Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

You've had life too easy for too long. Tonight you'll just have to sit tight and listen to me bitch and whine and moan. I know you'd like to be getting out and linking up with other diaries. Don't think I don't know what you get up to. Sometimes I think you'll give your address to any Joe Blogs that looks your way. Well, tonight it will be different. It's my turn.

First, dallying Diary, let me tell you about a conversation at morning tea time. I was talking with two of the lost boys at work. There was a "how was your break over Christmas?" question from one. The other answered, complaining about the marriage breakup of a near relative. The first echoed a similar experience. I added my voice to the fugue. The theme was almost identical in the three parts, and they harmonised surprisingly well. We modulated through several related keys, strictly minor of course, as we explored the effects that rippled out from the rifts. A complete rendition of that improvisation would be pointless here. There was no satisfying, synchronising allargando drawing us to a major conclusion. We just faded back to other topics with a general feeling of resignation.

The verbal intranet (or office grapevine) was in operation later. The shock news of the day was a resignation from a very prominent position. The information was accompanied by a deliberate dearth of detail, and a list of unanswered questions that could shame any dogma. The message was characterised by the negative space around the delivered words. I rang the source before leaving work. I'm still not much wiser.

So my dearest, dozing Diary, since you seem to be comfortably asleep now, I'll slink off and browse.