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!

Auckland is always such a city of contrasts. I got to Wellington Airport with much time to spare, so I read the paper cover to cover, perching preacriously on a stupidly slippery stainless steel stool, after surrendering my armchair to an army of annoying angry women who surrounded me and chatted incessantly and loudly. Of course being there early meant my flight was late coming in, and so in a hurray I decided to take a shuttle to my hotel instead of the airport bus. $26 bought me a seat with nine others, a long trip through Grey Lynn past Heather’s house and Canton where I was due for dinner, and I was the last person to be dropped off. Dammit!

But there was no time to fume. The Quadrant’s lobby was stark white and filled with scented candles. I rolled my bag down the long white walkway through the bar area and into a lift that had an embedded TV screen playing Juice. My room was tiny but functional. I discovered to my perverse joy later that I could sit on the toilet, blowdry my hair, drink vodka and watch TV all at the same time. What more could anyone want? A quick shower later, I was in a corporate cab from the Hyatt next door on my way to Kingsland. The sun was setting and reflected in all the shiny new architecture along Symonds Street. It was a beautiful view, but holy fuck, $18 for that distance? That amount would have got me to Greenlane in the olden days!

I grabbed two bottles of wine from Weta Wines, pleased it was still there and still open, and headed to Canton. There were still people at the table I’d booked (bastards!) so I went and stood on the street outside. Bopha came up and left to get cash and wine. Amy & Ross came along and left to get wine. Then came Martina and Heather. Robyn and Heather’s b/f Ben eventually completed our party, since Clay and Nige flaked.

I had been salivating over the prospect of dinner at Canton since I booked my tickets up to Auckland, and while the large group and noise of the place made converastion difficult, the food didn’t disappoint. As usual, I was appointed/appointed myself chief orderer, so with some deference to Martina’s vegetarianism, we had: black bean hapuku, sweet & sour pork, sizzling venison with ginger & spring onions, crispy roast pork, special black chilli chicken, sizzling vegetables and egg noodles with fried veges. YUM! Two people took doggie bags home, and with tea and dim sum and rice and corkage, we each paid $19.25. So good!

Afterwards we were going to go to Ruby for more drinks, but it was too loud, and so we settled on the Kingslander for a couple more bottles of wine. There were television screens EVERYWHERE, it was most distracting. But good to be able to converse. I like my friends. I cabbed back to the hotel eventually, and debated ordering porn from the in-house video system, just because I could, but it was $17.95 per movie, so I settled for watching Wild On: Naked instead. Genius.

The next morning, I set my alarm for 10.30 so I could wake up to meet Heather who was coming to the hotel at 11. We discovered that breakfast stopped being served at 10am, so tragedy of tragedies, we had to go straight for bubbly and cheese. As we sat in the sunny courtyard and I started to burn, we heard someone playing an electric guitar, and the sound bounced off the building next door. Given that Heather’d spotted John Toogood and Phil Knight in the lobby, we were happy to think that it was Shihad playing in our hotel, but it sounded pretty terrible, so maybe it was Grinspoon instead, who were due to be opening for Muse that night.

Once the sun got to be a bit too much, we tried to pay our bill, which took forever (the staff were friendly but not highly competant), and we got changed and went into the spa. Hurray! Yeah, a spa on a hot day after drinking caffiene and alcohol might not be the smartest idea ever, but it was loooooooovely. And then it was quite obviously time for lunch, so we strolled down to the Art Gallery, hoping to have lunch there, but found it was shut. Luckily Rueben at the New Art Gallery was open, so we parked ourselves on one of the balconies there, I had an average lamb salad, Heather had amazing french toast, and we had a totally unnecessary but very happy bottle of Deutz as well. Mmmmmm indulgence! And then just to show that we’re not totally cultureless, we went around the art gallery too. Upstairs was an exhibition called Making Worlds, which was really bloody cool. They had a seven minute animation loop called “City Glow” going on in a darkened room, which I totally could have watched all day. Although it made me feel far too Jessica Simpsony lame and pointless when I saw it was produced by Takashi Murakami and I was like “He did those brightly coloured Louis Vittion prints!”. Like I need to know that.

Eventually Heather and I parted company, and I went back to the hotel for naps and snacks, before KateH came to pick me up in the evening. We went to her beautiful house which is down by the water, and had a few drinks while we waited for the Checks and Grinspoon to get off the stage. Drive-thru burgers from Wendy’s ensured that our timing was perfect to actually get a park by the Waitakere Stadium, and we’d only missed two of Muse’s songs. We’re both so old now that we didn’t mind that at all. When did I stop queuing for things hours before they began? Was it around the same time that my knees started to go? But anyways, the gig was AMAZING. So good. When they played ‘Hysteria’, I had an auralgasm of the kind I hadn’t experienced since Dimmer. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Totally matched up to my dirty dream that featured it prominently in it. And we saw Amanda and Darren, which was nice, and left when they turned on the lights. And then we were naughty and had an after-hours spa back at the hotel, which was fantastic for sore feet and knees, especially since it was merely lukewarm. Best Friday EVER!

