Hubris.co.nz

I just lost a rather long and rambling post about trying to find out who I am, so bear with me while I attempt to recreate it.

I’ve been watching Casablanca a lot lately, and wishing that I had a great and noble cause to sacrifice things for. Maybe I oughta take up the occult. 2004 in Wellington is lacking desperation and the ridiculous frivolity that comes with it. I think I’d do much better elegantly slumming it up at Rick’s Cafe. I just need to start liking me some more whiskey. Pretending that my breakfast smoothie is a Pina Colada and that my vitamins are mdma just doesn’t cut it.

Dreaming of being on E and making out with the Ken Doll from The OC (umm, is his name Luke?) until I had to stop because he kissed my collarbone and my skin felt so alive that I almost swooned made a nice change from the troop of almost every guy that I’ve ever been with who have been marching through my
dreams of late. I know that they’re showing up because I am still trying to figure out what each and every one of them thought of me. I am a mad desperate clue gatherer.

Have you read Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods? Well, (and I’d like to take this oppotunity to point out that I am NOT a Terry Pratchett geek) the basic premise of the book is that there are thousands and thousands of gods, but if people stop believing in them, they cease to exist. If you don’t acknowledge my existence, if no one else writes about me, if no one publically mentions me, well maybe I’m not really here. Maybe I’m the Narrator – or Tyler Durden or whichever one it was who was actually not real. And it’s not just about exisiting or not, it’s about who I am, and what shape I take (apart from you know, the big one, haha hilarious). Maybe I don’t have a reflection unless it’s in someone else’s eyes, and damn you know that makes for some hard times shaving. Haha, okay so Terry Pratchett AND ‘Angel’ in the one paragraph? I might as well just put some sellotape (r) around my glasses right now).

Maybe I should demand that everyone I’ve been with has to make a zine about it afterwards, or that they should all write songs about me (and make sure it’s damn obvious that it is actually me). Maybe they should devote websites to me – and I want more than “I slept with Joanna (www.hubris.co.nz) last week”. In fact, I don’t want that at all, because that fucked up my double standard whereby I got to write about how oh look at me I’m getting on with my life, I am so tough and strong and fuck you I am fine and doing someone who is better than you now, but a little websearching would have revealed that not to be the truth. If I cut you, I want to see you bleed. None of this namby pamby keeping stuff out of the public domain crap, which of course, I do, so oh well, massive double standard, I know. In fact, I’ve probably contradicted myself a thousand (yes, a WHOLE THOUSAND) times in the last paragraph.

Of course it’s not just people who have sex0red me that define me. There are many more better people (haha, more better) whose commentary on my life makes me full of questions. If s/he writes “I had coffee with Joanna today” I’ll be like “AND? OMG did they think I was that boring that they didn’t mention our conversation? Were they only doing it out of obligation? Or are they secretly in love with me and afraid of giving too much away?”. People who post often going “I know you were going to say that” make me think that i’ve turned into nothing but a caricature (jo hubris has finally eaten up all of Joanna McLeod), and that I am merely the badoom chish part of a bad joke. Recently one of my friends did talk about me indepth and it was really flattering, but she talked about someone else and I read that as being me too and it was all confusing and my head was in such a mess and maybe the other thing is that maybe I wouldn’t be able to handle it if you did all open up and let loose anyways. Maybe it is best that I am shielded from the reality of who I actually am. And maybe this whole post made more sense the first time around. I’m not sure what my point was, except that if I don’t know who I am, maybe I should just be who you think I am instead.

What the? What happened to the blue? What happened to the flowers and the drop down menus? What is this…. new content? Surely not…

Well no. The writing/reading/listening/watching stuff is all things I have written for other publications. Once I write some, there will also be drinking and eating sections, and the adding section will be for things that don’t fit elsewhere. I have things from Pulp to add to the writing section, but for now, since that issue is still on sale, you oughta go buy it. In fact, go buy a couple of copies. Rock.

I must give mad happy shoutouts to the darling Heather who built this for me and sorted out hosting and all that jazz too. While I’m riding on the mad props float and tossing out the sweet sweet props candy, I must also throw some to O + s5 for having me for so long. Rock!

Dammit, that’s two paragraphs I ended with “rock”, even if the second one was more excitable. That’s not very rock’n roll of me. Blues!

In non-cyberspace news, I’m settling in very well to my flat, having been there almost a whole month now, and am currently thanking my lucky stars that I got out of my parents’ house when I did. There have been angry emails flying around and assorted coldness and drama which I really don’t feel like putting up with.

As far as feelings-wise go, well, I’m doing okay. I’ve been cry-y lately, but that’s cos I’m on the bleed (and what an almighty bleed it is too, this time). I do feel lonely sometimes. I do worry that I’m never going to be with anyone decent, and I worry when I get hit on by morons twice in one week at Indigo that I’m going to snap and give in just because I can’t take the echoing inside my heart anymore and that the whole experience will leave me more jaded and bitter, but I’m doing my best to rein in those impulses. Rein? Reign? Control. Yeah. At least if I vanish off the face of the planet Hubris will remain as a record that I existed, and the fact that you’ve just spent 2 minutes reading this will mean that I mattered. Oh yeah baby, I’ve just mattered you reaaaaaaaaal good.

Also: please feel free to email (jo at hubris) me in broken things and stuff – of course all the kinks are still being ironed out (because we wouldn’t want to have negro-esque hair now, would we?)