Hubris.co.nz

We could say that this bout was kicked off by the email “I’ve got some bad news – apparently he’s seeing someone, my friend said he was out on a date” but I think we – or at least I know that it’s actually about me, not about him. The crushes are interchangeable. What remains constant is how I cope – or don’t, how personally I take every rejection (cos duh, rejection is a personal thing), how much I worry about how much this will close me up even more. So I’m cocooning. I don’t want to be told “oh well at least you ahve a new friend”, because so fucking what? I don’t particularly feel like torturing myself with hanging out with someone I can’t have, that’s generally not my style (and yes, there’s always exceptions). I don’t want to be told “I told you so” because believe me, I’m telling myself that enough for two. All I want is a shoulder to cry on, one that’s not going to try and figure me out or puzzle it through or offer trite cliches because I’d rather tear out my womb and eat it than listen to the same old things over and over again, which is of course somewhat ironic on account of how you suckers are reading the same thing over and over again, on a montly basis. I hate my womb. Maybe I should tear it out. If I could reach it with tweezers or hot wax in the socially acceptable way, I would inflict the pain like that.

I worry that I cannot communicate my thoughts and feelings clearly – not only the hesitantness that I metaphorically dipped my toe in with in this particular scenario, but also in the way I describe the after-effects. I suspect this wasn’t helped by venting about a different thing on a particularly stupid-in-these-kinds-of-contexts workmate, who totally missed the point of a discovery that the ex girlcrush had only been with her boyfriend for a short while and therefore I wasn’t actually as stupid as I thought I was not to know about it. But there are plenty of other things that make me go “well, am I really that dumb or not?” And again, sure, some of this is in relation to that boy, but remember, I was never that sure if I really liked him or if it was just the thought that maybe he liked me that made me like him. This could be me being all in denial, so to offer up proof, I will tell you that I never thought of him whilst wanking. Assuming I’ve crushed on him since February 19, and my journal will back up that date, that’s at least 140 times that I haven’t thought of him.

And as always, I am terrified that the state of my mental health is crumbling. Three nights of heavy drinking over the weekend didn’t help, nor did yet another blast-from-the-past getting in contact via the internet. FUCK YOU INTERNET. I am scared that I’m going to relapse into being utterly dependent on other people, and I fought for a long time to not be like that. I’m scared that I am trying to alienate myself from my friends right now in order to fight that. I’m scared that I will cease to be entertaining, and that I try to buy friends, and that I won’t be able to sustain current friendship circles, because until this bout kicked in I was feeling glorious and popular and content, and we all know I can’t have that. I’m scared that I make excuses, I’m scared that bring all the scaredness upon myself. I’m once again longing for celepram, but I’m supposed to have all my shit together now.

Then Humpy went and sent me a job ad for a position in Auckland and I went “fuck this sounds like a really good job, content editing music sites” and then I freaked out about the thought of having to move to Auckland just when my homelife is all working out so well, and then I thought about how I might apply for that job and they might reject me, and then I wondered where exactly my career is taking me, and what if we don’t get the new tender for the site that I manage now, and then I came up with reasons not to apply for the job, and then I hated myself just a little bit more and I just don’t know what to do about it. Exercise. Take St John’s wort. Pray for my bleed. It can’t be far off. I’m mangoing and I think I felt the start of a cramp last night. Cross your fingers for me. Do the blood dance. Can I ask you to humour me a little longer?

In the “and I’m sure you’ll totally be keen to hang out with me if I’m still like this then” news, I’m coming to Auckland in July, from 14-16. Hurrah for impulse buying and credit cards. I’ve also paid for my flights to the States in October, hurrah.

Let’s see if I can write a journal entry in twelve minutes. (Apparently not)

Before I get on with the usual recounting of everything, let me just announce Canadia at the Country Club, 5pm Saturday May 6 – don’t worry, it’s planned so that you can come to this and still go to the Phoenix Foundation gig. We’re going to eat pancakes and maple syrup and bacon (if you’re that way inclined) and fries with cheese, and Chocolate Mooooooooooooooousse, and listen to the Arcade Fire and other goodness, and learn facts about Canadia, and end all our sentences with ‘Eh’ and I might plan another few activities, and it’d be rad if you could come.