The next morning was Saturday, and I slept in, loving the bed, before I decided it was time to drag my ass out into the streets. I strolled down to Gloria to have breakfast, where my French toast wasn’t as good as Heather’s, but the coffees were nice and I read the paper cover to cover. Then I got on the link bus to go to the museum, but I started feeling all nostalgic and weird, because of all the memories of the route (which are detailed in ‘Link’ in 101 Stories that I want to tell you of course) and so I decided to just stay on the bus and go all the way around the city. Well, I got off briefly in Ponsonby to buy vodka and bread, but you know what I mean.

Finally it was time for me to meet Martina and David and also Karl at the Queen Street bus stop to go to the Lynfield YMCA for the wrestling. Oh yes. I went west, life is peaceful there. I went west, people had terrible hair. The ride on the 257 was pretty full of nostalgia too, given the two flats I lived in on/off Dominion Road. It was also interesting hearing other people’s stories, like where they lost their virginities. And drinking vodka from a ginger ale bottle made me feel like a fourteen year old again, and who doesn’t like that? We got to Lynfield with some time to spare, so we hunted out food for the boys, and I sang the YMCA song a lot with the actions, and we took this photo in front of the vets. And now I might just revert into a photo montage to sum up the awesomeness of the wrestling, and my brand new boyfriend with a spectacular ginger mullet.

After a cold long wait for the bus, we all started falling asleep on the back seat. Nevertheless, Martina and David came back to my hotel room for a while, and helped me polish off the remaining food and vodka, and I stayed up late watching E! again. Good times.

On Sunday I was expecting to have brunch with Bopha and Clayton, but she was stuck out west somewhere, and Clayton made other plans, so after checking out at 12 and leaving my suitcase with reception, I returned to Gloria to have a very very long breakfast by myself with the Sunday Star Times. Finally it was getting near time to find myself an airport bus, so I went to get my suitcase, and I asked them where the airport bus stop was, and they told me down on Symonds Street. So I rolled my case up to a stop in the hot hot sun, but couldn’t find any markings on it to indicate that the airport bus might stop there. I rang Maxx, and they gave me the number for the airport bus company, and I couldn’t find a human, but it did mention the route, listing the Hyatt which was right next to the Quadrant, so disgruntledly I rolled back up to the Hyatt, and the doorman told me the stop was right in front of the Quadrant. Cheers clever desk staff! So I was hot and stinky and smelly then, and worried that I might not make it to the airport in time, when a shuttle pulled up in front of me and told me he’d drive me to the airport for $15, the same as the bus, since he was going that way anyway. Yay! That shuttle totally redeemed the shuttle in. And so that was the end of my time in Auckland. Very good fun indeed.

I’m going to Auckland after work today. Tonight I’m having dinner at Canton, hurrah! Text me if you’re in Auck and I forgot to invite you. There’s a spare seat at our table. Then on Friday night I’m going to Muse. I’m up until Sunday, so please feel free to fill in my time table for me.

I have lots of stuff to write about but I haven’t got time, so very briefly:

1. The clever Alison Green has created an archives page for the Gathering (you remember that, right?) which you should definitely go check out and my story about long distance IRC love and bad acid trips can be found here.

2. Please go vote for the Wellingtonista Awards, and try to get into our Awards Night. I have a stunning pink dress to wear to it. I’m going to look damn hot. When you’re voting, I recommend voting for the poached pear punch at Superfino as the best drink, and of course for the Bowling/Quiz Leagues as best event.

3. I am so very in love with the new Q CD for the best of 2007, especially Hard Fi, Rilo Kiley and Jamie T – “I ain’t an abacus but you can count on me”. I’m pissy with PJ Harvey for coming to Auckland on the 13th of February when I’m going to be up there for the 8th. Err, presuming I get an invite to my cousin’s wedding, that is. Are you coming back for it, Cous?

This whole not having a computer at home thing is pretty sucking. I mean, I can check my emails on Smoo’s computer (which is actually my old one), but it’s at a funny low table, and the monitor is 14 inches, and I asked him if I could rifle through his panty drawer while I was in there, and he said he didn’t have a panty drawer; he has a panty floor. So you can understand why I might not be so keen to do that.

And I’ve been crazy-busy at work too! On Monday and Tuesday I went to Moodle Moot 2006 up at Vic Uni, which is every bit as geeky as it sounds, but parts of it were actually interesting, and important for me to learn. And I got sandwiches. And felt like puking when I went into the Student Union building (and then I laughed because I spent so long wondering why some of the people there didn’t like me, until I realised that actually, maybe it had something to do with me actually not liking them, actually). For the past couple of months at work I have made the mistake of saying “I need some more work! I need some more work”, and now all of a sudden I’ve had four projects dumped on me. One of them involves becoming an expert in Moodle pretty much last week. Awesome. Another involves me actually project-managing various things. Luckily most of what I need to manage is myself, and I’m crap totally awesome at that. Honest. You should see how on-to-it my project plans are, if by that I mean “what project plans?”. Come back Peti, all is forgiven! Even if the temporary scheduler has declared that I am her favourite project mananger on account of how I’m not asking for any resources ever.

