Item! Once again, I am anticipating my period. My boobs are sore and I’m starting to get cramps when I orgasm. Is this the information you’re looking for when you google “Jo Hubris” or when you look me up when I apply for jobs with you? I really must reiterate again that this is an online journal where I have been writing about my periods since 1998. I don’t believe it is a reflection on my professionalism. That’s what www.joannamcleod.com is for.

Item! That whining out of the way, I want to tell you about my friend Peter. For his 20th birthday, me and the good people of Garland bought him a Britney Spears doll. That was a good ten years ago. Recently he was back from the UK for a bit, and came to a party at Shirley’s and then Anna-Jane’s flatwarming with me. He brought Britney with him! And took her out of the box for the first time!

Say hello to my little friend

He carried her in his pocket all night and talked to her too. I adore Peter.

Item! There’s stuff written by me in a new magazine called FishHead. I went to its launch. The Masked Barfly went too.

Item! I had a blogsplosion today and updated EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY BLOGS apart from the Aucklandista. That’s an awful lot of blogs. Ones you might know about include Pretty Pretty Pretty, the Wellingtonista, You Are So Entertaining and Joanna McLeod Dot Com. Ones you might not know about I suppose will stay that way. Oh, but you should follow my tumblr if you’re into that sort of thing.

Item! I am having a potluck dinner party on Good Friday and am trying to use it to meet people that I might follow on Twitter and the internets but don’t really know. Would you like to come along? Let me know!

Item! Finally, because Robyn did it, let me present you with the top search terms for today on my site:

homemade duck blinds	6
ingrown hair vagina	2
picture of ingrown hair on breast	2
ingrown hair genital	2
the feelers suck	1
musician calls potential sponsor whore	1
in grown hair on arm	1
infected ingrown hair crotch	1
anal sluts wellington	1
gmt.co.nz	1

It’s true, I did have an ingrown hair. And the Feelers do suck. The rest, I don’t think I can help you with, sorry. Except to say that if I hadn’t been blind drunk, I may not have needed a “the duck” tag.

EDIT: oh yeah, I already told you to delete my feed and resubscribe if you’re not getting full posts in your RSS reader, yes? Good.

Tom posted on the Wellingtonista recently about the places to drink for free. Join me as I try to score free drinks every week until the end of the year.

For the first in my series, tonight I’m going to the

“AUT Alumni Cocktail function is this Thursday from 6 – 8 pm. at Hotel Inter-Continental.”

You can sneak in and join me there, and I’ll report back on how it is when I come home, including analysis of the food, the selection of drinks, the company and how much I got out of it and its approximate monetary value.

The event itself

Companion: Fellow AUT Alumni Shirley, and if we were bad sort of people, we may have snuck someone else in under the pretext that they were in our class. But we’re not bad people, honest.

Venue: The drinks were held at the Hotel Intercontinental, in one of the function rooms. It was a very bland space designed for around 30 people. Arm chairs were around the walls, and there were a couple of small tables in the middle of the room, cleverly placed for putting down empty drink glasses, and with bowls for rubbish. An effort was made to make them look more interesting by scattering flat blue glass marbles on top. The bar table was near the entrance door, which was guarded by an AUT staffer to make sneaking in people without them being added to the mailing list much harder. Some of the lights in the windowless room weren’t turned on, allowing the non-AUTer to lurk in the shadows more. Oh, and the toilets had individual hand towels. Classy.
How good was it?: I hadn’t been to the Intercontinental since we went there for KateB’s 12th birthday dinner when it was the Park Royal, so that was nice to do something different, but it was an incredibly bland space.

