Racist Cartoonist Dies, Reddit Talks Food

I heard that Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, died earlier this week. The Reddit post I looked at had people chatting about food instead of Adams, which I thought was strange, but whatever.

I have, somewhere back home, The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective People, a Dilbert collection. I also had a plus Dogbert and an actual Dilbert doll. It’s funny, but working in a cubicle looked somewhat enviable. I was floundering as a worker, the first of many two-job or more stints in my life. No career, just jobs. Journalism wasn’t really working for me, so I knew I needed to find something else.

I got a kick out of Dilbert. I wasn’t a part of the corporate world, but I’d had my fill of shitty jobs, so THAT part I could relate to.

But even Adams couldn’t avoid the pitfalls of self-expression. You can have opinions, but frequently, people really CAN’T say how they feel or else they’ll lose their jobs. I’m hoping Adams had enough saved/invested so that he was okay. A quick check on the interwebz shows he was worth around $20 million when he died, so I guess he was okay, and would have been okay for a while. But all the money in the world won’t stop cancer, when it decides you’re the target.

I’m sad that he seemed so racist. It just struck me as yet another familiar, but depressing opinion from aging white guys who’ve made a few bucks. I used to admire Adam Carolla when he was on Loveline, but he made a few bucks, and then condemned the rest of us. Funny, these guys seem to end up alone. Adams was divorced twice.

Adams isn’t near my age, he’s more my brother’s age, or WAS, but anytime I hear of a creative person dying, it reminds me that I have two unpublished novels, and I want to get them published. It’s not just a matter of querying publishing houses. The big five won’t accept manuscripts unless they have an agent pushing them. I’m hoping I can start looking when I have a break from school coming up. I know I have to at least try.

And I hope if I do ever make it big, I learn enough to keep my mouth shut.

Thanks to my newer subscribers! You’re probably wondering what the hell happened in the past couple months. Some health issues, keeping up with work, dealing with a hugely annoying person that I plan to limit my time with, and watching the world burn. Hoping I can post more frequently. Computer screw ups aren’t making things easier. I SWEAR I tell myself I’m going to post every day, then the internet lags, I can’t get a good VPN connection, cord won’t charge, blah, blah, blech. If you’re new, I post about stuff that happens to me in China, along with occasional commentary on stuff that may or may not interest you. Eggs are cheap here. $1.26 for 10. Why 10 insted of 12? That’s the metric system, baby.

“I’m Okay,” she said, Coughing her lungs out…

I’m sitting here having a late lunch with a bite of egg and tomato in my mouth when all of a sudden, I have an alarming coughing fit. Like, “are you okay?” fit. Like, “oh my God, she’s been coughing for 20 seconds straight ohmygod maybe she’s choking” fit.

Sometimes this happens to me. Everything will be fine, then all of a sudden, I cough uncontrolably for several seconds. This time I had food in my mouth, and I was mildly concerned I’d inhale it and things would get REALLY exciting.

But, no. I think maybe it was the pepper I’d ground onto my eggs. I think maybe a small piece of it landed on my throat, and my throat said, “fuck that.”

One thing though, about having a coughing fit by myself is I didn’t have someone asking me, “do you want some water?” My mouth is frozen open, my lungs are heaving, there’s still food in my mouth, and you ask me if I want to take a sip of water like I’m some aristocrat? NO! I’ve NEVER understood the logic of asking someone in the middle of a coughing fit if they want water. I don’t understand how pouring water down someone’s throat will help scratch the annoying, ticklish ITCH of whatever triggered the coughing spasm.

And try it sometime. As you’re coughing yourself to death, pick up that glass of water, tilt your head back (ever try to cough while looking at the ceiling?) pour that water into your open mouth and see how that works. Willing to be you’ll be inhaling that water (super healthy, so I’ve heard) and simultaneously spraying it all over God’s creation.

AFTER I’m done with the coughing fit, THEN ask me if I want some water. But not during the spectacle. Unless, of course, you want to be sprayed with a mixture of water, phlegm, and partially chewed food.

Yes, I know this is my first post in a long time. Yes, there’s more to come. But I’ll never figure out why not posting for months increases my views, whereas when I post daily, I get crickets. I also hit a personal high with YouTube in December, where I posted nothing except snarky comments on other videos. My channel hit 10,000 views. Go figure.

And stay tuned.

YouTube: NowayLaowai

Instagram: Chinagrrrl7

Frustration and Fatigue

Couldn’t sleep a wink last night. And today was my Chinese lesson. I’m learning on an app called Anki. I have no idea how to use it, but apparently, that doesn’t matter to my teacher, because I suspect he likes to see me frustrated. It’s like taking flying lessons and the pilot takes you up to 30,000 feet and lets you take over the controls, but you have no idea what they do. Well, okay, it’s not THAT stressful, but still. If you are an instructor and you force your students to use an app, and you teach them nothing about it at the beginning, yet assign things to do on the app, I mean, WTF?

So yeah, wasn’t feeling super duper hunky dory today. It’s probably going to rain soon, I wish I weren’t sensitive to changes in the barometric pressure, but here I am. And today was appropriately gloomy, with enough clouds to make you want to stay in bed all day.

Soon, I’ll be able to dot that.

Monday, Monday…

It was actually pretty good yesterday. Technology held up, got through stuff from the units, yada, yada, yada. Had pizza for dinner, ordered from Eleme. I finally broke down and ordered from Eleme (food delivery service) for the first time in YEARS last week, when I had a craving for pizza, but not enough to go out in cold weather for it. I felt like a lazy pig, but damn, that pizza was good.

And today’s pizza was good too.

Spent the evening grading papers. I’m almost done.

Aw, Yeah!

Baopals is just like Taobao, but in English. I’ve had a hankering for American snacks, so I broke down and bought some caramel pretzels from MiniSo. Of course, they don’t come in the American size. We’re talking a bag containing three “snack-size” packages of pretzels.

They were good, but of course they weren’t enough.

Baopals to the rescue. I really wanted some decent cheese popcorn, so I bought some Cretors Chicago Mix. I’d rather have just the cheddar, but the caramel popcorn thrown in is a nice touch too. I got a notice from Baopals that it might take a while to come.

Or maybe I read the wrong thing. Because I got a text saying my orders came in. They included Campbell’s tomato soup, crackers, cocktail sauce, and (insert heavenly choir here) THE CHEDDAR CHEESE POPCORN!

I was very pleased and having two jumbo bags of cheddar cheese and caramel popcorn