Hubris.co.nz

These are the questions that I answer every year. You can view last year’s here.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

• Lived by myself in my very own house
• Went to the emergency vet in the middle of the night
• Ran my own business
• Got my first filling
• Worked for a company that got slash-dotted!
• Appeared on television as an expert in a certain field (Wellington mayoral campaigns)
• Slept with a workmate
• Organised a very successful bach trip away with friends.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

According to last year’s post, my resolution was:

“My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

I was very very dreadful at this. Well, I got better at standing up for myself at work, both in terms of actual work, but also just in my 3 month contract standing up to the dreadful racism, misogyny and general ignorance in the office.  There was a thing at the end of the year though, in which I was unable to say no at the time, but I was able – with the help of good friends – to make it clear in no uncertain terms afterwards that what had happened was not okay, so I’m pretty proud of that.

Oh, I also said that my resolution last year was to try roller skating once. I didn’t. It was too much of a pain to get out to Kilbirnie after work.

As for my resolution this year, it’s pretty simple. I resolve not to sleep with any more workmates, married people or close friends. I think that’s pretty self-explanatory. I also stole Jason‘s resolution to read more books, and there are things I’d like to do, like walk to/from work at least half the time, and take lunch to work at least two times a week, and restrict buying coffee to twice a week at the maximum. But those aren’t such strict resolutions, if you know what I mean. Actually, I have set myself a 11 in ’11 challenge with a whole bunch of stuff I’d like to do.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t think so. My flickr stream is flooded with pictures of babies, but I’m pretty certain they were all circa 2009. Smack me if I’m wrong.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No. But someone that people I care about cared about did, and that was a bit weird, especially when Facebook kept suggesting that I should friend her. Too late.

5. What countries did you visit?

When I found out that I got my current job, Karen and I planned a trip to Tonga, but then the price went up by $800, so we went to Samoa again instead.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

I’ll say it again – a relationship with someone who shouts it from the rooftops that they are in love with me.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

June 29 – I moved out of Balmoral Terrace in Newtown where I’d lived for the past two and a half years. September 20, I started my new job. October 9, I got possession of my very own flat.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting a job that I both love and am very good at. I really like the people that I work with, and most of the time I feel like I have a lot to contribute.

It’s also really important to me that I am close again with people who have played major roles in my life before. Some of those friendships are precarious and teeter a little, but I will continue to work at them.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Given that I’m making the most money I ever have, my finances should not be in such dire straits. Also, that whole going on Yaz to sort out my PMS and then it making me worse than ever was a pretty big failure on the part of my reproductive system.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

The Yaz made me sick. Also, Sebby got beaten up. And oh, the Madder Badder Flu that I got after Tom’s party that knocked me on my ass for a couple of weeks was totally dreadful.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

It’s not a single purchase, but the decision to get a flat by myself was fucking brilliant.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The wonderful people who supported me as So Content, my amazing manager who hired me and has dealt with me being slightly mental and who is super protective and encouraging, the lovely feminists of the internet who fought the good #mooreandme fight as well as all the other usual battles that exist, my family for their help in moving, and the Lovehawks for providing me with a second home.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

That place I worked for three months. My ex landlady who thought it was okay to make me pay $900 for cleaning. The tenancy tribunal who agreed with her. Assorted rape apologists on the internet. The National Party, as usual. The married man for what he did at the start of the year. The other thing that happened at the end of the year.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Booze, debt servicing, and living by myself.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Princess Camp because it came when I really needed it. Getting clients for So Content, and building up a reputation for knowing what I was talking about. Getting hired for a proper real job as Jo Hubris, not just a random ‘Joanna McLeod’ on paper. Getting my own flat. Going away for New Year’s with the Lovehawks. Kissing a boy again after pashing so many girls all year.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?

‘Run this town’ by Jay Z & Rihanna. I came very close to deciding that I needed to move the fuck out of Wellington at the start of the year, when the married man hooked up with another girl (not his wife) and Wellington was too small, and everywhere I went I was reminded of him, and the fucking terrible thing that I did and that he was, and all that. I wanted to run away and hide forever, but then we had Princess Camp and I was reminded that in this case, I’d done nothing wrong, and that actually, Wellington is my fucking city. I fucking run it. And I have my girls, and they have my back, and I ain’t going nowhere. I fucking love my princesses.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

I am fatter, happier and richer. That’s a good balance, right?

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I wish I’d done less shopping, and more saving money. I also wish I’d gone to see my counselor. I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I last talked to her. I tried to make an appointment during my last week of work but she was all full until now, and, as I hoped, I have dealt with it now.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

I probably should have drunk less, and done less shopping, given the financial suckiness of me right now.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

I had an International Sandwich Degustation with Karen and Bad Tom, and then BAMJI came over and we watched Buzzcocks.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

What is this phone thing of which you speak? I don’t call anyone ever anymore.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?

