Hubris.co.nz

As a follow up to the last entry, about which I received an email that said “I <3 the title of your most recent Hubris post - "Pavlova's Bear." It made me laugh heaps and I am still thinking about how clever you are. ", there were mini passionfruit pavlovas at my work drinks last night, and many canapes, to which I availed myself. That's rull bad England isn't it?

Right now I smell like old lipstick from sorting out my makeup, and I'm shifting uncomfortably because Sebastian or something else has happened to the long phone cord, and so I'm forced to sit on the other couch, and even though it's only half a seat shorter than what is generally viewed as my couch, it still feels wrong.

What’s fun is that I drove Ethel – Anji’s little blue car tonight. I haven’t driven in months, and Ethel’s a manual. She’s out somewhere, I’m procrastinating about tidying my room (my excuse is that I wanted to look up something on the Ezibuy website before I send back some of the things I ordered) and procrastinating about fetching another Gisbourne Gold beer. But at some stage I’m going to have to pee, and you can rest assured that I will be getting up to do that.

So, what have I been up to lately? Pretty much all same old same old. I finished a piece of writing at work that I’d been sitting on for months and months and months. I’d written it originally late, and then when I sent it to my umm mentor I guess you could say, he said lots of it was unnecessary and why did I write it and blah blah blah – all in a very nice and right way, and told me this other thing to write about, but I just was so not motivated to get it done, and weeks and weeks later I finally wrote something, and I thought it was too short but then I decided I didn’t care, so I sent it back to him and he said it was perfect. Haha. Funny. In non-day-job writing, I was asked if I wanted to interview Franz Ferdinand but I had to turn it down cos it would have just been too much of a hassle. But I just banked a $500 cheque, which is always nice.

I’ve had a bunch of horrible dreams lately that won’t be repeated here cos I hope I can forget them sometime soon. On Tuesday night Anji and I were cooking dinner together, and the front of one of the drawers broke off and she dropped it on my toe and I howled and howled and then I shook and bawled and bawled, and she was freaking out at me freaking out. It wasn’t the pain, it was the surprise – I guess it unleashed a flood of tension. My whole body ached right after that (and admittedly, it did split my toe nail). On Thursday after a couple of vodkas I was watching ‘Extreme Home Makeover’ – and yes, I did expect it to make me cry, like it does every single week, but I wasn’t quite prepared for quite how much. The girl whose house they were doing had some kind of mega allergies and cancer or something, so she was all bald and bloated, and reminded me a lot of how Emily looked after she had a brain tumour removed and came back to ASIJ. She died three days after her mother did.

Can we talk about something else right now, like maybe mad consumerism? I’m seriously considering buying a playstation, once Anji has paid off her credit card so I can use it to order from the Game Planet store. I’m going to get Singstar and an Eye Toy if I get one. Anyone have any thoughts and or tips or caveats to share with me?

Today we took back a lameass heater that didn’t heat to the warehouse, and I got my money back and proceeded to buy another non heating heater. Dumb. I also managed to spend another $100 on bathroom accessories (if you have seen the bad design of our bathroom, you will understand why they were necessary) and another zip up hoodie (fuck paying$200 for a Huffer), and Labyrinth, which y’all should come over and watch with me. I must have bought other things as well. Hmmm. Oh yes, casserole dishes and under-bed-storage boxes. And then we spent $162 at the supermarket. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. Sure would be great if it did.

I apologise for the blah blah blah of this entry. Maybe I should talk about politics instead. But no. Or the finale of ‘The O.C’? Made me weepy. But I’m almost at the stage where the Grainwaves ads have the potential to make me cry too. Ick. The noise in my head has stepped up to a roar most nights that I try to drown out with Hammer of the Gods. I wish I was a rockstar.

So after a disappointing Friday night that involved too much liquor by myself, I was feeling slightly seedy when my parents came to pick me up at 12.30pm the next day, although I did feel good having watched the tape of America’s Next Top Model and learning that the girl I wanted to win had won. In Petone, I tried on a huge pile of clothing at The Carpenter’s Daughter, and ended up with a grey stripey skirt that’s in a knit fabric and it’s knee length and has a really good fit around the top of it, and also a black open knit cardie that will go great with the top that I have yet to wear because it needs a kind of shrug with it. And I will wear it to my party, dammit! And I will have a party! Possibly the week after next. But I need to establish if Karen is having a birthday party then. Uh oh, I just remembered that I dreamt that I was back in hospital with a woman saying “absolutely the worst thing you can do with those cysts is touch them. It’s going to grow back again”. But no! I WILL HAVE A MOTHERFUCKING PARTY! AND YOU WILL COME ALONG! AND I WILL DRESS UP! OH YES I WILL.

