Sir Ed gets his grape on

Oh fuck yes! For Lisa‘s 30th birthday, I got her the Red Panda experience at Wellington Zoo. This means you get to go into their enclosures, and feed the grapes and pears, stroke them and watch them tip their heads back to make sure they don’t spill any of the juice from the grapes on themselves. SO ADORABLE! I could flood this journal with pics, but perhaps you might just want to look at them in this set right here instead.

As for me, I’m doing okay. After 25 days I have finally stopped bleeding. I had a “the floor is lava” day yesterday, which really sucked, but I managed to jump from island to island long enough to repair my first fuse without having a breakdown about it, so I’m impressed with myself for that.

In 2004, I got an email from the girl who made my life a living hell at ASIJ saying sorry, she hadn’t realised how cruel she was being. I’d tried so hard to bury all those memories that hearing from her made me cry for hours, tucked away in my tiny little office up at Salient. I had a similar experience on Friday night, when someone who’d always said that there was no point in saying sorry now actually said sorry for things done many many years ago. I was completely thrown, and sort of drunk, and lonely, so naturally, I responded with smut. It’s just how I operate. But it did kind of shake me up a lot, and made me worry that they were dying or something. It still freaks me out when people demonstrate that they clearly care about me.

So yeah, clearly the Yaz is still coursing through my bloodstream and my brain, but I’m going to fight this thing, dammit! When I find the time. Oh my stars is my schedule ever busy for the next couple of months.

I can’t think of a proper way to finish this post, so here’s another picture instead!

Red Panda family chow time

Right now I smell like old lipstick from sorting out my makeup, and I'm shifting uncomfortably because Sebastian or something else has happened to the long phone cord, and so I'm forced to sit on the other couch, and even though it's only half a seat shorter than what is generally viewed as my couch, it still feels wrong.

What’s fun is that I drove Ethel – Anji’s little blue car tonight. I haven’t driven in months, and Ethel’s a manual. She’s out somewhere, I’m procrastinating about tidying my room (my excuse is that I wanted to look up something on the Ezibuy website before I send back some of the things I ordered) and procrastinating about fetching another Gisbourne Gold beer. But at some stage I’m going to have to pee, and you can rest assured that I will be getting up to do that.

So, what have I been up to lately? Pretty much all same old same old. I finished a piece of writing at work that I’d been sitting on for months and months and months. I’d written it originally late, and then when I sent it to my umm mentor I guess you could say, he said lots of it was unnecessary and why did I write it and blah blah blah – all in a very nice and right way, and told me this other thing to write about, but I just was so not motivated to get it done, and weeks and weeks later I finally wrote something, and I thought it was too short but then I decided I didn’t care, so I sent it back to him and he said it was perfect. Haha. Funny. In non-day-job writing, I was asked if I wanted to interview Franz Ferdinand but I had to turn it down cos it would have just been too much of a hassle. But I just banked a $500 cheque, which is always nice.

I’ve had a bunch of horrible dreams lately that won’t be repeated here cos I hope I can forget them sometime soon. On Tuesday night Anji and I were cooking dinner together, and the front of one of the drawers broke off and she dropped it on my toe and I howled and howled and then I shook and bawled and bawled, and she was freaking out at me freaking out. It wasn’t the pain, it was the surprise – I guess it unleashed a flood of tension. My whole body ached right after that (and admittedly, it did split my toe nail). On Thursday after a couple of vodkas I was watching ‘Extreme Home Makeover’ – and yes, I did expect it to make me cry, like it does every single week, but I wasn’t quite prepared for quite how much. The girl whose house they were doing had some kind of mega allergies and cancer or something, so she was all bald and bloated, and reminded me a lot of how Emily looked after she had a brain tumour removed and came back to ASIJ. She died three days after her mother did.

Can we talk about something else right now, like maybe mad consumerism? I’m seriously considering buying a playstation, once Anji has paid off her credit card so I can use it to order from the Game Planet store. I’m going to get Singstar and an Eye Toy if I get one. Anyone have any thoughts and or tips or caveats to share with me?

Today we took back a lameass heater that didn’t heat to the warehouse, and I got my money back and proceeded to buy another non heating heater. Dumb. I also managed to spend another $100 on bathroom accessories (if you have seen the bad design of our bathroom, you will understand why they were necessary) and another zip up hoodie (fuck paying$200 for a Huffer), and Labyrinth, which y’all should come over and watch with me. I must have bought other things as well. Hmmm. Oh yes, casserole dishes and under-bed-storage boxes. And then we spent $162 at the supermarket. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. Sure would be great if it did.

I apologise for the blah blah blah of this entry. Maybe I should talk about politics instead. But no. Or the finale of ‘The O.C’? Made me weepy. But I’m almost at the stage where the Grainwaves ads have the potential to make me cry too. Ick. The noise in my head has stepped up to a roar most nights that I try to drown out with Hammer of the Gods. I wish I was a rockstar.

Yesterday I came home grumpy from work and ended up sitting in my room for an hour cos I didn’t even feel like talking to Bopha, and then it turned out that she’d been feeling semi the same way, not because of anything personal or anything, but just a general bad mood. But then that passed, and we went to the supermarket together, for grocceries and liquor. Then we played Scrabble. I kicked her ass at the first game, and then Clay came home and won the second, even after they allowed me to use the word “cockzone”. It was choice, and Bo drank a whole bottle of wine which is the drunkest I’ve ever seen her, and we gossiped and wrote in the bible lots afterwards.

