Hubris.co.nz

Yes, I have been remiss. But yesterday, Kimora Lee Simmons told me that I was beautiful and ultimately powerful, so I know you will forgive me. Yes, that’s right, Kimora Lee Simmons. Told me. Personally. On a swing tag. Attached to my new jeans. That I got for half prize from Torrid, in a 33.5 inch leg, woohaa. That according to Lani make me appear to have no ass (This is comparatively true. Not to Lani, but to other Women With Curves. And also sizedly to my sister and my mother. They got the Stadtman hips wheras I keep my Presbytarian McLeod weight on my puku. Mostly). But which do have a solid gold(esque) butt tag). And according to their sizing I am more Baby than Phat, as they are a little bit too falling down. And they’re too baggy around the knee. And these half sentences have gone on way too long, but they are my tribute to a misunderstanding about comments about jeans that I had with my friend yesterday. So I will keep using them.

That’s a lie, actually. From now on, I’ll try to use full sentences, but if I break off, it’s probably because this is where I’d like to insert a while bunch of swearing, but as someone with a CV out in the marketplace and a number one google ranking, I will control myself. A little, anyway. Haha half sentences!

Kyuss is on the TV now, so I feel like I am in the back seat of Fatty Simon or Milhouse Mark’s car, and we are speeding from Hamilton to Auckland. I spent a long time saying that I thought that Kyuss were a lot more interesting than Queens of the Stoneage, but I’m not entirely sure that’s the truth. I’m watching Watch This Space which I recorded last night, of course, and it’s 8.56pm. Yes, it’s Friday, and I am home alone. The Double Ds failed in their role as the usual Friday entertainment, but given the blackness of my mood, that’s probably for the best. It’s times like these that I wish that Extreme Makeover – Home Edition could still make me cry. I’m not too worried though – I mean I did have Hell Day, but given how I’m also Hungry Like The Wolf and also mangoing like woah, I know that I’m pre period. Which will make a nice change from my cunt stinking like, and oozing out, Canestan. Stupid goddamn yeast! And stupid one dose pills not being enough. At least I only went for the 3 day treatment and not the 6. If only bread and beer weren’t so tasty. And sugar. It’s funny because after the Ginger was such a cunt with his insistence that I had diabetes, I was all “Well I hope he’s saying that because I had a yeast infection and therefore my cunt tasted rancid”, but the boy I was with last week was very nice so I’m hoping it wasn’t all bad then. And speaking of that, it is very strange to have slept with someone who has known me at the time the second longest of anyone that I had sex with. It kind of makes me go “umm, but I am crazy, and I sit around watching TV all day in my PJs, and I overthink everything, oh also, and I am crazy, why the hell would you want to do me?”. Oh drunken me taking advantage of people, you make the world go around.

Yeah no, I totally want Josh Homme to touch me in dirty places now, I totally get the QOTSA obsession.

I pretended briefly that I was upset to be home alone tonight, but that’s pretty much a lie. Life has been waaaaaaaaaaaay too hectic (I almost wrote Hexic, so you can see why my wrists have been bunger lately – and no, it’s pretty much nothing to do with the increased screen time Sara Ramirez has had). When was the last time that I wrote? A bloody long time ago. The 22nd. So that was the day of the last night of Wellingtonista Bowling League? I spent the time inbetween work and bowling crying on Anji’s shoulder. Metaphorically of course. I sat upright in my chair on the balconey at Concrete, and only wept, not sobbed, so i didn’t even have to touch up my mascara. My frustrations with someone at work had led me to run away to the waterfront at lunchtime but there I cursed the citalapram that meant I couldn’t even really cry even thouhg that was all I felt like doing. After work it was a little easier, but tears didn’t fall. Bowling was awesome, and I’m so glad that I started the league, even though I was frustrated with a lack of players who were actually in the Wellingtonista, especially since we had to get in a substitute player from Xero who, umm, was lovely, but not quite up to the standard of a couple of people from the Wellingtonista who’d played in early games, so ClickSuite beat us by 14 points and therefore we came in last in the league. And of course, I didn’t find a job through thet league, or a rich husband, so in my eyes, it was a complete and utter failure. Heh. Oh, but did I mention that Anji and I had a very tasty dinner at Finc before – pork belly and also pear & beetroot dip with lesbian bread (heh), and the waitress was like “I’m the dessert menu!” and I was like “i’m not sure I want to eat you…” (who am I kidding?) and she was like “you’re dirty!” and I was like “tehehe”? No, well we did.

The end of bowling meant that we had an awards ceremony at the Southern Cross on the Friday night. I’d booked 20 people into ‘The Den’ which is the long thin area to the right of the bar at front at 7pm, but by 7.15 I was still sitting by myself feeling like a spaz every time I told people to go away because I’d booked the area. Apparently Silverstripe had shown up early, and, finding noone there had gone out to the garden and didn’t find us for a very long time after that. But then people showed up in a rush which was good. There was a Skank moment in the bathroom but after a quick “omg, eww” moment to the double ds, I totally forgot about that until the next day. I gave everyone their awards and made them shake my hands and let me kiss their cheeks. The darling Sue had made up Wellingtonista badges that I’d designed and we’d had a secret rendevouz in Midland Park for me to get them off her, and they went down a treat. I had lots of fun. The ever-entertaining MG, who was the only one representing Clemenger suggested that he’d set up a meeting for me with someone from a magazine that I have a review of to do for the Wellingtonista. Someone in ClickSuite that I’d never met before invited me to an Apres Ski party, cementing their status as the most sociable team. I gave everyone invitations to English County Club, and fought off questions such as “is that really your house?” and “what’s Tapiri Manor?” Although I wasn’t very drunk when I left, I asked Dave to walk me to the taxi and make sure that he remembered the company because I am trying to make sure that I’ve trained myself into safer habits for times when I’m not so in control. I was proud of myself for that. I wonder how much people think I’m being overly anxious. It’s really hard to make the transition between thinking that you are bullet-proof to trying to do what’s right, so I will continue to salute myself.

