Obviously everyone who’d been at Waiterere had to return. That was me, Kim & Brendan (KRENDAN SMASH!), Jason & Kate (Kason) and Stacey and Mike, who met and became Macey on that fateful occasion. But we’d also folded in Laura Hungry and Tim (Lim) into our social group, like whipped cream into a coulis. Notice a reoccuring theme? Oh yeah, me amongst a whole bunch of couples. So it was time to find myself a summer boyfriend. I thought there was potential, and there had been a really nice first date, but a second never eventuated. Also we found out that the other Laura (Lozza) was going to be around, and we wanted her with us. Yay Summer Boyfriend!

So emails went around about what we needed to take with us, and we decided to each put in $50 for food, and cases of wine were ordered, and ginger and rhubarb syrups brewed, and limoncello soaked and bottled (well, the bits that Bad Tom didn’t accidently add to our already alcoholic lemonade on Xmas Day anyway). And then the weather reports were read and it was rainy mcrainstorms ahead. Boo, you whore. So I packed some socks as well as three pairs of togs, and hit up the Sallies shop in Newtown for four trashy novels (and a stack more saucers for the #plateproject while I was at it).

Finally December 30 rolled around, after a couple of very long days of anticipation. Rachel came over to catsit, and after about a thousand trips, I managed to get my car all loaded up with food, wine, chilly bin, paddling pool, fancy clothes and all. I collected Kim and Lozza in the rain, and we were off, cranking up our themesong (we run this town, after all) and other Rihanna choones along the way, talking about how major Nicki Maraj is, and loading up on vegetables on our way (avocados at 69 cents and strawberries $1.50 a punnet? Oh hell yes!). We got somewhat lost in Raumati but eventually with our three iphones combined, we managed to make our way to the house, and unload.

Kason and KRENDAN had already secured themselves upstairs rooms, so I headed downstairs. Summer Boyfriend and I took separate bedrooms because I snore, but figured we could do it on the ping pong table upstairs so I could show off some new tricks while I was at it (for serious: I was at Family Planning the other week getting a full range of STD checks (my Xmas present to myself: being assured I am clean. Treat yo’self!) and the nurse was like “your vagina muscles are so strong you should learn some ping pong ball tricks!” because I kept popping out the speculum. Why do I always get the interesting health professionals?). I pushed the beds in my room together none the less, because I am not very practiced at sleeping in a single bed and did not want to injure myself. Also downstairs were Macey, and the biggest room of all was saved for Lim. Seriously, that bitch was like, huuuuuuuuuuge. Which came in very handy later…

Too many details, right? When Lim got there, we held a summit and worked out an approximate meal schedule, and dispatched the menfolk off to the supermarket in the root ute (in this scenario, Lozza counted as a man, on account of being my summer boyfriend). Meanwhile, us ladies drank wine and called ourselves the Real Housewives of Raumati. I was wearing a caftan, after all.
Our 3G connection was weak, but our love was strong. I rang up the property owner to question why there was no TV when there had been one in the pictures, and scoffed at him for saying “there are Sky connections if you brought your own decoder” because what good would that be without a screen to watch it on? He rang back a little later and then I rang him from a telecom phone with better coverage, and he promised to send one over the next day. Victory!

To my extreme delight, Laura had brought along a couple of Babysitters Club books, and so we made Tim give us a dramatic reading about the truth about Stacey and her diabetus (captured on Instagram by Jason here). It was raining but the wine and rhubarb ginger gimlets were warming, and it wasn’t actually cold, so I went for a swim with some of the boys. The beach was beautiful even in the grey, and easily accessed by some steps. The hot shower afterwards was good, especially since I didn’t have to wait for anyone else to finish first.

My wrists were sore from all the wanking pre-holiday chopping and cooking and scrubbing so I assumed the position of Team Leader instead of cook, and we got two huge pans of glorious mac’n cheese in the oven. Cooking teams are great! We spent the evening most pleasantly, stuffing our faces, drinking wine and talking shit. Good times.

The next morning I woke up to a good deal of excitement upstairs. Santa had just dropped off a brand new 42 inch plasma screen, and the menfolk were scrambling around to assemble it while others played barista with Lim’s coffee machine. There were fried potatos and toast and eggs for everyone but me, and once the kitchen was cleaned, the boys (and Stacey) went to the rec room to play Settlers of Catan loudly, while the girls made mimosas, watched The Mighty Boosh (we even had our own Milky Joe), and painted our nails with OPI’s Rainbow Connection and other delights. I even have a picture of it, including glittery cakeballs made by Laura.

Cider was drunk and the weather cleared up a little bit, so we got our ocean swim on, my summer boyfriend squealing away. It was cold, but we all had a lovely splish splash, and when we got back to the house, after hot showers and putting PJs on, I busied myself making fried cheese sandwiches for people. Mike’s friend arrived around that time and didn’t bother to introduce himself to the other room of people. In his defense, Mike didn’t introduce us either. So we drank some more cider and did some prep for our fancy dinner. I made bread rolls! The dough rised! And rised! And then it rose again after I balled it up! SUCH AN ACHIEVMENT! Then Laura brandished pipe cleaners at us, so it was time to get our cat ears on. Stacey did mine for me, and I got my fancy duds on:

After arguing backwards and forwards about whether we could fit the outdoor table into the dining space as well, we ended up setting up the ping pong table for dinner, which worked very well for the eleven of us. There was lamb and beef from the bbq, amazing potato gratin, my rolls (and rolls and rolls. Get it? I’m fat), and then because we suddenly realised there were two vegetarians, we also made a carrot salad and asparagus very hastily. And we sat down and ate and ate, and talked about what our resolutions for the year had been, and if we’d kept him. I had resolved not to sleep with any more close friends, workmates or married people. I didn’t sleep with any workmates in 2011, woo! (Or did I?) And I resolved to shoot a gun in 2012. After dinner we broke out the limoncello that I had made for dessert, and started singing songs from Community, which may have been a little disturbing for those who were not familiar with it. Mike’s friend revealed that he voted National, which made everyone uneasy. There was some dancing, and at midnight I put down my glass of Glen Coco Juice, and warned my Summer Boyfriend I was going to dip her and kiss her, which I did. As a good hostess, I thought it would only be fair enough to kiss Mike’s friend too, because everyone should have a good time. And then there was more crazy dancing, some wacky waving arms to ‘Wuthering Heights’ of course, which I hope someone will post the video of. Cigars were smoked on the deck with whiskey, and I felt very manly. More drinking was done, and I showed more hospitality, painting the friend’s toenails and introducing him to the delights of the Arcade Fire and gave him a place to sleep. Because I am a good host, okay?

On New Year’s Day, we got to go to Wendy’s for lunch, huzzah! And then we watched Mean Girls and started drinking again, and the sun came out, and the ocean was a lovely place to swim off a hangover and feel bad in. That evening we watched Point Break as Jason made us pizza after pizza, and once again we resolved to shoot a sequel, starting with Patrick Swayze washing up on Raumati Beach. I think Kate is going to play Gary Busey.We played Articulate with some amazing calls like me “Someone who talks to the dead” and someone else yelling “…. Necrophile!”.

The next day was glooooooooooriously sunny. After fantastic breakfast triple pikelets, there were many card games outside in the shade, much devouring of Rivals by Jilly Cooper which is so fantastically trashy and also happens to be Laura’s favourite book so she constantly receited lines at me about people’s bushes. Very major. More cider was purchased, along with some other treats, and more swimming was done. There was still almost no cellphone coverage, so we heard that people were angry with Libra Tampons for transphobia, but couldn’t watch the ad. So we drank more and bbqed a feast. Later, a commitee was sent downstairs to Lim’s room to build us a blanket fort. Holy fucking crap. I thought last year’s was spectactular, but this was astonishing. Four clothes racks provided central support, and there were mattresses and pillows galore, as well as a chilly bin and a stereo so we could party in there. Here’s a picture taken by my Summer Boyfriend. Naturally the first game inside a blanket for is Marry, Fuck Kill, and as Mean Girls was fresh in our minds, it stirred up some hefty debate. Most everyone would marry Karen, but there was a lot of argument about who was richer – Regina, or Gretchen. Obviously it’s Gretchen, because her dad like, invented toaster strudel. Plus I think Gretchen would work much harder in bed because she wants people to like her, and Regina would just lie back. But if you fucked Regina, there’s a good possibility that Amy Poehler might walk in on you, which would be great. INTENSE DISCUSSION! Someone has a video of it which they might post. Of course, we also played I Have Never too, and I discovered that the past six months of my life result in me getting raaaaaaaaaaaaaather drunk during that game. Then there was some wailing to Adele, and a great big hangover the next day.

Macey had to leave us, but we consoled ourselves with the saddest sight in the world ever – Jason playing paddle tennis by himself on the beach. I had the best swim ever, and then sent the day alternating between sun and shade and wet and dry. Monkey butlers even brought me G&Ts. And I very nearly won at cards after making Tim shift into the paddling pool with me. Yes there was an ‘f’ in that, thanks. And then some kittens came to visit, as snapped by Laura in front of the paddling pool!

I feel like I am failing to capture this magical holiday and have no way to describe all the injokes and the number of times I sang “YOU’RE WELCOME, YOU’RE WELCOME FOR EVERYTHING” like Pierce, and the number of times I told people I loved them as Laura ate golden syrup off her knife or Lozza wrote “I LOVE LAMP” on the beach. There was lots of laughter and also enough quiet time, the house was plenty big enough for us all, and the bad weather over the first couple of days didn’t matter. We ate and drank like kings, and didn’t even spend all that much money on it. On our last night we watched slide shows of the pictures and videos people had taken, looking back already. I was very very sad to leave the next morning, but super happy to come home to Sebastian.

So that was my New Year’s. How was yours?

