A Day in China
Mondays are usually a write off for me. I work hard all weekend, usually with very little sleep going into it, then I stay up until all hours Sunday night, and sleep in until…late the next day. I won’t tell you exactly how late, because it would be embarassing.
Today began as usual, but it has gone wonderfully since then. So wonderfully I thought I’d tell you about it.
I woke up, made a terrible sausage (which I proceeded to throw in the trash) and some noodles, lit up a cigarette, and sat down to watch The Bishop’s Wife (the 1947 black and white version with Cary Grant, not the more recent The Preacher’s Wife). It didn’t even occur to me when I popped it in that it is a Christmas movie, but it is and I suppose watching it was in some way inaugural of the season. I finished the movie and my housemate returned, but I was beginning to go stir crazy, feeling a nicotine and caffeine driven angst coming on, so I decided to head off to Starbucks to finish G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. If you haven’t read Heretics and Orthodoxy, I tell you, as I may well have told you before, that it’s an absolute must. I recommend these books more categorically than any other books I’ve ever read. I recommend them to anyone, regardless of interests or beliefs or even your ability to comprehend the contents. Work it out, if it’s difficult for you.
But back to my day. I finished Orthodoxy, and the ending couldn’t have been more satisfactory. My mind was stimulated, I was inspired, and I took down notes for some of the best thoughts I’ve had in months. Chesterton is always inspiring like that. I really ought to read some Chesterton every morning to get my mind fired up, but the weight of the thoughts might overburden me. They take time to fully process.
Then Olen, my coworker and manager, called to see if I wanted to go for a foot washing. Absolutely I did, so we went, along with a ladyfriend of his.
The term ‘foot washing’ is misleading. There is indeed a foot washing, and such a washing that if you ever had doubts about the usefulness of your feet, it would convince that they were worth having if only for the pleasure of having them washed. But there is also much more. A full leg and back massage, to be precise, and tea and oranges, and, if you are there after midnight, the option of sleeping there (the rooms are quite nice, with a TV and everything). There are several foot washing options, such as milk washing or, what I had tonight, some kind of Tibetan herbal washing. Needless to say the whole thing was divine. I feel like a new man.
Revelling in my masculine newness, I stopped at the little outdoor barbecue place on the way home (surprisingly, perhaps fortuitously, open at 1am) for some vegetable barbacue. I brought it up to my housemate, and it turned out he had just been craving the very thing, only had assumed the barbecue people would be gone by this hour. Now I’m sitting here typing this, and he is just returning with more barbecue.
There you have it. Monday-Tuesday, November 27-28, in Chongqing China.
Don’t you wish you were here?
njero said,
Nov 27, 19:25 #
I’m about to go to sleep so that I can go stand on a ladder in a snowstorm in nine hours. So, yes. I do.
When you get back we’ll have to see if one can get a foot washed properly in some obscure ethnic neighborhood in the city.
Tristan said,
Nov 27, 22:25 #
Or, given your discontent with ladders and snowstorms, you could come out here! It would make an excellent Christmas vacation, don’t you think? I’d even buy you the best foot washing in town.
Aaron said,
Nov 28, 19:44 #
Today, I woke up, got dressed, and went to school. What normally takes fourty-five minutes ended up being an hour-and-a-half drive. I show up half an hour late for class to discover the prof decided to give us a work period. But hilariously, we don’t have any current assignments in that class, so it was a more of a “do whatever crap you want” morning. So I watched a Richard Dawkins lecture and a BBC documentary on the media censorship of events in Iraq. I then ate lunch during my two-hour lunch break. Back in class, we started working on an assignment of sorts, only to have another staff member come in to let us know that, due to weather, the school was closing. So I drove home. At home, I watched two episodes of Arrested Development, played some Neverwinter Nights, watched House and Law and Order: SVU (the latter of which was watched while sitting in the hot tub). Now I’m sitting in front of the computer.
Don’t you wish you were here?
Yes.
The Burdman said,
Nov 28, 20:27 #
That does sound like a pretty ridiculously good day.
Justin K. said,
Nov 29, 13:55 #
Yes.
Oh, and it’s really weird that I had the exact same answer pop into my head for Ryan’s comment that Tristan has posted, right after I read Ryan’s comment.
Oh yes, and Ryan, it really isn’t too hard to get a Chinese visa for a Canadian. Um, flights are about $1400 ish around the middle of March… I’ll help you book… the airport codes are YWZ for WInnipeg and SHA for Shanghai… (I Realize that T isn’t in Shanghai)
Props T, I am soooo glad that you made it out of Winnipeg, and out of Canada. :)Mike said,
Dec 2, 18:35 #
I’m trying to imagine that having my feet washed could be pleasurable, but all one thought prevents me: “My feet would smell like milk.”