I fought off my anxiety over whether or not anyone would actually show up for America at the Country Club with the phrase “Well KateH is coming, and that’s all that matters”. But then when I went to Chrisana’s goodbye Paramount drinks on Friday night, after expensive but tasty Thai with Karen at the Oriental Thai, everyone was like “fuck yeah!” about coming, so I informed them that the official colours of the university were black and green, because that was the colour of balloons that I’d happened to buy at the supermarket the night before.

This of course meant that Saturday was spent in cleaning the house and decorating the lounge with said balloons which had been blown up by me and the boys with the aid of a balloon pump the night before while they watched the Steel Mill and I tried not to get beaten up for making derogatory remarks about metal, and green and black streamers, and rasturbated banners that said “Pledge Eta Beta Pi!!!” and “Pledge Gamma Gamma Gamma!”. The boys, meanwhile, went to Bunnings and apparently had long discussions with one of the men there and spent $38 and came home and built Liz the Funnel with valves and all. Why Liz? Because apparently all funnels are supposed to be named for whores. Bart said “Liz Phair!” and I would have growled at him except that I knew he meant L** S*** instead. Smoo was like “Liz Phair’s still a whore” and I was like “hush your mouth! She’s a boring suburbanite mom now. I miss the blowjob queen!”.

The keg was delivered in the afternoon, and we had many long discussions about where to put it – if we left it on the front doorstep, would ferals come up and steal it? But if we put it inside the dining room, would it make a mess? Eventually we compromised by closing off the kitchen door at the end of the hallway and putting it there. I dressed myself up in the university colours

This pic was actually taken at the end of the night, so imagine how fantastic I must have looked sober. And yes, I do appreciate that anyone who knows me probably has very little idea of what I actually look like sober…

and was just about to go and pick up Brad and Karen when I got a voice mail on my phone from some guy saying “I got a link to your blog from Public Address, and it sounds like you’re inviting all and sundry to your party, and I don’t know anyone in Wellington so if I ask politely, can I come?”. I was like “huh? I don’t write a blog” but since the guy had left his number twice, after he took my interogation questions in good stead (“1. Gilby or Izzy? 2. Who would win in a fight between a pirate and a ninja? 3. What word did you use wrongly in regards to talking about my website?”), despite him giving all the wrong answers I texted him my address, warning that the party would be fairly small – around 16 people or so, and that he would stand out.

It turned out that at first, the party was very split, with Bart’s Eta Beta Pi clustered in the dining room, while us Sorority sisters were in the lounge. Ash or perhaps Kristen even said when Sebastian came running in “Sebastian, what are you doing in here? You’re a boy!” and I was like, ummm, what about Brad? But we mixed it up more when people went outside to do funnels:

Bart sucks it down

LisaB takes in her own body-weight in beer, while Kristen is caught in the act of being so very 2006 with her camera-phone

Eventually, having laughed at the boys enough, Gamma Gamma Gamma were also persuaded to do keg stands.

LisaB fearlessly went first, and achieved full verticalness. She is our hero

Ash loved it so much she went twice

KateH showed up late for the party but hurried to make up for lost time

I was worried that they wouldn’t be able to hold me, but they assured me they could, and so I did a couple as well. The first time my arm slipped and hit against the keg which wasn’t fantastic, but holy crap, keg stands are my new favourite thing in the entire world ever. EVAH. Except that I am so fucking sore today, or at least I was until I took a lengthy spa at the gym in my lunchbreak instead of doing a proper workout. I am naughty. My arm also got hurt when we jumped Smoo as soon as he came home from work and forced him into a kegstand while Bart paddled his ass with a cricket bat, except that he got my wrist a lot more than Smoo’s ass, and Smoo kicked out, and knocked Kart over, but to be honest, I’m not sure if she even realised. Even Karen did a keg stand when we agreed to let her put a plastic cup of daquiri and straws down on top of the keg so she wouldn’t have to have beer.

And of course, because it was Country Club we passed around our pieces of trivia, and I made everyone hot dogs (which were fucking good) and also oatmeal cookies (I really should remember to bake more often) and assorted other snack foods. Eventually most of the people had left (*), so me and Karen and KateH and Bart and Smoo just sat around the dining room table eating apple pie and vodka jelly. Bart was falling-off-his-chair drunk, and incredibly entertaining. He decided to call up everyone in his phone who wasn’t at the party, and even though it was 3am, we let him. Yes, we are enablers. And we laughed our heads off. Then Karen left, and KateH and I decided that it was time to watch Mischa Barton die, so we did, even though the boys were dividing their time between bitching about it and falling asleep. I am so so so so glad I got an Auckland friend to attend a Wellington friend and Country Club event, and that it all went well. We only made $85 back on a $200 keg, which sucks, cos obviously not everyone who drank it chipped in, but meh, I generally spend about $100 on each Country Club anyway, by the time I add up all the costs.

In the morning KateH and I went and had coffee (She was like “I didn’t think I’d stay, but of course I did – when have I never stayed after one of your parties?” and I racked my brains trying to think of an answer), then I spent the day doing laundry and watching videos, dozing, and avoiding the large pile of dishes in the kitchen. I wonder if they’ve been done now…

September’s Country Club will be Morocco, after we realised that we have totally neglected Africa, and then there’ll be a German Octoberfest in October, strangely enough. Then when I come back from San Fran, we’ll do a Mexican Day of the Dead, and that’ll be all of North America polished off…

Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I had four nights in Auckland, and such is my obsession with Rockstar: Supernova and my lack of laptopness (update: it’s with Bond & Bond for hopefully fixage), and my surprisingly large workload (project managing. Me. Whodda thunk it?) that I have yet to write about it. So now I will.

Wednesday
I flew up on Wednesday 12 July in the afternoon. My shuttle picked me up way too early and my flight got delayed so I can happily report back that Wellington Airport, while better-looking than Auckland, is incredibly boring. Still, finding a $25 Whitcholls voucher to spend on magazines is nice. One of these days, I really must get myself a subscription to Q since it’s the only magazine that I read which I totally respect. I mean, apart from Pulp, of course, but I hear the music reviewer for that genuinely likes the Spice Girls, so what would she know? I was staying at the Comfort Inn again, this time in a one bedroom suite that captured all the afternoon sun, so that sucker was hot. Crazy Aucklanders thinking that they’re in winter when they so aren’t, everyone’s heater was turned up way too high. The suite didn’t have a bath, unfortunately, but the shower was oh-my-stars-I-think-my-scalp-is-being-caressed-by-angels strong. And it’s always nice when no one has written on the walls of the bathroom in their own blood (Smoo is so fucking feral. That’s not part of my Auckland story, but seriously, who the fuck does that? Bart cleaned it up for me when I expressed my total and utter disgust. I wish I’d taken a photo first, because it was actually kind of funny).

First up on my Auckland agenda was meeting Annabel for a drink up at the Odeon. I hadn’t seen her since 2001, but we’ve had many an online conversation since then so it didn’t seem too unnatural. Once the Odeon started giving us the dirty “We’re closing. Get the fuck out now” eye, we went over the road for another drink at Galbraiths, and I decided that I should platonically set her up with Heather, since they live near by each other and have a lot in common.

