Hubris.co.nz

Wednesday July 31

Lending your cellphone to people so that they can use it as an alarm clock is generally unfortunate when it means that they’ll be waking you up at 7am to return it and you’ll be feeling sick as a dog with the first decent hangover you’ve had in ages. I spent $5.80 to get drunk last night. This was made possible by being with four other people at Quiz Night at the AUT pub, two of whom thought that they’d be driving home (well, one did, and the other Bo convinced to stay the night) who nevertheless feel like they should contribute to the camradarie by also buying their rounds. Thanks largely to me, we came third and won a $20 bar tab. Wahoo! So we’ll go back next week to spend it, and so the Quiz host guy can give me more shit. But I dunno if I’ll go with Clay-bo BradC and JeremyO again, because to be perfectly honest, I probably annoyed them by answering too quickly. Oh I’m so smart, I’m so cool, everyone fucking worship me.

But anyways, it was a lot of fun and I bumped into Jonno again, which makes it twice in two days, and I was able to confirm for KateB that actually yes, he does well and truly have a mullet now. After the quiz, and foozeball <!– which actually, i didn’t play, cos I was engrossed in conversation and knees and shoulders touching–>, Jezza went back to his house, and the rest’o us went back to theslab (which is also our team name) to drink so many martinis that we not only ran out of Skky but also Absolut (can I drop in a few more vodka labels in here? there was a question in the Quiz about what kinda liquor Finlandia was. I laughed. That’s my housebrand right there, presuming that I was actually a bar instead of just spending all my parents’ money in them). I also made everyone my special roast potatoes with garlic and peppercorn feta, which I’ve developed a mad fetaish for. Get it? Ha HA. Hehehee I love Bo so much when we’re both on a mad buzz, which is pretty much every evening – we ran around for like half an hour saying “you’d feta not fuck with me”. It was hilarious. Really. And we played Agitation which got nasty and then Leo showed up and was rarking me up which was cool cos normally he doesn’t say much but last night he was all “sheesh, get two drinks in Joanna and she’s all over the show with the abuse”. Leo and I bonded lots over the past weekend smoking spots together and feeling ill at ease when Bo had friends over who were very much not at all like her. Eventually pretty much everyone went to bed and BradC made me a cup of tea like a good gentleman and we hung out for a bit, and then I managed to pour myself into bed.

Hence the hangover this morning, which was more than a little unprofessional, since I was meeting my client for the first time at 10am today. But I needn’t have worried, because she was seriously one of the coolest people i’ve ever met, and now I’m re-energised and excited about my course. Also, it’s been fun talking ethics and trying not to get in fights with people in my classes and stuff like that. I followed Kant, you went Utilitarian, and I guess you won. And I think I learnt some other things too maybe this week, but I could be wrong.

After Haley and I met our client, I went and got Wendys for the hangover and ate it while reading “Fast Food Nation” which I gotta do a book review on for Corporate Communication. It’s the new No Logo, don’t you know? And then I had to skeedaddle to get to work to sit and look pretty and make jokes about Yogi. That lasted til five, but was made much more interesting with emailed gossip flying back and forth, and then passed on to Teri, who just laughed at me. Oh, and I also drew a stunning picture of a stick panda dancing in a bamboo forest and faxed it to KateM. I’m clever and talented. I did actually do some work too, you know.

As soon as I got home from work, i put my pajamas on, cos I was still a little dressed up (ie – wearing my black dress, that none’o you woulda seen cos it’s Posh and none of youse guys are. Actually wait, I distinctly remember wearing it OH MY GOD it would have been exactly today when I had lunch with KateH right after I cleaned out my desk at Foodstuffs ten minutes after I said I wanted to resign on this day last year. YAY! that’s worth another drink. Tomorrow.) and there would have been no point changing into slumier clothes when all I was gonna do was lie on the couch and pretend to not be hungover any more and make more bad jokes about feta to Bo and have her say “oh Jo, you’re so Punny” to me, and feel like we were on our way to becoming Brad&Justin – ie going straight to hell. Are my sentences running away with me? I suspect that they are, eh. Nevermind. (Another interlude while I go to Bo’s room to say “hey, next time we wanna make a pun, we should just growl bearlike at each other” all intervention styles, and then we got talking about Leo and how he was mocking me last night and also how he was worried when I was psuedoyelling at BradC for kicking me out of my own lounge) My point was that when KateM rang me in Shortland Street, I had to put clothes on before agreeing to meet her at Hugo’s Frog Bar for dinner.