Current things apart from Moodle that are high on my list of things in my brain right now is about a thousand tons of MSG from lunchtime yum cha with Cinta and Dave (“Oh, they’re white people, well I suppose we’d better bring out the deep fried stuff”), a thousand tons of bad pirate jokes for Saturday, and a bunch of anxiety about the weather and the likelihood of playing mini golf not being very high, and also stressing about whether or not people will actually come to the Caribbean, and thinking about how much cleaning I have to do before then, and how much money and time I’ve spent on food for the event and oh oh oh, I’m just typing way too quickly now because I need to have this entry finished in four minutes so I can make it home and put on my pjs and do some cleaning and also rejoice in the glory that is Rockstar being back on TV.

I had other things to tell you, no doubt, but I can’t remember for the life of me what they were. Oh yes, I’m going to be in Auckland on Wednesday-Sunday, and I’d like to hang out. I’d also like someone to go to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs with since Lisa can’t make it. I mean, I can go by myself, of course, but it’d be nice not to have to.

Oh, and one of my other new workmates knows Annabel. Damn small world.

You know, I’d decided that I was going to start this entry out by pondering how the hell people did the Big Day Out without cellphones, but then I was forced to remember. Oh yeah, if you have my number, can you please text me your name (or email me your number?)? Yeah, that’s right, it’s new Sim Card and phone time. Same number though. Stupid fucking D List ‘celebrities’.

But we can scoot backwards in time, to Thursday morning and I’m leaving the backdoor key out for our downstairs neighbour Eve so that she can look after Sebastian that night since Anji had already flown to Auckland for work, and loading my bags into Lisa Fur’s car boot and folding myself into the backseat because Fran was in the front. And then it’s a week later, and I’m switching from present tense into past, because I’m not a choose-your-own adventure book, as much as I’d like to be. A quick study guide to the BDO was playing on the stereo, and there was a monkey to show the country to. Goats were thrown at first sightings of mountains, which resulted in the people in front of us pulling aside to let us pass. The toilets in Tirau are still the best place in the country to stop, and driving into Auckland still sort of feels like a kick in the guts six years later. Lisa’s car made it on one tank of petrol though, which is incredible.

Heather wasn’t home for Fran to be dropped off to, so we headed to the place that Lisa and I were staying, the Comfort Inn on Newton Road. We’d scored ourselves a big two bedroom apartment with parking for only $65 a night each, sweet sweet accomodation candy. Heather showed up and had some beers, and we headed up the road to Gina’s for dinner. If you’re not familiar with Auckland, Gina’s is (in)famous for its ridiculously hot and over-the-top waiters. The food’s pretty good too, but it’s insanely busy, and took a long time, and it was very very crowded. We went back to the apartment and had more wine. I love the litre bottles of Banrock.

The next day it was Friday and therefore bdoing day. Lisa and I went to meet up with Heather and Fran at Roasted, and then I called an incredibly incompetant taxi driver who took half an hour to find us and kept calling me on my cellie. We got there just before Pluto started. I forgot how many people go to the Big Day Out. There were a lot of people there. Pluto were okay. They played some new songs which was nice, and drums were pounded very heartily, but I just don’t know if their heart is in it anymore. Then I put my earplugs back in (hurray for being a grown-up!) and waded through the crowd trying to get out of the stupid (but I’m sure it’s important when the stadium is actually full) D-Barrier. Texts to Lisa found her again, and we went and got our passes for the Immortals Lounge, courtesy of a wonderful friend.

I felt special as we got to ride the big glass elevator up to the sky. We got to use cleanish bathrooms, and the bar queue was short and there was a better selection (but only Lion Red or Steinie, so I saw that it would be a beer-free day for me). The view was very choice. Then it was time to skootch back down to the Green stage for Sleater Kinney. I wish I knew their music better. If ever there was going to be a replacement for Hole in my “strong women make me feel strong” listening, it could very well be them.

Breaks Coop were playing next, and I’m not a repetitive old woman so I decided to run away quickly to a clean bathroom up in the Immortals Lounge again. I checked the time on my cellphone while I was up there, and bought a drink, and then discovered that my phone was gone. Rad. I went through my bag and looked on the floor by the bar. No phone. Excellent. Then Lisa showed up, luckily, and after asking at the bar after my phone, we went down to see the Go! Team. It made me feel very grumpy though, losing phones sucks. I was going to try calling it from Lisa’s phone but realised I’d never hear it.

Then the Go! Team started, and they were fantastic, and I had a boogie, despite my knees being already like “hey lady, remember us? We don’t like this kind of behaviour one little bit”. I wish I could shake my bottom like Ninja. Fuck it – I wish I was Ninja. Their album is definitely going on my ‘to buy’ list.

