Really, this was actually just a teaspoon during High Tea at Martha’s Pantry for Kim’s birthday.

2. A bunch of dicks and tits

cookies

I made cookies for Maddest and Baddest.

3. A cake shaped like a donut

There was a Simpsons-themed pigout session at Lim’s (that’s Laura and Tim).

4. Pulled pork burger (not pictured)

I got a little bit over-excited by the pulled pork burger at Monterey and expressed my love on the table.

5. Mussels and other amazing Malaysian food

Because of my work for Malaysia Kitchen, I got to go to lunch with a munch of food bloggers and Chef Wan, who is apparently very famous, and is also very entertaining.

6. Fancypants canapes as part of a progressive dinner

To celebrate the return of Theresa, the Mount Victoria Society had a progressive dinner. There were whores devours at mine, a BBQ at Anna Jane’s, and then amazing dessert’s at Chiara’s. Good times and no taxis needed!

6. An assortment of amazing treats including Rhubarb Gimlets for GGG

Every couple of weeks, Kim, Kate, Laura, Willow and I get together to drink gin and watch Gossip Girl. Normally Blair and Chuck are the ones we like, but we’re okay with Blumphrey, actually.

7. Deep-fried Soft Shell Crab at Kura in Auckland

Work meetings in Auckland had the additional bonus of meaning I could have dinner with Heather&Ben, Peter and Russell. Needless to say, I gave them crabs. And they loved it.

So let’s pretend that this place is mine, and I live in Auckland again. How would my life be different? At the last time I knew how much rent Heather was paying, her two bedroom is about the same as my two bedroom. It was around $9 for us in a taxi van to get home tonight from Queen Street, comparable to $8 from town to my house – except I live a 15 minute walk from town uphill, this would be at least half an hour. Taxis in Auckland are cheaper.

Auckland had changed a lot in the seven years since I left it. Seven years! I only lived here for six, but man, I feel like I can remember every second of those years, whereas nowadays I can’t even remember the name of the guy who ate me out in the men’s room of Mighty Mighty last Friday (True story. I know he was a web guy though, because my friend who always sleeps with a certain profession and I made a pact that we’d both stop doing the kind of guys we each normally did, and then that happened, and I said to her “did you sleep with another *?” and yes, she had. Oh god, the rut of it all!). I’m aware that I am deviating slightly from the narrative structure here, but I’m also aware that I haven’t updated since March, so I thought you would want to know that I have been mostly  a lesbian since then, with the exception of a guy who was also there when I slept with a very nice young lady, and a fellow of a sexual orientation that apparently doesn’t normally align with mine, and also said oral sex in the Mighty bathroom, which was inappropriate, and I apologise to any gentlemen who were inconvenienced in their urination that night.

But seriously. I pass through light industrial areas on the bus today, and there are Indian restaurants there, and I’m like “woah, that’s the chain that opened up in Ellerslie while we were living there, and I’d drive there in my Honda, and then they started doing delivering, and him and her got that while I was throwing up non stop because they were in my house destroying me, and had the gall to offer me their leftovers”. Oh yeah, there was clearly a reason why I needed to leave Auckland.

Still, today was lovely, waking up in Heather’s bed (oooh laa laa, except she was in her flatmate’s bed, ohh laa laa extra, except he was (I imagine) in his girlfriend’s bed) and the sun was shining, and I was tangled up in the bed sheet, because I so did not need a duvet last night. And then there was brunch, getting incredibly angry that 2/3 of the front page of the Herald was taken up by an article about how some rich fucker bought a car worth $2.8million. In NZ. Yes, super douche move, but did it deserve anything more than a one inch snark in Metro? I don’t think so. But there was  a bus trip into town, then lunch with Hamy Amy, and then a mall crawl (nice to see that fatties are ghettoised at the back of every store that deigns to carry them in every city in NZ), then oh my god AMAZING Community, then a lovely dinner at Canton with beloved Auckland friends, and I got to hold Willow a couple of time and she charmed everyone, and I’m still a bit like “but what the fuck? Annette is like, 15 and gothy and angsty and how the fuck does she have a 14 month old baby?” (Yes, I know that SOME 15 year olds could do that quite easily. But clearly you weren’t down with the online journallers in 1998).

Tomorrow I’m going out to West Auckland to hang with Selina, then having drinks with a lot of bearded men who I know off the internet. If you are in Auckland, we should hang out before I go home on Monday night. If you’re thinking of breaking into my house in Welly while I’m gone, well my iPhone and my laptop are both up here, and oh yeah, Kelly’s there, looking after Sebby and also comedy.

And I think that returns me to what I wanted to talk about a little, how terrifying it was to go to The Classic where I used to go like, weekly when Brad did stand-up, and how as I’ve said before in 101 Stories I want to tell you I used to double date with Thomas and his friend who had a spooky-eyed girlfriend who was no good at chit chat. The Classic no longer has $6 flavoured vodka shots ($4 at 10pm!) or indeed flavoured vodkas at all, but apart from that, pretty much the same. Ben Hurley was even making jokes about “what if prostitution was legalised?” like it was 2002 or something.

I’m lacking a proper segue, so instead I’ve been making Heather drive me places, but also this week, I heard that there was a solution to an issue that’s been ongoing for me. And you’d think that would make me happy, but because I’m ridiculous, I’m all “but I didn’t solve this, I didn’t find a solution in myself, I have yet to overcome it totally, it’s just being removed”. This is coded language, but I know what I’m talking about. Oh also, if I did tell you about this, asking what I was wearing/drinking and then changing the subject? Not really solidifying your place on my Xmas card list.

Deleted. Grow up Joanna. Stop trying to be Emily Post whilst drunk.

I feel like I’m lecturing now, so I will shut up, but I will try to update something soon. Woo!

Or alternatively, another kind of amazing friend is the one who tells you that they will beat up the horse that threw you, and even though you know that they never would – and you wouldn’t want them to either – it’s still very sweet.

Other good friends will buy you lap dances in unrelated incidents. I have some pretty awesome friends. I have also made new friends on the internet of a feminist bent. I like them.

What else? Kane came to stay this past weekend, and Heather’s coming tomorrow. There’s derby on the weekend and apparently there won’t be any of the slow derby bullshit, which is good. There have been  a lot of parties. Thanks to Sunday movie nights with the Lovehawks, I’ve done pretty well on the #11in’11 front. Work is busy. Social life is busy. Money is tight due to car repairs and continuing to pay off my credit card debt and just, you know, life. I like that it is turning into autumn, although I like sunshine too. Gin has become the drink of 2011, apparently, with all the G&Ts at New Year’s, and now the Gossip Ginger Gimlets and Gossip Girl Wednesdays.

Webstock was amazing but of course you already knew that. It was so great to see all the good people from out of town that I only get to see like once a year like Walter, and to learn so much and talk so much that I thought my jaw was going to fall off. Turns out, $100 trip to the dentist later, that it’s stress which makes me square my jaw. Ahh well.

I don’t really feel like I’m accomplishing a great deal, but I don’t feel like I’m not, either. I’ve dealt with all this uterus bullshit. I’ve got my work back on track after stuff that we won’t go into. My protective streak for people may cause ruckuses, but nothing that’s not fixable. I am managing to hold on to and repair relationships with people who are important to me. I am doubtless behind in my communication with people, but hopefully this post will help. Essentially, apart from the horse-riding metaphor, there isn’t really all that much to say. And that’s okay.

I read more than half of Cleaving in one sitting. I thought I had identified with Julie Powell before in Julie & Julia as she worked a boring job, made friends on the internet, watched a lot of Buffy and got drunk frequently. But in Cleaving as she pines for her lover or ex lover, whatever state their relationship was in at the time, as she talks about the sex that they had which was unlike any she’d ever had before, as she sought out anonymous terrible fucking that she told her lover about afterwards in an attempt to make him jealous  – well, I lived all that too.

I worry too that I will never have another lover who will make me lose all control the way that you did, that I will never spend weeks at a time in a permanent state of arousal, driven into a fever by your emails and text messages and story telling. I worry that no one will ever put their hand on my leg while I am driving the way that you did, which almost made me crash my car. I’m afraid no one will ever lock me to them with their kiss. And while there are other people now who can make me come, multiple times, and maybe they fuck me harder than you ever did, it’s not the same. And yes, then I remember that there used to be Thomas, and that I used to think I would never love anyone like that, and now I am “who?” what?” about that. So one day, you will be gone from my mind but for now, there is just passive-aggression, and emptiness, and because this is Wellington I see you everywhere, but we don’t talk and I miss you.

There have been parties. There was my birthday Triple X party, in which a rollickingly good time was had by all. Heather came down from Auckland for it, and we spent lots of time together hanging out and watching Veronica Mars. She took the rest of the DVDs up to Auckland with her and has been making me giggle with her “OMG!” text messages as various things happened throughout the series. But back to the party. I kissed a lot of pretty ladies, both in the kissing booth and out, which is always a pleasure, and never a chore. I went as a Doctor of Fuckology, and had a clipboard full of hypothesis. Here are some more photos.

Many of the things that I expected to happen did

Sisters dressed up to party

I also volunteered again at Full Code Press, but I will probably write about that on joannamcleod.com instead of here.

On Saturday night I went to a B party at Anna Jane’s house. I was dressed as Beth Ditto, and while not that many people got that, they did get lectures about Health At Every Size and other fat activism.

Karen as Barbarella, me as Beth Ditto

The girl that I kissed at the Wellingtonista Awards was there, and we hung out and I told her that I had stopped talking to her because I don’t want to be her friend, I want to be her lover, and it was too frustrating to follow her tweets about wanting to get laid when I was waiting right there to do the job for her. I ended up feeling more than a little like a date rapist because after we kissed, I wanted to kiss again, and she said no, but I heard that as “maybe”. Frustration. I should know better. It was nice though, that she said she heard I was amazing in bed (I am!) although I wonder who said that to her, because our Eskimo bond constantly tells me I was a terrible lay.

