Hubris.co.nz

I’ve moved back to Ngaio and I’ve started reading books again.

I read more than half of Cleaving in one sitting. I thought I had identified with Julie Powell before in Julie & Julia as she worked a boring job, made friends on the internet, watched a lot of Buffy and got drunk frequently. But in Cleaving as she pines for her lover or ex lover, whatever state their relationship was in at the time, as she talks about the sex that they had which was unlike any she’d ever had before, as she sought out anonymous terrible fucking that she told her lover about afterwards in an attempt to make him jealous  – well, I lived all that too.

I worry too that I will never have another lover who will make me lose all control the way that you did, that I will never spend weeks at a time in a permanent state of arousal, driven into a fever by your emails and text messages and story telling. I worry that no one will ever put their hand on my leg while I am driving the way that you did, which almost made me crash my car. I’m afraid no one will ever lock me to them with their kiss. And while there are other people now who can make me come, multiple times, and maybe they fuck me harder than you ever did, it’s not the same. And yes, then I remember that there used to be Thomas, and that I used to think I would never love anyone like that, and now I am “who?” what?” about that. So one day, you will be gone from my mind but for now, there is just passive-aggression, and emptiness, and because this is Wellington I see you everywhere, but we don’t talk and I miss you.

There have been parties. There was my birthday Triple X party, in which a rollickingly good time was had by all. Heather came down from Auckland for it, and we spent lots of time together hanging out and watching Veronica Mars. She took the rest of the DVDs up to Auckland with her and has been making me giggle with her “OMG!” text messages as various things happened throughout the series. But back to the party. I kissed a lot of pretty ladies, both in the kissing booth and out, which is always a pleasure, and never a chore. I went as a Doctor of Fuckology, and had a clipboard full of hypothesis. Here are some more photos.

Many of the things that I expected to happen did

Sisters dressed up to party

I also volunteered again at Full Code Press, but I will probably write about that on joannamcleod.com instead of here.

On Saturday night I went to a B party at Anna Jane’s house. I was dressed as Beth Ditto, and while not that many people got that, they did get lectures about Health At Every Size and other fat activism.

Karen as Barbarella, me as Beth Ditto

The girl that I kissed at the Wellingtonista Awards was there, and we hung out and I told her that I had stopped talking to her because I don’t want to be her friend, I want to be her lover, and it was too frustrating to follow her tweets about wanting to get laid when I was waiting right there to do the job for her. I ended up feeling more than a little like a date rapist because after we kissed, I wanted to kiss again, and she said no, but I heard that as “maybe”. Frustration. I should know better. It was nice though, that she said she heard I was amazing in bed (I am!) although I wonder who said that to her, because our Eskimo bond constantly tells me I was a terrible lay.

I haven’t talked about moving, because it was horrible and culminated in me cleaning until almost 11pm last Sunday night, then getting 100 metres down the road in my car with Seb in a cage and discovering that I had a flat tyre. My father had to come down from Ngaio to help me, which is lucky because as it happened, my jack was missing the turning bit anyway. But now anyway I am safely back in the parental bosom and took them and BAMJI out to lunch at Osteria Del Toro to thank them for all their hard work. Seb has settled in wonderfully, and I have put my DVDs into order of colours, but all the blackness of my sizeable Whedon collection throws things off somewhat. I spend my time at home watching many episodes of The West Wing, and teaching my dad how to play Wii. In the mornings we take the train together and I get coffee at Sweet Fanny-Anne’s. Work is work. Getting paid is nice.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I have been busy. I mean, I did write about it a while ago. But occasionally you get the disconnect between what you say and what people actually pay attention to.

It is strange being in an office again, having to sit in an uncomfortable squeaky chair and digest piles and piles of new information. It’s no six-page site that I’m rewriting, unlike other work that I’ve done for So Content before. And there’s a whole office full of people who all have their own working styles and customs, and I’m the stranger here so it is me that has to adjust to other people’s music. At least my eyes are starting to be able to deal with the florescent lights now. But for all my complaining about the superficial things, it is good to be working again, to feel smart and clever and valuable.