That made the rest of the week a little more dealable-with-able, along with sending a series of “this is why I am angry with you” emails to a series of people. And so on Friday morning I found myself up before 7am, with the shuttle picking me up at 7.20am. Golly gee, that was an early morning. Air NZ has gone all super high tech at the airport, where you check yourself in at a kiosk, print your own sticker for your bag, and just biff it on the conveyor-belt yourself. At this stage I would like to mention that the Caltex in the Newtown shops still sends an attendant out to pump your gas for you. What is happening to service in the rest of the world? Won’t someone please think of the children? Anyways. I had heaps of time so I got a coffee from Fuel and read the paper, but if I’d known that they wouldn’t give me a stamp for the coffee, I would have gone to Wishbone.

The flight itself was uneventful, and touching down in Tauranga was pretty. As soon as my taxi driver found out that I’d never been to Tauranga before, he proceeded to narrate everything, which is what I hoped for. He gave me so much information that I was constantly able to pull it out over the weekend and impress Kat & Kane, or at least make them start calling the taxi driver my boyfriend. He answered my questions about how much a taxi to the Mount would be, pointed out where the buses went from, explained that the Strand went off on Saturday nights (his words) and lifted my suitcase out of the car for me. The reception staff at the hotel were just as friendly and nice, finding me a room that was available then rather than making me wait, and asking when I’d like my complimentary drink delivered. My room on the fifth floor was absolutely lovely:

Devonport St is the main shopping street in Tauranga, apparently, so there were lots of places around. There were also lots of vacant shops, but mostly it was a pleasant little high street full of chain stores. A block over and down I found a little plaza area, and decided to eat at Bravo because they had lots of sunny outdoor tables. I had mushrooms on toast with super crispy bacon and enjoyed the sunshine. I found the city art gallery and marvelled at the collection of NZ paintings that BNZ bought during 1982-1987 before they went bankcrupt or whatever, and talked to the attendant about how patronage of the arts will no doubt suffer in this current R-Word climate. After that, I strolled around a bit more before heading back to the hotel for a lovely nap on the huge big bed. Even Damian Christie recommends the hotel, and that says a lot.

Then it was KAT TIME! She came to meet me at the hotel and I hugged her so hard I almost went all Mice & Men on her. I offered to buy her a pedicure, so we went off in search of a place that would take us. The first place we tried right across the road was busy, but the second one we found (there are nail salons EVERYWHERE in Tauranga, it’s a little weird) the woman said she could do us both at once. Oooer. So we clambered up into the massaging chairs and soaked our feet while she slid back and forth between us. I know we didn’t have appointments, but she was really rushed because as we discovered she had another client coming in, and I just don’t think we got a very good deal. I was really disappointed that we didn’t get the dead skin razored off our feet, or any kind of massage (in fact, she only rubbed lotion into one of my feet!) and the nail polish job was patchy, and since my toenails are unnaturally thick, I always put polish on their edge, but she didn’t. For $48 each, I thought it was seriously lacking (although looking at their site now, what they list is what we got). Still, I bought some bright yellow nail polish as well, and it was relaxing to have the soak and the electric massage, and that’s what I was after. Perhaps I was spoiled by my only other pedicure experience in New York. And in fact, looking at prices of other places on the net right now, maybe that’s pretty standard or actually fairly cheap. Ahh well.

So yes, anyway, Saturday. They picked me up and we went to Grindz on First Avenue for breakfast after we flagged walking up to Fifth for some sort of market. They said that the staff at Grindz can have bad attitudes, but my french toast and coffee were great, even if the toast was more eggy than I personally prefer. Plus I love that Grindz has a whole dedicated playroom for kids to keep them out of my ears. We did some shop-browsing, then jumped on a bus over to the Mount. Kane wanted to go to a particular op shop, so we went to the “bad” part of the Mt Manganui shops. It all seemed a bit sad and shut down. I tried on a thousand pairs of sunglasses, but I still can’t find any I like as much as the glasses I wear these days which I’ve had since 1999 (May 1, 1999 to be exact! Which was also the first day I told someone to their face that I loved them is how I know that for a fact) and they’re all scratched up to hell. Eventually we got to go and plonk our asses down on the beach and watch a family learn to surf. I couldn’t help but cheer every time any of them caught a wave, especially the 10 year old girl. Kat also made me laugh and cheer and clap by performing the chicken dance from Arrested Development for me and also for Lisa, except that it was too high-res to mms to her. But here it is for you. Turn your head!

And if that video doesn’t make you happy, then you are officially (OFFICIALLY!) the lamest person on the face of the planet. Now, when I twitted that I was going to Tauranga, I asked people what I should do. Almost everyone who replied told me I should go for a walk up the Mount. Here is a picture of the Mount.

Back at the hotel (my room was apparently aproximately the size of their house) there was more napping (I LOVE napping with people, I could totally be friends with Bret and Jermaine) and many episodes of The Simpsons before we strolled off to the fish dock for dinner.

When I woke up to my alarm, I looked at the time on the alarm clock that I’d also adjusted, and realised that MOTHERFUCKING SON OF A BITCH my cellphone had ALSO changed its time, and there was 25 minutes until my plane left. I grabbed all of my shit and rang a cab and dropped off my key. After waiting ten minutes for my taxi to show up, the driver tried calling the airport for me, but the flight was already gone. At the airport they offered to put me on the next flight to Auckland, but it was only going to save me $20 or so and I would have had to wait around there too, so I decided that I’d just take the next flight to Wellington – at a cost of $370 extra. I waved my arms in pretendish-fiero when I found out that at least I’d get air points for that flight so that I wouldn’t cry. I took my complimentary Herald On Sunday to a picnic table outside and waited three hours for my flight, really regretting not having taken the time to call the airport before leaving the hotel so that I could have showered and had a decent coffee and breakfast in town. Sigh. And then the fucking shuttle in Wellington went all the way around Oriental Bay and then back into Newtown while I sat there fuming and just wanting to be home and clean and with my kitty. Grrr. Bad way to end a holiday but oh man, it was a glorious time, so chilled out, relaxed and pampery. It was exactly what I needed and the perfect time to have it too. I will go back.

Air NZ says that it’s rolling out personalised entertainment in August on all Pacific flights, but they hadn’t reached our plane yet. Geez, could I sound more whiney? Seriously, outside is one of the most beautiful places ever and I’m still bitching about the flight. It’s the dread of the nearly 6 hours return. Anji was right, I think we’re going through Tonga. We had steak pies and Kapiti Ice Cream. The air hostess poured me a double vodka and soda, which washed away the sicky feeling of Lindauer at Auckland Airport. I listened to Bic Runga on my ipod and tried to sleep.

It took a while to get through customs at Apia, and then fight off taxi touts. Someone from the airport eventually told us where we needed to trade in our vouchers, so we got lei’d and clambered into a van with plastic covered seats. Who needs knees anyway? We sat for another long period, waiting for a couple from business class. Privileged douches I thought, although as it happens they took that long because of one of their bags didn’t arrive. I rescind my judgment so that I may never lose a bag. The older couple sitting in front of us started talking to the rich yuppie woman who switched on her blackberry as soon as she got in the coach (I’d turned on my phone so I could take photos because my camera was in my bag, but then I put it away because I didn’t want to be that girl. Remuera Woman decided that it was vitally important that she share her wide knowledge with Yuppie Woman, so she started telling her about how in NZ most Pacific people live in the same area, and then started going on about how unfortunate they were, blah blah very very very condescending, and her husband chimed in with “I hired one once but…” It was at that stage that I leaned over and whispered to Karen “I hear they all know each other too!” and put on my iPod so I wouldn’t have to listen any more.

Sigur Ros made a good soundtrack for the lush tropicalness of the island. It was 7 in the morning, so the roads were full of school kids in different coloured uniforms heading off to class. Every little shop advertised Beer Valima. Almost all the houses we passed were open-sided fales. It was a little weird to see things like microwaves sitting out in the open. Horses and dogs and piglets and cats and chickens roamed around like the hoodlums they are. I miss Sebastian.

We were worried that our room wouldn’t be available when we got there, but luckily, it was, and we were shown to a very very cute over-water fale, the porter hefting my 20kg suitcase on his shoulder as he pulled Karen’s along. The fale had a bathroom that took up a good quarter of the space, with open sides. Not a whole lot of privacy in the room for two people, but I guess these things happen.

I threw our welcome garlands into the ocean and pretended to be doing a maritime funeral, but my camera lense was kind of condensed from the change in temperature. We decided to go eat breakfast (waffles), sweltering in the heat, and then put our togs on for the first time. The water was absolutely magic. So warm and lovely although not all that deep. I frolicked for a very long time before I turned wrinkly, and it was time for a great airport-taint-washing-off shower, recliners on our private balcony and stupid magazines to read (I’m looking at you, Madison!) We tried to nap before lunch, and managed to doze off. I volunteered to take the single couch-bed for the night, figuring I’d sleep fine with all the tiredness and the zopiclone. That was of course before the mosquitoes showed up.

At lunch, we ordered the house ros? because it was part of our meal plan, and if you’re looking at that and it displays like an ?mlaut, it’s because I am so very fucking rock’n roll. I had a fish fry that arrived in a big grass basket, with manioka fries and breaded eggplant, while Karen had a spicy raw tuna Ahi Poke salad. Yes! Being on holiday is nice.

Because I followed my wine with a couple of Vailima beers, when we got back to our over-water fale, I was very keen to keep on drinking, or at least to satisfy a long-held wish of mine – to be swimming and drinking beer at the same time. Our room’s minibar was complimentary, but of course, there was no bottle opener. Cue much much hilarity as I struggled to open my bottle. I wish that American Will had been there to open it with his teeth, or at least pretty much all of my male friends who all smoke and open their beers with their lighters. Instead, I put on my own comedy show for Karen, when she suggested I open one beer with another. You know how at imaginary keg parties they spray all the sorority girls with beer? That was me as the bottles slightly unclipped, spraying all over my togs and into my mouth as I sucked them down. Eventually the lid came off and I trip tropped down into the water, now on low tide, to float on my back and drink beer for a couple of minutes. Of course, it was half foam by that stage, but I achieved what I wanted to achieve, and Karen took my picture.

