Hubris.co.nz

Today I went to go read the thing I’d sent to my mailing list about the scratches on my arm, but then it turns out I didn’t actually send anything to my mailing list at all. I did write about some bushes on Swinney.org though, and I guess that’s like the same thing, kinda. Last night I was sitting around crying after the season finale of Shortland Street, so I rang up Penny and asked her if she wanted to come around and get drunk. Of course she did. Jeremy came to the bottle store with us too, so we decided to have a cocktail night.

Sparing you all the details, we drank and laughed a lot. Penny and I reminisced a great deal. We gossiped. We danced on the front terrace. I rang Kini&Olivia and was terribly hurt that neither of them want to live with me. We took a series of dumbass photos which you can view here. We rang random people from Penny’s cellphone list that she wasn’t sure she knew, and had very amusing conversations. One guy had just been fined $13,000 for reckless driving. Jeremy gave us random numbers to call too, and then his friend kept calling him back. I bit Penny but didn’t leave any bruise marks, to our deepest regret. Around 2am we decided we’d go be larrikans out in the streets. I refused to go the park around the corner, so we walked up to Shell instead, then walked back playing Pringle Soccer. I had my camera so we took a succession of fantastic supermodel pose shots. We poll danced. Jeremy climbed a tree. I found myself unable to balance walk along a wall without holding onto Penny on one side, which made me mad cos I was really really good at the Beam in Primary school. Penny jumped into a bush which looked like fun, so I did the same, except it wasn’t all boingy like I was thinking it would be, in fact it was sharp and ouchy and I have deep gashes from it.

Today I woke up to say bye bye to Penny (also cos her phone with a goddam novelty ring kept going off in my room) but then went back to sleep, which is always fun to do cos the heat makes me have dirty dreams. I got up much much later then, and spent an hour reading the herald and stuff. My saturdays are so so cruisy. In the evening we did a tremendously huge heap’o dishes and cleaned up the kitchen proper, which was good. I did laundry. Stuff like that. At night, Jeremy and I were watching “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (I LOVE TV3 for deciding to screen 80s teen flicks every Saturday) but Kara kept ringing for Clay who’d gone to bed with an infected foot. She was going to bus over, but I told her I’d go pick her up from work, cos she’s much too nice to take a bus home at 11.30 at night. It’s just as well I did pick her up actually, cos there were literally hundreds of people waiting for buses in Newmarket cos of Christmas in the Park. Ick. “Order! Order!”

Arrrrrrrrr!

That’s me in my pirate hat. Actually it became like, cooler than a pirate’s hat, but it was a pirate’s hat in the first place. Brad and I were sitting in the lounge bored, so we decided to make hats. I made a matching fan. He made a sword. Then we decided Jeremy should play too, so we made him a hat and a parrot (which looked suprisingly like a Japanese Crane) and went and knocked on his bedroom door. We handed him the hat, and he was like “where are we going?” We like that in a flatmate! So we went to ye old town’o food.

Work today was actually very cool. I sent out my first professional email – admittedly not using my own login yet. I don’t have my own login yet, or my own swipe card, but I should have by tomorrow. Hopefully. What I did have, however, was a huge ass bubble blister from my new shoes and from pursuing information all over the Puna, but I deflated it. Where oh where does all that liquid come from? But yeah anyways, I did enjoy work a lot, except it’s quite challenging. Which yes, is a good thing, but I had to think! And think! And I feel kinda like I wanna have every single thing I do checked over, but I can’t, cos how unproffesional would that be? Apparently Trevor, who was also in my project team and my broadcasting team is working in the same place that I am though, so I must email him and maybe have lunch with him or something like that. Stoked that we both got jobs out of it!

Arrrrrrrrr! Arrrrrrrrr! I was all tired before and falling asleep while Shirley was over, but pretending to be a pirate invigorated me. I have a notepad with lists in it now. I like it. I have lists of work tasks, lists of questions I need to ask at work, lists of stuff I need to buy and bills I need to pay. It’s funny, cos I was doing all this stuff on the computer, and I felt fine until my boss lady #1, whom I shall call umm well I can’t think of a witty name right now, handed me a page on RSI stuff and readjusted my chair and keyboard level so that I’d be “right”.