(another interuption while I go tell Bo’o the current scandals and gossip. She’s excited that she hopefully will get to put faces to many of the names and stuff on Friday night, but then again, she probably won’t. Also, I picked up a film I’d had sitting in my camera for ages, thinking it’d be photos of my 21st, but no, it’s from Graduation. Excellent.)

Anyways, driving in to meet Kate, I couldn’t find a park anywhere so I went into a dreaded parking building (which ended up costing six dollars, good lord). I had to sit in my car for ages though, cos bFM were playing a new Pluto song, you know, the really rock one that they do in concert lots and Milan’s all glam rockstar screaming at the end and everyone’s panties melt. We chatted lots and stuff, and she said my hair made me look like a punk chick. That’s not really what I was aiming for, but hey, that’s okay. Oh yeah, did I mention that I got my hair done last friday? I might not have. You can go look at the “red” jpgs in my cam dir if you’re interested. After dinner, I was lovely and went back to her office with her to read magazines while she finished her work. I am so rent-a-crowd. She paid me in zinc defender lozenges and gave me a fax that she’d meant to send me, depicting a fat panda with bamboo in its stomach. The fax also said “what does ‘macking on’ mean anyway?” on it, in reference to the contents of the fax I’d sent her. You do the math.

Now I’m at home again, typing away furiously in fingerless gloves but (as evidenced by this journal entry) getting up constantly to tell Bo more things. Bo bo bo. Fuck she’s cool. This isn’t like the honeymoon period either, cos she’s been here since April. We’ve grown into each other. Okay, I gotta go sleep now, so much so that I think I will load this up tomorrow night, cos my net has fucked up cos she was trying to check for phone messages from Leo, but he’s just here now anyways.

Saturday July 27, 2002

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!

The candidate I voted for, Judith Tizard of the Labour Party won her seat. The Green Party, whom I gave my party vote to got 6.4%, so they get eight members of parliment. I’m mostly happy – although I would have been happier if Laila Harre would have won Waitakere and got the Alliance back in, so yeah, it was a good election day for me.

While we’re talking election days, last election three years ago, I was engaged in ICQ conversations w T about whether or not he should move in, purely as my “flatmate”. While the count might not yet be back from the ballot box as to whether or not it was a good idea, I’d like to put out a preemptive statement and claim that I don’t regret it at all – because how can you regret anything that shaped and changed you that much?

Other anniversaries that are coming up around this date would be my decision around this time two years ago to start Fucking, as opposed to actually wanting meaningful ties with person (and sure, this coincided with the day that I sold the bed that I often shared with someone I loved, but that’s beside the point). If you’ve been reading me since then, you probably would have noticed a major switch in attitude and the calibre of people since then – with some noteable exceptions who genuinely were good people (you know – the ones who are few and far between. Actually no, I’ve had two this year, depending on what kinda mood I’m in).

AND! It’s almost a year since I on-the-spot quit my job at Foodstuffs as a result of them being so horrible to me about my OOS. I’m still amazed that I had the gall to do that then, although admittedly they had me pushed right to the very edge. It’s probably one of the bravest things I’ve ever done though, chosing my soul and physical wellbeing over $40,000 a year.

Plus, it’s the seventeenth year that KateB and I have got to wish each other Happy Birthday, and that’s just fucking tremendous. She’s my darling girl and I love her.

Because of blah blah blah, all you need to know about my past couple’o days is that last night Bopha made the best fucking lasange ever, and so tonight I made the best risotto ever and when I served it to her and KateH I warned them that generally I only ever make risotto for people when I’m trying to get into their pants (oh come on! you knew that at the time!). Also, then I made vegan waffles with caramelised fruit. Come to think of ti, the risotto was vegan too. Anyways though.

Oh, and I got my hair done again. I love my hairdresser.

Thursday, July 25th 2002

Blah blah blah stuff. Blah blah blah career decisions. Blah blah bhal stuff.

Tuesday, July 23rd 2002

In which Joanna and Bopha have Retro Night

“I haven’t done it either. I’m not a nymphomaniac – I’m a compulsive liar”. Guess who’s been watching ‘The Breakfast Club’ again?

Dreams this morning involved me scoring some random guy so that my friend could cheat on her boyfriend with the other guy that we were with, and one of the those guys happened to be Josh from Home and Away. We ended up crashing a Hercules plane into the desert in French Morrocco, and my friend got taken by white slave traders, and there was much hiding behind rocks and stuff until I woke up. Mm. It’s full moon kinda weather, right? My periods are no longer nsync with the moon, but my dreams apparently still are. Then again, if Bopha and clay jump on me again like they did tonight while I’m trying to swallow my bleed pill and make me cough it up, then who knows what will happen. Chaos, utter total chaos. Possibly.

