Hubris.co.nz

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.

Sleep in goooooooood. Boring day, reading Herald nice and relaxing. Lying back in bed after shower even nicer, listening to the CD I bought in Sydney even better. I love Kini.

Eventually Clayt, Jeremy Renee and I headed off to Long Bay – or is it Long Beach and are we ganstas? – for Jody’s bbq gettogether. Long drive, but it was in Jeremy’s car, which has red plush on the backseats, so that was cool. Actually, it reminded me heaps of Craccum Gareth’s car, so that was entertaining.

Jody’s friends are a little ummm – cliquey – but she’s still one of the coolest people I know. We called Shirley and got her and Richard to come from section 2 to section 13. While the boys were trying to barbeque, her and I went wading, me carrying my jeans above my skirt, and it was really cool. We had the best talk too. She said something about how it’s been cool for her to watch me change over the years and to see me growing stronger, and I agree. Yeah, good good good talk, an and I feel nice afterwards. BBQ’ed sausages were actually super nice, despite the fact that they’d seemed a little dubious. Jody etc packed up and left cos the park shut its gate at 9pm (Shirley and Jeremy had the good sense to move their cars out of the gate earlier). We’d just finished eating when Shirley and I started yelling at each other, baiting to go swimming, so I had to, stripping off to a slip and knickers knickers knickers behind a bush. We’d been drinking bubbly from plastic cups and it was getting dark which made it easier. Swinning was absolutely lovely. The water was warm and really really real, and I was with Shirley, who I love to pieces. My boobs would occasionally pop outta my slip, but generally when I was under water, and like she said -s he’s seen it all before anyways. We pledged to go Orgasm Shopping together. Heh.

It was dark and stuff, so I put my clothes back on – comando actually in my jeans, and I was bitching about it, so Clay was like “oooohkay” so i got mad and yelled “if you guys can hear in detail about how to give head, you can damn well listen to how uncomfortable I am that I’m not wearing underwear” and he conceeded I was right, so I chuckled lots and probably clutched at him to stay upright. Then, walking back to the car, we came across a children’s play area, so we had to stop and play. I freaked out totally over teh flying fox, because I was never a fan, even as a kid, but I was drunk enough to try it out, figuring the grass was soft enough to fall onto, and it was sooooo cool. I was screaming and laughing the whole way down, of course. And then we were playing in the fort, which was a bubbley structure pretty much like they have at every Burger King. As I’m a little larger than your average kid, I managed to get semi stuck in one part of it, but luckily my legs bend in all sorts of ways so I could untangle myself and go down the tunnel slide, shrieking all the way. It was cool. The drive home I spent going “Hurry up! Hurry up!” because I really needed to pee. Jeremy’s boycotting Shell becasue of their actions in Nigeria – good on him. I wish I followed all the No Logo ethics.

Anyways, back at home, Brad was all grumpy, so Clay and I decided to go without him. I changed my clothes and stuff, and paid Jeremy $5 to drive us (skinfl

These are highlights from my journal that I kept in my red book in Australia. Obviously, it’s not everything. I was doing a whole bunch of thinking, and no one needs to read all of that. But these are the entertaining highlight parts.

Monday, June 19th, 2000

I kept waking up all night and going back to sleep. Anji told me a couple of times to stop snoring. She herself was snoring too though! But anyways, yes, I woke up about 9am although that felt like 11am to me, which was good. Anji went out with Mike to get her hair dyed, so I stayed to potter around the house. I heated pizza under their funny grill, read Lolita and wrote in my journal. It feels a little more chore-like now to record everything, but I want records so I’ll have to get over that. Anji came home around 12.30 and showed me stacks and stacks of photos before we finally went for lunch.

We went to Atomic, because Anji said they had the best coffee. Fuck it was sooooooooo good. The place reminds us both of Olive – limited food selection, because the focus is on the perfect cup of coffee. But I had a cibatta sandwich anyways, with brie and advacado and salad and capsicums and mmmm it was yummy. Then we went to a net cafe, so Anji could check her email. I checked mine as well – I only7 had one from Jody, and sent a group SMS to Shirley, Maree, Popular Kate and Brad. I also showed Anji my cd rom. She’s threatened to chant “cunt cunt cunt” to me while I sleep so that I start to believe it.

