OW

Um, ow. And tomorrow (Today being December 1st, tomorrow being the 2nd) it’s gonna be SUPER OW.

I just spent four hours hot and sweaty with Alpha Hottie. I grunted like a Williams sister at Wimbledon and he called my name repeatedly.

Yeah, I wish it was about that too but this is me and this is real life. There are two rules to remember: 1. I NEVER get laid. Don’t know why that is, I certainly never signed up for said embargo, but it stands nonetheless. 2. Real life is never that easy.

So, I just spent four hours playing volleyball with the primary and middle school teachers. I am bruised, I am dirty and I am, apparently, a conquering hero. The middle school teachers played the primary school teachers in a winner-takes-all battle royal. I was auditioned from noon to 2 for the primary school teachers.

At lunch (11:45) my lunch mate was asked if I played volleyball. She asked me if I played and I said, "Yes, but I haven’t played in a long time. I’m not very good." I haven’t played since I was in high school… as a student. I’m rusty, to say the least to say nothing of the fact that I have just stuffed myself to the gills with food.

So, I finished up lunch and headed out to meet the players. At first, I thought it was just going to be a few of us; my primary school boss (one of the friendliest, warmest, most reflective men I know) and a few teachers. When I saw Alpha Hottie come around the corner, I thought, "Oh shit."

I get the sense he’s not interested. I know he really wants to be friends but I think that’s where it ends. Granted, I have no real reason to think that but I think it nonetheless. So, to sum up, I now have to play a game I haven’t played in over a decade in front of the man who "likes" me but isn’t "in like" with me in a country where all the sports they enjoy are nothing I’ve ever liked (they like track and field and synchronized dancing) so I have a reputation as not be all that athletic. Frankly, I’m competitive as hell and quite the jock but none of the sports they like have enough savagery behind them for my liking. If I’m competing with others but there isn’t the risk of a massive collision resulting in compound fractures, I’m not interested. Sad but true. High stakes are the only incentive to pull my inner whiner from myself and simply respond to the stimulus. The only reason I like Yoga is that it makes no bones about being brutal on the body, the only competition is with yourself and it aggravates my inner whiner to the point of being catatonic.

So, there I stand, my competitive inner bitch going, "Yup, one more thing about to be lost in translation. Enjoy eating what’s left of your pride."

"You play…?" Insert volleyball gesture by the hottest man on the planet. He seemed truly perplexed.

"Volleyball…" I fill his blank and prepare to answer.

"Volleyball." He repeats like a willing student instead of letting it go like my proud male colleagues.

I lift my hand in a gesture of "a little." "A little." I say, wishing I hadn’t agreed to this.

He nodded opaquely and my inner competitive jock bitch was rolling on the floor laughing at my impending doom.

We warmed up with a round of bumping the ball back and forth and I was surprised at how easily it came back to me. "Maybe I’ll be able to slide by." I thought.

Once the warm up was done, we wandered across the field to one of the soccer goal posts (sans net) that we were going to use as our makeshift net. We split up into teams of two. Fortunately I was on Alpha Hottie’s team, so he’d get the front row seats to my mortification.

We started playing and quickly I got up to serve. I could never serve with I was in school. I thought, "Oh god, here it comes. I hope I don’t hurt anyone."

Much to my surprise I made proper connection and our team got a point. Quickly, our team won as I nailed serve after serve. Suddenly, I went from "Random Special Teacher Invited By Propriety" to "Team Hero." Everyone was talking quite fervently with "Tina" peppering their conversation. Everyone started giving me thumbs up.

Then Alpha Hottie hollered something in Mandarin from behind me. "Beautiful girl!" followed. (Boys say that to all girls all the time here in China; it’s strange in that it rarely means anything romantic... in fact, it's most often said by brothers) I turned, confused by his outburst and saw that everyone on my team was looking past me to the track and field entrance.

A lovely, petite woman joined our team, clearly very friendly with Alpha Hottie. Considering the diamond ring on her left ring finger, she’s either his serious girlfriend (which I suspect) or his seriously platonic friend. They were very friendly at first but then after a few minutes, they stopped speaking to each other and then didn’t really interact anymore. (Frankly, you’d have to pry me off him with a crowbar.) Normally, I can tell in two gestures whether or not people are sleeping together. Hell, in two conversations, I can tell if they will sleep together even if they haven’t met yet. I have amazing accuracy; I’ve never been wrong. But, in China it’s just a different physical language. I can’t tell at all.

She joined our team and we continued to kick ass and take names. Alpha Hottie kept applauding me and trying to say supportive things to me in English. I kept applauding him and flashing him the "V" for victory with my fingers whenever he did something good. At the bottom of it, we’re both jocks and there’s a kinship with jocks, regardless of language barriers.

After a while, I started to notice that after each serve, I grunted like a Williams sister. At first I was utterly mortified but then I decided it was better to grunt and get the serve than to not grunt and fuck up the game. Pretty quickly, I was cultivating my grunt and after each one, I had a flash of boys talking about how much they like to watch women’s tennis for the noises.

We continued to play as students filed back into school and surrounded our playing to watch. I was cheered by my students and they all came up to me to say, "Teacher, you are cool."

I then had to leave to teach my afternoon classes. My primary school boss pulled me aside as I was leaving and he said, "4 o’clock. You find I."

"Okay." I nodded and headed off, worried about why he would want to see me.

My classes finished at 3:30 and I flopped into the office to hang out for another half hour. At about 3:45, the lovely young woman who may or may not be Alpha Hottie’s lady, came to the office, smiled so euphorically and unleashed a, "Tina!!!!" as she gestured for me to follow.

Awaiting me outside the office were all the women who had been playing volleyball and as soon as they saw me, the bounced up and down excited and flashing the "V" sign. Each one tried her hand at telling me "You are very, very…" and then she would give me the thumbs up sign with a broad smile.

I demurred as pride cometh before a fall. The women then all explained that their English was "very, very bad."

"My Chinese is very, very, very bad." I said and they seemed to like that. After all, it’s only fair. I’m in their country, I should speak their language and yet, they are clearly upset they cannot meet me in English.

We walked to the middle school and there was another volleyball court with my primary school boss hanging out. It would appear that my boss didn’t want to talk to me. He wanted me to play volleyball for the primary school against the middle school.

I agreed (not that I could turn them down) and I was put in the first rotation.

We lost the first game (we played to 25) and then during the second game, I caught my stride and we went from 0-17 to 25-17 for the win. I was on a good streak as I served. Everyone was cheering me on and I was utterly flabbergasted as to how that happened.

As we started our third game, I realized I was the only girl playing. All the other women had yet to get in the game and seemed quite contented to cheer from the sidelines. I offered one of the women my place and everyone shook their head "NO!"

"Tina!" "Tina!" I kept being called out by Alpha Hottie and my boss. They kept grabbing my arm and shaking their heads when I would walk towards the sideline.

We continued playing another two games but didn’t win again. Upon my fourth hour of volleyball, my precision wasn’t quite what it had been and so my serve sucked, hence no more cleanup rounds of serving from me.

Nevertheless, we played well, dug down deep and gave it a good try.

And now I hurt.

I hurt like the hurt to end all hurts.

I can’t wait for tomorrow.