Hubris.co.nz

Jason opens his Secret Santa present

December is the usual social whirl, and time of increased anxiety, both about everything in general, but also with rape apologists online. There have been people from out of town in town, which means more going out, as well as an assortment of other times that meant I had to go out and be witty and charming. Heather came to stay. The Wellingtonista Awards happened. Kat and Kane came to stay. There was a work Xmas party, and gossip that I deserved, and things that I didn’t. There was crying into Megan‘s bosom after the Lovehawks said something that I’d been unwilling to say until that point although I was thinking it but covering it up with jokes and statistics since that’s how I cope. Megan helped me to write an extremely difficult email, and then Thomas helped me with the reply to the reply to that, because even though I am a writer, occasionally words fail me. There was Lovehawk Xmas with Secret Santa presents (I got a brooch in the shape of a heart that says ‘Bite Me’ on it). Then there was real Xmas, in which Bad Tom and Karen came over here for an International Sandwich Degustation, and Anji and Bambi came later and spoiled us.

Kate opens her Secret Santa present

December is exhausting. For New Year’s, Rocket Queen is going to come and stay in Casa Sans Hosen to look after Seb, and I’m going to Waiterere with the Lovehawks and Stacey and Mike. I am excited about getting away from the internet for five days, but I am a little worried about living with six other people for that long, even if they are very much amongst my favourite people in the whole world. I’m sure it will be excellent though. I took Kim, Kate and Jason to the airport on Xmas Eve, in the biggest gale ever, and while that was only three days ago, I miss them all already. Luckily I get to go pick up Kim tomorrow anyway. Kelly is gone for three months now, and I hope everything is going smoothly for her from now on.

Kelly opens her Secret Santa Present

I’m sorry I don’t have more stories to tell you. I thought I did when I picked up my computer, but perhaps I am saving them all for when I do my annual year in review. I’ve been feeling like an idiot since Thursday night, because I was a cunt to someone after they’d been especially lovely to me and helped me sort out something kinda serious, so I’m all introspective and kinda self-loathing. That could also be because I’m pre-period, of course. Not to mention that I’ve been drinking far too much. And eating far too much cheese. Mmmm, cheese. In fact, there’s still some peppered havarti in the fridge, so perhaps that should make its way into my stomach soon. Especially since Australia is a pretty terrible movie, but I needed a break from The Walking Dead and Misfits.

B opens his Secret Santa present

Okay, so I’m kind of cheating this week. The drinks weren’t free. But I could say that I paid for the entertainment and the prospect of finding true love, and the booze was additional. So with that in mind, this week (two weeks ago, fine) the free drinks came courtesy of:

VINO EROTICA!

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 27th

Now this tasting is purely by customer demand (it has nothing to do with us).
Strictly limited to 24 people – this is a night of speed-date-wine-tasting.

Each person booking in for this exclusive tasting must be single and bring a
single friend of the opposite sex with them
(to ensure a high calibre, you understand).

Upon arrival you will recieve an aperitif, and then be sorted into random teams
of 6 people to answer multi-choice questions on each of the wines you will be
tasting. At the end of each round of wine – 3 people must move to the next table
for the next wine and a new bunch of people!

A night sure to be filled of intrigue, adventure, hilarity, erotica and romance!!!!!

$30 PER PERSON
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 27th
6.30pm

PLACES STRICTLY LIMITED – Remember singles only and you must include a friend
of the opposite sex with your booking!

I like wine. And I like my friend Tom, so I went along to chaperone him. Because obviously as an old cougar spinster, I am the ideal chaperone. However, the best thing was that upon arriving, I didn’t feel at all like a cougar. I was at least five years younger than all the other women there. Hurrah!

Actually, that’s a lie. The best thing upon arriving was the glass of delicious bubbly that tasted like it was Italian and prosecco-ish, but was in fact an Australian bubbly chardonnay. We drew numbers out of big jars for our table places, and after another glass of the delicious bubbly, we sat down in groups of three men/three women, and had to announce our star signs. Simple, I’m a Gemini. No one else at the table was, to the best of my recollection. We were poured tastings from a bottle in a brown paper bag, and had to answer three multichoice questions about it. I knew straight away it was a Sav, and I was pretty sure it was from NZ, and Marlbourgh at that. Yay me! But we were assisted in our blind tastings by Nicola’s explanations of what the regional differences were like, had our glasses topped up, and smiled and nodded.

The boys moved over to the next table to be replaced by a new lot, and the question we needed to answer to get was “what kind of car would you be?”. I said I’d like to think I was some big brash mustang convertible in some fantastic colour, but I’d probably be a white prius – not the best kind of hybrid available, and like, so last year in trends”. One guy said he’d be a concept car, and I said “Like Homer’s with the giant cup-holder?” and the table went completely silent and I watched tumbleweeds roll past. Really? REALLY? Not even that basic a Simpsons reference could get recognised? Woah. Tough crowd. And a tougher wine. I think it was a viogner. I can’t remember. Nice work Jo. Perhaps Tom could post if he remembers what the wines were.

In the next group, we had to say what our favourite word was. I thought of a long-gone friend’s long letter to me, and claimed ‘succulent’ as my own. I got to use the word ‘onomatepaia’ in my explanation, which luckily was out loud so I didn’t have to spell it. Someone said “you’ve practiced this answer”. I said “I work in communications”. Other than that, there wasn’t much talk of work. One guy said that his favourite word was ‘Orb’, and I said “so do you like The Orb?” and he was like “well I like the planet earth” and I was like “huh? I meant the early ’90s techno band” and he stared at me like I was crazy, so I was very happy when the guy across the table was like “I like The Orb” and named some of their albums. Finally someone understood me! I wasn’t actually talking crazy after all! In fact, that guy was probably my favourite of the night. He laughed at my jokes, and seemed normal, and didn’t have a mo. I could have put down at the end of the night that I wanted his email address, but that would of course have opened me up to the possibility of rejection, and god forbid I should ever take any chances! We drank some red wine. It was delicious. That’s all I remember about it. Perhaps it was Italian. Or Argentinian.

