Hubris.co.nz

Right now I am looking for these things:

1. A new job. They announced my resignation at work so I get to wear the leaving beads now. The leaving beads look like Mardi Gras beads but I’m pretty sure I haven’t shown my boobs to anyone here at work in order to earn them. Unless there is actually a camera in the hole in the ceiling in the bathroom. I’m looking for writing/editing/web/communications type work, so lemme know if you hear of anything that’s going.

2. A new flatmate. Bart’s going off to find new adventures on the other side of the tunnel, so if you know of someone who’d like to live in Sunny Hataitai and pay $120 a week for a good room in a great house with Smoo and Seb and I, then please do send them in my direction. The ad is up here if you want to perve at photos of our lounge and dining room.

3. A bach to stay at over New Year’s eve. There will be six or more of us, and we want to be close-ish to Wellington and on a beach. Yes I know we left it kind of late.

4. People to party with at our ‘Meat Market vs Bart’s Goodbye’ party. It’s on Saturday, and it should be fun, and you should come, and you should bring some people we haven’t met before.

Things that I have done lately that have been of some sort of note:

1. Looked for jobs.

2. Looked for flatmates

3. LiveAid for Africa – despite its sparse attendence we raised $100 which was enough to buy two chickens, two AIDs awareness kits, some farmer training and soap for ten families. Go us. You can see some photos of the events in my flickr space, but if you are too lazy to click a link, here’s a photo:

4. The drum & the bass. At a party, and then at Indigo San Frindigo Bathhouse on Saturday night. I had forgotten how much fun it could be. I especially liked the guy who bumped me, and then went to pat my shoulder in apology but grabbed my boob instead and so we had an “it’s okay dude” hug. I was somewhat less fond of my taxi driver who seemed to mistake my slight interest in why he chose NZ instead of Norway as a refugee as interest in him, and decided to ask me out for a drink then and there. At 4am. Really really inappropriate and sleazy, and it made me feel so uncomfortable that I got him to stop a half block from my house.

5. Dinner parties. Food Baby was at my house last week, and so I went with my staple beef burgandy and mashed potatos. Last night I went to a potluck dinner for Lisa Fur‘s birthday, and I made apple crumble. Another one of her friends had made a crumble too, but mine was better. Heh.

6. Had my last boxing lesson. I want to do more, but my trainer’s having a shoulder operation (as if I didn’t already feel bad enough about punching towards a tiny little blonde girl), and I have to control my finances (sort of) until I get a new job, and then my membership is up in November, and while I will be continuing to go to the gym, my new job location might dictate somewhat the gym that I join. So it is all to be confirmed later.

7. Obsessed over Rockstar: Supernova. I don’t know what I’m going to do after Thursday when it’s all over.

I came home about 10.30pm last night, and the kitchen was absolutely spotless, so I immediately asked Bart to marry me. He said yes so I walked back out to my parents’ car and they gave me a cheque for three grand, and I showed it to him and he said “well, I guess we’d better get a wriggle on then”. But then I decided to pay off my credit card with the cheque instead, since he hadn’t actually caught the mouse that we apparently have in the kitchen which was the reason for his cleaning. And yes, that’s right, I’ve had a credit card for under a month and I already have over three grand on it. But I also have tickets to America figuratively in my hot little hands, so that’s okay.

And I was home that late at night because Anji and I had gone to Capitol for a bottle of wine (I <3 Capitol, the service is outstanding, and the toilets smell so good, and the bruschetta is yum), and then we'd joined up with the rest'o the family at Hazel, where much more jolly awesome wine was drunk, and mountains of tasty tasty food eaten. I am currently craving more squid rings from there, and I don't even like squid. Perhaps I am pregnant. With the second coming.

If you're wondering why I am so much more chipper in this post than I was in Tuesday's, well it appears that the one/two emotional gut punch of watching 'The Body' and 'The Gift' together paid off. Well, that and large doses of the Arcade Fire, St John's, exercise, listening to 'Kim' on repeat (geez, why are you so angry, Marshall?) and all twelve episodes of the unbelieveable hip hopera Trapped in the Closet, which is just so fucking wow that it deserves another round of Holy Fucking Crap!.

