Hubris.co.nz

You know, the thingie that I’m writing over contained the line “well whatever happened to jennifer connelly? what made-for-tv movie will she turn up in next?” and that was Octoberish 99 and since then she’s won an Oscar, so there you go. Shit, losing my place, slightly nauseous = obviously fucking drunk. But it’s like, Nigel’s birthday so I have a real reason to be, honestly. Yeah.

Anyways, so my day was sleeping in, until Bopha made me and Clay watch ‘Sholin Kids’. Fuck that’s a brilliant movie! So good. And then her and I went to the swoopermomarket adn stopped by to see KateM (KateM kicks ass!) and yeah rah rah. Then i got Emma to drop me at Jeremy’s, cos I was going to his house for dinner. He had a fucking hot english boy staying with him and I think we all know hwat suckers for accents women are, so yeah,my panties were well moist. ALSO! him and this other guy put “well” before all their adjectives, and you just know I”m well going to be doing that from now on.

Much later (ie: two and a half bottles later) me and Jezza took a Taxi to Verboten on Ponsonby Road to wait for everone else. People came later and that was cool. Jezza bought me a fucking nice cocktail – he didn’t know what wsa in it – he said he said to the bartender that he wanted a gorgeous drink for a gorgeous girl, and fuck it was good. Many many drinks, and lots of intense talking. Jezza is super funny and we have lots in common. Heh. Anyways. I guess evetually someone someone decided that we should leave Verboten, and so I found myself inh the backseat of Ryan’s car (he of the long distance and kumikumi pig) and I was completely disorientated, But eventually we were queueing outsidea Wyndam Street Bowling Club, and I was like What the fuck? why am I queieing to pay $15 to listen to HOUSE MUSIC? So I went down to Queen St, walked up a bit and got a taxi home. And here I am. HI! HELLO! HI! Rah rah rah. There’s like, missed oppotunities and shit, but I think this is better in general, me being umm fuck, altruistic and shit. Yeah. Colour me DLT.

I don’t know if you’ll get this. If I list all the reasons I like this last boy, will you misread it? Will you think that he’s vitally vitally important to me, and worry about telling em things, and think that in the grand scheme of things that he really matters? Because he doesn’t. How do I drill that into your fucking head? How do I explain what’s really important? And how do I make you see that hte black clouds haven’t gone away, and that they won’t ever go away really properly? Because you don’t get it, and if you’ve ever felt like I have, then you too are pretending like it won’t ever happen again; like you’re CURED, and it doesn’t come back. Guess what? It does. But that wasn’t my point. My point was glee, I guess, inspired by a conversation with Jezza tonight about another boy in flannel pajamas. Now you may or may not know that now I really don’t respect this boy anymore, on account of him behaving more than a little immaturely lately (oh shut up, this is about him, not me) but the point was that it’s still a really cute, endearing memory that he put on flannel pjs after shagging me. So can we please move on to the next boy (who is like, umm 3 boys after the flannel boy in terms of being the object of my affection? smething like that anyways)? Thank you.

Reasons why I have a crush on the latest boy:

You still don’t fucking get it though, do you? Because I’ve had so much time to think about this, to figure it all out in my mind, to the point where everything becomes predictable, where I know what people are going to say before they say it, and where it’s almost like there’s no point in having conversations anymore. Why don’t you suprise me? Go on. I bet you can’t. See, that’s your problem maybe, your defeatist attitude. And I’m sorry if you think that I’m being unnecessarily harsh, so if it helps, maybe I’m not talking to YOU at all, I’m talking to someone else. How dare you think that you’re the centre of my universe at all, after all?

Tuesday September 3rd, 2002

Yesterday I came home grumpy from work and ended up sitting in my room for an hour cos I didn’t even feel like talking to Bopha, and then it turned out that she’d been feeling semi the same way, not because of anything personal or anything, but just a general bad mood. But then that passed, and we went to the supermarket together, for grocceries and liquor. Then we played Scrabble. I kicked her ass at the first game, and then Clay came home and won the second, even after they allowed me to use the word “cockzone”. It was choice, and Bo drank a whole bottle of wine which is the drunkest I’ve ever seen her, and we gossiped and wrote in the bible lots afterwards.

Today after my HR lecture, it was horrible and rainy and I had a two hour gap, so I decided to go to the movies. After much deliberation, I decided to go see ‘Signs’. Now, you know how staunch and tough and how movies don’t generally scare me at all, they just make me laugh? Well, I was really tempted to leave half way through, I was so scared. And of course, i’m fucked up in that I love being terrified, so I had a bigass grin on my face the whole time, I’m sure. Just as well I went by myself. And then of course, I was an hour late to Corporate Communication so people were mean to me.

