Got out of bed to the phone ringing, pulling on my dressing gown and was kinda short to Clayton’s friend Antz, practically hanging up before I remembered it would be polite to say “do you want me to take a message?” But he didn’t. So I stripped my bed, and put my light washing in the machine, and then went back for a bit more of a lie-in. When I went to put my dark washing on, I realised that there had been a sponge in the tub, and I’d flooded the laundry. Aces.

Anyways, so finally I managed to leave the house, and I stopped in Newmarket to get out $800 at ANZ and carry it up to ASB to pay the rent. The guy at ASB was really nice and sympathetic, because of course I moaned out the whole story when he asked. Man, it was fun having that much cash in my hands, even temporarily. Then I went to some crap-ass cafe and had a coffee, just to perk up a trifle before my three hour tv workshop.

Because we’re Year 2 this year, we don’t use the m100 cameras anymore, we use some bigass flash pro 2000s or something like that, which are apparently worth $10,000 each. Scary shit man – that’s like waaaaaay too much responsibility to place in my hands! We had to divide up into groups to do stuff, and we had Dan in our group. Dan who’s 23 and has a background of making short films. He was being sooooooooo patronising about all the technical stuff, and I just couldn’t see anything because I wasn’t wearing my contacts (my bottle of cleaning fluid has vanished somewhere into my room), and I was bored. We spent like 45 minutes getting two shots. It’s funny how paranoid people are when they think they’re being filmed getting out money from an ATM. OH! And I have another mini story sort of on that note – this morning when I was in the bank, I sat down at one of the counters that had two chairs at it, next to a counter that had no chairs. This old woman comes up, goes “Excuse me” and took the other chair but moved it over to the other counter. So what am I – chopped liver?

Man it’s pouring hard. I’m glad Si and Leyton were kind enough to bring in my washing. I was kind to them and hung most of my underwear up in my room (there’s this really weird line of nails sticking out of one of the walls that worked a treat). I guess I’m just really paranoid about people handling my underthings. One thing that really bugged me last year was whenever I went to Hamilton, Andee would always paw through my bag or suitcase (depending on whether or not I was enroute to somewhere else or just down for the weekend) looking for cool clothes that she could wear.

Oh yeah but back to my day. So yeah, after the three hour workshop (which was actually two and a bit) I went up to Auckland Uni and wandered around the Quad there for ages, clambering up staircases all over the place, looking for the Craccum office. They hide themselves away pretty well, above the Koreans singing Boyzone in the clubspace. I like their office because its trajic state made me feel so much happier about the mess in my room. Anyways, I went to proofread for them, so I did. And ate their pizza, and rejected their offer of smokes. Like, I haven’t had pot in ages, and I would quite like to have some, just not right after eating. I’d rather just have my own stash so that I could get giggly when I felt like it, instead of getting drunk and moody. Anyways, Craccum was amusing, and I feel special cos I think my name gets published. As ‘Jo McLeod’ actually, which is kinda weird, cos I’ve stopped being Jo reccently because of the lovely Eaton lass. But that’s okay. People won’t know it’s me, so I’ll be like, incognito. No, honestly they don’t have someone from AIT helping out. It was funny how much Nexus, and Hammy in general got mocked.

Then once I’d proofread the whole thing, and fed it back to Matt while he made changes onto the puter, I figured my work there was done, so I walked up to the bus stop. Checking my cellphone, I saw I’d missed a message from Trudie, so I rang her back but she didn’t answer. However, while I was on the bus, Kate rang me, wanting me to go over, but instead she agreed to meet me back at my place. Mmmm. So yeah, I got home and then she came over. We sat in the lounge giggling for ages, squeezing the inflatable aliens for a bit. (Simon and I are starting a blow-up toy collection – all donations gratefully accepted). Kate just got hooked up to the net today, and she said she was surfing with her flatmate Matt, when he read the stuff I wrote about him (“kinda cute, but I’m SO over the stoner thing. Being a little more on-to-it is kind of a bonus”) and complained that he IS on to it. Hahahaha. Guess I won’t be going back to her flat then!

We realised that we were fully obsessed with the aliens, so we started playing that props game from “Whose Line is It Anyway?” with them. “Oh, an extra leg!” and “yes, it’s a real fur, darling”. I guess you kinda sorta had to be there. Actually, no, cos Clayton and Si and Leyton were all there, and were greatly bemused while Kate and I just about died in fits of giggles. I think the boys were more entertained when Kate and I started beating each other up with the Aliens. Man, we gave each other such a fucking huge walloping!!! She wacked me one right across my face, and it hurt like a motherfucker cos it crushed my glasses into my nose. Then we went into the kitchen and screamed at each other, to the great annoyance of the lads who were trying to sleep. Kate had the audacity to call me a slut, and Si joined in, calling me a Hoe. I was like “WELL AT LEAST I’M MAKING MONEY OFF OF IT!!!!!!!!”. That shut them up.

And that’s shut me up too now.

xoxoxoxo

Hmmmm. Okay. Saturday. What the fuck did I do all day long? I really have no idea, eh. No comprehension at all.

I do know that I rang up Kate, who said she’d come and pick me up sometime after six. So I went and put on some makeup. I used my astonishingly styley blue and green stuff, making the blue go halfway across my eye from the inside out, and the green extend out to the far corners. If you have no idea what I mean, here’s a photo of me only in the green

this is from my seventh form fancy dress ball

As you can see, the colour is quite, quite vivid. And don’t I have styley eyebrows? So yeah. Kate showed up and honked her horn a lot, so I had to run out the door. I clambered into the backseat of her boyracing GT (I think that’s what it is – maybe it’s a crx) with Maressa cos Theresa was on the front seat. So we were just about to start off when Kate asked me what I was drinking. I said “red wine” and asked if they had a bottle opener. They didn’t so I had to get out to get one. This is where it gets interesting, because the ceiling in that car is low enough at the best of times, but it’s a real bitch to get in and out of especially. So I was trying to clamber out, when wonder of wonders, my foot got caught in the seatbelt. Guess who ended up sprawled on the footpath? That’s okay though – I played it really cool, lying on my back and whistling casually like it was what I meant to do all along. I think they bought it too.

So yeah, we had a very scary drive back to Kate’s, but made it there somehow in one piece. We settled down on their deck to do a little drinking, and I met her flatmate Matt (yet another one). He’s a window glazier or however you spell it. Vaguely cute, but a stoner, and basically, I am so over the ‘stoners are cute’ thing. People who are a little bit more aware are definatly a bonus. We also ordered pizza, and I was greatly relieved that it was a different Eagle Boys deliverer than the one who’d laughed at me the last time I was at Kate’s.

I only had about half a bottle of red, while the others knocked back lots of vodka and orange. Eventually we finally left the house (it took the girls like 3/4 hour to get glammed up enough). So yeah, we walked up to Ponsonby Road, which took like 20 minutes or so. There were so many drunk people and stuff all crowding to get the best view of the road. I hate crowds. I guess I’m slightly claustraphobic like that really.

The parade was actually really boring for me, I think – it was all very lacklustre, and I couldn’t see very much. I mean, I’ve never really liked parades anyways, and this just seemed really tired. But I’m still all in favour of having it. There were like 200,000 people there that were fully getting into it, so that’s cool. I’m just I dunno – bitter or something.

Then we went to Calabria or something like that, where Theresa used to work. Kate brought a gelato, and I begged and begged her to get Pistachio flavour, which she eventually did, but she said I couldn’t have any. Bitch, so I had to buy my own. Both of us ended up eating like less than half of ours each – think of the waste and the starving children in Africa, man!

They decided to go back to their flat for more drinkies and catch a cab into town later, so I walked back with them, and called a taxi to take me home straight away. It got there like 5 minutes later, so I didn’t realise, and stupidly went up to sit at the end of the driveway a little bit later. I waited for like 40 minutes before ringing up the taxi place again, who sent me an ‘urgent’ one. My cab driver was really cool, too. We had a big long chat about ummm I don’t remember what, actually. About Hero and stuff.

I got home and went online. Clayton came home too so I chatted to him for a bit – gave him a glass of red wine which I think he dissed. Honestly, what’s wrong with all you people who prefer white over red? That’s just nuts. So what if I’m so classy the wine I buy is $6.95 a bottle???

That’s okay though, cos I polished it off by myself, up till nearly 5am again. Memo to Joanna – must reset body clock, must reset body clock.

As happens a lot to me, I dreamt I was woken up, but went back to sleep. So I laid in bed for ages, sure that Mum and Neil had left me, and gone to my grandmother’s without me – (YAY) until Mum came to wake me. Damn. I mean, I know if I had a better soul, I wouldn’t hate visiting my grandmother, but it’s just soooooooooo boring and so hot there, and it’s like an hour’s drive out of Wellington. As soon as we got there, I like, sprawled myself down on the lumpy sofa to read Woman’s Weekly and the like. I don’t want to go through Opa’s books once again. Sure, there probably are interesting books there, but realistically, I’ll never read them. I’m not going to grow up to be the famous writer that he wanted me to be. I’m learning about the real world now, not History, so all his old books are no use to me. I hate his big room now, because time stands still in there, and he’s dead but so much of his stuff remains. I’ve claimed as much furniture from there as I think our flat will hold, and I have pens and paper and everything from there already. There’s nothing left for me in there except memories, and I don’t have to go to my grandmother’s house to remember him.

That said, I did come home with more loot – some old frying pans and an electric wok, although that looks a bit dodg, so maybe I won’t take it to Auckers. Si and I were doing inventory, and I think we’ve got most of the stuff we’ll need for a flat – bar a toaster and a microwave and ummm cutlery. I have various bits and pieces from when stealing cutlery from resturants was my obsession, but that’s mostly knives that would be good to spot off. Anyways, it’s going to be cool, so long as we can find a good house and nice flatmates.

In the evening, I glammed up in my new pearl and amythest necklace and new (lancome and chanel baby) lipsticks from Oma (both were things she didn’t want anymore – well, each of us cousins gets a necklace like that – Karen’s emerald one was kinda ugly so she didn’t take it). Mum dropped me off at Smacksalotl, and I did some drinking with Anji, Siobahnagain and Aaron. Then we decided to go to Tueplo’s so we walked down there. Anji and Aaron were pretending to be going out the whole way down there, so I hung back with Siobahn. She was fully on the piss, and asked me a thousand times where we were going. She gave money to a busker in return for a lollipop. He told her to take lots so I had one too. Friendly. Town was so much nicer than it was on New Years Eve. I don’t ever feel scared anymore walking around at night (thanks for that legacy) but I did on New Years. So much broken glass, gang members and violent looking people. I had a moment of sheer terror when I was talking to Steph on the street while she waited for a taxi and all of a sudden Anji was like “watch out” and she pulled me close to her while behind me I heard glass smashing. That spooked me temporarily. I still waited by myself to flag down a taxi for Steph while she was inside though.

Sorry, that was like a different story, NYE instead of Jan 2. Anyways. Tupelo was shut, and so was Studio Nine, so we went into the Lava Lounge instead and I bought everyone drinks. The place was so empty, it was funny. We sat in SUCH comfy comfy arm chairs, which was lovely. They were playing all this early eighties hiphop stuff, which was entertaining, but I SO wanted to hear the Spice Girls. I wanted to do the Stop dance, since I’ve finally mastered. I was so impressed when they played Wannabe, and Anji laughed at me heaps because I knew all the words and I hammed it up.

Anyways, then we decided to just go back to Anji’s, after Aaron had left us. We got to her door, when Siobahn decided she wanted chips, so I walked to City Stop with her to get them. On the way down, we passed a lad called Matt who’s madly in love with Anji, but is definatly unrequited. (Note to ANYONE ever planning to have kids – DON’T call your children Matt – it’s dooming them for life). Siobahn, being the little flake that she is, stupidly suggested that he should go and say Hi to Anji on his way home. Fooooooooooool Girl! I told her that if Matt did actually show up, Anji would kill her.

City Stop was all bright and glowy and full of Junk Food – choooiiiiiice. Siobahn being the little pig that she is bought THREE bags of chips, and it took us only the time it takes to walk through Cuba Malls to devour the twisties. It’s only after drinking that food like that becomes okay to eat. Once we got up to Anji’s, we saw Matt WAS there, so we had a guilty little giggle. I climbed out onto the fire escape again, although this time Anji forbade me to call out to passers by. Both her and Siobahn had told Kirsten at ‘Slotl that I’d harrassed her ex b/f on New Year’s Morning, telling him he was looking “Fly” (he was wearing a pale blue suit for fucks sake, Fly personified!) and asking him to cook us breakfast (which he would have, only we had no ingrediants).So yeah. We smoked up, and ate chips. At one stage two girls walking up Cuba Street met two boys walking down Cuba Street, and after some discussion ended up all going up the street together. I couldn’t help but yell out “SCORE!!!!”. When they turned around to see, I looked the other way. When Siobahn started talking about sleeping, Matt left. Hhahahah. He’s really nice, just Anji is so not interested, it’s kind of amusing.

So yeah. We sat around and giggled a bit more. It’s always amusing when people tell you that they had sex on top of a freezer in an open resturant in town. (Not Smacksalotl, although Anji has snogged someone in the cooler there). The salt and vinger chips hurt our mouths too much, so we devised a plan to neutralise them by spreading Baking Soda toothpaste on them. It’d be perfect. Parents would love them for their kids’ sake, AND the chips would be so soggy that they wouldn’t leave crumbs everywhere. They ARE the chip of the future. That idea is now patented by the way, so don’t steal it (justine). Eventually Siobahn went off to Aaron’s, and Anji went to bed. I could have slept in Melinda’s room, but there’s the spooky staircase there that leads up to the Gimp Attic. And I didn’t wanna sleep in Daegal’s room cos I didn’t know when he’d be getting back from the Gathering (bastard). So I slept on the old bed in the curtainless lounge, moonbeams and streetlights washing over me. I felt so Cosmopolitan.