Other changes are happening, with the lease being up on Immoral Terrace at some time in the near but not near enough future. Paying for the rent on the whole house by myself will not be fun. As a consequence, I will be having to move home with my parents for a couple of months in order to pay off that debt, and also the rest of the debts that I have accrued over the past year without a steady pay cheque. I can’t wait until I don’t owe anyone money again, even though that’s a couple of months away. And then I’m going to be subletting a room in my Vitamin Cupcake’s house for a couple of months while the adorable Kate and Jason travel. I am making lists of where all my furniture and possessions will be heading – into storage, to Ngaio or to be shipped out to friends. Tom is taking the bar out of the Tiki Shack, so that will live on a little bit. We had a goodbye shindig in there the other weekend which was lovely, piles of people piled onto each other basking in the warm glow of my heater. That mattress has served hard time, alright. The lovely Smoo has promised to come back and help me move things to the tip later. He’s gone too. End of a long era. I think I miss him already if you will allow me to get soppy for a second.

People from the past have popped up recently at odd moments. I discovered something about someone and it’s still on my mind. It was somewhat of a headfuck.  Heather is coming down for my Triple X party, which I am very excited about. Less exciting is turning 30 in two days’ time. I have the grey hairs to prove it. However, at least there’s a Webstock Mini on my birthday to ease the pain, and then on the following weekend I will be helping out at FullCodePress again like I did last year. I have to meet up with Sue tomorrow to get a dress to wear to it – either one of mine that she’d borrowed, or one of Megan’s. It is handy having a wardrobe extend like that.

Along with the cold and various housing issues has come an increase in the number of television programmes I’ve been watching. Of note lately have been marathon West Wing sessions that just make me miss Good Tom and wish that I was Alison Janney, as well as contemplating becoming a cater waiter due to Party Down, and wondering if I am more pathetic than Kenny from Eastbound And Down or not.   I think that I am not, because I continue to have people who love me, and also people who want to do me, occasionally. Ask me sometime and I will tell you a very amusing story about polylove and children and how I don’t believe that the two should mix. Oh, and speaking of casual sex, you should come to this:

Tonight while I was waiting for cabs for the last of my guests and we were looking at my colour-hued bookcase, so I pulled things at random to show how their spines were different colours, and one of those things was my sixth form diary, so I started reading an entry out for random’s sake, but their taxis showed up. So you get the full text now.

Wow, what a weird, wacky and somestimes wonnderful night. I spent the day removing hair from my legs
which were then left silky smooth after I shaved patches that I’d skipped and applied some lotion and baby oil. Anyways the rest of the day, I stressed out with Mum about my dress and doing other beautifying things. Then, I cooked dinner and stressed out cos Penny and Sarah were late. Finally they showed up with Dyland, and Mum & Neil finally left.

So, I cracked open the champagne and we ate chicken & tarragon pasta – which Penny & Sarah loved but Dylan didn’t. Making conversation was weird, like I was trying to talk to Dylan without being too obvious. So we talked about his fetish for women’s underwear (which he denied) and the school papers (we’re both editors). He couldn’t believe that Onslow’s were worse – we showed him! Then, after cake, we all ran around in a flurr getting ready, except for Dylan who settled down to call Daniel and Peter I wonder what he said to them! Nevermind. I did my makeup and put on my dress then I ran around trying to find a German plug so Sarah could blowdry her hair. The hall was really dark cos a light bulb was dead and I was just walking up to it, and the cupboard door was slightly open, then suddenly I see these two eyes! I screamed so loudy, then I like, fell to the ground and just sat there in shock. Fucking Dylan man! It was then that I realised how low my dress was, and that I didn’t haqve the tits to support it. Dylan told me to eat my broccoli! Yeah, what ever! I think I’ll just take a moment here to point out that I realise I’m like “Dylan Dylan Dyaln”. It gets worse!

