Hubris.co.nz

I have been as busy as a mongoose lately. A mongoose! And consequently, there is not a part of my body that doesn’t ache. Except for maybe my right ear. But that’s it.

After work on Tuesday, Karen and I went to jump into the ocean by the lagoon. Something went wrong with the way I was holding my head as I jumped off the plank though, and as I plunged into the water I felt as if I was receiving an enema through my nose. Not a pleasant feeling at all, I tell you. In fact, it made my throat and ears ache, and made me feel really sick. Add to that the teenage boys yelling “stingray!” at each other, and then the something solid that brushed my hand that made me swim and hide behind Kar, and when she saw a jellyfish I was well ready to get out. So I texted the divine Miss Fur and she came to pick me up and we went to the fish’n chip shop in Lyall Bay then drove out of the sun to go eat on the pier by my secret beach.

On Thursday Anji and I went to a pilates class at our gym for the first time. It seemed easy enough while we were doing it, although I got trembling holding my left leg in the air for so long, but afterwards, my abs were screaming. Oh yes, I apparently have abs. And for the rest of that night and all of Friday I felt like I was wearing a corset, I was so aware of them. I drove out to the airport to pick up Lani and three of her giggling friends who are staying with us, and then Lisa came to get me again for the Julia Deans (that’s her from Fur Patrol for those of you not in the know) solo accoustic gig at Happy. We got there shortly after 9pm, and were told it wasn’t on til 10 so we went to Karen’s house and made fun of her for a while before going back. Man oh man was I tired. Ryan Prebble didn’t start playing until after 11, and even though I’m sure he’s a lovely man and that some people were into his music, I started having fantasies about his guitar strings breaking as he was twanging them so hard and cutting him and him bleeding out and dying on stage so that Julia could start sooner. And then the taste in my mouth let me know that I’d actually fallen asleep for half a minute. But when Julia finally started singing, ti was all worthwhile. She did lots and lots of new stuff, no old Fur Patrol, and ‘Freak show’ and wow, her voice sure is stunning. The annoying part was that someone had brought along a baby, who cried. What the fuck? Yes, the baby was wearing ear muffs, and yes, apparently the mother was known to Julia who stopped and said “I know it’s not the volume cos that baby’s been to Shihad gigs!” but hi, you are not Gywneth, and this is not Live8 (and no one should ever aspire to be Gywneth anyways, because dude, could you pick a more bland milksoppy role model? Maybe Andie Mcdowell. But still.). I can put up with screaming kids at the beach because I suppose I do swim by the kids’ playground so I’m asking for it, but I don’t care if Happy was the first smokefree bar and it was fairly quiet, children are totally inappropriate in that context. Yes sir. But yes, apart from that, good times. I thought about how I can totally see the way I’m replacing you in the role that you used to have, and how even though I know what I’m doing is dumb it’s going to happen anyway, but meh, maybe I will go with this week’s counselling work whereby instead of being all “I should be doing this or that” or whatever, I can be all “I am making a choice to do blah blah blah”. I totally dig on how she gets my semantical issues.

Because Lani’s friends were sleeping in the lounge when I got home I couldn’t have my usual unwinding time with the television when I got home, so I couldn’t get to sleep for ages so Friday morning I was dreadfully dreadfully tired, but hopped up on excitement about the forthcoming weekend. After work I went to the ministry social club drinks where Lani introduced me to her friends – many of whom know my father, and I laughed at where a couple of the boys apparently thought my eyes were. I suppose the Mary-Kate and Ashley locket I was wearing that Martha made me buy at Craftwerk did help to draw the eye down to Mary-Kate and Ashley, which was of course totally the point. But it made me feel appreciated. Yes. I only stayed for one glass of wine though, because I ahd to go home to eagerly await the arrival of KateH and Shirley, hurrah! We had a couple of bottles of bubby while doing much gossip catch-up, and it was lovely. A couple of times I felt a bit weird, because I always used to be better friends with both of them than they were with each other, but of course now I live in Wellington and they don’t, so they have all these stories about people I don’t really know and tales to tell about nights together and I was just like “waah, left out”. But Shirley has just moved to Palmy now to finish her grad dip, so the balance will be restored again. Muahaha. We’d planned to go out to dinner but instead I fished bolognaise out of the freezer while they went for more wine. Then we went to Fia’s birthday party, and I didn’t check the address so we wandered around the top of Ghuznee St for ages trying to find a number that didn’t exist, being invited to student parties playing Metallica before I checked my phone and saw I had two digits wrong. So we got there in the end. Mostly I just talked to Karl and Amber, and laughed at the very very drunk very very young lady who tried to hit on both Shirley and KateH because she was missing her girlfriend. When we were in the taxi home I rang Lisa and decided to go to her house to panda-dance, so the girls went home to watch taped Daily Shows which Shirley didn’t like and is therefore off my weddding guest list.