No.

23. How many one-night stands?

Two.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Still Mad Men, Community and Parks & Recreation.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Not hate hate, but there certainly have been a fair number of people who’ve made life more difficult than it needed to be.

26. What was the best book you read?

I really liked most of Player One by Douglas Coupland. The ending was a bit meh though, and it was mega depressing.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

We have Mac Airports at work so we can share our music collections, and also we have speakers anyone can control, so most of my music has come from my cow-orker Kirsten, who is into The Black Keys, Band of Horses and other such indie bands. I like it a lot.

28. What did you want and get?

A tropical holiday, a great flat by myself and a job I love.

29. What did you want and not get?

To clear my credit card and my financial debt to my parents.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Seriously, I’m not entirely sure I went to the movies AT ALL in 2010. Woah!

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my birthday I turned 30. I was working at Customs, and they didn’t know it was my birthday. I got my hair cut by a bad haircutter at a place near the building, and then in the evening I think I went to Le Metropolitan with my family.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

$200 more a week. That would have allowed me to have not felt like such a shut-in while I was on the dole, and now it would allow me to service my credit card debt AND save a little while still having a life. Also, I wish I hadn’t tried Yaz.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Dressy McDresserson. With lots of pillaging of Sue and Megan’s wardrobes. Lots of black eyeliner, and occasionally some dark lipstick, and lots of lasercut jewellery from SuperVery and Cupcakes and Mace.

34. What kept you sane?

Lexapro, Princess Camp, my manager at work who is a saint despite all his swearing, and all my dear friends,  Kim and Megan especially. <3

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Joel McHale, Alexander Saarsgard and Jon Hamm. There was a Jezebel poll to pick the sexiest man once, and it was impossible!

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Let me quote the Feminist Hulk here:

AS SURVIVOR, HULK DISTURBED BY ASSANGE COVERAGE. HULK GLAD WIKILEAKS EXIST. HULK SMASH RAPE SHAME. AT SAME TIME.

37. Who did you miss?

I got to spend lots of time with Kat & Kane and Heather this year, so I’m going to say Kate H who’s over there in Engerland. And Smoo once he moved out.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Via Kim, who I believe was the best new person last year, I met Kate & Jason & Brendan. They’re pretty sweet eh.  And most of the people in my office are pretty awesome too.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:

Moving in with your parents when you’re 30 is never a good idea, even if you need to save money and you’re only doing it for a couple of months!

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

“We gon’ run this town tonight. “

Since the last entry was short and boring, I figured I would use some pics to help tell better stories about what I’ve been up to for the past month or so. Most of these pictures are from my cellphone, which doesn’t take very good or big pictures, so just grin and bear it, okay?

In fact, if you really want to see the proper damage from that one, then you need to see it from behind (lollerskates!):

So after Xmas Party shenanigans, it was time for actual Xmas.

On Xmas Day, Karen and Tom came over for an international sandwich degustation. Spellcheck suggests that word should be “devastation” instead which is close to accurate.

They bought it at the Ministry of Stories, because I’d tweeted about it right when they happened to be going to Hoxton!

Then I went away to Waiterere for five nights over New Year’s. I forgot to take my camera, so these are the only two snaps I have.

And I’ll just steal one photo from Kim’s magic ones on Facebook to sum up our holiday, which was THE BEST TIME EVER:

Oh wait, there’s an ANIMATED GIF! Watch my boobs bounce around as I smile and unsmile! Thanks Jason!

Every year I answer the same 40 questions to do a stocktake of where I’m at. Check out previous years here.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

• Got made redundant
• Stayed overnight in hospital
• Lost items of value in a burglary
• Had my first threesome. And my second. And my third.
• Had an intern.
• Replied to someone on an internet dating site and then slept with them.
• Received over two grand’s worth of free stuff for being a blogger (the $1200 freeview box made up a lot of that)
• Went to Roller Derby
• Won a “Best Fan” prize
• Kissed 17 people in one night (hurray for kissing booths!)
• Had someone pay for me to get into a strip club, and also tucking money into strippers’ underwear for the first time
• Willingly (ish) went through a break-up.
• Had someone throwing me a surprise party.
• Worn red lipstick frequently and confidently.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Apparently my resolutions for this year were about taking better care of myself, and although I did continue to sleep with the married man for a bit, we did indeed eventually break it off, so yay me. And then I resolved to never sleep with a married person again, which is a good resolution to have and I have yet to break it again. I also resolved to have breakfast with someone after we’d slept together, and while I thought I’d achieved that when I woke up with a boy for the first time since 2004, we didn’t actually have breakfast, unless you count helping ourselves to one another’s genitals again. Oh oh but actually, I did make wedges for a lady caller that we ate in bed together so I guess that counts.