Mmmmm Josh Homme. Mmmmmmmmm. Oh yes, lick me like I was your guitar…

I wish Crazy Canadia was online right now. Or that I was in Vegas too.

Umm, that was Friday. On Saturday, Lani and I cleaned the house, then went up to Ngaio to drop off the Mysteriously Broken Chair (“Daddy, I have an exciting new craft project for you!”) and pick up my early birthday present – an 8 gig nano that Daddy somehow bartered the Australian duty-free man down to A$303 (as opposed to NZ$450), and managed to talk my father into making pancakes for us. It wasn’t very hard, it mostly involved me saying “hey, have you guys had lunch yet? I’m starving!”. Then it was back home for more preparation and some stress-related grumpiness and control-freakery for me. I picked up Lisa and also Other Lisa, who I hadn’t met before and who was a little surprised by my embrace. But she took it gladly at the end of the night. I was dressed as Antoinette (my mother’s middle name, not that she’ll admit to it) Chocolat Tophey-Smythe, the second wife of a terribly rich terribly old terribly high society British man, who happned to be away while I hosted the party. Lisa was Emoly McBlack, an exchange student from the future (she had “This ain’t a scene, it’s a goddamm ARM (s race)” written on her arm (SO AWESOME. Despite the badness of the song)) and Other Lisa was Olivia Inkton, the society reporter. My new C4 comment is that Bauhaus’s (Top 10 Alternative 80′s [sic])singer sounds just like Matt Bellamy. I love ‘Ziggy Stardust’. Other people came in their costumes, and we had very civilised food and drink and conversation and back stories. A boy told me I was the most interesting person he’d ever met and I went “tehehe” even if he was taking hte piss because I told him that I’d seen Spiceworld 28 times. A jolly good time was had by all but I can’t remember the exact things I wanted to write about ti. But Oh! The Cult! This fucking chart is totally my sisters’ album collections. And this song (‘She sells sanctuary’) was so ripped off by both the Foo Fighters and The Donnas!

Sunday meant struggling out of bed with sore feet, and Lani and I jumped on the bus down to the stadium (that walkway is so like the walkway to Tokyo Disneyland – a million miles to the station when you have sore feet). We got in to the Food Show, and I had an attack of the grumps, but her savign seats and me going off to find a bathroom (it took me forever, and oh boy, it stung just a little more to see that a company that didn’t hire me was blocking off a female toilet with their stand) and grabbing a latte and a couple of nibbles put me in a better mood. We met up with Anji and Karen to watch Hayden Wood make cocktails, and although the techno music was annoying and he seemed like a bit of a plonker, I love his books, and watching the flairing was very amusing. And he called me Sweetheart when I ran up to grab a Feijoa and rum concoction.

With that icey drink in my belly I felt much better, and we went off to drink our way around the Hawkes Bay. In previous years, Karen and I have started off on the other end, so that by the time we’ve reached that area we’ve been too drunk to try everything, but given how much time we’ve spent with Wairarapa wine lately, it just made sense. There were some very nice drops, and I bought too much, and we bumped into Karen’s old flatmates Alistair and Korina, which was rad. We drank and ate and drank and ate and drank and ate, and then Lani and I got seperated from Anji and Karen, and time started running out so we ran around getting as much in as we could. I thought I did brilliantly at the Prenzels’ Schnapps stand trying every flavour until I found out that Anji and Karen bought the ends of every bottle for $20. But we got free cereal and free tubs of guacamole, and chocolate and apples to take away, not to mention the ton we ate, so woo! Plus I got to semi-shock several older gentlemen showing them my humping unicorns hoodie that I had in my bag. It made sense at the time, but in reality, I got drunker at the Food Show than I did at our party the night before. Woo! $18 is TEH AWESOME. Especially since I’m pretty sure I tried the Wairarapa wines for free since I took a dirty glass from one of the winemakers – on his suggestion (or perhaps my coercion). Heh.

Then on Monday I just wanted to crawl into bed again all day, but instead I went home and made kickass Dhal for Lani and the double Ds, and also Lani’s friend David, which I suppose makes it the DDDs. We tried to rouse Smoo, but he was sleeping the sleep of the dead, even after I woke him up, so no flat dinner was to be had. And Dyl didn’t do our dishes like he was supposed to for not bringing wine, but we did play Cluedo and I did win.

Tuesday was umm, I can’t rmeember. Crappy? I do remember reading Q in my room after work suggssting I was in no mood to talk. On Creative Wednesday, I went for a swim at the pool – half an hour of laps and then half an hour in the spa. Halfway through the laps, I decided that the old man in the lane next to me was perving at me far more than was deserved (me in a swim suit is really not hot), and then I saw a strap trailing in the water and realised that my halter had come undone. AWESOME! *goats motion*. I really wish I could find a fat-person two-piece with a racerback top, but apparently practical swimwear is out of the question. Because people with my shape should just be lounging about,not trying to improve their current situation or something. Same thing with the hardness of finding a proper sports bra.