This afternoon I discovered that a guy from ASIJ found my name on classmates.com and emailed me to see what I was up to. Now, that is well and truly bizzare, cos I don’t think we ever had a conversation, but this is the email I sent him back:
Yes, I remember you – presuming I’m thinking of the right person – you won a whole box of chocolate bars in the mega prize raffle thingie that Mr Gibson’s advisory did, and then distributed them out to our math class in an act of real generosity? I could go and dig out my yearbook to see if I’m right, but they’re probably in the attic at my parents’ house and that’s in a whole other city, and besides, sifting through ASIJ yearbooks is really NOT one of my favourite things to do, strangely enough.

But anyways, it’s rather bizzare to hear from you, but cool all the same. The only people I’ve kept any form of contact with from ASIJ are Melissa Chaiken and Beth Dodd.

These days I am completing a Graduate Diploma in Public Relations to follow my Bachelor of Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology, in New Zealand. I enjoy it a lot. I’m also working half time doing PR for the medical school here, which is super. I still have fond memories of grunge music, and I still have long hair, but other than that, I think I’m probably (hopefully) completely different to who I was at ASIJ.

What about you?

Thanks for your email, and take care yourself

Around 5.15ish whilst I was watching H&A (note to self: email catchup details to Brad – why are all of my friends all on holiday at the same time?) Jezza rang to tell me that I had to go to Quiz Night cos he’d found us a Sports Expert, since that’s always our weakest area. So of course, I headed down there, after a SUPER amusing phone conversation with KateH (Tehehehehehehehehehehe!) although of course I am madjealous that she got to meet Kelly from HJT. Anyways, so there wasn’t actually anyone else in the bar besides our team, and a couple of other people who left, and one random other guy, so the bar staff decided that they didn’t want to put up bartabs as prizes, and therefore effectively, the quiz was canceled. However! The wonderful Quizmaster (I do actually know his name now, but “Quizmaster” is such a much better title) suggested that we all compete against ourselves as individuals, and everyone put $2 for the prize pool. I won $12, proving once and for all what a geek I am, since I beat everyone by like 11 points and that included scoring 0 in the sports round. But still, it was really cool.

And tomorrow I get to sleep in! Although perhaps I should get up earlish and either go to The SilverBell for veges or finally go and get my work ID, just in case things get all nasty and stuff with this job that I’ve gone for. Bridget would have left for America for 4 weeks by now, but apparently they’re going to make their final decision via a conference call.

Thursday August 22nd

If the phone rings one more fucking time, I swear I am going to hurt someone – but of course, I’m on the net, so HAH, it can’t ring. Take that, motherfuckers. I’ve taken to barking “THEY’RE NOT HOME” every time it rings now, since it’s both Clay and Bopha’s birthdays and the phone has been ringing nonstop and it’s always Clay’s horrible family members. If I wanted to be a receptionist, I would not have spent three and a half years getting multiple qualifications. I probably would have dropped out in sixth form.

So, today is Thursday and the last day I wrote was Monday, so I guess I should feel obligated to fill you in on my week. After all, you’re still my captive audience even if I haven’t heard from you in forever – well, I’m guessing that I am, and if you’re not reading this, then you won’t be able to let me know that I’m wrong, so really, it’s a win-win situation, kinda but not really. But anyways.

Tuesday: I had to get up earlish to get my ass over to Newmarket where we went to Westfield’s Nuffield Street Project’s headquarters to listen to their communications woman talk about their public consultation programme and how successful they have been and how they’ve scaled back the “mega mall” project they were gonna implement, so that was kinda really interesting. Then everyone had to hop it back to campus for Human Resources lectures, and then I went to the library to start looking up my hypothesis – “HR communicators need to have a thorough understanding of the implications of Sick Building Syndrome in order to protect their workers”. This is a reminder once again, children, that you should go to classes in order to avoid the lameass topics (not like i did today). After that, I had coffee with Thomas (because just between you and me, I do still worry about him, and also because it’s cool we’ve got to a stage where I can send him text messages going “BOYS SUCK” and he will text back offering to beat people up for me). Later that evening, after much wardrobe fretting, Haley picked me up and we went to our client’s hat shop opening in Kingsland. I managed two and a half glasses of bubbly and conversation with an ex-lecturer (“that scary guy is still looking t you! he’s giving you the glad eye!” – haley) before Haley had to go to work and I had to go and meet Jezza and Renae at the pub for quiz night. There, tragedy struck – I realised I didn’t feel like drinking! Shock horror, and so consequently, we didn’t win. It felt dirty and wrong and soiled.