My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Fucking buttloads of people had babies this year! Specifically Martha and Brenda and my best friend Penny from high school. Still more of my friends are pregnant right now, and it’s all a little bit over the top, if you ask me. I can’t have breakfast with a boy and you all can get married and buy houses and have babies? Unfair!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, but people very close to people I am very close to did, and all I could do about it was text stupid jokes every day and send care packages of Noel Fielding.

5. What countries did you visit?

Sydney for FullCodePress (thanks to the lovely Tash Mahal) and Vanuatu for fun.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Breakfast with someone, obviously, since I can now cook eggs. Also, a job. And let’s say a proper public relationship where the person I am with shouts it from the rooftops.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The Wellingtonista Awards again because of the work and the memories that I was a bit scared of. December 10 because it was my ten year anniversary of fucking. July 17 for my ten years of Hubris party and because it was when I relaunched this site in WordPress. June 30 for being my last day at the SSC.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly, I had a motherfucking buttload of bad shit happen to me this year, and so the fact that I’m still in good spirits, that I’m happy, sort of healthy and am able to keep going on, and that I’ve ended the year with all my friendships intact and even with new friends is pretty fucking awesome. Go me!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Honestly, I’m shocked that I don’t have another job yet. I know that I am hireable, that I have many skills and talents and the fact that I’m still unemployed is really weird. I’m also disppointed that I’m not as over someone as I’d like to be, but that’s not something you can force and you definitely can’t get over someone by being under as many people as possible. I’ve learnt my lesson on that front quite a few times this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Depression as per usual, some nasty flus, withdrawl from zopiclone when I finally came off them, and also hospitalisation after an ingrown hair gave me cellulitis. But apart from that, no!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My laptop(s) that allow me to download and watch copious amounts of television. Also every present that I’ve bought for others that has allowed me to demonstrate even the smallest fraction of how much I care about them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My family who have continued to lend me money and buy me things like a new laptop after mine got stolen and I didn’t have insurance, who paid my power bill for me so I wouldn’t get disconnected and who aren’t demanding that I pay them back for our trip to Vanuatu. Also everyone this year who’s bought me a drink or a meal in exchange for my company, especially Tom, who is insanely generous. My friends who’ve helped me out of emotional jams, listened to me bitching and moaning and kept me company through the long dark winter, Smoo whose quiet presence in the house is always welcome, and everyone who gave me orgasms this year and fucked me til my thighs ached.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Management at SSC and everyone else who didn’t hire me, people who think that hitting kids is okay, the cunt who burgled us, and anyone who has treated my friends badly.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Double rents and unemployment.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Roller derby! Kat & Kane’s wedding! Harvestbird & Knedd’s wedding! People having babies!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

‘So here we are’ by Bloc Party becasue it played while I was lying in my lover’s arms for what we thought was the last time, and so that he wouldn’t see me crying I buried my face in his neck and we fucked because it fit the narrative structure that way. And also ‘Some time around Midnight’ by the Airbourne Toxic Event, even though or actually because as Good Tom says there’s far too much pathos in it for one song. It’s like the story of my life condensed down into four minutes. Oh and because it was so recent, ‘Halo’ is standing out in my mind right now too.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier, despite all the crap. I am getting better at dealing with everything.
ii. smaller or larger? Larger, by a lot probably.
iii. richer or poorer? Much much poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Physical activies and community service. Also, I wish I’d put more work into You Are So Entertaing but I still can!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on Twitter and Spider Solitaire and watching crappy television. Passive-aggressive texting and emailing. I sent some spectacularly nasty drunken emails this year and I am very not proud of them. My defense of being desperate for any kind of reaction is not good enough.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

My parents and Karen came over to my house and were joined by Bad Tom and Shirley and I cooked amazing food and we gorged ourselves and had a thoroughly pleasant time of it.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
WINZ. Heather and Kat <3.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

I didn’t fall, I stayed in.

23. How many one-night stands?

Three? In terms of one-offs, there was a girl, there was Tingle and there was the guy from Internet dating. I did see the girl again though, but only in a friend capacity. In addition, there were multiple occasions with the married man, the duck and the crazy girl. Oh, and I had intended to have a playdate with the boy who’d watched me and the crazy girl in his hotel room, whose kiss made me a little weak at the knees, but despite some textage, the stars didn’t align. Which is probably for the best.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Mad Men, Community, 30 Rock, Dollhouse (!!!!!)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope.

26. What was the best book you read?

Oh god, have I actually done any reading this year? I liked Generation A but not nearly as much as Generation X. I don’t think I can remember any other books, really, which I know is pretty terrible. Don’t tell Karen okay?