Yesterday was Thursday and I ummm hmmm, stuff, blah blah blah. Oh! Karen, Anji and I had a most amusing and delicious dinner at Medina, that I must review on the Wellingtonista. And today was Friday and oh man, I think we covered that already today, or at least I have in texts, and forwarded emails, and just AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. And now my port is empty, so I must go over to my shiny silver tray ($1) and realise that my decanter ($2) is empty, so I must refill my glass (50c) from the bottle from my parents (free) that is in my sideboard (free). So I might go do that instead.

I used to carry around a tin that mints from a recruitment company had once come in, filled with half pills. It was of course my citalapram, since I have to take a pill and a half, and they’re crumbly pills so I have to cut them at home with a big knife and a chopping board so they don’t totally fall apart, so I prepare them in advance. When I say “I used to”, I of course mean until last Saturday night, when I lost the tin, so I hope someone picked it up and decided that it was full of half Es, and is now off dancing in a club somewhere feeling really nausesous. Because I am nice like that.

On Monday night we had a flat dinner and I made a fucking awesome roast beef. Then because Bart had found a video that his social group had traded around themselves in 1996, I undid all the feminist thinking that I’d been doing since a post by Tze Ming on Public Address made me realise that I need to do more to reinforce feminist thought – so I bought Bitch magazine – by watching German porn with the boys while Lani did the dishes. It was amusing but also really sad. There was a woman dancing in the video who had breast implants the size of her head, and she just looked like a freak. I know that there are some porn stars who make a lot of money and have a lot of power in the industry, but this woman didn’t seem to be one of them. She was just an object of ridicule and that made me really sad.

On a more upbeat note, Bowling League on Tuesdays is still fun. Surprisingly, I don’t think that the Bowlingtonista are going to win the league, but damn we’re pretty. And it’s so much fun to get to hang out with BFF Martha while the men do the hard work.

On Wednesday I went to a wine night at the boatshed called ‘Meet Your Maker’. There were stalls there from various “unique and boutique” winemakers from the Wairarapa, and everything was free to try. I took a series of very detailed notes that included the following dialouge about a Hudson Sav:

Me: it tastes like silver in the mouth
Daddy: No it doesn’t.
Me: Well I think it tastes Metallicy, and Nothing Else Matters.

Tehehe. My favourite wine was the Julicher reserve Pinot Noir, which tasted like chocolate babies, and also the Tirohana wines because the guy remembered us from when we were up for Mum’s birthday and asked where our other sister was (she was across the other side of the room). And they have a dessert wine that’s like woah. There wasn’t really enough food so I ate and enjoyed ham rolls, and craved more of the duck, mushroom and quince paste tarts. Mmmmmm. But why is the Boatshed always so damn hot? Last time I was there for Public Address Great Blend I could go swimming afterwards, but not in May. Too much heating. Nevermind. And I saw a friend of my parents’ who is an MP whom I hate personally, politically and professionally so I made very sure that I didn’t have to talk to him. Afterwards we had dinner at Ernesto, where I was a little silly and had chicken, which was boring, but the potato and prune gallette that accompanied it was tasty like woah. I was just envious of the pork bellies of Karen and Anji, but that’s okay.

On Friday night I went home after work and napped on the couch, before driving in to town to pick up Miss Lisa and Karen, and see Jimmy and Miss Jessie at Dimmer. It didn’t feel quite as sexylicious as last time, but when they played the long, thrusting ‘Seed’ I still wanted to touch myself inappropriately, but settled for stroking myself behind my ears, as that is somewhat less inappropriate.

Saturday was a very amusing night. I had drinks at home with Lani and her friend Nikki who is staying, and then we went to a party in Kelburn. Nikki and I amused ourselves taking photos with someone else’s camera that had be left lying on the TV. Then I spilt red wine on the carpet so we ran away and I watched very guiltily as someone else cleaned it up. I am not normally the type of person who doesn’t clean up after themselves, but I was all like “they’ve got a white carpet! It’s their fault! Everyone always spills stuff on MY carpet…” So of course I was unimpressed with myself for that crappy attitude, and when I found myself in a bathroom queue with the girl who’d cleaned it up I apologised and confessed. She came up to me later to say it was awesome of me to confess, and so Nikki and Lani decided that she was a lesbian and was totally in to me. I was like “ummm, I don’t get that vibe at all”, but I think we all know that I have little to no female gaydar. I still went and tried to talk to her later (because if she was a lesbian obviously she’d fancy me, right?) but I was saved from myself by the need to take photos with someone dressed as a reindeer. Then we went into town, and despite all my protestations, I found myself at Coyote. Shudder. I hate Courtenay Place on weekend nights, I really do. The music was bad, the crowd was bad, and yet I stayed and constantly had a drink in my hand, and I’m not sure how that happened. At one stage a guy came up to me and was all “oh, you are so beautiful, can I get a kiss?” and I was like huh? But I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he turned his head and asked for another one, so I did, but then he was going to go for a pash, and I was like “hey buddy, you know nothing about me! You don’t know my hobbies or my interests, how can you want to kiss me?” and he was like “what?” and I was all “I mean, for all you know, I could be a member of the Hitler Youth” and he was like “I don’t know what that is” and I was like “I’m a white supremicist!” and he ran away and I laughed and laughed and laughed. And felt like Lily Allen. “I’ve got herpes!” Because after all, my Matariki resolution (along with doing something that will earn me a slow clap) is to wake up with someone and want them to be there, and sifty guys in sifty bars will not help me accomplish that. After that we finally left Coyote for the best kebabs EVAH from Hadi Gari, and then people were going to queue to get into GoGo and I was like “umm, nahuh, there is no way I’m going to wait to get into that crappy place” so I went home with Lani.

