Usually, and I think this is maybe part of why I like to write, I really love people. Or, I love listening to them and watching them and working out what makes them like they are. Sometimes, if someone is being a jerk on the train or acting like a princess in a cafe, I'm quite interested in watching everything play itself out. Even if they're being rude to me. It often doesn't annoy me, or whatever. It kind of fascinates me and I stop whatever I'm doing (including having a conversation) and instantly cling like a sea creature to the little personality performance that's going on within ear shot.

But then, sometimes, people just thoroughly, comprehensively, overwhelmingly bother me. And what bothers me most about people who bother me is that they're bothering me at all, because I know (from my eavesdropping work) that people are just a complex mix of ego and emotion and doubt and self-conscious, conflicted, angry confusion about the rest of the world.

As a writer, I know this, and I also know that any biases, weaknesses or peculiarities in my own character are exactly the elements that lead me to respond to people the way I do, and so my own anger or annoyance at other people is actually more to do with me than to do with them.

But MAN some people shit me. Usually it's people like the guy who was at my gym today, who was a bully. Usually it's bullies. Bullies or people who are unfair or people who are idiots pretending they're better than you, or they know more than you. Pulling rank, essentially. I don't think I could have been in the army.

Anyway. Guy at gym today, size of a house, enormous and sweaty and lifting heavy weights with a theatrical gusto not entirely necessary in the Council-run gym full of grey-haired people with "FIT FOR LIFE" t-shirts, and people like me wearing baggie trackies and runners they've had since year eleven. Anyway, so I'm doing this weight machine thing, and I slowly rest the weight to readjust my grip, and suddenly there's a huge sweaty fist on the machine in front of me, and I can hear someone speaking to me. I take my earphones off and look up this enormous body at this huge purple head saying, "I'll just push in here between sets".

He wanted to get on the machine. The machine I was on! I was so astonished that I said okay, and I got up. I thought maybe there was a rule. Then I thought about how maybe there were also rules that bullies with purple heads are not allowed to leave their weights lying around on the ground (as per the sign on the wall that says DO NOT EVER LEAVE WEIGHTS ON GROUND) and other rules that the purple-headed are not allowed to leave their lurid green and yellow sweaty beach towels all over the equipment while they steal other people's machines from under them. I thought about how maybe there was some kind of sub-rule about physical intimidation and general pig-headed arrogance. Then, just like that, I was furious.

So I got more furious. A woman pulled out in front of me in a red sports car because she knew I would slow down because I was in a Ford Laser. I looked horrified and she did a schoolyard what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it face, and I shouted into the hot Ford Laser for the next couple of hundred metres, eventually muttering myself into a silence as I parked my car.

I parked my car out the front of my house, which at the moment has a sign on it that says it's for sale. It's not for sale, the house out the back is for sale, but people are confused, and other people are wandering down the side of our house checking it out. The house out the back is built right behind our house and has a clear view of our living room and our backyard. I mentioned this to "James" - the real estate agent - who told me that it wasn't true and that in fact you couldn't see my house. I told him you could see my house from the living room. He said, "Oh yes, but not the bedroom".

I said, yes you can. If you open the window in the bedroom upstairs you can see right into my house.

He said you can't open the window.

I said you can.

He said you can't.

I said I just did.

He said I think you might be mistaken.

I said, what, about whether or not I opened a window?

He said, excuse me. He spoke to someone else. It was a woman with an American accent. She wondered if they'd had many people through the house today. James said not many. She said that's interesting. That might be because the open for inspection time listed in the newspaper is half an hour early.

He said, no it isn't.

She said, yes it is.

He said no it isn't.

She showed him the newspaper.

He cleared his throat.

She described the crowd that gathered at the advertised time. She used the words "angry mob".

I liked her.

I'm thinking maybe I stay inside this evening. A wanker ratio of 3:1 never bodes terribly well.