We had lunch at Flax in Petone, and I thought my roast veges and pumpkin bread and halumi was really good at the time, but it was a bit too garlicy and it stayed with me and made me feel really sick eventually, so i had a nap on the couch when I got home. Then I found out that my old workmate that I was supposed to be going out with was too tired from her daughter’s slumber party, so I was gutted all over again. But then I remembered that I’d borrowed all three seasons of Black Books from my parents, after talking about it with Miss Ratpony in between making highly inappropriate and poorly executed animated gifs, and so I invited her over to watch it. She made me dance a jig for her, but there’s no pain that beautiful crazy Bernard can’t fix. Will someone please buy me a bookshop? I do believe that owning Black Books would be very compatible with my prefered lifestyle. And while I am speaking of Miss Ratpony, can I please point you here to where she talks about the songs she loves? It’s pieces like that which make me go “oh yeah, that’s why I want to be a music writer, so that I can learn to capture the feeling of a song and its related memory that strongly”.

On Sunday Anji put purpleish streaks in my hair, except that there was enough dye that she did most of my head. And it’s browny purple, nothing too exciting. But it looks good. I lazed around for a while until I realised that I was supposed to be going to Grizzly Man that afternoon with Brad, and so I got ready and he picked me up and we drove there. Hurray for an exciting narrative! Anyways, the Paramount was mostly full, and we got crappyass squished in seats, which nearly had me screaming in pain, but the documentary was cool. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about Timothy Threadwell, who spent thirteen summers filming grizzly bears up in Alaska, until him and his girlfriend were killed and eaten. He was a total fucking nutbar, his monologues to the camera were just fruitloopy, it was great. One of helicopter pilots interviewed about him said “i think the bears mostly left him alone because they thought he was mentally retarded”. Someone else said “I think half the time he thought the grizzlies were actually just people in bear costumes”. Brad and I almost wet ourselves at that image. The baby foxes were very cute, but the way Threadwell kept going “I love you, thank you for being my friend, I love you so much” was a little creepy – not least of all because perhaps I talk to Sebastian like that – a lot.

Later that evening, after The Gilmore Girls and NZ Idol, and a delicious curry and several cocktails based around feijoa stuff and then leftover coconut cream, I blowdried my hair to volumey perfection, and glossed up my lips, smoked my eyes and pushed up the twins. It was time to go out. My taxi driver asked me to tell him an interesting fact, so I attempted to dazzle him by telling him that male bears sometimes eat the cubs to stop mummy bears from lactating, so that they can continue to get their fuck on. I don’t think he was particularly interested, but since he’d asked, I kept on talking.

Katy was late for her own birthday drinks, so I had a cocktail. For those of you playing along at home, it was a Librette, which meant it was apple and passionfruity. I also had a Bees Kiss (rum and honey and cream), and a Singapore Sling (Gin. Grenadine. Cherries. I wish I could tie them in a knot with my tongue. That would make my life complete.), and a Passionfruit Pavlova (42 Below Passionfruit Vodka, passionfruit, cream, soda. It did indeed taste pavlovaish), a Shaolin Apple (cinnamon vodka, apple juice, drambuie) and probably something else as well. I also had a beer, since Blair was buying, and getting people who aren’t drinking cocktails to buy you cocktails is rude. Well, according to me it is, anyway. Good times were had by all. I was certainly quite giggly, when I wasn’t being left sitting by myself because they were all filthy smokers. Most of the people there worked in movie theatres and were movie geeks, which makes a nice change from hanging out with music geeks. Most of them were all Filmfestivaled out. Incidently, have I mentioned that Grizzly Man is the only festival film I’ve seen? I suspect part of this is because a) you have to pay for film festival tickets and b) fuck I hate being uncomfortably seated for hours. You people who are skinny (or at least normal sized) – do your knees not suffer too? Anyways. I love Goodluck’s service and drinks and yeah, it was about 1.30am when Katy decided to go home and crash, and I contemplated staying but instead went and got takeaways with her and taxied home with them to drop coins in the gutter and write poetry(*).

If I have “drinks” on August 5th, will you come along?

Bottle of champers drunk: check
Big ass chocolate martini in hand: check
Chocolate on the table: check
Crying at The OC: check
Friday night out dancing at 24 Hour Party People: oh wait….

