Hubris.co.nz

The Saturday before last was one of the worst of my life. Luckily it never happened.

Friday 29 June was my last day at NZAID. I’d suggested that I didn’t want to have a morning tea, and suggested instead that we could have drinks. My manager asked if she should invite ISU, the internet services unit. I squawked out “NO!” very loudly at her suggestion, because that is where the Web Developer works, and if someone is the sole reason for you leaving your job, you don’t really want to see him at your goodbye drinks. Instead, I told Lani to come down for it, and invited Bart to come up, and since Shirley’s starting there soon, she came in for a meet’n greet and to stay for drinks. My manager made a tiny little speech, but they didn’t even give me a card. You know how normally cards are really lame, full of impersonal messages from people who don’t even know you? Well I miss not getting one anyway. The boy who sent me sexually harrassing hilarious emails every day only stayed for one drink. Eventually everyone left, except for Bart and Shirley, and then the company director showed up which was very nice, and this crazy sixty year old woman. Bart and I laughed comparin gthe scene to my long, drunken goodbye at CWA New Media. Then the fucking cunt showed up. I went to the bathroom, went to my desk and logged out and forgot to clear my caches, and then went to get back and Shirls saying “we’ve got to go meet Dylan now”. So we ran away, leaving my tags behind me, and went up to Tupelo.

At Tupelo we drank more wine, and more wine, and more wine. Dylan showed up with his friend who I’d given a lecture on homophobia that one time, so I bought him a beer to make up for the one I’d spilt on his pants the last time we’d met. Eventually we all started playing ‘I have never’. I’m sure that wasn’t a smart idea. Shirley felt me up and I exposed my beautiful red bra to her and Dylan. It was one of those nights.

At some stage we stumbled our way up to the Southern Cross because Bart’d gone up there to meet up with his friends. More unnecessary drinks followed (but handily provided me with a receipt saying $15 at 00.39am, which makes me think it was two glasses of wine for Shirley and I) and then I remember thinking “why is that guy’s arm around my waist?” and then I believe that the guy kissed me, and I was like “umm, don’t you have a girlfriend?” and he said “yes, I have a girlfriend” and so I think we decided it’d probably be a good idea if he left, and so I went out in the rain to the back garden to find Bart. Smoo was there too, so I was like hurrah! And then the boy showed up again and I was like “didn’t you leave?” and he was like “yeah” and offered some lame excuse as to why he was back, but I just concentrated on talking to Smoo instead. Before the night was over I propositioned the last boy that I had sex with again and he was like “not a good idea” and then I woke up on the couch at 8.30am and was like “FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK” before crawling back into bed.

I crawled out of bed at 11.30am, somehow thinking that I could get up then, pack and still make it to check-in around 12pm. Interesting line of thought there. Of course, that thinking was somewhat handicapped when I got out of the shower and realised that my passport was not where it was supposed to be. I wanted to sit down and cry but I ransacked my room instead, wailing to Smoo who’d got up to drive me to the airport. By the time I’d found it in an old handbag, I knew there was no way I could make my flight, so I sat down and bawled, going “why am I such a fucking fuck-up?”. Then I shook myself off, threw a pile of clothes into my large suitcase and asked Smoo to drive me. My suitcase didn’t fit into the boot of his MR2, so we took my car. I’d kept KateH in the text loop and she was lovely, asking me if I needed her to book me a new flight, or send Shirley over to help me.

Qantas had no more flights to Auckland before 7pm that day, apparently, so I ended up forking out $400 for a ticket on Air NZ. It didn’t go until 2.30, so I very slowly bought a paper and a latte and a pastry and sat shaking at a table in the terminal, trying to do the sudoku. Then I went and threw up the pastry and the coffee and sat trembling a little more. When I finally got into KateH’s car in Auckland, I warned her I was about to cry again, and she said that aws fine. She drove me to Wendy’s in Manukau where I proclaimed that she’d saved my life – until all the saturated fat hit my heart anyway. We gossiped, and she soothed my soul over my fuckedupstupidity, and it was just so lovely to see her.

