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Soho
I had to leave the agency mid-afternoon for a meeting in Soho. I was driven in a nice silver Merc with leather upholstery along the Thames, past the Tate and MI6 headquarters, alongside the Houses of Parliament with the London Eye and Big Ben fighting for airspace. Up towards Buckingham Palace, and a quick sidestep into the heart of the west end.
The whole time I just sat there and watched London. 3:35 p.m. 20°c, blue skies with cloudy patches: life just... happened. It was almost magical.
Sometimes when I don't have to be thinking about anything else and the various distractions that would otherwise keep me from thinking those very deep thoughts, I can almost feel my brain trying to get to grips with the deeper meaning... the very "why" of it all. It's like wearing gloves and being told to pick out the velvet napkin in a blacked-out room full of hankerchiefs... you can almost feel as if you've linked a few pieces together but ultimately they were unimportant parts of the puzzle. They were the china cup on the sideboard in the house within the bigger picture, totally inconsequential but for a few seconds you felt as if you understood what the china cup was all about.
When the meeting ended early I took the time to wander through the streets of Soho, where microchip meets microskirt, where high tech meets high heels, and where Internet meets fishnets. The media whores were out in force at the cafés, tables full of people talking on their respective mobiles to tables full of people in other locations. The regular whores were just there for face value, it being too hot to screw in the mid-afternoon and life was just happening all around and I didn't have to be involved in it.
So I bought a very expensive bottle of Tequila, some DVDs and the latest White Stripes album and came home.
Apr.29.2003