Hubris.co.nz

Apparently Russell doesn’t read Next. If he did, he’d know (because somehow apparently it’s easy to miss on Hubris, because it’s only like OH I DON’T KNOW, THE TITLE OF EVERY SINGLE FUCKING PAGE) that “Joanna McLeod doesn’t like the word ‘blog’”. In fact, that’s the first sentence of the piece, entitled ‘Blogging On’, on page 34 in the March issue. And then you can stare at the picture of me and reminisce about the time that the photographers came to my house instead of thinking about how my cheeks swallow my eyes when I smile. Must remember not to smile so hard. Which is easy to remember today since it’s Tuesday, and Tuesdays mean counselling day. But back to the article, I’m pretty sure that I told Danielle that I was one of the first people in New Zealand to write an online journal, not in the whole wide world ever, but Lani has the broadband cord right now, so I can’t check in my emails. But once I can, maybe I’ll post everything I said, so that I can pretend that it’s a whole article just about me, without any references to LonelyGirl15.

I can’t remember what else I wanted to write about. Things I talked about today included how worked up I got when we talked about the thing that I don’t like to talk about, and later when we talked about something else she was like “your hands seem to have calmed down now” and we laughed, which was important because of course I am still trying to keep her entertained, even if she doesn’t actually exist outside of that room, as she said. We talked about things that do or don’t define me, and my homework is to try and come up with a definition of myself(*). I told Lani that when I got home today and talked to her for way too long despite the soreness of my jaw (more about that later) and was like “Oh man, if only I could stand the word, because then I could be all “Joanna McLeod, Blogger”. Lani said she thought I was creative and inspiring because of the cake I made my mother and the story I wrote and illustrated to explain her present, and apaprently also because of the curry I made for Flat Dinner last night. Well, the curry’s not hugely creative, although it had cabbage in it for the first time ever, but the bathroom sure is clean and sparkling, as is the kitchen, and I bought a new shower curtain with gardenias on it. It’s clear, which is rad cos it lets in more light. And isn’t mouldy (and yes, I am still celebrating small achievements). When I showed it to Smoo he was like “well, I kind of wish you’d got one with dragons on it.” Smoo makes me laugh a lot. When I asked him what the proper ettiquite was when gentlemen callers have left their panties (okay, perhaps just underwear, but panties is so much more of a fun word, and wouldn’t it be amusing to think that I did someone who was wearing women’s underwear who wasn’t a woman? Yes) behind and you don’t think you will be seeing them again, he suggested starting a trophy wall. I could hang them between the pictures of STDs hanging on the lounge wall. Heh. What do YOU think the correct thing to do would be?

Anyways, today I felt bleh and also nauseous and then full of mysterious stomach pain, and then the buses didn’t happen, but finally I made it out to O’Bay, and had a swim with Karen out to the raft. Afterwards I sat dripping water on the decking and debated about whether to go home to my house like I really really wanted to do, or to go back to Karen’s to try on the dress she’s altering for me so that I have something to wear on Friday to the Tiki Tiki Party. The sewing won out in the end, via the supermarket so that we could have steak sandwiches with spinach pesto. I cooked the porterhouses rare, so they were succulent but soooooo chewy, and Karen made a mountain of super crunchy coleslaw, and so I chewed and chewed and chewed. Then when she was sewing, she told me to sing to her, trying to distract me from Q, and when I asked what, she said “Ten Green Bottles”. So I did. And she didbn’t ask me to stop, so I kept on going, for about 20 minutes. People should know not to have that kind of stand-off with me, because oh yes, I will be calling your bluff on that. So now both my jaw and my throat hurt. At least the muscle in the inside of my thigh has stopped aching, because man my sisters laughed at me as I limped around on Saturday. I told my parents it was a swimming injury, but it might actually have been a gym thing. Perhaps.

Fuck, I am exhausted. I had big ideas about what I wanted to write about, but mostly now I just want the cord so I can get online, post this and then lie down and vege. It’s 11pm already. Where did the time go?

