Hubris.co.nz

Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I had four nights in Auckland, and such is my obsession with Rockstar: Supernova and my lack of laptopness (update: it’s with Bond & Bond for hopefully fixage), and my surprisingly large workload (project managing. Me. Whodda thunk it?) that I have yet to write about it. So now I will.

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.

We could say that this bout was kicked off by the email “I’ve got some bad news – apparently he’s seeing someone, my friend said he was out on a date” but I think we – or at least I know that it’s actually about me, not about him. The crushes are interchangeable. What remains constant is how I cope – or don’t, how personally I take every rejection (cos duh, rejection is a personal thing), how much I worry about how much this will close me up even more. So I’m cocooning. I don’t want to be told “oh well at least you ahve a new friend”, because so fucking what? I don’t particularly feel like torturing myself with hanging out with someone I can’t have, that’s generally not my style (and yes, there’s always exceptions). I don’t want to be told “I told you so” because believe me, I’m telling myself that enough for two. All I want is a shoulder to cry on, one that’s not going to try and figure me out or puzzle it through or offer trite cliches because I’d rather tear out my womb and eat it than listen to the same old things over and over again, which is of course somewhat ironic on account of how you suckers are reading the same thing over and over again, on a montly basis. I hate my womb. Maybe I should tear it out. If I could reach it with tweezers or hot wax in the socially acceptable way, I would inflict the pain like that.

I worry that I cannot communicate my thoughts and feelings clearly – not only the hesitantness that I metaphorically dipped my toe in with in this particular scenario, but also in the way I describe the after-effects. I suspect this wasn’t helped by venting about a different thing on a particularly stupid-in-these-kinds-of-contexts workmate, who totally missed the point of a discovery that the ex girlcrush had only been with her boyfriend for a short while and therefore I wasn’t actually as stupid as I thought I was not to know about it. But there are plenty of other things that make me go “well, am I really that dumb or not?” And again, sure, some of this is in relation to that boy, but remember, I was never that sure if I really liked him or if it was just the thought that maybe he liked me that made me like him. This could be me being all in denial, so to offer up proof, I will tell you that I never thought of him whilst wanking. Assuming I’ve crushed on him since February 19, and my journal will back up that date, that’s at least 140 times that I haven’t thought of him.

And as always, I am terrified that the state of my mental health is crumbling. Three nights of heavy drinking over the weekend didn’t help, nor did yet another blast-from-the-past getting in contact via the internet. FUCK YOU INTERNET. I am scared that I’m going to relapse into being utterly dependent on other people, and I fought for a long time to not be like that. I’m scared that I am trying to alienate myself from my friends right now in order to fight that. I’m scared that I will cease to be entertaining, and that I try to buy friends, and that I won’t be able to sustain current friendship circles, because until this bout kicked in I was feeling glorious and popular and content, and we all know I can’t have that. I’m scared that I make excuses, I’m scared that bring all the scaredness upon myself. I’m once again longing for celepram, but I’m supposed to have all my shit together now.

Then Humpy went and sent me a job ad for a position in Auckland and I went “fuck this sounds like a really good job, content editing music sites” and then I freaked out about the thought of having to move to Auckland just when my homelife is all working out so well, and then I thought about how I might apply for that job and they might reject me, and then I wondered where exactly my career is taking me, and what if we don’t get the new tender for the site that I manage now, and then I came up with reasons not to apply for the job, and then I hated myself just a little bit more and I just don’t know what to do about it. Exercise. Take St John’s wort. Pray for my bleed. It can’t be far off. I’m mangoing and I think I felt the start of a cramp last night. Cross your fingers for me. Do the blood dance. Can I ask you to humour me a little longer?

In the “and I’m sure you’ll totally be keen to hang out with me if I’m still like this then” news, I’m coming to Auckland in July, from 14-16. Hurrah for impulse buying and credit cards. I’ve also paid for my flights to the States in October, hurrah.

Last week I was totally stressed out and in desperate need of a holiday – as evidenced by me crying in the toilets at work on Thursday morning, and not even playing Appetite for Destruction over and over in my headphones so loud that I couldn’t hear the phone on my desk ring helped. Nice one. Now I am back at work and am in desperate need of a holiday to recover from my holiday, but I don’t want to stop thinking about it or talking about it cos I had like the bestest time ever. This is how it went down.

Please note: I will gradually update this over the course of the day, so if I’m still not back in Wellington in the account, keep coming back.