In the next group, we had to give examples of the best or worst pickup lines we’d ever heard or used. I offered up “Your curtains scare me – can we go to your room?” as laaaaaame (although that worked), and as possibly the best ever, “I’d buy you a drink but I don’t buy girls drinks because they use me too much” as most powerful, because it got us talking, made me buy him a drink to make up for all the other girls, and introduced the user as a wounded flower who obviously needed someone to take care of him. At least three times that night. Heh. We also drank more red wine. There was a girl at my table who was getting most of the wine questions right. The other girl at the table was not very forthcoming with answers. Some of the guys weren’t either. One of the guys in the previous round had said he didn’t have a favourite word. I told him his new favourite word was ‘banana’ and he had to use it in the future. I suspect this meant that he would have had to tell every other group as he went around about it, but somehow I doubt he would have. Shy people freak me out. People at the table talking about how hard it is to meet people when you’re in your thirties and don’t like bars also freak me out a lot. Thank god for being 27.

The next group, with a delicious bubbly shiraz was all about the “naughtiest thing you’ve ever done”. Both Tom and I, comparing notes later, were very much like “Seriously? WTF?” about people’s “naughtiest” stories, which consisted of things like “knocking a book out of a teacher’s hand” at age five, or their boss – not even them – throwing up in a cab. My story was of revenge in a toilet stall. It got shared in front of the whole group. Awesome. At least I was happy to participate. I’d had Lominger Competencies earlier in the morning at work, and had been pissed off then too by people who wouldn’t talk and join in. What’s the point? So I had some more wine, and then ran off to Quiz Night where the quiz master told me to shut up because I was drunk. Heh.

EDIT: Tom says “The second one was a Pinot Gris from Argentina, there was a Malbec there somewhere, plus a Negroamaro from somewhere in southern Italy (Puglia, I think).

Your description of the night was bang on. All I remember was getting drunk quickly and acting too loud and inappropriate for what was pretty much a bunch of wallflowers.”

Of course, he could have commented that for himself, but oh well.

A rediscovered fragment that should have been in 101 Stories if I’d remembered about it, that I found tonight when I was looking for a story I wrote about The Gathering to send to Ali.

The sex I used to have made me feel like a bystander in my own life. He would move my legs around, hoist them over his shoulder, turn me on my side, or whatever he wanted, and I would lie there compliant, thinking “it’s not him”. It was only when he went to hold my hand afterwards that I felt that something was wrong. I am not in love with you, please don’t try to force intimacy on me. I am fucking you precisely because you are not him.

And it felt weird, someone different touching me in different ways, in different places. His cock was totally different, of course, and the feelings involved were different. It was easy to spell them out in this case: I am drunk, you are not him and I need to be with someone who’s not him to prove that I can be with someone who is not him. That could be the mantra of each thrust into me. I.am.not.the.man.you.are.in.love.with.I.am.not.your.whole.world.I.have.not.left.you.for.your.best friend.

So it doesn’t matter that he seems like he is a sexual deviant. It doesn’t matter that he rejoices in my hairy legs that he takes the time to rub his cock up and down. It doesn’t matter when he licks my armpits, or tries to fuck me in the morning when he’s still wearing the same condom. He is no one. He is nothing. It doesn’t matter.

I’m not sure of the words we said to each other or anything, only the look that he gave me; the single dirtiest look in the history of one night stands EVER. It wasn’t a “I want to fuck you” look; it was a “I’m going to fuck you in this position and this position and this position, and you’re going to love it, because you’re a dirty whore and you want nothing but my cock inside you” statement. And of course he was right.

If only it could have been simply that simple. He was a mystery, a boy of extreme contrasts. He was sweet and charming in conversation, but he had my clothes off the second we got in his bedroom door. He didn’t call a taxi as soon as I said I’d go home with him because he said that would be presumptuous, but straight away on his bed he told me he had a treat for me and rolled on a spearmint condom. For a nice guy who told me that he hadn’t had sex outside a relationship before, he still managed to fuck me in half a dozen positions, transitioning seamlessly between them. He played me Jeff Buckley, and then a song he wrote named after a girl with the same name as me, but also wanted to fuck me in the ass.

That’s the first time, of course. The second time is a year later, when he’s had a chance to get back together with his ex girlfriend and then break up with her again, and I’ve had a chance to realize that running out while he was sleeping because I thought I was in love with someone else and terrified of developing intimacy with him and using the excuse of not having a Connection was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. There were two beers each in a pub, conversation where we talked about our families and how bad Sex in the City was, and we really seemed to be on the same page. I was able to say that I wished I had got to know him the year before, and he smiled at me. It felt really nice, but I was still completely surprised when he said “How about I come over to your house later with a bottle of wine?”

Then when he kissed me on the street outside, my legs felt like they were going to buckle underneath me and I ended up walking down the street in a total daze. At home later, I watched videos with my flatmate in an attempt to keep calm – after I’d changed my underwear, of course. He arrived, shyly knocking on the front door, we opened the promised wine. My flatmate stealthily retreated as soon as the movie ended, and him and I were left together on the couch. So, alone, not at a party, or a bar, or a cafe or any of the places I’d seen him since we went to bed. Over the course of the conversation, my legs crept up onto the couch so that our knees were touching. Our tastes in music were dissected to find places where we were compatible. And finally, we put our glasses down on the ground and he took my hand and we kissed again, this time for much longer than the pavement encounter earlier that night.