Anyways… So I was looking all gorgeous. Penny had fixed my hair and my crown and I felt really good. Then of course I knocked off my crown getting into the taxi, and my skirts trailed in the mud. Typical, man! Anyways, we got to Abbys and were greeted by “Oh my god, that’s so coo, pretty, cute etc”. They (Rosalie, Ammy, Ireana & Abby) all said I looed really good, so I was happy. Ireana’s breasts were popping out of her dress. Being tinge typsy, I said “Why did you think I was going to be mean to you? I know we don’t always get on but…” And we hugged – kodak moment. We had to tak squillions of pictures, naturally! Abby’s mother was like “I don”t know you so Abby said “That’s Joanna” and her mother was like “Oh, _ I know who you are_” and everybody laughed. Geez, I wonder what she told her!

I was sitting on the sofa for a while with Abby & her friend, and (I was quite drunk) I apologised for being such a bitch last year. It was so strange! Flashback city, man! Then I had a heart ot heart with Anita E about this guy Gareth. More pictures…. After a while, I was sitting with Dylan, enquiring about Ben. Suppodedly he’s got a new girlfriend slut called Jess who’s making him talk like a homie! I sai I’d hate her too then, and he was like “get over him, Joanna!” I saaid “I am! I’m in love with him but I’mm over him!” and “it’s just that he was such a nice guy” but he said “No, Ben is not a nice guy”. He said it a lot actually. Then I said “Well he was only my second kiss, so I have a right to be obsessed – the first one doesn’t count!” And he was like “Only your second kiss?” (Now that I’m sober, that seems sarcastic, but I’m not sure) so I said “Yeah well, according to Sarah, she’s the only person you’ve ever kissed”. Of course, she came up then, which iced the conversation for a while, but then he was like “I’ll always remember my first kiss – it was s good” and I responded “Me too – it was horrible/scary, I was pinned to the wally by a bouncer in a nightclub – but I’m not drunk enough to talk about that…”

That’s about all of our fascinating conversation that I can remember, except that the whole way through he was complaining about Abby’s short skirt – “Notice how she sticks her legs up in every picture?” – He’s such a bastard, man! Trouble is, he’d only pilfed a little bit of my vodka, so he was practically sober – oh shit! God, I wonder if he’ll tell Ben that I love him! Could be interesting!

We left for the ball in 2 shuttles – I sat on the floor next to Nicola, nuzzling Penny (who thought we were going to Hamilton) an d laughing at Rosallie who kept on telling me to pull my dress up – Jason Dimic could’ve had a god look, had he been so inclined!

Finally we got there, got photographed, went to the loos, sat ouside in the freezing cold. Time is a wee bit muddles now, ‘cos of the wine I drank at Abby’s ver quickly, with vodka and coke too, so I’ll synopsis/summarise: Sarah vanished reall early on – never to be seen agan. They had a room at Trekker’s! Dirty couple! Penny vanished for a tim too, but that was coo. I hung around outside with Justina and Karen and Sam Bedford for a while. Then I was inside with Jess, and we went dancing with Brendan Frater & John Student Rep. Damn, I felt cool! I reminded Brendan of Kiwi Ranch & grabbing Roxanne – he didn’t remember it! Techno rocks! It was so cool! I must’ve been drunk! Then Tamati finally showed up, and I took him & Sam B to see the Bakehouse. I held an arm of each of them – I didin’t want to let Sam Bedford go. I was so weird. Like, Tamait did this monologe-ish thing, and we were standing so we’dve been close (Sam and I) and – I might’ve been slightly mistaken, but I think there was a slight spark – I’m not sure though. We’d been talking earlier – I told him it was hi sduty to get me stoned. Fucking hell man! I guess he’s rich though!

Penny was always talking to the Bouncer dude, then, near the end when most everyone had gone, it was like a fight between him & Graham on the dance floor! I was just laughing! Then, when Grahem won, I went & talekd to Jess – told her briefly about Ben but also, more importantly, how I’m half in love with Sarah’s boyfriend – a friend wh doesn’t have to be biased! It was really cool! John B got with Christy, the stupid bastard! We cabbed home with KateB – she stopped me from getting in the caar with the drunken bouncer, thank god! I can’t believe how stupid I was going to be! Sore feet, lot earring, laddered stokcingt. Penny got with Graham. God, I cannot like Dylan. I won’t let myself.

