Another three women

I am at a low ebb.

I have been ill..... for, oh, about the last 5 months, I suppose. But it's been particularly bad for the past two weeks. I can't tell if its a cold or the 'flu or just an allergy to all the crap in the air, but I feel terrible.

Some evening lecturing over the past few weeks has been proving cruelly exhausting. And I suppose the political situation here has been adding to my depression too.

I was not in a good state yesterday. The air quality outside appeared apocalyptically bad again, making me fearful to step outside. Instead I spent most of the day cowering under my duvet, popping Ibruprofen and anti-histamines and trying (in vain) to catch up on all the sleep I didn't get during the past week.

However, by mid-evening, I was beginning to think I ought to venture out for a little while, to try to clear some of the cobwebs out of my head. My throat was so croaky that I was beginning to feel I needed a Guinness to fix it. So, I thought, a brisk stroll down to the Pool Bar to stretch my legs, just one or two quick ones, and then home again for an early night.

Fate plays strange tricks on you sometimes.

As I set out, I remembered that a band called Brain Failure were supposed to be playing at MAO Live that evening. I was debating with myself whether to go as I walked down the road. I don't rate them all that much, but they are probably Beijing's most successful band, and I imagine that a club performance would be quite an event (I've only seen them at open-air festivals so far) because of the size and fervour of their following. Tempted as I was, I just didn't somehow feel in the mood, and - by the narrowest of margins - decided against the gig. However........ as MAO is just over the road from the Pool Bar, I thought I might as well check out what time the show was starting and how much it was.

And what do I discover? Brain Failure have cancelled. Tonight's headliners are going to be SUBS instead. SUBS!! As I have mentioned on here many times before, SUBS are an awesome live band, about my favourite act on the Beijing rock scene. This was a much more enticing prospect than a bunch of leather-trousered cock-rockers singing in bad English. But I had decided I wasn't in the mood for a gig, hadn't I? I retired over the road to ponder the matter further over a medicinal glass of Guinness.

A few minutes later, I got a phone call from my ex, The Poet. She was going to the gig, and happened to have been pulling up in a taxi just as I was leaving the venue and crossing the road. Well, this was a nice surprise. I hadn't seen her for ages. And she was in a very good mood, being sociable, being friendly - that happens sadly infrequently. Would I come and join her? Does the Pope shit in the woods?

Damn, she is so sexy there ought to be a law against it. And the broken pieces of my heart still sometimes rattle painfully in my chest when I see her like this. But I'm pretty much in control of all that wistfulness & regret nonsense now, able to enjoy her company as a friend - and it was great to be able to catch up with her for a while before the show.

And SUBS were their usual kick-arse selves. Their singer, Kang Mao, is also, as I have mentioned on here many times before, so-sexy-there-ought-to-be-a-law-against-it.

Ah yes, and there is a New Interest as well (as in 'new romantic interest', that is). Neither Kang Mao (though a man can dream....) nor The Poet, but another. These things always happen in threes, don't they?

Quite an eventful evening, then. And a long one too. 5 bars in all (well, 4 - I went to the Pool Bar twice, because, you know, it's on the way home). And 3 women. Why does it always seem to be 3 women???