I have no photographic evidence.

I went snorkeling at Shark Ray Alley today.

Right after we fed the sharks and the fishies, we went swimming with them.

Oddly enough, I was less scared among a bunch of sharks and stingrays compared to when I saw one shark earlier in the day. (By the by, nurse sharks have better shit to do than chase after snorkelers.)

Our guide caught a shark by its tail and held it for a while. I got to hold it, too. Its skin is surprisingly rough.

Then, I held a stingray...alas, not for very long. In contrast to the shark, the stingray is extremely slippery.

And right as we were swimming back to our boat, I spotted a sea turtle.

I ♥ Belize.

The longass SFO-BZE saga

American Airlines has hit a whole new level of incompetence.

They turned me down at the check-in counter because they were convinced (and arrogantly so) that I need a visa to enter Belize. Rather than go home, I bought a day-pass to have interweb access and got online to double check visa requirements. I called a friend on my Badass Women list to ask her do the research with me. When I saw a site that said I did indeed need a visa, I texted my friend with the bad news, then called American Airlines reservations to see if I could still cancel my ticket. Certain restrictions applied, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. While I was on the phone, Kickass friend emailed me two links that said I did NOT need a visa. This info confused me, sure, but it also gave me the tiiiiiiny bit of hope I needed to fight bullshit.

I asked the lady on the phone if she could check Belize visa requirements for a Turkish citizen, and she said that I could fly as long as I had a form I512 -- Parole for Reentry into the US.

— Um, I have that form.
— You do? Then you can fly!
— Are you sure? They told me very firmly I couldn't.

So the lady stayed on the phone with me and I went to the desk to talk to a supervisor. Turns out the arrogant guy who wouldn't listen to me was the supervisor. Super.

I tried to explain myself to him, and he kept insisting I couldn't fly. I handed the Angel on the Phone, Kim (Angel for short) over to Arrogant Supervisor, Salesh (ASS for short). He was a jerk to her, too, and he just wouldn't listen. Big surprise.

At some point, ASS just gave me back my phone and walked away. Hold music. When Angel came back online with "Sir, are you still there?" I had to tell her that he had walked away to the other side of the check-in desks. She told me I had to find someone else to talk to because he was hugely misinformed. She said that he was convinced I couldn't go because he had it in his head that my trip originated in Turkey. (I thought I heard him say something like that on the phone, but I dismissed it thinking I must have heard him wrong.) "Aren't you standing right there in front of him in San Francisco?" Why yes; yes, I am. This man was creating his own reality, it seemed, to make sure I could not get on the plane.

I suddenly found myself thinking of this man as an allegorical figure in the story that is my life. No mere human being could embody this much malevolence against little ol' me, right? I mean, doesn't this shit happen as a normal occurrence in countries that are in the middle of war? Then again, I realized, when has SFO not been a war zone for me? When has the US been safe for immigrants? Sometimes I wonder if I'm better off not being clued into these insights and life lessons.

Angel kept talking to me. "No matter what happens at the end of all this," she said, "you must file a complaint. I am so sorry that what you're going through is appalling." I felt a tiny bit of sanity settle into my body in that moment. Someone else was out there witnessing this. I needed her. "Listen," she said, in a tone that made me feel once again like I was in a movie—this was the scene in which I was about to given the highly confidential information for which my life was in danger. (I recently watched Enemy of the State, can you tell?) "You need to find someone else to talk to. Is there another supervisor there?" There wasn't. ASS was it, unfortunately. "Any other agents?" There was the surly woman who had initially refused to check me in and who had also refused to double check that the information she had was correct. There was the other lady who refused to talk to me because I wasn't flying First Class. And then there was the man whom I hadn't had any interaction with yet; he was tall, and he used his height to look over my head and not acknowledge me when I stood in front of him earlier. So I guess you could say we had had an interaction. Still, he was my only hope.

