Hubris.co.nz

First, off, in elsewhere links, I got my hair done at  a new hair salon on Cuba Street and I liked it a lot. And you like food reviews? Here’s one of the Cellar-Vate dinner for Coney Wines.

Now some pictures so that if you disapprove you stop reading there.

I think the reason that I tend to only update my journal when I’m about to get my period is because this is when the noise in my head , that occasionally dies down to the faintest whisper if I’m exercising and taking my lexapro and happily employed and not financially struggling etc, tends to build up into the loudest roar which comes at me like being in the ocean on a windy day at Lyall Bay but without the bracing feeling of really being alive that comes with the cold cold water. See, even that sentence – so fucking belaboured and over the top. Shut up, Joanna.

And more than the normal pre-periodness, the past week has been clusterfucked with intensity. Wellington is too fucking small. I found myself last night telling someone who doesn’t really know me about why my Friday had ended up with me having a lounge room dance party with Kim and Kelly and Kate and why I was so fucking drunk that I ended up falling over and sitting on a wine glass and consequently have gashes in my ass, but the explanation of why I felt the need to get so drunk was really ridiculously complicated like “he abandoned his family and left his underpants on my deck and we tried to set fire to them” and “she’s a whore although I had a week of trying not to say nasty things and Mean Girls says calling her a whore doesn’t make me any more pure” and “in ten years she’ll show up and get the black baby I’m trying to adopt” and “and I was having an affair with him but then he hooked up with her” and “I hooked up with him a bunch of times to try and get over someone else but it didn’t work, and then there was this crazy girl” and  ”he used to make me cry every day at work” and really, what one should just say is “why the hell were you drinking with all these people anyway?” to which the inevitable answer involves the smallness of Wellington, and something about Rihana. And of course what I was saying in my head was “shut up Jo shut up shut up shut up” but because I was tipsy when I had this conversation but not drunk, I just kept babbling.

So my current theme is I should run away from Wellington as far as I can, but then today of course was a series of highs and lows. Most of the highs initially revolved around Piako yoghurt, which is of course the drug de jour for my set of friends. And Wendy at Cultured gave me more cheese. And Amie gave me petrol money when I drove her home tonight after the Girl Geek Dinner when of course I asked a question of the woman from Park Road who spoke about 3D about the impact it’s having on the porn industry and was rewarded with a Google notebook for my trouble. And I won a prize I’m going to give to someone who deserves it much more than me and will make much better use of it. And I pledged to join more community projects. So there are many good lovely things about Wellington, of course. It’s just that in the week before my period I struggle to remember them sometimes.

The lows are financial and no one wants to hear about that, and also dealing with this email that I got yesterday which just makes me want to bawl my eyes out. I’m worried that I’ve given up faith in myself and if I don’t have faith in myself, how could anyone else? Trying to explain to someone who doesn’t really know me that I’m terrible at freelancing because I’m so shit at talking myself up, he was all “but you seem so confident and able to sell yourself” but alas, Jo Hubris may have the ability to talk people into bed (after all the angst of all the issues of the weekend, being able to use a very simple “hey I want to shag you” is very refreshing) but Joanna McLeod is a pile of failure in getting anyone to pay for her services, although she has been rather busy lately providing expert advice and guidance in the S***** M**** area to friends & acquaintances in exchange for coffee and pints. And she still has some work to do tomorrow, so really she should go have a shower because she has coconut body wash, find some clean sheets (side effect of slicing your ass open when you’re drunk – waking up covered in blood and having no idea what the fuck happened until people tell you on twitter) and PJs and watch Dorota & Vanya get married on Gossip Girl and hope that she actually will sleep tonight before 7am. And stop talking about herself in the third person.