After that, it was back to my room to try and get a nap in before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Holy crap that gig was overflowing with gaxys and hipsters! I’m pretty sure that every tight pair of black jeans, little op shop dress and Karen O haircut was in attendance. Drunkenly. And noisily. Holy crap there are few things I hate more than drunk 18 year old girls. I don’t understand why the fuck someone would pay over $60 for a concert ticket and talk the whole way through it. I had to restrain myself from punching people. I should have moved away, but as I was feeling so very old – I arrived while the Mint Chicks were playing and instantly cursed myself for forgetting ear plugs -, I was standing at the back behind the padded barrier and laughing at people who tried to walk through it. And wishing that I was Karen O, of course. I liked it when she screamed, because all the stupid bitches shut up for half a minute. They played songs I didn’t know, and drew out the beginnings to many things, and she writhed around under pieces of shiny material. I waved my fist in the air for ‘Phenomena’ and the long-intro’d ‘Y Control’ and got teary when they came back for their encore with ‘Maps’. I also spent a lot of time thinking about other gigs I’d been to at the St James, including the Roni Size gig where I took e for the first time, and the True Colours gig when I didn’t realise I was going to fall for the boy I’d just left sleeping. Afterwards I thought about taking the bus back up the hill but I couldn’t stand the gaxys anymore so I taxied back up for more glorious showers, even though my feeling-oldness had kept my moshing and therefore my sweatiness to a bare minimum. Man, no wonder it takes me so long to write these kinds of entries, I go way too overboard with details. Nevermind.

Thursday
The next morning I had brunch at Benediction with Elisabeth from Pulp and this time I successfully managed to keep from calling her Carla even a little bit. She said nice things about my reviews, which is always pleasant to hear (who’d have thought that good feedback would be like, good? Woah Jo, you’re out of CONTROL), and loaded me up with many more CDs, including the new Muse, which made me squee with joy. But on the inside of course, because I was pretending to be a cool Aucklander. A cool Aucklander who was nevertheless very impressed when the electronic bus timetables on K’Road proved to be quite accurate. I headed off to Grey Lynn to meet up with Jessie, and so I got to see her very posh offices. Then we went for lunch at Delicious, because I’ve always heard good things about it. Holy fucking crap, that place is delicious. We had bruschetta, and then I had roast beetroot ravioli with smoked ricotta, and every mouthful was like a thousand orgasms. We lingered long over it, and then gave the dessert cabinet the glad eye. After some quick agonisations, we decided to share a piece of pistachio praline chocolate ‘cake’, on the grounds that while their tiramisu also looked amazing, it was more common. The cake was pretty much like tiramisu anyway, with the added bonus of pistachios. Wow. It was like dying and being brought back to life and being fed really fucking awesome sweet desserty treats, without having to die and be brought back to life. My similes are fucking rocking today, I must add.

She dropped me off at Real Groovy so that I could cash in $50 worth of booksellers’ tokens on records: You are free by Cat Power, Funeral by the Arcade Fire, and most exciting of all, Horses by Patti Smith, which was the reason I bought a record player in the first place (now I can totally satisfy all my own fantasies – well as far as sitting on the floor playing myself Patti Smith records goes, anyway. Although my record player is a little too high up in order to do that comfortably. Perhaps I should rearrange my room). Of course I ended up having to spend twice as much as I had in tokens, and the same thing happened in Farmers when I was using vouchers to buy more foundation and also lip gloss because goddamit, I haven’t bought any in a very long time, thank you very much, and no I don’t have an addiction, fuck you. Then I went up to Rakinos to meet Sam for a coffee. Well, I had wine, he had water, and he talked a lot about sales techniques. It made me laugh.

After that it was back to my hotel to be incredibly disturbed by Juice TV (why oh why did anyone let Panic! At the Disco record a song that contains a line “haven’t you people heard of closing the goddam door?” in such dreaful all over the place timing? Their phrasing is like a thousand times worse than the Manic Street Preachers or Silverchair, and that’s saying a lot. Not to mention emo as fuck. I wish my hair was emo so that it’d cut itself. Heh), read, and nap some more. I love holidays with their rich nappy goodness. Around 7.30, I headed off to Annabel’s house where I had arranged to meet Heather before our dinner. This meant I got to meet Elton, which was very choice, and the girls got to meet each other too, instead of just stalking online. We had wine and watched Rockstar and Heather and I were having such a good time we asked if it wouldn’t be too weird if we got our food and ate it there. Annabel pulled out a folder of menus, so we took that as a sign, and Heather went and fetched us Meekong. Mmmmmmoney bags. Mmmmmmmmmmm so much tofu. Mmmmmmmmm goodness. Thanks for dinner Heather – it was an awesome birthday present. Eventually though we had to tear ourselves away as we were due to meet KateH at Match Bar to watch Sam play.

Sam had said that Match has a crappy crowd, but myyyyy god I hate the rich white trash even more than I hate the faux emo gaxys. Not that I judge people on sight or anything, but why the hell are you bothering to order Moet by the bottle when you’re so drunk that you break your glass every time you go outside for a cigarette? We were sitting close to the doors and counting broken glasses, and there were at least eight over the course of the night – from a fairly small crowd. Some of the guys got so drunk that they had to be carried down the stairs. Not pretty. It was lovely to catch up with KateH. We sat and talked for a long long time in egg shaped chairs, and then once they were done playing we went to Denny’s with Sam once he was done trying to get KateH to buy in to his pyramid scheme. By that stage it was after 3am (Did they play ’3am’? I’m pretty sure there was at least one Matchbox 20 cover. Ahh covers, good times. KateH and I laughed and laughed and laughed) and Auckland was drowning in mist. You couldn’t see the Sky Tower, or even more than ten metres in front of you. It was fucking excellent. So pretty and spooky (*).

Friday
Friday had been booked in as Heather’s and my Cultural Day, but I was feeling a little sloooooooow because I’d got to bed after 5am. I met her up at Altezzano and nearly fell flat on my face a couple of times. That whole walking thing is kind of tricky sometimes. We decided that the counter food on offer was not enough for people who’d had salty $18 tequilla cocktails the night before and so we made our way down to Galbraiths. It was about 11.45 at that stage, and Galbraiths was shut. Oh the horror! We needed our greasy NOW! Or rather THEN! Instead we strolled down to the House of Knives to browse amongst the shiny objects (but not the Shiny), having our minds boggled trying to figure out who would own a $1600 knife block. I mean, yes, good kitchen knives are important, and I’m gutted that Horrible Jonny stole my chef’s knife from the famous samurai sword village, and I wish that Del had gotten around to steeling my current knife before Bart broke up with her, but $1600? Woah. We strolled back up to Galbraiths and joined the throngs – and there were throngs – who were also doomed to waiting outside because it was late in opening, but eventually we made it in, ordered large plates of meat, and took our beers out to the back garden. The last time I was in the garden there, it was my last day of work at the Med School and I flashed my cow-orker so that I could win our staring match. The time before that was before the Placebo concert which is a whole diferent era of life (dates! and bedding! and being asked to be someone’s girlfriend!), and boy, Auckland sure likes to stir up the memories huh? It was a gorgeous day. I rolled up the sleeves of my long sleeved tshirt as we basked in the sun and the beer made me come up with the funniest/stupidest joke I’ve come up with in a while:

Q. What’s that noise coming from the BeeGees’ herb garden?
A. It’s just the chives talking.

Ha ha. Heather had chives on her shanks, obviously. Obbbbbbbbbviously. Our master plan called for us to be going to the museum right about then, but we weren’t sure if we could be bothered walking all the way to the domain from where we were at, since we were between two kinds of public transport that could have gotten us there, but then I had the genius idea of busing down to the art gallery and taking a link from there afterwards. Of course, my genius didn’t actually extend to remembering that the 27*s don’t go down Wellesley St, and so we got off on Symonds St and went for a very big long walk down and around Albert Park (and of course on the bus on the way home we realised that if we’d stayed on the bus we could have avoided that). Still, gorgeous day and walking is good for you. The fact that my feet had been screaming at me since Wednesday was irrelevant. I like the quiet echo of the art gallery, and I’m awed by the fact that they have stuff that’s almost a thousand years old, but there were no new exhibits in the old gallery, and then by the time we were done with that, our feet were too sore for the new gallery. We had coffee on the pretty terrace up amongst the trees away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and decided to call it a day then.