Today after my HR lecture, it was horrible and rainy and I had a two hour gap, so I decided to go to the movies. After much deliberation, I decided to go see ‘Signs’. Now, you know how staunch and tough and how movies don’t generally scare me at all, they just make me laugh? Well, I was really tempted to leave half way through, I was so scared. And of course, i’m fucked up in that I love being terrified, so I had a bigass grin on my face the whole time, I’m sure. Just as well I went by myself. And then of course, I was an hour late to Corporate Communication so people were mean to me.

This afternoon I discovered that a guy from ASIJ found my name on classmates.com and emailed me to see what I was up to. Now, that is well and truly bizzare, cos I don’t think we ever had a conversation, but this is the email I sent him back:
Yes, I remember you – presuming I’m thinking of the right person – you won a whole box of chocolate bars in the mega prize raffle thingie that Mr Gibson’s advisory did, and then distributed them out to our math class in an act of real generosity? I could go and dig out my yearbook to see if I’m right, but they’re probably in the attic at my parents’ house and that’s in a whole other city, and besides, sifting through ASIJ yearbooks is really NOT one of my favourite things to do, strangely enough.

But anyways, it’s rather bizzare to hear from you, but cool all the same. The only people I’ve kept any form of contact with from ASIJ are Melissa Chaiken and Beth Dodd.

These days I am completing a Graduate Diploma in Public Relations to follow my Bachelor of Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology, in New Zealand. I enjoy it a lot. I’m also working half time doing PR for the medical school here, which is super. I still have fond memories of grunge music, and I still have long hair, but other than that, I think I’m probably (hopefully) completely different to who I was at ASIJ.

What about you?

Thanks for your email, and take care yourself

Around 5.15ish whilst I was watching H&A (note to self: email catchup details to Brad – why are all of my friends all on holiday at the same time?) Jezza rang to tell me that I had to go to Quiz Night cos he’d found us a Sports Expert, since that’s always our weakest area. So of course, I headed down there, after a SUPER amusing phone conversation with KateH (Tehehehehehehehehehehe!) although of course I am madjealous that she got to meet Kelly from HJT. Anyways, so there wasn’t actually anyone else in the bar besides our team, and a couple of other people who left, and one random other guy, so the bar staff decided that they didn’t want to put up bartabs as prizes, and therefore effectively, the quiz was canceled. However! The wonderful Quizmaster (I do actually know his name now, but “Quizmaster” is such a much better title) suggested that we all compete against ourselves as individuals, and everyone put $2 for the prize pool. I won $12, proving once and for all what a geek I am, since I beat everyone by like 11 points and that included scoring 0 in the sports round. But still, it was really cool.

And tomorrow I get to sleep in! Although perhaps I should get up earlish and either go to The SilverBell for veges or finally go and get my work ID, just in case things get all nasty and stuff with this job that I’ve gone for. Bridget would have left for America for 4 weeks by now, but apparently they’re going to make their final decision via a conference call.

In which I attempt to be a professional student

So I had class today at 11am, which is an excellent time to start the day, but I’d meant to get up around 9am cos I wanted to you know, actually make use of my mornings. Unfortunately, that plan interupted one of the nicest dreams I’d had in a while – I was sitting somewhere when this guy walked past who looked really familiar walked past, so I was like “Simon?” and it was Simon Darby who I had a crush on in 6th and 8th grade (not 7th though, cos that would have been too easy) and he turned around and gave me this really huge big really nice hug, and it was really cool, and like, we just had this big connection in the hug, and so after that, we just had an understanding, and he introduced me to his dad, who was like “Have I ever heard of this girl before?” and when Simon said no I was like “but wait a minute! you had a crush on me in the 5th grade! howcome you didn’t tell your dad then?”. Anyways, it was cool, but then my fucking alarm went off. Still, it set me up to feel all mellow and peaceful.

That of course changed when I got to tech and everyone was trying to figure out their schedules. See, the Grad Dips in PR (that’s me) take Public Relations Practice class, and the BCs students (that’s most of the people who I like) take Public Relations Planner class, and the only difference is that Planner is worth 2 credits so they have to do twice as much work as us. This means that I won’t be able to work with my friends, which is fine, cos I am a grown up after all, but it meant that classes are all fucked up, cos we have a workshop, a lab, a tutorial and a meeting each week, and schedules are all fucked, and room numbers were crazy and I was actually put into a Planners class not a Practice class, and and and. Yeah. Anyways. So, as our Planners assignment, we’re supposed to take on a Not-For-Profit client and deliver them professional results (as one of our tutors said “we’re expecting you to service the clients in any way that they need”). You might remember this kinda thing from my work for the NSCC while I was doing my multimedia major which resulted in the NSCC hiring me after that to do PR for them. Unlike in Multimedia, this time we get to have some input into which clients we chose, so all week we’re going to get presentations from various groups who want us. I will be kinda vague, but I gotta list them to explain to you my choices. The first one sounded interesting, sculpture exhibition stuff to raise money for Women’s Refugee, but there’s already a BCs student working on it, which means that i can’t do it (we work in groups, but in segregated groups). The next presentation was from a cute guy in a sharp looking suit (I’ve decided that dress is very important to me, unfortunately) but he wanted help on a “hugs not drugs” campaign, and there’s where I have to exercise my own personal ethics and say no, because it’s not something I believe in (see, PR people DO have ethics). Other ones that followed didn’t sound at all interesting, apart from the AUT fashion show, so I might try for that, or otherwise hopefully there will be some interesting sounding ones I can pick up later this week. I think it’s about time I had an interesting and styley client.

In other exciting news, apparently I am banned from Starks. !!!. This is cool because I have never been badass enough to have been banned from anywhere before. And it makes me laugh, so much so that Bops and I dropped in on KateH tonight to laugh in person. But we had to leave cos it was reaaaaally hot, and I’d already accomplished my mission of taking Katie chocolate as an act of retribution for crimes I committed against her on Saturday night.