• You will be pleased to know that I officially don’t have tuberculosis. I had my follow-up follow-up today and I’ve been given the all clear. This means I don’t get to die romantically of consumption while Anne of Green Gables nurses me, but I suppose that’s for the best.
• You will hopefully also be pleased to know that I am the very grateful recipient of some funding from The Midnight Note which will partially cover the cost of my attendance at Webstock. I know of three people who wrote lovely letters for my nomination, but there may have been more. I am well-loved by my community, apparently, and that is a beautiful thing.
• I have discovered over the past couple of weeks just how lucky I am to have the wonderful friends that I do. There was a thing that happened, and it brought back all the anger and emotion that I’d covered up last year and it was a really really difficult time. I seriously considered moving to Auckland just to get away, but luckily attendance at Princess Camp made me play “Run this town” many times in my head and I realised that actually, fuck yes I do.
• Miss Kim Cupcakes & Mace stayed here at Immoral Terrace on and off for the past couple of weeks while she was looking for a flat, and it was so lovely having her here. We had LAN parties and cheese and watched DVDs and stayed up late giggling about boys every night. It’s a bit weird not having her here anymore, to be honest. I am really glad that I could help her out of a jam, and she definitely helped me out too, not just by buying Seb cat food when I was broke but also making me a happy Jo again.
• If I could find my other knitting needle, I would use it to remove my uterus right about now. I cried every day last week, including two different occasions at Hooch, and today I am in total fricking agony and bleeding like a stuck pig. I should go to the GP to ask to be refered to a gynocologyst, but that’s money that I don’t have. It wouldn’t be a hubris update without me talking about my period though, would it?
• A lot of my friends have been going through difficult times. We had decided that the first two weeks of the year didn’t count because they were just the hangover from 2009, but two thousand and zen has taken a while to get going. My main drama, apart from the thing that knocked me flat on my ass for a couple of weeks is the ongoing job hunt. I got very close to a job that I really wanted, reference checks and everything, and because they took a while to get back to me I dared to dream about what it would be like to actually have an income again, which of course became a big let-down again. I hate that my friends have had crappy-ass times, but if it had to happen, I’m glad that we’ve had each other to go through the crap with.
• I almost left the house for a night this summer to go camping, but it was raining in the Hutt so we camped in Amie’s lounge instead. Princess Camping for the win! We had tremendously good times.
• I went to a random hipster party in Roseneath where we sat in an empty room and played a variation of Truth or Dare. I went to a keg party in a big flat on Cuba Street where goths went without makeup, a kitten romped around and that nice girl from last year kissed me again although it’s against her rules, which I don’t understand. I went to a couch-surfing gathering in Mount Vic where I drank gin and played Animal Motions. There have been tiki shacks here, and macaroni parties at Laura’s. There’s also a Pretty Pretty Party coming up on March 6. It is hard to be as entertaining as I want to be when I lack the funds so drastically.
• My family has continued to be awesome and supportive. BAMJI took me for my first swim of the year, and last night we had a bigass dinner at Hazel for Mum’s significant birthday. It was lovely. I should review it for the Wellingtonista sometime soon.
• Still loving my flatmates. And I’m super excited that Kat & Kane are coming down next week. Not to mention WEBSTOCK! And I have a fabulous frock from Megan to wear, and I leant one to Sue. What goes around comes around, hurray!
• Oh, and finally, I spoke at Bloggers Predict the other week, and you can watch the video of it here:
  

Every year I answer the same 40 questions to do a stocktake of where I’m at. Check out previous years here.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

• Got made redundant
• Stayed overnight in hospital
• Lost items of value in a burglary
• Had my first threesome. And my second. And my third.
• Had an intern.
• Replied to someone on an internet dating site and then slept with them.
• Received over two grand’s worth of free stuff for being a blogger (the $1200 freeview box made up a lot of that)
• Went to Roller Derby
• Won a “Best Fan” prize
• Kissed 17 people in one night (hurray for kissing booths!)
• Had someone pay for me to get into a strip club, and also tucking money into strippers’ underwear for the first time
• Willingly (ish) went through a break-up.
• Had someone throwing me a surprise party.
• Worn red lipstick frequently and confidently.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Apparently my resolutions for this year were about taking better care of myself, and although I did continue to sleep with the married man for a bit, we did indeed eventually break it off, so yay me. And then I resolved to never sleep with a married person again, which is a good resolution to have and I have yet to break it again. I also resolved to have breakfast with someone after we’d slept together, and while I thought I’d achieved that when I woke up with a boy for the first time since 2004, we didn’t actually have breakfast, unless you count helping ourselves to one another’s genitals again. Oh oh but actually, I did make wedges for a lady caller that we ate in bed together so I guess that counts.

My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Fucking buttloads of people had babies this year! Specifically Martha and Brenda and my best friend Penny from high school. Still more of my friends are pregnant right now, and it’s all a little bit over the top, if you ask me. I can’t have breakfast with a boy and you all can get married and buy houses and have babies? Unfair!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, but people very close to people I am very close to did, and all I could do about it was text stupid jokes every day and send care packages of Noel Fielding.