Drink: The bar had bottles of Montana wine displayed in classy silver bottle-coolers – Lindauer, Sav and a red I didn’t inspect. The beer range was Monteiths and Heineken, and in an unusual touch, they also had a cruet-holder with classy bottles of raspberry, lime and lemon syrups, as well as a range of mixers, suggesting that maybe there were spirits behind the bar. But given how long it took to get a glass of wine poured (there was only one girl behind the bar, who struggled with the Lindauer cork for aaaages), I didn’t bother asking for a mixed drink so I can’t confirm that they were actually offering spirits, or what brand they were.
Tally: 4 glasses bubbly ($28 value in a bar, $9 at home)

Food: Food was brought around on small platters by one waiter, who didn’t circle the room properly, so most of the food went to the people nearest the door, dammit! It consisted of mini sushi (I hate sushi), coconut-crusted prawns (they looked so good I almost tried one, but I don’t like prawns either), rare roast beef on polenta bites (really yummy) and tiny pieces of cheese on tiny bagel chips (only one lot of these circulated as far as I saw).
Tally: 3 pieces beef, 1 piece cheese – I’m estimating the catering was $2.50 per menu selection per person, with 2 or 3 items offered for each thing, so maybe a $5 catering value.

People: There weren’t many nametags left when we went in, but it turned out that there weren’t all that many people there at all. We were pounced on for conversation when we entered, and gradually we started talking to other ex-comms people, all at a very superficial level. There was, however, one woman there who might be a valuable business contact for both Shirley and I, so that’s a good start.

Scoring factor: Zilch. It was almost all entirely corporate women, or older men associated with AUT. And it was far too civilised to start to find out juicy details about the people.

Celebrities: Gemma Gracewood, who didn’t stay long.

Gifts: We got AUT Alumni Network branded pens when we left. They’re silver, with a padded grip and quite classy. However, when you work in an office, good pens lose their novelty value. Unless this one can write in SPACE! Which I don’t think this one can. I also got an AUT-branded lanyard on my name badge, which I’m sure I can be put to good use as a red accessory for my work ID instead of the usual pale blue I use.

Total freebie value: We were only there for around an hour out of its two hour window, so had Shirley not wanted to go and catch up with our mysterious friend who went out for a cigarette and didn’t come back, I could have made better use of the bar. But with such a small group of people assembled (20) and only one bar person, frequent trips to the bar would have been more noticeable and frowned on. Still, it cost me only a quick application of eyeshadow and a ten minute stroll from work, and I got to hang out with Shirley, and then her mysterious friend’s friend bought me a drink in the hotel bar afterwards, so not a waste of time at all. A fine start to free drinks each week, me thinks.

I forgot how anal I get when I do quizes. Ohmigosh my team isn’t devoting their full energy to answering the questions? They’re disagreeing with me? THE WORLD IS ENDING! Still, it’s nice to dress up like a pirate every now and then, and then take photos from the 21st floor of your building:

I lost the momentum when we stopped at Jarrod’s apartment for him to get changed, so I ran away to take the bus home instead of going out to Karaoke, but I was also aware that I had a very big night planned for the following night and an early morning to deal with first.

So yes, Saturday, I got up before 11am so that Lani and I could move the fridge out from under the house and back to the kitchen so the repair man could put it back together. We were clever and decided not to lug it up the difficult steep kitchen stairs and around tiny corners, so instead we carried it al the way around the house and inside. And then the repairman was late, and later and latest, but Lani was kind enough to say that I should just leave her a cheque and go to the beach and she’d take care of it, so I went and swam between the flags for like the first time ever at Lyall Bay. There were only two other girls swimming because the water was powerfully cold, but damn it was nice, becasue it’d been ages (umm okay, since Tuesday) since I’d last been swimming. And then it was Jo Time brunch by myself, and I went for a hair cut and nearly purred/came/passed out when the lady gave me a very long, very thorough headrub. I wanted to ask for a happy ending, but I suppose settling for a nice haircut was happy ending enough for me.

6.20 had me pacing at the bus stop all dolled up for my big night out with the Wellingtonista, cursing Go Wellington for sending buses past me that didn’t stop, but 15 minutes later I made it in to Tupelo, to discover all the lights on, no one behind the bar, and all the sliding toilet doors off the rails. Spoooooooooooooooky! So I went and sat outside, and luckily was soon joined by Tom who was enough of a good reader to tell me that I looked smokin’ hott. Heh. While the bartender was still setting up the bar, we were joined by Hadyn and Amy and his mother, and shortly after that the lovely Miss Sue who was escourting Mr Brown and Ryan. Once James had joined us, we were interviewed about the Wellingtonista for Russell’s new radio show, me smirking behind my martini and trying to define again what it is that I hate about the word ‘blog’. And calling myself a wanker, and – according to James – using the word ‘anal’ four times in one minute to describe myself. After the gorgeous Martha bought me a surprisingly not-sweet gin sling, half of us set off for Scopa as the advanced party for our 13 person booking.

