Hubris.co.nz

Jimmy Supergood asked me the other day why I wasn’t updating Hubris anymore, and I had to tell him that it wasn’t really intentional, but I’ve been waiting to finish writing about my American exploits, and those are such long stories that I haven’t felt up to writing them, and I haven’t wanted to update until I got myself up to date, and oh the vicious circleness of it. So here I am, updating. And I will tell American stories later.

Firstly, sorry to Shayne Carter for making him feel violated (or, apparently torn between violated and flattered). Secondly, The Wellingtonista of which I am of course part, have launched their First Annual Wellingtonista Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence so it would be awesome if you would go and vote for them, and also if you should feel like it, join us for our awards ceremony on December 1, in a secret venue which we will inform you of when you vote. And it’s totally not secret just because we haven’t picked a place, oh no. That would suggest a level of casualness and uninformity of which we are not at.

Sentence construction is a little hard for me now as I have been sitting on the front steps all afternoon basking in the gorgeous sunshine, aided by one admittedly large vodka lime and soda and so I am more than a little dizzy – and also in need of a good neck massage but I suspect that’s on a different note. This weekend has been fairly low-key. On Friday, all our managers were away on a retreat, so we got an email about “when the cats are away…” which meant BYO food and drinks to our communal eating area. It was bucketing down with rain which meant I walked through Kirks on my way to Rumbles to buy booze, and was drawn into the chocolate and wine shop hoping for free samples of chocolate. Instead I was waylaid into doing a tasting, and when the man said “I make the wine..” I was like, oh, it’s the actual winemaker, I suppose I should buy a bottle then. And of course Kirks are too wanky to put visible prices on things (as I told someone later that night, the last time I actually went into Kirks proper instead of their related food shops was in sixth form to buy stay-up tights for the ball, and they looked down their noses at me so much that I resolved not to go back ever) so I ended up buying a $29 bottle of Tohu Pinot Noir when really I was after something for around $12 that I could leave behind. Stink. Of course, that meant I had to stay and drink it all, which was good in a way because it meant I talked to many people I’d never talked to before, and apart from people talkijng about my father (because where I work is a place that people work for for life, and so therefore even though Daddy hasn’t been there for ten years or something (someone asked me why he left and I know the answer is for Mum)) I learnt lots about other people. Still no rich husband prospects though. I guess I should expect that, working for the government and all.

Consequently, having drunk all but a glass of that tasty tasty pinot noir within an hour and a half (I shared the love), I was a trifle tipsy by the time I arrived at Tupelo to meet Karen and Dylan, but I think I managed not to come across as such too much. Karl and Amber joined us later and had the brilliant suggestion of going to umm Siam Reap (?) for dinner. They were full at the time, but took my number and said they’d call in a half hour or so, so I suggested we go grab a drink at Mighty Mighty, which I’d (of course) just found out about on Wellurban. Guess who I’m voting for as best Welly Web Writer? Mighty Mighty was very cool, and I got to wave to my old flatmate Justine from Newtown there. I like that they offer about four kinds of house wine named only by kind, and that you can also get cask wine for $5. And it’s so green and pretty! And the bathroom is painted the same cotton candy pink that the bathrooms at Occam are. Yes. And then we got the call from Siam Reap so Karen and I went to buy wine while the others finished their drinks, but motherfucking Starmart in Manners Mall had its locked-up screens down becasue the guy behind the counter looked younger than 18. That’s so fucking lame, and made me rully rully angry. Luckily the restaurant was licensed, and with an $8 per bottle corkage, it probably wasn’t much more expensive anyway. I’d never been before, but holy fuck it was tasty. My medium beef salad seemed much hotter, but my curry main was much easier eating. And so damn tasty, oh yes.

Afterwards Karl and Amber went home and Karen, Dylan and I went back to Mighty Mighty where we found a wide windowsill to sit on and proceeded to make fun of people for what felt like a couple of hours. He was all “it’s so funny how nasty girls get as soon as they see another girl in a miniskirt” so we took the time to explain to him that it wasn’t just that this girl’s skirt was so short we could see out her nostrils, but also that it looked like a pillowcase and that it had obviously been a really nice knee-length frock that she’d tacked up inside it. So it wasn’t just the tartiness of it, it was also the ugliness. We were less chastised for making fun of an older lady who was pulling people onto the floor with her scarf and making them dance with her. I was rather inclined to tap one hipster on the shoulder and say “dude, you’re going home to a sweeeeet threesome!” when his girlfriend was kidnapped away from him, but I was afraid he would think I was including myself in the equation. I also saw James who edited Salient this year, who with a couple of bear hugs made me feel much better about whoever the anonymous person posting nasty comments about my skills as an ad manager being responsible for VUWSA’s financial difficulities on another website (because yes, I never said I was a good salesperson, but seriously, if you’re going to write something like that then get enough fucking balls to put your name to it, lamer), and tried very hard to avoid the attention of The Mime, although it was amusing to see him as it inspired a whole round of “help me, I’m trapped in a box!” type posing. Then we spotted a guy with a German flag badge on each shoulder and for some reason that just really got my goat, so I encouraged Karen to teach Dylan the phrase “Do you have an old washing machine?” in German to ask the boy, in some kind of “Ha! You’re like, not even German!” cheekiness. I didn’t hink Dyl was actually going to get around to asking him, but he did, making the boy even more confused by miming a cigarette while asking. The boy was like “Huh?” and brushed him aside. Ten minutes later on our way out I decided to repeat the experiment, without the cigarette, and was rewarded with a “oh, Deustch, nien!!!” combined with much miming and pointing to his flags and shaking of his head. He he he! Oh II adore the fact that I can now often keep a straight face even whilst doing very silly prank type things.