5. What countries did you visit?

Sydney for FullCodePress (thanks to the lovely Tash Mahal) and Vanuatu for fun.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Breakfast with someone, obviously, since I can now cook eggs. Also, a job. And let’s say a proper public relationship where the person I am with shouts it from the rooftops.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The Wellingtonista Awards again because of the work and the memories that I was a bit scared of. December 10 because it was my ten year anniversary of fucking. July 17 for my ten years of Hubris party and because it was when I relaunched this site in WordPress. June 30 for being my last day at the SSC.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly, I had a motherfucking buttload of bad shit happen to me this year, and so the fact that I’m still in good spirits, that I’m happy, sort of healthy and am able to keep going on, and that I’ve ended the year with all my friendships intact and even with new friends is pretty fucking awesome. Go me!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Honestly, I’m shocked that I don’t have another job yet. I know that I am hireable, that I have many skills and talents and the fact that I’m still unemployed is really weird. I’m also disppointed that I’m not as over someone as I’d like to be, but that’s not something you can force and you definitely can’t get over someone by being under as many people as possible. I’ve learnt my lesson on that front quite a few times this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Depression as per usual, some nasty flus, withdrawl from zopiclone when I finally came off them, and also hospitalisation after an ingrown hair gave me cellulitis. But apart from that, no!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My laptop(s) that allow me to download and watch copious amounts of television. Also every present that I’ve bought for others that has allowed me to demonstrate even the smallest fraction of how much I care about them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My family who have continued to lend me money and buy me things like a new laptop after mine got stolen and I didn’t have insurance, who paid my power bill for me so I wouldn’t get disconnected and who aren’t demanding that I pay them back for our trip to Vanuatu. Also everyone this year who’s bought me a drink or a meal in exchange for my company, especially Tom, who is insanely generous. My friends who’ve helped me out of emotional jams, listened to me bitching and moaning and kept me company through the long dark winter, Smoo whose quiet presence in the house is always welcome, and everyone who gave me orgasms this year and fucked me til my thighs ached.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Management at SSC and everyone else who didn’t hire me, people who think that hitting kids is okay, the cunt who burgled us, and anyone who has treated my friends badly.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Double rents and unemployment.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Roller derby! Kat & Kane’s wedding! Harvestbird & Knedd’s wedding! People having babies!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

‘So here we are’ by Bloc Party becasue it played while I was lying in my lover’s arms for what we thought was the last time, and so that he wouldn’t see me crying I buried my face in his neck and we fucked because it fit the narrative structure that way. And also ‘Some time around Midnight’ by the Airbourne Toxic Event, even though or actually because as Good Tom says there’s far too much pathos in it for one song. It’s like the story of my life condensed down into four minutes. Oh and because it was so recent, ‘Halo’ is standing out in my mind right now too.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier, despite all the crap. I am getting better at dealing with everything.
ii. smaller or larger? Larger, by a lot probably.
iii. richer or poorer? Much much poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Physical activies and community service. Also, I wish I’d put more work into You Are So Entertaing but I still can!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on Twitter and Spider Solitaire and watching crappy television. Passive-aggressive texting and emailing. I sent some spectacularly nasty drunken emails this year and I am very not proud of them. My defense of being desperate for any kind of reaction is not good enough.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

My parents and Karen came over to my house and were joined by Bad Tom and Shirley and I cooked amazing food and we gorged ourselves and had a thoroughly pleasant time of it.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
WINZ. Heather and Kat <3.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

I didn’t fall, I stayed in.

23. How many one-night stands?

Three? In terms of one-offs, there was a girl, there was Tingle and there was the guy from Internet dating. I did see the girl again though, but only in a friend capacity. In addition, there were multiple occasions with the married man, the duck and the crazy girl. Oh, and I had intended to have a playdate with the boy who’d watched me and the crazy girl in his hotel room, whose kiss made me a little weak at the knees, but despite some textage, the stars didn’t align. Which is probably for the best.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Mad Men, Community, 30 Rock, Dollhouse (!!!!!)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope.

26. What was the best book you read?

Oh god, have I actually done any reading this year? I liked Generation A but not nearly as much as Generation X. I don’t think I can remember any other books, really, which I know is pretty terrible. Don’t tell Karen okay?

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Umm, getting a subscription to Last.FM? And taking all the contents of Emma and Lisa’s hard drives?

28. What did you want and get?

A laptop. To wake up in someone’s arms. Lots and lots of pashes. Amazing collections of friends. An overseas tropical holiday and some weekend jaunts other places. To get on the dole and be left mostly alone (well, I’d rather I didn’t have to, but it was a struggle to get here anyway). The ability to sleep without zopiclone.