We walked to a mall so Anji could pick up a shoe she was having fixed, and go to the movies. The place had purple carpet and walls, with gold painted pillars and screens – very swish. And the actual theatre had sparkly gold speakers and comfy seats with lots and lots of leg room. The movie we saw was pretty dumb, but kind of cute anywas. It was called Keeping the Faith and stared Ben Stiller as a rabbi, Edward Norton as a priest, and Jenna Elfman as the chick they were both in love with. Edward Norton – what a spunk, man! So it passed the time nicely.

After that, we walked home and sat around for a while before Anji decided she was hungry, so we went out for my birthday dinner. We just went to the end of Napier Street, so a place called “Growlers” that she said was extremely casual. Our waiter had blonde dreads and a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He dropped a hunk of bread with a knife stuck in it onto our table, which was to be drizzled with olive oil and devoured. There was also a small bowl of olives which I steadily made my way through. Yum! I never used to like olives, until one time I had them on pizza with pineapple at Craccum whilst very very stoned, and that seemed to be a winning combination. And then of course there was the Martini phase where the olive was the best bit of the whole drink! But yeah, anyways. Anji had wild mushroom risotto, which I’d been considering, 0-until I saw Duckling on Black Rice. Oh my god it was so so good! It came with prossocuitio, and creamy lemon sauce as well, and I was just in absolute heaven. As we ate, we drank a very nice bottle of red wine, and talked. It’s astonishing the parallels she was able to draw from her relationship with Son of Satan.

Anyways, then Mike came to join us for dessert. I was completely full so I didn’t order anything, he just spoonfed me a bit of his sticky date pudding because he said it would change my life. Here’s hoping!

Later in the evening, we smoked pot and Anji got real stoned real fast, so she went up to bed. I stayed up later, reading magazines and watching the boys playing Ape Escape.

20/6/00

Anji had to go to work at 12, I think, so she got up before me. Once I finally got up, I just pottered around reading Lolita, writing my journal and that kind of thing. Eventually i had a shower and got dressed. Then Timmy and Mike were going into town and they invited me to go along too, so I did. We walked in, and they spent ages in a comic book shop. I read a comic of Brothers Grimm faerie tales that were pretty nasty. I could remember most of them from my childhood, though I can’t quite place them. Maybe I had some of the stories on tape, and others in a novel book, as opposed to something illustrated.

We went to Hungry Jacks, and I had a grilled chicken burger. It wasn’t as nice as I remembered them to be. Ahh well. Mike told me to take more drugs so that I’d like crowds better. he also said his ex girlfriend always dresses up as Roller Girl to go to the Box on Retro Night. They made fun of my pop obsessions. I didn’t really mind.

Then we went to Myers, and looked at male underwear for a bit. I never got to pose very much in underwear, unless you count slips. Which may or may not be a good thing. Then we went upstairs to spend ages looking at videos, cds, playstation games, television….. It was quite quite boring. But still, I guess it was good of them to get me out of the house! And then we went to another playstation store and stayed there for a million years. Damn I wanna cd burner and a digital caamera! I gotta get me a decent job! Then we took a very crowded tram back to Brunswik Street. I felt a leetle bit bad cos I probably looked scowly, cos I was a little bored, and a lot tired and shy. So we had a drink at Joe’s, and I waited for Anji while they went to Bar Open. Once Anji had her staff drink, we went and joined them, and drank a bottle of red to their white.

Then we debated for a while as to where to have dinner (for a change) and Anji said we should go to a pub near home called the Builders Arms, so we did. The food wasn’t all that – i had lamb fillets on greek salad – but we played pool while eating, which made it more fun. Mike made it his mission to teach me to play – he said he’d made his ex one of the best pool players in uckland. Everytime he leaned in to help me with a shot, I wanted to laugh at wha a cliche it seemed like, but unfortunatly, he was just trying to teach me pool, I think. Damn! Ahh well, I guess the lesbians are sleeping in his room anyways!

