You guys like role-playing right? Okay, so let’s pretend for a minute that you’re Jonathan Davis of Korn fame. You’ve dealt with my urge to call you Jonathan Brandis, and you weren’t on Seaquest and you didn’t kill yourself. You wrote some tunes that some people stood around in a circle in a lounge in Johnsonville when the parents were away pretending to headbang to, and you wrote the soundtrack for a dreadful movie that Stuart Townshead wore leather pants in and looking very fucking hot and so much better than Tom Cruise in. So, your guitarist quits, and goes off to write a tell-all book, and become a born-again Christian. Do you use your down-time to help puppies and also to train your bassist to wear his bass up around his middle not his knees, or do you learn to play the bagpipes?

Yeah, exactly.

So I wrote a journal entry last night, as you have no doubt read. Since that time I had a nice sleep, I drank some coke, I watched some episodes of America’s Next Top Model (I am totally on Team Isis and love Faux-Kimora for her open mind. And there’s just been the Irene Cara ‘Fame’ song on TV and I’ve realised that pretty much the entire cast is Isis, not least because of their bad hair). Then I got my shit together and put on my old red dress and went into town and Cafe Istanbul for Megan‘s redrunkening.  Her friends were mostly couples but I won’t hold that against her, and also I was amused to see the girl I used to work for at Ausm/Debate and we had a quick bitch session. I couldn’t believe how busy Istanbul was, and we managed to try to leave at the same time as another big table of cute lesbians so it took forever to do the bill and pay.

Then we went to the Taste of Korea to do karaoke. As is my way, I grabbed a mike and opened things with ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ as I always rock the fuck out of that on Rockband. Our Soju “cocktails” were neither strong nor actually cranberry flavoured (raspberry miranda is NOT cranberry) but people warmed up eventually and we all sang some more. I ended up getting another hour, and because I didn’t know the people I didn’t ask for any money, which possibly was not the best financial decision ever, but Megan got the first hour, so whatever. Anyways, so mostly I sang power ballads. I sang “Sweet Child’O Mine” because I now take any chance to exercise old demons. And then I sang ‘Careless Whisper’ but I am too used to the Gossip version, and also having the lyrics up on the screen was like a punch in the face. As these things go. But anyways, I fucking adore karaoke like so much. I could sing all night.

Except that we only had two hours and we finished on “We are the world” and most people went home, so I went up to Atomic to find Karen. I couldn’t spot her on the dancefloor initially, but I did spot Smoo and Blair out on the balconey so I hung out with them for ages,  before I went and had a sweaty dance (I was all in synthetic fibres, stinky) and found my friends. I alternated between dancing and hanging with the boys after that. Acgtually, I also managed to combined the two, making Blair slowdance with me to OMD’s “If You Leave” as a tribute to John Hughes.  Blair and Smoo had some guy with them who managed to believe that Karen and I were identical twins – after I sadi that I’d eaten all the pies. He did some clever detective work, asking me what my birthdate was, and then asking her, and strangely enough, she said the same date. Karen was in very fine form that night, saying that there had been quite a few young boys hitting on her that night, including the duck – “but then again, I am moving/have a pulse. Not that I think he’s that fussy.”. Blair and Smoo didn’t seem to accept “Not married!” as a justification for anything, and if you add that to the fact that Smoo has a cricket bat in his room for chasing intruders then you’ll understand why i left a note on his door when I got home telling him that I fricking adore him. And now it’s 4am, and kebabs have been eaten, so let’s finish this journal and maybe have sleeps, yes?

Tom has recently contemplated whether or not there is still intellectual discussion going on in Wellington, so I thought I would prove for once and for all that there totally is. Therefore, for your benefit, let me present to you my Friday and Saturday night conversations –

Friday

Saturday

I think I have successfully defended this city’s intellectual reputation. Hell yeah.

Do you know what else I should have done to defend this city? Punched Kerry Prendegast on Friday night. But I didn’t. That fucking bitch was sitting at OUR table at Boulot, by which I of course don’t mean with us, but rather in the spot in which we’d usually sit. Who the hell does she think she is?

Then the hot owner stalked me and Lisa down to Bodega where we were stalking her workmates and their bandmates having left my workmates who were all “oh early night”. I asked for a Main Divide Cabernet Merlot and the bartender searched the fridge for it, so therefore I don’t feel bad about making them stay open cos we sat around until way late. Then Lisa made me popcorn and showed me America’s Next Top Model because she’s awesome like that. And then I stayed up til 5am watching Freaks and Geeks and being a spazz.