On Saturday I had brunch with Anji and Delwin at Mojo, and then for dinner Lisa and I went to the Mediterranean warehouse where she became obsessed with the Pinnochio figures. We watched Thirteen and I didn’t blub nearly as much as I did the first time, although there are still many many things about that movie that hit home with me. Today I have sat in the sun and read Q, and did two lots of washing. Yes, it’s big time excitement around here indeedy. But I must wholeheartedly recommend Neil Jordan’s Shade to you – as a reviewer says “Why does he bother writing movies when he can write books this well?”, and just as another example of how late to the party I am (have you heard about this awesome new band called the Arcade Fire?), I also loved The Great Gatsby as well. And that’s all.

It’s Friday, I’m in love at home
Last Friday night, I didn’t go out. Yes, I know. I was pretty sure that the world was going to implode too. But the one boy left at work who goes out drinking had some mysterious function on (he refused to tell me what it was, apart from a gay pride parade, but I don’t believe him. I am instead suspecting that he’s been drafted in to sell Amway), and I didn’t want to have to make contact with the ex-cows, because eww, boys have cooties (or BIRD FLU) and all that. However, my being lame at homeness provided me with the opportunity to do the supermarket shopping, tidy the house in preperation for vacuuming the next day and spend some quality time with Bart, so that was nice.

Big in Japan, alright / pay, then I’ll sleep by your on my side
It was quite exciting to get up on Saturday morning and start preparing for a Country Club whilst not being hungover. Yeah that’s right, I said morning. And I also said not hungover. You can faint now. But yes, I managed to be so organised that I even had time to go and have coffee with Karen during my errand-running to pick up Singstar Original, ’80s and Rock and bottles of Asahi and Kirin and sexy big cans of Sapporo from Regional Wines and Spirits. Can I just put out a huge big pile’o love for Regional’s website, which is so damn handy when it comes to planning Country Clubs since they list all their stuff by region? Even if the guy at the checkout did pick up my beer bottles and examine them to say “oh, this one’s made in Thailand, this one’s made in Australia…” while I put my hands over my ears and went “LA LA LA LA LA”. Apparently he also did exactly the same thing to Mike when he and Kart were stocking up.

I dressed up as a slutty schoolgirl (gee, that was hard), and went to pick up Lisa and Beverly, and then Karen who was dressed as a ninja, and then Anji and Delwin who were Harajuku girls. We started out Country Club in the dining room, where I handed out specially purchased pieces of paper and pens and instructed people to write Haiku and give Tentacle Porn a go while Karen and I threaded up sticks of yakitori (LITERALLY barbecued chicken, but we also made vege skewers) in the kitchen. What exactly is tentacle porn, you ask? Well I will answer by sucking Lisa’s “bandwidth” (heh) to repost images of her artwork. I hope she doesn’t mind. She shouldn’t, because you can’t even see her hands in these pictures:

.

Then we ran out of chairs, as more and more people arrived, so I moved everyone through to the lounge to watch My Neighbor Totoro. I think people were perhaps a little too drunk at that stage to appreciate the simple beauty of the movie, and the absolute radness of the Nekobasu. Philly-steins (Hells yeah, cheese steak and beer. This is my special shout-out to Brad, although I don’t think he reads Hubris, so I can cut’n paste it into an email for him.)! But they were of course, drunk enough for karaoke, and oh how we all rocked that microphone mightily. Well, Katy mostly fell asleep. But others rocked it long and hard. Lisa as the last person to leave left just after 5am. In the time inbetween, glass was broken, many things spilled, so many wacky snacks were consumed, I punched Bart in the face after he took off his glasses and asked me to, and he showed Lisa his Chuck Norris tentacle. I’m shocked. SHOCKED. It was a fucking kickass country club, that’s for sure.

In the cold light of morning afternoon while everyone’s yawning cleaning you’re high tired

The next day I ran away to hide at my parents’ place instead of cleaning up, under the guise of feeding Pixie and doing laundry. I discovered that they had Live8 on their DVD hard drive, so I went through the whole thing, going “fucking wow” at many of the performances (Pink Floyd, Bjork, ummm some others) and scratching my head at many others. And I wondered why the hell they didn’t set out to collect money along with names, because surely they could have raised some amount, even as a side project. Yeah I know i’m nearly a year late to this party. Shoosh.

I’d been just about to cry when I left the house because I was tired, and hungover, and I couldn’t find my glasses. In the grand search for the glasses, however, Bart finally unearthed my long-missed camera cables, so I’m proud to present a selection from the past couple’o months, although you might be best to go look at them directly in Flickr:

Random people who were also at Kai in the City when we were there with Sarah’s Hens’ Party

The Chocolate Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooosse from Canadia at the Country Club

Karen, Bart’s friends and Bart at his Mexican party. As it says in the notes in my flickr account, one of the girls is wearing a note that says “in case of fire, I put out”, which I think is awesome

Russ and Smoo, looking somewhat worse for wear

Spent the afternoon whole day in bed, trying to figure out what it was you said
Queen’s Birthday Monday was dedicated to listening to Tommy which I had pinched from my parents’ overflowing record cabinet, and devouring The Method Actors, which is a book about a fucked up bunch of people living in Tokyo, and it makes me want to box up all my possessions and stick them in storage, and go live the high life over there, teaching English or hostessing or some such nonsense. Just as well I’m not a skinny blonde or I would actually be seriously considering it. I don’t know how I clicked over from hating Japan and all it stood for in my life to craving it. Perhaps it’s because in the book people meet at Hatchiko, and go to Almond Corner in Roppongi, and they draw maps that go past the 109 building, and Tokyu Hands, and Seibu Loft, and oh oh oh I haven’t finished the book yet, but I’m hoping that they will at some stage need to visit the New Zealand embassy so I can see it again through the author’s eyes.

Working nine to five nine twentyish to five thirtyish, what a way to make a living
I have now seen a cow-orker naked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t any of the ones that I want(ed) to see with their clothes off though. Stupid Peti suggesting another woman from work should join my gym. I hate people who talk to me at the gym. I’m there to escape, to replace the noise in my head with the Arcade Fire, or Shihad, or the Walkmen or Britney Spears or whatever else spins up on my ‘Work it out’ playlist, not make chit chat. Yeah that’s right, I said stupid Peti, and I’m glad that she’s leaving. You hear me, Rebbecca? Heh. Boo-urns to the last person on my floor that I have regular conversations with leaving. Sigh. But like, good for her and stuff.

Something’s cooking, I’m at the griddle electric wok
Tonight for family night, I will be making Papas Garbanzo for Bart and Smoo and Lisa. And then we’re going to play Pictionary, cos that’s what families do. Assuming that I do actually have Pictionary. I’m not sure if the board is in the box. Or indeed if I even have the box anymore. And Twister might not work in these jeans. Or even these genes.

One week and two days until my birthday. Woo!

I appreciate that I haven’t written in quite a while (eleven days? sheesh!), so bear with me while I try to address the many things that I want to tell you about, okay? This may take a while because I’m watching some terrible teen horror flick about virgins getting killed in some small town. Has Brittany Murphy made a good movie ever, apart from Sin City? I don’t think she has.

So, since then, what have I done? Of course I went drinking after work on Friday, even though I wasn’t entirely sure that we would, cos of the blah blah blah, but large bottles of chang were had at the Poon, and then we went to eat at One Red Dog, even though it’s only cocks who like their pizza, and it was funny cos then we went to Boulot (I was a little hesitant, based on the blah blah blah, but it was fine) and I even saw Stephen and expressed some Farrar bashing opinions, so that was amusing to me. The waitress offered us pizza and I felt so dirty for cheating on her. Later in the week, on Thursday to be precise, Karen and I went to Scopa for dinner, and Enzo was like “you can have this discreet table over there” and I was like omg, shame. Even though that was probably just me being paranoid. Scopa is fucking excellent, by the way. The girl waitresses were a tad lax (Water glasses didn’t get filled and I had to ask for more wine), but with all the food under $20, and so so tasty, and cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese and yeah, it’s superb.

On Saturday I took a big pile of CDs in to Real Groovy and got $160 credit, and then spent $180 on old records (The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Fleetwood Mac, Split Enz, Madonna, The Mamas & The Papas), the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs on vinyl (‘Phenomenon’ is currently my play over and over song), the Punches EP on CD for Karen since I felt stink about not going to the gig with her the night before, even though she did come out drinking with us instead, and the Family Guy movie for Bart. Then I went to Dick Smith and bought a record player, wahoo. I took it home and realised it wouldn’t work with my polk audio speakers, so I went in to Noel Leemings and bought myself a new stereo as well. It’s so pretty and shiny, and also, it’s apparently a DVD player as well. Not that I have a TV in my room, but that’s beside the point.

When I got it all home, along with a new crate for my records, and tried to set it up, the record player was playing waay too quickly. Before you go accusing me of being a moron, yes, I did adjust the 33/45 switch, to no avail. Jessie offered me the helpful text advice of “stop listening to trance” when I complained it was going too fast. Later when Bart was taking a look at it for me, I realised that I’d put the rubber band on it up too high, and so we moved it down and everything played at the right speed,hurrah! Then I even taught myself how to select tracks. I’m like, pratically a DJ now.

That night, we had Bart’s Mexican themed party. Karen Lisa and I hung out in my room for ages playing records and iPods, before we emerged to share tequila shots and laugh at drunken 20 year old boys. There was much postit note abuse going on, and the room ended up buried in peanuts. The tequila wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Bart still ended up with huge grazes on his face though.

What else? Strange things this week have been having ex workmates sign up as Hubrettes, which is nice that they let me know, but it still meant that I had to go and check up on all the things I’ve written, and that meant I found this from April 2005 in my footnotes, which is very amusing if you read this and realise that was who the shiny was. In more real life/internet collisions, I got a myspace request (yes I know, myspace sucks) from this guy whose site I’ve been reading on and off ever since I found it in the referal logs for Hubris, and it turns out that I do actually know him already in the real world as friend of a friend. Yeah it’s Wellington, I should have expected that.

