Hubris.co.nz

I’m in Auckland right now, staying at Heather’s house, but at this very moment she’s at her boyfriend’s, and her flatmate (a derby ref) is at his girlfriend’s, so I have the place to myself, and I can pretend that I live in Auckland.

So let’s pretend that this place is mine, and I live in Auckland again. How would my life be different? At the last time I knew how much rent Heather was paying, her two bedroom is about the same as my two bedroom. It was around $9 for us in a taxi van to get home tonight from Queen Street, comparable to $8 from town to my house – except I live a 15 minute walk from town uphill, this would be at least half an hour. Taxis in Auckland are cheaper.

Auckland had changed a lot in the seven years since I left it. Seven years! I only lived here for six, but man, I feel like I can remember every second of those years, whereas nowadays I can’t even remember the name of the guy who ate me out in the men’s room of Mighty Mighty last Friday (True story. I know he was a web guy though, because my friend who always sleeps with a certain profession and I made a pact that we’d both stop doing the kind of guys we each normally did, and then that happened, and I said to her “did you sleep with another *?” and yes, she had. Oh god, the rut of it all!). I’m aware that I am deviating slightly from the narrative structure here, but I’m also aware that I haven’t updated since March, so I thought you would want to know that I have been mostly  a lesbian since then, with the exception of a guy who was also there when I slept with a very nice young lady, and a fellow of a sexual orientation that apparently doesn’t normally align with mine, and also said oral sex in the Mighty bathroom, which was inappropriate, and I apologise to any gentlemen who were inconvenienced in their urination that night.

But seriously. I pass through light industrial areas on the bus today, and there are Indian restaurants there, and I’m like “woah, that’s the chain that opened up in Ellerslie while we were living there, and I’d drive there in my Honda, and then they started doing delivering, and him and her got that while I was throwing up non stop because they were in my house destroying me, and had the gall to offer me their leftovers”. Oh yeah, there was clearly a reason why I needed to leave Auckland.

Still, today was lovely, waking up in Heather’s bed (oooh laa laa, except she was in her flatmate’s bed, ohh laa laa extra, except he was (I imagine) in his girlfriend’s bed) and the sun was shining, and I was tangled up in the bed sheet, because I so did not need a duvet last night. And then there was brunch, getting incredibly angry that 2/3 of the front page of the Herald was taken up by an article about how some rich fucker bought a car worth $2.8million. In NZ. Yes, super douche move, but did it deserve anything more than a one inch snark in Metro? I don’t think so. But there was  a bus trip into town, then lunch with Hamy Amy, and then a mall crawl (nice to see that fatties are ghettoised at the back of every store that deigns to carry them in every city in NZ), then oh my god AMAZING Community, then a lovely dinner at Canton with beloved Auckland friends, and I got to hold Willow a couple of time and she charmed everyone, and I’m still a bit like “but what the fuck? Annette is like, 15 and gothy and angsty and how the fuck does she have a 14 month old baby?” (Yes, I know that SOME 15 year olds could do that quite easily. But clearly you weren’t down with the online journallers in 1998).

Tomorrow I’m going out to West Auckland to hang with Selina, then having drinks with a lot of bearded men who I know off the internet. If you are in Auckland, we should hang out before I go home on Monday night. If you’re thinking of breaking into my house in Welly while I’m gone, well my iPhone and my laptop are both up here, and oh yeah, Kelly’s there, looking after Sebby and also comedy.

And I think that returns me to what I wanted to talk about a little, how terrifying it was to go to The Classic where I used to go like, weekly when Brad did stand-up, and how as I’ve said before in 101 Stories I want to tell you I used to double date with Thomas and his friend who had a spooky-eyed girlfriend who was no good at chit chat. The Classic no longer has $6 flavoured vodka shots ($4 at 10pm!) or indeed flavoured vodkas at all, but apart from that, pretty much the same. Ben Hurley was even making jokes about “what if prostitution was legalised?” like it was 2002 or something.

I’m lacking a proper segue, so instead I’ve been making Heather drive me places, but also this week, I heard that there was a solution to an issue that’s been ongoing for me. And you’d think that would make me happy, but because I’m ridiculous, I’m all “but I didn’t solve this, I didn’t find a solution in myself, I have yet to overcome it totally, it’s just being removed”. This is coded language, but I know what I’m talking about. Oh also, if I did tell you about this, asking what I was wearing/drinking and then changing the subject? Not really solidifying your place on my Xmas card list.

Deleted. Grow up Joanna. Stop trying to be Emily Post whilst drunk.

I feel like I’m lecturing now, so I will shut up, but I will try to update something soon. Woo!

In honour of everyone at my work now knowing about my journal (dammit, although given that I’m number one on Google I always sort of expected this), here’s what I told the journalist via email.

Hi Danielle,

Please find below answers to your questions – I’m sure I will talk at
length, but if I haven’t explained myself very well at any stage,
please let me know.

There may be a lot of questions but please note, that most are just to help me set you up in my mind and provide background. I would also need to know your full name, age, occupation and where you live. That’s to provide background to the reader, and helps to introduce you into the article.

