Thursday, March 24, 2011

I'm not a terrible person after all!

I did it I did it, I finished one whole story and wrote two halves of two other stories! I'm on my way, I'll be damned if I have to buy you an overpriced gourmet dinner BI!

(And Milk too, he's been trying to get into the bet ever since he heard I'd be buying dinner if I lose)


Chinese word of the day: 高兴 (gao1xing4) 'happy'.
I am a terrible, terrible person.

I've given up my so-called 'internship' in Soma Records after finally realizing I am not musically talented in any way whatsoever, which even in this forgotten and underrated branch of music, that is, recording, is necessary. At least a bit, sometimes.

By the way have I mentioned the fact that I 'silently' gave it up? Yes, the coward that is me hasn't told them back at the studio that I've stopped showing up. They shouldn't be too surprised, I rarely even went anyway, they must be missing the little treats I used to bring them over. Hey whatever happened to the muffin girl? Oh, she just-- stopped showing.

I am a terrible, terrible person.

And whatever, as I decided that the life inside a recording studio wasn't for me, I once again began wondering what to do with my waste of a life.

The solution came in the shape of B, no, not the letter 'B' (the shape of a pregnant lady with massive boobs), in the shape of my roommate most commonly known as 'B'. Her suggestion consisted in getting some sort of internship in a magazine or any other kind of publication where I could learn... whatever it is they do.

I thought it was a mighty good idea at the moment, though I should probably add, I had 3 cocktails in me already, as I was visiting B at work (ahh, the benefits of your roommate being a bartender), and making a bet with her about it was something I certainly didn't think through.

The bet consists in me writing 6 stories in 2 weeks, stories about a clash between Latinamerican and Chinese cultures. That is, retell, in the third person, interesting anecdotes that have happened to me and B in our four years in Shanghai, once completed I would give them to B to read, criticize and correct, and eventually send to a Hispanic magazine called 'Hola China' for what would hopefully be my (yay) first published thingie.

Ah it sounded like so much fun when proposed. Two weeks for 6 stories, and if I fail to complete the task, I will be forced to buy B dinner in the restaurant of her choice. Mind you, she's got some sudden expensive taste, this one. Remember the good old days when a trip to the neighborhood bakery was pure gluttony glee? Now, I'm expected to cough up around 600 yuan for what's most likely going to be two salads, two cocktails and one shared main course of chicken...

And yes, that's all quite fine, if only I had written anything by now. It's almost one week into the challenge and I haven't gotten past: 'This is the story of...'. And look at me rambling on and on in English. I'm in despair here, I CAN'T seem to find any sort of inspiration to write in Spanish. I blame it on all the reading in English I've been doing in the last months O Brothers.

Today I went into B's room to jew out some books in Spanish that I knew she had, to search for some let's call it inspiration again, shall we? I got out Julio Cortazar and Carlos Fuentes.

Nothing.

I am a terrible terrible person.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Ooh Tar Baby

Today I woke up full of words for some reason, and there's a lot of things going on in my tiny little head I thought it'd be worth a shot at yet another useless post.

Did I just say Ooh Tar Baby? Yes I did. And who might that be you ask? Well I'll tell you who that is, who, Ooh Tar Baby is what Ormus Cama referred to, in his later years, as England, and why is it that I'm blogging about England, seeing as it is one of the countries I have least in common with? Well I'll tell you why, why, it is because India is in my head right now, and now there, the link is done.

We had dinner last night at an Indian restaurant, Big S's birthday as a matter of fact, Big S is a rather confused girl you see, awfully friendly and awkwardly aloof sometimes to tell the truth, to such degree in fact, that last night she failed to comprehend the inexplicable mix of friends she invited last night to this epic dinner.

There we were, Milk and I sitting at the middle of a rather long table for 16 right in front of the birthday girl, when within minutes we found ourselves left to a small group of Chinese viz., (and these names are not made up) Lennz, an 18 year old girl with a football head,
yes very much like Arnold's, and her forty-something year old British boyfriend (hello England), Paul (ok normal name) a rather young Norwegian speaking nomadish Chinese teenager and of course, cherry of the cake, a girl proud of calling herself Frog Baby, who took a 20 minutes dump halfway through the meal and made sure everybody knew where she had gone.

To our right, a couple of normal looking folks, end of the table, two hippies and an oldish bloke who had been a roadie for Sick of it All, something I wouldn't be too proud on commenting. I wasn't feeling too well honestly, and I couldn't tell what was bothering me the most, the Frog Dump girl or the extraordinarily moustached hippie girl, ahh I couldn't even drink properly and spent most of the evening in complete silence O brothers, otherwise muttering abravofigarobravobravisimoabravofigarobravobravisimo under my breath.

An incident broke the mood of the meal. Milk stood up in a moment of anger to yell at a waiter that had been ignoring him way too long and went to confront him. I saw him stand up and followed with my eyes to the moment when I saw him point an accusatory finger to the guy, followed almost inmediately by an explosion of anger from said waiter who started yelling nastiness in Chinese.

As Milk returned to our table, the waiter, almost being held by another Indian waiter, was pointing his own finger at him and yes, still yelling nastiness. He beckoned Milk to where he was in a 'Hey you! Yes I'm talking to you! We duel!' kind of fashion and to my utter bewilderment, hippie #1 started complaining on his own accord: 'You know we never really had a good service, you've really done a good job ignoring this table, we've had 3 beers the whole night' and it was supposed to be an all you can drink kind of deal O brothers.


Chinese angry waiter kept yelling abuse to his people until some of the guests with their fantastically polished Mandarin stopped playing nice and a wonderful language battle of verbal nastiness began and it did feel like a breath of fresh air to your humble narrator here, who by the way, witnessed the whole scene with her mouth wide open.

Angry dude leaves, triumphant expat table claps, what a sight it was, 16 on 1 (alright 15 on 1 as your humble narrator's gapping mouth prevented her from any other form of expression) and that was that. Soon enough we stood up to take our leave and I was suuure that dude was waiting for Milk downstairs with a bat in the best case scenario, an angry herd of Chinese waiters from the sindicate in the worst case scenario, but said thing never happened.

Altogether it wasn't that bad a night was it?

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Somebody put something in his drink.



Or somebody watched too many horror movies.