And now let me get on with Friday night, which saw me leaving work on the dot of five and declining to go out for a drink (holy fucking shit, I know) in favour of going home and doing a mountain of dishes and prepping for my Spanishy potato dish which I’m hereby going to call Papas Garbanzo. Prepping means a mountain of agria potatos cubed and boiled, and cans of chickpeas rinsed and drained, and numerous garlic cloves crushed and roughly chopped and placed in a bowl with diced red onions, and feta crumbled and paired with chopped parsley and a little basil, and spring onions cut into pretty little loops, and chorizo sausages defrosted, diced and fried till crispy and put into yet another bowl. After that there was just time to set the table and get changed before I had to go and pick up Jisa for wacky one-way driving adventures in Brooklyn trying to find Jimmy, and then to Mount Vic for Jessie and Jane. I threw open the invitation to everyone else with a J in my phonebook, but to little avail. Boo-urns. But that’s okay, because we sat in the glowing atmosphere, and drank good red wine, and not so good red wine, and stuffed our faces with the papas garbanzo, and the green beans almondine, and then coconut cream and apple cake with caramelised peaches and raspberry strawberry SORBET (which you must yell like “Ole!”) and Jessie told us rock’n roll stories and we annoyed her with a lot of usage of the phrase “like throwing a sausage down a hallway” and its many variations. It was a geniusly good time.

On Saturday my head hurt, but I had to get up early to gossip to Heather and confirm that it was indeed her who had been drunkenly texting me the night before. Then there were an awful lot of dishes to do. Nevertheless I did them, and napped, and made myself pretty in time to meet the divine KateH, or Popular Kate as you may remember her, for dinner at Arashi. It was so nice to go out just with her – we tried to think of when the last time we’d done that may have been, and the best we could come up with was like, July 2002. We followed that with a drink at Harem, which was wacky crazy cool and I wish we’d eaten dinner there cos the menu looked yum, but as it was, we had to knock our cocktails back quickly in order to make it to Dylan Moran on time. He was genius, wonderful, excellent, angry drunken belligerant hott Irishman. His onstage persona was much like Bernard Black, but a little more articulate. Hott. I laughed lots, and I also laughed a bit because my friends who saw the show in Auckland said that there were many curvy bookish type women in the audience there, and so it was in Wellington. Afterwards we went to Good Luck for a drink, and meant to go to Bodega for the A Low Hum, but the cocktails were just too good and we didn’t want to get up. Eventually though with KateB in tow we decided we wanted food and headed back to Harem which was shut, so we went to Tupelo instead, where stupid boys tired to impress us with their asses, drank from our wine bottle and tried to offend us with videos on a cellphone of a girl who ejaculated semen out of her very hemaroided bottom. It’s probably not the kind of thing you want to see every day, but if you’re introduced to it with the “this is so offensive, this is totally going to offend you” type introduction, there is no way in hell that you’re going to be offended. Except by the guy’s total stupidity. KateB disappeared, and Tupelo shut down, so KateH and I were forced to sit outside in the alleyway with KateB’s coat and bag for LITERALLY half an hour since KateB’s phone was in her bag, and we were not overly impressed by that.

On Sunday I slept in late, and then later I picked up KateH and she came over for dinner, and surprise surprise, she knew people that Bart’s mum knew. And we watched the Garland video, and looked at photos, and read the bible, and oh, how long ago Uni was and how young and full of hope we were all then.

And now Sebby has been missing for 24 hours, and I am worrrrrrrrrrrrrrieeeed. Today I had lunch with Amy and Andeee but they had friends and sisters there and so we didn’t really gossip, and I haven’t seen them since 2004, and it was strange. And no one is upstairs at work today, and I had to log on downstairs in the morning and the boy’s computer that I was using was sticky and eww. And blah blah. I hope Sebby comes home when I get home today after PAYING FOR MY FLIGHTS. Wahoo!

Come to Canadia. What’s that all about eh?

EDIT: He wasn’t there when I got home, even after I called and called him so I went to my room and bawled and bawled, and then I heard him mewling and he came in and I cuddled him and cried some more, and he was like “sheesh, what’s the big idea, it’s only been 30 hours but can I have some extra food please?”

