Hubris.co.nz

Today is my birthday. My family have been awesome, as have my usual Tuesday crew (including the Quiz Master, who smells delicious, but could use some hand cream). My birthday party on Saturday night was an awful lot of fun too.

On my birthday last year I woke up in bed with a nice girl, and then Anji showed up and brought us coffee, we all went to brunch and then cleaned Karen’s apartment. The year before that, I was fucking relieved not to be having vagina surgery, and was possibly still really stoked to have been felt up by a boy who was one the best pashes evah the night before, we went to Cafe Istanbul for dinner and I saw the Real Hot Bitches for the first time ever. And I think that last link does a good job of summing up other years, but I will point out that on the day I turned 20 I dumped my boyfriend (ala, the ASSCUNT of twitter from the previous entry) because he wouldn’t make an effort to see me, and ten years ago, I had a really sucky 18th birthday in which people I cared about said nasty things about me because I drank and (shock horror!) smoked pot (one of those three people is now one of my best friends, one of them does far too many drugs now, and the other is in Australia) and it turns out that another one was sleeping with the guy I fancied at the time. Etc. So today’s not really being able to sleep until after 6am and all the voices in my head speaking in Scottish accents ala Anna from This Life, then workshops, dinner at Caffe Italiano and Quiz Night is really not that stand-out-y.

Has it become apparent to you via this post that birthdays are actually very important to me? I hope it has, because I’m living in a flat who fail to notice that,and it’s weird. Actually, this is the third birthday in a row tat I’ve had in which one of them will fail to pay it any attention. Oh, but, on a non-flatmate note, I haven’t had a birthday cake of my own on my actual birthday since I was 17 – until this year, when Anji and Bambi bought over a beautiful delicious cake for me with champagne bottle corks. I’ll put in photos at some stage. And also creepy video of karaoke. Karaoke was SO fucking awesome, it was such a good night, I love me some friends, and also Yvonne at Longxiang who dealt with me having 18 friends at dinner and that not even being close to all of them. I’m not always entirely sure why anyone likes me sometimes, but at dinner I totally got it and it was lovely.

Also random blah blah. Something about sex. Oh yes, the twitters on Saturday night. I’ll tell you, I am SO fucking horny right now. Like, there’s the usual depression thing of wanting to lose yourself under someone, having them thrust aside all thoughts in your brain even for a couple of minutes, the validation of having someone wrapped around you, and then there’s pre-period hormones, in which everything is a turn-on (see above quizmaster love from tonight, although of course that’s not a new thing because of course I fancy the rare people who appear to be smarter than I) and oh man oh man oh man sometimes all you can think about is getting a pounding.

Then there’s the decision that if 27 was the year of debauchery, which it hardly was, then maybe I wil make an attempt to make 28 year of health (starting tomorrow of course). Even my taxi driver tonight asked me if I suffered from Anxiety, which holy fuck yes I do. I should defend myself in saying that he asked because he had it, not because I appeared totally buttfuck crazy, honest. Anyways. Full circle. I hide in bed to avoid the world (read: flatmates going “oh, not at work today?) then hate onthe world (read: flatmates) for not doing anything for my birthday. Yes, that’s right, you can’t win with me at all, anyone. Haven’t I made that clear already? I should I suppose clarify here: I fucking miss Kat’n Kane, and Bopha and Brad, and Kateb and Clayton and Simon like, so much. I am deeply deeply nostalgic for flats of yesteryear when they were more than just a collection of individuals under one roof.

Except, you know, if you give me a good fucking right now. And that won’t happen because I am far too anxious. Joy! Yes, cycle, yes, I will get out of it. Man, I am looking forward to sleeping tonight.

Oh, and finally, have i mentioned lately that I think Sebastian is gay? There’s always bitemarks on the back of his neck. I wonder if the gay cat world has bears, because he is big and hairy. But he is also poised and handsome and constantly grooming. But the cats he talks to during the day look like twinks to me. I reckon that’s why he kept trying to do Sammy when we lived with Iva, even though Sammy was actually (sort of) female. Ahhh cat sex, that’s a good note to end on, right?

I’m going to Auckland after work today. Tonight I’m having dinner at Canton, hurrah! Text me if you’re in Auck and I forgot to invite you. There’s a spare seat at our table. Then on Friday night I’m going to Muse. I’m up until Sunday, so please feel free to fill in my time table for me.

I have lots of stuff to write about but I haven’t got time, so very briefly:

1. The clever Alison Green has created an archives page for the Gathering (you remember that, right?) which you should definitely go check out and my story about long distance IRC love and bad acid trips can be found here.

2. Please go vote for the Wellingtonista Awards, and try to get into our Awards Night. I have a stunning pink dress to wear to it. I’m going to look damn hot. When you’re voting, I recommend voting for the poached pear punch at Superfino as the best drink, and of course for the Bowling/Quiz Leagues as best event.

3. I am so very in love with the new Q CD for the best of 2007, especially Hard Fi, Rilo Kiley and Jamie T – “I ain’t an abacus but you can count on me”. I’m pissy with PJ Harvey for coming to Auckland on the 13th of February when I’m going to be up there for the 8th. Err, presuming I get an invite to my cousin’s wedding, that is. Are you coming back for it, Cous?

Friday night was Heavenly Burlesque. I got grumpy before hand because there were so many people and they were all running around and it was all crazy and mad, and Karen and I went to sit with Anji and Barbara and there was one seat too few, and then we lost the seats we could have had, and ended up sitting on the sides in the crappy old chairs, and I’d had two lots of caffiene that day, and my heart started going kapow. I thought I was going to stay grumpy, but it turns out that ladies in panties doing tricks with hula hoops and songs about cunnilinguis are good at making me cheer up.

Saturday was a cruisy day and then in the evening Smoo and I went off to Bart’s birthday party. We played a game that involved throwing a hula hoop over a pitchfork, which is actually much more fun than it sounds, and some card game that involved a lot of drinking. Everyone liked the cake I made, because it was peach and almond, and I am awesome. Lani thought Bart was turning 30, which made me laugh. One of Bart’s friends was like “Jo! The last time I saw you, you were upside down over a keg!” which is awesome as a statement. And ummm, then I finished my bottle of vodka, and there were many texts to Dyl trying to find him, and eventually we walked down to meet him on a street corner, and went off to Priya’s prom in Thorndorn. That party seemed to be winding up somewhat, but I talked to someone who remembered me from IRC in the olden days, and I think I was like “oh yeah, you’re the really sleezy guy”, which perhaps wasn’t the most polite thing to say. But yes, the party was breaking up, so we got kicked out, and then there were more more long walks.

Dectective work involved seeing inappropriate emails sent later on to the Wellingtonista mailing list, and in the morning there was a puddle of balsamic oil on the kitchen floor, and a smashed leg of a dining room chair, and today I found the remains of an iskender mostly untouched which suggested that I got otherwise distracted when I got home, and Lani is laughing at me an awful lot. And fair enough I suppose. All’s well that ends well, it’s cool.

Once again, I have been neglectful, and for that I apologise. But look outside. Do you really expect me to be indoors at my computer when it’s as gorgeous as it has been for the past week? Well yes, as a matter of fact, I spent all day at my dining room table typing away, because I slept very badly last night and consequently felt like shit this morning, and so asked permission to work from home. And that’s not even “work from home” as I did a page by page analysis of our site, proofreading, editing and planning for the future – and there’s about 100 pages on it. I was particularly impressed with one page that has “Image: please supply an image and caption in landscape form” developed as part of the text body, in title tags even, becasue um, hello, wakey wakey whoever developed it. Which wasn’t me. It was a long long boring job, but it was made easier by the fact that I was in my pyjamas, and Sebastian was curled at my feet, and all the doors and windows in the house were open to let in some air. That was much better than being in the office. It was also great that I managed to do three loads of washing whilst working hard, and also in my lunchbreak I went for a swim.

I have been doing much swimming lately, sometimes in my totally hott new togs, running to the beach after work, or on the weekend when I got totally sunburnt on Sunday. But let’s talk about the total and utter joy of last Friday first. In fact, let me paste in my drunken summation of it:

So, today I was clever and took my togs to work. But sadly, at lunch today as I wasn’t going to the gym, I ended up spending $50 at Farmers on lip gloss, tweezers, handcream and eye shadow. Then I thought I would pop into Zebranos cos they were having a sale, amnd I found a dress that I thought would be okay to try on since it was two sizes smaller than I thought i needed, but it ended up being fucking hot, if a little Twee-able, so I ended up buying it, on the rationa that it was $250 cheaper than usual on account of the sale (skipping that it meant it was $200), and then I had to go to Farmers again to buy a slip to go under it. Then at 5pm I ran away and took at #15 and went to the children’s playground near the Tugboat and found AWESOME private changing rooms and put my togs on and then Karen was there and we went SWIMMING! She pointed and made “want to?” motions at me, and so we decided that yes, we would swim out to the raft anchored in the harbour. It was about 100 metres out, and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to make i, because while I am an excellent frolicker and floater, actual swimming isn’t actually my thing. But I paddled out there, and clambered on board, and felt my heart go bang bang bang, and we hung out there until we saw hordes of wetsuited people heading for us, so I dived in, and OW, must have done a booby flop cos while I thought it was a good dive, it hurt my tits like woah, but I swam back to the show mostly, and woah like FUN!

PS my dress is AWESOME

It is good when things are awesome. When I saw my counsellor last Tuesday I told her I kind of didn’t even want to come and see her since I was feeling so good and I knew that talking to her would be hard, and we talked about that some more. She asked me about my relationships and I laughed, and later she said “do you think you deliberately go for unavailable men?” and I laughed and laughed and laughed, not just because it’s funny because it’s true, but also because it seems like such a counselling cliche. I feel a little like she’s trying to tick every box with me, because now we have decided on something she says that many of the things about me are typical of that thing. But the thing that is grand is that she made me realise that while the pills have started to work, and the sun plays a part in lifting my mood I can also be proud of all the work that I have done to get myself into this state of being mostly okay again. So hurrah for me! What a clever girl I am.

What else do I have to tell you about? Tomorrow I am going to the Great Blend where people will no doubt refer to me as a blogger, and I will no doubt cringe. On Saturday February 10, I will celebrate ten years of Internetting. Yes, I surfed before, but that was the first day that I stumbled upon IRC, and therefore became addicted. In July I will have had a personal site for ten years. Ten years. Imagine that! And on that note, it must be time to put away my computer for the night. I am tired from doing so many loads of washing, and work, and making pesto, and cooking Papas Garbanzo for Lisa, and then going for a sunset swim at Lyall Bay. But before I go, I must throw mad props to Tori Spelling, because Donna Martin in Season One? Fucking hilarious.

When I said it would be all in one part, I was lying.

Saturday December 4th, continued
Finally I realised that I couldn’t watch Dawson’s forever, and that it was high time I get my shit together and make the journey to The’Tron, via dropping Katie off in town. Of course it started raining then. I’m still not used to driving a car that actually has functioning windscreen wipers (Inco’s scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaped and scratched) and of course it was that stupid dumb sometimes-sunny bullshit, so I was all confuzzled between glasses and sunglasses, aaaaaaaand (just to bitch a little more) I don’t particularly like the drive to Hamiltron at the best of times, and even less when I’m hungover, but I made it there in one piece. The motel I was staying at, The Airport Motor Inn, was (strangely enough) out at the airport, which is another half hour or so through Hamilton, but luckily it was signposted, cos there are few things I hate more than getting lost in The’Tron (except perhaps getting lost in West Auckland).

My motel room was very beige, as I had hoped. For some reason, I was thinking that the neutrality of it would inspire me to some great writing since I couldn’t have my Doom Generation motel room fantasy. I shattered the peace by bleeding red and purple all over their white towels and also probably got traces on the clean white sheets when I had a nap. I am a deviant. I’d stuck my toe into the outdoor swimming pool and decided against it because while I’m crazy I’m not actually insane. The shower was all needley and great massagey though, which made me happy. I drank many glasses of water trying to rehydrate and then it was time (well, well past time but I stopped to watch the Simpsons) to get my act together and get dressed for Chelsea’s after-wedding. Wedding-esque (not in the long and white and poofy, but in the ‘appropriate attire for a guest’ sense, of course) Dress? Check. Pearls? Check. Cardigan? Check. Pink Lipgloss? Check. Scoddy old silver birkis? Check. Then all I had to do was stand in the motel’s driveway for an eternity waiting for the taxi, but that’s okay cos while I was waiting I got a call from La, who had obviously arrived back from Australia and received the note I’d left at his house threatening to cry if I didn’t have a chance to hang out with him. Excellent. (Wait, again, what tense am I in? Oh who knows anymore.)

The taxi took me out into the countryside dotted with Lifestyle Block type places, and we both cunningly managed to work out that the house was the one with all the cars parked around it and balloons tied to the gate. Given that I hadn’t seen Chelsea since Uni, I was a little nervous. Luckily, I spotted Kyla, and she pointed me towards Elly, who told me to sit down at her table and then as soon as I did, she got up and left. That’s when I went to find a drink. I met all sorts of people who, once they established that I was Jo Hubris and not any of the other Jos, knew all sorts of things about me. Mostly they didn’t even tell me their real names, let alone any kind of web name, so I was left to stick out my hand and say “Hi, I’m Jo,” expecting that usual social convention would compell them to introduce themselves and not reply with a “I know” and keep talking. Pah, feeble social convention, they laugh at usual social convention! Anyways, I sought out Elly and kept her company while she stuffed weiners in herself. Since neither she nor Kyla nor Murray, who had just arrived at this point in my narrative, were drinking, I decided to take it upon myself to drink their share as well. The gorgeous big garden was set up with a series of canopies and pavilion type things, but it was starting to rain so eventually, after I left ridiculously garbled messages on a video for Chelsea (sorry!) we retired inside to watch Richard and Chelsea open their presents. I want to get married! Oh so many presents. Also like, as I did mention in my earlier drunken entry when I got home from the wedding, I’d kind of like to look beautiful and be in love, just like Chelsea. But I’ll settle for appliances. Then there was dancing! Lots and lots of it. In fact, Elly and I got thrown out at the end,because Richard and Chelsea had already left, and I guess Richard’s parents’d had enough of us – which is probably a valid complaint. I had after all been naughty and used the inside toilet, something that made me feel terribly wicked and probably made me have a guiltier face than I did at Dee’s wedding.
Earlier in the night I’d confided in Elly that I’ve been getting exceeding paranoid when I drink and would she please be able to make sure that I got home safely in case I got pissed, and so she was kind enough to drive me back to my motel, even though I wasn’t pissed to the badness point, just the ridiculous amounts of fun and also trying to teach boys how to waltz point, where I logged on and wrote this incredibly eloquent journal entry. Which, as it happens, cost me $10 for the phone call, so I hope you enjoyed it.

Sunday, December 5th
What I would like to know is which bastard decided that it would be a good fun thing for motels to have a 10am checkout. It certainly wasn’t me anyways. But there you have it, according to my receipt I managed to shower and pack in a severely hungover state and pay my $122 bill by 10.07am ($105 room, $6 minibar, $10 internet phonecall, 40cent taxi phonecall). Yay me! And then I rang Brenda and got directions to her house. She’d promised to cook me waffles but I was feeling so ill that I had to make a quick stop into Burger King on the way there. You know their “suck it and see” straws? Well they come with a fucking piece of paper telling you what colour your straw is before you even get the chance. What’s the point in that? None! There is no point. Plus the straws feel oooky and taste yucky. You suck, Burger King. What doesn’t suck is the coffee Brenda makes on her posh machine, and her home made cookies. We sat and drank coffee for an hour and a bit and gossiped. I think she’s fantastic. She didn’t make me waffles though, but that’s fine because I was full of BK and cookies and coffee anyways. My throat was hurting like a motherfucker, as it had started on Thursday what with me singing for eight hours on the drive up, and then continued with the singing and dancing on Friday night, and then the Saturday night, and the unhealthy lifestyling and the talking talking talking. So what did I do? I left Brenda to go meet up with Amy&Andee and talk talk talk some more.

The cafe we went to – Metropolis was cheaper than an Auck or Welly one, and big plates of pasta and yumness. Haha, look at the quality of my England Writering. We got caught up on our current lives (Amy’s doing a PhD! !!!) and settled in to bitch about our old lives as well. They finally told me about how a girl who I thought was my friend slept with the guy I fancied six and a half years ago. OMG! So that makes what, seven ‘friends’ who’ve done that now? You’ll excuse me if I’m a little cynical when it comes to friendships now and put an ever increasing value on the TWO YEAR RULE. I’m looking at you here Jessie, as my newest friend. And Heather too – make sure you keep your thieving mitts off Zach Braff, dammit! Anyways, the story of this girl and boy in question is that she’d been at my house in Mt Roskill when he’d invited us over to his place on the shore, and so she drove us over, and he offered us a smoke and I was like “oh no thanks” cos I didn’t want to embarrass myself by coughing, and then he said that I could crash there for the night so the girl wouldn’t have to go back to Mt Roskill to drop me off since she was from the shore anyways (I should have known better) but I said no to that too, because I was fucking dumb 17 year old, and so she drove me home and apparently went back and slept with him. Nice! I stopped talking to her a couple of weeks after that anyways since someone cut&pasted me the nasty shit she’d been saying about me on IRC anyways. Hahaha IRC. Funny. (Also hahaha if, Mr Boy in Question, you’re still lurking). But Amy, Andee I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DIDN’T TELL ME SOONER. Heh. Then we went and admired the RiffRaff statue (Hamiltron is so wack) and then I drove back to Auck for nailpainting and facials with Kateb. Hurray.

Scott, what the fuck were you doing? you were working in a cheese factory, and now you’re dead. How do I respond to that? What the fuck am I supposed to say? And I know it’s not about me, it’s about you, but I’m still here and you’re not. The last time I saw you was probably at mark’s 21st, at the end of 1998. I called you a cunt, and that’s the way I felt about you. I’m not going to take that back, even though you’re dead. But besides treating one of my best friends badly, you were a good guy. I remember how shy you were. I remember you showing me a tickle-me-Elmo you’d bought for her. I remember telling you that her favourite flowers were lilies. I remember lying on your bed having deep and meaningfuls. I remember everything, but you’re dead. And maybe I was wrong, I abused you out of turn, but I remember you abusing me out of loyalty too. SO where does that leave us? It still leaves you dead, it still leaves me alive. We were good friends, Scott, but I haven’t been close to you since you hurt one of my best friends and it would be fraudulent of me to pretend otherwise. Still, I hope that wherever you are, you’re happy, and maybe you’re at peace and you’re as nice and innnocent as you always should have been.

Rest in peace, Skeeter
xo Astrid.

So I’ve been online for like 30 minutes and I still haven’t managed to read a single one of my emails yet. I really must change email accounts.

I bought two heads of brocoli today at 15 cents a head each. This is a good thing. I got them in Northcote, if you’re interested. Today again I was driving around the Shore investigating venues. It’s great. I like Rob in the car division – he gave me a manual drive car today when I told him about the stupid things I did with the automatic last week (I was wondering why the car braked so damn jerky when I was being super gentle until I realised that I was using my left foot on the brake, which as we all know is wrong). There’s a couple’o pajs parked down in amongst the company car pool too – I’ve promised Brad and Clay I’m going to try my hardest to get to take a paj out for the day and I’ll come and pick them up and we’ll drive through Remmers darling. Anyways. So yeah, Northcote/Birkenhead in the morning, then Devenport and Albany in the afternoon.

I had a meeting with the PR Consultant lady I’m working with who’s only in 2 days a week and gave my report and she said I was going well, and that I have full authority to go ahead and book the venues and start drawing up a timetable. Scaaary! I’d much rather someone was checking me every step of the way, but I just don’t have that at work – they leave me up to my own devices. I’m very good at looking busy. I have email at work now, finally my own key and login, but so far I’ve only given my email address to essential contacts (read: Kini and Olivia). I’m trying to be good. I don’t want to fuck this all up. I’m alredy worried about finding a job in February, because I know I have a tendancy not to be very good at seeking things out because basically everything i ever need falls in my lap. Except for my paycheque – grrr! I don’t get paid for a fortnight, and I’m in malls and shopping areas for half the morning – all my xmas shopping could be done by now if I had a cent left in the bank. Ahh well. Tomorrow I’m going to be in a working party conference anyways. Have I mentioned that I get business cards?

Wank wank wank wank wank. I actually am often left without anything to do, so I call Shirley, and since I’m in an open planned office, the people around me would hear
“Hi, it’s Joanna here from *, is that you Shirley? How are you?…….. Right, I’m calling in regards to the communication briefing I received the other day……….. No no, that’s fine……..yes I was in contact yesterday but we decided to not pursue that avenue any further for a while…. yes of course it’s re-occuring….I appreciate that…. absolutely, I’ll just make a note of that…….. yes…. yes….. well would you have some time free for a meeting?…….. how’s today for you?…..alright well we’ll scheduale something for next week then” and then my boss will come back and I’ll want to ask her something so I’ll hang up on Shirley really abruptly going “Great, well thank you very much for your time”. I’m SO a kid in heels and pearls. Nevermind the fact that the rest of the office spends their lives on the phone having really boring conversations with their car insurance and real estate agent places that I can’t help but evesdrop on. Or maybe they’re all speaking in a secret code too. Hmmmmmmm, intriguing!

Because I spent so much time driving today, I came up with a list of memorable car moments that I jotted down because I was bored. You know how I like my lists. Sheesh, anyone would think that I was incapable of stringing together anything more cohesive. And ha! I’m going to alphabetize them by the first letter in the sentence:

• A memory from Primary School; the greatest day of my life ever at that stage was when I got to sit squashed up next to my Crush – Andrew Carnegie – to and from a netball tournament
• Amy and Andee taking me over the harbour bridge by mistake, playing the Spice Girls and bumping the car to cheer me up
• Anji and Greg taking me up to Auckland for Pearl Jam when I was 14, determined to corrupt me and we picked up a dumb hitchhiker who said “Youse guys”
• Countless Welly/Auck drives with Kate B, listening to Cat Stevens, blowing bubbles and taking mad photos left right and centre
• Driving myself to Wellington thinking so hard that later I wrote a 7 page essay on the appropriate course of action to take as a consequence of that thought process
• Driving to Welly with Simon and Matt Sawkill in the backseat, me giggling away to myself like the cat that’s got the cream and is mixing its metaphors like a DJ with religion.
• Going to Waiuku for Kate H’s goodbye party, Justin putting the car in neutral going down a hill and it kept going, freefalling
• Kim speeding along Greenlane West at 3am in the fog when we were on a mad sugar rush and couldn’t see 10 feet ahead of us
• Kini in my rear view mirror, the magical drive into the Coramandel
• MM in the MR2, subwoofer under my seat, lost in Remuera at 4am trying to find food cos we’d been up arguing all night
• Pajero pulling up outside my house in Mount Roskill, Shirley and Dee Cavalry coming to be with me when I found out that Opa died
• Pixie’s friend Sam’s orange pumpkin car, tinnie house in Te Atatu right next to a primary school and I thought we’d be beaten up by protective westie parents
• Roadtripping to Waihi with Shirley, her doing crazy overtaking manouvers and making Trudie scream when I dared her to drive down a bank
• Sung Song association all the way to St. Heliers with Brad in the stereoless Grey Ghost
• the other night in Jeremy’s car, cold from swimming, falling asleep on Clayton’s shoulder

I warned you that i have full stationary cupboard rights – notepads are perfect for lists.

“I think you’re crazy, maybe, I think you’re crazy.”

Sunday, June 11th, 2000

I’m really happy cos I finished my cd rom today, and it looks okay. I was dumb and forgot to bundle Quicktime with it, so I might have to go and burn a new copy, but I dunno if I can be assed. Guess what everyone’s getting for Xmas? Yes, that’s right. I already had everyone in the multimedia lab today singing “Stop” as I was digitizing my dancing Brad footage.

Then I came home, and I meant to study, but I had to talk on the phone to people, and then I took the paper back to bed cos it was so cold, and then I was warm so I couldn’t get up, and then I had to talk to Shirley for ages, and then I had to watch TV and then Maree came over.

We watched Return to Treasure Island which was very amusing, and then L.A. Confidential. We decided we’re going to invite Russell Crowe and Guy Pierce over to play. We’re happy to share, but I’m going to take Russell first, cos I feel like having a Man kinda Man. It was a really really good movie, even if we did have to go get Macdonalds in the middle of it. I ate like 8 mikan, but they just weren’t doing anything for me. Whoops, that’s mandarins, sorry.

Oh, oh, last night! Clayton’s girlfriend is absolutely lovely, we were very impressed. I’m sure she somehow let me win when we were playing “Agitation” just to get into the good books. I think she didn’t quite get me and Brad, but then again, no one really does. I remember complaining to Thomas once when he didn’t laugh at a joke of mine going “if BRAD was here, he’d laugh” and Thomas was like “Brad laughs at everything you say anyways” but it’s not just mindless laughter, I swear! We’re just on another level. If everyone else knew how to play Song Association, the whole world could laugh along too.

After dinner and lots and lots of wine, Brad and Kate M went off to his room, and Clay and Kara were going to watch a video, so I made Si come to my room to give the kids some privacy. He played on IRC, and I went to bed, quite tired, and quite drunk. I babbled dumbly for ages, but eventually I managed to shut up, and went straight to sleep after his ride came to get him.

Oh oh oh, I need a flatmate, still, really really badly. If everyone could maybe just email Maree and tell her to stop being Kimmy Gibbler and be Stephanie instead, that might help. (for those of you that don’t watch Full House, basically we all want her to stop being the crazy neighbour, and be an actual part of the family). Of course, this is emotional blackmail, which isn’t nice, so umm, sorry Maree. But you love us really.

Thursday; September the 30th, 1999

I’m feeling so lonely that I went onto IRC and sat in #teen while the kinderwhores – or maybe it was Jess, in which case she isn’t a whore, told me I looked really good in the last shot, and I thought that was pretty funny since I was crying.

Oh, Brad came home, which was good cos I had chocolate and company for a little bit. He also told me funny stories about his work at the Video store. He had to ring up a family to report that “Japanese Sex Tours” was out, and the father was like “what, we never rented that” and ended up coming down to the shop to rage about how someone had let his 14 year old son rent porn. Poor Brad was like “I’m so sorry – it wasn’t me!”

Yesterday night was cool, bonding with Kate M who hung around to watch Topless Women Talk About Their Lives with me (again) and she plaited my hair. I made her watch Pokemon Island, and we all talked like pokemons when Brad got home.

Today I did laundry. Simon’s gone to Wellington. I’m lonely and wanting hugs.

Oh yeah, there’s a bit more Australia story if you want.

Sunday 14; Febuary, 1999

Kini: “I live for your journal”

Then we both agreed that she needs to get out more. I think that I do too. I slept in until 2pm, which was nice, only my feet still hurt when I woke up. I have this shocking habbit of picking loose skin from blisters and stuff. Mmm that’s nice. Next I’ll be telling you about squeezing my zits or something equally foul. Not that I have zits, mind you. My skin is perfect. I am perfect.

I’m also sitting in full view of every tom dick and harry that should happen up the neighbour’s drive, because I took down all the curtains today. Yeah, I’m going Japanese Minimalist at last. Either that or they’re currently sitting in the bathtub, soaking in bleach. Hopefully the bath is getting bleached too.

And no I’m not going crazy with the bleach just because I didn’t get any real Valentines. Hahahaha aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhaaaaaarggggg. Kini said she was going to write my biography after I cark it. I guess there’s many a trajic wee tale to be told indeedly. Still, this time last year I was flathunting in Auckland, not knowing anyone at all, and was just days away from throwing myself on Tracey’s mercy and enduring 2 of the most hellish weeks of my life. I should be relieved (and I am, do believe me, I am) that I’m not homeless, and forced to share a lounge as a bedroom with Matty G again. Still, that was all character building, right?

MMMMMmmmmmm so time to move on, I think. The Hero Parade looked better on TV than it did in real life. I was sitting watching it, when I heard this thumping noise, and I nearly died of a heart attack and then Laytonthelurker walked in. He stayed for a while to watch TV, but it was up quite loud, so luckily I didn’t have to make much conversation. He just got back from Whakatane, but he’s back sleeping on the shore tonight. Phew. I hate it that he has a key to this house. Sure, he’s paying rent, but SO? Maybe he won’t be so bad when the others are around – I’m just tired of trying to talk to someone that boring.

Mark your diaries now for April 22nd. That’s International Give Stuff to Joanna and Kini Day. Hey – she has an 1000km penis, after all.

And mark in Saturday the 6th of March too if you’re my friend and in the general area – flatwarming party, baaaaaby!