Hubris.co.nz

I am no longer a public servant. This means that I can therefore say whatever I want. Because oh yes, I had totally been holding back before, right?

I have been without a job for 11 days now. I’m applying for things, networking through Girl Geek Dinners, booking a trip to Vanuatu. In total white whines Karen and I took ages to decide which resort we wanted to stay at, and then in the end we’re staying at the other one because our first choice only had a queen bed and we don’t want to share. We’re going on August 18, which is a million years away, and it makes me sad because it will mean missing the ONYA awards that I have already bought a beautiful dress for. Still, tropical holiday, you can’t really argue with that.

Saying goodbye at work was really sad. I cried at Green Land when they said they didn’t have any more scones and was very very embarrassed and it was totally my iPod’s fault for playing “So Here We Are” and “The Funeral” together. I had some quiet tears in the bathroom. Yenping cried more publicly. I was happy I got to make out with someone on my desk before I left though. Our goodbye function at the Backbencher got very drunk and raucous and we ended up going to the The’Ho afterwards, and then back to mine because all the bars were shut but there was more booze at my house. There was very stupid ill-thought-out clumsy fumblings in my bed afterwards (“you’re not going to twitter about this, are you?”) and terrible hangovers, and then I had an all-day battle with The Man, by which I mean my shrink who conveniently got sick again right when I needed a new script, and the receptionist at my doctor’s is the living embodiment of the Computer Says No lady, but luckily the practice nurse who returned my call was able to understand what it was that I needed, and so I got a two week script out of them – but then even though I’d rung the week before, my new pharmacy didn’t have any lexapro in stock so I had to wait until the end of the day to get my scripts, and then it was 5.30 and I had to drive to the house I’d booked in Martinborough. I was very very shakey and hungover and it was so misty going over the Rimutakas and I was on the verge of having mad panic attacks the whole time.

I discovered that in my shakiness I had packed one sock and no pyjama pants, but there was a gas fire, and a glorious big bathtub, and I had packed delicious food, so that was fantastic. I had intended to have two whole days with the only time I spoke being when I sang to the rubber duckie in the bath, but the house owners came over to check that all was well, and the woman in the thunderpants store turned out to be someone I used to work with, and the girl in the cafe felt compelled to ID me when I had a glass of wine with my onion soup, and the butcher wanted to complain about his day, so blah blah blah, but most importantly, I was free of the internet and the associated incestuous clusterfuck that is Wellington for a good 36 hours, and that was bloody lovely. I resolved to try and have a twitter-free day every week (that has yet to happen) and I took stock of things and realised that sleeping with other people isn’t really chasing away the memories of someone else as much as I would like it to, so perhaps I should stop doing that. Spoiler alert: I don’t stop.

Back into Wellington I got straight back amongst the clusterfuck by dressing up in a corset ala Moulin Rouge, and going to Phillip’s to drink absinthe. Absinthe was a strange thing to drink then, because it made my mind seem even sharper, while my motorskills became blurred. Nevertheless, I honoured my new intentions by leaving around midnight. The next night I went to Bambi’s drinks at the Southern Cross, drank ridiculously large amounts of red wine and brought home the boy that I had fancied like mad last year – (“you’re not going to blog about this, are you?”). Upon reflection, I suspect what the real issue I’ve had with the last three people that I’ve slept with is that there was very little attempt by any of them to actually seduce me. It just happened. I want the flirting and the touching and the tingles back, not just the inevitability of the cold weather. It has hardened my resolve to hold out for a hero.

Kane came to stay for a couple of nights and it was lovely to see him. It was also nice to have someone more shockable than Lisa around. I cooked some great food for them. I’m trying to get all budgety so I didn’t go out to Kylie’s farewell drinks last night – which is probably just as well from the sound of things. I’m paying Anna Jane to do some cut’n pasting of my old journal to put it all into wordpress which I hope will be done before July 18 when you’re all coming to my party, right? And tonight I’m going to a dinner party at Theresa’s when I don’t think I’ll know most of the people, so I’m nervous about that, but hopefully it will all be okay. I made chocolate mousse.

So that’s me, really. Doing lots of laundry, trying to tidy my room, looking for work, looking for love in all the wrong places. You know, the usual. Hurrah.

I’ve got a week’s sick leave, so tomorrow, I’m off to a bach I’ve booked for myself in Otaki. It looks fabulous. Two nights by myself to read and write and home-spa. And the time off over Easter has been grand so far. There has been cleaning, and chilling, and millions of episodes of Nevermind the Buzzcocks. I’m very excited about my wedding to Noel Fielding. I just worry though that my hair won’t look nearly as pretty as his.