I thought that ‘Extreme Home Makeover’ would clear me out properly. You know, you watch some cheesey ass tv, cry and cry and cry – even five minutes into a show when they’re introducing the family and you’re tearing up and it’s like “GREAT!” because you think that will be that, and you’ll purge for the rest of the week, but apparently that doesn’t count.

Bloc Party on Rove. I should be out dancing at 24 Hour Party People right now. I should have also learnt by now that I NEVER make it to this gig, or to Atomic, but I guess being so sick for so long made me forget that even when I’m well I don’t actually ever make it out. I don’t do exciting things.

I got a phone call from Katy today on behalf of a friend, whose parents have apparently been looking for her name online and coming up with bad stories on my website. The thing is though that I searched for her name on Google, and then on Yahoo, and I couldn’t find any dirt – unless you count drinkign vodka as dirty. But I suppose I will search further and replace her name with an initial. At what stage does one accept that the Internet is dead? I mean, I get these emails at work from Quality Assurance telling me that certain links are dead – but those links were from a news page in 2002, so it kind of makes me go “yeah duh”. That’s not talking bad about work is it? I don’t think so. I mean it’s not like I said THE DRUG CELEBRITIES ARE… Heh.

It’s just, I dunno. I thought I was over this. I mean, tonight, Seb was on my lap, and he was looking at me every time I made a noise, and I made noises because that’s what I do, and he was so worried, and hey, he’s a cat. So this means I can’t have human children, because I couldn’t handle it if they looked at me like that. And I would be a target for postal natal depression – or, you know, post-natal, even. Oh, and not to mention that it takes at least two to tango, and also some sperm to make babies.

Okay, so in searching out Said Friend’s name, I come across sentences like “And besides, Diane didn’t wanna share me with him and how could I go against that? ” and I’m just like “omg wtf?” because when it’s hard to articulate yourself, it’s ALWAYS best to use acronyms, right? LOL. Haha, I never actually say LOL. BUt it’s strange to be reminded of these people and these things. It’s also strange because I used to actually have a life, and it’s funny reading entries from the end of 2001 when I had this huge crush and I was all “wow, it’s so strange, I like him so much I don’t even know how to hit on him istead of just asking him for a fuck” and I’d laugh at that phrase except that’s actually what I used to do – and be quite successful at. What was the difference between now and then? Many kilos, but also many pills. Oh the pills. Maybe I decided that maybe I should go back on them because maybe they would help me get laid again.

My favourite entry that I’ve come across in the search is this one April 10th, but I just found the punch line and it makes me want to punch someone.

My sister must be super girl smelly for me to have finally had two periods in a row.

(friend) says: and I’m pretty quick so your rsi would be fine – Aww shucks.

Also: ha ha, I’ve rediscovered reading this old entry that my PR friend and I used to write notes to each other about a boy we thought was cute who ended up on the cover of a magazine professing his love for a particular celebrity – not one of the cocaine drug fiends, but friend-of. Heh. Anyways. Also, in this week’s New Idea is Penny’s wedding (Err, that’s Samantha and Kevin to you).

Double Also: I hearby declare that despite how lonely I am (and holy fuck, I’m lonely) I hereby pledge not to get to know anyone whose name I already know intimately. You’d better get yourself a nickname, stat. Too many people with the same names.

I am somewhat nervously trying to keep track of my mood – if it slides for much longer, I’m going to have to get help. Again. Oh yeah, bring on the dry mouth. Bring on the dizzy spells, and the orgasm equivalent of an “aaa- aaaa- aaaaa… oh” sneeze. Because I’m not going to sit back and watch myself slide again. But I’m hoping that this is just pre period. Please. Don’t let it be what I think it is.

I want to be the axel of every wheel. I don’t want to be some small town whose economy is crippled because this great big freeway is built that bypasses it. I want to be able to spend my day doing more than wishing that I was asleep. I’d like my physical health to fuck the fuck up, and don’t even get me started on what I would like for my mental health. I want these things to be done for me and for me to have to do nothing, of course.

I miss my friends who are far away – physically, mentally, spiritually, intellectually, whatever. Where are you all? And of course the question that I would put to myself is where am I in relation to them? I don’t have any more co-dependent friendships anymore, and while no doubt that’s probably a good thing, sometimes I miss that level. Now I have to spend too much time alone with my own thoughts. That’s never ever a good thing is it? No sir.

