Hubris.co.nz

Today, as expected, was really hard. It’s always the hardest when you’ve been to the doctor’s, and you’ve admitted to being crazier than you wanted to be, and you’ve been forced to change the reasoning for your request for fewer hours at work from the very constructive awesome “I want more time to work on other projects” to “I can’t handle things the way they are right now”. I cried and cried and cried today in my counselling session, and then laughed when my counsellor said “yes, it’s fucking unfair that depression is like this, that it’ll come back unexpectedly” because oooh she swore! But she said it was important to remember that all the hard work that I’ve been doing hasn’t gone away, it still exists and I am still doing the right thing, but there is biology at play in my brain. I know that, of course, but I’m still struggling to reconcile what I know to be logically true, and what I feel. I told her that everything is so fucking hard right now, that I have all these ideas about things I want to be doing, but right now it’s a struggle to move my head from one end of the couch to the other, that I’m walking into doors right now and am covered from head to toe in bruises (I got two in quick succession at the gym yesterday before I tried to sprint it out of me on the cross trainer), and that I just can’t do anything at all, and I hate myself for that. She told me to imagine that I’m a five year old, and that it’s OKAY that things are hard, or impossible, for a couple of weeks at least. I know that my increased citalapram dosage will make things easier in a couple of weeks, so for now, it’s OKAY if I shut down somewhat, and just do what it takes to get me through the day. We talked about coping strategies for day-to-day, like running to the toilets on another floor if I want to have a cry by myself, or buying coffee instead of getting angry that there are people in the kitchen when I want to make myself a cup. And yes, I know that maybe this seems incredibly lame to someone who’s never gone through this – or to someone who’s gone through it differently, and believe me, it makes me frustrated as fuck that I need to think of ways to cope with getting a cup of coffee. This is not a sign of being a super hero. But again, I know this will pass. I’m torn between wanting to carry around a sign with me that says “please just let me get away with weak pathetic snappiness for the next two weeks” and wanting to internalise it all and just be a rock, an island. Today everyone was all “I saw you in the paper”, and I was like “yes, yes you did” all snappy, because I was just so unable to talk in any kind of pleasant manner – although I must send shoutouts to Kimpy who made it happen (even if she rejected what I originally said my mother always told me) and Llew who scanned the piece – but now that there is a medical certificate in circulation around the HR department saying that I have the Medical Condition of Depression, and so I feel like people are all like “Oh hi, how are you?” to me, and at the same time I know that is related to my increased paranoia and short tether and grumpiness that is part and parcel of this super fun black dog.

And that is a long enough paragraph focusing on the crapiness. Let’s talk about the good things instead, after I mention how I channedl my five year old tonight and slept on the bus, and napped on the couch instead of going to see Mel in Chicago out in Titahi Bay which I feel terrible about, but I just couldn’t do it. I got an email from a friend today after I sent her my zine in which she said that it had made me cry, and that I should write more, and that was nice. And I umm hmmm. Tomorrow I get to go out with D&D and I haven’t done that in a couple of weeks. And then on Saturday i will listen to Public Address radio at 2pm on Radio Live to see if I’m talking shit on it, but other than that, I have no weekend plans, which is GLORIOUS. I might stay in bed all day. Go this inner child thing!

I forgot how anal I get when I do quizes. Ohmigosh my team isn’t devoting their full energy to answering the questions? They’re disagreeing with me? THE WORLD IS ENDING! Still, it’s nice to dress up like a pirate every now and then, and then take photos from the 21st floor of your building:

I lost the momentum when we stopped at Jarrod’s apartment for him to get changed, so I ran away to take the bus home instead of going out to Karaoke, but I was also aware that I had a very big night planned for the following night and an early morning to deal with first.

So yes, Saturday, I got up before 11am so that Lani and I could move the fridge out from under the house and back to the kitchen so the repair man could put it back together. We were clever and decided not to lug it up the difficult steep kitchen stairs and around tiny corners, so instead we carried it al the way around the house and inside. And then the repairman was late, and later and latest, but Lani was kind enough to say that I should just leave her a cheque and go to the beach and she’d take care of it, so I went and swam between the flags for like the first time ever at Lyall Bay. There were only two other girls swimming because the water was powerfully cold, but damn it was nice, becasue it’d been ages (umm okay, since Tuesday) since I’d last been swimming. And then it was Jo Time brunch by myself, and I went for a hair cut and nearly purred/came/passed out when the lady gave me a very long, very thorough headrub. I wanted to ask for a happy ending, but I suppose settling for a nice haircut was happy ending enough for me.