Weekend

Easter went by far too quickly. I was super tired on Saturday, although not nearly as hungover as I should have been. On Sunday I was in a really bad overthinking mood, so I went to the gym. This just in: exercise is the new sex. It’s how I can switch off my brain for short, sweaty bursts. Then I drove up to my parents’ house in Ngaio to see Pixie, who was super happy to see me, and shower in their tremendously endowed-with-water shower. I fixed my pyjamas so that you can no longer see my pajimba through the hole in the crotch and did two loads of washing and drying. I read the paper, ate their food and Brad came over to watch Veronica Mars, except that their DVD Recorder is all expensive and complicated, and I don’t think they’ve cracked it so we couldn’t watch Region 1s on it. So we watched House of Daggers instead which was leftover from China, and had hilarious hijinks trying to turn off the dubbing and turn on the English subtitles with the non-intuitive remote. We ended up laughing ourselves silly because the best I could manage was English for the Hearing Impaired, so every so often we’d get “Romantic Oriental plays” – “Music intensifies” subtitles. Thank heavens they told us how we needed to be feeling at that time! After he left I ordered pizza and watched Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! and decided that I need to join a girl gang. It was nice to get out of the house.

On Monday I did pretty much sweet fuck all again. Brad came over for some real Veronica Mars action, and oh it was so good, but he’s going to Philly for three months on Sunday so we’ll have to put it on hold. That means no more hot Logan Echolls action for me for a long time, and hopefully it’ll be long enough for me to forget that he’s actually a scientologist. Waah. And speaking of which, what’s your favourite Katie Holmes theory? I’m currently loving the “She gave birth to Chris Klein’s baby months ago, but continued to fake her pregnancy to Tom in order to hide the dates discrepency”. Anji and Karen came over for a roast dinner which we shared with the boys, and it was lovely, and then I gushed over John Safran some. And that was all my time off.

Weddings

The girl I sit with who does the scheduling is on leave, so another girl is sitting next to me this week. This particular girl just got engaged and is getting married in three months, so it’s on her mind quite a bit. Yesterday I went to Carly Harris with her at lunchtime and watched her try on a succession of gorgeous outfits and lusted for the clothes myself. Of course, as you may recall, I have already worn Carly Harris, and my, wasn’t that a good time? The dress was gorgeous though. Today’s wedding topic has been flowers. Maybe I should become a wedding planner, since I’ll never get to plan my own. Sob.

Woes

On Tuesday I wanted to go home and cry for most of the day because I got myself all worked up about the need to apologise to the workmate that I’d slapped on Thursday night vs. the desire to forget that it ever happened. Naturally I got more worked up about it when the engaged girl from the above paragraph told him that I was sorry, against my wishes, to which he rightly replied “so why doesn’t she tell me herself?” Awesome. But then after lunch I apologised and he was very nice about it and came up with a theory about why I’d slapped him that I accepted (even though I suspect it was only a 1/3 of the reason), and I was like “man, why the hell didn’t I just apologise first thing this morning instead of feeling like crap all day?”. I should really become a mole when I grow up, cos this country is totally running out of mountains. And of course really all I needed to do was crank up ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ for a fucking huge big smile on my face and the urge to pump my fist in the air and run a victory lap over the end credits of a movie. I love that song.

Doctors

Yesterday I went and bared my pajimba at the local doctor because I was overdue for a smear. It hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, and the walls of her office were adorned with pictures of another doctor at the King Kong premiere hugging Peter Jackson, and I really didn’t find that comforting. It was a little like when I first had blood tests before we moved to Japan, and the lady told me to count the catepillars in the picture so as not to look at the needle, but there were only two, and so I looked back at the needle. The speculum opened up with a crack crack crack and I felt the sensation of someone extending a telescope backwards or something. Because that was so much fun, she cranked open my ass as well. That hurt a lot less, which I was very surprised about. I apologise to people who’ve read this twice. She sent me off with prescriptions for Diflucan and Proctosedyl, which is exactly what it sounds like. The trouble in paradise will be all cleared up now.