Yesterday I got up half an hour before my family were due for an afternoon tea to break in my cake-plate. It was so very civilised! I provided mini afghans and feta & spinach savouries, Mummy & Daddy baked mini scones and brought cream & jam, Anji brought coffee and shortbread, and Karen made chicken, almond and watercress sandwiches. We used fancy china and a good time was had by all. And we also finalised our plans to go to Rarotonga for Daddy’s 60th birthday and now Mum’s booked the flights. Because my job doesn’t finish until June 29, I’m going a week later than them all, and am consequently paying significantly more for the flights, damn it all. But still, Rarotonga, hurrah! We’re hopefully renting a four-bedroom house with a pool as well, so that should be nice.

Tonight instead of doing the whole flat dinner thing, which I really can’t afford to produce any more, I’m just going to make dessert crepes so we can eat the maple syrup that Lani brought back from Canadia. What’s that all aboot eh?

My conversation with Smoo on Sunday morning when I got up (okay, it was actually 5pm, rather than the morning):
Me: Smoo, will you provide me with an alibi if I go next door and rip off the heads of the children who have been screaming ALL FUCKING DAY stupidhoppeduponchocolatefuckheadsihatesthem?
Smoo: I was going to ask you the same thing. Fuck they’re so annoying, and I’m not even hungover!
Me: what makes you think I’m hungover?
Smoo: I fucking hope you are, cos you look like fucking shit.
Hehehe.

My proudest achievement last week was making my counsellor cry. It was actually because I described the otter video that made me cry, but still! I <3 her lots and lots because last week when I was having somewhat of a breakdown (yes, again), she said that instead of always thinking about what I should be doing (even in regards to doing Healthful Things like the gym or writing creatively), perhaps I could just picture myself as a cat, and chase a bit of string if it comes along, or eat and sleep. Needless to say I spent most of Easter napping in sunny patches and licking my genitals.

The Wellingtonista Bowling League is a go, and I would really like it if you’d enter a team. Please. Our first night is April 24.

I had last Thursday off after playing the stupid-girlfriend-holding-her-boyfriend-as-emotional-hostage card at work and so I spent most of the day at my parents’ house as they were away, and our washing machine was broken. I did some loads, and also started my new zine called You’re so Entertaining. It’s going to be completely different from 101 Stories that I want to tell you and BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS in that it’s mostly a collection of recipes. Speaking of BOYS, can someone PLEASE send me a copy of it, or send me their original so I can photocopy it? I don’t have a copy and I’ll like to start re-reproducing it. I’ll reward you with goodies if you send it down to me.

I am in love with magazines right now, but only the good ones. I bought a subscription to Bust because I find it so inspiring, and i’ve been seeking out Jane, Frankie, and, as usual, Q. In my head I mentally tax deduct these as business expenses. This may be part of the reason that my financial state is so dire. Well, that and the crack addiction. And $85 a week counselling. And drunken Saturdays at Frindigo wandering around on the balconey by myself while boys tried to chat up Karen, wishing that I could erase phone numbers from my head because they are not relevant anymore. And cooking flat dinners on Mondays, as well as providing almost all the wine. Still, at least Lani cooked this week.

Speaking of Lani, she’s off to Canadia tomorrow for two weeks for work. I’m madly jealous and I’m going to miss her lots. I went and sat on her floor cross-legged on Monday to catch her up on all my silly gossip, and that was fun. Her partner Shayne was down for the weekend, which was rad cos he’s a very nice guy (he held open a gate for me! what a gentleman!) and things that make her happy make me happy.

On Sunday night, having risen at 5pm, boiled potatoes, watched The Gilmore Girls (I’m really not sure how to feel about them getting married!) and made Papas Garbanzo, I headed to Karen’s house for a dinner party with her and her flatmates and a couple of their friends. Every dish had cheese in it – the salad, the papas, the risotto, the canneloni and the eggplant bake. Cheese is good. I invited everyone to Country Club: Brazil (which is this Saturday and I’m sure you’re coming, right?) and we talked at length about country clubs, and I said how the next one will be a Cluedo-themed English Country Party, and one of the guys was like “oh I can make the best mix tape for that, and I have the perfect suit to wear” and I was like “that’s the perfect attitude!”.

At some stage I went to the preview of 300, and I apologise to everyone else who was there if the fact that I was laughing uproariously the whole way through was putting you off the abs porn, but seriously? Gayer than the gayest gay porn I have ever seen. And incredibly historically inaccurate to boot. And the dialogue was lifted pretty much straight from Team America, right down to the inclusion of a “Freedom isn’t free!” line.

I am so fond of Bart and Smoo right now. I’ve decided that I hope Bart never shaves off his moustache, because I like the compliments, and I like that Smoo’s been home lately to listen to me talk shit, and watch TV with me. Hurrah.

There is a pot of feijoada simmering on the stove right now for Saturday. I have to clean the house before KateH and Shirley arrive. Tonight I must deal with the repairman who is coming for the washing machine again. I tried to get Smoo to do it but apparetnly the man was only available when Smoo was out. This means more racist rambling diatribes. My counsellor uses the same man. That makes me laugh.