“Subject to the provisions of the * Information and Meetings Act 1987, all transactions, records and information pertaining to the business of * shall be held in strict confidence by you both during the period of employment and also after its termination”

Surely there’s nothing better than sticking your hand inside a turkey first thing when you wake up, unless it’s getting to wipe all the blood and wet stuff off said turkey. Or yelling “Hold still you bitch” or “oh yeah, ram me full of that stuffing”. Kitchen sports are so much fun! I spent this morning finishing off the cooking for today’s lunch – I was up until 2am making pumpkin pies last night. The boys were terrific and did highly challenging tasks like peeling potatos and stuff. Anyways, eventually everything was in the oven and I could go have a shower and make myself stunning.

Shirley arrived while I was still getting dressed, so I was able to tell her that I wasn’t decent without running myself down too much. Helen came along too, and demanded that I take her photo:

The turkey took about three hours or more, which meant that everyone had assembled (I think we had 15 people) and were well into their assorted wines by the time it was ready. Just before I brought it out of the oven and carved, I got everyone to assemble around the dining room table and say what they were thankful for. Sure, I ripped the idea straight out of a Dawson’s episode, but the whole idea for having Thanksigiving Dinner was from Dawson’s too, so it was very appropriate. It was actually really touching. Some people went serious, some went funny. I said I was thankful for all the people assembled, because I loved them so much, and they made my life, and they were all so much more special to me than they could ever know, and it’s true. So there.

Yes anyways, sappiness aside, I’m so so stoked, cos my turkey turned out juicy and luscious and scrummy, even though I’d never cooked one before. Unfortunately, the small ‘Turkey Roast’ we bought to accompany it was icky – can we say “sausage”, boys and girls? Don’t ever buy one! But the actual bird roast was good – so well cooked that the meat slid off the bones. Yay me. I’m so so proud. I mean, Mum’s never even cooked turkey. Anyways, enough boasting.

So everyone got all sleepy after lunch, and no wonder, cos of the heat and the alcohol and all the food. We had four couches and a bed in our lounge, and there were people stretched out on all of them, entwined with whoever else was sharing their seat. It was kinda touching. After dessert, I took an eiderdown out to the lawn and lay out there with Helen and Shirley and Jeremy, eating Rum Spiders (you know – coke and icecream) and giggling my head off. “I have a grass problem”.

Eventually, Kate M drove me on a Beer and Chuppies mission. Previous days had taught us that there was no Summer Ale at either Woolworths 277 or Foodtown, so we went to the Winemasters shop. It was very cold in the Chiller with bare feet. I hadn’t brought my wallet with me, since I’d just fished $30 out of the Booty Tin (we asked everyone to pay $5 for lunch to cover some costs) so I had no ID, and Morrison didn’t have her driver’s licence on her either, just tech ID and old licence. The lady let us have the beer, but warned us that they were cracking down and we should always carry our id. That place is always strict, how rude! When we got back to the house, we found everyone playing cricket in our newly cleaned carport. How industrious!

Everyone was all dozey until around 6.30pm, just snacking and drinking some more, and then Miss World came on. Boy did we ever tear strips off all the contestants! Oh lordy, did I just say “tear strips off” ? Did I just say “Oh lordy” ? Super! Anyways, around then, Renee asked where the nearest Accident and Emergency Clinic was, as she was having an allergic reaction to something, which seemed kinda scary, so i went with her and we got Nigel to drive us to the Ascot Hospital. Dead posh! We waited for ages, and Renee just seemed to get sicker and sicker, so eventually Nige and I went to the counter and said “look, our friend is having kind of a really bad allergic reaction” and since she was streched out lying down on the seats and was bright red from sunburn anyways, they rushed her off to a doctor, and I went in with her (sure, I’ve only ever met her at parties basically when I’ve been very drunk, but Jeremy was in no state to go to the hospital with her, and I figure it’s good of me to bond with flatmates’ girlfriends. To say nothing of the fact that I was kinda scared and like to help out in an emergency). Anyways, the doctor gave her some antibiotics and sent us off back home. She felt better after some panadol and a sleep.

I missed a significant part of Miss World, plus I’d accidently found out who’d won anyways, so that ruined a bit of the night, but ahh well. Jodie and Helen both left after Miss World, as did Nige and Andy. But Maree showed up then, which was sweet as bro. We played Bluffinitions. It was very amusing. I won. All those words we’d never heard of before!