Later tonight I watched an episode of “Queer As Folk” that I’d taped last night after I joyously discovered that TV4 were doing late night repeats of it and ‘Sportsnight’ on sundays. It was still excellent, of course, but I’m sure that Stuart and Nathan were so much hotter two years ago. Perhaps it helps if you’re watching it with a boy who’s similarly salivating.

Hmm, i think Saturn5 is under repairs so I can’t upload right now. Nevermind. I can always do this later, although I should probably go to bed soon. I’ve got a new fetish for my hotwater bottle which I rediscovered in teh great closet cleanout of last week. Now I should just do some laundry so I can actually see my nice new carpet and I’ll be all sweet. Oh, and pay my domainz fee. I already let one lapse.

I’ve been reading through my old reports, because Mum found an envelope of them, and it’s extraordinary the story that they tell; at the American school I started out really smart and full of enthusiasm and blasting my way out of the remedial writing class they stuck me in thinking that I was a ‘dumb Australian’, and then as I got into seventh grade, comments read like “Joanna does not participate as much in class as she used to” and my marks start falling and there’s even “I believe underlying problems may be affecting her results”. Oh really? Underlying problems like ooooooh maybe I was being bullied every day, and I was fucking miserable and I wanted to die? Do you think that might have affected my marks. FUCK YOU to every single fucking teacher at ASIJ. Just looking at the reports, it’s so fucking obvious what was happening to me, and what the fuck did they do about it? Nothing. And my mother just now is like “Should we have taken you to a shrink so that you could realyl have fit in with those Americans?” Well, yes, maybe, Mum. Or maybe you could have spent at least one day in those four years not telling me how miserable you were, and tried to make things a little easier for me. This is so pathetic of me; this stuff was like, ten years ago, and it’s making me cry right now. I’m okay, I survived it all – thank god for Beth Dodd arriving at ASIJ in 8th grade, and for Lisa Gonser and Ryan Rimschnider leaving at the end of 7th grade.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

Last night, I went around to Fatty Si’s house. We went adn got coffee at Midnight Espresson, and then rented DVDs – Zoolander and Nurse Betty. We chatted and hung out and stuff. It was cool. He said that a long long time ago, his girlfriend at the time, Heidi, used to worry about me before she met me, cos he talked about me a lot, but then she met me and thought I was super cool and loved me. As soon as you actually meet me, you realise that there’s no way I could take your boyfriend away from you, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, ever. Ladies, I am not a threat to your man! Statistically speaking, I am far more likely to score your girlfriend. I’ve only slept with one guy who had a girlfriend, and she was far too good for him anyways (as was I, which is probably one of the main motivating factors for me to do it, since it was in the six months I spent last year trying to reach rock bottom). On the drive home, through the wilderness of Wilton, I suddenly started feeling very lonely. It was a little odd.

Now I am sitting in the very warm lounge listening to the Topless Women Talk About Their Lives soundtrack (I love this album so much, although the current association i have with it is of a sweet boy’s white bum shining in the dark as he bent over to put it on at my request), and thinking about doing some writign that i told someone I’d do for them, which I wish I hadn’t. I’m too nice, I think. But my word is my word and I hate to let people down. Maybe I’ll work on it tonight when I come home leeringly drunk from “a quiet dinner” with KateB. We’ll go BYO, drink two bottles’o wine and see where the night takes us. I get to see my baby girl again, YAY. Then I just have to spend lots’o time with Karen, Anji, go visit Oma, see Fatty again, see Hulita, adn maybe call the Rimu Crew (Bopha’s old flat). It’s probably just as well that the Welly Massive doesn’t really seem to exist anymore – Ayna’s on holiday in Indonesia and Daniel moved to Korea to teach English, cos i probably don’t have the time and energy to take e and go out dancing for hours and hours and hours.

B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y

>>>

And the bit I don’t understand is why you kissed me tonight.

Saturday 24th June, 2000 – On The Train from Melbourne to Sydney

I’m sick, kinda hungover. I threw up a few bitter mouthfuls this morning, which was nothing compared to last night. So I’m sipping water now and thinking I will drink less in the future.

I’m really happy with my hair, it looks choice. So yay for that. Boo for the fact that I can’ curl up and sleep and look out the window, but hey, these things happen. At least there’s a needle disposal unit in the bathroom! Handy huh?

Oh, oh, the coolest most exciting thing that has happened so far is that I found notes in the magazine in the seat pocket! Here, let me copy them out for you. They made me smile so much!

“Dear Gracey,
Hello!
umm….
do you love Sean? I hate him
Luv Capa”

“Dear Casey
um… abobt your qestun I Dident spell it rite but this is a big secret ok
I Do sotove love him”

How cute! Go Gracey & Sean! What’s the bet he’ll end up leaving her for Casey though! Ooh nasty bitter Joanna. Yes, damn right I am. But that aside, I was so stoked to find those notes. I always loved messages meant for others in text books. I remember Ammy and I (or was it Rosalie) wrote notes we left for others in our classics books for the next classes. It’s kind of like a cross between graffiti and a message in a bottle. Soon maybe, I’m going to write a note explaining who I am, and pt my address on it, and leave it in the magazine. Hopefully someone will find it, and be as excited as me and maybe even try to contact me. Tanya and Anji used to write to some guy in Palmerston North after they found a message in a bottle from him.

Monday 26th, June 2000

Kini has my photo by her bed. I can’t even start to describe how special this makes me feel. It’s just so lovely to know that someone cares about me like that. I can look around her room and in one corner are the tulip lights I gave her, and on her shelf is the Winnie the Pooh picture, and that’s just cool. She really cares about me. And that’s lovely. I am going to start showing my friends more how much I care about them, I think. I mean, for the past six months I have just focused all my attentions on one person, and that’s just wrong. From now on, I will think about more people!

