Hubris.co.nz

There are lots and lots of things that I am TREMENDOUSLY excited about right about now.

The first is FOUR SLEEPS til something super duper happy chappy, and I’ve already put it in place. Hopefully it will make someone else as happy as it is making me to just think about.

The second is that when I went to Hamilton I pretended it was Fiji, baby. Now I am going to Fiji, and I won’t be pretending it’s Hamilton. Kateb emailed me two days ago and said “Do you want to go on holiday in two weeks time or at the end of May? We could go to the Gold Coast or Fiji” and so I said “yes please,” and went to Flight Centre and now I just have to confirm our booking and pay for it. I will be spending the night of Saturday May 28th in Auck, if you wanna see me, and then Friday 3rd of June, which is inncidently Penny’s birthday, and she just got engaged! Hurray!

The third is television. Gilmore Girls daily! Scrubs! Lost! THE MOTHERFREEKING O.C coming back real soon! Also, how cool is it that Mutton from The OC played a whore in Firefly? So good.

The fourth is that I got a pay rise yesterday. I’m not sure yet how much, but I think it’s probably a 25% pay rise. That’s quite substantial. It’d be more substantial if said pay rise was for my day job rather than for my REAL job, but hey, still, yay! (edit: it was 25%)

You know why I need these things. They’re what keep me from completely going crazy. Suprisingly I have cut down on my use of the phrase “I would like to put my fist through so&so’s head”, I guess because 2/3 of my arch nemisisisisis are now gone since I’ve left the Nu’Town (bus driver, flatmate). I’m searching for ways to get rid of the remaining one, and as soon as I find one, I’ll be done. And then I’ll get some more arch nemisisisisis, because what is life without them?

Here’s a lesson for you all. If you’re planning on moving house on a hot summer’s day, it’s probably a good idea NOT to drink nearly four bottles of bubbly the night before. Yes sure, it’s fun at the time, but you’ll pay for your happiness. What makes yesterday’s hangover even more infuriating is that everyone else there wrote gleefully about not having one.

But my (now ex) flatmate J’s 30th party was good. Hubrettes in attendence included Jess, Jessie, Jimmy and Joel. In fact, that was all the Hubrettes. Karen was also there for a while, but she left pretty early. We mostly sat in the garden and talked. Once everyone had left I wandered down the road to another party by myself, where I danced for ages. Then I wandered back home and danced for ages. The vibes at the two parties were totally different, which was interesting. I felt like I was on a very very mild trip, it was grand. Then when I checked the time it was 4.30am, so I went to bed, despite the noise, and turned off my tv sometime after 5am. I nearly saw the sun rise.

Stupid fucking sun. SO HOT. Moving is horrible. Sebastian being freaked out by being put in the van is horrible. Having to get up before 8am is horrible. Reconciling to the fact that I’m now living with my parents again is pretty horrible, because it makes me feel like I did NOTHING last year, and accomplished nothing. That’s never cool.

Listed for my benefit and yours. I’ll cross them out as I break them, where applicable.

1. Stop buying everyone drinks.
2. Don’t lose another friend.
3. Accept every invitation within reason.
4. See more sunrises
5. Don’t buy another piece of black clothing.

(overture)

Last night I
went out TO
(heavy organing) The PHANTom
of the OPera

I wasn’t QUITE
prepared FOR
the AMOUNT
of SINGing
that THE movie
would conTAIN

And NOW
I cannot STOP
Thinking of everyTHING
in SONG

I knew too many of the songs
They went on far too long
I blame KateB
For surely it was she
and her family who ingrained them in my head.

(change in pace)

Where are my socks?
My socks, they are gone!
No no, you fool
Your socks, your socks
they are here
Give me my socks!
I must cover my feet with them
Cover your feet!
You must cover your feet!
But it is too hot for socks today!

(extended dance sequence, flashy editing)

If there’s ever a next time
And I hope you get the chance
I must remember
That I hate musicals
But what about Moulin Rouge?
That was different
But how was it different?
The songs, they were current.
The singers, they did not talk through song
exclusively
But what about ‘Singing In The Rain’
Again, they sang extra to the story
Not to drive it along
Drive it along
Drive it along
But what about Buffy?
Bite your tongue you foolish voice!
Buffy is Buffy & they had no choice!
There was no a trace of humour
In that goddawful movie
I’ll trace your humour
I bet you’ll trace it real good too.