In other woah moments, on Thursday or Friday at work, I found myself going “holy shit!” when I heard myself on the phone to our technical services manager, and I was talking about a problem our client was having, and I proposed a solution, and an alternative solution, and I was like, so smart, and so on to it, like I’m actually good at my job or something. I know right, crazy. And I’ve been working really hard too. Of course, soon there’ll be like no one at all to talk to left. Sigh.

On that note, we had D’s goodbye drinks on Friday, followed by Sarah’s. I’d worried all morning that I was going to be in a crappy mood at it, but then when I went to the gym, the trainer was like “hey guess what? one of the other clients told me that you’re shrinking!” and I was like “what? Huh?” and she was like “yeah, you’re shrinking and she thinks you should be member of the month” and I was like well, I suppose the twins are perkier, and so we made an appointment for me to have another assessment next week, and then I was feeling really good about that, so I worked out extra hard, and felt just fan fucking tastic. Of course, the good mood didn’t last as long as I needed it to though, and when we were at the Last Supper Club and later the Welsh Bar I did wonders for the spirit of womankind and female empowerment by deciding that the reason no one was paying me any attention was that all the women around me were whores. Witness my text messages to Heather: um actually I deleted them, but they were full of “icantstandupstraitanymoreihatethosewhorespleasekicktheirassesformeihategaxyboys” typeness. And yes, that’s right, gaxy boys. Your guess is as good as mine as to what I meant.

Yesterday was a write-off. Today I spent the day in Ngaio doing laundry and reading the paper with my daddy. And crying at the Gilmore Girls. Finally! Fuck man! Took far too long. This week I have Poseiden tomorrow (yay free (bad) movies), dinner at Anji’s on Thursday and then Japan at the Country Club on Saturday. In preperation for it, I picked up my photo albums from Japan, and I can’t believe how long my hair and legs were. I was totally cute, and I wish more people had told me that.

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.

Yes, I’m aware that it’s been a while. Here are the things I want to talk about, for my own reference as I write this over the course of the day:

1. The Amazing Race
2. The Newtown Fair
3. The building of a TV cabinet
4. The Oscars
5. Maori class, sort of
6. Political arguments with a friend that felt way too personal and made me cry on the bus
7. Installing broadband
8. Gig at Bodega
9. The reseting of my all my crushes to zero
10. The Phoenix Foundation and the goodness that is Waitangi Park

1. The Amazing Race

On Saturday 4 March, a southerly rolled into Wellington, and it was coooold. Therefore, it was of course ideal weather to run all around Wellington for Sarah’s Hens’ Party. I can’t find my camera cable, so I’m going to steal images from her flickr account, because that’s what friends do, right? Yes.

We met at 11am at Vista Cafe in Oriental Parade and had brunch.
.
I was a little nervous at first because I didn’t know anyone, and they were all very pretty, and well dressed, and ordering skinny lattes, but then we had some champagne and I felt better. I felt better still when we were split into two groups and handed a large bag full of wine and snacks that we were ordered to finish before the end of the day, and given our first task. We answered ten questions about Sarah and Nick, and I felt very clever knowing who her famous second cousin is, even if I don’t really know who he is (something rugbyish, I presume). Certain letters in our answers led us to our next location – the indoor netball courts.

I handcuffed Sarah to the rubbish bin to leave her for the next team, we picked up our clue, drank a bottle of bubbly very quickly in the freezing wind cos we couldn’t drink it in the shuttle and headed out to the airport to pick up another friend with the next clue. I made friends with a girl who didn’t know many other people either, and we had another bottle at the freezing cold airport, so all was right in the world.

The next clue led us to an old flat of Sarah and Nick’s, and so we spent nearly an hour sitting on its steps trying to solve a sudoku puzzle as a group. It was okay though, because the organiser had arranged it with the new tenants (she organised all her part in the day from Dubai. That’s insane. And also very cool), and we had another bottle or two of wine to drink anyway. The other team took aaaaaaaages to show up, and we had to wait for them to retrieve Sarah, but then they solved their puzzle in like five minutes, and we all took off for The Grand, or Shooters, as I suppose it is now called.

More handcuffing awaited Sarah there.
.
Apparently that’s just a New Zealand fan, not actually Hulk Hogan. Who knew? The wrestling was in town that night, as I’m sure Lisa Fur can tell you all about, and fans had booked out nearly all the accomodation in town. Anyways, we had some more bottles of wine, and some food, and played a game where every time Sarah answered a question that’d been asked to Nick wrongly, she had to put on another item. She ended up looking like this, which is just totally awesome.

I hope she doesn’t mind me putting these photos on my site. I’m not sure if she even knows of its existence, actually. If she does, holler at me and let me know, ‘kay? It’s the gentlemanly thing to do. And that goes for any other workmates reading. And as for ex-workmates – hey to my reader at Foodstuffs! You read me a LOT. I can’t believe that they’ve finally let you have internet access…

Anyways, we put together our puzzle pieces and did another sudoku on the back of it, which led us to Patel’s Superette on Oriental Parade. Me and Allison went via taxi, which I only mention because it’s going to come back in my summary of the following friday night, if I remember. Anyways, the final clue had us all digging in the sand for ages, in a manner highly reminiscent of my pirate tenth birthday party.
.
We dug up a big chillybin full of wine and cheese and tasty treats and picniced on the band rotunda. When we were done, it was almost five pm, and so we decided to go back to the Orange Apartments where many of the girls were staying and chill out until dinner, which was booked for 7pm.