I am also going to listen to more * (name deleted on account of how i’m not willing to share this). This cd is awesome. I love it. I feel so peaceful, being in someone else’s house, and therefore being surrounded by other people’s possessions and memories as opposed to mine. This relaxes me. This helps me think clearer about everything.

*****

I had really vivid dreams again last night, tucked up high in Kini’s bed with tshirt sheets. In the first, I was back at Garland Road, and we were interviewing prospective flatmates in Clayton’s room. Kate M was there, and maybe Maree as well – I’m not sure. But anyways, the guy was saying that maybe we were too weird for him, which is when I realised i hadn’t seen what colour Kate B had painted her room, so I went to look – it was yellowy marble, and there were these exposed beams (ie it was a totally new room, not the actual one), very farm house.

Another dream that i had put me talking to someone from ASIJ – I can’t remember who the fuck it was though. Anyways, I mentioned Emily Bond, and she didn’t know Emily had died, so we both ended up crying and crying, feeling such a huge sense of loss. It’s strange. I wasnt really that close to her, but in my dream, it was like she’d been my best friend. It was just so odd to be remembering her now too, for no apparent reason. Unless maybe somehow she’s been assigned to be my guardian angel. I’d like that – I did always want to be cool enough to be Emily’s friend. And I could use a guardian angel to make me a better person!

The other dream was that I was staying in a guest house at some big estate, and I was madly looking for some pads, but all I could find were used ones that had been left out in the rain – icky. It was pretty nasty, but since I was waking every two hours to go to the bathroom, pretty appropriate. Oh, exciting breakthrough of the day? Using my first tampon. (this is where you leave real fast if you’re squeamish). I’ve tried them in the past, but was never really able to do it properly. Now, however, I think I almost have it. Maybe it should be in a tiny bit deeper because I can still kind of feel it, but that’s also probably because I just feel so concious that it’s there, if you know what I mean. The first one I put in, both my hands ended up completely covered in blood – it was very dramatic! Second one, there was very little blood, so that’s okay. I was a bit scared the first one wouldn’t come out.

Ahh, vaginas eh? Funny wee things.

****

Today I got up just before 11, and ate cocoa puffs whilst online. Later I had English Muffins and tea. Even later, I rang up Kini and got her to tell me where the shops were. It was a gorgeous day for a walk! I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going, but I found it in the end – some budget supermarket. It was realyl hideously run down, but I got some pads and some pringles, and that was all I was after.

A year ago today, at this time (3.45pm) I was at the Gathering, butterflies eating me up from the inside out, because in less than two hours I was going to meet someone who would ultimately change my life. I tried so hard yesterday to finish up my Gathering story, so that it wouldn’t have taken me over a year to write it, but there’s so much to be said in it, and so many descriptions, so I didn’t manage. It was so bizzare though, because as I was reading through it all, I felt my stomach tighten in nervousness, just like it did on the actual day. But that was after all last year, and I should leave it in the past, yeah?

I’m not really looking forward to tonight all that much. It’s raining, and our plans just seem so….. vague. I don’t think Anji got me a trip, and while in theory there’s nothing wrong with drinking, it’s just so…… usual. (Old and jaded and snobby, that’s me!). Still, seeing Jo again will probably hype me up, if she’s not moping too much about not being at the Gathering with her boy. Usually if I have low expectations, things are great, so tonight should be okay. Fingers crossed. But I did have a rather disturbing dream about it this morning.

I went to a party at Anji’s flat, which of course, being a dream, looked totally different. At first it was really really great, lots of fun people, and pink and yellow creamy cocktails. I even saw the band Garbage floating around and mingling. I knew Jo and her friends Lance and Mischa were supposed to be along soon. Then I spotted Megan Macillwain (sp) and Katie Sullivan – girls from middle school at ASIJ. Megan was the class slut, who was compeltly two faced, and Katie was my mortal enemy in seventh grade – although I got to like her better later on. Annnnyways, I went up to them, and slapped Megan really hard, going “you used to be so cruel to me”. She was like “You’re absolutely right”. I was in complete shock, so I said “really?” and she just laughed at me. Bitch. Then Katie pointed out something behind me, so as I turned around to see it, she slapped ME really hard – I could feel it in my dream, and the two of them went off laughing. I was really upset, because I thought that if I ever saw ASIJ people again I’d just laugh, because I’m so different now, but apparently not. I wandered around aimlessly for ages, really really sad, and for some reason changed into my pajamas. I really really wanted Jo to be there, but she wasn’t, so I went to call her only I didn’t have her number. Karen gave me phone books, which I’d search through for hours, before realising they were the classified ads from the newspaper. Eventually I went out in the rain and managed to find Jo, but by the time we made it back to the party, it was all over, and only Aaron (of enormas penis fame) was left behind, cleaning up.

So is that a scary omen or what?

Anyways, this is only Entry A. There’ll be a B tommorrow. So Y’all come back now, y’hear?

So today, everyone’s favourite American President is killing civillians because he doesn’t want to be impeached. Don’t even TRY and tell me it’s a coincidence. I voted for him in the mock elections we held at school back in Seventh grade – yeah, like I’d choose Ross Perot or Bush. I didn’t think that having an affair would in any way make him not be a good president – unless he’s going to declare war like this to get the heat off himself. The thing is, I’m not an Iraqi, and I’m not American, so whatever’s going on ovre there really shouldn’t concern me too much, but it does.