I had a headache, so I’m going to manipoo now.

“Actually I quite like Waikato Draught” – Helen

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month!

Last night, I was online and feeling I dunno – bored and just a little down, when I got into an ICQ chat with Cam and Jeb. Mmmmm threesome with two gay men! It was very very amusing. Jeb wrote a derogatory haiku about me, so I responded in kind with a haiku explaining why I wasn’t what he was saying that I was. I pasted the haikus to Tom, and before you know it, we were talking to each other completely in Haiku, which were so amusing, I made a whole page about them. Jeb and Cam were very funny, but we fought about what tasted worse – girls or boys. Actually no, it wasn’t funny at all, it was all very sick and sordid and disgusting. So there! Heh. I was laughing so hard I was almost afraid that my flatmates would hear and get the wrong idea.

Today I woke up with a headache, which I’ve had for a number of days and I suspect it’s because I hadn’t had any coke for ages. Dammit, I don’t wanna be a caffiene addict! I was good and defrosted the freezer, making boys squeal when I dropped large chunks of ice out the kitchen window onto them on the patio sofa. I also did some tidying and stuff. Good me. But naturally I didn’t tidy my room. I tried and tried and tried to read through my paperwork and reports and stuff, but I just kept falling asleep. Jeremy said he’d charge me $18 an hour for him to read and brief me on all their contents, which I thought was a little moneygrubbing of him.

In the evening, Jeremy went out to some comedy thing with Renee, and lord knows where Clayton is (it’s 2.23am and he’s still not home, that rascal!) so Brad and I went to the supermarket. There’s a 4 kilo turkey defrosting in our fridge right now and also an 850gram boneless turkey roast in the freezer. I’m very excited. We also got cranberry sauce and all that good stuff. Oh man, I’ve become a fricking nutter (well, more so than usual) because we’re obsessed with one line from the Simpsons, when Homer goes “saxamaphone” so every other word that has at least 2 syllamabuls has now got a ‘ma’ or a ‘mo’ added in to it or a ‘mahol’. It’s driving me mad, and I’m the one who’s saying it the most – I can only imagine how annoying it must be for the people around me. After the supermarket, Brad and I went to Ponsonmaby to the Dog cos it was supposed to be Kate B’s last night at work, to have drinks with her. We didn’t stay all that long though, but Kate was very glad to see us.

We got home and Clay still wasn’t home, and we couldn’t find the tape with Miss Teen America that we videoed on it, so we watched Spiceworld. Again. Fuck, Richard E. Grant gets cooler and sexier every time I watch that movie (so now he’s 21 times sexier than previously). I declared myself to be the special commentary on the DVD, and launched into many tangents about foreshadowing and humour on many levels in the film. You really should watch Spiceworld with me one day. It’ll enrich your life, believe you me. Actually, all media consumption in this house is an interactive experiance. That’s because we’re so savvy.

“call Gary Barlow!”

So my official title is “Communication Assistant” and I know how much I’m getting paid per week, and it’s quite nice – well, more than three times as much as my current income anyways, and yeah, it’s all quite exciting. I start next wednesday, and before then, I have a whole mountain of paper to read my way through. It’s slow progress, but by the end of February, y’all will be able to ask me ANYTHING about wastewater and I’ll be able to tell you. So that’s exciting.

Today there were chainsaws and sunshine and landlady’s sister, and as a consequence, there’s no nasty tree outside my window. Hurrah for that! And Brad mowed the lawn, which inspired me to do the lawns, and clean out the drain in the bathroom (some bitch sheds her long brown hair all over the place!) and put out about 12 bags of newspapers for the paperchase. House cleaning is good. Kate B ran off with my car for a couple’o hours cos it has a tow bar and hers doesn’t to put her stuff in storage. Jeremy hasn’t moved his stuff out of the lounge yet though.

Jeremy was watching The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson this afternoon, and I got teary. I conceed that I’m a headcase, yes. But Jim Henson DIED, okay? Have you ever seen muppets crying? It’s not a happy sight, I tell you! I made vegetable soup, and it was really nice.