We decided that it’d be easiest if we just ordered pizza and wine for all of us, and so I interviewed about being dominant. I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to let people record me talking whilst drunk. It’s not like I make much sense whilst sober, and when I’m drinking I’m even more slurry. Still, I thought at the time that I was articulate and verbacious, so until I hear otherwise (possibly at 2pm on Saturday on Radio Live, or podcast later, or broadcast on another date), I will continue to believe that I give great soundbite. It was nice catching up with Ryan too, who I went to uni with, although he was part of the radio posse and I was with the multimedia geeks who weren’t nearly as bondy. Dinner was very very tasty, although I accidently got a piece of pizza with an anchovy on it, but I was able to wipe away that taste with our next destination:

Yes that’s right, PINEAPPLES AT IMBIBE!

Anyone would think that we’d pre-arranged them or something. But our visitors sure seemed to enjoy them, as did Martha and James:

More photos of the night can be see here on flickr.

It was around that time that I think I started to try to convince Russell that he needed to change Public Address to attract a better class of reader than some of the people who’ve stalked me through it or people that I may have hooked up with at the Great Blend. I suspect I didn’t have a very convincing argument. So instead when some girls asked me and Hadyn where we were off to next, I made fun of them and their taste. We said we were off to Mighty Mighty, and they said they were going to Jet, because the music at Mighty Mighty was shit. I was all “yeah I know, like the way they mix indie rock with rare hip hop tracks? What are they thinking, turning out fresh new mixes?” and said that my other favourite bar apart from Jet was Dockside. Well, it amused me anyway.

Then we left to go to Mighty Mighty and some boys outside smoking asked me if I was wearing my flower behind my ear on the single side. I told them it was an umbrella, not a flower, and asked them to figure out the symbolism in that, before skipping off. We were at Mighty Mighty for a while but everyone seemed to be peeling off, so I decided that I would go for a swim, just to live up to my reputation. I was a tiny bit more wussy though, and jumped off the lower dock rather than the high plank cos I didn’t want to hurt my nose, ears and throat again. James came in too, and Ryan got his shoes wet interviewing us about it. That’s dedicated journalism! I don’t think anyone would contradict me if I said that a good time was had by all, although apparently many people felt a little under the weather the next day. But not me! That’s the great thing about swimming.

The next morning I went and picked up Brad who was in town and we had big delicious fresh fish burgers at Maranui and hung out for a while. Good times. Monday Bart came over for flat dinner (green curry with fresh coriander from our herb garden) and to play Cluedo DVD. Monday night flat dinner and games is totally on every week that Smoo’s not working. You can come if you bring wine and/or wash the dishes after. Tuesday was meh. Today I went to the doctor and asked her to up my prescription, and to give me the medical certificate that work asked me to give them to show that I need to only work four days a week. I don’t have much to say about that today. I did before, but then I felt like throwing up all afternoon,and was gagging on the bus (and threw up at home. Mmmm biley). I am somewhat disappointed in myself for needing more meds despite all the hard work that I’ve been doing, but I’m looking forward to the increased dosage euphoria. And looking forward to doing more projects. Yes. And also looking forward to coming to Auckland for the Bloc Party gig on August 8. Woo woo. I am so so in love with A Weekend in the City, and also Neon Bible. ‘Sunday’ is now officially my new walking down the aisle song (“I love you in the morning / when you’re still hung over”). Now I just need someone to marry.

This week I’m going to try and update my journal every day. I don’t know how interesting this will make the entries, but we’ll see. Today being Monday, I of course talk about the drinking that I did over the weekend first.

On Friday, Miss Fur came and joined me and a workmate and an ex workmate for a couple of quiet drinks at the Poon, and that’s not even a euphemism. They really were quiet drinks, and we left by 8pmish to go back to her house to watch my friend Nigel & co win the 48 Hour Film Festival. Haha, now I sound like Russell with the name-dropping to show how down with the kids I am, except that I did actually go to Uni with Nige. You might remember my story of how my 18th birthday party was ruined by him and Brad and Trudie telling me I was dumb for drinking and smoking? Good times. The best part about them winning was that their movie was actually the best. I laughed myself stupid. And then we ummmm watched something else? Listened to records? I’m having a total mind blank.