While we were there, I bought coffee from the Southern Cross/ex Zeebos, which was very tasty but took eeeeeeeeeeeven longer to make than the coffee at Ora, tried to take a powernap, but was unable to, because I can’t fall asleep on demand without a wank first and that would have been highly inappropriate. We also watched Top of the Pops, which was rad because it turns out that the girl who’d done the organising was the brother of the drummer in one of my very favouritist bands, and so I got to say to her “I did a phone interview with your brother once, and he was lovely, except I was shamed out because I thought he was the bassist cos I’m used to him being called Michael and the bassist being called Mike”. We also saw part of New Zealand’s Brainiest Kid and they showed a picture of some What Now presenter:
and asked who it was. The correct answer was ‘Tamiti’ and I was like ha, he looks kind of like my friend Tamiti from high school, but then I promptly forgot about it in the scramble to put on a little makeup and my shoes and all that sort of stuff.

We were walking to Kai in the City up Marjory Banks St when some guy sitting on his car yelled at me, and lo and behold, it was my friend Tamiti, who, as it turns out is actually hosting What Now now. Oooh spooooooooky, given that I haven’t seen him since 2000. He is in fact building an army, which is awesome, and when he makes it into parliament, he’s going to give me a job. It was great catching up with him, and he said he comes up from Chch every fortnight, so we ought to catch up shortly. Lovely.

Kai in the City was really choice. I was a bit skeptical when Sarah had said she wanted to go there because the owners walk around with a guitar singing, but it was so much fun. I probably wouldn’t want to do it every night, but hey, every couple of months it’s okay to break out the ‘Ten Guitars’, and ‘Tu teramai nga iwi’. Plus, the food was really yum, and the wine was really yum, and it was just good vibes. And another old workmate of mine was there, and so it was nice to catch up with her too and tell her how very lonely I am now. After that we went for a drink at the Cambridge, and then they were going to Boogie Wonderland, but it was 11pm, and so I’d been Hens’ Partying it for a solid twelve hours, and it was time to go home. But it was a fucking radass day.

The Newtown fair

Unsurprisingly, I was totally exhausted the next day, so what smarter thing to do is there than to head out somewhere to walk around for hours in masses of crowds? I picked up Karen and we drove around Newtown for ages trying to find a park because dude, public transport is for black people. That’s why the windows on buses are so big, so we can laugh at them (and there’s a little Oscar humour for you, just to tie in to later on in this entry. I am so fucking good at cohesion).

I decided that I wanted to eat everything, so I had a spring roll which was very average, and a coffee which was great and gave me a headspin, and some mini donuts, and then I bought a black bead necklace, and then there was a huge big pan of chicken with all kinds of colourful capsicums cooking outside Planet Spice and it looked so pretty I had to have some of that too, and then I got dizzy from the Indian food in my belly. I like Newtown.

The building of a television cabinet

I was still exhausted and sort of high on tastiness, but I decided to get the supermarket shopping out of the way since I had a lot of cooking and cleaning to do in order to prepare for my swanky Oscar Soiree the following night. I spied a TV cabinet that I’d seen in a mailer for $69, instead of the $100+ comparable cabinets are everywhere else, so I wrestled it into my trolley and got it home. Why did I need a tv cabinet? Cos I’m contemplating buying a 29 inch TV, so that I can put the one that’s in the lounge in my room, so that if the boys are watching crap and I need some private chill-out time (and for once, that’s not a wanking euphemism) I can watch it in there. So anyways. Mark was in the lounge when I got home, with the windows closed and the curtains not opened properly watching some crap (smelly boys) so I plonked myself down in the dining room and did some constructing. If I had an electric drill and four hands, I could have assembled the cabinet very quickly (except for maybe the doors), but I didn’t, so it took a while. Then the doors wouldn’t fit in, and they were all crooked once they did, and that took even longer, and I was dehydrated, and the floor was uncomfortable and oh oh oh the pain, but holy crap it was so satisfying and I felt so clever once it was all done. You should come over and marvel at my feat of engineering, and promise not to hold a level up to the doors. Girl power!

The Oscars

I had texted everyone I knew in Welly to invite them to my Oscar Soiree so that they could drool over Jon Stewart with me. In order to prepare for this, I made empanadas (beef with cocoa and flaked almonds and spices in savoury shortcrust pastry), pear and sour cream cupcakes, toasted turkish bread with creamcheese, sundried tomatos and fresh basil and two kinds of dipping sauces for samosas, spring rolls and dim sum that came frozen in a box – a party box, if you will. I also cleaned the house, of course, and put out bubbles in an icebucket, and glasses, and printed out lots of oscar nominee sheets for playing the ‘think will’ and ‘want to’ game on, and found some pens. When Anji and Karen arrived looking all glammed up, I decided to do the same. Also in attendence were KateB, Kartini & Mike and Ash, who gets special credit for being a person online (you will recall, of course, our “Oh, you’re that Joanna!” conversation) as well as a person from real life from the KKK crowd. Yes, that’s right, I hang out with white supremicists, not just people whose names all start or sound like K. Missing were Katy and Chrisana who piked due to the weather. Surprise surprise, it was windy in Wellington.