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Umm, getting a subscription to Last.FM? And taking all the contents of Emma and Lisa’s hard drives?

28. What did you want and get?

A laptop. To wake up in someone’s arms. Lots and lots of pashes. Amazing collections of friends. An overseas tropical holiday and some weekend jaunts other places. To get on the dole and be left mostly alone (well, I’d rather I didn’t have to, but it was a struggle to get here anyway). The ability to sleep without zopiclone.

29. What did you want and not get?

An invitation to Foo Camp – I worked really hard to prove myself this year hoping to get one and I didn’t. Sad face. Also, a new job, and at the time of writing, a full house. Paying extra rent is killing me. A real relationship. An ONYA nomination.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I’m not sure what movies I actually went to this year. There weren’t very many of them, that’s for sure.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my actual birthday I got free coffee from Green Land, I went to work, then I went to the Backbencher for someone’s goodbye drinks. I was feeling nauseous so I only drank gin. Then with my family I went to Elements for dinner which was amazing. Prior to that, my amazing sisters threw me a freak show surprise party! It was amaaaaaaaaaaaazing! I turned 29, which means I’m almost 30 now. Crikey!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Finding a new job shortly after being made redundant with a bit of time for a holiday in between.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I’ve got really into the Fatshionista community and started posting outfits of the day before my camera got stolen. I’m still trying to be Joan Holloway. I’ve also started wearing red lipstick, thanks to the lovely Megan.

34. What kept you sane?
My amazing counsellor, my family’s love and financial support and my fantastic friends.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Noel Fielding? Jon Stewart still makes me moist. As does ummm oh I don’t know. People? Stuff? Things? Tom Coates and that other guy from Webstock. Matt Bidulp? I can’t remember. Oh! And Victor from Dollhouse.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Ridiculous bullshit redundancies, strangely enough. Oh yeah, ICT’s totally not going to be a growth area…

37. Who did you miss?

The secret relationship. All my friends who are in other cities, especially Heather and Kat’n Kane. Really angry I missed out on meeting Ghetsum again cos I was too sick. And Good Tom, who shouldn’t have left to go to America, fucker.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Oh my gosh, I met so many awesome people this year, like Kim and Laura and Amie through Twitter, Chiara and Theresa and Julie through Pretty Pretty Pretty and also my new flatmate Thigh Voltage and through her the derby girls. Also, I’d already met Megan before but I feel like we became really good friends this year and that’s always worth celebrating.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
The people that care about you want to be there for you. You just need to learn to ask for help.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I get by with a little help from my friends”.

It turns out that I can throw a pretty good shindig. The Fourth Annual Wellingtonista Awards were last night, and it was a fantastic time. I’m so proud of all the work that I and others have put into that site, and it’s paid off in bucketfuls. I’ll no doubt do a proper post about it over on that site, and round up pics and stuff like that, but suffice to say, oh my, so much love. It was fantastic to have lots of people who were nominated actually turn up, it was great to have Sally from Mighty Mighty to accept their billion awards that they won, and to have Shirley up on stage to accept for her identical twin Ev from Slowboat, to get to talk to James about how far we’ve come since the site started, to see Jessie again, to have Tom prove yet again what a gentleman he really is by keeping me in drinks when I thought I lost my eftpos card, to get to swap meaningful looks and sideways smiles with someone and have that be cool, to dance with Chiara and Theresa and Julie in pseudo-Russian style to the Klezmer Rebs, to see Sue actually about, to have so many friends there that I didn’t get a chance to talk to any of them properly, to have Tash be all humbled by their winning and her not being there to accept it on time, to dance to the awesome Karaoke Dick afterwards and sing sing sing, to having Kim show up really late and be all drunken “YAY KIM!!!!” at her, to have Grant Robertson (and everyone else) tell me how fabulous I looked…. oh, how I do so love me a good spotlight bask. Oh, and then there’s that other thing.

I’ve had bad experiences in the past where I’ve written about crushes and had the crushee email me going “um, I’m not interested in you romantically” and I’ve been like, yeah duh, I just wanted to write about how nice it is to have a crush that’s pure and simple and joyous, it’s not really about you or whatever, but on the other hand all too often I only write about things when they’re spent and used up and I’m all angsty about them, so in the interests of being Fair and Balanced like Fox News, I figure I will tell you a tale about last night at the TAWAs.