Wednesday: Hmmmm, I almost had a total memory blank here, but then I realised that Wednesday was yesterday, so in that case, I can remember. Half a day working, doing name badges and other such things, making sure that our big major event next Saturday is going to go smoothly. I was also told that I’ve been shortlisted for Terri’s position and will probably have an interview on Monday or Tuesday. Gulp. I also spent my time emailing KateH and asking her to make the final decision on an issue for me – BradM told me to ask (one of) the boy(s) I fancy out for coffee, while Jezza says that that particular boy isn’t interesting enough for me and I need someone with more spark – but she claimed she’s too much of a fence sitter. Inncidently, when I say I wanted her to make my decision for me, that’s not actually what I meant. You may or may not know that the way I work is that I make my mind up about something and then canvas opinions from my entire social circle until I find someone who agrees totally with me and then I get to use them as like, my expert witness. We all went out to dinner (like, twelve of us) at the Canton Cafe in Kingsland for Clay’s birthday, cos we’d finally managed to get a booking, adn we made it our mission to last there for at least an hour – it was almost two before dinner was finished. The food there is SO GOOD. But the company was real wack. Leo kept trying to get me drunk (cos sure, that’s hard) and I could see KateH and Jezza discussing me over the other side of the table, wheras Morrison was even less subtle with her appraisal of the particular boy that KateH and Jezza were appraising (their verdict – perhaps a change from the usual drama boys would be healthy for me). I like lazy susans. I also like all the food at Canton. I ended up paying $20 as my share of a feast, which included the rest of us paying for Clay and Bopha both in honour of their birthdays, and a $10 tip. Good good good value. It’s funny though, that Clay’s friends are all cheap and don’t bring their own wine, wheras all of my friends did. After that, we got taxis and went and danced and danced and danced at Retro. I got shirty cos of course goddamfuckingKara put her handbag down in the middle. I HATE DANCING AROUND A MOTHERFUCKING HANDBAG! DO I LOOK LIKE I WEAR WHITE PANTS? Grrr. Anyways, eventually we all went home, and since he’d been flirting iwht me hardcore all night and everyone was whispering “there’s definitely chemistry” to me, I decided to sort things out once and for all with the boy. When we were standing outside my building by ourselves, I said “Pop quiz!” to him, and he was all “umm, okay.. I dunno if I’m good at these” so I said “it’s a simple yes/no question” and he said he could do that, and so I said “are you at all interested in me?” and he was a little taken aback, but he said no, and I said that was cool, and he was like “wow, that was out of the blue (OH REALLY? ARE YOU A FUCKING MORON?) you’re really straight up, aren’t you? That’s really cool” and then Clay came up so I just laughed and reiterated that it was cool. I did end up calling Tom to talk about it later though, because hey, no one likes rejection. Especially rejection that makes you feel like you’re totally not fanciable by anyone. If I want to make myself feel better about it, I can think that maybe it has something to do with the fact that I ruthlessly shagged his best friend the night we all met (oh yeah, cos thinkign about that stage’o my life always makes me feel better). Meh. At least I’m not wasting anymore time on him, and he’s cool enough that hopefully, we’ll still be cool.

Thursday: that being today, of course, was making yoghurt&peach cake for the flatties, more work, and too many goddam people ringing this evening for Clay and Bo. I got to see Emma this afternoon though, which was choice, cos I’d just been thinking about her before I got home. And I wanted to have a catchup chat with both KateB (who was just on her way out) and Anji (except she texted to say she was out to dinner with the whanau) so I didn’t talk to anyone. But I might go have telephone conversations now, and so that will be good. I have a big meeting at work tomorrow to discuss all the final details for this big event, so I guess I gotta get to bed at some decent hour so as to be able to cope with the things I gotta do.

Thursday August 8th

Very very very much did not want to get out of bed today, as today is a Low Self Esteem Day. Or rather, a feeling that I am just very incompetant and untalented. Realising that there’s actually a boy in my class who’s kinda cute and intelligent made me perk up a little (I told Terri the other day that I’m currently at the stage where I’m almost developing crushes on Door Knobs and other inanimate objects). Plenary meetings brought me down again, just for a change, cos they’re so boring and frustrating and time wasting. Luckily this one ended twenty minutes early, so I was half an hour early to work, and I had Robyn’s zine to read on the bus on the way in, which was good. Choice even.