Then we had Quiet Time in our room, lazing on the private balcony. I opened the other bottle with the aid of the closet hinge (eventually) and finished up both stupid Madison magazine and the chicklit (but good-ish) book called something like The Easy Hour. I’ve read it before if that helps explain what entertaining reading material it is. Eventually, it was some time after 4pm, so it was obviously cocktail time. We put on our togs, but there was no bartender present in the swim-up bar, so we went into the main one instead, Oh wait, but first we checked in (reception wasn’t open when we arrived) and got free maitai vouchers, which we prompted used. We sat in the bar for two cocktails, me rereading jPod and taking photos of the ladies setting up the Palm Court in magenta and purple tableclothes with some turquoise napkins – totally Pretty Pretty Pretty colours! I got all whiney as 6.30 took too long to arrive for dinner. Crazy messed-up timetables!

The restaurant was dark, but nice. I had their Samoan equivalent of prosciutto & melon – spiced beef and papaya, as well as the daily special of WAHOO! fish with spaghetti. We drank the house red wine, topped up from carafes, and it was bloody tasty.. Go the Californian Cabernet. It makes me want to book a holiday to San Fran, to stay with O + S5, but to also do a day trip wine tasting around Napa. Remind me to win lotto. What else? We went back to our room, and I took my sleeping pills. I crashed out pretty early, but woke for a long time in the middle of the night to mozzies dive-bombing my ears. Cunts! Oh, and we had a moonlight swim in the pool, with bonus full moon and a bat flying overhead. Night swimming is my most favouritist.

The second day, I decided to have the cowboy breakfast. It was pretty much bologneise that was supposed to be served over potatoes, but wasn’t. I tell you this less because I imagine that you care about what I ate, and more as a jump-off point for talking about the surprising Americanisms of Samoa. When I’ve been to Fiji, and obviously Rarotonga, New Zealand has been their main major other culture. Here however, they drive on the right side of the road (assuming that they’re sticking to their assigned lane, which wasn’t that often based on our shuttle driver, and oh yes, just like a woman from Remuera, I will decide on an entire country’s behaviour based on one person). Their chicken is American (eww?) while their Rib Eye is from New Zealand. The posh toilet block by the restaurant has flat elongated shallow toilets with a crescent-shaped seat that auto-flush, just like most public American toilets that I encountered, and airdryers with the force of a hurricane that literally (LITERALLY!) are so strong they make your hand skin ripple, like the bathrooms in an Irish pub off Times Square I was forced to take an emergency poo in after visiting Sephora (PPP link).

Oh, and most most most magnificently, in the swim-up bar in the geko-shaped pool, they give you your cocktails (when the bar is staffed, that is, and they still have to go in to the main bar to get the ingredients) in RED PLASTIC CUPS! !!! CHK CHK CHK! So much excitement. We contemplated packing the cups to bring them home, but didn’t.

Karen, meanwhile, had banana penekeke which was billed as Samoan pancakes but is mostly deep-fried bananas with maple syrup, They’re so good that I had them for breakfast today. While we were stuffing our faces, the lovely staff were moving us from our over-water Fale La into one of the Royal Villas – Vila Aili. Did I mention that I got us a $1500 upgrade for free when the Garden Suite that we wanted wasn’t available but we’d already paid for it and our meal plan? According to the Coconuts website, the over-water fale is like US $399 a night, and the Royal Villa is US $400. We paid like NZ $4400 total for five nights, five days of meal plan at NZ $75 a day (Breakfast, lunch and three-course dinner, with lunch and dinner having unlimited (ish) wine and beer), flights and taxes. I think we win. Maybe? I dunno. Well actually, I think the mosquitoes win, but fuck’em, we got plugin thingies from the gift shop, so they can fuck off and die. Oh also, the plugins have NZ plugs, but most of the plugs here are American, to return to the earlier theme.

What else did we do yesterday? Lots of swimming in the pool, paddling and floating in the ocean. Did I tell the porn-star story about the beers already? I did. We didn’t get a bottle opener in the new room either, so there were more shenanigans. I found a handy wooden corner to pop it off, so to speak. I also popped it off when I woke up and heard Karen snoring. Very quietly, of course.

We took a stroll to along the beach to the Sinalei resort which we could see in the distance. It looked very close but took a long time to walk to on the sand, especially with my big blister caused by the arch support in my birki jandals that I’m not used to. The Sinalei beach was like Scorching Bay to Coconuts’s my little secret beaches, and there were shrieking children. We had a cocktail each at their dock-ish bar, then had a paddle. The tide had come in while we were there, so half the walk home was a wade. Exhausting. No one should have to do that much work on holiday!

That night being Saturday, they had a fire-dancing show in the restaurant, which made me think of the Patricia Grace book The Children of Champion Street in which a magical eel brings all the cultures together in Cannons Creek and they all dance their special dances. I used to work with her son and have met some of his brothers. They are all very very very attractive and look much younger than they actually are. And, a confession if you got this far – at Anya’s goodbye party at the See Dubya Eh, I pinched his bottom, and then looked away so noone knew it was me. Te hehe.

Anyways, the fire dancers were very cool, even if I had to drink kava that Karen wouldn’t take. I was supposed to say “Manuia” which made me think of Mike Brown, but of course in writing it, I realise that he has a P. But not a habit, if you know what I mean. Karen also wouldn’t get up and dance when asked. We just concentrated on our food – Karen had Tuna Tartar (with anchovies and egg yolk) and I had Oka, which is sometimes (well in Raro) known as Ika Mata, which is raw tuna soaked in lime juice and coconut cream. It is delicious. Our main course was the ever-present Cabernet and our steaks and afterwards, I had Chocolate Dream Cake full of molten chocolate fudge sauce. Holy crap it was good.

We were so stuffed we could hardly move (I’ve named my belly Brian,and Karen’s is called Andrew), so we went back to our room, drank Amarula and read each other a chapter of The Pirates! In an adventure with Napoleon by Gideon Defoe, who pretends to be related to that Cruise-oh guy. We keep getting the accents mixed up, but we’ve finally decided that the Pirate Capitan talks like a pirate, the Pirate with the Scarf (his number two) is a Scotsman with occasional lapses into Irishness, the Pirate in Green is a faaaaaaaaaabulous homosexual, the Governor of St Helena is a toffee-nosed Brit, and, surprisingly enough, Napoleon is comically French. I popped zopiclone and fell asleep by ten pm.

On Sunday morning, I had deep-fried bananas for breakfast and my first coffee in a long time. We took advantage of the high-ish tide to go snorkeling for the first time, 20 metres from our villa. Booyah! There were some rocks with isolated patches of live coral. but there were lots of fish. Schools of silvery fish, parrot fish that are more faintly coloured than in Rarotonga (EDIT: turns out they were trevalli), and really playful Pierrot fish, Or maybe clownfish. Karen and I aren’t sure (EDIT: turns out they’re Trigger Fish. Oh well!). They get all up in your face, which Karen sees as a threat (because it apparently butted her), while I feel it’s an invitation to follow. There’s a quite strong current from our beach, so a couple of times I floated down to the beach by the swimming pool, got out and walked up again. It’s like skiing, or going on a water slide with the gap in between to relax your puckered snorkel mouth.

After snorkeling and perhaps some showers from our rock tub, (insert pictures here), we went to chill out in the giant library/common space, and I found myself a marvelous Jackie Collins novel to pass the time. There were two shelves dedicated to abandoned German novels – except Karen informs me now that some of them were French and some of them were Danish. There’s also German information in the booklet in our room, so I informed her that there used to be a huge German presence in Samoa until like, 1860, or perhaps after the first world war (5th form history was a while ago) until NZ took over guardianship. “And boy, did they fuck up” says Karen (insert link to wikipedia article on killing thing here) – if I can’t find the link, it’s “that thing what Helen apologised for”. Have I mentioned lately that I love Helen? Fuck you, Code of Conduct, you’re loving the violation, you dirty bitch.

On the blackboard outside reception, we discovered that there was a bbq lunch, and we were gleeful. Did I mention already that our holiday agenda was sun, sea, drinking and eating? I was trying to come up with ‘S’ words there but failed. Karen suggested “snacking” but seriously, I’m totally limited to exactly three meals per day here. Apart from cocktails and Vailima of course. And if I happened to grab any fish. Heh. Anyways, I had ribs while Karen had some big steak of some “local” fish. It may have been groper, but apart from when I rub suntan lotion or chilled mango body butter on her, I am keeping my hands to myself. She says “the flavour certainly grabbed me though”. As would like to this dumbass Australian guy in the bar who says he’s counting our drinks, and then tonight told Karen it must be good book when she was clearly enjoying her reading. Douche. Ahhh Australians, we can hear them for miles around here. Some of them are nice enough though, like the woman in the pool who asked if it was me drinking the Catapult, and warned me it would knock me on my ass and then proceeded to fall back into the pool when trying to get out of it. They were merry and nice.

More snorkeling when the tide was higher at 4pm, more showers and pirates and hilarious beer-openings. At dinner, Karen ordered the escargot for an entree because she could, and daaaaaaaaaaamn it was fabulous, all butter and garlic and mushroomy. I had “cajun sashimi which was lightly seared tuna. It was so pink it looked like jelly, and it was delicious. Karen ate fish with papaya and I had the special of Mongolian chicken. We drank many glasses of cabernet sav (go Cali!) and afterwards lingered in the bar for more cocktails. There’s only two n the menu we haven’t had now, and we’ll take care of that tomorrow.