More nap, more Juice TV, some vodka purchasing, and then Jessie came over for a drink. She found me in my pyjamas, because they are pale pink with skull & crossbones on them, and what is more awesome than that? Pretty much nothing. Except for italics. We had a bit of a goss, and then cabbed it up to K’Road where my darling social secretary KateH had arranged an AUT dinner for me at Saigon. I even have photos of it, see?:

Brad, who was up in Auckland to shoot a short film for his course, Shirley who was off to Europe the next day, and Nigel who was still flush from winning
48 Hours and you can view his movie here

Andrew-from-Hamilton, KateH. Not pictured: KateH’s friend whose name I can’t remember. Or me.

I think the woman at Saigon was a little bit in love with me. She kept touching me. Maybe that’s just because – as usual – I played The Dominator and chose all our food. Mostly I did really well too. The noodles were a bit unnecessary.

After dinner, we went to The Musket Room in Ponsnobby. It was pretty crowded, but we managed to find ourselves a table and Brad ate one of the mozarella balls that they brought to our table, thinking that they were complimentary, until we got kicked out of that room because apparently it was a private function. We managed to find ourselves a big table though, and Clayton showed up, hurrah!

Shirley, leaving the next day. Clayton, not hating my guts.

We had some good talks about his career, and he’s doing all these amazing things which is awesome. I also invited him to Amy’s Pirates & Cheerleaders party for the next day, because he’s always loved of the young girls. I think Brad’d had a few drinks too because he gave me a big talk on what an awesome writer I am, and blah blah blah. I say blah blah blah not because it’s ever boring hearing about how awesome I am, but rather because I’d had a drink or two myself, and so I can’t remember all the correct wording, rather just the sentiment behind it. I really liked the Musket Room, apart from the private function kerfuffle and a few girls who were a bit too foolishly dressed (White summer dresses? Really? Sienna fucking Miller called to say you look ridiculous). They were playing ‘Fascination Street’ when we arrived, and then the music mix continued to be really electic, with lots of new wave and also indie and general goodness. Plus it was so dark that I had to read the cocktail menu by the light of an obliging young man’s cellphone. But all good things come to an end, and I found myself back at the hotel watching O.C reruns before I knew it.

Saturday

Jessie and Heather came to get me at some ungodly hour of the morning, and we set off for the French food markets somewhere in Parnhell. Jessie’s magnificant parallel parking skills came in handy, and I nearly died queuing for ages in an incredibly busy cafe to get pretty dreadful coffee, but once I had the cup in my hands, and a couple of quick wine tastings, things were much much better. We tried a multitude of tasty tasty things, talked to scensters and finally settled down with big containers full of hot gnochi. Gnoochi? I can’t spell. But I can eat. Oh boy can I eat. I can also take pictures, although Jessie doesn’t like to be on the internet, so I will show you a picture of Heather instead, because she never complains:

I did mention that it was early morning, right?

I can’t remember what I did on Saturday afternoon. I must have done something, right? Oh yeah, I went and camped out at Benediction again and read their magazines and drank their much better coffee. Heather had said that she’d come to Amy’s party with me, because I didn’t think I’d know many people, but then she wavered, so I promised to pay for the taxis and buy her vodka, and that we’d only have to stay an hour if it was terrible (although I knew it wouldn’t be) and so she duly showed up at my hotel to do semi shots of Russian Cocaine with me (licks of instant coffee, shots of vanilla vodka and then licks of sugar not off a lemon since we didn’t have any), lace me up and take photos of me dressed up as a pirate:

Mary-Kate, me, Ashley trying to escape

We cabbed out to Amy’s (“Give me an ARRRRRRRRRRRR”), found our way down an impossibly long driveway, and much red pirate punch and good times were had. I got to talk to JSR and Annette lots, and Amy had three costume changes. Her speeches were done in the form of “I have never”, personalised specifically to embarrass her, which was fantastic. I talked to new and interesting people, and Clayton showed up and did the same. And then I KICKED ASS at Singstar. I was undefeated on the night, and achieved my all-time personal best score of 9200 on ‘Material Girl’. Woohaa! Thank you so much for having me Amy, even though I’m sure I overstayed my welcome. I do that a lot.

Sunday

On Sunday the lovely Jessie picked me up so that I could have somewhere to leave my suitcase all day before she took me to the airport, and in exchange I bought her brunch at Deve. Heather popped in to see us so that we could giggle at her gossip, and then she took me to her house where I sat on her bed in the sun, ate home made cookies and dozed a little for a while, before I went down to Occam to catch up with first Penny and then Bopha. Hurray! And then I cabbed to Heather’s to watch the Gilmore Girls and umm, now I really have to wind this up. Flew back in the evening, Anji picked me up. That’s all. I thought I had other bits and pieces to say, but apparently I don’t. I <3 the 09 though.

So apparently if I want to talk nonstop all night and all the next day, I should do what I did on Friday again, which is accept Cinta’s challenge at work to stick a berocca in my mouth and let it disolve. I don’t understand why NZ has a P problem – why aren’t all the kids just doing this shit instead? Man I can fucking babble, and talk a lot of shit, as I did all the way through Havana, and Scopa and Good Luck. I mean I know I normally talk pretty much nothing but shit, especially I’m drinking, but not usually with quite that much speed or lack of ability to stop myself even though I could hear my talking in my head. On reflection though, I know I brought up at least a couple of intelligent conversational points. I just raced through them very quickly. I’d sent out a couple of texts about gaxy and a lack of shine, and then the gaxy made me feel even older when she was like “oh, I remember listening to this song (‘Forgot about Dre’) when I was 15″ – it came out in 2000, right? And then that was compounded when she was like “so have you finished your degree yet?” But then she called another girl a whore and I realised that we weren’t so very different after all and I laughed at myself a whole bunch. I also laughed when we were at Scopa and the boys went out to smoke, and I looked up to see one of them stopping the tourists who were trying to come in and demanding to see some ID. Drunk boys are hilarious (*).