My full name is Joanna Tiare McLeod, and online I am known as Jo,
Joanna and Jo Hubris (there was another girl for a long time who moved
in the same circles called Joanna, and so we were differentiated from
each other by our domain names – she was Jo Starla. She doesn’t exist
any more though). I am 26 years old, I work doing communications for a
government agency (I work for * which is part of the ministry of
*, but I’d rather not specify if that’s okay – it keeps
things a little simpler with our incredibly long Code of Conduct), and
I’ve had an online journal for the past eight and a bit years.

SO what I want to ask is first, WHY the online journal?

An online journal to me is the virtual equivalent of a piece of paper and a pen – it’s about writing about yourself and being inward-looking. Blogs meanwhile are more outward-looking – too often they come across like “here’s a link and it’s funny” and that’s about the extent of their content. I’m not interested in doing that. I write because I would like to think that I am pretty good at stringing words together, and because I like to tell stories. A blog is usually about one particular subject, like politics or food or architecture (or at
least the good ones are), wheras online journals are a record of one person’s existence.

When I started my website in 1997, the word ‘blog’ didn’t exist. Back then as well as walking five miles to school barefoot in the snow, most web pages were done either in special programmes or hand-coded in HTML, and then uploaded onto the internet. There was none of this fill in a box and click tomfoolery that there is now, so people who had webpages had to be more dedicated and in to what they were doing than people who use things like blogger and myspace these days. I think in a way that meant content was a lot better. As a whole, people put more thought into it, and because it was so much more effort to get things
online, people were more likely to stick with it. This will sound incredibly stuck up, and please be aware that I am mocking myself here, but when blogging came along, and the media jumped all over it, it was kind of like I’d been doing all these great complex oil paintings and then all of a sudden people were like “woah, check out these awesome paint-by-numbers kits that people are doing!”.

I know a couple of people from New Zealand like Robyn from secret-passage.com and Annette (who’s now at nutandbee.com) and we were all doing the online journal and heavy content thing back in 1998 when there was like no one else in NZ doing it, and so we like to call ourselves the tangata whenua of the interweb. I can’t help but feel like I should get special recognition for doing it for so long. Man I got shitty when Bizgirl won a netguide award when SHE’S NOT EVEN REAL. Well, not that shitty, because James Guthrie is a friend of mine, but still…

What do you get out of it?

There used to be a lot of people who would write disclaimers on their pages things like “I keep this journal for me, and me only so if you don’t like it you can go away”, but that always struck me as being kind of silly, because if you didn’t want someone to read what you were writing, why would you put it out in the public forum? For me, I love having the audience. I think it pushes me to try to write better, to try and include more interesting stories and therefore even a little bit to try and live a more interesting life so that I have more
interesting things to write about. Knowing that I have an expecting
public (haha, oh, that sounds so wanky) gives me good motivation to
make sure that I continue to update my site, rather than just let it
slide like so many other projects I start without finishing. Hubris
serves as a useful place to let out my feelings when I am angry about
things, a platform for my opinions when I want other people to hear me
and also a place to build a sense of community in a way, so that if
there are ever people who find themselves going through things that I
have been through who come across the site might not feel so alone.
Which sounds very altruistic, but there’s something very cathartic
about writing about crappy stuff, even if it’s just in semi-coded
vague references.

It also means I can keep a record of more mundane things like books
I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, places I’ve eaten and when I get my periods. Looking back over journal entries is an awesome way to track moods and mental health, and also to see how far I’ve come in many ways.

Do you look at it as a place to express your thoughts, political views, worldwide views, talk about your life, your day or to vent?

All of the above. Hubris is full of pretty vapid empty crap sometimes,
like a big pile of whatever my catchphrase of the day is (“The Gilmore Girls are so hot right now”), and fairly mundane descriptions
of my day, while my locked down footnotes are where I vent. I have
political views that I think come through in my writing – I don’t
think anyone could read more than one entry and think that I was
right-wing, but I really don’t want to be seen a “political blogger”
because I’m just not that interested in the details. You’re much more
likely to find fairly broad statements about living as a decent human
being from me, or stuff like “so Don Brash has had sex with at least
three women? Really? Ewww”.

And I will bitch and moan about the state of the media or the state of
the world, but usually only about things related to me.

What made you start?

When I used to write a paper journal, I used to get a little frustrated thinking that I’d be the only person who ever read it. I wrote sometimes with an audience in mind, and would occasionally read (fairly censored) parts of it out loud to my friends.

I first came across online journals in 1998, when I was really into
Tori Amos, so I used to go to a lot of her fan sites, which were
mostly run by angsty American teenage girls who used to keep online
journals that were written in tiny little 8 point verdana font, and I
just really related to what they were doing. They had an outpost for
their thoughts and rantings, and an audience, and through their
guestbooks, they built a sense of community. I didn’t think I was as
angsty, or as obsessed with Tori Amos, and I didn’t like their sort of
competitive nature – it seemed like in order to be cool you had to be
on six different kinds of medication, cut yourself and have a
borderline eating disorder or a history of sexual abuse, but I could
relate to many of the things that others would write about – a sense
of alienation from your peers, and a yearning to be a writer, or just
to stand out, and so I started keeping an online journal too.