6.20 had me pacing at the bus stop all dolled up for my big night out with the Wellingtonista, cursing Go Wellington for sending buses past me that didn’t stop, but 15 minutes later I made it in to Tupelo, to discover all the lights on, no one behind the bar, and all the sliding toilet doors off the rails. Spoooooooooooooooky! So I went and sat outside, and luckily was soon joined by Tom who was enough of a good reader to tell me that I looked smokin’ hott. Heh. While the bartender was still setting up the bar, we were joined by Hadyn and Amy and his mother, and shortly after that the lovely Miss Sue who was escourting Mr Brown and Ryan. Once James had joined us, we were interviewed about the Wellingtonista for Russell’s new radio show, me smirking behind my martini and trying to define again what it is that I hate about the word ‘blog’. And calling myself a wanker, and – according to James – using the word ‘anal’ four times in one minute to describe myself. After the gorgeous Martha bought me a surprisingly not-sweet gin sling, half of us set off for Scopa as the advanced party for our 13 person booking.

We decided that it’d be easiest if we just ordered pizza and wine for all of us, and so I interviewed about being dominant. I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to let people record me talking whilst drunk. It’s not like I make much sense whilst sober, and when I’m drinking I’m even more slurry. Still, I thought at the time that I was articulate and verbacious, so until I hear otherwise (possibly at 2pm on Saturday on Radio Live, or podcast later, or broadcast on another date), I will continue to believe that I give great soundbite. It was nice catching up with Ryan too, who I went to uni with, although he was part of the radio posse and I was with the multimedia geeks who weren’t nearly as bondy. Dinner was very very tasty, although I accidently got a piece of pizza with an anchovy on it, but I was able to wipe away that taste with our next destination:

Yes that’s right, PINEAPPLES AT IMBIBE!

Anyone would think that we’d pre-arranged them or something. But our visitors sure seemed to enjoy them, as did Martha and James:

More photos of the night can be see here on flickr.

It was around that time that I think I started to try to convince Russell that he needed to change Public Address to attract a better class of reader than some of the people who’ve stalked me through it or people that I may have hooked up with at the Great Blend. I suspect I didn’t have a very convincing argument. So instead when some girls asked me and Hadyn where we were off to next, I made fun of them and their taste. We said we were off to Mighty Mighty, and they said they were going to Jet, because the music at Mighty Mighty was shit. I was all “yeah I know, like the way they mix indie rock with rare hip hop tracks? What are they thinking, turning out fresh new mixes?” and said that my other favourite bar apart from Jet was Dockside. Well, it amused me anyway.

Then we left to go to Mighty Mighty and some boys outside smoking asked me if I was wearing my flower behind my ear on the single side. I told them it was an umbrella, not a flower, and asked them to figure out the symbolism in that, before skipping off. We were at Mighty Mighty for a while but everyone seemed to be peeling off, so I decided that I would go for a swim, just to live up to my reputation. I was a tiny bit more wussy though, and jumped off the lower dock rather than the high plank cos I didn’t want to hurt my nose, ears and throat again. James came in too, and Ryan got his shoes wet interviewing us about it. That’s dedicated journalism! I don’t think anyone would contradict me if I said that a good time was had by all, although apparently many people felt a little under the weather the next day. But not me! That’s the great thing about swimming.

The next morning I went and picked up Brad who was in town and we had big delicious fresh fish burgers at Maranui and hung out for a while. Good times. Monday Bart came over for flat dinner (green curry with fresh coriander from our herb garden) and to play Cluedo DVD. Monday night flat dinner and games is totally on every week that Smoo’s not working. You can come if you bring wine and/or wash the dishes after. Tuesday was meh. Today I went to the doctor and asked her to up my prescription, and to give me the medical certificate that work asked me to give them to show that I need to only work four days a week. I don’t have much to say about that today. I did before, but then I felt like throwing up all afternoon,and was gagging on the bus (and threw up at home. Mmmm biley). I am somewhat disappointed in myself for needing more meds despite all the hard work that I’ve been doing, but I’m looking forward to the increased dosage euphoria. And looking forward to doing more projects. Yes. And also looking forward to coming to Auckland for the Bloc Party gig on August 8. Woo woo. I am so so in love with A Weekend in the City, and also Neon Bible. ‘Sunday’ is now officially my new walking down the aisle song (“I love you in the morning / when you’re still hung over”). Now I just need someone to marry.

Help, I can’t breathe! But it’s not what you think. It never is. In fact, I’ve just laced on my corset for the first time in aaaages, and I’m waiting for Lani to be free so I can go and rendevouz with her in the 21st floor bathroom to get ready for our work quiz. It’s actually a quiz organised by my agency, but her part of the ministry has entered a team, and I’m playing on it. We’re called the “M*** Marauders” because pirates are awesome, but now I have Fat Freddy’s in my head, dammit!