I can’t remember when it was that the Brunettes started to play, but I took a photo of all the people on stage.

Someone said that there were 20 people in the orchestra (You don’t expect me to actually try and count do you?). Their rider can’t go very far. I wish I’d stayed for them, but I’d already realised that I am much too old for the Big Day Out.

My knees led me over to the fence by the beer area and I sat down for the Magic Numbers and took some Nurofen Plus. Mmm codeieney. But people don’t look at the ground when they’re walking, and they kept kicking or tripping over my legs – despite the fact that there were people sitting all the way along against the fence, and it was just pissing me off too much so I decided to pop up to the Immortals Lounge again. More liquor and more codeine was taken, and I pulled an armchair up to the window at the back of the lounge and settled down for Shihad:

They played their standard fare. If I hadn’t been so doped up, I might have been a little sad that I wasn’t in the mosh, but then again, if I had been, I wouldn’t have been able to see how fantastic the crowd’s arms looked when they did ‘Pacifier’. But I was, so that was okay. When I felt lonely I had another drink. Haha excellent. Then a guy who was Kateb’s brother’s best friend growing up who’s now in a band that I interviewed for Pulp a while ago came over and hugged me, and tried to introduce me to his fiance, but given that she was a friend of Kateb’s at uni, I already knew her. And that was the only people at the Big Day Out who I bumped in to, apart from Jessie. That was strange, cos I am used to seeing so many people I know there, and I was actually a little bit afraid of who I might bump in to.

Franz Ferdinand played, and they were pretty average, and my arm chair was very comfortable. Then Iggy started, and I was like “what the fuck am I doing? This is the Big Day Out and I’m sitting up here like those wankers that I hate at gigs who only go because they get in free, and they don’t even like music”, and plus the BDO book talked about a cocktail bar in Lilyworld, so I went off to find that. Apparently, the cockails are only in Australia. I also couldn’t find the Krishna food stall, so I had a $9 kebab instead because I realised that I’d had one TEN YEARS AGO at my first Big Day Out, and washed it down with a Lion Red, Mate. I contemplated having a dance, but I was too chicken/sober to dance by myself with the models. Did I bitch about the girl carrying the Nova bag yet? I mean, hi, you’re wearing high heels and an expensive looking dress, and you’re stick thin and gorgeous. We get the point. You’re a model. You don’t need to tell us what agency you’re with. If I was to bitch about the other 30,000 people there though it would take far too long. I’m too old and jaded. And I was also kind of lonely. It’s fine to be by yourself at the Big Day Out if it’s your choice, but if you’re just a lost puppy who can’t contact people cos no one has handed your phone in, then it sucks.

I sat at the back of the stadium and took photos of the human lightening people, who could have been a lot more impressive than they actually are:

Then the White Stripes started.

They looked kind of cool, but the sound was craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy at the back there, and I couldn’t stomach going up closer.

I went to go and wait at the rendevouz spot that I’d (phew!) arranged with Lisa earlier in the day, and then Jessie was there, and I was like YAY and hugged her and felt a bit like I did that one time at the Gathering when I found Katy and Anji after I’d been lost for a couple of hours and thought tents were frozen bodies from Titanic and that there were Jim Henson creatures walking around me and I’d lost the ability to speak, except, you know, without the acid. And Lisa showed up, and Fran, and we got told off for walking on the road by a policeman, and we took a taxi and we went home, hurray! It was strange to leave a Big Day Out and still be able to walk and not have my ears ringing,and I wasn’t too badly sunburnt except for my nose. I am no longer hardcore. I miss being hardcore.

On Saturday Lisa and I met Heather and Jamie from NZM at Benediction. I’ve decided that avocado on turkish bread is quite possibly one of the best breakfasts ever. Then I made Heather come to St Lukes with me, and I used a Farmers voucher leftover from Xmas to get myself a new phone. Then, of course, I went back to her house to charge my phone and check my email, because that’s the only reason I’m friends with her. I also got to watch Alt TV, and I wet my pants in delight at seeing a Guns’n Roses video that I’d forgotten even existed. Awesome.

I went home and had a bath and tried to nap but it was too hot so I read magazines and texted people back going “who is this?” because of the lack of numbers. Exciting, yes, I know. Luckily my social secretary KateH had booked us all for a dinner at 8pm at Canton. Holy crap I love the food there, it’s soooooo good. And for $16 each, we certainly ate plenty. Then people came back for some more drinks, and someone called me trying to arrange a booty-call for the morning (*) and I was metaphorically speechless.

This is Shirley and KateH and her boyfriend Andrew:

This is Maree, who was up from Hamilton for the weekend:

This is J.C and Nigel, who is doing his best J.D Fortune look, while claiming never to have watched ‘INXS: Rockstar’:
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What’s more interesting than looking at photos of people you don’t know? Relating dialogue from the night? Yeah, so I’ll stop this now. On Sunday Lisa and I drove back down to Wellington. I like visiting my friends in Auckland. I love the Arcade Fire. The end.