Cognitive dissonance teaches us that if you don’t think what you’re doing is right, you can either change your actions, or you can change the way you think about it. So when I was sleeping with you, I used all kinds of ways to convince myself it was okay, including thinking that I was actually special to you. When I see that you’re continuing to whore around, that brings that belief crashing down. So I’ve changed my actions and you’re gone.

***

Change your belief or change your action. Because I am tired of being unemployed, I started referring to myself as a freelancer instead. Then I realised that actually, I am, so I’ve started my own business doing content-writing and online media advice. It’s called So Content. I have business cards and mentors and many meetings. I feel productive and talented, it’s good.

***

Change your belief or change your action. I lost my shit at Mum the other night in front of my aunt and cousins when she kept making jokes at me about her friend who assaulted me when I was 12. She said it never happened. I yelled and stormed out. She came running out to apologise. I wish the It’s Not Okay phrase had been around then.

***

Other things? I dunno. I’m going to see a gynecologist in October to deal with how much I lose my shit in the week before my period. Immoral Terrace continues to be a refuge for people in need which I love. There’s a prom coming up on Friday at 361, and I need a date. Any volunteers? I had a lovely party the other weekend, which was great. This week is going to be insanely busy with meetings and friends and the food show and secret intrigues and networking and going on a roadtrip to Wanganui on Saturday. I’ve set a date for my 30th, it’s going to be TripleX-themed, and it’s on June 26. Come along!

***

My darling Megan, she of the 6am her waking up me still struggling to sleep State of the Union g-chats chats about mutual friend-ish who apparently really is just that oblivious to the hurt he does, bought herself a water bottle that instructs her to keep calm and carry on. I needed a similar thing today, but of course, I don’t want to be a copycat (although would it be wrong of me to buy the same handbag she has, assuming I ever come into any money?) so instead, I did chores, like laundry and cleaning the bathroom. I went to visit Lisa and we watched our boyfriends on Comedy Central. But that wasn’t enough. Oh no.

Ever since I saw this picture, I have been dying to do it to someone’s books. I have begged my friends to let me do it to theirs, and I have considered breaking into Karen’s house (it only took her nine years to give me the door code after all) to attack her library, but she would no doubt kill me if I did. I thought I couldn’t do it to my own books because I am somewhat anal when it comes to keeping my books, DVDs and magazines in perfect order when everything else around me is chaos. Then it hit me – if I deorganise my books, I will have the satisfaction of filing them into a different order, and the next time that I freak out, I can realphabetise them to calm me down.

Half my books in piles, sorted approximately by spine colour

The end result is nowhere near as awesome as it would be if almost all of my book spines had not faded to a pale blue. Ah well, behold a crappyass picture anyway:

Pink to red to orange to yellow to green to blue to grey to black to white

And now that’s done, I might go and soak my stupid thighs in a hot bath. You will no doubt be pleased to know that the occasional chunk of blood is coming out today, which means that this current bout of preMS is over. Tomorrow I will: do some work, drop off a present for someone, drop off Kim’s coat, go to the doctor who won’t give me another lexapro prescription over the phone but at least this way I can ask for a referral to a gynocologsyt in the hopes of getting some help with the way that my periods hold me hostage – and also maybe some more sleeping pills, then I will do some community consulting with Ros, then go to Matt’s goodbye drinks. Crikey.

First, off, in elsewhere links, I got my hair done at  a new hair salon on Cuba Street and I liked it a lot. And you like food reviews? Here’s one of the Cellar-Vate dinner for Coney Wines.

Now some pictures so that if you disapprove you stop reading there.

This picture of Kane's enormous penis is because he's coming to stay this week

My ass, my gash.

I think the reason that I tend to only update my journal when I’m about to get my period is because this is when the noise in my head , that occasionally dies down to the faintest whisper if I’m exercising and taking my lexapro and happily employed and not financially struggling etc, tends to build up into the loudest roar which comes at me like being in the ocean on a windy day at Lyall Bay but without the bracing feeling of really being alive that comes with the cold cold water. See, even that sentence – so fucking belaboured and over the top. Shut up, Joanna.