Saturday morning I spent texting people to invite them to China @ The Country Club, and adding in grilled eggplant to frozen lasange and extra mozarella. Yuuuuuuuuum. Yay for frozen home-cooked goodness, and a double yay for the fact that I now have a full length freezer so that I might actually be able to fit in a loaf of bread even if the boys have been shopping. I didn’t think I’d go out that night, but then Kartini texted me to say that she was going to Atomic, so I had my arm twisted. The bus was late and full of drunken kids, and it was raining, and we had to walk a long way from Katy’s to Helen’s and my belly was full of pina colada, and oh the pain, but the conversation was great. Katy and Helen are both in Real Hot Bitches, so they busted out a couple of routines to ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ and umm oh I can’t remember now, and it was fantastic. I wish I could learn dance moves more easily than I do.

Atomic was sort of lame. It was full of dicks and ex arch nemisisisis, and I just wasn’t feeling it. I don’t think I’ll bother going again. It’s always the same songs, and the same tricks, and the same song orders, but it was nice to be with the KKK. Lynchings are always fun. My feet hurt today mostly from dancing at Helen’s, but I still mananged to do the big weekly clean and laundry and all. I’m such a homebody. And my head is like clicking into two points of view every half hour, it’s ridiculous. But kind of amusing. I don’t need to go into it any further. And to further add to the mix is the email that I received on Friday that made me run to the bathroom to bang my fists on the wall and howl very quietly. Oh the drama that I make for myself.

Man I’m looking forward to the short week. China is at 5pm on Friday cos Katy’s having a cocktail party that night. I look forward to seeing you there okay? Oh and anyone got any tips for excellent Chinese movies? It doesn’t have to be porny, but it could be, that’d be fine…

Two different 2amish entries

Friday

I wish I:
A. Didn’t listen to people/took more responsibility for my actions/wasn’t such a stupid little miss doubter
B. Lived alone when I come home at 1am and the front door and all the windows are wide open, and Dawn of Azazel or some such is blasting out at some kind of crazy volume, and they’re playing poker in the dining room so that I can neither watch The Gilmore Girls or go straight to sleep like I’d like to
C. Didn’t have to go to my mother’s tomorrow morning to look after the house while she has an open day
D. was married to both the boys from Boulot
E. had workmates and ex-workmates who talked about more than the things that make me yell “SO, what’s your favourite fact about monkeys?” at all and sundry in hopes of changing the channel, although I do appreciate having drinks and dinner bought for me.
F. Had the ability to time travel, but like, controlled-like, not all making me cry at 3am in the morning when I finish it Timetraveller’s Wife like.

Other than that, and my right shoulder being SO FUCKING SORE, life is pretty sweet. Oh, and my friend texted me tonight to tell me that she’s become a umm, I can’t remember the word, so I will use the word “Fuckerware Demonstrator”, so if there are any ladies in Wellington who’d like to have one, let me know.

Saturday

I don’t remember the background music in Go being like this, and I saw it a bunch of times. We even had the motherfucking Go banner in our dining room, and I know that cos I was watching the Garland video again tonight. Welcome to my saturday.

I should probably point out that this entry is brought to you by the new Placebo album, which is (in theory) so new that it still says “title TBC” and it’s all one of those official “ELISABETH EASTER, I AM WATCHING YOU, DON’T YOU DARE RIP IT” versions. But anyway, my point was, and I’m sure you’ll still buy the Pulp and read this for yourself, that the albums, in order are: Hedonism, the comedown, feeling lost, reflecting on life and now the new one is: getting on with things, admittedly with meds to get you through the day. It won’t play in my computer at work, so the first time I heard it was around 9.35am when I got into my car this morning and it made me want to cry on the way to Ngaio. I was, of course, as you would know from the top half of this entry, on my way to help my mother with her open day. When I got there, there was no one else there yet, so I had raisin toast and coffee and chocolate peppermint slice, and she said “is there anything I can do for you?” and I said “can you fix my pants?” so I took them off and she fixed them and oh, it was like magic. And then my daddy came home from Dunedin or wherever he’d been andhe talked all excitedly about this processing place, and the Chinese he was showing around, and how he showed them something and how they asked for something and he showed them something else, and I was like “wow, it’s so cool how great you are at your job and how excited you are about it” and he ignored me becaue he was only paying me attention when he said “and then they got off their plane…” and I was like “got off, heh heh” and he’d laugh, and then he’d go back to talking and I’d be like “meat packing heh heh” and he’d go on and ignore the compliments.