Then I went back home and shut Sebastian up in a vacuum cleaner box and drove him to a new vet in Kilbernie. Now, you may recall that I had crushes on the vets in Balmoral and Khandallah, not because they were outstandingly hott, but rather that they were good to Sebastian, and anyone who likes and respects cats is okay by me. I could put in a “they handled my pussy really gently” line here, but I really really hate the word ‘pussy’. Give me cunt any day. As it happens, the Kilbernie vet DID, because she was a woman, with a Scottish accent and very short hair, and ha ha stereotypes are funny. I now have a crush on her as well, because Sebastian behaved himself beautifully, and let her lance his abcess without requiring sedation. He’s such a good kitty, he only mewed a tiny bit in the box, which made things really easy for me, cos I get very upset when he’s upset.

Feedback on 101

Here is what a selection of people have said about 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You:

“Really fresh as well as being eloquent… the more recent stuff especially. A huge evolution from Boys Boys Boys. Couldn’t put it down…. it’s amazing how your writing has evolved. So much more sophisticated somehow.”

“No doubt this isn’t the kind of feedback you were expecting, or possibly hoping for, but it’s seriously good. As a whole, it’s the best work I think I’ve ever read of yours. Gutwrenching & evocative, flows really beautifully, even the pictures & layout work together, the whole thing just blew me away.”

“My favourite bit, I reckon, was the Link piece. It takes the cliche of the public-transport zine article, douses it in petrol and cheap vodka, and sets it on fire (yeah!). I know about that feeling when just the ordinary task of walking down a street or catching a bus conjures up all sorts of memories, and this was good way of structuring it.”

Yeah! Of course, I have yet to receive ANYTHING back in trade for it, and I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. It makes me a sad panda.

Weekends

Tonight I get to play domestic goddess and supermarket shop and clean, as tomorrow night I am having Miss Lisa Fur and the Sunday Star Times-noted ‘blogger’ Jessie for dinner. I have been thinking for the past couple of weeks of all the elaborate and dazzling things that I could cook for them, and then scratching out many of the options that I came up with, and pondering how many courses and blah blah blah, but I think I’ve finally come up with a menu (main and dessert only, plus snacks) that is incredibly simple but still tasty. I always overthink and overcomplicate things, and I need to stop. If you’re free and in Wellington on Friday night, you should totally come over afterwards for drinks. That’d be lovely. Then on Saturday I get to see my lovely KateH. Hurrah!

And that’s it. Talk to me about Tomkat, Carly Harris and perfect dinners, if you will.

Everybody quick, grab a can of gasoline (not petrol) and some matches and come with me, cos I’m going to burn all my bridges. Or some of them at least. Oh no wait, I already did that. I wish I still had meds to make me invincible and to cut off my thinking thinking thinking. But I don’t. So let’s move on.

I had about a thousand cocktails at Katy’s cocktail party, and when I say “about” I probably mean “maybe 20″. My feet are cold. This is very important that you know this. We’ve been listening to Ghostplane and now we are listening to the Phoenix Foundation. I was worried when Ghostplane finished and the cd player spun around because I’m not often very down with Bart’s taste in music which tends towards the yelling, but it seems that I still have background music for entertaining to in the player.

Last night at China-at-the-Country-Club I had eleven people for dinner. Everyone else ate the Chinese food that was delivered. My hexagonal table has two inserts that can be inserted into it (oh really?) to make it longer, so we did that. I only have six dining room chairs though, so we had to use a computer chair and a wicker couch and also pull up my sea-chest to it. I drank Tsing Tao beer and stuck candles in their empty bottles. Jeremy wasn’t there when we ordered the food and made disparaging remarks about vegetarians, so we didn’t know he was one and therefore all he got to eat was some brocoli and plain rice. I felt bad. We all read our chinese horrorscopes and suddenly Jessie’s metal monkey stamp made sense. Ash’s horrorscope made her out to be totally like Hitler. Both Bart and Angie are rats, with a twelve year age difference. I think I needed to sleep more last night, this is all very disjointed. Everyone shared facts about China, although Kate mostly shared facts about the Kaori Sanctuary and the fish ladder. Did you know, for example that Anji, Karen and I are all half Chinese? We must be, because Mum was born in Hong Kong. Then again, Karen and Anji were born in Japan, so their eyes must be all crazy slanty. Ahh the country club, allowing for cliches from all around the world. We had sparklers afterwards cos of the Chinese rocking the fireworks and I made fun of people coughing at the sparkler smoke and then got caught in it myself and coughed for the rest of the night. We watched Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan to round off our cultural experience, but it was disappointly mostly unporny. But it was still fantastic. The next Country Club is likely to be Canadia Eh, and we will eat chips with cheese and gravy. Without the gravy. And watch ice hockey porn. And listen to the Arcade Fire. I know I am late to the Arcade Party, but I am still madly in love with them.

