Unravelling

Or, the Elements of a really shitty evening.... I'm not usually one of those people who whine about cold or wet weather, and use it as an excuse for staying home - or as an excuse for being miserable if I go out. But last week's early snowfalls in Beijing, jolly as they might briefly have seemed in the midday sunshine, were starting to put a bit of a damper on everyone's mood by the evening - including mine. It had thrown a spanner in the works of The Bookworm's speaker event too: a visiting novelist, flying up from Shanghai, had his flight delayed for several hours - and the start time for his reading, originally set for an unsociably early 7pm, got shunted back to an equally unsociable 8.30. In fact, I hadn't been that enthused about this talk anyway; I'd just been using it as a pretext to meet up with a couple of friends I don't see enough of; but speaker events aren't great for chatting, so I had hoped to be able to break away from there as soon as possible. In fact, The Worm isn't a great place for chatting - even before or after an event - when it's that crowded, and this author had drawn a big audience. So, the core plan for the evening, as far as I was concerned, had been to repair to Fubar (where I have some freebie vouchers to use up!) for a few cocktails immediately afterwards. The revised timetable at The Worm put the kibosh on that, rather. But the plan was, to be honest, floundering already: one of my companions surprised me by suddenly professing an irrational froideur towards poor old Fubar (she too has vouchers for the place, vouchers I fear she is unlikely ever to use), and both had arranged to meet other friends at the speaker event - which left me ignored out on the margins (and unenthusiastic about the speaker, reluctant to hang around The Worm until 10pm or so, and bummed that my cocktail plan had gone out of the window). I decided to beat a retreat. At least, I thought, I had a very tempting Plan B, a fortuitous consolation option that had only arisen at the very last minute and would probably have been far more fun anyway. Well, it might have been, if I could have enticed out anyone at all on that bleak, damp, bitterly cold evening. Instead, the alternate plan just degenerated into another succession of frustrations and disappointments. That sound you hear at times like this, far off yet somehow inside you, like the crackle of dried leaves, is the sound of your crest falling. Or your soul shrivelling. I can endure a fair amount of plan derailment and friends letting me down, but.... when you have that many different annoyances assailing you one after another in quick succession, and even the weather gets in on the act... well, it does start to feel as if Fate is somehow conspiring against you. Ah, well. I went to one of my reliable usual haunts and got pissed on my own. It's nice to know there are some things you can rely on....