There was a girl there who it turned out I’d met almost ten years ago and I found myself really drawn to her immediately. It helped that she piled me with compliments, of course, and that it turns out that we’re eskimo sisters although our mileage definitely varied. At one stage I even sent Laura on a recon mission to find her, and in a move straight out of primary school Laura told her that I had a crush on her. Which is fine because we kissed as someone took up the mic singing ‘Halo’ and I have all kinds of love for that song, and it felt like I was on a show on the WB, and it was lovely, and it was public and not a shameful dirty secret. Also lovely was duetting on ‘Blister In the Sun’, dancing together and kissing right in the middle of Cuba Mall at 3am. She wouldn’t let me take her home because she said that shagging gets in the way of being friends, and I was like “but dude, I have a million friends already! I don’t need any more!” but of course she is no doubt right. I’m just very lucky that I got to have a thoroughly swell time and a kiss to make the night perfect. It was partly a little bit about chasing away the ghosts of last year and the thing that I am not supposed to remember any more, but it was so sweet that it felt fresh and clean and not at all like the other times this year when I have tried to drown my memories in someone else’s arms. Excellent. Thank you very much, you charming young lady.

It is astonishing how much difference a little bit of money has made in my life. Getting paid for the contract work that I’ve been doing meant I could pay my phone bill. It meant I could get my meds. It meant I could pay rent. It meant I could go see my counsellor and discuss with her how awful it makes me feel to be 29 and in debt to both my sisters and my parents. She told me many times that just because I am bad with money it doesn’t mean that I am a bad person. We also talked about ways that I can work through things so that I don’t throw my hands up in the air and give up on everything and retreat to my “safe” place at the bottom of the Piths Of Dethspair. Of course though, along with the rest of the world, she is hapu, which means that she’s going on maternity leave soon so I can’t have a another breakdown until April, okay?

Job hunting continues to happen. I got feedback from one interview that I went to along the lines of “We thought you were fantastic. You blew us away. As soon as you left the room, we were all like ‘oh man, we wish we had a job for her!’ ” . I am considering being slightly less awesome  in my next interview in order to avoid this happening again. Then again, the contract work that I am doing right now (at which I am kicking ass and taking names) is the result of a similar result from another job interview, so perhaps there is hope for me yet. And next week I will get paid by the government to help my mother cook dinner, so that’s always good (Serious Entertainment Function hosted by my father. It’s like the ’80s and the ’90s diplomatic life all over again).

So that’s the work front. On the home front, while I’m still looking for one flatmate, Thigh Voltage moved in yesterday and we had hilarious hijinks trying to mandangle a four-seater couch up our very steep and narrow stairs and through our tight hallway. Later that night Anna Jane gave me a neck massage and went “oh you’re so tight!” like a pornstar. I giggled a lot. I recommend her massage services, by the way. Chiara and Rachel plaited my hair like I was a My Little Pony. We were tiki-shacking it up to welcome Thigh. My house was full of my lovely friends and the glorious roller derby girls and other people who read twitter or something. I had hilarious gossips with Kim and Laura and Lisa in the tiki shack (we were mostly in the house because of the wind). My catchphrase this weekend has been “I drink a lot and I have low self esteem!” It goes a long way in explaining many things about me. However, the compliments from the roller derby girls about my creepy fandom and also of my boobs (I wore a low-cut dress to make up for not providing much food or drink, you see) went a long way to boosting up my ego to sky high levels. I have been reminded of the fact that the reason I have so many awesome people in my life is because I am actually pretty damn awesome.

Other things of note recently:

• the meal Bambi cooked for me while I was crying on Anji’s shoulder
• how after I cleaned the fridge out I discovered the only food actually in it was some creamed corn
• the hammering I did when Shirley repaired her (stolen) park bench
• dinner with Megan and Laura at Thai Chef
• discovering that apparently people a couple of years younger than me don’t use condoms every single time that they have sex (WTF? How is that possible???? I have had sex without a condom a grand total of twice in my entire life, and I was on the pill and thought I was in a monogamous relationship. There are some things I don’t fuck around with, you may be surprised to learn).
• the insane amount of spirits that we got through last night. So many empty bottles.
• eating Ethiopian food for the first time
• The things filling up my social calendar – gallery openings, book launches, Skate Highway One – Wellington vs Auckland at Roller Derby,  the FOURTH ANNUAL WELLINGTONISTA AWARDS OMG etc.

And now some multimedia stuff:

Me winning the best sign competition at the last bout of Roller Derby with this gem which encourages world peace, because obviously I’m dressed to support SMASH MALICE who won, but also the new flatmate who’s on Brutal Pageant:

Bad Tom teaching Chiara how to tie a cravat before Pride & Prejudice & Zombies:

That might be it for now, actually. Leave me a comment, I haven’t updated for a while so give me a reason to be a woman do it more often!

I can’t sleep right now because the wind is too loud, so I might as well write my journal, yes?