Then we went to Katy’s cocktail party where I stood in the kitchen for much of the night nice and close to the blenders so that I pretty much always had a drink in my hands. The guy that I had a crush on in 2001 was staring at my boobs all night. You’re like, five years too late buddy, I don’t do drugs anymore. I was wearing a sequined shrug and it glittered all over the place. I was dazzling. It gave me an arm rash though and I felt a little bit like a human disco ball, which is possibly not the greatest thing to feel like. We put our hands on our hearts to sing that we belonged to the night, we belonged to the thunder, and people salsaed to Gloria Estefan. Lisa kept making eyes at my sister. I kept throwing goats. My group of friends is awesome. Katy’s flatmate refused to marry me. I like her kitchen despite the big hole in the roof. One of my fondest memories of New Year’s Eve was dancing around it to MIA waving a big serving spoon. As you do. Or rather, as I did.

I was going to go up to my parents’ house this weekend to say hi to Pixie and watch their big TV, but I don’t know if I can be bothered. Maybe I should. Oh I don’t know. Maybe I should just stay here and plan what I am going to cook for Jessie when she comes down next weekend. I’m very looking forward to seeing her. It’s also awesome that I have an excuse to not go out with my workmates on Friday night and be a dick and end up crying in the toilets at Boulot and then running off to Lisa’s house and sitting on her footstool and falling off because it’s just all soft again. It’s important not to do these things more than once. And then the night after that KateH will be down and we’re going to go see Dylan Moran, and I’m going to marry him and we’re going to open a bookstore together and always be drunk and rude. Hurrah!

Tom has recently contemplated whether or not there is still intellectual discussion going on in Wellington, so I thought I would prove for once and for all that there totally is. Therefore, for your benefit, let me present to you my Friday and Saturday night conversations –

Friday

Saturday

I think I have successfully defended this city’s intellectual reputation. Hell yeah.

Do you know what else I should have done to defend this city? Punched Kerry Prendegast on Friday night. But I didn’t. That fucking bitch was sitting at OUR table at Boulot, by which I of course don’t mean with us, but rather in the spot in which we’d usually sit. Who the hell does she think she is?

Then the hot owner stalked me and Lisa down to Bodega where we were stalking her workmates and their bandmates having left my workmates who were all “oh early night”. I asked for a Main Divide Cabernet Merlot and the bartender searched the fridge for it, so therefore I don’t feel bad about making them stay open cos we sat around until way late. Then Lisa made me popcorn and showed me America’s Next Top Model because she’s awesome like that. And then I stayed up til 5am watching Freaks and Geeks and being a spazz.

Saturday morning I spent texting people to invite them to China @ The Country Club, and adding in grilled eggplant to frozen lasange and extra mozarella. Yuuuuuuuuum. Yay for frozen home-cooked goodness, and a double yay for the fact that I now have a full length freezer so that I might actually be able to fit in a loaf of bread even if the boys have been shopping. I didn’t think I’d go out that night, but then Kartini texted me to say that she was going to Atomic, so I had my arm twisted. The bus was late and full of drunken kids, and it was raining, and we had to walk a long way from Katy’s to Helen’s and my belly was full of pina colada, and oh the pain, but the conversation was great. Katy and Helen are both in Real Hot Bitches, so they busted out a couple of routines to ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ and umm oh I can’t remember now, and it was fantastic. I wish I could learn dance moves more easily than I do.