And more than the normal pre-periodness, the past week has been clusterfucked with intensity. Wellington is too fucking small. I found myself last night telling someone who doesn’t really know me about why my Friday had ended up with me having a lounge room dance party with Kim and Kelly and Kate and why I was so fucking drunk that I ended up falling over and sitting on a wine glass and consequently have gashes in my ass, but the explanation of why I felt the need to get so drunk was really ridiculously complicated like “he abandoned his family and left his underpants on my deck and we tried to set fire to them” and “she’s a whore although I had a week of trying not to say nasty things and Mean Girls says calling her a whore doesn’t make me any more pure” and “in ten years she’ll show up and get the black baby I’m trying to adopt” and “and I was having an affair with him but then he hooked up with her” and “I hooked up with him a bunch of times to try and get over someone else but it didn’t work, and then there was this crazy girl” and  ”he used to make me cry every day at work” and really, what one should just say is “why the hell were you drinking with all these people anyway?” to which the inevitable answer involves the smallness of Wellington, and something about Rihana. And of course what I was saying in my head was “shut up Jo shut up shut up shut up” but because I was tipsy when I had this conversation but not drunk, I just kept babbling.

So my current theme is I should run away from Wellington as far as I can, but then today of course was a series of highs and lows. Most of the highs initially revolved around Piako yoghurt, which is of course the drug de jour for my set of friends. And Wendy at Cultured gave me more cheese. And Amie gave me petrol money when I drove her home tonight after the Girl Geek Dinner when of course I asked a question of the woman from Park Road who spoke about 3D about the impact it’s having on the porn industry and was rewarded with a Google notebook for my trouble. And I won a prize I’m going to give to someone who deserves it much more than me and will make much better use of it. And I pledged to join more community projects. So there are many good lovely things about Wellington, of course. It’s just that in the week before my period I struggle to remember them sometimes.

The lows are financial and no one wants to hear about that, and also dealing with this email that I got yesterday which just makes me want to bawl my eyes out. I’m worried that I’ve given up faith in myself and if I don’t have faith in myself, how could anyone else? Trying to explain to someone who doesn’t really know me that I’m terrible at freelancing because I’m so shit at talking myself up, he was all “but you seem so confident and able to sell yourself” but alas, Jo Hubris may have the ability to talk people into bed (after all the angst of all the issues of the weekend, being able to use a very simple “hey I want to shag you” is very refreshing) but Joanna McLeod is a pile of failure in getting anyone to pay for her services, although she has been rather busy lately providing expert advice and guidance in the S***** M**** area to friends & acquaintances in exchange for coffee and pints. And she still has some work to do tomorrow, so really she should go have a shower because she has coconut body wash, find some clean sheets (side effect of slicing your ass open when you’re drunk – waking up covered in blood and having no idea what the fuck happened until people tell you on twitter) and PJs and watch Dorota & Vanya get married on Gossip Girl and hope that she actually will sleep tonight before 7am. And stop talking about herself in the third person.

Item! Once again, I am anticipating my period. My boobs are sore and I’m starting to get cramps when I orgasm. Is this the information you’re looking for when you google “Jo Hubris” or when you look me up when I apply for jobs with you? I really must reiterate again that this is an online journal where I have been writing about my periods since 1998. I don’t believe it is a reflection on my professionalism. That’s what www.joannamcleod.com is for.

Item! That whining out of the way, I want to tell you about my friend Peter. For his 20th birthday, me and the good people of Garland bought him a Britney Spears doll. That was a good ten years ago. Recently he was back from the UK for a bit, and came to a party at Shirley’s and then Anna-Jane’s flatwarming with me. He brought Britney with him! And took her out of the box for the first time!

Say hello to my little friend

He carried her in his pocket all night and talked to her too. I adore Peter.

Item! There’s stuff written by me in a new magazine called FishHead. I went to its launch. The Masked Barfly went too.