On Monday I had French Toast for breakfast. The waitresses have started giggling at me for the amount I drink – not just the beer and wine refills but the sheer depravity of having OJ and coffee AND water at once. More snorkelling was had, and we saw starfish and real parrot fish, only they were teeny tiny, and cardinal fish, and prettiness. I’m a bit scared of snorkelling in shallow water, due to the time that I had a panic attack and got cut up real bad on the Fiji coral at Malamala Island, so I get a bit angsty here when there are large banks of rocks’n coral to drift over only two feet below you. But I know if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s floating, so it’s not so bad. And when you find a live patch of coral it makes it totally worth it. Our equipment’s really good too, no leaky masks, or old snorkels without drainage valves. I so recommend this place, like woah.

Karen did some sketches of me but I look like someone else in them. I read more fabulous Jackie Collins and did imitation pilates moves in the pool. I had a burger “all the way” at lunchtime which meant it came with mushrooms and onions and apparently three kinds of cheese. Karen had a chicken salad served in a papaya. I don’t mean to complain, but it’s a damn shame there’s no drinks served in pineapples here, although their signature cocktail does come in a ripe coconut (insert picture here). Our afternoon snorkeling was too shallow because we went too early. Also it was grey and rainy. I changed the voice of the Pirate with the Scarf into that of a Southerner, because my version of Scottish and my version of Pirate are too similar.

It poured that night, poured and poured, and we did crossword puzzles in a New Idea that someone else had haphazzardly started but really sucked at. I finished the Jackie Collins and started some terrible vampire novel that’s set in New Orleans but isn’t by Anne Rice. We finished the pirates book, although it turns out I needed Karen to tell me how it finished (Zopiclone makes me forgetful, but I always remember to take my Lexapro and my Levothyroxine in the mornings.

When you last heard from me, I was heading off to a house in Otaki, where the water in the ocean was warm like a bathtub, and the shelves stacked with trashy books. Behold:
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I have been reading a lot lately. I have to mention Barbara Taylor Bradford’s dreadful book about some family dynasty, which read like a radio play, with the characters narrating all the action “Oh how well you look in that blue satin dress with the intricate lace trimming that highlights your eyes” and “oh look, there is a horse running toward us wildly and it appears that the rider has lost control”. Uggh. It was also like The Odyssey in its repetition of how handsome and brave and loyal the main character was. You know, despite his mistresses and everything.

I know that this book was not important enough in my life to warrant a paragraph like that, but I’m trying to bring back more of the trivial experiences into my writing. I don’t want Hubris to be only about my depression. But in that area, I’ve switched back to taking my meds during the day, they definitely weren’t helping me sleep. Sleep is still a weird thing, dreams are incredibly detailed and realistic-seeming, apart from random nakedness of neighbours. And sleep comes at the wrong times, after 4am, and during meetings when I’m sitting at the back of the room. I’m hoping the end of daylight savings will help me sort out a little of my body clock.

I keep planning things when I know I’m not supposed to. We’re having a wine quiz on Friday at Karen’s, email me if you want come along. At some stage we want to have a TEN THOUSAND party for The Wellingtonista because we’re getting 10,000 unique hits a month now, which is exciting. And I’ve set up The Aucklandista as well. It’s been fun being a master of my own domain. But I am probably doing too many things at once.

At Lisa’s flatwarming party this Saturday, she shoved a cock in my mouth, so later I shoved my tongue in hers. Then her temporary guest kicked me out of his bed where I’d gone to sleep because the house was full of people sleeping everywhere. Who kicks hot girls out of their beds? Exactly. When Karen, Dylan and I shared a taxi back into town, I made it all the way to my street, $47 later, but when we stopped outside of my house, I had to open the door to puke luminous green bile into the street. So classy. Also, whoever thought it was a good idea to let me have access to my cellphone when I’m drinking?

There are other things, other parties. Foot rubs in Mt. Cook, foot rubs here at home. Wine festivals in the Wairarapa. Quietish nights on the couch watching Black Books. Playing records until 6am with new friends. Anji’s flatwarming with piles of meat, dancing and pole-dancing. Being a lady-who-lunches with Martha. Trying to deal with the piles and piles of paperwork at work that is piling up. That’s not really a party though I suppose. Internet dramas. Sharing Jill NSFW’s rage at the new ALAC ads.

On the domestic front I spent Thursday cooking for an hour and a half so I felt all domesticated, but I need to clean. I do have someone coming in to fix the washing machine tomorrow though. I have Anji’s signature on a piece of paper so maybe I’ll get my bond back from Hataitai finally. Etc.

The most important thing is that I’ve decided exactly what I want for my future. Unfortunately I didn’t win the lotto, but I figure maybe I can work on parts of my dream (Read: New Media Empire) without necessarily having the huge warehouse-house on the edge of the city to house my offices, my social life and to act as a venue for the community. Maybe that bit will come after I’ve IPO’ed.

But I don’t smoke pot anymore, of course, and man, I so fucking miss that. Did you see the parts in my journal in 1999 when I used to be in my pyjamas, and someone would call, and my flatmate would be in love with them so I’d put on my grandfather’s silk dressing gown and get driven across town to go smoke with them and then go home? Good times. I wish the world was that simple right now.

Yes I know that I am full of “oh I wish that things were still that way or that way or whatever it is that I want”. And yes, I realise that might make you think that I am unhappy with the way that things are right now. I wish I could write and explain the things that are causing me drama. I have layers of privacy written into this journal, and I could make posts on different levels, or write in different spaces, put in linked footnotes, or be really obscure, but I don’t want to do that. I wish I could tell you what I dislike about my job, very specifically, but I am reduced to saying “government can be a little bit slow-moving”. I wish I could tell you what the problem is with my homelife, but I will sumarise by saying that Kat and Kane are moving out in February to go to Tauranga to be nearer to Kat’s Mum, and you can’t argue with that. But oh yes, of course it doesn’t actually matter when they’re going, as much as I love them and will miss them so much, because oh yes, that’s right, I’m BEING EVICTED. They’re terminating the lease on this house that I love so much on February 3, so I will need to be gone, and find somewhere new. I left a note for Smoo telling him about it and saying that I hoped he would come with me when I set up a new house, because I love living with him, but he’s gone to Hamilton for Xmas, so I don’t know what he’ll say and I’m a little bit scared that he’ll be all like “oh you know what? Done our dash at this flat, time for me to move on”. But I suppose if that’s the way the road goes, that’s the way the world goes.

I am trying to be very calm and very philosophical about everything in my life right now. It does not help that I have failed to go to the gym for a couple of weeks, that my alcohol intake has increased exponentially with the season, that I can’t remember the last salad that I had, that there’s a full moon and most significantly that I am down to a pill a day, if that, because apparently it is far too too hard to find five minutes to cut them up and fill my seven-day box.

So there have been more than a few tear-bouts. Like when my car got towed from the carpark near work that I’d only parked in because I’d failed to sleep and was running an hour and a half late, and that was all the coins I had. I didn’t know who to call and I didn’t want to bother anyone with my drama, but as I later suggested to my counsellor, if anyone was in my position and they failed to call me, I’d want to punch them in the head because of course I’m always there for them (so I have resolved to treat myself like I’m actually my friend, so that I will see that I am actually important and special and deserving of cherishing and nourishment – the way I view my friends but have difficulty seeign myself). So yeah, I called Shirley, and cried and cried, and through a series of navigational mishaps, we ended up driving out to Petone. I had a big panic attack – or is it an anxiety attack – in her car. My heart rate went out of control, my entire body tensed up to the point where my left side felt like it was a heart attack, my flesh tingled, and I had the most disgusting metalllic taste in my mouth. I was more successful in fighting it because I was in someone else’s company than I normally would be. And we wen to the beach, and I stood ankle deep in the cool water and tried to unclench my body, which had of course gone into total survival clenched mode.

We wandered down Jackson St forever, trying to find a place for dinner that was open which would fit us in, and finally we came across Gusto, down the opposite end from Wanda Harland. Yum! We had a cheese plate which had a brie that gooed everywhere, and antipasto with four kinds of preserved meats. The service was a little new, but very well intentioned. And after we had retrieved my car from the towing yard, $180 later, I stopped by quiz and was so upset and stressed out about my workshop the next day I hardly even noticed when the Quizmaster hugged me.

The next day I had a huge big challenge organising an interactive workshop on wikis for 50 people. I panicked and doubted myself and thought I’d fucked up room bookings when it was of course some people overstaying their time in rooms, but other than that, it went pretty good. And then after work I got drunk over dinner at Longixang with Karen and Kowhai and Lisa, and we drove out ot Martha’s shop opening and I drank more champagne and bought presents for Anji and Karen, and a bear-shaped rug that I am SO going to fuck someone on, while my fire-place video plays on the TV. Maybe I will add in photos some other time.

I didn’t write about the Wellingtonista awards yet either. Such an amazingly good night. I can’t believe that things went as well as they did. It was such a stressful period leading up to ist, but on the night, it appears that we pulled it off quite well indeed. My dress was pretty, and that;’;s what’s most important, right? and OH MY GOD Blam Blam Blam were so astonishingly good,a nd I jumped up and down and up and down and dancd and danced and then I hugged them and the whole time I was dancing I had the biggest grin on my face going “BLAM BLAM MOTHERFUCKING BLAM ARE PLAYING AT AWARDS I FUCKING HELPED ORGANISE!” (although props for the actual night must go to Mitch and Russell) and it was just so fucking lovely to know that 678 people voted, compared to 57 from last year. The Wellingtonista have filled my social calendar this year and I love them all dearly, even when they don’t read their emails properly.