Human Resources Communication lecture was actually really good, and plus I really like Lenny, so that’s cool. Hey Maz, if you read this before I have a chance to call you (and if that’s the case, then we are LAME) which text books should I buy this semester?). Then, cos I had a two hour gap before my next class, I hopped on a link and went to Newmarket to look for a stereo. Or rather, I waited 25 minutes for a link bus that is supposed to go every 10 minutes, which then took 20 minutes to get to Newmarket. Plus, I didn’t find a stereo. All I want is an Aiwa, Sony, or Pioneer microsystem stereo that has an RCA input plug and looks good for under $400. Why is that so hard? Actually, come to think of it, I haven’t seen a single Pioneer stereo anywhere. What’s up with that – are they just out of my price range or what? See, my parents hav always had pioneers, and me and my sisters have always had Sonys, so you know, I just wanna stick with waht I know. But then again, half the reason I want a new stereo is because the laser in my Sony stereo has been dead for a year and a half. Then again, I did buy it at the start of 1995, but it cost $800 then. So who knows.

OH MY GOD! I almost strangled someone in my Coporate Communication class this afternoon. We were doing an exercise on evaluating a particular politician’s postives and negatives and suggesting tactics for them before the election, and my group was working on Peter Dunne. There was one girl in my group who was like “Who? I don’t know who any of the leaders of any of the parties are”. OH MY FUCKING GOD! Okay, so maybe Peter Dunne was until last week one of the lesser known politicians but you HAVE to know him by now! And so I was like “what? how can you not know?” and she was like “oh, I have no interest in politics – I don’t really watch the news or read the paper” and later she was like “oh, I don’t htink I’ll vote – I don’t know what anyone’s about. Mum doesn’t like labour though”. I was just about ready to jump across the desks and throttle her. SHE IS A THIRD YEAR COMMUNICATIONS STUDENT FOR FUCKS SAKE! There is absolutely no fucking excuse for that kind of bullshit. Okay, it would have been fair enough if she’d grown disillusioned with the system, or disliked the policies of everyone, or was making a protest non-vote, or even if she was voting for Winston Peters cos she liked his three fingers, or ANYTHING like that, but NO! She didn’t have a single thought or opinion. Sure, maybe later years of the BCs didn’t have the benefit of the best Politics tutor in the world, Marcus, but if she can’t follow the media, she has absolutely no fucking right to be doing a A GODDAM MEDIA DEGREE! Especially with a major in PR. In Multimedia possibly there would be the faintest chance in the world that she could bury her head in code and never see daylight, but in PR, it is completely essential you have a grip on the environments that your organisation is operating within, and politics is vital to that. You don’t have to like it, but you should at least be able to identify who the leader of a party is. Even goddam fucking personification of stupid old flatmate Ben probably would have been able to tell you who he was voting for (because he like d cannibas and thought that the Greens were a single issue party in that respect) and would have had one or two issues that would have concerned him – ie the closing of Thames Hospital cos his parents were nurses. But oh no, not this girl. One of the other girls in my group was voting for Winston, which is tragic, but I still really like her as a person, and the other was going National, but she explained her standpoint, and while I didn’t agree I could at least respect it.

But yeah, after wadling up the hill in the rain, Bopha and Clay shared my total and utter indignation at that girl’s complete ignorance, and then I went a little bit mental, completly hypo. Hmm, I can’t remember what teh end of that word is – hypo ummmmmmmmmm. Hyperactive. It was fun, and Bops laughed at me lots, which is also kinda fun. So us two planned a retro night, with liquor and ‘The Breakfast Club’ since she’d never seen it. We were in the bottle store in Newmarket when the guy ID’d us – which is probably fair enough cos we spent ages debating the virtues of drinking RTDs in retroness, and I just laughed at him, and then was like “fuck, actually I don’t think i have my drivers license” and I was rattling out the same prattle that I used to use 8 years ago when I wasn’t actually legal to drink, but then finally I found it, and was hugely relieved cos I was just about to be really embarrassed. Yeah anyways. We tried to play a drinking game with The Breakfast Club, doing shots any time anyone said that their homelife was worse than anyone else’s, anytime anyone was called by their name, any time you saw a clock, any time Allison stole something and anytime anyone swore but eventually got lazy. According to Bops, if I was a Breakfast Club character, I would be Claire the princess, played by Molly Ringwald, with elements of all the others except for the jock thrown in. I kinda think Bopha would be the jock, except she’s so not, but she’s no one else better, and Clay would definately be the nerd. That’s all I’ll say about that movie (for now, anyways).