Let me start with pictures of cupcakes. The lovely Emma came over to lend me her neat handwriting expertise, and together we assembled these beauties:

If you click the photo, you’ll get to my flickr page where I’ve tagged each cupcake with what it says

We had a tremendous amount of fun coming up with the dirty words and I also got to say to her things like “give me an orgasm” and “I love your meat flaps” which is always a guarantee of a good time. The cupcakes were for Bad Tom’s Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know party, which we will get to in time, but first I have to talk about #opengovt.

On Saturday I went to an Open Government Bar Camp, because I am a big nerd. In order to appear less governmenty, I wore really bright-coloured clothing:

I am so in love with my new tights from welovecolors.com, although I think the footless ones fit better than the footed ones. I’m pretty sure I am going to need to order them in more colours than just kelly green, scarlet red and fuschia at some stage. Anyways. Bar Camp. I knew a tremendous amount of people there, and even more people knew me. I tried to remind people that we weren’t entirely representative of the rest of New Zealand in that normal people don’t tend to spend sunny Saturdays cooped up in the National Library of their own free will, and I think I did quite well at that. I also ate some really tasty proscuitto. I will write about it more on my portfolio site sometime soon, probably. My social media expertise was paid for by drinks at the Loaded Hog afterward where the bar man kept giving me over-pours, probably because I was one of very few women there.

But I couldn’t stay and drink free booze all night there, because I had a party to get to. So I jumped in a taxi and went up to Karen’s house in order to get dressed up, meet Chiara and have more drinks. This is what Karen and I dressed up as:

If that’s unclear to you, click here for the reveal.

Bambi and Anji also dressed up as Bad Tom, who was suitably impressed and perplexed. I put a naughty schoolgirl spin on my outfit, which proved to be quite handy, not least because the amount of Mary-Kate & Ashley available enabled people (well, maybe just Tom) to do lines of snuff off my breasts.

Photo stolen from Bad Tom’s flickr.

Did I mention that there was homemade laudanum? And absinthe? And a general all around dirty atmosphere? Here are some more pics to show off the mood in the room:

I like it how it appears that Chiara is about to give me a lapdance in this photo, but she didn’t actually. I did watch her and Anna Jane shake and shimmy and undulate in the hallway. There was kissing booth malarky. I also pashed a drag queen named Candy. At one stage I found myself on Tom’s crazy comfy bed with a cute girl and a guy I used to work with. We spilled absinthe on his sheets and tried to shut the door but people kept walking in on us. It is somewhat disconcerting to be making out with someones while your sister stares at you through the window. Still, I got to tell the guy that I’d wanted to fuck him because I thought he was kind of misogynistic, so that was amusing, although he protested that he wasn’t. And then later on the cute girl and I went home with the duck. It was somewhat of a strange night, and I am paying for it now with a cut-open thumb from cocktail making, and bruised knees from god knows what. Ahh debauchary, how glad I am you are in my life.

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

Yeah, exactly.

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

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

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

The floor is lava again. I know it will pass, and I know the fact that I have been negligent in my lexapro intake is to blame, but it’s kind of like a vast conspiracy.

I had a glorious week before the lava set in. As I already said on Wednesday, Lisa Fur and I went out to the Hutt and had a marvelous drive around. On Thursday, we went to the zoo! There were otters! And meerkats! And giraffes! As my camera is at Anna Jane’s (I hope) I will pinch some pictures from Lisa’s flickr to display the otterly adoreableness of the trip:

Lisa kept calling the animals jerks every time they wouldn’t pose for photos properly or if they were just busy sleeping and we couldn’t see them, which happened a lot. I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do. However, it did keep me giggling a lot. Afterwards we went to Lyall Bay to eat chips and be sad looking at the burntpout Maranui, and then we drove up and around Maupuia and then up other hills in Miramar, questing to find a particular yellow house we’d spotted from another peak. Spending time with Lisa is lovely and easy and great. I wish we could make out and then I’d never have to hang out with anyone else ever again, if you know what I mean.

On Friday I went to meet up with my old workmates Matt and Ros for drinks at Mighty Mighty. Apparently the SSC has not completely fallen apart without me. I’m as shocked as you are. Ros reads my journal, so I must give her shoutouts. Matt does as well, apparently, although he does not wish to discuss my periods with me. I warned him that I intended to pretend to be Mark Harris the next day and heckle his talk at Word Camp about the SSC blog and yell “Show us your tits!” a lot. He said that would be  a good thing. It’s a shame  I didn’t actually make it along, but I suppose we’ll get to that soon enough.

Then Karen came along and we took a taxi up to Anna Jane’s masquerade flatwarming. Once again I’ll steal a photo from someone else, in this case from Phillip:

I painted and glittered my fan myself, in case you couldn’t tell. It had creepy dolphins on it before, which Lisa made dolphin-killing noises when I painted over them at her house on Monday night. That was not as adorable as the sound the otters made when they saw us coming over and stood up to greet us.

