Hubris.co.nz

I’m in Auckland right now, staying at Heather’s house, but at this very moment she’s at her boyfriend’s, and her flatmate (a derby ref) is at his girlfriend’s, so I have the place to myself, and I can pretend that I live in Auckland.

So let’s pretend that this place is mine, and I live in Auckland again. How would my life be different? At the last time I knew how much rent Heather was paying, her two bedroom is about the same as my two bedroom. It was around $9 for us in a taxi van to get home tonight from Queen Street, comparable to $8 from town to my house – except I live a 15 minute walk from town uphill, this would be at least half an hour. Taxis in Auckland are cheaper.

Auckland had changed a lot in the seven years since I left it. Seven years! I only lived here for six, but man, I feel like I can remember every second of those years, whereas nowadays I can’t even remember the name of the guy who ate me out in the men’s room of Mighty Mighty last Friday (True story. I know he was a web guy though, because my friend who always sleeps with a certain profession and I made a pact that we’d both stop doing the kind of guys we each normally did, and then that happened, and I said to her “did you sleep with another *?” and yes, she had. Oh god, the rut of it all!). I’m aware that I am deviating slightly from the narrative structure here, but I’m also aware that I haven’t updated since March, so I thought you would want to know that I have been mostly  a lesbian since then, with the exception of a guy who was also there when I slept with a very nice young lady, and a fellow of a sexual orientation that apparently doesn’t normally align with mine, and also said oral sex in the Mighty bathroom, which was inappropriate, and I apologise to any gentlemen who were inconvenienced in their urination that night.

But seriously. I pass through light industrial areas on the bus today, and there are Indian restaurants there, and I’m like “woah, that’s the chain that opened up in Ellerslie while we were living there, and I’d drive there in my Honda, and then they started doing delivering, and him and her got that while I was throwing up non stop because they were in my house destroying me, and had the gall to offer me their leftovers”. Oh yeah, there was clearly a reason why I needed to leave Auckland.

Still, today was lovely, waking up in Heather’s bed (oooh laa laa, except she was in her flatmate’s bed, ohh laa laa extra, except he was (I imagine) in his girlfriend’s bed) and the sun was shining, and I was tangled up in the bed sheet, because I so did not need a duvet last night. And then there was brunch, getting incredibly angry that 2/3 of the front page of the Herald was taken up by an article about how some rich fucker bought a car worth $2.8million. In NZ. Yes, super douche move, but did it deserve anything more than a one inch snark in Metro? I don’t think so. But there was  a bus trip into town, then lunch with Hamy Amy, and then a mall crawl (nice to see that fatties are ghettoised at the back of every store that deigns to carry them in every city in NZ), then oh my god AMAZING Community, then a lovely dinner at Canton with beloved Auckland friends, and I got to hold Willow a couple of time and she charmed everyone, and I’m still a bit like “but what the fuck? Annette is like, 15 and gothy and angsty and how the fuck does she have a 14 month old baby?” (Yes, I know that SOME 15 year olds could do that quite easily. But clearly you weren’t down with the online journallers in 1998).

Tomorrow I’m going out to West Auckland to hang with Selina, then having drinks with a lot of bearded men who I know off the internet. If you are in Auckland, we should hang out before I go home on Monday night. If you’re thinking of breaking into my house in Welly while I’m gone, well my iPhone and my laptop are both up here, and oh yeah, Kelly’s there, looking after Sebby and also comedy.

And I think that returns me to what I wanted to talk about a little, how terrifying it was to go to The Classic where I used to go like, weekly when Brad did stand-up, and how as I’ve said before in 101 Stories I want to tell you I used to double date with Thomas and his friend who had a spooky-eyed girlfriend who was no good at chit chat. The Classic no longer has $6 flavoured vodka shots ($4 at 10pm!) or indeed flavoured vodkas at all, but apart from that, pretty much the same. Ben Hurley was even making jokes about “what if prostitution was legalised?” like it was 2002 or something.

