Chapter 136

I got up around 9, with a nasty cold. The 180% humidity level and constant switch between maple syrupy thick hot air and air conditioned spaces does that to me. Godfuckingdamnit.

I popped some Chinese medicine, drank hot water with lemon, picked up the wadded tissues by the bed, and dragged myself to the living room. I turned on the UFC just as the main card started. Edson Barboza and Shane Burgos had a banger of a fight that ended in a strange delayed reaction KO to open up the festivities, Katelyn Chookagian narrowly beat Viviane Araújo in a fight that doesn’t mean much since the champ of the women’s flyweight division is basically invincible, then two flyweight men got at it in a fast but slightly underwhelming fight, and just like that it was time for the co-main. Not even that long ago Tony Ferguson was one of the most feared men in the sport, with an unorthodox and relentless attack that got him 12 wins in a row, but now he’s been thoroughly dominated in his last three, sure it was against top-level competition but he had absolutely nothing for them except his extreme toughness, and even that turned out to be a negative, as he refused to tap to two deep submissions that damaged his joints perhaps irreparably. His weird personality is less endearing now that he’s losing, and he seems more like an unstable schizophrenic maniac than an eccentric wacko. He’s also 37 years old now, let’s just hope that his decline won’t be as steep as some of the other greats who fell off a cliff after they couldn’t compete with the top guys.

It was a hash day, and though I felt much better after drinking tea and eating cereal and stretching a bit, I considered staying home to nurse my cold. In the end I said fuck it, a bit of exercise will feel good, so I put on my windbreaker jacket and off I went. The start point was close to my house, so the dog and I walked there, it started drizzling and then raining at a decent rate. Stupid weather forecast said it would be cloudy and dreary, but no rain until the evening. It stopped not long after, and we did the trail, in the city’s parks and small streets. At the end one of the hares got baptized with a beer shower. Good times.

I made it home, took a shower and gave one to the dog who was half mud, half animal at that point, and watched the UFC main event. If you told me a few years ago that Charles Oliveira would become the lightweight champion, I would have told you to get the hell outta there. He was a win some, lose some featherweight journeyman with a dangerous submission game but lots of weaknesses, and wasn’t especially popular due to several weight misses and just being another random Brazilian who doesn’t speak English. Now he rounded up his game, amassed a serious win streak (in the most dangerous division in the UFC) and KOed Michael Chandler in the second round to claim the title. Good for him! Let’s see how long he can keep it, with the line-up of killers in front of him.

I made a roast chicken, shoving the... ahem, cavity with carrots, garlic and lemongrass, rubbing salt and pepper all over, and putting little nuggets of butter between the skin and meat. It was decadent and delicious, and paired really well with the leftover Thai soup. We watched an episode of Love Death And Robots, an anthology animated series that just released its second season. It was about a utopian futuristic world in which robots take care of all mundane tasks, but of course the vacuum cleaner robot went haywire and tried to kill an old lady and her poodle.

I went to bed at 8:30, and was asleep by 9. I finished the book Royal, by J-P Baril-Guérard. It really reminded of Bret Easton Ellis with his portrayal of an insufferable twatty daddy’s boy with an enormous superiority complex, navigating the ultra-competitive world that is law school. His high intelligence and sheltered rich upbringing didn’t prepare him for failure, and he falls deep into depression when he didn’t get the grades he expected, spiraling out of control but eventually emerging on top. The novel is written in modern Quebec French slang and uses the second person for narration, which makes it quite unlike a lot of novels I read recently. I’ll check out the other novels from this young author.