Hubris.co.nz

I really have been having the most excellent week, and it’s kind of making me go “how did I get to be so lucky?” I love the post period period. Period. Lols.

On Wednesday night, I built myself a new site, based on an old zine of mine called You Are So Entertaining. Dot Com.It’s a party/recipe/stuff site, and I hope you like it. It will continue to grow. I could build another site based on my other zine, but really, this site is pretty much BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS and 101 Stories That I Want To Tell You anyways. And I don’t get to tell You & Me in the Last Days of Bush ever anyway.

On Thursday I headed out to see Martha at Wanda Harland and plan the opening of her new shop. You can read more about the planning on You’re So Entertaining, in fact.

Then I headed home to prepare Miss Fur’s birthday dinner. We had papas garbanzo, and Karen made PANDA CAKE (based on this bread) and Megan made raspberry umm cobblers, and Shirley just sat and looked pretty. Even though it was her birthday, I still beat Lisa at some singstar songs. Go me!

Yesterday I did some serious work on a comms plan for my old workmate Ros, faffed around with stockings and got dressed up, and then Miss Emma picked me up. I spooged coconut cream all over her house and we had cocktails. Simon did his sexy dance for Lisa, and went to spank me which I found rather awesome, except for the whole being someone’s husband thing. We had tremendous fun and I didn’t even have to use a coaster.

Today I woke up with a hangover and a big pile of compliments (god i ADORE Fatshionista so much! I’m having trouble keeping my clothes on these days). I had trouble starting my car because of the rain, which served me right for asking how many Brents it took to change a lightbulb because he was struggling to fix his headlights, but when I got to Hadyn & Amy’s there was coffee and pastries waiting for me, and it was almost like being in Vanuatu again, only with better coffee and less tropical fruit. Amy and I discussed secret PPP business (we’re coming close to 1000 comments and so the 1000th person will be getting an awesome prize. Also, we’re having another girlie party, possibly on Oct 17ish), and then she cut my hair. Hurray!

After that, she told me many things about her vacuum cleaner, such as how it has a motor in the head as well, that it can stand up by itself without needing to lean on anything, and that she can push it with just one finger. I was entralled. I know I am supposed to say that Beatles Rockband was much more awesome, but really, who doesn’t like a good suck?

Beatles Rockband was fantastic though. I like that there can be harmonising. I also loved singing ‘Here comes the sun’ because of the aforementioned happiness, and how it feels like the ice is finally melting and all. They bought me fish’n chips and I had a very long conversation with Amy about my uncomfortableness with any lack of financial independence, but she said that I give back with generousity. And I did a panda dance for her.

Then! I went out to Newlands to pick up Lisa and also got Shirley and we went to the James Cabaret to see HEAD LIKE A HOLE. Oh my, they were so very awesome after Luger Boa finally got the fuck off the stage. The crowd was all old school, and there were people stagediving, and the bass was all rumbling and my skirt was vibrating, and they played all the songs that i love, and they had a hot girl come out and play the trumpet, and oh, it was just the most giggy gig I’ve been to in a very long time. Love.

And yes, because of all the good feelings that I’ve been having lately, I’ve resolved to try and go a week without saying anything nasty about people I know. I can do this, right? After all, the things I hate the most in other people are the traits that I’m worried that I myself exhibit. And honestly, all this snarking that I do is partly because I’m trying to impress Megan and Emma since they’re both fairly new friends to me, but putting other people down doesn’t really make me happier (although it can be entertaining!) so I might make a conscious effort to stop, for a week, and see how I feel about that. Of course, this only applies to people I know. #TV3news is still very much an open target.

Lots and lots of stuff is going on right now. First and most important to you is that I will be selling my stuff at Zinefest. You should come along, say hi and buy my zines and sugar scrub. And yes, in case you’re wondering, if I slept with you prior to 2007, you will be in 101 Stories but possibly only a very small part. Heh. I said “small part”.