I think that’s all I have to say (*).

Oh and! My citalapram increase has kicked in, and holy crap it feels good. The sparkle is back in my eye again, which makes me more approachable, which makes me more confident, which makes me more approachable, etc. I know right now is the euphoria which is only temporary, but wow, the feeling today as I showered at the gym that I’d neglected for two weeks after a sprint was like I’d had a thousand orgasms that I didn’t have to work for. Well okay, every part of my body was sore, except for my wrists, which is very unusual for orgasms. Heh. But still. A lot of people worry about losing a part of themselves if they go on meds, but this is the way I am supposed to be.

Today, as expected, was really hard. It’s always the hardest when you’ve been to the doctor’s, and you’ve admitted to being crazier than you wanted to be, and you’ve been forced to change the reasoning for your request for fewer hours at work from the very constructive awesome “I want more time to work on other projects” to “I can’t handle things the way they are right now”. I cried and cried and cried today in my counselling session, and then laughed when my counsellor said “yes, it’s fucking unfair that depression is like this, that it’ll come back unexpectedly” because oooh she swore! But she said it was important to remember that all the hard work that I’ve been doing hasn’t gone away, it still exists and I am still doing the right thing, but there is biology at play in my brain. I know that, of course, but I’m still struggling to reconcile what I know to be logically true, and what I feel. I told her that everything is so fucking hard right now, that I have all these ideas about things I want to be doing, but right now it’s a struggle to move my head from one end of the couch to the other, that I’m walking into doors right now and am covered from head to toe in bruises (I got two in quick succession at the gym yesterday before I tried to sprint it out of me on the cross trainer), and that I just can’t do anything at all, and I hate myself for that. She told me to imagine that I’m a five year old, and that it’s OKAY that things are hard, or impossible, for a couple of weeks at least. I know that my increased citalapram dosage will make things easier in a couple of weeks, so for now, it’s OKAY if I shut down somewhat, and just do what it takes to get me through the day. We talked about coping strategies for day-to-day, like running to the toilets on another floor if I want to have a cry by myself, or buying coffee instead of getting angry that there are people in the kitchen when I want to make myself a cup. And yes, I know that maybe this seems incredibly lame to someone who’s never gone through this – or to someone who’s gone through it differently, and believe me, it makes me frustrated as fuck that I need to think of ways to cope with getting a cup of coffee. This is not a sign of being a super hero. But again, I know this will pass. I’m torn between wanting to carry around a sign with me that says “please just let me get away with weak pathetic snappiness for the next two weeks” and wanting to internalise it all and just be a rock, an island. Today everyone was all “I saw you in the paper”, and I was like “yes, yes you did” all snappy, because I was just so unable to talk in any kind of pleasant manner – although I must send shoutouts to Kimpy who made it happen (even if she rejected what I originally said my mother always told me) and Llew who scanned the piece – but now that there is a medical certificate in circulation around the HR department saying that I have the Medical Condition of Depression, and so I feel like people are all like “Oh hi, how are you?” to me, and at the same time I know that is related to my increased paranoia and short tether and grumpiness that is part and parcel of this super fun black dog.

And that is a long enough paragraph focusing on the crapiness. Let’s talk about the good things instead, after I mention how I channedl my five year old tonight and slept on the bus, and napped on the couch instead of going to see Mel in Chicago out in Titahi Bay which I feel terrible about, but I just couldn’t do it. I got an email from a friend today after I sent her my zine in which she said that it had made me cry, and that I should write more, and that was nice. And I umm hmmm. Tomorrow I get to go out with D&D and I haven’t done that in a couple of weeks. And then on Saturday i will listen to Public Address radio at 2pm on Radio Live to see if I’m talking shit on it, but other than that, I have no weekend plans, which is GLORIOUS. I might stay in bed all day. Go this inner child thing!

Do you ever get the impression that I spend most of my life looking for either my camera or my camera cables? Yeah? Me too. Right now it’s my cables, so I can show you photos of my pre-Saturday night. But instead I will have to talk to you about it. Oh the pain.

Luckily I have a darling friend who carries her camera almost everywhere with her, so I can steal her photos and say “this is what I was doing around midnight on Friday night”:
.

Yes, that’s right, I was encouraging boys to jump off the plank with me. Lisa also took a photo of me, but come on, you think I’m going to put a photo of me in my togs online when it’s quite possibly the least flattering but most awesome shot ever? I even jumped off the plank a second time in order to facilitate that photo, because it turned out the tide was high enough that the bottom rung of the ladder was under water so I could actually climb out and back up again. Lisa made a new friend while Dyl and I swam, in the form of some random emo guy who wandered down to the lower dock where she was and stood there smoking cigarettes, it was a little strange.