I’m lacking a proper segue, so instead I’ve been making Heather drive me places, but also this week, I heard that there was a solution to an issue that’s been ongoing for me. And you’d think that would make me happy, but because I’m ridiculous, I’m all “but I didn’t solve this, I didn’t find a solution in myself, I have yet to overcome it totally, it’s just being removed”. This is coded language, but I know what I’m talking about. Oh also, if I did tell you about this, asking what I was wearing/drinking and then changing the subject? Not really solidifying your place on my Xmas card list.

Deleted. Grow up Joanna. Stop trying to be Emily Post whilst drunk.

I feel like I’m lecturing now, so I will shut up, but I will try to update something soon. Woo!

Saturday, July 20th 2002

In which Joanna tries to right all the wrongs in the world

So, this afternoon, Bops and I went to Newmarket. We were looking for a Sony/Aiwa/Pioneer microsystem under $400 with a cd player, cassette and RCA ports looking good for me, and a computer under $2000 for her. I found a Phillips one which the guy in Bond&Bond woulda dropped to $420 for me, so I figured the guy in Noel Lemming since they’re owned by the same company woulda done for me on an Aiwa woulda done for me for the same price, but it was kinda mintgreen tinged, so I’m not sure if I liked it. But we did find Bops a computer for $1700, and managed to talk the shop guy into being able to put less than a 20% deposit on it. I scrapped up $170 outta my account and she had $60 cash. We felt like we was scrounging for coins under the sofa. T has agreed to set us up a network, so I’mma do my best to not piss him off til he’s done that. Hi T, don’t get shirty with me for writign this. Lately I have been having mad flashbacks about all sorts of things, and I have this image of you in my head of you jumping on my bed and hitting your head on my dusty chandelier. That’s all.

Oh, okay, so where were we? Okay, KateH on the phone at 7.40pm, saying let’s meet soemwhere BYO at 8pm, and so we go through the yellow pages togehter and agree to meet at Sri Panang on K’Road so I don’t have to walk down the hill, but once I’ve finally got my shit together, i finally realise I’m on the wrong side’o the road, and when she calls I dunno where she is, so we decide to meet at Saigon instead. So yeah, super yummy Vietnamese for dinner, and then we go home for Martinis. Emma showed up with some crazyass friends, so that was amusing for a while, especially cos she called me really fucking beautiful and you know I pretty much fall for anyone that calls me beautiful – or maybe that’ sjust everyone I’ve fallen for has also called me beautiful.<!– cos you know I always thought Emma was HOT –> Chicken -> egg -> chicken etc. Katie read my list’o memories from Garland (or from the bathroom, laundry, hallway and kitchen, cos that’s only as far as I’ve ever got with those lists) while I got changed and reapplied makeup. She was impressed that I had “There’s a glass of water out here for you Jo” as a memory, cos that’s what she remembered from the bathroom too. That’s all I wrote down, cos what else can you say about a month of throwing up constantly and stressing out all the people that you care about? Especially since she was just “Justin’s Girlfriend” then (sweetei I love you and I don’t even need to say how much more you are now).

Anyways, where was I before I started talking about things that let’s so not go there right now. Oh yeah, Martinis at home, then we went to a party of her friends’, who are also my friends at tech who apparently actually really like me, so I’m so not a Grand Dick, and that’s yay. They were just down Symonds Street, and their party was on the roof of their building. I spent most of the time talking to the editor of Craccum from 2000, and we had astonishingly similar taste in music, and laughed about teh same things, and he was so cool and I was really surprised that apparently he wasn’t gay. It was choice to see where Kelly and Rowena lived as well. And then, we went to a party at Khuja, which was in the private back room so that was excellent, and I had long indepth conversations with assorted people, mostly to accomodate Katie chatting up boys. The boy I was talking to was talking close and whispering in my ear, and I had to whisper in his since the music was really loud, and I was mocking his partial English accent, and I dunno, I just had a real urge to kiss him behind his ears, and the last boy that I felt that for ended up kissing me, but this boy didn’t cos we left to go do sonmethoing else. What did we do? it’/s hard to remember. Drinks at The Supper Club maybe? And then Oporto, and I rang Justin to see where he was at, and he was like “hey, if you wanna hang out, you should call me before 2.46am” which made me laugh lots cos I ahd no idea what the time was cos Katie had had my cellie in her bag all night.

Then we talked about it, as we had been talking about it all night, and had had a big debate before we went into Oporto, but we went into Starks to have a very loud discussion in front of this FUCKING DICK who has done bad things to someone cool and you so don’t do that on our watch without us having to say something, and yeah, so loud obnoxious indignant conversation til we got the “You ladies would be more comfortable in the Civic Lounge” line, and fuck Katie, when i started this evening, I had $75 in my pocket, and now I have $6 for laundry and like $4 in scrapnel. What DID we get up to? Love you SO much baby xojo.

Monday 15; Febuary, 1999

Trudie: “Whenever I hear the word ‘stalker’ I think of you, Joanna”

Ten thirty am, the phone rings. I figure it’s either not for me, or it’s Shirley, so I drag my ass outta bed a little while later to check the message. I was right – it WAS Shirley. So I rang her back, and she told me that she and Trudie were meeting up with Dee in Mission Bay at 2pm, and did I want to come along? Of course I did! So she said that Trudie could pick me up on her way in – Trudie’s flatting with Shirley now, you see. So yeah. Since I was already up at that god awful hour, I figured I may as well be domesticated, so I did the dishes, and hung out the (still icky) curtains on the line. Man, it was so foul – something in them turned the water & bleach all yellow, so it looked like they were soaking in piss. How’s that for a nice visual?

So yeah, after doing all that, I went back to bed. But I couldn’t get back to sleep because it was so light outside, and there’s construction happening just up the road. I just laid down for a while instead. Last night, I couldn’t sleep either so I lay in bed and listened to the whole of Little Earthquakes. I wish that I could turn my brain off at night, so that I don’t have a billion and one thoughts racing through my head at all times. I wish I could various stuff in my life straighted out, cos it’s all so weird right now. I wish – well – I wish a lot.

Eventually, after I’d showered and asked Clayton how his night had been (including a “spare me details please”) I heard my cellphone ringing. It was Trudie, asking me where I live – cos she didn’t know, and Shirley hadn’t considered that. So yeah, cellphones are good because Trudie didn’t have my real number, and I think Clayton was on the phone anyways. So yeah, she came over, and just before she got here, Shirley rang to ask us to go BACK to their place to pick her up, but apparently, it was on the way anyways. Off we puttered in Buttercup, Trudie’s bright yellow old Honda Civic. I say putter, because she drove UNDER the speed limit the whole way, which is a concept that’s kind of new to me, given the kind of riffraff I generally hang out with.

Anyways, we met up with Dee eventually, and settled down in a cafe I remember from a year ago while frantically flathunting. Dee, being 20, popped around the corner to the bottle store, and so we had byo bubbly (apparently she got stuff that was like $20 a bottle too) and plates of food to share. And of course, a great big huge long gossip session. Maaaan we all can talk. I was kinda nasty as usual, but they all know I don’t mean it. They talked about CRICKET though, for fucks sake! So yeah. Then we went and got icecream. Then Shirley and Dee got Burger King. Mmmmmm and yet they’re still the tiniest people in the world. I feel like such a freak walking out with them, cos I’m about a foot taller – and that’s hardly an exageration.

So yeah anyways, we swung past Shirley’s so that I could liberate their fudge cake (they’d had too much of it) so in return I gave them half the huge bag of plums that Clayton’s granny had given us. We weren’t going to be able to eat them before they rotted. So yeah.

Make-Out Monday, veging in front of the TV. Clayton cooked dinner, for Layton the Lurker as well who’d shown up. Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh, because he did give me a mouse pad – one that even has wrist support too – Yay. But still, he’s just – I dunno……. weird. I can’t wait till Sisi gets back so there’s someone that I can be completely relaxed around about.

I have to go into town for Orientation tommorrow, and maybe do a little bit of stalking. We’ll see. Arrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggg I’ve got such a sugar rush right now, and I’m just going really mental and there’s like, no one online right now to talk to except for Heidi, and much as I love her, she’s not as good to gossip to as Andee. I misssssssssss Andee. Sure, she’s supposed to come and stay this weekend, but I need her NOW, dammit!