Chapter 96

Up at 6, back in the routine. We brought back a pillow-sized bag of tea from the farmhouse, the tea that’s just been picked and roasted. It’s in fact mama-in-law who bought it, but as she had to leave early to tend to her broken wrist, we’re the caretakers of the dried camillia sinensis for the time being, and will send it by express mail in a day or two. Till then, I took a handful and brewed myself some, it was excellent.

I drank a cup, did yoga, drank another cup, took the dog out, and then finished the pot. I rode to work and made more tea, lime-encased pu-er this time. I finished yesterday’s entry while listening to a livestream about the fall of civilizations, and prepared my review lesson for the twelfth-graders.

I read the news, apparently Quebec is entering its... third lockdown? Or fourth? What a shitshow. The mayor blames some gym owner with the bizarre name of Dan Marino (like the quarterback) who stayed open despite the government mandate, and didn’t respect hygiene and health regulations. My dad sent me an e-mail about this, and said sarcastically “At least we have democracy”

My double class went well, we went over the mock exam questions. I barely remember anything worth mentioning, as I write this eight hours later. Perhaps I’m turning senile like Joe Biden.

I got home, fried some bacon, drained the grease in a small bowl for further use, and made a grilled cheese sandwich in the grease that was still coating the pan. I ate it with a side of leftover green peas, and spread some hot sauce on the grilled cheese triangles. I’m very proud of how my homemade mustardy hot sauce came out, it burns real good and is quite layered as far as the flavors go.

I watched videos about calisthenics and stuff from a channel called Wisecrack, in which philosophy experts break down movies or TV shows, analyzing the philosophy within and finding out whether they are “deep or dumb”. Their video about Jackass surprised me, equating that most retarded prank and stunt show to “meta-commentary on the culture of the post-war American suburb”. Apparently there’s a new Jackass movie coming out soon, now that is sad, I did enjoy the over-the-top and crude and original nature of their MTV show and the first movie but eventually it just got weird and forced, as the guys were now in their forties.

I had a lab in the early afternoon, they did qualitative analysis of ions. Whoopdeedoo. I printed the wrong marking scheme and didn’t bring my computer, so I went on my phone and tried to download the PDF. Chinese internet fucking gargles donkey shit so I couldn’t accomplish this otherwise painfully simple task. Baidu is a bad joke of a search engine, even if you look stuff up in Chinese, after a few tries and my browser constantly crashing due to all the malware it was blocking from every side, I wanted to throw my phone in the chemical waste barrel. I eventually just asked a colleague to send it on WeChat and thankfully she was online.

One student was heating a solution in a test tube and it splashed in a big jet, his neighbor got some in his hair and came sheepishly to ask permission to go to the toilet and wash it off. “Of course you can go! Don’t take the time to ask!” I went to reprimand the culprit, I told him to remove the tube from the flame when bubbles start to rise, but he said it just splashed out of nowhere. I doubt it but the other students confirmed, even the guy who got some on his head. Either way he shouldn’t be pointing the opening of the tube towards somebody. Damn it, if somebody gets injured in my lab it would be hell to pay.

We had a meeting, the principal talked about the upcoming final exams and holiday time. I plan on staying in China anyway but the coworkers want to go visit their families, and now the country is slowly opening up. We’ll see what will happen with that, and also if we got vaccinated for nothing.

I had last period with Attitude Class then hopped on my bicycle and rode home. I stopped to buy vegetables and was in a good mood, so I joked around with the people there, starting with a grandma leading two tiny twin girls along as they were leaving the shop. Like nearly all twins in China, they were wearing the same clothes, same shoes, and had the same haircut, which I always found quite hilarious if not a bit creepy. “Which one is the evil one?” “That one right there!”, granny pointed. The cute three-year-old took a bite of her banana and looked at me all puzzled. “Say goodbye to foreign uncle!” and they clumsily waved. Awww. Then there was a woman with a leashed poodle at the counter. “How much per pound?” “Not expensive! You try” “Nah, he’s too skinny, he doesn’t look delicious” That got everyone in there talking about me, and the shopkeeper volunteered all the info he knows about my workplace, my nationality, the fact that I come here often, sometimes accompanied by a girlfriend or an ugly dog, the food I usually buy and the food I dislike, all that. My existence in his periphery gives him a lot of face, like the Orientals call it.

“How much money do you make?” he asked, wanting to add to the list of trivia related to me. This question is not impolite in China the way it is in the West, still, I never feel very comfortable answering it. Sure, there are people born with a silver spoon in their mouth doing fuckall except having costly dinners due to all the embezzled money they chanced upon when the government privatized all those commie programs, who spend more money in a day than I make in a year, but there are several thousands times more who break their backs doing ingrate work for a fraction than I make. “One yuan a month” was my deflected answer of the day. “Woah! I’ll have to give you discounts then!”

I opened a homebrewed spiced ale, got in the kitchen and made hummus. The first few times I attempted to make hummus it came out dry and not nearly as satisfying as the one you’d get at a supermarket or a Middle Eastern restaurant, but now I know the secret: adding a ton of olive oil, to obtain that decadent creaminess.

When the girlfriend arrived, I put together a huge feast: hummus, tortilla bread, pickles, olives, feta cheese cubes, carrot sticks, and mutton kebabs from the Pakistani delivery service. We watched The Office, and then while she washed the dishes I put on some more music from the Top 500: some effeminate shit by Arctic Monkeys, then a jazzy LP by Bruce Springsteen that had its moments but wasn’t very memorable (like 90% of what I’ve heard from him) and finally a reggae album that was, well, a reggae album. I like reggae but the criticism about being the most repetitive genre didn’t appear out of nowhere.

The girlfriend had an online lesson at 8, so I turned off the reggae album halfway and took the dog out. I let him run around freely and he munched on a gigantic stinky turd, turning his breath into poison gas. I hate when he does that and showed him my disapproval with a slap up his triangle-shaped head, then brushed his teeth when we got home, before locking him up in prison. One day he’ll learn (hopefully).

I had a bit of a cold, probably due to the fact that I only wore a hoodie when I rode across town to go play badminton, and didn’t bring a dry t-shirt to wear afterwards. So I made a soothing potion with hot tea, rum, sugar syrup (because we ran out of honey), cloves, cinnamon and a dash of lemon juice, then went to bed at 9:30.