UI moved to Japan right after the Gulf War, into an American based society. I didn’t really think the war was such a big deal, because I was only 10, and all I knew about it was the odd headline or 20 from the Evening Post, and those fireworks images from CNN, that TV One piped in especially. In Japan however, apparently there were major threats of terrorism, so much so that the school buses had the “American School In Japan” logo taken off them, and students were told to tell everyone they were Canadian. It’s a fucked up world we live in. Then at 2.30am today, just before I went to bed (yeah okay, I’m writing this entry the day after) I thought I heard the distant roar of air-raid sirens, but figured there was nothing I could do anyways.

Why the hell am I talking about all this crap? There’s so much today that’s my own life that I could talk about. It’s December 17th. Those of you that know me will know why I’m moping. Those that don’t can hang on for it while I get through my basic day.

I worked two hours at my aunt Leonie’s house this morning. I did some typing for her (her keyboard was too clacky, so I made so many hidi errors, not like on this speedy wee baby) made some changes to her address database, and started cateloguing her collection of Japanese books that she bought off my grandfather’s collection (other side of the family)for her Nakano group. All terrific fun of course. Luckily I’m getting paid $10 an hour cash.

That was probably about as ragey as I got all day. I spent a lot of time revamping my website, trying to use Dreamweaver. For those of you who didn’t spot it, there’s now an extra table of contents. And there’s a couple of new sections too, maybe. I spent ages trying to get rollovers to work. They worked first time when i was just playing,but now I want them they don’t. Ain’t that just typical? That’s okay, cos apart from hurting my wrist, it also managed to keep my thoughts off other things. I guess I should probably explain, huh? This day last year is when I lost my heart. And my head too.

I guess it sort of serves me right, cos I’d mainly started talking to him cos he was always so flirty in the room, and that made another guy I knew jealous, which is always fun. It got to the stage that I was talking almost exclusivly to him on IRC – I stopped going in rooms, and only messaged my girlfriends to tell them things he’d said to me. I was so fully smitten, I guess because people told me that he had a crush on me, and we were labeled as a couple even though we weren’t. The week before, on the 10th I’d gotten heinously drunk at my friend Amy’s house, and had come on IRC going “I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooveeeeeeeeeee you” (I only know this from reading logs of it) which was just disgusting. I managed to get away with that though, by blaming it on Amy and Fiona. But yeah, back the 17th. I was up late chatting to him, and talking to Andee too, when he made some sort of comment about how I didn’t want him to say that he loved me until we’d met. I started crying, being the sap that I am, thinking there was no way he could mean that in the way I wanted him to, but when I finally got up the courage to ask him about it like an hour later, it turned out that yes, he did have a crush on me. There was no way in hell that either of us wanted to have an internet relationship, so we were going to wait till we met at the Gathering (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah you say, more pieces falling into place) to see what the story was. I stayed up all night talking to him then, only leaving because my dad was getting up in ten minutes. It was the most amazing glowing feeling, despite the fact that it was obviously a doomed situation. I’ve never had someone like me mutually before. The whole next day was bathed in gold. I couldn’t stop smiling. He made me the most gorgeous site for Xmas, with this picture on it that he made – featuring the glowing orb of the sunrise we saw together in different cities. Sigh. So sappy.

Of course, in the two weeks leading up to the Gathering, we had a big really stupid fight, and he also revealed that he was still in love with his ex, but aaaah well. There was still enough there for me to be scared shitless of meeting him. So yeah, and then he thought there was no spark, but he still came to stay with me, and I fell head over heels in love with him, and he just didn’t care. Maybe I should post the letter I wrote him. At the time, it was so important and special to me, but that WAS a year ago. I just like telling stories which is why you’re all hearing about this now. That and well – he is still sort of in my head, just because I still feel like it’s last year sort of, because I’m on holiday again. That’s okay though. It can be fun reminiscing. To quote myself:

Replaying the past is like having all these good (and bad) movies to watch, that you don’t have to go to the shop to rent so they’re heaps cheaper and slightly more interactive

Saturday. This makes two weekend nights I’ve been home in a row. No wonder I’m depressed. EVERYONE is either busy tonight, or too tired to go out. Jen Troup told me to come to this d&b rave at the James Smith, but I don’t wanna go if I can’t go with anyone. Sigh. And there are like a thousand movies I wanna see and all, but yet I’m just sitting here at my computer. I’m really trying to finish off my Gathering story, but it’s hard. It was nearly a year ago after all, and it was just so… I dunno. Very intense.

I was in Tandys today, and I saw the Gathering cd and I just about cried. I so so so want to go this year, but I can’t afford to, and none of my friends or sisters are going. Besides, I figure it’s time I moved on. I mean, I’ve been to the Gathering two years in a row, and while both times were very different, they were still the same location. I should get some more experiences. In 95/96, I went to the party where I met Ben. That was just a regular couple of parties, and that turned out great, so I don’t NEED to be up on a hill to have a good time, do I? Besides, if I go to the Gathering this year, I’ll just spend the whole time thinking about Matt, which I don’t need to be doing. It’s funny cos I went to Nelson in 96/97 so that I wouldn’t be thinking about Ben, which is when I wound up going to the inagural Gathering. The next year I went back with my sisters and to meet Matt. And now I think that it’d be a good idea for me not to go, so that I can move on with my life. Jo said that I could hang with her, which’ll be choice, if I can just relax and actually get comfortable with strangers.