Tall Guy pulled the same move. He looked over my head and tried to signal to the person in line in front of him. I told him I had been in the same damn line and it's not my fault if the supervisor who was assisting me walked away. "Do you really think I should have to move to the back of each line every time someone walks away from me, sir?" He didn't respond. I remembered Angel, who was still with me on the phone. I told Tall Guy that I had an American Airlines rep on the phone with me that wanted to speak with him. "I don't talk on the cell phone," he said. "What???" He repeated, "I don't talk .. phones. You can try my supervisor." I sighed. "Yes, but the whole point is, the lady on the phone would like to talk to you, or someone other than your supervisor." His answer? "I don't talk .. phones." We had this same exact conversation two more times before I returned to Angel, my witness. She asked me to get his name. Charlie. Angel asked for his last name. "What's your last name?" I spelled it for him. He put in my info and told me nothing was showing up. "I know. That's why this lady would like to speak with you. She needs you to reissue the ticket." You can probably predict his response. "I don't talk on the phone. If you'd like to, I can pass you over to my supervisor."

(This interaction, by the way, is why I think my life resembles Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." I'm not even going to identify all the parallels. If you've read the play and don't see the parallels, I'd love to buy you're a drink sometime, explain & discuss.)

I gathered my shitº and walked over to the supervisor. I told him Angel would like to speak with him again. I don't know what they talked about during this time. All I heard from ASS was, "Ma'am, if you'd like to go ahead and try to tell me how to do my job…"

Well. Fortunately, Angel must have wanted to go ahead and teach him how to do his job, because ASS hung up the phone, walked over to me, gave me my phone back, and when I asked him why he hung up, upset to have lost Angel, he told me to go over to the desk at the end of the section to check in.
I walked back to Surly Lady. In front of her was a line with an older guy in a suit (your stereotypical rich white guy type) and a big family behind him. I turned to the line and asked with a desperate look, "What time is your flight?" The guy in the fornt answered with "No." Wha? "No. I need to… You've already cut the line once." Oh, really? "Look, I've been in this line two hours before you even got here, going between three different desks. Besides, I was just asking, so there's no need for you to snap at me, sir." I felt myself fuming, the tears finally coming. I walked to the back of the line. The guy who was with the big family turned to me and smiled. "You can go in front of us." I thanked him again and again, dragged my shit and walked to the front of the line. And that's when my tears finally let themselves out. Kindness. That's what moves me to tears.

At the counter, Surly Lady couldn't figure shit out, so ASS returned and punched in some stuff that made my reissued ticket appear on the screen. He tagged my bag and literally threw it onto the conveyor belt. Duly noted. All right, ASS, I thought to myself; whatever makes your emasculated self feel better. I'm going to Belize, dammit.

I got to my gate just in time for boarding. Unfortunately, my flight was delayed. I began sending texts and calling friends to give updates. I emailed mom; the last she heard from me was when I called her to tell her I wasn't able to check in. She was half asleep and sad for me, I could tell.

While I was commiserating with V. on the phone, I heard another call come in. An 800 number. Angel! In my wisdom, I had asked for her number in case we lost connection. Since she didn't have a direct line, I had given her my number. I told V "I gotta go! I gotta go! Bye!" and managed to switch on over to Angel. She said my name with a question mark at the end, and I thought I was going to cry. "It's Kim." I didn't need her to tell me. "Hi! Thank you soooooo much!!!" She told me she was just calling to make sure everything worked out. I asked her about the complaint letter and how to go about submitting it. She took the time and talked me through everything I should mention and coached me through the process. She gave me ASS's full name (Why protect the guilty? His name is Salesh Narain.) and told me he had hung up on her. "My supervisor and I had to talk him through how to read the information he was looking at correctly. He sorely lacks training, and we'll take care of that part on our own end." So she had literally gone ahead and told him how to do his job. I asked for her full name, so I could shower her with the praise she deserves in my complaint letter. Thank you, Kim Lauber, for being a NICE human being and for bearing witness. Thank you for calling back. Thank you for being kind, and for knowing the basic rule about customer service—treat the customer like she's a fellow human being. Thank you for being an Angel.



