This whole town there to facilitate the hotel.

The hotel was for the government, to house like foreign dignitaries, it seemed.

Half U.S. government, half Disneyland.

All of us rowdy bowdy talking shit doing gay jokes disrespecting women from afar.

The one woman on crew, hella zatted mid-thirties girl who gave no fucks—that was her vibe—just smirking and shaking her head when we said sus shit.

Like you fucking monkeys.

You cavemen.

I’d forgotten how to talk like this, but picked it up fairly quickly.

Doing so was the price of admission.

It brought us closer.

It unified the squad.

I’d been so bitter towards professional groups going out drinking together, wearing their uniforms, whom I’d pass on my bike while delivering things. Whom I’d deliver to once they, drunk, got home from their professional gatherings.

Like you fucking simps.

You basic fucks.

Probably thinking y’all are doing good for the world by not saying un-PC things and drinking outta metal straws when y’all are just participating in organized classism.

And not only that, but sedating yourself with that most savage, unrefined, un-nuanced Western drug, alcohol.

Especially insidious since it wasn’t even seen as such, wasn’t even seen as a drug.

Fkng understanding school shooters, biking past and delivering to these fucks.

How they had no clue what lay outside their sphere.

How they looked at those outside their sphere as human garbage.

Like they couldn’t grasp how/why anyone, had they the motivation, wouldn’t live like them.

But I guess I understood it.

The drinking part at least.

That shit was fun af!

Went to the bathroom like three beers in and took a bathroom selfie and posted it on the gram.

Six beers in I checked the gram and noticed editor bae had liked it.

Got so fkng happy, I was giddy.

There was hope yet!

More of the same the next morning, making good progress.

What I started to realize was, I didn’t have to go so in on my own and could still get the same results.

Employing dollies, when applicable.

Rallying dudes who’d be on their phones bullshitting if no one rallied them.

Yo gimme a hand with that end of this, would ya.

Yo y’all hit that quadrant, we’ll hit this.

Felt fkng good dude.

PARTICIPATING.

All the Intel fucks were arriving for the conference the next day, so lunch was blown af.

All tables in the lunchroom filled. The new ones they’d put out in the hallway surrounding the lunchroom also.

Joined a communal roundtable out in the hall.

Glass panes facing out on the National Harbor, like down in the showroom, but five stories up.

A glass atrium, way up in the corner, where the L-shaped hallways met.

Wild chandeliers everywhere.