30 points to Up To Date.

Guess what? I'm still here. I scratched my elbow back in Canada, but somehow got through it.

Summary:

1. Started dating a lovely woman named Yoyo.
2. Went to Canada.
3. Tried to help my parents stop bickering w/ some degree of success.
4. Did some hiking.
5. Mountain bike camping.
6. Boat camping.
7. Visited some of my wonderful friends, even though the time was too short.
8. Snubbed a few by not visiting. (sorry)
9. Ate veg lasagna, olives, pesto, Mexican, org veg from the garden.
10. lots of clean air.
11. one bachelor party
12. voted against going to the peelers
13. didn't miss my flight back to China
14. house hunted with Derrick
15. went to Chengdu and Shenzhen w/ 18 other journalists.
16. My managers got chewed out for not telling me more directly what to do
17. 'Cause i kinda slacked it.
18. Chengdu: boomtown
19. Shenzhen: life post-manufacturing boom
20. Scored an apartment.
21. mini triathlon on Saturday.
22. 1500m race on Saturday.
23. Probably can't do the 1500m race for CRI, 'cause i'm double booked.
24. with the triathlon.
25. So maybe will run w/ my group Sat morning.
26. House-cooling party in teh evening.
27. Wow, all caught up in 26 pts.
28. There is no 28.
29. Or 29.
30. 'cause everybody likes round numbers.

(31. Yu Wenxia: role model for Chinese women around the planet)

The Grassland Extreme Marathon in Inner Mongolia: Kicked my ass

Well, i didn't see that one coming. This race was way harder than i was expecting. Please copy and paste the link below to read a fine example of my nonfiction and suffering.

http://english.cri.cn/6566/2012/07/04/902s710004.htm

Note: i didn't perform at all like i'd hoped to, so was totally shocked to see that i placed 30th out of 72. Oh yeah.

How Soon Is Now?

Since Q and I have started moving apart, 2-3 months ago, i've been experiencing a strange barrage of attention from the ladies. Pretty much unsolicited, and occasionally awkward. (Why couldn't this have happened when i was 19?)

Like one woman i spoke w/ at a friend's gf's bday party (spoke with for about 2 minutes) later requested my phone # from my friend, and then started sending me a string of texts, which i politely replied to. Then she was like, would you like to meet up on Thursday? Anyday is good for me, actually. 

so I was like, ok, fine, meet up on Thurs. She's actually very nice, but (as i suspected) we had virtually zero common ground. She thought i was a freak for being veg, and not using disposable chopsticks. She enjoys walking around the shopping mall. She likes 50 Cent and J. Bieber. Yadda yadda. I did my best to be polite, while trying not to impress. Luckily, it was pretty clear even to her that there was no chemistry happening. Whew!

Also a coworker seemed a bit into me, and the close physical proximity was making me feel pretty uncomfortable for a bit. 

A sort of crazy rock girl from a BJ's best livehouse gave major hints that she would fall asleep at the wheel one night. So i let her crash on the bed downstairs. Then she oddly hung out most of the next day while i did my errands. 

Also, i was invited to a singles party for Xinhua news and CRI media folk. Which could be interesting in that Hey-Let's-Try-Speed-Dating way, but i declined. 

My Vegging Out cohost Lucy (who's super cool, married, and not into me, ha) said, "sq, it's too soon for you to date anyone." And i sort of agree. 

But.

i went to this party held by BJ's coolest record label, Modern Sky, and met this very friendly graphic designer there. Later, we had a bit of clumsy dialogue on Weibo (the Chinese version of Facebook/Twitter), and then met up for coffee last Sunday. 

She was really sweet. Her Eng is quite limited, so we required some iphone translation assistance now and again. But i certainly appreciated her patience. 

She's also the 1st person in China i've met who does volunteer work, helping out w/ an art class for underprivileged kids. 

She runs, and is even up for joining my group at 8:30 am this Saturday.

Anyhow, i'm hesitant to jump into things full throttle, although my libido isn't. For better or worse, i consider public opinion ("Oh look, William has a new gf already!"). Also, being in China, i've started wondering about the purpose of any relationship if it's not pointed towards marriage. Lame, i know. 

I was rather enjoying a bit of single time, but if you meet someone cool and have some connection, isn't it natural to see where it could go? 

Thoughts?

Marijuana: Straight Talk

Finally, some common sense straight talk about marijuana and the law! Gotta love it.

Vegging Out

A while ago, the travel editor suggested we do a video series about BJ's veg restaurants. i was like, "what a hassle. Why can't i just write articles as usual?"

But it's been  a super fun project. Great team of cohost Lucy Luan, producer, director, and camera operator(s). And another person or 2 to just hang out in the background.

Done 6 so far, and will do another 1 or 2. Beats just writing articles all the time. Plus we get to meet cooks, and they recommend meals, and prep special stuffs for us. We don't "review", but showcase. Can't complain. Just eat, smile, and try to crack a few jokes.

Stupid Air

When the air quality index is up to 239, it really hampers my training schedule. Drag, that. 

End of an Era: Q

Well, if you haven't heard already... me and Q have split up. i guess i haven't felt like writing about it, even though it'd been building up towards this ending for quite some time. Today i helped her move into her new apartment out by the art district. 

Then i came home and took my bike into the bike shed, where the guy who lives there asked me what summer plans were for me, my bro, and gf. i mentioned that Q wouldn't be around since she just moved away and we'd broken up. 

"That's not acceptable! You shouldn't break up! You two need to get married!"

"Well, there's nothing to be done. We already broke up. And she got a new apartment. She moved."

"That's not acceptable!"

In the most basic mandarin, i did try to explain my relationship to the bike shed guy.

1. We argued quite a bit.

2. Q definitely wanted to get married, but i believe that if we did so, she would be unsatisfied. In large part because

3. Our communication was never very good. 

So it was definitely my call to end things. Not an easy decision to make, but i think that the main thing that could've lead me towards a future with Q was inertia. And that's no good reason. Yes, i love her, but somehow not enough. i had trouble imagining buying a ring for her. And "maybe why not?" seems like terrible reasoning to enter marriage. 

Also, life with Q has never been easy for either one of us. We both put in loads of effort, yet often felt like we put in more than the other, or that the other didn't recognize what efforts had been made, what injustices had been swallowed. 

On the whole i feel like i did the right thing for both of us, but today was still a bit tough. We packed out all her stuff (which was most of the stuff in the apartment), and inadvertently said goodbye to the little presents we'd given and received over the past 1070 days. 

Q has always found it bizarre that i'm friends w/ a bunch of my exes, as that's definitely not the norm in China. But it looks like we're going to give it a go. i think this is really courageous on her part. i hope to be a good friend to her.

She really is an amazing person. Intelligent, caring, artistic, beautiful, intuitive... It may have been the rockiest relationship i've ever been in, but it's still pretty amazing to have had the chance to be with her for our time together.

Gutter Oil: It's Fucking Epidemic

I heard a long time ago from Q not to eat in cheap restaurants 'cause they use gutter oil. That's oil taken out of the sewers. But i didn't really believe her. And the cheap restaurants are too tasty to stay away from.
But then gutter oil started getting more and more press.
And one reporter even got lynched for covering it. Cause gutter oil across this massive country is worth millions of rmb to the gangs who run the operations.
But recently my friend and i stopped outside of any alley cafe to sip some wine, when along comes this guy. He yanks the manhole cover off of the whole and proceeds to scoop ladles of fucking sick-ass lumpy fat discarded by restaurant into a bucket. Of course, i whipped out my always dependable iPod, and shot some low quality footage. My friend asks him, "what are you doing? What are you going to do with that?" But she couldn't really understand his provincial accent.
One: gutter oil is disgusting. Two: gutter oil is carcinogenic. Three: after it's filtered and processed, gutter oil looks like normal oil. Four: don't expect the police to stop gutter oil.
And then just two days later, my co-host's co-host saw someone by our workplace collecting gutter oil.
Yuck.
But i admit that sometimes i still eat at the totally dirt-cheap place.

The Jesus and Mary Chain at China Music Valley Festival

I was totally shocked when I first read that the Jesus and Mary Chain were coming to Beijing to play a show. As a teenager, I was a bit of headcase for these four young leather-clad lads. Headed by Jim and William Reid with their unruly locks, they were quintessential UK Britrock, plus they heralded the use of screaming feedback to accompany the sort of melodic songs that people can write within a week of picking up a guitar. Not only that, but they shamelessly advocated drug use in their songs, and made numerous explicit metaphors about oral sex. What teenager wouldn't love them? My walls were plastered with several Mary Chain posters. I would break a sweat to realize that the library had a new copy of Melody Maker which had a cover feature about the new JMC album. I shamefully cut out the article and thumbtacked it to my bedroom wall. My own songwriting and vocal style are directly indebted to the JMC. My list of Things To Do In This Lifetime included seeing the Jesus and Mary Chain live. I kinda crossed it off the list as i grew less enamoured with them over the years, but that's no reason not to see them when they come knocking on your doorstep. They were the Saturday headliners. William's probably doubled his weight since the days when he and his bro wrote Psychocandy. Pretty decent-sized crowd stuck out for the whole show, despite a thunder and lightning storm which took place. Even in their heyday they had a reputation for being shit performers, so I didn't expect much. Plus they're like 20 years older. Pluse Jim and William hated each others guts for years after the break up. Etc, etc... William shuffled around, hunched over his guitar, never looking up at the crowd (as he's always done). Jim's voice sounded exactly the same as before, and he sang much better than i was expecting. Not only that, but he seemed quite pleasant. He said "xiexie" a number of times. He even cracked a couple jokes, which kinda shocked me. "I'd like to say thanks to everyone for sticking it out through the rain. And fuck off to all of those who didn't." He actually seemed pretty gracious. i guess you shouldn't be an angsty teen up into your 50s. Hell, they even played an encore. They didn't sound great, but it did sound pretty good. Mostly i was happily drowning in nostalgia, singing along with most every song. Shit, when's the last time I thought about songs like Blues From a Gun, or Sidewalking? It was pretty darn fun. Also Glasvegas (who totally rocked the casbah) played Some Candy Talking earlier on. Actually, the Glasvegas version actually sounded better. But you know how it is: it's all about the music. It's not about the... oh, never mind.

Apple Ipod Touch: What a piece of shit

Well my friend got an iphone so i helped him out by buying this  thing. Wasted way too much time trying to get it registered so i can get apps, took it to the Apple store but they couldn't help me, had some email w/ customer support, and basically progress on just setting the thing up has been ZERO. The credit card company assured me it's not a problem from that end.

I'm sure that this is a wonderful piece of life-changing technology if i could actually use it. But for now i just think it's a piece of drippy shit worth fuck all. 

PS. It's true that i haven't been getting enough sleep lately, so please take that into account.