Maple syrup-eating surrender monkeys and other stories
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.