And there are other things that are lovely in my life. Kat and I may have finished our Veronica dates, but the other night on our girlie date night we watched Dirty Dancing and then The Breakfast Club and I know that even when they’re gone in February, they’ll be coming back all the time for wrestling. And fuck, I so don’t want them to leave. Do you know how amazing our vege garden looks right now? I don’t want ot have to leave this house, it’s just not fucking fair. This is my home. How dare they “consider their options”? Shirley’s consoling words have been all about promising me that I’ll find a place with a better kitchen, but how will I find a house big enough to fit in all my crap? I have so much crap. My aim over the holidays is to throw out three things a day, but I dunno if I’ll get that done. Yesterday I was hungover all day from end of work drinks, with Tom buying Bollinger at Arbituaguer, and then much sake at Hede, and teapots at Alice, and more wine at Hawthorn, and today I had half a dozen people (Karen, Tom, Kowhai, Shirley, Frances, Lisa, Kat & Kane) over for drinks in the sun, which of course turned into drinks with candles outside and everyone wearing my hoodies and wow, I’m so fucking huge. My idea of spontaneous entertaining starts with texts at 10am, and then there’s bratwursts and frozen samosas and a trillion cocktails. We’re having Xmas at Mum and Neil’s, even though their deck isn’t finished (I am SO dreading the mess already) and so Karen and I went entree shopping this morning. And I have already finished the white rum, apparently. D’oh!

What more did I have to say? I am so fucking craving some physicality. I want to devour the world. So let’s end it there, yes?

No, but seriously, after the Saturday that never happened, my actual Saturday started with the sound of the ocean, and Anji sitting on my bed and whispering to me that they were going to go to the markets and did I want to come? Of course I did, so I got up and got dressed and drank Aitu coffee and someone made me toast, and we set off in our loaner-beamer for the markets. There we ate waffles, talked to some little girls about waffles, ate meat on sticks and Anji and Karen had roast pork sandwiches dripping with gravy and crackling. Oh and we looked at handicrafts and bought coconut cream, of course. Then I spent a lot of time sitting on our lawn in the sun, which looked like this:

That’s Muri Beach you can see right there, as we were staying in a delightful two-bedroom house called Villa Harvey. Anji and Daddy went off for a scuba dive, so Karen, Mum and I wandered up the beach to the Pacific Resort, which you might remember as the place that Penny got married. After lunch we snuck into their pool, but it was pretty damn cold so we headed home instead, stopping in the lagoon for a much warmer splash.

That night we went over to The Rarotongan to watch the Island Night show and eat their umukai feast. All the tables with kids got to serve themselves first, and we were huuuuuuuuuungry, our enormous bowl of a cocktail not sustaining as sustaining as we’d hoped it would be. There was so much oiled-up young man-flesh on display in the dancing, it made me feel very old and seedy. And while of course I hid my face when they sought out people to dance with, I was very very disappointed by the piss-poor efforts of the tourists. I can dance much better than that, I was born with Cook Island drums flowing in my veins after all. But my Cook Island blood functions best when it hasn’t tried all the different desserts on the buffet.

So that was my Saturday do-over. On Sunday, we took it easy, which is of course very hard to do when you have this view on your doorstep:

We strolled down to the Muri Beach Sailing Club for brunch (Island Fries made with banana, taro, breadfruit and kumara are the greatest thing in the world), and splashed around in the sea. I finished I’m with the band and started in on a shelf of trashy books in the lounge. We also quizzed each other from my Q Ultimate Quiz Book that’d handily come with the magazine I bought at the airport, and made up cocktails in the blender that the house handily provided. For dinner we went up to a restaurant at the Black Rock Villas that was only open on Saturdays and Sundays. I was initially very skeptical, so I ordered a steak. Turns out that the Austrian couple who ran the place were rather on-to-it. All the tables were outside, so we had a great view of the sunset:

On Monday we did some splashing around in the lagoon in the morning:
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Then we went for a drive around Rarotonga’s inland roads which were not too great for driving on in a low-to-the ground car crammed with five people:

Then we went into Avarua to do a little shopping, starting out with lunch at Cafe Salsa that took AN HOUR AND A HALF to arrive. I could tell that the waitress was from New Zealand by how disgusted she was with the time that the kitchen was taking. Here’s us killing time:

Damn tasty food though. We loaded up on coconut oil from the main department store, and headed to Araoa in front of The Rarotongan, as it’s a marine reserve. I was a little hesitant about snorkelling again after I’d had such a bad panic attack over coral in Fiji, but this was all big lumps of rock with plenty of clear space in between to stand up in if your mask leaks as much as mine did. And oh my god, SO MANY FISH! It was very very grand. I saw many parrot-fish which I pointed at and rubbed my belly to Karen and Anji. And what I thought were angel fish, and Picasso fish, and playful rainbow wrasses, and coronet fish, and and and and so many, just all happy for you to hang out with them. Go the marine reserve!

After that it was getting cold so we went to Club Raro for happy hour in their swim-up bar. I thought the pool was a lot deeper than it actually was, and smacked up my leg pretty bad jumping in. Plus, it was freeeeeeezing and the drinks took forever to make, but at least we have documented proof (on Mum’s camera) of our swim-up bar-ness. So it was home for hot showers and getting ready for dinner at the lovely Tamarind, which is in an old colonial house. Anji and I went off for a wander when Mum and Karen and Daddy got into a fight about taxes, and I took this photo on their beautiful deck that I can totally picture myself getting married on:
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And the food, oh the food is so good:

Sesame-crusted tuna with paw-paw salsa and coconut rice.

Anji went home that night, and I got sick, throat all swollen up, coughing all coughy, and sleeping terribly. Needless to say the next day I was not in the mood to do anything at all, and I felt good when I managed to pack my family off to snorkel and I could sit and read by myself. Oh wait, there was checking of internets from a cafe up the road that was trying to mimic a NZ cafe right down to the d’n'b on the stereo but the coffee and muffins were pretty bad. Coconut milkshakes, however, were awesome. That night we went to Trader Jack’s for dinner, on a dock overlooking Avarua Harbour:
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Yes, that’s right, all I did on my holiday was sleep and read and eat and drink. And that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

The next night we went to the Yellow Hibiscus for dinner. Don’t ever go there. It took over an hour to get our dinners because the deep fryer was broken and they didn’t think to see if Mum would prefer rice to fries with her fish. They did give me a free cocktail though, but the food was decidedly average, except for my big plate of creamy pasta with mushrooms and artichokes.

On our last day, we went snorkelling again and I saw two octopuses holding hands on a rock. Awwww. And we went on a cocktail tour to the Edgewater but didn’t drink Tangaroas this time, and then we went to the Mainuia Beach Resort for dinner but decided that we didn’t like the menu, so we ended up at Windjammer and I’m so glad we did. It was truly exceptional. The room looked like a lockwood house, admittedly, but the service was perfectly polished and the right kind of friendly (they laughed when I said “YOU’VE RUINED CHRISTMAS!” when the waiter tipped my dessert so that the ice cream slipped off my hot chocolate pudding), the menu was lovely, and look at the tuna I had for dinner:

OH HELL YES.

Then it was home for more cocktails and games:

and then at 4.30am we got up to spend twelve hours in transit to get back to freezing cold Wellington and Sebastian with an abcess. JOY! I think i will move to Rarotonga and start a guesthouse. Wanna come stay?

I have been doing much swimming lately, sometimes in my totally hott new togs, running to the beach after work, or on the weekend when I got totally sunburnt on Sunday. But let’s talk about the total and utter joy of last Friday first. In fact, let me paste in my drunken summation of it:

So, today I was clever and took my togs to work. But sadly, at lunch today as I wasn’t going to the gym, I ended up spending $50 at Farmers on lip gloss, tweezers, handcream and eye shadow. Then I thought I would pop into Zebranos cos they were having a sale, amnd I found a dress that I thought would be okay to try on since it was two sizes smaller than I thought i needed, but it ended up being fucking hot, if a little Twee-able, so I ended up buying it, on the rationa that it was $250 cheaper than usual on account of the sale (skipping that it meant it was $200), and then I had to go to Farmers again to buy a slip to go under it. Then at 5pm I ran away and took at #15 and went to the children’s playground near the Tugboat and found AWESOME private changing rooms and put my togs on and then Karen was there and we went SWIMMING! She pointed and made “want to?” motions at me, and so we decided that yes, we would swim out to the raft anchored in the harbour. It was about 100 metres out, and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to make i, because while I am an excellent frolicker and floater, actual swimming isn’t actually my thing. But I paddled out there, and clambered on board, and felt my heart go bang bang bang, and we hung out there until we saw hordes of wetsuited people heading for us, so I dived in, and OW, must have done a booby flop cos while I thought it was a good dive, it hurt my tits like woah, but I swam back to the show mostly, and woah like FUN!

PS my dress is AWESOME

It is good when things are awesome. When I saw my counsellor last Tuesday I told her I kind of didn’t even want to come and see her since I was feeling so good and I knew that talking to her would be hard, and we talked about that some more. She asked me about my relationships and I laughed, and later she said “do you think you deliberately go for unavailable men?” and I laughed and laughed and laughed, not just because it’s funny because it’s true, but also because it seems like such a counselling cliche. I feel a little like she’s trying to tick every box with me, because now we have decided on something she says that many of the things about me are typical of that thing. But the thing that is grand is that she made me realise that while the pills have started to work, and the sun plays a part in lifting my mood I can also be proud of all the work that I have done to get myself into this state of being mostly okay again. So hurrah for me! What a clever girl I am.

What else do I have to tell you about? Tomorrow I am going to the Great Blend where people will no doubt refer to me as a blogger, and I will no doubt cringe. On Saturday February 10, I will celebrate ten years of Internetting. Yes, I surfed before, but that was the first day that I stumbled upon IRC, and therefore became addicted. In July I will have had a personal site for ten years. Ten years. Imagine that! And on that note, it must be time to put away my computer for the night. I am tired from doing so many loads of washing, and work, and making pesto, and cooking Papas Garbanzo for Lisa, and then going for a sunset swim at Lyall Bay. But before I go, I must throw mad props to Tori Spelling, because Donna Martin in Season One? Fucking hilarious.

