Chapter 31

BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! I got pulled out of my sleep as fast as if I got a bucket of cold water thrown in my face. It was still dark outside, I peeked at my phone, 6:04. I hope the cunt released the firecracker too late and he lost fingers in the process, boy would that be grand.

For whatever reason the remainder of the morning was quiet, and I got a few more hours of sleep until a triangle-faced animal poked me on the cheek and nibbled on my earlobe. I played with him a little bit, throwing his piece of rope around from my supine position for him to fetch it.

I put on some good hip-hop to start the day properly: first a compilation of remixes from MF DOOM, the great prolific mysterious lyricist who passed away a few months ago, and then a mixtape from Action Bronson, the big fat former cook and eccentric MC from Queens NY. I reheated some of the spaghetti from the night before, and watched some UFC fights from last week that I had missed. One of them featured Roxanne Modafferi, one of MMA’s strangest fighters. She is unathletic and unorthodox, has poor vision which causes her to be constantly blinking and squinting when she’s not wearing her thick glasses, and is a former English teacher with a corny, upbeat, endearing personality far away from the alpha-macho stereotype of pro fighters. Still, she’s been fighting for almost two decades now (which is even more impressive given how niche and underground women’s MMA was when she got started), alternating wins and losses. I for one think she is cool as shit and always root for her, but this wasn’t her night, as she got pieced up by a muscular Brazilian chick who is better than her in every facet of the game.

Then we went for a drive, as we needed to put gas in the car. The pump attendant put the nozzle on automatic and then went to another car. When the nozzle clanked, I added a bit more gas manually until it got to a round number, but I went a teeny bit over, to a total of 240.01 yuan. Now, the way things work in China, they nearly always round up or down to one decimal point, as the 0.01 yuan coin (the fen) is all but obsolete and in fact, the last time I’ve ever seen one in circulation is over 10 years ago. So I handed the lady 240 yuan cash, but she told me I still needed to pay the 0.01. Areyoufuckenkiddingme.jpg... The girlfriend paid the 0.01 with her phone.

After that we went to the huge municipal gym complex to play badminton for an hour. We both love badminton, and it’s been a while since we played. On the way out, I asked the women at the counter if there are any amateur tournaments taking place, and she told me to talk to a group of guys playing in the corner court who seemed pretty badass, I got their contact info and they added me to a group chat for my city’s badminton club. Now that Brazilian jiu-jitsu is off the table for the time being, might as well keep my options open.

The girlfriend and I seldom if ever argue, and I’ll give her most of the credit. She has a very patient and forgiving nature regarding all the stupid shit I do, and she almost never irritates me. And when there’s a disagreement, more often than not we communicate honestly and solve it. But I have to say, ever since we got the car from her parents, the number of shouting matches have increased drastically, usually stemming from a dangerous or clumsy maneuver she makes and me giving her constructive pointers (how I view it)/nagging her (how she views it). That’s something we need to work on, both her and I.

That said, she’s been improving a lot, and now my butthole is puckered to only about 10-15% of its puckering capacity when I’m on the passenger seat. We went back home, put the leash on the dog, and walked a half hour to our favorite Japanese restaurant. Our city has a lot of Japanese expatriates working in factories, so it also has a few strips of seedy bars servicing that clientele (where Westerners are marginally welcome if not banned altogether) and a number of badass authentic Japanese restaurants. The one we always go to is all decked in a Japanese wooden decor, with bilingual staff yelling an effusive “Irrashaimaseeeeehhh!!!” when you open the door. We ordered the same thing we always do: pickled seaweed, shrimp tempura, a seafood pancake, a mixed plate of sushi pieces, and my favorite, fried breaded shrimp sushi rolls. She got a large glass of plum liqueur, and I double fisted it with a Kirin beer and some sake. When you are a regular customer, you can just buy a large bottle of sake or whisky or whatever and leave it at the bar with your name on it, my 1.8-L sake bottle was labeled 蛋头 “egghead” because I had just shaved my head last time I bought one.

On the way home, there’s a new wine bar I wanted to check out, and when we peaked inside, my Croatian coworker was there with his girlfriend, perusing the wine bottles. So we had an impromptu double date over a bottle of white sauvignon from New Zealand. The place also sells an eclectic selection of imported food like marmalade, cheese, sausages, cookies, and British crisps, we bought some goodies to go.

The Croat was asking me about the PGCE (post-graduate certificate in education) that I’ve done two years ago, and that our company subsidizes. I told him how it feels like a big heavy vinegary set of genitals slapping you in the face repeatedly for weeks at a time, but ultimately it’s worth the effort. Doing that course while working full-time and prepping a brand new curriculum (teaching British A-levels after years of teaching American AP) sure wasn’t good for my sanity but I was well supported and I am glad I did it, both for my own professional development and for my future employment prospects.

We got home and I put on the album Synchronicity by The Police while writing this. January is now almost over and I didn’t skip a single day, writing almost 37 000 words for this little diary. Let’s keep it up until the end of December!