Tomorrow the fridge man comes back and I will have to unwrestle our fridge out from under the house where it is face-down and hopefully draining (that’s not a easy thing to do by yourself, let me tell you!) and then I will have long brunch by myself, and then get a hair cut, and then I have an outing with the Wellingtonista. I may very well look something like this:


Me looking smokin’ hott. So there

Speaking of the Wellingtonista, you should join our bowling league. In fact, I’m wondering if starting a team of Hubrettes would be viable? Cos of course my first loyalty is to Hubris. Let me know.

The Wairarapa was mostly fun. I spent a great deal of money and buggered up my neck falling off a barrel. Not a clever idea. My personal highlight was the (drunk) winemaker from Mebus telling me that his reserve pinot noir tasted “like angels fornicating in your mouth”. Apparently angel fornication tastes a bit woody. It was nice wine though.

Okay, Lani just rang so I must pirate up. Next time I will tell you about my grand schemes!

I wrote this four years ago, on March 16 2003, and I’m reprinting it now because it is a reminder of how far I’ve come, and how even when I’m having a crappy day, at least it’s not like that. And because I feel really disconnected from the girl who wrote this, and that is a good thing.

Thank you two, I love you.

And so in the past couple of sessions, I mentioned to Kalpana that I’ve been having more down spells lately than I feel are right, given that I’m supposed to be on the mend, I’m swallowing my 20mg of cipramil every day, I’m getting my expensive therapy and I have a job that meets all the criteria that I realised through my sessions with her that I was looking for. I mention to her that maybe I should think about upping my meds, but then come up with a thousand reasons why I’ve been getting the down spells, and she defaults to my feelings, saying “well, we should keep an eye on it, definately”.

I ache. I ache all over, hollow and empty and just so fucking lonely, and it feels like nothing anyone should ever have to feel, but it’s very familiar to me, and it always keeps coming back, and I want to call out for help, but what can anyone do to plug the gap? Nothing. Nothing at all. And so I let myself sink lower and lower. I forget to fill my cipramil prescription and then it’s the weekend and my chemist with thelovely old chinese man who gets it faxed in for me is closed. I find myself on Saturday night sitting in the kitchen crying on Bopha and Allison’s shoulders, because even if this is PMS, I cannot go on feeling like this for a couple of days every month, and Allison agrees with me that I need to get my meds adjusted. I thought cipramil was great because it stopped me from feeling suicidal while still letting me have SOME feelings, unlike Fluoxtine, but then it came back. I could feel myself shutting down again as basic functions fell by the wayside. And each time I have one of these episodes, it comes on much much faster than the last.

Cue me today trapped in my room, crying my eyes out, unable to leave even to get tissues because that’s the form and shape that depression takes for me, trapping me, leaving me imobilised. I hate being fucked up I hate not being able to sleep I hate that when I do sleep all I have is nightmares I hate the whole body ache, I hate being the girl who always seems fucked up I hate relying on my friends I hate not trusting my friends I hate being unable to ask for help I hate having to ask for help I hate that most of the time it seems like no one is able to help me. And I hate that all I could think about was the codeine in my drawer. So I texted Tom, and told him I was scared. He called my landline immediately, and we talked for ages, me crying and blowing my nose intermittantly into a towel. He calmed me down some but at the same time, while i was making jokes about expired condoms, I was combing through my medicine drawer, making a tally.

The codeine would be enough to make me sleep almost instantly. The brufen and the voltarin would probably rip my stomach to shreds. Worse case scenario, I would down them all, and then wake up, crippled from damage to my internal organs. I just want to sleep, I just want it to stop, I don’t want to kill myself, but I want to be somewhere else, anywhere else. Maybe I want that cry for attention, the suicide attempt, I want the bed in the hospital for a few days, people by my side mending bridges and all that crap. I just want to not be me anymore, to not have to battle this goddam fucking disease which seems so totally incurable.

The afternoon stretches on and on and on and I desperately try to get ahold of Nikki. Of course, I have her cellphone and her new flat doesn’t have a phone. I call her mother because that’s where she said she was going to be. Her mother calls me back to ask for Nikki’s number. I call her friend Gina, whose number I find in Nikki’s phone. She tells me Nicola’s number. Nicola’s voicemail says her name is Hayley. I am trapped on the floor in the corner of my room by my door. I can hear Bopha walking around outside and I can’t call out to her, which is fucking pathetic. And then I hear her on the phone, dealing with her sister’s crisis. I definately can’t call out now. When she knocks on my door to ask if I want dinner I say I’m fine.

I have a sore throat coming on, and it’s dry from crying so I don’t know how I’m going to swallow the pills if I take them. Maybe if I wash them down with a bottle of something, they’ll be effective enough that I won’t wake up. But the only liquor in the house that I can think of is half a bottle of kristov. I might as well swallow a box of panadol. I don’t want to try and fail. I don’t want to leave my friends and family behind, I don’t want to hurt them in any way, I know that they love me, and if I could just reach out, they’d turn heaven and earth over to help me. But I don’t see how they can help, because I’m just too far gone, I don’t see any light at the tunnel,and I am so tired and so fucking weary of having to fight this all the time, I just want to live and be okay and not have to worry every fucking day if I’m going to go psycho again. I’m tired of inflicting that worry on the ones I love as well, I’m just so fucking tired. I don’t want to be fucked up, it’s not cool,it’s not glamourous, it’s just flat out fucking exhausting. I don’t see how I’ve been an awful enough person to deserve this. And I know that there are squillions of people out there who suffer a fuck load more than me.

There’s no razors in my room, and that doesn’t work anyway. If I was to try the hot knife on my leg again, that’d mean getting up, going into the kitchen, facing the world, and besides, there’s only so much relief that that amount of physical pain can give you. My new idea is to take the codeine. Six tablets won’t kill me, but it will knock me out. Then maybe I can wake up feeling better. But what if someone walks in, freaks out. That’s not fair to do to flatmates, it’s what has stopped me before. Two pills then. But if I take two, I’m going to take more. I can’t stop my teeth from shaking, I can’t fucking handle this, and I need Nikki to come and save me NOW. I am always waiting for the knight on a white horse, and it never shows up, and we can trace that back to being 14 again, and I am so tired of therapy and talking and crying and wondering what’s the root of what and I am so tired of thinking and I am so tired of trying to keep myself alive so maybe it’s the turn of someone else and I just want the pain to stop, and surely that’s what painkillers are for and I’m tipping the codeine out into my palm and putting them back in the bottle and tipping them out again and I’m terrified so I super selfishly call Tom.

He’s in Christchurch asking if I want him to fly up, because he’ll do that on a moment’s notice for me, but I can’t get him to do that. He says he’ll call me back on the landline and I say no, I can’t go out into the lounge to get it. What I can get him to do, and what I force myself to do is admit that I really need to see someone, maybe KateH, and I tell him that I can’t call her, because it’s too fucking hard to ask for help, and so he tells me that he’ll call her, and we get off the line and I sit here and shake and my teeth bang against each other and I try to keep my breathing at an okay rate and he texts me to say that KateH is on her way and I cry some more and rub my nose raw on the towel.

And 20 minutes later she comes in, and I’m still sitting on my bed in the dark, doors and windows open wide, shaking in cold and fear and sickness styles, and she’s brought me flowers and chocolate and throaties and so I cry some more, weird animal noises onto her shoulder and have a semi panic attack before I manage to breathe and blow my nose and hand her my box of pills and ask her to take them away and we talk about pill dosages and i reiterate everything I’ve written above, and it’s the first time that I have ever told anyone in so much detail – with the possible exception of Kalpana – about how suicidal I have been/am whatever tense you want to use, and so that’s fucking terrifying as well, even if I end up listing stupid reasons why I can’t kill myself (ie – we wouldn’t win at Quiz Night anymore and she’d have to give the QM one of her specialty letters saying “no Jo didn’t kill herself cos you have a g/f you pompous git” etc) and just when I’m starting to come down, Ammy comes in and I so don’t want to talk to her at that time, and so when I try to explain that basically, I need to have my meds upped, she says “well everyone has down patches”. Yes, everyone has down patches, true. I have good patches, sometimes. That’s the difference. That and bad patches should never ever feel this way. Luckily Ammy leaves pretty soon, and KateH says “she has good intentions” adn I know that, but I just can’t deal. KateH is wonderful and nice and calms me down, and we even get in a little gossiping before she has to go off to work, taking my pills with her – promising to return them to me at a later date, because really, codeine in one-pill-at-a-time is lovely, and she drops me off at the shops so I can buy dinner and avoid my flat.

And here I am now, having eaten, and read half of Metro, and having had big long lovely cuddles with Sebastian. My eyes and nose are still stinging and my throat is still sore, but I’m a fuck load calmer, and have been rendered incapable of doing myself any harm tonight, even if I wanted to, which I don’t think I do. I’m seeing Kalpana on Tuesday, and I will try to see Dr White ASAP to get a new med script. Why did I write this up here? Attention seeking, some of you are saying. Sure, why not. Maybe. Maybe because I needed to write it. Maybe because I’d like you to know that if you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. Joanna the altruist, yeah, that’s me. And yeah, I still ache, and I guess I always will.

My house is filled with the scent of oatmeal* chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven and the fridge is full of chocolate crackles. I forgot that ages ago I promised Kimpy some home-baking to sell at Craft 2.0, but she emailed me to remind me, luckily. I must remember to tell her tomorrow that she must give freebies to Martha and Sue because of all the hard work that they’ve done. Although of course, the beauty of the interweb is that I won’t have to actually tell anyone, since they’ll all read it here first. After I meet Kimpy tomorrow, I think that’s everyone in Wellington that I would have met (yes, EVERYONE. Not just the people on the interweb who hang out in the same communities as me), except for Homeperm, so more stalkage might be in order.

I wish my face mask would hurry up and dry so that I could put on my glasses and watch Watch This Space a little clearer. But my skin has gone all haywire, because apparetly I need yet another reminder that I’m due a bleed, because apparently the glassy tits, phantom stomach pains and intense grumpiness is not enough (this sentence is mostly for Peti, who thinks all I write about is my period. And yet her pussy is mad about me). I appreciate that this is not particularly interesting entry, but it can’t all be drunken harbour swims can it? Particularly not after that cold snap. So instead I will tell you about how astonishingly clean and tidy our hall is, after I spent a very long time taping modem cords up one wall and down the other, and coiling their remains inside crates, and ripping up old boxes for recycling, and crating up a big box of my Opa’s classical records that had spilt out. Incidently, does anyone want to buy some classical vinyl? Anji still hasn’t put them on trademe. Let me know if you’re vaguely interested and I’ll have a dig through and see what’s actually there.

I met someone else at work today who remembered me from the Embassy in Tokyo which is weird cos it would have been a good 12 years ago, and I’d like to think I looked a little different. But I suppose there’s my dad connection too. And this particular person probably works with my Arch Nemisis – the girl with the same name as me. My manager is away at a conference in Germany now. A colleague emailed me to ask me about myspace. Good times. Meanwhile I picked up Lani at 10pm last night, and apparently her workmates were there til 3am. I think I’m glad to be in the part of the Ministry that I’m in as opposed to where she’s at. Yes.

I’m apprehensive about spending the whole weekend with my family in Martinborough for the food and wine festival. I don’t think that I will get enough personal space, and that’s going to be quite dangerous. I must remember to take my pills. And also to take them with me. I get negligent on weekends and then pay the price on Mondays and Tuesdays. But maybe I will get lucky and win the bedroom by myself. Perhaps. Anyways, now my face has peeled off, and my cookies are bagged, and Lani has gone to bed so I can resume watching Grey’s without getting grumpy about her talking through it. So now I will bid you adieu. And apologise again for the boringness of this entry. Perhaps I will up the drama tomorrow.

* Well, turns out that what I thought was a bag of rolled oats was whole-wheat flour, so there’s about a half a cup of rolled oats, a packet of instant oatmeal and a mini box of Kellog’s Sustain in the cookies instead.

Do you ever get the impression that I spend most of my life looking for either my camera or my camera cables? Yeah? Me too. Right now it’s my cables, so I can show you photos of my pre-Saturday night. But instead I will have to talk to you about it. Oh the pain.

Luckily I have a darling friend who carries her camera almost everywhere with her, so I can steal her photos and say “this is what I was doing around midnight on Friday night”:
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Yes, that’s right, I was encouraging boys to jump off the plank with me. Lisa also took a photo of me, but come on, you think I’m going to put a photo of me in my togs online when it’s quite possibly the least flattering but most awesome shot ever? I even jumped off the plank a second time in order to facilitate that photo, because it turned out the tide was high enough that the bottom rung of the ladder was under water so I could actually climb out and back up again. Lisa made a new friend while Dyl and I swam, in the form of some random emo guy who wandered down to the lower dock where she was and stood there smoking cigarettes, it was a little strange.

Earlier we’d been at Tupelo, and there was a boy who rubbed me up the wrong way with some of his comments about how when he found out a guy at his work was gay he was very not keen to go to the bathroom at the same time. I was like “Do you think I’m hitting on you right now?” and he was like “Huh?” and I was like, “well, I like boys, so obviously I want to fuck you right now, right?” and my friend started cracking up because he could see that his friend was going to dig himself deeper and deeper. I was kind of bored, so I really dived right in with the logic. He tried to excuse himself with a “but in the bathroom there are penises” and I was all “well I like girls but when I’m at the gym, I’m not all “oooh I can see your vagina, I am so aroused right now”" and he tried the “well after I found out I still talked to him, I still invited him to parties” and I was like “OH MY GOD! i take it all back. You found out he was gay and yet you still treated him like a human being. You deserve a fucking medal, buddy”. Then Dave started playing porn on his laptop and when I got up, I leant on the far end of the table, and the other end came flying up and beer went all over his lap, and so he ran away. I would feel worse about it, because I really really hadn’t meant to spill the beer – but the total and utter glee and smiles on Lisa’s face when she came into the bathroom to high-five me made me so happy that I don’t feel as bad about it as I should. My other lesson from the night is that you shouldn’t let the new waitress at Harem try to make you cocktails because they will taste like Raro.

I was going to make Saturday Jo Day, but then I had leftover pizza to eat from Wednesday and Scar tissue to read (I’m no RHCP fan, but you know how I do so love the rockstar bio), so I didn’t go out for brunch. Instead, because Lani’s golf game got cancelled, I went out to PIRATE MINI GOLF with her since it was such a gorgeous day. We thought about waking up Smoo to make him come with us, but I don’t think he would have appreciated that. I ended up beating Lani by two points, because I got a hole-in-one on the second-to-last hole which she took six to get. Hurrah! I took lots of photos, but on my disposable camera, which is weeeeeeeeeeeeird because you can’t see what you’re doing! It’s like, all random luck! Strange! It was like using a rotary telephone. Then we went to Kaizen at Pataka Museum for coffee, and planned out our herb garden. But it was so fucking hot that we went to Lyall Bay instead of the garden centre, and I floated on the very very calm ocean until I touched a jellyfish and felt icky.

Back at home we decided to have a blind tasting session of the four kinds of Coruba Gold RTDs that I’d received a coupon for in the mail (see, there are some rewards for suggesting the most awesome Pirate Party that $50,000 would buy even if you didn’t get anyone to vote for it). The ginger ale was the most drinkable, and the energy drink was disguuuuuuuuuusting. But we wrote very wanky wine-style notes on each, which I’d replicate here if it didn’t involve getting up to find the piece of paper. As Lani got drunker, she became more and more convinced that Coruba should hire us to work for them. She also became more and more Adam Ant that we needed to play Cluedo. Since there were only two of us, because we’d ascertained that Smoo wasn’t actually still sleeping, we couldkn’t play her new video version, but at her insistence I slipped the magnetic travel version into my handbag when we set off for a party on Webb st her workmate was having.

I didn’t find the party very interesting, but there was very tasty caramel slice. Lani tried to pressgang everyone into playing Cluedo, and eventually we found a couple of willing Americans. Turns out it was Mrs. Peacock in the lounge with the dagger. Who knew? Lani did. We left the party, and debated going to Havana, but decided that what we really wanted to do was go home and have an encore of dinner (spaghetti with garlic, chilli and parsley) and watch Buffy. I should stress that it was her idea, not mine!

Today I woke up at 10.30am and spent two hours finishing off Scar Tissue before heading in to town for a slightly disappointing brunch at Ernesto consisting of fennel & carrot gluten-free toast, hash browns, bacon, mushrooms and black beans. I had to ask for butter for the toast, the hash browns were a little gluggy and the beans weren’t all that warm, but the coffee was great. I know they can do better, so hopefully it was just a once-off kitchen lapse. Then I went to Plastic Box (heh) for crates to tidy up our hallway with, and ended up spending $100 on a CD rack. But it is the KING of CD racks, let me assure you. It’s more like a full-on bookshelf. All my CDs will fit on it, and they’ll look all pretty and neat rahter than being scattered around in various vessels as they are now, and there’s room to grow, and oh, I just know that if my CDs are all neat and ordered and arranged to perfection then people will like me better and I will regain the control over my life that I felt has slipped a bit this week. And so of course then I went to Real Groovy to spend some vouchers. I was very very tempted to buy The Gossip, partly because of the awesomeness of the cover artwork, and partly because I like to think that I look like Beth Ditto does in the ‘Standing in the way of control’ video when I’m dancing, although I’m sure I don’t. But in the end, I got what I’d gone in for – the new Bloc Party, and the Cold War Kids, and also I found a really cheap American Music Club, all on CD and not vinyl, for a change. And I asked at the counter after the new Arcade Fire, and they told me how awesome it was and then ran all over the shop trying to find it, and eventually they did, and I was like, hurrah!

I was supposed to go to the garden centre with Lani then, but I felt very very Uggggggggh all of a sudden, so I ran (drove) to the ocean instead to try and shake it out. Lyall Bay was very shallow today, but the waves were big (and filled with black-legged jellyfish, dammit) so I got some good dunks. Then I floated for a while and eventually realised I was out of my depth and paniced briefly, and swam against the current back to where I could stand. That actually made me happy, that the survival instinct still kicked in even though the noise in my head was rising up and up and up and I don’t know why. I mean yes, I’m mango like crazy so surely I will bleed soon, and there’d been an unsettling email thing that’s been all sorted out now, and I realised that I hadn’t taken my pill, but bleh, not fun. So it was nice to come home and sit on the front steps with Lani and trim back old herbs and hope that they’ll grow and grow and grow. We’ve talked about starting a worm farm too. I kind of wonder why she’s so happy to make so many plans with me, like what do I have to offer her as a friend, and I’m thinking that about other people too, why do they put up with me, what can i do for them, and so on and so forth. This is also about how I haven’t been to counselling in almost three weeks, and so I haven’t sat down and provided clear examples (it’s the essay writer in me) of ways that I make other people feel good. But I can think of some of them, honest. Drinking two nights in a row – even if I didn’t get drunk (there’s that Citalapram drink tolerance kicking in) is not a good idea, I suspect.

Anyways, onwards and upwards. Tomorrow I’m cooking a roast and we’re having people over for DVD Cluedo. On the weekend I’m going away for a romantic weekend with my parents (insert hand/fist slapping motion here, suggesting that the family who lays together stays together), and then the weekend after that is a Wellingtonista get-together with secret plans and clever tricks. And somewhere in between I might get to clean the house. Maybe. OooH! I think Lani has tennis on Tuesday night and Smoo’ll probably be working so that’ll be clean time for me. What a thing to get excited about…

Edit: I must also add that right after I saw Rockstar: Supernova’s new ‘Head Spin’ video on TV (and Gilby’s guitar-playing sucks more than the original), I got a text from Annabel telling me that she just saw Lukas having his hair cut in Newmarket. Hahaha! Awesome.

In the time that I’ve written lately, IK really should have given some shoutouts to Harvestbird because a couple of Saturdays ago, Lisa and I spent some awesome time in her company.

Oh yes, that’s right, did you enjoy that link? Cos it’s going to get more linky. So linky. Like when I talk about how we went to Bic Runga and it was so much more awesome than Alan’s experience, like Lisa’s photos will no doubt show you. Highlights include Bic stopping to point at a man peeing in the bushes. SO AWESOME! SO Intimate. We got seats RIGHT AT THE FRONT and enjoyed them mightily until some fuckwits came and sat in front of us drunkenly and talked and talked and oh man, I wanted to bottle those fucks. In fact, the ten dollar venison burger was plenty tasty but didn’t fill me up so I could have eaten those dumb fucks. Oh yes. But, as I said to Alan tonight, I wanted to retract all the things I said about kids befre, cos they were so much more awesome than the stupid fucking drunken grownu dicks. Oh, and I must give mad props to the girls (ummmm Georgie and Lindsay?) who came up to me and asked if I was Jo, Jo Hubris, and said that they loved my website, and made no mention of my blog or of Next (unlike the cleaner at work, and the woman behind the counter at the gym). Hurrah!

That was Saturday. Friday night was the gorgeous Peti’s 30th at the Southern Cross, and that was much much fun. D&D were actually rather drunk, as was Miss Fur, who was somewhat of a sad panda, and while I would hope that I’d never take advantage of that, I totally took advantage to stroke her hair and cuddle her like woah. Perhaps the boys were drawing off me in their insanely handsiness – apparently my Mary-Kate and Ashley locket is a total magnet. And yes, I will take some responsibility for like, the total hottness of my boobies, but like, woah. WOAH. Heh.

Which brings us to Sunday, which was officially (by me) declared to be Jo Day. This meant an hour and a half brunch at the local cafe with the puke-filled paper (OH MY HOLY FUCKING GOD I HAVE so MANY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THE POLICE RAPE THINGS), and then a swim at Lyall Bay in which the waves were over my head and there was so much sewaweed it ended up in my togs when I was showering, but the insane dunkings were kind of fun. And then I saw Ash in the supermarket so she came over for a beer in the sun, anad we talked about oh, you know, being crazy. I’d hoped to have a BBQ but of course that didn’t work out, so I fought off the associated “OMG EVERYONE HATES YOU” feelings in favour of a “wow, it’s entirely possible that one day someone will die from food poisoning as a consequence of you, but meh” feeling.

