Hubris.co.nz

Last week I was totally and utterly exhausted, so I planned to use the Quiz Night bar tab as my source of free drinks, but then I left the tab at home. Luckily Karen stepped up to the plate and told me about the book launch for Looking flash: CLOTHING IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND
edited by Bronwyn Labrum, Fiona McKergow, & Stephanie Gibson at Massey on Thursday. That fit in well with my later movie date, so I grabbed the lovely Annabel and we trekked up the quadrillion stairs to what used to be the museum, which is now Massey.

There was an intimitading-looking bouncer man posted by the revolving door who asked us what we were there for, but when we said “the book launch” he smiled and pointed us in. I guess he was just there to keep away people who were only there for the booze…

We arrived in the foyer and I was surprised by how tiny it was. I mean sure, it was jampacked with 50 people or so, but I was expecting it to be HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. Perhaps my sense of spacial perception has changed a little bit since I was 10. Or perhaps going to the Metropolitan Museum in New York has ruined me for all other museums (which is probably true, because that place was sofa king amazing). We found spots on the coat rack, and managed to make our way to the bar for Totora Hills wine (I felt like white, but there was only chard, so I had red instead) before Dr Bronwyn Dalley, The Chief Historian for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage started speaking about all her fashion crimes. It was a really nice speech actually, funny and full of vivid imagery. Then one of the authors spoke, and we were encouraged to have a good time. I had another glass of wine and thumbed through the book which was pretty intellectual-academic looking. Plenty of people were buying it, which is good. We spotted a table with some food plates on it, but they were empty except for a handful of tiny tartlets. Sigh. So it was out of there and off to SMK for us. Buy the book, it sounds very interesting and the people involved in it are nice.

Oooh look at me, I’ve finally got my journal kind of current. Except for filling in my RAGE about Dana being eliminated instead of Jill. Or Zayra, naturally. But let’s not talk about that (or the boards that I have been reading, or the tears that have sprung to my eyes today watching clips of Marty and Jordis…). Let’s talk about me instead!

Firstly, what I left out of my Auckland recap was that while I was at Annabel’s, she pulled out her copy of Boys Boys Boys Boys Boys as I emailed her a copy of 101 Stories, and it was soooooo weird reading it again. Did I really write that? Did I really live that way? Strange. No wonder people have mentioned what a progression 101 is. But I would still really love someone to send me back a copy of Boys because I haven’t got one. Please? Someone? I know they’re mostly pretty bad photocopies anyway, but maybe someone has one of the A4 versions that they could send me? Thanking you in advance.

Other things that are good in my life right now is meeting up with the rest of the Wellingtonista crew tonight for martinis (except for me because I am under 30), and then a cocktail party tomorrow night for Cinta’s hens’ night. Then on Sunday dinner for Karen’s birthday. On a much healthier for me note, I signed up to do personal training boxing sessions today. I’ll get to hit stuff! Yay! I think that will be fucking awesome stress release, and also I’m trying to mix up my exercising, because I don’t want to get bored and I really need to step things up for the sake of my wrist and also not dying on the flight to America.

I am so looking forward to America, like woah. The time is creeping closer and closer. In fact, America at the Country Club is next Saturday August 12. We’re having a kegger Frat/Sorority party with John Hughes and Showgirls. And a pillow fight. And junk food. And initiation ceremonies and hazing. You should come along. In real America news, I rang Kate at some ungodly hour last Friday night when I got home. I was aiming for her birthday but kind of missed, and also I was drunk and lonely, and I miss her! All the same, I’m really not looking forward to the phonebill.

This afternoon I am sniggering at the Peaches CD I’m listening to and trying to postpone doing more phone calls, but since there are a hundred people on my list (almost literally – once I finish assembling my list there will be anyway), I suppose I shouldn’t put that off for much longer. Work is interesting right now in terms of RFPs, and black holes, and also new projects that I am working on, and the fact that I went on some weird trip on Tuesday and cleared out about four things I’d been sitting on for months. Go me. And now I must go and pee. It’s important that I tell you this, honest.

Finally, just some links to things I’ve been up to lately – TV Squee / Rockstar Obsession / Pirate and Auckland photos. That’s about all. OH! And I have an RSS feed that works now, which I would add in to the bottom of the page, except that without a laptop I can’t FTP in, but you can find it at http://hubris.co.nz/rss apparently, according t the wise Heather. That’s it now. Ask me some questions about what you would like me to tell you about.

Friday June 7th

Morning is a mad dash to the supermarket with Bopha to get there and back in time for me to get changed and go to work,and I end up being ten minutes late, but it’s not like they’re really keeping time anyways, or so it seems. There’s a lamington waiting on my desk when I get there, sprinkled with baby m&ms and with a chopstick stuck in it, and as soon as I walk in, Skew and Terri are like “Happy birthday” and I’m like “thanks, who’s birthday is it?” and they’re like “yours” and I’m like “no” but it was really sweet anywyas, and apparently we’re gonna have a drinkathon on my birthday. That kicks ass! I can’t imagine any other workplace doing that. Oh yeah, at Foodstuffs, they laid on morning tea – biscuits and buttered muffins when they all knew I was vegan. Choice. But anyways, work is fun, and at three pm, Terri and I go for a 10 minute walk to the graphic designer’s office (the people I work for have buildings ALL OVER town – we 0wn Auckland) and that was fun too. She’s choice, I like her, and I will miss her when she is gone. Also she said today to someone else that I’m being groomed for her role, so that could be interesting.