On Saturday bright and earlyish, I picked up Anji and Karen and we headed up to Ngaio to decorate the house for Daddy’s party. Of course, before we could start decorating, we had to find the house first. My parents have A LOT of crap. We discussed ways in which we could thin it out, perhaps by taking one object every time we go visit and throwing it away. I need their house to become minimalist so that I can raise my brood of four children in it. But eventually we had a Quiet Meadow room as well as a lounge draped ridiculously in mosquito netting and streamers, with paper picket fences taped to the windows and other goodness around. We went home for a quick nap, and then I got all dressed up like a milk maid and returned. Daddy’s friends are weird. They didn’t want our horny monkeys, pink elephants, moscow mules, brown cows and fluffy ducks. They were all about the moderate drinking of wine. Fluffy ducks are crazy-tasting, by the way. Crazy but tasty. I continued to make drinks anyway. And serve our animal-themed food. And laugh when my Mummy kept turning up the stereo and someone kept turning it down. But eventually we had a boogie anyway. Neil’s friends sat on the floor and watched. There were two members of parliament present. Unsurprisingly, the Labour one was nice. The National MP, meanwhile, said to Anji that he didn’t believe OOS was real. Fucking awesome. I can’t wait til everyone in National takes their own advice and moves to Australia. We had some quality family time at the end of the party, and Mum danced like Axl Rose. It was pretty awesome. But I had too much sugar and couldn’t get to sleep for a long time, and when I finally did, right before 5am, I got woken up pretty much straight away by Smoo who didn’t have his key, and then when I went back to sleep after that Sebastian woke me up. Needless to say, I slept in past 2pm on Sunday.

Did I actually do anything else on Sunday? I don’t think I did. Apart from go to see City of God at the private screening, and make a string of hilarious puns about how much phelgm I have (“If I was a painter, I’d be a phelgmish impressionist. If I was a cricketer, I’d be Stephen Phelgming…”). I don’t understand how I’m not already married when I’m this funny and witty. Annnnnnnnnnnd then we got home at 12am from that, and I changed my sheets, and put in some ear drops and finished my Q and all of a sudden it was 2am. How did that happen? Also, I went to listen to The Wall which you will of course remember that Lisa Fur gave me on vinyl, but it appears that Real Groovy fucked up and gave me two sides 3 and 4 instead of a 1 & 2. No one out there wants to trade do they?

TOnight I was supposed to go to Stitch & Bitch that Martha organised, but I found more appealing the thought of coming home to do some amatuer yoga type stretching to follow up on my half-assed effort at the gym today (it was busy! And the first time I’d been in ten days cos of the coughing out my lungs! Give me a break!) and put on my new pale pink with skull & cross bones on pyjamas and watch TV instead. And so that is what I have done. And now I might return to this desperate trash. Now that Jon Safran has finished, I have been somewhat sucked in to Grey’s. Of course, I’m just doing it to bond with Jessie. Naturally.

So it’s our LAST EVER HR assignment, and somehow I make it through the seminar, and then somehow manage to sit through all the other seminars through the day, and then we’re drinking at the bar afterwards. I strike up a conversation with a girl I’ve only ever talekd to before once after our meet&greet function when she was fucked, adn then another time at Justin’s party, so she’s all “how do you know Justin?” so we end up compering friendship circles. So it turns out that she used to go out with this boy that I “knew” and then we compared stories, and oh, so it seems like he has this full on routine. Like, oh, I found out that his lines weren’t original, but the whole “somneone I loved died, I need sympathy” thing was so up my alley, and so outpouring, adn then it turns out that sure, it was true but it was also a completely practiced well pat routine, and FUCK, you absolutely fucking disgust me, eh. Especially other things she said, and fuck, I’m a smart fucking girl, so what the fuck is wrong with me that I didn’t fucking see that? I can’t believe it, I was so mad I wanted to scream and shout and I was so fucking disgusted that all I could do was laugh. I feel nauseous now, at the end of a good night when I can actually sit down adn think about it, but for now, I will go and lean on Clay. oh, and classes are over, full stop. Oooh, cheque from Morrison, kick ass. And I yacked to Clay, and I’m like, “okay, so I’m down with you using the whole ‘i’d buy you a drink but…’ line, but jesus fucking christ, using dead parents to get blowjobs is NOT cool.” At least the boy who used to tell me that he loved me thought he meant that, even if all he meant was that he couldn’t be alone. Wannnnnnnnnker. And oh yeah, I would say that to your face too, so it’s not like I have any issues with putting it in my journal. Stay tuned for other excitign news.