What made you carry on?

I enjoy doing it, and I love being able to look back on things. I’m
gutted that there are chunks of my life that are not as well
documented (like having the ihug hacker delete July-Nov ’98) or when I
was just too depressed to be able to write at all, but I am grateful
that there is this record, because basically all I really want to do
with my life is become famous enough that I can get an autobiography
published. Hehe. There’s a reason I had to use Hubris as a name…

But on a slightly less hubristic note, I’m full of regret that I never
got to hear enough stories about my grandparents’ lives. They left
behind some stories written down, but they’re handwritten, and on my
mother’s side they’re in Dutch, so I can’t really read them. I want to
make sure that there is some record of my life for my grandkids that
they can easily access, if they want it. I really admire what Heather
from dooce.com is doing for her daughter in that way, although I find
it kind of weird that I know more about what it’s like for this
complete stranger I’ve never even emailed to be raising a daughter
than my own mother’s experiences. That’s something I should work on.

Now that you are into it, do you think you will still be doing it a year from now? Two years?

Having been doing it nonstop for the past eight years, I have no doubt
that I’ll always be keeping an online journal of some sort.

Did you write a diary as a child/teenager/adult?

Yep. It was all descriptions of “she said ‘blah blah blah’ at school,
and pinings for the first boy I pashed. Hubris is pretty much no
different.

Is is something you gave a lot of thought to before starting or a spur of the moment thing?

I had wanted to start keeping an online journal for a while, but I
didn’t really give much thought to what I actually wanted to write in
it until I got going. Content has therefore evolved over time.

What do you write about?

I write about my day, parties I’ve had, injokes that are hilarious to
me and maybe two other readers, tasty food I’ve written, hatred of
people who talk at gigs, reviews of stuff, and I also post writing
that I’ve done for publication elsewhere.

Do you know who reads it? Do you have some sort of mechanism to find out who reads it?

I’m lucky with Hubris in that it’s a customised system my friend built
for me, so I can track everyone’s IP address, and also people can have
their own logins to the page which means every time they visit and
they’re logged in, it keeps a record. People can get themselves to
Level One, which is what some entries are locked to, but I have to
chose to bump them up to Level Two which is what my footnotes page is,
and any kind of rant about things that make me unhappy which shouldn’t
be talked about in public (like work issues), or things that I am
currently squeeing over – like crushes on people. I can actually put
in more levels too, so I can choose what information what people see.
Mostly level two membership just goes to people who I know really well
(online or in real life) or people who actively contribute to the
Hubris community – and by that I mean leave me comments, because of
course as an attention seeker, it’s all about the feedback.

Do you care? How careful about personal info on it are you? Do you include details about other people in your life?

Hubris is the number one result on google for a search on Joanna
Mcleod, so I write on the basis that anything I write can be read by
anyone – although as I mentioned above, I do have some security
measures but I’m aware if someone was dedicated enough they could hack
me. In the olden days before google, I used to use people’s full names
when I wrote mean things about them, and use my friends’ full names
and so forth, but I am much more aware of self-googling now so I don’t
do that so much. My restraint also includes never mentioning who I
work for (I don’t want to get dooced!) and trying not to give away too
much information about other people’s crap. One of my friends last
year made me remove every occurence of her name on the site because
she found her parents searching for her and therefore didn’t want her
name associated with drinking and drugs. Many years ago the first
time I went to bed with a certain boy in the morning he was like “this
isn’t going in your journal, is it?” – well that particular incident
didn’t go in, but I’ve said some very non complimentary things about
him since then, and him being a little drama queen, he’s done the
whole “lawyers, defamation, blah blah” speil. But funnily enough the
only legal letter I’ve had in regards to my website was regarding my
improper use of the word Sellotape (r) without using the registered
trademark symbol. Laaaaame.

Have other people, complete strangers (Like me!) been in touch?

Yes, many many many. In 1999, my friend and I used to have a thing
called The Breast Club, where we made scans of our chests in our bras,
and put them online and encouraged random people to send in theirs,
and so I met lots of people through that. Another time someone wrote
to me and said that since they read my site every day and it made them
happy they really wanted to send me a 21st birthday present.

Have you made new friends from it?

More than I can count – oh I’m so popular. Heh. But no, internet
friends are easy to make – you swap “i like your site” emails – well,
in the olden days you did, nowadays you comment instead, usually, and
that can progress to instant messaging, and then maybe you meet in
real life, and it’s all hunky dory.

Sometimes I meet (online and/or in real life) people through them
coming to my site – getting links from publicaddress.net brings them
in – and sometimes I meet them through contacting them on their sites,
or on forums, and then they come to my site to find out more about me.
It’s a way of demonstrating common interests or feelings, I suppose,
like joining a book club or a sports team might be in the real world.

Do you pay particular attention to what you write should someone you do care about it read it? Like your mum?

I do find myself censoring myself more than I’d like to sometimes
knowing that my friends read the site – sometimes I’d just like to
have a bit of a vent about a particular person without having
repercussions about it, but there are ways and means to get around
that, with different levels, or secret journals that others don’t know
about that.