Earlier we’d been at Tupelo, and there was a boy who rubbed me up the wrong way with some of his comments about how when he found out a guy at his work was gay he was very not keen to go to the bathroom at the same time. I was like “Do you think I’m hitting on you right now?” and he was like “Huh?” and I was like, “well, I like boys, so obviously I want to fuck you right now, right?” and my friend started cracking up because he could see that his friend was going to dig himself deeper and deeper. I was kind of bored, so I really dived right in with the logic. He tried to excuse himself with a “but in the bathroom there are penises” and I was all “well I like girls but when I’m at the gym, I’m not all “oooh I can see your vagina, I am so aroused right now”" and he tried the “well after I found out I still talked to him, I still invited him to parties” and I was like “OH MY GOD! i take it all back. You found out he was gay and yet you still treated him like a human being. You deserve a fucking medal, buddy”. Then Dave started playing porn on his laptop and when I got up, I leant on the far end of the table, and the other end came flying up and beer went all over his lap, and so he ran away. I would feel worse about it, because I really really hadn’t meant to spill the beer – but the total and utter glee and smiles on Lisa’s face when she came into the bathroom to high-five me made me so happy that I don’t feel as bad about it as I should. My other lesson from the night is that you shouldn’t let the new waitress at Harem try to make you cocktails because they will taste like Raro.

I was going to make Saturday Jo Day, but then I had leftover pizza to eat from Wednesday and Scar tissue to read (I’m no RHCP fan, but you know how I do so love the rockstar bio), so I didn’t go out for brunch. Instead, because Lani’s golf game got cancelled, I went out to PIRATE MINI GOLF with her since it was such a gorgeous day. We thought about waking up Smoo to make him come with us, but I don’t think he would have appreciated that. I ended up beating Lani by two points, because I got a hole-in-one on the second-to-last hole which she took six to get. Hurrah! I took lots of photos, but on my disposable camera, which is weeeeeeeeeeeeird because you can’t see what you’re doing! It’s like, all random luck! Strange! It was like using a rotary telephone. Then we went to Kaizen at Pataka Museum for coffee, and planned out our herb garden. But it was so fucking hot that we went to Lyall Bay instead of the garden centre, and I floated on the very very calm ocean until I touched a jellyfish and felt icky.

Back at home we decided to have a blind tasting session of the four kinds of Coruba Gold RTDs that I’d received a coupon for in the mail (see, there are some rewards for suggesting the most awesome Pirate Party that $50,000 would buy even if you didn’t get anyone to vote for it). The ginger ale was the most drinkable, and the energy drink was disguuuuuuuuuusting. But we wrote very wanky wine-style notes on each, which I’d replicate here if it didn’t involve getting up to find the piece of paper. As Lani got drunker, she became more and more convinced that Coruba should hire us to work for them. She also became more and more Adam Ant that we needed to play Cluedo. Since there were only two of us, because we’d ascertained that Smoo wasn’t actually still sleeping, we couldkn’t play her new video version, but at her insistence I slipped the magnetic travel version into my handbag when we set off for a party on Webb st her workmate was having.

I didn’t find the party very interesting, but there was very tasty caramel slice. Lani tried to pressgang everyone into playing Cluedo, and eventually we found a couple of willing Americans. Turns out it was Mrs. Peacock in the lounge with the dagger. Who knew? Lani did. We left the party, and debated going to Havana, but decided that what we really wanted to do was go home and have an encore of dinner (spaghetti with garlic, chilli and parsley) and watch Buffy. I should stress that it was her idea, not mine!

Today I woke up at 10.30am and spent two hours finishing off Scar Tissue before heading in to town for a slightly disappointing brunch at Ernesto consisting of fennel & carrot gluten-free toast, hash browns, bacon, mushrooms and black beans. I had to ask for butter for the toast, the hash browns were a little gluggy and the beans weren’t all that warm, but the coffee was great. I know they can do better, so hopefully it was just a once-off kitchen lapse. Then I went to Plastic Box (heh) for crates to tidy up our hallway with, and ended up spending $100 on a CD rack. But it is the KING of CD racks, let me assure you. It’s more like a full-on bookshelf. All my CDs will fit on it, and they’ll look all pretty and neat rahter than being scattered around in various vessels as they are now, and there’s room to grow, and oh, I just know that if my CDs are all neat and ordered and arranged to perfection then people will like me better and I will regain the control over my life that I felt has slipped a bit this week. And so of course then I went to Real Groovy to spend some vouchers. I was very very tempted to buy The Gossip, partly because of the awesomeness of the cover artwork, and partly because I like to think that I look like Beth Ditto does in the ‘Standing in the way of control’ video when I’m dancing, although I’m sure I don’t. But in the end, I got what I’d gone in for – the new Bloc Party, and the Cold War Kids, and also I found a really cheap American Music Club, all on CD and not vinyl, for a change. And I asked at the counter after the new Arcade Fire, and they told me how awesome it was and then ran all over the shop trying to find it, and eventually they did, and I was like, hurrah!

I was supposed to go to the garden centre with Lani then, but I felt very very Uggggggggh all of a sudden, so I ran (drove) to the ocean instead to try and shake it out. Lyall Bay was very shallow today, but the waves were big (and filled with black-legged jellyfish, dammit) so I got some good dunks. Then I floated for a while and eventually realised I was out of my depth and paniced briefly, and swam against the current back to where I could stand. That actually made me happy, that the survival instinct still kicked in even though the noise in my head was rising up and up and up and I don’t know why. I mean yes, I’m mango like crazy so surely I will bleed soon, and there’d been an unsettling email thing that’s been all sorted out now, and I realised that I hadn’t taken my pill, but bleh, not fun. So it was nice to come home and sit on the front steps with Lani and trim back old herbs and hope that they’ll grow and grow and grow. We’ve talked about starting a worm farm too. I kind of wonder why she’s so happy to make so many plans with me, like what do I have to offer her as a friend, and I’m thinking that about other people too, why do they put up with me, what can i do for them, and so on and so forth. This is also about how I haven’t been to counselling in almost three weeks, and so I haven’t sat down and provided clear examples (it’s the essay writer in me) of ways that I make other people feel good. But I can think of some of them, honest. Drinking two nights in a row – even if I didn’t get drunk (there’s that Citalapram drink tolerance kicking in) is not a good idea, I suspect.

