Shonen falcon in Melbourne Diaries

Every morning at work, where I am lodged on the 35th floor of an anonymous CBD building, a small brown peregrine falcon perches itself just outside my window, gliding away when everyone else arrives an hour later. It’s a lovely private show for me, especially as the bird is a major source of interest for my twitcher colleagues who usually arrive far too late, just as it has roosted for the day.

Just snippets today.

Got through my birthday ok, with Natalie (perhaps significantly) being the only person at work to remember (which would have taken some work given my vow of silence – still not sure how she found out the date). I saw Shonen Knife over the long weekend, a silly but fun band. Not as intense as the Swans gig on Tuesday, but there have probably been nuclear weapons tests that were less intense than that band. Some younger kids in bands were there (I think to see a Spanish support act), and a lot of punkers from the 90s, adultkids with the ‘rock look’, who still haven’t let go of their faded tattoos and spiked hair – I felt far too lawyerly in my usual plain t-shirt and jeans, but it’s stupid for me to pretend I’m still 18, even when I am watching a Japanese punk band from my childhood.

Work is dull as hell, with little to motivate anyone – except for the short term contractors, everyone has a slumped, rumpled look to them. Any attempts by management to communicate with staff about their own jobs has been terse and half-hearted, and some people are slipping into regular absenteeism. It’s very hard to get anything constructive done. As for myself, I remain largely unsupervised and unchecked in what I do, working on autopilot.

Spoke to Andy for the first time in ages (we both have birthday’s in the same week, so it’s pretty much an annual catch-up). While his wife goes off semi-professional cycling around the country, he’s left at home with the kids and a series of au pairs. God, I hope that he is sleeping with at least one of them, as they are sure to be far nicer to him than his wife. Andy is somebody who was cajoled into marriage with a woman that was completely unsuited to him (against warnings from family and friends), and has since then been subjected to an on and off decade of verbal abuse, emotional blackmail and sexual starvation. It’s almost a given that his wife is having an affair of some sort (with some equally cycle-crazy nutter). Ah, the joys of being happily married!

My fitness is improving a little, almost entirely due to massive doses of painkillers than to genuine physical recovery of my joints. I was speaking to someone in their forties at work who stated it is perfectly normal for people in middle age to keep themselves running via pharmaceuticals. Given that I have little time (or inclination) for sports massages, pilates or anything that might do some long term good, cheap supermarket pills are proving my saviour.

Currently reading ‘The Game’ by Neil Strauss, a book about the idiotic PUA scene of the last decade, something that has gotten recent press again due to the likes of Dapper Laughs and Julien Blanc. It’s amazing that there are men so infantile that they follow this sort of stuff. The book is clearly building to a cathartic realisation that they are a bunch of sad, insecure losers but I think that I reached that conclusion at about page 3. Natalie, who wanted me to read the book out of solidarity, is obsessed with it, stating that men have been approaching her with silly PUA techniques for years, but that she is only now realising where it all came from. Are there really men about their who believe in this bullshit about ‘negging’, ‘sarging’ and so on?

Last updated March 02, 2015