So I decided to leave, so I texted Karen and asked her if she wanted to go to brunch somewhere on the Southern Coast, and she said “should I bring my togs?” and despite the wind, I was like “yes!” and so we went swimming at my favourite secret beach near Scorching Bay, squealing all the way cos it was cooooooooooold, and then had lunch at Chocolate Fish (haloumi and eggplant stack on sour dough). And then we went home and hung up my washing, and put on sneakers, still all salty-like, and then Miss Lisa Fur kindly came and picked us up. We got to Waitangi Park, and it was 2.20pm. I was thinking that the Phoenix Foundation were playing at 2.30pm, but there was a chalkboard saying that the Warratahs were playing at 2pm and the PF would be at 3pm. Well, we’d made jokes about how the Warratahs were like, totally down with the kids cos that wacky rap music was playing and we could see some kids breaking, so i was like “I bet they’re breaking… their HIPS” badoom chish, so we were like aaaaaaargh omg they haven’t even started yet and we’re still feeling those hands on our hearts, holding us, so we ran away to the Paramount for the best ice creams in the Courtenay area, and I had a triple chocolate ice cream, and it was accidently chocolate dipped, so like quadrupale chocolate, and holy crap, it was like an orgy in my mouth, except without the cocks and the semen and the stretching. But it was amazing ice cream. Yeah. And we went back, and sat on the ground, and the Phoenix Foundation played, and fucking oh yeah they were awesome. They didn’t play ‘Nest Egg’ for Lisa, but for me (yes, for me) they did ‘Hitchcock’ and a very rocking ‘The Drinker’ and ‘Forty Years’ and also (of course) ‘Slightest Shift’, and Karen got the Bruce Springsteening, even though she says he has no good songs, and sitting on the ground hurts my back cos I have no core strenght, but nevermind. And then I went home for nap and shower and de-salting.

In the evening I picked Brad up and saw his new house, and we came back here for drinks, and old photos – so many AUT stories to tell each other, and then the video, and sometime after midnight we headed off to Atomic, but wow, it just felt weird and strange. When they played ‘This Charming Man’, I was like “oh ho, really? But they didn’t play ‘love will tear us apart’ first”, so I thought maybe they’d swapped, but then they played the Cure’s ‘Inbetween days’ and I was like woah, parallel dimension and THEN they played ‘Love will tear us apart’ and seriously, what the fuck’s up with that shit? Also, the crowd were weird – they were waaaaaaay more Courtenay than Cuba, and Kristen wasn’t behind the bar, and I didn’t know the crowd, except for Jimmy who is apparently still alive although you wouldn’t know that from the interweb, and he said he was working on a top secret project and if I was the type to gossip I’d say the hot girl he was with was his project, but I don’t gossip. And again, I saw no one I knew, except for that really annoying “oh let me get up on the stage and dance, because I am like so awesome in my vinyl skirt and oh I’m on Suicide girls and oh I’m a drunken goth” girl who is there all the time, not that I dislike randoms that I don’t know or anything, oh no. Anyways, when we were dancing, Brad and I had an aweeeeeesome time, and just fun fun fun, but it was HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT, and so crowded, and my tummy hurt, so some time after 2am I left, and came home, and Mark was watching Go, and that brings us back into a complete circle, and the one thing I think that I’ve forgotten to mention was teh number deleting ceremony. Awesome.