On Friday I’d ordered the weather to be sunny, so I wasn’t too surprised when I woke up on Saturday to see that the weather was glorious. I still managed to have entertainers’ stress outs though when my phone started beeping with people cancelling, or saying they’d be late, or that they’d meet us at the venue. But I went and picked up Brad, and got changed into my outfit and started peeling kumara while he said he was finishing off my birthday party. He then ahemed me and I turned into the lounge to see him standing there IN A FUCKING BEAR SUIT and when he told me to turn off my music in the kitchen, he started up a Spiderbait song and performed a dance he’d choreographed especially for me, although it had some basis in his class assignment to create something you’d want done at your funeral. He danced and he danced and i just about died from smiling and the sheer total fucking awesomeness of it. And like that I was giddy all over again and I knew that the Caribbean would be awesome – and it truly truly was.

People showed up in various states of dress, and the boys who weren’t piratey enough were made to wear headscarves. The McLeod’s Daughters, meanwhile, were tarted up to all excellence:
.

We had some RUM and some other forms of GROG, which mostly consisted of PIRATE BEER, and then Katy put my boots on for me when I discovered that I couldn’t put my boots on without revealing pretty much all of Mary-Kate and Ashley, and I felt like an incapacitated drunk, instead of a tipsy giggly pirate, and now on reflection what I should have done was just taken my boots to a different room. But nevermind. We loaded ourselves into the good ship Insanity, which in a previous life had been my parents’ van, and passed around more cans of pirate beer to those who wanted them. I have photos from the van, but no laptop, so therefore no photos. But I do have photos from pirate mini golf to show you though, from my parents’ camera:

My mummy and daddy, who enjoyed themselves hearrrrtily, I think. And who are also crazy.

Myself and Brad

Two thirds of the revellers (2/3 of the KKK and the other Jo were exploring the mega centre when we got there)

Par for the course. Heh.

So, it turns out I’m as bad at minigolf when I’m drunk as I am when I’m sober. I still got a hole-in-one out of the castle, but on some I got sixes. Nevermind. It was very hard to stop saying “yarr!” so I gave up and just continued to spit out terrible pirate jokes and say inappropriate things. I found also that zipping up my hoodie kept the twins under a little more control so I got less distracted. Minigolf is awesome. You should all go.

Then we drove back home, waving our cutlasses at Ash’s car, and I started cooking my Caribbean feast of “goat” curry, blackeyed beans, candied sweet potatoes, jerk chicken and yellow rice. I am fucking awesome. We made daquiris and other rum-based concoctions, and Mike and Chrisana and Lisa arrived. People rather disturbingly started deep-throating a cutlass handle. General revelry and rumbustification was had. It was fucking awesome and radness. And due to the amount of mangos in the daquiris, and staying up late playing records, I wasn’t that hungover the next day, hurray!

Instead I spent my day laughing at Bart and Smoo who’d been on a different, shinier eyed journey the night before, and cooking a roast family dinner (yes that’s right, I roasted a whole family), and rereading Microserfs and doing dishes and laundry. Clean, dry laundry! Oh happy day!

Then this morning I got up to watch the soccer, because Dave had a $50 bet on Italy and they won, and that was yayness. Although my whole view of Italians has been shaken by the revelation that my favourite hospitality person is apparently younger than me, went to Onslow and actually went out with LisaB. I was like “what? he’s so beautiful, how could i not have seen him around before?” so I am obviously going to have to find my yearbooks and do some investigating.

Auckland in two sleeps’ time, yay!

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

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

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

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

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

It’s Friday, I’m in love at home
Last Friday night, I didn’t go out. Yes, I know. I was pretty sure that the world was going to implode too. But the one boy left at work who goes out drinking had some mysterious function on (he refused to tell me what it was, apart from a gay pride parade, but I don’t believe him. I am instead suspecting that he’s been drafted in to sell Amway), and I didn’t want to have to make contact with the ex-cows, because eww, boys have cooties (or BIRD FLU) and all that. However, my being lame at homeness provided me with the opportunity to do the supermarket shopping, tidy the house in preperation for vacuuming the next day and spend some quality time with Bart, so that was nice.

Big in Japan, alright / pay, then I’ll sleep by your on my side
It was quite exciting to get up on Saturday morning and start preparing for a Country Club whilst not being hungover. Yeah that’s right, I said morning. And I also said not hungover. You can faint now. But yes, I managed to be so organised that I even had time to go and have coffee with Karen during my errand-running to pick up Singstar Original, ’80s and Rock and bottles of Asahi and Kirin and sexy big cans of Sapporo from Regional Wines and Spirits. Can I just put out a huge big pile’o love for Regional’s website, which is so damn handy when it comes to planning Country Clubs since they list all their stuff by region? Even if the guy at the checkout did pick up my beer bottles and examine them to say “oh, this one’s made in Thailand, this one’s made in Australia…” while I put my hands over my ears and went “LA LA LA LA LA”. Apparently he also did exactly the same thing to Mike when he and Kart were stocking up.

I dressed up as a slutty schoolgirl (gee, that was hard), and went to pick up Lisa and Beverly, and then Karen who was dressed as a ninja, and then Anji and Delwin who were Harajuku girls. We started out Country Club in the dining room, where I handed out specially purchased pieces of paper and pens and instructed people to write Haiku and give Tentacle Porn a go while Karen and I threaded up sticks of yakitori (LITERALLY barbecued chicken, but we also made vege skewers) in the kitchen. What exactly is tentacle porn, you ask? Well I will answer by sucking Lisa’s “bandwidth” (heh) to repost images of her artwork. I hope she doesn’t mind. She shouldn’t, because you can’t even see her hands in these pictures:

.

Then we ran out of chairs, as more and more people arrived, so I moved everyone through to the lounge to watch My Neighbor Totoro. I think people were perhaps a little too drunk at that stage to appreciate the simple beauty of the movie, and the absolute radness of the Nekobasu. Philly-steins (Hells yeah, cheese steak and beer. This is my special shout-out to Brad, although I don’t think he reads Hubris, so I can cut’n paste it into an email for him.)! But they were of course, drunk enough for karaoke, and oh how we all rocked that microphone mightily. Well, Katy mostly fell asleep. But others rocked it long and hard. Lisa as the last person to leave left just after 5am. In the time inbetween, glass was broken, many things spilled, so many wacky snacks were consumed, I punched Bart in the face after he took off his glasses and asked me to, and he showed Lisa his Chuck Norris tentacle. I’m shocked. SHOCKED. It was a fucking kickass country club, that’s for sure.

In the cold light of morning afternoon while everyone’s yawning cleaning you’re high tired

The next day I ran away to hide at my parents’ place instead of cleaning up, under the guise of feeding Pixie and doing laundry. I discovered that they had Live8 on their DVD hard drive, so I went through the whole thing, going “fucking wow” at many of the performances (Pink Floyd, Bjork, ummm some others) and scratching my head at many others. And I wondered why the hell they didn’t set out to collect money along with names, because surely they could have raised some amount, even as a side project. Yeah I know i’m nearly a year late to this party. Shoosh.

