Hubris.co.nz

Some fucker stole my golden lampshade out of the garage. You’re a fucker, fucker. How did it get there in the first place? Well, that’s a good question. On Friday, I bought a chandelier for the lounge at a store called JoJo that’s on the corner of Victoria and Manners St. I could have bought the same chandelier for the same price in that little store full of shiny things in the Duke’s Arcade, but the scary woman in there scares me too much. If I had a camera, I’d take a photo of it to show you, but of course you know that I lost my camera a couple of Fridays ago.

There wasn’t really a chance for me to have lost my camera this Friday though, as it was terribly civilised. I hiked up to the Herd Street Bra after work to meet up with Tom and Che and MG and their respective partners for a drink. Karen came along and we headed off to New World for dinner supplies and to be picked up by Miss Lisa. We shredded roast chicken and tossed it with chickpeas, feta, avomacado, cashews, red capsicum, spring onions and coleslaw fixings and ate it in piles with walnut bread. And then we watched Captain Tightpants some more, woo hah. I suspect sometimes that I should find a new expression other than “woo hah”, because while it is awesome, it is definitely overused.

On Saturday, I went and had my alonetime brunch at Elements. On my drive there I noticed a filing cabinet inside the Salvation Army op shop in Kilbernie, so on my way back I stopped in and bought it for $35. There was a bit of fanangling to get it into my teeny tiny car, especially since there were still boxes of pottery lying around in it, but with the help of the young guy from the shop we got it there in the end. And I managed to drag it out of my car and into the garage at home, because I am Superwoman. I went to the Meditteranean Warehouse in Newtown to buy a bottle of Amaro for Tom, and also a can of silver spraypaint. Then I had to sand the fucker down, and scrape off old stickers. Hurrah for having turpentine in the house. I am so fucking crafty; craftly like a MONGOOSE. I ran out of silver paint on the third side of the cabinet, so I switched to gold for the handles, and then I spraypainted the round white paper lampshade that’d been hanging in the lounge until I put up the chandelier. But now some asshole’s taken that. Boourns. The cabinet is looking stunning though, with another couple of coats of paint that I raced to the store to buy today after work despite feeling sick sick sick.

Saturday night I got glammed up and hopped on a bus to Sandwiches for Tom’s birthday dinner. They had no pork belly so after Che’s discussion on veal I opted for the vege cannelloni. I sent an update to twitter that said “Last time i was here at Sandwiches i was having the best pashes of my recent years. I miss Shiny! I look even hotter tonite than then though.” Dinner and conversation was very civilised, but I did get an odd look when I suggested to someone that they could fill their attic with dead bodies instead of pink bats as insulation. Apparently that’s not the done thing. When we were leaving, someone grabbed me and hugged me, and it was Bart with Blair, so I made a split-moment decision to go with them instead of going up to the Hawthorne Lounge. We went up to Richard’s apartment on Cuba Street and read catelogues from the Danish Sex Museum and drank and talked shit, then we went to the Southern Cross and wrapped ourselves up in polar fleece blankets cos it was fucking cold outside. When that shut we went to Frindigo, but that was closing a couple of drinks later, so we ended up at Club K, where we did shots of jagermeister and I got dragged onto the dance floor by some girl. Then after Bart and Blair sang a couple of Fall Out Boy songs (haha!), I somehow found myself warbling through ‘Like a Virgin’. I think they turned the microphone off on me, I was that bad. But it was fantastic! And I got home some time after 4am, fell asleep on the couch and then woke up in my bed still wearing my clothes. Needless to say, Sunday was a write-off.

I thought I had more to say today, but I guess I don’t, so I will watch the last two episodes of Season One of Deadwood instead. Tomorrow I’m going to Eagle Vs Shark, and on Thursday is the Great Blend, hurrah! And I’m still looking for a flatmate, grrrrr.

The Saturday before last was one of the worst of my life. Luckily it never happened.