If I had melted into him at that very moment, I wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d been on my mind in various guises for a year – first in sweet nostalgia, and then in regret for leaving, and then in “I WANT HIM AGAIN NOW” capacity.

I wasn’t talking to her. He wasn’t talking to me for that reason, and it all stemmed from the same thing – good lovers making great enemies and best friends falling out over a boy and all the usual cliches. And there they were at the bar that I was at, and I’d been drinking beer, bubbly, and more beer. As soon as I saw them I sunk shots of Green Chartreuse to hide it, but it didn’t work, I still knew they were there. And why should they get to run me out of every bar in town? Plus, I’d run out of money for liquor and I knew that they had large bank balances. I stumbled over and plonked myself down in their line of vision. I was hot and knew it, after all. My boobs were on display for the entire world to see and it felt really nice.

I’m not sure who was more surprised – her or him. I guess we’ll say Her, because I did sometimes talk to him, even if he’d been ignoring me as of late. “Oh my god,” they said, “Joanna’s talking to us”. I suggested to them that they owed me a drink or two and she scampered off. More Corona with shots beside. I told them how no one liked me anymore. I was leaning forward to talk to them, my arm resting across his knees. They knew all the names that I was mentioning; they asked me over and over if I was okay, if I was really all right. They genuinely cared about me. I leaned forward more. She moved off to talk to other people and I took her seat. All of a sudden we were kissing each other with more fierce intensity than we’d felt in three years. Hands were all over each, in places that shouldn’t be in a nightclub. If it had been possible, we might have devoured each other whole. But instead, I was across his lap, whispering filthy things in his ear, rubbing his cock through his trousers in what I thought was a covert manner, promising him pleasures beyond what we’d ever experienced together before. I don’t know where his wife has gone, but really, it doesn’t matter as I follow him into the men’s room. He has me pinned to the wall and his hands are so rough in what inside my jeans that I have to tell him he’s hurting me as my top is dropped on the floor and my bra is pulled up. Our mouths are dissolving into one another, his hands are rough on my breasts and all I can do is tell him how much I want to fuck him. Always responsible, he asks me if I have any condoms, but of course, my bag and my jacket are somewhere back out in the bar, stashed under the seat where we first started getting dirty, and so that’s a no.

He has a solution for this of course, and he shoves my head down to his crotch, telling me to suck his cock. I do this gladly, reaching into his jeans like I’ve done a million times before. I want to show him how good I am, how much better I’ve become since he left me, and why he never should have left me. I do the best I can, and it’s not long before the pre-come is dribbling into my mouth, the salty taste turning me on instead of grossing me out. The fact that we’re in this barren concrete space makes the whole experience that much hotter. This is illicit near-fucking, and my god that’s a turn-on. His hands are on my head, pushing back my hair to secure his view and to make sure I don’t move my mouth away. I can taste his tang and it’s all I want for now, all that I could ever want, but there’s a knocking at the door, and he says that it’s her – his wife.

Thanks for your ideas on the last project. Now I need you to write a 120 word profile of me for a Contributor’s Page. Go on, you know you wanna (admittedly I think I’ve written mine, but I’d be interested in hearing your ideas anyway).

Sometime this week I am going to Swan Lake. Ahh the ballet – do do do do do do etc. On sunday I’m going to go and watch Brad dance like a horse in his latest production. Unfortunately no animal costumes will be involved. There was, however, someone dressed like a camel at the Auckland Zoo the other week. I heart people in animal costumes.

I have eight and a half more workdays left here before I am jobless. I’ve also come to the conclusion that I really must buy some more St John’s Wort, because this latest bout of “I am teh useless, I am teh suck” has coincided with not taking any.

In geeky updates, I finally got Season Six of Buffy on DVD yesterday. While it was originally the first season I bought, video is so 2002. Imagine my glee at discovering that you can just turn on the subtitles for the commentary tracks, rather than having to turn on the subtitles for the speaking whilst listening to the commentary! And the glee at panel discussions being on there, and also being able to watch ‘Once More With Feeling’ every single day without having to rewind. I already have the songs stuck in my head without having watched it this time. Now my Whedon collection is complete, what will I do? I remember years ago when I was buying some of the DVDs at Real Groovy (on promo CD trade in money) the girl behind the counter was like “Oh yeah I can’t wait for the Charmed box set to come out” and I was like omg stfu they’re nothing alike.

I’m still working on my huge big Journal Footnote Restoration Project, and I’ve discovered a whole bunch of hidden files which I’d forgotten about, which is great cos they add a whole new layer. Imagine me feeling embarrassed when a boy moaned “oh baby” at me in the heat of the moment. In fact, imagine me freaking out at touching a penis for the first time. And then a year or so later there was the worry that i’d sent a topless photo to someone unscrupulous – dearie dearie me. I posted this comment in someone’s blog this week

“To grossly generalise, Bloggers put links all over the place and think that they have political leanings and important opinions. Journallers used to write in very small verdana font and are all about the navel gazing woe-is-me, my life is pain and I am such a special individual snowflake, no one understands me” followed up by “Oh, and further to my definition, bloggers are all metaphorically giving each other oral pleasure, with the “so and so posted this and it’s great” cross linking, while journallers are all doing each other in real life”

(see where it says “oral pleasure”? I wanted to say “sucking each other’s cocks” but thought that would be rude). I am so over people with blogs, but all the journallers died. Or at least their journals did. Other amusing revelations from file digging has turned up the fact that while I was the only member of the Millennium Club to graduate on time, the others are either with baby or with husband now.

