Sorry
Sorry for the non-existent posting over the past week. I know you all missed me something crazy. For once I had a fairly busy social schedule. The weekend was quiet, but I overslept and was in one of those too-much-sleep stupors. And I was totally engrossed in Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods, which rocked.
Plus, my home Internet was out and I couldn't be bothered to break out the laptop and do things via dialup. It is still out but the asshat ISP doesn't work weekends and all their techs get off at 5 p.m. during the week. Other than that, the customer is their first priority.
Oh, and there is this. Today was 90 degrees and 89 percent humidity. It has been like this for weeks. Add in the stinky Beijing smog and you get a perfect meteorological disaster that almost exactly replicates the inside of my shorts after a 10k run.
I'm from Seattle. It is physiologically impossible for me to survive in this kind of weather. It's like trying to raise a sheepdog in a Brazilian rainforest, or a gila monster in the Arctic, or Jessica Simpson in the Library of Congress. They wouldn't last 30 seconds.
I feel like the Marine in "Doom 3" when he has to scoot across the Martian surface, gasping for air as he tries to get to another part of the facility. I leave my apartment and get in the airlock-like elevator. Once I get downstairs, it's like a controlled panic to find a taxi. It's not a run-around-with-your-head-cut-off kind of panic. No. That would only make things worse. It's more like when you have to take a crap really bad but you know you're a good 10 minutes from the nearest toilet. Panicking only makes it worse, and more likely that you are going to have an embarassing accident.
Actually, taxis can be a mixed blessing. Take today. After standing stock still in one spot for five minutes, little dots of sweat were starting to show up on my shirt. Finally a taxi shows up, a nice new Hyundai Sonata. I can hear his air-con blowing all the way down the street. Oh yeah, this is gonna be nice. I open the door, and before I'm even all the way in, it hits me. The smell of Chinese pickled vegetables the cabbie obviously had for breakfast. And dinner last night. And lunch before that. And at every meal this week. The smell permeates the fucking cab. So on the one had I am as cool as if I were in a vegetable crisper. On the other, I am being fucking marinated in vinegar, garlic and this guy's stomach juices. I can't open the window -- that would be like turning on the car's heat fan full blast. So I just sit there and try to breathe through my mouth. Yes, for the duration of this cab ride I am happy to be a mouth breather.
Anyway, Beijing is known for its hot summers, but usually they are parchingly dry. This year, for some reason we can probably blame on Bush, the weather has been more like Hong Kong or Singapore.
Not even the thunderstorms are providing any relief. Typically a summer storm here is a blessing delivering sweet relief from the north China heat. The rain hoses everything off and cools the city down while the winds blow out the pollution. But this year for some reason (Bush), all the storms have done is to pump more and more moisture into the local atmosphere. Think of throwing water on hot rocks in a sauna, and you get the idea.
So really, the weather has completely sapped any desire to do anything but sit on the couch in shorts and move as little as possible. The poor sucker who makes the mistake of venturing outside even for five minutes will end up covered in a glistening sheen, man-nipples straining to breach the impenetrable barrier of sweat-soaked cotton that is slowly suffocating them.
Yes, man-nipples.
Plus, my home Internet was out and I couldn't be bothered to break out the laptop and do things via dialup. It is still out but the asshat ISP doesn't work weekends and all their techs get off at 5 p.m. during the week. Other than that, the customer is their first priority.
Oh, and there is this. Today was 90 degrees and 89 percent humidity. It has been like this for weeks. Add in the stinky Beijing smog and you get a perfect meteorological disaster that almost exactly replicates the inside of my shorts after a 10k run.
I'm from Seattle. It is physiologically impossible for me to survive in this kind of weather. It's like trying to raise a sheepdog in a Brazilian rainforest, or a gila monster in the Arctic, or Jessica Simpson in the Library of Congress. They wouldn't last 30 seconds.
I feel like the Marine in "Doom 3" when he has to scoot across the Martian surface, gasping for air as he tries to get to another part of the facility. I leave my apartment and get in the airlock-like elevator. Once I get downstairs, it's like a controlled panic to find a taxi. It's not a run-around-with-your-head-cut-off kind of panic. No. That would only make things worse. It's more like when you have to take a crap really bad but you know you're a good 10 minutes from the nearest toilet. Panicking only makes it worse, and more likely that you are going to have an embarassing accident.
Actually, taxis can be a mixed blessing. Take today. After standing stock still in one spot for five minutes, little dots of sweat were starting to show up on my shirt. Finally a taxi shows up, a nice new Hyundai Sonata. I can hear his air-con blowing all the way down the street. Oh yeah, this is gonna be nice. I open the door, and before I'm even all the way in, it hits me. The smell of Chinese pickled vegetables the cabbie obviously had for breakfast. And dinner last night. And lunch before that. And at every meal this week. The smell permeates the fucking cab. So on the one had I am as cool as if I were in a vegetable crisper. On the other, I am being fucking marinated in vinegar, garlic and this guy's stomach juices. I can't open the window -- that would be like turning on the car's heat fan full blast. So I just sit there and try to breathe through my mouth. Yes, for the duration of this cab ride I am happy to be a mouth breather.
Anyway, Beijing is known for its hot summers, but usually they are parchingly dry. This year, for some reason we can probably blame on Bush, the weather has been more like Hong Kong or Singapore.
Not even the thunderstorms are providing any relief. Typically a summer storm here is a blessing delivering sweet relief from the north China heat. The rain hoses everything off and cools the city down while the winds blow out the pollution. But this year for some reason (Bush), all the storms have done is to pump more and more moisture into the local atmosphere. Think of throwing water on hot rocks in a sauna, and you get the idea.
So really, the weather has completely sapped any desire to do anything but sit on the couch in shorts and move as little as possible. The poor sucker who makes the mistake of venturing outside even for five minutes will end up covered in a glistening sheen, man-nipples straining to breach the impenetrable barrier of sweat-soaked cotton that is slowly suffocating them.
Yes, man-nipples.
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