It was a Saturday the next day, strangely enough, but much like last weekend when I didn’t get to sleep in because I went to the Petone fair with Shayne and Lani to see the wonderful Sue and Martha, I had to get up early to make the most of the day. This meant Shirley, KateH and I taking the bus in to the Cuba St Carnival, leaving like before 11am! I know right, haaaaaaaaaardcore. We were as awake as lemurs. Even though I’m sure it got much more crowded as the day went along, Cuba St was buzzing, and I was so fucking proud to be a Wellingtonian. I was also stoked that all of my “I am the boss of the weather and it will be sunny tomorrow!” blustering had paid off and it was still and baking. We wandered around for an hour or so, People’s Coffee from Plum in hand (I actually don’t really like it. Stink), and KateH bought a top, I found a hat that actually fit my huge head in Frutti so I bought that, and Shirley got a hat too. We also popped into Slowboat to see Ev, and now she probably thinks I am insane. Nevermind. Then it was just after 12 and we’d seen everything so I decided we should go home to get my car and go to my secret beach. So we did. KateH and Shirls were all “oooh eeek arrrgh too cold!” so they sat on the beach and read “Next (heh), while I had a bloody nice swim.

Lani and her friends were on salad duty, which cut down on my prep work for Country Club: Australia rather substantially. I went to the supermarket for beer (VB) and assorted snarlers and charcoal and ice and so on and so forth while Shirley and KateH did the dishes. We made dips, filled up a tub with ice and beer and then I turned our washing line into a pavilion in the style of Spiceworld (remember? In the grounds of the big old spooky house and they’re all wearing different coloured bathrobes, sucking chuppa chups and planning how to set up Debra and Clifford) with the help of a large couch cover, some pegs, some lime green netting curtains and assorted mattresses, pillows and lanterns. It looked bloody marvellous by the time I was done, even if it didn’t provide quite as much shade as I’d hoped. The absolutely fantastic Jimmy turned up and for a very long time it looked like he was going to be the only boy there, so he had to Make Fire by himself, although I stood around and fetched beer. Luckily Dave showed up to be manly with him. I had a period of total Hostess Anxiety because the bbq was going slowly so we thought we might have to cook some things indoors, and I didn’t know what, or when or how, and Lani’s friends were in the house so I thought if we took the food outside they might not get anything, and my friends Anne and Frances were in the kitchen preparing respectfully shrimp and falafel and I wanted to talk to everyone at once and make sure that everythign was going okay and the ghetto blaster on the stairs kept skipping on the mix CD Lisa brought (AC/DC and Powderfinger and Icehouse and Midnight Oil and the Vines and Jebidiah etc) aaaaaaaaargh freak out! So I made a choice to just sit down and have another beer. And things got much easier from then on in. I grilled some venison burgers indoors and the shrimp and falafel were fried, and people ate, and the boys tended the bbq most faithfully and more people came adn the sun went down, and ahhhh bliss. Lisa left for a while to go see the Phoenix Foundation play, and Lani and her friends took off, so it was just my posse hanging out. Instead of eating the pavlova I’d bought to be controversial, we toasted marshmallows and pears over the coals and the sugar cominded with the mango margaritas once the beer ran out made me incredibly fucking hypo. I jumped around and danced in the garden to CDs that reminded me of Volcanic and also the Pulp Fiction soundtrack that soundtracked my first-ever pash, and was just very very amped to go back into town to meet up with Shirls and KateH who’d left earlier and see the Battacuda Sound System, or whatever the correct spelling is.

We managed to squeeze six of us into Miss Lisa’s car so we could drop Frances home, and so Kar and Dyl and I were dropped off by Manners Mall to head up to Swan Lane to the big stage and crowds. I was still VERY VERY HYPER and yes, I am writing much like I was talking and jittering. It was fun. While we were waiting for the band to start the boy from the Great Blend showed up, so we chatted for a bit and it was nice to see that contrary to the stoogling results I’d turned up, he is actually just a secret ginga. Heh. Battacuda were SO MUCH FUN! I danced like a crazy person and so my calves are still aching today, because apparently dancing on concrete is not as soft and accomodating as you might think it could be. If you were stupid. I was all very hyped up so we went to Havana after, and danced some more. KateH and Shirley went home but Dyl was all let’s stay out! so I did, and then after one more drink both him and Kar were like “tired now, let’s go” and I was like you guys are DICKS. But there was a taxi right outside the door, and so that was handy. I told Karen to remember it was a black’n gold one, and texted her when I got home fine. I wasn’t that drunk, but I’m trying to form good habits in case of insane drunkenness at a later date. Ahh taking care of myself, nice work.

When I woke up on Sunday I felt like I’d been hit by a truck, what with the calves, and the pimple just inside my nose, and the cut on my foot and the scratches from Sebby who was a little unnerved by the masses of people at the BBQ – so much so that he almost didn’t want to eat steak – but he dragged it away to eat in private and emerged much calmer – and all, but I still managed to get showered and dressed and to take the girls to the Maranui Surf Cafe for breakfast. We had to wait for aaaaaaaaaaaaages to get a table and then for our food but it was well worth it because dude, Wellington is so fucking rad. I dropped KateH in town after that and said sad goodbyes to Shirley who had to return to Palmy for her first day of school today. I spent the afternoon lying in the pavillion reading Prep (so good! although I expected more sex and panties from a book set in a boarding school) and then bonding with my couch and HDD once the wind got too strong. I did a mountain of dishes and threw away salads and prawn heads, but cleanup wasn’t too bad thanks to the wonders of disposable plates. I discovered that Smoo wasn’t actually dead in a gutter but had instead gone to Hammy with Bart for the weekend. When they got back they came over to bbq up the leftovers. But it turns out that Jimmy is teh BBQ King and they can’t even touch him. Much like Hammer. While Bart trying to catch flaming pieces of paper with his bare hands was somewhat entertaining, we resorted to cooking on the stove instead. Smoo ate about a thousand chops, so KateH and I were looking forward to seeing Bart polish off a whole pavlova, but that didn’t happen, sadly. So there is still some passionfruit pav with Kiwiberries (so weird!) in our fridge if you are hungry. Okay? Okay.

Today I got up early to take KateH to the airport, but she fetched me coffee while I was in the shower so I love her for that. And that’s about all I have to say for now, I think.

Tonight, I had sex with Shayne Carter. Before you call the Sunday Truth (or actually, probably the Sunday Star Times is more tabloidy these days) though, you should know that I wasn’t the only one. There were probably about three hundred other people who did it too. None of them had as good an orgasm face as him though. And for such a rockstar, he’s not a selfish lover. He totally gave me aural pleasure.

I think if you’d been at San Frindigo tonight, you would understand why I am all about the comparing this gig to sex (you know, aside from intense sexual frustration, of course). It’s not a new thing for me to review gigs like sex – I started doing it with Shihad, but tonight Shayne’s face said “my guitar is a penis, and it is an awesome thing”, and it truly truly was.

Dimmer opened with ‘Crystalator’ (or as others have refered to it, the “reeeeeeeeeeeeh reeeeeeeeh reeeeeeeh song”), and has it really been TEN YEARS since I got that on the Pop Eyed Flying Nun compilation for Xmas? Holy crap! It was loud, so loud that I could have believed that the speakers had come to life and crawled in my ears. After a couple of songs from There My Dear on which the absense of Bic and Anika and Annna doing backing vocals demonstrated even more how Straitjacket Fitsy that album is, they played ‘Drop you off’. Live, it was perhaps a little less menacing than the video – trees out the back of a car window at night time, like lying in the back seat as a kid, normally makes it, but it was more pounding, and thrusting, and pushed and pushed and pushed at you, and my breathing sped up to go along with it, and the very strong coffee I’d made before I left the house and the nurofen plus worked together in harmony, and it was all washing all over my body. ‘Seed’ afterwards was even more thrusty, and it went on and on, and even in the bourbon-washed summer of 01/02 that I believe you are a star was on high rotate in my computer and I was actually literally fucking, I was never fucked as intensely as that song brought it tonight. Well, maybe a couple of times.

The only time that Shayne took off his ‘O’ face was when they played “You’re only leaving hurt”, the first chords of which made me well up, naturally. For that, he was cradling his guitar like it was the last dance with a lover, instead of the pornstar stance of other songs (and I mean that in the best possible way, of course). He said at the end “That’s a sad song”, and then said “this is another sad song” as an introduction to ‘Scrapbook’. I recently managed to find Siamese Dream on vinyl ($50 secondhand, mind you!), and so I’ve been listening to that quite a lot, so I can say with good authority that ‘Scrapbook’ reminds me (see, I told you I had authority) of ‘silverfuck’ – most especially the pounding pounding pounding drums, but ‘Scrapbook’ manages to be a thousand times more bitter and powerful , the whole “bang bang, you’re dead” line aside.

The last gig I saw at San Frindigo was of course the Phoenix Foundation, so I enjoyed the contrast between the highly personable stage banter between Sam & Luke, and stony silence and the eyes of daggers it seemed like James was getting as he tuned his guitar. A couple of songs in, it seemed like someone flicked the “make smalltalk with the audience now” switch though, and even the way too fucking predictable wanker yelling “Play ‘She speeds’!” and the so very stoic “Ta” after applause didn’t detract from the overwhelming intensity of the gig. During ‘Scrapbook’ I even wished that it was Shihad on stage, because I so so wanted to throw some goats, and they’re the only band I’ve seen that you can get away with non-ironic goats at.

The last track of the two-song encore had huge rolling cymbals that were waves of sound, and the feedback was totally consuming, just flooding into every last inch of me. I’m sounding like some druggie loser right now, I know, but I’m not. On drugs. Except for the aforementioned caffeine and codeine, of course. I’m just all woah still. My head is buzzing, and there are oceans of feedback still playing in my ears, and every inch of me is sore from the dancing, and from the bass that rose up from the floor, but I don’t care. I came in my pants like a thousand times tonight.

And awesomely, I just got a text from my friend going “Do you feel like Shayne is making love to you with the music?” Hahaha! Yes, yes I do! And holy fucking shit, I hope it was as good for him as it was for me.

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month!

Last night, I was online and feeling I dunno – bored and just a little down, when I got into an ICQ chat with Cam and Jeb. Mmmmm threesome with two gay men! It was very very amusing. Jeb wrote a derogatory haiku about me, so I responded in kind with a haiku explaining why I wasn’t what he was saying that I was. I pasted the haikus to Tom, and before you know it, we were talking to each other completely in Haiku, which were so amusing, I made a whole page about them. Jeb and Cam were very funny, but we fought about what tasted worse – girls or boys. Actually no, it wasn’t funny at all, it was all very sick and sordid and disgusting. So there! Heh. I was laughing so hard I was almost afraid that my flatmates would hear and get the wrong idea.

Today I woke up with a headache, which I’ve had for a number of days and I suspect it’s because I hadn’t had any coke for ages. Dammit, I don’t wanna be a caffiene addict! I was good and defrosted the freezer, making boys squeal when I dropped large chunks of ice out the kitchen window onto them on the patio sofa. I also did some tidying and stuff. Good me. But naturally I didn’t tidy my room. I tried and tried and tried to read through my paperwork and reports and stuff, but I just kept falling asleep. Jeremy said he’d charge me $18 an hour for him to read and brief me on all their contents, which I thought was a little moneygrubbing of him.

In the evening, Jeremy went out to some comedy thing with Renee, and lord knows where Clayton is (it’s 2.23am and he’s still not home, that rascal!) so Brad and I went to the supermarket. There’s a 4 kilo turkey defrosting in our fridge right now and also an 850gram boneless turkey roast in the freezer. I’m very excited. We also got cranberry sauce and all that good stuff. Oh man, I’ve become a fricking nutter (well, more so than usual) because we’re obsessed with one line from the Simpsons, when Homer goes “saxamaphone” so every other word that has at least 2 syllamabuls has now got a ‘ma’ or a ‘mo’ added in to it or a ‘mahol’. It’s driving me mad, and I’m the one who’s saying it the most – I can only imagine how annoying it must be for the people around me. After the supermarket, Brad and I went to Ponsonmaby to the Dog cos it was supposed to be Kate B’s last night at work, to have drinks with her. We didn’t stay all that long though, but Kate was very glad to see us.

We got home and Clay still wasn’t home, and we couldn’t find the tape with Miss Teen America that we videoed on it, so we watched Spiceworld. Again. Fuck, Richard E. Grant gets cooler and sexier every time I watch that movie (so now he’s 21 times sexier than previously). I declared myself to be the special commentary on the DVD, and launched into many tangents about foreshadowing and humour on many levels in the film. You really should watch Spiceworld with me one day. It’ll enrich your life, believe you me. Actually, all media consumption in this house is an interactive experiance. That’s because we’re so savvy.

“call Gary Barlow!”