I saw the doctor last week, or the week before. He was new to me, and I won’t be going to see him again. He wrote down that I was very insightful about my depression, and I was like “well yes, this is not the first time that this has happened” and he was like “I won’t mention you’re overweight” and then made me get on the scales. Huh? I mean yes, we all know that being healthy helps with your mental age. But then he went on to suggest that maybe I have poor body image and that’s why I’m depressed. Thanks buddy, I’m so glad that you were able to make an assessment like that after five minutes. Of course that’s it! Cured now! But he gave me my increased prescription and waved away my concerns about getting nauseous from the increased dosage. Of course, I spent the next couple of days wanting to throw up. Now I take my pills last thing before I go to bed, to try and cut back on the tiredness that they give as well.

But yes, they’re working. I’m functioning again. My site launched at work, and it seems to be going pretty well. Our washing machine is still broken, but now I have Bambi’s microwave to save having to get mine fixed. The house is clean and tidy and ready for a flat inspection tomorrow. I have new projects on the go (shoosh, don’t tell my counsellor because I promised her I’d wait to start them), and many many places and things crying out for me to spend my money on them. So I think I will instead buy a new vibrator. That’s more important than paying off the IRD or Land Transport, right? Although that reminds me that I need to renew my Bust subscription and buy one for Kat. Hmmm, I think perhaps I should stop spending so much time with the Wellingtonista. They are expensive friends to have. Even if they do give good footrubs.

So yes, that’s my updates. So looking forward to two nights completely and utterly by myself. I’ll be taking my cellphone but I’ll turn it off. I’m aiming to do a lot of writing, but even if I don’t, I’ll do a lot of reading, and chilling and chillaxing, and that’s what’s most important. Wahoo! See youse later.

Weekend

Easter went by far too quickly. I was super tired on Saturday, although not nearly as hungover as I should have been. On Sunday I was in a really bad overthinking mood, so I went to the gym. This just in: exercise is the new sex. It’s how I can switch off my brain for short, sweaty bursts. Then I drove up to my parents’ house in Ngaio to see Pixie, who was super happy to see me, and shower in their tremendously endowed-with-water shower. I fixed my pyjamas so that you can no longer see my pajimba through the hole in the crotch and did two loads of washing and drying. I read the paper, ate their food and Brad came over to watch Veronica Mars, except that their DVD Recorder is all expensive and complicated, and I don’t think they’ve cracked it so we couldn’t watch Region 1s on it. So we watched House of Daggers instead which was leftover from China, and had hilarious hijinks trying to turn off the dubbing and turn on the English subtitles with the non-intuitive remote. We ended up laughing ourselves silly because the best I could manage was English for the Hearing Impaired, so every so often we’d get “Romantic Oriental plays” – “Music intensifies” subtitles. Thank heavens they told us how we needed to be feeling at that time! After he left I ordered pizza and watched Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! and decided that I need to join a girl gang. It was nice to get out of the house.

On Monday I did pretty much sweet fuck all again. Brad came over for some real Veronica Mars action, and oh it was so good, but he’s going to Philly for three months on Sunday so we’ll have to put it on hold. That means no more hot Logan Echolls action for me for a long time, and hopefully it’ll be long enough for me to forget that he’s actually a scientologist. Waah. And speaking of which, what’s your favourite Katie Holmes theory? I’m currently loving the “She gave birth to Chris Klein’s baby months ago, but continued to fake her pregnancy to Tom in order to hide the dates discrepency”. Anji and Karen came over for a roast dinner which we shared with the boys, and it was lovely, and then I gushed over John Safran some. And that was all my time off.

Weddings

The girl I sit with who does the scheduling is on leave, so another girl is sitting next to me this week. This particular girl just got engaged and is getting married in three months, so it’s on her mind quite a bit. Yesterday I went to Carly Harris with her at lunchtime and watched her try on a succession of gorgeous outfits and lusted for the clothes myself. Of course, as you may recall, I have already worn Carly Harris, and my, wasn’t that a good time? The dress was gorgeous though. Today’s wedding topic has been flowers. Maybe I should become a wedding planner, since I’ll never get to plan my own. Sob.