Six months in a leaky boat

On Friday December 16, we packed up our offices in the morning, computers, phone cords and everything. I therefore had people yelling at me to pack up my phone when I had just received an email from my mother telling me that Oma’d had another stroke and was in the hospital again. I couldn’t reach her on the phone, so on the pretense of untangling computer cords, I crawled under my desk and cried. We lugged some crap around, and went over to the office building. Eventually I skipped out and took a bus back home for a cold shower, and my workmate came and picked me up and we went to her house to get ready for our Loveboat themed Xmas party – and for those of you playing at home, it took us exactly the length of Purple. Now there’s a flashback. Anyways, so we went back to our other work building and had drinks and then sat around on the street for a while, before being loaded up on a bus, driven down to the docks, and then walking a ways to the Sweet Georgia. The bars along the waterfront were loaded with people, and I was dressed like a bride, so I felt a tiny bit silly – although I suppose there were other people who were dressed sillier. But that’s okay, cos we got on the boat and headed out onto the harbour, and there was much food and booze and Titanic impersonations and a little too much sing-alonging. And there were DOLPHINS! A whole pod of them swimming alongside the boat for ages. And then there was anchoring at Soames Island, and ghosty stories, and eventually there was flashage, although not from me, because I was surprisingly soberish. I still went home and cried on Anji’s shoulder though, because I am a fucking idiot. You can see all of the rest of my photos from the Xmas party in this tagged part of my flickr files.

Call me loyal

On Saturday December 17, I went to my cousin Iain’s wedding, or rather the reaffirmation of their vows. It was held at my aunt & uncle’s place in Waikanae, cos they have a massively huge garden, with ponds and geese and bears, oh my. I didn’t see any bears though. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I was making the bears up. It was very very hot in the sun, but everyone looked lovely, as you can see for yourself in this part of flickr. My father tried to make a speech, which was rather embarrassing, and Karen mocked me for running away from the geese, and I kept getting locked in the toilet cos the handle turned funny, and yet it all made me want to get married ASAP please. Cheers. Oh, and Iain, if you’re reading this, Karen Anji and I were the ones who didn’t label the gifts, so the 500 thread count sheets (mmmm) and the greenstone necklace were from us. Thanks for having us, it was grand!

Crowded House

After we got back from Waikane around 11pm that night, I convinced my daddy (since Mum and Anji had gone to Oma’s house to try and catch Oma’s cat to take him to a cattery) to take me home so that I could get changed and then drop me at Kartini’s party in Aro Valley. I took nine minutes getting changed. Don’t ask me why I keep telling you how long it takes me – I just feel like telling you. Don’t mess with my self-disclosing. Kart’s party was at Nial’s house, and there were an awful awful lot of people there crammed on steps and doorways and kitchens and benches. I had a long conversation with a girl who’s in an up-and-coming Wellington band, and she made me feel special when she was like “oh, are you that Joanna – you and Heather are the people whose opinions I listen to there!” and I was like awwwwwww and we talked about what works in music and what doesn’t. I saw the boy who makes my vagina go boing, and it went boing, and there was lots and lots and lots of dancing to records. Mike played hip-hop, and then Kris (who I finally didn’t address as Jess – the name of her dog) played Atomic-y type music, and I laughed and laughed and laughed when she played ‘This Charming Man’ and then ‘Love will tear us apart’ one after another the way that the Atomic DJs always do. And then I saw Ammy! And that was very exciting because of course she left the country in Julyish 2003 and I hadn’t seen her since, and so I had to catch her up on two years in ten minutes. The party was full of creative people, from crew on Kong, to musicians, to people who talked loudly about the short films they were making. It was nice and stimulating – so much so that I was out til well past 4am, which was a capital effort on my part, I thought, considering the amount of sun and bubbly I’d had.

Oma

On Sunday Anji, Karen and I made merry at the Mediteranean Food Warehouse in Newtown, pausing not long enough for me to learn how to spell Meditblahblah but long enough for pizza, and gelato, and the buying of many, many antipasto type things (and your knowledge of Anji buying them will come back into play later)

to be continued

Ohh, I haven’t made a public update for a while now, so I guess I really should do that (and if you’re the couple of people who are on level 1 who haven’t commented or introduced yourself to me and therefore haven’t got the upgrade, maybe that’s something for you to think about…).

So Jo, what’s been happening? Well Jo, that’s a good question. Boy you’re hot right now (as opposed to being SHRN), you could do with a shower, but that’d be the third one of the day, and that would just be silly. So sweaty and smelly it will be instead. Tonight I worked late, sort of, being a model for some kind of training programme that our company is doing. On Tuesday I got to do voicework for it. Exciting times. Other than work, and the gym (haha, I know! Crazy!), annnnnnnnnnnnnd umm that’s it. Woo! But there are social activities scheduled, honest, like Atomic on Saturday, and hanging with Brad before he moves to Whakatane for the summer (he sent me a text the other day that said “As an exercise for a class we had to create a two minute item that would be performed at our funeral. I did a choreographed dance in a bear suit. Brilliant.” Brilliant!), and SERENITY!!!!!! on Tuesday, and going to the Phoenix Foundation with Miss Lisa Rat Pony, and and umm oh, trying to think of a spunky costume based on the Loveboat theme of our Xmas party (I’m thinking maybe an entertainer? That way I can still look glam and hott and yet still be a team player. Wahoo. Work’s been full of all kinds of dodgy conversations lately (“which workmate would you sleep with?” – my response was “who gets paid the most?” but I was told that wasn’t a valid answer), so that keeps me very amused. As do of course my various actual work projects, naturally.