Okay, one day I will finish part three of The Decemberer and you’ll know how I spent the rest of my holidays. But it’s on my computer at home, and frankly, I’m way too busy.

Why am I so busy? Well:

1. I’m driving up to Auckland on Thursday with Lisa Fur and Franrose for the Big Day Out. Hurrah! On the Saturday night, I’m having a dinner at Canton in Kingsland and then drinks at our apartment in Newton, so you should get in touch and come along. If you can’t make it out that night, I’d still love to see you. Keep an eye out for me if you too are bdoing. I may very well be wearing a lime green bandana to save getting a burnt scalp.

2. I’m looking for two flatmates since Anji is moving out – you can see the ad on flatfinder that features photos of my sexy couches and dining room. If you know someone who’s looking for a place, likewise, let me know. I think I’d probably prefer boys, and I promise not to sleep with them. I’m reformed.

3. Brad’s having a fundraiser to raise funds (fancy that!) for his secondment to a Philly theatre company, and you should come along. It’s on February 10, so it’s a while away, but I’ll pop the invite up here for now anyway:

4. I’ve been asked by my manager to set S.M.A.R.T goals for the next three months at work. I have to tell her what they are next week. Help! What are my goals? Do I want to learn software? Are there any courses I might want to do? OOOH! I want to learn Maori. And also how to macronise properly. Rock. But more ideas would be welcome.

Last week I was totally stressed out and in desperate need of a holiday – as evidenced by me crying in the toilets at work on Thursday morning, and not even playing Appetite for Destruction over and over in my headphones so loud that I couldn’t hear the phone on my desk ring helped. Nice one. Now I am back at work and am in desperate need of a holiday to recover from my holiday, but I don’t want to stop thinking about it or talking about it cos I had like the bestest time ever. This is how it went down.

Please note: I will gradually update this over the course of the day, so if I’m still not back in Wellington in the account, keep coming back.

My flight to Auckland was pretty bog standard, the only thing that made it slightly more interesting was that the main road out to Wellington Airport was closed, so the shuttle driver had to go a different way and it made me realise that if it had been me driving I would have been stuffed. On the plane I started reading Star Man, which is a biography of Michael Francis. You’re like, “who?” and I’m like “omg, you mean you don’t know?” and then I explain that he served as a security bodyguard type person for Led Zepplin, and Bon Jovi, and Cher and an assortment of others, and then you say “ahhh Jo, when will you stop reading those rockstar biographies and return to real literature?” and I punch you in the head.

The airport bus driver in Auckland was also head-punching worthy with the way that he threw away my perfectly valid ticket that i’d purchased from a machine when I got back from Fiji for a bus that had never shown up, and made me buy a new one. Grr. I should write a letter, but you know, that would be too constructive when instead I could just sit here and bitch about it. But at least the bus dropped me off right outside the Pulp offices, where I could go up to meet the new editor, and struggle to call her by her real name instead of Carla. I don’t think I’ve ever really chatted with someone who’s been on Shortland St for a significant period of time for a significant period of time before (ha ha, do you like what I did there with that sentence?), hence why it was so damn difficult. But she was very complimentary, and said that she hoped I would continue to write for them, and blah blah, and I said I want to, it’s just that i’ve had no ideas and I’ve been really busy. But I will continue to do the music reviews cos they’re easy enough to pop out.

After that, I couldn’t get ahold of anyone who wanted to play with me, so I went down to Queen St and parked my ass in front of Crash and proceeded to cry lots, of course. Some of it was a little predictable, and some seemed a little cliched, but the way that every character was given depth, and that everyone was a villan at one time or another was really interesting. I can think of lots of people who should go and see it (you know who I’m thinking of if you read NZm). I also find it vaguely amusing that on IMDB there’s a big thread abotu how black people talk too much at the movies. Ha ha, it seems like someone wasn’t paying attention…

Then it was back on the bus to Ponsonby and to my hotel via the liquor store on Williamson Ave. I stayed at the Quest on Ponsonby, and it immediately endeared itself to me when I didn’t have to give them a cash bond in lieu of a credit card imprint. I was less impressed by how warm it was in the room, but after a conversation with reception, I figured out (read: was told) that if I turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows (which I didn’t realise were openable) and that was choice. Of course, the water feature in the courtyard was pee-making, but the bathroom was black and shiny and great, and reminded me of the bathroom in Olivia’s old Living Cube ™. Plus, halogen lights! How rad does my hair and skin look under halogen? Much radder than in real life anyways, that’s for sure.

Eventually Penny showed up to show me her wedding photos and we had a glass of wine together:

It was lovely to see her and to hang out, even for an hour. I got to look at all her wedding photos, so I was like “awwwww”. I wanna get married too! Penny was like “did you get implants?” because I was already dressed up to go out. No no friend, I just discovered the metaphorical joys of architecture and airbags, and the literal joy of one air pocket for Mary-Kate. After all, if people are going to be talking to your boobs, they might as well have something for people to talk about. Umm, not that everyone was, of course. Ha.