Tuesday September 3rd, 2002

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.

Tuesday June 4th
So today I handed in my final assessment for Communication Strategy – that’s my last piece’o work due in before exams (June 20/24/25) so now I have some time to tackle a multitude of special secret projects that I have on the boil. Of course, tackling them would be a whole lot easier if I had a week of little to no computer work to give my wrist a good rest, so let’s try and do that, shall I? Excellent. About my essay – I handed it in without even reading it, I was that disgruntled. But it’s gone now, not worth worrying about. Apparently I only have to take two papers next semester, cos I can credit so many from my BCs, but I’m gonna take three anyways. Originally I was taking four, but I can’t do Campaigns – an advertising paper – because its lecture clashes with Corporate Communication.

You know how I’m a grad dip and in my year, we didn’t like the grad dips a lot of the time? Well, I think I get on pretty well with the BCs students, but there are some grad dips who just rub me so the wrong way, and it’s people like them who give people like me a bad name. I feel so old when I find myself saying “well, back in my year…”. Actually, I feel so old right now full stop<!– shagging sweet young things will do that to a girl, i guess! –>. I had a very amusing phone conversation with Anji tonight, and it appears that we’ve swapped age-tastes. My average age of men I scored was 28 (although admittedly both the astronaut and the microbiologist pushed that way up) and hers was 23, despite the fact that I’m 21 and she’s 29, but now it seems that we’re righting ourselves. Also, I’m going to be 22 in less than two weeks, so you should buy me things. But anyways, where was I before I went off on that tangent? Something about being at tech, and being dumb and taken by surprise and only managing to say a “hey, how are you?” and ending up being either a) the pathetic kind of person that I strive to avoid to be or b)the bitchy kinda person that I fight my natural inclination to be<!– I feel TERRIBLE now, I didn’t mean to snub him or anything, but I didn’t expect to see him so soon after. And I’ve been giving him an awful lot of headspace as well, which is vaguely interesting –>.  Oh well.  Justin laughed at me lots – “so it wasn’t a big deal then? had a long weekend did you?” I don’t gossip <!– much –> about the attributes of boys that I respect to their friends, thank you very much, Justin. But if we did, between me and that other young lady who will remain nameless, but she knows who she is, we’d have quite a thick dossier.

Bopha wouldn’t come out for a drink with me this afternoon after I handed in my essay (apparently 3pm is too early) so we settled on going to Roasted Addiquition instead. Nice food, but kinda expensive. We didn’t watch soccer today! Well, 20 minutes of the Japan-Belgium game, but that was all, and boy, that was a relief. Like, I do like soccer, but after three games yesterday (although I really only watched Brazil/Turkey because it was SO GOOD) and a couple of games the day before… I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have kicked Ben III out until after the World Cup, because Bopha is scarily addicted. We yell a lot. Also, occasionally she has taken to muttering “I want to cut off your limbs” to me, and she’s constantly jumping on me. It’s amusing.

That’s about it all, really. Boring day, I know, but thank god I got that assignment in and now I can concentrate on other stuff. Oh yeah, I was really really really hankering to go to Pluto tonight, but I couldn’t find anyone that I know well enough to be completely comfortable around to go with, and my mind was too mushy to go with someone I didn’t really know. So I just listened to the cd twice in a row instead. Fuck it’s an excellent cd, I appreciate it so much better now. And KatieH gave me a Pluto tshirt too. This is going to have to cause me to rethink my whole band tshirt philosophy (ie – I don’t wear them). But I guess the thing is now I’m actually a grownup and not a little punk kid trying her darndest to be alternative. If someone gave me a spice girls tshirt and it fit properly, I’d wear it now. Plus this Pluto tshirt is a bonds shirt, and therefore I have more than Brad, so I gotta wear it.