29. What did you want and not get?

An invitation to Foo Camp – I worked really hard to prove myself this year hoping to get one and I didn’t. Sad face. Also, a new job, and at the time of writing, a full house. Paying extra rent is killing me. A real relationship. An ONYA nomination.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I’m not sure what movies I actually went to this year. There weren’t very many of them, that’s for sure.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my actual birthday I got free coffee from Green Land, I went to work, then I went to the Backbencher for someone’s goodbye drinks. I was feeling nauseous so I only drank gin. Then with my family I went to Elements for dinner which was amazing. Prior to that, my amazing sisters threw me a freak show surprise party! It was amaaaaaaaaaaaazing! I turned 29, which means I’m almost 30 now. Crikey!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Finding a new job shortly after being made redundant with a bit of time for a holiday in between.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I’ve got really into the Fatshionista community and started posting outfits of the day before my camera got stolen. I’m still trying to be Joan Holloway. I’ve also started wearing red lipstick, thanks to the lovely Megan.

34. What kept you sane?
My amazing counsellor, my family’s love and financial support and my fantastic friends.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Noel Fielding? Jon Stewart still makes me moist. As does ummm oh I don’t know. People? Stuff? Things? Tom Coates and that other guy from Webstock. Matt Bidulp? I can’t remember. Oh! And Victor from Dollhouse.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Ridiculous bullshit redundancies, strangely enough. Oh yeah, ICT’s totally not going to be a growth area…

37. Who did you miss?

The secret relationship. All my friends who are in other cities, especially Heather and Kat’n Kane. Really angry I missed out on meeting Ghetsum again cos I was too sick. And Good Tom, who shouldn’t have left to go to America, fucker.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Oh my gosh, I met so many awesome people this year, like Kim and Laura and Amie through Twitter, Chiara and Theresa and Julie through Pretty Pretty Pretty and also my new flatmate Thigh Voltage and through her the derby girls. Also, I’d already met Megan before but I feel like we became really good friends this year and that’s always worth celebrating.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
The people that care about you want to be there for you. You just need to learn to ask for help.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I get by with a little help from my friends”.

It is astonishing how much difference a little bit of money has made in my life. Getting paid for the contract work that I’ve been doing meant I could pay my phone bill. It meant I could get my meds. It meant I could pay rent. It meant I could go see my counsellor and discuss with her how awful it makes me feel to be 29 and in debt to both my sisters and my parents. She told me many times that just because I am bad with money it doesn’t mean that I am a bad person. We also talked about ways that I can work through things so that I don’t throw my hands up in the air and give up on everything and retreat to my “safe” place at the bottom of the Piths Of Dethspair. Of course though, along with the rest of the world, she is hapu, which means that she’s going on maternity leave soon so I can’t have a another breakdown until April, okay?

Job hunting continues to happen. I got feedback from one interview that I went to along the lines of “We thought you were fantastic. You blew us away. As soon as you left the room, we were all like ‘oh man, we wish we had a job for her!’ ” . I am considering being slightly less awesome  in my next interview in order to avoid this happening again. Then again, the contract work that I am doing right now (at which I am kicking ass and taking names) is the result of a similar result from another job interview, so perhaps there is hope for me yet. And next week I will get paid by the government to help my mother cook dinner, so that’s always good (Serious Entertainment Function hosted by my father. It’s like the ’80s and the ’90s diplomatic life all over again).

So that’s the work front. On the home front, while I’m still looking for one flatmate, Thigh Voltage moved in yesterday and we had hilarious hijinks trying to mandangle a four-seater couch up our very steep and narrow stairs and through our tight hallway. Later that night Anna Jane gave me a neck massage and went “oh you’re so tight!” like a pornstar. I giggled a lot. I recommend her massage services, by the way. Chiara and Rachel plaited my hair like I was a My Little Pony. We were tiki-shacking it up to welcome Thigh. My house was full of my lovely friends and the glorious roller derby girls and other people who read twitter or something. I had hilarious gossips with Kim and Laura and Lisa in the tiki shack (we were mostly in the house because of the wind). My catchphrase this weekend has been “I drink a lot and I have low self esteem!” It goes a long way in explaining many things about me. However, the compliments from the roller derby girls about my creepy fandom and also of my boobs (I wore a low-cut dress to make up for not providing much food or drink, you see) went a long way to boosting up my ego to sky high levels. I have been reminded of the fact that the reason I have so many awesome people in my life is because I am actually pretty damn awesome.

