Monday, 29 February 1996 

Sis,

It’s leap year day, last one for eight years apparently.  Some glitch in the cosmos, I don’t pretend to understand.  Spent the day blanched by the suffocating heat, indulging in office gossip shenanigans.  I love the word shenanigans.  There it is again, shenanigans, shenanigans. Made castles in Spain with Scottish Lisa in the tea room.  I was going to write a fabulous book, and she was going to bask in the fame while I garnered armfuls of cash.  Sat in Tatiana’s office and whinged about being fat in my too-closely-fitting black jeans.  Tatiana is nice. Shame about her boyfriend “Rocky”. That can’t be his real name.  I think she might be a bit sick of him, she said he was piking on her for something or other because he was ‘Too busy getting drunk on the couch.”  He’s a thirty-something chemical salesman.  They have a mortgage house in the north-western suburbs. She’s only 24.  I think that getting drunk on the couch story was a thinly veiled plea for J “Man of Misogamy” to rescue the fair maiden from her domestic doldrums.  Can you see me Sis, flying through her Northcote window saying in my polished baritone, “Never fear, Tatiana. I’m here to take you to new heights of passion with some serious kissing action!” Oh dear. (I’m not really interested in Tatiana, she keeps on talking about her bloody dog all the time. Every conversation ends with her talking about her dog, Josie.

I’ll continue this little reverie tomorrow night.  It’s 10:20pm, and I’m sure the neighbours are more than a little sick of hearing me clack away.

Monday, 19 March 1996  7:56pm

OK, where was I?  Oh yeah…

Nadia from work, girlfriend of Aaron has got herself a new job.  Quite sad, really.  She was a good drinking buddy.  Always hanging around, like me, with nowhere better to go.  She’s writing for the real estate section of a sub-group of John Fairfax Limited, though I s’pose that doesn’t mean much to you, Sis.  At the risk of sounding soppy, I do think I’ll miss her.  I remember I was drinking with her and Cav once in “The Napier” in Fitzroy.  Cav and I were absolutely rotten, I can say this unequivocably because we both stole glasses from the pub.  I only ever do that when I’m really sauced.  Nadia had just applied for a cadetship with The Age (which she didn’t get) and I was leaning against the front bar, drinking shots of black Sambucca, saying “You must keep in touch, Nadia.  I know you’ll be jetting off into the stratosphere of real journalism now, but don’t forget us sad, no-lifers here.” Sad, eh?  She replied “Sorry J, but I have a terrible record for keeping in touch.  I’ll forget you all.”  Simon and I had all her office belongings marked with our names before the day had even finished – staplers, tape dispensers… As Elvis said quite possibly my favorite tune of his, (In the Gehtto), “And the world turns…”

As a little post script to this day’s entry, Nadia has in fact come to every Friday drinks since she left.  Go figure.

Friday drinks on the 9th of Feb, and something interesting comes out of the evening.  There’s someone at work that fancies me.   Oooh ahh! An admirer! It’s a girl called Sophia.  I kinda knew already, but I guess I just didn’t wanna think about it.  Scottish Lisa told me. Then she mined for info, wanted to know what I thought – wouldn’t leave me alone in fact.  Sadly, I don’t find Sophia attractive, and I had to squint my eyes up hard and try to think my way through this minefield of terrible possibilities and convey to Lisa in the most sensitive way I could that I wasn’t interested, because Lisa is our workplace loudspeaker system.  If you want to let the general populace in on something, you tell Lisa.  Delicate manoeuvres like this are tough when you’re sober, let alone staggering down a wet Bourke Street at midnight trying to find somewhere to fill your gut.  I did it tactfully, let Lisa ask the questions and answered them with as much circumlocution as possible (eg – you don’t say “No”, you say “Yes, well, I suppose I can’t really say that I do” – it’s all very Hugh Grant.)

Of course, this leaves me the next day to sit around my house and ponder exactly why I so unfailingly attract people to whom I myself am not attracted.  Is it some unwitting cruelty in me, that I send out signals to people so I can turn around and reject them?  I really don’t know, but it makes you wonder.  I certainly hope I’m not like that.  The Hindus reckon life is a series of cycles.  Maybe that’s my karmic transcendental thing – I’m a cosmic tease.

So Saturday I trammed into the city to get my mind off things with a consumerist spending spree.  I bought myself (who the hell else would I be buying for?) a pair of chocolate brown hipster cords.  I’m pretty impressed with them.  They match my Airwalk trainers another dark Hawaiian shirt.  Got a Scottish soccer top too, orange with long sleeves. Bought a Mossimo long sleeved white top with orange collar and cuffs.  Got it in Myer. I came home and felt much better, my acquisitive soul appeased.

Having an unwelcome admirer does give me another slant on the process though.  Makes me appreciate how someone else (I dunno who, pick one from the legions of my unconsummated loves) that I have lusted after must have felt.  It’s awful, Sophia lolls past my desk with a big ol’ smile at me, and I return the smile, wanly.  Shrinking inside thinking “Oh God oh God oh God.”  I think it’s possibly worse than being rejected, being the Rejector.  At least when you’re the Rejected, you can wallow in self-pity, and character assassination as you convince yourself you’re better off without them. Being the Rejector just leaves you in a swamp of uncomfortableness, never being at ease around them, coz you’re wondering if they’ve fantasized about doing it with you, and then you wonder how you performed, what their idea of you really is, how close they are to understanding you. It’s bloody odd, I can tell you.  Though I’m sure this is nothing new to you, girls break stacks more hearts than guys. Girls are always rejecting blokes.  That’s another point that makes me feel horrible. Men will, in general, root anything that doesn’t move, and if it doesn’t move, they’ll poke it with a stick, just to be sure.  So for a guy to reject a girl, he has to find her (as conventional wisdom goes) completely unattractive.  I hate being the bad guy, Sis.

And so my great journey across the desert of Coitus Non-Existus continues…

J