It’s Thursday, it’s the 2nd, it’s October, it’s 10.55pm. And if you don’t know it’s 2003, you’re more fucked than me. Dear god I am SO FUCKING BORED. I’m about to chew off my own arms and legs in the hope that the doctors will at least give me some codeine or something after that, because hey, that’s something different and new, and maybe it’d stop the fucking dreams (yesterday morning: being 12 and raped by four different guys and no one would believe me or take me to the police station so I could get DNA testings done, and then this morning it was Iraqi soldiers torturing me, pouring carbolic acid in my mouth and over my breasts. My head is not happy on the inside).

Pay for me to fly to your city and I’m yours. Unemployment fucking SUCKS. And you’re like “eh? last time we heard from you, you were busy working on a paper and having some sex”. Well yes, but that was well over a month ago, right? So since then there’s been the “Well this is nothing to do with the quality of your work, but we jsut want someone more experienced” two day notice kiss off. And so yes, unemployed, not yet able to go on the dole but completely run out of money. Life pretty much sucks. You know how you think that when you have a whole lot more spare time life would be a lot easier? You’d be more tolerant of other people’s crap, and would have more headspace to deal with trying to work out people and all that, etc etc. That’s so not true. Being bored has made me even more intolerant and less willing to put up with being dicked around. Although I was never very good at giving up on flogging dead horses. Etc etc.

More self pitying, more whining. More self pitying, more whining. More self pitying, more whining. Rinse and repeat.

If Winz had been nice and started paying me from the 6th of October like they originally said they would, then I wouldn’t be so worried about money. As it is, my holiday pay is all gone on a dvd player and buffy dvds and the usual extravagent spending that I’m so good at in vain attempts to pass the time. This means I will have to borrow from my parents, which means that I can’t ask them for money to go to Chch or Sydney or San Fran, which fucking sucks cos dear god I’m bored in Auckland. BORED BORED BORED. And if you email me suggesting that I clean my room or something else mundane like that, please to be expecting a big bitchout. I want excitement like strangers on motorbikes fucking me in alleyways or something similar. Nothing else will do. Okay, maybe without the motorbikes. And the alleyways. But just something, some way to let off steam. It’s all bottled up. If I was a piece of kitchenware, i would be the pressure cooker Ammy used to prepare chickpeas for hummus – before she blew up Lance’s blender, that is. Speaking of Lance, he’s been away for a fortnight with only a small stop-through in the middle, so that may add to the boredom. Luckily I still have Iva to watch Buffy with. I’m praying she will bring me home potato chips, but of course she won’t know thsi, since I lost my cellphone at Gilmours and it got pinched, so I reclaimed my old one off her. I still have the same number, but I don’t have my old sim card, so everyone if you have me in your phone, text me your name please so I can have your numbers. Thank you. Andrew is also staying with us which at times is entertaining. Him and I had Wine&Cheese the other night, and we even managed civilised conversation some of the time – I explained in detail why I didn’t like 1984 and how it didn’t work because all of the characters were so inhuman it didn’t seem real and therefore wasn’t frightening, wheras the reason that Margaret Atwood’s grim portrayals of the future were so much more poignant is because you can get under the characters’ skins and become them and it’s pretty fucking terrifying. See, there’s more to me than everlasting jokes about sodomy. Well, a little more to me anyways.

I’m just really really super lonely. I want someone to sleep with – someone who’ll cry when I cry so our tears mingle and I forget where I start and they begin, or someone who’ll make me feel like their arms are the safest place to be in the world because they’ll never hurt me, or someone who’ll hold me so tight that I almost can’t breathe, like I’m totally precious to them. Sebastian snuggling into me will have to run a close second. I adore him utterly, but he bites me if I ask for too many cuddles. And sure, I want sex too, and jesus, unemployment is majorly bad for the OOS, what with all the extra time for the Internet and also the wanking, but most of all I crave what – intimacy? Perhaps. Foreign scary concept for me. I’m so special, I’m so super, I’m so DEEP. Whatever.

