Today is at least every day

I'm once again stuck looking for something entertaining and not too trashy to read. I probably have twenty different lists lying around in far corners of my computer and the Internet, but if I get all into the list-hunt, by the time I find one I'll forget why I was looking for it in the first place. It's almost a Catch-22.

I've noticed that when I meet some new Chinese person, there's an adjustment period where they have some trouble believing that humor can come out of a foreigner, and in their native language. I went to the dentist today and judging by the delays from quip to laugh, I might have been talking to Alpha Centauri. On Skype. Shudder.

Dentist: so feels ok? Are there any other problems?
Me: the door to my bedroom is really creaky. Also I think I'm addicted to the sound, I can sit there and open and close it for hours. I think my neighbor is starting to get pissed off. That's it I guess.
Dentist: ...(emits a nervous and somewhat robotic giggle and changes the subject)...so make sure not to eat really hard things. And if it continues to be uncomfortable, we'll have to put a crown on it. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Me: no problem, as long as I can still eat tofu. ("Eat tofu" = sexually harass people, in Chinese).
Dentist: ...ha...ha? Haha!

Ridiculous phrase of the day: "at least..."

You wouldn't think to think it ridiculous, mostly cause you hardly ever think to rethink the phrases you use on a daily basis. But Yuan Yuan was telling me some story about the neighbors today, and how they broke up but that they were together for at least a year, and I eventually had to explain that I wasn't crying about the onions, but about how ridiculous "at least a year" sounded. At least a year. At least a year. At least a year. Sounding ridiculous yet? How about now, when you think about the fact that the probabilty of it being exactly a year is for all intents and purposes (another phrase I nominate for extermination) zero. It's misleading! Every time I hear that phrase now, I get this incredible thirst to hear that it's exactly equal to that lower bound. But then I despair; it's much like hoping today's September 25th every day.

Wo jianzai

Celebrated a few birthdays with some drinking at our place the other day. There must of been something extra special in the drinks because Mario was experiencing weird effects. We had the following two conversations at the peak of inebriation:

Mario (chewing a piece of gum): dude, my senses are so powerful, I can taste that piece of chicken you're eating from all the way over here.
Me (demolishing a piece of fried chicken): what does it taste like?
Mario (gets a bearing on his long-distance taste buds): ...gum.

(a little later)

Mario (still chewing gum): dude, my brain...I don't think anyone can understand what's going on in my brain right now. It's amazing.
Me: psh, I bet I can. Summarize it in two words.
Mario: Gum... ... ... ...good.

Nevermind, that sounds pretty much like the effects of alcohol.

I've been watching some Chinese movies lately, namely The Chinese Odyssey Part I & II. It's pretty glorius slapstick. There's lots of crotch humor, which is apparently as funny in China as it is in the United States. It must be some kind of genetically grounded reflex, like a mental kneejerk - when a man's crotch gets kicked, punched, set on fire, hit with a combination of gravity and tree branch, etc., you MUST laugh. And since I must, I did. A lot. Of course there can only be so much vicariously experienced pain before habituation sets in, but the movies threw in a good measure of other guaranteed laugh-elicitors - unibrows, horrible special effects, cross-dressing, and funny phrases like "Boyo Bolomi!"

I downloaded some more singing-training material. According to the latest, in five weeks I will no longer sound like a creaking door being slaughtered, or if I do, it will be as much as an octave higher than currently.

I've also been learning lots of Chinese lately by chatting with Chinese girls on various continents. Hmm, thought I had more to say about this...