(new song)

My client, she called me up
My client, she told me
She was slipping into something more comfortable
My client, she plied me with wine
My client, the meeting was fine

(new song)
The heat is opressive
The sun is impressive
It makes me want to hide
And sit in the shade outside
But you complain of the cold!
I wouldn’t be so bold
But you complain when it rains
And no doubt I will do again

(arm flourish)

Tonight in the dell
If all should go well
Phoenix Foundation
Will cause a Sensation
But I’ll probably stay at home

There’s more than one type of ooooh, you know.

Friday’s ooohs were of the dirty perverted kind when you realise that you want to do things to Harry Potter that shouldn’t even be expressed since he’s supposed to be 13 in that particular movie. We’ll say no more about that. To make myself sound better, there were also ooohs as I realised why things became important, and I shut up with the laughing at innuendos long enough to talk like a stupid person in the movie ie: “oh of course!” and “look out behind you!” type things.

Yesterday
There’s the ‘ooooooooooh’ when you sit down on the bench outside your soon to be ex flat, after you’ve done six trips carrying drawers, and a couple more trips carrying boxes down your steep Victorian staircase.

There’s the ‘ooooh’ noise when you’re folded into the back seat of your parents’ van because your boxes and chest of drawers are taking up the rest of the room and your sister is on the front seat and the heat is making you feel sick, and there’s the ‘oooh’ of relief when you get to unfold yourself and sit in the front seat cos you’ve dropped your sister in Tawa, ha ha.

There’s the oooh your tummy makes when you’re struggling to hold in laughter when your mother complains about her mother, and the oooh of disappointment when you realise that the cookies your grandmother is offering you are stale. There’s the oooh when you breathe out after holding your breath through her stale smelling rooms, and the oooh of relief that you have all your boxes stacked in the room off her garage now and as soon as you have made with the social niceties you can leave.

There’s the oooh when you dip your toes into the water at Paraparaumu Beach and realise that it’s not that cold, and the oooh that you want to whistle at yourself when you take off half your clothes and run in to go swimming. There’s the oooh of cold when you finally duck your head under and realise that it’s much colder that way, and the oooh as your muscles unwind in the waves. Somewhere in the spluttering from the water going up your nose there’s an oooh or two as well.

There’s the oooh when you see the newborn second child of your sister’s best friend and he’s gorgeous, and it’s just weird to see her all married with kids when it seems like only yesterday she was buying you vodka and taking you to gigs as a surrogate when your sister was on her OE.

Later there’s ooohs of little lightbulbs lighting up over your head when the plot of Firefly twists and turns and characters pash.

Today
There was the oooh of muscles cramping as you stay in bed for four hours, polishing off what was essentially a Jackie Collins novel in a Literary Type looking cover. You can’t even remember what the book was called, but it was great – in a Jackie Collins type way, of course.

There was the oooh that goes along with websurfing and coming to a page that jsut makes a person look like such a fucking tosshead that you can’t believe that they ever meant anything to you.

There was the oooh of tastebuds being tantalised in Bejing, and the ooh of frustration at not being able to pick up, fill, roll and eat duck pancakes all in one swift move with chopsticks. Then there was the ooh of a full belly, and the oooh when Clementine first started talking in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and you realised taht you were in love with her, and in love with the movie. There was the oooh when you worked out who Elijah looked like in that movie, and the oooh when you realised it was all coming around in a circle and that was yay. Then there was the oooh of delight in putting in an old video tape that your parents told you had The Lost Boys on it, and the oooh of discontent when the start wasn’t on it, and then the delight again every time Corey Feldman entered the frame. And then there were many ooohs of just amazement at commercials from 1994, and the ooh at the how loudly you were laughing at the episode of The Young Ones on the end of the tape. And now there is the Oooh of You Must Go To Bed, and anticipate the oooh of the release you’ll get thinking about Corey*. And the oooh of the pain in your wrists.

Tomorrow will be the oooh of the man, I am so over hunching over my laptop, and the oooh I just discovered more interesting facts about the band I am profiling, and then eventually the oooh, finally I am done. And that will be exciting. I mean, oooh, I get to go into a whole new POV tomorrow and all!

*You know I’m kidding about this one yeah? Keifer all the way! Well, all the way to the finish line tonight anyways.

Is there really a whole ‘nother hour til lunch? That’s a shame. Even if I did only get here an hour ago. Sigh.

When Brad and I played The Golden Globes game on Monday night, we really really sucked. We ended up tied on eight points each. He was slightly ahead following his heart, and I was slightly ahead following my head (you get two votes in each catergory – one for what you think will win and one for what you want to win). When I heard my flatmates coming home, I was like “watch this, check out the scowl”, and lo and behold, V laid a huge pearler of one on me. At least she’s predictably evil.