Anyways, onwards and upwards. Tomorrow I’m cooking a roast and we’re having people over for DVD Cluedo. On the weekend I’m going away for a romantic weekend with my parents (insert hand/fist slapping motion here, suggesting that the family who lays together stays together), and then the weekend after that is a Wellingtonista get-together with secret plans and clever tricks. And somewhere in between I might get to clean the house. Maybe. OooH! I think Lani has tennis on Tuesday night and Smoo’ll probably be working so that’ll be clean time for me. What a thing to get excited about…

Edit: I must also add that right after I saw Rockstar: Supernova’s new ‘Head Spin’ video on TV (and Gilby’s guitar-playing sucks more than the original), I got a text from Annabel telling me that she just saw Lukas having his hair cut in Newmarket. Hahaha! Awesome.

The awesome side of having depression is that when you start to get better, it’s like, so fucking awesome. Yes, this is pretty obvious, but when things have been bad, and you take steps to make them better, and all of a sudden you feel good, you can feel this amazing sense of inner peace and feel like you’re glowing, and everything, just everything is fine, and it’s so fucking good. I’ve had this recently while watching the sun set at Lyall Bay, and when I had Lisa and Brad and Bart around the table for the flat dinenr roast on Tuesday night and my face was starting to ache from smiling, and today while floating in the ocean tryng to pretend that my toes weren’t going numb from the cold. And I know it won’t always be like this, that there are going to be more ups and downs all the time, but you know, let me have my moment in the sun. I deserve it.

And yes, there have of course been ups and downs. I had two days off work last week because I was dizzy and nauseous or just wanted to hide under the covers all day, but the good news is that my blood tests came back clean and when I went to the doctor’s to get a half-hour long blood pressure test, it turned out that I’m down to 118/74, so they didn’t even bother doing the whole half hour thing. Wahoo! I saw my counsellor for the first time on Thursday, and she’s going to make me an appointment with their career counsellor as well as she was quick to discover that I get depressed when I’m bored. She ventured a theory that I rely too much on other people to validate me, and I was like “well, since you said it, it must be true”. Heh. And then I cried when she asked me what I was good at, and what the ideal me would be like. One thing that I’m not good at is talking about what I’m good at without tagging on caveats to everything I say, like “I’m good at writing – but I don’t do it often enough”, “I have a tremendous capacity to love and be compassionate but there are many people that I think I have let down”. I like big buts and I cannot lie. And I talked a lot about feeling like I was 12 years old again and she implied that I was hanging out with a bad crowd and I laughed. The one way that I thought she wasn’t as good as Kalpana who I used to see in 2002/03 was that it was obvious she was looking at her watch all the time, wheras Kalpana had this tremendous ability to guide conversations perfectly in the available time without feeling like anything was rushed, and finding perfect ending places. But that’s okay, I’m sure it’s something I’ll get used to.

Just like I’ve got used to not drinking. Two weeks sober now! Who knew that was possible? Sure, dinner with my family on Friday night was a bit weird, but I’m going to blame that on the disappointly tiny portion of food that the vegetarian dish at the Manhattan Lounge was, and the fact that Horrible Gay Jonny was working behind the bar there, and that made my skin crawl so much that I got my parents to pay for my meal so that I wouldn’t have to talk to him. Brad brought over bubbly on Tuesday to celebrate him landing his first commercial, so I thought I’d have a half a glass to celebrate with him, but after a couple of sips Sebastian knocked my glass over, and so I figured that was a sign. And I tried to have a half glass of red wine tonight with my cumin gouda, but it just didn’t feel right. Of course, it might be that the wine’s oxidised or whatever it is that happens to wine that’s bad since I opened the bottle two weeks ago. I’m planning on drinking again when I get to Auckland, but until then, it’s a no. Did I mention that my doctor warned me to be careful if I do drink on the citalapram “because it lowers your inhibitions quicker, and then come the calls to your ex boyfriends” and I laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m now up to 3/4 pill a day, or I suppose 15mg. I was expecting to go from a half to a whole after a week but I think because I’ve been so nauseous she thought it would be better to take it slower with easing me on it.

I’ve been scatty and spaced out at work, but tonight I finished a thingie that I’ve been trying to work on, so I feel good about that. I also sanded down the other little bookshelf and spraypainted it gold. I bought magazine holders the other day, and sorted out my magazines today. My car is working again although I suspect a new alternator will be on the cards when I get my warrant in February. I found a new flatmate yesterday who I have a really really good vibe about – she works for the same ministry as me, loves Sebastian, wants a home not a house, said she was addicted to Buffy and smiled at my STD paintings. Now I’ve hung them, although they’re not straight. I feel like I’ve been achieving things, and that is good, even if it’s just doing the dishes, doing laundry, going swimming in the ocean. I found a headscarf to wear to the Big Day Out and I’m looking forward to coming in my pants at Dimmer the night before, and then again when Muse play, as long as they play ‘Hysteria’ which once featured in a dream of mine where I was making a porn movie with a guy who looked like Jesus, and we were timing our anal sex so that we’d both come right when this particularly impressive bit of guitar comes in in the song. And also I’m annoyed that I wrote two ‘in in’ together like that, because that’s so Danielle Steele with her bad writing skills being all about the “had had” and I fucking hate that. I also hate that I read two Danielle Steele books in a row, but I’m blaming that on the scattiness and blaaaaaaah of adjusting to my pills, like the proliferation of teen movies I’ve been watching. Much better are Jasper Fforde’s books about the Nursery Crime Division – The Big Over-Easy has Jack Spratt solving the case of who murdered Humpty Dumpty and the sequel The Fourth Bear speaks for itself. Sooo good. And full of word jokes which make me hot.