I’d been just about to cry when I left the house because I was tired, and hungover, and I couldn’t find my glasses. In the grand search for the glasses, however, Bart finally unearthed my long-missed camera cables, so I’m proud to present a selection from the past couple’o months, although you might be best to go look at them directly in Flickr:

Random people who were also at Kai in the City when we were there with Sarah’s Hens’ Party

The Chocolate Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooosse from Canadia at the Country Club

Karen, Bart’s friends and Bart at his Mexican party. As it says in the notes in my flickr account, one of the girls is wearing a note that says “in case of fire, I put out”, which I think is awesome

Russ and Smoo, looking somewhat worse for wear

Spent the afternoon whole day in bed, trying to figure out what it was you said
Queen’s Birthday Monday was dedicated to listening to Tommy which I had pinched from my parents’ overflowing record cabinet, and devouring The Method Actors, which is a book about a fucked up bunch of people living in Tokyo, and it makes me want to box up all my possessions and stick them in storage, and go live the high life over there, teaching English or hostessing or some such nonsense. Just as well I’m not a skinny blonde or I would actually be seriously considering it. I don’t know how I clicked over from hating Japan and all it stood for in my life to craving it. Perhaps it’s because in the book people meet at Hatchiko, and go to Almond Corner in Roppongi, and they draw maps that go past the 109 building, and Tokyu Hands, and Seibu Loft, and oh oh oh I haven’t finished the book yet, but I’m hoping that they will at some stage need to visit the New Zealand embassy so I can see it again through the author’s eyes.

Working nine to five nine twentyish to five thirtyish, what a way to make a living
I have now seen a cow-orker naked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t any of the ones that I want(ed) to see with their clothes off though. Stupid Peti suggesting another woman from work should join my gym. I hate people who talk to me at the gym. I’m there to escape, to replace the noise in my head with the Arcade Fire, or Shihad, or the Walkmen or Britney Spears or whatever else spins up on my ‘Work it out’ playlist, not make chit chat. Yeah that’s right, I said stupid Peti, and I’m glad that she’s leaving. You hear me, Rebbecca? Heh. Boo-urns to the last person on my floor that I have regular conversations with leaving. Sigh. But like, good for her and stuff.

Something’s cooking, I’m at the griddle electric wok
Tonight for family night, I will be making Papas Garbanzo for Bart and Smoo and Lisa. And then we’re going to play Pictionary, cos that’s what families do. Assuming that I do actually have Pictionary. I’m not sure if the board is in the box. Or indeed if I even have the box anymore. And Twister might not work in these jeans. Or even these genes.

One week and two days until my birthday. Woo!

Weekend

Easter went by far too quickly. I was super tired on Saturday, although not nearly as hungover as I should have been. On Sunday I was in a really bad overthinking mood, so I went to the gym. This just in: exercise is the new sex. It’s how I can switch off my brain for short, sweaty bursts. Then I drove up to my parents’ house in Ngaio to see Pixie, who was super happy to see me, and shower in their tremendously endowed-with-water shower. I fixed my pyjamas so that you can no longer see my pajimba through the hole in the crotch and did two loads of washing and drying. I read the paper, ate their food and Brad came over to watch Veronica Mars, except that their DVD Recorder is all expensive and complicated, and I don’t think they’ve cracked it so we couldn’t watch Region 1s on it. So we watched House of Daggers instead which was leftover from China, and had hilarious hijinks trying to turn off the dubbing and turn on the English subtitles with the non-intuitive remote. We ended up laughing ourselves silly because the best I could manage was English for the Hearing Impaired, so every so often we’d get “Romantic Oriental plays” – “Music intensifies” subtitles. Thank heavens they told us how we needed to be feeling at that time! After he left I ordered pizza and watched Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! and decided that I need to join a girl gang. It was nice to get out of the house.

On Monday I did pretty much sweet fuck all again. Brad came over for some real Veronica Mars action, and oh it was so good, but he’s going to Philly for three months on Sunday so we’ll have to put it on hold. That means no more hot Logan Echolls action for me for a long time, and hopefully it’ll be long enough for me to forget that he’s actually a scientologist. Waah. And speaking of which, what’s your favourite Katie Holmes theory? I’m currently loving the “She gave birth to Chris Klein’s baby months ago, but continued to fake her pregnancy to Tom in order to hide the dates discrepency”. Anji and Karen came over for a roast dinner which we shared with the boys, and it was lovely, and then I gushed over John Safran some. And that was all my time off.

Weddings

The girl I sit with who does the scheduling is on leave, so another girl is sitting next to me this week. This particular girl just got engaged and is getting married in three months, so it’s on her mind quite a bit. Yesterday I went to Carly Harris with her at lunchtime and watched her try on a succession of gorgeous outfits and lusted for the clothes myself. Of course, as you may recall, I have already worn Carly Harris, and my, wasn’t that a good time? The dress was gorgeous though. Today’s wedding topic has been flowers. Maybe I should become a wedding planner, since I’ll never get to plan my own. Sob.

Woes

On Tuesday I wanted to go home and cry for most of the day because I got myself all worked up about the need to apologise to the workmate that I’d slapped on Thursday night vs. the desire to forget that it ever happened. Naturally I got more worked up about it when the engaged girl from the above paragraph told him that I was sorry, against my wishes, to which he rightly replied “so why doesn’t she tell me herself?” Awesome. But then after lunch I apologised and he was very nice about it and came up with a theory about why I’d slapped him that I accepted (even though I suspect it was only a 1/3 of the reason), and I was like “man, why the hell didn’t I just apologise first thing this morning instead of feeling like crap all day?”. I should really become a mole when I grow up, cos this country is totally running out of mountains. And of course really all I needed to do was crank up ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ for a fucking huge big smile on my face and the urge to pump my fist in the air and run a victory lap over the end credits of a movie. I love that song.

Doctors

Yesterday I went and bared my pajimba at the local doctor because I was overdue for a smear. It hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, and the walls of her office were adorned with pictures of another doctor at the King Kong premiere hugging Peter Jackson, and I really didn’t find that comforting. It was a little like when I first had blood tests before we moved to Japan, and the lady told me to count the catepillars in the picture so as not to look at the needle, but there were only two, and so I looked back at the needle. The speculum opened up with a crack crack crack and I felt the sensation of someone extending a telescope backwards or something. Because that was so much fun, she cranked open my ass as well. That hurt a lot less, which I was very surprised about. I apologise to people who’ve read this twice. She sent me off with prescriptions for Diflucan and Proctosedyl, which is exactly what it sounds like. The trouble in paradise will be all cleared up now.

Then I went back home and shut Sebastian up in a vacuum cleaner box and drove him to a new vet in Kilbernie. Now, you may recall that I had crushes on the vets in Balmoral and Khandallah, not because they were outstandingly hott, but rather that they were good to Sebastian, and anyone who likes and respects cats is okay by me. I could put in a “they handled my pussy really gently” line here, but I really really hate the word ‘pussy’. Give me cunt any day. As it happens, the Kilbernie vet DID, because she was a woman, with a Scottish accent and very short hair, and ha ha stereotypes are funny. I now have a crush on her as well, because Sebastian behaved himself beautifully, and let her lance his abcess without requiring sedation. He’s such a good kitty, he only mewed a tiny bit in the box, which made things really easy for me, cos I get very upset when he’s upset.

Feedback on 101

Here is what a selection of people have said about 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You:

“Really fresh as well as being eloquent… the more recent stuff especially. A huge evolution from Boys Boys Boys. Couldn’t put it down…. it’s amazing how your writing has evolved. So much more sophisticated somehow.”