Okay, let’s try to talk about things that aren’t work-related, so that I don’t seem like such a sellout. Ummmmmmmmmmm.

Umm…

Ummm…….

There’s angst. There’s always angst. This is just the stupid giggly crush type thing, that comes and goes, and my little mousewheel of pessimism and optimism spins around and around. Today I think I am being pessimistic, but given the ache in my gut and lower back, and how I wanted to start crying when ‘I could have lied’ spun up on my iPod, I know that’s just because I am due for a bleed, so I’m not concerned. Mostly I’m just wondering when I’m going to get some clean clothes and do my laundry and that crap. Wahoo! Exciting! At least I had Brad’s text message in here to make it interesting. Please insert your helpful Loveboat tips here, keeping in mind what I look like (so I’m not going to be a bikini-wearing sunbather). Now I am going to go and redo my links page. Wahoo.

Sometimes it’s nice to know that your employer values you – or at least is happy to shell out a large amount of money on opportunity costs of having your entire company running around on Friday afternoon with DV cams making little videos about your company. Did I ever tell you that I work for a New Media company? I suspect that the previous sentence might have revealed that if you didn’t already know. Because we didn’t have any video production people in our group – we were mostly project managers and editors, we decided to take a really ‘organic’ approach and shoot our video in sequence to save on the editing. We went with my idea of making a recruitment video, and loaded it up with really bad puns and me hosting the video with signs, saying things like “To work at *, you’ll need to be great at juggling many projects” – to have the camera pan over to someone juggling potatos, and “it also helps to be really flexible” with workmates doing back bends and somersaults in the background. For the “you’ll be working closely with your colleagues” we had three sets of feet visible under the shower curtain. Hott.

After that (although quite a lot later, cos most of the other groups finished really late although we finished quarter of an hour early), there were drinks. Many many drinks in fact, and although I was supposed to go and meet Karen for dinner, we’d got pizza so I wasn’t hungry, and I was having far too much fun having very inappropriate conversations with my workmates (the word “quiffing” was used a lot, which they claim is a fanny fart. I’m not entirely sure that it’s a real word). But I knew Karen was pissy at me, so I headed over to her house just before 9pm. Arriving with leftover brownies, and also potato chips and wine appeased her somewhat, I believe. So we chatted, and I had a shower (and didn’t puke in it) and we trotted off to Indigo to meet up with Dave and his friend who turned out to be rather cute and exciteable like a puppy – but not Humpy-like, if you get the difference (or even the injoke).

I’m being stalked – again. Friday night, and then today outside my place of work, oh and also that one time in March 2002 (<3 google desktop, although if I ever decide to become obsessed with anything that I’ve been obsessed with in the past, I will be in a lot of trouble – assuming that you define trouble as “reading many old entries” as I sometimes do). But anyways, the stalker. I was at 24 Hour Party People, and I went to the bathroom, and there was a cute girl there who was like “HEY! You’re Joanna!” and I was like…….. and she was like “I’m blah blah blah, and we’ve actually met before” and I was like “oh yeah!” and I did actually remember who she was, which is incredibly impressive for me, and she said she was stalking me, and had a crush on me, and it might have been then that I picked her up and swung her around as much as I could, or that may have been later when she introduced herself to my companions as “Joanna’s stalker”. Awww how sweet! Except I think she was laughing at me today. But like with any stalkers – or indeed the very minute number of people who say that they have crushes on me, it’s like “and then?” (speaking of Chinese drive through people, Anji and I discovered that the Chinese takeaway in Hataitai is awesome. But back to the main narrative…). Or, as Katy – and the bard – put it “Would you leave me so unsatisfied? / What satisfaction can you get tonight? / Howsabout you lick my clit, bitch?” Ahh people who quote Shakespeare, how nice it is to know you.

