Décadence Avec Élégance
It's snowing in London. I only had three hours of sleep last night. I woke up at 7 to grey light pouring into the bedroom and snow flakes hitting the window. Looked outside and saw the city disappearing under a heavy flurry. My first thoughts were for the flowers that bloomed, the creatures that came out of their hibernation this past sunny week, getting covered with snow flakes. How hippie am I? When the flurry subsided a little, about two hours ago, a small pterodactyl flew past my living room window towards Victoria Park.
I only had three hours of sleep because I drank a lot yesterday and ate a large hamburger at 2 in the morning which didn't agree with my stomach (I'd been a fishetarian for the past two weeks.) The hamburger was consumed at Balans, on Old Compton Street, a queer establishment I had not visited before (I always thought it was a bit over my budget every time I walked past it, and it turns out I was right - but they do have damn good food!) Two crazy ladies accompanied me: one who has a long history with the restaurant; another who simulated a loud orgasm that got the nearby tables giggling when I slid her engagement ring back on her finger. The touchy-feely gay waiter had his bum pinched, wine got drunk and we may have run away from a cab driver without paying the fare.
Yesterday started out as such a nice and calm day; I couldn't have guessed that the dark storms were drawing in and my friends would be as wild as them. Two friends had come down from York for the weekend. I showed them my neighbourhood - including Mile End Park's Ecology Centre - before we met with another friend (the one who knows Balans well) for a visit to Tower Hamlets' cemetery. The day started sunny but by noon it was clear that things were going to get progressively worse (I suppose leading up to today's snow flurries). We decided to skip the cemetery for a walk across soggy Victoria Park and some posh fish & chips. Our friends from York then drove us to Camden to the sound of Siouxsie Sioux. We found a parking spot near the market and were shocked to discover every single table in Bar 55 reserved for the happy hour (oh unhappy lack of foresight! But how were we supposed to know the place would grow popular after Camden's fire?) That didn't stop us taking tables, then moving to other tables when réservées arrived and kicked us off.
Friends began to arrive at Bar 55 and the place got progressively full of 12-year-olds (no, seriously) and louder. One of our friends got accidentally covered in a sugary drink and spent the rest of the night wiping her black leather bag and dipping her hair into glasses of water. Later, at another pub, she also had her breasts fondled by another female (the one who later would reach orgasm in my hands). Men looked jealously at my harem collection, and more than three women asked me how many times I'd slept with girls and why had I given it up (I've got horrible straight man shoes so I'm obviously in denial about my heterosexuality.) Before we arrived at the night's final pub, where a birthday party was taking place (which we crashed), we had a brief stop at the Ice Wharf, which was filled with orange people from Essex. Strawberry beer was drunk. People then started buying me beer (thank you again!) and conversation disintegrated into TMI, silliness, gossip, innuendo, surreality and banality. Women sat on my lap, men treated me like shit (one even threatened to kill me in Soho, but I think he was high on something), and everyone felt the need to confide secrets in me (the kind of shocking secrets that could send ripples through London's Goth Scene). I'd like to take this opportunity to say that your secrets are safe with me. Yes, I do love gossip; but I'm not a gossip. Do you get the difference? I'm a collector of gossip, a gatherer of information. I'm that character in an Agatha Christie novel that eventually gets murdered for knowing too much. It will be up to the detective in you to unravel the secrets I take with me to the grave.
I only had three hours of sleep because I drank a lot yesterday and ate a large hamburger at 2 in the morning which didn't agree with my stomach (I'd been a fishetarian for the past two weeks.) The hamburger was consumed at Balans, on Old Compton Street, a queer establishment I had not visited before (I always thought it was a bit over my budget every time I walked past it, and it turns out I was right - but they do have damn good food!) Two crazy ladies accompanied me: one who has a long history with the restaurant; another who simulated a loud orgasm that got the nearby tables giggling when I slid her engagement ring back on her finger. The touchy-feely gay waiter had his bum pinched, wine got drunk and we may have run away from a cab driver without paying the fare.
Yesterday started out as such a nice and calm day; I couldn't have guessed that the dark storms were drawing in and my friends would be as wild as them. Two friends had come down from York for the weekend. I showed them my neighbourhood - including Mile End Park's Ecology Centre - before we met with another friend (the one who knows Balans well) for a visit to Tower Hamlets' cemetery. The day started sunny but by noon it was clear that things were going to get progressively worse (I suppose leading up to today's snow flurries). We decided to skip the cemetery for a walk across soggy Victoria Park and some posh fish & chips. Our friends from York then drove us to Camden to the sound of Siouxsie Sioux. We found a parking spot near the market and were shocked to discover every single table in Bar 55 reserved for the happy hour (oh unhappy lack of foresight! But how were we supposed to know the place would grow popular after Camden's fire?) That didn't stop us taking tables, then moving to other tables when réservées arrived and kicked us off.
Friends began to arrive at Bar 55 and the place got progressively full of 12-year-olds (no, seriously) and louder. One of our friends got accidentally covered in a sugary drink and spent the rest of the night wiping her black leather bag and dipping her hair into glasses of water. Later, at another pub, she also had her breasts fondled by another female (the one who later would reach orgasm in my hands). Men looked jealously at my harem collection, and more than three women asked me how many times I'd slept with girls and why had I given it up (I've got horrible straight man shoes so I'm obviously in denial about my heterosexuality.) Before we arrived at the night's final pub, where a birthday party was taking place (which we crashed), we had a brief stop at the Ice Wharf, which was filled with orange people from Essex. Strawberry beer was drunk. People then started buying me beer (thank you again!) and conversation disintegrated into TMI, silliness, gossip, innuendo, surreality and banality. Women sat on my lap, men treated me like shit (one even threatened to kill me in Soho, but I think he was high on something), and everyone felt the need to confide secrets in me (the kind of shocking secrets that could send ripples through London's Goth Scene). I'd like to take this opportunity to say that your secrets are safe with me. Yes, I do love gossip; but I'm not a gossip. Do you get the difference? I'm a collector of gossip, a gatherer of information. I'm that character in an Agatha Christie novel that eventually gets murdered for knowing too much. It will be up to the detective in you to unravel the secrets I take with me to the grave.