I asked my parents not to read my site, although my dad did but I
think he was more embarrased about it than I was. I don’t have a lot
of boundaries anyway, so I’d like to think that the person I am online
is the person I am if you talk to me in real life – I don’t have that
much to hide.

Do you expect your family/friends to read it?

I’d actually kind of rather than my family didn’t read it, because
who’s more fun to bitch about than family? No one. And I feel
differently about different friends reading my site – I mean, when
it’s people I met online to begin with, that seems perfectly natural,
but the juxtaposition of my real life friends being in my online world
can be odd (and I know that contradicts my statement of being the same
in both worlds). If I’m away, or if my friends are away, I might cut’n
paste from my journal into emails to save telling hte same story over
and over again.

And if you do, do you feel offended if they haven’t?

If they’re not regular readers of my site, I don’t feel offended if
they don’t read it, but if they’re supposed to be regular readers and
I’m talking to them and they’re like “what? when did you do that?”
I’ll be all “DIDN’T YOU READ MY JOURNAL?” mock angry. But seriously, I
know that my journal can be a higher level of self disclosure than
some people might be comfortable reading (case in point: my review of
the Dimmer gig that was just sex sex sex).

But I would like to think that everyone wants to stalk me and know
every single detail about me ever.

Do you read other online journals or blogs?

Yeah there’s about 70 that I read religiously. Thank god for
Livejournal friends lists and RSS feeds, otherwise I’d be surfing all
the time.

Do you have a favourite? WHy?

One of my current favourite sites is what I’d call a blog if I didn’t
cringe at that word so much – it’s http://wellurban.blogspot.com. Tom Beard who writes it is passionate about Wellington, and he takes the time to
read council submissions and all those things I’d never bother doing,
and provides handy summaries, and he always finds new bars, shops and
restaurants for me to try.

I also love www.dooce.com because Heather writes in an easy, funny
way, but she also writes in great detail about her struggles with her
mental health, and she’s just an inspiration, even though that’s a
cheesey-as-fuck word to use.

and I love my friends’ sites because I like catching up with their
lives. And I like it when they write about me, of course.

Do you expect your online journal to take on a particular direction in the future that you haven’t yet established or are thinking about?

I want to write more stories about things that I did in the past -
like the Lost in Translation entry I wrote recently about moving to
Japan. I want to start writing my autobiography (yes I know, I’m 26,
I’m not that interesting and I haven’t really achieved anything, again
with the hubris), and so that’s what I’m keen to do.

How many times a week do you write in?

I used to write every day, but I also used to have a huge list of
people I could only talk to online that I’d spend hours chatting to
and write at the same time. I also used to be a student who didn’t
have bung wrists, so now I only update a couple of times a week. I
wish I wrote more.

For how long?

Entries take about an hour to write – more if there are pictures and
many links, but that’s an hour of much surfing at the same time.

Would you say this takes up a lot of your time? Does reading other blogs take up a lot of your time?

Yeah it does. But that’s okay.

Before email, were you big on writing letters? Or still are?

Only when I lived overseas. Now I wish I kept the letters I used to write.

Are you personal friends bloggers/online journalist or website owners? Family members?

I’ve always had online friends who were journallers (not journalists -
that’s like, media. Although I am trained in that too), and now it’s
weird, I have a group of friends who are so not into computers but
because of goddam myspace they’ve started keeping blogs. And boy are
they ugly…

What do they think of your new hobby?

Eight years isn’t a new thing. People used to think I was weird, but I
suppose at least the one thing I can thank the word ‘blog’ for is that
it’s mainstreamed me. Hang on, do I really want to be mainstream?

And do you consider it a hobby or something else entirely?

My job is writing website content, so writing online hones my job. And
one day I’d love to write a novel – or an autobiography, so maybe it’s
research for that. I just want to have a legacy, even if it’s a “I
watched Buffy all day and then laughed at some emos and got drunk”
legacy.

Ummm, sorry about the novella-length answers, I hope this helps!

Jo

Hi kids! It’s been ages, hasn’t it? Well I’ve kinda sorted out my Hubris hassles, and we’re back, smaller than ever! I moved my cam directory to Annette’s ihug space, and 1998 and 1999 are now on woos.org, so it’s all good. I’ll put the links on ummm my 404 page possibly, so look there if you can’t find what you’re after.

So, what have I been up to this past week or so? Well since I wasn’t able to access Hubris, I wrote this and this on Swinney.org. I like places that let you in without a dress code. I’ve also worked damn hard suprisingly this week. I joined the Freemasons. But you read that on Swinney. I got my first ever four digit pay cheque, yay me. Of course, most of that will go to Entertainz and my car insurance and water bills and phone bills and my parents and paying off my bank overdraft, but still, I’m super excited.

We still haven’t found a place to stay in Taupo yet, and still I’m constantly inviting more friends to come along. I think we’re up to a group of 10 probably. We wanted to stay with Jarrod, but it seems too many people are coming up from Welly to stay with him already. Saint Pats boys!!!! Muhahahah.