The Abstract:
You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t updated Hubris in quite a very long time, and normally that’s a sign that I’ve sunk into the big D again. In this case, that’s not the case. I’ve just been incredibly busy. First there was a bit of a sexplosion, and then there was putting out a whole issue by myself, and then another whole issue by myself in half the time, and then there was a trip to Wellington and the Hawkes Bay. Oh, and due to the Sexplosion, there was an underlying current of fear, with my period being three weeks late, broken condoms and not being sure who the father was. I’m back now, and things have calmed down a little, hence this update .

The Fuller Schbobble:
Well! Where do we start? When I last updated, we were going to have the Meet Market party and I was inviting you all. None of you showed. How rude. This led to me shagging one of Lance’s young friends, because Lance made the deliberate mistake of leaving us alone together very late at night adn I was bored of talking to the guy about how miserable he was without his girlfriend. I thought he needed some cheering up. I think it worked. He said “I’ve never had it like that before”. I laughed lots. In the morning, he asked me for my cellphone number. I was like “What? Why?” and then instantly felt mean. Lance has managed to refrain from hassling him since. The boy comes into the office sometimes to buy bus tickets but avoids looking in my direction, poor wee thing.

Later that week, I had a drink with a boy who, let’s face it, I’ve had a thing for ever since I realised that running away while he was sleeping was the stupidest thing I did last year. He was absolutely lovely, and we were getting on so damn well, swapping life stories and talking about how much we hated ‘Sex in the City’ and how totally empowering it wasn’t, and he said that sometimes you sleep with people just because you want to, and I said that sometimes you sleep with people because they give you the dirtiest sexiest look you ever received in your whole life “which is why I went home with you” and he laughed. I told him that I wished that I’d got to know him last year. Eventually he had to go, but he asked if I wanted to hang out later that night, and suggested that he should come over to my house and bring a bottle of wine. I think my jaw just about dropped off, and then when he kissed me outside the pub on Ponsonby Road, my knees went woozy. Luckily KateH picked me up then, otherwise I would have been wandering around all dazed for a couple more hours, no doubt. He came over a couple of hours later, and well, I was two hours late for work the next day. It was lovely, so much more intimate than the last time – I guess because this time I fancied him, and wasn’t in love with someone else/terrified of being hurt again, and because well, I think he’d learnt a whole lot about foreplay in the past year. I called him delicious and beautiful and both things were applicable, in the slightly more metaphorical sense of the word for ‘Delicious’. He called me a star, and now he has left the country. Sigh. I’m sure that in a parallel dimension, we have our timing right and everything is blissful. Damn you Parallel Dimension Joanna! Why do you get all the good things?

Of course, then my period was late. And later. And later. And then I found a broken condom under the bed. I was incredibly freaked out and spent an hour sitting on the floor at work semi under my desk crying. The lady at the health clinic here at work said that a test wouldn’t be accurate for like, three weeks after the event, but I went and bought the cheapest test in the supermarket anyways. When it came out negative, I got drunk. A week later I did another test, and it was still negative. I alternated between thinking about abortion and thinking about raising the baby. Of course, I didn’t know if it was Andrew’s or Ben’s, but I thought there was more of a chance of it being Ben’s, which is what I would have prefered, but I didn’t want to mess up the life of either of them, and I was all like “arrrgh” until eventually I decided that yes, I actually would be able to deal just fine with having a baby, and I could work from home four days a week and come in for one, but finally when I got to Wellington and managed to unstress about work, I got my bleed. And it hasn’t stopped since.

So yes, that was the sex. When I got to Wellington a week and a bit ago, Mum asked me about my sex life, so I told her, asking her to please not tell Anji that I gave my ex boyfriend a blowjob in the bathroom at Submission, because I’d get a fearsome telling off. Mum said “At least someone has morals”. Later, when we were getting our family portraits, she said to me “oh they told me that you don’t need to wear more makeup than usual for the photos”. I was like “umm, this is what I wear every day”. Mothers eh? Bless. If she doesn’t want to KNOW, she shouldn’t ASK. That’s all.

I also caught up with KateB in Welly which was lovely and made me feel more like a real person again. I think she’s doing really well, and has found something that suits her much better. I do worry though that her b/f doesn’t like pirate jokes. Other Welly things were finally getting some sleep, doing more reviews for the magazine which I’d rushed to finish all in one week instead of the usual two, and Oma taking us out to Logan Brown, which was amaaaaaaaazing food, and the most professional service I’ve had in a very long time. Exquisite. And not cheap at all.