Other things of note that I have been up to lately? Hosting the work quiz last Friday. After much debate about the amount of wine we were to have, we did end up running out. My arms ached from carrying eight bottles one block, so in a way maybe it’s better we didn’t have more. The quiz went well, even though I was having initial “no one likes me!” thoughts at the number of attenders, although we ended up filling the room very well. On Saturday I went to see the Dukes of Leisure play at the Carter Observatory, and I was drinking straight vodka from a small bottle, and it was all misty with lamp posts on the way there like Narnia, and we had pillows and got to lie down, and I got to have snuggles with first Anji and then Karen and we all know that I’m a Romanian orphan starved for physical affection so that was nice, and I fell in love with the man who gave us a star tour, because I love story-tellers, and they made us popcorn in the middle, and the music was good too and oh, it was just great and I was crazy giggly, and that amused me muchly. On Sunday I went to a private screening of The Imposters which was hilarious, and found out various bits of gossip that I might reprint here if I could be bothered footnoting it but I can’t, and I just felt choice.

Tomorrow is Canadia, as I’ve mentioned before, and then The Phoenix Foundation at Indigo, and then on Sunday Luke Buda at Caberet. And now it is nearly 5.30 so I must put on lip gloss and harrass the boys downstairs until they come out for a drink with me. My feet hurt from being an escort to a group of people who came to look at the clever things that we do at work. And then one of the directors referred to me as a handmaiden. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen…

Sometimes it’s nice to know that your employer values you – or at least is happy to shell out a large amount of money on opportunity costs of having your entire company running around on Friday afternoon with DV cams making little videos about your company. Did I ever tell you that I work for a New Media company? I suspect that the previous sentence might have revealed that if you didn’t already know. Because we didn’t have any video production people in our group – we were mostly project managers and editors, we decided to take a really ‘organic’ approach and shoot our video in sequence to save on the editing. We went with my idea of making a recruitment video, and loaded it up with really bad puns and me hosting the video with signs, saying things like “To work at *, you’ll need to be great at juggling many projects” – to have the camera pan over to someone juggling potatos, and “it also helps to be really flexible” with workmates doing back bends and somersaults in the background. For the “you’ll be working closely with your colleagues” we had three sets of feet visible under the shower curtain. Hott.

After that (although quite a lot later, cos most of the other groups finished really late although we finished quarter of an hour early), there were drinks. Many many drinks in fact, and although I was supposed to go and meet Karen for dinner, we’d got pizza so I wasn’t hungry, and I was having far too much fun having very inappropriate conversations with my workmates (the word “quiffing” was used a lot, which they claim is a fanny fart. I’m not entirely sure that it’s a real word). But I knew Karen was pissy at me, so I headed over to her house just before 9pm. Arriving with leftover brownies, and also potato chips and wine appeased her somewhat, I believe. So we chatted, and I had a shower (and didn’t puke in it) and we trotted off to Indigo to meet up with Dave and his friend who turned out to be rather cute and exciteable like a puppy – but not Humpy-like, if you get the difference (or even the injoke).

I’m being stalked – again. Friday night, and then today outside my place of work, oh and also that one time in March 2002 (<3 google desktop, although if I ever decide to become obsessed with anything that I’ve been obsessed with in the past, I will be in a lot of trouble – assuming that you define trouble as “reading many old entries” as I sometimes do). But anyways, the stalker. I was at 24 Hour Party People, and I went to the bathroom, and there was a cute girl there who was like “HEY! You’re Joanna!” and I was like…….. and she was like “I’m blah blah blah, and we’ve actually met before” and I was like “oh yeah!” and I did actually remember who she was, which is incredibly impressive for me, and she said she was stalking me, and had a crush on me, and it might have been then that I picked her up and swung her around as much as I could, or that may have been later when she introduced herself to my companions as “Joanna’s stalker”. Awww how sweet! Except I think she was laughing at me today. But like with any stalkers – or indeed the very minute number of people who say that they have crushes on me, it’s like “and then?” (speaking of Chinese drive through people, Anji and I discovered that the Chinese takeaway in Hataitai is awesome. But back to the main narrative…). Or, as Katy – and the bard – put it “Would you leave me so unsatisfied? / What satisfaction can you get tonight? / Howsabout you lick my clit, bitch?” Ahh people who quote Shakespeare, how nice it is to know you.