Wait, you’re like “omg Jo, are you like, homeless and shit?” right? So you don’t want to hear about what I’m thinking about for lunch cos you’re freaking out that I don’t have a roof over my head. That’s really sweet of you. Okay, so I’ll tell you the dilly. I emailed Katy yesterday, and she wrote back and said that yes, she did want to go flatting with me, so I gave J my two weeks-notice-as-of-yesterday yesterday and started packing up my room. In 11 more sleeps there will be no more getting the stink-eye from V. I am very very excited about that. I suspect she caught me doing the fingers to her back yesterday and I don’t care one little iota. The fact that yes, I’m moving back in with my parents for a couple of weeks is offset by the glee of knowing I will never have to see her again and she can continue to hate me and I won’t have to feel her hate vibes radiating through my walls anymore. So yes, on the weekend I’m going to make a pilgramage up to Pram’ to drop off most of my stuff at Oma’s, and then the weekend after that I will take the rest up, apart from a few things (like oh, you know – Sebastian) which I will take to Momma’s. And then I will wait for Katy to come back, and hten we will find a place and I will buy a shiny new sofa, and it will all be grand and wonderful.

In honour of all that, Karen, Anji and I went to Rouge and answered the question “who the hell would pay $18 for bread and dips?”. I purchased some packing tape and went home and boxed up my bed linen, most of my dvds & videos and the books that were in my room. I have a question for you – does anyone know of an organisation in Wellington that would like old text books? They’re mostly of a communications and multimedia nature. Whilst throwing out large piles of crap I came across some St Johns Wort tablets and was like “ding ding ding! Oh yeah, I KNEW there was something that I’d started taking which had made the not being on celepram easier…” so I’m going to be reintroducing them into my daily life from now on (of course, having said that, I didn’t take one this morning).

Tonight Karen and I are going to the preview of Alexander since the divine KateH hooked me up with free tickets. We don’t have very high expectations of it. I’d like to hope that the movie will contain my favourite line from a text book ever – “Alexander was suprised to find Darius and his armies in his rear” – because hey, you’d think you’d notice – but somehow I doubt it. However, there is the hot Angelina. And Jared Leto. Other hott people in my life lately (haha, look how tragic I am that I say that they’re in my life. Shut up.) include Bobby Briggs and Audrey Horne – and of course Dale Cooper. I just finished watching all of Season One of Twin Peaks, and fuck, I thought it was cool when I was ten, but it’s so much cooler now. Bobby makes me cream my panties. Hehehe I said “panties”. Actually I was listening to Nick Cave this morning, and when he said that word I swear I blushed. Dearie me. I’m still listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs non stop (thank you Irie, and hi!) and also Patti Smith.

Now, speaking of consumption, let me invite you to join my Country Club! Once a month, a different country will be selected, and we’ll eat food from there, and drink their drinks, and try to play their music, and everyone would be charged with learning five interesting facts about the country that we could discuss over dinner, and then maybe we’d watch a movie from that country. You want to join up, right? You don’t have to come to every country, of course, but you should try to. I suspect that the first country will be Sweden, so I’m just trying to sort out my life, and wait for Kitchen Studies to start at the Paramount and then I’ll organise a night. Being Sweden, Absolut vodka will feature prominently on the menu, so we’ll do it on a Friday or Saturday night. My sister Karen, who lives near the Paramount has agreed to host it. I’ll get back to you about the date.

o this morning when I asked J where the vacuum cleaner bags were, she told me that her and V were moving out to get a two bedroom. !. !!!!. FUCKING HOORAY! The not so hooraying bit is that she’s offered the lease to K, which is fair enough since K’s lived here longer, but K’s moving in with friends, so she’s going to think about it. I doubt K’s plans include me. Anyway, if K takes the lease and doesn’t want me, then I have to find a new place to live. If K doesn’t take the lease, then I have to find 3 new flatmates. I am very very excited.

EDIT: K’s taking the lease. I’m homeless. I have emailed Katy Troop to find out if she wants to get a place together when she comes back from overseas. If she doesn’t, I will cry.

I did it all for you, Sarah. Are you sick of hearing that line yet?

But in all seriousness, if there are better ways to spend a Sunday than in one of the two armchairs at the Paramount with a good coffee and almond croissants (metaphorically shove that up your ass, Limegreen!) and Labyrinth on the big screen in front of you, then I’d like to hear about it.