Then on last Tuesday, Karen and I drove up to Napier. It was a pleasant journey, mostly. We found a nice enough backpackers to stay in – its failing was that there were no windows in the room, which made it very spooky to be called on your cellphone when the lights were off and you had no idea what the time was and wondered why the fuck your work was calling you in the middle of the night when it was actually 8.46am. Napier itself was very nice. We wandered around places and found a lovely bar called The UltraLounge. My Pina Colada had no taste at all, so I tried to explain that as nicely as I could to the barman and he made me an orgasmically good Mango Daquiri instead. We had seconds. Then I squirmed in discomfort as a loud British wanker ate all his sashimi and then complained about it. I hope I wasn’t like that man.

On the Wednesday, we went with The Grape Escape and got driven to some wineyards. Seven in fact – apparently this makes us legends, because that was in four hours, including lunch with The Best Cheese in the World at the Sileni Estate. The usual is four or five. We stayed another night in Napier, and went to Havelock North the next day, and also I made Karen go to Ocean Beach with me. It was fun. I frolicked in the sand. That night we stayed in Hastings at a Carnie backpackers and opened Macademia nuts with a big rock. I managed to buy four bottles of wine – a Trinity Hills Pinot Noir, a Mission Estate Reisling, a Brooklands Deco Chardonnay and a Te Mata Estate Rose as well as a bottle of Sour Apple Schnapps from Prenzels. No wonder the phone line got cut off back in Auckland. The guy at Brooklands was teh best, telling us long stories. Was it Brooklands? I hope it was. I will check my wine when I get back. Other people were too wanky or busy or what have you. Prenzels is the best because you can try whatever you want and I wanted to try everything. Mmmmmmmmm.

Now I am back in Auckland of course, and work is not as hectic as it has been, which is nice. I’m sad that Issue 10′s cover was lacking in our actual coverstories and that my Pacifier story didn’t get a title, but that’s my fault for not leaving clearer instructions for Designer Brad. Tomorrow I have schedualed an appointment with myself to sit down and discuss what I want to submit for the media awards. One of these days I’ll actually do the accounts for advertising sales too, but the girl who does all our invoicing said (in exchange for me scanning photos for her) “Please don’t do them until I’m ready for them”. Yay her. I’m going to Wellington again in less than two weeks for the ASPA conference. Excellent. And what else? Blah stuff, nothing too important.

We have a new flatmate in the very charming shape of Will, an American friend of Megan’s. We still need one more though.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten to say things, but really, this has gone on for hours now, so I might stop this entry here for now.

My letter to the Editor of the New Zealand Herald about this story

“The day before Parliament is set to hold a conscience vote on the Prostitution Reform Bill, the Herald runs a front-page story about a convicted rapist visiting a brothel. This isn’t news. The story isn’t about police catching Michael John Carroll red handed committing another crime (remember that under the double-standard current law, prostitution isn’t actually illegal, just solicitation). This isn’t a serious debate about whether or not he should have been paroled. The story is just an absolutely sickening editorial attempt to sway the vote away from law reform. By linking sex work with rapists, the story intends to imply that sex workers are entirely responsible for the moral decline of society. The front-page placement of the article, despite its lack of newsworthiness (it happened “some time”, not yesterday), clearly demonstrates the editorial position the Herald has taken on attempts at law reform. If prostitution remains illegal, the Herald will have more opportunities to publish those “12 year olds sell themselves for a can of corned beef” moral panic stories that it so dearly loves. Heaven forbid that such a conservative paper should actually support a bill that would improve people’s lives instead of scare mongering to raise sales.” 200 words only

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So it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Well, when did you last hear from me and what did I say then? Ahh June 12, the night before my birthday party. That was a jolly good night, with people dressed in bear costumes (!), much gossip and scandel and me lusting after not one but two gentlemen. I had so many friends there, I wasn’t able to talk to anyone really. That was a shame. Oh well, a good time was had by all, except for Kara, but really, why is that such a suprise? It’s not. The following Tuesday (the 17th) I had my dinner at Canton, and that was lovely dovely, except for losing my wallet and feeling like no one cared about that fact. It was found later, and of course people cared, as I am constantly reminded.Yes, people care about me, I get that. I just feel really isolated a lot lately, and have discovered that it’s far more convinient and possibly a little more mature to push bottle caps into your arm so that they leave marks for a couple of days rather than scarring up with hot knives in hidden places. I’ve been questioning my current meds a little bit too because I feel sometimes like I’m at the stage where I can’t be bothered with people at all (re: Clayton being upset at Kara’s storming off at my party), while at the same time I’m feeling lonely and scared and freaked out. I guess it’s just generally weird when you hear Live on the radio or get books about monkeys and it brings to mind “You took advantage of me. I don’t know why I bother with you”.