Anyways, so then it was time for dinner at Sawadee which the lovely KateH had arranged for me:

I had Heather and Jessie to my left, although Jessie is mysteriously absent in this badly edited picture:

Then there were the Triple As, who arrived after our entrees but that’s okay. Actually to be perfectly honest, Amy wasn’t even eating with us, but flitted over with her pina colada every so often, because she had a work do too.

Luckily she made it into this picture too, so that I can pretend I have lots more friends. Although of course, since I’m cunningly cropped out of the KateH picture, you have no evidence that I was ever there at all, but here’s the view from around the rest of the table:

I was so fucking stoked that Bopha showed up. Just being near her makes me feel Zen. Of course I was glad to see everyone else too. And to eat tofu. Mmmm tofu. I did a lot of the Bridget Jones introducing people with a common interest thing, but some of my lines totally crashed and burned. Boo-urns.

Both KateH and Jessie had managed to secure a plethora of spare tickets to The Mountain Goats, so we tried to convince the Triple As to come too, but they declined, so the rest of us went back up to my hotel room for some more drinks before the gig. It was so choice just to have some of my favouritist people in the whole wide world piled on my bed.

KateH told a story about how her friend’s grandfather died being looked after by everyone he cared about in the house he was born in and made me cry. Oh the pain of having to retouch my makeup! There was much textage to assorted other people in assorted other places(*), and talk of sex but I can’t remember of what context it was in except that it was very very amusing. Oh yeah, perhaps we were talking about hairy people. Also I told the story of SUPER FUN VAGINA SURGERY for those who hadn’t read it. I suspect that might have been it. Eventually minus Bopha we piled into KateH’s car – which is no longer yellow, and that’s strange (well it’s not so strange, given that it’s a new car, it’s not like her old one metamorphesized, but I haven’t ridden in it before. So there) and headed on up to Shadows.

Apart from a couple of post AUT bar beers in 2003, I don’t think I’ve been to Shadows since the olden days of 1999, so it was strange to be going back there, but amusing to be actually asked for ID and being able to show valid ones, instead of doctored birth certificates and fake ISSIC cards. Also, dya know what’s great about Shadows? JUGS! I’d already dancing a jiggling jug jig for my friends back at the hotel, so I am of course referring to large amounts of beer for a mere $6.20 a pop. Hurray liquor!

Also, let’s have some hurrays for Interweb people coming to introduce themselves, like Chris who was absolutely lovely, and looked like Kayleigh from Firefly and then later Calum who is like, the definition of SHRN. I was very excited to meet them. Also Sam was at the gig and was texting to find us, but he couldn’t, and we could see him calling us, and it was very amusing for a while until I told him where we were. And Amanda was there too (and while I’m all happy with the pics, I wanted to cuddle up to her bosoms like this again, but didn’t, cos I’m sure that would have been inappropriate)

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and Nigel, and and and oh just so many people I know. Is it any wonder that I was later described as “holding court with the scensters”? No sir. So I didn’t actually see the Mountain Goats at all. I vaguely heard them, but you know how much I hate those motherfuckers who talk at the front of gigs? Of course I sat at the back. And then many hours later, they kicked us out cos we were the last to leave.

For reasons unknown or unremembered (*), Heather and I decided to go to Rakino’s, and so the lovely KateH dropped us off there. Rakino’s was packed full to the brim of hipsters, but we managed to find a spot on the balconey to sit and drink even more beer and try to find our friend via text who turned out to be at a strip club. But there were so many hipsters though. Perhaps it was the official after party? I don’t know, I wasn’t that aware of much at the time.

In fact, it took Heather reminding me the next day for me to remember that after Rakino’s we went and had a couple of cocktails in Deschlers. Ahhh Deschlers. The cocktails were still really excellent, and because it was who knows when in the morning, we got a booth and lovely service, and no one was watching the rugby, unlike the last time I was there which was just so wrong wrong wrong. I hate to think of how many cocktails I have had there – or more specifically, what else I could have done with the money. Oh the memories. I didn’t put my hand on her leg under the table though, because I am not that type of girl any more. And then we shared a taxi to drop me off in Ponsonby and her back at her house. It was an awesome awesome night(*).

I woke up on Saturday to a cacophany of noise, and I wondered who the hell was in my room, and then I wondered where the hell I was, and what the hell I was wearing. Sometimes it’s terribly difficult being me. Once I figured out the answers (1. The window was open and overlooking the cafe in the courtyard 2. I was in a hotel room in Auckland and 3. Pajamas. I must have fallen asleep before I had a chance to take them off) I felt a lot better. So much so that I got up and took a shower and texted Heather to see if she wanted to get brunch. She was still in bed so I went back to sleep and woke up feeling much much crappier. I wandered up and down Ponsonby Road for ages, clutching the Thai doggybag in my hand looking for a cab because thinking was hard, and the sun was shining, and oh my, my stomach had felt happier on other days. But eventually I managed to snag one, and smile and nod my way over to Heather’s, and collapse on her floor. She was in much of a similar condition.

