Hubris.co.nz

I appreciate that once again, it has been forever since I last wrote. So I suppose that there are a number of things that I should talk about. Like:

1. Webstock
2. Kat & Kane
3. An assortment of things
4. Pretty Pretty Pretty
5. Why I hate having crushes on people, or words to that effect.

I wrote on my professional site about what I learned at Webstock, and I wrote a lengthy thank-you for the Midnight Note site which might get posted at some stage, so at this stage, I can now talk about all the gossip behind the scenes in a non-professional way. Which means talking about ice cream. And how at the pre-webstock tweetup that I organised there were three people I’d fucked, and a couple of others I’d pashed. And how Starla Jo was all “oh, thank you so much for your tweets on New Year’s” and I was like “….huh?” and she was like “You wished me and Thomas another ten years of happiness” and I was like “oh, good for me!” No recollection of that at all but that’s the first time that I’ve ever been told about drunk tweets that were nice, so good for me. And how the whole shebang was dedicated to Darren and Amanda who were getting married the next day, and how they met at my Halloween party, and how if you ever want to get married, I should get a crush on you and someone of the opposite sex at the same time, cos it’s happened yet another time since I ran away from Auckland at the end of 2003.

Oh, in hilarious webstock gossip, on the Thursday night, I got this email:

I said I’d look for you and introduce myself, but once I saw you I
decided not to. You are too gorgeous.

I mean, if you hadn’t been twittering about orgasms I *so* would have
come over and flirted, but I knew as soon as I spotted you I’d be
spending the entire night trying to get into your pants rather than
actually listening to what you have to say. And I didn’t think that
would be cool.

So, next time, when I’m not already thinking about sex, I will say
hello and tell you how wonderful I find your writing (I *adore*
sex-positive women), and then if there’s some flirting or geek talk or
strip clubs I’ll be happy to participate.

Ummm, what? It’s a very strange thing when people feel like they know me from reading my twitter stream, or reading Hubris, because duh, they don’t know Joanna at all, just Jo Hubris’s posturings. I might appear to be open about my life but I don’t feel like I’m asking for emails like that from people I don’t know. But enough about that for now.

Obviously Webstock was all kinds of awesome, as I had expected it to be. I was sitting with Julie, and she was like “wow, talking to you is like hanging out with the Mean Girls” and I was like “it’s so fetch, right?” but honestly, if it looks like a whore and walks like a whore, then what are you supposed to say? (Reason number six thousand and twenty to hate the guy: he made me deal by turning into a bad feminist). That aside, it was lovely to catch up with so many people who I only get to see once a year at Webstock and to absorb all the awesomeness, and to watch people using the Webstock Bingo and Webstocklove channels that I set up. I sent out plenty of messages myself due to a million and five geek crushes. Why are all the good ones (and bad ones) married?

After the official bubbles & beats, we went up to Mighty Mighty for more drinks because people said that Kevin Rose was going to be there, and who doesn’t want to marry a millionaire? Someone had stickers and they thought we should write our names on them, but since we were already all wearing nametags, I gave people other names. We got a Rod Drury, and a Kevin Rose, and a Mark Zuckerberg and a Tom from Myspace before I started to run out of names. Later at the other end of the bar, I got in a conversation with Lisa Herrod who’d spoken earlier that day about accessibility, and was super stoked when she tweeted later that she’d hire me in a second if I lived in Sydney (and if she was hiring). It was really awesome to be reminded that I do actually know what I’m talking about sometimes. And in that vein, her husband Lachlan who had also spoken but I hadn’t seen his talk except for the end where he mentioned Waferbaby (who you might remember from Melbourne 2001, if those entries were actually online, but they don’t appear to be. Odd. But to summarise I met him when I was staying with 0 at Nirvana), ordered a castlepoint, so I told him that it was one of the top five drinks in town, and later on twitter mapped out a path as to how he could have the other four in one day. In fact, we were supposed to go get margaritas for breakfast at 8am on the Friday, but I decided to get one more hour of sleep. I was very impressed that he went though!

On Friday night after more Webstock awesomeness was the ONYAs. I borrowed a dress from Megan that I felt gorgeous in, and after some reshufflings I spent the evening telling gossip to a nice woman from Australia that actually may have been a little terrifying because I had a lot of it to tell and there was also a lot of wine. Then there was an amazing light show. Then we went to the Malthouse and people from Silverstripe were so drunk that I thought that they were speaking Norwegian, and other people were so drunk that they fell over, and really, I felt quite sober comparatively. I got to talk about Mad Men with Peter lots. And I got home sometime after 4am after dallying with that nice girl from last year who went to the bathroom and never came back. Webstock is awesome. I should have written about it a lot sooner and also not today when I’m in a really sulky mood.

In fact, I’m so sulky that I’m not going to finish this entry. Night kids, let’s hope something goes my way in the next couple of days or so, yes? Please?

• You will be pleased to know that I officially don’t have tuberculosis. I had my follow-up follow-up today and I’ve been given the all clear. This means I don’t get to die romantically of consumption while Anne of Green Gables nurses me, but I suppose that’s for the best.
• You will hopefully also be pleased to know that I am the very grateful recipient of some funding from The Midnight Note which will partially cover the cost of my attendance at Webstock. I know of three people who wrote lovely letters for my nomination, but there may have been more. I am well-loved by my community, apparently, and that is a beautiful thing.
• I have discovered over the past couple of weeks just how lucky I am to have the wonderful friends that I do. There was a thing that happened, and it brought back all the anger and emotion that I’d covered up last year and it was a really really difficult time. I seriously considered moving to Auckland just to get away, but luckily attendance at Princess Camp made me play “Run this town” many times in my head and I realised that actually, fuck yes I do.
• Miss Kim Cupcakes & Mace stayed here at Immoral Terrace on and off for the past couple of weeks while she was looking for a flat, and it was so lovely having her here. We had LAN parties and cheese and watched DVDs and stayed up late giggling about boys every night. It’s a bit weird not having her here anymore, to be honest. I am really glad that I could help her out of a jam, and she definitely helped me out too, not just by buying Seb cat food when I was broke but also making me a happy Jo again.
• If I could find my other knitting needle, I would use it to remove my uterus right about now. I cried every day last week, including two different occasions at Hooch, and today I am in total fricking agony and bleeding like a stuck pig. I should go to the GP to ask to be refered to a gynocologyst, but that’s money that I don’t have. It wouldn’t be a hubris update without me talking about my period though, would it?
• A lot of my friends have been going through difficult times. We had decided that the first two weeks of the year didn’t count because they were just the hangover from 2009, but two thousand and zen has taken a while to get going. My main drama, apart from the thing that knocked me flat on my ass for a couple of weeks is the ongoing job hunt. I got very close to a job that I really wanted, reference checks and everything, and because they took a while to get back to me I dared to dream about what it would be like to actually have an income again, which of course became a big let-down again. I hate that my friends have had crappy-ass times, but if it had to happen, I’m glad that we’ve had each other to go through the crap with.
• I almost left the house for a night this summer to go camping, but it was raining in the Hutt so we camped in Amie’s lounge instead. Princess Camping for the win! We had tremendously good times.
• I went to a random hipster party in Roseneath where we sat in an empty room and played a variation of Truth or Dare. I went to a keg party in a big flat on Cuba Street where goths went without makeup, a kitten romped around and that nice girl from last year kissed me again although it’s against her rules, which I don’t understand. I went to a couch-surfing gathering in Mount Vic where I drank gin and played Animal Motions. There have been tiki shacks here, and macaroni parties at Laura’s. There’s also a Pretty Pretty Party coming up on March 6. It is hard to be as entertaining as I want to be when I lack the funds so drastically.
• My family has continued to be awesome and supportive. BAMJI took me for my first swim of the year, and last night we had a bigass dinner at Hazel for Mum’s significant birthday. It was lovely. I should review it for the Wellingtonista sometime soon.
• Still loving my flatmates. And I’m super excited that Kat & Kane are coming down next week. Not to mention WEBSTOCK! And I have a fabulous frock from Megan to wear, and I leant one to Sue. What goes around comes around, hurray!
• Oh, and finally, I spoke at Bloggers Predict the other week, and you can watch the video of it here:
  

Every year I answer the same 40 questions to do a stocktake of where I’m at. Check out previous years here.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

• Got made redundant
• Stayed overnight in hospital
• Lost items of value in a burglary
• Had my first threesome. And my second. And my third.
• Had an intern.
• Replied to someone on an internet dating site and then slept with them.
• Received over two grand’s worth of free stuff for being a blogger (the $1200 freeview box made up a lot of that)
• Went to Roller Derby
• Won a “Best Fan” prize
• Kissed 17 people in one night (hurray for kissing booths!)
• Had someone pay for me to get into a strip club, and also tucking money into strippers’ underwear for the first time
• Willingly (ish) went through a break-up.
• Had someone throwing me a surprise party.
• Worn red lipstick frequently and confidently.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Apparently my resolutions for this year were about taking better care of myself, and although I did continue to sleep with the married man for a bit, we did indeed eventually break it off, so yay me. And then I resolved to never sleep with a married person again, which is a good resolution to have and I have yet to break it again. I also resolved to have breakfast with someone after we’d slept together, and while I thought I’d achieved that when I woke up with a boy for the first time since 2004, we didn’t actually have breakfast, unless you count helping ourselves to one another’s genitals again. Oh oh but actually, I did make wedges for a lady caller that we ate in bed together so I guess that counts.

My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Fucking buttloads of people had babies this year! Specifically Martha and Brenda and my best friend Penny from high school. Still more of my friends are pregnant right now, and it’s all a little bit over the top, if you ask me. I can’t have breakfast with a boy and you all can get married and buy houses and have babies? Unfair!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, but people very close to people I am very close to did, and all I could do about it was text stupid jokes every day and send care packages of Noel Fielding.

5. What countries did you visit?

Sydney for FullCodePress (thanks to the lovely Tash Mahal) and Vanuatu for fun.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Breakfast with someone, obviously, since I can now cook eggs. Also, a job. And let’s say a proper public relationship where the person I am with shouts it from the rooftops.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The Wellingtonista Awards again because of the work and the memories that I was a bit scared of. December 10 because it was my ten year anniversary of fucking. July 17 for my ten years of Hubris party and because it was when I relaunched this site in Wordpress. June 30 for being my last day at the SSC.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly, I had a motherfucking buttload of bad shit happen to me this year, and so the fact that I’m still in good spirits, that I’m happy, sort of healthy and am able to keep going on, and that I’ve ended the year with all my friendships intact and even with new friends is pretty fucking awesome. Go me!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Honestly, I’m shocked that I don’t have another job yet. I know that I am hireable, that I have many skills and talents and the fact that I’m still unemployed is really weird. I’m also disppointed that I’m not as over someone as I’d like to be, but that’s not something you can force and you definitely can’t get over someone by being under as many people as possible. I’ve learnt my lesson on that front quite a few times this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Depression as per usual, some nasty flus, withdrawl from zopiclone when I finally came off them, and also hospitalisation after an ingrown hair gave me cellulitis. But apart from that, no!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My laptop(s) that allow me to download and watch copious amounts of television. Also every present that I’ve bought for others that has allowed me to demonstrate even the smallest fraction of how much I care about them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My family who have continued to lend me money and buy me things like a new laptop after mine got stolen and I didn’t have insurance, who paid my power bill for me so I wouldn’t get disconnected and who aren’t demanding that I pay them back for our trip to Vanuatu. Also everyone this year who’s bought me a drink or a meal in exchange for my company, especially Tom, who is insanely generous. My friends who’ve helped me out of emotional jams, listened to me bitching and moaning and kept me company through the long dark winter, Smoo whose quiet presence in the house is always welcome, and everyone who gave me orgasms this year and fucked me til my thighs ached.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Management at SSC and everyone else who didn’t hire me, people who think that hitting kids is okay, the cunt who burgled us, and anyone who has treated my friends badly.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Double rents and unemployment.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Roller derby! Kat & Kane’s wedding! Harvestbird & Knedd’s wedding! People having babies!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

‘So here we are’ by Bloc Party becasue it played while I was lying in my lover’s arms for what we thought was the last time, and so that he wouldn’t see me crying I buried my face in his neck and we fucked because it fit the narrative structure that way. And also ‘Some time around Midnight’ by the Airbourne Toxic Event, even though or actually because as Good Tom says there’s far too much pathos in it for one song. It’s like the story of my life condensed down into four minutes. Oh and because it was so recent, ‘Halo’ is standing out in my mind right now too.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier, despite all the crap. I am getting better at dealing with everything.
ii. smaller or larger? Larger, by a lot probably.
iii. richer or poorer? Much much poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Physical activies and community service. Also, I wish I’d put more work into You Are So Entertaing but I still can!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on Twitter and Spider Solitaire and watching crappy television. Passive-aggressive texting and emailing. I sent some spectacularly nasty drunken emails this year and I am very not proud of them. My defense of being desperate for any kind of reaction is not good enough.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

My parents and Karen came over to my house and were joined by Bad Tom and Shirley and I cooked amazing food and we gorged ourselves and had a thoroughly pleasant time of it.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
WINZ. Heather and Kat <3.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

I didn’t fall, I stayed in.

23. How many one-night stands?

Three? In terms of one-offs, there was a girl, there was Tingle and there was the guy from Internet dating. I did see the girl again though, but only in a friend capacity. In addition, there were multiple occasions with the married man, the duck and the crazy girl. Oh, and I had intended to have a playdate with the boy who’d watched me and the crazy girl in his hotel room, whose kiss made me a little weak at the knees, but despite some textage, the stars didn’t align. Which is probably for the best.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Mad Men, Community, 30 Rock, Dollhouse (!!!!!)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope.

26. What was the best book you read?

Oh god, have I actually done any reading this year? I liked Generation A but not nearly as much as Generation X. I don’t think I can remember any other books, really, which I know is pretty terrible. Don’t tell Karen okay?

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Umm, getting a subscription to Last.FM? And taking all the contents of Emma and Lisa’s hard drives?

28. What did you want and get?

A laptop. To wake up in someone’s arms. Lots and lots of pashes. Amazing collections of friends. An overseas tropical holiday and some weekend jaunts other places. To get on the dole and be left mostly alone (well, I’d rather I didn’t have to, but it was a struggle to get here anyway). The ability to sleep without zopiclone.

29. What did you want and not get?

An invitation to Foo Camp – I worked really hard to prove myself this year hoping to get one and I didn’t. Sad face. Also, a new job, and at the time of writing, a full house. Paying extra rent is killing me. A real relationship. An ONYA nomination.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I’m not sure what movies I actually went to this year. There weren’t very many of them, that’s for sure.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my actual birthday I got free coffee from Green Land, I went to work, then I went to the Backbencher for someone’s goodbye drinks. I was feeling nauseous so I only drank gin. Then with my family I went to Elements for dinner which was amazing. Prior to that, my amazing sisters threw me a freak show surprise party! It was amaaaaaaaaaaaazing! I turned 29, which means I’m almost 30 now. Crikey!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Finding a new job shortly after being made redundant with a bit of time for a holiday in between.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I’ve got really into the Fatshionista community and started posting outfits of the day before my camera got stolen. I’m still trying to be Joan Holloway. I’ve also started wearing red lipstick, thanks to the lovely Megan.

34. What kept you sane?
My amazing counsellor, my family’s love and financial support and my fantastic friends.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Noel Fielding? Jon Stewart still makes me moist. As does ummm oh I don’t know. People? Stuff? Things? Tom Coates and that other guy from Webstock. Matt Bidulp? I can’t remember. Oh! And Victor from Dollhouse.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Ridiculous bullshit redundancies, strangely enough. Oh yeah, ICT’s totally not going to be a growth area…

37. Who did you miss?

The secret relationship. All my friends who are in other cities, especially Heather and Kat’n Kane. Really angry I missed out on meeting Ghetsum again cos I was too sick. And Good Tom, who shouldn’t have left to go to America, fucker.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Oh my gosh, I met so many awesome people this year, like Kim and Laura and Amie through Twitter, Chiara and Theresa and Julie through Pretty Pretty Pretty and also my new flatmate Thigh Voltage and through her the derby girls. Also, I’d already met Megan before but I feel like we became really good friends this year and that’s always worth celebrating.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
The people that care about you want to be there for you. You just need to learn to ask for help.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I get by with a little help from my friends”.

It turns out that I can throw a pretty good shindig. The Fourth Annual Wellingtonista Awards were last night, and it was a fantastic time. I’m so proud of all the work that I and others have put into that site, and it’s paid off in bucketfuls. I’ll no doubt do a proper post about it over on that site, and round up pics and stuff like that, but suffice to say, oh my, so much love. It was fantastic to have lots of people who were nominated actually turn up, it was great to have Sally from Mighty Mighty to accept their billion awards that they won, and to have Shirley up on stage to accept for her identical twin Ev from Slowboat, to get to talk to James about how far we’ve come since the site started, to see Jessie again, to have Tom prove yet again what a gentleman he really is by keeping me in drinks when I thought I lost my eftpos card, to get to swap meaningful looks and sideways smiles with someone and have that be cool, to dance with Chiara and Theresa and Julie in pseudo-Russian style to the Klezmer Rebs, to see Sue actually about, to have so many friends there that I didn’t get a chance to talk to any of them properly, to have Tash be all humbled by their winning and her not being there to accept it on time, to dance to the awesome Karaoke Dick afterwards and sing sing sing, to having Kim show up really late and be all drunken “YAY KIM!!!!” at her, to have Grant Robertson (and everyone else) tell me how fabulous I looked…. oh, how I do so love me a good spotlight bask. Oh, and then there’s that other thing.

I’ve had bad experiences in the past where I’ve written about crushes and had the crushee email me going “um, I’m not interested in you romantically” and I’ve been like, yeah duh, I just wanted to write about how nice it is to have a crush that’s pure and simple and joyous, it’s not really about you or whatever, but on the other hand all too often I only write about things when they’re spent and used up and I’m all angsty about them, so in the interests of being Fair and Balanced like Fox News, I figure I will tell you a tale about last night at the TAWAs.

There was a girl there who it turned out I’d met almost ten years ago and I found myself really drawn to her immediately. It helped that she piled me with compliments, of course, and that it turns out that we’re eskimo sisters although our mileage definitely varied. At one stage I even sent Laura on a recon mission to find her, and in a move straight out of primary school Laura told her that I had a crush on her. Which is fine because we kissed as someone took up the mic singing ‘Halo’ and I have all kinds of love for that song, and it felt like I was on a show on the WB, and it was lovely, and it was public and not a shameful dirty secret. Also lovely was duetting on ‘Blister In the Sun’, dancing together and kissing right in the middle of Cuba Mall at 3am. She wouldn’t let me take her home because she said that shagging gets in the way of being friends, and I was like “but dude, I have a million friends already! I don’t need any more!” but of course she is no doubt right. I’m just very lucky that I got to have a thoroughly swell time and a kiss to make the night perfect. It was partly a little bit about chasing away the ghosts of last year and the thing that I am not supposed to remember any more, but it was so sweet that it felt fresh and clean and not at all like the other times this year when I have tried to drown my memories in someone else’s arms. Excellent. Thank you very much, you charming young lady.

I think it is fairly safe to say that I am addicted to fairy lights. I set up our Xmas tree today (it is named Sam, because it’s a fucking prick. Although it is yet to insist that I must have diabetes). In the process of getting this in place, I also cleaned off our buffet! There are empty flat surfaces in my house! It is very very exciting!

Yes, that’s right, I don’t update for a month, and then when I do, all I write about is tidying my house. This is how I roll, yo. Oh okay, I will talk about how I’ve been Xmas shopping, and making plans for the dinner that I want to cook, and preparing secret potions and all that kind of thing.

I’ve been feeling a bit thoughtful the past couple of days. As you may have seen me twittering about yesterday, it was ten years since I first had sex. So that was the guy that I had my first relationship with. It’s been a year since I began my second relationship as well, which I call a relationship because he did, and because it was more than just fucking, even though it shouldn’t have even been that. Although I didn’t want the first one to be, the second one is most definitely a secret. In 2010, I’m going to meet someone who will love me so much that they will shout from the rooftops that they’re with me. That’s going to be really fantastic. Oh yes indeedy.

I don’t really have that much else to say, because it’s been so long that all the stories I wanted to tell you have been forgotten. Instead, I will grab some photos of me from Flickr with which to start conversations, okay?

SPICEWORLD

Still the greatest movie ever made. We had a most awesome night of watching it and then I stayed up til 3.30am talking to Amie. She cleaned up in the morning! Best houseguest ever until the next lot showed up.

ROLLER DERBY!

Richter City (Wellington) played Pirate City (Auckland) and three of Auck girls stayed with us. Turns out one of them was Hannah who was Iva’s friend when we lived at Volcanic, so she’s also slept with Lance. Hilariousness ensued. Also, Roller Derby was AMAZING, even though we got creamed. It was edge of the seat jumping up and down and yelling and cheering and fantasticness. And look who happened to be in town for it and managed to get in on the sign and fascinator-making?

Yeah that’s right, that’s motherfucking KateH! It was very very nice to see her again after years overseas. Plus, I am now the Popular Kate of Wellington, which makes me feel allpowerful. In fact, I’m the Empress of the Internet. Bow down.

I went to the Havana Club cocktail championships and wrote about it on the Wellingtonista. Speaking of, holy fucking shit, next week it is the FOURTH ANNUAL WELLINGTONISTA AWARDS. I am crazybusystressed sorting it all out plus I don’t get to buy a new dress which is sad but hopefully it will all go smoothly enough.

Oh yeah, duh, flickr reminds me that there’s this:

I got an infected ingrown hair on my stomach, and it developed into full-blown cellulitis and I spent 48 hours in the hospital. Almost two weeks later, I still haven’t finished my antibiotics. Kind of a bit bored of talking about it, so here’s this:

o, so 48 hours of IV antibiotics and crazy Syrian ladies yelling in the bed next to me and NO WIFI (omg death) and so many things beeping and being woken up at 4am all the time so they could change my drip and then at 7am because apparently that’s when they wake up usually anyways later, I cried and begged them to send me home so they have with lots of codeine and also fuckloads of antibiotics, and now my stomach is much better but my arm is in immense pain from where my veins collapsed under the harshness of the antibiotics and it all leaked into my tissue instead. Moral of the story: ingrown hairs are not a good idea.

Many people were wonderful and came to see me in the hospital or afterwards and it made me so happy to have such lovely friends and family and flatmates who provided me with food so I didn’t have to eat the hospital slop and so I had clean laundry and access to technology to keep me from going crazy.

So yes, even though things are far from perfect (I still don’t have a job or a flatmate), the awesome things in my life kind of outweigh the sucky, and that’s the way I would like to keep things, thanks.

It is astonishing how much difference a little bit of money has made in my life. Getting paid for the contract work that I’ve been doing meant I could pay my phone bill. It meant I could get my meds. It meant I could pay rent. It meant I could go see my counsellor and discuss with her how awful it makes me feel to be 29 and in debt to both my sisters and my parents. She told me many times that just because I am bad with money it doesn’t mean that I am a bad person. We also talked about ways that I can work through things so that I don’t throw my hands up in the air and give up on everything and retreat to my “safe” place at the bottom of the Piths Of Dethspair. Of course though, along with the rest of the world, she is hapu, which means that she’s going on maternity leave soon so I can’t have a another breakdown until April, okay?

Job hunting continues to happen. I got feedback from one interview that I went to along the lines of “We thought you were fantastic. You blew us away. As soon as you left the room, we were all like ‘oh man, we wish we had a job for her!’ ” . I am considering being slightly less awesome  in my next interview in order to avoid this happening again. Then again, the contract work that I am doing right now (at which I am kicking ass and taking names) is the result of a similar result from another job interview, so perhaps there is hope for me yet. And next week I will get paid by the government to help my mother cook dinner, so that’s always good (Serious Entertainment Function hosted by my father. It’s like the ’80s and the ’90s diplomatic life all over again).

So that’s the work front. On the home front, while I’m still looking for one flatmate, Thigh Voltage moved in yesterday and we had hilarious hijinks trying to mandangle a four-seater couch up our very steep and narrow stairs and through our tight hallway. Later that night Anna Jane gave me a neck massage and went “oh you’re so tight!” like a pornstar. I giggled a lot. I recommend her massage services, by the way. Chiara and Rachel plaited my hair like I was a My Little Pony. We were tiki-shacking it up to welcome Thigh. My house was full of my lovely friends and the glorious roller derby girls and other people who read twitter or something. I had hilarious gossips with Kim and Laura and Lisa in the tiki shack (we were mostly in the house because of the wind). My catchphrase this weekend has been “I drink a lot and I have low self esteem!” It goes a long way in explaining many things about me. However, the compliments from the roller derby girls about my creepy fandom and also of my boobs (I wore a low-cut dress to make up for not providing much food or drink, you see) went a long way to boosting up my ego to sky high levels. I have been reminded of the fact that the reason I have so many awesome people in my life is because I am actually pretty damn awesome.

Other things of note recently:

• the meal Bambi cooked for me while I was crying on Anji’s shoulder
• how after I cleaned the fridge out I discovered the only food actually in it was some creamed corn
• the hammering I did when Shirley repaired her (stolen) park bench
• dinner with Megan and Laura at Thai Chef
• discovering that apparently people a couple of years younger than me don’t use condoms every single time that they have sex (WTF? How is that possible???? I have had sex without a condom a grand total of twice in my entire life, and I was on the pill and thought I was in a monogamous relationship. There are some things I don’t fuck around with, you may be surprised to learn).
• the insane amount of spirits that we got through last night. So many empty bottles.
• eating Ethiopian food for the first time
• The things filling up my social calendar – gallery openings, book launches, Skate Highway One – Wellington vs Auckland at Roller Derby,  the FOURTH ANNUAL WELLINGTONISTA AWARDS OMG etc.

And now some multimedia stuff:

Me winning the best sign competition at the last bout of Roller Derby with this gem which encourages world peace, because obviously I’m dressed to support SMASH MALICE who won, but also the new flatmate who’s on Brutal Pageant:

Photo by Jed Soane

Bad Tom teaching Chiara how to tie a cravat before Pride & Prejudice & Zombies:

That might be it for now, actually. Leave me a comment, I haven’t updated for a while so give me a reason to be a woman do it more often!

So tomorrow, or sort of todayish, it will have been a year since I cried and I screamed and I hoped and I begged and I cried some more in joy and Obama was voted in as president. There are plenty of people who will write about the political implications of all that, and about the terrible puppy-eating thing that happened a few days later in NZ when my hair looked all amazing and I was pretending to be Joan Holloway, but I will pretend that night never happened. And I suppose that’s where it would be easy to start the fantasies, to pretend that the things never happened, but lately and for very little reason other than maybe getting my period and the associated END OF THE WORLD right before it, I am reminded of all these things and all these touches, and I react funny, and I cry in strange places and contact people that I shoudn’t because I just want some kind of attention and I know that mostly this is me, not you, and yet I have come to the conclusion that it’s not that I am still in love with you, but rather that it has gone out the other side and I hate you for what you have done to me, and for what I let myself become and that maybe it is easier if I loathe every single thing about you. But of course, that’s not actually that much easier. It just took me by surprise a couple of nights ago when I was just totally overcome with thoughts of the things that briefly were things, but not for very long and anyways, let’s end this paragraph. I am not good at dealing with anniversaries of things that are teh sux0r.

Now I have a a toss-up between good or bad. Let’s go with the bad, then the good.

I will try to keep this paragraph relatively spoiler-free, but I have been watching a certain show set in 1963 on torrents, and so yes, you can expect that Mad Men WILL deal with the assassination of JFK (oh, spoiler alert, apparently the president got assasinated in November 1963..) and I was watching that episode last night and because of course, much like you, my moment of “This is history happening right now” was 9/11, and so it was all played out in flashback sequences last night, the starting on Fluox, the Buffy episode at 3am, the flicking to the news channel, the “oh wow, what movie is this?”, the text messages to Kateh and Thomas, the wondering whether or not to wake Clayton, and then the flatmate hunt in the weeks after, but most relevantly, EM’s letters about what he told his son about the bad men when his son’s cartoons were taken off the air. It’s 2009, EM, shouldn’t you be emailing me right now?

But oh, the happy anniversaries! They can wipe out all the badness. And this is where the glee comes in, with going to Christchurch for one night for Harvestbird and Ned’s wedding. I feel very tongue-tied and inadequate and actually quite useless in recording such a lovely mellow event (although I can say that some dumbass Kwikimart clerk gave me terrible directions and it took me 30 minutes to walk to the bar instead of two), but what I can do instead is embed a drunken video for you that I took of the crazy lights in my crazy hotel room:

Apart from that, Christchurch was AWESOME! There was the girl on the plane who recognised me from a rollerderby match (“you’re Jo from Pretty Pretty aren’t you?”) who gave me a tour around the city to my hotel and an adventurous trip back to the airport the next day. There were hungover drinks with Emma Hart who managed to make ME blush which is practically as unheard of as the word “squozen” and the brunch the next day with Kebabette at C1.

I know Kebabette from PPP, so this is a good time to say how awesome the Pretty Pretty Party was. Also awesome? The Pride & Prejudice & Zombies ball. There are great pics on that link, by the way. I do so really love to dance, and the girls and boys at that dance swept me off my feet and all over the floor and I really should have hitched up my skirt better so I wouldn’t have slipped over so much. The fact that I ended up crying behind my (Theresa’s) fan at Motel later that night and sending texts to inappropriate people because I wanted some attention is clearly irrelevant. Honest!

I had a period for like, almost two weeks or something? Which was annoying but at least it kind of made my body make sense. Now I’ve got a three-week contract working from home but all I seem to want to do is take naps, so my hours are a little sporadic and off the standard chart. I have Fridays in the office to ground me however, and I feel really good and confident about the work I am doing. It is very much aligned with my skill set and close to my heart. Someone commented to me on Facebook the other day about how they can’t believe that I still don’t have a job yet and I feel pretty much the same way that they do, only more so.

El moved out but a lovely girl from Twitter who is on Brutal Pagaent (boo!) at Roller Derby (yay!) will be moving in. Brent’s going to move in with his girlfriend so I still need another flatmate. My social calendar is insanely busy. Hubris wasn’t updated for a while, but now it is. Good. Gossip Girl time now, right?

Except Lisa has me watching a Pearl Jam clip where they’re singing ‘Black’ and I expect him to start singing “We…belong…together” like he does in the Unplugged video, not altogether too different from Campbell Scott (that’s right, isn’t it Jessie? I get the two confused) in Singles but then he sings lines from ‘Good Woman’ instead about how he’s lying when he says he doesn’t love me no more, and oh, they’re too much like a text message when someone said that they were going to say that they were over me because they were weak, and oh, fuck you Obama, I am holding you entirely responsible for this, apart from the parts that are Guy Fawke’s fucking doings..

There is going to be an immense amount of whining and wailing and weeping in this entry, so if you’re not down with that, go read this instead. Caution: contains insanely adorable children in tutus.

Things have taken a swing for the worst for me lately. I know it is at least partially related to the miniscule trickle of blood that’s occasionally dripping from my cunt, but really, $200 parking fines, and discovering that WINZ won’t let me sign up for the dole unless I go to that horrible degrading seminar AGAIN and needing new a new flatmate, and still no jobs on the horizon, and continued burglar-related crap and assorted personal dramas and the very very small amount of money that I have left in my account are really piling up. I’m not coping very well with it. I have hid in bed for the past two days, and unless something drastic happens, I imagine that’s probably where I will spend tomorrow as well, at least until I go to Petone to eat cupcakes.

Here’s a story that is NOT the centre of my problems, but it is something that is weighing on my mind in the grand scheme of things. You know that boy who slept over in a post recently? And how although that was strange for me, it was actually quite nice? He stopped replying to my texts after that, and then didn’t show up for roller derby. Perhaps he’s too busy winking at my friends via online dating sites the day after he fucked me (Wellington is a very small place). I know there was no contract or anything, but it still seems like a shame. I thought we got on well, and that my gut instinct was right in thinking he was a nice guy. Oh well. I could tell him this in person but of course I have deleted his number so I won’t drunkenly passively aggressively text him. Does this mean that I shouldn’t trust my gut instinct then?  I know that my gut instinct is correct in thinking that the boy I kissed this past Saturday is trouble, but oh, what a kiss. And then on another note there’s Anji asking me if I think people are crazy because they’re crazy or because they like me. And there’s me wondering if I hold my cards too closely to my chest at all times because I don’t want to get hurt again and wondering whether or not I use not being over someone I could never have had anyway as a way to hold others at a distance.  I guess I’m getting ahead of myself somewhat, and lord knows I’ve been complaining enough lately about people who tell stories in a non-linear non-sequitarial fashion.

So what have I been up to lately? Last week there was tea and cake with Chrisana which was lovely because I hadn’t seen her in a very long time and I very much enjoy her company. There was making economic decisions to go home and sit by myself on the Friday night instead of drinking with the Wellingtonista. I painted signs for Roller Derby with Miss Fur. There was a crafternoon with Megan in which I made the aforementioned tutus that I sent to Maree’s daughters. She made me a skirt to wear to the roller derby on Saturday, so I looked suitably hot:

I got to meet Kim who took this photo and Laura for the first time before roller derby, so that was awesome. Anji’s friend stuck her tongue in when I gave her  birthday kiss, and another girl pulled me into a toilet stall, pushed me up against the wall and felt me up quite roughly. It was kind of fantastic and hilarious at the same time, because there were a lot of people around and she was pretty loud. Loud enough that she ended up getting kicked out of the derby, and I had to leave the afterparty really early to go meet up with her and her friend in his hotel room. The baths at the Duxton are not as good as the baths at the Museum Hotel, I can report but the staff are great at finding super glue for you if your boots are coming apart. It is strange however, that they let people smoke inside. Even the Garden Bar where we went and danced to drum & bass doesn’t let you do that. Then when I took a taxi home the driver didn’t have any credit card slips so he let me pay with a Farmers voucher instead. Mint.

Today my fitted sheet blew off the line when I was doing laundry and now it is gone. That seemed like an insurmountable obstacle to happiness for me so I stopped doing chores and went back to bed. I’m tired of all this shit. I just need some catharsis and probably to have a talk with someone so I don’t end up screwing them over. But for now, I will watch many many episodes of Weeds in a row, pull the duvet over my head, and sleep some more until this mood goes away.

I twittered today that I’m about two weeks away from sucking cock for crack, financially speaking, and that’s pretty true. I’d say that I’m also about two weeks away from taking up sucking cock for crack just for something to do because I’m so fucking bored, but yet I keep finding myself way too busy, no matter how sexy and appealing It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia makes crack addiction look.

My period has been fucking with me, resulting in many nights of not sleeping until 5am, and thinking too much about things that are in the past. Consequently, when Megan was over yesterday, I cried a little, and then she made me laugh, so that was good. I’m just so tired of things not going my way, of the endless having to deal with stupid things like bills, and police, and letterboxes, and landlords, and applying for jobs,  and no doubt WINZ soon, and finding a new flatmate (El’s moving to the beach), and just ugh. URGH! I need a PA, like, so bad. And also a salary with which to pay said PA.

I got a text on Monday night from a guy I know asking me to go for a drink with him and his wife because she had a proposition for me. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m pretty sure that it will be of the blog promotion variety type proposition, but because my weekend was somewhat interesting, I chose to assume the most sordid scenario. I was hugging my heater, however, and didn’t want to wash my hair, so I didn’t leave the house.

On Saturday though, I left the house for about 15 hours straight. I played Urban Golf. It was tremendous fun!

Fore!

I’m not feeling particularly articulate right now after very long conversations about other people’s lives tonight, so instead I recommend that you read Phil’s description of the day. I like dressing up, and taking back the streets, and chatting to the people we met along the way, and also the meeting new people part of the day, indeed. It was more sober than I expected it to be though.

I fixed the sober part afterwards when I went and met up with that girl and we had drinks at Pollux and The Garden Club which weirds me out because it used to be the Repertory Theatre where I did drama lessons and now it’s a gay club. I suppose they’re practically the same thing though anyways, right? The night ended with me sitting topless in someone’s living room eating Burger Fuel, which is the way most nights should end, right? I think most nights should involve less of other people’s drama though, maybe. But for my last occasion of spending substantial amounts of money, it was pretty good.

Schedule-wise, there’s roller derby coming up (we have tickets to give away on PPP!) and then then the PPP Girlie Party & Clothing Swap, and then I go to Harvestbird’s wedding, and then there’ll be the Halloween toss-up between rasslin’ and derby. Then I may end up going to Auckland for a couple of days with Lisa in November if I am not gainfully employed before she drives up for Pearl Jam. I suspect I will need to hold the wheel steady for her, so great will her excitement be. Oh, and you should suggest nominees for 4TAWA.

Blah. I have been on a big downloaded TV glut lately (thanks The AV Club!) and so I will return to that now if you don’t mind.

Last time I wrote, I was planning for Martha’s new Wanda Harland opening, and now that was a couple of weeks ago. I had a tremendous amount of fun. There was the most amazing cheese in the whole wide world there (one was called “OMG Triple Cream Brie” by Over The Moon) and because I was so in love with it, I get to go to eat more of it tomorrow at a super secret cheese tasting. More details will come on YASE at some stage soon, I’m sure. It is a great space, and there are many pretty things in it that I want to buy.

After the shop opening, Karen and Megan and I went for dinner at Arashi, and then up to Hooch for a quick drink. A couple of bottles later, we’d had enough of old men from Nelson who were up for the rugby and decided to hit on us but accidently showed us picture of their wives. We really should have stopped drinking earlier though so that I could have been less hungover in preparation for the roller derby on that Saturday.

The roller derby was fucking amazing! I wrote about it on Pretty Pretty Pretty and you can also see photos of how hot I looked. Sure, the leopardskin bustier gave me bruises, but it was totally worth it. I was really happy that when I was taking photos of the girls afterwards they’d mostly all heard of PPP, and so I felt totally full of love for Wellington and the internets.

Afterwards, we went up to Hooch for a Cowboys + Indians night. There was a guy in a horse’s head! Behold!

The horse is made a million times more awesome by the guy in the background

I ran into the girl from #madbad and ended up pinning her to the bathroom wall and pashing her until one of the female bartenders came in and told us we were too drunk and she would lose her bartender’s license. I think that was somewhat of an exaggeration. But I went home and did not accept her text invitations to go up to the duck’s house. I had to get up at 9am to go to the airport to pick up Kat and Kane, after all!

The airport mission was pretty heinous but then Kat and I went into town to meet up with the Wellingtonista at Mac’s Brewery because we’d finally managed to literally organise a piss-up in one. We drank our tab we’d won at the Webstock Quiz the year before, hung out in the lovely weather, introduced new people to the delights of knowing the best people in town, and many people brought along their kids. It was thoroughly delightful to sit in the sun afterwards, eat gelato and plot starting up our own crocodile bike business.

Having Kat and Kane around always makes me feel very mellow and content and full of love. I cooked a big old lamb roast for nine people that night, and we crowded around the table stuffing ourselves, drinking red wine and having hilarious conversation. Kat did all the cleaning before and after, which I felt bad about but I didn’t want to fight her on it too much! I was really happy with the way that everything went, that it reminded me what fantastic lovely people I have in my life. Awww.

But I didn’t have too much time to reflect on it, because on Wednesday, Miss Harvestbird was in town, just in time for the RASSLIN! The rasslin’ was being filmed for TV, so it was held in a warehouse here in Newtown with tiered seating and great lighting for taking photos, but of course I didn’t get around to downloading my pics before my camera was stolen. However, the lovely Miss Fur took pics, of course, so you should check hers out. It includes this gem:

Chris DeLorean and Lazarus Volt - bum pinchers!

After that, it was time to go to the Watusi to listen to some lovely drunk girls read out Olsen slash fiction in bad Russian accents. It was very very entertaining. I got somewhat drunk and melancholy afterwards, which was a bit weird, given how happy I’d been previously. I got to spend the whole day in bed on Thursday though, which was a great way to unwind in preparation for the madness that was to follow.

On Friday I went to the Montana World of WearableArt, which again, you can read about on PPP. I got to go in the media room to hang out with Kowhai and Robyn and Russell Brown and Fiona from Public Address, and drink free wine and stuff my face with spicy nuts. It was a really great show, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards I went to Hooch with Kowhai to have a heart to heart, and apologise to Johnny for being snapped the week before in the bathroom making out with that girl. He just laughed.

I’d texted Smoo to see if he wanted to share a cab home from work and he told me he’d been robbed, and I was thinking he meant his restaurant, but no, it turns out that our flat was broken into, two days after the neighbours had been burgled. They took my laptop, my eeePC, my iPod, my camera, his playstation, El’s camera and iPod. Needless to say Saturday was somewhat of a blur of phonecalls with the police, talking to the police, being told that we need to be more social in our flat, crying down the phone to my mother, welcome visits from Anji and Bambi – who told me that I’d sent him a drunken email on Wednesday night asking him to tell Tingle to call me and that actually it wasn’t Tingle who tried to climb in my window. Naturally because Bambi is smart, he saw the 2am timestamp on the email and decided to wait until I was sober before he replied to it. I think I might put the math goggles thingie onto Gmail. And my lovely mother came over as well, and then Lisa came by in the evening to watch 21 Jump Street. Sure, the cops who came over were nice, and seemed to know what they were doing, but they weren’t no Johnny Depp. Le Sigh.

On Sunday I went to buy a new laptop (no, I don’t have insurance), and spent the afternoon fighting with Vista. Firefox wouldn’t install, so Chrome is totally my new lover for life now. Then a boy said he’d buy me consolation beers so we went to Hashi Ogazeke, and I bought him a beer from Invercargill that tasted like bacon. He was still there in the morning – and then the afternoon – which is something I am very very unused to, and I didn’t know how to act. Plus, I really wanted to check my email. There have been sleepovers with girls, but the last boy I woke up with would have been Good Tom, all the way back in 2004. Apparently when you have sex with married men, they go home to their wives afterwards and don’t spend the night. Who knew? And I don’t like sleeping in other people’s beds either. Etc. Anyways. Today continued the lesson that Wellington is a very small place, and that I really do know everyone and everything about everybody.

Yesterday I went to the new bar Betty’s with the lovely Amie to try Tohu wines and find out all sorts of gossip. I will write about that sometime on YASE – the wine and venue, that is. And then I went to dinner at Thai House and Quiz Night where I got to have a good gossip with Anji, which I really do need to update. I didn’t manage to sleep at all though, so I was still awake at 11am waiting for the tsunami. I don’t know what to say about that without sounding trite. The place where Karen and I had an amazing holiday - Coconuts Resort is apparently completely destroyed as are of course many other houses and lives that I have no connection to other than, y’know, having  a heart. So I baked cupcakes for Megan instead, and now I am wondering who will get to see my amazing new dress first.