I impressed yet more of Katy’s friends by not taking shit from them, and dishing it straight back (“Oh, you work at a cinema huh? So what’s your film script about then?”) and we hung out until around 4am when it was time to go home via the takeaway shop and some very amusing discussion with some very very drunk young boys.

Oooooh Nightline just played some remix of the Prodigy’s ‘Voodoo People’ and i got an involuntary flashback feeling in my stomach. Crazy. Nevermind. Let me catch up with myself. Hmmmm, where was I at? Saturday? Ahh yes. Saturday. The day was really weird and I had no idea of what was going on because I’d lost my cellphone – Anji kindly ended up picking it up for me from Indigo and I don’t have a clock in my room. In the evening after the aforementioned good Chinese, I drove her into town for SJD and swung past New World for brunch supplies cos I was hoping that either Anne or Brad would be joining me for Alf’s 60th birthday party the next morning.

As it happens, I ate my brunch alone, and got choked up when they showed a brief flashback of Shane dying on a rock. I am crazy! CRAZY! And I napped, and drove Ethel back into town to pick up Anji, who is the new proud parent of an iPod Mini so she’s gone Walking Crazy, and we did the supermarket shopping, and I made a tangine, and Brad came over for dinner, and Shiny Shiny Steve(n) sang CREED and Oh, I was overwhelmed with a strange combination of lust and amusement.

Work was a bit streesssssssssful today. They’ve put me on the schedule so that I can be booked like any common resource. Oh the pain. Then I had lunch with Mum, which was surprisingly pleasant. The Tasting Room does food + a beer or a coffee for $15. Since I am doing Hard Work (my email to limegreen today said something like “I am supposed to be writing a guide to the wazoo when I don’t even know where it is!” and he said something about how he’d heard how large and impressive my wazoo was, and I got offended, cos dude, who wants someone to say “my, what a large roomy asshole you have”?) so I had the coffee instead of the beer. The steak sandwich was served with really really good fries, and also two big onion rings in it, but it’s on very garlicy garlic bread, so make sure if you eat it you pick up some peppermints afterwards.

I just had a moment of remembering exactly why I used to be so in love with The West Wing when CJ told Josh she’d cook him dinner, and he asked if she’d wear an apron and she said she’d wear anything he wanted, and his eyes went !!!!!!!! I think I’ll stop this now. Oh, and some guy saying to Toby “what if they have seven or eight kids?” and Toby says “tell them to try renting a DVD sometime instead” – remind me again why I stoppped watching this show?

Drinks at Karen’s with Brad and Shirley, and then we’re off to Atomic at Indigo via the 90s party at Blink’s but when we got there it was all about the sign on the door saying it was canceled, so we stopped to hide booze by the Bakehouse. Brad apparently went back to get another beer later, all class. Once the band had finished (Electrocrack is the new Emperor’s New Clothes), the music was great.

If New Zealand had Craigslist I would post something saying “Dear girl with the NIN tattoos and the dice necklace – you grabbed my pearls and told me you loved them and then when I suggested you punch your friend you told me you loved me and then when it seemed like you almost took my hand in the bathroom, and then did take it later but only to ask for cigarettes, well, I don’t know if you’re that way inclined, or if you are if you’d be that way inclined towards me or not, but I’d just really like to hold hands and kiss you”. Girlcrushes are confusing. Girlie-Giggling Crushes, on the other hand, are fun, even if your friends do tell you to stop giggling just cos you’ve seen the boy you have a crush on, and yell at you to talk to him even though you know he’s not interested, but hey, a hug’s good enough. And then when Heather calls you at 11am, you’re like “arrgh, I love you Heather but I’ve got to go back to sleep to dream about the boy and skipping through fields of daisies”.

Which is actually a lie, because while we’re jumbling this narrative around, I actually dreamt about Kristen, who was working behind the bar and who was (fair enoughly too) very tired. I dreamt I got up at school and yelled at everyone that she was singlehandedly the best person at the school and reeled off a list of her achievements and then cried. Much more wholesome than the other day when I dreamt I decided out of the blue to hire a male prostitute, who was gay but was doing straight for the money. I don’t know why I bothered though, because he blamed me for his inability to stick it in (probably not helped by the fact that I was inexplicitly still wearing my panties – hehe I said panties) but eventually he came across my face and mouth and left. And I paid $130 for that? Wow, even in my dreams I get ripped off.