Atomic was sort of lame. It was full of dicks and ex arch nemisisisis, and I just wasn’t feeling it. I don’t think I’ll bother going again. It’s always the same songs, and the same tricks, and the same song orders, but it was nice to be with the KKK. Lynchings are always fun. My feet hurt today mostly from dancing at Helen’s, but I still mananged to do the big weekly clean and laundry and all. I’m such a homebody. And my head is like clicking into two points of view every half hour, it’s ridiculous. But kind of amusing. I don’t need to go into it any further. And to further add to the mix is the email that I received on Friday that made me run to the bathroom to bang my fists on the wall and howl very quietly. Oh the drama that I make for myself.

Man I’m looking forward to the short week. China is at 5pm on Friday cos Katy’s having a cocktail party that night. I look forward to seeing you there okay? Oh and anyone got any tips for excellent Chinese movies? It doesn’t have to be porny, but it could be, that’d be fine…

My weekend was a shocking pile of debauchee. I participated in: lying to my manager; drunkenness; sexual harassment; sexual arousal; groping; other people’s hands on Mary-Kate and foul language. And that was just Friday night. Okay, so the lie was totally bald-faced, and was merely an excuse to accompany my cow-orkers to their netball dinner. The drunkenness was nothing special, just a lot of white wine. The sexual harassment was constant, and returned (the boys were trying to look up my skirt, despite the fact that I was wearing trousers), the groping was hilarious and mutual, and the foul language was to be expected (*).

On Saturday I felt great on account of having stayed up til 5am so I was stone cold sober again. I cleaned the house, had a shower, treated Seb for fleas, kicked the boys out of the house and set off flea bombs in my room and in the lounge. Of course, it was after I had locked the front door and exited that I heard the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP of smoke detectors going off, so I had to rush back into the lounge, find a chair to clamber on and pull out the battery, all the while coughing in the flea gas. Still, at least it should have killed the larvae in my lungs, right?

I repaired at the Medditerean Warehouse with a margharita pizza (and one of these days I will learn to spell) and the paper, before continuing the Italian theme with shopping to prepare for ‘Rome at the Country Club’. Later, after attempts at napping and some of The OC, which quite frankly I find myself really not giving a shit about, the darling Lisa Fur came and picked me up, and we went to her house via being served at the mill by Conor Oberst, who has apparently fled to New Zealand where he can shed his cold cold tears on his cold cold bathroom tile before getting up to sell cheap cheap liquor to ladies and say “laterz!” to them. We went to Lisa’s house and she played me absolutely devestating videos by the Dears, which you shouldn’t watch unless you’re prepared to cry. Then Brad and KateB came over (do you like the way I invite my friends to other people’s houses? I’m really good at that) and we had some more drinks and played some more music and then took off for the Aro Valley for Joel’s house.

At Joel’s, we sat in the garden and feared for our lives when he threw more furniture on the fire. I saw people I knew from when I worked for VUWSA and was happy that they were the people I liked. I think we were either very early or very late, but it was nice to see Joel again, even though I goddamnmotherfuckingshitfuckcunt forgot to get my Straitjacket Fits CD back off him. He’s had it for like a year now. Grr. Then we left to wander the streets slowly, and I started a long text conversation with my friend because we happened to be passing his house. Upon reflection, I realise that I do tend to text random things at random times (*). Brad peeled off somewhere, and Kate fell asleep on Lisa’s couch, so I made Lisa play me vinyl and make me popcorn. She’s a good bitch like that.

On Sunday, I was in pukesville. Apparently drinking a lot of bubbly straight from the bottle is bad for you. Who knew? Nevertheless, I soldiered on with Rome preperations, chargrilling red peppers to go in homemade hummus, making trifle with banana cake and pineapple in lieu of tiramisu, and putting pizza dough on in the breadmaker. Eventually I had to call a timeout so I retired to the local cafe for coffee and grease and the paper before coming back to the mountain of dishes and assorted other hospitality tasks that awaited me. And then I awaited my guests. You know, Kate mentioned that she thinks there’s been a drop in recent years in the number of people who actually call (or even text) to say that they can’t make it to an event, and I think she’s right. That said, there was still a stream of “oh, I’m too hungover” or “oh, the formula one is on” texts that made me go grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But the people who did come were very cherished, and appreciative of the effort I’d gone to. Also, my flatmates now think I am the greatest flatmate in the world, because it turns out that while I’d heard that Caligula was quite porny, I figured it’d just be softcore boobs and fake sex. Oh no, my friends. It was hardcore jizz baths, penetration and cunnilinguis. With costumes. And sex with horses. Hurrah! I fear I have set a high standard for further Country Clubs, but oh well. I can rename it the Cuntry club and feature porn from all around the world.