My flight got delayed. And more delayed. And more delayed. I was told my best bet was to stay on this flight to LAX since it was the holidays, and lots of people were traveling, and the connecting flight would know there were a number of us coming from a delayed flight, the weather sucked, etc., etc. Turns out this was bad advice. My connecting flight was not delayed. I called American Airlines once again to see what options I had at this point. Meanwhile, my flight's gate finally opened. We were about to board. So there I was on the phone with a sales rep, trying to figure out if my best bet was to fly and be stranded in LAX or Miami, or to stay and fly out the next day with a completely rerouted flight. The lady on the phone finally figured out my best bet was to spend the night in SF, fly to Dallas the next day, spend the night (on my own dime!) in Dallas, and fly out to Belize the next morning. Fine. Just get me to Belize as soon as possible.

I got a ride from another angel in my life—the angel who had dropped me off at the airport five hours earlier, and who had to drop me off too early for the flight because he had a gig to rush to. If he hadn't dropped me off with time to spare, I know that by the time ASS figured out how to read my documents and the visa requirements correctly, he would have been able to tell me the flight must already be boarding and drop it all right there and then.

I got home from my soul crushing experience at SFO, wrote an email to friends I don't mind turning to for help asking if anyone could give me a ride back to SFO the next day because I knew I'dl be an emotional mess on my way there, dreading going through the same thing all over again.

As soon as I hit Send, I started sobbing.

It felt like I was letting out years of frustration and anger. And years of pure hurt. Yes. More than anything, all this bureaucratic nightmare hurts me. Deep.

I caught myself, once again, thinking "I'm tired of being Turkish" when what I really meant was something quite different. My soul is tired of going through absurd amounts of red tape and being subjected to arrogant assholes who think my foreign passport translates to "please treat this woman like shit, with the least amount of respect you can get away with."

It's pretty amazing when I think about it that I still love traveling so much. I am grateful for my stubbornness.


And today, in about half an hour, Kickass Friend, who sent me the email with the links that showed I did not need a visa to Belize, is going to pick me up and take me back to SFO. I have sharpened my knives and tended to my soul since last night.



I'm going to Belize, dammit.













º jackets (I was fuming and didn't need jackets to keep me warm anymore), laptop, passport, bag yet to be checked in—all this shit that I had been dragging back and forth between desks the whole time, by the way. And lest you think this is bad, I've done this same thing pre-cell phone and on crutches before.

gushing and blushing

I.

I read my horoscope today.

This is what it said:

There's a new elective surgery that makes it impossible to ever blush again. It's an expensive procedure that involves boring a hole in your armpit and cutting the nerve endings that are responsible. I wouldn't recommend it for you, even though you're entering a phase when you'll be more prone than usual to blushing. Why? Because, according to my projections, your main reason for blushing in the coming days will be due to receiving sudden, unexpected, or long-withheld praise. I believe it'll be a time when you're acknowledged for the good things you do. Blush away!


I thought, great. Bring on the praises. I could use the boost this week.






II.

During lunch, a parent volunteer came up to me and asked if I had a minute. She said I've changed her life and she wanted to tell me about it. Uh, hell yeah, I have a minute. This lady is the mother of a sophomore I had in my class last term, and she said she waited until he was no longer in my class to tell me this story.

When she was here for the open house two years ago, when her son was applying as an 8th grader, she ended up in my class. I taught a poem—either Genny Lim's "Sweet n' Sour" or W. H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Artes," I think. The mom told me that she learned English as a second language in high school, and she was traumatized as a student of English by a terrible English teacher. She did not know until the last minute if she was going to pass her class; at the same time, ironically, she was the valedictorian of her class on graduation day because of her amazing accomplishment—mastering English in three years. (Interestingly enough, I also was the student who gave the graduation address in English to my high school classmates in Turkey.)

For the first time after all those years, this woman sat in my class, read and discussed a poem, and she was surprised to find herself thinking "I can do this!" She told me this story today because "I had to let you know," she said, and because inspired by me, my class and her experience in it, she's gone back to college, is now taking English courses, and she says "I never want to stop taking English classes."