Brad’s got part time work at More FM. Clay’s working at a media monitering place. We’re so Savvy. Of course, I have a PR job instead of a multimedia job, and that’s just fine with me. Clay rang on the way home today and asked if I wanted anything, so i said “summer ale”. We moved the lightest couch onto the deck out the front of the house, which we foolishly have neglected until today when the bushes had all been trimmed back and sat out there. I was hoping to do some dancing, but then Jan – Clay’s friend that we don’t like – showed up and her and Clay went off to get dvds and stuff from the supermomarket. I rang our friends and made sure they were invited to Thanksgiving Lunch. Hayley got all confused, cos I’ve never talked to her on the phone before, and straight away I was like “Hi, this is Joanna McLeod from Garland here; I’m just ringing to confirm your reservation for Sunday”. Well, I thought I was pretty funny anyways. Godboy Peter can’t come (we have a $500 that he’ll ADMIT to being Christian again before 2005) but pretty much everyone else is. I was stoked that Helen can make it. She sent me email yesterday that said “THis is so freaky deaky, trippy dippy. I just came into your website to try and find your email details, and there you leave me my own personal details to get in touch. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, how lovely. I’ve always wanted to be the person who gets their own message. ” which made me giggle for ages. And Andee sent me email today too so it’s been a good day, emailwise. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to email me anyways! I like email from people called Ernest.

I hope it’s as sunny tomorrow as it was today – I want to do lots and lots of washing and stuff. I’m trying to tidy the house and my room before I start work next week. I was going to clean my room today, but then I somehow got sidetracked into talking to Olivia about rockstars. Well, no ‘somehow’ about it – I talked to Olivia because she’s the bee’s knees. Jeremy mentioned later something about our dumbass oven and how it dropped open on him at a part one time, and I was like “do you feel kind of like you’ve always watched these pop stars on telly and now you’re meeting them finally? I mean, you always used to come to parties here, and now you live here”. He just laughed at me. I guess that’s the appropriate response. I laugh at me. Time goes by so fast.

“am I famous for just one thing?”

(Picking up the narrative about Saturday night from yesterday)
It was also nice that it was good wholesome alcohol free fun too, for a change. Not that it’d last though…..

Half the crew disappeared off to town, taking Andy with them, but me Clay Brad and Kate M weren’t sure if we wanted to go, so we decided to meet up at the Dog, cos Kate B was supposed to be working. Brad got in Kate M’s car, and I took Clay and Pete. Half way home, Clay called Kara @Garland, and there was a little domestic or something, so I had to take him home. We tried to call Brad or Kate M to let them know, and to see if they’d follow us to Garland so we could leave my car and all go with Kate M to Ponsonby. But noooo, of course neither of them had their cellies with them, so it turned into a mad game of chase, with me yelling at them although they couldn’t hear me, because the boys didn’t roll down their windows. You know how you’re not supposed to drive drunk (and I don’t)? Well, I think you shouldn’t be allowed to drive on that much sugar either. It was lots and lots and lots of fun though! We finally managed to make them follow us and not take the Newton off-ramp, but then just as they rolled down their windows to hear us yell we were going to Garland, they were on the Grafton offramp and we were on Manukau/Hamilton. People with cellularmaphones that don’t turn them on are dumb!

But anyways, we got home and I changed my shoes and Brad rang us from Kate M’s. Pete and I decided to drive to her dad’s house and leave my car there, and walk to the Dog. So that’s just what we did, stopping for Red Bull. By the time we got to her house, Kate M had fallen asleep, so only Brad came out with us. By the time we got to the Dog, it was past 1am, and the place was closed. We could see Kate sitting with the staff at the bar, but they pretended they didn’t see us banging on the windows. So we had to move on, and found ourselves at Grand Central. The front bit was full of Old Slappers dancing to dumb music, but we managed to snag ourselves a room all to ourselves; sofas around a fireplace with a chandelier above – a super cosy living room. We had a bottle of wine and texted Hayley, to find out that everyone was at Deschlers. Bottle finished, and we set out to walk to Deschlers.

It’s a long walk from Ponsonby to town! Well, maybe not THAT long, but 20 minutes or so, which is long when it’s cold and you’re already tired from dancing and haven’t drunk that much. But I shouldn’t whine, cos it was actually kinda fun. At Deschlers, everyone was already squozen (see, that word sounds so good when you say it, but you can’t write it down) into booths so we pulled up seats at the counter and had more drinks….

Bah, I’m bored of telling that story already. Maybe I’ll finish it tomorrow. Or maybe not. I got my hair cut today, and it looks cool. Since I got it done somewhere I’d had it done before, they had a file on me, and I saw that the last time I had a haircut there it was April 5th, so I looked back in my journal to see what my trauma’o the day then was. I only ever get haircuts when I’m excited or when I’m sad. Oh, I had a haircut in Melbourne actually, but that was in the kitchen of Anji’s flat, and it was done by her friend Ang. Incidently, you know the Libra ad for Charlies Angels that’s in a bright pink hair salon? That’s where Anji’s old flatmate works. He wanted me to get a mullet, because apparently they’re back, but I resisted. But that was all a tangent, because the woman today just cut my hair how I wanted it, whilst going on about how tall I was. However, I forgive her for that because she gave my head a massage while washing my hair, and I just about purred. I’ve decided I don’t want a boyfriend anymore – I want a hairdresser. Does it make them whores that I pay them money for the physical pleasure they give me?

Kate B came home at lunchtime today and said “oh you’re having a champange lunch” and me and Shirley and Jeremy said “yes”, and I waited for her to ask why, but she didn’t. That amused me.

Tonight Maree lured us around by making us cookies and promising to rent us a video – a NEW RELEASE even. We watched “Drop Dead Gorgeous” which was very very funny, but went on a little too long. She woke me up AGAIN at 7am this morning when she came in wearing her pajamas. I begged her not to do that last night and all! I should really go lock the dead bolt, but I need her to wake me up tomorrow morning. We’re going to have coffee before she goes to be a Teacher’s Helper at her kid’s school, and I go off to work.

Oh yes, I got a job. WAHOO! I’m not actually starting tomorrow, because by law I need 7 days to review my contract, but I am going in tomorrow to meet the staff, and to get my contract and get some background readings. I’m so stoked that I didn’t even need to interview for the job, because I met the big boss at the Expo and he was more than happy for me to come work for them, and I’d already been recomended for the position. So, a week after tech finally ended, I already have a full time job. It’s only contracted til February, but still, it’s experiance… and money. Yay! I’m very very nervous though.

“am I famous for just one thing?”

7am, I’m lying happily in bed, fast asleep when all of a sudden Maree comes in my room and jumps on my bed. Who gave her a key to our house??? Oh yeah, that was me. Whoops.

Oh, just before I go any further, Helen Urban – email me!. I have no contact details for you, girl. Ta.

Today I eventually got my shit together and went into tech to burn a copy of my cd rom, and put my other stuff together, but the goddam fucking lab was being rehauled so I couldn’t. I went to another lab to print out my cv, but of course in that lab, the printer was un-networked. Grrrrr! Very annoying. So I went home, then went to the bank to pay rent, and did the vege shopping instead. Vegtamables.

Later in the evening, Brad and I went over to Maree’s to watch “3rd Watch” because she’s being The Nanny Named Fran again, and couldn’t leave the kids. Brad went back home afterwards to eat dinner, so Maree and I sat around her kitchen table drinking tea and feeling like terribly old adults, me reading Christian magazines while she talked to James on the telephone. The rest of Garland came back with Brad – well, Jeremy Clayton and Kara anyways, and we played Postits. Clayton was Dirk Diggler, and we all guffawed mightily when he asked if he was known for just one thing. It felt strange to have the whole posse there, but to not actually be @Garland.

Kate B officially moves her stuff out on Thursday. Yesterday it was a year since Simon told me he was moving out, thus setting in place a chain of events that has been….interesting… to say the least. Well. I’ve been doing pass-throughs of her room to retrieve stuff that belongs to me – makeup and jewellery and towels. She gave me five boxes of condoms from Family Planning, because yeah, I really need them right now. They’re extra thick ones, which Jeremy told me are like gumboots. Nice.

I don’t know how to cook Roast Turkey, but we’re doing Roast Turkey for Thanksgiving Lunch on Sunday. It was going to be dinner, but Miss World’s on that night, so we have to watch that!

