I haven’t been writing as often as I would have liked to have been writing. I think that’s partly because my last entry was so fucking mammoth, and partly because some of the noise in my head is NOT FOR YOU (which is sad actually, that I feel the need to censor myself because now more than ever there are more people that I know reading my journal than there ever used to be). I need to do more writing though. Last week I wrote 14 album reviews in one day. That perhaps wasn’t the best way to do it, but oh well, you get what I’m paid for. And I don’t get paid for these reviews. Just a heads up though, I’m loving Ghostplane and The Cloud Room and Art Brut and rully not loving HIM. Strangely enough. If we’re going to get all the recent things I’ve enjoyed out of the way too, I must spend a couple of sentences talking about Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell which kept me enthralled for weeks and weeks, the mountain of a book that it is, although it gave me a creepy undercurrent of unease every time I read it, in a way not dissimilar to House of Leaves. And I was a little unsatisfied by the ending I think, it all seemed to come to a stop really soon after all the build up, but it was indeed bloody excellent.
Okay, on with the show. What have I been up to the past week? Hmm. On Thursday, we had a quiz night at work. I think I impressed several people with my dazzling knowledge of mostly useless facts AND I managed to drink quite a lot too. What an achievement! While I wasn’t hungover the next day, I was full of cringe for arriving at work two hours late – when I’d woken up at 7.50am, I reset my alarm clock, as I always do, but I made it 7.30 instead of 8.30, and so it didn’t go off, and so I didn’t get up and oh the crapness that is me. That combined with things like Thursday Morning Teas, and taking off on the dot of 5pm on Friday to go up to the other building to polish off the beers left over from the quiz night has meant that my output is down. But I will also put that down to the fortnightly cycle. Yes.
Anyways, drinks on Friday were pleasant and amusing as usual. I went home around 8ish I think, cos we’d finished the beer, and I brought takeaways and put on my pajamas and settled down to watch TV. But then I was like “no! I want to go out!”, and I was still annoyed cos I was supposed to be hanging with Dave but he’d gone out with my sister the night before to an event I hadn’t been invited to and was too hungover. So I texted Katy, and found out that she was intending to go to Ghostplane, so I ran a hairdryer over my hair and dusted off my chucks. I was apprehensive about showing up and being a no-mates, but I didn’t want to stay at home any longer, so after texting Lisa Ratpony and discovering she was going to be on her way, and knowing that Kartini and Co would be there, I set off via eftpos taxi. Stupid no cashness.
I found Kartini & Mike and LisaB at the bar, and so I hung out with them. I really must remember what Lisa’s last name is more in the future, to avoid the sort of confusion that happened a couple of weeks ago with the girl whose birthday party it was not being that Lisa Lisa. Not that it was the end of the world or anything, but y’know, it just makes sense to know where you’re going or why you’re there. Meestar were playing, and they sounded pretty choice, even though I only know one song of theirs and that’s off a CD called Pimpu wa doko desuka? (Where are the pimps anyway?), so we sat outside and they smoked instead. It was a pretty damn cold night out in Wellington, and only two of the heaters were on, so I was glad to go inside when Ghostplane started playing. The stage was all set up with blue and green lights and waves and stuff, in keeping with the whole Under the Lagoon theme, and damn it looked purty. Then Katy showed up, and I felt like talking to her, so we went outside again, because as you know, people who talk near the stage at gigs are evil motherfuckers who need to be killed a lot. There was much discussion of graffiti in the toilets – including one particular piece that needed to have a last name censored out of it (by the way, has anyone found my KA messages yet?) and more beer was drunk, and blah blah blah, it was just a really good time, and I’m so glad I left the house again. Katy and I split a cab home via takeaway cheesecake from Midnight and I stayed up late watching watching taped Rockstar: INXS and getting teary at Jordis’s ‘Imagine’ and Marty’s ‘Wish You Were Here’. Awww bless.
Then I was forced to make a really hard decision in a two party system. Would I vote Newtown or Brooklyn for election coverage watching? Well, I went with the one with Hott Boy possibilities (Jimmy aside, of course, because obviously he’s SHRN, but not this particular Hott Boy). Saturday was DEMOCRACY DAY, and I was as excited as a kid at Xmas, except I was also terrified that there might be cunts in this country who would sell us out for an extra $20 a week who would result in us all getting a rather nasty lump of coal in our metaphorical stockings. But when Anji got home, I LITERALLY (not really) skipped up to the polling booth. We debated for a while about where to go (email suggestions telling me where to go are welcome) and since she wasn’t entirely sure if she was registered in Wellington Central or Rongotai we decided we’d give the school on Elizabeth St a go, since we were going to be going to Liquor King anyways. Since I’d spilled beer on my red top the night before, I was all about my green t shirt. I had debated with myself and others long and hard about whether or not to vote Labour or Green with my party vote, and the night before i’d finally decided to do what was in my heart, and on the basis of them being the only party ot talk about public transport, I went Green. I was going to be ticking the Annette King box anyways, so I was all red and green like an Xmas tree. Of course, I got to stick it in the special short box since i was out of my electorate – like many other green voters, I’m hoping. But perhaps we’ll come to that later.
Supermarket shopping was done and vodka was purchased, although I do kind of not like the fact that I got ID’d for vodka but not for voting – I mean, which one is more important? Then I made three flavours of vodka jelly (Raspberry Labour, Lime Green and Orange elections) and napped and blah blah blah, then it was a green scarf wrapped around my neck and red raspberry fizz to go with my vodka, and off to Kartini’s went I. You know what’s fucking choice? Watching TV with people who say things like “I think Steven Parker has a Giles-like past” and knowing what they mean, and then having those same people later compare Gerald Brownlee to Crab and Goyle. Ahhhh politics + pop culture = SHRN. We cheered and cheered every time Labour went up a .1, and cackled when National went down. We also drank in delight when the marvelous John Campbell threw shoutouts to the drinking game, saying “I just have to cut in now – oh and that means that all you drinking game players need to drink now”. How incredibly meta. I think I might try to develop a line of DVDs of cult movies with drinking game rules built in as subtitles. OI, BACK OFF, PREDATORS. Anyways. Maybe you should play a drinking game with my journal whereby you take a drink every time I do, and also every time I use my phrase de jour (such as SHRN). That’d rock. Rock! Okay, now you must drink.
After that, Katy tried to call her parents in Mexico so we missed out on a taxi with some people so we took another one in to a place in town which is a place of work where people were drinking, and the lovely Nial put a beer in my hands while some guy was metaphorically humping Katy’s legs, so I went to the bathroom and texted her that, and then when I came back he was literally doing it. Ahh it’s nice to be back on the Internet where I can make jokes about Humpy and know that youse guys get it. Or at least the footnoters do anyways. Go Level Two Hubrettes! I tried to be brave and stalk a hott boy across town, but when I finaaaaaaaaaaaally got to where he was, he was just on his way home. Sigh. Spring sucks! I am so in desperate need of being sprung. Of course I am on heat for many many boys but this is the only one that I could imagine actually telling. I think he’d be the kind to appreciate the straight talk.
Speaking of appreciating my pajamas (ha! see how I slipped in a masturbation joke right there? No? Well I’ve obviously not slept with you then), Sunday was a perfect day for duvets and pjs and DVDs. It was also good for getting texts with HOT GOSSIPICIOUS SCANDAL from Karen (for those in the know: it’s the same thing again), and roast dinners around the dining room table. How civilised!
But I’m still feeling a little sad, because on Sunday morning I dreamt I was at my book launch, and it was the most fantastic elaborate party ever – there were huge big trays going around with large slabs of expensive European chocolate, and kiwifruit champagne was pouring by the gushful, and lots of people I loved were there, but no one would give me a copy of my book, and I knew I wasn’t particularly happy with it, because it was something that I’d started writing in seventh form English, and I threw a tantrum at the publishers because they hadn’t arranged for me to actually get to read the book before it was published. Then after I’d stopped crying, and I’d left the party, I bumped into someone who used to be a big part of my life, and I wanted to show him my fabulous achievement, when he was all “oh, check out this book I just wrote” and I was trying to find a copy of mine and I couldn’t. Waking up and finally remembering that I haven’t actually written a book was even more devestating than the time I woke up and realised that I wasn’t actually recording an album in Bic Runga’s studio.
EDIT: Inspired by Heather’s comment, I now present A VERY EXCITING COMPETITION. Create ten rules for a Hubris drinking game. Best entries win hott prizes. Post them below.