Item! I had a blogsplosion today and updated EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY BLOGS apart from the Aucklandista. That’s an awful lot of blogs. Ones you might know about include Pretty Pretty Pretty, the Wellingtonista, You Are So Entertaining and Joanna McLeod Dot Com. Ones you might not know about I suppose will stay that way. Oh, but you should follow my tumblr if you’re into that sort of thing.

Item! I am having a potluck dinner party on Good Friday and am trying to use it to meet people that I might follow on Twitter and the internets but don’t really know. Would you like to come along? Let me know!

Item! Finally, because Robyn did it, let me present you with the top search terms for today on my site:

homemade duck blinds	6
ingrown hair vagina	2
picture of ingrown hair on breast	2
ingrown hair genital	2
the feelers suck	1
musician calls potential sponsor whore	1
in grown hair on arm	1
infected ingrown hair crotch	1
anal sluts wellington	1
gmt.co.nz	1

It’s true, I did have an ingrown hair. And the Feelers do suck. The rest, I don’t think I can help you with, sorry. Except to say that if I hadn’t been blind drunk, I may not have needed a “the duck” tag.

EDIT: oh yeah, I already told you to delete my feed and resubscribe if you’re not getting full posts in your RSS reader, yes? Good.

I have been whiney. Really fucking whiney. Like nobody likes me everybody hates me kinda whiney. Having no money means I can’t go out and therefore I feel like people have forgotten that I even exist sometimes. I fixed this a bit by cooking a fuckoff big vegetarian feast for Emma&Simon and Lisa and Karen the other day. It was super tasty and I have nommy leftovers.

CJ told me today that since the other two people who received funding from the Midnight Note to go to Webstock didn’t bother responding to her requests for a thank-you write-up, she wouldn’t post mine, so here it is anyway:

My previous experiences at Webstock had shown me how amazing a community full of love could make an conference. Receiving funding from the Wellington community via the Midnight Note to attend this year only reinforced that message. Having struggled with unemployment for a while now, Webstock was exactly what I needed to remind myself why I want to stay in the web industry. Speakers engaged and challenged me, and talking to people at the various functions around the event made me realise that I am still talented and know what I am talking about when it comes to new media even if I am not currently receiving a wage for it. Because the Midnight Note was a community initiative, I was determined to try and contribute something back to the community, so I organised a pre-webstock tweetup for people to meet each other, helped createWebstock Bingo and also set up an anonymous twitter stream calledWebstocklove in which anyone could declare their love for any part of the event (or person there). I’ve written up my professional take home messages in greater detail at joannamcleod.com, but to everyone who contributed to the Midnight Note, to the organisers and speakers at Webstock and everyone else that I engaged with over the week: thank you from the bottom of my heart. I had the most mind-expandingly awesome time and I am inspired and full of hope again.

It’s pretty much what I already said on Hubris only with less swearing and fewer drunken Silverstripers, right?

I have an obsession with Polyvore right now that’s ridiculous. Kim and I are getting married when I’m 42.5, so check out what we’ll be wearing. If you’ll look good in one of the bridesmaid outfits, perhaps you can join the wedding party.
This is the outfit I picked for her:

Kim & I are getting married by johubris featuring Diane von Furstenberg tops

This is the outfit she picked for me:

Jo & I are getting married… by Ms Constantine featuring Tarina Tarantino jewelry

This is what my bridesmaids will be wearing:

What my bridesmaids will wear by johubris featuring Converse shoes

I spent quite a bit of time at Amie’s today doing some data entry for her (well, it’s really a win-win situation for both of us, which is number one awesome) so I really must go have a bath if I can find the right plug (the sink plug is a bit too small), or a shower if not. But I thought you might wanna hear from me. Hi!

EDIT: PS – if you subscribe to me on RSS and don’t get full feeds, delete it and add this RSS feed of mine instead. Sorry about that! I finally figured out it was Feedburner fucking it all up, not wordpress. And if you’re not using RSS – why not?

I appreciate that once again, it has been forever since I last wrote. So I suppose that there are a number of things that I should talk about. Like:

1. Webstock
2. Kat & Kane
3. An assortment of things
4. Pretty Pretty Pretty
5. Why I hate having crushes on people, or words to that effect.