Woes

On Tuesday I wanted to go home and cry for most of the day because I got myself all worked up about the need to apologise to the workmate that I’d slapped on Thursday night vs. the desire to forget that it ever happened. Naturally I got more worked up about it when the engaged girl from the above paragraph told him that I was sorry, against my wishes, to which he rightly replied “so why doesn’t she tell me herself?” Awesome. But then after lunch I apologised and he was very nice about it and came up with a theory about why I’d slapped him that I accepted (even though I suspect it was only a 1/3 of the reason), and I was like “man, why the hell didn’t I just apologise first thing this morning instead of feeling like crap all day?”. I should really become a mole when I grow up, cos this country is totally running out of mountains. And of course really all I needed to do was crank up ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ for a fucking huge big smile on my face and the urge to pump my fist in the air and run a victory lap over the end credits of a movie. I love that song.

Doctors

Yesterday I went and bared my pajimba at the local doctor because I was overdue for a smear. It hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, and the walls of her office were adorned with pictures of another doctor at the King Kong premiere hugging Peter Jackson, and I really didn’t find that comforting. It was a little like when I first had blood tests before we moved to Japan, and the lady told me to count the catepillars in the picture so as not to look at the needle, but there were only two, and so I looked back at the needle. The speculum opened up with a crack crack crack and I felt the sensation of someone extending a telescope backwards or something. Because that was so much fun, she cranked open my ass as well. That hurt a lot less, which I was very surprised about. I apologise to people who’ve read this twice. She sent me off with prescriptions for Diflucan and Proctosedyl, which is exactly what it sounds like. The trouble in paradise will be all cleared up now.

Then I went back home and shut Sebastian up in a vacuum cleaner box and drove him to a new vet in Kilbernie. Now, you may recall that I had crushes on the vets in Balmoral and Khandallah, not because they were outstandingly hott, but rather that they were good to Sebastian, and anyone who likes and respects cats is okay by me. I could put in a “they handled my pussy really gently” line here, but I really really hate the word ‘pussy’. Give me cunt any day. As it happens, the Kilbernie vet DID, because she was a woman, with a Scottish accent and very short hair, and ha ha stereotypes are funny. I now have a crush on her as well, because Sebastian behaved himself beautifully, and let her lance his abcess without requiring sedation. He’s such a good kitty, he only mewed a tiny bit in the box, which made things really easy for me, cos I get very upset when he’s upset.

Feedback on 101

Here is what a selection of people have said about 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You:

“Really fresh as well as being eloquent… the more recent stuff especially. A huge evolution from Boys Boys Boys. Couldn’t put it down…. it’s amazing how your writing has evolved. So much more sophisticated somehow.”

“No doubt this isn’t the kind of feedback you were expecting, or possibly hoping for, but it’s seriously good. As a whole, it’s the best work I think I’ve ever read of yours. Gutwrenching & evocative, flows really beautifully, even the pictures & layout work together, the whole thing just blew me away.”

“My favourite bit, I reckon, was the Link piece. It takes the cliche of the public-transport zine article, douses it in petrol and cheap vodka, and sets it on fire (yeah!). I know about that feeling when just the ordinary task of walking down a street or catching a bus conjures up all sorts of memories, and this was good way of structuring it.”

Yeah! Of course, I have yet to receive ANYTHING back in trade for it, and I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. It makes me a sad panda.

Weekends

Tonight I get to play domestic goddess and supermarket shop and clean, as tomorrow night I am having Miss Lisa Fur and the Sunday Star Times-noted ‘blogger’ Jessie for dinner. I have been thinking for the past couple of weeks of all the elaborate and dazzling things that I could cook for them, and then scratching out many of the options that I came up with, and pondering how many courses and blah blah blah, but I think I’ve finally come up with a menu (main and dessert only, plus snacks) that is incredibly simple but still tasty. I always overthink and overcomplicate things, and I need to stop. If you’re free and in Wellington on Friday night, you should totally come over afterwards for drinks. That’d be lovely. Then on Saturday I get to see my lovely KateH. Hurrah!

And that’s it. Talk to me about Tomkat, Carly Harris and perfect dinners, if you will.

So now that I have finished writing about Fiji, finally, I can write about my health. Because you care. Because if you weren’t reading this site, you’d be reading something else, and that something else would probably not be talking about vaginas, and who doesn’t like to read about vaginas? Exactly.

But before I begin, I’d like to give a huge big shout out to Mr. Peter Mahoney for the voicemail he left me on my birthday. I miss you, sir. Say hi to Kate for me. Kate who? Kate Morrison? Is she even still alive?