After that, we was watching music tv, so we had to run out into the hallway and try to learn the dance moves to ‘Step By Step’ by NKOTB on the public staircase. We think we got something going on, except then we were throwing in the panda dance, and also the crazy maraca thing Bops and I had been doing to a Santana song on Sunday night, so it got pretty fucked up. According to her, we’re almost at hte point where we don’t even need to talk anymore to know what each other mean, adn soon we will be communicating entirely in a language of clicks and beeps and “BO BO BO badabibi” I keep telling her stories, and she keeps wanting to meet people she’s heard about, so fi you’ve never met Bops, now is the time to get your act together and drop round.

ALSO! On July 17th, it was Hubris’s THIRD BIRTHDAY. This is very special and important, and hey, actually, I might like, you know, release merchandise soon. THREE! I can’t believe it.

Monday, July 22nd 2002

In which I attempt to be a professional student

So I had class today at 11am, which is an excellent time to start the day, but I’d meant to get up around 9am cos I wanted to you know, actually make use of my mornings. Unfortunately, that plan interupted one of the nicest dreams I’d had in a while – I was sitting somewhere when this guy walked past who looked really familiar walked past, so I was like “Simon?” and it was Simon Darby who I had a crush on in 6th and 8th grade (not 7th though, cos that would have been too easy) and he turned around and gave me this really huge big really nice hug, and it was really cool, and like, we just had this big connection in the hug, and so after that, we just had an understanding, and he introduced me to his dad, who was like “Have I ever heard of this girl before?” and when Simon said no I was like “but wait a minute! you had a crush on me in the 5th grade! howcome you didn’t tell your dad then?”. Anyways, it was cool, but then my fucking alarm went off. Still, it set me up to feel all mellow and peaceful.

That of course changed when I got to tech and everyone was trying to figure out their schedules. See, the Grad Dips in PR (that’s me) take Public Relations Practice class, and the BCs students (that’s most of the people who I like) take Public Relations Planner class, and the only difference is that Planner is worth 2 credits so they have to do twice as much work as us. This means that I won’t be able to work with my friends, which is fine, cos I am a grown up after all, but it meant that classes are all fucked up, cos we have a workshop, a lab, a tutorial and a meeting each week, and schedules are all fucked, and room numbers were crazy and I was actually put into a Planners class not a Practice class, and and and. Yeah. Anyways. So, as our Planners assignment, we’re supposed to take on a Not-For-Profit client and deliver them professional results (as one of our tutors said “we’re expecting you to service the clients in any way that they need”). You might remember this kinda thing from my work for the NSCC while I was doing my multimedia major which resulted in the NSCC hiring me after that to do PR for them. Unlike in Multimedia, this time we get to have some input into which clients we chose, so all week we’re going to get presentations from various groups who want us. I will be kinda vague, but I gotta list them to explain to you my choices. The first one sounded interesting, sculpture exhibition stuff to raise money for Women’s Refugee, but there’s already a BCs student working on it, which means that i can’t do it (we work in groups, but in segregated groups). The next presentation was from a cute guy in a sharp looking suit (I’ve decided that dress is very important to me, unfortunately) but he wanted help on a “hugs not drugs” campaign, and there’s where I have to exercise my own personal ethics and say no, because it’s not something I believe in (see, PR people DO have ethics). Other ones that followed didn’t sound at all interesting, apart from the AUT fashion show, so I might try for that, or otherwise hopefully there will be some interesting sounding ones I can pick up later this week. I think it’s about time I had an interesting and styley client.

In other exciting news, apparently I am banned from Starks. !!!. This is cool because I have never been badass enough to have been banned from anywhere before. And it makes me laugh, so much so that Bops and I dropped in on KateH tonight to laugh in person. But we had to leave cos it was reaaaaally hot, and I’d already accomplished my mission of taking Katie chocolate as an act of retribution for crimes I committed against her on Saturday night.

Later tonight I watched an episode of “Queer As Folk” that I’d taped last night after I joyously discovered that TV4 were doing late night repeats of it and ‘Sportsnight’ on sundays. It was still excellent, of course, but I’m sure that Stuart and Nathan were so much hotter two years ago. Perhaps it helps if you’re watching it with a boy who’s similarly salivating.

Hmm, i think Saturn5 is under repairs so I can’t upload right now. Nevermind. I can always do this later, although I should probably go to bed soon. I’ve got a new fetish for my hotwater bottle which I rediscovered in teh great closet cleanout of last week. Now I should just do some laundry so I can actually see my nice new carpet and I’ll be all sweet. Oh, and pay my domainz fee. I already let one lapse.

Sunday July 21

You’ll have to excuse me if I fall asleep in the middle of typing this. I’m very very tired. Too much debuchary and the like – either that or just too much drinking. KateH adn I had a big debriefing on the phone today and it turns out that neither of us can remember walking from the Supper Club to Oporto, which is kinda amusing. Also, I’m in trouble with her, but if I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb (ha! when’s the last time you heard THAT expression?) so I’ll relate a little story to you about her right now. After all it’s not often that I get to mock her. Anyways, so we were talking to this girl at the rooftop party who had a flower in her hair, and KateH was like “oh I can smell your rose from here” and the girl was like “but it’s a camelia” and more to the point, she pulled it out and showed us that it was fake. What Kate was in fact smelling was the rose moisturiser she had on her own hands. What a dick! Heh. Okay, so it was probably much much funnier at the time.

So today I slept in til almost 2pm, then vegetated in front of the TV for large periods of time, feeling ever so slightly ill, but not too bad. Much much later, Clay Bops and I went out to dinner at Salsa on Richmond Road. It was really small and cozy and warm, and the owner was lovely and the food was excellent, so it comes highly recommended. So there. And yeah, basically that’s all I have to say. I have to go to school tomorrow, poos. But luckily class doesn’t start until 11am. Have I mentioned lately how madcrazy hectic my scheduale is this semester? Thank fuck I’m not taking four papers. As it is, I have three classes on monday, two on tuesdays, one on wednesday then 4.5 hours of work, three classes then 2.5 hours of work on Thursday and I’m working 9-5 on Fridays. Madness. Okay, so real people work a lot more than that, but I’m not really real, remember. Bed for me now – before midnight even. Crazy.

xojo

Saturday, July 20th 2002

In which Joanna tries to right all the wrongs in the world

So, this afternoon, Bops and I went to Newmarket. We were looking for a Sony/Aiwa/Pioneer microsystem under $400 with a cd player, cassette and RCA ports looking good for me, and a computer under $2000 for her. I found a Phillips one which the guy in Bond&Bond woulda dropped to $420 for me, so I figured the guy in Noel Lemming since they’re owned by the same company woulda done for me on an Aiwa woulda done for me for the same price, but it was kinda mintgreen tinged, so I’m not sure if I liked it. But we did find Bops a computer for $1700, and managed to talk the shop guy into being able to put less than a 20% deposit on it. I scrapped up $170 outta my account and she had $60 cash. We felt like we was scrounging for coins under the sofa. T has agreed to set us up a network, so I’mma do my best to not piss him off til he’s done that. Hi T, don’t get shirty with me for writign this. Lately I have been having mad flashbacks about all sorts of things, and I have this image of you in my head of you jumping on my bed and hitting your head on my dusty chandelier. That’s all.

Oh, okay, so where were we? Okay, KateH on the phone at 7.40pm, saying let’s meet soemwhere BYO at 8pm, and so we go through the yellow pages togehter and agree to meet at Sri Panang on K’Road so I don’t have to walk down the hill, but once I’ve finally got my shit together, i finally realise I’m on the wrong side’o the road, and when she calls I dunno where she is, so we decide to meet at Saigon instead. So yeah, super yummy Vietnamese for dinner, and then we go home for Martinis. Emma showed up with some crazyass friends, so that was amusing for a while, especially cos she called me really fucking beautiful and you know I pretty much fall for anyone that calls me beautiful – or maybe that’ sjust everyone I’ve fallen for has also called me beautiful.<!– cos you know I always thought Emma was HOT –> Chicken -> egg -> chicken etc. Katie read my list’o memories from Garland (or from the bathroom, laundry, hallway and kitchen, cos that’s only as far as I’ve ever got with those lists) while I got changed and reapplied makeup. She was impressed that I had “There’s a glass of water out here for you Jo” as a memory, cos that’s what she remembered from the bathroom too. That’s all I wrote down, cos what else can you say about a month of throwing up constantly and stressing out all the people that you care about? Especially since she was just “Justin’s Girlfriend” then (sweetei I love you and I don’t even need to say how much more you are now).

Anyways, where was I before I started talking about things that let’s so not go there right now. Oh yeah, Martinis at home, then we went to a party of her friends’, who are also my friends at tech who apparently actually really like me, so I’m so not a Grand Dick, and that’s yay. They were just down Symonds Street, and their party was on the roof of their building. I spent most of the time talking to the editor of Craccum from 2000, and we had astonishingly similar taste in music, and laughed about teh same things, and he was so cool and I was really surprised that apparently he wasn’t gay. It was choice to see where Kelly and Rowena lived as well. And then, we went to a party at Khuja, which was in the private back room so that was excellent, and I had long indepth conversations with assorted people, mostly to accomodate Katie chatting up boys. The boy I was talking to was talking close and whispering in my ear, and I had to whisper in his since the music was really loud, and I was mocking his partial English accent, and I dunno, I just had a real urge to kiss him behind his ears, and the last boy that I felt that for ended up kissing me, but this boy didn’t cos we left to go do sonmethoing else. What did we do? it’/s hard to remember. Drinks at The Supper Club maybe? And then Oporto, and I rang Justin to see where he was at, and he was like “hey, if you wanna hang out, you should call me before 2.46am” which made me laugh lots cos I ahd no idea what the time was cos Katie had had my cellie in her bag all night.

Then we talked about it, as we had been talking about it all night, and had had a big debate before we went into Oporto, but we went into Starks to have a very loud discussion in front of this FUCKING DICK who has done bad things to someone cool and you so don’t do that on our watch without us having to say something, and yeah, so loud obnoxious indignant conversation til we got the “You ladies would be more comfortable in the Civic Lounge” line, and fuck Katie, when i started this evening, I had $75 in my pocket, and now I have $6 for laundry and like $4 in scrapnel. What DID we get up to? Love you SO much baby xojo.

Thursday, July 18th 2002

In which Joanna ponders her ovaries in some detail

Yesterday I’d half written this excellent disection breaking down the stereotypes in the Breakfast Club which I’d watched that afternoon on two glasses of wine and some codeiene cos I was bored, and I wrote how I could easily match up the nerd, the weirdo and the stupid jock to people that I’ve shagged, and also probably the badass but I was having trouble matching the Molly Ringwald princess character until Tom told me exactly who it corrolated with because of major Princess Complex going on with that particular person and he was so right, but anyways, I lost that whole entry because I had to go and take a drunken phonecall from Anji, and spent over an hour only saying “Yep”, “ahuh” and “yeah”. I could have been a character on the West Wing, if I’d said it with that funny abbreviated swallowing their words kinda way that they all do (Incidentally, I can’t remember who it was that said it, but someone suggested that there’s only one character on the West Wing and I sometimes think that they’re right. CJ is still fabulous though.)

But anyways, that was yesterday, along with Maree phoning to say thank you for the faxes I sent her the other day, so I invited her around to eat vege lasange with me (it was the fucking best lasange ever, with leeks and onions and mushrooms and bromocoli and kidney beans for protein and pumpkin and tomato and everything). That was probably the highlight’o my day, seeing her. No wait! The other highlight yesterday was a suprise coffee in the courtyard of Strawberry Alarm Clock with KateH who is my sunshine although she shoulda been working. Was that yesterday? Or the day before? I can never remember. Wait, I think I wrote about that already, so maybe that was Tuesday. Who knows?

Blah blah blah. Work today. Right now Clay and BradC are at Pluto and Gomez, the bastards. I asked them to bring me back Milan, but I doubt that they’ll remember to, since it took BradC exactly one month to bring me my birthday present. And I still maintain that a cinnamon donut really ain’t any kinda present. They were drinking Soju and also Cider before, so I laughed at them over the top of my dry martini with a twist and the olives on the side. Then BradC got under my duvet cos he was cold and Clay gave me looks, which is ridiculous cos he already gave me full permission to pursue him if I want to, but I don’t think I do. I need to learn to make myself happy without having to disengage my brain all the time, etc. Plus, I’ve done enough pursuing for the year.

Also, I have had the dull distant ache of a soft headache all day, so I know it’s the goddam pill, and I’m going to have to do some serious thinking. If I skip the sugar pills, there’s a risk that I’ll have PMS all month, and I don’t think anyone would be able to deal with that. If I don’t, then I might always have this ache when I’m on the sugar pills, and while it’s not the fullscale migraine’o last time, I do realise that i’m going to have to make sure that I have full oxygen going to my brain at all times in order to keep it from getting to that evil “I think I’m going to die because something has exploded in my skull feeling”. And you know what maintaining proper breathing means that I can’t do. Grrr. So I guess I could go off the pill. I’m not using it as birth control, cos ha, do you ever see anyone actually fancying me enough to have a dedicated relationship with me where I trusted them enough to stop using condoms? I doubt it (side note – I am 22 years old and only one person has ever told me that they loved me). But in theory, the pill is regulating my ovaries – and also apparently clearing up my skin and making me less hairy. My skin isn’t really that bad though, is it? And yeah, I have horrible hairy hobbit feet, but that hasn’t seemed to have changed over the past two months. However, yeah, I do want to get my ovaries in line. Hmmm. Maybe I will wait til I’m next sick and needing to see my doctor and then I’ll discuss it with her. Dammit, if this was two months ago, I could still go see her for free cos of the whole U22 free sexual health visits.

Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. I think I had more to talk about but maybe I don’t. Bopha is coming back tomorrow – oh how I have missed my little girl! And I get to see KateH again too, and that kicks ass. If I had been good and gone to watch them all playing indoor netball, I coulda seen her and Maree and JeremyO today, but Maz said that they weren’t going to be wearing short skirts, so really, what would the point have been?

I really wanted to go to Gomez, but it was $60, and I’ve been increasingly crowdfreakouted, so I dunno if it woulda delivered $60 worth’o satisfaction to me. But fuck, Pluto are great live. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll play an individual gig sometime soonish, and at least this way I wasn’t subjected to Chris Knox.

NEWSFLASH! Clay and BradC just got back, and apparently they met a friend of Jarrod’s from Wellington, and OH MY GOD it was the first boy I ever kissed who I was madly in love with for a very long time afterwards. Now I’m really bummed that I didn’t go.

Tuesday, July 16th 2002

Last night I was reading The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami in bed. Have you read it? I’m not sure if it’s out yet – I have a publisher’s copy of it from my book pimp Karen. Well, it’s short stories, and it seemed like every single story made me want to write a response to it, each story related to something I’ve had or experienced or felt. And I didn’t write any of it down, because i figured if I started doing that then I’d never sleep, but I have to put at least one down, and it’s about ‘The Kangaroo Communique’. A department store worker writes a letter to a customer he’s never met because of her complaint letter, and he tells her all these really random things and makes her an audio tape of him saying even more random things, and it totally made me think of you and your twenty three page letter that you sent me. He was crazy, and you were dorky and self concious, but I’m really glad that you did act “so out of character that the audience would be booing if this was a film because it wasn’t realistic” to paraphrase you badly. And yeah, that was it, basically.

Today I meant to get up at a decent hour, but I was dreaming that I was posessed and it was rather traumatic and I hope it wasn’t supposed to be my religious ephiphamy, because I can’t even spell the world, let alone believe in it. Also, I could see my breath from above the duvet, and I have lime green sheets and a pink duvet cover, so I was in no hurry to get out of bed. But eventually I did make it up, and I was domesticated and cleaned the kitchen. And then later KateH on MSN told me to go and meet her for coffee, so I unloaded the freezer and unplugged it and left it wide open to defrost, and went ot Parnell to meet her. We sat in the courtyard of Strawberry Alarm Clock and she ate my mushrooms on toast cos if you give her an inch she takes a mile, and discussed friends of hers that this audience hasn’t heard about and decided we should go and beat them up. And we made tentative plans to go to Fu on Friday, which’ll be kickass. Also on Friday night, I’m picking Bopha up at the airport, so YAY, i will have my darling flatmate back. I’m grumpy at Clay tonight cos he didn’t say anything about the amazing transformation of our freezer from a tiny icey hole into the ice free environment that it is now. I even scraped the ice off all the containers in there with food he’s cooked and squirreled away like a rodent so that you can tell what they are. He has NEVER cleaned out the freezer. Grrr. If he doesn’t clean the fridge sometime real soon, I will spit tacks. Either that or just sulk at him all the time. That’s always real effective. Not.

My books have gone slightly mouldy from being stacked in my wardrobe, lovely. I might go and alphabetise them right now cos there’s no one to talk to online. I want to go out! Tomorrow is my last ever day of holidays, really, since in Septmeber I will probably be working full time cos Bridget is going away for a conference for three weeks and Teri will be leaving soon after. Shit, last ever day of holidays – maybe I should get up at 9am and then get drunk all day long, by myself, like the misery guts that i am. That sounds like a solid idea. Either that, or I could stay in bed.

I got to use my first green sticker in my Vinne’s Know Your Flow Journal today. Exciting! I want to buy a stereo and so I’m tossing up between that or new glasses. The glasses are probably more important, right? Of course, both are dependant on me finding the cheque from Oma. I wonder if it would be wrong to write her an email saying that I need to go to San Francisco. Yeah, it probably would, eh?

Ooh kickass, I found the cheque buried in my wardrobe. Excellent. She wrote on the envelope “always be loved” and that’s just so lovely, it’d be worth so much more than the cheque to know that I would always be loved.