I am so grown up. I sorted out my magazines yesterday night, along with some other form of grown-up activity. I umm ummm okay, maybe I just shivered under a duvet on the couch. BUt you know, I ate vegetables for dinner, so that’s grown up. I wish I had a camera to post a photo of all my Qs in chronological order, their red spine numbers just above the lilac boxes that they’re in, and then there are my Bitch and Busts in pink boxes, along with the sadly finito Jane, Frankie, and Yen. Then there’s a whole shelf full of Metro and some green boxes full of assorted music magazines and “culture” things. And the Next that I was in and the New Idea with Penny’s wedding in it. You do care what magazines I read, you know, because I am sitting here trying to define myself for you. And also making a note for myself in later years to remember that now is when I have decided to put a lot more effort into being a feminist. As long as you define “effort” as “reading the magazines and making sure that I never shy away from the word”. The back cover of the 10th anniversary of Bitch made me cry at the awesomeness of a reader deciding to spend $3800 on buying it to support the magazine. And then when I spent much of the last weekend in bed reading them and Q I also got all choked up hearing Athlete’s ‘Wires’ for the first time, about the singer’s premature daughter, which tapped in to the many many baby thoughts that I have been having lately. But more about that later, perhaps.

We still haven’t found a flatmate. Quite frankly, I’m fucking loving the quiet around here when there’s so much going on in my life. It’s so good and peaceful. But I really can’t afford to keep paying $254 a week in rent, no sirree. The fact that so many people have come over and not wanted it has got me down a little, like WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? But not that down.

I went and saw my counsellor today, for the titular spring-cleaning of my head. I’d really wanted to see her a couple of weeks ago, but she was away on holiday, so I thought I’d go now before I start my new job and work miles away and all. I got the most awesome surprise though, when I told her about my new work, because it turns out that not only do they subscribe to EAP too, which means that I can get 3-5 free sessions if I need them but she’s also based at their offices every other Wednesday to do drop-in appointments. That is so fucking rad. I’m hoping I won’t actually need to see her very often, but it’s so great to know how easy it will be for me if I do. We talked about my abandonment issues, and about my sex life, and my Hard Career Decision to take up my new job instead of staying where I am, and how it’s been freaking me out to get so much praise lately, but how it’s helped me to realise that I’m actually quite good and capable. And we talked about what I need to do in order to keep my head in order (more exercise, and how excited am I about the prospect of swimming in the sea again? SO excited), and when I talked about how I feel like I’m being held hostage by my body lately, like it’s deliberately keeping my periods from me, we talked about how right now I think I will adopt children because I can’t imagine going off my meds and how I am scared shitless of postnatal depression, and she told me that there are very specific medical programmes to help people like me with that sort of issue if I change my mind at a later date. And that was nice to hear.

Tomorrow is the last day of my contract. We’re going out for dinner afterwards. I’m going to be incredibly sad to leave. I will have to treat the whole time I had there as a beautiful summer fling that was too good to last. Stupid taking care of my career and seeking out new mental challenges! Then again, my manager and I went through every single piece of paper on my desk today left over from predecessors and filed them all. My biggest filing pile was ‘R’ for ‘Recycle’. If only I could be so ruthless at home.

On Saturday after ZineFest, Miss Lisa is having her birthday party here. You should come along. The man in a bearsuit on her invitations was so good it made me embarrass myself in front of Luke Buda (yes, it was her MS Paint skills, not the wine that emboldened me). I want to write about what I got her for her birthday and what that meant I bought myself, but I will wait. Then next Saturday I’m going to Bar Camp. I don’t know what I’ll talk about yet, if anything. But seeing as how my new boss is speaking, it’s probably a good idea. And then on the 19th I’m going to another conference. I would kill for a sleep in at this stage. Sunday I plan on staying in bed all damn day. You’re all welcome to join me in my lovely black & white linen.

Right now I’m watching Watch This Space and downloading the tracks I like, which is awesome (I will buy albums if they strike me a lot). I just read a review of Fireworks Night that describes them and the Arcade Fire as “baroque-pop”. Brilliant! And yes, I’m totally going to try and use the word ‘Baroque’ in Scrabulous. But it’s time to go back to Lisa’s Outrageous Fortune DVDs and pull the duvet up, because hot damn, it’s cold. See you Saturday, yes?

Things that I have been up to lately:

Goddammit, when is someone going to actually punch me in the face and remind me that English accents aren’t actually as awesome as they make my loins feel?

So this week, my manager has been away, but luckily she gave me a very comprehensive list of things to do which has had me making many many calls. Do you know how easy a comms girl’s job would be if people actually answered their phones? Easy like woah is the answer you are looking for. But as a key feature of Comms is being patient, work has been busy in the sense of lots to do, and slow in the sense of much waiting for others. It’s that waiting that had me having lunch with Miss Kimberley today, so I could give her a copy of 101 Stories that I want to tell you, for her raffle, and now it turns out that instead of just buying some tickets, I’m also selling them. Go to her page for more details, or get in touch with me when I’;m more sober (It’s 3.24am right now).

Anyways, towards the end of the day, we were supposed to go to Concrete for a drink, but I went there with Mel last Friday and most of their cocktails were $20. Seriously? And not even a Long Island Iced Tea? No way am I paying that (although the $8 glass of rare and tasty white that I had was bloody good and also generous), so we suggested that we get a bottle of wine in instead, since our coopted lady wasn’t done (she was waiting for our minister to wake up, apparently), and so I went to Kirks’ and bought an $18 bottle of very tasty Sav. We had nice conversation and plotting for next week and stuff, then I wnet with one of Lani’s friends down to Ministry Drinks. It was Caribbean themed, which meant rasturbated pictures of Bob on the wall and cricket stumps. I sold two tickets and left to go to New World Metro for a $17.50 bottle of Shingle Peak Sav that I thought was $12.50, and a bus up to the lovely Miss Lisa’s house. She cooked me spinachy cheeesy pasta and we watched ANTM the recap episode, until we were joined by Dave, and headed down to Havana for Amber and Karl’s goodbye drinks. It turned out that I’d left not just my phone but also my wallet at Lisa’s house (I am so usually not that girl),so we cabbed back for it, and she stayed, so I went back and talked to many ex CWAers. And I was all woah.

Then I found myself on a couch talking to some British boy, so I made Karl change places with him, and he was saying he flew kites, and I was all “oh,that’s so interesting” so I bid everyone goodbye as they left and settled in to talk to the Brit. He was all blah blah blah and I was all “tehehe accent” and our knees were touching, and our thighs against each other, so I was like omg, makeout. He said he was a chef, so I was like “okay, so what would you cook for me? I’m drunk and kind of cute” (cos I know that he’d been staring at my cleavage like woah), and he started going on about crab, not in a vol e vant (sp?), but rather in a wonton wrapper, and I was like oh yes? saying that I’d never eaten crab but trying to imply that I was totally willing, but then he went to the bathroom, and I was all “okay, he’s got 10 minutes to get back here”, checking my watch, but then he was all talking to others, and he reawlly did remind me of Kateb’s ex, and there’s no way I’d do that, and I was like oh stink bro, you’re a chef, all I wanted was a hot beef injection, but I taxiied home and now I am here. Hurrah. l

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!

A rediscovered fragment that should have been in 101 Stories if I’d remembered about it, that I found tonight when I was looking for a story I wrote about The Gathering to send to Ali.

The sex I used to have made me feel like a bystander in my own life. He would move my legs around, hoist them over his shoulder, turn me on my side, or whatever he wanted, and I would lie there compliant, thinking “it’s not him”. It was only when he went to hold my hand afterwards that I felt that something was wrong. I am not in love with you, please don’t try to force intimacy on me. I am fucking you precisely because you are not him.

And it felt weird, someone different touching me in different ways, in different places. His cock was totally different, of course, and the feelings involved were different. It was easy to spell them out in this case: I am drunk, you are not him and I need to be with someone who’s not him to prove that I can be with someone who is not him. That could be the mantra of each thrust into me. I.am.not.the.man.you.are.in.love.with.I.am.not.your.whole.world.I.have.not.left.you.for.your.best friend.

So it doesn’t matter that he seems like he is a sexual deviant. It doesn’t matter that he rejoices in my hairy legs that he takes the time to rub his cock up and down. It doesn’t matter when he licks my armpits, or tries to fuck me in the morning when he’s still wearing the same condom. He is no one. He is nothing. It doesn’t matter.

I’m not sure of the words we said to each other or anything, only the look that he gave me; the single dirtiest look in the history of one night stands EVER. It wasn’t a “I want to fuck you” look; it was a “I’m going to fuck you in this position and this position and this position, and you’re going to love it, because you’re a dirty whore and you want nothing but my cock inside you” statement. And of course he was right.

If only it could have been simply that simple. He was a mystery, a boy of extreme contrasts. He was sweet and charming in conversation, but he had my clothes off the second we got in his bedroom door. He didn’t call a taxi as soon as I said I’d go home with him because he said that would be presumptuous, but straight away on his bed he told me he had a treat for me and rolled on a spearmint condom. For a nice guy who told me that he hadn’t had sex outside a relationship before, he still managed to fuck me in half a dozen positions, transitioning seamlessly between them. He played me Jeff Buckley, and then a song he wrote named after a girl with the same name as me, but also wanted to fuck me in the ass.

That’s the first time, of course. The second time is a year later, when he’s had a chance to get back together with his ex girlfriend and then break up with her again, and I’ve had a chance to realize that running out while he was sleeping because I thought I was in love with someone else and terrified of developing intimacy with him and using the excuse of not having a Connection was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. There were two beers each in a pub, conversation where we talked about our families and how bad Sex in the City was, and we really seemed to be on the same page. I was able to say that I wished I had got to know him the year before, and he smiled at me. It felt really nice, but I was still completely surprised when he said “How about I come over to your house later with a bottle of wine?”

Then when he kissed me on the street outside, my legs felt like they were going to buckle underneath me and I ended up walking down the street in a total daze. At home later, I watched videos with my flatmate in an attempt to keep calm – after I’d changed my underwear, of course. He arrived, shyly knocking on the front door, we opened the promised wine. My flatmate stealthily retreated as soon as the movie ended, and him and I were left together on the couch. So, alone, not at a party, or a bar, or a cafe or any of the places I’d seen him since we went to bed. Over the course of the conversation, my legs crept up onto the couch so that our knees were touching. Our tastes in music were dissected to find places where we were compatible. And finally, we put our glasses down on the ground and he took my hand and we kissed again, this time for much longer than the pavement encounter earlier that night.

If I had melted into him at that very moment, I wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d been on my mind in various guises for a year – first in sweet nostalgia, and then in regret for leaving, and then in “I WANT HIM AGAIN NOW” capacity.

I wasn’t talking to her. He wasn’t talking to me for that reason, and it all stemmed from the same thing – good lovers making great enemies and best friends falling out over a boy and all the usual cliches. And there they were at the bar that I was at, and I’d been drinking beer, bubbly, and more beer. As soon as I saw them I sunk shots of Green Chartreuse to hide it, but it didn’t work, I still knew they were there. And why should they get to run me out of every bar in town? Plus, I’d run out of money for liquor and I knew that they had large bank balances. I stumbled over and plonked myself down in their line of vision. I was hot and knew it, after all. My boobs were on display for the entire world to see and it felt really nice.

I’m not sure who was more surprised – her or him. I guess we’ll say Her, because I did sometimes talk to him, even if he’d been ignoring me as of late. “Oh my god,” they said, “Joanna’s talking to us”. I suggested to them that they owed me a drink or two and she scampered off. More Corona with shots beside. I told them how no one liked me anymore. I was leaning forward to talk to them, my arm resting across his knees. They knew all the names that I was mentioning; they asked me over and over if I was okay, if I was really all right. They genuinely cared about me. I leaned forward more. She moved off to talk to other people and I took her seat. All of a sudden we were kissing each other with more fierce intensity than we’d felt in three years. Hands were all over each, in places that shouldn’t be in a nightclub. If it had been possible, we might have devoured each other whole. But instead, I was across his lap, whispering filthy things in his ear, rubbing his cock through his trousers in what I thought was a covert manner, promising him pleasures beyond what we’d ever experienced together before. I don’t know where his wife has gone, but really, it doesn’t matter as I follow him into the men’s room. He has me pinned to the wall and his hands are so rough in what inside my jeans that I have to tell him he’s hurting me as my top is dropped on the floor and my bra is pulled up. Our mouths are dissolving into one another, his hands are rough on my breasts and all I can do is tell him how much I want to fuck him. Always responsible, he asks me if I have any condoms, but of course, my bag and my jacket are somewhere back out in the bar, stashed under the seat where we first started getting dirty, and so that’s a no.

He has a solution for this of course, and he shoves my head down to his crotch, telling me to suck his cock. I do this gladly, reaching into his jeans like I’ve done a million times before. I want to show him how good I am, how much better I’ve become since he left me, and why he never should have left me. I do the best I can, and it’s not long before the pre-come is dribbling into my mouth, the salty taste turning me on instead of grossing me out. The fact that we’re in this barren concrete space makes the whole experience that much hotter. This is illicit near-fucking, and my god that’s a turn-on. His hands are on my head, pushing back my hair to secure his view and to make sure I don’t move my mouth away. I can taste his tang and it’s all I want for now, all that I could ever want, but there’s a knocking at the door, and he says that it’s her – his wife.

I hope you appreciate that right now I could be soaking in a bath scented with Frozen Lemon Custard flavoured bodywash from Sephora in Times Square and reading Everything about me is fake – and I’m perfect by Janice Dickinson and intead I am here updating my journal. Okay, partly I’m still here because I’m intrigued by the Watch This Space alt rock show on C4, but a good part of it is loyalty to my beloved readers. If you feel a similar type loyalty to me, may I encourage you to vote for me in the First Annual Wellingtonista Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence. Even if you don’t want to cast a vote for me (what, not even as the answer for “The best thing I’ve had in my mouth all year is…” ?), you should still go along and cast your vote for something. And then I will tell you where the award ceremony will be, and you can come along, and laugh at me falling over in my high heels.

And now that I have done my pimping, and now that Bjork has been reunited with her besuited (is that bespoke) cat lover on the television and I’m about to explode with cuteness, I can get on with telling you about what I have been up to lately. except uh oh, am I crying? Stupid awesome dancing with cat video. And speaking of cats, here’s some Power. This show rocks.

There was much much Cat Power on Lisa’s car stereo yesterday when we went out to Petone to look at the pier. Turns out it can’t really stand up to its peers (ha HA), but excursions are always nice. Especially if you’re the type of person who has been at home far too much lately watching two seasons’ worth of Arrested Development and trying to figure out if you are more in love with Gob or George-Michael. I am that type of person. Smoo, meanwhile, appears to be gay for Tobias. But I can respect that and not judge him. Much.

I joined a new gym, and learnt how to do their circuit. It’s all about 40 second bursts. The place is a labyrinth, the lockers are tiny and the staff are terrifying in their enthusiasm, but they have a massage bed, box fit classes and it’s two blocks from my work, so that’s a big hurrah. And holy fucking crap it feels so damn fucking good to be exercising again. So good that I must use a multitude of bad words, obviously.

I didn’t go today though because I didn’t want to have to lug my gym bag up to Craftwerk, so I suppose it’s just as well that we had a fire alarm and I had to run down fourteen stories in order not to die in the theoretical burning flames (as opposed to non-burning ones?). I was worried that it’d be crap cos the people I was supposed to go with canceled at the very last minute, but I found a couple of my fellow Wellingtonistas there – Hadyn who was there with his awesome John Campbell shirts, and Martha was of course pimping out her tshirts that are too Babylicious for you babe (Also: Lisa has some disturbing but AWESOME music in her car. Hence the Destiny references). I bought some artwork and some tiki earrings and then settled down to drink wine with Martha and whine. Then I dropped my artwork off at Karen’s house because I didn’t want to carry it any further and came home.

A couple of days ago I went into hotmail to retreive an ex cow’s email address because I don’t have MSN at work, and I found out that because I hadn’t been into hotmail in a while they reset my account. This means that if I hadn’t copied it out into 101 Stories I would have lost the very first love letter I ever wrote anyone, Tori Amos and Barbara Kruger quotes and all. It also means that I lost the whole folder of yours and my email corrospondence from back in the day, which made me seek out the printed version to make sure it actually existed because I am still waiting for a reply to an email from April. Which I’ll get in 2009. Maybe. But I reread the letters, and I started wondering if I’d made you up, would I have included as many apostrophe catastrophes on purpose, to make you more flawed and therefore more believeable, or would I have just been too anal to allow that? I know that if I’d made you up I’d never have chosen Posh Spice as your favourite spice girl. That’s just indecent now, although I suppose she wasn’t Skeletor then. But I didn’t make it up. I suppose it’s beside the point anyways, as now Watch This Space has finished, and I can go and have my bath now. Janice is waiting for me after all. But before I go, did Chris Cornell really have to do a James Bond theme?

At the Phoenix Foundation gig on Friday night, after I’d yawned my way through Cassette and found myself waiting for Magni to come on stage (yes, I’m obsessed), there were a lot of people talking. So much so, during the quiet under the ocean song, that I actually turned around to the British wanker behind me who was droning on about what a good song it was and how Kiwi it sounded and said “you know what makes this song even more awesome? Not TALKING THROUGH IT”. They gave me evil looks, but then straight after that Scott dedicated ‘Nest Egg’ to everyone who didn’t talk through it. Shout outs! Radsville. The gig made my feet hurt for a long time though and I was disgusted with myself because I found myself racially profiling taxi drivers on my way home since I didn’t know which company the skeezy guy last week worked for and I wanted to make sure I avoided him.

I felt not unlike this on Saturday. Almost everyone had a reason – although many of those reasons were “I’m too hungover/tired” but the fact that not a single person from the tripleK came to our party made me more than a little unhappy. Yes, I have too many parties, and timing was off, and they’re not responsible for my insecurities, and I’m just being a dick, but ouch. Still, mad props must go to those who did actually make it, and I had a thoroughly amusing time, most of which seemed to be spent talking about circumcision. And distributing 105 vodka jelly shots. And the house didn’t get trashed, and I didn’t punch Bart in the face again (in my defense, he apparently asked me to, and I said that I didn’t hit boys with glasses so he took them off – you can’t get more asking for it than that, except of course if you have the misfortune to be a woman), so that’s got to be good, right?

I have yet to find a job, but I have found a bach for the tripleK for New Year’s, and I have found a flatmate, so that’s 2/3 and we know how Meatloaf feels about that. And he was in the greatest movie ever made, which we may watch when we do the UK for Country Club, assuming I still keep doing Country Club, which I’m sure I will as soon as I do some cardio and shake off this funk, and so therefore it must be okay.

I am looking forward to the summer, especially the four nights that will be spent in the Orongorongos. It’s also only FIVE WEEKS til I go to the States. I think I’m going to buy a new mp3 player before I go, just a 1gb $99 one that I can give to Karen for Xmas afterwards maybe, or keep because it’s got a dictaphone built in. Assuming I’ll actually get my laptop back before I go, of course. Bah. Both the dictaphone and the laptop are essential for my New Master Plan. There’s a part of me that thinks that knowing your opinion on 101 is also important (and maybe I’ll find out in 2009), but that’s probably also the part that listens to Lukas singing “you make my head spoon” and enjoys it – ie the twelve year old inside of me. And yes, maybe I should let her free, but if it’s good enough for the Czechs then it’s good enough for me. Or was it the Austrians? I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.

EDIT: Maree had a baby! A girl named Isla. Awwwwwwwww!p

There’s a $351 amount on my credit card right now from spending ten minutes on the phone this morning and a half hour researching on Monday. Why do I tell you this? Well because a 50 litre keg of Mac’s Gold will be delivered to my house on Saturday, and I need you to come and help me drink it. And pay for it. I’m a little scared that no one is going to come to this Country Club, because after all, everyone hates America. I don’t know why though, I mean, America is like, awesome. So you should come on Saturday, because there will be fraternities and sororities (you should totally pledge to Gamma Gamma Gamma), and American food, and illegal hazing, and vodka shots, and beer beer beer. And maybe Showgirls and/or The Breakfast Club. It starts at 8pm. Like, awesome!

This week I am all about being aware of my body. Partly this is because I’m about to get my first period since like, April, and I’m crampy as fuck, especially in the o moment, and my boobs are insanely sore. Stupid fucking cold weather. In better in touch with my body news, I can feel my stomach muscles! Apparently there’s muscles in there. Who knew? I mean, obviously you can’t see them, and it’s not like the blubber’s going to stop jiggling any time soon, but I can feel something working when I do my sit-ups or leg lifts or remember to lean back when I’m doing lat pull-downs. I’m astonished. It’s a good feeling. And now I will shut up about this crap after I remind myself that I’m starting boxing tomorrow and I really need to get a fucking sports bra like six months ago. Stupid small boob-to-back ratio.

Things that I have done recently included having martinis with some of the fine people from the Wellingtonista. It was terribly civilised, proper and grown up. I also traded 101 Stories with Martha for something from Babylicious which is Aotearoa-made baby clothes. It was all very civilised and grown-up, which was lovely, but when I snuck out to join my cows and ex cows at the Poon I was like “Phew, now I can say ‘vagina’ again lots”, and two ladies sitting on the balcony gave me dirty looks as they left. Hah! We then tried to have dinner at Sweet Mother’s Kitchen but it was fuuuuuuuuuull so we ended up at Boulot, you know, just for a change, prompting much discussion about how weird it was to be there before midnight. The pizza was as always still good though, but there was something weird going on with me because I stopped drinking around 10pm and was almost falling out of my chair with tiredness by midnight. Very very unlike me. As a postscript, I had lunch at Sweet Mother’s yesterday and they have fish tacos. Heh heh heh. I had beef ones though that were rather tasty, and I think the place has a lot of potential.

Saturday meant a cocktail party for my workmate’s Hens’ Party, thankfully sans stripper. It was held at the house of one of my company directors, who happens to my workmate’s mother, and everyone had to bring a bottle that was assigned to them. I stepped up to the blender and made many fantastic concoctions, including my first ever mojitos, not in the blender. Maybe I should become a bartender when I grow up. Or perhaps a mixologist.

Before I went to the cocktail party, I spent a very enjoyable day sorting through my newer CDs to decide which ones I wanted to keep (not many of them), then eating a leisurely breakfast with the paper at Coco, and then browsing Real Groovy for hours as they figured out my trades. For $2.75 out of pocket I bought Funeral new on CD for Karen (to go with Birds as her birthday present, although after I bought Birds I realised I had to keep it for myself because it had a DVD and Karen doesn’t have a TV, but luckily I was furnished with another copy, thanks doll), and then on vinyl I bought Interpol’s Turn on the Bright Lights new, and Beth Orton’s Central Reservation which is curiously spread across two records, but is nice to listen to while doing the semi daily yoga-ish stretches and it doesn’t remind me of 2000 anymore which is super good, and The Dark Side of the Moon and one of the Tour of Duty soundtracks. I <3 the trade-in, although that was like 16 CDs worth. I guess you get what you pay for. Or what you don't, in this case.

On Sunday we went to Capitol for Karen's birthday dinner. The girl serving us wasn't as fantastic as the usual staff, but the food was still all very good and I was well happy with the Jim Barry shiraz that we had after a pretty bland Mt Nelson sav. It turned out that the witloof in the chorizo, almond and witloof salad was really really bitter. I didn't see that one coming! Because apparently I am an idiot.

Last night we had flat dinner, although the idea of sitting around the dining room table was nixed in favour of sitting around the lounge table on account of that being where the heater was at. I thought the weather had got all nice and mild, but man I was wrong wrong wrong. Then the boys went and got out Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and it was just as good second time around. Movies that have their characters arguing with each other about adverbs while trying to solve crime and accidently killing people make me hot.

Today at work I am doing more phone support for this website that I now work on quite a lot, which in a “the internet is too small” twist, this young lady does as well, except from the other end. I’m also writing lists of things that I need to do but can’t really be bothered doing, and I’m trying to stay away from TWOP forums so that I don’t get any spoilers on tonight’s episode of Rockstar: Supernova. You can tell that it’s okay to be into Rockstar because Russell Brown said so. Sort of. And on that note, it’s time for me to go and get back to work. Awesome. But I will see you on Saturday, right? RIGHT?