June 1 – Saturday

In three hours, I will be watching Pluto, and in six hours, I will be bowing down in awe at the feet of the mighty Pacifier/Shihad. !. !!!!. Bow down to me.

I’m just hoping that by that stage, I won’t be feeling so hungover. When did I last write? Probably a couple of days ago I guess. I’m feeling much better. It’s amazing how destressing work is, I guess becasue I know what I’m supposed to do, and it’s like Problem to Solution, easy as pie. And that’s very different from trying to tell someone what they should be doing in regards to their personal life. Yeah. Anyways,

So Thursday night there’s top secret meetings and secret plans and cool potential and stuff, and meeting a whole lot of new people, which is always interesting. I’m excited, I think. And when I got home, my KatieB showed up a little later, and that was completely lovely. It annoys me though that she’s been known to ring me up and scream blue murder at me very early in the morning for neglectign to tell her about a random kiss I received from a not-so random boy, but meanwhile, she’s been seeing someone for like six weeks without mentioning him once to me. You are an EVIL GIRL KATIE!

Friday was working, and I was trying to write an article, and of course I remembered that I just completely can’t remember how to write news articles anymore. But then Skew came back with lots of food he’d pilfed from a meeting, so that was nice. Oh yeah, I’ve thought of psuedonames for the three people I work with, and I’ll just have to keep remembering them. The kickass thing about work (well, one of the many things) is that I’m on a salary, rather than an hourly rate, and so whenever my work days fall on public holidays I just get paid for them regardless. Choice, especially since I work full days on mondays and half days on Fridays. Hmm, friday was yesterday, wasn’t it? Yes it was. So early last night, I got a txt from Justin saying he was down at Murphy’s drinking with Wayne Hope (Mass Com tutor) and I should go down and meet him and we’d proceed to JeremE’s birthday party from there. I decided that sounded like a good plan, so I got dressed, but then Kate told me my breasts looked weird and made me change my bra (and then she tells me I’m paranoid!) but eventually I got approval and she dropped me off at Murphy’s.

After I walked into Murphys and looked around for ages trying to find Justin, the bouncer came up to me and made me go back out to the front door to show him my ID. I thought that was more than a little unnecessary, but if it made him feel like a big man, then so be it! I managed to find Justin and sink some pints. There were more people who said that they’d met me before, and this time I actually managed to place them – “Oh, we talked on the stairs for ages, didn’t we?”. One day I am going to make myself flashcards to improve my name-face rememberence levels. Wayne Hope said he remembered me from two years ago, and I was like “I didn’t work very hard” and he was like “but you had charisma” and that made me laugh a lot, because really, drunken lecturers are funny. And a bunch of us (us being me and Justin and Justin’s friends) went to go get some food. They were madkeen on Nando’s, so we went to the Atrium on Elliot foodcourt but everything was just shutting, so no one got a very good meal. But hey. Then we cabbed it to Nick’s house in Ponsonby via Liquorking. I’m still really surprised at how nice Nick’s house was, and I told him so many times – “like, I’m not saying you’re all that scungy or anything, but I would have expected your house to be”. There was a bidet in the downstairs bathroom.

So yeah, lots of drinking sitting in Nick’s porch, and then Brad came along and drove us all to JeremE’s house. Brad kicks ass. We hung out and talked a lot. There was a dj and house music playing in the living room, and couches in the hall and stuff. I talked to people that I knew, but mostly to Brad and Hamish. It was a good atmosphere though. Eventually one of the boys that I’d been drinking with earlier came and sat next to me, ripping my skirt in the proccess, and since there was three of us on a two person couch, he put his arm around me and then when Brad left, I suddenly realised that he was giving me the eye, and that I was giving him the eye too, and I was a little surprised. But hey, I went with it, and when we thought no one was watching we kissed, and he invited me back to his house, promising me chocolate and a lock on his door. In keeping with the whole discreet attempts, he said he’d meet me on the street, and left, so I left a couple of minutes later. There’s me trying to keep a straight face telling Brad and Justin that I was really tired and going to leave. I couldn’t figure out if they were clued to me or not, cos I would have thought Justin would have said something (or asked for a percentage) but hey, whatever. And so I met the boy on the driveway and made out against a car with him (classy!) before our taxi arrived.