But yes, anyways. Everyone was very excited about the Oscars, and I was quite drunk by that stage, which is always a good thing. I laughed so hard that I nearly fell off my chair during Jon Stewart’s opening monologue (bless the wonders of the Internet that you can watch if if you missed it), especially during his address to Steven Spielberg (“I can’t wait to see what happens to our people next! Trilogy?”). And then I cried during George Clooney’s speech, cos I was very emotional, and damn he looked hot, and oh, even if it was a bit of a wanky speech, it was just so hilarious and beautiful at the same time, and I was still high thinking about the bedroom eyes he’d been giving Jon in the opening clip. And I kept on bringing out food, and everyone was witty and great and appreciative, and I just had a fantastic time, even though it did go on til 2am. Stupid Desperate Housewives rating so highly.

Maori Class, of sorts

I would MSN one of the web developers and ask him for the HTML tag for macrons, but I’m not talking to him or something today. So just believe it when I tell you that I’d like to put it in there.

Anyways, on Tuesday, I stayed home sick from work, and of course my KOL internet account had been allowed to lapse in preperation for the installation of broadband on thursday, so I couldn’t look up a map to see where Heriot Drive was in Porirua. Thus, after I had battled rush hour traffic all the way up to Kelburn to pick up Karen, I wasn’t sure exactly whereabouts we were going, but I figured we’d find it easy enough. The woman on the phone had muttered something about the roundabout near the mall. Heaven forbid that the wananga actually send me out a piece of paper confirming my enrolement and the class times and so forth, but nevermind that for now. We couldn’t find the street, so I pulled over by the covered bit of Porirua cos I saw an information stand sign, and thought there might be a map there. Instead, I saw a wananga sign, and was like “wahoo! I didn’t think that this was Heriot Drive, but nevermind…” and since we had half an hour to kill before 6pm, Karen and I went to get something to eat. We went in to the wananga office, and I tried to sign in on a list like the sign told me to, but my name wasn’t on the list (Karen wasn’t enrolled yet but i was hoping they could squeeze her in), so I was told to just add our names down the bottom. So we walked upstairs through a weird kitchen and back door and stuff, and came out into a big classroom full of new computers. We asked if this was the Maori class, and were told that was “on the campus”. Oh really? Well where the hell were we then? And where the hell was the campus? We were given some kind of weird garbled directions about how we had to head towards Bunnings, and when I said I didn’t know the area, and asked what road was Bunnings on, we were told to go to Bunnings, and turn. There was some arm waving too, but then we found ourselves out hte back of the building and had to walk in a large circle around the whole plaza to get back to my car, and so the incredibly vague directions rendered themselves pretty much useless. I thought that maybe Bunnings was in the industrial type area towards Tawa, so we headed in that direction, and, surprise surprise, ended up in Tawa. That’s when I decided that we’d go to my parents’ house instead and get Daddy to speak some te Reo to us. He, of course, was off in China, but at least we made Mum’s night.

And this week Karen and I have decided that really, five hours every Tuesday is an awfully large commitment to make for the next 36 weeks, and I’d have to drive and park my car in town every week in order to get there in time, and that’d be $10 a day, and so we’re postponing in favour of trying to find a place that does classes actually in town.

Political arguments with a friend that felt way too personal and made me cry on the bus

I met up with Anita-who-used-to-work here for a drink on Thursday at Ponderosa. She smokes, so we sat outside. Their stools are uncomfortable. When Dylan came out of work we waved him over so he could drink with us too. I was trying to tell a story about why I wasn’t particularly fond of someone using the punchline “and she votes National too!”, assuming that anyone I was friends with would just recognise that’s akin to eating puppies, but it kicked off a huge big very long argument which culminated in me getting very upset because I am very very heartily against smacking kids. Also, One Red Dog is ass and won’t serve food in their ‘bar’ area, which is pretty much exactly the same as the restaurant area. (*)

Installing broadband

On Friday night I went home straight after work and spent a while on the phone to Xtra who told me to reset our modem, and after finding a cunning comb with a parting spike in order to do so, I managed to get broadband up and running, although the cable’s a bit dodgy, given that I bought it for me and Bopha back at the Slab, and it had millions of Volcanic users trampling all over it, no doubt. Bart’s laptop is running Windows 98 and he didn’t have a network card, so he’s not so lucky. However, I did go over to my parents’ house last night to retrieve my old desktop that English Dave had reformatted so that in theory the boys can use that, but they didn’t seem too keen to go and get the monitor out of my boot, so they can suck it, queers.

The gig at Bodega

Later that night, after I had drunk a fair amount of vodka, Karen and I went to Bar Bodega for the Spiderplan/K1500/Rico Suave gig. It was loud. I mean it was LOUD. When we got there the halfway doors were shut, and we’d never seen that before so we asked the bartender what was going on, and he said it was just because of the loudness. We braved our ears (I wish I had thought to take earplugs) and went in, waved to Niall and sat at the back, where we occupied ourselves being hilarious making up sign language. In the breaks between bands, or songs, or what-have-you, I made funny jokes because I am happy and super-fun to be around, and carefree and oldskool gay(*). One of the jokes I made was so hilarious that I had to plug a reminder into my phone about it, so that I wouldn’t forget how Karen said “I see a small flaw in your plan” and I said “Is it a mezzanine?”. HAHAHAHA. Remembering that joke just makes me laugh and laugh.