Upcoming events: Craftwerk on Thursday, Tiki Tiki on Friday, Harvestbird on Saturday, then Fia’s birthday next Friday and Country Club: Australia on Saturday 24, not to mention Shirley and KateH both going to be in town next weekend. And then it’s Peti’s the week after and Bic Runga, and then two weeks after that we’re going to Martinborough and then it’s practically my birthday and Dead Rockstars, and then I must get out of town for New Year’s Eve…

So I know that I have yet to write about my Big Day Out weekend, but I’m hoping I will do that tomorrow because quite frankly, I am too damn tired to do it right now, because it will be a lot of effort, and will require flickr links, and pillaging Lisa’s photos and all that sort of complicated stuff which I don’t have the brain capacity to do right now, but suffice to say that a good time was had by me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xojo

Yesterday was pretty much the first summer day that I’ve had all summer holidays, and so of course it was also the day that felt like I didn’t need to go back on pills. Nevertheless I took my half, as I’m easing onto them for the first week and headed off to Newtown for blood tests, and was somewhat surprised that the woman in the clinic didn’t wear gloves while she was doing it. Granted, it does seem all very clean and stuff, and maybe she didn’t want to disturb her manicure, and she’d obviously done it before because I hardly felt the needle go in at all, but still, shouldn’t she have worn gloves? Anyone?

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

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

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

Mostly I like to bitch and moan about my own life, and only use links to other things on my site or my friends, to show you how cool/deep/SHRN/So No Longer Hott Right Now/whatever I am, because that’s what I think the interweb needs – fewer links. But today I’m going to spend a paragraph talking about Critic’s drug rape story. And no, I’m not going to take this opportunity to talk about how Salient uses comic sans non ironically, so you can see that this is like, totally serious. The scandalous article in question is actually really quite good. Sure, it’s vaguely stomach churning, but come on – I’ve read at least three books by Brett Easton Ellis that are much much much worse. Not to mention Blindness or an assortment of other Nobel Prize for Literature winners. When I was at Debate, for our first issue we published a guide to safety, which the International Student Coordinator type person loved, but we got no other feedback on. Cosmo seems to run a drug rape story every other month, as do squillions of other magazines, but they really are all the same, and with anything that’s all samey, you stop paying attention. The Critic piece is different. I think it was valid, and justified. Just because within student media rape is sometimes described as “surprise sex” (thanks to letter writers) doesn’t mean that it’s not understood to be a real issue. And Holly was certainly very very articulate in defending the article, as the media links from Critic’s weblog will show you, if you care. Thank god it wasn’t someone from Craccum trying to justify themselves (and not just because this way there were pictures of Shiny Shiny all over the news from the ad on the page). I think we all (by which I mean me) remember Honest Colin’s mumbleness.

Of course, all that said, as the woman from Rape Crisis pointed out, drug rape may be all the hot topic right now, but the big issue generally is still alcohol.

On a completely new subject, tonight is Go Out Drinking Night. Hurrah! Okay, that was a bad topic juxtaposition, but you know that it was intentional. It’s 24 Hour Party People tonight, hurrah. Before that there are leaving drinks at work for one of the many computer people who all have the same name. I wonder what his replacement will be like. Hopefully oggleworthy, although of course, after a conversation with Anne I have given up on all boys ever. In fact, I was tempted to call our quiz team last night “Death to the Y Chromosone” but then I couldn’t remember which were boys and which were girls. I think I remember Xander saying “your double Xs don’t look too bad in that dress either” to Willow (when of course they did, because Anya’s bridesmaid dresses were pretty hidi), but I’d like to think that everything I learnt about science didn’t actually come from a Buffy episode, so we went with “The McLeod” instead. Anji was going for “The McLeod’s Daughters” but I was like NO NO NO NO NO. We got 7/10 in Sports. Huh? What the hell? That was our average score for every round. We NEVER get that high in Sport. Very very strange. Nevermind.

Oh yes, but tonight. I need a new outfit. I always wear the same thing to Indigo it seems. Could a bar be bored of my boobs? Surely not. But there must be a new way to showcase them. Surely? Surely? Yeah. There, I mentioned boobs. That’ll be a good steady stream of shots for you all. Err, that’s shots as in drinking shots. Not photos. Thanks to Heather for being the only one to come up with any things for my drinking game, by the way. I hate the rest of you and I’ve flicked you all back to level one. Oh no wait, I haven’t cos I am lazy.