I bought donuts for Skew Terri and Bridget for our WIP meeting. No really this doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that today I also did my application for Terri’s job. Actually it doesn’t really. I just have the feeling that Skew doesn’t like me and that I hassle him too much, and yeah, donuts seemed to be the easiest way to fix that. I had to make like 30 phonecalls too, checking contact details before we put out our second majorest publication, and mostly got people’s answerphones so I had to leave the same message over and over and over again. It made my head hurt a lot.

And then I was walking home across the Grafton Bridge and it was freezing cold when suddenly there was a girl yelling at me out of a car, and I was like ???? but it was Annoushka (I’m sorry, I can’t spell your name), of course. I mean, it’s just logical that my sister’s best friend would be in Auckland, when I haven’t seen her in years, since waaay before she got married. But anyways, her and her husband gave me a ride home, cos they were staying in the same street, and it was much warmer in their car. And it also gave me the chance to test out my hypothesis that it’s quicker to walk home than face traffic at that time’o day – verdict is that it’s slightly shorter in a car.

This evening I was moping at home alone cos my mind was just mush from too many meetings nad hten having to do horrible job applications and freaking out about the implications of me not getting the job (I am NOT going to have another bout of what I was like the last time I was on the dole, i am not i am not i am not (also, side note – I dreamt about K sometime last week, and in the dream she was telling me that she never gave up on me, i just got it wrong)). Bo was out babysitting and Clay was off filming some random short film somewhere (apparently our house is going to be taken over by vines tomorrow) and I was all Meh, so I was just parked on the couch, although there was nothing on TV and reading would have taken too much brain power. Anyways, BradC showed up, and I was like “clay’s not home” but then he pulled a piece of cable out of his pocket and was like “I can do your network now!” and looked all forlorn when I said that it was already done, so I invited him in anyways, and we had multiple cups of tea. So that filled in a couple of hours, and then he went, adn then I boiled kidney, haricot and pinto beans to make kickass chilli, and Bo came home and there was love and laughter again, and now I really should go to bed.

On Saturday night, I am going to go to a hotel room at the Duxton to have drinkies. I receieved the invitation via web-based txt and I had no idea who it was from, but I conditionally accepted anyways, then got very worried when the person who sent it identified themselves by their first name only, without any lastname initials or preceeding adjectives or abreviations, and I was like WHAT THE FUCK? cos I thought it was someone else, but then it was just Jezza, so that’s cool. And then on Sunday, I’m going to play dressups with Kyla – yay! i like makeup and clothes and stuff. Planning ahead, it’s Bo and Clay’s birthday on the 22nd, and so we’re gonna have party-type things on the 23rd so that I can go to Matakana on the 24th. And that’s that.

Wednesday August 7th

Please don’t consider this to be a full picture in any way, if you want to know what’s really going on in my life, you WILL have to write me. Or call me (Mazzy, what the fuck? I was talking about three different boys, not the one, and if you were up with the play, you’d know that).

Last night me and Jezza and Morrison and Nigel went to the AUT pub quiz and spent my $20 tab and won a $30 tab. We also bought the quizmaster a drink cos he was cool, and also, if he’s stalked me off my cellphone picture, HI. And we will win the $50 tab next week. And then we went to Oporto and I got groped by a horrible skanky horrible disgusting icky old man. ewwwwwwwwwwwww.

This morning Bo and I went to St. Lukes to pick up a shirt for me, although we were both shuddering at the Mallness of it, and then we went to Roasted Adiquition for breakfast. OH MY GOD their hashbrown stack with turkish pide, aioli, advamacado and pesto is delicious! Oh yeah, but before that, I was jolted outta sleep by Haley calling me to ask which apartment was mine adn I was like “FUCK! I’ll just put on some clothes and come and find you” and we finished our presentation which FUCK FUCK FUCK I gotta do now. No wait, I’ll do it tomorrow morning. Cool. SHIT. Fuck. I can’t believe I forgot about that completely. And about turnign in my CV for the job which I’m really starting to doubt that I’m going to get. FUCK. Nah it’s cool, this way I can fit in seeing my HR tutor tomorrow to talk to her about my hypothesis about Sick Building Syndrome (moral of the story is – go to your tutorials and you won’t be stuck with the lameass topics no on eelse wants). Where was I? Work at 12.30pm, yeah, and longmeetings about Courses and Careers Day, and then I spent the afternoon looking up catering websites.