Now, I mentioned a couple of times that I had some infected mosquito bites, and obviously you got to read about how my party was canceled, etc, but here’s the long story. I got bitten by a lot of mosquitos in Fiji, mostly whilst walking through a paddock at night because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Because I do not sleep in mittens, I scratched them. Everyone scratches their mosquito bites, right? It’s what humans do. And then mosquito bites heal. Except that these ones didn’t. They got puffy, and red around them. The chemist said that I should go to a doctor, but I had to work, so I took some disinfectant cream instead, and applied it regularly and tried to keep the bites clean and not pick at them. The red around them got bigger and bigger. And I didn’t go to the doctor, because I was working, and because I don’t have a doctor down here, and because I didn’t want to go on antibiotics and get thrush. All the mosquito bites got bigger and more and more achey. But I’m a dumbass, so I didn’t go to the doctor.

But then on my birthday I had the fabulous present of realising that the lump that I’ve had on my labia for years had become swollen with pus overnight and sore. I had a good look at it (and I don’t have a hand mirror, so instead of being like a ’70s housewife doing her first self exam after reading a feminist pamphlet, I was all pornstar-like straddling a full length mirror). If that wasn’t a sight enough to behold, it turned out that my labia was about four times the size that it normally is. Pus does not belong there! Of course I had a squeeze but OUCH! It didn’t pop. I went to sleep (somehow) fantasizing about someone sinking a large needle into me and pulling out the fluid. That’s not a cool thing to fantasize about. Do you get how painful and uncomfortable it was? When I woke up in the morning it was even more so, and that’s when I knew I had to call a doctor. The local place was closed, so I cried and asked my sister to take me to the After Hours clinic in Newtown. Let me put the pain in perspective for you gentlemen – imagine that you grew a lump on your penis the size of one of your testicles, and you could feel all the pressure that growth was putting on your skin, and every time you walked, or changed position while sitting it increased the pressure. Couple that with the fact that by this stage half of my left calf was bright red and I was in a pretty bad state, and I was totally freaked out that the infection in my legs was the reason for the big pus-y (pusy? How do I avoid saying “pussy”?) lump.

Of course, I had to wait for an hour at the clinic, in a horrible waiting room full of screaming children, on an uncomfortable chair that I shifted gingerly on. I sent Anji to go do the supermarket shopping for our party, which was supposed to be that night so that she wouldn’t have to wait there too. We got to the clinic at about 11am, and I got called up by a nurse around 12pm. She took one look at my leg and said that I needed to get on antibiotics as soon as possible, took my urine and my temperature (38.1), blood sugar (apparently infected things are a diabetes issue – but I still don’t have diabetes. I’m not sure how come. You’d think I would), and sent me through to the doctor’s exam room for a little more privacy for the doctor to look at my lump. The doctor said I’d be really lucky if I could escape going to hospital to be put on an IV drip for antibiotics, but they’d try giving me some via IV to see if that would help. Then I climbed up on the bed (ouch!) for her to have a look (ouch ouch ouch!). She said it was a balkan (that’s not the word, but it was something similiar. I wa?) cyst – that there are glands there for lubrication, and sometimes they become blocked – much like how pimples are formed. Great, except that pimples aren’t THAT BIG. She also said she’d call the on-duty gyno at A&E to get them to see me as soon as I’d had some antibiotics and had my sores dressed.

First, the nurse took a big marker pen and drew all over my leg, marking where the redness had spread to. Then it was antibiotics time. The thing about getting sick is that your veins run away and hide. It took three pokes with a needle to get the “butterfly” in (butterfly? huh? Your medical speak confuzzles me. Although I suppose part of it did look a little like a butterfly), and then the nurse had to flush my vein with saline, but couldn’t, so she had to move it to another vein. There she could flush it okay, but when she got to the injecting me with antibiotics stage, it HUUUUUUUUUURT so bad that she said that it obviously wasn’t in, so she tried again without any success and had to get the doctor to come and redo it for her. Third time’s a charm. It took half an hour or so for her to sloooooooooooooowly shoot me full of antibiotics. Then I had to lie down on my stomach, bare legs and feet slowly freezing, while she cleaned up my wounds. This wasn’t a simple washing proceedure, oh no. It involved a scalpel blade, cutting off bits of scab and digging out pieces of fluff, a lot of twitching on my behalf, and a lot of apologies from her. Have I mentioned that I was crying all the way through this? Well I was. My labia hurt like mad, the injections and the butterfly left in my arm hurt, having my sores cut open hurt, I was cold, I felt lonely because I’d sent Anji home, I was sick, I was miserable and I was just feeling really sorry for myself, and then I was crying because I was so ashamed that I was acting like a big baby and crying. Fuck I’m a dork. The whole process took a couple of hours. I took a cab to A&E because there was no way in hell I could have walked there at that stage, and gave the letter from the doctor to the lady at the counter, who said that I’d have to see a registrar first, and that there was a two hour waiting period. It was 4pm at that stage and I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before, and I was just so tired, and so sore and so I cried some more while I read the paper and waited. Luckily the lady on the desk turned out to be a truly lovely woman, and she called the gyno registrar who came down to get me, and we walked a long long long way through the hospital up to the gynocology ward because there were no rooms free in A&E. The gyno was South African, as was her supervisor, and together they proded and squeezed me and ignored me as I cried out in pain, said it wasn’t a balkan cyst and declared that I needed to have surgery. They said that if they were in South Africa, they’d just lance the lump under a local anesthetic, but in New Zealand it had to be under general. I was like holy crap! They asked me when I’d last eaten, and I told them, but because I’d had a half a cup of water an hour earlier I wasn’t going to be given the surgery that day. Instead they sent in a Scottish nurse to do more obs on me, who gave me a hug cos I was crying (again) and wrote me a script for some painkillers – thank god. And then Mum showed up, thinking she would just be visiting, but it was time to take me home, after they told me not to eat anything after midnight, and to come back at 7.30am for surgery. Surgery! Holy crap!