Afternoon/evening is meant to be going down to Deschlers to meet up with the lovely Annabel but Bopa made me smoke a spliff with her so I couldn’t actually leave the house, so instead Annabel and later Arch came here. They were cool, and I invited them to my birthday party and she was like “oooh maybe the HJT could play” and I was like !!!! and then I giggled lots cos I have silly rock star crushes. Fuck, was I supposed to be writing present tense? I think it’s like, 5am or something, so fuck you and your grammar rules. Anyways, so there’s martinis martinis martinis and Bopha’s friends are over and they’re loud and shit so I go to my room, and KateM comes over and we drink and gossip and giggle, as girls do, for ages and ages and ages. Eventually we go down to Deschlers where we find Andy all by himself so we chat to him for quillions of years before Nigel & Jarrod show up. Razza is behind the bar, so that’s flashback to auldskool days, and the thousands of hours and cocktails and thighgropings consumed at Deschlers. Eventually we manage to grab ourselves a booth, and KateM holds me down and covers my mouth so I can’t scream when they get Andy to start smoking. And then there’s text messages and cellphone calls, and suddenly, I have Other Things To Do, with lots and lots of capital letters and a fair amount of injokeness, and I’m trekking up to K’Road by myself and by golly it’s cold. But it’s okay, because it’s wonderful and lovely, and yeah, but now I’m home again, cos you know what I’m like. But cool.

I guess any day that starts with a woman in rubber gloves painfully inserting things into you can only get better.

So yesterday, after I got home from the doctor’s (I only got a “down below” check as she put it, rather than blood taken for Hep C and HIV, not because I have a fear of needles – in fact, I freakishly kinda like watching my blood being taken – but just because) I went and took a nap, and I actually fell into a really really deep sleep. I put this down to the fact that I’ve been getting an average of 5 hours a night lately, which is not enough to sustain me. I know that it was a deep sleep because i had very very vivid dreams, that started with me inviting Dr. White home for a cup of tea because I thought she was lonely. I won’t go into all the details, but it ended up that there was a rave at my house, and then in the dream I woke up and thought it was all a dream and it went on and on and on. Yeah.

When I woke up for real though, I had such a sore throat, so I complained mightily about it to Clayt when he got home – “Claaaaaaaaay, my throat is sore! Claaaaaaay, my vagina is sooooooore! I’m supposed to go out tonight but I won’t be able to do ANYTHING like this waaaaah”. He sympathized with me as much as possible. Poor Clay; I’m sure he has daydreams about having a flatmate with a lower level of self disclosure. But anyways. Shirley came over from her last day of work, all bubbly and happy, bringing with her Lemsip for my throat and red wine to heal my other aching body bits, and KateH came over as well and we listened to excellent music and chatted. Eventually we rang the King’s Arms to see what order the bands were playing and they laughed at me for telling the bar man that he was a wonderful person when he went and asked for me.

We got in a taxi and went there and met up with KateH’s flatmate Karin (okay, maybe her name is spelt Karen – i’m not sure, but if I call her Karen then you might get confused with my sister, so I’m damn well gonna call her Karin and if you have a problem with that, well that’s just too damn bad). We sat in the garden while Handsome Geoffry were playing, because of course we were really there to see The Heavy Jones Trio. Mmmmmmmmm I’ve got such a rockstar crush. Kelly’s just so completely adorable and he was doing a little sideways kick thing instead of the knee jiggle, and it was just so endearing, like a little puppy. Oh that voice and that soul! I don’t think I have any interest in meeting him because that just wouldn’t be the same. Plus, as I said to Annabel, I’m far cooler on screen than in real life (and this is where my detractors say “but you’re not at all cool onscreen” and where i say back “then why are you reading me?”). Golden Horse afterwards were good too, but by that stage I was too busy laughing at the very camp guy hitting on Shirley.

After the Kings Arms, we taxied to Lovely Paul’s house, where there was supposed to be a party, but we just found them all watching David Blane Magician videos being completly in awe. Justin rang my cellie then, and told me he was at a party around the corner from my house, where I’d been to a party before after my 21st adn they’d told me they were Norwegian porn stars, so Shirley and I got yet another taxi and went over there. The party was actually one house up from the Norwegian Porn Star House, which just meant that I’ve got around more of my street, which is excellent. It took ages to find out who actually lived there, but that was alright, cos when I did meet him, he was very nice and also very cute, and he’s gonna come to our next party. Brilliant. Also in attendence at the party were KateM, and Jason (oh look, adreniline rush!) and JeremE <!– oh my god he has a billion dollar smile when he saw me –>which was cool, so I met lots of new people who were all very nice, even if there was one guy who was off on some tangent about something to do with chickens that I couldn’t follow. For a while I felt a little 15 again, off giggling in a corner with Shirley and KateM cos they hadn’t seen each other in ages. But then I smoked a lot of pot, and it was cool. Shirley left around 1amish, since we were right around the corner from my house so I gave her the key and she went and slept in Clay’s room. I stayed til some time after 4, cos it was all peaceful and mellow, sitting around laughing and listening to PJ Harvey for ages and ages. So that was cool.

I had an excellent excellent sleep which makes me think that i really should smoke pot more often perhaps, and then Shirley woke me some time around 7am to say goodbye. I went back to sleep until KateM rang me for a gossip and catch up. She told me that she’d spent hours that night talking to the boy I fancy, alternating between praising me to the high heavans and warning him not to treat me badly and saying it was all or nothing. Awww, how sweet of her! She apologised cos she said maybe she’d been a little over the top. I know a huge part of it was residual frustration from a couple’o years ago when everyone wanted to yell at a particular person but I asked them all not to cos the repercussions just wouldn’t have been worth it. And so far today all that I’ve done was start to watch “Enemy at the Gates” but it seemed too gruelling, even for Jude Law and what is apparently one of the best onscreen sex scenes. So I’ll go watch “The End of the Affair” now and see if I can find someone to go out to dinner with.