On Thursday, we were just fooling around in the bedroom before bed. You know. The way people do. I never wanted this. I never wanted to become so attached to– Well, anyway. I tossed off my slippers. One foot, two foot. Barefoot, blue foot. Like a Dr. Suess rhyme. I tossed them away. It’s Wednesday…
Category: Writing
This is not content.
Notting Hill Carnival: The Corporate Mob
by
We went for our third Notting Hill Carnival yesterday. Didn’t plan to, just like we didn’t plan to be in the city for the bank holiday weekend. But it has always been the right idea in the end. Sarah and Tom planned the day for us and I suddenly remembered what it was like to…
Old West End, to the Nines
by
Last Chance Londoner, Part III Closer, closer. Quiet now. Listen. It is dark and the night is over us. I am hiding here, but not because I want to. London swallowed me, and I am sunk, sinking into her marshy fields, her fetid greens, the old, rubbish-strewn streets. Find me, around this corner, and that…
The Feel of London’s South Side
by
Last-Chance Londoner, Part II At Coin Street, Gabriel’s Wharf, you are finally there. The gross cement casings of the new theatre parade are behind you. You can see Old London rising up across the Thames, behind its bridges. The clatter of the skateboards has died underneath the Waterloo Bridge. At Coin Street, South Bank yawns…
A Walk in Clerkenwell
by
Last Chance Londoner, Part I London holds its secrets like a favour. You are only rewarded if you go look for them, and if you ask. I walked today between raindrops, between eras, between churchyards’ gasps of silence and the blat! of a city beside them. I went to St. Paul’s Tube and the City…
Clear Plastic Bag
by
Lately I’ve been reminded a lot that I don’t have a child. Mom went to Newton, Kansas to be with my sister. She said my sister needed help with her new house. I said, “I guess it’s a good excuse to see Maggie (her granddaughter), too.” “Well, there is that incentive too.” My only girlfriend…
How Britain Made Me a Patriot
by
Nothing about former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s snarling smile, his closed mind, and his Patriot Act could make me proud to be an American. Nothing about our President/Commander-in-chief waving on the side of an aircraft carrier could make me proud to be an American. Nothing about the pathetic two-party system, or the state of our…
Chris says…
by
Chris is leaving. Why does that matter? People leave London. They go to Spain. It happens all the time, and you’ll believe that most especially if you watch “A Place in the Sun” or “No Going Back” and the half dozen other copycat shows like it. Brits want out. Chris is loud and demanding. He…
World Cup, Au Naturale
by
Colin, Chris and I were just hangin’ out at a pub on the Strand, just moments after England won their first World Cup match, when we heard a commotion on the street nearby. Police escorts and everything for these 750-plus in-the-buff protestors/celebrators. They were protesting oil dependancy while celebrating the individuality of the human body.…
Michael Dale David Sebastian
by
Navigating a new friend is like discovering a new museum. What is new about it, anyway? It’s been here for years. Yet it is new to me and I am new to it. Michael told me, casually, offhand, that he cleaned objects at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. It was over a…
New Year’s Resolution Update
by
I’ve had one of those days: first, that other damn volunteer, Sue, at the soup kitchen, is horning in on my territory. I mean, back off! I do the till on Fridays in this town! Then my temp gig fell through, so I was deprived of another noisy day in Soho, at the corner of…
A long-played note
by
One day it rains. And then you walk by a tree and you see this. The winter in London is a long played note. Yet, there are reasons to love it here. Three are: 1. Green grass, no matter how little rainfall 2. Yummy Chinese food 3. Live music everyday, even in the Tube stations…
Surviving a blue day
by
One blue day isn’t just that. It’s the culmination of hours, days, weeks, holding on, fingernails biting into that last saving grain of wood. Fine, fine!. I laugh, I am fine. I am hiding it from you. What is just “blue” is ripping up in me, nearly dead and bleeding on cold cement, in an…
Alex doesn’t read this weblog
by
This is Alex. Hello Alex! Alex lives in London. He’s my friend. He’s married to Frances. I talk about her lots, but I don’t talk about Alex very much. Alex, like many of you (especially those of you not here right now), does not read my weblog. Why do you care whether Alex reads my…
Big Green Men
by
The worst thing you can do– if you are me– is read the New York Times’s review of the Oscars afterward. The funny thing is, why do they watch? Why do these stupid, joyless journalists watch, if they don’t have any idea what entertainment is for? I wonder if Alessandra Stanley has any idea how…