My flight to Auckland was pretty bog standard, the only thing that made it slightly more interesting was that the main road out to Wellington Airport was closed, so the shuttle driver had to go a different way and it made me realise that if it had been me driving I would have been stuffed. On the plane I started reading Star Man, which is a biography of Michael Francis. You’re like, “who?” and I’m like “omg, you mean you don’t know?” and then I explain that he served as a security bodyguard type person for Led Zepplin, and Bon Jovi, and Cher and an assortment of others, and then you say “ahhh Jo, when will you stop reading those rockstar biographies and return to real literature?” and I punch you in the head.

The airport bus driver in Auckland was also head-punching worthy with the way that he threw away my perfectly valid ticket that i’d purchased from a machine when I got back from Fiji for a bus that had never shown up, and made me buy a new one. Grr. I should write a letter, but you know, that would be too constructive when instead I could just sit here and bitch about it. But at least the bus dropped me off right outside the Pulp offices, where I could go up to meet the new editor, and struggle to call her by her real name instead of Carla. I don’t think I’ve ever really chatted with someone who’s been on Shortland St for a significant period of time for a significant period of time before (ha ha, do you like what I did there with that sentence?), hence why it was so damn difficult. But she was very complimentary, and said that she hoped I would continue to write for them, and blah blah, and I said I want to, it’s just that i’ve had no ideas and I’ve been really busy. But I will continue to do the music reviews cos they’re easy enough to pop out.

After that, I couldn’t get ahold of anyone who wanted to play with me, so I went down to Queen St and parked my ass in front of Crash and proceeded to cry lots, of course. Some of it was a little predictable, and some seemed a little cliched, but the way that every character was given depth, and that everyone was a villan at one time or another was really interesting. I can think of lots of people who should go and see it (you know who I’m thinking of if you read NZm). I also find it vaguely amusing that on IMDB there’s a big thread abotu how black people talk too much at the movies. Ha ha, it seems like someone wasn’t paying attention…

Then it was back on the bus to Ponsonby and to my hotel via the liquor store on Williamson Ave. I stayed at the Quest on Ponsonby, and it immediately endeared itself to me when I didn’t have to give them a cash bond in lieu of a credit card imprint. I was less impressed by how warm it was in the room, but after a conversation with reception, I figured out (read: was told) that if I turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows (which I didn’t realise were openable) and that was choice. Of course, the water feature in the courtyard was pee-making, but the bathroom was black and shiny and great, and reminded me of the bathroom in Olivia’s old Living Cube ™. Plus, halogen lights! How rad does my hair and skin look under halogen? Much radder than in real life anyways, that’s for sure.

Eventually Penny showed up to show me her wedding photos and we had a glass of wine together:

It was lovely to see her and to hang out, even for an hour. I got to look at all her wedding photos, so I was like “awwwww”. I wanna get married too! Penny was like “did you get implants?” because I was already dressed up to go out. No no friend, I just discovered the metaphorical joys of architecture and airbags, and the literal joy of one air pocket for Mary-Kate. After all, if people are going to be talking to your boobs, they might as well have something for people to talk about. Umm, not that everyone was, of course. Ha.

Anyways, so then it was time for dinner at Sawadee which the lovely KateH had arranged for me:

I had Heather and Jessie to my left, although Jessie is mysteriously absent in this badly edited picture:

Then there were the Triple As, who arrived after our entrees but that’s okay. Actually to be perfectly honest, Amy wasn’t even eating with us, but flitted over with her pina colada every so often, because she had a work do too.

Luckily she made it into this picture too, so that I can pretend I have lots more friends. Although of course, since I’m cunningly cropped out of the KateH picture, you have no evidence that I was ever there at all, but here’s the view from around the rest of the table:

I was so fucking stoked that Bopha showed up. Just being near her makes me feel Zen. Of course I was glad to see everyone else too. And to eat tofu. Mmmm tofu. I did a lot of the Bridget Jones introducing people with a common interest thing, but some of my lines totally crashed and burned. Boo-urns.

Both KateH and Jessie had managed to secure a plethora of spare tickets to The Mountain Goats, so we tried to convince the Triple As to come too, but they declined, so the rest of us went back up to my hotel room for some more drinks before the gig. It was so choice just to have some of my favouritist people in the whole wide world piled on my bed.

KateH told a story about how her friend’s grandfather died being looked after by everyone he cared about in the house he was born in and made me cry. Oh the pain of having to retouch my makeup! There was much textage to assorted other people in assorted other places(*), and talk of sex but I can’t remember of what context it was in except that it was very very amusing. Oh yeah, perhaps we were talking about hairy people. Also I told the story of SUPER FUN VAGINA SURGERY for those who hadn’t read it. I suspect that might have been it. Eventually minus Bopha we piled into KateH’s car – which is no longer yellow, and that’s strange (well it’s not so strange, given that it’s a new car, it’s not like her old one metamorphesized, but I haven’t ridden in it before. So there) and headed on up to Shadows.

Apart from a couple of post AUT bar beers in 2003, I don’t think I’ve been to Shadows since the olden days of 1999, so it was strange to be going back there, but amusing to be actually asked for ID and being able to show valid ones, instead of doctored birth certificates and fake ISSIC cards. Also, dya know what’s great about Shadows? JUGS! I’d already dancing a jiggling jug jig for my friends back at the hotel, so I am of course referring to large amounts of beer for a mere $6.20 a pop. Hurray liquor!

Also, let’s have some hurrays for Interweb people coming to introduce themselves, like Chris who was absolutely lovely, and looked like Kayleigh from Firefly and then later Calum who is like, the definition of SHRN. I was very excited to meet them. Also Sam was at the gig and was texting to find us, but he couldn’t, and we could see him calling us, and it was very amusing for a while until I told him where we were. And Amanda was there too (and while I’m all happy with the pics, I wanted to cuddle up to her bosoms like this again, but didn’t, cos I’m sure that would have been inappropriate)

,
and Nigel, and and and oh just so many people I know. Is it any wonder that I was later described as “holding court with the scensters”? No sir. So I didn’t actually see the Mountain Goats at all. I vaguely heard them, but you know how much I hate those motherfuckers who talk at the front of gigs? Of course I sat at the back. And then many hours later, they kicked us out cos we were the last to leave.

For reasons unknown or unremembered (*), Heather and I decided to go to Rakino’s, and so the lovely KateH dropped us off there. Rakino’s was packed full to the brim of hipsters, but we managed to find a spot on the balconey to sit and drink even more beer and try to find our friend via text who turned out to be at a strip club. But there were so many hipsters though. Perhaps it was the official after party? I don’t know, I wasn’t that aware of much at the time.

In fact, it took Heather reminding me the next day for me to remember that after Rakino’s we went and had a couple of cocktails in Deschlers. Ahhh Deschlers. The cocktails were still really excellent, and because it was who knows when in the morning, we got a booth and lovely service, and no one was watching the rugby, unlike the last time I was there which was just so wrong wrong wrong. I hate to think of how many cocktails I have had there – or more specifically, what else I could have done with the money. Oh the memories. I didn’t put my hand on her leg under the table though, because I am not that type of girl any more. And then we shared a taxi to drop me off in Ponsonby and her back at her house. It was an awesome awesome night(*).

I woke up on Saturday to a cacophany of noise, and I wondered who the hell was in my room, and then I wondered where the hell I was, and what the hell I was wearing. Sometimes it’s terribly difficult being me. Once I figured out the answers (1. The window was open and overlooking the cafe in the courtyard 2. I was in a hotel room in Auckland and 3. Pajamas. I must have fallen asleep before I had a chance to take them off) I felt a lot better. So much so that I got up and took a shower and texted Heather to see if she wanted to get brunch. She was still in bed so I went back to sleep and woke up feeling much much crappier. I wandered up and down Ponsonby Road for ages, clutching the Thai doggybag in my hand looking for a cab because thinking was hard, and the sun was shining, and oh my, my stomach had felt happier on other days. But eventually I managed to snag one, and smile and nod my way over to Heather’s, and collapse on her floor. She was in much of a similar condition.

I begged and I begged her to come out to a cafe with me, but they were so very far away (read: 100 metres or so) that we just couldn’t do it. She kept offering me eggs, because apparently she doesn’t realise that I am like DEATH TO ALL EGGS, but eventually she decided to go and buy some bacon and some coke and some potato chips. I puked and checked my email while waiting forher to come back. The lovely girl went and got coffee too! And orange juice. And ready salted chips AND salt and vinegar delisimo chips. Have you tried delisimo chips yet? They are very much the shit even if most of their flavours (like tzaiki) just end up tasting like sour cream & chives. It was the best breakfast ever. So we sat around listening to music, watching tv, chatting to people on the interweb and just generally chilling (*).

Eventually it got to be around 6ish, so I texted Shirley and she very kindly came and picked me up and I took her to dinner. We were going to go to Roasted, but couldn’t find a park so we ended up at Occam. The waiter was snooty, and they had Celine Dion turned up at levels that must surely have been intended to piss off the kitchen staff, so I yelled out my order. The hint wasn’t taken though. I thought about asking them to turn it down but decided just to bitch instead. My eye fillet was goooooooood though. Then it was to the supermarket for chocolate, and wine and a birthday present for Justin – I found him a magic eight ball. Excellent. I napped for half an hour back at my hotel room, and then walked to Shirley’s, via a little knee wobbling as I walked past a place where many years ago, I had received a most unexpected but very very wanted pash. Oh *IV! Oh the get the fuck over it!

Anyways, Shirley lives in a very cool big old villa near Ponsonby Road, and her flatmates have filled it with ex pantomime sets, including a light-up Sky Tower. Her bathroom is bigger than many people’s bedrooms. It’s pretty rad. So we had a drink – or at least I did, she had a half glass, and headed out to find Justin’s party. It was very much like First Year Uni, with Shirley driving, and me drunk in the front seat hanging on for dear life. Except that I wasn’t at all drunk cos of the hangover, but you know, close enough.

For Justin’s 30th, he and his friend decided to throw themselves a Howick themed party, since that was where they grew up (ha ha!). Luckily, they had it in Mt Albert instead of Howick. However, they did still come in costume:

Hot Toddy had found the outfits in lost & found for them since he teaches there now. Justin had put signs up around his house denoting various notorious Howick places, like Musik Point which I’d already seen when Brad took me and KateB and Clayton on a pash tour (and I’d just like to throw out a great big FUCK YEAH! to Google Desktop which found that phrase ‘pash tour’ as quickly as I could type it in. I will be doing this a lot more, I think. The linking to old entries, not the Pash Touring. Although I’d like to do that too please). Shirley and I sat down in a corner because we knew very few people (As I said to her, “Oh, none of the multitude of Justin’s friends that I have brought to orgasm are here”) and Hot Toddy told us facts about wherever it was, which was that George Bernard Shaw had stayed there. When I told Justin that, he was very impressed. But yes, there were lots of people there, and I recognised some of them like Hott Jason (hi, are you still reading my journal four and a bit years later?) and a girl who’d been on the PR Grad Dip with me (who had told me many things about another one of Justin’s friends from the second to last set of parenthesisisiisis), but I was soberish and just feeling really meh. It was strange thinking about how five years ago Justin had his 25th at Garland, and just how different then was to now. Plus, I wanted to go see Ryan McPhun and the Ruby Suns, so around 11pmish we left to go pick up Heather.

At the King’s Arms I was greeted with a “Hey Wellington!” by Matthew Crawley, who seems to always be everywhere (it was he who did a raid on Garland resulting in smoke bombs and Tom Jones posters in the toilet, although I was too busy sex0ring the skankiest guy in teh world at the time to realise. Actually, looking back, that’s a lie. It actually happened at Justin’s 25th, so I was busy doing something that is not ever refered to). Gareth was also there, strangely enough, given that he was playing. We went outside for Heather to have a cigarette, and then when we went back inside, Calum came up and talked to us.

This is where I go a bit squee and wax lyrical about the adoreableness of Calum. I’m not alone in doing it, Heather and Shirley too are members of his fan club. And now you’re about to be:

And one taken on an angle because apparently that’s what hipsters do:

That’s what I love about these (metaphorical) high school boys – I get older, they stay the same age….Ha ha ha, we are dirty old women.

The Ruby Suns were also very very awesome, and I enjoyed them immensely. If you’re not familiar with them, I will say that they’re from Lil Chief Records, which is also home to The Brunettes, so they’re vaguely similar, in the cute Americanisms xylophone instrument swapping kinda way. Yeah. How long has the I need to hurry up and get one of my own before every damn hipster in town has one installed. Also, since I had my handbag with me, and therefore a pen, I grafittied two stalls in the women’s toilets. First person to email me and tell me what I wrote gets a prize. But all good things come to an end, and when everyone else left to go to Die! Die! Die!, Shirley took me and Heather home via junk food. Hurrah.

The next day I checked out at 12pm, and had breakfast, and went to Kyla’s and held Felicity and cried. Then I walked to Shirley’s and hung out and then took a shuttle to the airport and then they stuck me in a business class seat and I listened to Bon Jovi on my iPod because of Star Man and I pretended I was a rock star and that was my holiday and yay I am done now.