Arrrgh, so much stuff in my closet that needs to be cleaned of mould. My boots are all spotty – luckily it wipes off. And so many lists of memories, and also, the original Safekeeping letter, and that’s weird. But! I found two of my favourite necklaces, and some lipgloss. Kickass.

Add to that my pipes, a tiara, a copy of 6000 word version of ‘Intimacy’ that I thought I’d lost (you can read the 3000 word version in four parts on Swinney if you haven’t already (and you’re into extended short semi-fictional stories’o angst). I discovered a huge big box’o mixed stuff, so I’m retrieving stuff I want from it, throwing some things out and putting everything that I can’t be bothered dealing with for now back in it. Is it normal to get enthusiastic about cleaning your room only at 1am?

Hmmm, i just read through the 6000 word version and I’m not sure if I like it better or worse. It’s funny in reflection, cos when I wrote it at the start’o 2001, I got accused of just wanking on paper but then there’s things that have happened since then that reminded me at the time of the story, and it’s like I was writing my own foreshadowing – or my own wishlist, or whatever. Okay, I’m rambling. I’m going to install Wolfenstien 3D now cos i found the disk for it, even though I should go to bed with Murakami again. Night!

Monday the 15th of July, two thousand and two

At work today, I was running MSN Messenger (cloud_tiare) cos it was on my computer and cos both Teri and Bridget were out of the office and I didn’t have anything to do except answer their phones if they rang (in the morning, I rushed over to answer Teri’s, picked it up and was like “Good morning Communications Office, Teri speaking” before I realised my mistake and I had to go “wait wait wait, sorry, I’m not actually Teri, I meant it was her phone” when the woman on the other end started talking all familiarly) and of course Skew didn’t tell me until I’d made a mad dash across the office for Bridget’s phone that I could just dial her extension on my phone and push 8 to get her call. But anyways, what was my point? Oh yeah, I was talking to Peter on MSN, and he said that there’s a theoretical petition in existence that I should write my journal every day, and so far him and Jane have signed it. And if he’s making up fibs about you again Jane, then I’m sorry, but hey, it’s Peter, and what do you expect? And also, I think you should write about wanking – people will think you’re weirder if they suspect that you don’t do it. And have I got Pete in trouble enough yet?

Anyways, the 13 minutes or so that it took for me to eat a sandwhich sitting outside in the sun froze me to the bone, but at least it was sunshine, right? What else is noteworthy? The fax machine in our office doesn’t like me, and it won’t work, unless i’m alone, in which case it works fine. I think it’s trying to make me look incompetent – and it’s succeeding. But I mastered it while I was alone, and so I resolve never to let it smell my fear again. So yeah, obviously a very productive day all around. I have two days off now, finally, then part two of my induction course on Thursday morning (this time we get a tour around the main part’o the organisation, exciting!) and work on Friday afternoon, then back to tech on Monday. I worked out my time table – it sucks. Well actually, I have no classes earlier that 10am, which is excellent for me, but I will be working 4.5 hours on Wednesdays after class, 2.5 on Thursdays, and then all day fridays. Grr. Still, money is good. I like money. Also today, I got 2/3 of my exam results – a B and a B+, but I have no idea which papers were which, cos they just give you the paper #, not its name, and who ever remembers those? Still I’m pleased, and will be even more pleased if one of those is Persuasive Communication ie: the exam I don’t remember sitting cos I was so doped up. And speaking of which, soon I will find out if my migraines are going to be a reoccuring theme.

OH! OH! OH!!!!!! OH OH OH! That’s the other thing I had to tell you! I got my birthday present from Olivia and s5 in the mail today. They sent me a Vinne’s Tampon Case and Journal! I am in love with Vinnie now, and also o and s5, but then I always loved them anyways. It kicks ass! Clay was like all “ummmmmm. ummmmmmmm. ummmmmmmmm” when he first saw it and I told him it was a coffee table book, but then he picked it up and flicked through it and saw how cool it was. I like talkign about bleeding, and now I get to write about it even more too! Speaking of which, according to my packet, I am one day late. Oh well. I’m all mango enough now to know it’ll be real soon, like tomorrow. Also, isn’t it weird how your period cramps don’t kick in until you go to the bathroom and see that you’re bleeding? Yes, yes it is!

Okay, that’s about it. Hopefully tomorrow I will be all domesticated and clean my room and the lounge and do the dishes and go vege shopping. It’s holidays but all my friends are busy working super duper hard, as per usual, at their jobs and careers. Shucks. So no holiday for me. Bops comes back on Friday – I want her back NOW.