That feeling of loveliness disappeared when I got back to the airport and found no one waiting to check me in at the Pacific Blue counters. I asked at the service desk, and they were like “that flight’s already closed!” and I was like “OH MY GOD WHAT?????????????????” before the other woman said that no, it was just at a counter at the other end of the terminal. So I told my heart that was all thumpthumpthunp to calm the fuck down, and schlepped over to the check-in counter. They asked to see my tickets. I was like “umm, wasn’t this an e-ticket?” but apparently since I was coming back on Air NZ and not Pacific Blue, that was a problem for them. I had to go to an Air NZ service desk and get them to print out my flight details, trying really hard not to cry while doing so. Then they said that there were no more seats. I just about exploded. They had to unlock some seats or something, and told me that the plane was completely full. Great. I got stuck with a window seat. The rest of the waiting time was horrible. Every duty-free shop made me dry retch. Luckily I managed to sleep on the plane, although I’m sure I snored.

But then tobacco was $20 a box at Duty Free in Rarotonga, and I got a bottle of bacaardi, and my daddy was there to pick me up and drive me to our house in a late-model BMW. I opened up the lounge doors where I was sleeping and stepped out onto our lawn and looked at Muri Beach by the light of a full moon. I’d flown over the dateline and so I had a chance to redo my Saturday so it wouldn’t be the worst day of the year again…

Goddammit, when is someone going to actually punch me in the face and remind me that English accents aren’t actually as awesome as they make my loins feel?

So this week, my manager has been away, but luckily she gave me a very comprehensive list of things to do which has had me making many many calls. Do you know how easy a comms girl’s job would be if people actually answered their phones? Easy like woah is the answer you are looking for. But as a key feature of Comms is being patient, work has been busy in the sense of lots to do, and slow in the sense of much waiting for others. It’s that waiting that had me having lunch with Miss Kimberley today, so I could give her a copy of 101 Stories that I want to tell you, for her raffle, and now it turns out that instead of just buying some tickets, I’m also selling them. Go to her page for more details, or get in touch with me when I’;m more sober (It’s 3.24am right now).

Anyways, towards the end of the day, we were supposed to go to Concrete for a drink, but I went there with Mel last Friday and most of their cocktails were $20. Seriously? And not even a Long Island Iced Tea? No way am I paying that (although the $8 glass of rare and tasty white that I had was bloody good and also generous), so we suggested that we get a bottle of wine in instead, since our coopted lady wasn’t done (she was waiting for our minister to wake up, apparently), and so I went to Kirks’ and bought an $18 bottle of very tasty Sav. We had nice conversation and plotting for next week and stuff, then I wnet with one of Lani’s friends down to Ministry Drinks. It was Caribbean themed, which meant rasturbated pictures of Bob on the wall and cricket stumps. I sold two tickets and left to go to New World Metro for a $17.50 bottle of Shingle Peak Sav that I thought was $12.50, and a bus up to the lovely Miss Lisa’s house. She cooked me spinachy cheeesy pasta and we watched ANTM the recap episode, until we were joined by Dave, and headed down to Havana for Amber and Karl’s goodbye drinks. It turned out that I’d left not just my phone but also my wallet at Lisa’s house (I am so usually not that girl),so we cabbed back for it, and she stayed, so I went back and talked to many ex CWAers. And I was all woah.

Then I found myself on a couch talking to some British boy, so I made Karl change places with him, and he was saying he flew kites, and I was all “oh,that’s so interesting” so I bid everyone goodbye as they left and settled in to talk to the Brit. He was all blah blah blah and I was all “tehehe accent” and our knees were touching, and our thighs against each other, so I was like omg, makeout. He said he was a chef, so I was like “okay, so what would you cook for me? I’m drunk and kind of cute” (cos I know that he’d been staring at my cleavage like woah), and he started going on about crab, not in a vol e vant (sp?), but rather in a wonton wrapper, and I was like oh yes? saying that I’d never eaten crab but trying to imply that I was totally willing, but then he went to the bathroom, and I was all “okay, he’s got 10 minutes to get back here”, checking my watch, but then he was all talking to others, and he reawlly did remind me of Kateb’s ex, and there’s no way I’d do that, and I was like oh stink bro, you’re a chef, all I wanted was a hot beef injection, but I taxiied home and now I am here. Hurrah. l

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.

On Thursday night I had my first summer ale and then yesterday I had my first swim of the summer. Around 1am. At Oriental Parade. In my panties. With my now ex workmates and Bart. It was awesome, and not very warm. Luckily the booze in me kept me warm.

Today, consequently, has been rather slow. I spent a couple of hours at Elements in Lyall Bay eating, drinking latte bowls and reading the paper very very slowly. Now there’s been Thai takeaway and Fred Prinze Jnr movies on the television. And my laptop that I picked up from the shop last weekend is STILL ticking and overheating, but I know that htey must have done something to it because now it says ‘Packard Bell’ on the screen the second time I turn it on. It’s an NEC though. And I say second time because the screen stays blank the first time, every time. Good times.

