Anyway. I don't have a lot to say at the moment. On a paint chart life would be a sort of indeterminate porridge colour. I'm working on being a nicer shade. I'm working on being who I can be, and not this bloody reject. But it's not very interesting work and the hours are shit. Let me tell you instead about Flagey.
It's not often I do the frite thing, but with an hour to spare I went down the best fritkot in town (allegedly) and shouted my order like a local. With a cornet of chips and a cold Fanta, I straddled one of the long benches that surround Place Flagey. On the surface, it's just like they had a lot of spare paving stones and went a bit mad. But this grey place is truly the local heart. Watching one courageous child running in and out of the fountains coming from blow-holes in the paving; youths playing some sort of football; people crossing the square rapidly, aiming at buses; the Flagey centre rearing like an ocean liner over Café Belga, I remembered it was nearly a year ago that I was first there, and it seemed improbable that this was now home.
On a speculative weekend jaunt to look at flats, I had wandered downhill into Flagey having no idea about it but getting the sense it was somewhere. Now, sitting there greasy with beef fat, I realised that the trajectory of each bus and tram in view was known to me. I've had three dates in the immediate area. I use all the supermarkets. However, the market still remains a bit of a mystery. It appears each morning and evaporates in the afternoon, the only sign of it being stacked barriers.
Aside from IKEA, and football, it occurred to me what a unifying experience the fritkot was. Nobody is too grand for a frite. Nobody looks great eating them and yet there we sit, grazing blithely from paper cones. I am part of Flagey, and Ixelles, and Brussels, because I am here, doing unobtrusively what other people do, and living the slightly fritey life.
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