We got home in time for Buffy, of course. Before it was on, the boys were playingp psx, and Anji got all shitty with them because she was bored. But once miked rolled her a joint, she was better. I’ve realised the reason I don’t enjoy smoking pot that much here is because they put tobacco in it, so it’s just not nice. Apparently, that’s because the pot is grown hydroponically, so it’s heaps stronger so they have to thin it out, but blaargh why?

After Buffy, it was pretty much straight upstairs to sleep. But OH MY GOD Willow shacks up with a girl! “I’M NOT MARRYING SOME BLOODY LESBIAN”

We rang Neil to say Happy Birthday to him. I lied adn told him I’d gotten him something TREMENDOUS for his birthday. Well, Anji and I might get him a Grease Karaoke video! Mum told Anji she’d pay for shoes for me if I could find any. Well, I haven’t found any. I can’t relaly go for guys dress shoes, so I might have to go for some streetwear style. But I really don’t like Royal shaped ones, you know?

Thursday 25; February, 1999

Got out of bed to the phone ringing, pulling on my dressing gown and was kinda short to Clayton’s friend Antz, practically hanging up before I remembered it would be polite to say “do you want me to take a message?” But he didn’t. So I stripped my bed, and put my light washing in the machine, and then went back for a bit more of a lie-in. When I went to put my dark washing on, I realised that there had been a sponge in the tub, and I’d flooded the laundry. Aces.

Anyways, so finally I managed to leave the house, and I stopped in Newmarket to get out $800 at ANZ and carry it up to ASB to pay the rent. The guy at ASB was really nice and sympathetic, because of course I moaned out the whole story when he asked. Man, it was fun having that much cash in my hands, even temporarily. Then I went to some crap-ass cafe and had a coffee, just to perk up a trifle before my three hour tv workshop.

Because we’re Year 2 this year, we don’t use the m100 cameras anymore, we use some bigass flash pro 2000s or something like that, which are apparently worth $10,000 each. Scary shit man – that’s like waaaaaay too much responsibility to place in my hands! We had to divide up into groups to do stuff, and we had Dan in our group. Dan who’s 23 and has a background of making short films. He was being sooooooooo patronising about all the technical stuff, and I just couldn’t see anything because I wasn’t wearing my contacts (my bottle of cleaning fluid has vanished somewhere into my room), and I was bored. We spent like 45 minutes getting two shots. It’s funny how paranoid people are when they think they’re being filmed getting out money from an ATM. OH! And I have another mini story sort of on that note – this morning when I was in the bank, I sat down at one of the counters that had two chairs at it, next to a counter that had no chairs. This old woman comes up, goes “Excuse me” and took the other chair but moved it over to the other counter. So what am I – chopped liver?

Man it’s pouring hard. I’m glad Si and Leyton were kind enough to bring in my washing. I was kind to them and hung most of my underwear up in my room (there’s this really weird line of nails sticking out of one of the walls that worked a treat). I guess I’m just really paranoid about people handling my underthings. One thing that really bugged me last year was whenever I went to Hamilton, Andee would always paw through my bag or suitcase (depending on whether or not I was enroute to somewhere else or just down for the weekend) looking for cool clothes that she could wear.

Oh yeah but back to my day. So yeah, after the three hour workshop (which was actually two and a bit) I went up to Auckland Uni and wandered around the Quad there for ages, clambering up staircases all over the place, looking for the Craccum office. They hide themselves away pretty well, above the Koreans singing Boyzone in the clubspace. I like their office because its trajic state made me feel so much happier about the mess in my room. Anyways, I went to proofread for them, so I did. And ate their pizza, and rejected their offer of smokes. Like, I haven’t had pot in ages, and I would quite like to have some, just not right after eating. I’d rather just have my own stash so that I could get giggly when I felt like it, instead of getting drunk and moody. Anyways, Craccum was amusing, and I feel special cos I think my name gets published. As ‘Jo McLeod’ actually, which is kinda weird, cos I’ve stopped being Jo reccently because of the lovely Eaton lass. But that’s okay. People won’t know it’s me, so I’ll be like, incognito. No, honestly they don’t have someone from AIT helping out. It was funny how much Nexus, and Hammy in general got mocked.

Then once I’d proofread the whole thing, and fed it back to Matt while he made changes onto the puter, I figured my work there was done, so I walked up to the bus stop. Checking my cellphone, I saw I’d missed a message from Trudie, so I rang her back but she didn’t answer. However, while I was on the bus, Kate rang me, wanting me to go over, but instead she agreed to meet me back at my place. Mmmm. So yeah, I got home and then she came over. We sat in the lounge giggling for ages, squeezing the inflatable aliens for a bit. (Simon and I are starting a blow-up toy collection – all donations gratefully accepted). Kate just got hooked up to the net today, and she said she was surfing with her flatmate Matt, when he read the stuff I wrote about him (“kinda cute, but I’m SO over the stoner thing. Being a little more on-to-it is kind of a bonus”) and complained that he IS on to it. Hahahaha. Guess I won’t be going back to her flat then!

We realised that we were fully obsessed with the aliens, so we started playing that props game from “Whose Line is It Anyway?” with them. “Oh, an extra leg!” and “yes, it’s a real fur, darling”. I guess you kinda sorta had to be there. Actually, no, cos Clayton and Si and Leyton were all there, and were greatly bemused while Kate and I just about died in fits of giggles. I think the boys were more entertained when Kate and I started beating each other up with the Aliens. Man, we gave each other such a fucking huge walloping!!! She wacked me one right across my face, and it hurt like a motherfucker cos it crushed my glasses into my nose. Then we went into the kitchen and screamed at each other, to the great annoyance of the lads who were trying to sleep. Kate had the audacity to call me a slut, and Si joined in, calling me a Hoe. I was like “WELL AT LEAST I’M MAKING MONEY OFF OF IT!!!!!!!!”. That shut them up.

And that’s shut me up too now.

xoxoxoxo

Wednesday 10; Febuary, 1999
I couldn’t sleep last night, so i was up till like 4.30am reading “Naked Lunch”. Now, I could sit here and say that I love it, that I can fully understand why it’s considered to be such an important piece of literature, but that’d be lying. Sure, he’s got astonishing descriptions, but a whole ‘novel’s worth is too much. It’s all just short stories and they don’t start and they don’t end and it’s just really bad. Plus, it’s completely nasty, and really scary. So if you have a differing opinion on it, that’s fine. I’m still going to finish it, because I could never put down a book, no matter how bad it was.

I still woke up pretty early though – well, around 11am, because I had calls to make. It’s my mummy’s birthday today, so I wanted to say hi, but she was out so I left a croaky message on her answerphone that sounded like shit instead. I know it sounded bad because I checked her voicemail later. That’s Fun with Phones 101.

I also called Dee, who wasn’t there (which is NOT fun with phones). So I did other stuff instead, tidy and clean a little and stuff like that. I also washed my hair, but it turned out absolutely lousy. Like, I wash my hair every day (if I’m going to be seen in public anyways) because it tends to go quite greasy at the roots, while the ends are too dry. Anyways, it normally looks fine, good, great after I wash it, but today it was fucking shocking. Like, so greasy as if I hadn’t washed it in a week. Honestly, it was that tragic. Oh god, how vain do I sound? It was so icky and greasy. I’m just going to blame the humidity. The fact that there’s no healthy food in the house apart from plums has nothing to do with it, really.

I was going to go to the supermarket, and then i realised that HEY! Clayton’s going to be coming back tomorrow, so why should I spend MY money on food that he’ll eat? I already paid for all the electricity. That sounds petty, but it’s not really. I’ve just become accustomed to living alone.

Anyways, so I was just sitting around, when all of a sudden my cellphone bleeped at me. I picked it up, and was astonished to see a text message scrolling across my screen – something like “stalkstalkstalk hey Jo was just seeing if you were getting showered upon*shags* your #1 stalker”. That completely confused the fuck out of me. I really didn’t know who would have the know-how to send me messages like that. I knew Matt was supposed to be calling me maybe to see if I wanted to go into town, so I rang his cellphone, but when he didn’t answer, I figured it couldn’t have been him, so I rang my momma instead. (More Fun)

She was home this time, so we had a chat. She’d recieved and appreciated my pressie, especially Anji’s breasts (see earlier entry for details). So we nattered away for a while, running up my flat’s phonebill, but I guess I’ll be paying THAT as well as everything else too, goddam it. While I was sitting there catching up on Welly gossip (apparently, they think they can fix my desk chair – YAY says my back) my cellphone rang, so I answered it and it disconnected. Bizzare. However, the great thing about my beautiful Phillips Diga is Caller ID which means TREMENDOUS fun with phones. So once I got off the phone with Momma, I set out to discover who it was that was stalking me.

I rang back the number, and got the Auckland University Students Association Office answering machine. Well, I know I don’t know anyone there, unless I’ve all of a sudden been elected president of a school I don’t even go to, so I had to use my amazing powers of deduction, and figured out that atmos.net was having meetings there today. So I rang Matt back on his cellphone and yelled at him “ARE YOU STALKING ME?”. Hahahahahaha turns out he wasn’t. Still, it was fun to accuse. Roll on the next suspect.

Dee rang me, and came over a little while later. She loved my house, which made me feel warm fuzzies, cos I love it too. It’s so MINE, which is the best thing about it. Like, I can see myself living here for years (sure, and now I’ve said that I’ll probably be forced to move out or something). I guess that’s the good thing about being here alone all the time is that it really gives me a chance to bond with the house. I can’t believe I was so scared that I cried the first night I was here. I guess that’s mostly because there was no power that night, and I was expecting a thousand dodgy people to come a-thumping, when only one of them did really. But moving right along. So yeah, Dee and I gossiped, and caught up and choice stuff like that. She’s always really busy cos she works at Orbit, the resturant at the top of the Sky Tower, but I’ll see more of her once tech starts – especially since we live so close now.

Once she’d gone, I went online to geek a little bit. I was very keen to find out who my stalker was, so I was telling everyone #left right and centre about it. I was talking to Kini (who, incidently, wrote in her journal that she never used to like my journal but now she does, because apparently my writing style has changed – your thoughts on this please) and she was like “did you like my message?”. I thought she was referring to the 8 ICQ messages she’d sent me when I was but NO! Turns out SHE was behind my textmessage on my cellphone. I told Simon about it, and he was like “but doesn’t that cost heaps, to call from Australia?” I was like “well I guess she just thinks I’m worth it then!”. Of course, it turns out that it’s actually free and reaaaaaally easy to do. I’m not going to tell y’all here how, although I may well some other day, when I decide I want more random stalkers, but I posted it to the Vision list. Kini just knows her shit, bro!

I was watching “The Craft” tonight (God, why did I miss John Hannah for that piece of shit?) when I got another textmessage pagey thing. Awwww I so wish I COULD come to your flatwarming, Jo! It was so cool to hear from you!

Now I feel like the sister in ‘Leave Before You Go” doing her sneaky tshirt thing except she made her bit up, and I didn’t. Go read the book if you don’t understand. It’s by Emily Perkins and it rocks.

Um that’s about it, eh. I’m paging people like mad now. Gimme your cellphone numbers if you’re on Vodaphone:

Name:

Number:

And I’ve only just clicked to the “showers” bit now. hahahahahaha.

Thursday 28; January, 1999

gosh aren’t bus timetables fun?

See that? (<<<) THAT is South Auckland. That is where the buses that I ride end up. However, what you won’t see on that map (even if it wasn’t such bad resolution and around the wrong way) is my street, or my house. I know this, because I spent an awfully long time this afternoon (ie ten minutes) trying to figure out exactly which bus I had to take home. I mean, I remembered the number of the bus I took in, but I wasn’t wearing my glasses, and by the time I got to the map, I was a litttle bit tipsy, so it was all a bit confusing. But then I went to the bathroom, where I do all my best thinking, and figured out that my house was off the map, to the NORTH thank you very much. See, I have a complex now, because I’m the most judgemental person in the world, and I’d hate for people to think I lived in South Auckland. Or West Auckland. Or the North Shore. And too far east, just to round it all off nicely. Honestly I’m not a snob. No, reaallly I’m not.

Okay so anyways, on with the show. The landlord rang me out of bed at 9am, which pissed me off cos I couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards. Amazingly enough, I’d gone straight to sleep the night before – I’d thought I’d lie awake freaking out about every odd noise, but I guess Piha just wore me out.

Anyways, he finally came over and I pointed out the leaks and damp patches and he agreed to change the front locks – YAY. So hopefully that’ll happen soon. Layton also rang and said he’s moving in tomorrow, so I’m home alone again tonight (oh shit, you missed your collective chances, didn’t you?). Anyways, back to my story.

I took a bus into town today. How proud are you? I was pretty proud. I took it ALL the way too – down into the terminal. Fuck the bottom end of Queen Street sucks. The top end’s not all that shit hot either, but at least it’s not so sheepskinandpaua-ry. So yeah, I went to the bank (yay, my cheque finally cleared so I’m as rich as I should be) and cancelled my APs to Access Ezy – a storage unit place with a name after my own heart.

Then I bought a V and Pulp Magazine (the BEST read in town), and went and sat in Aotea Square for an hour, reading my little heart out and listening to the clatter of skateboards. It was nice there – it would have been better without the boppers though. Haven’t they got the whole of the shore to hang out on? Anyways, then I went and used the bathrooms in the Aotea Centre. Nice and clean, air conditioned, no one saying I can’t…. perfect.

Since it was by that time after 4pm, I went up to the London Bar, to meet up with assorted atmos/craccum people. I know people man! Hahahah, I’ll just revell in my moment of snobbery. Gareth, the exhalted editor of Craccum had been drinking 15% beer, and well – he was pretty slumped in his seat. The beer was FOUL too. Errrgh. So I sat back and watched enthralled as they talked about all this businessy stuff. I was so in awe, man. In Wellington, I listened intrigued to hours of hospitality talk. Up here, it’s hours of web design and advertising stuff. I love it. Very impressed with the proffesionalism of some of the people there…. and others were amusing. And two-for-one happy hour’s got to be a bonus.

I explained about the map before, so we won’t go there again. I got on the right bus eventually, after hiking up to Symonds Street. Then I got foodage from Wendys and came home. After Shortland Street (NO MACKENZIE NO!!! LET MINNIE KILL OSCAR!!!!) I rang Karen, to find out she was at Home, so I rang there and hung up so they’d have to call me back and pay for the call. I was still sorta drunk then (fuck I’m a cheap date) and I hadn’t talked to Karen in sooooooooo long that I just babbled my little head off, telling her filthy foul stories that had her in hysterics for ages. So that was cool, until she told me she wanted to hang up because I was just repeating myself. And even my own father didn’t want to talk to me. Shock horror! This is made for tv movie stuff, man. “Hyperactive Girl Cast Out By Family ” I had to spend the rest of the night on the net to make up for it. And now my back hurts cos there is no back to this chair. That’s probably something I should invest in. Or if someone wants to steal me one, that’d be cool too please.

Saturday 16; January, 1999

Shirley went home to Waihi today, leaving me homeless. Simon arranged to stay with Kim. Kim and I don’t get along. I was kinda worried. I hate being homeless. Simon dropped me off at Matt’s house on the shore, so I went into town with Jo and Matt to a Vision meeting.

Now that was weird. Everyone sat around talking about things that I really didn’t understand, like Flash and CSS and I just wondered why the fuck I’m in Vision. My website is shite, and done (quite happily) on Frontpad. I don’t know exactly how dedicated to the vision I am. So yeah, that was bizzare. But I met Matthew of Holloway fame, so that was choice. And Ryan was friendly.

Afterwards we got a ride back to the shore in Gareth’s pimp car. He’s the editor of Craccum, it turns out. Connections, connections, connections. So yeah, I know people who know people, man. Rock on!

Jo was lovely and took great sympathy for me in my plight, so she asked her mommy if I could stay the night with them, which I did. Yay. They were borrowing a friend’s house while they were overseas. Jo and I stayed in the room of a boy who goes to Westlake. We mocked his posters and cds lots. Just wait till you see the photo I took of Jo and the roof of his bedroom. I’m going to put it up and tell everyone it’s her bedroom and her Speed 2 poster. Oh – did that give it away?

I played foozeball with her very bubbly little brother and we watched some really bad movie on TV, then ran away when Striptease came on. I have some standards, after all.