I haven’t talked about moving, because it was horrible and culminated in me cleaning until almost 11pm last Sunday night, then getting 100 metres down the road in my car with Seb in a cage and discovering that I had a flat tyre. My father had to come down from Ngaio to help me, which is lucky because as it happened, my jack was missing the turning bit anyway. But now anyway I am safely back in the parental bosom and took them and BAMJI out to lunch at Osteria Del Toro to thank them for all their hard work. Seb has settled in wonderfully, and I have put my DVDs into order of colours, but all the blackness of my sizeable Whedon collection throws things off somewhat. I spend my time at home watching many episodes of The West Wing, and teaching my dad how to play Wii. In the mornings we take the train together and I get coffee at Sweet Fanny-Anne’s. Work is work. Getting paid is nice.

The day we got our official letters at work about how we’re losing our jobs, we were given a speech that tried to compare it to Napolean’s retreat from Moscow, like that was a good thing, because hey, 22,000 people survived that. 380,000 people died, but…

I dropped a frying pan on my toe before. It’s really sore. I’m hiding out in bed, consequently.

Kat & Kane are coming down next week, hurrah! Heather came down the other weekend and it was fabulous.

It keeps me a little bit entertained watching my automatic knee-jerk reactions in which I actively seek out validation from a number of sources if I’m feeling let down or neglected by one. There has been a lot of feeling like I don’t get any attention lately. That’s a consequence of no longer sleeping with someone of course, but it’s taking a long time to get over. Mostly I miss the friendship though.

I tried out for Full Code Press but didn’t make the team. I was a sad panda but the divine Tash suggested that I come along as a volunteer instead, so I’m going to Sydney on May 11-14.

I had other things to say, but I can’t remember what they were. I say a lot of things on Twitter these days. I also don’t say a lot of things. Oh you know what I mean.

My dreams are still far too vivid and encapturing. I feel like I’m smoking opium or something, or at least what I imagine it might be like.

I’m trying to do a good deed a day but in typing that out I realise that I haven’t done any good deeds today.

And finally, after years of looking, I bought some new sunglasses yesterday. This means my old ones which I bought on May 1, 1999, can be retired after almost ten years of hard work. I don’t want to say goodbye, but they’re so scratched and beaten up that it really is time. So here, let me present a digital tribute of my old sunglasses all around the world from as long as I’ve had a flickr account:

In Fiji in 2005

At Hyperion Wines in Matakana when we went up for the BDO in 2008

In Samoa in 2008

Reflected in Canberra in 2008

Outside the Tiki Shack in 2008

And I spent aaaaaaaages looking for older photos, but couldn’t find any of my sunglasses, but I did reupload all these terrible quality images from my old journal for your pleasure.

Anyways, my narrative thread, my reason for getting out of my nice warm bed to go and find my computer (my new eeePC, so so so cute) wasn’t to talk about Tom at all. I think my thread was supposed to start with how I was texting Tingle “If you want to make your life less complicated, stop replying to drunkass random dumbasses who aren’t your girlfriend” and perhaps try to explain about how we (you and I, my dear reader) got to this stage in my storytelling, but I’m not entirely convinced that it will work out that way. So perhaps I could make a bulleted list of what’s what?

* There is Good Tom because his last name starts with a G, and Bad Tom whose name starts with a B, but as to whether or not their names are deserved, I am constantly divided.

And that might explain today’s total mood crash, and why I just fucking wish I could get fired so I could go on the dole or the sickness benefit and how I could stay in bed where everything is warm and safe and okay. It is ridiculous how scared I am to go to work, and how much I feel like I am letting the team down just for existing, but at the same time the assumption that because I took a couple of days off and because i am taking my medication regularly that all my problems have ceased to exist. I cannot get to work by 9am. I just can’t. I can’t sleep, I can’t wake up, I can’t get out of bed. How does the rest of the world do it? I can’t function like that. And holy fuck how much do I hate using the word “can’t”?

This weekend was good. We had a bit of a beer sampling here, with a sausage fest, and then tucking people up on the couch and in the spare room. On Anzac Day I hid, and then on Saturday Heather arrived, and I went to Bar Camp, and then that night we went to Shirley’s for the Unofficial Pretty Pretty Pretty launch party, which was all beauty products and amazing food, and videos, and Lisa Fur gave me a handrub that made me purr. And then the day after Heather and I had brunch at Elements, and then had BLOGFEST 2008, in which we sat down at my dining room table, and blogged for three hours straight. In that time I uploaded a fuckload of photos to flickr with tags, fixed all the colours on Pretty Pretty Pretty since the original purple that I changed the images of the template to weren’t in sexy-hexy-decimal, posted to the Wellingtonista, changed the Aucklandista template (my awesomeness was further enforced today when I managed to do what Heather failed to do yesterday – get images and links to work on the front page (in her defense, she thought I wanted exerpts instead of full posts, but I didn’t), and THEN I figured out the php to add in tags to posts and THEN I built (read: stole) some php to make it have rotating header images. SO AWESOME. I like being productive. But that did of course emphasise the suckiness of having a full time job that is not blogging, at least not blogging for the things that I love. And I know that work has been very accomodating of my recent bout of craziness, but it’s just not as easy to shake as you might think. Or probably don’t think, because you’re on the internets and therefore you’re probably already crazy too.

Miss Amy came over tonight for MakeMonday, and we wrote up our big post about our first PPP party, and while she had to go, she left me and Heather with an awesome foot-care package, so we poured ourselves a glass of bubbly and barricaded ourselves in the bathroom with zabuton (flat Japanese pillows) to perch on the sharp edge of my bath and soak our feet in mint & lavender goodness. It felt lovely, and so I decided to have a huge big bawling sob session. Awesome. Half the time Heather thought I was laughing when it was actually guttural sobs, but half the time I was laughing too, because I am pathetic and lame, and far too fucking hard on myself. It is hard to be me, and yes, that’s fucking stupid, I’m this educated smart girl with these fantastic support networks and a job, and a family, and flatmates, some of whom clean the kitchen every night, and this cat who knows that I am the centre of his universe, and a fantastic counselor who I obviously need to go and see, and yet, it is hard for me.

Some things shake me a lot from out of nowhere. Like, what happens when something happens to someone you used to love? Something awful, and when you find out about it, it throws you for the whole afternoon, but of course, it is not about you, it’s about how best to respond, to say something, to do something if it’s needed. How do you be there when you haven’t been there for many years, no matter what the reason?

I have found that lately there has been a reoccuring theme, and you know what? It’s not even lately. I just want to fix all of my friends’ lives. I want everyone to get their fucking happy ending. I don’t know how to procure those endings though, and I know that I’m not even supposed to. Just, oh, I don’t know. Can’t we all have happy endings? Please? And I don’t mean a happy ending like Jill will deliver you. Well, maybe that.

Oh, but in happy ending news? Here’s a clip from the RASSLIN’ I went to.

It was so fucking great to see Kat’n Kane. We had Rock of Love marathons, and just quiet time together, much like Heather and I are having right now. No alarms and no surprises. Lately it takes MGMT or the Deftones to wake me out of the fog on tthe bus to and from work. I don’t have solutions. I do know though that I missed my meds on Sunday, and so I will blame this on that.

And somewhere out there, unrelated to this, you’re turning 40, or you’re 40 already, and I look forward to your email next year, because that will be another three years, right? And in a thousand other stories, there was a thing that I thought was a thing. Well, not even a thing. It was a tingle. But if I’m honest, it was an amalgamation, it was so many people together. My friends could draw you a picture sight unseen. Still, it was a tingle which was nice to have.

These are the things on my mind right now:

• Getting together the rest of the swag that I’m responsible for and then putting together the swag-bags for the GirlGeek Dinners tomorrow night.
• Speaking about my career at the dinner tomorrow night. You know, that career.
• Much much much paperwork at work that I have not done because I’ve been worrying more about the Big Picture
• The small remaining details of the Big Picture at work which seem to have no end.
• My assessment at work tomorrow. The predicted verdict: it would probably be helpful if I was at work more often. And more paperwork needs to get done. Which is where the ability to get out of bed would be nice.
• All the things that I should be doing to enable me to get out of bed a little easier, but because I’m not doing them I don’t feel like I’m entitled to go and talk to a counsellor about it, and so it goes.
• The creative projects that I have bubbling over in my head right now. I need my next paycheque so I can proceed with these. Or at least with the domain names
• The neglecting of all my current projects in favour of staying in bed/lying on the couch staring at the TV
• Social things coming up like KateH and Heather coming down, and the Wairarapa Harvest Festival, all of which I am looking forward to, but which will require me to be peppy and functional.
• Ideas kicking around in my head for a sorely-needed work function to build inter-team bonds
• The many many bills that I need to pay.
• The many errands that need to be run – getting a new prescription, taking the microwave in for fixing, getting my warrant. I need a PA to coordinate this kind of shit. Essentially, I’m just so fucking tired of having to take responsibility for my own life. Not in like, a mortal way. I just wish that someone would make me up in the morning, and give me a coffee, tell me what I was going to wear that day, and drive me to work. Then they could pick me up via the supermarket where we’d buy vegetables that I’d eat, make sure Sebastian has flea treatments, and tell me when my schedule’s overlapping so that I don’t overbook myself. Even just a couple of days with someone working like that for me would be great. I don’t understand how it is that people manage to function all the time with looking after themselves. I would like to book myself a couple of nights at a house in the country, but I can’t take time of work until we’ve launched and that’s settled and oh, nuts, it’s just all errrrrrrgh.