I begged and I begged her to come out to a cafe with me, but they were so very far away (read: 100 metres or so) that we just couldn’t do it. She kept offering me eggs, because apparently she doesn’t realise that I am like DEATH TO ALL EGGS, but eventually she decided to go and buy some bacon and some coke and some potato chips. I puked and checked my email while waiting forher to come back. The lovely girl went and got coffee too! And orange juice. And ready salted chips AND salt and vinegar delisimo chips. Have you tried delisimo chips yet? They are very much the shit even if most of their flavours (like tzaiki) just end up tasting like sour cream & chives. It was the best breakfast ever. So we sat around listening to music, watching tv, chatting to people on the interweb and just generally chilling (*).

Eventually it got to be around 6ish, so I texted Shirley and she very kindly came and picked me up and I took her to dinner. We were going to go to Roasted, but couldn’t find a park so we ended up at Occam. The waiter was snooty, and they had Celine Dion turned up at levels that must surely have been intended to piss off the kitchen staff, so I yelled out my order. The hint wasn’t taken though. I thought about asking them to turn it down but decided just to bitch instead. My eye fillet was goooooooood though. Then it was to the supermarket for chocolate, and wine and a birthday present for Justin – I found him a magic eight ball. Excellent. I napped for half an hour back at my hotel room, and then walked to Shirley’s, via a little knee wobbling as I walked past a place where many years ago, I had received a most unexpected but very very wanted pash. Oh *IV! Oh the get the fuck over it!

Anyways, Shirley lives in a very cool big old villa near Ponsonby Road, and her flatmates have filled it with ex pantomime sets, including a light-up Sky Tower. Her bathroom is bigger than many people’s bedrooms. It’s pretty rad. So we had a drink – or at least I did, she had a half glass, and headed out to find Justin’s party. It was very much like First Year Uni, with Shirley driving, and me drunk in the front seat hanging on for dear life. Except that I wasn’t at all drunk cos of the hangover, but you know, close enough.

For Justin’s 30th, he and his friend decided to throw themselves a Howick themed party, since that was where they grew up (ha ha!). Luckily, they had it in Mt Albert instead of Howick. However, they did still come in costume:

Hot Toddy had found the outfits in lost & found for them since he teaches there now. Justin had put signs up around his house denoting various notorious Howick places, like Musik Point which I’d already seen when Brad took me and KateB and Clayton on a pash tour (and I’d just like to throw out a great big FUCK YEAH! to Google Desktop which found that phrase ‘pash tour’ as quickly as I could type it in. I will be doing this a lot more, I think. The linking to old entries, not the Pash Touring. Although I’d like to do that too please). Shirley and I sat down in a corner because we knew very few people (As I said to her, “Oh, none of the multitude of Justin’s friends that I have brought to orgasm are here”) and Hot Toddy told us facts about wherever it was, which was that George Bernard Shaw had stayed there. When I told Justin that, he was very impressed. But yes, there were lots of people there, and I recognised some of them like Hott Jason (hi, are you still reading my journal four and a bit years later?) and a girl who’d been on the PR Grad Dip with me (who had told me many things about another one of Justin’s friends from the second to last set of parenthesisisiisis), but I was soberish and just feeling really meh. It was strange thinking about how five years ago Justin had his 25th at Garland, and just how different then was to now. Plus, I wanted to go see Ryan McPhun and the Ruby Suns, so around 11pmish we left to go pick up Heather.

At the King’s Arms I was greeted with a “Hey Wellington!” by Matthew Crawley, who seems to always be everywhere (it was he who did a raid on Garland resulting in smoke bombs and Tom Jones posters in the toilet, although I was too busy sex0ring the skankiest guy in teh world at the time to realise. Actually, looking back, that’s a lie. It actually happened at Justin’s 25th, so I was busy doing something that is not ever refered to). Gareth was also there, strangely enough, given that he was playing. We went outside for Heather to have a cigarette, and then when we went back inside, Calum came up and talked to us.

This is where I go a bit squee and wax lyrical about the adoreableness of Calum. I’m not alone in doing it, Heather and Shirley too are members of his fan club. And now you’re about to be:

And one taken on an angle because apparently that’s what hipsters do:

That’s what I love about these (metaphorical) high school boys – I get older, they stay the same age….Ha ha ha, we are dirty old women.

The Ruby Suns were also very very awesome, and I enjoyed them immensely. If you’re not familiar with them, I will say that they’re from Lil Chief Records, which is also home to The Brunettes, so they’re vaguely similar, in the cute Americanisms xylophone instrument swapping kinda way. Yeah. How long has the I need to hurry up and get one of my own before every damn hipster in town has one installed. Also, since I had my handbag with me, and therefore a pen, I grafittied two stalls in the women’s toilets. First person to email me and tell me what I wrote gets a prize. But all good things come to an end, and when everyone else left to go to Die! Die! Die!, Shirley took me and Heather home via junk food. Hurrah.