“No doubt this isn’t the kind of feedback you were expecting, or possibly hoping for, but it’s seriously good. As a whole, it’s the best work I think I’ve ever read of yours. Gutwrenching & evocative, flows really beautifully, even the pictures & layout work together, the whole thing just blew me away.”

“My favourite bit, I reckon, was the Link piece. It takes the cliche of the public-transport zine article, douses it in petrol and cheap vodka, and sets it on fire (yeah!). I know about that feeling when just the ordinary task of walking down a street or catching a bus conjures up all sorts of memories, and this was good way of structuring it.”

Yeah! Of course, I have yet to receive ANYTHING back in trade for it, and I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. It makes me a sad panda.

Weekends

Tonight I get to play domestic goddess and supermarket shop and clean, as tomorrow night I am having Miss Lisa Fur and the Sunday Star Times-noted ‘blogger’ Jessie for dinner. I have been thinking for the past couple of weeks of all the elaborate and dazzling things that I could cook for them, and then scratching out many of the options that I came up with, and pondering how many courses and blah blah blah, but I think I’ve finally come up with a menu (main and dessert only, plus snacks) that is incredibly simple but still tasty. I always overthink and overcomplicate things, and I need to stop. If you’re free and in Wellington on Friday night, you should totally come over afterwards for drinks. That’d be lovely. Then on Saturday I get to see my lovely KateH. Hurrah!

And that’s it. Talk to me about Tomkat, Carly Harris and perfect dinners, if you will.

My weekend was a shocking pile of debauchee. I participated in: lying to my manager; drunkenness; sexual harassment; sexual arousal; groping; other people’s hands on Mary-Kate and foul language. And that was just Friday night. Okay, so the lie was totally bald-faced, and was merely an excuse to accompany my cow-orkers to their netball dinner. The drunkenness was nothing special, just a lot of white wine. The sexual harassment was constant, and returned (the boys were trying to look up my skirt, despite the fact that I was wearing trousers), the groping was hilarious and mutual, and the foul language was to be expected (*).

On Saturday I felt great on account of having stayed up til 5am so I was stone cold sober again. I cleaned the house, had a shower, treated Seb for fleas, kicked the boys out of the house and set off flea bombs in my room and in the lounge. Of course, it was after I had locked the front door and exited that I heard the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP of smoke detectors going off, so I had to rush back into the lounge, find a chair to clamber on and pull out the battery, all the while coughing in the flea gas. Still, at least it should have killed the larvae in my lungs, right?

I repaired at the Medditerean Warehouse with a margharita pizza (and one of these days I will learn to spell) and the paper, before continuing the Italian theme with shopping to prepare for ‘Rome at the Country Club’. Later, after attempts at napping and some of The OC, which quite frankly I find myself really not giving a shit about, the darling Lisa Fur came and picked me up, and we went to her house via being served at the mill by Conor Oberst, who has apparently fled to New Zealand where he can shed his cold cold tears on his cold cold bathroom tile before getting up to sell cheap cheap liquor to ladies and say “laterz!” to them. We went to Lisa’s house and she played me absolutely devestating videos by the Dears, which you shouldn’t watch unless you’re prepared to cry. Then Brad and KateB came over (do you like the way I invite my friends to other people’s houses? I’m really good at that) and we had some more drinks and played some more music and then took off for the Aro Valley for Joel’s house.

At Joel’s, we sat in the garden and feared for our lives when he threw more furniture on the fire. I saw people I knew from when I worked for VUWSA and was happy that they were the people I liked. I think we were either very early or very late, but it was nice to see Joel again, even though I goddamnmotherfuckingshitfuckcunt forgot to get my Straitjacket Fits CD back off him. He’s had it for like a year now. Grr. Then we left to wander the streets slowly, and I started a long text conversation with my friend because we happened to be passing his house. Upon reflection, I realise that I do tend to text random things at random times (*). Brad peeled off somewhere, and Kate fell asleep on Lisa’s couch, so I made Lisa play me vinyl and make me popcorn. She’s a good bitch like that.

On Sunday, I was in pukesville. Apparently drinking a lot of bubbly straight from the bottle is bad for you. Who knew? Nevertheless, I soldiered on with Rome preperations, chargrilling red peppers to go in homemade hummus, making trifle with banana cake and pineapple in lieu of tiramisu, and putting pizza dough on in the breadmaker. Eventually I had to call a timeout so I retired to the local cafe for coffee and grease and the paper before coming back to the mountain of dishes and assorted other hospitality tasks that awaited me. And then I awaited my guests. You know, Kate mentioned that she thinks there’s been a drop in recent years in the number of people who actually call (or even text) to say that they can’t make it to an event, and I think she’s right. That said, there was still a stream of “oh, I’m too hungover” or “oh, the formula one is on” texts that made me go grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But the people who did come were very cherished, and appreciative of the effort I’d gone to. Also, my flatmates now think I am the greatest flatmate in the world, because it turns out that while I’d heard that Caligula was quite porny, I figured it’d just be softcore boobs and fake sex. Oh no, my friends. It was hardcore jizz baths, penetration and cunnilinguis. With costumes. And sex with horses. Hurrah! I fear I have set a high standard for further Country Clubs, but oh well. I can rename it the Cuntry club and feature porn from all around the world.

Last night Karen and I went to Kazu for some food on sticks. I should point out that we went to the good new one, without the terrible service and the quivering pizza that are found at the Tory St branch. The one on Courtenay Place is right next to the once beloved Arashi, which has since removed both ginko nuts AND their banana & peanut butter spring rolls from their menu, so what’s the point? Then we wanted to see Sione’s Wedding but it was all sold out so we went to A History of Violence instead, which was good. And violent, strangely enough.

Today at work I sat in on a videoconference featuring Tze Ming Mok, who was almost frighteningly articulate and Tusiata Avia talking about writing from a non-European perspective to an audience of Wellington High and Wellington Girls’ girls via video links, and it was really interesting. It made me think lots of things which I have completely forgotten about now, because it’s the end of the day. The ‘compare and contrast’ between the two of them in pretty much every aspect of their work was really interesting, as was also thinking about identity in general. Oh, I know what I wanted to say, and I’ll have to paraphrase really badly here, but Tze Ming spoke about how there’s a sort of expectation in the circles that she moves in that she will write about certain things, and I suppose that’s something that I feel too – not, of course, as an essayist and a blogger, but as a person with an online journal. It’s something I spent a lot of time talking about in the olden days when I was at counselling, my need to keep people entertained. And then I’d say something deep and then I’d say something else to make Kalpana laugh. Awesome, nice consistency there. Hmmm, this all sounded better in my head over lunch. Nevermind, I’ll call it off here.

Despite the $50 bar tab hangover that I have (I got Daddy to come to quiz night last night so we came second), today is fucking rad. The sun is shining, ‘Float On’ bubbled through my earphones (apparently today my iPod battery has decided to work) and I ate fish’n chips in Waitangi Park with Noizy and Tom. I found out that I got the pay rise that I asked for (which is twice as much as I actually wanted), and I have exciting plans for the weekend (party in Aro on Saturday and the first meeting of The Country Club on Sunday at my house – we’re wearing togas, drinking wine and watching Caligula – you’re invited as long as you refrain from pointing out that ‘Rome’ isn’t actually a country), I have a new old mattress and I vacuumed under my bed. Life is pretty sweet right now. Did I mention that Bic Runga offered to buy me a drink? Cos she did. And that’s RAD.