Anyways so this evening, I left the house with $50, and now I have come home with 2 expensive cocktails, one flavoured vodka shot, one bottle of red wine, one kebab and two taxi rides in my belly and empty pockets, so I guess I did okay, mostly coasting on the charms’o lovely KateH. Lovely Popular KateH who even manages to know people in common with the random “hi ladies – do you mind if I introduce myself?” guy at Deschlers. We drank at the Classic, and then didn’t go to Starks cos we’re still banned, and then Deschlers for ages of course so American Friend Amy could drink Chocolate Monkeys, and then Kate and I had a boogie at Retro Night while Amy slept in the corner and now I’m home, dropping my kebab on my breasts cos I wisely took my shirt off. I can’t feel the cold. ALSO! I had to leave Buffy with like, 15 minutes still to go, how rude! AND I idnt’ even get laid out of it – previously, only boys taking me to the bedroom have managed to lure me away from that programme, adn that was under duress (yes, and one of you knows who you are, with that whole leaving your laptop behind ploy, and as for the other one, well I’d be suprised if he could even write his name, frankly. But we’re way off track. My point was, I think I missed Buffy and Spike having sex, and that’s a momentuous occasion!). But still, I had a great night, especially dancing at the end, and so Katie and I decided that our cheap ethnic food and wine BYO nights will now take place on Wednesdays so we can go dancing after. Kickass

Friday August 2nd

Okay, so before i fall out of my chair and pass out on the floor, here’s the story – here’s the correct deal that any’o you could have just got out of me by simply asking, and here’s my interpretation of what happened. You know how a couple’o days ago I cut Justin off my Xmas Card List (this is not an actual thing in existence, it’s purely a metaphorical creation)? And if you know that, you know it’s of course because he had drinks last friday and didn’t invite me, not even when I texted him that day and asked him waht he was up to and he didn’t reply and as both a Gemini and a Communications student, nothing pisses me off more than peoplke who don’t reply to txts? Well anyways, I heard from sources about his party, of course, because um, hi, do you know know by now that that’s the way girls work? But anyways. So I figured he hadn’t invited me to his party cos he thought I’d mack on all his friends (and so maybe there’s some degree of truth to that) and then when I found out that the last friend’o his that I shagged was back with his ex girlfriend that he was with before he shagged me (but not while he shagged me, nor for any immediate period before then, thank you very much) and I figured maybe Justin thought I’d like, embarrass that boy or something so he just wouldn’t invite me outta decency. And of course, there were also “maybe Justin just flat out hates me” thoughts but they didn’t last very long. But anyways, then tonight me and Maz and Bo were in the cab on the way to KateH’s party, and Maz was like “not to give you a complex or anything, Jo…” and she told me that Justin had been all hesitant to tell them that the boy was back with his ex and stuff, and they were all worried about telling me and I was all “WHAT THE FUCK???? If i had been after him in any way, I ouldn’t have left while he was sleeping plus I woulda put my number in the note I stuck in his letterbox after! AAAARGH I don’t fancy him, I just have a guilty conscience!” and Maz was liek “yeah that’s what we told Justin” and Iw as like aaaaaaaargh I don’t LIKE the boy, I just gave him a lotta mind time cos I thought he was a sweetie and I wondered if I shoulda got to know him better, and Maz and Bo were like “don’t do this, don’t get a complex” and I was like “i’m not!” but anyways, as soon as Justin showed up at the party I was liek “oi you! and I gave him an earfull and he was like “Ummm?” and said that what had actually happened was that when I sent him the text on friday, he actually received it while he was in a car with the boy in question and was like “oh, is it okay if I invite Jo tonight?” and the boy started freaking out and continued to do so for three days, cos like I think we first said, he’s just back with his girlfriend, and somehow I very much doubt that she knows about him fucking me like I was a pornstar in the middle of it. So yeah, Justin and I cleared all that up. I am a little hurt though, that they could think I’d be so unsubtle or anything like that to cause a ruckus – I’d only do that to people I don’t respect, and i do very much respect thsi boy, because like I’m sure I have said before, he was probably the nicest boy I’ve ever been to bed with, even if we didn’t actually have a Connection (and this is not a diss on you; I’m sure you wouldn’t call yourself ‘Nice’). And anyways, the boy ended up showing up at the party and I watched him in the hallway for a little bit, trying to be discreet in checking him out and thought “hmmm, he actually IS really cute and actually DOES look like Milan” and then later when I walked past him I said hey, and he said hey, and it was all cool. So yeah, that was the drama and scandel. did you manage to follow ANY of that? I don’t care if you didn’t; I’m quite happily quite stoned.

Today was 9-5 at work, which is always difficult, especially since Terri had started at 7am, which meant she left at 3pm, so Bridget and I were left going “ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm” all afternoon. But I did do an interview AND write a profile today, plus now I can tell you all about the causes of hydronatraemia and who of you else can claim that? I also went to ask the HR lady about the job I’m applying for, and was liek “oh, right, good, I do have the right person – I’m terrible with names and faces”. Nice one Joanna, way to apply for PR jobs. Really, no, seriously, excellent way to influence people is by pointign out your foibles.

Hmm, foibles, does this mean that i have to talk about those godawful muppets taht I had to talk to for like half an hour who kept referring to me as a crackwhore cos Clay and Bobobo did? I hope not. In fact, I know not, cos like, I so would like to go and jump into bed where it’s real nice and warm. well actually, it’s probably cold in my bed, goddamit I need an army of flying monkeys to make me a hottie and find me some socks adn all taht stuff. Where were we? I’m just like, all OH MY GOD THERE’S BETH ORTON ON THIS MP3 cd. And that kinda thing. Something about Mazzy being hot in her hot little red dress even though sips of her bourbon remind me of *III, or even the massive quantities of bourbon I would drink with him because it was part’o the whole fucktoy/rockbottom process. And definately something about how fucking choice KateH is, and how she looked reaaaaaally hot and flamenco tonight, and also what a pleasure it was to finally meet this Amy that I’ve heard so much about. Ummm other things – like, who the fuck actually drinks Creaming Soda? And Jezza going on a massive hunt to find a lighter, and then us smoking around the picnic table in KateH’s backyard and me feeling unspeakably guilty for doing so, and then being back in her kitchen where I spent the night going “OH MY GOD” cos Like, everyone fucking knew my name and could tell me where they’d met me before and what conversation we’d had, and that always makes me real para, and then I spotted that boy in the hallway and I had to point him out to Clay and clay was like “he’s real cute and hot” and I was like oh my god please hurry up and come out and dump your girlfriend.

Dear lord, there should be some more paragraph segmentation here, surely. Other things’o note? Bopha kept calling em a crackwhore, and okay, so maybe the stripper story was case and point, but THAT’S IT. At the start’o KateH’s party, we just sat in a corner going “grrr” at each other and wondering what would happen if she went and sat on people’s laps and said “chicachehooo” at them. I love Bo. And umm, oh I talked to this boy that I’d thought was kinda ncie and well dressed and good looking and nice to me and laughs at my jokes and stuff so I’d kinda thought “hmm maybe” about, but it was too hard to sustain a conversation, and plus, I think I’d decided this week that I was really into this other boy and yeah, so like, that’d be cool and shit, except he was supposed to come but he didn’t. Still, I think that there was like, enough scandal and mania going on anyways, and you don’t even know the half of it. Also, my eyeshadow looks fuckign kickass today, as does the rest of me.

Okay man, like, $3.25 in coins and head to whomever brings me salted snacks first. It was just one joint, motherfucker! It shouldn’t show up under all this beer. Jezza and Nae are real funny when they’re stoned though. That’s all I have to say. Tomorrow I may or may not get a network and Sunday I gotta do coursework, so that’s ass sucking, but like, only figuratively and only on Sunday, cos like, how fucking 2000 are you?

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.

Thursday, July 18th 2002

In which Joanna ponders her ovaries in some detail

Yesterday I’d half written this excellent disection breaking down the stereotypes in the Breakfast Club which I’d watched that afternoon on two glasses of wine and some codeiene cos I was bored, and I wrote how I could easily match up the nerd, the weirdo and the stupid jock to people that I’ve shagged, and also probably the badass but I was having trouble matching the Molly Ringwald princess character until Tom told me exactly who it corrolated with because of major Princess Complex going on with that particular person and he was so right, but anyways, I lost that whole entry because I had to go and take a drunken phonecall from Anji, and spent over an hour only saying “Yep”, “ahuh” and “yeah”. I could have been a character on the West Wing, if I’d said it with that funny abbreviated swallowing their words kinda way that they all do (Incidentally, I can’t remember who it was that said it, but someone suggested that there’s only one character on the West Wing and I sometimes think that they’re right. CJ is still fabulous though.)

But anyways, that was yesterday, along with Maree phoning to say thank you for the faxes I sent her the other day, so I invited her around to eat vege lasange with me (it was the fucking best lasange ever, with leeks and onions and mushrooms and bromocoli and kidney beans for protein and pumpkin and tomato and everything). That was probably the highlight’o my day, seeing her. No wait! The other highlight yesterday was a suprise coffee in the courtyard of Strawberry Alarm Clock with KateH who is my sunshine although she shoulda been working. Was that yesterday? Or the day before? I can never remember. Wait, I think I wrote about that already, so maybe that was Tuesday. Who knows?