So I cried and cried and cried on Mum’s shoulder, and she took me home and stayed around while I had a shower cos Anji went out to pick up dinner. I’d sent out texts (i have never typed the word “vagina” so often!) whilst having my wounds cleaned telling people the party was off, but Dave and Karen came around to hang out, and then Joel showed up with a crate cos he hadn’t seen the notice on my site that Heather had put up for me. They got drunk and rowdy and laughing at me while I sat in my pjs trying not to move, getting slightly dopey on painkillers and feeling sorry for myself. I went to bed before midnight, but they were still banging about at 3am. Best birthday party EVER!

So somehow in the cold dark very very thirsty painful morning I managed to get myself up and Mum picked me up at 7.15am. I didn’t take any more painkillers cos I didn’t know if I was allowed them or not. I got a bed in a ward with one other woman in it, and the nurse told me to change into the hospital gown by 8am when she’d come and do obs on me. Well, she didn’t do them until about 11am. I managed to sleep some, with my lovely mother sitting by my side reading magazines. Then a security guard came to wheel my bed away. I was a little suprised – I guess I thought that the doctor would come and talk to me in the ward. But perhaps I watch too much TV. The anesthetist came to talk to me, and he was a horrible little man, talking about how I was a risk because I was so big (which is something no one else had bothered to mention) and how someone of his size was much safer – but he had to pump my bed down so he could look me in the eye, so you know what buddy? You’re not normal either. One of the nurses was lovely though, and was really nice about taking my obs and just seemed calming in general. Then I met the surgeon – he was young, and kind of cute, and his first name was Nick, so hi everybody! I said that it seemed kind of full on having to get general anesthetic and all, and he said that we were more humane than the South Africans. But then I was wheeled into the operating room, and that was just extreme – knowing that there were at least six people standing around who were going to be dedicated to my vagina for the next 20 minutes or so. Freaky.

The operating table that I clambered on to was much smaller than the bed, and they had me half sitting up on a large stack of pillows. Then they attached arm rests out the sides of the bed and had me pinned down – inserting a drip on one side, and a blood pressure thing on the other, and then they pushed an oxygen mask down on my face, and I started freaking out, because it was like they were trying to smother me (which is dumb, of course – it’s like they were trying to starve me to death with chocolate cake), and I was whimpering so the nice nurse stroked my arm and I had Tyler Durdan saying over and over in my head “oxygen makes you high” and they told me to keep my eyes open even though they were gradually putting me to sleep through the drip, and then I opened my eyes and it was later and I was in the recovery room. I still had the damn oxygen mask on, and I tried to take it off, but the nurse told me to leave it on for a bit more. By then I hadn’t had water for over twelve hours, and I had a sore throat anyway, so I could hardly breathe because of that, so I asked for water and she gave it to me, but then kept freaking me out by telling me to take deep breaths because my oxygen stats were still too low. She put those nasal oxgen things on me instead, and that was better, although it was still hard to breathe deeply. I asked if I had to stay awake and she said no, but I was still aware of them rolling me back through miles of hospital to the ward, where Mum still was. I said I was going to sleep for a while so she left. I still had a pump thing in my hand, and a pad to soak up the blood and pus, and to make things extra jolly I started my period. But I slept amazingly well. They wouldn’t let me leave until I ate something, so I had the bread and fruit that went with my long-ago-gone-cold lunch, and Dr Nick came in and asked if “my friend” was going to take me away, the big cheese – Mum quite obviously looks like a mum. But he is forgiven because he wrote me a script for codeine because halabuton or whatever else I’d been given the night before is like a dollar a pill. He said codeine was an old fashioned drug, just like him, and asked me if I was old fashioned too. Well, when it comes to codeine, I sure am. Now I can bribe more people to wear bear suits for me! When I have my party! Which I will! And I will be drunk at it! And not in pain! Hurray!