He was a real sweetheart; he played Jeff Buckley and had an electric blanket and he called me gorgeous, and made me a chicken enchillada, so that was cool. He also put up with me making long cellphone calls to Tom and KateB because he was a nice boy. <!– SUCH a sweetie; he looked like the singer of Pluto, but Jesus, someone needs to teach him that hey, you know, maybe Foreplay would be a good idea! –>And as such, I left when he was sleeping and walked home – you know me and my _sleeping_ with people issues. KateB was fast asleep in my bed when I got home, so I pulled out hte couch in the lounge, watched Tool videos and had a very amusing conversation with KateM who was in Wellington.

Sometime in the middle of the night (okay, well it was 4am when I got home, so maybe 6amish?) I woke up and had absolutely no idea where I was – I knew i wasn’t in a boy’s house but it was the whole sleeping i the lounge thing that threw me off, so I ahd a minor freakout but it was okay. Around 10am KateB got up and climbed under my duvet with me and we spent a couple of hours with her bitching about house music, poking each other and screaming and squealing and laughing and giggling and it was awesome. Clayton’s psycho mother kept calling – why doesn’t that boy have ANY nice women in his life (me included)? Around 2ish, Kate and I went to Occam to meet Derek, who stood us up. On the way, we stopped by the boy’s house cos I was feeling a bit bad, and I put a note in his letterbox which said “Hey *! Thank you for the enchilladas and I hope I didn’t make you feel like a man-whore leaving while you were sleeping. You’re a total sweetheart, Jo”. No number or anything, cos it wasn’t that type’o deal.

Now I feel a little ill from the food and the hangover and stuff, so I will have a nap, and then go to True Colours in time for Pluto. I’m going by myself because I’m cool and secure. KateH will be there though, and hopefully I will see her. And anyways, I will see her tomorrow for sure because there’s a new series of Dawson’s Creek starting – wahoo! And then I will need to do my assignment. My arm is really really sore – I suspect it’s from carrying a dozen all the way from the liquor store to Nick’s house.

K, naptime now. I’m happy and bouncy today, and that’s cool. Also I should call Brad and apologise for not hanging with him very much. I feel a little stink for having left the party so early, but I guess sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do. Also, don’t forget my birthday.

We got back the videos of our seminars today (I got an A) so I’ve been watching that tonight. Bopa and Emma say it’s real good, and I’ve even heard Emma reiterating stuff I said down the phone to her friend, but my mind’s so not there. In between thinking that I gesture too much, and watching the pen slowly slip out of my hair, increasing my hair-pushing-back gestures, I’ve been thinking “fuck, no wonder no one’s shagging me” thoughts. There’s nothing like watching yourself on TV for confrontational thoughts. It leaves me contemplating how sometimes I think that maybe I should just become morbidly obese and give up all hope of anyone ever fancying me, but then watching myself on TV I feel like I’m already there. And I hate this, because this generally isn’t me – I don’t tend to talk weight very much in my journal because the last thing in the world that I wanna be is one of those verdana girls, but arrgh! You know, I’d like to think that I’ve always had a pretty healthy relationship with eating, May/June 2000 and the whole stress related thing aside, but maybe that’s just me trying to talk bullshit to myself, and suddenly the reason why I’m sleeping alone just makes so much more sense to me. ( And then there’s a boy who enjoys calling me fat and pretending it’s just his way of being straight up, and while I try to excuse it as him trying to find out what buttons to push to piss me off I want to scream “YOU CALLED ME BEAUTIFUL MOTHERFUCKER! WHY ARE YOU RETRACTING THAT NOW?”)