What else? I think that’s pretty much it. So yeah, contributor’s profile please. Or if you don’t want to write about me, post yours.

I’m now writing this almost two weeks later than events, which is strange cos I didn’t realise that time went by so quickly. Nevermind, let’s plunge into my last couple’o days in the Auck town shall I?

Monday 6th December
I finally managed to have myself a merry little sleep in, tucked away in Oratia, which was certainly very pleasant, even though I felt terrible cos I got a text from Martina going “Okay I’m ready! Meet me on K’Road” and I had to reply going “umm I just woke up, see you in an hour or so?” But eventually I made my way into town and picked her up, and since it was a gorgeous sunny day we drove over to Devonport and had lunch at Manuka. Then, because it was so very nice and because we both found ourselves being the only other people we knew who wanted to do it, we set off to look for a beach. Now, you’ll of course recall that I once spent the summer working for the North Shore City Council and that my job then seemed to consist of little more than driving around all day getting suntanned. However, that was a long time ago, so we went for a rather extended drive up the motorway to Greville Road and then a long way back down East Coast Bays Road (which pretty much doesn’t go past the sea at all!) trying to find a nice little beach, before I took drastic action and found our way to Milford Beach.

There weren’t very many people there, which was great, and there was a changing shed with showers and an open-roofed area like an Italian courtyard which was great, so we got suited up and tried to get away from any boys on the beach. The water was very very cold and it made me hyperventilate a little bit (“sorry Martina, I know I sound like I’m heavy-breathing at you…”) but it warmed up a little, at least enough to frolick and try to do headstands in. When I started trying to do yoga poses and pretty much ended up nearly drowning myself, it was time to call it a day. The showers weren’t warm, but at least they weren’t salty. We headed back to the right side of the bridge to Occam for some more food and a perusal of Civic’s video sale (Cruel Intentions, Far from Heaven and umm something else for $12) before Martina left me for a ride home. I was waiting for Iva to call me so we could meet up, so I found myself a park to sit in and cuddled up with The Dirt. It’s soooo good. I wish I was in Motley Crue, for serious.

It turned out that Iva was trapped on the shore, so we decided to see each other the next day instead, and I eventually made my way towards KateH’s, via a phone call to La to see if he wanted to come along to the party we were going to that night, for a girlie website that I won’t name – which, after I uttered the magic words “free booze” of course he did, so I told him where the party was at and he said he’d meet us there. At Kate’s I believe we probably watched Shortland St together, and got poshed up, me making the last minute decision to switch from my party frock to my cleavage top (and of course SHRN yellow scarf), which I think in hindsight was quite fortuitous, and we set off to pick up her friend Olly, who is British but edits a certain ‘lifestyle’ paper. Haha, that’s me exercising my ‘get out of jail free’ card again. I get to say “but” because we all know that I find British accents ridiculously hot, BUT I try not to waste my time hankering after boys if I know straight away (as opposed to at Ruby on Friday) that they’re gay. Y’dig? Yeah. Anyways. We had to trek around and around and around The Secret Garden looking for La, cos the entrance isn’t actually on the street that it says it’s on, but eventually we kind of gave up and went in, keen to get started on the free liquor. Or at least I was. Given that KateH was driving, I imagine that she was a little more restrained. I got severely fucked off because Horrible Gay Jonny (and let me point out here that the ‘gay’ tag is used because before him I’d had another Horrible Jonny flatmate) was serving drinks and grrrrrrrr he makes me so mad with his theiving and then his fakeness. Bah. I’ve vented about this already. But I am setting the scene for what comes later by giving a partial reason as to why I downed so so so many glasses of bubbly very quickly ie: I was angus and also a little bored until La showed up. KateB was at the party too, but she left pretty early, so mostly I just talked to Olly and KateH (although they knew lots of people) and La, until much later in the night when we were out the back adn the bubbly had run out and I’d switched to beer and was talking to a whole bunch of random guys and a couple of other people I knew. Now, in further stage setting, let me tell you about the toilets at the Secret Garden – they have shower curtains for doors. Yuck! I’d had one piece of cheese that went straight to my bowels and I was like aaaaargh, but then I thought “Well, you know what? These girls here jostling for space to adjust their makeup, I don’t respect them, why should I care about what they think of me?”. Later though the toilets were all floody and still really crowded, so I couldn’t have a quiet puke, which meant that all the beer and bubbly stayed in my stomach. Foreshadowing.