It’s not all that though, there’s also gigglestyles at boys in bands who I saw play on Saturday at the Kings Arms for the ‘Here Come The Bulletholes’ release party who I have crushes on and I get to email them and say that they look sexy on stage. And then there’s that I got to talk to Tom McRae last week (thank you soooooo much darling!) and he was absolutely lovely. English people should be banned from saying “erm” instead of “um” because it’s just SO DAMN CUTE. I sounded like a fawning sycophant in the interview, but oh well. How could I help but be anything but?

I’d like to think that Iva has settled well into our flat although I’m sure she finds my disappearing chequebook a little annoying. Our computers are intemittently networked, so I can access her huge amounts of TV and movies. Oh how in love with Bernard Black I am! In other flat gossip, I’m incredibly pissed off with Johnny for buggering off to Queenstown without paying his rent, leaving me almost literally penniless and unable to purchase tampons or painkillers. GRRRRRRRRRRR. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Daniel is coming out of his shell more and more, and although Lance’s fetish for bringing home white picket fence pailings is more than a little disturbing, I adore him, he’s very fun.

Other things going on in my life right now? I think my Masterplan is never going to come to fruition. I’m annoyed with my failing lack of ambition, and the fact that I just churn out shit at work – when I’m doing anything at all, that is. It’s more than a little disconcerting to think of all the people I told about my brilliant idea, and how supportive they all are, to know that that’s going to be swept away in a tide of self pity and bleakness. I think that it’s probably quite likely that I should be going back into counselling (so.much.anger), but the prospect of starting all over again is more than a little daunting.

I miss having people love me. Even if I don’t deserve the love – but surely everyone deserves love? I know this entry is more than a little pukefest, but just like Bobby Brown, that’s my prerogative. There were so many more narratives that I meant to include but have forgotten. Probalby something to do with vidoes. I watched ‘S.F.W’ which I fucking worshiped when I was 15 (people fucking to “Teenage Whore”, Stephen Dorff walking in slow motion through a mall to “Creep” – what’s not to like? Oh, and Amber Benson is in it! I adore Tara. Oh Buffy, how can you be coming to an end so soon?), and it made me feel very nostalgic for a time when I thought I had the right to be “angry at the system, maaaan”. I have no idea what the hell I thought was oppressing me back then, but I want it back. I wanna jump up and down and scream “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” in the mud again. But instead, I will just watch more videos and cry in joy at the end of “It’s a wonderful life”. Is this growing old? I guess so. Shit, I’m 23 now. Time to call out the knackers.

I’m wearing new Napolean mascara Karen sent me (although it’s weird – mascara? rather than eye shadow or lipgloss what I asked for? Surprises are cool.) and I feel like it’s making me open my eyes extra extra wide. That’s no bad thing.

“My body is just my body – no one will ever touch my soul” – Trophy Boy.

Prostitution is defined in New Zealand as “the offering by a man or woman of his or her body for purposes amounting to common lewdness for payment”. This act is not illegal, but many aspects of prostitution, such as solicitation or brothel keeping are. Currently there is a bill before Parliament called “The Prostitution Reform Bill”. Debate spoke to three past and current sex workers about their experiences;

Prostitution is dangerous and often disgusting work. Those who support the bill believe that they cannot stop it from happening, so they aim to improve the lives of sex workers. How would the five aims of the Prostitution Reform Bill change their lives?
1. To decriminalise prostitution This aim would be addressed by repealing provisions that make prostitution a criminal activity. When he first began hooking (to use his word), Trophy Boy was working the street, cruising cars. He could have easily been arrested for soliciting, illegal under Section 26 of the Summary Offences Act 1981. Such an arrest record could have hurt his chances at legal employment for the rest of his life. The drivers who stopped to offer him $50 per blowjob could not be charged. “If it’s going to be a crime, then they should at least be charged with being an accessory to soliciting. Have it like murder, like, alright, you didn?t actually do it, but you were part of the reason why it happened,” he says.