I haven’t written up my crazy night on Saturday, have I? Well, should I do that now? Possibly yes, yes I should. Okay then. It was Andy’s 21st, so me Clay and Brad drove out somewhere way way west in my car – I was happy to drive, because as the invitations said, by request there was no alcohol but a delicious fruit punch would be served. It was in a sports hall, which was a little newer than many sports halls, so that was cool. Andy’s mother’s kept the most amazing records of him growing up – writing down all his funny quotes and recording soundbytes of him ever since he was two. Listening to her speech, I was just thinking “awwwwww, i want a baby so i can follow them like this too!”. Incidently, Kate Benton dreamt that I was actually three years younger, and also pregnant with my ex’s kid. Thanks Kate!

Anyways, lots and lots of Andy’s friends and parents and church members made speeches. Brad and Nigel did one together, and played the “Big Tittie Monday” song Andrew wrote to promote Ryan&Jarrod’s Big Tittie Monday radio show – I dunno if the Salvation Army members fully appreciated it for the true piece of genius it is. I’m so going to get a copy of it. I must make a multimedia section for my site – I can also put in the video footage of Kate M talking about my horrible death, and oooh the video of Dancing Simon. Heheehe, I love that video so much! Anyways, eventually all the speeches were over, and we’d even prayed a little (which I thought was kinda nice actually, although when I prayed it wasn’t to any religion or to any being that I feel I know) and we all ate far too much sugary food. Andy wanted to dance then, so naturally, the Gang was called on to start off the dancing, so we did. Sugar sugar sugar is a mad thing – I even ended up dancing a jig, or trying to anyways. Nigel stagedived off a chair and we caught him. It was also nice that it was good wholesome alcohol free fun too, for a change. Not that it’d last though…..

Okay, I’m bored now. Tomorrow I will write up motorway chases, banging on windows, bathroom conversations, long walks, Brendon Lovegrove talking about my clit, barking, and the casino.

“am I famous for just one thing?”

Okay, this is SUCH a bad sign, that’s it’s 3.15am on Tuesday morning and I’m still awake, unable to sleep so I’m at my computer, shivering in my slip and writing a journal entry. Arrrgh fucking aarrrgh fucking grr. Mind is very wound up right now, eh. Just a little bit. If I hadn’t left it in the lounge where Anji is sleeping, I’d be rehersing my speech right now. I mean, hey, I wrote it at 3am a couple’o nights ago anyways!

From midday until 9.45pm, I was in the computer lab, working on our broadcasting assignment. Well, that included a break for a trip to the bank (damn you Internet banking that promises to do rent transfers and then doesn’t) dinner with Andrea at Boiger King (misspelling intentional to proclaim pronounciation) and a five minute phone interview with a reporter from the Herald. Hi, I’m Joanna McLeod, and I want a job producing content for the Internet. Bob King asked me to answer the reporter’s questions, as apparently, I’m a sort of spokesperson for the course. Yay me! I was actually really proud, especially when the PR woman in Bob’s office who was doing name-badge stuff for the expo whilst listening to me told me I’d given a good interview.

Today I wrote a story about microchips in vending machines that make their products talk that went along with a video piece Trevor and Andrea did. I also did some page laying out, and wrote blurbs about the people in our group, and that kind of stuff. I was so so so proud to teach trevor how to align pictures to the left right in the middle of the text – something people who never used Frontpage Express or any other really bad WYSIWYG programs might never have learnt. And Joe and I did a layout in Fireworks that worked real nice. Wahoo. Yeah, sweet ass. Anyways, around 9.30pm I got a call from Garland and when I answered my cellie, the voice was liek “Hello stinky poo” so I realised that my family had arrived at my flat, so they agreed to come pick me up from tech. Goddamit, it’s SO cool having your parents pick you up from stuff – I think that’s what I miss most living in a flat. They were all hungry, so I took them to D72, but the kitchen was closed, so I suggested bread and hummus from foodtown, and got aggressive defending that situation, because I was just waaaaay too tired to think about another cafe. And as Mum and Neil and Anji had just driven up from welly, they were pretty tired too and took my advice.

Back at home, we ate yummy things on bread (brie! baba ganosh! smoked beef! parents’ money!) and drank (parents wine, Anji and I the last of my vodka) and watched first Clayton’s brilliant documentary on BFM, t then his sitcom. It was the third time I’ve seen the sitcom (and the doco, actually) but I think the tiredness and alcohol proved to be a winning combination, cos i kept giggling and giggling. Then I showed them the Flat Video, that covers my audition for Life On Tape – talking about kicking out Leyton, Clay’s 20th birthday dinner and Simon dancing, Brad doing spicegirl moves for my CD ROM, and our Survivor Final Episode Party. They were very very impressed, and laughed a lot. Then Mum and Neil went to their motel which is just 100 metres down the road – I worked there for all of two days – and Anji and I had another drink. We had the absolute best gossip. It was Anji who told me all the way back in 5th form that giving blow jobs was empowering, and I’m very grateful for that advice – even if I didn’t give one to my best friend’s b/f like she was suggesting at the time. Thanks Anji and Cosmo – my god, how scary is it the first time you go down on someone and you have no fucking idea what you’re doing? Until you remember Cosmo going “there’s no wrong way to give head” and you relax a little, that is. I think drinking from Pint Glasses probably wasn’t the smartest move ever, eh. What you think is a reasonable three drinks is more like six. AND I STILL CAN’T SLEEP! GRR! I hate being so intelligent and thinking so much!

I’m reading this really good book r ight now which I can’t for the life of me remember the name of – something about Johnny Thunder, and it’s about a girl falling for the wrong guy, and her lifestyle reminds me of Anji, and the writing of it’s so real I can see every scene, and if my light was on, I would tell you the name of the book so that you can read it too, but it’s all dark and stuff, cos I’ve been trying to sleep for ages, so I can’t tell you. Woah, that was a very long sentence. Sometimes I think you need a map to navigate these journal entries of mine. My eyes hurt, so I should probably crawl back into bed now. I’m so so so nervous about tomorrow -it’s the first day of the expo, and I’m making a speech and all. One of the grad dips came up to me today and said she was really glad it was me making the speech, since I’d done so well presenting our project to the class, and I just thought that was really really lovely of her. But yeah. I think I’m going to go shopping with mummy tomorrow to find something to wear – I haven’t washed my new media pants yet, and I really should have. I didn’t expect to be at tech so late. “Maybe later – I’ve got creamy goodness in my mouth right now”

Dammit, WHEN do I get a real proper sleepin? Thursday maaaaybe – if I’m lucky. I had to go into tech today to work on my broadcasting. My voice was even goner today – well, this morning anyways – luckily it’s kinda back now. Cos how would the world function without my screechings, eh?

At tech today, I wrote an article about how Michael Jackson came to our Expo, and propositioned Joe for some “back ending” work. I wrote an article about how the staff at AUT have been secretly selling our bandwidth to buy Pajeros. I wrote an article about how the notorious hacker k1w1w3b hacked the Expo site. I like writing crap, oh yes I do! So that was tech. I came back home to watch the fight with the boys and drink beer, but I fell asleep before hand briefly, and didn’t want any beer. I’ve never watched boxing before, and I can’t say I really focused on it today either. Instead I rang my mummy, and discovered that her and Neil and Anji are driving up to Auckland tomorrow, and Anji is staying three nights with me. Mum and Neil are going to stay in the motel down the road where I used to work – well, for two days anyway. Yay, this is cool. Except that I’m just choto busy. But still, I can make them waffles and stuff.

Kara is also staying with us for a week, while being homeless. She’s lovely. She cooked us dinner. I hope we don’t scare her TOO much – scaring her a little is fine. I watched The Rock tonight. I really have nothing to say. Oh, I changed my bed linen so now it’s my lovely pink set. That’s about as exciting as my life gets. We dragged sleeping bags out onto the lawn today to get a little sunshine. Clayton and Kara came back inside covered in grass. Oh to be young and frolicky again. Oh wait, I am still young. Just not frolicking. I’ve had so many good gossips to people lately, and also not just gossips, actual good serious conversations too. No wonder I lost my voice. I need my voice back before I make a speech at the Expo. Oh, and I’m cleaning up my site tonight, on account of going to maybe give industry people my url, so if there’s something you wanna see again but you can’t find, just email me for the link, k? Goodo. “Maybe later – I’ve got creamy goodness in my mouth right now”

Saturday November 4th, 2000

I’m queing for the toilet again and am just about to go in, when Kate B rushes up to me and is like “don’t go to the bathroom, come to the balloon room!!!!”

So she takes my hand and we run down the long shiny silver corridor into the kitchen, people clustered around red cabinets and I notice this hole in the wall. It’s about a metre square, and Kate’s clambering into it from a wooden chair, so I follow her. The hole is a tunnel almost a meter long, and it feels a little bit like Cube so I’m a trifle aprehensive, but the sides of the tunnel are padded with bubble wrap, which is cool. Then I emerge at the other side, surveying this huge room filled with black balloons, lit by some UV light somewhere, and a TV glaring blue in the corner. I slide down onto a leather chair, and dive under the masses of balloons. To my great excitement, I discover the the whole room is paved with mattresses. Kate and I don’t stop laughing for like ten whole minutes. We frolic and play, tossing balloons up in the air or occasionally diving on top of them. I’m pretty tired, so I burrow my way down (the balloons are waist high) and think about how nice it would be to sleep in there. There’s random heads all over the place and I have no idea how many people are under the balloons. There’s a wet patch in one corner which I hope is just a spilt drink. It’s a marvellous place – it reminds me of the ball pits at Rainbow’s End, but updated for the older generation who are out of their minds. I hide for ages, while Kate and her friend fossick around for me, calling out “Jo? Jo? where are you Joanna?” before eventually rising up, scattering balloons everywhere going “RAAAAAAH!”.

But I knew that I couldn’t stay in the balloon room forever, so eventually I surface, and clamber out of the room, still giggling at home cool it was. I wander into the dance room and dance for a while before I decide to go investigate people further. I think that I was looking for the guys wearing Ghostbuster style backpacks, but I didn’t find them. Instead I found myself in another lounge, lit by glowing bubbling columns, where a laptop was hooked up to a projecter, shooting crazy crackling spirally graphics onto a bed sheet pinned to the opposite wall. This room’s playing lighter music so I dance by myself for a bit, before curling up on a couch to stare at the graphics. I’m sorry, I keep cutting in and out of past and present tense, so maybe you should just pretend I’m doing it to be hip. Anyways, so I’m staring at the graphics when in come a couple of people. This girl introduces herself as Rhiannon, and so I have Fleetwood Mac running through my head. She tells me that she was me at the last party, just staring at the screen until it burnt into her eyes, and introduces me to the guy responsible for it. He used to live in the flat – we were in his old bedroom even – but he moved out to move in with his g/f. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to move out of that house, it was so cool. It made @Garland seem inadequate! Rhiannon made me get up and dance again, to some heinously cheesy music, so eventually I wandered off again. I’m not too sure where I went.

Kate kept going through my bag looking for my hipflask, and in return I kept going through her bag after her black cherry lipgloss. Normally, I don’t rate Bodyshop products very much (the shops smell lovely, but I reckon it’s faked, just like the KFC scent), but this s tuff is the complete shit. Anyways. Eventuallly I went back to the Screen room, and was watching, when this guy came in and so I struck up a conversation with him. He was the marketing manager of Durasel – you know, that stuff you put on books. We were talking about flatmates for some reason, and he was like “and you don’t screw the crew” so I blushed, and he was like “no, you didn’t! it’s the golden rule!” and he started yelling at me so I just laughed. Last week i was at lunch with Kate H and Brad, and for some reason I was trying to persuade Brad to give Clayton head (i can’t remember why, but I’m sure there was a really valid reason) and so I was like “come on Brad – the flat that lays together stays together” and then both him and Kate H were staring at me going “umm Joanna” and I was like “yeah okay, shut the fuck up, bad example”. But that was a weird side diversion story.

Actually, I’m getting tired of telling every single little detail of the party. There were some strange pickup lines including “Why haven’t I seen you before – or were you ignoring me?”. I got stalked from room to room by this ugly guy in a singlet. Johnno showed up while I was lying by myself back in the balloon room so I talked to him for a bit, which was neat. I talked to one of the hostesses of the party, a nd found out there were six hundred balloons, all filled off a dive tank. I danced to happy hardcore by myself. The lightswitch in the bathroom was finicky. I will never forget the balloon room. Kate Johnno and I eventually left around about 4, by which time everyone else was gone and they were shutting down. It was brilliant.

“actually I have no urge to travel at all”