Today was her picnic in Civic Square, which was cool. She has so many friends man! Just like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower is Our Jo. I just felt a wee bit out of place, because I didn’t know anyone, and I was really tired and not at all chatty. But it was cool anyways, I still had fun. It’s just funny how seamlessly she blended in with MY friends. I guess some people are just more outgoing than others. I’m just not so comfortable in large groups. Or in any enviroment that’s not my own. For example, on chat, I’ll be like the queen bitch, and totally dominate, but pretty much only in #left or possibly #mirc – rooms that I’m used to. That’s okay though, cos I know I’m so much more outgoing than I used to be. I wish that ASIJ held a reunion in Wellington, or my Onslow friends came to Auckland. I’ve got this real need for revenge, or to like, prove that I’m better now. It’s kind of sick I guess. If I still have that need, maybe I’m not better. Fucking hell! I’m thinking too much. This is the problem with staying at home and being bored. I watched ‘To Die For’ with my parents, but that only took up like two hours. Now I’m talking to some guy called Mark from the Vision project, and I’ve sent him some of my short stories that are going to be used in collabarative efforts. The only problem is that ‘Frozen’, one of my favourites, and the one he wants to use, is the story that Justine stole, and had published on reckoning.net. Bitch. I mean, it’s weird cos I don’t know her at all except from hearing a few things about her from Simon, and from her webpage, but I feel like we could maybe have been friends if we’d met a different way. That doesn’t excuse her stealing my whole story concept and claiming as her own, without giving me an inspiration credit or anything. I hate being petty, but it really does bug me that she did that.

While I have all this time, I’ll tell you a wee little story that i was just thinking of while working in the Bakehouse yesterday. No, actually I won’t. This entry is long enough already, and not everything needs to come out on here.

Can I just state now for the record that I love Jo Eaton? I’m sure I can. Yay, it’s so good to have that off my chest. She’s started a journal too, so I can live voyeristically through that. I’m not going to give you the direct link, but her homepage is here. Now that I have that off my chest, I can tell you about my day.

I was working in the Bakehouse Gallery all day. I sold one mug. Ooooh it’s a hive of activity that place. Actually, it sorta is, cos I must have answered at least twenty phone calls. It’s a shame that so few people come in – it really is a cool shop. But actually, I didn’t care, cos Jo came in and that’s all that matters. We were sitting yacking for aaaages (she said she likes to listen to my stories – someone must be paying her) and I was telling her all about the party that’s tommorrow night, High Jinks in Hamilton… otherwise refered to as the Rumble. She was like “I wish I could witness it” so, like on the spur of the moment, I invited her to come along. God knows why she’d want to meet my ‘friends’ other than she’s heard too much about them, but she said yes. She’s a braver lass than me, that’s for sure. Her mother was only going to let her go if Jo retrieved her precious stainless steel teaspoon from the Treehouse Cafe – luckily Jo did this, and escaped the Title Ultimatum. Does that make sense? To clarify, the title of this entry is the quote Jo’s mother gave her. But Jo got the teaspoon, so it’s sweetassbro.

So yeaaaaah, that’s going to be so cool. We’re going to Paeroa and stuff on the way, and we’re going to take billions of touristy photos – triffic! I so love being a tourist. Posing in front of the giant L&P bottle, and also possibly taking photos for my new web page, which is going to be hosted on Vision. Did I mention that? No, I don’t think I did. They like me, they really like me – or my writing anyways, so my application was successful. Wahooo. And people actually get rejected from it too. Warm fuzzy glows all round.

In the evening Karen came over for dinner – well, fish and chips anyways, and to watch Xena. I so love that show. Such class! To think I nearly got thrown out of a Film&TV tutorial for saying it was serious New Zealand drama. I know someone who’s going to be on it (you know who you are) – I’m so proud! Karen had the audacity to say on the way home that I had an overinflated ego AND a lack of self esteem – then she topped that up with “you just don’t want to hear the truth”. Bitch! That’s the last time I bake HER brownies. It’s okay, I know she was just doing honest teasing, like I always tease her.

Okay, and Memory for the day…… Jo goes to me today all worried like when I was talking about ASIJ “What did they do to you there?”. Ummmmm good question. I guess nothing’s good when you’re 10-14 anyways, and you live in a foreign country without your sisters, and you have no friends and you can’t fit back into the culture you came from. There was an actual psychiatrical term for me back then “third culture kid”. Rock on. I wanna be labeled with that tape stuff you can type onto. You’ve gotta know what I mean, cos I can’t think of the word.

One GOOD thing about childhood though, but this was pre-Japan, was “Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter” by Astrid Lindgren. She was the chick that wrote the Pippi Longstocking books, but this is a thousand times cooler. It’s about a girl who lives in woods inhabited with all sorts of gobliny things like Harpies and Grey dwarves, with a Romeo + Juliet esque plot, because her best friend Birk is the son of the sworn enemey of Ronia’s dad. Of course, they’re only eleven, so it’s really innocent, and it’s just beautiful. I found it on the bookshelf, and re-devoured it. It was always one of my favourite books, and rereading it was like discovering it all over. There was a really good film of it made in Swedish too. It makes me almost want to have kids so that I can share the book with them. So many of the games I used to play as a kid, and the stories I wrote were based on it. I used to be such the little tom boy, climbing every tree, having forts in lots of my neighbours gardens and stuff like that. I’m really lucky ‘cos our section backs onto lots and lots of square kilometres of Native Forest – there’s a jungle in my garden. I wish I was young again – I had so many adventures.

Ah well, tommorrow’s another adventure. Watch this space to find out how Hammy went!

xoxoxox

Okay, so I think that TECHNICALLY it’s still the 15th, but hey – by the time I’m finished
it’ll probably be the 16th. Oh who cares? It’s my journal and I can do what I want in it.