Blah blah blah. Work today. Right now Clay and BradC are at Pluto and Gomez, the bastards. I asked them to bring me back Milan, but I doubt that they’ll remember to, since it took BradC exactly one month to bring me my birthday present. And I still maintain that a cinnamon donut really ain’t any kinda present. They were drinking Soju and also Cider before, so I laughed at them over the top of my dry martini with a twist and the olives on the side. Then BradC got under my duvet cos he was cold and Clay gave me looks, which is ridiculous cos he already gave me full permission to pursue him if I want to, but I don’t think I do. I need to learn to make myself happy without having to disengage my brain all the time, etc. Plus, I’ve done enough pursuing for the year.

Also, I have had the dull distant ache of a soft headache all day, so I know it’s the goddam pill, and I’m going to have to do some serious thinking. If I skip the sugar pills, there’s a risk that I’ll have PMS all month, and I don’t think anyone would be able to deal with that. If I don’t, then I might always have this ache when I’m on the sugar pills, and while it’s not the fullscale migraine’o last time, I do realise that i’m going to have to make sure that I have full oxygen going to my brain at all times in order to keep it from getting to that evil “I think I’m going to die because something has exploded in my skull feeling”. And you know what maintaining proper breathing means that I can’t do. Grrr. So I guess I could go off the pill. I’m not using it as birth control, cos ha, do you ever see anyone actually fancying me enough to have a dedicated relationship with me where I trusted them enough to stop using condoms? I doubt it (side note – I am 22 years old and only one person has ever told me that they loved me). But in theory, the pill is regulating my ovaries – and also apparently clearing up my skin and making me less hairy. My skin isn’t really that bad though, is it? And yeah, I have horrible hairy hobbit feet, but that hasn’t seemed to have changed over the past two months. However, yeah, I do want to get my ovaries in line. Hmmm. Maybe I will wait til I’m next sick and needing to see my doctor and then I’ll discuss it with her. Dammit, if this was two months ago, I could still go see her for free cos of the whole U22 free sexual health visits.

Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. I think I had more to talk about but maybe I don’t. Bopha is coming back tomorrow – oh how I have missed my little girl! And I get to see KateH again too, and that kicks ass. If I had been good and gone to watch them all playing indoor netball, I coulda seen her and Maree and JeremyO today, but Maz said that they weren’t going to be wearing short skirts, so really, what would the point have been?

I really wanted to go to Gomez, but it was $60, and I’ve been increasingly crowdfreakouted, so I dunno if it woulda delivered $60 worth’o satisfaction to me. But fuck, Pluto are great live. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll play an individual gig sometime soonish, and at least this way I wasn’t subjected to Chris Knox.

NEWSFLASH! Clay and BradC just got back, and apparently they met a friend of Jarrod’s from Wellington, and OH MY GOD it was the first boy I ever kissed who I was madly in love with for a very long time afterwards. Now I’m really bummed that I didn’t go.

Tuesday June 18th

Because it’s all about loot, and because you may be interested, and now I’m actually sober (last night was crazy), I will write you a list of what I got for my birthday, in the semi chronological order that I received things.

When I was just on my way out to work yesterday morning, I spotted a large parcel and poster roll sitting in the lounge that had been sent up from Wellington, and even though I knew I was running late, I took a little time to open a few of the things inside, which were:

• A poster of Antartica from Karen, with bears drawn all over it in various different styles, which was obviously a collaborative effort on the part of the good people at Unity Books in Wellington (after all, my height is measured on their door).
• One of the parcels in the big box was “Manufactoring Consent” by Chomsky from my parents
• The other thing I opened was a MUFF that Karen made from me, along with a long list of muff ettiquite. Fuck, I so can’t spell that. You know what I mean though. It’s all soft and brown and furry and has a bear face on one side. Hehehe. I like bears. She also gave me a can labeled “Batted Salmon” which on closer inspection is actually tuna. I like injokes. This is my muff:

Then I had to run away to work and I found out that Teri had broken her ass. Heh. I know I shouldn’t laugh, but she laughed at me when I told her the catching on fire story:

All day today I have been wearing my pajamas, cos I haven’t had a pj day in aaaages, and I really love my pajama top – it used to be my grandfather’s, and it just looks really good on me and it’s actually probably one of the bestly seductive items in my wardrobe. Anyways, this evening I was cooking dinner, and I leant over the stove to stir something on the back element when WHOOSH! My pajama top caught fire. I started screaming immediately, of course, and freaked out, but luckily, I had the good sense to pull it straight off and dump it in the sink. Then I stood in my slip and pj bottoms in the kitchen for ages laughing hysterically. So much for thinking it was a cotton top.