I’m currently trading emails with one of the guys that I rang off Penny’s cellphone last friday whilst very drunk and making random calls. Apparently i told him we were meant to be together, based on his last name, which I remember, and I advised him never to get married, which i don’t remember. You can say a lot in voicemail, I guess. I got the photos from that night back, but I might scan them in welly, cos I can’t be assed doing it right now. I’ve done too much graphical stuff already. We’re making tapes for Friends of Garland as Xmas pressies, and I was responsible for the exceedingly stylish cover design. I’m also the one dubbing the tapes at high speed (I need a cd burner) and singing along at matching high speeds. It’s very scary, I tell you. Alvin Simon Theodore. Do do do do do do. Where’s the xentertainment article on THEM eh?

We had Garland Xmas Dinner tonight, although Jeremy’s already in Dunedin. I made fettucine with Chicken, sundried tomato, olives, walnuts and a blue brie and white wine sauce. It was yuuuuummy. For dessert we had toffee ice cream, strawberries and chocolate vodka. I haven’t had chocolate vodka in waaay too long, but as Bradley brought me back a bottle of Absolut from Australia, it was possible, bless him. I love my flatmates so so much, I almost shed a tear after dinner when we were exchanging Xmas gifts. They’re my best friends and my lifeblood. Plus they gave me a Bear Mask for xmas! And some noodle bowls. Clay and I got Brad an excellent book on Bears, and I got Clay an under $15 Wine Guide. Brad got Clay a pokemon watch.

There’s just something very very wrong about a guy giving his girlfriend flavoured condoms for Xmas – i mean why not just give her a tool kit or a bowling ball and be done with it? Really, who’s going to gain the maximum benefit out of that gift after all?

The other day – well, Wednesday to be exact, after work and a cold shower for me (long hot sweaty drive home) Brad and I went up to investigate our new Local, which used to be a restaurant called Forte, and before that a restaurant called Amadeus. It still has an odd man standing outside it, but it’s now a pub called “The Horse and Jockey” which is appropriate given its proximety to the Ellerslie Race Course. I bought him a pint. He bought me a pint. It was still too hot to bother walking home so I bullied him into a third (“what do you have to get up for tomorrow? what do you have to do with your life anyways?”) and after that the fourth one came easy. When we finally made it home (it’s my New Years Resolution to become a Regular, and recognize other patrons and make jokes with the staff in some establishment, so it may as well be that one) we watched “Young Americans” which I’d taped last week and saved to watch with Brad when he got back from Australia. It’s a Dawson’s tie-in because one of the main characters was Pacey’s friend in two episodes, but it’s by no means at the same level. I know it took me a while to get fully into Dawsons, but this show’s apparently only got eight episodes made. Ahh well.

On Sunday night I went to Helen’s house for dinner. I am at one with the shore. There was petanque and badminton on the lawn. It was very choice even though I got eaten alive by mosquitos. I talked to PR girls who were all seemingly jealous that I have a PR job now despite doing Multimedia. I like my job, even though I occasionally have too much free time on my hands and my dad doesn’t always email me back when I want him too.

I applied for another job the other day (remember I’m only on a short project contract) but I was talking to the woman at the recruitment agency after I sent in my CV, and she basically said that I was too good for the job and would end up being bored silly. Nice. But she’s putting me on the books incase anything better comes up. I was talking to Lola this morning, because there was a bad article published in one of the local papers that was related to what we are doing, and she said we might have to change course with our project. I asked if I’d still have a job then, and she pointed out that I’m contracted until the 28th of February, and they’d have to find something for me to do. Yay, I’ve loved it so far. I mean how many other girls get to go into Freemason temples? And the whole car access is choice. I admit, I kinda semi plan my meetings to fall between 10-11am cos that’s my favourite hour on the radio. But I have the freedom to do that. Edina and Lola both think I’m doing really good work, so wahoo.

But i have two weeks holiday now so hopefulyl I won’t talk about work too much. There was a semi xmas party this morning. Well, the Communications Department, which I am a part of although I physically work in another area, and am involved only in communications for that other area, had breakfast out today, but I got to work too late, and Lola was already gone by the time I got there, and although I knew where they were, I felt too dumb to go along. And then the division I’m in had drinks after 11am. Of course, because I’d missed out on breakfast, I had a couple of sips of bubbly and felt all funny, so I had to leave (despite how unfascinating the people in my workspace are!) and eat something at a nearby cafe.

I really am rambling now eh. You know, I wasn’t too distraught when I couldn’t get into Hubris. I wasn’t even that distraught when I couldn’t get into Email.com. I guess it’s all a matter of priorities. But don’t worry – there’s no way I’m giving up this web site. No indeed!

Don’t forget in/out for like, other info.

xoxo

Me (in bear mask)”roaaaaar!” Kara: “eeek!” Me:”Sorry, I didn’t mean to score you. I mean, scare you”

So, they’re recounting the votes in the US. Cool. I could make an effort to find out who’s won, but I can’t be assed, because I was at tech until 9pm today, and that’s quite a long time when you’re as sick as a sick dog. Coffee and a vege sandwich and gossiping with Jody and Jeremy perked me up a little though. Jeremy’s definately moving in, so yay. Kate B and I had a spat last night when she told me that oh maybe she’s not going to sublet, she might just move out, and that so wasn’t what I needed to hear after I’d arranged someone to sublet, and we were both very very tired and grumpy, so I stomped off to my room, but we made up before she went out to Johnno’s so that was okay.