Monday was of course Anniversary Day, and I’d realised the night before when I was starving that Anji still had my car, so I got her to come over and pick me up and we went to Elements for brunch. After dropping her off in Newtown and grocery shopping, I spent too much time fucking around at home reading the paper so that by the time I got my ass out to the south coast the sun was hiding and the wind had come up something fierce. Nevertheless, I plunged into the ocean and spent 15 minutes or so kicking and flailing frantically to keep my legs and hands from going numb while floating up and down on some pretty fiercesome waves. It was fucking fun, but ohmygod so fucking cold.

I can’t remember the rest of the day, which suggests that it wasn’t all that. I do know that there was spinach & cashew pesto involved somehow, and perhaps a steak, although perhaps that was the next day. And celery! I’ve never prepared celery before (because wow, it’s so hard topping and tailing it and vaguely stick-ifying it!) but I felt like a salty treat and thanks to Jane‘s article about better foods to crave during a hangover or PMS (that is the awesome thing about Jane – it’s not all “boiled egg, wholemeal toast, steamed lettuce” diet, it acknowledges that you’re a human being and will drink until you puke – and then gives tips for how to feel better in the morning) I knew that celery was salty.

The next day, I was supposed to go to work again, but after sitting on the edge of my bed for half an hour being unable to reach out and grab the clothes that were an arm’s length away because I just couldn’t, I had to give in and text my manager and tell her I needed a mental health day. In fact I ended up feeling really fucking nauseous anyway. I did have a counselling session at 1.30pm, so I kept that, and holy fuck, that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I found that I was talking without cohesion, and that really annoyed the narrator in me, because while I was throwing out a series of ideas about things that may have been linked, I didn’t feel like I was making the links clear, but I think she knew what I meant. We discussed the semantics of things again, with me not knowing the word that I thought I should use, and she declared it without a second of hesitation, and I was like aaaargh, and then I laughed at my body language, the tension in me, and we were laughing at the end at something completely inappropriate, but fuuuuuuck, it was a hard time. And part of me doesn’t even want to write about it here, even this obliquely, but i want to keep it as a record. And why do anything in private? If only I hadn’t left that mp3 player on the plane, I could podcast my counselling sessions. Heh. Wow, that’d be comfortable for all parties involved. And yeah, you’d get to hear me cry some more.

I was worried after my manager’s text about needing to talk the next day, but of course I shouldn’t have been, because when I told her what was going on, she was lovely (as of course a sane person would have realised anyway), and I said that I expected to be straighted out and normalised by the end of the week, but what I needed most was more work to do. As it happens, I seem to have actually achieved a lot this week, making many changes to the website, and taking on new projects, and also making my cow-orkers laugh quite a few times. Today I helped three people set bookmarks in their browser, which made me go “Really?” but I suppose not everyone has a tertiary qualifcation in Multimedia.

When I got home on Wednesday Smoo had cleaned the house and I nearly cried at that, but instead I decided to tackle the huge pile of dishes, and then scrub the bathroom. Briar helped me by drying, and it’s nice that she’s moving out so amicably to go and flat with her brother, and that while she’s taking her bookshelf which fits my books perfectly, she is leaving me her blender because she has another brand new one, and she knows how often i use it, so hurrah for that!

Yesterday I went for dinner with Karen and Anji at Siem Reap and we plotted Mum’s birthday present. We were going to send them to Martinborough for her birthday weekend, but we might send them up to the Wairarapa Food & Wine Festival instead on the 17th of March, except that it sounds like so much fun we’re looking at booking a house that can sleep five and tagging along on their romantic weekend. Heh.

Today after work, much to my disgust I went to the Loaded Hog to meet up with D&D, because Dave’s cow-orker was having goodbye drinks there or something. There was no sun so it was cold outside on the balconey, but coronas were two for $7.50, and when I only ordered two and was polite the bartender said that he loved me and that I was his favourite as it was crowded with stupid rude demanding people. Then when we went to Boulot Gabe welcomed us with happy new years and cheek kisses, and addressed me as “Pretty”. Awww. Bart and Blair joined us for a bit, and pizza was eaten and shit was talked. You know, the usual kind of Friday stuff. When I left I got a taxi with a green sign, and made sure that I repeated the name of the company – Amalgamated – to myself several times. I didn’t talk to the driver either, even though that felt somewhat unnatural, but it made me really fucking angry last week when I was telling my friend about how a taxi driver had groped my leg as I was paying right before Xmas, and the friend was like “were you flirting with him?” and I was like “NO!” but the point was that even if I had been, which I wasn’t, he still had absolutely no right to do that, and I wasn’t to know that I was putting myself in a bad situation when I thought I was taking the safe option home. My counsellor agreed with me that it’s okay if I decide to only use Combined from now on and call one if there’s not one on the rank, and I decided that as long as I try to make sure I don’t discriminate in other areas, the number of bad experiences that I have had with a particular kind of taxi driver means that am I well justified in trying to avoid them. That said, my cab tonight was only $8.70 when it’s usually like $13. Go Amalgamated! And if I remember to call them on 3888 4000, then I can call and complain should I need to as well. I know I am ranting, so I will return to my 90210 dvds now. But I will say that tonight I am in love with Cold War Kids’ “Hang me out to dry”, and if you have perhaps been living in a basement worried abotu an atomic bomb for the past 35 years, look up “dick in a box” on Youtube. That is, of course, mostly a suggestion for D&D who apparently actually read my journal and I never knew until tonight. Party.

xojo

So that’s spiritual, and I suppose to some degree today’s swim aided my physical needs. Intellectual is obvious – I need constant stimulation. It’s taken me a while longer to figure out my emotional needs, and I think it’s tied to the stuff that I’ve been going through lately. I need to be around people that I am comfortable with. Who am I comfortable with? Am I comfortable with you? Here’s a simple test: have you ever hung out with me for a long period of time in which I was sober? If the answer is yes, then I am probably comfortable with you. If I get rapidly drunk, then – and this should have been obvious to me a long time ago – I am uneasy, probably with my own standing in relation to you. Good times.

My counsellor has decided to try and figure out at what point I started to fake having confidence and to trace it back and find out why I stopped having confidence in the first place. That’s the stage in our session when I found my chest tightening and my hands curling up and smushing at each other. It’s a funny thing to be aware of your body language but not being able to change it. It also seemed like I was arguing with her about being bullied – she was saying that it seemed like it was an issue that was continuing to have an impact on my life and was therefore important, and I was saying “yeah but how is that productive, to accept that it’s okay to be upset and hurt and shaken by those events? How does that make me stop having depression? HOW IS IT PRODUCTIVE?” I know she was right, but I couldn’t say what I should have said. And I’m not explaining myself properly here, because I don’t want to talk about it again, because I tensed up and wanted to puke tonight but settled for crying instead when I was watching “Smells like the 90′s [sic]” and the video for ‘Jeremy’ came on and I felt like it was 1992 all over again and that fucking hurt and oh, it was just somewhat difficult. The reason I’m relating it here, apart from my own records, of course, is because I’m getting to a semantics thing. I was all “I’m not happy with myself if I dwell on things that are long gone, because I should be smarter than that”, and she was like “what if instead of dwelling you’re processing?” and I said “I like that you can change the entire concept of soemthing and all its conotations just by changing one word” and she was like “well, you like words!” and I laughed, because anyone who has my business card knows that I like words – I really like words.

That was a lame story. My homework is to write her a timeline of events in my life that I think have shaped me. When she said a timeline I thought she meant for the future and I panicked, because what, have goals and aspirations? Ha! But no. And this freaks me out a little, because I know that there are things that I haven’t talked about since Kalpana and I know that my rage at taxi drivers has roots there, but holy fuck, man, it’s just eeeeeeeeeeeegggggggggggh. Yeah.

But you know, things go on. I got my camera back and discovered I had taken two photos on New Year’s Eve. One I knew about, because it was of a crate of beer in the bath and one of the bottles had a different cap, and for some reason that was just enthralling. The other suggests that I sat at the dining room table for a while at the party, and that the house has far too many pepper grinders. I got approval at work for the start of an FAQ I’m writing for our website – or rather, I’m writing the questions but don’t want to have to come up with the answers. One of the questions features Bono. Another talks about religious agendas. Yes, this is government work. I drank a beer tonight. Two in fact. Smoo’s building a model car. My arm is sore. The bath needs cleaning. The people in City Life reruns are still wearing too much lipstick,and I wish I had some purple lipgloss. I lost the lid to my coconut Lancome Juicy Tube on New Year’s. Of course. I’m planning outfits for Auckland. Blah blah. Yeah I’m okay. I should probably just go to bed, although I have once again run out of books. Maybe I’ll read The Game again and neg all the boys. In fact, that sounds like a good idea. Brad’s coming to Auckland with Lisa and I. Roadtrip!

Afterwards I came back home and sanded down one of my small bookshelves and spray painted it golden. Then I went to the beach! Yes, that’s how hot it was. I had my first swim of the summer – if you don’t count the night that I finished up at CWA – and I realised as I was in the cold water at my special secret cove (okay, so there is a concreted path and a handrail down to it, so it’s not actually that secret, but it is the perfect place to swim and yet is often populated only by two other people) that it was a really good way to describe the physical manifestation of the anxiety I’ve been feeling – like you know how when you get in really really cold water your breathing becomes really shallow and your heart rate speeds up? It’s like being like that all the time.Other things going through my head nonstop is the line from The Killers’ newish album which I have been listening to despite my total hatred of Brandon Flowers, and I am much enamoured of ‘When you were young’, so I’m all about the “you sit alone in your heartache / waiting for some beautiful boy to save you”, because I am still 14 and still thinking that Nuno should have been there and busted in and saved me and consequently I will always be expecting someone to save me from myself. And I’ve been so with the trying to figure out exactly where everything went wrong with my life that on New Year’s Eve if I’d had her number I probably would have called up my form one teacher, Ms. Petz, and asked her why she didn’t like me. Because I am teh crazy after all, and all of this stuff keeps me up at night and can’t turn off in my head. Except not so much yesterday, because as I said the sun was shining and that meant that I actually got things done. I did two loads of washing, hung them on the line to dry and actually folded them and put them away afterwards. I changed my sheets. I sanded down a bookshelf and spraypainted it gold, and then put coats of spray-on varnish on it. I installed new shelves in the kitchen. It was fucking amazing how much of a positive effect the sun had.