Although she works in a massage parlour, Felicity still has to be equally careful about how she acquires clients. “Most massage parlours have a core bar where the clients and the girls hang out, chat and have drinks. When the client decides he wants a go, he pretty much just winks at you, and that’s that”.

Currently, Felicity’s partner could be sent to jail under Section 148 of the Crimes Act 1961 (living on the earnings of prostitution). “We got to a place where I either had to get a job doing this or we’d have to move in with his parents. I don’t support him completely, but we do rely on my income,” she says.

2. To safeguard the human rights of sex workers and protect them from exploitation Because sex workers are working illegally, they are not afforded basic protections such as employment contracts. Right now Felicity doesn’t get to choose her clients. “The average client is middle aged, married with kids and they’re grotty. But you can’t really say no to anyone”.

Her manager is annoyed that she only does one shift a week in order to concentrate on her studies. “I know other AUT students who are working nights, and they’re failing their papers. Their studies suffer from the work because there’s much more likely to be drugs on the night shift. When I thought about getting into the industry, I went and talked to the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) and they said that there was a lot of money to be made in parlours, but that there were some dodgy ones out there. I got a job in a parlour they spoke highly of”.

Others weren’t so lucky. “In some parlours, the management is really dodgy. You have to get naked for your interview and basically sleep with the boss,” she says. Managers can also penalise workers for being sick or requiring overtime and double shifts. Trophy Boy says that because it’s illegal, many sex workers can’t talk about their exploitation.
“There’s a cloud of darkness over it, but if you legalise prostitution, it opens the whole situation up so everyone can see it and can look at the problems and try and tackle them. Underworld stuff will always happen, but it’ll cut it right down”.
3. To promote the welfare and occupational health and safety of the sex workers Even conservatives will acknowledge that prostitution is dangerous work. “It’s hard enough for a female prostitute to say ‘I got raped’ – imagine a male prostitute. I mean, they don’t take male rape seriously anyway,” says Trophy Boy. “I’m really lucky, considering that I’m not a big guy, that I’ve never really been fucked over. The worst that happened was that I had a job in an alleyway giving head, and this tranny decided that I was on her turf, and came up behind me and smacked me over the head. I just bolted”.

Because he was working illegally, Trophy-Boy could not report the incident. The decriminalisation of prostitution would allow massage parlour operators to be held accountable for the safety of their workers from diseases and violent clients.
“We had safety buttons by the bed that we were told not to use,” says Courtney of her two nights in the parlour. “That was the only instruction I was given when I started – that and not to let the customers use too many towels”.

Felicity has also found that the massage-parlour environment is more than a little short in providing training. “I can’t think of how many girls I’ve had to teach about safe sex,” she says. She also found the drug scene very overwhelming when she first started, and realised it was much safer for her to stick to the day shift.

4. To create an environment which is conductive to public health
Encouraging safer sex transactions is the reasoning behind this aim. Under present massage parlour legislation, workers have to keep condoms and lubes in their handbags to maintain the ‘massage only’ illusion. “We’re not even allowed rubbish bins,” says Felicity. “Our rooms are furnished with a shower, a plastic mattress covered with a sheet and towels we put down over it, and that’s it.”

Posters about safer sex and condoms are illegal to display, and have been used as evidence in brothel keeping cases. In Felicity’s parlour, if the working girls (her preferred title) discover a client has an STD, they can notify reception and have that client thrown out, but not every parlour is that on-to-it. Section 201 of the Crimes Act 1961 makes it an offence to willingly infect someone with a disease, but the Massage Parlours Act of 1978 makes no mention of any health obligations. Without legislation in place, it is up to individual sex workers to take responsibility for their own health.
“Part of the reason I got out of it was when you’re doing it full time, you’ve got to get checked once a month. It’s just a bitch, sitting there for a week going ‘oh my god will I pass my HIV test or not?’ for a whole week, it puts you at the end of your tether” says Trophy Boy.