Last weekend was very very choice. On Friday night I went with two cow-orkers and three ex cow-orkers to Tupelo, which freaked me out a little with its redness. I left at 8.30pm when Kate picked me up, and they apparently stayed out until 4am, so it is just as well that I left when I did, especially since Kate and I went home with quadruple chocolate ice cream and Hairspray. Now we both want to learn how to do the mashed potato and other assorted dances. Hairspray is total radsicles (and radsicles is the new awesome – it’s like popsicles but cooler. Hehe). In the morning I made Kate pancakes and used my good china, even going to the extreme lengths of putting lemon juice in the little sake pot. Suck on that, Martha Stewart. Later I put on my pretty new dress that very few people have complimented me on (what’s up with that?) and met up with Lisa Fur and Brad to go to Bic Runga at the Michael Fowler Centre.

*Insert wide-eyed awe and aural orgasms and much spine-tinglingness here.*

She was playing with the whole band who played on Birds and played the whole album, so I might just pop up my review of that from Pulp now and then times that by a thousand and add in the goodness that is Neils Finn’s stage banter, and the amazing hotness of her base player who had his bass at exactly the right height – two inches lower and he would have been a nu-metal wanker, and five inches higher and he would be a geek – for maximum sexiness, and the total adoreableness of Annika Moa and the wonderfulness of our seats right by the sound desk, and the incredible aura and Strong Pixieness of Bic and and and wow. Just wow. I was dazzled. Simon Sweetman, you can suck a fuck, because of course it was polished. They’re the top fucking musicians in the country – how could it be anything but? I do wish that she’d played a couple more tracks off Beautiful Collison like the title track or ‘Election Night’ but that’s okay. It was still wow. I was moved pretty much to tears.

And then of course Jessie was there, and so the lobby was a lovefest of everyone I know – Jimmy and Esther and Ash (who Lisa ran away from when I was like “she’s from the internet” and it made me laugh a lot) and and Amelia, Jess Clayton and um some other people maybe? So I invited everyone to Rome, and was responded to enthusiastically. Me and Lisa and Brad headed down to Good Luck via Lisa’s car to drop off posters, to await Jessie. A couple of drinks later, she texted to say she was at Motel with the band, so Lisa and I went there. The bar was insanely full, and I was intimidated by the beautiful people, and while yes, I have occasionally entertained thoughts of being pressed up again Shayne Carter, it was always in more intimate settings, so I paniced when I finally fought my way to the front to get a drink and didn’t want to ask for a menu but I knew that I wanted a drink that would last a long time, so I remembered Wellurban and ordered a dry martini. I forgot that I haven’t drunk martinis regularly for quite a while. It was definitely a strong drink. It was the right thing to order though, because after that I saw it was what Bic herself was drinking. She came and sat at our table and I squeed, and Jessie told her that I really liked Jessie’s haircut, and I said that yeah, if that whole singing thing didn’t work out for her, she could have a career as a hairdresser, and then encouraged by her laugh, I said that that concert was amazing, and that two years ago when she played the cathedral she’d asked the audience if we liked her tights, and I did like them. And then I realised that despite having said earlier that I didn’t, holy crapping fuck, I was talking to Bic Runga, and she was just so nice that I genuinely did like her tights. And now I will stop using italic tags and just reflect on how stupidly starstruck I felt, but how much I basked in her glow. And of course, it was very very rad to see Jessie again, and her hair is so cute it’s ridiculous. Everything was so wonderful, I was just walking on air.

On Sunday I played Domestic Goddess and shopped and cleaned and cooked dinner for my whole family, which they’re still telling me was great, even though it was just the exact same food that I served my dinner party that one time. It was a very pleasant night though. On Wednesday Anji, Karen and I had dinner at The Last Supper Club, and while the food was tasty (although I asked for my fillet steak to be medium rare and it came out blue), the waiter was smarmy (sample line: “there are three mints for you on that plate” – oh really? Is THAT what they are? Cunt.) and we really didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as last time. Then we went to V for Vendetta which was awesome and left me dreaming of nuclear warfare and being all alone when the bombs started falling and crying cos I’d left Sebastian outside.

Yesterday Mummy took me to lunch at Captiol to thank me for doing some design work for her. I had bruscetta and pasta with zuchini and ricotta and a French wine that was a combination of reisling and pinot gris and very tasty it was too. The waiter asked me if I was Joanna, and I said I was and he pointed out that he went to high school with me, and I laughed and said oh yeah, and pretended to not know what he’d been up to for the past couple of years. It makes me happy though that so many of the beautiful people from high school are still working in hospitality. I am so shallow. Last night we went to the quiz at the Realm, and I had too many beers and sucked at pool so I went home and then Del let herself in and her friend in knee high white boots trimmed with oversized laces and fur accosted me asking for hugs and snuggles. Maybe I shouldn’t have judged her so harshly based solely on her boots, because she said some slightly intelligent things about the Gilmore Girls that I was trying to watch, but she was very very drunk and loud. It was like Courtney Love coming to stay. I sent Bart a text going “come home NOW”. He was very apologetic.

Today there is the goodness that I have already described, and in an hour I’m going to go and have a drink with Sarah, and then maybe stare at all my workmates as they have their netball team dinner, but I should really go home and chargrill the kilo of red peppers that I bought for $1.95 at A-Mart instead. See you tomorrow night or at Rome.

Oh, and also, something I forgot to mention was how great it was to finish something creative that I’ve been working on for ages, and the end product of that is 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You, which you should get, if you want it.

Two different 2amish entries

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 don’t remember the background music in Go being like this, and I saw it a bunch of times. We even had the motherfucking Go banner in our dining room, and I know that cos I was watching the Garland video again tonight. Welcome to my 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.

Last Friday was, if you recall, the Prom. Of course, you should all have known that from coming along, but if you did, then you’re people that I don’t know who didn’t introduce yourselves. Wankers.

But nevermind that. Let’s talk about going to Spotlight at lunchtime with Kateb for netting to promify our dresses, and how I was going to get black but the call of the pink was just too strong:

Then let’s talk about how the skies opened around 4pm and I had holes in my shoes, and my car was parked a long way away and luckily I’d given Kate the spare key to it cos I got to it late, and then we had to schlep over to Newtown to decorate the hall and I was soaking wet and freezing cold and reaaaaaally not in a good mood. Plus decorating was tiring and hard, and we were running late and Brad’s friend who was helping us kept on talking and talking and oh oh oh, just the drama of it all. But when we were done, the place looked fucking rad:

Kate came over to my place to get ready, and since I knew I needed to snap out of my grump, I went to “spend a couple of minutes by myself” (read: rub one out), before showering and sorting out my hair. Of course, we ended up looking fabulous, as the above photo will prove. We spent a while having some drinks and trying to convince Bart and Del to come with us, before abandonning that idea and jumping in a taxi. The hall was pretty empty at first, so I was very worried for Brad’s sake, and I was trying to count and do maths and things, but eventually it filled up, helped along by the arrival of these two, Katy and her flatmate:

We sat and drank coruba & coke for a while, cos it was donated, and then Brad started playing ‘Get into the groove’ which is one of my favouritist songs to dance to evah, and since my friends weren’t feeling it, I went and jumped into a group of strangers including this girl Holly:

They were very very rad people and were very complimentary of my outfit, so I decided that I was ON FIRE that night, and that everybody would be my friend. When Katy and I were slowdancing the first slowdance, I spied two boys standing at the side so we grabbed them instead and they didn’t appear to mind at all. Later I fell in love with one of Brad’s tutors (although I suspect I didn’t realise who he was at the time) when he whirled me around the dancefloor and told me to stop leading. How powerful and manly! Oh how I was swooning.

At one stage, I went outside to find Kate, and found her talking to a 15 year old kid who’d wandered up to boast about how he was on his 20th beer. When he turned around and said to the Asian girl behind him “I don’t like Asians!” I decided that was enough, and it was time for him to move on, so I went and found Brad, who grabbed a very tall friend of his and politely asked the young lad if he had a ticket. He moved on then. Apparently he was also kicked in the balls by a friend of the Asian girl. Excellent.

It was just such a fucking fantastic time. I danced and danced and danced, and although I didn’t win Prom Queen, I certainly felt like it, and so I successfully vanquished all my demons from dances at ASIJ 12 years ago. Oh yes, that’s right, all my demons. I’m totally a demon-free zone now. Honest. Here’s some more photos from the prom – if you want to see them larger, go to my flickr account page, obviously. And the best part of all is that Brad made a whole grand.

When Kate and I got home, we found Mark and Bart sitting out on the front steps drinking, so we stayed and talked to them for a long time, and I did the most awesome fall-flat-on-my-face fall ever. Radical.

The next morning, strangely enough, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus, but I dutifully rolled out of bed, showered and headed off to pick up Anji and Karen, via a ten minute wait at Macdonald’s for them to serve me up a burger instead of the ick that is the Macdonald’s breakfast. Not that their burgers are much better, of course, but this was an emergency. I got Anji to drive to Waikanae, because I still felt drunk. We went to Swell Cafe for Mum’s birthday brunch, which you might remember from the news stories about its quarter mill bronze statue being stolen. Or you might not. I don’t care either way. Ha! It was really nice there, but oh boy I was feeling ill. Then we went to Oma’s house to sort out more stuff and pick up more furniture and I puked some more and sat on an outdoor step and cried. I was very very happy to get home and unload the buffet and bookshelves.

After a nap, I went to the supermarket and made awesome sandwiches of streaky bacon, camenbert, hummus and rocket. Hurray! And I tried gingerly to drink some beer, but then switched to red wine. Around 11pm, I headed off to Nial’s house for Blair’s goodbye party. Luckily it was a very mellow night, just lots of sitting around in the very cute garden. I didn’t know people at first, but I was overly tired so I was in very giggly very saying lots of stupid things mode, so it was alright. The boy who I’d originally thought was gay talked loudly at me about how gay he was, and about how he used to make his ex girlfriend wear a Hayden Christensen mask when he flipped her over, and I felt ever so slightly embarrassed but mostly I just laughed at the things I was thinking in my head (*).I did tell the hot Canadian right as he was leaving that I fancied him rotton, and he laughed at me. Well, it wasn’t quite a “ha HA, like you could ever have a chance” kind of laugh, or even a laugh of pity, it was just a laugh and a “I’m sure you’ll get your pash this year”. And yes, I told him right when he was leaving, because I am laaaaaaaaaame like that, but at least I told him. So that’s all very well and good, and I don’t feel bad about it. And it’s good that he’s gone, because while he was a very easy crush to have, I just have far too much going on in my head right now(*). Oh, and of course he’s also a stupid maple syrup-eating surrender monkey.

Having been up until 5.30 texting, Sunday was a day for lying on the couch groaning and watching season two of the OC. I think much of the week was like that, actually. Hmm. On Wednesday I saw Capote, which wasn’t the feel-good hit of the summer. Then I decided I needed to stop feeling angsty about the number of people in my house (it’s strange getting used to having two boys and one girlfriend who is still trying to find a flat around, after living with only Anji for six months, but there’s no need for me to have a bug up my ass just because oh the pain, they’re sitting on my couches watching tv when I want to lie down and watch the Gilmore Girls in quiet), so I cooked a flat dinner for them and Brad. I was going to make a pear cake too, cos our tree is loaded down with pears right now, but when I got home, Del was already making one. Great minds and all that.

On Friday after work my workmate Sarah and I escaped down to Monsoon Poon for some very good conversation and some wine. She’s getting married in less than a month, and so she keeps asking me questions about things like invitations or social graces, or accomodation and stuff, which is fine, cos I’m happy to help, but it’s making me plan my own wedding something crazy, and hello, I’m not gettign married for another five years (that’s assuming Brad’s still single then). We were joined by the boys a while later, and then by Rene who is an ex collegue. Eventually KateB showed up to and by that stage I’d consumed quite a lot of wine. Sarah left and we had a platter of food which probably wasn’t nearly enough in proportion to the amount of wine we were drinking, and we went to Ponderosa where I watched Kate pee and she did the same to me. Not like, cos we were doing it in public or anything, just that we assumed that there would be stalls but it was one big room and so we decided to have a significant bonding experience instead. I was thinking that the bathroom looked mighty familiar and then I realised yesterday that it’s tiled like the one in Veronica Mars in which she does all her business. Ha HA ‘business’, do you like what I did there? (Yes, wow, that is a poo you should be proud of).

Somehow we managed to convince Dylan to come to a uni party with us (I did mention that the last time I went to a party at Jess’s there were both nipples shown AND a person in a panda costume), and we headed up to Kelburn via the supermarket for more wine. We probably didn’t need the wine. I had a good time at the party talking to Arthur and Brad who are at drama school together, and the fabulous Jess, and also Robbie, who as it turns out isn’t Lemon Cohen at all, and most awesome of all was that there was no one else from Salient there. Then Kate was a little worse for wear, so we decided it would probably be a good idea to get her home(*). When I saw Jess yesterday in Aro, she laughed at me for being like “omg, leave my friend alone! She’s been my best friend since we were 5, don’t hurt her!” cos people had placed flowers on her head. They laugh because after delivering that speech, I delivered Kate an all-mighty slap. Sorry babe.

Yesterday morning was consequently not much fun either, but I rallied by around 4pm when Anji and I went up to Mum and Neil’s for a BBQ. Boy it was hot, so very hot. I like BBQs. Then I went and picked up Karen and we headed over to Aro Park for the Bitchcraft carnival. I bought pretty earrings and we went and got fish’n chips and settled down on the grass to watch the Dukes of Leisure play. They looked like this:

I’m aware that you probably can’t see that much, but I’m hoping that it’s just that I have a crap monitor. If you can’t make it out, that’s a tree with a string of dead dolls hanging behind them. Anyways, the Dukes were very cool. They’re kind of sonic soundscapey like HDU or Jakob, and since I was lying on my back looking up at the stars, it was perfect. The Bitchcraft fair looked awesome when all the stalls turned on their little lamps. I felt like I was in an alternative Stars Hollow, and that is a rad thing to feel.Then I went home to dance the panda dance for Brad. I contemplated going to the Bitchcraft afterparty, but it was on the other side of town and my hands were still tingly with hangover. One of these days, I’m going to cut down on the amount I drink. For serious.