I impressed yet more of Katy’s friends by not taking shit from them, and dishing it straight back (“Oh, you work at a cinema huh? So what’s your film script about then?”) and we hung out until around 4am when it was time to go home via the takeaway shop and some very amusing discussion with some very very drunk young boys.

Oooooh Nightline just played some remix of the Prodigy’s ‘Voodoo People’ and i got an involuntary flashback feeling in my stomach. Crazy. Nevermind. Let me catch up with myself. Hmmmm, where was I at? Saturday? Ahh yes. Saturday. The day was really weird and I had no idea of what was going on because I’d lost my cellphone – Anji kindly ended up picking it up for me from Indigo and I don’t have a clock in my room. In the evening after the aforementioned good Chinese, I drove her into town for SJD and swung past New World for brunch supplies cos I was hoping that either Anne or Brad would be joining me for Alf’s 60th birthday party the next morning.

As it happens, I ate my brunch alone, and got choked up when they showed a brief flashback of Shane dying on a rock. I am crazy! CRAZY! And I napped, and drove Ethel back into town to pick up Anji, who is the new proud parent of an iPod Mini so she’s gone Walking Crazy, and we did the supermarket shopping, and I made a tangine, and Brad came over for dinner, and Shiny Shiny Steve(n) sang CREED and Oh, I was overwhelmed with a strange combination of lust and amusement.

Work was a bit streesssssssssful today. They’ve put me on the schedule so that I can be booked like any common resource. Oh the pain. Then I had lunch with Mum, which was surprisingly pleasant. The Tasting Room does food + a beer or a coffee for $15. Since I am doing Hard Work (my email to limegreen today said something like “I am supposed to be writing a guide to the wazoo when I don’t even know where it is!” and he said something about how he’d heard how large and impressive my wazoo was, and I got offended, cos dude, who wants someone to say “my, what a large roomy asshole you have”?) so I had the coffee instead of the beer. The steak sandwich was served with really really good fries, and also two big onion rings in it, but it’s on very garlicy garlic bread, so make sure if you eat it you pick up some peppermints afterwards.

I just had a moment of remembering exactly why I used to be so in love with The West Wing when CJ told Josh she’d cook him dinner, and he asked if she’d wear an apron and she said she’d wear anything he wanted, and his eyes went !!!!!!!! I think I’ll stop this now. Oh, and some guy saying to Toby “what if they have seven or eight kids?” and Toby says “tell them to try renting a DVD sometime instead” – remind me again why I stoppped watching this show?

Mostly I like to bitch and moan about my own life, and only use links to other things on my site or my friends, to show you how cool/deep/SHRN/So No Longer Hott Right Now/whatever I am, because that’s what I think the interweb needs – fewer links. But today I’m going to spend a paragraph talking about Critic’s drug rape story. And no, I’m not going to take this opportunity to talk about how Salient uses comic sans non ironically, so you can see that this is like, totally serious. The scandalous article in question is actually really quite good. Sure, it’s vaguely stomach churning, but come on – I’ve read at least three books by Brett Easton Ellis that are much much much worse. Not to mention Blindness or an assortment of other Nobel Prize for Literature winners. When I was at Debate, for our first issue we published a guide to safety, which the International Student Coordinator type person loved, but we got no other feedback on. Cosmo seems to run a drug rape story every other month, as do squillions of other magazines, but they really are all the same, and with anything that’s all samey, you stop paying attention. The Critic piece is different. I think it was valid, and justified. Just because within student media rape is sometimes described as “surprise sex” (thanks to letter writers) doesn’t mean that it’s not understood to be a real issue. And Holly was certainly very very articulate in defending the article, as the media links from Critic’s weblog will show you, if you care. Thank god it wasn’t someone from Craccum trying to justify themselves (and not just because this way there were pictures of Shiny Shiny all over the news from the ad on the page). I think we all (by which I mean me) remember Honest Colin’s mumbleness.

Of course, all that said, as the woman from Rape Crisis pointed out, drug rape may be all the hot topic right now, but the big issue generally is still alcohol.

On a completely new subject, tonight is Go Out Drinking Night. Hurrah! Okay, that was a bad topic juxtaposition, but you know that it was intentional. It’s 24 Hour Party People tonight, hurrah. Before that there are leaving drinks at work for one of the many computer people who all have the same name. I wonder what his replacement will be like. Hopefully oggleworthy, although of course, after a conversation with Anne I have given up on all boys ever. In fact, I was tempted to call our quiz team last night “Death to the Y Chromosone” but then I couldn’t remember which were boys and which were girls. I think I remember Xander saying “your double Xs don’t look too bad in that dress either” to Willow (when of course they did, because Anya’s bridesmaid dresses were pretty hidi), but I’d like to think that everything I learnt about science didn’t actually come from a Buffy episode, so we went with “The McLeod” instead. Anji was going for “The McLeod’s Daughters” but I was like NO NO NO NO NO. We got 7/10 in Sports. Huh? What the hell? That was our average score for every round. We NEVER get that high in Sport. Very very strange. Nevermind.

Oh yes, but tonight. I need a new outfit. I always wear the same thing to Indigo it seems. Could a bar be bored of my boobs? Surely not. But there must be a new way to showcase them. Surely? Surely? Yeah. There, I mentioned boobs. That’ll be a good steady stream of shots for you all. Err, that’s shots as in drinking shots. Not photos. Thanks to Heather for being the only one to come up with any things for my drinking game, by the way. I hate the rest of you and I’ve flicked you all back to level one. Oh no wait, I haven’t cos I am lazy.

Work has become more amusing with the advent of having colleague (singular, and still spelt wrong, probably) on my MSN list. I am still loving being over with the young’n hips. I’m also doing more work that I’ve done before too. I have create a new style guide for us, compiling three together. Comic sans for Africa, I say! Oh no wait, no I don’t. Speaking of MSN, can I get a great big BOO HISS for Martha for putting a photo of the winner of Rockstar: INXS on her site without a cut, or hiding it or anything? AAAAAAAArgh. Stupid Internet.

Social plans for the week: 24 Hour Party People tonight, Home & Away omnibus on Sunday for Alf’s 60th, perhaps Jess’s picnic in the park. Coming up: Brad in some child’s play (I have been promised people in animal costumes), and also Brad in drag for his Caberet show. Hurrah! Also: I really must get my act together and plan my birthday party for some time.

Am I the only person in the world who has any kind of moral fibre at all?

No I’m not talking that kind of bullshit, no sex before marriage, all gays are going to burn in hell shit, and you bloody well know that. I’m talking about people being decent human beings to the rest of the human race.

So tonight, Katy asked if i wanted to go to a party with her before Atomic. I like going to parties, so of course I was like “yes”. And so we met up at The Krazy Lounge, and went off to a party(*).

For the greater part of this party, Katy and I sat in the hidden courtyard off Ghuznee St, drinking and probably talking a little about boobs, before I jumped into the conversation on the other side of me about Peter Dunne, and I was like “no, he’d not actually a good politician to have in power, he’s a cunt” and it led to the inevitable discussion about voting for what you believed in (ala Ralph Nader) vs voting for the greater public good (in this case Greens vS Labour). So the guy and I started a big long discussion after he said “I am more likely to vote for National now than I have ever been”. I kept the puppy eating comments to a minimum, because I figured he was actually left wing and I wanted to hear his view points. Interestingly enough, I also said many timesd that I would rather have the ACT party than National in power – and in case you’re not from NZ, I should tell you that ACT are more right (as opposed to left) than National – but the difference is that they’re more socially liberal, and I’ve realised that being socially liberal is more important to me than being economically left. If you would like to blame that on me maybe someday thinking that I might end up with a woman for a life-partner, and thinking she will be curvy, and thinking that being curvy may lead to being more infertile, and being infertile may lead to adoption, and adoption may lead to a need for gay adoption, then that’s fine, but I would hope that there’s some Greater Good in there too. But if you’re trying to understand me totally, you must know that I’ve always been raised to be upper middle class, and that I am in the top tax bracket right now (at least I think I am), although admittedly for a total of 2k, and I do not work hard for my money. So, economically, I live a fairly cruisey life, but I do know that most people don’t. Anyways, so this guy that I got in discussion with was like “wow, you’re so interesting” a lot. He said he didn’t meet many people as good to talk to as me, and in my head I went “just because I am wearing a low cut top does not just mean I am stupid” and when he kissed my hand in my head I went “just cos I’m fat doesn’t mean I’m not dooable”, but if we go back to the theme of this entry, at least he acknowledged a couple of times that he had a girlfriend, even when he was all like “so are you and Katy close? will I see you again?”. He reminded me of JeremE. Later on the balcony at Indigo we got all talking about life and stuff, which was fine, he was good to talk to, but I was a little like if he was my boyfriedn, I would be pissed off.

And then there was Fucktard. You guys dig that this is on level 2 yeah? and that means that if you’re reading this, you’re pretty special. Anyways. So I’d never met Katy’s ex b/f before, I’d only ever heard bad things about him. Tonight she was like “fuck, I just saw Fucktard on the stairs” nd then later I saw her standing by the bar by some guy, so I went over to say hi, and the guy grabbed my pearls, and touched my hips, and was like, “you’re gorgeous, come dance with us”. I was like, okay, gay friend, (would you please stop loving me, gay men?), so I went over, but the guy kept touching me, and pulling me close, so I was like huh, and danced up on Katy, adn was like “is that Dick?” and she said it was, so I was like na uh, you ain’t going to be touching on this ass, and moved away, but he still kept grabbing the hood of my hoodie which was tied around my waist and stuff. I was like no no no no no, so I danced off somewhere else, but still felt his eyes on me. Later when i saw Katy at the bar without him I apologised, and she was like “I saw that, but knew it wasn’t you” and I felt really crap, because hi, how many of my ‘friends’ have done that? At least seven, and that’s counting one of them as one (when it’s like, six now, at least). But then he came up later, and was telling me how hot I was, and I was like “omg, no one tells me how hot I am, this is the stuff I want to” on the inside, but of course, principles, so I was like “please stop touching me” and he was like “but you’re so hot” and I was like “dude, seriously, if you ever want to have sex with anyone I know, then stop touching me” and he was like “anyone you know?” and I was like “OMG YOU ARE STILL HAVING SEX WITH MY FRIEND KATY” but I didn’t say that out loud – instead I was just like “yes, that’s right” and walked away. Then later still Iwas out on the balconey and he was like “i Love your necklace” and I was like “cheers” and didn’t give him a chance to make any pearl necklace jokes or say anything else cos I walked away after he was like “so, having a good night?” and it sickens me that she still went home with him. Yes, if you must, have ex sex (there was a girl in the social group, and I was like hmm, you’re friends with Skank and FuckCunt, but although i was tempted, I didn’t broach the subject with her), but seriously, if your ex was that much of a sleazy asshole, would you still? I mean, I don’t think he was angling for a threesome (but of course, if she’d have been into it, I would have done it). FUCK I HATE THE HUMAN RACE!

I have dreamt about Bic Runga two nights in a row now. I blame my friend who emails me with tales of woe like “I have a blood blister from playing Foozeball with Bic. I am sore from playing soccer with Shayne”. Not that dreaming about Bic Runga is really that bad, but I was just disappointed when I woke up this morning and realised that I wasn’t actually working on my first solo album.

You know who should go solo? Like, in Antartica or something? The guy in the hat at the Pluto gig who was TALKING THROUGH THE WHOLE GIG. Up the front. Near the stage. In the sad songs. If punching him to knock off his hat and pissing on it wouldn’t have been just as distracting I would have gladly done it. Pluto have played better gigs, but I didn’t say that when Karen and I were retroly having cake at Midnight Esspresso (retro cos we used to do that in the olden days after seeing Garageland or Superette or the 3Ds at the old Bodega) and Milan came in and sat behind us and perked up his ears at what I was saying (mostly about how gleeful I was that they’d played ’8 O’Clock’, and how annoyed at Stupid Talking Guy I was. Then I saw Miss Lucy_Fur walking down the road and I waved but she didn’t see me, so I called her cellie cos it’s very amusing to watch people do the “ooh is that my phone ringing?” look, and then the mad scramble in the bag to find the phone. She and her friend Dawn came back down to the cafe to say hello.

Now, a confession: I am sometimes somewhat lacking in self confidence! No really! Sometimes when I meet them I don’t know if people actually like me, and I feel a little iffy around them. It took me ages to realise that Heather could actually stand me, and then the same thing happened with Jessie (I was like, wow, she must really like eating roti and must dislike being alone) and it just goes on and on. I am a spazz.

Anyways. That was Friday night. I stumbled home drunkenly around 2am and knocked over everything in the house, but didn’t wake Anji up, excellent. I cleaned on Saturday. It takes me like half an hour to vacuum both the couches. No it’s not just Seb-shed, it’s funny rub-off chenille stuff, and hair and tangles. Yum. I hope that once my couches are less new they’ll be less sheddy. Then KateB came over for takeaways and gossip and wine and we watched Mean Girls and then she left for like, a year. With a dagger.

Last night Dave and my parents and I went to a Serisen Wines dinner at Capitol. Holy crap it was amazing! We had Moana bubbles to begin with, then a first course of salmon gravlax with crumbed oysters and a lime olive oil matched with a limey 2004 Riesling. I don’t like salmon, and I’d never eaten oysters before. I figuratively licked my plate clean. I suppose pretty much anything tastes good when it’s deep fried, but the oysters were light and fluffy, not sluggish like I imagined that they’d be, and the salmon was paper thin, and didn’t smell or taste fishy in the way that salmon so often can. Mmmmmmm. The next course was bass and chive ravioli with clam sauce, matched with a chardonnay. I don’t know how clammy the sauce was – it seemed more buttery than anything, but it was really really nice. I don’t think that the accompanying clams were much good, but that is of course coming from the perspective of someone who doesn’t like shellfish. I don’t like cheap chardonnay either, but this stuff was lovely. The courses were pretty small, and spread out well, and the wine glasses were topped up too, which was fantastic. Then we ate duck confit with mushroom and potato pie and muscatel jus, and a Pinot Noir. Oh my god, mouth orgasm! The dessert, really simple grilled pineapple and marscapone with a late harvest Sauvignon was like TRIPLE MOUTH EXPLOSION ORGASM YUM. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. For $85, this was bloody excellent value, and I’m looking forward to going to the Ata Rangi one. Oh yes.

In other news, because I am furious with the temporary editor of Pulp who was in place for one issue, I may very well put up the FULL text (which doesn’t make me look like some kind of retard who doesn’t know that the Spice Girls had a second album before their third album, plus with bonus witty subheadings) of my story tomorrow. Also, I am moving offices to be with the Hott Young Things where I can be better utlized. Two people told me on Friday that I was doing a good job, woo! Of course then I went and fucked up majorly. Nevermind, it’s all half fixed now.

Also, I am in love with the new wallpaper and chandeliers at Indigo, and I may very well marry them, as soon as I get a divorce from the pineapple and marscapone that I also plan on marrying. Oh! And Auckland: I’m coming baby, oh yeah I’m coming real good. Haha. Also I’m visiting Auckland on the 9th and 10th of September I believe, and I intend to have drinks in my suite, assuming I get a suite, or something, and it would be lovely to see you then okay? Choice.

Yesterday being Good Friday and all, Karen came over for breakfast, and we had chocolate hot cross buns as well as the traditional ones, but they were hot and burnt my fingers when I took them out of the oven so I dumped them face down on the serving plate which means that the crosses were upside down, which means that we are all Satanists. Who knew? Y’know, ignoring for now the “Joanna tied someone to a wall and tried to stab them with a pair of scissors in a Satanic ritual” rumour of 8th grade and all (Quick: comment inspiration! What’s the best rumour you ever heard about yourself?). Then we went into town to see Whispers of the Heart, which was excellent, despite the very cheesy name. It wasn’t as fantastical as Totoro or Spirtied Away, but its depiction of Tokyo was so real I could smell it. I’ve felt the repressive heat, heard the crickets chirping, marvelled at how many little neighbourhoods there are and the strange mix of very urban city and large vegetable fields. I wonder if it seemed strange to anyone who hasn’t been there,but if you have been to Tokyo, you’d feel it too.

Later that night I went to Karen’s house to drink vodka mixed with a dash of vanilla sugar syrup, lime and soda. We filled a waterbottle with the mixture and took it to Breaking News, so I felt very fifteen. I saw old workmates there, and asked them what the truth was behind my ex boss’s (removed) post in his blog about deposing the girl who thought she was my boss, but unfortunately apparently it was just a joke. Boo. Still, the movie was good, although I’d been reluctant to go because I always forget that I do actually like Hong Kong action flicks just as much as Karen. Plus afterwards we saw Nial and Blair (you remember, Katy’s friends*) and they were on their way to 24 Hour Party People at Indigo as well so we walked with them. Now, if you’ve been paying attention you might have fathomed that I was wearing contact lenses because I didn’t have a bag with me, and I’ve never worn them before at a dancing type gig. I felt really strange, totally hyper-aware, like I was a spy waiting for someone to assassinate me or something (Or, if you wanted to be REALLY geeky, that I’d been a Potential and I’d just been activated). I could see the expressions on other people’s faces right now, and I imagined that everything they were doing was all about me. It also meant that I was going crazy spotting hot boys, including the singer in my favouritest NZ band ever, except that, dude, get the fuck rid of your facial hair. If I was slightly insane and living in the Hutt and Prone to Using random Capital letters, I might Go so Far as to Declare a Jihad on Facial hair. And as a brief side note on a facial hair tangent, why the fuck have none of you told me that my eyebrows are just about to touch my eyelashes? I’ve always said I’d never pluck them, but really, I’m going to have to start. Someone volunteer to do it for me? Back to the gig. We only stayed a couple of hours, because while some fo the music was great some of it was kinda meh, but We both had a good time, and that’s what’s important.

Today after I’d been woken up for long cuddles with my sweetiepeetiepoodlepie and had been fed breakfast and had showered all my stinkyness away I set off to corporatertise my wardrobe. This of course meant a trip up to Petone to go to The Carpenter’s Daughter, which I STILL drove right past and had to double back in order to find. I tried on a huge pile of clothes but eventually ended up with three garments – a silver basically sleeveless top that I’d wanted the last time I was there but couldn’t justify spending $115 on, but $50 was okay, a wrap-around cardigan type thing in a glittery peachy/goldy/pinky kinda paisley print (that sounds not nice, but it is) and A BLAZER. Yay fucking hooray! I’ve been after a blazer forever. This is a cordoroy/velvet black one (yes, more black clothes, sorry, New Year’s Resolutions) that’s embossed stripes, and it has a double zip up the front instead of buttons and flared sleeves. Plus it fits me like a dream and oh I am so happy with it. The lady only rang up $165 on the cash register cos we’d been discussing their bonus club thingie of which only the blazer counted towards since the other two items were on sale, but I was good and pointed out that she’d undercharged me by $100. Go me.

Then I headed back into the city to go and hunt down Lindsay Lohan movies (Brad’s coming over tomorrow night), and to meet up with Annabel’s friend Dave-from-England. He was very nice and bought me a pint and I will be making sure to take him to some gigs of the indie rock persuasion in the coming months. When I got home Anji was over for dinner, and I ate too much of my easter egg and got a tummy ache, but now I am drinking PIRATE BEER EXTRA STRONG which I bought during a supermarket run to replenish my parents’ wine racks, and at 8.5% and a 500ml can, it’s a hefty three standard drinks. I think it must be time to return to Angel 5. OMG it’s SO GOOD. Puppets! And lore! And Spike isn’t TOO annoying. Hurray!

Also, if you’ll allow me the use of one more “omg”, omg, I am like, such a geek. Nevermind.

<B>Friday</B>
<LI>Handing in my notice
<LI>Job interview at lunchtime. The one question that stumped me was “how would your colleagues describe you?” I confessed to having just resigned so they would probably use a few choice words about me, and then talked about last year’s colleagues instead. Then the interviewers all left me alone in their office with assorted laptops to go get lunch while I did a test. I wonder if part of the test was them spying through spyholes at me. I don’t mind if they did because they also bought me a smoothie. I would like that job please.
<LI>BBQ with Karen and Mummy and Brad, and much foodage. Later we tried to make s’mores although the biscuits were stale and it took a long time to get the fire going again. Have I mentioned how disturbing it is that my parents turn Mum’s 80kg gas bottles into flame throwers in order to start the BBQ in their outdoor potbellied pottery fireplace? No? Well it’s really disturbing. What was less disturbing, and in fact, great, was watching two hours of <I>The O.C</I> goodness (last week’s episode for Brad’s benefit first).

<B>Saturday</B>
<LI>Dinner with Mummy at Daawat in J’Ville. J’Ville has a bar now! What goes on?
<LI> 1000ml bottles of Banrock Station are back. Hurray!
<LI>Drinks at Jessie’s, followed by a party in Mt Vic, and then Indigo. I networked all comms like! I plotted all politically like on the deck of Indigo. Random girls made me try their random drinks! All very exciting stuff.

<B>Sunday</B>
<LI>’Home and Away’ Omnibus.
<LI> <I>The House of Flying Daggers</I>. Oooh pretty.

<B>Today</B>
<LI>Guess which magazine has pages laid out in COMIC SANS this week?
<LI>Tonight I am going to take Jessie to The Shins. I only know that one song, but hey, if y’all knew I had free tickets and didn’t go, you’d probably spit at me, right? Plus, hopefully I can get Jessie to <strike>put out</strike> buy me a beer in gratitude. Or something.

Drinks at Karen’s with Brad and Shirley, and then we’re off to Atomic at Indigo via the 90s party at Blink’s but when we got there it was all about the sign on the door saying it was canceled, so we stopped to hide booze by the Bakehouse. Brad apparently went back to get another beer later, all class. Once the band had finished (Electrocrack is the new Emperor’s New Clothes), the music was great.

If New Zealand had Craigslist I would post something saying “Dear girl with the NIN tattoos and the dice necklace – you grabbed my pearls and told me you loved them and then when I suggested you punch your friend you told me you loved me and then when it seemed like you almost took my hand in the bathroom, and then did take it later but only to ask for cigarettes, well, I don’t know if you’re that way inclined, or if you are if you’d be that way inclined towards me or not, but I’d just really like to hold hands and kiss you”. Girlcrushes are confusing. Girlie-Giggling Crushes, on the other hand, are fun, even if your friends do tell you to stop giggling just cos you’ve seen the boy you have a crush on, and yell at you to talk to him even though you know he’s not interested, but hey, a hug’s good enough. And then when Heather calls you at 11am, you’re like “arrgh, I love you Heather but I’ve got to go back to sleep to dream about the boy and skipping through fields of daisies”.

Which is actually a lie, because while we’re jumbling this narrative around, I actually dreamt about Kristen, who was working behind the bar and who was (fair enoughly too) very tired. I dreamt I got up at school and yelled at everyone that she was singlehandedly the best person at the school and reeled off a list of her achievements and then cried. Much more wholesome than the other day when I dreamt I decided out of the blue to hire a male prostitute, who was gay but was doing straight for the money. I don’t know why I bothered though, because he blamed me for his inability to stick it in (probably not helped by the fact that I was inexplicitly still wearing my panties – hehe I said panties) but eventually he came across my face and mouth and left. And I paid $130 for that? Wow, even in my dreams I get ripped off.

And on that note before I return to my night story, I might throw down my New Year’s Resolutions: