Hubris.co.nz

Friday May 24th 2002

Okay, it’s bloody cold today, totally and utterly freezing. I probably should put another layer on, but i’ve been sewing, and so I’m modelling my creation (and when I say sewing, I mean using a pair of scissors on an old top).

I don’t know if you can tell from the photos or not, but I now have a semi-off the shoulder top, in this charcoal coloured semicobwebfeely fabric. It’s real nice. Cool. But not especially warm.

Today I staggered in to my 8am class, freezing all the way down, and then spent a very very long time at the bank getting a new eftpos card – the one for my rent account expired in April and of course they didn’t bother to send me a new one. Now my two accounts are loading on the same sparkly pretty card. Then I discovered that there’s a new juice bar right next to Oporto – this could be very dangerous. I had the yummiest smoothie for my breakfast before hightailing it back home to scan the paper, check my email, jump in the shower and run off to work.

I like the stroll to work, it’s relaxing even if I’m always rushing cos I’m running late. Work itself is good too, even if they haven’t quite figured out what to do with me. I’m doing a lot of backreading, and I also got a tour of the place, which is huge and includes a secretish network of spooky tunnels running all over the city. I kid you not (although possibly I exagerate a little). Just for the record, I’m working Mondays, Thursday mornings and friday afternoons. All the other times I have classes. Busy busy Joanna.

But I’m not busy tonight, no. Instead i parked my ass on the sofa to watch TV under the safety of a duvet and a wooly jersey, cos it’s FUCKING COLD. I’m jealous of boys with open fires in their lounges, although I guess it’s okay as long as they provide you with plenty of pot when you go over there last night, even if it means that they can’t make conversation. Tomorrow night Nigel will be in town for his birthday (back from somewhere near Warkworth where he is making porn with a kumi kumi pig – nothing nondodgy ever comes out of that area!) and so there’ll be going out and drinking and dancing I imagine. Excellent. And then next weekend’s a humdinger, what with parties and KateB being up, and Brad being up, and PACIFIER concerts and all… so I should go get a good rest now. Yeah. Night!

Monday May 20th, 2000

You know what? I want the whole fucking world to go to hell today. That’s right, the WHOLE world. Even Maree who rang me up all excited and happy for me. Well, okay, maybe not her. And I guess not kittens, or the starving children in Africa, and anyone who owns a bearsuit. But apart from them, yeah. Because if the collective you don’t have time for me, why should i have time for the collective you?

Grrrrr. Grrrrrrr! And yes, I have babysat three year olds who occasionally had grumpy days and they behaved exactly like I’m behaving, and the solution then (and probably the proper solution now) was to just send them to their rooms for time out. But even when I’m taking time out I still spilt a cup of boiling tea all over me that made me squeal and then hyperventilate, ala stress attack which I stopped having a year ago until they came back last friday. And ooooooooooh I’m in a mood of fury tonight, plus the klez virus has come back and my seminar is in two days and while I was making good inroads on it, there’s just so much information and I can’t decide whether or not I need to include the elaboration likelihood method and if I should make up individual case studies based on survey results and I’m panicking in case I don’t get the ads video tomorrow and I would really really really like to tell Clayton to get fucked, I do plenty around the house and he needs to take his fucking cork out and I want to tell everyone to fuck up and fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK GHJkflsh gkjrt4oie hjk,gh dfkjgt4eiout; y5orjgklh dxfgh dcfs.g

Yeah hi, I’ve studied communications for three and a half years now, and I think that’s well evident in my verbaciousness. And my very mature attitude of dealing with everything. Right now I’m feeling like I just wanna scream and scream and scream and also punching someone would be good, but I don’t think I’m physically capable. It’s kinda like RSIs inhibiting your crying abilities. FUCK.

Oh yeah, I got a job today, you know the one. Cool and shit. I’m excited about it but I’m just so angry today that it gets swept under the carpet.

And if you’re reading this in your workplaces tomorrow, you’ll go “oh shit” and you’ll probably reach for the phone to call me up, and then I’ll be forced to explain to you all seperately that no, it’s not about you, it’s just about everyone, and really, I can’t be fucked doing that, so just don’t okay? And if I sound like i’m contradicting what I was saying earlier, then fine, I always contradict myself and if you know me then you know that. I just need that timeout, I guess, ala the three year old throwing a tantrum. And hopefully no one will take this personally, but right now because I am feeling like I need to be selfish and wallow, quite frankly, if you’re taking it personally then you too can get fucked.

Grrr.

Sunday May 19th, 2000

Very early this morning, stricken with a horrible stomachache and the associated foodpoisoninglike symptons, I discovered it is entirely possible to vomit into the bathtub whilst still remaining seated on the toilet. Mmmm, lovely.

This evening I watched the final of Roswell. I’m such a sucker for “final ever” episodes – I think I even watched the final of ‘Home Improvement’ despite the fact that I had never ever seen it before. I used to watch Roswell back a million years ago, but that was mostly only because Thomas did and it was nice to watch it together. I’m sure it used to be much better, and that they all had better haircuts. Either that or I was younger and foolisher. Nevermind.

Because I have to present a half hour seminar on Wednesday, I spent this evening writing out linear notes to a compilation album entitled “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” which doesn’t exist, although its tracklisting does. The album spans from age thirteen to age twenty one. 4/14 songs are by the Smashing Pumpkins. 4/14 are sung by females, and they’re all in the second half. 5/14 songs are related to boys that I’ve actually scored. 1/14 songs got quoted in two seperate letters to two seperate boys – one an “I love you” email, the other “I think we should break up”. I currently have 7/14 songs on cd. Clayton has 2/14 songs on cd. I have 3/14 songs on mp3, and I will have to download the other two if I ever actually make this cd. I could have started it from when I was twelve, but that would have meant including Guns’n Roses. If I do make it, I’ll be photocopying the bizzare linear notes as well. They include quotes from Barbara Kruger paintings and many dialogue snippets and occasional references to stalkings. If I produce it, it’ll be strictly limited edition, with copies going to closet friends, people who I’ve received mixes from before and also possibly any of the boys it’s dedicated to (oh yeah, the ‘love’ bit is just a loose concept, not a “I love you totally and utterly” thing, obviously) that I’m still in contact with who can correctly identify themselves. Bopa has been my little helper in the compiling of it all, agreeing with me that maybe I should make a seperate trauma album (although one trauma song made it on here, because it was a love trauma after all) and placing strict limits on the numbers of songs I could have per boy. Bopa kicks ass, although her fetish for green rice tea is somewhat disturbing.

And I’ll write my seminar tomorrow, really!

Someone drew a picture of me receiving deep dictionary action for me tonight. You can view it here. It’s splitmango, so that’s why I’m linking to it rather than showing it – viewer discretion is advised and all. Golly I have some strange (and wonderful) friends.

Friday May 17, 2002

Gentlemen start your engines – it’s one month until my birthday. Don’t worry, I’ll post my wishlist real soon. Start saving though, cos we’re looking for things such as a cd burner and some new glasses, and maybe even some panel beating due to rust, a new back side window and registration and warrant for Inco.

Today I’m sick, just for a change, throat all sore and coughy. Needless to say I lazed around on the couch for most of the day, wickedly missing my Per.Com class and I’m hoping and praying that I won’t get in trouble for that. Because I was home today, I was able to take a phonecall from KateB in Wellington, and in the space of twenty minutes, she managed to say the following things to me:
1. I’ve got low standards.
2. I’m a geek.
3. I’m a nymphomaniac.
4. I’m paranoid.
I think there were a couple of other things too. What I should have said to her was “OH YEAH KATE? WELL I HAD SEX WITH SAM AFTER YOUR TWENTYFIRST WHILE YOU WERE OUT WITH JONNO”. Ahh longtermbestfriends are great, aren’t they?

Also today I spent ages and ages and ages on the phone to the LTSA getting the run-around, but eventually I managed to get put through to a very lovely and helpful guy (in the PR department, naturally) in Wellington. While I was talking to him, he was like “So you’ve got some Sublime playing there in the background?” Sublime? Do I sound like I’m from Paeroa (Gil – if you’re reading this, email me!)? It was just one’o Bopa’s reggae cds I think. But other than that, he was very cool, especially since he promised to personally courier me a video of the assorted road safety ads. Yay for helpful people!

In the evening, after her and Bopa got back from Kung Fu, Emma started making honey roasted peanuts from scratch. It got to the stage where she was individually coating each one in salt/sugar so I was giving her a hand when the divine Kyla showed up, bringing me my True Colours ticket which she sold me for $40 rather than the $50 they retail for because she’s lovely and I’m a poor student. YAY PACIFIER! I’m wetting myself in anticipation. Then Berrin, Leo and Will came around and we devoured communal food from troughs (okay, so it was a big baking pan of chickpea nachoes with lettuce – SO fucking yum) and now they’re watching Kung Fu videos. But even watching it seems to sap my strength, plus I’m sick so I should get an early night. Fuck, it’s 2am already. Bed for me soon I guess.

Thursday May 17, 2002

So I’ll write this quickly cos it’s actually really really really cold tonight. Let me firstly start out with a great big AAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHmotherfucker! You know how my computer is brand new operating system and all (so new in fact that it has no Microsoft Word on it, causing me large amounts of swearing and throwing stuff and having to go into tech at 8am to completley rewrite assignments that group members thought only needed to be a bulletpoint list – um NO)? Yeah, well you all know that, but what you probably don’t know unless you’re in my address book is that I HAVE A VIRUS. This is why you should never ever use Outlook Express, kiddies. It was one of those horrible ones with attachments that are hiddenly imbedded, which I used to receive like 1 a day of which was fine when I was using hotmail, cos it could read the MIME headings properly and not open and install the attachments, but of course Outlook is gimpy and stuff and GRRRRRRR. I think I cleared it – I only realised I had it after I started getting weird emails that I didn’t send returned to me, and then IMDB sent me an automatic email saying they were blocking me for being infected, but luckily they also included a link for where I could get help from, so I went and read and learned and downloaded and cleaned. Phew. But still, motherfucker! In a virus related note, did I mention that I DON’T have any stds? I don’t think I did, and I worry that while I wrote very explicitly about the smear process I didn’t mention the fact that the tests all came back negative. And that’s a good thing, and I guess my reward for this whole celibacy 3.0 thing which I am SO bored of.

