When a friend from two lifetimes ago invites you to her back-to-London sayonara party after her year splitting her time between here and there, and the place says “dress code upscale” and you don’t even remember what that means, and you go, improperly dressed, and it’s full of “conventionally beautiful” but dead-eyed people trying too hard to look sexy to each other who are nothing like you or anyone you choose to spend your time with, though your friend and her friends are still awesome despite all that time and all those stereotypes… one of her friends even flew in from London to help her pack and take some fragile things home and you have a really good time and think of what could have been and how you probably won’t see her or anyone else here again for another lifetime. There is a thinly veiled sense of dread of what’s happening in this country among everyone, even those who will soon safely go home across the pond, it’s like 1933 Berlin, so we drunkenly sing Long Live the Queen, even those of us who don’t know the words…