Other things of note recently:

• the meal Bambi cooked for me while I was crying on Anji’s shoulder
• how after I cleaned the fridge out I discovered the only food actually in it was some creamed corn
• the hammering I did when Shirley repaired her (stolen) park bench
• dinner with Megan and Laura at Thai Chef
• discovering that apparently people a couple of years younger than me don’t use condoms every single time that they have sex (WTF? How is that possible???? I have had sex without a condom a grand total of twice in my entire life, and I was on the pill and thought I was in a monogamous relationship. There are some things I don’t fuck around with, you may be surprised to learn).
• the insane amount of spirits that we got through last night. So many empty bottles.
• eating Ethiopian food for the first time
• The things filling up my social calendar – gallery openings, book launches, Skate Highway One – Wellington vs Auckland at Roller Derby,  the FOURTH ANNUAL WELLINGTONISTA AWARDS OMG etc.

And now some multimedia stuff:

Me winning the best sign competition at the last bout of Roller Derby with this gem which encourages world peace, because obviously I’m dressed to support SMASH MALICE who won, but also the new flatmate who’s on Brutal Pageant:

Bad Tom teaching Chiara how to tie a cravat before Pride & Prejudice & Zombies:

That might be it for now, actually. Leave me a comment, I haven’t updated for a while so give me a reason to be a woman do it more often!

There is going to be an immense amount of whining and wailing and weeping in this entry, so if you’re not down with that, go read this instead. Caution: contains insanely adorable children in tutus.

Things have taken a swing for the worst for me lately. I know it is at least partially related to the miniscule trickle of blood that’s occasionally dripping from my cunt, but really, $200 parking fines, and discovering that WINZ won’t let me sign up for the dole unless I go to that horrible degrading seminar AGAIN and needing new a new flatmate, and still no jobs on the horizon, and continued burglar-related crap and assorted personal dramas and the very very small amount of money that I have left in my account are really piling up. I’m not coping very well with it. I have hid in bed for the past two days, and unless something drastic happens, I imagine that’s probably where I will spend tomorrow as well, at least until I go to Petone to eat cupcakes.

Here’s a story that is NOT the centre of my problems, but it is something that is weighing on my mind in the grand scheme of things. You know that boy who slept over in a post recently? And how although that was strange for me, it was actually quite nice? He stopped replying to my texts after that, and then didn’t show up for roller derby. Perhaps he’s too busy winking at my friends via online dating sites the day after he fucked me (Wellington is a very small place). I know there was no contract or anything, but it still seems like a shame. I thought we got on well, and that my gut instinct was right in thinking he was a nice guy. Oh well. I could tell him this in person but of course I have deleted his number so I won’t drunkenly passively aggressively text him. Does this mean that I shouldn’t trust my gut instinct then?  I know that my gut instinct is correct in thinking that the boy I kissed this past Saturday is trouble, but oh, what a kiss. And then on another note there’s Anji asking me if I think people are crazy because they’re crazy or because they like me. And there’s me wondering if I hold my cards too closely to my chest at all times because I don’t want to get hurt again and wondering whether or not I use not being over someone I could never have had anyway as a way to hold others at a distance.  I guess I’m getting ahead of myself somewhat, and lord knows I’ve been complaining enough lately about people who tell stories in a non-linear non-sequitarial fashion.

So what have I been up to lately? Last week there was tea and cake with Chrisana which was lovely because I hadn’t seen her in a very long time and I very much enjoy her company. There was making economic decisions to go home and sit by myself on the Friday night instead of drinking with the Wellingtonista. I painted signs for Roller Derby with Miss Fur. There was a crafternoon with Megan in which I made the aforementioned tutus that I sent to Maree’s daughters. She made me a skirt to wear to the roller derby on Saturday, so I looked suitably hot:

I got to meet Kim who took this photo and Laura for the first time before roller derby, so that was awesome. Anji’s friend stuck her tongue in when I gave her  birthday kiss, and another girl pulled me into a toilet stall, pushed me up against the wall and felt me up quite roughly. It was kind of fantastic and hilarious at the same time, because there were a lot of people around and she was pretty loud. Loud enough that she ended up getting kicked out of the derby, and I had to leave the afterparty really early to go meet up with her and her friend in his hotel room. The baths at the Duxton are not as good as the baths at the Museum Hotel, I can report but the staff are great at finding super glue for you if your boots are coming apart. It is strange however, that they let people smoke inside. Even the Garden Bar where we went and danced to drum & bass doesn’t let you do that. Then when I took a taxi home the driver didn’t have any credit card slips so he let me pay with a Farmers voucher instead. Mint.

