Chapter 23

Finally I could sleep as much as I wanted, and I didn’t regain consciousness until 11 AM, though I went to bed just a bit after midnight. I stayed in bed a bit longer, and fired up the PlayStation game I just bought, Dead Space 3. I’m playing as some kind of soldier from the future, shooting zombies in a futuristic city or in space. I’m not sure I quite understand the whole plot, as I didn’t play the first two installments, so I just follow what they tell me and dismember zombies with my gun when they appear.

The girlfriend brought me fried noodles, that I devoured. Then I got dressed and went to the gate of my apartment complex, where the guy from the driving school picked me up. I failed the driving test on my first try like a total derp and don’t want it to happen again, so I went to get a bit more practice and clarifications about how the computer in the examination car will operate.

I got back, bought some groceries and cleaned the kitchen. I ate some bread and nutty pepper dip while watching some videos about the upcoming UFC card. The UFC does a series of short videos called Embedded that follow the fighters and their entourage on the week before a big PPV event, and I enjoy these a lot. One thing I particularly like about MMA is the personality of contestants really shining through, whether they are gregarious and approachable, hyper-focused, goofy, thuggish, or mysterious (especially in the case of foreign fighters who don’t speak English) and it’s interesting to see how the whole machine runs backstage. Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor fought once in 2013 while they were both going up the rankings, and had been hostile to one another throughout the whole build-up, getting in each other’s face and exchanging insults. Now, they are very cordial and even friendly. Either way, there’s no doubt that they will try to rip each other’s head off when the bell rings.

One black metal band that has received a bit of hype recently (well, as much hype as something in that restricted of a niche can get) is Ferriterium, from France. I listened to their album Calvaire and it is excellent, a fast-paced and harsh yet beautiful piece of music.

I went to the martial arts gym. Two Chinese men were training, one came to me with the ear-to-ear smile that is the main symptom of the fascination they have with my foreign face, and he told me that my beard looks like Santa Claus’s (which in Chinese translates as “Christmas old man”). It’s a bit of an exaggeration but I thanked him for his compliment. I trained takedowns and takedown defense with my Ukrainian buddy for about an hour, focusing on attacks on the collar and on the gi belt.

The girlfriend cooked chicken wings with Coca-Cola, a cool hybrid Chinese recipe, alongside rice and steamed broccoli. I felt drained from the training, but after taking a few glugs of Goose Island IPA and taking a cold shower, my energy came back and we ate our meal while watching two episodes of The Office. The dog was a bit restless, and we realized he hadn’t been out today, so we got dressed and went outside for a bit.

“We were supposed to go to Japan and Indonesia this winter holiday. Now, because of the Chinese virus, we can’t even leave the city!”

She flicked me in the testicles with the back of her hand. “I hate you! Stop calling it the Chinese virus! That’s racist!”

I like pushing her buttons. She is convinced that covid-19 is an American conspiracy.

We got home and I washed the dishes, as per our unwritten agreement. She cooked, I clean, and vice-versa. I kinda like doing the dishes, the hot water on my hands, the scrubbing, the feeling of accomplishment seeing a pile of sticky dirty plates and pots and utensils turn clean. I finished listening to a mixtape by DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill, that’s been playing intermittently all day.

We sat on the couch and watched cooking videos. If it’s not obvious by now, I love cooking, and so does she. Our favorite cooking channel is Food Wishes, Chef John’s two most recent videos were about peppercorn-covered pork chops with a pepper relish, and a mashed potato and cod gratin. Expect to see me make both  these dishes in the very near future.