The stars have aligned, or the gods were smiling, or I had just the right amount of coffee, or something.
Today was one of them days. As Louis C.K. says, "Everything is amazing, and nobody's happy." Today, everything was amazing, and I was happy. Am. So, suck it, Louis.
Some reasons why:
I showed up at the subway station where the driver meets me in the morning at the exact same time he did. No, I don't have a driver. I'm teaching English at a company t
hat's practically in Tianjin! For you Chicagoans, that's like saying "practically in Naperville." For you Angelinos, that's like saying, "it was a regular day and I had to drive a shit-ton." We laughed about it, because he had dialed my number as he pulled up to the corner (it was a new driver today) and he watched me answer my phone. I heard him get out of the car and say, "Oh wait, I see you" (more or less). Not through my phone. Cos he was like three feet away. So, that. So we smiled and laughed at each other. Which, incidentally, are the same character: xiao, or 笑。
I did indeed drink some super-duper-delicious coffee this afternoon. The old days of instant only are long gone, at least in Beijing. We've been buying Shangri La coffees here. It's a fair-trade, organic, I can feel good about my heart-jumpingly strong cup o' joe, hand-harvested in Yunnan, & cetera. And it's cheaper than Starbucks. Something about opening a fresh bag, too: aaaahhhhhh. Just makes me smile thinking of it.
The weather's been pretty phenomenally phantastic here lately. Low 30s (high 80s), but just breezy enough to make every day pheel just perphect. Sun on my face and a nice breeze brings a smile every time.
So, I's been riding my bike lately. Here's my fixie I purchased some weeks ago from Natooke, owned and operated by Ines Brunn, a professional trick cyclist from Germany: damn straight that's a red chain and gold hubs.
It seems to ride better in the sunshine. Seriously, the bike lets me know when it's having fun. I can feel it smile at the road.
There was a song running around in my head that I'd heretofore never been able to track down. Because it's out of print. Because it was on a soundtrack to a Greg Stump extreme ski movie back in the day. Because the band no longer exists. But, a song stuck in one's head, caffeine and the internets can combine to make wonders. I done found a downloadable zip file on a ski chat forum. Whoo-ha! For those of you who see a mohawk when you hear the name "Plake", for those of you that can remember pulling on long johns early in the morning with Warren Miller flicks playing in the background, for those of you that know that Scot Schmidt always pulled the biggest air and went for the most extreme line, the link to the soundtrack download is here. It's mostly Nasty Rox, Inc., with a bit of 808 State, Kissing the Pink and Hoodlum Priest peppered in. And it's as awesome as ever. Close your eyes, and you can just make out Mike Hattrup, about to cowboy over the rocks. I'm doing it, and it makes me smile.
There was a weird wrench thrown in at about 5:25, just as I was finishing up one class, when I received a few urgent texts and phone calls asking, "Can you come teach a class at 6:00 at Zhongguancun?" At Zhongguancun. At least a half hour ride from where I was. At 6:00. Just over a half hour from right now. I've prepared nothing for the class. I will be sweaty. I will likely be smelly... Let's go.
Turned out to be an English Corner (an all-levels discussion about random topics) about Western dining. There was a tall, older white dude in the room with the Chinese twentysomethings when I arrived (yes: sweaty and smelly). I assumed he was the teacher filling in 'til I got there. Nope. He's a Frenchman who's learning English. In China. Go figs.
Some loverly person had printed out a one-page description of a typical western-restaurant experience. Scrapped it. Half-discussed, half-role played simultaneous group meals at a typical restaurant in Beijing, and in Dijon. Burgundy and Bai Jiu do mix, after all. All the students including Olivier, Younger and Harry Potter (not kidding) loved it. And they didn't seem to notice (or at least care) about my soaking wet shirt. This too makes me smile.
Stopped at the store on the way home to grab a couple of stuffs. Just a regular visit to the ol' Carrefour. A regular visit to the ol' 家乐福 that was interrupted by Deuce damn Bigelow. Yeah. That one. Male Gigolo. See, what happened was this: I turned the corner into the snack aisle and came face to neck with a girl, probably in her late-teens, who towered over me by at least 5 inches. That's 6'7", for those that don't know me. And immediately, like damn immediately, I hear that stupid line from a Rob phucking Schneider movie: "That is one big bitch!" And now I'm giggling. And instantly feeling bad, because she's prolly like 18. And for a girl, in China, you're pretty much way tall if you're over 5'8". And she's nearly a foot taller. So, I cross over to another aisle to giggle to the ridiculous Rob Schneider quotes running through my head. Because I don't want this girl, who's prolly already suffered enough at the hands of her peers and classmates, to see me, a grown man (at least physically) smirking. Even though it's the stupid movie, not the fact she's tall. I mean, come on. I'm not 12. I'm like at least 14. So anyway, so then I catch her just gliding from one aisle to the next, and I look at her, and I realize, "this is the most confident person I've seen in years." Some sweaty, smelly, weird-bearded foreigner's snickering isn't going to throw her for a loop. I don't need to feel bad for her at all, with all that confidence. That, and she's most likely already been recruited to play on the next Olympics' Basketball/Volleyball/High Jump squad, and prolly has her every need catered to by professional coaches and the like.
Either way, the effects of the giggling has me higher than a kite right then, I practically hug the cashier. I just smile instead.
On the way home, my stomach tells me "Pull Over Now! Feed Me! Feed Me, Seymour!!!" So I do. Who am I to argue? There's a row of restaurants lining the street, so I take a slow cruise by until I spot a small alley running north from the main restaurant street. Seems the best, cheapest, and friendliest restaurants are never on the main streets here in the Jing.
I pop a squat at a sidewalk-table and order some delicious grub and a big ol' beer. Putongde pijiu, she tells me: common beer. Perfect, Yanjing is fine. It's a possibility anyway that if I went and bought a more expensive import around the corner, I'd still be drinking Yanjing.
Aboot (sorry, was just reading hockey news--go Hawks--and my inner Canadian snuck out...everyone has one)... about halfway through my meal, a couple worn looking dudes, prolly in their early forties, but possibly in their late three-hundreds sat down to chat awhile. I made some chatter as best I could. (As best they could understand my Chinese, and as best I could understand their Hebei accents.) At some point, I asked them if they'd eaten and, when they said they had, offered to share my beer with them. 不喝, not drinking, they said. I realize now that I should have been more insistent with my offers. The Chinese take great pride in being hosts themselves and often, almost have to be forced into playing the waited-upon role. It's like a politeness role. Eat, eat. No you first. No, you first. No, you first. And cetera.
After some more minutes of chat, they left, and I shame-facedly realized that I'd been keeping an eye on my bag the whole time. It's a thing: in any American big city, if two grubby looking dudes sat down at your al fresco table while you were eating, you'd be justified in thinking they were, any second, going to ask you for money. Or at least a cigarette. Or steal your stuff while you were distracted by one or the other of them. Here in the Jing, people are simply generally friendly, and generally curious (generally if they're non-Beijingers themselves) about foreigners, especially those that can speak a little bit of their language. I had nothing to worry about. Having nothing to worry about leaves you nothing to do but smile, and hop on your bike, and ride home through the cool night, clutching your full belly the whole way.
So, now, as I finish up the fourth consecutive listening of the License to Thrill soundtrack (Nasty Rox, Inc. is singing "Plake!" at me over and over again right now), all I can do is smile.
'Night.