Last night Karen and I went to Kazu for some food on sticks. I should point out that we went to the good new one, without the terrible service and the quivering pizza that are found at the Tory St branch. The one on Courtenay Place is right next to the once beloved Arashi, which has since removed both ginko nuts AND their banana & peanut butter spring rolls from their menu, so what’s the point? Then we wanted to see Sione’s Wedding but it was all sold out so we went to A History of Violence instead, which was good. And violent, strangely enough.

Today at work I sat in on a videoconference featuring Tze Ming Mok, who was almost frighteningly articulate and Tusiata Avia talking about writing from a non-European perspective to an audience of Wellington High and Wellington Girls’ girls via video links, and it was really interesting. It made me think lots of things which I have completely forgotten about now, because it’s the end of the day. The ‘compare and contrast’ between the two of them in pretty much every aspect of their work was really interesting, as was also thinking about identity in general. Oh, I know what I wanted to say, and I’ll have to paraphrase really badly here, but Tze Ming spoke about how there’s a sort of expectation in the circles that she moves in that she will write about certain things, and I suppose that’s something that I feel too – not, of course, as an essayist and a blogger, but as a person with an online journal. It’s something I spent a lot of time talking about in the olden days when I was at counselling, my need to keep people entertained. And then I’d say something deep and then I’d say something else to make Kalpana laugh. Awesome, nice consistency there. Hmmm, this all sounded better in my head over lunch. Nevermind, I’ll call it off here.

Despite the $50 bar tab hangover that I have (I got Daddy to come to quiz night last night so we came second), today is fucking rad. The sun is shining, ‘Float On’ bubbled through my earphones (apparently today my iPod battery has decided to work) and I ate fish’n chips in Waitangi Park with Noizy and Tom. I found out that I got the pay rise that I asked for (which is twice as much as I actually wanted), and I have exciting plans for the weekend (party in Aro on Saturday and the first meeting of The Country Club on Sunday at my house – we’re wearing togas, drinking wine and watching Caligula – you’re invited as long as you refrain from pointing out that ‘Rome’ isn’t actually a country), I have a new old mattress and I vacuumed under my bed. Life is pretty sweet right now. Did I mention that Bic Runga offered to buy me a drink? Cos she did. And that’s RAD.

Last weekend was very very choice. On Friday night I went with two cow-orkers and three ex cow-orkers to Tupelo, which freaked me out a little with its redness. I left at 8.30pm when Kate picked me up, and they apparently stayed out until 4am, so it is just as well that I left when I did, especially since Kate and I went home with quadruple chocolate ice cream and Hairspray. Now we both want to learn how to do the mashed potato and other assorted dances. Hairspray is total radsicles (and radsicles is the new awesome – it’s like popsicles but cooler. Hehe). In the morning I made Kate pancakes and used my good china, even going to the extreme lengths of putting lemon juice in the little sake pot. Suck on that, Martha Stewart. Later I put on my pretty new dress that very few people have complimented me on (what’s up with that?) and met up with Lisa Fur and Brad to go to Bic Runga at the Michael Fowler Centre.

*Insert wide-eyed awe and aural orgasms and much spine-tinglingness here.*

She was playing with the whole band who played on Birds and played the whole album, so I might just pop up my review of that from Pulp now and then times that by a thousand and add in the goodness that is Neils Finn’s stage banter, and the amazing hotness of her base player who had his bass at exactly the right height – two inches lower and he would have been a nu-metal wanker, and five inches higher and he would be a geek – for maximum sexiness, and the total adoreableness of Annika Moa and the wonderfulness of our seats right by the sound desk, and the incredible aura and Strong Pixieness of Bic and and and wow. Just wow. I was dazzled. Simon Sweetman, you can suck a fuck, because of course it was polished. They’re the top fucking musicians in the country – how could it be anything but? I do wish that she’d played a couple more tracks off Beautiful Collison like the title track or ‘Election Night’ but that’s okay. It was still wow. I was moved pretty much to tears.

