Worst Kept Secrets

Well, to be fair, I haven’t had absolutely zero social contact - I did more recording this morning, and I went to the store to buy milk for the last box of mac and cheese that I’m not sure I’m going to get to eat because the kitchen’s soaking wet and I’m afraid to boil water on the hot plate, lest I electrocute myself. I got back in from all of that, and ever since I’ve been cleaning. It’s not the self-imposed hermit thing that’s done my head in (I can go a LONG time like that and suffer no ill effects), but rather the ten hours spent giving my apartment a good what-for while listening to Learn in Your Car Mandarin Chinese. After ten hours of that, I regret to report that I’m not fluent, but instead, completely batshit insane. I’m still sort of compulsively and hoarsely shrieking over-pronounced phrases while  looking for things to scrub. I’m just trying to keep it together enough not to start vacuuming Scout while yelling “WO YAO LIANG ZHANG DAO BEIJING DE PIAO!”

In other OCD news from Hu Qiu Lu, a valuable life lesson: start a coin stash. We’ve got 1,303 yuan stashed away in ziplock bags. Why do I have such a precise number for that? Because I COUNTED THEM. It was like Rain Man in super slow motion or something. I wasn’t actually that bored and pitiful, I was just desperately seeking something to do to put off dealing with my kitchen - some of the mould in the pantry was starting to practice primitive forms of religion and had established rudimentary political structures. I didn’t go so far as to count the jiao, though (and friends, there are a LOT of jiao). I did want to go through all of it, though, because once in the US, I took a huge jar of coins to the bank in a frantic effort to scrape together enough money to cover the massive overdraft waiting for me when I returned from London (the pawn shop was the next stop), and the lady got really, really, really mad at me because there was a stray British pound floating in there and she had to dig through all of it to find it. I didn’t want to cause a bank in China the same difficulty, and this time I pulled out Hong Kong coins, Filipino pesos, a large number of quarters (which were weird to see - they really stuck out), and arcade tokens. So now, by god, our stockpiles of spare change are neatly sorted into baggies by denomination.

And that’s been my day. I meant to go out somewhere and take pictures, work more on my blog, and get busy with a few other personal projects I’ve been thinking about, but damned if cleaning house didn’t wind up taking all day. But WOW is it over-the-top organized and clean. Mom and Dad, I’m afraid you’ll need to change your tickets so you can come here tomorrow before I trash the place again…

And… it’s getting late, and I’m pretty much out of things to do, so I guess I’m off to bottle my own urine or something fun like that.

(Edit: I did have the choice to go with some wonderful people to Hangzhou, I just decided that I needed a weekend to clean up, relax, recharge and kick it old school Gresham style. I’m actually having a really good time. Also, if youtube wasn’t blocked, I’d make you a video of me trying to vacuum Scout while screaming horribly botched Mandarin, but apparently that poses a threat to the State. Also, I’m not drunk, I’m just hyper and up too late.)