I wrote on my professional site about what I learned at Webstock, and I wrote a lengthy thank-you for the Midnight Note site which might get posted at some stage, so at this stage, I can now talk about all the gossip behind the scenes in a non-professional way. Which means talking about ice cream. And how at the pre-webstock tweetup that I organised there were three people I’d fucked, and a couple of others I’d pashed. And how Starla Jo was all “oh, thank you so much for your tweets on New Year’s” and I was like “….huh?” and she was like “You wished me and Thomas another ten years of happiness” and I was like “oh, good for me!” No recollection of that at all but that’s the first time that I’ve ever been told about drunk tweets that were nice, so good for me. And how the whole shebang was dedicated to Darren and Amanda who were getting married the next day, and how they met at my Halloween party, and how if you ever want to get married, I should get a crush on you and someone of the opposite sex at the same time, cos it’s happened yet another time since I ran away from Auckland at the end of 2003.

Oh, in hilarious webstock gossip, on the Thursday night, I got this email:

I said I’d look for you and introduce myself, but once I saw you I
decided not to. You are too gorgeous.

I mean, if you hadn’t been twittering about orgasms I *so* would have
come over and flirted, but I knew as soon as I spotted you I’d be
spending the entire night trying to get into your pants rather than
actually listening to what you have to say. And I didn’t think that
would be cool.

So, next time, when I’m not already thinking about sex, I will say
hello and tell you how wonderful I find your writing (I *adore*
sex-positive women), and then if there’s some flirting or geek talk or
strip clubs I’ll be happy to participate.

Ummm, what? It’s a very strange thing when people feel like they know me from reading my twitter stream, or reading Hubris, because duh, they don’t know Joanna at all, just Jo Hubris’s posturings. I might appear to be open about my life but I don’t feel like I’m asking for emails like that from people I don’t know. But enough about that for now.

Obviously Webstock was all kinds of awesome, as I had expected it to be. I was sitting with Julie, and she was like “wow, talking to you is like hanging out with the Mean Girls” and I was like “it’s so fetch, right?” but honestly, if it looks like a whore and walks like a whore, then what are you supposed to say? (Reason number six thousand and twenty to hate the guy: he made me deal by turning into a bad feminist). That aside, it was lovely to catch up with so many people who I only get to see once a year at Webstock and to absorb all the awesomeness, and to watch people using the Webstock Bingo and Webstocklove channels that I set up. I sent out plenty of messages myself due to a million and five geek crushes. Why are all the good ones (and bad ones) married?

After the official bubbles & beats, we went up to Mighty Mighty for more drinks because people said that Kevin Rose was going to be there, and who doesn’t want to marry a millionaire? Someone had stickers and they thought we should write our names on them, but since we were already all wearing nametags, I gave people other names. We got a Rod Drury, and a Kevin Rose, and a Mark Zuckerberg and a Tom from Myspace before I started to run out of names. Later at the other end of the bar, I got in a conversation with Lisa Herrod who’d spoken earlier that day about accessibility, and was super stoked when she tweeted later that she’d hire me in a second if I lived in Sydney (and if she was hiring). It was really awesome to be reminded that I do actually know what I’m talking about sometimes. And in that vein, her husband Lachlan who had also spoken but I hadn’t seen his talk except for the end where he mentioned Waferbaby (who you might remember from Melbourne 2001, if those entries were actually online, but they don’t appear to be. Odd. But to summarise I met him when I was staying with 0 at Nirvana), ordered a castlepoint, so I told him that it was one of the top five drinks in town, and later on twitter mapped out a path as to how he could have the other four in one day. In fact, we were supposed to go get margaritas for breakfast at 8am on the Friday, but I decided to get one more hour of sleep. I was very impressed that he went though!