And then of course Jessie was there, and so the lobby was a lovefest of everyone I know – Jimmy and Esther and Ash (who Lisa ran away from when I was like “she’s from the internet” and it made me laugh a lot) and and Amelia, Jess Clayton and um some other people maybe? So I invited everyone to Rome, and was responded to enthusiastically. Me and Lisa and Brad headed down to Good Luck via Lisa’s car to drop off posters, to await Jessie. A couple of drinks later, she texted to say she was at Motel with the band, so Lisa and I went there. The bar was insanely full, and I was intimidated by the beautiful people, and while yes, I have occasionally entertained thoughts of being pressed up again Shayne Carter, it was always in more intimate settings, so I paniced when I finally fought my way to the front to get a drink and didn’t want to ask for a menu but I knew that I wanted a drink that would last a long time, so I remembered Wellurban and ordered a dry martini. I forgot that I haven’t drunk martinis regularly for quite a while. It was definitely a strong drink. It was the right thing to order though, because after that I saw it was what Bic herself was drinking. She came and sat at our table and I squeed, and Jessie told her that I really liked Jessie’s haircut, and I said that yeah, if that whole singing thing didn’t work out for her, she could have a career as a hairdresser, and then encouraged by her laugh, I said that that concert was amazing, and that two years ago when she played the cathedral she’d asked the audience if we liked her tights, and I did like them. And then I realised that despite having said earlier that I didn’t, holy crapping fuck, I was talking to Bic Runga, and she was just so nice that I genuinely did like her tights. And now I will stop using italic tags and just reflect on how stupidly starstruck I felt, but how much I basked in her glow. And of course, it was very very rad to see Jessie again, and her hair is so cute it’s ridiculous. Everything was so wonderful, I was just walking on air.

On Sunday I played Domestic Goddess and shopped and cleaned and cooked dinner for my whole family, which they’re still telling me was great, even though it was just the exact same food that I served my dinner party that one time. It was a very pleasant night though. On Wednesday Anji, Karen and I had dinner at The Last Supper Club, and while the food was tasty (although I asked for my fillet steak to be medium rare and it came out blue), the waiter was smarmy (sample line: “there are three mints for you on that plate” – oh really? Is THAT what they are? Cunt.) and we really didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as last time. Then we went to V for Vendetta which was awesome and left me dreaming of nuclear warfare and being all alone when the bombs started falling and crying cos I’d left Sebastian outside.

Yesterday Mummy took me to lunch at Captiol to thank me for doing some design work for her. I had bruscetta and pasta with zuchini and ricotta and a French wine that was a combination of reisling and pinot gris and very tasty it was too. The waiter asked me if I was Joanna, and I said I was and he pointed out that he went to high school with me, and I laughed and said oh yeah, and pretended to not know what he’d been up to for the past couple of years. It makes me happy though that so many of the beautiful people from high school are still working in hospitality. I am so shallow. Last night we went to the quiz at the Realm, and I had too many beers and sucked at pool so I went home and then Del let herself in and her friend in knee high white boots trimmed with oversized laces and fur accosted me asking for hugs and snuggles. Maybe I shouldn’t have judged her so harshly based solely on her boots, because she said some slightly intelligent things about the Gilmore Girls that I was trying to watch, but she was very very drunk and loud. It was like Courtney Love coming to stay. I sent Bart a text going “come home NOW”. He was very apologetic.

Today there is the goodness that I have already described, and in an hour I’m going to go and have a drink with Sarah, and then maybe stare at all my workmates as they have their netball team dinner, but I should really go home and chargrill the kilo of red peppers that I bought for $1.95 at A-Mart instead. See you tomorrow night or at Rome.

Oh, and also, something I forgot to mention was how great it was to finish something creative that I’ve been working on for ages, and the end product of that is 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You, which you should get, if you want it.