Work has become more amusing with the advent of having colleague (singular, and still spelt wrong, probably) on my MSN list. I am still loving being over with the young’n hips. I’m also doing more work that I’ve done before too. I have create a new style guide for us, compiling three together. Comic sans for Africa, I say! Oh no wait, no I don’t. Speaking of MSN, can I get a great big BOO HISS for Martha for putting a photo of the winner of Rockstar: INXS on her site without a cut, or hiding it or anything? AAAAAAAArgh. Stupid Internet.

Social plans for the week: 24 Hour Party People tonight, Home & Away omnibus on Sunday for Alf’s 60th, perhaps Jess’s picnic in the park. Coming up: Brad in some child’s play (I have been promised people in animal costumes), and also Brad in drag for his Caberet show. Hurrah! Also: I really must get my act together and plan my birthday party for some time.

A couple of weeks ago my bus went past this guy walking along the street, and I thought ‘hey, he looks vaguely familiar’, and then I realised who it was, and it was someone that I slept with two years ago. As a matter of fact, he’s the guy that I slept with who I always forget about whenever I try to match up names with the number of people I’ve had sex sex with (sex sex as in penis-vagina. Sometimes I consider it to be sex if he goes down on me. But not always). This would be like another total “so what?” if he was just a one night stander, but he wasn’t. I wonder how my brain manages to shut off memories of him so often when it used to be that I talked to him every single day at great length and thought that without him as my best friend I wouldn’t survive (*), and we had a whole wealth of injokes and phrases and to this day I can’t remember if Paul Schaffer was my arch nemisis or his. I conclude that my brain is dumb.

My brain is dumb because when I was stuck in very slowly crawling traffic through the Terrace tunnel today and I was in a car piled to the gills with boxes and thinking about how at some stage I’m going to have to disassemble my bed (and while I might think “ooh, Daddy can do that for me!” last time when he assembled it, it took an hour and was SO MUCH HARDER for me to do bits of rather than doing the whole thing by myself in half an hour), and there was a honda civic in front of me and it made me think of a boy who once told me that his whole bed could be taken apart and folded up to fit into the back of his honda civic, and then I thought about how icky that boy was, and how stupid I was for sleeping with him, and then I thought about why I did that – because I’d just sold my ex boyfriend’s bed and used the money to pay for a party with a LOT of booze, and then I remembered all of that, which was about five years ago exactly and how fucking horrible it all was, and even though I’m still like woah I’m all good now, but then there was already a ten year anniversary this year that threw me for six (is that a real expression?) and that was pretty fucking crappy and aaaaaaaargh oh the pain the pain the pain that is my brain that just doesn’t shut the fuck up.

So in real world news, last night Brad came over for dinner and a pile of junk food, and The OC, Team America (fuck YEAH) and Bad Santa. I am in love with Therman Merman, I want to bake him in a pie. At my request Brad drank more beers than he could drive on and camped out in the guestroom. Today we got up in time to watch an hour of Home and Away before I had to take off to go to Oma’s. I love that my new place is five minutes walk away from him. Well, sort of – there’s a couple of hills in between, so it’s varied, I suppose. I went to Oma’s to meet up with Anji and Karen, and ate the fondue, and then loaded up the car and van before eating Crepes Suzette. Mmmmm heartattacky. Then it started to pour. I hate driving in the rain. I also hate shifting furniture and stuff in the rain. How do I have so much stuff? I wish I was like Ani di Franco says that she is. I of course also wish that I had some love letters to treasure, of course. At least now I will have my box of memory treasures back now (which, if you’re oldskool you would have seen in that mega big flash file I used to have which has now vacated my computer to somewhere else). Not that I need trinkets to remind me of things when my mind so obviously works overtime. Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Have I mentioned to you that you need to be marking off June 18th in your diaries for my birthday / flatwarming party? Please to do so. I’d like everyone to come along, even if I don’t know you. That way it can be all awkward and stilted and I can feel bad when my guests don’t mingle! Heh.

EDIT: so there I am feeling sorry for myself when I get a text from Kateb saying “This time next week we’ll be drinking cocktails on the beach”. WAHOO!

You know what? Fuck you. I fucking survived. Ten years later, here I am, and I know how to deal with you too. You’re gone. I can live my life and you’re not a part of it. I haven’t had a flashback in nearly two years.

Fuck. This entry was supposed to be about triumph, and how I am better than you, and how I have beaten you, and yet when I go to put those words down I start freaking out – and right now it’s controlled, and it’s also to do with brain chemicals and things like that, but I wonder how much of my brain chemistry I can trace back to you. You or what you’ve come to stand for, I don’t know. Are you the reason that I tried for so long to seperate my mind and body? Or was that self fufilling prophecy? Did I act that way because of you, or because I thought that was the way that I was supposed to act?

Last night I carved the word “Brave” into my arm with a serrated wine knife. It didn’t bleed, and it’ll be gone in a couple of days, so I was thinking about getting it tattooed instead. Sometimes I think I need something to encourage me, to remind me that it’s okay, that I can still breathe, that I can still cope, that I am still alive. But I think I’ll donate that money to Rape Crisis instead.

Do you know one of the things that makes me the most angry? I bet you don’t even remember me. I was fourteen when you had me pushed up against that wall. You thought I was sixteen? You were thirty two, if I remember correctly. You fucking asshole.

You owe me an apology. You owe my friends apologies, for when I sat in their kitchens and lounges and motel rooms and screamed and screamed and screamed and they had no idea what the hell was wrong with me.

I still don’t know what’s wrong with me either – if you were the cause, or just the symbol, or if I don’t remember everything or if I’ve made it all up in my mind. I talked to my therapist about it – she wanted to know why I thought it might make my life easier to know one way or another. She also suggested that if I’m not remembering it, then there’s a reason, and that maybe I should just let it be. I wonder what she really thought – if she agreed with my self diagnosis that I’m just a fucking drama queen. When I’d made up my mind that I should talk to her about it – which was fucking hard given that I’d only ever told Dylan and Amy and I don’t even remember telling Amy, and I hadn’t meant to, and then there was a website, but you don’t talk about things on websites, you just write, which is what I’m doing here, and I’m not talking.

And now the big question is what to drink tonight, what should I pour on the ground for my homie, who in this case is me? Do I toast myself with cheap champagne, do I make cocktails of the ickly sweet because that’ll take me away faster, or should i shoot b52s like I used to? How does one celebrate or commiserate exactly? Should I loop ‘Sweet Child’o Mine’ over and over? Reflect on every moment lost? Go out and try to pound it away? Maybe it’s somewhere in the middle of all this.

Wednesday 24; February, 1999

“Woman, you’ve got too many brambles, hiding under these bushes” – ‘Cooling’ – Tori Amos

I felt so nauseous on the bus on the way into town all morning today, not in a hungover way (cos god knows I was awake long enough to sober up). I was glad that Clayton had the varsity orientation magazine which he leant to me so that I didn’t have to make conversation, because I was so not in the mood to talk.

I was late for my TV Production tutorial cos I spent a while hovering in the bathroom wanting to be back in bed for the rest of my life, so I had to sit at the front of a class that was half full of strangers. It was okay though, cos Shirley came in late too a minute later, so she sat up the front with me. We were watching some Nazi Propaganda film and the site of a screen thick with their banners just made me feel ill all over again. It’s funny because the swastika was like originally a Buddhist symbol of life or something like that, but now it’s such a symbol of hate.