The audience was primarily girls of about mine or Karen’s ages, and I’m willing to bet that “David Bowie in tight pants” was one of their most outstanding memories from childhood too, like it probably is for most of my female readers. Is there a movie that’s cooler than Labyrinth? I’m not sure that there is. I think it’s no wonder that people my age have so much trouble finding partners when we’ve been brought up with rolemodels like Jareth (and Wesley, I suppose). I wish the Goblin King had fallen in love with me instead. Who couldn’t fall in love with a guy who did it all for them? Girls who take it up the butt for coke, I suppose. But that’s beside the point.

So yes, in case you couldn’t tell, I’m on the upwards curve again. On Friday I decided that instead of getting the tattoo, I’d donate $100 to relevant charities instead, and that brought with it a large sense of peace. I drank half a bottle of Vanilla Absolut, but I drank it slowly, with sodawithatwist, and so there was no catharsis, and that was okay too. Then last night I went to see A Very Long Engagement with Karen and realised half way through that I’d actually read the book (although I’m having a whole bunch of trouble placing it in my life – did any of you guys lend it to me? Or was it while I was living in The Slab with Bopha?). I still cried though. I loved that movie, although the trench bits were incredibly gruelling and heartbreaking. You know what’s really wrong and bad? War. Yeah. Then we had dinner at Istana Malaysia, where the pakoras were partly cold, but the rendang was spicy and hot.

Soon I’m going to go back into town to have dinner at Kazu with Karen and my parents, but I’m sure before then I will listen to “Free Money” about a trillion times more, since Karen just lent me Horses. If you’re unfamiliar with Patti Smith, you might remember that song as the one that plays over the credits for In My Father’s Den and it is pretty much The Greatest Song In The World right now – along with “Maps” which is on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album that some very nice (random) gentleman from nzmusic.com saw was on my wishlist and sent to me – the original even and not a burn. Aww! It made my heart glad.

EDIT: Dear MarkB – or MarkB’s lackey – from Auckland, if you happen to be reading this. Umm, hi! I don’t know who you are, or how you found my parents’ address, but thanks for the movie pass.

RE-EDIT: Oh, apparently to NZgirl.co.nz I won a double pass to Garden State. Righto. That’s what it would be for. Also I suppose if I’m thanking them right about now I should also thank them for all that free booze and for helping me to hook up with other uninvited guests at their party….

You know what? Fuck you. I fucking survived. Ten years later, here I am, and I know how to deal with you too. You’re gone. I can live my life and you’re not a part of it. I haven’t had a flashback in nearly two years.

Fuck. This entry was supposed to be about triumph, and how I am better than you, and how I have beaten you, and yet when I go to put those words down I start freaking out – and right now it’s controlled, and it’s also to do with brain chemicals and things like that, but I wonder how much of my brain chemistry I can trace back to you. You or what you’ve come to stand for, I don’t know. Are you the reason that I tried for so long to seperate my mind and body? Or was that self fufilling prophecy? Did I act that way because of you, or because I thought that was the way that I was supposed to act?

Last night I carved the word “Brave” into my arm with a serrated wine knife. It didn’t bleed, and it’ll be gone in a couple of days, so I was thinking about getting it tattooed instead. Sometimes I think I need something to encourage me, to remind me that it’s okay, that I can still breathe, that I can still cope, that I am still alive. But I think I’ll donate that money to Rape Crisis instead.

Do you know one of the things that makes me the most angry? I bet you don’t even remember me. I was fourteen when you had me pushed up against that wall. You thought I was sixteen? You were thirty two, if I remember correctly. You fucking asshole.

You owe me an apology. You owe my friends apologies, for when I sat in their kitchens and lounges and motel rooms and screamed and screamed and screamed and they had no idea what the hell was wrong with me.

I still don’t know what’s wrong with me either – if you were the cause, or just the symbol, or if I don’t remember everything or if I’ve made it all up in my mind. I talked to my therapist about it – she wanted to know why I thought it might make my life easier to know one way or another. She also suggested that if I’m not remembering it, then there’s a reason, and that maybe I should just let it be. I wonder what she really thought – if she agreed with my self diagnosis that I’m just a fucking drama queen. When I’d made up my mind that I should talk to her about it – which was fucking hard given that I’d only ever told Dylan and Amy and I don’t even remember telling Amy, and I hadn’t meant to, and then there was a website, but you don’t talk about things on websites, you just write, which is what I’m doing here, and I’m not talking.

And now the big question is what to drink tonight, what should I pour on the ground for my homie, who in this case is me? Do I toast myself with cheap champagne, do I make cocktails of the ickly sweet because that’ll take me away faster, or should i shoot b52s like I used to? How does one celebrate or commiserate exactly? Should I loop ‘Sweet Child’o Mine’ over and over? Reflect on every moment lost? Go out and try to pound it away? Maybe it’s somewhere in the middle of all this.