So yes, very very tired. I was relieved to find out today from Mansfield that actually, all our paperwork and website isn’t due in today after all. Plus, apparently he’ll very happily give anyone an extension on their I.D project, and accept stuff with “Under Construction” segments. But that’s cheating. I figure if I can get an A on the planning of it all, I can damn well get an A on the actual thing. But I’m not sure if I will or not. I can dream. It’s all that makes doing an instructional program on how to use the AUT Phone System bearable. We had some career people come talk to us, and they said “You can expect a starting salary of around $30,000 in your field when you graduate” but Mansfield said after that if you go into Coporate Instruction work, you’ll start on at least $45,000. But where oh where is the soul?

I like Director. Well, I like it better than Quest anyways. I think I like it better than Flash too. My timeline is all colour coded and pretty. Arrrrgh, what’s happening to me? Helen asked me and Jody today if we’d had any Fireworks this year – my automatic response was “yeah I have it installed on my machine at home”. Of course, she was refering to Guy Fawkes. Why do program makers try and give their products such fucking bizzare names? I mean “FLASH!” – and how many people start singing “oooooh Dreamweaver, I believe…” AAARGH! Okay, sorry – you can kind of tell that lately I’ve been spending 90% of my awake time in the labs at tech, can’t you?

I meant to change my sheets and stuff tonight, and maybe even do a load of washing, but when you get home at 10pm, the inspiration’s really just not there, is it? Ooh I just made my back crack something lovely. I’m sure it wasn’t healthy, but it felt good. I’m not very healthy, and I intend to change that. My body’s so completley unable to cope with stress that it gets really really sick whenever I need it the most.

The link to my journal page is maybe likely to disappear off my front page sometime soon. This is in keeping with the fact that we’re soon going to have to make our answering machine message less offensive too as I go jobhunting. Damn conformity!

I’ve drank about three litres of water today. I’m pissing on the half hour. If someone was to give me a neck and shoulder massage, I would sell them my soul.

Think my “Night” capsuale is kicking in yet? I took two last night and still didn’t sleep. Too much running through my mind, plus I can’t breathe with a blocked nose, and I can’t sleep when I can’t breathe. My parents are coming up to Auckland next week to go to the Expo. Anji may or may not come. It’ll be nice to see them. I think I must also borrow money off them, unfortunately. I’m looking forward also to getting gloriously drunk on Wednesday night after the expo is over. And going to Hamilton on Friday to see Andee and Shihad and Fur Patrol.

Brain mush brain mush brain mush.

Oh, and just cos I was showing them to Annette, here are the last ten search engine thingies that people used to find my journal page:

• delivered baked goods
• flame test ion
• coloured gifs and jpegs and wizard
• piss jpegs,
• gifs of eart,s rot jpegs,
• gifs of eart,s rot jpegs
• hot jpegs
• fuck her very badly
• Nipple Licking

“You got nipple licking? I’m so jealous!”

Where oh where is the end of the world? Just as well I didn’t rush out to buy things on hire purchase. I wish I had more money. I am tired of being a broke student. I want to be a high flying executive!

I got very bored yesterday, so I did this. I think Annette was also bored because she sent me this:

And that scary picture inspired me to hunt around on Ebay for a while, and then ulitmately I ended up making this.

I obviously have far too much time on my hands. So far today, I have stayed in bed watching Juice and reading the paper. And that’s all. It’s 4.15pm. Oh, I did paint my nails, and apply coat after coat of really red lipstick because I could. I’m going to Jeremy’s 21st tonight, so yay me. To that end, I really must go get ahold of some alcomahol. I tried to call Mummy before, but she was out, so obviously, I am going to end up a criminal deviant as a result of parental neglect.

Sunday 14; Febuary, 1999

It’s SEQS Baby!

Come back tonight for journal entries, I guess. My wrists hurt. Too much wanking, you ask? Nah mate. Doesn’t float my boat.

PS – WHERE ARE ALL MY VALENTINES????????????????????????

><

Friday 12; Febuary, 1999
I was smart and turned my cellphone off last night (or this morning at some heinous hour to be perfectly honest, although I won’t tell you the exact hour because it shocks even me). This morning I woke up to the sound of a toilet flushing, which completely freaked me out. I mean, I should have been the only person in the house. So I opened up my door and there was Clayton in the hall – obviously home from the Coramandel. I went back to bed, after turning my cellphone back on.

I woke up again around 1pm when it beeped at me with a page from Olivia. I’d had two messages before then from Justine, but I’d slept through those. So yeah, it was good to get a wake-up call. Kate yelled at me yesterday that I need to reset my body clock for when Tech starts again. I kinda like living four hours behind the rest of the world apart from Andee and Thomas but then again, Andee’s moving back to Hamilton on Saturday so I won’t be able to talk to her on the net anymore anyways. And plus, now Clayton’s back, I can’t have music blasting out at all hours. Boy, it’s going to be weird living with someone again. I’d gotten so used to the solitaire thing. This is probably healthier – no more toast for dinner.

