Thu, 13 August

IRONIC EXHAUSTION (n.) 1. The condition of a man who knows exactly what he is doing and does it anyway: sitting in a cold car in a car park at the end of a winter Thursday, not going in, not going home, the radio on a station he does not like. 2. The amber light the dashboard makes on the underside of a chin. The way the heater fan sounds like a decision being postponed. 3. Distinguished from simple exhaustion by the presence of full awareness; from irony by the absence of distance; from peace by the fact that the engine is still running. 4. See also: the man who invented the car park. The inventor of the hour between nine and ten. The patron saint of engine noise as company. 5. Antonym: sleep.