However, there was no legislation compelling him to get tested, he was just educated enough to know of the dangers of unsafe sex. “I think everyone should be forced to be checked regularly so that you can be sure that they’re safe”.
5. To protect children from exploitation in relation to prostitution
New Zealand is not particularly notable for its child sex scene, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not going on. The Herald in particular has focused on girls as young as thirteen working at Hunters Corner in South Auckland. Legalisation of prostitution would bring it out into the open and more under control of the law.
“I think that I should never have been allowed to have made the choice at age sixteen that I did. No way in hell. At age eighteen or twenty-one or something, it was a very conscious decision on my part, but at age sixteen, they should have been like ‘No! You?re this beautiful young human being and this is the last thing you need’,” says Trophy Boy. “Being sixteen, gay and a boy, it all sort of fell in my favour. I ended up having a sugar daddy for a while, and that was fine. That’s where my name comes from, Trophy Boy because that’s all you are, just something to hang from someone’s arm”.

Bottom line: would decriminalisation or legalisation actually encourage more people to become prostitutes?
The NZPC says no, and cites statistics from the Australian Capital Territory that decriminalised prostitution in 1992. The result was that more brothels opened, but they were smaller, and therefore the actual number of sex workers did not rise. “If you’re prepared to prostitute your body, then whether or not you might get arrested really doesn’t come in to it. If you’re prepared to go that far, it’s like, well whoopdie shit, I might get a conviction, like that will stop me,” says Trophy Boy, “if I’m starving, you’re never going to catch me eating out of a bin. Prostitution is a survival instinct. It’s always going to be there, it’s not going to go away no matter what laws you put there, so why make it the worst possible scenario when you could make it the best possible situation. It’s just common sense really.”

At the same time, there is debate within the sex industry as to whether decriminalisation or legalisation would be the ideal solution.
“Most working girls are in favour of decriminalisation so that we would still have the power. Legalisation would mean that massage parlours would have to pay fees and some might not be able to afford that. Street workers definitely wouldn’t, and they wouldn?t be able to get jobs in parlours either, so they’d still be working illegally,” says Felicity.
Admittedly, prostitution is a way to make what may seem like large amounts of money.
“If you’re on the street, it’s $50 for head, and if you’re doing the works, which I would never do on the street because it’s just too dangerous, you’re looking at about $100, $120. When you’re cracking it through a mobile phone and newspaper, it’s $120 an hour, and when you get good and get a rep, you can command up to $150 an hour,” says Trophy Boy.
“I do between one and eight jobs a shift, and each job is at least $100,” says Felicity, “Minus the shift fee of $20″.
In her two nights, Courtney earned $600-700 a night. But it’s not money for nothing.
“I originally thought that prostitution would be a fun way of making money,” says Felicity. The reality is often very different. “I see a lot of drug addicts, desperate abused women without education for whom it is their only way to make money”. Her partner worked as a driver for another parlour, and pretty much all the girls in that parlour were IV drug users. “I wouldn?t encourage anyone to try it. Most of the girls that I worked with were raped or molested,” says Courtney.
“The other side of it is that there are a lot of young students, hairdressers and nurses who have a clue and they realise that they can make a lot of money that way doing just one or two shifts a week,” says Felicity.
“I think you?ve got to be really sensible about it. I see it as a profession, and never give my details out to clients etc. I have always been able to separate things in my life”.
Trophy Boy echoes her sentiments. “You learn to detach your body from your personality, so it’s not actually emotionally harming in that sense”.

The Prostitution Law Reform Bill is still being passed through Parliament.
*Not their real names, obviously.
(Debate #3 2003)

This reader emailed me on Sunday to ask if I was dead, and I wrote back that I was, and it didn’t feel too far from the truth at that stage. Yes, I had another mini breakdown. Yes I am okay now. I went to see Dr White today, and we’re bumping me up to 30mg of cipramil instead of 20mg for a bit. Also, Kalpana had called her (I okayed that) and told her that I was doing really really well and had responded heaps to the therapy, which is true, and also why it was so weird that I should have such an extreme relapse. Oh well. I’ve written enough about it elsewhere.