And speaking of not eating toast for dinner, I went to the supermarket today. I was going to take a bus up to it, but then I realised that I’d just missed on and I didn’t want to wait another twenty five minutes, so I figured I may as well walk. It’s just as well I did, because Foodtown is actually so much closer than I thought it was. So I did the shopping, trying to keep expenses down, and having no idea really what to buy because I wasn’t shopping for just me. I did buy heaps of shit for myself though, like shampoo and chocolate and red wine (life’s essentials) but that’s going to come out of my pocket, not the communal-yet-to-be-established-fund. Walking down the wine aisle, I accepted a taste-cup of some red that tasted a lot like a white, because it hadn’t been oaked. I guess it was the sun, and the fact that I hadn’t eaten all day, but I felt all light-headed and warm after that. Made the shopping better I guess.

I took a cab home, because there was no way I could haul all the groceries home otherwise. My driver was this really cool chick, and we just babbled away the whole distance home. It was $5, so that’s cool – not too much to spend for saving so much hassle. It’s nice to have food in the cupboards again. I was even inspired to do a little cleaning and tidying.

It’s weird now though, cos like I said, Clayton’s back and so I feel like I have to be tidy and polite and stuff. No big deal really, but I can’t scratch myself, or sit with my skirts hiked up now or anything. I don’t want to traumatise the lad.

There was something I wanted to say, and I can’t remember what it was anymore. I’ve seen the layout for Annette’s Valentines Day thingie, and it rocks. So yeaaaaah baby. Ahhhhhhh Valentine’s Day. So not friendly to single people. Sure, I’m smart enough to see how crappily cheesy and commercial it is, but SO?

Thursday 11; Febuary, 1999
Good Morning Annette!

I hope you weren’t woken up after only around 6 hours sleep by a mad woman pounding on your door. That’s what happened to me today. Well, it was Kate so I guess I shouldn’t say she’s mad, because I know she’ll read this and then beat me up. Hahahaha. So yeah. I let her in and went back to bed, but she didn’t want to sleep with me (that’s sleep, not anything else), she wanted me to go bed shopping with her.

I let her use my computer while I had a shower and got dressed, but I made sure that I shut down ICQ first so she couldn’t do naughty things with it. She wanted to go to this secondhand bed warehouse in Mount Roskill, cos she decided that the bed that I bought, which she was also going to buy, was too expensive. So yeah. I’m so smart, I figured out how to get there and everything. I guess Auckland’s not quite so bad once you get used to it.

We hopped onto plenty of beds in the warehousey place, but decided they were all too ugly – she wanted one with a headboard. Debating the various merits of a double vs a queen, I pointed out that if she was planning on having people stay over, a queen would be better. She said something like “No, I ask them to leave afterwards – and if they won’t, I go sleep elsewhere.” HAHAHA I so love her.

Then we went to a couple more shops down Dominion Road and stuff, and I guided her to Newmarket. We went to Burger King too, so I could get a greatly nutritious breakfast, and we discussed sleeping habits. I’m glad my mother doesn’t read my journal, so that she doesn’t know what shocking care I take of myself. Is that a proper sentence? I hope so. We looked in Freedom, and I drooled over stuff, imagining how cool it’d be to have a house with all new furnishings, but the beds were too expensive. So we went toa bed shop around the corner, where Kate found a cool slatbed with an iron frame (which isn’t as cool as mine) and got $100 off the price because she didn’t want the manchester and pillows and shit. She rocks. I could never bargain with people, man.

Then we went back to her place in Ponsonby, and I met her GORGEOUS kitten Tallulah (tori: “it must be worth losing if it is worth something” – only that song is spelt ‘Talula’) and one of her flatmates called Jared. And I got back my pants, which I’d left there last time I was drunk. I HAD A CHANGE OF CLOTHES, OKAY? Sheesh, I’m not that much of a drunken whore. Oh, and I solved the mystery of the mysterious mud on my shoe from the last time as well – there’s mud in her garage. Phew. It’s always a relief to know how I got dirty.

She drove me home, stopping in to say “hi” to Tamati who gestured and whispered because the big bosses were having a meeting, but he gave me a free piece of cake – pretending to take my money. After Kate had stolen some aper from me, I went online to create a new concept for my site – a Page Me page. This is where you can go to send messages straight to my cellphone. Please do enjoy it. Sure, I know I’m REALLY asking for it this time, but hey, it’ll be an adventure.

I took off my glasses to take a catnap on the bed in the lounge, but then i decided not to sleep and when I stood up I put my foot on them. They’re slipping off my nose now and are ever more crooked than they were before. I haven’t worn my contact lenses in like, a month. I should stop being so lazy and deal with them. Then I can see AND wear sunglasses. And read blackboard menus too. So that’s a trifle annoying, but hey!

In the evening, I watched “Dead Man Walking”. It was sad, and I cried some, but I cried for the victims, not for the prisoner on death row. I was maybe expecting my stance on the death penalty to change, but it hasn’t. I still believe that some murderers and rapists deserve to die. They have destroyed a life, and have therefore given up any rights that they have. It scares me that I can hate so strongly. I sort of wish I could be like Susan Sarandon’s character, able to love, and relinquish hatred for a greater good, but I can’t. And I guess it’s just being able to hate, not having to see two sides of a story or anything like that.

My evening was also peppered with drunken cellphone calls from Clare. She makes me laugh, man! Kini’s friend Anthony scanned in his chest for us, so that’s up on the Breast page. My sixth form diary is sitting open in front of me, so it’s kind of hard to stay focused on writing this entry. I’d much rather read my pathetic little ben-obsessive entries. Speaking of Ben, watch Annette’s page on Valentines Day. She’s launching a little collaborative project then. She’s getting her own domain soon, which’ll be cool cos I’d get to wear a tshirt advertising it. PLUS I’d also have like the most traffic on Vision then, if current stats continue. I’m so selfcentred. At least y’all know what to expect from me though, right?

I wish I knew what to expect from my life right now. Stuff’s kinda spooking me out a little. Don’t be concerned for my sake, it’s just bizzare. One day maybe you’ll read about it all. Just not today.

xoxoxox

Oh yeah and remember to fill in the form on yesterday’s entry if you want to be paged on your vodaphone!!!

Wednesday 3; Febuary, 1999
I set my alarm for 10am today. And I even woke up then too – to change the alarm to 11 and go back to sleep. It’s nice to be back with bFM again, after Channel Z in Wellington went to hell (or shore/westieville Auckland Channel Z anyways). The dj was Daniel, who’s in my tutorial at AIT. So that was nice, a familiar voice, and some good tunes. I’d actually woken up at 5.30am again, ankles covered in bites, which is never cool, but had gone back to sleep.

Once I did finally manage to drag myself out of bed, I got clean and all that good stuff and jumped on a bus into Newmarket. I had to recharge the Mercury card (god it’s annoying that the post shop up the road can’t do it) and also, I’d realised the night before that it was only a week until my mother’s birthday. AND I had to set up automatic rent payments, although all three boys seem to be paying me in cash, and not the right amounts at that. God that sounds dodgy. Oh well.

So yeah, I did all that fun stuff at the bank, then I bought Mum some perfume and face stuff from the body shop. I think the perfume was called “Leaping” or something, and it’s really nice, so you can buy me some if you like. Then I found her a photo frame which I can put the photo below in.

anji has very nice breasts

Me, Anji and Karen. Feel free to admire her breasts. I do.

Speaking of breasts, a stranger sent me hers! Yay! So they’re up on the breast page. That was really exciting. PLUS yesterday, I got the whole Frozen Lake mess sorted out, so I’ve been acknowledged as an inspiration for a very similar story published on Reckoning.net. So that’s choice too.

Back at home, um, I didn’t do much. Tried to nap a little, only they were mowing the lawns next door. My bed still wasn’t delivered, but in anticipation of it, I created an advertisment and application form for it. Thanks to Annette cos I stole her code. Go ahead, share my bed.

hahahahah that’s traj, but oh well. I cooked dinner again (fuck, I’m such a good bitch) and Clayton was happy. Possibly he’s getting tired of vegetarian fare, but all the meat we have is sausages and chicken legs, both of which don’t rate highly on my list of things that are cool. He washed the dishes, and did it really badly. I hate people that use luke warm water. When I do them, I only use the hot tap – except in this house because the hot water is too hot, and I don’t know where to adjust it at. Honestly, I have to turn the shower dial to half way between ‘warm’ and ‘cold’. Did that make any sense?

I didn’t have much of a point to the above paragraph. In the evening, I discovered a show called ‘McCallum” starring John Hannah, (4 Weddings and Funeral, Sliding Doors), which, considering my fetish for accents

Saturday 30; January, 1999
I never realised when I bought my bed this morning that I’d find someone so quickly that I wanted to share it with. I mean, I was thinking that since I had such a big room, I could do with a queen bed. I didn’t expect this though.

I’d seen him before, known about him since I was a kid, basically. Sure, I’d thought he was cute and stuff before, but tonight I realised I was in love.

Of course, the age difference worried me a little at first. But I’ve had tiny crushes on younger guys before – like Josh, so I figured it was no big deal. I know it won’t bother him either, cos I watched him flirt with Martha all night, and she’s definatly older than him.

I know he wants her, and not me. Oh Corey, Corey – why can’t you be mine?

Fuck the Goonies ROCKS.

Oh dear. I’m scared about my mental state. This is what happens when Kate Benton STANDS ME UP. Okay, so I didn’t hear her knock cos I was watching 90210 – she said after that she’d come around tonight AND SHE NEVER DID.

That’s alright. I had other ways to occupy myself. By now you all would have realised I’ve moved to Vision. And Annette’s got a little story projecty thing happening too that I’d working on. I have the internet – I don’t need real friends.

Hahahahahahah.