Once that class was over, Shirley and I went down to the Midcity, but the movie we wanted to see wasn’t on there, so we decided to go find a paper to see when and where it was. We both also had to make Bank Missions, which I don’t really wanna write about now. Suffice to say, our rent is a week overdue, because of problems clearing money and bank shit. I was shaking once I came out of the phonebooth and telebanking, teetering on the edge of a total nervous breakdown on the main intersection on Queen Street. I’ve started this fun new thing where instead of crying properly, I just start breathing shorter and shorter until I get all lightheaded and just about faint. It’s especially funky when I’m drunk and spinning anyways. Not. So yeah, Shirley saw me and she was like “it’s okay, we’ll check back later – we’ll go take the link now and go to Newmarket”. So we did that, after finding out ‘Elizabeth’ was on at 10.50am – perfect time.

I got completly and utterly nauseous again in the opening scenes of the movie, cos the camera was at a reaaaaaally high angle, and swirled around and stuff – plus it’s never very nice watching people being burned alive. But after that, I got really settled into the movie. It was amazing. Cate Blanchet is one of the most stunning looking women I’ve seen in a long time, and she was astonishingly good in her role. Joseph Fiennes was sex on two legs – or he would have been if it wasn’t for the puffy shorts. Even Eric Cantona was in the movie – playing a French Ambassdor. As a humouress little side note, I was playing World Cup ’98 on Si’s puter the other day, being Holland (of course). I absolutely sucked at it, and Brazil so would have kept scoring on me except for the fact that the computer ran my goal keeper and kept saving my ass. That is until I somehow managed to hit enough keys so that I took over him, and accidentally made him turn around and throw the ball into my own goal. I rebooted the computer before I could hear the crowd jeer.

Okay, back to the movie. I was so inspired by her strength and stuff – as you can probably tell by the quote from the title of this page “I am not your Elizabeth. I am no man’s Elizabeth”. It was so sad and so lonely for huge big lots of it. I almost cried when she cut off her hair, and had to put up my hands to make sure mine was still there. I know that the movie didn’t make any mention of all the nasty shit she did, like burning Catholics and stuff, and apparently there was no way she could ever have had an affair but hey……….. it was dramatic license.

Shirley and I were going to take a tiki tour on the link bus back to town, only it went pretty much the way I thought it would go, instead of the way SHE thought it would go, which was through Ponsonby. So yeah, we sat at the back and giggled a bit. Getting off the bus, I nearly fell over in grand tremendous style and only saved myself by sliding around the pole like some kind of cheap tacky dancer only without the silicone and wearing a lot more and laughing louder.

Then we had to go to a Radio Production tutorial. Dee was really sad cos she got cut off from most of us Dsters when the tut got split in half, but that’s her own fault for not sitting by me (Karma). Our tutor assigned us all a talkback program to listen to – I got Kerre Woodham, 8pm-12am on Newstalk ZB, 89.4FM. I was given that one cos I told the tutor I didn’t sleep at night – she looked at me like I was a vampire or something. I listened to it for a while tonight while playing Cool Boarders 2 (god Si needs some new psx games – I go to sleep at night with snowy trails flashing before my eyes). It sucked. Talkback sucks. And I have to write a five thousand word essay on it.

What else? Hmmmmm. I met up with Simon after class, and rang telebanking but the money hadn’t cleared yet (STILL) so I couldn’t do that – fuck I PR’d the landlord when he rang last night. So we took the bus home, and I caught Si up to date on all my latest crisises. Poor wee lad. At home, both Clayton and Leyton were around, but luckily weren’t playing The Rolling Stones again like they were yesterday when I wanted to play my new Placebo album. But Simon had bought some new hideous NZ hardcore album or something, which was annoying me, as was the other boys talking about supermarket shopping and dinner plans and stuff, so I snuck off to bed, giving Si the power of attorney to make any descisions for me. I was asleep by halfway through the third track. Brian Molko’s heartbreaking voice just has such a lulling effect – sometimes.

Si made us instant pasta for dinner in the evening, which we ate in front of Shortland Street (did I mention how thrilled I am that Mike’s back?) and Friends. Doing the dishes, he made the mistake of sassing me – I had to mop the floor up after throwing so much foam at him. I’ve already mentioned the psx/talkback thing, so that’s about it.