Today of course, the sun wasn’t out and so I stayed in bed for a couple of hours reading Danielle Steele before I managed to get my shit together to go to the warehouse to buy frames for my art – via the Maranui Surf Cafe, of course. And then I realised that I shouldn’t have taken my half pill on an empty stomach because I got spacey and nauseous, and I spent what felt like hours in the Warehouse, eyes glazed over in the DVD section, fighting impulse buy urges – I want to watch Deadwood but they only had the second series, I probably wouldn’t be that in to 21 Jump Street now that I’m actually old enough to stay up past 8pm and would therefore be able to watch it if it was on TV now, and then I decided that I didn’t need to spend $85 on Beverly Hills 90210 (and got it for $25 US from Amazon instead, natch). I did, however, come across The Breakfast Club by itself for $14, but decided to get the triptich with Weird Science and Sixteen Candles instead. The eighties’ movie fest continues. I felt sick for a couple of hours and weak and kitten-like, so I’ve been hiding under my duvet on the couch since I got home, you know, just for a change. Lisa came over and we watched The Breakfast Club together and made really smutty dirty jokes about the movie and also about a choice selection of NZ musicians. You know, just for a change as well.

I’m starting to feel a bit like Osama Bin Laden here. I mean, apart from the bit where he fancies Whitney Houston and plots to kill people, of course. Just that me sitting here, sending journal entries out into the ether as proof of my continued existence instead of actually talking to people. I am still ducking the phone, and I have emails from some nice people I should reply to, but oh man, that just seems like so much effort. I should talk to people and find out about what’s going on in their lives instead of just thinking about mine. And I will. Soon. It’s going to be sunny tomorrow, right?

Today, consequently, has been rather slow. I spent a couple of hours at Elements in Lyall Bay eating, drinking latte bowls and reading the paper very very slowly. Now there’s been Thai takeaway and Fred Prinze Jnr movies on the television. And my laptop that I picked up from the shop last weekend is STILL ticking and overheating, but I know that htey must have done something to it because now it says ‘Packard Bell’ on the screen the second time I turn it on. It’s an NEC though. And I say second time because the screen stays blank the first time, every time. Good times.

What else should I talk about? I can’t start my new job yet because my security clearence still hasn’t finished. This is a good thing though because it means I get to have a couple of days off first, wahoo! I can go buy some fancy schmancy clothes to match my fancy schmancy new offices down Lambton Quay way. I’m proud of myself for running around in my underwear last night. It makes me feel more prepared for New Year’s, and it also reminds me of the good times skinny-dipping in KateM’s dad’s pool with not a care in the world, or the olden days when I was regularly doing bad things with bad people when I’d get up and walk around the house butt naked and go read magazines in the lounge – if I knew Clayton was out, of course. Or open the curtains if morning sex was to be had, for the benefit of people in the office building across the road. Heh. My self esteem has been very weird lately, I had some total wigginsing on Thursday night, even though I knew at the time I was just being a dork. If only I’d never gone to that damn talk about Myspace!

Now it’s Sunday, and today would have been Oma and Opa’s 60th anniversay. To celebrate, we got together at my parents’ house and scattered their ashes together around a magnolia tree we planted. That sentence does nothing to describe the comedy of errors that the occasion actually was, with the unmowed lawn all wet and long, and the bugs biting me. The containers with the ashes in them didn’t want to come open for a long long time, until finally Cousin Andrea cleverly pointed out that there were latches on the bottom that could be open and the ashes shaken out. There is something a little bit strange about shaking out your grandparents like salt and pepper, passing the containers around so that everyone could have some time with each of them. But the tree – once we managed to get it staked – is really pretty, and I think it was a nice thing to do. Afterwards, we watched super8 home movies that my parents, my uncle and Oma had all shot in the seventies. The clothes were fabulous, and we were all such fucking cute kids (yes, I wasn’t alive in the seventies, but I whined enough that we got out some ’80s footage too). Mum and Aunt Diz were running around in bikinis and looked hot. My dad was in a floral speedo and despite his womanly hips he still had a good body too. Also, eww, did I just say that? The whole effect was a litle bit like watching many many L&P ads. Or perhaps looking at current fashions. Or super 8 footage played behind the Phoenix Foundation…

I also grabbed Deuchlandriser, which is a board game in which you travel around Germany, and also some large beer mugs. Germany is on October 14, the day after Dimmer, and I’m so very happy because Jessie may be at it. And also I’m very happy that I will finally get to see Dimmer. Assuming that it hasn’t sold out yet. Woo!

Oh, and one more thing that I wanted to talk about was how nice the goodbye speeches for me were, and how genuine they seemed. And also, the best part about them was that they were surprisingly similar to my answers in many job interviews lately about what others would say about me – my ridiculously large banks of trivia in my head, my dry wit and my social skills. If I hadn’t put my card in Bart’s backpack along with my purloined coffee cup (shoosh!), I’d put in actual quotes. But yes, very very good times were had. And everyone who left their computers on will be looking at my face when they get to work as their desktop image…

Friday

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

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

Saturday

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

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

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

Friday’s ooohs were of the dirty perverted kind when you realise that you want to do things to Harry Potter that shouldn’t even be expressed since he’s supposed to be 13 in that particular movie. We’ll say no more about that. To make myself sound better, there were also ooohs as I realised why things became important, and I shut up with the laughing at innuendos long enough to talk like a stupid person in the movie ie: “oh of course!” and “look out behind you!” type things.

Yesterday
There’s the ‘ooooooooooh’ when you sit down on the bench outside your soon to be ex flat, after you’ve done six trips carrying drawers, and a couple more trips carrying boxes down your steep Victorian staircase.

There’s the ‘ooooh’ noise when you’re folded into the back seat of your parents’ van because your boxes and chest of drawers are taking up the rest of the room and your sister is on the front seat and the heat is making you feel sick, and there’s the ‘oooh’ of relief when you get to unfold yourself and sit in the front seat cos you’ve dropped your sister in Tawa, ha ha.

There’s the oooh your tummy makes when you’re struggling to hold in laughter when your mother complains about her mother, and the oooh of disappointment when you realise that the cookies your grandmother is offering you are stale. There’s the oooh when you breathe out after holding your breath through her stale smelling rooms, and the oooh of relief that you have all your boxes stacked in the room off her garage now and as soon as you have made with the social niceties you can leave.

There’s the oooh when you dip your toes into the water at Paraparaumu Beach and realise that it’s not that cold, and the oooh that you want to whistle at yourself when you take off half your clothes and run in to go swimming. There’s the oooh of cold when you finally duck your head under and realise that it’s much colder that way, and the oooh as your muscles unwind in the waves. Somewhere in the spluttering from the water going up your nose there’s an oooh or two as well.

There’s the oooh when you see the newborn second child of your sister’s best friend and he’s gorgeous, and it’s just weird to see her all married with kids when it seems like only yesterday she was buying you vodka and taking you to gigs as a surrogate when your sister was on her OE.

Later there’s ooohs of little lightbulbs lighting up over your head when the plot of Firefly twists and turns and characters pash.

Today
There was the oooh of muscles cramping as you stay in bed for four hours, polishing off what was essentially a Jackie Collins novel in a Literary Type looking cover. You can’t even remember what the book was called, but it was great – in a Jackie Collins type way, of course.

There was the oooh that goes along with websurfing and coming to a page that jsut makes a person look like such a fucking tosshead that you can’t believe that they ever meant anything to you.

There was the oooh of tastebuds being tantalised in Bejing, and the ooh of frustration at not being able to pick up, fill, roll and eat duck pancakes all in one swift move with chopsticks. Then there was the ooh of a full belly, and the oooh when Clementine first started talking in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and you realised taht you were in love with her, and in love with the movie. There was the oooh when you worked out who Elijah looked like in that movie, and the oooh when you realised it was all coming around in a circle and that was yay. Then there was the oooh of delight in putting in an old video tape that your parents told you had The Lost Boys on it, and the oooh of discontent when the start wasn’t on it, and then the delight again every time Corey Feldman entered the frame. And then there were many ooohs of just amazement at commercials from 1994, and the ooh at the how loudly you were laughing at the episode of The Young Ones on the end of the tape. And now there is the Oooh of You Must Go To Bed, and anticipate the oooh of the release you’ll get thinking about Corey*. And the oooh of the pain in your wrists.

Tomorrow will be the oooh of the man, I am so over hunching over my laptop, and the oooh I just discovered more interesting facts about the band I am profiling, and then eventually the oooh, finally I am done. And that will be exciting. I mean, oooh, I get to go into a whole new POV tomorrow and all!

*You know I’m kidding about this one yeah? Keifer all the way! Well, all the way to the finish line tonight anyways.

Eventually Clayt, Jeremy Renee and I headed off to Long Bay – or is it Long Beach and are we ganstas? – for Jody’s bbq gettogether. Long drive, but it was in Jeremy’s car, which has red plush on the backseats, so that was cool. Actually, it reminded me heaps of Craccum Gareth’s car, so that was entertaining.