Anyways, the party was fun, for a while. I was feeling very uncommunicative, and drank a lot to cover that, although we couldn’t find a corkscrew for a very long time which meant we couldn’t open the prosecco for a long time and had to resort to drinking white rum. I tried to steal a mask from a canadian guy because it matched my fan. He didn’t want to swap though. There was some piling onto Anna Jane’s bed, and pretty French girls. Then at one stage I was leaning on the bathroom door frame when someone shut the door and it turned out my fingers were shut into the frame. I howled in pain, and screamed until the door was open, and then I bawled and bawled and bawled. I was so very fucking embarrassed at how much I was crying, but once I started I couldn’t stop. It felt kind of cathartic and kind of horrible at the same time. People gave me hugs and ice packs and Bad Tom forcefed me straight brandy, and I still couldn’t stop crying. Karen made me go home pretty soon after that, and I cried in the taxi on the way home, and again once I was in bed. My fingers are still kind of fucked now.

Needless to say, I did not feel very good on Saturday. I was very very hungover, yes. But also, I was just so so embarrassed. I mean, twitter assured me that crying at finger pain is completely okay, but there was an element of just losing total control, letting down my facade, ex cet er ra, ex cet er ra. I was not comfortable about it at all. So I hid in bed, constantly resetting my alarm pretending I’d go to Wordcamp later and later but then I realised I wasn’t going to go at all. Instead I made watery mac’n cheese and watched half a dozen episodes of series four Buffy because I love the recaps of it on The AV Club so much.

Today I have also hidden in bed, beset by strange dreams about dreams, cheese, weddings, Kat’n Kane and cherries the size of pumpkins. I also dreamt that I cloned myself and we had some great sex. I ran away to Elements to eat haloumi and roast beetroot and read the stupid paper. Tonight I might make rhubarb crumble and toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner, and attempt to restore some order to my room. I wish I had a job. I really want to buy that bed that I want. I finally got a call on Friday from the job I’d interviewed for last Monday, and they said that they had no feedback to give me because I’d interviewed brilliantly but the candidate they went with had more general Comms experience and I’m too specialist. Damn my speciality!

Actually, given the soreness of my fingers, and how difficult wanking was last night, I’m not sure I will be able to make crumble, dammit. Hmm. I suppose I can but try.

Haha, I tricked you. Well, sort of. My list of things to do today (well, okay, yesterday since it’s 2.22am now) consisted of “change the lightbulb in my room” and I did that. I also found some whitetac and put up some more Frankie posters, purchased a mask for Anna Jane’s masquerade flatwarming on Friday, and also some accessories for Tom’s #madbad party later in August.

I also had amazing gnocchi at Baobob, great homemade pizza at Lisa Fur’s, and some of the ‘Welcome Home El’ cake that I made. More tasty things in my mouth. Oh, and I had the joy of disposing of what Sebastian wanted to eat – a rat he brought in the window at 4am and was eating under my bed. I picked it up through a plastic bag, but it was warm, and may have squirmed, and I panicked and threw it out the window. Had the rat still been alive, that would have been probably the most humane thing to do anyway. Yucky.

A much more pleasant thing that happened to me this week was on Saturday when I was at Anna Jane’s she decided that she was going to give me a foot rub, and so while she was doing that I said to Phillip “you can give me a scalp massage while she’s doing that” and he actually did. I felt like a pampered princess making ‘o’ faces fit for a tabloid magazine.

And speaking of pleasant things, after she had watch me paint over dolphins (long story) tonight, Lisa and I watched Singles for like, the millionth time. I’m still in love with Campbell Scott, even if he does resemble Campbell Smith, minus the chambray shirt. I miss Jessie. Just as well that she, like KateH, are making home visits sometime this year then, huh?

Okay, so here are the things that I want to do tomorrow:

1. Decide what I’m cooking for dinner, and go to Moore Wilson’s to purchase ingredients.
2. Go to the Warehouse to look for part of my madbad costume
3. Finish the thing I was painting tonight
4. Do two loads of laundry if it’s sunny
5. Tidy my bedroom a little.
6. Cook, mull wine, enjoy the company of my friends.

That’s all achieveable too, right? Right?

1. As expected, Webstock blew my fucking mind. I cried on Day One when Ze Frank spoke and then I cried on Day Two when Tash wrapped it up. I had many free coffees, and tubs of ice cream. I ate friands until they came out of my ears, sort of and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the catering too. I had a thousand glasses of champagne. I met a million people, I told half a million of them that I loved them, and I learned so many awesome things. Yes, I am talking here about the food and not the knowledge, because there were so many things that I will be talking about in the weeks to come that I think it’s okay to take a little bit of time to talk about coriander chicken noodles, and the blue-cheese filo cups at the Embassy, yes?