What else? Today I went out to Henderson again to pay the rest of the money to the gentlemen who fixed my computer for me, and Peter hooked me up with some stuff that I needed and gossiped with me for a while. Peter – just imagine that I’m reading this over your shoulder if that makes you feel better. And don’t forget to give me a login and password for what we were talking about. And don’t do freaky shit with my stolen site design or I will have to give you the bash. I also went to my IMC class for the first time in ages and ages,and got my essay back. I got 41/50 on my Branding essay! I kick so much ass! I’m pleased cos it really clarifies for me that I totally made the right desicion to come back to school. I love learning.

Do you know what else I kinda love? Job interviews. Or at least, I love the one that i had yesterday, because I was confident that I have all the skills that they want, and they asked me questions that made me think, and plus I think we all know how much I enjoy talking about myself. And it’s been a while since I got to dress up in a suit, and that’s always fun. It’s a part time job doing Communications work, and really, it’s ideal. I had to send them some writing samples afterwards, but of course I’ve lost every file from the past five years basically, so I sent them the interview I did with myself (and please don’t tell me you’re all of a sudden going “ooooh YOU wrote that?”) and one of my Com Strat essays. Today I went to fax them some articles i wrote in 1997 but the fax wasn’t working so maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.

Other things I’m loving today include The West Wing, as usual. I’ve decided that I want Allison Janney to play me in the movie’o my life, so she’d better some getting young real quick smart! I think I(‘d like to) see myself kind of as a cross between CJ and the trailor park trash she played in ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’. When I saw my landlady yesterday and told her about my job interview she was like “but who could not love you Jo?” which is always nice to hear. I would also like to hear the sound of workmen laying down some new carpet, but hey… Also, Kyla kicks ass cos she’s gonna sell me a ticket to True Colours for only $40. PACIFIER!!!!!!!!!!!!! Excuse me while I wet my pants in anticipation. Oh my god, lots of exclamation marks are so tacky aren’t they? Why yes they are. Anyways.

Tomorrow I will make grovelling phonecalls to the LTSA to see if they can send me copies of their road safety ads so I can present them in my seminar on Wednesday. Members of the general public – being youse guys – if you’re in Auckland and you know me and you’re watching anything you videoed on TV and you happen to see a road safety ad, could you please email me straight away and let me have the tape? Thank you I love you! And also if I sent you an attitude and behaviours survey, could you please send it back? (And I’m SO sorry if I sent you a virus, I really hope i didn’t). I’m actually brimming with good ideas about my seminar right now, so I guess it’s just a question of getting it all down. Still, I don’t think I’m doing anything at all this weekend, so there’ll be time for that then. Stink.

Monday May 13, 2002

After the long drive from the North Shore, cramming a case bigger than her into the boot of my car, and an unexpectedly long stop at her grandmother’s for lunch, we agree that I should just drop her off outside the terminal, because her family were following us and she hates long goodbyes. I’m wearing my sunglasses although it’s a little grey because I don’t trust myself, but she still realises that I’m crying, so she sends me away with a big long hug. As she’s walking into the airport I realise that there’s a million more things that I want to say to her, starting with “thank you so much for everything” but I don’t, and now she’s gone.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy for Shirley. I mean, this is what she’s been looking forward to for half her life. She escaped Waihi and now she’s escaped New Zealand, and she’s going to have a fabulous wonderful time, but it’s just odd when someone’s been your best friend for four years, and you talk to her at least every other day pretty much, and then she’s gone off to England and the great beyond. Still, I guess that’s what the wonders of email is for.

So yeah, I had a pretty fucking shitty day after that, crawling into bed as soon as I got home for a private cry, and some more nightmares (excellent!). SarahF rang me in the evening and asked me to email her some work for our group project that’s due on Wednesday that we really haven’t even started to co ordinate that, and I couldn’t find my notes or assignment sheet or anything so I started getting really really shitty and wanted to throw things around but I restrained myself. Grrrr. Bad day. Mazzy Star called me though to make sure I was doing okay, and KateH txted me (and people have the nerve to say that my friends are overprotective – that’s bollocks) and I will see KateM tomorrow cos I’m doing reception work for her in the afternoon. Plus, and this is excitign and cool, KateB is coming up in a week and a bit to move out of her old flat, which is sad, but the good bit is that she’ll be staying her so I’ll get to see her and that’s good. Yeah.

It’s only just after midnight now, but maybe I’ll be able to sleep if I try. I can’t get my computer to play cds – mp3s yes, but .cdas, no. Well, it plays them but no sound comes out. I think i might need to reinstall soundcard software. I’m so l33t. Not l33t enough to figure out why my smtp server rejects me half the time though. Though I guess I should get used to the rejection. Oooh, spot the girl who’s sad and moody and whining today. Tomorrow I will start to focus on my half hour seminar, really I will. Bollocks, I’m so fucking lame sometimes.

Sunday May 13th

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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