I will instead spend my time doing good things for good people. Yeah.

Remember when we used to do that dance to the theme song of ‘Third Watch’? And when we’d gather to watch ‘Dawson’s Creek’? Yeah I remember that too. Remember the secrets that we used to keep from each other, the way we tried to hide what was really going on because no one thought the other would or should have to deal with that? Yeah, I remember that too. Remember the things that I did that I never told you about, the things that I did or wanted to do to myself that I never told you about that? I wish I didn’t remember that.

Okay, time for you to step up to the plate and confess: which of you has been feeding me castor oil as I sleep? Every morning for the past week about half way through my shower I have been hit with crippling stomach cramps that have me rushing to dry myself so I can make it to the toilet, and it’s making me run at least ten minutes late every day. And the pain still hangs around for about an hour after I get to work. What the fuck? Yes my diet could probably use more fruit and veges and fibre, and less liquor. But that’s not new. So I would like to know exactly what’s going on please. When I was watching Big Brother Uncut earlier this week and Michelle was talking about getting a colonoscopy I was almost tempted, just cos I’d like to clear this shit the fuck out. Heh.

Being sick at work (besides the stomach pains I have a cough coming on) means that I do more surfing than I probably should, and I have discovered that Llew seems to be making logical arguments on every single page in the whole wide web that allows comments. I don’t know how you manage it, but I like your style. I just tend to shake my head in disgust or yell out “fuck, you’re a fucking cock monkey” when I come across nasty opinions that I disagree with, unless they’re on NZM, in which case I can rest assured that there’s at least a handfull of people I know who will also be thinking what I’m thinking – and will generally provide the stats to prove my points.

Speaking of stupid people saying stupid things, I have a phrase that I tend to use in regards to annoying people who aren’t hideously ugly – “she couldn’t whine if she had my cock in her mouth”. I wonder if it’s possible to write asinine entries whilst taking mildly dirty photos in order to attract more attention (To which I could of course say: I don’t know, but I’m sure going to try it!)?

Other things that have had my attention this past week have included communities dedicated to discussing NZ Idol and the related craziness and viewability of the vagina (and all the way up through her nostrisl, it seems) of the Ginger Whinger, communities of consisting of me and Robyn arguing about our Internet boyfriend(*). And then of course there was that attempted rolling that my former boss also wrote about. Ha ha losers, suck it. Wait, that didn’t sound like I was telling Amanda to suck it, did it? No of course it didn’t, you were smart and followed the link and knew she was on the same wave length as me.

On Wednesday night I saw House of Wax. Paris Hilton gets killed in it. There’s some choice special effects. There’s characters from ‘The Gilmore Girls’ getting their comeuppance for adultry. There’s characters from ‘Dawson’s Creek’ getting their smack on. It’s a Dark Castle film, so if you like that sort of thing, you might like it. It’s gross out gory. Next week I’m going to The Island although I’m already convinced that it’s a crime to put Ewan and Scarlett into jump suits. Jump suits! Why, for the love of god? Why not let him get his cock out and let her boobies be splendid?

As far as weekend plans go, there is much couch & Sebastian loving scheduled. I also plan on making pancakes. As I just said to KateH in an email “I used to make pancakes aaaaaaaaall the time at Garland, cos I could pour one, go answer an ICQ message from Thomas, flip it, reply, pour one etc and the timing was really great, but then of course the Skank happened, and we bought clayton a waffle iron, I went vegan, and then Ben III set my pancake pan on fire and ruined it so I stopped making them. But I discovered that Anji has a really good frying pan for them, so I’m off on a pancake trip again.” Another winning combination is a my George Foreman grill and Beehive honey-smoked streaky bacon.

Other weekend plans include watching ‘Veronica Mars’ tonight because Heather Havrilesky from salon.com rates it, and because Willow is going to be in it later. Plus, Anji just got back from Samoa last night, so she hasn’t had time to catch up on previous episodes of ‘Top Model’ yet. Okay, I’m totally a Havrilesky groupie, I’ll admit it, I have no problem with that. What I find more disturbing is the amount of time that I’ve spent lately on whedonesque.com. But I do plan on leaving the house tomorrow, oh yes indeedy, to catch up with Jessie. And to meet Miss Ratpony, perhaps, although I worry that she might think that I am a dick in real life. It’s been a while since I met any new people from corrosponding with them online, the Wellingtonista aside.

Please just tell me you are okay. Everyone.