Monday was very very meh, and pretty much the only highlight was my parcel from torrid.com, that included patent wedges with 4.5 inch heels that are SO FUCKING HOT all capital letters-esque, but you know,the practicality of actually walking and existing in them had me trying on many outfits (well, okay, two) for Lani and Smoo’s thoughts. Naturally we ignored what Smoo had to say, because he’s a boy, so of course he’s going to go for the red dress. Which meant of course that tonight found me wearing my brand new purty suit, for which I spent much of the evening giggling and chuckling at my pretense of actually being grown up and professional and all. Of course, that’s frequently like totally not true, although I did do a fuckload of work today, despite spending two hours stuffing envelopes. Apparently if we get another 300 people on our mailing list, we get to outsource the job, so are you keen?

But yes, so I went to the Paramount for Webstock Mini all dressed up and pretending to be a grown-up. I was of course there to support Sue and to support Martha, but I was also interested in what the speakers would have to say. Naturally I found myself giggling like a norty school girl in the back row, with other Wellingtonistas, but I felt I redeemed myself when someone (actually a sort-of client) was trying to introduce me to Skank, and I was like “oh yes, I used to know her” and he as was all “but she’s here tonight, you should meet her!” and I was like, wow, what’s the best way to put the emphasis on Iused to that would make it clear that I kind of wish I was 8 so I could scratch out her eyes. Do eight-year-olds do that sort of thing? Well, I suppose they don’t go to jail for it anyways. But blah blah. I’m pretty over people who are all “yes, we met before, I was there when you went swimming, remember?” because clearly I DON’T remembver, as well. I cheered loudly for Martha when she spoke, and when they asked if anyone else wanted to get up and talk about how the internet had changed their life, I knew exactly how I’d start, and it’d go a littl elike this: “Recently I got an email from a Canadian. this isn’t that unusual on the interweb, of course, but the fact that he told me that I was the reason that he stareed taking his bi polar medicine is pretty fucking special”. And the speech would go on to talk about the online community, and how in many ways you get the same giggling cliques (ie: the Wellingtonista giggling before Martha spoke), because of the bigger numbers even the most outside of the outsiders could find a place. Yeah!

But instead of saying that, I just talked to Martha & Glen and Sue, until they left and I still had a glass of wine in my hand, so I ended up going to Sweet Mother’s Kitchen for dinner with some people I knew and some I didn’t. we of course couldn’t get a table straight away, so I was drinking margaritas in an alleyway with the postboxes, and when we could sit I talked to our sort of client – or are we their sort of client? – about how their presentation was hilarious because their page of doodles included a couple of doodles of jizzing cocks, and umm, hi, inappropriate, but HILARIOUS. and it’s okay cos two of the Comms team are married, so they explained it to us. I had fish tacoes but I think almost no one got the “heh heh heh” of the title, and I got bored whilst eating and someone else finished it off for me. And then at the end I had another margarita and things were cool and fun, and I was talking ot a handful of people, but then the boy that I fucked a couple of weeks ago was all “so is your insulin level the way it is cos you’re fat?” and I was like “What the FUCK?” and got really angry, and stated loudly for the record and also for me that umm hi, my insulin levels are actually really fucking awesome (I have been tested many times and do not have diabetes), as is my cholestrol and my everything, except for, you know, my blood pressure in December. And that just made me so rarked up, like, oh, so the whole time that you were fucking me and I was feeling good cos I thought I was all like, good times and confident and awesome, you were all “wow. your. diabetes. is. like. amputatative. And. I would. like. to fuck. your stump. hole. ” and he wouldn’t step away from it, and I got so angry, because yes, I’m fat (okay, you didn’t notice?) but hi, I go to the gym at least three times a week, I go swimming at least three times a week, excetera, excetera, there are so many ways to be in which you can be worse than mine, and I always thought that my fucked-up part was my mental health, not my physical, so I left with the whole “Okay bye, nice to meet you”, “nice to meet you”, “nice to meet you” “wow, you’re a fucking cunt and I thought you were actually a nice guy” goodbyes and laughed at the “ooooh”s. So I took a 14, and got moody, and ended up crying at the foot of Smoo’s bed (or mattress) while he sat there not entirely knowing what to do but offering sound logic instead of hugs instead. Poor Smoo. It was just about the how things that make you feel good about yourself can sometimes backfire, and that’s dumb, and boo. And also, one of the guys tonight who did his two minute talk about how the interweb changed his life had talked about literal life-saving in the Balklands, and that’d made me want to cry at the time. Like, for serious,yes. Blah blah. Waaaaaaaaay too tired to write more now.

Edit: this morning my breasts are totally glassy, so ooooooooooh, I’m premenstrual! Aha! It all makes sense now.