But it’s funny though, if you talk to me, if you see me, I will be doing my very best to pretend that none of this is going on. Or I will pick one thing, and roll my eyes about it, and make some lame joke. Last week one of my friends I hadn’t seen in ages told me that she was making more of an effort to say no to people, so I decided for my homework I’d try to say no at least once over the past week. Instead I seem to have picked up more projects and things to do. Maybe I am on the wrong medication. Maybe I should go back on fluoxetine so I can think about nothing instead of thinking about everything. But I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I failed today at going for a swim (my body is aching from doing nothing because my mind is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love functioning properly) and also at cleaning the bathroom and kitchen. But at least I have the Mighty Boosh on divx to watch. And Australia’s Next Top Model was on last night, exciting! Not to mention hundreds of episodes of The Simpsons which are very handy for sleeping through.

But there was no time to fume. The Quadrant’s lobby was stark white and filled with scented candles. I rolled my bag down the long white walkway through the bar area and into a lift that had an embedded TV screen playing Juice. My room was tiny but functional. I discovered to my perverse joy later that I could sit on the toilet, blowdry my hair, drink vodka and watch TV all at the same time. What more could anyone want? A quick shower later, I was in a corporate cab from the Hyatt next door on my way to Kingsland. The sun was setting and reflected in all the shiny new architecture along Symonds Street. It was a beautiful view, but holy fuck, $18 for that distance? That amount would have got me to Greenlane in the olden days!

I grabbed two bottles of wine from Weta Wines, pleased it was still there and still open, and headed to Canton. There were still people at the table I’d booked (bastards!) so I went and stood on the street outside. Bopha came up and left to get cash and wine. Amy & Ross came along and left to get wine. Then came Martina and Heather. Robyn and Heather’s b/f Ben eventually completed our party, since Clay and Nige flaked.

I had been salivating over the prospect of dinner at Canton since I booked my tickets up to Auckland, and while the large group and noise of the place made converastion difficult, the food didn’t disappoint. As usual, I was appointed/appointed myself chief orderer, so with some deference to Martina’s vegetarianism, we had: black bean hapuku, sweet & sour pork, sizzling venison with ginger & spring onions, crispy roast pork, special black chilli chicken, sizzling vegetables and egg noodles with fried veges. YUM! Two people took doggie bags home, and with tea and dim sum and rice and corkage, we each paid $19.25. So good!

Afterwards we were going to go to Ruby for more drinks, but it was too loud, and so we settled on the Kingslander for a couple more bottles of wine. There were television screens EVERYWHERE, it was most distracting. But good to be able to converse. I like my friends. I cabbed back to the hotel eventually, and debated ordering porn from the in-house video system, just because I could, but it was $17.95 per movie, so I settled for watching Wild On: Naked instead. Genius.

The next morning, I set my alarm for 10.30 so I could wake up to meet Heather who was coming to the hotel at 11. We discovered that breakfast stopped being served at 10am, so tragedy of tragedies, we had to go straight for bubbly and cheese. As we sat in the sunny courtyard and I started to burn, we heard someone playing an electric guitar, and the sound bounced off the building next door. Given that Heather’d spotted John Toogood and Phil Knight in the lobby, we were happy to think that it was Shihad playing in our hotel, but it sounded pretty terrible, so maybe it was Grinspoon instead, who were due to be opening for Muse that night.

Once the sun got to be a bit too much, we tried to pay our bill, which took forever (the staff were friendly but not highly competant), and we got changed and went into the spa. Hurray! Yeah, a spa on a hot day after drinking caffiene and alcohol might not be the smartest idea ever, but it was loooooooovely. And then it was quite obviously time for lunch, so we strolled down to the Art Gallery, hoping to have lunch there, but found it was shut. Luckily Rueben at the New Art Gallery was open, so we parked ourselves on one of the balconies there, I had an average lamb salad, Heather had amazing french toast, and we had a totally unnecessary but very happy bottle of Deutz as well. Mmmmmm indulgence! And then just to show that we’re not totally cultureless, we went around the art gallery too. Upstairs was an exhibition called Making Worlds, which was really bloody cool. They had a seven minute animation loop called “City Glow” going on in a darkened room, which I totally could have watched all day. Although it made me feel far too Jessica Simpsony lame and pointless when I saw it was produced by Takashi Murakami and I was like “He did those brightly coloured Louis Vittion prints!”. Like I need to know that.

Eventually Heather and I parted company, and I went back to the hotel for naps and snacks, before KateH came to pick me up in the evening. We went to her beautiful house which is down by the water, and had a few drinks while we waited for the Checks and Grinspoon to get off the stage. Drive-thru burgers from Wendy’s ensured that our timing was perfect to actually get a park by the Waitakere Stadium, and we’d only missed two of Muse’s songs. We’re both so old now that we didn’t mind that at all. When did I stop queuing for things hours before they began? Was it around the same time that my knees started to go? But anyways, the gig was AMAZING. So good. When they played ‘Hysteria’, I had an auralgasm of the kind I hadn’t experienced since Dimmer. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Totally matched up to my dirty dream that featured it prominently in it. And we saw Amanda and Darren, which was nice, and left when they turned on the lights. And then we were naughty and had an after-hours spa back at the hotel, which was fantastic for sore feet and knees, especially since it was merely lukewarm. Best Friday EVER!

The next morning was Saturday, and I slept in, loving the bed, before I decided it was time to drag my ass out into the streets. I strolled down to Gloria to have breakfast, where my French toast wasn’t as good as Heather’s, but the coffees were nice and I read the paper cover to cover. Then I got on the link bus to go to the museum, but I started feeling all nostalgic and weird, because of all the memories of the route (which are detailed in ‘Link’ in 101 Stories that I want to tell you of course) and so I decided to just stay on the bus and go all the way around the city. Well, I got off briefly in Ponsonby to buy vodka and bread, but you know what I mean.

Finally it was time for me to meet Martina and David and also Karl at the Queen Street bus stop to go to the Lynfield YMCA for the wrestling. Oh yes. I went west, life is peaceful there. I went west, people had terrible hair. The ride on the 257 was pretty full of nostalgia too, given the two flats I lived in on/off Dominion Road. It was also interesting hearing other people’s stories, like where they lost their virginities. And drinking vodka from a ginger ale bottle made me feel like a fourteen year old again, and who doesn’t like that? We got to Lynfield with some time to spare, so we hunted out food for the boys, and I sang the YMCA song a lot with the actions, and we took this photo in front of the vets. And now I might just revert into a photo montage to sum up the awesomeness of the wrestling, and my brand new boyfriend with a spectacular ginger mullet.

After a cold long wait for the bus, we all started falling asleep on the back seat. Nevertheless, Martina and David came back to my hotel room for a while, and helped me polish off the remaining food and vodka, and I stayed up late watching E! again. Good times.

On Sunday I was expecting to have brunch with Bopha and Clayton, but she was stuck out west somewhere, and Clayton made other plans, so after checking out at 12 and leaving my suitcase with reception, I returned to Gloria to have a very very long breakfast by myself with the Sunday Star Times. Finally it was getting near time to find myself an airport bus, so I went to get my suitcase, and I asked them where the airport bus stop was, and they told me down on Symonds Street. So I rolled my case up to a stop in the hot hot sun, but couldn’t find any markings on it to indicate that the airport bus might stop there. I rang Maxx, and they gave me the number for the airport bus company, and I couldn’t find a human, but it did mention the route, listing the Hyatt which was right next to the Quadrant, so disgruntledly I rolled back up to the Hyatt, and the doorman told me the stop was right in front of the Quadrant. Cheers clever desk staff! So I was hot and stinky and smelly then, and worried that I might not make it to the airport in time, when a shuttle pulled up in front of me and told me he’d drive me to the airport for $15, the same as the bus, since he was going that way anyway. Yay! That shuttle totally redeemed the shuttle in. And so that was the end of my time in Auckland. Very good fun indeed.

• The everscrumptious Miss Heather has switched over my site design for me, so bear with me while the kinks are ironed out. My semi-secret RSS feed seems to have temporarily vanished, and of course Twitter is blocked at work, so I’m not sure if that’s feeding in properly, but now at least if you run my site through a validator (don’t!) you should only get four or so errors and not sixty like the old one. Goodbye to the hump though, sadly.
• If you receive a text message from me that sounds a little strange, it’s because I no longer have an ’8′ key on my phone, so therefore I have no ‘t’, ‘u’ or ‘v’. It makes things like giving directions to Superfino read “On Ghznee s, opposie Bdg Cars, by Bicoria S”. That makes perfect sense, right? Also, do make your way to Superfino, please. We spent a very pleasant Friday night there. I recommend the Pear & Vanilla Punch especially, but not reaaaaally the Blood-Orange and Cinnamon Martini.
  

• We’ve taken to going to the Quiz at the Southern Cross on Tuesday nights. By “we” I mean sometimes some Wellingtonistas, and sometimes my sisters & Bambi. I am, just for a change, in love with the Quizmaster. You know how I fancy people who know more things about something than I do (music, depression, computers or – in the olden days – drugs), that rule of course applies to someone who has the answer sheet on quizes.
• Before you come up to the Cross for the quiz, I’d like to recommend Le Metropolitain for dinner, and I’d say that even if I hadn’t been called “Madame Jo” on the phone in a hot French accent that I discovered was attached to a hot French waiter. He brought me the wine list when I was waiting by myself instead of making me wait, and was efficient, friendly and good. Everyone’s favourite public servant blogger might not approve of their cassolet, but damn my cow face (read: beef cheeks) were tasty, and since Bambi ordered snails I got to try them for the first time. They tasted like mushrooms, while the mushrooms that they were served with tasted like garlic and cream.
  