Bopha and Leo heard me screaming but they thought I was some random street person. Typical. Things could have been a lot worse, because the slip under my pj top is completely synthetic too. The way things are now, the bottom of my pj top is just charred and missing a chunk. Maybe once it dries out, I will consider whether or not it is still wearable.

Apparently Bridget was even gonna bake me a cake but she just didn’t. I did have a piece of someone else’s cake though. Actually, I haven’t had a birthday cake since my 17th birthday. Sigh. Anyways. Also at work I managed to finally finish my very first article and put it online. I’d give you the link but then you’d know where I work (because it’s SO hard to figure out right now).

Anyways, finally I managed to get home and open the rest of my presents, and this is what I got:

• ‘Chemistry’ from my parents, which is a NZ book about a drug addict with kidney stones who goes to live in Timaru. I’m presuming Karen chose it and it will therefore be good.
• A 3M ergonomic mouse, which wouldn’t run off the proper port for some reason, but luckily it works off USB as well.
• Some bodylotiony stuff which I initially suspected Neil had just got at a hotel he’d stayed in.
• A jar of Mole sauce they got me in Mexico. There’s an accent or soemthing somewhere in there, it’s not actually potted rodent. I hope.
• A weird purple pen which just perplexed me, but apparently it doubles as a screen cleaner. Mum said on the phone that she felt like she had to get me something that wasn’t on my wishlist. (And of course I’m still going to put the link in to that, it’s never too late to buy me presents!)
• A book called “The 13 and a half lives of Captain Bluebear” from Karen. There are precious few books about bears at Unity. It looks good though.

And then after that, eventually Bopha and I went to Caravan Serai to meet up with everyone else, and this is the rest of the loot that I got:

• A Virtual Fireplace video from JeremyO and Renee. I put it on today and it was strangely mesmerizing and made me feel warm.
• Bright lime sheets from KateH and Maree, and also some body glitter. I’d actually been thinking I should buy new bed linen just hte other day when I saw it advertised but I physically restrained myself.
• A pez dispenser from James. It has a lion on it, but we all initially thought it was a bear.
• A big bunch of flowers and a book called ummm hmm crap, I forget and it’s in the lounge and I’m lazy from KateM. I’ve previously seen her sobbing over it before, so I’m not sure what she’s trying to do to me, but I’m looking forward to reading it. Plus, that’s like the 5th time ever in my life anyone’s given me flowers, so that was exciting. I am so spoiled!

The best present of all, which was the guy finally listening to me yelling and finally working up the nerve to come into the women’s toilets to go and get me someone to give me a screw driver so I could get the fuck out after I got locked in the toilets by a broken lock. Apparently everyone was like “where’s Jo?” cos i’d been gone fifteen minutes but they all thought I was just talking on my cellphone. Of course, if I’d had my cellphone withme, I would have fucking called them! Grr.

Anyways, so that was last night, or the dinner part of it anywyas – I hope I didn’t forget anything. Afterwards, Bopha and I sat around being dicks at home smoking cigars and basically being looney. Today we went out for lunch at Fire&Earth and she told me that she’d kidnapped my cellphone the night before and sent out text messages to various people trying to get gossip but since no one replied I can only presume that she fucked up and nothing went out. Phew.

Oh! Exciting news! I saw Marion in the downstairs apartment when I went to ask the builder to move his car so I could get mine out and apparently, I’m getting carpet tomorrow or the day after! Wahoo! Six months later.Tonight I watched a two hour doco on Robbie Williams. I don’t want a webpage anymore, I want a documentary done on me please. It’d be great. Plus, I think my dad is smoking crack. This is the email he sent me yesterday:

Hello Joanna It’s a long time since I saw you pop out, but you’re still my little baby. All the best for the day, that’s probably pretty well past, at your end. Here I sit in Singapore, waiting to go and sell people on the idea of electronic certification. What some peole will do for a living, eh? (Call it “living”?) Anyway, better do some work. Happy birthday, in case you missed the rerefence, Yer ole man

Actually, that’s kinda cute isn’t it?

Right, maybe I should go and try to sleep now, either that or read through my IMC notes. I’m a little annoyed with myself for my lack of study, but you see the thing is that I only need 9/50 to pass the paper. Sure, yes, I could aim high, but I guess it seems to me that there’s not really any point unless I was going to get the top score out of everyone, which I’m not going to, so why put in all the extra effort? It’s like “a C is a degree” and all again. Even if I am a ‘mature student’ now. Then again, I can probably pull marketing out of my ass quite well. And I have til Thursday morning anyways. Hopefully I can get my massage after that. I’m freaked out about my wrists and hands though.