And the other thing that fucks me off is that I know how closely entwined my self esteem is to my stress levels, and I know that right now my stress levels are almost at boiling point (And I know it’s seldom that you read my journal, and you know that i love you, and that yes, I’m fucking worried about you now, and yes, it’s stressing me out a fuckload, but that’s only because I care so much about you). We won’t discuss that further, but I had a big talk with Joseph my lecturer today and luckily I got an extension on my last Com Strat assignment til Tuesday. That’s kinda relieving and stuff. Plus yesterday, I sorted out one of my issues – or rather the girl whom I’d very childishly not been contacting cos’o a spat emailed me (thank you so much for doing that, seriously) and we made cool. And I get to see my Katie this weekend (oh you know you’re ALL my katies, Kate, but in this instance I mean KateB) and that’s gonna be so excellent, as long as I don’t end up being overburdening.

I can’t remember what else I had to say. Probably not much. I’m due at work in less than eight hours, I should really go to bed. I’m really worn out (but if you’re reading this, please please know that I am ALWAYS here for you, and it’s not just you that makes me exhausted, and you’re not an unfair burden or anything, it’s just the way I feel, okay? and yeah, all that stuff which I know you already know). Plus 2 litres really isn’t as much as you’d think that it would be. But I took two herbal sleeping suplements so hopefully I can fall asleep real soon and then not have to spend tomorrow morning with my head under the covers trying to make the whole world go away. <!– I CAN’T HANDLE CARING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE RIGHT NOW! like, there’s a primary, and a secondary, and a thirdly, and aaaaargh, and also, what the fuck’s wrong with me and where’s my compassion?) –>

We got back the videos of our seminars today (I got an A) so I’ve been watching that tonight. Bopa and Emma say it’s real good, and I’ve even heard Emma reiterating stuff I said down the phone to her friend, but my mind’s so not there. In between thinking that I gesture too much, and watching the pen slowly slip out of my hair, increasing my hair-pushing-back gestures, I’ve been thinking “fuck, no wonder no one’s shagging me” thoughts. There’s nothing like watching yourself on TV for confrontational thoughts. It leaves me contemplating how sometimes I think that maybe I should just become morbidly obese and give up all hope of anyone ever fancying me, but then watching myself on TV I feel like I’m already there. And I hate this, because this generally isn’t me – I don’t tend to talk weight very much in my journal because the last thing in the world that I wanna be is one of those verdana girls, but arrgh! You know, I’d like to think that I’ve always had a pretty healthy relationship with eating, May/June 2000 and the whole stress related thing aside, but maybe that’s just me trying to talk bullshit to myself, and suddenly the reason why I’m sleeping alone just makes so much more sense to me. ( And then there’s a boy who enjoys calling me fat and pretending it’s just his way of being straight up, and while I try to excuse it as him trying to find out what buttons to push to piss me off I want to scream “YOU CALLED ME BEAUTIFUL MOTHERFUCKER! WHY ARE YOU RETRACTING THAT NOW?”)

And the other thing that fucks me off is that I know how closely entwined my self esteem is to my stress levels, and I know that right now my stress levels are almost at boiling point (And I know it’s seldom that you read my journal, and you know that i love you, and that yes, I’m fucking worried about you now, and yes, it’s stressing me out a fuckload, but that’s only because I care so much about you). We won’t discuss that further, but I had a big talk with Joseph my lecturer today and luckily I got an extension on my last Com Strat assignment til Tuesday. That’s kinda relieving and stuff. Plus yesterday, I sorted out one of my issues – or rather the girl whom I’d very childishly not been contacting cos’o a spat emailed me (thank you so much for doing that, seriously) and we made cool. And I get to see my Katie this weekend (oh you know you’re ALL my katies, Kate, but in this instance I mean KateB) and that’s gonna be so excellent, as long as I don’t end up being overburdening.

I can’t remember what else I had to say. Probably not much. I’m due at work in less than eight hours, I should really go to bed. I’m really worn out (but if you’re reading this, please please know that I am ALWAYS here for you, and it’s not just you that makes me exhausted, and you’re not an unfair burden or anything, it’s just the way I feel, okay? and yeah, all that stuff which I know you already know). Plus 2 litres really isn’t as much as you’d think that it would be. But I took two herbal sleeping suplements so hopefully I can fall asleep real soon and then not have to spend tomorrow morning with my head under the covers trying to make the whole world go away. <!– I CAN’T HANDLE CARING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE RIGHT NOW! like, there’s a primary, and a secondary, and a thirdly, and aaaaargh, and also, what the fuck’s wrong with me and where’s my compassion?) –>