Before Shihad on Saturday night (they played DEB’S NIGHT OUT! Holy crap! I cried!), I was at Karen’s, and at Karen’s house I went to the bathroom, as I tend to do, and in Karen’s bathroom there was the latest <I>Salient</I>, (and I’m not going to say anything about how it tends to belong these days), and so I picked it up and read the editorial, and became absolutely disgusted. Apparently there’s going to be an SGM to attempt to roll the vice president, Jen Jones.

ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?

Jen works harder than anyone else at VUWSA. She is passionate about helping students. Unlike most of the executive, she delivers results. Jen cares about what she’s doing. It makes me so mad that people could even suggest rolling her, so I implore you, if you are a Vic student, please go to the SGM, and please vote AGAINST rolling her (I’d tell you when it is, except that suprise suprise, the <I>Salient</I> site isn’t up to date). You might not agree with all of her ideologies, if you’re of a right wing nature (although hi, if you’re right wing, why are you reading my journal? Why aren’t you out eating puppies or something?) but surely you must see that she’s doing an excellent job.

I hate so much that there’s such a large number of ring wing people on the exec this year. That’s bad news for students. It’s also pretty shocking for the student magazine to have right wing connections too, but let’s not even go there….

<B>Update!</B>: Apparently it was
13 in favour
98 against

I’m fucking overjoyed. Thanks for making the right decision guys, you have renewed my faith that while the evil puppy eaters might talk louder, good sense and decency will prevail on the day. Yeah!

Hi! I’m back from Rarotonga. Here are some things I have to tell you:

1. If you’re interested, you can find the start of Penny and Kevin’s relationship covered in New Idea this week (with the “Charlotte Fights to Live” cover which unfortunately isn’t about Dawson). They’re on page 32 34. The article is called ‘Chamber of Love’. The reporter and her mother were at the wedding to cover it. I will write about it later when I have my photos downloaded. Suffice to say, it was beautiful and wonderful and awww.

2. In theory, I should call her “Hoyle” instead of “Penny” now, but then again, I never called her “Penney” anyways, so why change?

3. It rained every single day in Rarotonga and didn’t go over 20 degrees. I still had fun.

4. I just bought my ticket to Shihad for Saturday. I thought they were in a couple of weeks time. I’m bummed that Dave can’t go because introducing English people to Shihad is top of my list of favourite things to do. Nevertheless, I have been listening to the one Die! Die! Die! track that I have on the server lots today because it is really great. I didn’t like them so much in Martina’s ridiculously crowded apartment, but I am digging them now.

5. Speaking of that party, I really must text back my old Volcanic flatmate Dan who is apparently in Wellington this week and wants to catch up. I’m a little surprised that he still keeps in touch – I would have thought that conflicting values of him and the combination of me in an active period of gentlemen callers and Jonny in his usual lifestyle that were probably factors in Dan moving out might have meant that we’d never have kept in touch, but obviously he is much less judgemental than I am, which is a good thing.

6. My couches have arrived. I am hoping to have a lengthy date with them and Season One Seth Cohen and possibly Katy and definitely lots of junk food on the weekend.

7. Via Mr Russell Brown at Public Address, I am reading the blog of a sex offender, who complains bitterly about being persecuted all the time, but who has now been jailed for abducting a little girl and killing her family. I can’t stop reading it, although it’s making me think all kinds of uncomfortable thoughts about things that I haven’t decided what my opinion is on yet. Like, vigilant hounding mobs are bad, but also, so is rape and abduction and murder. Right, okay, so obviously I do have some opinions, but they’re very Miss America like in their simplicity. I’d like the whole world to hold hands, because you can’t make a fist when you’re holding hands. Etc.

8. Speaking of Public Address, has anyone else read the Metro article yet – or more specifically the sidebar of interchanges between him and Dog Biting Men? See, this is why I hate people who willingly attach the name “blogger” to themselves. Keep the circle jerk in your pants, boys. There’s more important things in the world to talk about – like how you’re oh so depressed. And how much better than Fiona Jackie Clarke is. Journaller fo’ life, fo’ reals yo.

9. I have a buttload of writing and reviewing to do before tomorrow at home (*), and also a lot of work to do at work. So I might go and do that now then shall I? Okay.

10. Oh but before I do, are there any websites that you read that are just so horrible you want to punch the people who write them in the face every single time their page loads – and yet you still can’t stop reading them? Can you please tell me about them? You can do so on the secret footnotes page if you want to remain semi-anonymous.