Part dystopian urban cartography, part spatial-poetic intervention

It's a perfectly still suburban Monday at the place where I work. The bottom row of my computer screen is flashing with unread orange messages. She did this; she said that...I've chosen to ignore them. My ironic ex girlfriend is back to her usual self and is being incredibly nice to me. She may be single again by the end of the week. I'm not listening. She says she's never been on a picnic. Hey that's great, I would have thought had my brain been working, should have told me last week. The new girl is continuing her stalker based assault on the guy who works elsewhere. She's found him on Facebook. He may have a child. I'm not listening. Some1ne is bitching about their days off. I'm indifferent. My ex girlfriends current soon to be ex boyfriend - it's like Melrose Place around here, but with less hot pool action and more pens - is glaring at me or practicing his glaring in general through the window. I'd glare back, but I can't be bothered. Tuesday truly is the Lords most apathetic creation. I realise as I begin all this indifference around me that I'm tapping my pen on the edge of the desk to the tune of popular hit song. There's a sticker on my desk that just reeks of irony. They've started to hand out awards here at work, motivational stickers and e-mails are just flying around the office like the Wright Brothers. They keep sending me e-mails with smiley faces in the middle of them telling me what a great job I'm doing. Today they sent me home from work early as a reward for all my wonderful efforts. I'm staring at my great work sticker while realising I've done nothing all day but sit with fuzzy thoughts and mentally curse the new taste of the Milo Bar. Maybe I am doing a great job and I haven't realised it yet - or maybe they've just lowered the bar, like when they started giving out soccer trophies in school just for showing up. I bite into a Chunky Kit Kat. My ironic ex girlfriend has sent me a message. She'd love to go to the football with me next year. I didn't offer. Our clock continues to tick loudly. I don't think anyone here is going to join in my debate on whether my crush on Samantha Bee is idiotic - they will gather soon in an all men are bastards focus group. I could put my head down on the desk and have a nap today. All underneath the ticking clock - metaphorical and real - and right in front of a smiling great work sticker...

My ironic ex girlfriends soon to be ex boyfriend - I'd go for MIEGSTBEB if I didn't dig my word count - waits for her outside work every day. He's a pretty grumpy looking guy, with a scrunchy face and a wispy beard he hasn't quite grown into. He's started calling her at work to talk about feelings. When I say feelings, he works as far as I can remember at Blunstones, so feelings generally involve swearing and taking innocent crockery and throwing it at walls. Ah, the sweet pang of stereotyping. Keeps me warm at night. Anyway, he's started turning up to work, and he looks extra scrunchy. I'd glare back, but that would involve moving my face. And it's a Tuesday, I can barely sip Red Bull from a can such is my torpor, let alone compose a facial expression based on anger caused by a random accumulation of events over time towards a man who I vaguely thinks knows I exist through a glass window with a McDonalds thick shake stain dripping down it. The new girl has threatened to find me a date for Xmas drinks. I have tried to gently point out that I'm not quite in the mood to go out and stalk some1ne for the purposes of dating. Then again, the new girl, I still suspect, goes home every night to cry while she eats Frosties out of the packet and listens to 101 sad songs, so I hope she doesn't set me up with a similarly emotionally tuned friend - I hate Frosties. I'm Scottish, I'm suspicious of happy people, what can I tell you? As far as she is concerned, the man in the shop she is stalking by pretending to be interested in what he is selling is the 1ne. I want to cause a scene and see how he handles pressure. He may be coming to drinks - I think of dates with drinks now like that old Bill Cosby joke about cocaine - it might intensify your personality, but what if you're an asshole...everyone in this office I can say hand on heart is either dating an asshole, or possibly stalking 1ne. At this rate, we'll all be eating ice cream together in a huddle. Luckily, my indifference is breaking the cycle of whinging about stuff. No 1ne has whinged to me about anything all day. I like to think I'm making a difference...maybe that's why I got the sticker...

The only person I've felt I've stalked is Pippa in primary school. Pippa was my friend, although but for the presence of a reputable Burnie photographic company taking our Grade 2wo photo, I'd swear she was an apparition. I'm sure I've got most of my primary school experience wrong - given I swore for 10en years John Farnham’s appearance on Home and Away involved his head floating around on screen, don't quote me on this - but I was sure I never saw or spoke to Pippa in class. To my mind, she just stood next to our school monkey bars and said things that were incredibly wise and poignant and in a breeze her hair would blow about a bit. I was totally in love with her in school, as much as any 6ix year old could love anyone. Our love was flawed though - I had a girlfriend called Sarah, an identical twin who had yet to discover the evil joys of being an identical. We were boyfriend and girlfriend because we were assigned to be by a catch and kiss game the day it snowed in Burnie. Chase her, some guy I only knew as aren't you the kid with the giant head said. And so I did. And I ended up with a girlfriend. But it didn't mean I didn't hang out and stalk Pippa a lot. Some1ne pulled her hair 1nce. I was mortified. I didn't have that kind of suave sophisticated repartee with women. My relationship with Sarah was pretty easy to manage - she liked silver crayons, I liked silver crayons, great, let's get married. Easy as. Pippa, to my eternal detriment, found He-Man and the Masters of the Universe "boring" - I could not be with some1ne who failed to find my theory on why Ju-Jitsu was a much better action figure than Stratos fascinating. It was only in the depressing break of Grade 3hree that I found out, sadly, that Sarah did not find it fascinating either. She was just faking it. Luckily, I actually hated silver crayons. Oh my vengeful flourish when I drew my first castle that year with a burnt Sienna crayon. I feel as though everything I've ever learned about relationships I knew by the first 2wo weeks of Grade 3hree...the girls change, the likes and dislikes change, but the Sturm und Drang continues...I think Pippa taught me that word, during a breezy day in 1987 when I had forgotten my cheese sandwiches for lunch, and had to borrow 2 bucks for lunch...thanks, kid with the big head...

So I leave early. The computers at work have all broken. When you try and turn the 1ne out the back on it sounds worse than the 2nd Terence Trent D'arby album. The air conditioner is now spewing wrathful hot air out of its mouth, like a punishment for when we thought it was too cold. I'm going to keep the sticker up, as a sort of ironic motivational tool. I'll worry about all of these things tomorrow. I can't remember if I've ever been on a picnic...damn it, now that's going to bug me all day. There's a kid with a giant monster balloon determined not to get out of the way of the doorway, and his dad has weird purple bloated legs, like cankles but through his whole legs. It's all I can do not to stare. Why wear shorts in that case? Self confidence I guess? All least 3hree different people today have told me I'm keeping them sane or they are the reason I come to work. I come for the chocolate biscuits and the comfortable sense that I don't have to try very hard to do well. Not admirable but honest. I'm able to dodge the traffic because I'm leaving early - I'd have a nanna nap if I didn't have to pick up the groceries. I thought, rather proudly, I could fang it through the traffic, not realising that yes, there would be less traffic on the road, but more trucks, road works and slow moving objects with oversized on them. I thought I could fang it through the grocery buying but instead am stuck behind slow moving pensioners and bored women, some of whom have oversized on their pants label. When I get home, my mailbox is stuffed with junk mail. One of the letters promises to give me utter inner peace - as long as I send 19.99 to the appropriate address and ring a hotline. I throw it away - I doubt they could help some1ne who hasn't slept properly since 1984 because he can't get his brain to stop thinking for even a moment. I throw my meagre single man food scraps onto the table along with my keys, and sit quietly in my chair, while my DVD player turns itself on without a single action from me, and begins playing an episode of Entourage I don't even remember owning, the gentle hum of bad acting soothing me to sleep...

Tomorrow, as they say, will be another day...