Friday 29 June was my last day at NZAID. I’d suggested that I didn’t want to have a morning tea, and suggested instead that we could have drinks. My manager asked if she should invite ISU, the internet services unit. I squawked out “NO!” very loudly at her suggestion, because that is where the Web Developer works, and if someone is the sole reason for you leaving your job, you don’t really want to see him at your goodbye drinks. Instead, I told Lani to come down for it, and invited Bart to come up, and since Shirley’s starting there soon, she came in for a meet’n greet and to stay for drinks. My manager made a tiny little speech, but they didn’t even give me a card. You know how normally cards are really lame, full of impersonal messages from people who don’t even know you? Well I miss not getting one anyway. The boy who sent me sexually harrassing hilarious emails every day only stayed for one drink. Eventually everyone left, except for Bart and Shirley, and then the company director showed up which was very nice, and this crazy sixty year old woman. Bart and I laughed comparin gthe scene to my long, drunken goodbye at CWA New Media. Then the fucking cunt showed up. I went to the bathroom, went to my desk and logged out and forgot to clear my caches, and then went to get back and Shirls saying “we’ve got to go meet Dylan now”. So we ran away, leaving my tags behind me, and went up to Tupelo.

At Tupelo we drank more wine, and more wine, and more wine. Dylan showed up with his friend who I’d given a lecture on homophobia that one time, so I bought him a beer to make up for the one I’d spilt on his pants the last time we’d met. Eventually we all started playing ‘I have never’. I’m sure that wasn’t a smart idea. Shirley felt me up and I exposed my beautiful red bra to her and Dylan. It was one of those nights.

At some stage we stumbled our way up to the Southern Cross because Bart’d gone up there to meet up with his friends. More unnecessary drinks followed (but handily provided me with a receipt saying $15 at 00.39am, which makes me think it was two glasses of wine for Shirley and I) and then I remember thinking “why is that guy’s arm around my waist?” and then I believe that the guy kissed me, and I was like “umm, don’t you have a girlfriend?” and he said “yes, I have a girlfriend” and so I think we decided it’d probably be a good idea if he left, and so I went out in the rain to the back garden to find Bart. Smoo was there too, so I was like hurrah! And then the boy showed up again and I was like “didn’t you leave?” and he was like “yeah” and offered some lame excuse as to why he was back, but I just concentrated on talking to Smoo instead. Before the night was over I propositioned the last boy that I had sex with again and he was like “not a good idea” and then I woke up on the couch at 8.30am and was like “FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK” before crawling back into bed.

I crawled out of bed at 11.30am, somehow thinking that I could get up then, pack and still make it to check-in around 12pm. Interesting line of thought there. Of course, that thinking was somewhat handicapped when I got out of the shower and realised that my passport was not where it was supposed to be. I wanted to sit down and cry but I ransacked my room instead, wailing to Smoo who’d got up to drive me to the airport. By the time I’d found it in an old handbag, I knew there was no way I could make my flight, so I sat down and bawled, going “why am I such a fucking fuck-up?”. Then I shook myself off, threw a pile of clothes into my large suitcase and asked Smoo to drive me. My suitcase didn’t fit into the boot of his MR2, so we took my car. I’d kept KateH in the text loop and she was lovely, asking me if I needed her to book me a new flight, or send Shirley over to help me.

Qantas had no more flights to Auckland before 7pm that day, apparently, so I ended up forking out $400 for a ticket on Air NZ. It didn’t go until 2.30, so I very slowly bought a paper and a latte and a pastry and sat shaking at a table in the terminal, trying to do the sudoku. Then I went and threw up the pastry and the coffee and sat trembling a little more. When I finally got into KateH’s car in Auckland, I warned her I was about to cry again, and she said that aws fine. She drove me to Wendy’s in Manukau where I proclaimed that she’d saved my life – until all the saturated fat hit my heart anyway. We gossiped, and she soothed my soul over my fuckedupstupidity, and it was just so lovely to see her.

That feeling of loveliness disappeared when I got back to the airport and found no one waiting to check me in at the Pacific Blue counters. I asked at the service desk, and they were like “that flight’s already closed!” and I was like “OH MY GOD WHAT?????????????????” before the other woman said that no, it was just at a counter at the other end of the terminal. So I told my heart that was all thumpthumpthunp to calm the fuck down, and schlepped over to the check-in counter. They asked to see my tickets. I was like “umm, wasn’t this an e-ticket?” but apparently since I was coming back on Air NZ and not Pacific Blue, that was a problem for them. I had to go to an Air NZ service desk and get them to print out my flight details, trying really hard not to cry while doing so. Then they said that there were no more seats. I just about exploded. They had to unlock some seats or something, and told me that the plane was completely full. Great. I got stuck with a window seat. The rest of the waiting time was horrible. Every duty-free shop made me dry retch. Luckily I managed to sleep on the plane, although I’m sure I snored.

But then tobacco was $20 a box at Duty Free in Rarotonga, and I got a bottle of bacaardi, and my daddy was there to pick me up and drive me to our house in a late-model BMW. I opened up the lounge doors where I was sleeping and stepped out onto our lawn and looked at Muri Beach by the light of a full moon. I’d flown over the dateline and so I had a chance to redo my Saturday so it wouldn’t be the worst day of the year again…

On Thursday night I had my first summer ale and then yesterday I had my first swim of the summer. Around 1am. At Oriental Parade. In my panties. With my now ex workmates and Bart. It was awesome, and not very warm. Luckily the booze in me kept me warm.

Today, consequently, has been rather slow. I spent a couple of hours at Elements in Lyall Bay eating, drinking latte bowls and reading the paper very very slowly. Now there’s been Thai takeaway and Fred Prinze Jnr movies on the television. And my laptop that I picked up from the shop last weekend is STILL ticking and overheating, but I know that htey must have done something to it because now it says ‘Packard Bell’ on the screen the second time I turn it on. It’s an NEC though. And I say second time because the screen stays blank the first time, every time. Good times.

What else should I talk about? I can’t start my new job yet because my security clearence still hasn’t finished. This is a good thing though because it means I get to have a couple of days off first, wahoo! I can go buy some fancy schmancy clothes to match my fancy schmancy new offices down Lambton Quay way. I’m proud of myself for running around in my underwear last night. It makes me feel more prepared for New Year’s, and it also reminds me of the good times skinny-dipping in KateM’s dad’s pool with not a care in the world, or the olden days when I was regularly doing bad things with bad people when I’d get up and walk around the house butt naked and go read magazines in the lounge – if I knew Clayton was out, of course. Or open the curtains if morning sex was to be had, for the benefit of people in the office building across the road. Heh. My self esteem has been very weird lately, I had some total wigginsing on Thursday night, even though I knew at the time I was just being a dork. If only I’d never gone to that damn talk about Myspace!

Now it’s Sunday, and today would have been Oma and Opa’s 60th anniversay. To celebrate, we got together at my parents’ house and scattered their ashes together around a magnolia tree we planted. That sentence does nothing to describe the comedy of errors that the occasion actually was, with the unmowed lawn all wet and long, and the bugs biting me. The containers with the ashes in them didn’t want to come open for a long long time, until finally Cousin Andrea cleverly pointed out that there were latches on the bottom that could be open and the ashes shaken out. There is something a little bit strange about shaking out your grandparents like salt and pepper, passing the containers around so that everyone could have some time with each of them. But the tree – once we managed to get it staked – is really pretty, and I think it was a nice thing to do. Afterwards, we watched super8 home movies that my parents, my uncle and Oma had all shot in the seventies. The clothes were fabulous, and we were all such fucking cute kids (yes, I wasn’t alive in the seventies, but I whined enough that we got out some ’80s footage too). Mum and Aunt Diz were running around in bikinis and looked hot. My dad was in a floral speedo and despite his womanly hips he still had a good body too. Also, eww, did I just say that? The whole effect was a litle bit like watching many many L&P ads. Or perhaps looking at current fashions. Or super 8 footage played behind the Phoenix Foundation…

I also grabbed Deuchlandriser, which is a board game in which you travel around Germany, and also some large beer mugs. Germany is on October 14, the day after Dimmer, and I’m so very happy because Jessie may be at it. And also I’m very happy that I will finally get to see Dimmer. Assuming that it hasn’t sold out yet. Woo!

Oh, and one more thing that I wanted to talk about was how nice the goodbye speeches for me were, and how genuine they seemed. And also, the best part about them was that they were surprisingly similar to my answers in many job interviews lately about what others would say about me – my ridiculously large banks of trivia in my head, my dry wit and my social skills. If I hadn’t put my card in Bart’s backpack along with my purloined coffee cup (shoosh!), I’d put in actual quotes. But yes, very very good times were had. And everyone who left their computers on will be looking at my face when they get to work as their desktop image…

Okay my dear loyal readers from around the world, I need your help. In fact, it’s not just me that needs your help, it’s Africa. Which also happens to be the subject of the next Country Club. Yes, since we’ve neglected that continent so badly so far, we’re going to do it all at once on September 2, and we’re going to do it like Live Aid. And therefore you should too, and then we can link it up all around the world. And that’d be awesome. In Wellington, we’ll dress up like rockstars, eat some Africanish food (that as I plan it in my head bears more than a little similarity to the Caribbean feast, but that’s where the origins were, I suppose) and then we’re going to do Singstar and deliver our stunning concert performances. I’m going to suggest to everyone who comes that they might like to make a donation to a charity that I’ll finalise later, so that as well as having the awesome time that we always have at Country Club, we can do a little bit of good as well. Awesome. And now that’s out of the way, on with the week!

And the second thing that I wanted to talk about in the general category is who is subscribed to my rss feed? Only Jessie is listed publically. Come on kids, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. And here I go with the showing:

Lessons Learnt on Thursday

My weekend was a shocking pile of debauchee. I participated in: lying to my manager; drunkenness; sexual harassment; sexual arousal; groping; other people’s hands on Mary-Kate and foul language. And that was just Friday night. Okay, so the lie was totally bald-faced, and was merely an excuse to accompany my cow-orkers to their netball dinner. The drunkenness was nothing special, just a lot of white wine. The sexual harassment was constant, and returned (the boys were trying to look up my skirt, despite the fact that I was wearing trousers), the groping was hilarious and mutual, and the foul language was to be expected (*).

On Saturday I felt great on account of having stayed up til 5am so I was stone cold sober again. I cleaned the house, had a shower, treated Seb for fleas, kicked the boys out of the house and set off flea bombs in my room and in the lounge. Of course, it was after I had locked the front door and exited that I heard the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP of smoke detectors going off, so I had to rush back into the lounge, find a chair to clamber on and pull out the battery, all the while coughing in the flea gas. Still, at least it should have killed the larvae in my lungs, right?

I repaired at the Medditerean Warehouse with a margharita pizza (and one of these days I will learn to spell) and the paper, before continuing the Italian theme with shopping to prepare for ‘Rome at the Country Club’. Later, after attempts at napping and some of The OC, which quite frankly I find myself really not giving a shit about, the darling Lisa Fur came and picked me up, and we went to her house via being served at the mill by Conor Oberst, who has apparently fled to New Zealand where he can shed his cold cold tears on his cold cold bathroom tile before getting up to sell cheap cheap liquor to ladies and say “laterz!” to them. We went to Lisa’s house and she played me absolutely devestating videos by the Dears, which you shouldn’t watch unless you’re prepared to cry. Then Brad and KateB came over (do you like the way I invite my friends to other people’s houses? I’m really good at that) and we had some more drinks and played some more music and then took off for the Aro Valley for Joel’s house.

At Joel’s, we sat in the garden and feared for our lives when he threw more furniture on the fire. I saw people I knew from when I worked for VUWSA and was happy that they were the people I liked. I think we were either very early or very late, but it was nice to see Joel again, even though I goddamnmotherfuckingshitfuckcunt forgot to get my Straitjacket Fits CD back off him. He’s had it for like a year now. Grr. Then we left to wander the streets slowly, and I started a long text conversation with my friend because we happened to be passing his house. Upon reflection, I realise that I do tend to text random things at random times (*). Brad peeled off somewhere, and Kate fell asleep on Lisa’s couch, so I made Lisa play me vinyl and make me popcorn. She’s a good bitch like that.

On Sunday, I was in pukesville. Apparently drinking a lot of bubbly straight from the bottle is bad for you. Who knew? Nevertheless, I soldiered on with Rome preperations, chargrilling red peppers to go in homemade hummus, making trifle with banana cake and pineapple in lieu of tiramisu, and putting pizza dough on in the breadmaker. Eventually I had to call a timeout so I retired to the local cafe for coffee and grease and the paper before coming back to the mountain of dishes and assorted other hospitality tasks that awaited me. And then I awaited my guests. You know, Kate mentioned that she thinks there’s been a drop in recent years in the number of people who actually call (or even text) to say that they can’t make it to an event, and I think she’s right. That said, there was still a stream of “oh, I’m too hungover” or “oh, the formula one is on” texts that made me go grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But the people who did come were very cherished, and appreciative of the effort I’d gone to. Also, my flatmates now think I am the greatest flatmate in the world, because it turns out that while I’d heard that Caligula was quite porny, I figured it’d just be softcore boobs and fake sex. Oh no, my friends. It was hardcore jizz baths, penetration and cunnilinguis. With costumes. And sex with horses. Hurrah! I fear I have set a high standard for further Country Clubs, but oh well. I can rename it the Cuntry club and feature porn from all around the world.

Last night Karen and I went to Kazu for some food on sticks. I should point out that we went to the good new one, without the terrible service and the quivering pizza that are found at the Tory St branch. The one on Courtenay Place is right next to the once beloved Arashi, which has since removed both ginko nuts AND their banana & peanut butter spring rolls from their menu, so what’s the point? Then we wanted to see Sione’s Wedding but it was all sold out so we went to A History of Violence instead, which was good. And violent, strangely enough.

Today at work I sat in on a videoconference featuring Tze Ming Mok, who was almost frighteningly articulate and Tusiata Avia talking about writing from a non-European perspective to an audience of Wellington High and Wellington Girls’ girls via video links, and it was really interesting. It made me think lots of things which I have completely forgotten about now, because it’s the end of the day. The ‘compare and contrast’ between the two of them in pretty much every aspect of their work was really interesting, as was also thinking about identity in general. Oh, I know what I wanted to say, and I’ll have to paraphrase really badly here, but Tze Ming spoke about how there’s a sort of expectation in the circles that she moves in that she will write about certain things, and I suppose that’s something that I feel too – not, of course, as an essayist and a blogger, but as a person with an online journal. It’s something I spent a lot of time talking about in the olden days when I was at counselling, my need to keep people entertained. And then I’d say something deep and then I’d say something else to make Kalpana laugh. Awesome, nice consistency there. Hmmm, this all sounded better in my head over lunch. Nevermind, I’ll call it off here.

Wednesday July 31

Lending your cellphone to people so that they can use it as an alarm clock is generally unfortunate when it means that they’ll be waking you up at 7am to return it and you’ll be feeling sick as a dog with the first decent hangover you’ve had in ages. I spent $5.80 to get drunk last night. This was made possible by being with four other people at Quiz Night at the AUT pub, two of whom thought that they’d be driving home (well, one did, and the other Bo convinced to stay the night) who nevertheless feel like they should contribute to the camradarie by also buying their rounds. Thanks largely to me, we came third and won a $20 bar tab. Wahoo! So we’ll go back next week to spend it, and so the Quiz host guy can give me more shit. But I dunno if I’ll go with Clay-bo BradC and JeremyO again, because to be perfectly honest, I probably annoyed them by answering too quickly. Oh I’m so smart, I’m so cool, everyone fucking worship me.

But anyways, it was a lot of fun and I bumped into Jonno again, which makes it twice in two days, and I was able to confirm for KateB that actually yes, he does well and truly have a mullet now. After the quiz, and foozeball <!– which actually, i didn’t play, cos I was engrossed in conversation and knees and shoulders touching–>, Jezza went back to his house, and the rest’o us went back to theslab (which is also our team name) to drink so many martinis that we not only ran out of Skky but also Absolut (can I drop in a few more vodka labels in here? there was a question in the Quiz about what kinda liquor Finlandia was. I laughed. That’s my housebrand right there, presuming that I was actually a bar instead of just spending all my parents’ money in them). I also made everyone my special roast potatoes with garlic and peppercorn feta, which I’ve developed a mad fetaish for. Get it? Ha HA. Hehehee I love Bo so much when we’re both on a mad buzz, which is pretty much every evening – we ran around for like half an hour saying “you’d feta not fuck with me”. It was hilarious. Really. And we played Agitation which got nasty and then Leo showed up and was rarking me up which was cool cos normally he doesn’t say much but last night he was all “sheesh, get two drinks in Joanna and she’s all over the show with the abuse”. Leo and I bonded lots over the past weekend smoking spots together and feeling ill at ease when Bo had friends over who were very much not at all like her. Eventually pretty much everyone went to bed and BradC made me a cup of tea like a good gentleman and we hung out for a bit, and then I managed to pour myself into bed.

Hence the hangover this morning, which was more than a little unprofessional, since I was meeting my client for the first time at 10am today. But I needn’t have worried, because she was seriously one of the coolest people i’ve ever met, and now I’m re-energised and excited about my course. Also, it’s been fun talking ethics and trying not to get in fights with people in my classes and stuff like that. I followed Kant, you went Utilitarian, and I guess you won. And I think I learnt some other things too maybe this week, but I could be wrong.

After Haley and I met our client, I went and got Wendys for the hangover and ate it while reading “Fast Food Nation” which I gotta do a book review on for Corporate Communication. It’s the new No Logo, don’t you know? And then I had to skeedaddle to get to work to sit and look pretty and make jokes about Yogi. That lasted til five, but was made much more interesting with emailed gossip flying back and forth, and then passed on to Teri, who just laughed at me. Oh, and I also drew a stunning picture of a stick panda dancing in a bamboo forest and faxed it to KateM. I’m clever and talented. I did actually do some work too, you know.

As soon as I got home from work, i put my pajamas on, cos I was still a little dressed up (ie – wearing my black dress, that none’o you woulda seen cos it’s Posh and none of youse guys are. Actually wait, I distinctly remember wearing it OH MY GOD it would have been exactly today when I had lunch with KateH right after I cleaned out my desk at Foodstuffs ten minutes after I said I wanted to resign on this day last year. YAY! that’s worth another drink. Tomorrow.) and there would have been no point changing into slumier clothes when all I was gonna do was lie on the couch and pretend to not be hungover any more and make more bad jokes about feta to Bo and have her say “oh Jo, you’re so Punny” to me, and feel like we were on our way to becoming Brad&Justin – ie going straight to hell. Are my sentences running away with me? I suspect that they are, eh. Nevermind. (Another interlude while I go to Bo’s room to say “hey, next time we wanna make a pun, we should just growl bearlike at each other” all intervention styles, and then we got talking about Leo and how he was mocking me last night and also how he was worried when I was psuedoyelling at BradC for kicking me out of my own lounge) My point was that when KateM rang me in Shortland Street, I had to put clothes on before agreeing to meet her at Hugo’s Frog Bar for dinner.

(another interuption while I go tell Bo’o the current scandals and gossip. She’s excited that she hopefully will get to put faces to many of the names and stuff on Friday night, but then again, she probably won’t. Also, I picked up a film I’d had sitting in my camera for ages, thinking it’d be photos of my 21st, but no, it’s from Graduation. Excellent.)

Anyways, driving in to meet Kate, I couldn’t find a park anywhere so I went into a dreaded parking building (which ended up costing six dollars, good lord). I had to sit in my car for ages though, cos bFM were playing a new Pluto song, you know, the really rock one that they do in concert lots and Milan’s all glam rockstar screaming at the end and everyone’s panties melt. We chatted lots and stuff, and she said my hair made me look like a punk chick. That’s not really what I was aiming for, but hey, that’s okay. Oh yeah, did I mention that I got my hair done last friday? I might not have. You can go look at the “red” jpgs in my cam dir if you’re interested. After dinner, I was lovely and went back to her office with her to read magazines while she finished her work. I am so rent-a-crowd. She paid me in zinc defender lozenges and gave me a fax that she’d meant to send me, depicting a fat panda with bamboo in its stomach. The fax also said “what does ‘macking on’ mean anyway?” on it, in reference to the contents of the fax I’d sent her. You do the math.

Now I’m at home again, typing away furiously in fingerless gloves but (as evidenced by this journal entry) getting up constantly to tell Bo more things. Bo bo bo. Fuck she’s cool. This isn’t like the honeymoon period either, cos she’s been here since April. We’ve grown into each other. Okay, I gotta go sleep now, so much so that I think I will load this up tomorrow night, cos my net has fucked up cos she was trying to check for phone messages from Leo, but he’s just here now anyways.

Name the body part.

Ouch.

I think in the future, before I go out with Kate Benton and her friends again, I will write myself a cohesive list of why Limp Biozkit are so bad, because I imagine I’ll have the same arguement with Mike again, and I’d like to be able to express myself a little better than just “they suck”. To think he said Placebo suck. People these days.

Apparently the boy in the cab last night that I shared was Le-at’s brother. I guess it makes a lot more sense now that they didn’t appear to be very intimate – I thought they were shacking up together but wondered why they were so distant with each other. And if they are brother and sister, that explains that they both have such strange names. Well, I guess the names aren’t strange if you speak Hebrew.

I’m excited that “Lydia” is now on ZM’s playlist, because if there’s any NZ band that deserves fame and money other than Shihad, it’s Fur Patrol.

Clay came into my room this morning to steal the Internet Cable (okay, wishful thinking – I mean the phone extension cord) so I was like “Clay, can you please open my window?” and he did, and I asked him for water as well, which he brought me. What a nice boy. I was like “Look! I have a fur cuff! and he was like “where’d you get that?” but I didn’t know. I remembered putting on the red feather band, but where I got the grey fur like Olivia’s pillows from, I have no idea.

Macdonalds is a poor man’s version of Wendys when it comes to hangover treatment.

I feel just a tad seedy, but I figure it’s been ages since I’ve written a proper journal entry , so I owe you all a story or two. Some of you anyways.

Okay, so last night was the great Slumber Party that Maree and I have been planning for a while. She showed up around 6.30pm already clad in her pajamas, with a bag full of potato chips and the video of Return to Oz, and yelled at me to put on my pajamas, so I did, and pig tails too. So adorable.

Alrighty then, guest entry in Joannas journal by maree. Yes, the slumber party was last night and yes it was massive. I of course got completely smashed and I can’t even spell now my brain is getting revenge so sorry if this is a little disjointed. Jo is just admiring my beautiful shoe that the nice doctor person gave me for my cast which is bright blue with velcro straps mmmm velcro. So, back to the slumber party. Gay christian peter was there and a nice selection of kates and brad jo and clay (naturally) and Cess and trudy for a little while. And Justin but he was just too massive to mention. By the way ‘i have never’ is a very very very bad game never play it, in the words of kate m “its just a little too blatant”. Oh how I wish I had agreed with her. But that is a whole nother (confidential) story. And my pjs were beautiful. I can’t be bothered doing this anymore I’m far too hung over Jo write your own damn journal entry.

Thanks Maree!

Anyways, yes. After people arrived, we watched Return to Oz which was actually really really scary and I can’t believe it was rated ‘G’. In fact, none of us could. That’s nightmare material right there, that is. Oh wait, before Return to Oz we watched the Shortland Street special, forbidding any of the boys to talk, and getting all weepy. It was tremendous. After Return to Oz we decided to play a drinking game. Justin told us we had to play a game called “Maya” which seemed really really complicated, but it probably wasn’t as bad as we all thought it was. However, we were playing International Rules, so there was no pointing or swearing allowed, and we had to address each other by our last names, so it all got a bit much. We had to drink port and pink chandon, ewww. Then we played “I Have Never” and things got more interesting. Of course the Girl Sex questions came out first. You weren’t supposed to point and draw attention to people trying to drink subtley, but no one really stuck to that rule.

After that game, we watched the Princess Bride. Popular Kate (Kate Hamlin) and I were told off lots for quoting too much. Then around 3am we finally got some sleep.

Today Justin made us all a huge breakfast. I’ve never had breakfast made for me before. It was quite exciting. So much so that i had to go back to bed afterwards. People left, and then Maree came back later, and wrote my journal for me before helping me clean up some. Our twister mat was covered in jelly.

Wednesday 24; February, 1999

“Woman, you’ve got too many brambles, hiding under these bushes” – ‘Cooling’ – Tori Amos

I felt so nauseous on the bus on the way into town all morning today, not in a hungover way (cos god knows I was awake long enough to sober up). I was glad that Clayton had the varsity orientation magazine which he leant to me so that I didn’t have to make conversation, because I was so not in the mood to talk.

I was late for my TV Production tutorial cos I spent a while hovering in the bathroom wanting to be back in bed for the rest of my life, so I had to sit at the front of a class that was half full of strangers. It was okay though, cos Shirley came in late too a minute later, so she sat up the front with me. We were watching some Nazi Propaganda film and the site of a screen thick with their banners just made me feel ill all over again. It’s funny because the swastika was like originally a Buddhist symbol of life or something like that, but now it’s such a symbol of hate.

Once that class was over, Shirley and I went down to the Midcity, but the movie we wanted to see wasn’t on there, so we decided to go find a paper to see when and where it was. We both also had to make Bank Missions, which I don’t really wanna write about now. Suffice to say, our rent is a week overdue, because of problems clearing money and bank shit. I was shaking once I came out of the phonebooth and telebanking, teetering on the edge of a total nervous breakdown on the main intersection on Queen Street. I’ve started this fun new thing where instead of crying properly, I just start breathing shorter and shorter until I get all lightheaded and just about faint. It’s especially funky when I’m drunk and spinning anyways. Not. So yeah, Shirley saw me and she was like “it’s okay, we’ll check back later – we’ll go take the link now and go to Newmarket”. So we did that, after finding out ‘Elizabeth’ was on at 10.50am – perfect time.

I got completly and utterly nauseous again in the opening scenes of the movie, cos the camera was at a reaaaaaally high angle, and swirled around and stuff – plus it’s never very nice watching people being burned alive. But after that, I got really settled into the movie. It was amazing. Cate Blanchet is one of the most stunning looking women I’ve seen in a long time, and she was astonishingly good in her role. Joseph Fiennes was sex on two legs – or he would have been if it wasn’t for the puffy shorts. Even Eric Cantona was in the movie – playing a French Ambassdor. As a humouress little side note, I was playing World Cup ’98 on Si’s puter the other day, being Holland (of course). I absolutely sucked at it, and Brazil so would have kept scoring on me except for the fact that the computer ran my goal keeper and kept saving my ass. That is until I somehow managed to hit enough keys so that I took over him, and accidentally made him turn around and throw the ball into my own goal. I rebooted the computer before I could hear the crowd jeer.

Okay, back to the movie. I was so inspired by her strength and stuff – as you can probably tell by the quote from the title of this page “I am not your Elizabeth. I am no man’s Elizabeth”. It was so sad and so lonely for huge big lots of it. I almost cried when she cut off her hair, and had to put up my hands to make sure mine was still there. I know that the movie didn’t make any mention of all the nasty shit she did, like burning Catholics and stuff, and apparently there was no way she could ever have had an affair but hey……….. it was dramatic license.

Shirley and I were going to take a tiki tour on the link bus back to town, only it went pretty much the way I thought it would go, instead of the way SHE thought it would go, which was through Ponsonby. So yeah, we sat at the back and giggled a bit. Getting off the bus, I nearly fell over in grand tremendous style and only saved myself by sliding around the pole like some kind of cheap tacky dancer only without the silicone and wearing a lot more and laughing louder.

Then we had to go to a Radio Production tutorial. Dee was really sad cos she got cut off from most of us Dsters when the tut got split in half, but that’s her own fault for not sitting by me (Karma). Our tutor assigned us all a talkback program to listen to – I got Kerre Woodham, 8pm-12am on Newstalk ZB, 89.4FM. I was given that one cos I told the tutor I didn’t sleep at night – she looked at me like I was a vampire or something. I listened to it for a while tonight while playing Cool Boarders 2 (god Si needs some new psx games – I go to sleep at night with snowy trails flashing before my eyes). It sucked. Talkback sucks. And I have to write a five thousand word essay on it.

What else? Hmmmmm. I met up with Simon after class, and rang telebanking but the money hadn’t cleared yet (STILL) so I couldn’t do that – fuck I PR’d the landlord when he rang last night. So we took the bus home, and I caught Si up to date on all my latest crisises. Poor wee lad. At home, both Clayton and Leyton were around, but luckily weren’t playing The Rolling Stones again like they were yesterday when I wanted to play my new Placebo album. But Simon had bought some new hideous NZ hardcore album or something, which was annoying me, as was the other boys talking about supermarket shopping and dinner plans and stuff, so I snuck off to bed, giving Si the power of attorney to make any descisions for me. I was asleep by halfway through the third track. Brian Molko’s heartbreaking voice just has such a lulling effect – sometimes.

Si made us instant pasta for dinner in the evening, which we ate in front of Shortland Street (did I mention how thrilled I am that Mike’s back?) and Friends. Doing the dishes, he made the mistake of sassing me – I had to mop the floor up after throwing so much foam at him. I’ve already mentioned the psx/talkback thing, so that’s about it.

I guess I should maybe say something about yesterday’s entry, but I don’t know what. And I don’t expect others to know what to say either – it’s okay, I understand. And thanks for the support – it means the world. Oh yeah, Isobel’s page is here. And my own little tribute to Amy is here. You’ll find similar traces and puzzle pieces scattered throughout and one day youll wonder how it came to be that you just didn’t know.