I guess I should maybe say something about yesterday’s entry, but I don’t know what. And I don’t expect others to know what to say either – it’s okay, I understand. And thanks for the support – it means the world. Oh yeah, Isobel’s page is here. And my own little tribute to Amy is here. You’ll find similar traces and puzzle pieces scattered throughout and one day youll wonder how it came to be that you just didn’t know.

So I’m sitting in my Principles of Writing exam, and one of the topics for Narrative Writing is “Feeling Used”. Hmmmmmm…. have I ever had that feeling? No, surely not.

So yeah, obviously I wrote on that subject, but the piece completely and utterly sucked. No structure, no point, no flair. AND it turned into a piece of self analytical crap too, so I decided to do a new piece. What’s more appropriate as a scholarly subject- one night stands or acid trips? Anyways, since the “Feeling Used” bit turned into such a journal entry, I figured I’d include it here. Enjoy.

“You cannot push me against a wall and force me when my friend won’t put out
You cannot use me to build up your own self esteem then work to destroy mine
And You cannot have me if you only want me when you’re drunk”

That’s what my online journal from the 28th of October says anyway. The ‘You’ refers to three different guys, three different stages of life and three different kinds of pain, but there’s still the common thread. I was used. That’s kind of hard to accept because I tend to pride myself on how strong I am. I don’t know if the users would admit to the using. I never asked them, and only one of them is still in my life. I know one guy though, who did admit to just using me, and it’s his honesty and my realisation that I was doing exactly the same thing that meant I didn’t care…..

It was a cloudy night, at a typical teenage party. She’d drunk too much, cried too much and had crawled outside to be alone, away from the people who asked probing questions and laughed at her. She shrank down into the garden steps that she was sitting on when she heard him approaching, but relaxed when she realised he was a stranger. He sat next to her, offered a bag of potato chips, and told her she sounded like a dying cat.

Fabulous pick-up line, she thought, laughing.

They talked, chitchat, casual trivia, nothing important was said. His arm snaked around
her shoulders. She was fully aware of what was going on. The first time she’d got with a
guy, it had kind of sneaked up on her; sweet, young and innocent, she hadn’t realised he
was hitting on her until they were kissing. This time wasn’t like that, though. She was in
full control. How had she become so jaded and bitter? She was only seventeen, for
god’s sakes. She couldn’t be bothered talking to this guy anymore. If she wasn’t going
to be seeing him again, why take the time to learn his name and interests? Leaning over,
she stopped him mid sentence with a kiss.

The lawn was damp from the dew, raising a pleasent, earthy smell. Out of the corner of
her eye she could see the brightly lit house, and could hear the party continuing on
without her. All she could feel was his body touching hers, pushing her down into the
ground. There was nothing magical about him. He wasn’t even a very good kisser. But
he’d cheered her up, and it was a way to pass the time. Now what she wanted was
honesty, a confirmation that it meant nothing. She’d waited nearly a year for the first
guy to call her like he said he would, completly smitten with his memory. Whoever this
guy on the lawn was, she wasn’t going to go through that again.

Rolling over, she sat up imposingly, trapping him down. “You only came outside
because you knew I was drunk, didn’t you?” she demanded of him. “You knew I was
vunerable and you’re just using me”. He just laughed, so she repeated herself over and
over again until he nodded, guilty. Then it was her turn to laugh. “I don’t care,” she
said. And she didn’t. She admired him a lot for being honest – even if he was under
pressure.

When he left, he didn’t take her number. He didn’t even say goodbye. She smiled and
buttoned up her shirt. It was so liberating – he’d used her, but she’d used him right back.

I can still remember that feeling of liberation, the seperation of mind and body. I didn’t
mind the way he treated me, not because I don’t respect myself, but because that was the
way I treated him. Neither of us pretended it was anything more than a way to spend a
drunken hour. Is that the key then, the way to avoid feeling used? I’m not sure I want to
live my life that way, using others just to keep myself afloat. At the same time though, I
am sick of being used. I haven’t given in to the last guy in my journal entry, because I like
him too much to ruin it when we’re drunk. And I guess what it comes down to is that I
like myself too much as well. I’ve learnt a lot from all the guys mentioned, but enough’s
enough. I’m going to control the rest of my life and I won’t be used again.