Chapter 108

Up at 9:58, just in time to miss the hotel breakfast. Ah well. It was probably bland anyway, and I have enough money to buy my own. The plan for today was an outdoor roda, by the river somewhere south of downtown. My roommate and I rode our rent-a-bikes there, a quite pleasant 8-km trip broken in half with a quick detour to an eatery where we wolfed down fried noodles and won tons.

We arrived a good 45 minutes early, and I wanted to buy beverages but there wasn’t a convenience store in sight. In the packed streets of the city, you sometimes have three at the same intersection, even at times two from the same franchise chain, but over there by the lighthouse there was fuckall except a Starbucks and a vending machine. I wonder why Lawsons didn’t set up a shop there for the numerous weekend daytrippers walking or biking or rollerblading past, but then again it’s a multi-billion-dollar company and I’m sure they know what the hell they’re doing. So I rode one extra kilometer and bought a few beers and a jumbo bottle of water. I cracked open a beer right away, to start the day right.

People slowly came in and we had a music class. One of the local instructors, a Frenchman, taught us about pitch and rhythm and it was seriously useful and interesting. Then the roda started and lasted all afternoon, alternating between quick regional-style games and more intricate Angola ones. I had to leave around 3:30 to slowly make my way to the central station, it was about 10 km away but I felt like riding a rent-a-bike, enjoying the beautiful weather and soothing my sore legs. Plus, I have to admit I was a bit capoeiraed out by that point, capoeira is awesome and will always be a part of me, but three long rodas in as many days is enough to saturate me.

I stopped at one of those imported food stores that are on every street in the French Concession (Shanghai expats are so spoiled), filled my backpack with beer and snacks, and made it to the train station. There was a Taco Bell across the street, a new arrival in Shanghai, and I thought about going but eventually decided against it, mostly because I would have had to cross at a further intersection and wasted time. Instead I went to a Subway shop and got a cold cuts  footlong to go.

My city didn’t have a train station until a few months ago, though it was well-connected by bus. The thing is the new train station is about 15 km away from the city, so it almost balances out. The bus takes a bit over two hours, the bus station is very central, fifteen minutes from my home by bicycle, but the bus can get stuck in traffic in a way that the train obviously can’t. Meanwhile, the train takes an hour, but you need to go from the middle of nowhere to the city by taxi or by city bus. I’d say overall the bus still takes my vote, mostly because the train was packed with peasants yelling at each other from one side of the car to the other and playing dogshit Douyin videos on their phones, while the Friday afternoon bus was nearly empty. But then again I’ve also been on hellishly noisy bus rides, so I guess it’s just luck of the draw.

The taxi dropped me at the bus station where my bicycle was parked and I rode home. I was looking forward to just kick back a bit but had a nasty surprise waiting for me when I got in, the girlfriend forgot to close the kitchen door, and the dog went ham on a box of couscous, spreading cardboard shreds and tiny yellow grains all over the apartment. He also ate nearly a whole package of tortillas, Jesus, no wonder he’s getting so big. He was lounging on the couch in a food coma, his round empty eyes full of fear and the realization, somewhere in his peanut-sized brain, that he did something he’s not supposed to.

I instantly got filled with boiling anger but told myself I need to calm down, and especially not lash out at the culprits. The dog is, well, just a silly dog, of course he’ll forage for food when we’re absent, and that’s why we childproof the place. And the girlfriend is a loving companion who is always there for me, respects my boundaries and my need to get out of town sometimes, puts up with my own small misdeeds without giving me excessive amounts of shit or the passive-aggressive silent treatment, and she has had a busy weekend working overtime. She is also a teacher, but as the end of the school year comes closer and I have a much more relaxed schedule, hers intensifies, with final projects to supervise. So what if she got distracted and forgot to close the kitchen door to keep Triangle Face out, and didn’t take the organic garbage bag out and now there’s a faint reek of rotten mango peels? Hardly worth starting a yelling match over. I changed the garbage bag and started sweeping the floor.

She came in just as I started, apologized for the mess, and took over. No harm done. We then went to walk the dog and get the mail, talking about our respective weekends.

I threw my clothes in the laundry and did a bit of cleaning. I put on the next Top 500 entry, an album by The Clash. It was boring as fuck and at no point did I remotely go “Yeah! Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!”, it was just some bland-ass old punk rock. There are still 322 albums to go and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll keep it up. Most albums I liked in there were albums I was already listening to, or by artists I had heard of, and there’s been tons of overrated boomer trash to plough through. The next one is by Elvis Presley, and I’m not excited at all for it. I’ll give myself a few days.

I finished watching Wrestlemania. Some Latino popstar named Bad Bunny had a celebrity match, apparently he is extremely famous but I had never heard of him or his bland mumble rap. Well, he was pretty good, and definitely took it seriously. Then it was a women’s championship between two swaggy black chicks, one with pink hair, and one with a super long braid she twirls around. It was also a good match, especially from Long Braid, who performed feats of strength like catching Pink Hair when she jumped out of the ring, pressing her over her shoulders, and carrying her back over the steps before dumping her. She won and was all emotional. I remember watching wrassling when I was young and the women’s matches were gimmicky, low-level and mostly if not solely relying on sex appeal, but now there are some seriously good female wrestlers.

I also saw a link to the Jake Paul vs Ben Askren boxing match, and it was a short video. Askren got knocked out in a minute, hard to imagine he was an undefeated MMA champion for so long and there were even people wondering how he’d do if he left the B-leagues and fought GSP or Johny Hendricks. It seems like he was just there for the payday, while the YouTube star trained seriously. Either way it was a total shitshow, and now there are talks of other established fighters going that route for the big $$$. The only silver lining to that sad, sad masquerade is that it might shine some light on how poorly MMA fighters are paid, but I ain’t holding my breath.