Jody’s friends are a little ummm – cliquey – but she’s still one of the coolest people I know. We called Shirley and got her and Richard to come from section 2 to section 13. While the boys were trying to barbeque, her and I went wading, me carrying my jeans above my skirt, and it was really cool. We had the best talk too. She said something about how it’s been cool for her to watch me change over the years and to see me growing stronger, and I agree. Yeah, good good good talk, an and I feel nice afterwards. BBQ’ed sausages were actually super nice, despite the fact that they’d seemed a little dubious. Jody etc packed up and left cos the park shut its gate at 9pm (Shirley and Jeremy had the good sense to move their cars out of the gate earlier). We’d just finished eating when Shirley and I started yelling at each other, baiting to go swimming, so I had to, stripping off to a slip and knickers knickers knickers behind a bush. We’d been drinking bubbly from plastic cups and it was getting dark which made it easier. Swinning was absolutely lovely. The water was warm and really really real, and I was with Shirley, who I love to pieces. My boobs would occasionally pop outta my slip, but generally when I was under water, and like she said -s he’s seen it all before anyways. We pledged to go Orgasm Shopping together. Heh.

It was dark and stuff, so I put my clothes back on – comando actually in my jeans, and I was bitching about it, so Clay was like “oooohkay” so i got mad and yelled “if you guys can hear in detail about how to give head, you can damn well listen to how uncomfortable I am that I’m not wearing underwear” and he conceeded I was right, so I chuckled lots and probably clutched at him to stay upright. Then, walking back to the car, we came across a children’s play area, so we had to stop and play. I freaked out totally over teh flying fox, because I was never a fan, even as a kid, but I was drunk enough to try it out, figuring the grass was soft enough to fall onto, and it was sooooo cool. I was screaming and laughing the whole way down, of course. And then we were playing in the fort, which was a bubbley structure pretty much like they have at every Burger King. As I’m a little larger than your average kid, I managed to get semi stuck in one part of it, but luckily my legs bend in all sorts of ways so I could untangle myself and go down the tunnel slide, shrieking all the way. It was cool. The drive home I spent going “Hurry up! Hurry up!” because I really needed to pee. Jeremy’s boycotting Shell becasue of their actions in Nigeria – good on him. I wish I followed all the No Logo ethics.

Anyways, back at home, Brad was all grumpy, so Clay and I decided to go without him. I changed my clothes and stuff, and paid Jeremy $5 to drive us (skinfl

I was woken up by the sound of my cellphone ringing in the lounge, where I’d left it. That pissed me off, cos I expected it to be someone ringing about the flat advertised at AIT (which is obviously filled) but instead I was pleasently suprised to have a message from Shirley, telling me to ring her back cos we were going to Piha. I love it when people take charge of my life. So I made Simon get offline, rang her, and went and put on some clothes. We went back to her house to ring other people, but no one was able to come and play. However, she did feed me a donut and a rocky road bar (breakfast of champions) so that was okay.

Piha is miiiiiiiles out, like beyond the west of the west. It was such a nice drive, although I got a little stressed over following distances and sudden breakings, just cos I’m so anal when I’m not in the drivers seat. The beach itself was astonishingly gorgeous and wild – not too many people were there which was choice. The bad thing about it was it was miles out to the water, and the sand was so hot. I have a huge burn blister on my foot now from the heat of it. I don’t think I’ve ever been in quite so much pain before. Well, no doubt I have, but it hurt like a motherfucker anyways.

The surf was really strong and so much fun to play in – it would like knock me to my feet then push me up again and just generally throw me around. I like being abused like that. Of course, the annoying thing about beaches is the salt and the sand, but oh well. After we’d had enough of being playing in the sea, we went and sat on the beach, and Shirley laughed at me while I built a sand -umm- sculpture. She took photos of it on my camera in between fits of mocking. And I wrote out my URL in the sand, and that looked so pretty that I took a photo of it too. Once my film gets developed, I’ll show you.

So then we came home, and I realised the full extent of the damage done to my foot. Ouch Ouch Ouch. I could hardly walk on it for a while. It’s okay now cos I’m wearing white cotton socks. They solve like ALL foot problems I do believe. White Cotton Panties, on the other hand, cause Japanese School-Girl Porn problems. That was off the point, but I do enjoy the word ‘Panties’.

Simon announced at 8.30pm today that he was going home to Wellington, and he left five minutes later. Great. Terrific. I LOVE staying alone in empty houses that still spook me a bit. And it’s going to be tremendous fun spending three days with Layton, who I have no great expectations of companionship from. Mmmmmmm anyways.

Y’all know how I want to be Heather, right? Well, here’s MY rip-off of her newest site content. People, meet my desktop. Desktop, meet people.

See, even TORI does funny things with scanners too.

Woke up

Picked up Charly from the airport

Had Lunch

Jo called

Went to see Jo

Went to Jo’s House

Went to beach

Went Swimming

I haven’t been swimming at the beach since I was ten.

It was choice.

Went back to Jo’s

Waited around

Drove Jo to David’s house

Realised it wasn’t his house

Went to the Right Street

Got stuck in his driveway

Spun the wheels and made lots of noise

Blushed

Drove forwards and then managed to back out

Sat in the sun listening to Jo and David

Dropped Jo off in town

Went Home with Charly (SCORE!!!).

Jo’s journal for today is a tribute to me. Maybe you could read that instead

So it’s a new year, so we get a new colour scheme. Possibly this purple is a little too bright for your tender eyes – do let me know. Okay. Onward ho. Do make sure you’ve downloaded my font too, okay?

I woke up around 10.30am when Karen came into the lounge (I was in the moonlight lounge remember?) and said Good Morning to her. She was fully suprised and was like “what are you doing here?” I replied “sleeping” and turned over and went back to sleep. Such a shocker of a McLeod answer huh?

Anyways, I got up properly at the far more dignified hour of 1pm, and explained to her that I’d been out with Anji. We went to have breakfast at the Krazy Lounge, which was nice, only I’m not a big fan of breakfast menus. Eggs and I are not on speaking terms, basically. But yeah, anyways. Mum and Neil came to collect me, and I went home.

Did I ever explain why I call my father ‘Neil’ ? Like, everyone always asks me, so maybe I’ll write it down here for you.

Once upon a time, way back in the early seventies, a man called Neil and a woman called Aimee had so much love for each other that the love formed a whole seperate baby that they called Angeline – or Angie (Anji now) for short. Angie watched her mother and father refer to themselves as “Neil” and “Aimee” so when she started to talk, she called them that too. Aimee and Neil made another baby out of their love, called Karen, who was basically just an Angie wannabe and called her parents the same names too. One day Angie started Preschool, and saw all her peers call their mothers “Mum”. Aimee helped out at the preschool, and all the children there called her “Angie’s Mum”. A lightbulb went on in Angie’s head, and she started to call Aimee “Mum”. Karen instantly copied her. Neil however, was not as involved in his children’s lives, so he didn’t have his name changed to fit in with their peers’ expectations. A few years later, Joanna came along, and mimicked her sisters. She got really tired of telling the story, and since she resented being moved to Japan and loathed her father for it, she claimed that was the reason he didn’t get called Dad. But it wasn’t really.

Gosh, that was a fun digression, wasn’t it? Anyways, where were we? Oh yeah.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. In the evening I totally hid out in my room because my aunt and uncle came over and they’re excrutiatingly boring. I was just sitting on IRC and stuff when Kate came online, and she was like “can I come over?” Of course I would have said yes, only up pops Simon with “come and visit me!!!!!”. So yeah, on the spur of the moment, we decided to make the hour long drive up to Waikanae. She told me that she’d be at my house in fifteen minutes, so I went to wait for her at my letterbox, foolishly not realising that she meant half an hour. Ah well. Eventually, we were on our way. In Johnsonville, she decided that we needed to get KFC, so we got burgers that were actually really yucky. The roundabout had its sprinklers going, so we drove around it like four times, shrieking when the water came in the open window. Ahhhh you crazy kids!

The drive out to Waikanae took a long time, and Kate’s driving is slightly scary, but that’s okay. It was amusing ‘cos she made me smoke a cigarette, and I realised that they taste like shit, even more so because I wasn’t drunk. So yeah, I don’t know what the moral of that story is. Smoking IS sexy though, even though it probably shouldn’t be. Most of the people I know smoke; it’s kind of suprising that I don’t. In fact, neither me or Anji or Karen smoke. I guess in Karen’s case, that’s not suprising, but both me and Anji dwell in what are extremely smokey societies. How Brady are we then?

Anyways. Kate and I decided as we drove along that we’d take Simon to the beach, so after sitting around for a while watching him play with his linux, and after making more arrangments with his momma for our exodus up north (she’s coming next week to help us flat hunt) we did just that. It was so dark walking through the trees barefoot, and then we had to scramble down sand dunes, but it was completly worth it. There was a full moon, and it glinted off the water something gorgeous. Further along the beach was a bonfire, but as it was midnight, it was completly deserted otherwise.

I rushed into the water, although Simon calling out a warning about blue bottles was a little spooky, as was the thought of Katipos. Kate rolled her pants up (I was holding up my long skirt) and came wading in too. It was so lovely and warm. It could have been so romantic if I’d been there with a guy, instead of two of my best friends. We splashed around a bit, after finally convincing Simon to come in – he’s such a big girl’s blouse sometimes. Kate gave me the fright of my life, sneaking up while my back was turned. I screamed so loud, it was crazy. I ended up totally soaked, which sucked a bit, plus I got sand in my open blisters, which wasn’t the best thing in the world, but it was soooooooo much fun!

We dropped Simon off back at his house then, and went to harrass the macdonalds staff at Mana. When we found out the drive through was shut, we drove through it like three times, sharks circling their prey. Meanies. Shit, that’s like three times Kate and I have played games with Maccers staff that they didn’t get. You’re terrible, Muriel. I swear to god, she’s just a bad influence!