On the clinic’s doctor’s orders, I had a week off work, during which time I took my antibiotics like a good girl mostly (it’s hard cos there’s two types, and one I am supposed to take two hours after eating and an hour before eating, and hello, I graze) and mostly avoided alcohol, and didn’t go out and all that, and had a follow up appointment with the doctor on my street who has a horrible receptionist gatekeeper, and a nurse who put bits of gauze on my legs with one piece of tape and thought that was a good enough dressing. And in exchange for that goodness? I now have the flu, and thrush. Hurray!

But I’m going to Rarotonga in two sleeps. So I guess it’s not all bad….

Tuesday September 11th, 2002

Grr students and interviews and mentors and work and grr and grr and grr. GRRRR! Grrr $218.42 to get the phone reconnected. Grrrr going to work where Terri was also having a bad day. GRRR at ANZ. Grrrr at the HR lady calling me Love and then saying that no, they still hadn’t made up their minds. Grrrr at the memory of the dead mice in the cupboard. Grrr at dynamics that just don’t work. Grrr at the mean receptionist at my doctor’s who told me that Dr. White refused me a new prescription but didn’t say why (yeah, like I can afford $50 for another consultation right now – if my blood pressure is raised, it’s her fault!). Grrr at thousands of clippings to do, adn then GRRRR at problems with avmed stuff. Grrrr at getting rained on the way home. Grrr at Clay being sprawled out on the couch watching some stupid movie when I just wanted to be alone. Grrr at hearing Kara while i was hiding out in my room, rereading the Blind Assassin for the trillionth time. <!– homage mode: He follows her into the empty room, concrete floor bare except for the mattress, piled with messy sheets and pillows.  When she sits on the windowsill, he pushes her against the glass and kisses her intensely, until they move to the mattress. When her moans that she had never heard before have subsided, he tells her his tragedies, and she kisses him every time words fail her. You intrigue me he says, I feel like you’re holding me at a distance.  And she can see his eyes casting around her room, trying to find some clue to her, but there’s nothing, nothing but her Blind Assassin poster on the back of her door.  What’s that about, he asks, pulling her in tightly to his chest.  It’s about lovers who lie in bed telling each other stories, she laughs.) –>

But they went out, and I drifted in and out of conciousness as I have been doing a lot lately, and then I got up to eat spinach soup and watch Buffy. KateM came over half way through it, and asked a lot of questions, but she’s allowed to cos she’s cool. Oh, and I finally got my invitation to Justin’s party, so I can put that slab’o paranoia aside. After KateM left, I ran around my room trying on various clothing combinations. Fuck I need a needle and thread. The slit at the back’o my black dress has split basically almost up to my slit, so I won’t be wearing that tomorrow (eww, did I just use the word “slit” instead of “vagina” or even “panties”? Dirty). Tomorrow is, of course, our industry evening where we all try to impress PR bigwigs and get jobs. I debated wearing my cleavage top, but it doesn’t cover the hole in my bright pink skirt which I really wanna wear, so I think I will stick with my stretchy black skirt, providing it dries in time, damn excess soap powder, and my boots, of course. I figure standing at least 6’1 is one way to make an impression.

Oh, and what with today being you know, THAT anniversary, kinda, except a day ahead, it also means that today it’s also a year since I started taking the everlovely fluox. Of course, I stopped in umm February I think, but I still think it was like an important anniversary for me, cos that was such a fucking hard thing for me to do, and it of course kicked off my whole “why can’t I feel anything? maybe I should have another drink or some more cock” phase. Fun times. And I lost someone I cared about. And etc. Oh inncidently, I think I still have about a month’s worth of fluox, which I’ll trade anyone for a month of estelle35, or some more straight codeiene. I also have voltarin and brufen and maxolon, in case you too have excessive nausea. I like my pill drawer, although most of the pills in it don’t do anything, but some of them, like the brufen and the fluox are pretty colours, and it makes me feel like I’m some late sixties housewife.

Hi! So. It’s been what, like, two and a bit weeks? Well, I’m here now. And I’d just like to start with this:

I love this girl so much

That’s Bopa Chai, the Shaolin Monk on Crack, aka my new flatmate whom we are still very much enamoured of. And while we’re speaking of photos, while she was around tonight, KateM demanded that i take some of her that don’t feature her cleavage prominently and in which she isn’t rather boozed, and so if you’re interested (and I guess I’m looking at the J-Crew here mostly, not that you probably even realise that you’re called the J-Crew now, but maybe we’ll get there in this entry) you can find them here.

Anyways, so I guess maybe you’d like an explanation as to where I’ve been for the past three weeks. Well, I’ve been right here, pretty much, but for the most part, I have been computerless. That’s right, you may recall how I kept getting electric shocks off my box? (oh ha ha ha, that one was a little too obvious) Those shocks eventually managed to fry pretty much every single inner component of my computer, and so I went a week without it, and then Peter’s workmates rebuilt it for me, at a cost, of course. This means that i lost everything on my hard drives, which SUCKS (and therefore all cd donations of mp3s will be very very gratefully accepted, thank you) but the one silver lining in the cloud was that therefore they didn’t find the folder full’o old topless photos (and yes of course i had topless photos on my computer – show me any girl with a webcam who doesn’t have one, and I’ll show you a girl who knows how to use her delete key). Oh yeah and Pete – if you did manage to extract them, you’d better have enjoyed them and not turned away in disgust, or I’ll be like, hurt and shit. Anyways. That’s why I haven’t been updating my website, and so yeah, thank you all for your letters of concern. Oh wait, hang on – like hardly anyone sent me one! You people think you can all sit here and read and not tell me about it – I’m looking at you, Kate Oliver, and you, Jane Yee, but believe me, I know. Also, Jane – apparently you said that I was really fucked up, but I heard that from a source with no credibility so that’s okay.

Of course there are people who do read my journal and tell me about it. I have hazy memories of one night recently having a big arguement with John and JeremE who were trying to tell me that this journal online isn’t the real me, but I can’t remember if they were saying one was better than the other or not. I think I was trying to argue 1. “Hey John, you’ve only just met me tonight, buddy” and 2. of course it’s me, but I don’t know if I got my points across because I just ended up quoting Tom and KateB who probably know me better than almost anyone and they say that I’m not as open as I think I am, so I kinda dug my own hole. Later, KateH and I managed to reach an agreement whereby Hubris is Ginger Spice and I’m Geri Halliwell (I mean, the physical resemblence is obvious) so that was good.

Other stuff that’s happened over the past while? I meant to write lists, but I didn’t. I’ve hung out with Bopha lots and lots and lots, and all her friends have decided that our flat has an excellent vibe, so they hang out here too. I get to watch them doing kung fu, having intelligent discussions, drinking endless cups of Jasmine tea and smoking very nice pot ever so often, which are all good things, even if the Kung Fu makes me exhausted just hearing it.

We had cigar, martini and poker night last week, which was fucking excellent. Everyone (was supposed to) dressed up 1920s/1930s gangster style, and we played and played and I smoked many many cigars. My friends don’t actually like martinis (wusses!) so we degenerated into apple martinis and cosmos instead, and then towards the end of the night everything just thrown together, but still out of martini glasses so I guess that’s okay. I don’t know who won at poker – we pushed all the chips in the middle for the last round and I think maybe Clayton won, but I can’t be sure.

My parents are in Mexico right now. Before they went away, Anji rang me up and told me Mum had gone into her work and been really spassy saying “Umm, I don’t know if we have a will or not, but you know that we have three houses right? So if anything happens to us, you can have one each”. I got email from them today saying that Neil got his wallet stolen on the first day that they were there, and that I shouldn’t try to buy anything online with their credit card number cos they canceled it. Also, apparently every time Mum goes to say something, she speaks Japanese instead of Spanish. Silly multilingual parents!

Oh yeah, I rang Mum up a week before they left, bawling my eyes out over my dead computer and the fact that my car had been broken into YET AGAIN and was generally unwarrantable and everything. That’s three fucking back windows, all for NOTHING. Grrr.