And on that note before I return to my night story, I might throw down my New Year’s Resolutions:

Stop spending so much money on other people who don’t reciprocate

Stop losing friends

Stop being such a pooper and accept every invitation I’m given – within reason. Rain is not a reason.
The first one? Well, chances are, if you’re in Wellington, I have bought you a drink. In fact, I’ve probably brought you a couple, and statistically speaking, you haven’t bought me shit. I am tired of being overly generous when I am around people who are stingy. I’m not making ridiculously more amounts of money than y’all – I only know one student and I know when he’s on Shorters I’ll be living large off him. Yeah.

So yeah, the rest of the night? Dance dance dance dance. I tried to kiss all my friends on the lips at midnight because hey, it’s 2005 and 2005 is going to be the year of the kiss (and I can decide at the end that by “kiss” I mean “no kiss” if need be), but I don’t think I managed a single one. The one sucky thing about the Non-smoking legislation is that the balcony was absolutely packed whenever I went out to cool down a bit. I saw many people I knew – including one of Katy’s friends who told me he remembered me cos he was shocked to hear the joke I told him come out of my mouth (this is the guy who told me he was waiting for my top to have a wardrobe malfunction). The joke, for the record is Two guys were sitting at a bar and one said to the other “I could have sex with any woman here”. “Oh yeah,” says the other guy, “why’s that?” to which the first guy answers “because I’m a rapist”. Brad had a cute friend who I thought looked really familiar and then I was embarrassed because I realised I thought he looked like the asshole on ‘My Restaurant Rules’ which I have been watching this week. The cute guy had an annoying workmate who grabbed my pearls like half a dozen other people and was really sleazy and tried to make a joke about pearl necklaces. Jessie was there too for a while and I hope she had as much fun as I did. KateH showed up later, fresh from a wedding at Parliment, and there was a boy with her who looked like a sheep farmer. Given that she had mostly been partying with National Party members, it was quite likely that he was actually a sheep farmer – or at least his parents. Bad England. Nevermind. My old workmate Anthea was there too, and she was very very loud. I had no trouble hearing her. In fact, my ears are still ringing today, but I suspect that’s not her fault.

They played ’99 Luftballoons’ and I realised it’s been ten years since I celebrated New Year’s in Roppongi, Beth and I leaving the house semi-legitmately saying we were going to Meiji Shrine with the other (literal) million people. They played large chunks of Indie. They played so much good music that I got so tired dancing I found i was dancing like a little bitch around her handbag, which annoyed me muchly. Speaking of little bitches, at one stage in the toilet queue there was this slapper in a tiny skirt and fuckme boots and so much makeup she was verging on Goth, and she was applying more and more and more, and she could hardly stand, and one girl was trying to tell her that she was beautiful the way she was (an admirable sentiment), seeing as how the girl was in a BAD MOOD and was looking to start a fight – when I suggested maybe she should sit down she was like “MAYBE YOU NEED TO SIT DOWN” and that’s when the tattooed girl touched my hand, ooh la la, anyways. Slapper and her boyfriend were all over each other later on the dance floor. At one stage there were grossly dirtydancing couples in my line of vision every way I turned, which made me want to claw out my own eyes. Puke puke.

Around 4.30am I could hardly stand up anymore, so I taxied home. None of my flatmates were home, except for J’s friend who I’d had a terrible faux-pas with earlier (she went to my high school but I couldn’t place her at first until I was like “oooh you used to be much skinnier” – because she was anorexic. Nice one Jo. I tried to soften it with a “you seem much more relaxed now”. I don’t know how well that worked.) Anyways, I showered and propped my feet up on a pile of pillows and because i still had red bull running through my veins I watched some Buffy/Angel for ages. Then because my ears were ringing and my feet were ache ache acheing I dug out the last of my codeine and wanted to cry when there was only one pill left cos I thought there were two. Nevertheless, pretty much straight away everything went wispysoft and lovely. The top of my head went all tingly, and the pain shifted down a large amount. I didn’t manage to fall asleep though, just snuggle down into a blissful state which Sebby interupted, miaowing to get in and then not letting me cuddle him as much as I wanted to. Sigh. I think maybe I will develop a prescription drug addiction for 2005. Codeine is so nice. If you can get me some, I will dress up in a bear suit for you.

So tell me about your night then.