2. At the afterparty at the Embassy, we played Crowd Bingo. I won the most challenges I think, but I was still somewhat surprised when Kowhai jumped on my back. I made Alan listen to a thousand long stories about how everything is connected and revolves around me (the guy who won my dinosaur is I think the younger brother of the first guy that I ever said “I love you” to, albeit in a Tori Amos & Cindy Sherman-quoting email sent on Valentine’s Day in 1998. The younger brother didn’t like me at all based on IRC, because I laughed “ha ha ha” and he thought that made me really sarcastic. There were more of these types of story. Some of them involved diabetes. I’m surprised Alan put up with it all. Hadyn tried to take credit for my Crowd Bingos so I punched him. He twittered that I’d found Jim. People with iPhones all have herpes. Perhaps the greatest achievement in the bingo was Kowhai getting Ze to sign a card for Miss Fur, but we will come to that later, probably.

3. I told pretty much everyone that I loved them, although I’d already been twittering that all day. I told Matt Jones that I was going to marry him instead of Tom Coates. Sarah and I had it all worked out between us. We’re going to wear kaftans and and play majong. It’ll be brilliant. I made people hold my glass so I could hug people with two arms. I must in particular throw out mad love for Jeff who I hung out with for much of the night, and also for anyone who didn’t run in terror from me despite the booze and the enthusiasm I had flowing out of me like river about to burst its banks. I suspect also that my cleavage was more than terrifying, because it was a new dress (Yup! Sweaty and gross and it got worse at Vintage).

4. Vintage was hot and sweaty, but I found myself a seat and taught people how to play Front/Back. It’s a bit similar to Marry/Fuck/Kill, but simpler – you name two people, and someone has to decide which person they’d have fuck them in the ass and who they’d go down on. The first time Lisa and I played, it was Mike Patton vs Eddie Vedder. I decided I wanted Eddie to make sweet tender love to my heini, and Mike Patton to fuck my mouth as dirtily as possible. It’s a beautiful game. The funnest part was on Saturday when I asked Dylan “Good Tom/Bad Tom?” and he was too embarrassed to answer. I met some very amusing boys from Auckland and they indulged me in playing for a long time, talked to me about Marcus Lush and Newsnight and just generally kept me entertained, until they had to leave. I managed to find other friends though.

5. Me and a lady friend and two guys found ourselves with nowhere to drink after Vintage closed, so we went to Mermaids strip club. The guys paid for our entrance fee, bought us drinks and gave us laminated mermaid dollars to tuck in the thongs of the dancers. Yeah that was me, smashing the patriarchy. I talked to one of the dancers for a while, as it appeared to be her job. She didn’t take her top off and looked down on the dancers who do. I thought that was a bit weird. I couldn’t stop looking at things through a feminist window. The white bits on my dress glowed and I felt like it was 1997 and I was at a rave. She had a really nice ass, even if I’m not an ass girl, but I really wanted to see the redhaired stripper come out again. I had been drinking for 12 hours. I woke up the next afternoon and all the lights in my room were on.

6. Somehow I managed to make it out to the Cuba Street Carnivale, three colours of eyeshadow on and plastic flowers woven into my hair, It was so lovely to see Dylan again, and I love the people cheering for the wind blowing the bunting around. I don’t like Olmecha Supreme so we went and had cocktails at SFBH because sitting down is nice,and then went and watched the parade from Marion Street. It was pretty average, but there were some scantily clad ladies to oggle, which is always nice, because obviously I haven’t done enough of that lately. And then when we were waiting at the bus stop for a taxi, a guy ran past with a bagguette tucked under his arm so we were all “ahurhur hur hur” like a Frenchie.

7. Yesterday I had brunch ostentainably by myself, but Hadyn happened by, and then I saw Dylan too, and then I went and hung out with Lisa for a bit, who was still VERY VERY EXCITED that she got to meet Ze Frank at the carnival, and then there was an attempt at a nap but I was so excited that I’d get to nap that I couldn’t sleep.

8. Today I couldn’t face work, but I did three loads of washing, tidied the house, cleaned the bathroom, made cupcakes and delivered them to the lovely Mike & Deb and Tash & Ben to thank them for the awesomeness that is Webstock. The cupcakes are in boxes decorated in glitter goop that’s all smeary and dreadful but I’m hoping that they’ll thin it’s Outsider Art.

9. I am so excited about all the knowledge in my head, and I hope that it means that this year is going to be awesome. I fell from grace so hard in 2008, in so many ways. I hope I can regain some of that long lost grace. That is all.

10. Oh hai! If I met you, and you liked me, please let me a comment and we can like, hang out or something.