The reseting of my all my crushes to zero

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but I’ve had an awful lot of crushes on an awful lot of people lately, and they’ve all turned out badly, well for me anyway. I think (hope) that 3/4 people remain ignorant of my crushes on them, with the fourth of course being that maple syrup-eating surrender monkey. Oh, and while we’re talking about a 3/4 ratio, if you ask me in conversation about my sexual orientation, I’ll usually say that I like people, and it’s about 70% boys and 30% girls, but if we look at the last four crushes, then we will make that figure 75%/25%. Not that it matters anymore, because they’re all over. Oh yes, that’s right, it’s that simple. My will shall be done. I am in control of my feelings, and the master of my own domain. And I suppose since I have now created another version of me, I am now the Master Beta. Ha ha ha.

The Phoenix Foundation and the goodness that is Waitangi Park

There is, however, no pain that liberal applications of the Phoenix Foundation cannot temporarily distract one from. Especially the Phoenix Foundation in a pretty pretty tent in the stunning Waitangi Park, preceeded by Lisa and I squeeing at sighting internet celebrities, and they played ‘Nest Egg’ and ‘Going Fishing’ sounded a little like ‘Sweet Child’o Mine’ and oh they were hilarious, and oh it was just so so rad. concert’o the year so far, although they may be topped by Bic Runga in two weeks’ time. Afterwards we wandered around in the freezing cold gazing at the insanely awesome Earth from Above outdoor exhibit, and I took off my shoes so I could run around on a world map and jump up and down on stupid Canadia, because why not? And then traffic crawled up Courtenay Place so we laughed at all the underdressed skanks (Lucifer_Sam would have been SO proud of us!) and watched Family Guy DVDs. Go see the exhibition if you’re in Welly, please. It’s like the nighttime equivilent of the pretty flags on top of this page. And of course, for more information, you should go to the very clever Wellurban for posts like this one.

I was going to write about other things, but I can’t be bothered now. I figure this will do, given that it’s taken me ALL DAY. I mean, apart from the work that I have also done. Naturally.

Last Friday was, if you recall, the Prom. Of course, you should all have known that from coming along, but if you did, then you’re people that I don’t know who didn’t introduce yourselves. Wankers.

But nevermind that. Let’s talk about going to Spotlight at lunchtime with Kateb for netting to promify our dresses, and how I was going to get black but the call of the pink was just too strong:

Then let’s talk about how the skies opened around 4pm and I had holes in my shoes, and my car was parked a long way away and luckily I’d given Kate the spare key to it cos I got to it late, and then we had to schlep over to Newtown to decorate the hall and I was soaking wet and freezing cold and reaaaaaally not in a good mood. Plus decorating was tiring and hard, and we were running late and Brad’s friend who was helping us kept on talking and talking and oh oh oh, just the drama of it all. But when we were done, the place looked fucking rad:

Kate came over to my place to get ready, and since I knew I needed to snap out of my grump, I went to “spend a couple of minutes by myself” (read: rub one out), before showering and sorting out my hair. Of course, we ended up looking fabulous, as the above photo will prove. We spent a while having some drinks and trying to convince Bart and Del to come with us, before abandonning that idea and jumping in a taxi. The hall was pretty empty at first, so I was very worried for Brad’s sake, and I was trying to count and do maths and things, but eventually it filled up, helped along by the arrival of these two, Katy and her flatmate:

We sat and drank coruba & coke for a while, cos it was donated, and then Brad started playing ‘Get into the groove’ which is one of my favouritist songs to dance to evah, and since my friends weren’t feeling it, I went and jumped into a group of strangers including this girl Holly:

They were very very rad people and were very complimentary of my outfit, so I decided that I was ON FIRE that night, and that everybody would be my friend. When Katy and I were slowdancing the first slowdance, I spied two boys standing at the side so we grabbed them instead and they didn’t appear to mind at all. Later I fell in love with one of Brad’s tutors (although I suspect I didn’t realise who he was at the time) when he whirled me around the dancefloor and told me to stop leading. How powerful and manly! Oh how I was swooning.

At one stage, I went outside to find Kate, and found her talking to a 15 year old kid who’d wandered up to boast about how he was on his 20th beer. When he turned around and said to the Asian girl behind him “I don’t like Asians!” I decided that was enough, and it was time for him to move on, so I went and found Brad, who grabbed a very tall friend of his and politely asked the young lad if he had a ticket. He moved on then. Apparently he was also kicked in the balls by a friend of the Asian girl. Excellent.

It was just such a fucking fantastic time. I danced and danced and danced, and although I didn’t win Prom Queen, I certainly felt like it, and so I successfully vanquished all my demons from dances at ASIJ 12 years ago. Oh yes, that’s right, all my demons. I’m totally a demon-free zone now. Honest. Here’s some more photos from the prom – if you want to see them larger, go to my flickr account page, obviously. And the best part of all is that Brad made a whole grand.

When Kate and I got home, we found Mark and Bart sitting out on the front steps drinking, so we stayed and talked to them for a long time, and I did the most awesome fall-flat-on-my-face fall ever. Radical.

The next morning, strangely enough, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus, but I dutifully rolled out of bed, showered and headed off to pick up Anji and Karen, via a ten minute wait at Macdonald’s for them to serve me up a burger instead of the ick that is the Macdonald’s breakfast. Not that their burgers are much better, of course, but this was an emergency. I got Anji to drive to Waikanae, because I still felt drunk. We went to Swell Cafe for Mum’s birthday brunch, which you might remember from the news stories about its quarter mill bronze statue being stolen. Or you might not. I don’t care either way. Ha! It was really nice there, but oh boy I was feeling ill. Then we went to Oma’s house to sort out more stuff and pick up more furniture and I puked some more and sat on an outdoor step and cried. I was very very happy to get home and unload the buffet and bookshelves.

