Victor

I met Victor because I almost tripped on a raised manhole cover on the sidewalk at 4:45 am. He's lived in London 10 years after having grown up in Brazil with his parents, who are from Japan. He is the latest in a long line of people I meet whose picture I realize I should have taken as I walk away from them.

He was walking home from clubbing. He has tomorrow off, which is to say he has today off, which is how he let himself out on a Sunday night. He'd been gaining on me for a few blocks. I was walking home from getting a bagel. It had been 3am when I realized I had no appetite for sleep, so I decided to go out for a walk and a bite.

The Brick Lane Beigel Bake is open 24 hours and is something of a London rite of passage, or so said Victor. I got Hot Salt Beef, which came with a mustard that burned the back of my nostrils after every bite. The instant coffee complemented it so well that I'm reluctant to drink the good stuff I have here in my kitchen.

I got the sneaking suspicion he might have been thinking about trying to pick me up; there was a more awkward goodbye when we parted ways than I would have expected from someone I met on the street. Probably just the caffeine and sleeplessness thinking for me. Regardless, I was glad to have someone to talk to for a few minutes.

I walked away listening to "Some Weird Sin". My free version of the Spotify app won't let me replay songs, but if it did I'd have started over every ten seconds until I got home.

--

Sorry, anyone reading this, for the delay on blog posts. No class this week -  more coming.