On Friday night after more Webstock awesomeness was the ONYAs. I borrowed a dress from Megan that I felt gorgeous in, and after some reshufflings I spent the evening telling gossip to a nice woman from Australia that actually may have been a little terrifying because I had a lot of it to tell and there was also a lot of wine. Then there was an amazing light show. Then we went to the Malthouse and people from Silverstripe were so drunk that I thought that they were speaking Norwegian, and other people were so drunk that they fell over, and really, I felt quite sober comparatively. I got to talk about Mad Men with Peter lots. And I got home sometime after 4am after dallying with that nice girl from last year who went to the bathroom and never came back. Webstock is awesome. I should have written about it a lot sooner and also not today when I’m in a really sulky mood.

In fact, I’m so sulky that I’m not going to finish this entry. Night kids, let’s hope something goes my way in the next couple of days or so, yes? Please?

• You will be pleased to know that I officially don’t have tuberculosis. I had my follow-up follow-up today and I’ve been given the all clear. This means I don’t get to die romantically of consumption while Anne of Green Gables nurses me, but I suppose that’s for the best.
• You will hopefully also be pleased to know that I am the very grateful recipient of some funding from The Midnight Note which will partially cover the cost of my attendance at Webstock. I know of three people who wrote lovely letters for my nomination, but there may have been more. I am well-loved by my community, apparently, and that is a beautiful thing.
• I have discovered over the past couple of weeks just how lucky I am to have the wonderful friends that I do. There was a thing that happened, and it brought back all the anger and emotion that I’d covered up last year and it was a really really difficult time. I seriously considered moving to Auckland just to get away, but luckily attendance at Princess Camp made me play “Run this town” many times in my head and I realised that actually, fuck yes I do.
• Miss Kim Cupcakes & Mace stayed here at Immoral Terrace on and off for the past couple of weeks while she was looking for a flat, and it was so lovely having her here. We had LAN parties and cheese and watched DVDs and stayed up late giggling about boys every night. It’s a bit weird not having her here anymore, to be honest. I am really glad that I could help her out of a jam, and she definitely helped me out too, not just by buying Seb cat food when I was broke but also making me a happy Jo again.
• If I could find my other knitting needle, I would use it to remove my uterus right about now. I cried every day last week, including two different occasions at Hooch, and today I am in total fricking agony and bleeding like a stuck pig. I should go to the GP to ask to be refered to a gynocologyst, but that’s money that I don’t have. It wouldn’t be a hubris update without me talking about my period though, would it?
• A lot of my friends have been going through difficult times. We had decided that the first two weeks of the year didn’t count because they were just the hangover from 2009, but two thousand and zen has taken a while to get going. My main drama, apart from the thing that knocked me flat on my ass for a couple of weeks is the ongoing job hunt. I got very close to a job that I really wanted, reference checks and everything, and because they took a while to get back to me I dared to dream about what it would be like to actually have an income again, which of course became a big let-down again. I hate that my friends have had crappy-ass times, but if it had to happen, I’m glad that we’ve had each other to go through the crap with.
• I almost left the house for a night this summer to go camping, but it was raining in the Hutt so we camped in Amie’s lounge instead. Princess Camping for the win! We had tremendously good times.
• I went to a random hipster party in Roseneath where we sat in an empty room and played a variation of Truth or Dare. I went to a keg party in a big flat on Cuba Street where goths went without makeup, a kitten romped around and that nice girl from last year kissed me again although it’s against her rules, which I don’t understand. I went to a couch-surfing gathering in Mount Vic where I drank gin and played Animal Motions. There have been tiki shacks here, and macaroni parties at Laura’s. There’s also a Pretty Pretty Party coming up on March 6. It is hard to be as entertaining as I want to be when I lack the funds so drastically.
• My family has continued to be awesome and supportive. BAMJI took me for my first swim of the year, and last night we had a bigass dinner at Hazel for Mum’s significant birthday. It was lovely. I should review it for the Wellingtonista sometime soon.
• Still loving my flatmates. And I’m super excited that Kat & Kane are coming down next week. Not to mention WEBSTOCK! And I have a fabulous frock from Megan to wear, and I leant one to Sue. What goes around comes around, hurray!
• Oh, and finally, I spoke at Bloggers Predict the other week, and you can watch the video of it here: