ANYWHERE outside of Canada) I had to go and try it out. Their sandwich selection was not quite up to Canadian levels (no Chicken Carbonara sub, dang it!) but it was much better than the competition (honestly, people STILL pay money for Subway?! Even after they did away with the stamps you could redeem for a free sub?!) So I ate my Qatari Quizno’s sub (Spicy BBQ Chicken – very tasty), watched the end of Minority Report (it was playing on the TV in the restaurant – good movie!) and made my way to the stadium entrance gate.

When I got to the gate at about 4:30, there were (understandably) few people there, so I walked right up to the gate attendant and flashed him my CNA-Q ID badge. He smiled at me and politely said “I’m sorry sir, no more college people today.” What?! I had received an email – direct written correspondence – that I would be able to get into every tennis match with my ID! What, my friends, was the deal?! So I said to the guy “Why?” He said, “The match is sold out. No free tickets today.”

Now, the average person would have given up right then and there. No tickets, no way to get in, right? But, my friends – this is Qatar. The land where you can get anything by knowing the right people and/or exercising your sharply-honed negotiation skills. So I asked “can I talk to someone else about this?” “Sure!” I was told, “You can talk to Mr. [insert name I forget here] when he comes over.” “Is he going to come soon?” I asked. “Probably not – he’s really busy tonight,” was the reply.

Undaunted, I decided to wait it out. After all, I was friends with people who had made it into several VIP-type functions and locations in Qatar using only their confidence (and possibly their good looks) to aid them, and some of those people were coming to tennis that evening. I just had to hang around for a bit, hope that I bumped into such a person, and ride their confident, good-looking coat tails into the tennis final.

By this time I had figured out (or overheard) that the game didn’t start till 6pm, so I had over an hour to see if some sort of plan could come together. I figured my odds of getting in were about 50/50, which is not bad considering I had been flatly turned down by security, and was hoping to bump into one of 4 or 5 influential people in a sea of potentially 7000 tennis spectators. I decided to narrow my odds by calling Tatjana to see if she was coming. Turned out she WAS coming, and she was bringing 2 friends of hers who were on a 10 hour layover on their way to Spain and were waiting for their plane to leave at 1am. I told Tatjana that they weren’t accepting our school IDs for admission. She said they were coming anyway. I like that confidence!

In the meantime, a crowd of about 15 other disappointed CNA-Q employees (as well as several of their friends and family) had gathered outside the entrance gate and were complaining about our revoked free-entry privileges. As our numbers grew, some of the organizing officials started to get antsy and came out to talk to us, lest we form a disgruntled mob and storm the stadium entrance in a last-ditch effort to see free world-class tennis.

We were told that “an email was sent to the college yesterday telling them that the free passes were canceled.” Come on! Who checks their work email on the weekend?! (remember, Friday is part of the weekend in Qatar – also, when I went back to work on Sunday? NO EMAIL!) We were also told “perhaps we can get Mr. [insert another name I forget here] to come an arrange something for you,” but it never happened. As Tatjana arrived at 5:30 (with her Spanish friends in tow) most of the disgruntled CNA-Qians had decided to either pay for tickets or just grab some food at Applebee’s, and abandoned the entrance gate. At the same time, long lines of ticket-holders were making their way into the stadium, staring at those of us who thought we could get in for free, and wondering why we looked so unhappy at a tennis match.

By 5:50pm, Tatjana, myself, and the two Spaniards (who really wanted to see the match, since the one dude – Nadal – was actually Spanish!) decided to give up and try to find a way home. As we walked across the stadium grounds, I mourned the fact that we were not sufficiently confident or good-looking enough to weasel our way into the match. I think Tatjana teased me about this as well. Which didn’t help my confidence much.

But wait! What’s this? Tatjana had just caught the eye of a 40-ish Qatari man who was wearing some sort of official-looking pass over his perfectly white thobe! Suddenly I heard her telling him, “Yeah, we had been invited to watch tennis tonight, but when we went to the entrance gate, they wouldn’t let us in!” The Qatari man said “Just a moment, I’m waiting for my driver to pick up my children” (there were 3 young children playing at the feet of this man). Within a minute, a Land Cruiser pulled up and the children were hustled into the car. The man then turned to us and said “Follow me.” Like the disciples on the shore of Galilee, we obeyed these words and followed him, in the hopes that our future would be made a little brighter!

We were taken through the security check at what looked like the VIP entrance (no lineup of ticket holders) and made to pass through a metal detector. I guess tennis players are pretty high profile targets these days (?!) It was as I reached into my jacket pocket that I remembered that I was carrying a box of 500 nails and thumbtacks (see? I told you they were part of the story!) Honestly, who comes to a tennis match and has to pull a box of 500 nails and thumbtacks out of their pocket as they pass through security? Me, that’s who.

With Tatjana shaking her head at me as if to say “Dude, really?! Really. Dude!”, I handed the box of tiny, sharp, threatening objects to the nearby security guard. Our Qatari patron told me to make sure that I came back to that gate after the game to pick them up. I sheepishly nodded and continued to follow him towards the stairs to the seating area. At this point, I was pretty sure that a blog entry was going to develop.

We were told to wait at the bottom of the stairs while our new Qatari friend talked to some people on our behalf. After about 10 or 15 minutes, he returned and said to us, “I wasn’t able to get you into the box seats, but I have been given permission to escort you to the seating area above this section. Just take any empty seats that you want.” I would have kissed this man, if it was socially acceptable. Now that I think about it, it completely IS socially acceptable for a man to kiss a man in this culture, but I had just met the guy, and I didn’t want to overdo it.

We followed him again as he led us past several security people (“These people are with me!”) and up to the seating area. We were one level up from the box seats, and one level down from where we sat the night before. And we got in for free. Thank you Qatar, and your semi-easily bendable rules regarding admission to high-profile events!

By the time we got in it was 6:15, which was fine, because the match didn’t actually start until about 7 or 7:30 (funny how I can’t remember the exact time – if Dave Lapsley were with me I would ask him, because he always remembers stuff like that). We were about 5 minutes into the first game when I realized that I had to go to the bathroom. I hadn’t actually peed since I left my house, which was well before 3pm. Tennis matches often last 3 full sets, and each set requires that a player win at least 6 games, so it looked like I might have to hold it for a while.

“But Darren,” you may ask, “Why couldn’t you just get up and use a public toilet in the stadium?” To which I would reply that there are 3 reasons why I could not. First, stadium toilets, people. Nuh uh. Second, in professional tennis matches, they don’t actually allow people to walk around (or even talk) while the players are playing. You have to wait till a game ends before you can get up from your seat OR go back to your seat, if you already got up earlier. And third, since we were let in for free, we had no ticket stubs, and there were people checking ticket stubs every time you entered the seating area. I was stranded.

So I held it. For a long time. I could almost feel the urine backing up from my bladder into my kidneys, but I had waited so long to get into this tennis match that I didn’t want to blow it now.

Then tennis itself started to taunt me.

In the second set, Nadal and Davydenko were so evenly matched that they each won 6 games, and had to play a tiebreaker game. Then, even in the tiebreaker game they were matching each other point for point. 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, 6-6. It was like the tennis gods were saying to me, “I’m going to draw this game out as long as possible, just to test the limits of your leg-crossing ability!” Finally Davydenko got two points in a row, and the set ended. And so did my patience.

By this point, Tatjana and her friends were both feeling pretty chilly (it got down to 19 degrees that night, which might not sound that cold, but for some reason felt like it) so we all decided to skip the last set and head home. But not before making a quick stop at a nearby restaurant to use the bathroom. Actually, first I had to stop at the gate and pick up my nails and thumbtacks. But even before THAT, I called our driver-service and asked them to send two cars – one for me, and one for Tatjana and her friends.

The thing was, usually it takes about 20 minutes for the drivers to show up, but by the time we had made it out of the stadium, used a bank machine (we needed money to pay the drivers) got my nails and thumbtacks, and walked over to the restaurant, the cars were arriving. Tatjana and the two Spanish women (did I mention they were women?) all went to the bathroom themselves, but I noticed the drivers there AFTER they went into the bathroom, but BEFORE I used the bathroom myself. So I had to wait even longer for them to come out so that I could tell them that their driver was there, and where he was parked.

But the girls took so long in the bathroom that by the time they came out, I couldn’t keep my driver waiting any longer, so I quickly showed them their car, ran into my driver’s car, and told him to get me home quick because I hadn’t peed since 2pm (and it was now well after 9).

Well, you’ll all be happy to hear that I arrived at home with dry pants, although I ran straight into the bathroom as soon as I opened the front door. Peeing never felt so good, let me tell you. And that, my friends, is how I spent my Saturday.

I am not a tennis player.  It's not that I don't like the sport, or that I don't have the opportunity to play tennis – I just have never gotten around to it.  The closest I've come is the occasional game of ping-pong, or playing it on my Wii when I'm REALLY bored.  

What I have done lately is participate in a boot camp program 3 times per week at the campus where I teach.  It's usually about 25 teachers and other staff members who commit to an hour of hardcore working-out on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday nights from 4:30 to 5:30pm.  There are three instructors who are well equipped to whip us into shape (one is a certified trainer, one is a phys-ed teacher, and one is a very experienced athlete).  The camp lasted for about 3 months, and recently ended in mid-April.

Sometime in the first week of April, after a particularly strenuous boot camp, I noticed that I had some soreness in my right elbow.  Of course I wrote this off as the normal muscle soreness that one sometimes experiences after pushing their body a little too hard.  But as the days (and weeks) wore on, the soreness persisted, and actually started to grow worse, despite boot camp being finished.

So this past Saturday I decided to pay a visit to a local (and well-reputed) health clinic to have my arm checked out.  It took the doctor about 15 seconds to determine that I had Tennis Elbow.  Somehow I had developed a tennis-related injury without the benefit of having enjoyed the process of learning and playing tennis. 

My first thought was "well, at least it's not something too serious like cancer or arthritis or degenerative flesh-eating disease."  My second thought was "shouldn't I be getting sports-related injuries after having played actual sports?  Does this mean that I won't be able to work out any more?"  And my third thought, later in the day, was "perhaps this is a good opportunity to develop ambidexterity."

I've always wanted to be ambidextrous.  It's not that I think that it would give me any specific advantage in life or employment – it's more for the sake of symmetry, and possibly impressing people at parties.  It irks me a little that I should have one arm or hand (I'm right-handed) that is strong and skilled enough to write and accomplish most of life's tasks, while having a second arm, seemingly equal in shape and health, that is far less skilled.  I've tried to write with my left hand several times – my writing looks like that of a monkey on painkillers scribbling on a pad while playing bumper-cars.

In order to facilitate the healing of my right elbow, I've started to do most of my lifting or carrying with my left arm, but I started thinking – what other things could I do with my left arm or hand in order to increase its strength and dexterity?  I didn't get very far in my thinking before I could foresee some potential problems.

First, there's using a mouse on the computer.  I've always used my right hand for this, and while I've tried to use my left, it often renders the task I'm trying to accomplish impossible.  Suddenly, your index finger is being used for right-clicking and spinning the mouse wheel, while the middle finger is being used for the typical left-click.  Try it yourself – doesn't the mouse suddenly feel like you're wielding a tool of unnatural disutility?  This led me to wonder if they make left-hand mouses, or if left-handed people use their right hands for clicking, or use software to switch the buttons, or what.  Any lefties out there who want to let me know?

Another issue that came up is toilet paper use.  I noticed this morning during my wiping session that I automatically (and quite skillfully, if I do say so myself) use my right hand for dragging the toilet tissue across my butt.  But could I even attempt this with my left hand?  This would mean not only leaning to the other side, which would feel strange, but also taking the risk that my lack of left-handed dexterity could lead to a misjudgment in wiping pressure or vector alignment, and cause my fecal matter to end up where it shouldn't be (like on my hand, or smeared inconveniently on a larger area of my anus) rather than being skillfully removed as it usually is each morning.  I don't know if ambidexterity is worth the risk of a poo-related mishap at the start of my day.

After my morning poo, I typically eat my breakfast consisting of a couple bowls of Frosties, and being a right-handed individual, I hold my spoon in my right hand as I bring each delicious vitamin-and-sugar coated flake of dried corn-mash from the bowl to my mouth.  But what if I tried my left hand?  Would I be able to truly enjoy my breakfast if I attempted to navigate my cereal bowl with a less-skilled hand at the helm?  Would my breakfast table end up a mess of spilled milk and carelessly dropped cereal matter?  And breakfast is the easiest meal to eat, generally speaking.  What about supper?  I already eat most of my meals semi-naked to avoid staining my clothes with Larissa's wonderful cooking.  Eating supper with my left hand could lead to epic disaster.  I would probably make less of a mess if I just tipped my plate onto the floor at the start of the meal.  Is the skillful use of both hands worth both the required cleanup and the disappointment at having watched such delicious meals be wasted in a hand-training exercise?

Thus far, I have not seen fit to take the risks needed to accommodate the development of ambidexterity.  However, I'm not completely giving up.  If I'm using the computer for something that is not very important (and let's be honest here, computers are used 85% of the time for goofing off), or if I have a dump that feels relatively residue-free, or if I'm eating a meal that has been poorly prepared while wearing clothes that I don't really care about, I'll try out the left hand and see what happens.  After all, if life can see fit to give me tennis elbow without having actually played tennis, perhaps it can cut me some slack in learning to be ambidextrous.

Back in the first month that I started this blog (three and a half years ago) I put up this post detailing the many difficulties that my particular face must endure when going through the shaving process.  I called that post "The Curse of Shaving" because I felt that my face was especially singled out by the gods of follicle growth to stand sentinel at the far end of the "difficult to shave" spectrum – the extreme signpost after which the prospect of shaving is overcome by the chance of serious bodily harm or death by blood loss.  Some may think that I exaggerate in describing my beard-growth as the standard against which all other difficult-to-shave faces are measured, but the experience that I just had tonight would seem to suggest that my assessment is correct.

Earlier this evening, I made my way down to a local Turkish barber shop which is just around the corner from where I live.  I have gone to this particular shop several times, and as my hair was starting to get unruly, I figured I had better pay them another visit.  One of the unique qualities about barber shops in Qatar (as opposed to in Canada) is that you can still get a straight-razor shave done by a professional hair cutter for a very reasonable price.  If you're interested in some of the other unique qualities of barber shops in Qatar, you can review this post, where I wrote about my first haircut here.

Generally speaking, I let myself go unshaven for several days before getting a haircut so that I can get a shave done by a professional at the same time.  The barber is able to take care of the hair at the top and bottom of my head in the same amount of time that it takes me just to take care of the bottom (i.e. about 45 minutes).  While the shaves that I've received from the barbers at this shop have not been amazing, they have generally been adequate, and blood-free.

This evening, however, while I still did enjoy the extras provided by a professional shave (the several applications of various facial creams, etc.) I left the barber shop with a face that was woefully far from the level of smoothness that I've come to expect from a professional (or home) shave. 

Now, let me be clear here:  The barber, who is professionally trained in cutting and trimming hair, used two applications of shaving lotion, did an entire shearing of the whiskers by use of a brand-new-from-the-package straight razor blade, applied talcum powder, went over most of my face again with an electric razor, and still left me feeling like I had 1/2 a day's growth on my neck.  On top of this, I was bleeding in several places, and it was only through my barber's professional skills in speeding up the blood-clotting process that I didn't leave the shop looking like I had been cuddling a hedgehog. 

If my facial-growth can withstand the best efforts of a professional hair cutter who is armed with the top level tools of his trade, what hope do I have for shaving at home in less time than it takes to watch a standard episode of Lost (without commercials)?  Does any other man out there experience anything close to this level of shaving frustration?

Incidentally, for those men who regularly shave at home, I would highly recommend an electric razor in the higher-end Philips line.  I currently use the Philishave 8150, which is sadly no longer available, but is comparable to the 8250, which should be found in Canada.  It cost me about $150, but it was well worth it.  

Another shaving item that I've used for years is Nik-Aid, which is also, sadly, no longer available.  It looks kinda like lip gloss, but you apply it to your face wherever you find yourself bleeding after shaving.  It causes the blood to clot within seconds, and enables you to continue with your day without having to worry if you have one of those little pieces of toilet paper still stuck to your face.

A few weeks ago I noticed that there was an expiry date on the bottom of my Nik-Aid, which said "April 2003".  I had been using a shaving product that was almost six years out of date.  I figured "well, it still works, so I'll keep using it."  Larissa, on the other hand, decided to hide it from me.  So now when I bleed from shaving, I use one of these white-ish rocks that we bought in Dubai at an Iranian spice market.  I'm not making this up. 

The rocks are milky-coloured, semi-transparent, and smell a bit like Vick's Vapor Rub.  If I find that I am bleeding, I grab one from the jar and gently drag it over the bloodied area of my face.  I've only tried them once, but they seem to work.  I'm still not completely sure what they are, but the Iranian dude said that they've been using them for years, and since there's no expiry date on the rocks, I'm fairly certain that I'll be able to get some decent mileage out of them.

I'll end this post by saying that, in the midst of writing about all this stuff, I kept stroking my poorly shorn beard and growing more frustrated, so I actually pulled out my electric shaver (and my rocks) and finished the job that my barber started a couple hours ago.  This is what the shaving curse has brought me to – it takes two men and a jar of magic Iranian blood rocks just to keep me looking like an acceptable member of society.  May the gods have mercy.

Long time readers may remember this post when I shared (in far more detail than most people are comfortable with) my daily pooing habits, along with my documentation of my body's shift from a "daily dump" routine to a "duel daily dumping" arrangement.  For those of you who have been thinking to yourselves "Gee, I wonder if Darren's bowels are still operating on the same schedule in Qatar?", I offer the following update.

Let me say right from the start that I am, indeed, still making the chocolate deposit twice every morning.  Despite time zone changes and modifications to my diet (including eating far more shwarma than I was accustomed to consuming back in Canada), my body has seen fit to stick with this arrangement, and I'm not particularly upset by this fact.  However, not everything is completely as it was back in Canada.

First, the toilet that I use in my bathroom at the apartment (I say "my" bathroom, since Larissa and I each have our own, with one still to spare!) has a much lower water pressure level than the average Canadian toilet.  While the water still goes down and whisks away my excretions, it does so in a manner that is far less assertive than I would ideally hope for.  It's like it shrugs its shoulders and says "Meh, I guess I'll stroll on down this pipe again, if you really want me to."  The offshoot of this situation is that there can often be unflushed residue which lingers at the bottom of the bowl after what I thought was a fairly productive flushing session.  Generally, this is cleared away with another flush, but sometimes in my haste to wash my hands and get on with my life, I may forget to initiate the "cleansing flush", leaving me with an unpleasant surprise the next time I visit the loo.  But this is the least of my concerns.  What is more irritating is the way that my new-found employment has been interfering with the comfortable crapping habits that I had established during the "house husband" phase of our time in Qatar.  

When I spent my days alone at home, I would generally get up at about 6 or 6:30am (I know, I'm crazy, but I'm a morning person, and it was usually the need to use the bathroom that got me up this early anyway) and begin my day by "launching the aft torpedoes" for dump number one.  Later, usually immediately after breakfast, I would be alerted to make ready for "secondary launch procedures", and would finish up dump number two.  This would be at about 7:30 or 8am.

Now that I'm working, and since I start teaching my classes each morning at 7:30am, the schedule has become somewhat "bunged up" (so to speak).  Now I wake up at 5am, fiddle about on the computer for 15 or 20 minutes, and make my first "download" at about 5:20am (just as Larissa's alarm is going off).  Breakfast follows at 5:30-ish, but since the secondary system has not yet had time to compile "number 2" number two (no, I'm not stuttering there), I find that it is still unreleased when I get on my shuttle bus at 6:20am and head over to the college.  This leads to the "all clear" from the second-shift of the waste disposal department coming down the pipe at about 7am, just after I've arrived at my office, and while I'm preparing the materials for my first class.

Now, the "urge to purge" could come at a worse time (say, while I am in class), so I shouldn't complain too much, but to be honest, I hate sliding my cheeks onto a seat that is not in my home.  No matter the cleanliness of the bathroom (and chances are the bathrooms at the college are cleaner than my bathroom at home, since they're cleaned several times each day), there's still something much more comforting in relaxing on your own throne while doing some light reading and perhaps discussing future travel plans with your wife. 

The only real upside of needing to "uncork the anal dam" at the office at 7am is that the bathrooms have not been used by anyone else that day, so the cleanliness factor is extremely high.  There have been several times this semester when I've had to "take care of business" at the college closer to noon, and let me say that the process of selecting a viable toilet becomes vastly more complicated.  It basically becomes an exercise in revising your standards lower and lower until, with a face stuck in permanent "cringe mode" and shivers running down your spine, you perform a rudimentary cleaning procedure on the least soaking-wet seat and remind yourself that urine is supposed to be sterile before taking your chances with butt-on-seat contact.

The messiness factor of the bathrooms here is further aggravated by the (often imprecise) use of the hand-held bidet hoses (or "bum guns", as my friend Darcy likes to say) by most of the non-North American toilet users.  The stalls can often look like someone has just taken a shower in them, and when you're looking into each one to see which has the lowest cringe-factor, the decision often comes down to which one has the least amount of splashes/puddles.  It may very well be clean water on the seat and floor, but it could also be water which has ricocheted off of a bum-hole, or it could be piss, or a combination thereof.  In my opinion, the drier the stall, the better.

Even after finding a nice clean stall to take care of poo number two at work, there are still several frustrations yet to deal with.  One is the lower quality toilet paper found in the pubic stalls.  Now, I will say this: the toilet paper in the college bathrooms is much better than the toilet paper in the average Canadian public bathroom that I've had the displeasure to find myself in.  On a softness and practicality scale of 1-10, with my home toilet paper being about a 9 (to make "10" you'd have to be wiping with a cashmere scarf), the toilet paper at the college is about a 7.  That is, it won't rip or tear during the wiping process, and it won't scrape off any skin either.  Most public toilet paper experiences that I've had in Canada involve using something that looks like it was assembled from the transparent reject detritus of a tissue paper factory, which, when folded, feels like you're gouging your anus with the corner of a Kleenex box.  Thankfully, the college toilet paper is of a higher standard, though wiping with it certainly isn't something I look forward to.

The other frustration, which makes me clench my teeth in anger every time I see it, is the stupid, stupid, idiotic paper towel dispenser that I'm forced to use in order to dry off my hands.  You may have encountered this design in Canada (I know I came across it several times before my arrival here in Qatar).  It looks just like any other paper towel dispenser, though when you pull the towel out a certain length, the dispenser will take it upon itself to cut the roll for you, leaving (in theory) a certain length of paper towel hanging from the dispenser, which can be grasped by the next customer.  Let me point out some of the flaws in this design:

First, the amount of paper towel that you are distributed in a single pull is just short of what is actually necessary to properly dry your hands.  I myself am a man of average-sized hands, and the entire towel is sopping wet when my hands have attained the dryness factor of merely "damp".  At this point, rubbing the towel on my hands begins to actually make them wetter, not drier.  I can't imagine what a man with more generously proportioned hands has to do to accommodate to this situation.  I'm guessing he has to grab another towel, which seems to defeat the purpose of limiting the size of the paper towels in the first place.

The second, and biggest frustration for me by far with these paper towel dispensers, is that 85% of the time, as I grasp the paper towel with both hands (following the instructions illustrated on the front of the dispenser), instead of pulling down on the towel and receiving the allotted (albeit too-short) length of paper towel promised to me, I end up tearing off two small, wet corners of paper, leaving a smaller, less-graspable piece dangling from the dispenser.  Pulling at this piece usually ends with it ripping off into my hands without engaging the dispensing mechanism of the machine, thereby leaving me with three very small towel rippings and nothing to grasp in order to receive more.  At this point, one must resort to either swearing, wiping your hands on your pants, or using the less-than-perfectly-designed hand crank at the side of the dispenser to get more towel.  I usually settle with a combination of all three options. 

A well-designed paper towel dispensing system should allow you to acquire sufficient wiping material with which to dry your hands, while eliminating any sanitary concerns which may arise from the need to touch buttons, levers, cranks, or switches that have been touched by previous users of the bathroom.  Having to use the frickin' crank every time is less than sanitary, and even when I do engage the cranking mechanism, there is still a 50% chance that it will result in a paper towel jam at the slot of the machine.  This leads to more pulling and tearing of the towels, which end up being dispensed in even more inconvenient sizes and shapes.

By the time this entire process is complete, I only have a few minutes to assemble my teaching materials for the day, double check my classroom location, march across campus, and set up my classroom for my students.  It is starting to become enough of a routine that the experience no longer has that large of a detrimental effect on my mood at the start of my morning classes, but it is an inconvenience that I could do without.  

If only I could convince my body to go back to a mono-dump morning schedule, my life would be that much better.  At the very least, I would have less crap to deal with.

I'm going to warn everyone up front – this day I took a lot of pictures.  For this reason, I'm going to split up Day 9 into two posts, just so that you're not all overwhelmed.  Well, not more overwhelmed than you usually are by the stunning photographic excellence and mind-blowingly witty writing that are often found on this blog.  I say this sarcastically, of course (it's always better to sound self-deprecating rather than egotistical – still, there must be some reason you keep coming back to this site, right?  Oh – the pictures of Larissa.  That makes sense.  Forget that I asked.)

The plan for Day 9 was to visit the ruins of Ephesus.  However, before I talk about the ruins, I would be remiss if I didn't mention a few things about sleeping in the room we were renting in Selçuk.  First of all, even though the heater in the room was set to 30 °C, and even though I was quite cozy in our bed, Larissa spent the entire evening curled in a ball and shivering.  She punctuated her shivers with sad whimpers about how cold she was.  I tried my best to warm her up, but whenever I touched her, she was actually hotter than I was!  I'm convinced that it was psychological coldness that carried over from the previous day, but I am not licensed to make an official diagnosis.

The other aspect of our room that should be mentioned is that the attached bathroom was legitimately frigid.  It was like stepping into a walk-in refrigerator, and touching your bare cheeks to the toilet seat ensured that if you were drowsy before you sat down, you were wide awake as you were taking care of business.  The only relief came from showering, although you still had to clutch your own breasts (in an effort to keep your vital organs warm) as you waited 6-8 minutes for the hot water to kick in.

After overcoming the "trial of the Arctic bathroom" and getting dressed, we had a wonderful breakfast in the "warm room", which consisted of toasted Turkish bread ("bunny loaf" – you had to be there), cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, fruit, juice, tea, coffee, and hard boiled eggs.  I stuck with mostly bread and cheese, although I did have some fruit just to keep the pooing consistency manageable (with toilets as cold as ours, you can't afford to be constipated).  With a tasty breakfast inside of us, and after a quick brushing of the teeth, we headed out to the Ephesus ruins.

As you can see (maybe?) it was grey and cold, but thankfully not rainy (yet).  The scenery in this area is beautiful, and I'm sure some sunshine would have made it look even better.  The green fields and rolling hills and mountains were a nice change from the largely flat desert we were used to in Qatar:

As we drove up the side of one of the mountains to the entrance to the ruins, we came across some sheep:

And also some goats:

We would have got closer and taken more photos of them, but a sheep-dog came running down the hill after I took this goat photo and made it clear to us that we weren't welcome.  We respected the wishes of the dog, got back in the van, and kept driving.

Hannah-Lee and Eric dropped off the rest of us at the entrance, and went back to the Guest House for a couple hours to relax.  They had been here several times already and didn't feel like they had to pay to see Ephesus again.  We agreed to meet them at the far side of the site near lunchtime, paid for our entry tickets, and made our way toward the remains of this once great city of 200,000 people:

As you can see, it was, indeed, still in ruins.  Some kind archeologists had been nice enough to set up some of the columns for us, though:

We were not the only people at the site, and there were several tour groups speaking many different languages making their way through the site as well:

The first major area we saw was the amphitheater, which had seating for… uh… a lot of Greek and Roman guys:

I took this picture from the top of the amphitheater, looking back towards the entrance:

And this is taken from the same spot, but looking to the right of the amphitheater:

Larissa thought a photo of me might add a sense of scale to this location:

I tried my best to visualize what the city might have looked like before it was left to deteriorate, but it's difficult when all of the roofs are gone.  Where did this doorway lead to in ancient times?:

I couldn't resist getting a shot or two of Larissa, since she looked so cute in her winter coat and hat:

I think this was a fountain, or an alter, or a temple or something.  Looked cool though:

I love the sense of mystery that this photo conveys.  Where does that path lead?  What's through the doorway?

I was fascinated by writing wherever I could find it.  I stared at it and tried to sound it out, wishing that my Greek and Latin were not 10 years out of practice:

When you encounter streets like this, you start to remember that you're actually walking through an ancient city, not just a small town or tourist resort:

Partway down the street in the picture above was this temple to one of the Roman emperors.  The woman carved into the area behind the main arch is Medusa.  I overheard one of the tour guides saying that she was all the fashion back when this was made:

Of course, even in ancient times, people had to sometimes pinch a loaf or drain the weasel.  When such a need arose, they would often come to a public lavatory, such as the one pictured here:

I have no idea why there were these two lone archways here, but they made for a nice picture.  Perhaps I should have read the nearby sign more carefully:

Thus ends Part 1 of Day 9.  For more pictures of Ephesus, as well as from later this same day, stay tuned for Day 9 – Part 2!

Day 7 (Christmas day) in Turkey started with my awakening to the wintry scene you see in the first picture here, which is the view from outside the window of the room that Larissa and I were sleeping in. 

I suppose that technically, my day could have started during one of the several times I awoke during the night to go pee in the bathroom down the hall – I don't know why (perhaps the cold?) but for some reason, while we've been traveling in Turkey, I've been getting up every 2 or 3 hours to use the bathroom.  It's no big deal when you have your own bathroom in a hotel, but when you're staying in someone's home, there are considerations which make nighttime pee breaks much more annoying: The need to be deadly silent, so as to not wake other sleepers, the need to navigate a strange hallway in the dark, since turning on a light could wake others as well, and the question of whether or not to flush the toilet when you're done, since this too can wake others. 

The first time I made the bathroom trek, I was proud to have utilized ninja-like stealth in staying quiet, even when I stubbed my toe on the small step into the bathroom itself.  I also made use of my keen night vision to avoid the clothes-drying rack that was in the hallway which led to the bathroom.  Finally, I decided to postpone flushing the toilet, since (knowing my bladder habits lately) I would likely be visiting the bathroom several more times before anyone else in the house could chance upon a toilet full of festering piss.

Not long after I got up for good, I decided that it might be a good idea to take a few photos of the room we were staying in, so as to give you (my loyal readers) a better reference with which to visualize the content of this post.  Here is our room, seen from the bed where we were sleeping:

You'll notice a large amount of musical and recording equipment in this room.  This is because we were actually staying in the room that Eric and Hannah-Lee use for their amateur music studio (and office).  By standing back where the microphone and headphones are, I took this photo:

Yes, that's Larissa still in bed.  She generally likes to sleep a good hour or two later than I do.  But at this point in the day, she was supposed to be getting up anyway, so I don't feel guilty for having turned on the light.  After waking Larissa (for the 3rd time) with a loving combination of gentle kisses and vigorous shaking, we made a quick Christmas phone call to her family (via Skype), and I decided that it might be a good time to jump in the shower to start to get ready for our day.

I am astounded – ASTOUNDED – by the array of products found in other people's showers.  I'm not speaking only of Hannah-Lee and Eric's shower here, but of the shower facilities of almost every person that I've ever used outside of my own.  My showering needs are simple.  In fact, there are three stages to every shower I have, only two of which require products – There's the "wash hair" stage, the "wash body" stage, and the "stand around under the water while you contemplate life" stage.  Hence, my shower products consist entirely of: one bottle of shampoo, and one bar of soap.

Imagine my confusion when I step into the showers at other people's homes, and am confronted with this:

Clearly there are things that other people are doing in the shower which are completely foreign to me. 

I notice that most of these products seem to be tailored towards women.  There are special shampoos which are for "colour treated hair" or "dry, frizzy hair", there are special conditioners (which I don't use, since my hair is so short), and there are various body washes of different scents or brands.  Perhaps if you shave in the shower, you might have some shaving cream in there too.  But I do not understand how anyone would need more than four bottles of anything in their shower.

I think that most of this craziness comes from the marketing companies who are trying to sell so many hygiene products that have specific uses.  You need to buy something special for black hair, for blonde hair, for naturally blonde hair, for dry skin, oily skin, average skin, skin of various pigmentations, etc. etc.  I'm just waiting until it goes completely out of control, and I find a bottle of "Johnson & Johnson extra strength toe-beside-your-pinky-toe medicated lubricant for Asian-Americans with slightly less-than-average skin dryness: Now specially formulated for webbed-feet!"

I think that most men are probably with me on this one – I'd like to hear any comments from you if you agree.  If I were to open a store that sold personal hygiene products for men, they would be simple and free of variation.  For instance: "Soap – Use this to wash your body", "Shampoo – Like soap, but for your hair", and "Deodorant – Smear this on your armpits each morning to secure your place in civilized North American society".  That way, there's no confusion, and far less clutter.

Needless to say, I made it through my shower without major incident.  There were a few moments of confusion as I was attempting to find shampoo, and the first bottle I picked up was "bubble bath".  The next bottle was "body wash", but on the third bottle I spotted the words "daily" and "shampoo" fairly close to each other.  I guess I could have read more closely to check if it was "daily cat shampoo", but either way, it seemed to get me clean, and I've had no flea problems since my shower.

The first major event of the day was a 10:30am brunch with several of the teachers from the school where Hannah-Lee and Eric work, along with their families.  This was being held at the apartment of one of the teachers, whose name was Lauren.  Hannah-Lee had baked some truly amazing looking (and smelling) cinnamon rolls for the occasion, and I was anxious to see if they tasted as good as they looked.  Larissa and I had a seat in the living room, and started to get to know some of the other guests:

I, however, was extremely distracted by the food, and couldn't help but take a photo of the spread as I tried not to drool:

Among the assortment of choices on the table were a delicious looking sausage, egg, and cheese casserole, and a pot of grits.  I never thought I would find grits in Turkey.

As I waited for the go-ahead to start eating, and during the lulls in conversation, I took the opportunity to take some photos, including this one of the wintertime view from Lauren's apartment.  Is this what you picture when you think of Turkey?:

After an excruciating amount of small talk, it was finally time to eat.  I am pleased to announce that Hannah-Lee's cinnamon rolls were actually better than they looked, and I am ashamed to admit that I easily devoured a full quarter of the total number of rolls on the dish – far more than my fair share.  In my defense, the quality of the rolls demanded nothing less than gluttony as the unavoidable response, and I can now safely say that I understand what it must be like to be addicted to crack, in cinnamon roll form.

After the food was eaten, the songs were sung, and the discussions of travel and cultural oddities concluded, it was time to go back "home", but not before a group photo.  Here is our entire Christmas Day Brunch group squeezed into one photo:

Larissa and I also took advantage of the presence of other people to snag a photo of the two of us together:

And, because Larissa liked the snow so much, we got another shot of us outside:

And since it was photo-taking time, we grabbed this picture of Eric, Hannah-Lee, and their niece Letitia, who was also staying in the apartment with us:

By this point it was early afternoon, and preparations needed to be made for Christmas dinner that evening.  Such preparations necessitated a trip to the grocery store, and since Larissa and I had never visited a Turkish grocery store, we tagged along for the trip.

Something that I believe is unique (and kinda cool) about Turkey is that the government has randomly installed exercise equipment throughout their cities in order to help the elderly stay in shape.  While this is a noble idea, they somehow forgot that, in order to build and maintain muscle tissue, there has to be some resistance involved in the exercise itself.  The equipment that we found is more like playground equipment that LOOKS like it should help you get in shape.  This thing allowed for a walking motion (Larissa demonstrates):

Hannah-Lee is demonstrating something that lets you move in a more skiing-type motion:

Larissa and Eric are demonstrating one of the few machines that might acutally build muscle, as it utilized one's own body weight (a shoulder-press-type machine):

And this is me demonstrating a machine that can only be used to train for turntable DJing at Turkish raves for the elderly:

The grocery store was much the same as grocery stores in Qatar or Canada, mainly with the names of chocolate bars being changed, and a severe lack of cold cereal.  The cereal that we DID find, however, was different somehow from what I was used to seeing back home:

That's right – you can get it in BAGS!  I don't know why, but this fascinated me.  We stocked up on the required items (I tried a Turkish Coca-Cola, which tastes remarkably like the Coke we have elsewhere in the world, although Eric insists that it's better) and headed back to the apartment.

I spent most of the afternoon on the computer, checking my email, uploading photos from the camera, and grumbling about a missed stock opportunity (it's a long story – I'll save it for another post).  At one point Eric came into our room to do some computer stuff of his own, and we ended up having a wonderful "show and tell" session (I love show and tell!) where we played music for each other, especially music recorded by people we know personally.  We ended up getting into a discussion about amateur recording, which I was able to participate in up to a point, after which I told Eric to get in touch with my brother, who has recorded and produced independent CDs for several local Canadian artists.

As supper time approached, we heard a ring at the doorbell, and two more guests joined us for dinner – Seth and Rachel, who were recently traveling with Eric and Hannah-Lee in Southern Asia.  Rachel joined the girls in the kitchen, while Seth and I talked for a surprisingly long time about linguistic topics, such as Turkish grammar, and the wonders of the Arabic alphabet.

Finally, it was time to sit down to our Christmas dinner.  Dinner was ham, which is a real treat for those of us who live in Muslim countries.  Eric had scored this particular ham through a contact at an American military base in Turkey.  Word of advice – if you want to smuggle any kind of forbidden item (especially pork) into a country, use the American military!

Here is a picture of the dinner table right before we sat down:

After dinner we spent some time talking about culture and traveling (which is what the conversation is usually about when it happens between North Americans in a different culture).  Later on, Eric decided to show us the video footage that he had shot of their South Asian trip, since Seth and Rachel had been on that trip, and had yet to see it.  There was a lot of footage of monkeys.

I started to doze off a bit at one point, and realized it was time to go into our bedroom and call my family (via Skype) to wish them a Merry Christmas.  By the time we came back, it was time to open some presents, so I sat down on the couch and watched the gift exchanges happen.  Eric and Hannah-Lee actually had a gift for us – some special tea from Singapore, which Larissa will enjoy more than I will.  We also gave them the gift we had brought from Qatar.  Most of the gift exchanging occurred between Eric, Hannah-Lee, and Letitia, since they are all family.  Here are Letitia and Rachel sitting on one of the couches in the middle of gift time:

As the night grew later, I found myself feeling a little chilly, so Larissa kindly volunteered to let me wear one of her new scarves for warmth:

With my sense of my own masculinity sufficiently diminished, and sleep once again creeping up upon me, we bade goodnight to Seth and Rachel, and got ready for bed.  The next day called for an early start, since it was our day to travel to Ephesus, so I did some light packing, emptied my bladder for the first of many times that night, and let Christmas 2008 drift away on a wave of bedtime slumber.

Many of my loyal readers will know that I am currently unemployed.  I am living what many consider the true dream of all men, where my wife is earning far more money than we need, and I spend my days surfing the internet and considering how much hair can build up under my computer desk before it can be considered "carpet". 

Speaking of hair, lately I have come to more fully embrace my unemployment through the growing of a beard.  Now, this beard was not entirely intentional.  It all started when Larissa and I headed off to Paris a couple weeks ago, and then two specific factors came together.  One was the beard being sported by our friend Dan, who we hung out with in Paris for a couple days (along with his wife Marie, who is not bearded).  His beard did not look too bad, and got me thinking "I bet I could grow that by the end of the week."

The other factor was that I had brought the wrong adapter for my electric shaver, so I couldn't actually plug it in while we were in Paris.  I should mention that I did end up picking up the proper plug adapter on our third day in Paris, but by that time the beard was already developing, and Larissa had  mentioned on several occasions "You know, you can grow it if you like."  I still made use of my newly-adapted shaver for taking care of the neck hair, but I let the facial hair lengthen.

The long and the short of it (but mostly the long) is that I haven't shaved since leaving for Paris, and I'm now sporting two weeks' worth of growth on my face.  Long time readers may remember this post, where I discuss in detail the many annoyances involved in my particular shaving situation.  I mentioned in that post some of the potential benefits of growing the beard, and for the most part these benefits have been realized:

• I have freed up more spare time (as if I needed it) that was otherwise taken up in shaving.  This is actually a bigger deal than it would be for most people, as my shaving routine had begun to reach the 50 minute range.  I don't know how, but that's how long it takes to make my face smooth.
• I have been able to use my face as a scratching tool for the back of my hand or my arm, eliminating the need to use my other hand for this task.  Thus, if I am carrying something in one hand (say, a nice turkey and processed-cheese sandwich with butter), I can scratch an itch on my free hand (or arm) without having to put the sandwich down first.  It all gets taken care of in the midst of the sandwich-transport procedure.
• My face has been feeling slightly warmer than it was before, which is not that big a deal (despite the hot climate in Qatar), since the temperature has been dropping lately to the point where a beard is not uncomfortable in warmer weather.
• As a bonus, I now actually fit in more with the look of the Qatari locals (as long as you ignore my clothing) which might earn me a few extra points of "street cred" (which I would completely lose as soon as I tried to speak Arabic).  However, if I could actually score myself a full thobe, I'm sure I could (silently) fit in perfectly with the Qataris.

On the other hand, as I'm spending more time engaging the reality of a fully-follicled face, I am experiencing several disadvantages which I had not foreseen (or foreseen to this extent):

• For one thing, the beard is not entirely comfortable.  Depending on where and how I touch it, it can feel like small needles prickling me, or tiny itchy spots across my face.  I'm suddenly aware of moving my chin "against the grain" when I'm lying on my pillow, and how it affects my ability to get comfortable as I'm trying to sleep.  
• Speaking of comfort, Larissa herself is not particularly enjoying the feel of this furry face-rug.  Every time I kiss her, she gets poked by small barbed-wire points, and I even find her cringing or wincing as I move closer to her in order to show her affection.  I have to move very slowly, and awkwardly maneuver my lips so as to have minimum contact between my hairy face, and her smooth, beautiful skin.  I'm concerned that it may psychologically condition her to be repulsed by my kisses.
• The most annoying thing (on a minute-by-minute basis) is how I keep playing with it.  I end up fidgeting with my beard constantly – touching the hairs, seeing how long it is, checking its prickliness, and especially using my top lip to feel the hairs growing under my bottom lip.  This last unconscious action is actually causing my jaw to feel quite sore by the end of the day.  So now this beard is having a negative effect on other adjacent areas of my body.

When it comes to the look of the beard, I can't seem to make up my mind.  Sometimes I think it looks great – that it actually makes me look like someone approaching their mid-thirties, instead of an undergrad student who can't finish his program (I've been mistaken for a student at Larissa's campus several times).  It usually depends on what I'm wearing, and strangely enough, I think it looks best on me when I'm naked.  Maybe it's just a pleasing contrast: my non-naked face beside my naked body.

But going out in public while naked is not a good idea, especially in this culture.  I don't want to know what they cut off as punishment for that crime.  And I don't want to have to get rid of all of my "doesn't look good with the beard" wardrobe.  I had decided that I would shave if I landed a decent job interview in the near future, but that still hasn't happened yet.  

I guess what I'm looking for here is a little feedback.  Take a look at the photos throughout this post (which I took earlier today) and tell me what you think of the beard.  If people generally don't like the look, maybe I'll go back to subjecting my entire face to the shaving treatment.  If people enjoy the new look, maybe I'll leave it on for a while and hope that the whiskers soften up before Larissa bans all kissing in the Conley home.

Alright everyone, I finally tidied up our new apartment to the point where I can take pictures and post them online without getting in trouble from Larissa for making us look like slobs.  In the interest of full disclosure, however, I should point out that there was a pile of clothes that got moved to several different rooms during the picture-taking process, and which you will not see making an appearance in any of these photographs. 

I'll do my best to post these in a logical and descriptive fashion.  If you click on each thumbnail, you should be able to see a large(r) version of each picture.  You may also get some hidden information about each picture (and every picture on this website, in fact) by hovering over the thumbnail with your mouse.  Finally, if you're reading this post through Facebook, not every picture may display properly.  The best thing to do is go to www.darrenconley.com and view this post directly.  On to the photos!

Living Room 1: This is the view of our apartment that you'll see as soon as you walk in our door.  You pretty much step into our living room, while you'll notice the dining room behind it.  Between the living room and dining room, a hallway extends to the right (see the Hallway photo below).  Right beside the entrance, to the right of this view (and outside this picture) is a bathroom which we haven't yet used (see Bathroom 1 below).

Living Room 2: This is the same room, but looking from the other direction.  The door to our apartment is at the back right of the photo, and the door to "Bathroom 1" is on the left, behind where you see the TV.  The chair beside the TV is just filling space until we buy a floor plant.  I'd personally like a tall, non-intrusive tree.

Bathroom 1: Here's that bathroom that I mentioned above.  Until yesterday, the toilet had a leak, so we haven't got it fully cleaned up yet.  There's a showering apparatus on the right wall, which has no curtain and a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor.  There's also an alternative to a bidet on the left of the toilet (unseen in this photo) which is essentially a hose with a squeeze-and-spray shower head thingy attached to it.  I'm guessing that you're supposed to point this at your bum and give it a good wash after you take care of business.  I haven't summoned the courage to try it out though.  This bum-cleaner hose is found in most of the public toilet stalls here.  As you can see, we're also using this bathroom for storing our cleaning supplies and extra water jugs.

 Dining Room: Here is a close-up of the dining room area, with a seemingly odd arrangement of our chairs.  Our table actually came with 6 chairs, but since there are only two people making regular use of the table, there was no need to crowd 6 chairs around it all the time.  One of the chairs can be seen filling space in the Living room (see the photos above), and the other two are strategically placed in the corners of the room to allow for maximum symmetry.  Since this photo was taken, these two chairs have been moved into our bedroom (though you won't see them in the photos of the bedroom below) and are being used to chuck clothes onto for future wearing.  You also get to see our water cooler here, which is hiding a box of Frosted Flakes cereal (called "Frosties" here) on its left side.

Hallway: Not the most exciting photo in the stack.  This is the hallway that leads off to the right of the Living Room 1 picture above.  On the right is the door to our kitchen, and further down on the right is the door to Bathroom 2 (see below).  On the left are the doors to our two bedrooms, and straight at the end of the hall is our office, where you'll find the en-suite bathroom (known in this post as "Bathroom 3").

Kitchen 1: The view you get of our kitchen as soon as you enter.  On the far left (outside the picture) is our fridge.  Moving to the right, you'll see our oven/stove (the stove elements have a cover over them in this shot), our sink, the dishwasher and clothes washer on the floor, and our kettle, microwave, and toaster above them.  There's a fire extinguisher on the right of the picture, but hopefully we won't have to use it.  Unless I'm doing the cooking.  The microwave might get moved between the fridge and the oven.  I'll probably not post an updated picture of that when it happens.  You'll have to look at this picture and use your imaginations, people!

Kitchen 2: Here you finally get to see our fridge, and the (possible) future location of the microwave oven.  I will have to move those water bottles to make the change, though.  Hmmm… this is starting to sound like there's a little too much effort involved.  By the way, if you look between the fridge and the (soon to be microwave) counter, you'll see our little stash of plastic bags.  We've accumulated quite a pile after only two weeks in Qatar, but that's what happens when you go shopping every night!

 Bathroom 2a: This is the main bathroom that we use, and actually the only bathroom that I've fully cleaned since we moved in.  This is the right side of the bathroom as you walk in, and you can see our toilet, our stylish shower curtain (which I installed myself – let it not be said that I have no handyman skills!) and our full bidet, which I have also never used.  I'm actually hoping that I can find a bidet tutorial online somewhere – I'm just afraid of how graphic the diagrams might be.

 Bathroom 2b: Another angle of our main bathroom, this time looking to the left.  There are no storage cabinets, so all of our bathroom stuff is piled onto the glass shelves that you see beside the sink.  There are also no electrical outlets in any of our three bathrooms, so any plug-in bathroom items have to be used in another room.  My electric shaver is currently in our office, our electric toothbrush is in the spare bedroom (Bedroom 2), and Larissa's hairdryer and hair straightener are sharing plug-space with the toothbrush.  You may catch a glimpse of the electric toothbrush in one of the "Bedroom 2" pictures below, but not the hair appliances.  They're a little shy.

 Bedroom 1a: This is the "Master Bedroom", which is pretty much the same size as the other bedroom, but has two windows.  If you're updating your mental layout of the apartment, this is the room through the door on the back left of the "Hallway" photo.  The view that you see here is how it looks as soon as you enter the room (you can actually see the door handle and keys to the room at the left of the picture).  Our bedspread will change sometime in the next day or two – these sheets were purchased quickly so as to prevent us having to sleep on an unclad mattress on our first night at the apartment.  Picking out the side-table lamps took, like, a week, if you can believe it.

Bedroom 1b: Looking at the bedroom from the other side of the bed, so that you can see our dresser.  I wouldn't want you to miss out on seeing our dresser.  Dresser affectionados the world over would be writing to me, asking to get a better view of our dresser.  You also get a better view of Larissa's many moisturizing products, found on the left side of the all-important dresser.

 Bedroom 1c: A final view of our bedroom, this time from the head of our bed and looking toward our wardrobe.  By the way, all of the furniture that you see in these pictures came with the apartment, and we're obligated to keep it and return it in good condition at the end of our 3 year contract here.  So if you don't like any of the furniture, don't blame our taste in home-decor.  You can blame us for the lamps, pictures, sheets, rugs, and dishes, though.  Not that you can see any of those things in this picture.

View 1a: I know that this isn't technically a picture of our apartment, but this is the view that you'll see FROM our apartment, if you were to kneel on our bed an look out the window that is behind it.  Actually, this is the view if you look to the right out of that window.  I still don't know the name of this street, but it gets fairly busy as the day moves on.  The street running roughly from left to right in this photo is a major commercial street, and the street where we do most of our grocery shopping, eating out, and internet cafe-ing.  In front of that street, you get a great look at a rubble field or two.  There are many of these in Doha.

View 1b: This view is from the same window as above, but looking more to the left.  The colour that most of these houses are is pretty standard for Qatar.  Also pretty standard are air-conditioning units on the roofs, along with water heaters and satellite dishes.  If you look closely, you'll see a couple of the towers that they use to broadcast the call to prayer 5 times each day.  If you look even more closely, you'll see the dirt on the window through which I took this picture.

 View 2a: This is the view from the other window in our bedroom, which you can see on the left side of the picture called Bedroom 1c.  It faces the area to the right of the photos above.  I'm pretty sure it faces West, if you want to be more specific (since the sun comes through those windows in the afternoon), but I haven't actually pulled out a compass to make certain.  One of the first things you'll notice in this photo are the big piles of rubble which used to be buildings.  Something else you'll notice is how dirty the window is through which I took this picture.  A major cause of the dirtiness is the dust from the rubble.

View 2b: This is looking a bit further to the right (North?) of the photo above.  You can still see the rubble, and you can still see the dirt on the window.  There are also some more indications of nearby civilization.  I've never explored out along the street shown here, but I'm sure it just leads through a residential area.  By the way, there is 24hr construction (or demolition, rather) going on in that rubble field.  I think they're breaking it up into very small pieces, sorting the metal from the concrete, and then hauling it all away to be used for more construction.

Bedroom 2a: Here is the spare bedroom, or, if any of you would care to visit us, the "guest bedroom".  Once again, in that hallway picture above, this is the door closest to you on the left.  We haven't bought sheets for the bed yet, but once we get a proper duvet for the master bedroom, the sheets from that bed will be moved here.  So if you want to know what it will look like when you visit, transplant the sheets from bedroom 1 in your mind.  The dresser is the same as the one in the other bedroom, and the view through the window is the same as "View 1a" and "View 1b" above.

Bedroom 2b: Another view of the spare bedroom, this time looking at the bed from the other side of the room.  There's a very nice side table, which we will keep empty so that visiting guests can fill it with their toiletries and surprise-gifts that they've brought us.  Guests are also welcome to use the drawers in the dresser, pictured above, although I can't guarantee that those drawers will be completely empty.  I also cannot speak of what might be found in those drawers on the internet.  You'll have to come to Qatar and ask me in person.  If you're wondering what's above the bed, it's the power switch and remote control for the air conditioning unit, which you can't see in this picture.

Bedroom 2c: Another view of the same bedroom, but now you get to see to the left of the dresser.  As you can see, there's a large set of storage cupboards built into the wall.  Currently these cupboards are filled with empty boxes, my spring jacket, and a suitcase or two.  I can plainly tell you what is in these cupboards, because these cupboards are not the dresser.  Do not ask about the dresser.  It's classified.  Unless you talk to me in person.  In Qatar.  In the quiet corner of a well-lit eating establishment.  Where you're picking up the bill!

Office 1: This is actually another bedroom, and in fact, this is where the bed from the spare bedroom was first deposited when we moved in.  We moved it to the other bedroom, and made this room the office.  The door that you see on the left side of the photo is the open door that was at the end of the Hallway photo, and that desk chair can be seen in the Hallway photo too.  We moved that large comfy-chair out of the living room (there was no space), and we moved the corner-desk thing (where the desk chair is) out of the spare bedroom when we made this the office.  We don't have enough books for the bookshelf, so it's currently storing odds-and-ends (you'll notice my electric shaver on the bottom shelf).  The view out the window is the same as "View 2a" and "View 2b" above.

Office 2: Another view of the office, this time standing in the doorway and looking to the right.  We have another cupboard unit built into the wall here, and I'm using it as my closet right now.  We have some more luggage stored in the top cupboard.  You also get to see our drying rack, which is not fancy, but gets the job done.  You'll notice that there is no dresser in this room.  Actually, there was, when we moved in.  But we moved it to the spare bedroom.  And now we don't talk about it.  Stop bringing it up.

Office 3: This picture is mostly just to show you the doorway to the en-suite bathroom.  You may be wondering why we didn't use this room as the master bedroom, since this is the only bedroom with an en-suite.  Well, the simple fact is, this room is pretty small.  In fact, it was so small that there was no good way to position the bed and still allow ourselves access to the dresser and cupboards.  So it's an office with an en-suite bathroom, which works out great if you stay on the computer too long, and don't think you can make it to another toilet before your bladder explodes.  Although technically, the toilet in "Bathroom 2" is probably just as close, if not closer.

Bathroom 3a: Here is the final room of the apartment: the third bathroom.  This bathroom is actually the largest bathroom in our apartment, and it gets the most natural light.  It's also the bathroom that we use the least.  We haven't actually used it at all.  It just happened that "Bathroom 2" was closer to the rooms that we use most often, so that was the bathroom that got cleaned first and outfitted with a shower curtain and toilet paper etc.  This bathroom is, of course, fully functional, but the tub and the toilet need a good cleaning before I would feel comfortable using them.

Bathroom 3b: In case you were wondering what the toilet actually looks like, you can see it in this picture.  You can also see our second bidet.  Seriously, if anyone knows of a good bidet tutorial, or if any of you have used one regularly in the past and are comfortable in providing instructions (but not accompanying photos or illustrations, please!), feel free to hook me up with the 411 on bum-washing.  I'm just not that excited about a stream of water shooting up my anus.  Ahem.  This picture also shows the bath-mat that I purchased before Larissa found a better one for the other bathroom.  Yeah, let's just focus on the bath mat instead of the bidet.  UPDATED – Found a decent bidet tutorial on this website!

Outside hall: Now you can pretend that you're leaving our apartment (through the living room) and walking out into the hallway outside our door.  If you want to get the full effect of this experience, imagine yourself leaving a delightfully air-conditioned apartment and stepping out into a very warm hallway, which looks deceptively cool at first glance.  You could then imagine yourself walking down a downright hot set of stairs to the ground floor of the building, and then through another warm hallway and through the front doors into the inferno-like furnace that is outdoor Qatar in August.

Bus: And if you were an employee of CNA-Q, you might be walking outside so that you could get onto one of the company-provided buses, the interior of which you can see in this photo.  The bus is actually the size of a very large passenger van, and seats about… 21 or 22?  Every seat has its own air-conditioning vent (you can see them along the ceiling), and is quite comfortable.  Also, it's free, and driven by someone who actually knows where they're going (most of the time – see this post).

So there you have it – Our apartment (plus some extra photos of the surrounding area) packaged and delivered in one blog post.  If you are especially gifted in the area of spacial relations, you can stare at our pictures for a while and then try to walk through our apartment in your imagination.  It will almost be like you're actually here, without the benefit of personal interaction with Larissa and I.  And let's face it, the best part of being in our apartment is interacting with us.  It's certainly not the bidets.  Ugh…

As a short-haired male, I don't have many criteria when it comes to choosing appropriate products for hair care.  I don't need to worry about split ends, oily, dry, color-treated, or damaged hair.  I'm not looking for extra shine, volume, body, or bounce.  And I don't have dandruff issues to worry about either.  Really, I just want my hair to be clean.

Having said that, my main criteria for choosing a suitable shampoo is price.  This one without the fancy name-brand labeling costs me half the price of the latest "salon recommended" brand, so why not buy it?  I may not buy something that says "Billy Bob's 2-in-1 Discount Shampoo and Beer Stain Remover", but if it looks legitimate enough to clean my hair without breaking the bank, I'll pick it up.

Well it's time to add a new criteria to the list: Smell.

The latest discount shampoo that I decided to invest in was Pert Plus 'Fresh' 2-in-1 Shampoo plus Conditioner, and not long after opening it up, I knew I had made a mistake.  Long time readers will remember this post, where I  described having accidentally stepped into a small outdoor pond while doing some meter reading last year.  My shampoo smelled exactly the way my foot smelled after I had that accident.  Somewhere on the label, they had forgotten to mention that it was "festering pond chemical" scented.  Suddenly a routine showering task had become a reminder of a nauseating past traumatic event.

I resolved to find a new shampoo to replace the bottle of Pert Plus which had inflicted its horrid nasal oppression upon me.  Of course, I kept forgetting (how many men think about shampoo when they're not on the actual shampoo aisle of a store?) and so was forced to hold my breath through the entire hair-washing process for several days.  Finally, while killing time at a drug store one day (wow, does that sound sad to say), I remembered my shampooing situation, and took action to remedy it.

This time, not only did I look at price – I opened every bottle of shampoo and gave them a good, hearty sniff before settling on my new choice.  It's the discount store brand, it's inexpensive (that's the nicer way to say "cheap"), and it smells like strawberries.  Now my showers remind me of "dessert" instead of "fetid pond".

Some men might feel like their masculinity would be threatened by strawberry scented shampoo.  Not me.  I know that it takes a big man to walk around with hair that smells like strawberries. 

And it takes an even bigger man to write about it on the internet.