Chapter 353

I woke up around 10 and stayed in bed a bit, petting the dog. Then I got up and checked my emails. I was astonished to see I sold an album, I put my cybergrind EP on Bandcamp and set the price at $1, but buyers can pay more if they want, and someone paid $5 for it. After PayPal and Bandcamp took their cut, it was only $3.91, but still, I’m moving up in the world.

The girlfriend was a bit hungover, and wanted to walk it off and eat Muslim noodles. We had to go get the car anyway, so we walked there, it was another beautiful sunny day. She told me that in her school, some students are developing severe anxiety due to face masks, and it’s not because of Covid directly. They’re so used to have this little piece of shit hugging the lower half of their face that they’re too shy to remove it, and feel weird when in a room with too many maskless (normal) people. So they have the exact opposite syndrome as the one I’m at times suffering from. This pandemic truly is taking a toll on people in more bizarre ways than I thought possible. I’m still thankful to be in China, a quick glance at the news or at the Quebec discussion board on Reddit shows utter bleakness and despair in the face of their upcoming 735^th lockdown, as the cases skyrocket.

We ate our noodles, then drove to an area with a bunch of furniture stores by the highway. The girlfriend commissioned a guy to build a platform for our camper-car, but instead of being just a normal carpenter, it’s a company that makes laminated shelves. We argued a bit, I suggested to go to a place that sells cheaper planks of wood and have them cut to the dimensions we want, but eventually settled on her first choice. They’ll even assemble the hinges for us, and it doesn’t even add up to that high of a price, in fact it’s pretty damn cheap.

We stopped to buy more odd construction materials, then went to Metro and bought over 2000 yuan worth of imported groceries like the hedonists that we are. That filled up three enormous bags, the days when I used to lug all those groceries on a bicycle are not so distant but I can barely recall what it was like.

Back home, I chopped up a big chunk of beef into cubes, seasoned it, browned it, and put it in the slow cooker with hot peppers, orange zest and milk. Sounds weird I know, but holy hell does it make tender chunks. Then I chilled a bit, doing some reading and writing, I wanted to listen to some stuff from various metal top 10 lists but the girlfriend wouldn’t have taken kindly to it, so I put on something that aggress her less, some French hip-hop albums I hadn’t heard from lyrical powerhouses such as Hugo TSR, Scylla and Furax.

I went to the gym and did my shoulder workout. Towards the end I felt a bit drained, sure, I was not cripplingly hungover but I did drink quite a lot of beer and wine the previous day, and my diet wasn’t very optimal either. I had to force myself through the last few sets.

I got home, finished the beef carnita chunks in the oven to crisp them up a bit, and made tacos with homemade salsa. They were so delicious they made my toes curl. Then we watched the new South Park in bed.