• You might have gathered due to the increase in the number of photos that I’m displaying that I’ve taken to carrying my new camera with me everywhere. That’s because the batteries don’t fall out, and it’s got a 1 gig card in it. And I like taking photos, of course. I’ve started to take a series of portraits of people with ‘my eyes’:
  

  

  

• I’ve been watching Season One of Veronica Mars with my lovely new flatmate Kat. She guessed who the killer was correctly, which I didn’t manage to do the first time I watched it. She’s a smart one, that girl. I love watching shows with big reveals that I know are coming up with others, although her little shriek when the killer was in the back seat was nothing compared to Lisa on finding out who killed Laura Palmer. Kat’s fiance Kane is a pro-wrestler! How awesome is that? It means he has no fear of cavorting around in tights, which he demonstrated in his costume as a ballet dancer at Country Club: Back in the USSR on Saturday night.
• I haven’t downloaded my photos from Back in the USSR, but once I do, you’ll be able to see a steady progression from tipsy into disturbingly intoxicated, despite all the food – I made pierogi, and potatoes, and sausages, and Frances and Karen both brought blini, and there was caviar as well, and chips, and really disgusting solid rye bread, and kisial – which was of course vodka jelly, and Moscow Mules, and by the end of the night there was white rum as well. Some people had splendid costumes – Anji brought along a bear so I had to hump him. I also gave lap dance versions of the panda dance to the boys who were complaining about the poor service at Dream Girls that they’d got the night before. My heart bleeds for them. The party was lots and lots of fun, and I was stoked with the turn out. I gave someone a big long speech about how I am not what they need, and how they really shouldn’t fancy me. I thought it was a pretty convincing speech, and it was the right thing for me to do, so I was a little disturbed when I woke up next to the speech recipient. I would be later more disturbed to discover that somehow a glass of water had managed to get knocked into my underwear drawer, leaving me with moist panties everywhere. It was a much nicer discovery, when I finally got up at 6pm on Sunday though, to find that the whole house had been cleaned. WOO! And then last night over flat dinner I heard that people had been spraying my new Cinderella Coconut Bathroom Cleaner into their mouths as it is billed as being so very non toxic. Disturbing!

Wow, so that wasn’t quite as bad as I expected. I suppose because I wrote it in 2002, things have changed so much since then. I mean. looking at who read Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, in so-far as who was in it, *IV said it was the sexiest thing he’d ever read, although, you know, that was after we’d had sex another time. The ex boyfriend (you know, of all of those ex boyfriends that I’ve had) has read it, but didn’t comment, surprisingly enough, for all the speaking out that he ever did when we were together and afterwards.

I had other things to say. I had photos in my flickr account to link to. I would have talked about how my new home project was Lisa and I watching Firefly at home. I would have talked about a buttload of social events that I’ve been to with the Wellingtonista, partially revolving around the Wellingtonista Quiz League and partly with awesome fresh fish at the Port Cafe last Friday, and oh, you know what? Whatever. Maybe I’ll post tomorrow or maybe I won’t. But hurray for Robyn, and now things will be awesome. Oh, and hopefully there’ll be new Hubris as soon as Heather can do it!

What are some other things that I wanted to write about? I had my first Creative Wednesday this week, but I was so sick that I decided to let myself sleep in until whenever I woke up, which was 1pm, and then I just sat on the couch coughing until Brad went and bought me vodka and fresh OJ. Before I got stuck in to making myself feel better though, I paid a visit to the new Ezibuy shop to get a shirt for the lovely Hadyn and stunning Martha to screenprint for our Bowling League. My other achievement as a project on Wednesday was in finally getting that all sorted out, via many mailings to our mailing list. As I said about my shirt to the list today: “It’s pink! And lowcut! So people will recognise me! All my sentences are going to end in exclamation marks today! I am high on cherry-vanilla robotussin!”. Heh.

But today I am not wearing a lowcut top because I also bought leggings which are so much less of a pain than tights, so I’m wearing my short pinstriped dress and boots instead. Hurrah! And my nails are bright bright green, which I’ve decided will be my new trademark thing. Hurrah nu rave! Heh. Oh my stars, why am I being so vapid? I really must add more bad influence websites to my list of things to give up for Matariki, since that’s coming up soon. Also my main Matariki resolution is to wake up with someone this year and not want them to run away ASAP. That’s what grown-ups do.

And on that note about grown-ups, the divine (and crazy for walking 100km) Kimberley asked me five questions, as part of a fad which all the cool kids are doing, so here they are with my answers.

How many nicknames do you have? What’s the story behind each one?

I don’t really have that many nicknames, apart from a thousand variations on Jo (Jo Burger, Jo Blo, Jo Jo Jo etc). Before I left high school, I tried to keep Jo in reserve only for my friends, so people I didn’t like had to call me Joanna, or my father if I was shitty with him, and so on and so forth, but then when I started working and leaving phone messages everywhere, it was easier to call myself Jo than Joanna because I don’t talk very clearly. I will still write Joanna if I’m doing anything where I can’t sign off “xojo”. When I went online in 1997, I called myself Astrid, so I had nicknames based on that – Strid, Striddy, and so on. Also in order to seperate me from the other one (no capital letters) I became known as Jo Hubris to match my domain. To me these days Jo Hubris is the fierce, brave and outgoing side of me, my super hero identity to Joanna McLeod’s Clark Kent, if you will. I am Jo Hubris when drunk, Joanna when sober. There’s also a Canadian who calls me Trouble but I’m not entirely sure why.

What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do in your life? How did you feel afterwards?

Everything when it happens feels like the hardest thing EVAH (moving to Japan, moving to Auckland, that horrible drawn-out fucked up relationship and subsequent horrible drawn-out fucked up break up), but now I will say having Depression is the hardest thing ever, because once you’ve got to a place where you don’t want to be alive anymore having to claw your way back from that to not just a place where you’re surviving but where you’re actually thriving, well, I think that makes me pretty fucking awesome. And I say this as Jo Hubris, not Joanna, of course.

Have you ever forgotten to put on underpants?

How could you forget something like that? I’ve had to wear shortshorts instead of underpants at primary school when I ran out of clean ones, and once I left my skirt behind at a guy’s house when I ran away in the middle of the night (I had pants as well) cos I couldn’t find it in the dark and had to go back the next day to get it, but I’ve never forgotten to wear underpants, no. If it’s terribly terribly late in the laundry cycle, I might not be able to put on thunderpants though, despite having ten pairs…

Where/ with whom was the last kiss you had?
My last kiss would have been after the Great Blend in my bed, with the ginga who turned out to be an asshole (damn my weakness for English accents!). I don’t know if we’d actually kissed at Mighty Mighty, or in Cuba Mall or in the taxi before then or not. It was the hottest day of the year, we were sweaty (despite the late night swim) and bloody noisy. And I had the Killers on repeat because I couldn’t find any of my records (they were in the lounge).

I think that was my last kiss anyway. I do drink an awful lot.

What thing about yourself do you like the most?
I like that I am such a giving and accepting person. I can validate that statement too with things that others have said about me too. In fact, I spend a lot of time discussing it with my counsellor when I’ll be all “oh I am so selfish, I am so caught up in myself, I let my friend down this one time” and she’ll be all “so you let them down once and that means all the good things you do are wiped out?” and I’ll be all listing things and she’ll be like “hello, duh” and I’ll be like oh this is why I pay you, for that validation. Heh. No but seriously, I’m pretty confident that if you are someone I care about, I will accept anything about you, and I will do whatever I can to be there for you in whatever capacity you need me to be. And that’s awesome. Wahoo!

EDIT: Questions from the fiesty Miss Heather:

1. If you had the chance to wake up with a completely new personality, what would you be careful not to change?
I would make sure that my openness was still there – the way that I will accept people for who they are, the way I try to be completely honest with the way that I’m feeling, and my willingness to take on board new ideas.

2. Desperate for a shag, or frigid?

Seriously? Does this question even need to be asked? Did you not read the part above where I slept with a ginga? So to most people, I would be desperate. To a couple of poor lads who were around at the wrong times though, I suppose I may have appeared frigid.

3. On girls: greying, or dyed? Worst option for dyed? On boys: balding, or wig? Comb-over? Facial hair?

Greying or dyed is fine, but I’m not a fan of platinum blonde on most people. Balding is okay, but is best when shorn real short. I like to rub heads with short haircuts. Never a combover, generally never facial hair. A little stubble’s okay, unless you’re making out with it.

4. What do you think are the seven cardinal sins of blogging? Obviously this doesn’t apply to you, since you’re not a blogger.

Writing “Here’s a link and it’s funny”, and thinking that counts as content.
Apostrophe catastrophes.
Holding political views that are different than mine. Puppy-eaters.
Worshiping anyone that I don’t like.
Not writing about me as often as possible.
Refering to Hubris as a blog.
Constantly doing memes. Like we care.

5. What would the cover stories be on the first ever issue of your own magazine?

Ooooh, I adore this question, although I would have prefered you to say “will”, not wood.

Cover stories:
- The definitive guide to cocktails in Wellington
- How my website got me laid, paid and on display: an autobiography.
- Do get me started: a how-to for new media startups.

So if you want me to ask you five questions to answer, and you want them to be all probing and hip, comment or email me.

I don’t think I have any plans for this weekend. Someone make some for me?

xojo

Firstly, what I left out of my Auckland recap was that while I was at Annabel’s, she pulled out her copy of Boys Boys Boys Boys Boys as I emailed her a copy of 101 Stories, and it was soooooo weird reading it again. Did I really write that? Did I really live that way? Strange. No wonder people have mentioned what a progression 101 is. But I would still really love someone to send me back a copy of Boys because I haven’t got one. Please? Someone? I know they’re mostly pretty bad photocopies anyway, but maybe someone has one of the A4 versions that they could send me? Thanking you in advance.

Other things that are good in my life right now is meeting up with the rest of the Wellingtonista crew tonight for martinis (except for me because I am under 30), and then a cocktail party tomorrow night for Cinta’s hens’ night. Then on Sunday dinner for Karen’s birthday. On a much healthier for me note, I signed up to do personal training boxing sessions today. I’ll get to hit stuff! Yay! I think that will be fucking awesome stress release, and also I’m trying to mix up my exercising, because I don’t want to get bored and I really need to step things up for the sake of my wrist and also not dying on the flight to America.

I am so looking forward to America, like woah. The time is creeping closer and closer. In fact, America at the Country Club is next Saturday August 12. We’re having a kegger Frat/Sorority party with John Hughes and Showgirls. And a pillow fight. And junk food. And initiation ceremonies and hazing. You should come along. In real America news, I rang Kate at some ungodly hour last Friday night when I got home. I was aiming for her birthday but kind of missed, and also I was drunk and lonely, and I miss her! All the same, I’m really not looking forward to the phonebill.

This afternoon I am sniggering at the Peaches CD I’m listening to and trying to postpone doing more phone calls, but since there are a hundred people on my list (almost literally – once I finish assembling my list there will be anyway), I suppose I shouldn’t put that off for much longer. Work is interesting right now in terms of RFPs, and black holes, and also new projects that I am working on, and the fact that I went on some weird trip on Tuesday and cleared out about four things I’d been sitting on for months. Go me. And now I must go and pee. It’s important that I tell you this, honest.

Finally, just some links to things I’ve been up to lately – TV Squee / Rockstar Obsession / Pirate and Auckland photos. That’s about all. OH! And I have an RSS feed that works now, which I would add in to the bottom of the page, except that without a laptop I can’t FTP in, but you can find it at http://hubris.co.nz/rss apparently, according t the wise Heather. That’s it now. Ask me some questions about what you would like me to tell you about.

Wednesday
I flew up on Wednesday 12 July in the afternoon. My shuttle picked me up way too early and my flight got delayed so I can happily report back that Wellington Airport, while better-looking than Auckland, is incredibly boring. Still, finding a $25 Whitcholls voucher to spend on magazines is nice. One of these days, I really must get myself a subscription to Q since it’s the only magazine that I read which I totally respect. I mean, apart from Pulp, of course, but I hear the music reviewer for that genuinely likes the Spice Girls, so what would she know? I was staying at the Comfort Inn again, this time in a one bedroom suite that captured all the afternoon sun, so that sucker was hot. Crazy Aucklanders thinking that they’re in winter when they so aren’t, everyone’s heater was turned up way too high. The suite didn’t have a bath, unfortunately, but the shower was oh-my-stars-I-think-my-scalp-is-being-caressed-by-angels strong. And it’s always nice when no one has written on the walls of the bathroom in their own blood (Smoo is so fucking feral. That’s not part of my Auckland story, but seriously, who the fuck does that? Bart cleaned it up for me when I expressed my total and utter disgust. I wish I’d taken a photo first, because it was actually kind of funny).

First up on my Auckland agenda was meeting Annabel for a drink up at the Odeon. I hadn’t seen her since 2001, but we’ve had many an online conversation since then so it didn’t seem too unnatural. Once the Odeon started giving us the dirty “We’re closing. Get the fuck out now” eye, we went over the road for another drink at Galbraiths, and I decided that I should platonically set her up with Heather, since they live near by each other and have a lot in common.

After that, it was back to my room to try and get a nap in before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Holy crap that gig was overflowing with gaxys and hipsters! I’m pretty sure that every tight pair of black jeans, little op shop dress and Karen O haircut was in attendance. Drunkenly. And noisily. Holy crap there are few things I hate more than drunk 18 year old girls. I don’t understand why the fuck someone would pay over $60 for a concert ticket and talk the whole way through it. I had to restrain myself from punching people. I should have moved away, but as I was feeling so very old – I arrived while the Mint Chicks were playing and instantly cursed myself for forgetting ear plugs -, I was standing at the back behind the padded barrier and laughing at people who tried to walk through it. And wishing that I was Karen O, of course. I liked it when she screamed, because all the stupid bitches shut up for half a minute. They played songs I didn’t know, and drew out the beginnings to many things, and she writhed around under pieces of shiny material. I waved my fist in the air for ‘Phenomena’ and the long-intro’d ‘Y Control’ and got teary when they came back for their encore with ‘Maps’. I also spent a lot of time thinking about other gigs I’d been to at the St James, including the Roni Size gig where I took e for the first time, and the True Colours gig when I didn’t realise I was going to fall for the boy I’d just left sleeping. Afterwards I thought about taking the bus back up the hill but I couldn’t stand the gaxys anymore so I taxied back up for more glorious showers, even though my feeling-oldness had kept my moshing and therefore my sweatiness to a bare minimum. Man, no wonder it takes me so long to write these kinds of entries, I go way too overboard with details. Nevermind.

Thursday
The next morning I had brunch at Benediction with Elisabeth from Pulp and this time I successfully managed to keep from calling her Carla even a little bit. She said nice things about my reviews, which is always pleasant to hear (who’d have thought that good feedback would be like, good? Woah Jo, you’re out of CONTROL), and loaded me up with many more CDs, including the new Muse, which made me squee with joy. But on the inside of course, because I was pretending to be a cool Aucklander. A cool Aucklander who was nevertheless very impressed when the electronic bus timetables on K’Road proved to be quite accurate. I headed off to Grey Lynn to meet up with Jessie, and so I got to see her very posh offices. Then we went for lunch at Delicious, because I’ve always heard good things about it. Holy fucking crap, that place is delicious. We had bruschetta, and then I had roast beetroot ravioli with smoked ricotta, and every mouthful was like a thousand orgasms. We lingered long over it, and then gave the dessert cabinet the glad eye. After some quick agonisations, we decided to share a piece of pistachio praline chocolate ‘cake’, on the grounds that while their tiramisu also looked amazing, it was more common. The cake was pretty much like tiramisu anyway, with the added bonus of pistachios. Wow. It was like dying and being brought back to life and being fed really fucking awesome sweet desserty treats, without having to die and be brought back to life. My similes are fucking rocking today, I must add.

She dropped me off at Real Groovy so that I could cash in $50 worth of booksellers’ tokens on records: You are free by Cat Power, Funeral by the Arcade Fire, and most exciting of all, Horses by Patti Smith, which was the reason I bought a record player in the first place (now I can totally satisfy all my own fantasies – well as far as sitting on the floor playing myself Patti Smith records goes, anyway. Although my record player is a little too high up in order to do that comfortably. Perhaps I should rearrange my room). Of course I ended up having to spend twice as much as I had in tokens, and the same thing happened in Farmers when I was using vouchers to buy more foundation and also lip gloss because goddamit, I haven’t bought any in a very long time, thank you very much, and no I don’t have an addiction, fuck you. Then I went up to Rakinos to meet Sam for a coffee. Well, I had wine, he had water, and he talked a lot about sales techniques. It made me laugh.

After that it was back to my hotel to be incredibly disturbed by Juice TV (why oh why did anyone let Panic! At the Disco record a song that contains a line “haven’t you people heard of closing the goddam door?” in such dreaful all over the place timing? Their phrasing is like a thousand times worse than the Manic Street Preachers or Silverchair, and that’s saying a lot. Not to mention emo as fuck. I wish my hair was emo so that it’d cut itself. Heh), read, and nap some more. I love holidays with their rich nappy goodness. Around 7.30, I headed off to Annabel’s house where I had arranged to meet Heather before our dinner. This meant I got to meet Elton, which was very choice, and the girls got to meet each other too, instead of just stalking online. We had wine and watched Rockstar and Heather and I were having such a good time we asked if it wouldn’t be too weird if we got our food and ate it there. Annabel pulled out a folder of menus, so we took that as a sign, and Heather went and fetched us Meekong. Mmmmmmoney bags. Mmmmmmmmmmm so much tofu. Mmmmmmmmm goodness. Thanks for dinner Heather – it was an awesome birthday present. Eventually though we had to tear ourselves away as we were due to meet KateH at Match Bar to watch Sam play.

Sam had said that Match has a crappy crowd, but myyyyy god I hate the rich white trash even more than I hate the faux emo gaxys. Not that I judge people on sight or anything, but why the hell are you bothering to order Moet by the bottle when you’re so drunk that you break your glass every time you go outside for a cigarette? We were sitting close to the doors and counting broken glasses, and there were at least eight over the course of the night – from a fairly small crowd. Some of the guys got so drunk that they had to be carried down the stairs. Not pretty. It was lovely to catch up with KateH. We sat and talked for a long long time in egg shaped chairs, and then once they were done playing we went to Denny’s with Sam once he was done trying to get KateH to buy in to his pyramid scheme. By that stage it was after 3am (Did they play ’3am’? I’m pretty sure there was at least one Matchbox 20 cover. Ahh covers, good times. KateH and I laughed and laughed and laughed) and Auckland was drowning in mist. You couldn’t see the Sky Tower, or even more than ten metres in front of you. It was fucking excellent. So pretty and spooky (*).

Friday
Friday had been booked in as Heather’s and my Cultural Day, but I was feeling a little sloooooooow because I’d got to bed after 5am. I met her up at Altezzano and nearly fell flat on my face a couple of times. That whole walking thing is kind of tricky sometimes. We decided that the counter food on offer was not enough for people who’d had salty $18 tequilla cocktails the night before and so we made our way down to Galbraiths. It was about 11.45 at that stage, and Galbraiths was shut. Oh the horror! We needed our greasy NOW! Or rather THEN! Instead we strolled down to the House of Knives to browse amongst the shiny objects (but not the Shiny), having our minds boggled trying to figure out who would own a $1600 knife block. I mean, yes, good kitchen knives are important, and I’m gutted that Horrible Jonny stole my chef’s knife from the famous samurai sword village, and I wish that Del had gotten around to steeling my current knife before Bart broke up with her, but $1600? Woah. We strolled back up to Galbraiths and joined the throngs – and there were throngs – who were also doomed to waiting outside because it was late in opening, but eventually we made it in, ordered large plates of meat, and took our beers out to the back garden. The last time I was in the garden there, it was my last day of work at the Med School and I flashed my cow-orker so that I could win our staring match. The time before that was before the Placebo concert which is a whole diferent era of life (dates! and bedding! and being asked to be someone’s girlfriend!), and boy, Auckland sure likes to stir up the memories huh? It was a gorgeous day. I rolled up the sleeves of my long sleeved tshirt as we basked in the sun and the beer made me come up with the funniest/stupidest joke I’ve come up with in a while:

Q. What’s that noise coming from the BeeGees’ herb garden?
A. It’s just the chives talking.

Ha ha. Heather had chives on her shanks, obviously. Obbbbbbbbbviously. Our master plan called for us to be going to the museum right about then, but we weren’t sure if we could be bothered walking all the way to the domain from where we were at, since we were between two kinds of public transport that could have gotten us there, but then I had the genius idea of busing down to the art gallery and taking a link from there afterwards. Of course, my genius didn’t actually extend to remembering that the 27*s don’t go down Wellesley St, and so we got off on Symonds St and went for a very big long walk down and around Albert Park (and of course on the bus on the way home we realised that if we’d stayed on the bus we could have avoided that). Still, gorgeous day and walking is good for you. The fact that my feet had been screaming at me since Wednesday was irrelevant. I like the quiet echo of the art gallery, and I’m awed by the fact that they have stuff that’s almost a thousand years old, but there were no new exhibits in the old gallery, and then by the time we were done with that, our feet were too sore for the new gallery. We had coffee on the pretty terrace up amongst the trees away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and decided to call it a day then.

More nap, more Juice TV, some vodka purchasing, and then Jessie came over for a drink. She found me in my pyjamas, because they are pale pink with skull & crossbones on them, and what is more awesome than that? Pretty much nothing. Except for italics. We had a bit of a goss, and then cabbed it up to K’Road where my darling social secretary KateH had arranged an AUT dinner for me at Saigon. I even have photos of it, see?:

Brad, who was up in Auckland to shoot a short film for his course, Shirley who was off to Europe the next day, and Nigel who was still flush from winning
48 Hours and you can view his movie here

Andrew-from-Hamilton, KateH. Not pictured: KateH’s friend whose name I can’t remember. Or me.

I think the woman at Saigon was a little bit in love with me. She kept touching me. Maybe that’s just because – as usual – I played The Dominator and chose all our food. Mostly I did really well too. The noodles were a bit unnecessary.

After dinner, we went to The Musket Room in Ponsnobby. It was pretty crowded, but we managed to find ourselves a table and Brad ate one of the mozarella balls that they brought to our table, thinking that they were complimentary, until we got kicked out of that room because apparently it was a private function. We managed to find ourselves a big table though, and Clayton showed up, hurrah!

Shirley, leaving the next day. Clayton, not hating my guts.

We had some good talks about his career, and he’s doing all these amazing things which is awesome. I also invited him to Amy’s Pirates & Cheerleaders party for the next day, because he’s always loved of the young girls. I think Brad’d had a few drinks too because he gave me a big talk on what an awesome writer I am, and blah blah blah. I say blah blah blah not because it’s ever boring hearing about how awesome I am, but rather because I’d had a drink or two myself, and so I can’t remember all the correct wording, rather just the sentiment behind it. I really liked the Musket Room, apart from the private function kerfuffle and a few girls who were a bit too foolishly dressed (White summer dresses? Really? Sienna fucking Miller called to say you look ridiculous). They were playing ‘Fascination Street’ when we arrived, and then the music mix continued to be really electic, with lots of new wave and also indie and general goodness. Plus it was so dark that I had to read the cocktail menu by the light of an obliging young man’s cellphone. But all good things come to an end, and I found myself back at the hotel watching O.C reruns before I knew it.

Saturday

Jessie and Heather came to get me at some ungodly hour of the morning, and we set off for the French food markets somewhere in Parnhell. Jessie’s magnificant parallel parking skills came in handy, and I nearly died queuing for ages in an incredibly busy cafe to get pretty dreadful coffee, but once I had the cup in my hands, and a couple of quick wine tastings, things were much much better. We tried a multitude of tasty tasty things, talked to scensters and finally settled down with big containers full of hot gnochi. Gnoochi? I can’t spell. But I can eat. Oh boy can I eat. I can also take pictures, although Jessie doesn’t like to be on the internet, so I will show you a picture of Heather instead, because she never complains:

I did mention that it was early morning, right?

I can’t remember what I did on Saturday afternoon. I must have done something, right? Oh yeah, I went and camped out at Benediction again and read their magazines and drank their much better coffee. Heather had said that she’d come to Amy’s party with me, because I didn’t think I’d know many people, but then she wavered, so I promised to pay for the taxis and buy her vodka, and that we’d only have to stay an hour if it was terrible (although I knew it wouldn’t be) and so she duly showed up at my hotel to do semi shots of Russian Cocaine with me (licks of instant coffee, shots of vanilla vodka and then licks of sugar not off a lemon since we didn’t have any), lace me up and take photos of me dressed up as a pirate:

Mary-Kate, me, Ashley trying to escape

We cabbed out to Amy’s (“Give me an ARRRRRRRRRRRR”), found our way down an impossibly long driveway, and much red pirate punch and good times were had. I got to talk to JSR and Annette lots, and Amy had three costume changes. Her speeches were done in the form of “I have never”, personalised specifically to embarrass her, which was fantastic. I talked to new and interesting people, and Clayton showed up and did the same. And then I KICKED ASS at Singstar. I was undefeated on the night, and achieved my all-time personal best score of 9200 on ‘Material Girl’. Woohaa! Thank you so much for having me Amy, even though I’m sure I overstayed my welcome. I do that a lot.

Sunday

On Sunday the lovely Jessie picked me up so that I could have somewhere to leave my suitcase all day before she took me to the airport, and in exchange I bought her brunch at Deve. Heather popped in to see us so that we could giggle at her gossip, and then she took me to her house where I sat on her bed in the sun, ate home made cookies and dozed a little for a while, before I went down to Occam to catch up with first Penny and then Bopha. Hurray! And then I cabbed to Heather’s to watch the Gilmore Girls and umm, now I really have to wind this up. Flew back in the evening, Anji picked me up. That’s all. I thought I had other bits and pieces to say, but apparently I don’t. I <3 the 09 though.

To contrast totally and utterly with the wonderfulness of Bic, on Monday I took Miss Lisa Fur and Anji and Karen and Bart to what is quite possibly the worst movie ever made in the entire history of the world – Poseidon. I hate people who talk in movies and at gigs and everything, but seriously, I’d had a half-bottle of wine very quickly before the movie, and it was just so fucking atrocious that I had to whisper stupid things in Lisa’s ear the whole way through, when I wasn’t falling out of my chair laughing, that is. Everyone should go see it. It’s like, totally awesome. And it cost $160 million. Puuuuuuuke. The next day when Karen came over to watch Serenity again and dye my hair, we commented that Joss Whedon managed to put more character development in the first five minutes of that movie than Poseidon had achieved in its entire length and the subsequent thousand sequels, if you know, they actually made them, which God willing they never will. And then I cried a little on the inside thinking of how many more adventures Captain Mal could have had if Joss had been given that $160 million instead (answer: at least three more), and then I died a little on the inside when I realised I was starting to think about what Poseidon would have been like if Joss had written the script. And now I realise that I am a total geek. Cos I’ve never had that revelation before, of course…

Today Heather is squeeing at me because I sent her flowers for her birthday, and she’s also quoting the text messages I sent her last Friday, which is making me laugh out loud so much I had to tell the girl I sit with. Stupid gaxy boys indeed.

I had a hot chocolate at Shoc yesterday when I caught up with my lovely Hubrette Frances, who is ex work, and oh boy, I must squee about that. It was pretty much pure melted dark chocolate with cardomon, and was like omgwtfpolarbear amazing. Sure, it cost $5, but my mouth hasn’t had so much pleasure in quite a while.

What else do I have to tell you? Oh, I remember now. You know that I didn’t join the gym with the active goal of losing weight because I didn’t want to get to a point where I was freaking out about not losing grams or whatever, well after I had that big “you’re shrinking!” speech from one of the trainers, I went in on Tuesday and got weighed, and I’ve actually put on seven kilos since I started in November. Cue the “it’s muscle!” speech, but meh, just as well my reason for exercising – keeping my mental health in better condition and sleeping better – have proved to be such total successes. But she measured me up all over, and so now when I go back in six weeks time for another go, I’ll be all like “holy fuck, I put on another 20 kilos of solid muscle and my buttocks are 2cm smaller”. Radsville. Exercise is funny. My pants are falling down, and I’m presuming that’s a good thing.

Anji reminded me last night when I was at her house for dinner about how my pants have also totally fallen down at Boulot, but like, not in the way you’re probably imagining, unless I already wrote about this, but rather because the bit in the button in between the two holes split, so off came the button and down came the pants when I stood up to go to the bathroom. Luckily I was wearing a skirt over the top, and was able to just discreetlyish kick the puddle of pant under the table. She made me and her friend Delwin vegetable lasagne and boysenberry apple crumble. Yum. My belly was about to pop. Her house is pretty, but I still think I like mine better because I have a dining room. And couches. Mmmm couches. Speaking of which, I haven’t cleaned the house properly in like, a couple of weeks. But don’t you worry, by the time 8pm tomorrow rolls around bringing it with Japan at the Country Club, it will be all shiny again. Honest. I spent ages at A-Mart yesterday picking up all kinds of wacky Japanese snackies. When I was rereading Number 9 Dream which is set in Tokyo, I found myself actually missing the city, rather than wanting to throw up at the thought of it. Perhaps this is what growing up means. That and I can laugh at the profile of this guy on Myspace on whom I used to have a massive crush on, but who was (of course!) part of the people who made 7th grade a living hell for me. Ha ha. Sucks to be him. Rocks to be me on a sunny day like today with my skin smelling all clean and good, and my boots currently rocking my universe.

Well, that’s pretty much all I’m going to say about it. I’ve been trying to reign in my gossipy nature (haha! How likely do you think it is that I’ll actually succeed?), although that said, when I showed up at Curve on Saturday night, and Katy said really loudly in front of the passively pursued boy and his new girlfriend “Hey Jo, how was your PASH?” I pledged my eternal love to her. Because I am a small petty man. Or um, large petty girl.

You’ve already read about Friday, so you can probably imagine that after getting home at 6am when I woke up at 1pm on Saturday I was like “FUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK I’m supposed to be at the food show!” and then I rang up Karen and apologised profusely but explained that I was pretty sure that I was still drunk. Then I responded to Jessie‘s text, since she’d obviously been talking to Lisa while I was still unconscious. For the record, a shiny young boy pashed me on Friday night whilst off his head. That’s all. He’s just a hilarious associate who appeared to blush yesterday when I saw him again in passing. Part of me wanted to yell out “dude! it was a pash, and while it was lovely, and you’re cute, that’s it and is sweet as eh, so you have nothing to worry about. Pashing is just nice and I’m sure you know that I actually fancy your friend, even though I do accept the opposite of an asshat rejection speech he gave me” but given that he was surrounded by older women who were cooing over him like he was their son, I just kept my head down and tried not to feel like a child molester instead.

So back to Saturday, I spent the day feeling very very shakey. I ate pizza and drank too much coke and tried to nap but my heart rate decided to go insane and beat at like, a trillion beats per minute. I blame the caffiene, but it’s kept being a little off since then, so I wonder if being around people in small spaces who were smoking pot has made me have traces of anxiousness again. But that’s just gay, so I won’t accept that. Maybe I should just give up caffiene. HAH! Why don’t you tell me to give up drinking while you’re at it? I certainly didn’t give up drinking on Saturday night. Lisa came and picked me up and we went to her house and played records. I have decided that I need to get a record player and start collecting vinyl. I feel like i don’t value music enough these days as I get most of my CDs for free, and I just play it all in the background instead of taking the time to go through the ritual of listening to music. And if I buy vinyl, I can in theory show my appreciation for the bands I really like even if i got their CD for free (although sure, in practice I may end up buying second hand). I am all about the ritual.

Once we’d worked our way through her stack, we took a taxi up to Jimmy’s party in Brooklyn. Jimmy’s house was lovely, as is Jimmy, of course, but every time a Phoenix Foundation song came on, his flatmate would go and change it, so we decided that he was an ass hat (although I’m sure he’s actually quite lovely), and since he was wearing those slip-on Vans, I decided that they’re actually just PLIMSOLES and made fun of him for wearing them. Lisa was like “but you know who else wears them?” and I was like “that’s the point also”. And then there was a girl in unspeakably tight pants, so I made lots of Helen Keller jokes. Again, I’m a little surprised that they let someone who is as obviously 12 as me drive a car and live by herself.

Eventually we said farewell to Jimmy and shared a taxi back into town, and I went to Curve Bar where the KKK were spinning records. Well, Mike and Chrisana were anyway, under the moniker of ‘Guns’n Amo’, which is awesome, as was the music they were playing, but even though the vodkas were $5 each, I was still feeling shakey and not quite up to dancing, so I stood outside and talked to people instead cos I hadn’t seen most of them for ages and ages. Plus someone told me that there are starfish in Antartica that are forty feet across. I bet you didn’t know that. Of course, I can’t confirm it, but maybe you can google it. I had an odd moment at work today when one of the boys rang me up and started going on and on about how he couldn’t sleep the night before because he was up thinking, and I was like “omg, wtf does this have to do with me?”, and yes, I thought in abbreviations like that, honest, before he asked me if I knew what the origins of the phrase ‘Pardon my French’ were. I said I didn’t know exactly, but figured that it was because the French are all dirty and uncouth, and then googled it and found out I was right. Awesome. But back to Saturday night when I saw who the girlfriend mentioned in the second paragraph was, and went “oh! that makes sense!” and was really happy about it. Katy and I shared a cab home, and I babbled my head off to the driver the rest of the way.

On Sunday, it was time for the food show. I love the food show. I wish I could marry it. I especially love almost all of the winemakers on the very very long (60+ wines) Wairarapa stall, whom we got to at about the time that our initial wine-tastings hit us in our hilarious banter spot. I was so upset when I reached the stage that I didn’t think I even wanted to try any more wine, although all food was snapped up with much gusto. Mmmm food show. I bought two bottles of dessert wine, a Stonecutter Pinot Noir (who keeps the metric system down? I do!) and some half baked bread. I also tried whitebait for the first time ever, aaaaaaaaand ummm started to get into a fight with Karen luckily right when she had to get off the bus.

Then Lisa and I went to see the Phoenix Foundation at Chow. They were drunk, and I thought that made them all the more awesome. I like that every time I see them it’s in a different venue with a different vibe. I was sitting by a window, and would every so often see people outside in the complete freezing cold and would think “why the hell aren’t you in here seeing the awesomeness that is this?”

It was a fucking exhausting weekend. I was very very shakey on Monday, partly from the cold, no doubt. Coooooooold. Cold like now when I’m waiting up for Heather to stop having a life and come online. And there we have it, the circular come around thing. I am actually Stephen Colbert, if you hadn’t guessed by now. Or maybe I’m just high on fumes from cleaning the oven and doing the floors with large amounts of bleach. Flat inspection tomorrow. Boo.

Before I get on with the usual recounting of everything, let me just announce Canadia at the Country Club, 5pm Saturday May 6 – don’t worry, it’s planned so that you can come to this and still go to the Phoenix Foundation gig. We’re going to eat pancakes and maple syrup and bacon (if you’re that way inclined) and fries with cheese, and Chocolate Mooooooooooooooousse, and listen to the Arcade Fire and other goodness, and learn facts about Canadia, and end all our sentences with ‘Eh’ and I might plan another few activities, and it’d be rad if you could come.

And now let me get on with Friday night, which saw me leaving work on the dot of five and declining to go out for a drink (holy fucking shit, I know) in favour of going home and doing a mountain of dishes and prepping for my Spanishy potato dish which I’m hereby going to call Papas Garbanzo. Prepping means a mountain of agria potatos cubed and boiled, and cans of chickpeas rinsed and drained, and numerous garlic cloves crushed and roughly chopped and placed in a bowl with diced red onions, and feta crumbled and paired with chopped parsley and a little basil, and spring onions cut into pretty little loops, and chorizo sausages defrosted, diced and fried till crispy and put into yet another bowl. After that there was just time to set the table and get changed before I had to go and pick up Jisa for wacky one-way driving adventures in Brooklyn trying to find Jimmy, and then to Mount Vic for Jessie and Jane. I threw open the invitation to everyone else with a J in my phonebook, but to little avail. Boo-urns. But that’s okay, because we sat in the glowing atmosphere, and drank good red wine, and not so good red wine, and stuffed our faces with the papas garbanzo, and the green beans almondine, and then coconut cream and apple cake with caramelised peaches and raspberry strawberry SORBET (which you must yell like “Ole!”) and Jessie told us rock’n roll stories and we annoyed her with a lot of usage of the phrase “like throwing a sausage down a hallway” and its many variations. It was a geniusly good time.

On Saturday my head hurt, but I had to get up early to gossip to Heather and confirm that it was indeed her who had been drunkenly texting me the night before. Then there were an awful lot of dishes to do. Nevertheless I did them, and napped, and made myself pretty in time to meet the divine KateH, or Popular Kate as you may remember her, for dinner at Arashi. It was so nice to go out just with her – we tried to think of when the last time we’d done that may have been, and the best we could come up with was like, July 2002. We followed that with a drink at Harem, which was wacky crazy cool and I wish we’d eaten dinner there cos the menu looked yum, but as it was, we had to knock our cocktails back quickly in order to make it to Dylan Moran on time. He was genius, wonderful, excellent, angry drunken belligerant hott Irishman. His onstage persona was much like Bernard Black, but a little more articulate. Hott. I laughed lots, and I also laughed a bit because my friends who saw the show in Auckland said that there were many curvy bookish type women in the audience there, and so it was in Wellington. Afterwards we went to Good Luck for a drink, and meant to go to Bodega for the A Low Hum, but the cocktails were just too good and we didn’t want to get up. Eventually though with KateB in tow we decided we wanted food and headed back to Harem which was shut, so we went to Tupelo instead, where stupid boys tired to impress us with their asses, drank from our wine bottle and tried to offend us with videos on a cellphone of a girl who ejaculated semen out of her very hemaroided bottom. It’s probably not the kind of thing you want to see every day, but if you’re introduced to it with the “this is so offensive, this is totally going to offend you” type introduction, there is no way in hell that you’re going to be offended. Except by the guy’s total stupidity. KateB disappeared, and Tupelo shut down, so KateH and I were forced to sit outside in the alleyway with KateB’s coat and bag for LITERALLY half an hour since KateB’s phone was in her bag, and we were not overly impressed by that.

On Sunday I slept in late, and then later I picked up KateH and she came over for dinner, and surprise surprise, she knew people that Bart’s mum knew. And we watched the Garland video, and looked at photos, and read the bible, and oh, how long ago Uni was and how young and full of hope we were all then.

And now Sebby has been missing for 24 hours, and I am worrrrrrrrrrrrrrieeeed. Today I had lunch with Amy and Andeee but they had friends and sisters there and so we didn’t really gossip, and I haven’t seen them since 2004, and it was strange. And no one is upstairs at work today, and I had to log on downstairs in the morning and the boy’s computer that I was using was sticky and eww. And blah blah. I hope Sebby comes home when I get home today after PAYING FOR MY FLIGHTS. Wahoo!

Come to Canadia. What’s that all about eh?

EDIT: He wasn’t there when I got home, even after I called and called him so I went to my room and bawled and bawled, and then I heard him mewling and he came in and I cuddled him and cried some more, and he was like “sheesh, what’s the big idea, it’s only been 30 hours but can I have some extra food please?”

But we can scoot backwards in time, to Thursday morning and I’m leaving the backdoor key out for our downstairs neighbour Eve so that she can look after Sebastian that night since Anji had already flown to Auckland for work, and loading my bags into Lisa Fur’s car boot and folding myself into the backseat because Fran was in the front. And then it’s a week later, and I’m switching from present tense into past, because I’m not a choose-your-own adventure book, as much as I’d like to be. A quick study guide to the BDO was playing on the stereo, and there was a monkey to show the country to. Goats were thrown at first sightings of mountains, which resulted in the people in front of us pulling aside to let us pass. The toilets in Tirau are still the best place in the country to stop, and driving into Auckland still sort of feels like a kick in the guts six years later. Lisa’s car made it on one tank of petrol though, which is incredible.

Heather wasn’t home for Fran to be dropped off to, so we headed to the place that Lisa and I were staying, the Comfort Inn on Newton Road. We’d scored ourselves a big two bedroom apartment with parking for only $65 a night each, sweet sweet accomodation candy. Heather showed up and had some beers, and we headed up the road to Gina’s for dinner. If you’re not familiar with Auckland, Gina’s is (in)famous for its ridiculously hot and over-the-top waiters. The food’s pretty good too, but it’s insanely busy, and took a long time, and it was very very crowded. We went back to the apartment and had more wine. I love the litre bottles of Banrock.

The next day it was Friday and therefore bdoing day. Lisa and I went to meet up with Heather and Fran at Roasted, and then I called an incredibly incompetant taxi driver who took half an hour to find us and kept calling me on my cellie. We got there just before Pluto started. I forgot how many people go to the Big Day Out. There were a lot of people there. Pluto were okay. They played some new songs which was nice, and drums were pounded very heartily, but I just don’t know if their heart is in it anymore. Then I put my earplugs back in (hurray for being a grown-up!) and waded through the crowd trying to get out of the stupid (but I’m sure it’s important when the stadium is actually full) D-Barrier. Texts to Lisa found her again, and we went and got our passes for the Immortals Lounge, courtesy of a wonderful friend.

I felt special as we got to ride the big glass elevator up to the sky. We got to use cleanish bathrooms, and the bar queue was short and there was a better selection (but only Lion Red or Steinie, so I saw that it would be a beer-free day for me). The view was very choice. Then it was time to skootch back down to the Green stage for Sleater Kinney. I wish I knew their music better. If ever there was going to be a replacement for Hole in my “strong women make me feel strong” listening, it could very well be them.

Breaks Coop were playing next, and I’m not a repetitive old woman so I decided to run away quickly to a clean bathroom up in the Immortals Lounge again. I checked the time on my cellphone while I was up there, and bought a drink, and then discovered that my phone was gone. Rad. I went through my bag and looked on the floor by the bar. No phone. Excellent. Then Lisa showed up, luckily, and after asking at the bar after my phone, we went down to see the Go! Team. It made me feel very grumpy though, losing phones sucks. I was going to try calling it from Lisa’s phone but realised I’d never hear it.

Then the Go! Team started, and they were fantastic, and I had a boogie, despite my knees being already like “hey lady, remember us? We don’t like this kind of behaviour one little bit”. I wish I could shake my bottom like Ninja. Fuck it – I wish I was Ninja. Their album is definitely going on my ‘to buy’ list.

I can’t remember when it was that the Brunettes started to play, but I took a photo of all the people on stage.

Someone said that there were 20 people in the orchestra (You don’t expect me to actually try and count do you?). Their rider can’t go very far. I wish I’d stayed for them, but I’d already realised that I am much too old for the Big Day Out.

My knees led me over to the fence by the beer area and I sat down for the Magic Numbers and took some Nurofen Plus. Mmm codeieney. But people don’t look at the ground when they’re walking, and they kept kicking or tripping over my legs – despite the fact that there were people sitting all the way along against the fence, and it was just pissing me off too much so I decided to pop up to the Immortals Lounge again. More liquor and more codeine was taken, and I pulled an armchair up to the window at the back of the lounge and settled down for Shihad:

They played their standard fare. If I hadn’t been so doped up, I might have been a little sad that I wasn’t in the mosh, but then again, if I had been, I wouldn’t have been able to see how fantastic the crowd’s arms looked when they did ‘Pacifier’. But I was, so that was okay. When I felt lonely I had another drink. Haha excellent. Then a guy who was Kateb’s brother’s best friend growing up who’s now in a band that I interviewed for Pulp a while ago came over and hugged me, and tried to introduce me to his fiance, but given that she was a friend of Kateb’s at uni, I already knew her. And that was the only people at the Big Day Out who I bumped in to, apart from Jessie. That was strange, cos I am used to seeing so many people I know there, and I was actually a little bit afraid of who I might bump in to.

Franz Ferdinand played, and they were pretty average, and my arm chair was very comfortable. Then Iggy started, and I was like “what the fuck am I doing? This is the Big Day Out and I’m sitting up here like those wankers that I hate at gigs who only go because they get in free, and they don’t even like music”, and plus the BDO book talked about a cocktail bar in Lilyworld, so I went off to find that. Apparently, the cockails are only in Australia. I also couldn’t find the Krishna food stall, so I had a $9 kebab instead because I realised that I’d had one TEN YEARS AGO at my first Big Day Out, and washed it down with a Lion Red, Mate. I contemplated having a dance, but I was too chicken/sober to dance by myself with the models. Did I bitch about the girl carrying the Nova bag yet? I mean, hi, you’re wearing high heels and an expensive looking dress, and you’re stick thin and gorgeous. We get the point. You’re a model. You don’t need to tell us what agency you’re with. If I was to bitch about the other 30,000 people there though it would take far too long. I’m too old and jaded. And I was also kind of lonely. It’s fine to be by yourself at the Big Day Out if it’s your choice, but if you’re just a lost puppy who can’t contact people cos no one has handed your phone in, then it sucks.

I sat at the back of the stadium and took photos of the human lightening people, who could have been a lot more impressive than they actually are:

Then the White Stripes started.

They looked kind of cool, but the sound was craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy at the back there, and I couldn’t stomach going up closer.

I went to go and wait at the rendevouz spot that I’d (phew!) arranged with Lisa earlier in the day, and then Jessie was there, and I was like YAY and hugged her and felt a bit like I did that one time at the Gathering when I found Katy and Anji after I’d been lost for a couple of hours and thought tents were frozen bodies from Titanic and that there were Jim Henson creatures walking around me and I’d lost the ability to speak, except, you know, without the acid. And Lisa showed up, and Fran, and we got told off for walking on the road by a policeman, and we took a taxi and we went home, hurray! It was strange to leave a Big Day Out and still be able to walk and not have my ears ringing,and I wasn’t too badly sunburnt except for my nose. I am no longer hardcore. I miss being hardcore.

On Saturday Lisa and I met Heather and Jamie from NZM at Benediction. I’ve decided that avocado on turkish bread is quite possibly one of the best breakfasts ever. Then I made Heather come to St Lukes with me, and I used a Farmers voucher leftover from Xmas to get myself a new phone. Then, of course, I went back to her house to charge my phone and check my email, because that’s the only reason I’m friends with her. I also got to watch Alt TV, and I wet my pants in delight at seeing a Guns’n Roses video that I’d forgotten even existed. Awesome.

I went home and had a bath and tried to nap but it was too hot so I read magazines and texted people back going “who is this?” because of the lack of numbers. Exciting, yes, I know. Luckily my social secretary KateH had booked us all for a dinner at 8pm at Canton. Holy crap I love the food there, it’s soooooo good. And for $16 each, we certainly ate plenty. Then people came back for some more drinks, and someone called me trying to arrange a booty-call for the morning (*) and I was metaphorically speechless.

This is Shirley and KateH and her boyfriend Andrew:

This is Maree, who was up from Hamilton for the weekend:

This is J.C and Nigel, who is doing his best J.D Fortune look, while claiming never to have watched ‘INXS: Rockstar’:
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What’s more interesting than looking at photos of people you don’t know? Relating dialogue from the night? Yeah, so I’ll stop this now. On Sunday Lisa and I drove back down to Wellington. I like visiting my friends in Auckland. I love the Arcade Fire. The end.