After a nap, I went to the supermarket and made awesome sandwiches of streaky bacon, camenbert, hummus and rocket. Hurray! And I tried gingerly to drink some beer, but then switched to red wine. Around 11pm, I headed off to Nial’s house for Blair’s goodbye party. Luckily it was a very mellow night, just lots of sitting around in the very cute garden. I didn’t know people at first, but I was overly tired so I was in very giggly very saying lots of stupid things mode, so it was alright. The boy who I’d originally thought was gay talked loudly at me about how gay he was, and about how he used to make his ex girlfriend wear a Hayden Christensen mask when he flipped her over, and I felt ever so slightly embarrassed but mostly I just laughed at the things I was thinking in my head (*).I did tell the hot Canadian right as he was leaving that I fancied him rotton, and he laughed at me. Well, it wasn’t quite a “ha HA, like you could ever have a chance” kind of laugh, or even a laugh of pity, it was just a laugh and a “I’m sure you’ll get your pash this year”. And yes, I told him right when he was leaving, because I am laaaaaaaaaame like that, but at least I told him. So that’s all very well and good, and I don’t feel bad about it. And it’s good that he’s gone, because while he was a very easy crush to have, I just have far too much going on in my head right now(*). Oh, and of course he’s also a stupid maple syrup-eating surrender monkey.

Having been up until 5.30 texting, Sunday was a day for lying on the couch groaning and watching season two of the OC. I think much of the week was like that, actually. Hmm. On Wednesday I saw Capote, which wasn’t the feel-good hit of the summer. Then I decided I needed to stop feeling angsty about the number of people in my house (it’s strange getting used to having two boys and one girlfriend who is still trying to find a flat around, after living with only Anji for six months, but there’s no need for me to have a bug up my ass just because oh the pain, they’re sitting on my couches watching tv when I want to lie down and watch the Gilmore Girls in quiet), so I cooked a flat dinner for them and Brad. I was going to make a pear cake too, cos our tree is loaded down with pears right now, but when I got home, Del was already making one. Great minds and all that.

On Friday after work my workmate Sarah and I escaped down to Monsoon Poon for some very good conversation and some wine. She’s getting married in less than a month, and so she keeps asking me questions about things like invitations or social graces, or accomodation and stuff, which is fine, cos I’m happy to help, but it’s making me plan my own wedding something crazy, and hello, I’m not gettign married for another five years (that’s assuming Brad’s still single then). We were joined by the boys a while later, and then by Rene who is an ex collegue. Eventually KateB showed up to and by that stage I’d consumed quite a lot of wine. Sarah left and we had a platter of food which probably wasn’t nearly enough in proportion to the amount of wine we were drinking, and we went to Ponderosa where I watched Kate pee and she did the same to me. Not like, cos we were doing it in public or anything, just that we assumed that there would be stalls but it was one big room and so we decided to have a significant bonding experience instead. I was thinking that the bathroom looked mighty familiar and then I realised yesterday that it’s tiled like the one in Veronica Mars in which she does all her business. Ha HA ‘business’, do you like what I did there? (Yes, wow, that is a poo you should be proud of).

Somehow we managed to convince Dylan to come to a uni party with us (I did mention that the last time I went to a party at Jess’s there were both nipples shown AND a person in a panda costume), and we headed up to Kelburn via the supermarket for more wine. We probably didn’t need the wine. I had a good time at the party talking to Arthur and Brad who are at drama school together, and the fabulous Jess, and also Robbie, who as it turns out isn’t Lemon Cohen at all, and most awesome of all was that there was no one else from Salient there. Then Kate was a little worse for wear, so we decided it would probably be a good idea to get her home(*). When I saw Jess yesterday in Aro, she laughed at me for being like “omg, leave my friend alone! She’s been my best friend since we were 5, don’t hurt her!” cos people had placed flowers on her head. They laugh because after delivering that speech, I delivered Kate an all-mighty slap. Sorry babe.

Yesterday morning was consequently not much fun either, but I rallied by around 4pm when Anji and I went up to Mum and Neil’s for a BBQ. Boy it was hot, so very hot. I like BBQs. Then I went and picked up Karen and we headed over to Aro Park for the Bitchcraft carnival. I bought pretty earrings and we went and got fish’n chips and settled down on the grass to watch the Dukes of Leisure play. They looked like this:

I’m aware that you probably can’t see that much, but I’m hoping that it’s just that I have a crap monitor. If you can’t make it out, that’s a tree with a string of dead dolls hanging behind them. Anyways, the Dukes were very cool. They’re kind of sonic soundscapey like HDU or Jakob, and since I was lying on my back looking up at the stars, it was perfect. The Bitchcraft fair looked awesome when all the stalls turned on their little lamps. I felt like I was in an alternative Stars Hollow, and that is a rad thing to feel.Then I went home to dance the panda dance for Brad. I contemplated going to the Bitchcraft afterparty, but it was on the other side of town and my hands were still tingly with hangover. One of these days, I’m going to cut down on the amount I drink. For serious.