Shirley helped me break the rest of the glass out of the window and ducttaped it up for me. She’s my Manly friend. However, she’s going tomorrow for ever and ever and ever. I have to drive her to the airport and while I promised her I wouldn’t, I know I will cry and cry and cry. We had chocolate fondue and girlie night at her place on Friday, her and Maz and Morrison. I had flashback panic attacks in the car on the way home, partly about Shirley and partly about friends in general and other stuff. Other Stuff in capital letters even. When I set my mind to something, I want to do it as quickly as possible, get it over, out of the way and what have you. No drawn out trauma and thinking extremely, so later that night there were hugs and tears in my kitchen, and hours and hours of talking, excrutiating exhausting talking. I’m so conditioned to say “that’s okay, that’s alright” when someone apologises to me and I physically had to stop myself from saying it because it would have been insincere and everyone knows that. But there’s peace at least, and maybe that’ll stop the dreams.

Yesterday I drove to Pukekohe and got lost for half an hour because I came in at the other end of the town than where KateH anticipated that I would, and therefore rights were lefts and therefore wrong, which frustrated me immensely and I was burning up with fever, but finally I managed to find her and we went via Pak’n Slave to Nikki’s bach at Clark’s Beach. I think I wasn’t really expecting a good night, but it turned up to be excellent. Eight girls, two of them married, one with two children – it was an interesting cross section. They were all from Waiuku/Pukekohe though, so I was a little on the outside, but that’s okay, we bonded as girls always do over “I have Never” and I didn’t even end up sticking out like a deviant sore thumb as I have been known to do when playing the game with d-sters. It was also really nice to be out of the city, even if we could still see the sky tower in the far distance. I didn’t get much sleep though, cos it was hot, and I was sleeping on the couch in the lounge, cos the bunks were too short, the bottom bunks were too claustraphobic and I didn’t wanna sleep on a top bunk when I’m used to a mattress on the floor. But anyways. Nikki even cooked us all breakfast this morning, kickass. And then because I’m lovely, I took KateH to Waiuku so that she could see her mother for Mother’s Day. Her family are cool, except I was scared when someone was talking about the Baha Men, and so I complained about how I’d have the song in my head for the rest of the day, and Jane offered to put a different song in my head and I said okay, then EVERYONE at exactly the same time went “do do do do do do do do” in the manner of bears driving around in cars being the ballet. But Katie pumped me full’o gas and bought me chocolate too, so I love her.

And that’s it, I guess. Not very much for the past three weeks, I just can’t think. There’s been classes, of course, which I have even been to sometimes. I’m worried about tomorrow, my first friend off on her OE. Of course, there’s also KateB who’s doing so fucking brilliantly she makes me teary with pride when she calls me with news of her latest achievements (Kate – call me! Hi, I like you). OH! completely new topic now, so I should probably put in a new paragraph because it’s going to get a little dodgy.

What does the word “trans” mean to you? Do you even give it much thought? And if so, if you were told you were going to have a “transvaginal ultrasound” would you realise that it was going to be done from the inside? Well, I certainly didn’t, and believe me, I got one of the biggest shocks’o my recent life when the radiographer pulled out this huge fucking girthy 13 incher and rolled a condom over it. She told me to insert it “like a tampon” and I was like “ummmmmmmm holy fuck” Her reassurances that it didn’t all have to go in didn’t count for much. Afterwards she just left and told me to leave the door open when I’d cleaned myself up. I felt so cheap and used! But end of the story is that after extensive consultation with my doctor, I’m now on the pill again. Not evil evil femulen though; estelle35 which is what pretty much everyone with polycystic ovarian syndrome gets put on. And if I find after a couple of months I’m going psycho and losing my sex drive again, I will just stop taking it. Dr White was very amusing when she was going over it with me, asking if I’d be using it for contraceptive purposes, and I was like “yeah I doubt it eh” and she was like “well, if you DO meet Prince Charming tonight or something…”. I like her lots and lots. Also, yeah, so apparently I don’t ovulate all the time and I might very well have difficulty concieving children BUT I’m not infertile and I’m supposed to remember that and not worry and that was why my blood pressure was up a little, apparently, cos I was worried and cos I’d been running around. Normally I have excellent blood pressure. I asked Anji if she’d carry a baby for me, and she promised me an egg, and even offered to put it on ice now, so that’s okay. There’s a backup plan.

And now I think that’s probably enough eh. My back hurts – I’m sitting on the ground again. However, the rugmunching possibilities are looking good – or at least the rug part, because I’ve seen one of the flats downstairs has actually been moved out of, and they’re pulling up the carpet in there, and once they’ve laid new stuff there, they’ll be putting new stuff in here as well, adn then I can sort out my room and reassemble my desk, six months after the actual flooding.

I’m still downloading Hubris – the only links I have left to my computer past – but maybe I can rejig the order and upload this now.