Eventually almost all the people I knew had left – KateH with the oh so subtle “call my cellie when you get to my house – or if you should happen to be staying in (certain address implying that I would be in someone else’s bed), I can come and pick you up from there”. Aww bless her. I imagine I said something like “Well, I’d like to say that’s not going to happen but I’d probably be lying”. Needless to say pretty much as soon as she’d left, perhaps, I found myself making out with a boy, and soon we were in a taxi on our way to his house. Now, I’ve made out in taxis with three other boys before (oh hush, not all at the same time) and the drivers have always been the embodiment of discretion. This driver was an ASSHOLE. Okay, admittedly I can’t remember exactly what it was that he was saying, but I think it was of the nudge nudge wink wink “go on my son” type commentary which was really really unnecessary, and which probably contributed a little to my later unease. Anyways so I found myself in a house that is very familiar to me, and in fact on a bed that I’d been on before, peeing in a bathroom where I’d peed so many times before mid-coitally, and it was just a little bit strange. Before I knew what was what, he had a condom on, and I was like “woahhhhhhh, wait a minute….” I know that I’ve bitched for a year and a half about my total lack of sex, but what with it staring me in the face like that (so to speak, of course), and the feelings that being back in that house stirred up again, I suddenly realised I couldn’t do it, and I told him so. I’ve been without sex for so long I’m a second-time virgin, and I just think it’d be really wrong to do it with someone that I’m not in love with – or failing love then at least Ridiculously Hot wrists-tied-above-my-head, him-whispering-in-my-ear-about-all-the-things-he’s-going-to-do and then how-he’s-going-to-pass-me-onto-all-his-friends-cos-I’m-such-a-fucking-whore Dirty Passion Violent Fucking. Giggly-drunk-friend-scoring isn’t good enough, unfortunately. So instead, I went down on him (well, I would have anyway) but I was in much more of a hurry for him to hurry up and come so that he’d stop begging me to let him fuck me. He still had the condom on at the start, and that was strange, and of course, his dick was hitting the back of my throat, and I was still full of beer and bubbly, so what happened? Oh yeah, I started gagging and my mouth filled with vomit. Now, I thought I’d just swallowed it back (heh) but after he’d finally finished, he was like “umm, I’m going to go sleep in the lounge, cos you threw up on this side of the bed” and I was like “omg, wtf?” and then I got all offended and was like “FINE! If you won’t sleep with me then I guess I’ll go to Kate’s” (cos you know, I totally had the moral highground on my side – hahahaha) and after he’d left, I groped around in the dark (some more, haha man, how many fucking double entendres can one entry have? I guess this is like, a year and a half’s worth poured into one night) trying to find my clothes, since he doesn’t have a lightbulb in his room. I left without a skirt (luckily I was wearing pants underneath) but with pearl necklaces (haha, see previous-to-previous brackets) and hiked up to the main road to get some cash and find a taxi and hope that my cellphone battery didn’t die, which it seemed to be doing. Somehow though I managed to get a taxi, and the driver seemed much nicer when I complained about the previous one, and KateH got up and let me in and all seemed well in the world.

Tuesday 7th

I woke up around 10.30am, feeling pretty damn sorry for myself, let me tell you. Kateh had left a room outside the room that I was sleeping in with her worknumber on it, so I gave her a call cos I knew she was supposed to come home and turn the alarm on when I left. When I told her that yes, I had gone home with the boy, she briefly wondered why I hadn’t just stayed the night there then, but accepted my explanation that it was weird. I don’t know if I mentioned the puke thing or not – I probably tried to conceal it so that she didn’t worry about her flatmate’s bed. Who knows? Anyways, it transpired that she wouldn’t be able to make it home until lunchtime so I had a cold shower (like I should have had the night before, but nevermind) and settled down with my laptop to write the ‘Things Not To Do Whilst Sucking Cock’ entry that only my Hubrettes can read, and to contemplate how much my black and silver skirt meant to me vs the having to go back to the boy’s house and pick it up. Well, when KateH finally got home it was 2.30pm so I realised I couldn’t put it off anymore, so it was off to the boy’s house with me. Him and all his flatmates were all sitting out on the back porch in the sun. I had no idea what he’d told them, but I do know that the walls there are paper thin (and that the girl he shares a wall with is a prudey little virgin, hahahah). I tried to play it all casual, just “hey, how’s it going?”. He was laughing at me when I had to say “so um, did I leave my skirt in your room?” so I double-casualed it by saying “haha, that sounds really bad”. Yeah I’m going to pretend that your flatmates didn’t hear me faking an orgasm if I want to, okay? Sweet. They were like “oh what are you up to today?” which meant I had a trump card up my sleeve – I told them I was going to go see Iva, which was true but also I knew that there was bad blood between them all, so they started going blah blah blah which took the heat off me and I got to leave holding my head up high. Phew!

Next up on my agenda was a visit to Wendy’s and then to the shore to see Iva Beaver. we sat in the sun and talked about Bernard, amongst other things. Ahh sweet sweet dusty cups. Then I went to meet up with OLIVIA and STEVE and KYLA, once I finally found her house, that is (stupid Americans saying “eighteen” instead of “seventeen”, or more likely stupid hungover not-awake&capable of listening me). After cruising Franklin Road to see the lights and marvel at the audacity of the house with a COFFEE CART in front of it, we went to Joy Bong for dinner, where I struggled to question how the tofu was done in a tofu and eggplant dish I was eyeing up (when I’m around vegans I eat vegan). I got a different dish instead cos I was afraid it’d be the squishy kind I don’t like, and as Olivia said of my tofu, it turns out i want it done like it’s a bouncy castle. It was so great to see them again, cos I haven’t seen them since umm forever, but they were tired from the flight, and I was tired from the debauchary and found myself only able to say “the thing with the stuff” and “so hot right now”. Whatever happened to Verbacious Joanna? We fought over the bill and I thought I won and paid it but the next day I found some cash in my bag so either they slipped it in or I am just terrible with money. Then we went back to Kyla’s to watch half of Harry Potter 3 and make dirty jokes about paedophilia. Have some chocolate little boy, and all of that. Of course the night didn’t last nearly long enough, but sigh, I guess I’ll get to see them again in a couple of years or something.

Wednesday 8th
Having stayed at Kateb’s again, I got up in time to do some research on a Certain Band Who Have A Lot of Members adn Wear Robes because I was interviewing their frontman. He was a little grumpy and the line wasn’t that good. Sigh. Then I drove back to Welly and Sebby was overjoyed to see me. The end.

1. Throw up. Okay, it’s been a while and he was a lot bigger than I was used to anyways.

That’s the whole list. Cheers.

Last night I went to the nzgirl.co.nz party with KateH and KateB – well, I went with KateH as KateB’s date, but they didn’t check invites at the door anyways, which is a good thing because it meant that we could smuggle in La (“hey La, do you want to come to a posh party with free booze?”). It was so very mwah mwah darling. Gay Horrible Jonny was there serving drinks and he was like “hi, mwah, I haven’t seen you in ages” and I was like “oh maybe that’s cos you moved out without giving any notice…” and he was like “this is a party, we’re not going to talk about thsi now”. I wanted to punch him in the face very very much. He could have just poured me another drink and not said anything. I don’t get how people who have burnt their bridges in two cities by making off with half of everyone that they’ve stayed with’s cd collections can not know that oh gee, maybe people aren’t very happy about it. La was like “let it go…” but the thing is that Jonny and I weren’t on bad terms to the best of my knowledge when he moved out, which is what makes it worse. Anyways.

I had about eight glasses of bubbly before that ran out and then I had to switch to beer and god knows how many of those I had. A lot. Right now I am at the lovely KateH’s house but at some stage I will have to go and find my skirt at the boy’s house which I don’t especially want to do. Fuck I hate lecherous taxi drivers. Like, if people are macking it in the back of your cab, sure, watch, but DON’T COMMENT. Fuuuuuuucking hell.

The Abstract:
You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t updated Hubris in quite a very long time, and normally that’s a sign that I’ve sunk into the big D again. In this case, that’s not the case. I’ve just been incredibly busy. First there was a bit of a sexplosion, and then there was putting out a whole issue by myself, and then another whole issue by myself in half the time, and then there was a trip to Wellington and the Hawkes Bay. Oh, and due to the Sexplosion, there was an underlying current of fear, with my period being three weeks late, broken condoms and not being sure who the father was. I’m back now, and things have calmed down a little, hence this update .

The Fuller Schbobble:
Well! Where do we start? When I last updated, we were going to have the Meet Market party and I was inviting you all. None of you showed. How rude. This led to me shagging one of Lance’s young friends, because Lance made the deliberate mistake of leaving us alone together very late at night adn I was bored of talking to the guy about how miserable he was without his girlfriend. I thought he needed some cheering up. I think it worked. He said “I’ve never had it like that before”. I laughed lots. In the morning, he asked me for my cellphone number. I was like “What? Why?” and then instantly felt mean. Lance has managed to refrain from hassling him since. The boy comes into the office sometimes to buy bus tickets but avoids looking in my direction, poor wee thing.

Later that week, I had a drink with a boy who, let’s face it, I’ve had a thing for ever since I realised that running away while he was sleeping was the stupidest thing I did last year. He was absolutely lovely, and we were getting on so damn well, swapping life stories and talking about how much we hated ‘Sex in the City’ and how totally empowering it wasn’t, and he said that sometimes you sleep with people just because you want to, and I said that sometimes you sleep with people because they give you the dirtiest sexiest look you ever received in your whole life “which is why I went home with you” and he laughed. I told him that I wished that I’d got to know him last year. Eventually he had to go, but he asked if I wanted to hang out later that night, and suggested that he should come over to my house and bring a bottle of wine. I think my jaw just about dropped off, and then when he kissed me outside the pub on Ponsonby Road, my knees went woozy. Luckily KateH picked me up then, otherwise I would have been wandering around all dazed for a couple more hours, no doubt. He came over a couple of hours later, and well, I was two hours late for work the next day. It was lovely, so much more intimate than the last time – I guess because this time I fancied him, and wasn’t in love with someone else/terrified of being hurt again, and because well, I think he’d learnt a whole lot about foreplay in the past year. I called him delicious and beautiful and both things were applicable, in the slightly more metaphorical sense of the word for ‘Delicious’. He called me a star, and now he has left the country. Sigh. I’m sure that in a parallel dimension, we have our timing right and everything is blissful. Damn you Parallel Dimension Joanna! Why do you get all the good things?

Of course, then my period was late. And later. And later. And then I found a broken condom under the bed. I was incredibly freaked out and spent an hour sitting on the floor at work semi under my desk crying. The lady at the health clinic here at work said that a test wouldn’t be accurate for like, three weeks after the event, but I went and bought the cheapest test in the supermarket anyways. When it came out negative, I got drunk. A week later I did another test, and it was still negative. I alternated between thinking about abortion and thinking about raising the baby. Of course, I didn’t know if it was Andrew’s or Ben’s, but I thought there was more of a chance of it being Ben’s, which is what I would have prefered, but I didn’t want to mess up the life of either of them, and I was all like “arrrgh” until eventually I decided that yes, I actually would be able to deal just fine with having a baby, and I could work from home four days a week and come in for one, but finally when I got to Wellington and managed to unstress about work, I got my bleed. And it hasn’t stopped since.

So yes, that was the sex. When I got to Wellington a week and a bit ago, Mum asked me about my sex life, so I told her, asking her to please not tell Anji that I gave my ex boyfriend a blowjob in the bathroom at Submission, because I’d get a fearsome telling off. Mum said “At least someone has morals”. Later, when we were getting our family portraits, she said to me “oh they told me that you don’t need to wear more makeup than usual for the photos”. I was like “umm, this is what I wear every day”. Mothers eh? Bless. If she doesn’t want to KNOW, she shouldn’t ASK. That’s all.

I also caught up with KateB in Welly which was lovely and made me feel more like a real person again. I think she’s doing really well, and has found something that suits her much better. I do worry though that her b/f doesn’t like pirate jokes. Other Welly things were finally getting some sleep, doing more reviews for the magazine which I’d rushed to finish all in one week instead of the usual two, and Oma taking us out to Logan Brown, which was amaaaaaaaazing food, and the most professional service I’ve had in a very long time. Exquisite. And not cheap at all.

Then on last Tuesday, Karen and I drove up to Napier. It was a pleasant journey, mostly. We found a nice enough backpackers to stay in – its failing was that there were no windows in the room, which made it very spooky to be called on your cellphone when the lights were off and you had no idea what the time was and wondered why the fuck your work was calling you in the middle of the night when it was actually 8.46am. Napier itself was very nice. We wandered around places and found a lovely bar called The UltraLounge. My Pina Colada had no taste at all, so I tried to explain that as nicely as I could to the barman and he made me an orgasmically good Mango Daquiri instead. We had seconds. Then I squirmed in discomfort as a loud British wanker ate all his sashimi and then complained about it. I hope I wasn’t like that man.

On the Wednesday, we went with The Grape Escape and got driven to some wineyards. Seven in fact – apparently this makes us legends, because that was in four hours, including lunch with The Best Cheese in the World at the Sileni Estate. The usual is four or five. We stayed another night in Napier, and went to Havelock North the next day, and also I made Karen go to Ocean Beach with me. It was fun. I frolicked in the sand. That night we stayed in Hastings at a Carnie backpackers and opened Macademia nuts with a big rock. I managed to buy four bottles of wine – a Trinity Hills Pinot Noir, a Mission Estate Reisling, a Brooklands Deco Chardonnay and a Te Mata Estate Rose as well as a bottle of Sour Apple Schnapps from Prenzels. No wonder the phone line got cut off back in Auckland. The guy at Brooklands was teh best, telling us long stories. Was it Brooklands? I hope it was. I will check my wine when I get back. Other people were too wanky or busy or what have you. Prenzels is the best because you can try whatever you want and I wanted to try everything. Mmmmmmmmm.

Now I am back in Auckland of course, and work is not as hectic as it has been, which is nice. I’m sad that Issue 10′s cover was lacking in our actual coverstories and that my Pacifier story didn’t get a title, but that’s my fault for not leaving clearer instructions for Designer Brad. Tomorrow I have schedualed an appointment with myself to sit down and discuss what I want to submit for the media awards. One of these days I’ll actually do the accounts for advertising sales too, but the girl who does all our invoicing said (in exchange for me scanning photos for her) “Please don’t do them until I’m ready for them”. Yay her. I’m going to Wellington again in less than two weeks for the ASPA conference. Excellent. And what else? Blah stuff, nothing too important.

We have a new flatmate in the very charming shape of Will, an American friend of Megan’s. We still need one more though.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten to say things, but really, this has gone on for hours now, so I might stop this entry here for now.

Given that I’m so bored right now I just said to Annabel that I wish I had a splinter so at least I could entertain myself pulling that out I guess it makes sense that I try to update Hubris. Now the question is where to start. I might ask her.
“i guess there’s stuff you can’t really talk about properly” But when has that ever stopped me in the past? Actually a lot more than you’d realise.

Chains of events have been kicked into place by chance sightings and lots of shots to cover the shock. The world travels around in circles eventually. Blow jobs heal all wounds? Not quite but hey, the free liquor sure is nice. HA! You don’t know what I’m talking about now do you? Or maybe you do, in which case, why do you need to read my journal anyways? There’s a reason why I drive a beige car and it’s for its inconspicuousisity. Actually that’s a lie – I drive a beige car because that’s what was found for me. But it’s not like a pair of silver shoes sighted under a toilet door. Tehehe.

And I don’t even need to mention the fact that I KNOW that I made up words in the last paragraph do I? Unlike Jez’s flatmate who said that he was “insuccessful” at something and wondered why I laughed so hard. Jez is gone now, like Ammy, lured away by the demon OE. Circle of Life continues. Tides ebb and flow. Dear god now I sound like a fucking hippy.

We’re having a Meet Market party on Friday. I want lots of random people to come because that would be amusing. If you live in Auckland, email me and I will give you the address. Chances are it may just be handfuls of us because Darren hasn’t got around to doing the invites yet, slacker.

Work is stupid right now. I am unable to articulate myself clearly. Things are up in the air. I dreamt about my workmates – we were organising the Onslow School Fair. How depressing.

My flat is once again got a vacancy. I need to pay the bills before everything gets cut off. Dammit, maybe I should try to kick this crack rock addiction once and for all. Or maybe not. Placebo are playing Auckland on Saturday and I can’t afford to go, but I’d already decided not to anyways. Fancy me actually paying for something. Scandel. Hehehe my receptionist described me as scandalous. Actually so did Allison.

I did a day and a half first aid course so now I can do CPR and all that good stuff. It made me scared of everyone else’s mortality though. Also it really bugged me because we were taught that it’s really not a good idea to give CPR to someone without a barrier, and the instructor said that there was no way in hell that he’d do it, but hello, if you’ve ever kissed a stranger (and if you look at the stats page in my zine, you’d know taht I’ve kissed one or two. Oh no wait, that page was just the people i fucked the first time i met them, kissing rates may be even higher. Let me analyse. Hmmm. Actually, there’s only about two people that i kissed the first time I met them who didn’t get to at least third base, so disregard) that’s for FUN, and yet you wouldn’t do something similar to save someone’s life? I’d like to think that I jolly well would. Otherwise what’s teh point in being loose?

I might just save and upload this now before I get too bored. I’m sorry, I don’t really have much to say. I had the mother of all bawling sessions on Sunday night, which gave me a thoroughly good pipe cleaning. There has been A LOT going on in my head lately. It gets a little complicated sometimes being me. Then again, I’m also sure that sometimes it’s complicated being you too.

Oh and COUS! Happy birthday for a couple’o days ago and email me, you runnerawayer you!

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

So I’ve been online for like 30 minutes and I still haven’t managed to read a single one of my emails yet. I really must change email accounts.

I bought two heads of brocoli today at 15 cents a head each. This is a good thing. I got them in Northcote, if you’re interested. Today again I was driving around the Shore investigating venues. It’s great. I like Rob in the car division – he gave me a manual drive car today when I told him about the stupid things I did with the automatic last week (I was wondering why the car braked so damn jerky when I was being super gentle until I realised that I was using my left foot on the brake, which as we all know is wrong). There’s a couple’o pajs parked down in amongst the company car pool too – I’ve promised Brad and Clay I’m going to try my hardest to get to take a paj out for the day and I’ll come and pick them up and we’ll drive through Remmers darling. Anyways. So yeah, Northcote/Birkenhead in the morning, then Devenport and Albany in the afternoon.

I had a meeting with the PR Consultant lady I’m working with who’s only in 2 days a week and gave my report and she said I was going well, and that I have full authority to go ahead and book the venues and start drawing up a timetable. Scaaary! I’d much rather someone was checking me every step of the way, but I just don’t have that at work – they leave me up to my own devices. I’m very good at looking busy. I have email at work now, finally my own key and login, but so far I’ve only given my email address to essential contacts (read: Kini and Olivia). I’m trying to be good. I don’t want to fuck this all up. I’m alredy worried about finding a job in February, because I know I have a tendancy not to be very good at seeking things out because basically everything i ever need falls in my lap. Except for my paycheque – grrr! I don’t get paid for a fortnight, and I’m in malls and shopping areas for half the morning – all my xmas shopping could be done by now if I had a cent left in the bank. Ahh well. Tomorrow I’m going to be in a working party conference anyways. Have I mentioned that I get business cards?

Wank wank wank wank wank. I actually am often left without anything to do, so I call Shirley, and since I’m in an open planned office, the people around me would hear
“Hi, it’s Joanna here from *, is that you Shirley? How are you?…….. Right, I’m calling in regards to the communication briefing I received the other day……….. No no, that’s fine……..yes I was in contact yesterday but we decided to not pursue that avenue any further for a while…. yes of course it’s re-occuring….I appreciate that…. absolutely, I’ll just make a note of that…….. yes…. yes….. well would you have some time free for a meeting?…….. how’s today for you?…..alright well we’ll scheduale something for next week then” and then my boss will come back and I’ll want to ask her something so I’ll hang up on Shirley really abruptly going “Great, well thank you very much for your time”. I’m SO a kid in heels and pearls. Nevermind the fact that the rest of the office spends their lives on the phone having really boring conversations with their car insurance and real estate agent places that I can’t help but evesdrop on. Or maybe they’re all speaking in a secret code too. Hmmmmmmm, intriguing!

Because I spent so much time driving today, I came up with a list of memorable car moments that I jotted down because I was bored. You know how I like my lists. Sheesh, anyone would think that I was incapable of stringing together anything more cohesive. And ha! I’m going to alphabetize them by the first letter in the sentence:

• A memory from Primary School; the greatest day of my life ever at that stage was when I got to sit squashed up next to my Crush – Andrew Carnegie – to and from a netball tournament
• Amy and Andee taking me over the harbour bridge by mistake, playing the Spice Girls and bumping the car to cheer me up
• Anji and Greg taking me up to Auckland for Pearl Jam when I was 14, determined to corrupt me and we picked up a dumb hitchhiker who said “Youse guys”
• Countless Welly/Auck drives with Kate B, listening to Cat Stevens, blowing bubbles and taking mad photos left right and centre
• Driving myself to Wellington thinking so hard that later I wrote a 7 page essay on the appropriate course of action to take as a consequence of that thought process
• Driving to Welly with Simon and Matt Sawkill in the backseat, me giggling away to myself like the cat that’s got the cream and is mixing its metaphors like a DJ with religion.
• Going to Waiuku for Kate H’s goodbye party, Justin putting the car in neutral going down a hill and it kept going, freefalling
• Kim speeding along Greenlane West at 3am in the fog when we were on a mad sugar rush and couldn’t see 10 feet ahead of us
• Kini in my rear view mirror, the magical drive into the Coramandel
• MM in the MR2, subwoofer under my seat, lost in Remuera at 4am trying to find food cos we’d been up arguing all night
• Pajero pulling up outside my house in Mount Roskill, Shirley and Dee Cavalry coming to be with me when I found out that Opa died
• Pixie’s friend Sam’s orange pumpkin car, tinnie house in Te Atatu right next to a primary school and I thought we’d be beaten up by protective westie parents
• Roadtripping to Waihi with Shirley, her doing crazy overtaking manouvers and making Trudie scream when I dared her to drive down a bank
• Sung Song association all the way to St. Heliers with Brad in the stereoless Grey Ghost
• the other night in Jeremy’s car, cold from swimming, falling asleep on Clayton’s shoulder

I warned you that i have full stationary cupboard rights – notepads are perfect for lists.

“I think you’re crazy, maybe, I think you’re crazy.”