What else should I talk about? I can’t start my new job yet because my security clearence still hasn’t finished. This is a good thing though because it means I get to have a couple of days off first, wahoo! I can go buy some fancy schmancy clothes to match my fancy schmancy new offices down Lambton Quay way. I’m proud of myself for running around in my underwear last night. It makes me feel more prepared for New Year’s, and it also reminds me of the good times skinny-dipping in KateM’s dad’s pool with not a care in the world, or the olden days when I was regularly doing bad things with bad people when I’d get up and walk around the house butt naked and go read magazines in the lounge – if I knew Clayton was out, of course. Or open the curtains if morning sex was to be had, for the benefit of people in the office building across the road. Heh. My self esteem has been very weird lately, I had some total wigginsing on Thursday night, even though I knew at the time I was just being a dork. If only I’d never gone to that damn talk about Myspace!

Now it’s Sunday, and today would have been Oma and Opa’s 60th anniversay. To celebrate, we got together at my parents’ house and scattered their ashes together around a magnolia tree we planted. That sentence does nothing to describe the comedy of errors that the occasion actually was, with the unmowed lawn all wet and long, and the bugs biting me. The containers with the ashes in them didn’t want to come open for a long long time, until finally Cousin Andrea cleverly pointed out that there were latches on the bottom that could be open and the ashes shaken out. There is something a little bit strange about shaking out your grandparents like salt and pepper, passing the containers around so that everyone could have some time with each of them. But the tree – once we managed to get it staked – is really pretty, and I think it was a nice thing to do. Afterwards, we watched super8 home movies that my parents, my uncle and Oma had all shot in the seventies. The clothes were fabulous, and we were all such fucking cute kids (yes, I wasn’t alive in the seventies, but I whined enough that we got out some ’80s footage too). Mum and Aunt Diz were running around in bikinis and looked hot. My dad was in a floral speedo and despite his womanly hips he still had a good body too. Also, eww, did I just say that? The whole effect was a litle bit like watching many many L&P ads. Or perhaps looking at current fashions. Or super 8 footage played behind the Phoenix Foundation…

I also grabbed Deuchlandriser, which is a board game in which you travel around Germany, and also some large beer mugs. Germany is on October 14, the day after Dimmer, and I’m so very happy because Jessie may be at it. And also I’m very happy that I will finally get to see Dimmer. Assuming that it hasn’t sold out yet. Woo!

Oh, and one more thing that I wanted to talk about was how nice the goodbye speeches for me were, and how genuine they seemed. And also, the best part about them was that they were surprisingly similar to my answers in many job interviews lately about what others would say about me – my ridiculously large banks of trivia in my head, my dry wit and my social skills. If I hadn’t put my card in Bart’s backpack along with my purloined coffee cup (shoosh!), I’d put in actual quotes. But yes, very very good times were had. And everyone who left their computers on will be looking at my face when they get to work as their desktop image…

Little things that make me happy

1. My kitchen is all sorted out now. This was a bigger task than you might think, given that we are now officially (OFFICIALLY) the coolest flat in town with two fridges and a full-length freezer. Badoom Chish.

2. My books, also, are all sorted out on a new tall black bookshelf that Briar brought with her but won’t be using because she said she’s not really in to books. And they’re all alphabetical, and chronological by author, and it makes me happy. Except when they’re all sorted out like that I can tell instantly how many of my Douglas Couplands have been appropriated by evil borrowing fiends, and that makes me sad.

3. The leaving beads around my neck (three more sleeps!) go really well with my black and white striped top. An emo is I!

4. Now I don’t have to worry about any more job interviews, I can finally get my hair striped blue-black/aubergine. But I need to get it cut first, since while Anji’s trim looked good at the time, the bluntness of those scissors has left me more split-ended than ever.

Big things that make me happy

1. It’s less than a month until I go to America. Fuck Yeah! Suggestions for what to do with myself in New York and San Francisco will be gratefully accepted.

2. It’s five sleeps until I start my new job!* I’m going to be Helping People. Or at least the government body that I will be working for will be. I will be its web coordinator for six months. And I will make more money than here. I will, however, be far away from Contours so I might have to join a gym down that end of town. Any suggestions?

*Contingent on my passing security clearence, that is. The form was about 30 pages long, and wanted to know such things as addresses of where I’d lived overseas, details about where everyone in my family works and where they were born and their nationalities, stuff about my flatmates, everywhere I’ve been overseas, my religious affiliations if my ties

Right now I am looking for these things:

1. A new job. They announced my resignation at work so I get to wear the leaving beads now. The leaving beads look like Mardi Gras beads but I’m pretty sure I haven’t shown my boobs to anyone here at work in order to earn them. Unless there is actually a camera in the hole in the ceiling in the bathroom. I’m looking for writing/editing/web/communications type work, so lemme know if you hear of anything that’s going.

2. A new flatmate. Bart’s going off to find new adventures on the other side of the tunnel, so if you know of someone who’d like to live in Sunny Hataitai and pay $120 a week for a good room in a great house with Smoo and Seb and I, then please do send them in my direction. The ad is up here if you want to perve at photos of our lounge and dining room.

3. A bach to stay at over New Year’s eve. There will be six or more of us, and we want to be close-ish to Wellington and on a beach. Yes I know we left it kind of late.

4. People to party with at our ‘Meat Market vs Bart’s Goodbye’ party. It’s on Saturday, and it should be fun, and you should come, and you should bring some people we haven’t met before.

Things that I have done lately that have been of some sort of note:

1. Looked for jobs.

2. Looked for flatmates

3. LiveAid for Africa – despite its sparse attendence we raised $100 which was enough to buy two chickens, two AIDs awareness kits, some farmer training and soap for ten families. Go us. You can see some photos of the events in my flickr space, but if you are too lazy to click a link, here’s a photo:

4. The drum & the bass. At a party, and then at Indigo San Frindigo Bathhouse on Saturday night. I had forgotten how much fun it could be. I especially liked the guy who bumped me, and then went to pat my shoulder in apology but grabbed my boob instead and so we had an “it’s okay dude” hug. I was somewhat less fond of my taxi driver who seemed to mistake my slight interest in why he chose NZ instead of Norway as a refugee as interest in him, and decided to ask me out for a drink then and there. At 4am. Really really inappropriate and sleazy, and it made me feel so uncomfortable that I got him to stop a half block from my house.

5. Dinner parties. Food Baby was at my house last week, and so I went with my staple beef burgandy and mashed potatos. Last night I went to a potluck dinner for Lisa Fur‘s birthday, and I made apple crumble. Another one of her friends had made a crumble too, but mine was better. Heh.

6. Had my last boxing lesson. I want to do more, but my trainer’s having a shoulder operation (as if I didn’t already feel bad enough about punching towards a tiny little blonde girl), and I have to control my finances (sort of) until I get a new job, and then my membership is up in November, and while I will be continuing to go to the gym, my new job location might dictate somewhat the gym that I join. So it is all to be confirmed later.

7. Obsessed over Rockstar: Supernova. I don’t know what I’m going to do after Thursday when it’s all over.

So tomorrow is Africa at the Country Club, and I will be asking people to make a donation. Then with the money collected from donations, I won’t be paying off the rest of the keg from America. No no. I will go to http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com.au/ and buy some things to the total amount of what we collected, and perhaps some more. I’m gutted that they’ve sold out of goats, but perhaps we can buy some chickens instead. If you can’t come to Africa, and I suspect most of you can’t, you should do the same, okay? Awesome.

EDIT: Mad props must go here to Robyn who bought a chicken. Yay!

I need to be careful with my money though, because I resigned from my job on Monday. Four more weeks and I’m out of here. I don’t know where I’ll be after that, but it won’t be here. If you know of any writing/editing/communications/web coordination type roles going in Welly, please do let me know.

I still have a food baby in my stomach from last night with the tripleK. Apparently I’m not supposed to call them that anymore, but meh, it’s just so good. And if they keep up with the lynching, I’m going to have to keep calling them that. Food Baby is at my house next week, which means that I feel better about being part of the group rather than just being a tagalong, and also I can drink instead of driving as I did to Brooklyn last night. In my car that had $583 worth of repairs and servicing yesterday to get its warrant. Right after that $200 fine. Good times. And my laptop is back at the shop. I have adopted a very mellow sense of calm about all this, somehow. I suspect it’s mostly brought on by laughing my guts out at Family Guy. And being proud of saving Magni. Mmmmmagni.

I thought I was going to cry again in my boxing lesson, but I didn’t. I mastered the right uppercut very quickly, but not the left one. Stupid left arm. It’s so useless, I can’t do anything with it. Why do I even bother having a left arm? Maybe I should cut it off and replace it with a hook. I bet that’d pull in all the chicks.

Also, in other social event news, we’re having a Meat Market on the 16th. Everyone should come, and bring some single friends with you. Woo woo. Remember the last meat market that I held? I was just saying to Tom (exactly!) the other day that 2006 was the new 2003. Except better. But without drugs and therefore with far less sexing. Haha sexing. LisaB was talking last night with all these new words like ‘performancing’ and ‘materiality’, and I was like “you are so awesomenating”. Except I didn’t say that, but I wish I had. It was such a change having civilised grown-up conversations instead of spending the entire dinner talking about butt sex as Eta Beta Pi tend to do.

Okay my dear loyal readers from around the world, I need your help. In fact, it’s not just me that needs your help, it’s Africa. Which also happens to be the subject of the next Country Club. Yes, since we’ve neglected that continent so badly so far, we’re going to do it all at once on September 2, and we’re going to do it like Live Aid. And therefore you should too, and then we can link it up all around the world. And that’d be awesome. In Wellington, we’ll dress up like rockstars, eat some Africanish food (that as I plan it in my head bears more than a little similarity to the Caribbean feast, but that’s where the origins were, I suppose) and then we’re going to do Singstar and deliver our stunning concert performances. I’m going to suggest to everyone who comes that they might like to make a donation to a charity that I’ll finalise later, so that as well as having the awesome time that we always have at Country Club, we can do a little bit of good as well. Awesome. And now that’s out of the way, on with the week!

And the second thing that I wanted to talk about in the general category is who is subscribed to my rss feed? Only Jessie is listed publically. Come on kids, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. And here I go with the showing:

Lessons Learnt on Thursday

Oooh look at me, I’ve finally got my journal kind of current. Except for filling in my RAGE about Dana being eliminated instead of Jill. Or Zayra, naturally. But let’s not talk about that (or the boards that I have been reading, or the tears that have sprung to my eyes today watching clips of Marty and Jordis…). Let’s talk about me instead!

Firstly, what I left out of my Auckland recap was that while I was at Annabel’s, she pulled out her copy of Boys Boys Boys Boys Boys as I emailed her a copy of 101 Stories, and it was soooooo weird reading it again. Did I really write that? Did I really live that way? Strange. No wonder people have mentioned what a progression 101 is. But I would still really love someone to send me back a copy of Boys because I haven’t got one. Please? Someone? I know they’re mostly pretty bad photocopies anyway, but maybe someone has one of the A4 versions that they could send me? Thanking you in advance.

Other things that are good in my life right now is meeting up with the rest of the Wellingtonista crew tonight for martinis (except for me because I am under 30), and then a cocktail party tomorrow night for Cinta’s hens’ night. Then on Sunday dinner for Karen’s birthday. On a much healthier for me note, I signed up to do personal training boxing sessions today. I’ll get to hit stuff! Yay! I think that will be fucking awesome stress release, and also I’m trying to mix up my exercising, because I don’t want to get bored and I really need to step things up for the sake of my wrist and also not dying on the flight to America.

I am so looking forward to America, like woah. The time is creeping closer and closer. In fact, America at the Country Club is next Saturday August 12. We’re having a kegger Frat/Sorority party with John Hughes and Showgirls. And a pillow fight. And junk food. And initiation ceremonies and hazing. You should come along. In real America news, I rang Kate at some ungodly hour last Friday night when I got home. I was aiming for her birthday but kind of missed, and also I was drunk and lonely, and I miss her! All the same, I’m really not looking forward to the phonebill.

This afternoon I am sniggering at the Peaches CD I’m listening to and trying to postpone doing more phone calls, but since there are a hundred people on my list (almost literally – once I finish assembling my list there will be anyway), I suppose I shouldn’t put that off for much longer. Work is interesting right now in terms of RFPs, and black holes, and also new projects that I am working on, and the fact that I went on some weird trip on Tuesday and cleared out about four things I’d been sitting on for months. Go me. And now I must go and pee. It’s important that I tell you this, honest.

Finally, just some links to things I’ve been up to lately – TV Squee / Rockstar Obsession / Pirate and Auckland photos. That’s about all. OH! And I have an RSS feed that works now, which I would add in to the bottom of the page, except that without a laptop I can’t FTP in, but you can find it at http://hubris.co.nz/rss apparently, according t the wise Heather. That’s it now. Ask me some questions about what you would like me to tell you about.

So apparently if I want to talk nonstop all night and all the next day, I should do what I did on Friday again, which is accept Cinta’s challenge at work to stick a berocca in my mouth and let it disolve. I don’t understand why NZ has a P problem – why aren’t all the kids just doing this shit instead? Man I can fucking babble, and talk a lot of shit, as I did all the way through Havana, and Scopa and Good Luck. I mean I know I normally talk pretty much nothing but shit, especially I’m drinking, but not usually with quite that much speed or lack of ability to stop myself even though I could hear my talking in my head. On reflection though, I know I brought up at least a couple of intelligent conversational points. I just raced through them very quickly. I’d sent out a couple of texts about gaxy and a lack of shine, and then the gaxy made me feel even older when she was like “oh, I remember listening to this song (‘Forgot about Dre’) when I was 15″ – it came out in 2000, right? And then that was compounded when she was like “so have you finished your degree yet?” But then she called another girl a whore and I realised that we weren’t so very different after all and I laughed at myself a whole bunch. I also laughed when we were at Scopa and the boys went out to smoke, and I looked up to see one of them stopping the tourists who were trying to come in and demanding to see some ID. Drunk boys are hilarious (*).

On Friday I’d ordered the weather to be sunny, so I wasn’t too surprised when I woke up on Saturday to see that the weather was glorious. I still managed to have entertainers’ stress outs though when my phone started beeping with people cancelling, or saying they’d be late, or that they’d meet us at the venue. But I went and picked up Brad, and got changed into my outfit and started peeling kumara while he said he was finishing off my birthday party. He then ahemed me and I turned into the lounge to see him standing there IN A FUCKING BEAR SUIT and when he told me to turn off my music in the kitchen, he started up a Spiderbait song and performed a dance he’d choreographed especially for me, although it had some basis in his class assignment to create something you’d want done at your funeral. He danced and he danced and i just about died from smiling and the sheer total fucking awesomeness of it. And like that I was giddy all over again and I knew that the Caribbean would be awesome – and it truly truly was.

People showed up in various states of dress, and the boys who weren’t piratey enough were made to wear headscarves. The McLeod’s Daughters, meanwhile, were tarted up to all excellence:
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We had some RUM and some other forms of GROG, which mostly consisted of PIRATE BEER, and then Katy put my boots on for me when I discovered that I couldn’t put my boots on without revealing pretty much all of Mary-Kate and Ashley, and I felt like an incapacitated drunk, instead of a tipsy giggly pirate, and now on reflection what I should have done was just taken my boots to a different room. But nevermind. We loaded ourselves into the good ship Insanity, which in a previous life had been my parents’ van, and passed around more cans of pirate beer to those who wanted them. I have photos from the van, but no laptop, so therefore no photos. But I do have photos from pirate mini golf to show you though, from my parents’ camera:

My mummy and daddy, who enjoyed themselves hearrrrtily, I think. And who are also crazy.

Myself and Brad

Two thirds of the revellers (2/3 of the KKK and the other Jo were exploring the mega centre when we got there)

Par for the course. Heh.

So, it turns out I’m as bad at minigolf when I’m drunk as I am when I’m sober. I still got a hole-in-one out of the castle, but on some I got sixes. Nevermind. It was very hard to stop saying “yarr!” so I gave up and just continued to spit out terrible pirate jokes and say inappropriate things. I found also that zipping up my hoodie kept the twins under a little more control so I got less distracted. Minigolf is awesome. You should all go.

Then we drove back home, waving our cutlasses at Ash’s car, and I started cooking my Caribbean feast of “goat” curry, blackeyed beans, candied sweet potatoes, jerk chicken and yellow rice. I am fucking awesome. We made daquiris and other rum-based concoctions, and Mike and Chrisana and Lisa arrived. People rather disturbingly started deep-throating a cutlass handle. General revelry and rumbustification was had. It was fucking awesome and radness. And due to the amount of mangos in the daquiris, and staying up late playing records, I wasn’t that hungover the next day, hurray!

Instead I spent my day laughing at Bart and Smoo who’d been on a different, shinier eyed journey the night before, and cooking a roast family dinner (yes that’s right, I roasted a whole family), and rereading Microserfs and doing dishes and laundry. Clean, dry laundry! Oh happy day!

Then this morning I got up to watch the soccer, because Dave had a $50 bet on Italy and they won, and that was yayness. Although my whole view of Italians has been shaken by the revelation that my favourite hospitality person is apparently younger than me, went to Onslow and actually went out with LisaB. I was like “what? he’s so beautiful, how could i not have seen him around before?” so I am obviously going to have to find my yearbooks and do some investigating.

Auckland in two sleeps’ time, yay!