So yeah. Tonight I drove Shirley’s car to the shop – now THAT was interesting. Her
gearstick didn’t seem to be centred properly, so I fought with it for ages. And stalled
three times pulling out of my park. Then I got lost driving around the block, and had to
turn around in an area the size of a playing card. I hate manuals. I was on a mission to
buy chocolate – mission was a success, captain!

Shirley and I watched this cheesy show about NZ love songs, that was kind of lacking,
and Ardijah had no place on it. I liked the Exponents (Victoria) and Dave Dobbyn
(Loyal), Chirs Knox (Not Given Lightly – of course) and natch Bic Runga, but I dunno – it
could have done with Shihad or HLAH or the Headless Chickens. Yes they do lovesongs,
dammit! Thank god there was no mention of the feelers though!

Mmmmmm so do you know where this is leading you to? Yup, my very own list of
special love songs. These all bring a nochalant smile to my face when I hear them. There
are others – inncidental music and stuff, but these songs are just the esscence. Actually,
maybe I’ll mention others. And count the number of times the Smashing Pumpkins
feature!

1. ‘Don’t Cry’ by Guns’n Roses, age 12. This was my theme song for Ryan Rimschnider
in 7th grade. They used to play it at all the dances and it always made me cry. This was
the guy who, along with Lisa Gonser, was so cruel to me in English class that I started
composing suicide notes, thinking to get Revenge. Hey – I was twelve – colour me
dramatic. Then along came the video for ‘Jeremy’ by Pearl Jam. I thought “Hey, cool
idea” then realised I didn’t want to be a copycat.

2. ‘One’ by U2, age 13. This one is for Simon Darby, who I had on-and-off crushes on
during sixth-eighth grade. He’d had a crush on me in fifth grade, when I fiirst started at
ASIJ, and used to taunt me, pointing to NZ on maps going “homesick?”. I have to forgive
him though, cos he was into MC Hammer at the time – and even had 3 pairs of the pants
to prove it. In fifth grade I was lusting after Scott Pertel, who had long tanned legs and
three pairs of reebok pumps. He was going out with Heather Delany – my mortal enemy.
She was the most popular girl in the grade, and even at age eleven had…..shock horror….
BREASTS. I was in her homeroom in seventh grade, and she was actually really nice.
Simon was also in my homeroom that year, but I think I was too busy wanting Ryan -
who, coincidently, went out with Heather for a week that year. Annnnnnnyways, back to
Simon. He became my main squeeze in eighth grade, and was given the code name ‘BS’
by me and Beth, since his catch phrase was “BIG SMILE”. Beth asked him out once,
which devestated me, but he turned her down. She and he were the reasons I started on
the school BBS system – geek girl at age 13. Anyways, U2 were his favourite band and
‘One’ is probably their last good song since they’ve gone to shit now. I heard it the day
after I’d had a dream in which Simon hugged me and promised to stay friends forever, so
it’s just appropriate.

3. ‘Landslide’ covered by the Smashing Pumpkins, age 14. Like the second day of high
school, I was in the library looking for a monologue to audition for the fall play with. This
guy pointed me in the right direction, and I remember telling Beth on the phone that night,
since she’d transferred to a military base school by then, that I’d met a guy who was kind
of cute. I ended up with a tiny part in the play, while he scooped the major role, which
meant I got to know him a lot better. His name was Nuno Periera, and though he was
kind of short, I was fully smitten. I was also currently in love with Landslide at the time,
and I got inspired by the lyrics “I’m not afraid of changing” and “time makes you bolder”.
Finally, I got up the guts to get my friend Amy Macintire to tell him. Tragic, Tragic. He
said nothing to me, so I thought that was that. Then, on the last night of the play, this guy
called Luke Buckley goes to me “you know, Nuno really likes you, he’s just afraid to say
anything.” That totally crushed me. I know it wasn’t true so I had no idea why Luke
would be that horrible to me. I cried so much before the play that night, such the drama
queen even back then.

Then I moved back to New Zealand. Fifth form passed fairly uneventfully, guywise. I
had a tiny crush on a seventh former named Sam Pearson in my Japanese class, but
nothing major – until New Years Eve 95-96.

4. ‘By Starlight’ by the Smashing Pumpkins, age 15-16. This song is SO the story of me
and Ben Morell- a guy I fell in Love (yes, Love with a capital L, almost the whole deal)
with, although I was only with him for an hour, tops. He was my first good kiss, and my
first get with. I believed him when he said he’d call, and “By Starlight” was my music of
choice waiting up warm summer nights for the phone to ring. I was completly obsessed
with him for nearly the whole year. I stood right next to him at the Pumpkins concert, and
that’s how I realised I was in love with him – I couldn’t move or even talk, I was so
overwhelmed. I could feel him in my every pore. But of course, I didn’t talk to him then,
and since he went to St Pats, I never saw him. I just learnt all I could about him from
Dylan – which led me into trouble. Other Ben songs are ‘Breaking the Girl’ by RHCP cos
that’s when we started dancing, and ‘I Could Have Lied’ (ironic much?) also by the
RHCP, which was when he kissed me, smooth boy that he was. So I guess that ‘Suck My
Kiss’ should be included too, in the three song seduction. Fuck, he was SO the man, I
was completly swept off my feet and didn’t realise what he was up to until it was
happening. He only had two flaws as far as I’m concerned; a) he shouldn’t have lied – I
could have accepted it as just a NYE thing if he’d just been honest, and b) he was too
fixiated on my ass. He told Dylan things went ‘fast’. Oh reaaaaaaally?