And that was far too long a paragraph, wasn’t it? Now all I have to do is tax returns for 2005 and 2006 because apparently they owe me money from 2001 (which is odd since Nicky did my tax returns for 2002 and 2003 and they said nothing then), set up a term deposit account and get my stuff back from everyone who has it (my camera is at the Aro house – I’m hoping I can sweet-talk Lisa into retrieving it for me) and reply to people’s emails and I’ll be like, totally on top of my life. For now. And that’s nice.

So today I had my doctor’s appointment and I thought it might be weird to have to tell someone new about my mental history, but as it turns out she’d googled me and had the citalapram waiting on her desk when I walked in.

Okay, so that’s not strictly true (or even vaguely true at all), but she did give me a prescription without me having to cry (much), and I get a subsidised script for citalapram because I told her I can’t take fluoxetine. Well, technically I could but the bourbon necessary to deal with that would probably not fit in too well with my plan to not drink for a while. She took my blood pressure and it turns out that it’s now 140/100 – remember how it was 131/99 last time and THAT was high? Yeah. So tomorrow I’m going for fasting blood tests and pee tests and all sorts of fun things like that in case my kidneys are packing up instead of it just being stressed. Apparently there’s also something that can send stress into your body if it’s fucked up, so that could be interesting to find out if maybe it’s my physical health that’s fucked instead of my mental health. While going over my depression history before I filled in the depression survey and discovered I was circling the 3s on almost every list, I told her that I wasn’t in as bad a condition as I have been the past when I’ve signed up for the crazy pills, and she was like “you don’t have to justify yourself to me”. Well, she didn’t say that, but then we talked about early intervention and blah blah, and she also warned me of the likelihood of increased anxiety in the early stages (wahoo!) and said that I needed to be on the lookout for suicidal feelings. This is why the modern world is so fucked – in order to avoid getting to the stage where I feel like I might want to harm myself I need to take a drug that comes with the risk of increasing the wanting-to-harm-myself impulses. But hey, I dealt with that okay when it happened in March 2003, and I’m sure I can do it again with Tom on speed dial and KateH just five minutes drive away. Oh no wait…

Ha, sorry, I suppose this sort of thing is inappropriate for me to be making jokes about, but come on, it’s me – when have I ever been appropriate? I have all the shiny knowledge, pamphlets, plans to call the work-provided counsellor on Monday and most importantly the motivation to not be like this anymore that I need to defend myself, which makes me practically Harry Potter. And also some Danielle Steele books and movies of the ’80s teen genre to fill in the time until I feel okay again. Plus, thanks to Lisa, I have new craft projects to fill my time. I’m not huge with the wanting to talk to people right now, because it makes my chest hurt thinking about it, so I’ve decided she doesn’t qualify as a person. Instead, she’s an Awesomeness. Last night she brought over milk and cookies and paint, and we made art inspired by magazines. Her piece, which has been called Oh Penelope is fucking awesome. My art talent? Not so much so hot. So instead I created a quadtich which is a celebration of celibacy.

HPV

Chlamydia

Gonorrhea

Genital Herpes

That’s so Jane. Heh. And if I hadn’t used up all our gig of bandwidth this month watching Dick in a box over and over again, I could download the photos that Lisa kindly took for me of my art, since of course I’m still cameraless and have yet to suggest to Brad that he hire a panda costume to go over to Aro and get it for me. If it’s even there and not in the taxi. If I did leave it in the taxi, it’s probably fair payment for me yelling at the driver after Chrisana got out about how the taxi driver two nights before had fucking groped me. And about how fucking angry that made me. New year’s resolution: only take blue taxis from now on.

Today Lisa and I went to op shops in Newtown to find frames and then tried to eat at the Medditereaneaneanean Warehouse, but the bastard was still shut, so we settled for Hell at her house, and I made myself feel better about my own life by watching House of Carters in absolute shock and disgust and confusion about why the fuck they could possibly ever want to put their lives on TV. Their father is so clearly a child molestererer. And yes, I laughed my ass off at one of the daughter’s stories about how her mother told her she was goign to horse-riding camp but then had her kidnapped and sent to Fat Camp because she couldn’t make any money for the family as a fat kid. Oh yes, Karma and I still need to have a cuddle and make up at some stage. Then we watched more bad TV, and came here to watch Say Anything, because really, who doesn’t want John Cusack standing under their window with a ghetto blaster? Exactly!

Now at some stage I might try to go to sleep, but to be honest, I’m waiting for City Life, because haha! And besides, everyone needs a late night TV addiction while they’re waiting for the drugs to start working. I had 90210 in 2001 (not to mention September 11 coverage), and then Buffy in 2002. At least I’m keeping it home-styles now. But tomorrow I will endevour to get up before noon, so I can get these blood tests out of the way. Wahoo, needles!