My Ears Are Bleeding
Not only is that an obscure quote from Adam LaClave, but it’s an apt way of describing how it feels inside my head after three days of rain in the city.

Today there was a man about 6’4″ walking down the street in an old khaki anorak and too-short tracksuit pants with holes in them. His head was bleeding and his nose was a sea of broken capillaries. I know that means he’s probably on such a constant flow of blood alcohol that he doesn’t notice the pain throbbing, but I noticed we all walked past. Earlier in the day when we spotted Barmy Army members parking their campervans in the open parking lot behind our building and getting starkers in front of the world, oblivious to the high-rises all around. Seemed a bizarre contrast.

The most silence in the whole city is the space between the walls of my carpark building. Once the smoke door closes behind me and I’m standing in front of the lift, I’m in a concrete vacuum of noise. That’s when I notice that my ears are literally, throbbing.

Although I am working in the hub of the fast lane, listening to people talking about the NZSE40 in the elevators, and yet it feels like my whole life is on a go-slow. Making meetings and phonecalls around work hours and all the time maintaining a focus on the tasks in front of me.. it’s a strange, sped-up limbo.