5. ‘Set the Ray to Jerry’ by the Smashing Pumpkins. This song perfectly captures all the
frustrations I felt having fallen for Dylan – the boyfriend of one of my best friends. Of
course, I never told him, or her. ‘Set the Ray’ was my favourite song at the time (and it
probably still is), which is why it became HIS song. Other Dylan songs would be the
Counting Crows’ whole album August and Everything After, which I grew to love
because he did. His theme was ‘Rain King’, so we’d always play that at partys, and I;d
even dance to it, not afraid in front of him. He was and is so intuitive, and is still one of
my most favourite people in the world to talk to, because I can tell him anything. He’s
doing a journalism course too, so we have lots in common – I remember one conversation
I had with him about our editorial bond, in the morning after a party when we were both
cleaning in guilt – him for spilling Sarah’s secrets, and me for sleeping next to him, sharing
his pillow and feeling so close. Why did he have to be Sarah’s? They’re STILL going out
so that’s over four years now. I’ve lost touch with her – think it’d be okay for me to ring
him? He always used to taunt me by singing Hootie and the Blowfish, because he knew I
hated them. Singing ‘Hold my Hand’ and going “come on, Jo,” extending his hands out
was more of a taunt that he could guess.

Mmmm. So now comes the bit I’m hidi-ashamed of. Yes, that’s right…….. Internet
crushes. Sigh.

6. Any song by STP. Nick loves these guys and so the two are entwined in my mind. He
was like the first guy I started talking to on the net…. I can even give you the date -
Febuary 15th, 1997. Not, that’s not obsession – it was the saturday after my mother’s
birthday, which was when I started on IRC. Anyways, he was such a charmer, saying
stuff like “I’d climb mountains for you”. It was all cheese, but I took it too seriously,
viewing him as the flipside to Ben. One day I got really pissed off with him being a wank,
so I was like “You just don’t get it, do you? I’ve completely fallen for you”. He was
shocked and things were just a weeeeeee bit strained between us for a while. But now (I
think) we’ve moved past it, and are even better friends. Despite being like my earliest
virtual friend, he’s the only person on the internet that I talk to and like and haven’t met.
And I don’t want to meet him either. I don’t think he could match my expectations.

7. “Black Star” by Radiohead. I remember how I was raving on about this song to Mike,
going “it’s such a beautiful love song” when he goes “it’s about breaking up”. In different
ways, we were both right, just that we viewed things from totally different angles – which
is a good analogy for the way we related to each other. I started chatting to Mike when
the whole Nick thing was at its most cringeful, and we became pretty good friends – I
think. It’s sort of hard to tell with him. Because he was so good to talk to, I saw him as
another Dylan, and developed a slight crush on him. I was grooming and preparing him to
deal with all my secrets when he was told about the crush (thanks Amy) and blew things
waaaaaay out of proportion. Several emails got forwarded to me about the situation so I
wrote him one, which, to put it mildly, was rather not nice. To paraphrase his reaction to
it; “every second sentence was an attack on me – when you get a letter like that you have
to stop caring”. (My memory for detail always did scare him). I felt bad and wrote to
apologise to him but things were never really the same after – it was too fragile and I
thuink I just get too much of a kick out of headfucking with him. He can do it even better
than me though, but I’m not sure he does it intentionally. Out of the blue one night when
drunk, him and his friend came over to my house, and he was actually really nice in real
life. Such clean white teeth. He also came to my birthday party, but I think that was just
to mock. Then there was more trouble after that, involving a lass called Kim, so he gave
up IRC. I think that’s the third time I’ve helped inspire him to do that – maybe that’s just
vanity. If you’re reading this, Mike, cos I know that’s possible, let me know your side of
the story. The other song that lingers from the Mike Era is ‘Protection’ by Massive
Attack – I was the girl seeking shelter in a sympathetic ear.

8. ‘Cherry’ by the Smashing Pumpkins. It’s strange because for Matt, the only guy that
I’ve ever seriously Loved (Ben wasn’t all there), there really isn’t much of a definate song.
No wait, there are. He started to like me when we talked about the Pumpkins, so ‘Cherry’
suits the mood. Amy was teasing him before it really began about having a crush on me
and he was like “well, she likes the pumpkins….” – good reason, pal! One day we both
started singing it at the same time, an eeire coincidence we often had – he was convinced it
was a psychic bond. ‘Cherry’ strikes me as a sort of a cry for help, which is what Matt
seemed to do. I so so wanted to help him. He was always so down, so depressed and
lonely. I know I helped him build up his self esteem to the point where I almost wish I
hadn’t since it’s gone too far now. The line in the song “cos I can tell you once were
pretty” was like how he liked me, and saw more to me than others. Of course, he
shouldn’t have made that judgement over the net. Another song for Matt that’s more
situational is ‘Exit Music’ by Radiohead. This was playing the morning after my goodbye
party when I’d been up all night arguing with him, knowing full well that I was in love
with him and needed to tell him, even if he didn’t want to hear it cos he didn’t feel the
same way. This song caught my desperation and made me bawl. I cried all the way to the
end of the album while he slept in the adjoining room. Then I went to write him a letter
that spelled the beginning of the end. The first bit of the letter was the line “maybe she’s
just pieces of me you’ve never seen” from the Tori Amos song ‘Tear in Your Hand’. I
can just so relate to that heartbreaking song, wondering with Tori why the hell it couldn’t
just work out.

That was back in January, and I’m finally not in love or obsessed with Matt anymore. My
Current Infatuation hasn’t got a song yet. He’s got shit taste in music, and nothing really
strikes me as situational. Having a song is normally the way I tell if I’m serious about
someone, but oh well. I know that I feel seriously about CI Boi, but damned if I’m going
to re-live the Matt Hell again.

Fuck, this was waaaaaaay longer than it was meant to be, but that’s cool. I enjoyed
writing it, and i’m super proud of YOU for reading it all.

xoxox

Who will be next?