to work in time to get to the timeless, perfection thru chaos

have you read

your feed looks like my tumblr

i understand

that looks like my instagram account

idk

fw

Thank you, Jack

But seriously, thank you, Jack, for telling me that I could submit this to a high-level literary magazine or creative nonfiction outlet with some minor tweaks. I don't think I will do that.

It Will Get Lighter


send your tumblr

I imagine that some lab-grown 29-year-old from Woking with a mind honed to identify individuals who fit the profile of Real Londoner (as conceived of by 50 opinion-polled racist builders and their wives in the Midlands) picks a stubborn local who can still somehow afford to live here and passes him along to some creative studio.

After I get away from the old racist failed actor, I go to see my Korean colleague. He's just arrived in London and I want to see how he's handling the party. We'd been invited as fresh meat for some of the older, gayer attendees. We aren't aware of that.

bro i read nothing in my life

A procession forms behind the French Raj and his fireworks bearer as they head out the door. I've lost my Korean colleague / fresh meat in the chaos. I'm sure he'll be able to fend for himself. They have mandatory military service in Korea.

My inability to confront the old racist failed actor is distracting me. I decide not to tell her about it.

He was cast as the guy who gets picked up and thrown out of the poker game to set the scene before the main characters arrive. Out of Real London and into real London, a discarded prop, at this party, chatting to me.

i hadn't considered this pedagogically or as a kind of personal knowledge management system (puke) at all but i suppose it is both of those things

I'm sat out the front of a cafe in Hatton Garden. I've just eaten a brie and bacon panini, and I'm rolling a cigarette. Feeling very London. An old man comes up to me and asks for a roll-up. I oblige.

Another Frenchman pushes through the crowd to join him. He's an events organiser who I'd met earlier, and he's holding a large box wrapped in a bin bag. They're the fireworks he'd smuggled in from France the night before. They're Industrial Grade, whatever that means for fireworks.

no like which do people call me

yeah

The Hatton geezer (fuck off) reminds me of this old failed actor who I'd met at a party a few years ago, another man out of time and out of place. This actor had scored a minor role in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and never really let go of it, had gone on to build his whole identity around it. I can't really blame him.

"I'm only attracted to you", he replies. "Like, you only."

Rain, starting

Thank you, Jack

Maybe, Jack, I'm doing this because I'm English?