Right now I am home totally alone for the first time in ages, and it’s LOVELY. Johnny is at work, Lance and Ammy are at Darren’s having dinner with Annoying Jonny, Daniel is at some journo meeting and umm, yeah, that’s four, that’s all my flatmates. Bo’s moved out to Milton cos the rent was much much cheaper there, and it’s just up the road. I am waiting for a purple sleeping pill to kick in. Dr White almost laughed at me today when I said “and I know that you can’t give me a big prescription for sleeping pills…” but she gave me four days instead of two, which is lovely cos I am so fucking flat out exhausted. Depression is tiring business when it stops you from sleeping.

I’ve had a day and a half off work this week due to sickness, which means that I’m a little behind on my work. I have my story to do on the Prostitution Law Reform bill in which I talk to three sex workers to finish tomorrow, and I want to do a really really really brilliant job on it because I’m lucky to be in position to write it, knowing people in the industry. Oh yes, I have my finger in many pies. This issue also will have my story on the Australian band Taxiride. Jason Singh wants the world to know he does not sleep with teenage groupies. Heh.

What else? Lots of parties and events and gossip. One of the boys I fancy has a girlfriend, I found out. However, *1 has apparently moved to Auckland. I’d be more excited if I wasn’t dedicated to a life of celibacy. Sebastian has fleas but I’m feeding him garlic brewers’ yeast to get rid of it. Apparently that works. I also have to take him to the vet. Oh god, I’m a crazy old lady with cats already.

I handcoded our entire event website today. Well, the design was done by someone else, and I modified it – and emailed the webdevguy at my old work about five times to tell him that I was doing my site all in UPPER CASE and he could suck my cock. I wrote all the copy for our first magazine. I have the number of the manager of my favourite New Zealand Music group. Fuck I love my job. I even ate lunch at my desk today cos I was keen to get more work done.

We had nine people in our house last night – me and Seb, Megan, Jonny and Ting, Ammy and Darren, Bo and Leo and Allison and Louise, and yet it didn’t feel at all crowded. I HAVE MY BO BACK! Fuck I feel good today.

Shit man, it’s like the Bic Runga song – something good has come my way. And so maybe my heart is taking on retro stylings, but it don’t bug me at all. And sure, Seb pooed on my bed again this morning, but with every stroke I feel my blood pressure dropping. Oh and Louise just topped up my glass, what a gem.

Oh yeah, but I guess I should remember that there’s a mad man with his finger on the nuclear button. Well hey – I have flat feet, so the army won’t call me up.

In the best journalistic tradition, I spent today and yesterday (when I could actually log on at work) rewriting press releases. But then again, it is kinda PR cos it’s for our publications offering stuff. I think I’m rully rully going to love this job eh. I get to be creative, and I feel like I have my finger on the pulse, and all the ideas I’ve had so far have got the go ahead. YAY. I deserve good job karma.

Ammy came up to me tonight and put her arms around me and thanked me wholeheartedly for making this flat work, and that was just totally sweet of her, and it’s just really cool here and nice and stuff, and yay. Even if we still don’t have a tv (or washing machine) which meant I had to go to KateH’s last night ot watch SS. Not that that’s any hardship of course (well at least not for me). And then I met Ammy and Darren and Megan and James in town and saw LOTR again. I texted Tom right before it to say hi, but told him not to reply cos it’d make me vibrate. He replied a couple of hours later saying “Now if I can just time this to be at the same time that Aragorn opens the doors, won’t I be the man?”. He got the timing wrong but still, I appreciated the sentiment!

Mazzy thought that I would write about how she told me that she couldn’t come to my party but then showed up as a surprise in a “bear” mask, but she was wrong. My skin is peeling off in big chunks from everywhere – it looks particularly gross around my neck. I have too many boys on my mind right now and I can’t figure out which ones I’m using as an excuse not to fancy the other ones, and it’s driving me crazy, but not must-find-cash-for-Kalpana crazy. What else? We have a “staff development day” at work on Friday which means a talk, and then lunch at a bar, and then early home. Asskicking. Just as long as they don’t try to make me wear a polarfleece. My god but it’s hot in Auckland! And I have finally been bitten by mosquitos here. Oh well. Also I’ve made the disturbing discovery that Jonny plays the bagpipes. We’re planning on getting him to march up and down in front of the houses across the street playing them, since we figure that one of them must have called Noise Control on us.

Tomorrow I am doing a market survey on soft drinks. Crazy.

xojo