The next day I checked out at 12pm, and had breakfast, and went to Kyla’s and held Felicity and cried. Then I walked to Shirley’s and hung out and then took a shuttle to the airport and then they stuck me in a business class seat and I listened to Bon Jovi on my iPod because of Star Man and I pretended I was a rock star and that was my holiday and yay I am done now.

Today we’re link-crazy with hot and not lists!

Things that are Fetch:

The Onion using the word ‘vagina’ in its headlines today. Next stop – the NZ Herald

Describing Christian Pastor Token ‘Rocker’ on NZ Idol as “The Merkin” (thanks Robyn)

Having chorizo sausages in the fridge with which to make Spanish Fried Stuff for dinner tonight (chorizo; lots of garlic; agria potatos; red onion if we still have one, white if we don’t; fresh parsley and chives; large glugs of extra virgin (just like me!) olive oil)

Canton for dinner on September 9th. That’s not like “Mama’s making Canton, doesn’t take long” bullshit, it’s the bestest Chinese food (according to me) in NZ and it’s in Kingsland and I will be there and so should you.

My bands in The Rock Star Game: The Hubrettes as angry indie rock, Princess Tiare as angry girl folk, and DJ Hubris as an elusive charismatic genius.

All the great map-graphs over at Wellurban, like Staggering distance which should enable you to always be within five minutes of a decent martini, and Where the boys are, which should help us all with that drought.

Things that are Gay for Mark:

Having no money cos of paying for my tickets to Auckland.

Being too lazy to make a page of my photos of Fiji (which the clever ones of you will have already found on flickr) into a page.

Having to move over to the other building tomorrow. I’m happy to be there, but I hate moving.

Having to TWOP last week’s episode of Veronica Mars while I’m still not familiar with who is who cos all the damn boys look the same.

The season finale of The Gilmore Girls last Sunday. Not that it was crap, but because a) I knew what was going to happen (damn online gossip columns) and b) it was the finale, and that’s never cool.

The pitiful amount of submissions that I got for The Ultimate Wellingtonisa Cocktail. Boo. Don’t the rest of your lives revolve around your next drink like me?

The quite a few of you new Hubrettes who’ve signed up – which is great – but haven’t commented or introduced yourselves. I know you’re logging in, it’d be swell if you wanted to let me know who you are, or that you’re an active participant, so I can elevate you to new levels of delight!

My having to convert to Judaism because of my two future husbands, Zach and John Safran.

You have reached the Internet mailbox of Joanna. Please leave your message after the end of mine. She will clear them when she comes back from FIJI, haha you sad still in NZ people.

PS: Auckland, Sunday 4th, wanna party between 10am-5pm? Or have hot hotel sex0r with me in the posh place I’m booked into on the night of the 3rd? You totally do, right? I’ll have my mobile when I’m in NZ.

So what I feared about peanuts and monkeys has proven to be true (*) but let’s ignore that and focus on the positives instead.

I received a Valentine today! It’s from Outback Jack, and it says “Strewth! ur a hot sheila!! LOLZ!! ur teh only lady I wanna pair up in twos with!!! OMG!!! HAWT!!!” I wonder if Natalie knows. According to the latest NW they’re engaged. According to the Herald Milan is engaged. Bastard.

Also! I have a hairdressing appointment booked. You can be like “so what?” but if you know me well enough then you’ll know that my beloved hairdresser Hayley is in Auckland, and therefore I must be Auckland bound – as indeed I am. I fly in on Friday the 25th at 9.30am and I leave at 3pm on Sunday the 27th. This does mean that I miss the Cuba St Carnival AND Dimmer, but hey, these things happen. Whilst in Auckland I will be getting my hair cut at 12.30pm on the Friday, going to Goodshirt at the Zoo on Saturday evening for KateH’s birthday, and then painting the town red later that night for KateM’s going away. Possibly a bbq will be attended the next day before I fly back. On the friday day I intend to meet up with my biggest client since I’m sure I owe her a glass of wine or two, and also see Gemma who I haven’t seen since Easter 2004 perhaps? Other than that though, I would like to hang out with you. I think I will hopefully be playing with Heather that Friday night.

Why did no one tell me about p2p porn before? I downloaded Limewire yesterday, and when I clicked the “new files” I was overwhelmed. Now I just have to figure out what kind of porn I actually want to download – I suspect “please for the love of god cut your nails and take off those ugly shoes” is too long a search string to start out with. Still, there’s always Buffy slash I guess…. Sick. Sick sick sick sick sick (but if you’re going to do the Buffy slash thing, google “bankhead academy”).

That’s about all I have to say for now. I’m going to a d.vice fuckerware party on Wednesday, which I’m quite looking forward to. Given how ridiculously sore my arms are these days (remember how I first got OOS cos I hated Foodstuffs so much?), I’ll be looking for something handsfree, I do believe. I think my dearly beloved Fiesta Party has carked it, although not from overuse.

I am so over today (*), I would like it to be 5pm right about now please thanks bye.