Today my fitted sheet blew off the line when I was doing laundry and now it is gone. That seemed like an insurmountable obstacle to happiness for me so I stopped doing chores and went back to bed. I’m tired of all this shit. I just need some catharsis and probably to have a talk with someone so I don’t end up screwing them over. But for now, I will watch many many episodes of Weeds in a row, pull the duvet over my head, and sleep some more until this mood goes away.

Right now I kinda wanna tweet “Hey weirdo, my window is open again. At least if you rape me while I’m sleeping I’ll get a proper hard good dicking & stop being a lesbian…” But I can’t. Because that’s 141 characters. And also that wouldn’t fit in a “oh wait, too soon?” or a #iamdeconstructingyearsoffeministtheoryandalsobadpeoplejudgementandtakingthepissbecausethisissuchawrongopiniontohave,andalsoitkindafreakedmeoutsoofcourseiammakingjokesaboutit hashtag.

And in things that would only make sense if you’ve figured out the secret code of this site as opposed to the old one (it is no longer the source code and as another hint it rhymes with what Glen and Rebecca and Amy are) I had a wall-touching moment just before when I was peeing just now. It was kind of amusing. But let’s backtrack back up to this morning, when I discovered that although webstock satchels are awesomely strong and enabled me to carry two bottles of wine to dinner at Emma and Simon’s last night, but apparently they did enable those two bottles to crush the leg off my new sunglasses. And you know how fucking difficult it was to find those glasses!

But oh yes, in further backtracking, dinner was a magnificant thing. I ate amazing mushroom bourgouin, and delicious bread, and average green beans (I don’t want all the praise to go to Emma’s head TOO much) while I heard the most adorable D&D related story that I’ve ever heard. And then there were cats on my lap, and faces in Emma’s pudding, and Simon did his sexy dance for me, which LITERALLY (my loud English neighbour says “literally” a LOT when she’s not necessarily meaning figuratively, but the literally is sort of superfluous. But in this case, I know I say I do things a lot, like omg I totally died,  but I didn’t actually die etc) made me go “tehehe!” and almost blush but not quite. There were a lot of eyebrows.

And now we come to the total and utter degregation and humiliation of a WINZ seminar. I was in a group with two people who maybe aspired to work for a supermarket, maybe. This should not have been a group discussion, no way, no how. It wasn’t fun for me and I’m sure it wasn’t fun for them either. Hey, did you know that jobs are advertised in the newspaper? And also online? And sometimes places aren’t hiring? I wrote UGH in my notebook in a very steady stream.

After that I felt disgusting and gross and violated and so fucking dirty and disheartened and untalented and every other bad adjective in the world, but luckily, it was time for me to text Megan and go and meet her for lunch. Because the day was so gorgeous, we went to Beach Babylon on Oriental Parade. We basked in the sun, and the food was tasty, but the service was pretty terrible. I’d almost call it appalling except that I know they were dealing with a broken till at the time. Megan is one of my current favourite people right now because I get to gossip with her about other people and she knows almost all of my secrets but not quite all. I still haven’t told her that I’m actually Batman, for example.

Tonight was Karen’s dinner at Miyabi and it turns out that their chicken teriyaki is battered and deep-fried beforehand. Excellent. Then there were drinks at Watusi and I got to see Jane from Green Land who I miss insane amounts and is  one of my main motivating factors for kind of wanting to work in Molesworth Quarter again, even if it means work drinks at the Back Bencher, but if it means Green Land coffee and Green land scones, and love from Paul and Jane then maybe it’s worthwhile? I mean, apart from the actual job of course, which would be great. Speaking of jobhunting in a not related to WINZ way, I got a call from someone I’d interviewed with a couple of weeks ago, inviting me to go to WOW, so that was nice. I like people who like me.

The good:

• I had to go to the doctor yesterday morning to get a new prescription, as, like I think I have mentioned before, my shrink has gone AWOL. The new GP I’d seen once or twice before wasn’t available, so I had to see another female doctor at the practice, because there’s no way I’m going to see the male doctor there again, after his “Oh, do you think you’re depressed because you have low self esteem because you’re fat?” performance. Anyways, the fear of having to go through my entire history of depression again kept me up most of the night, but as it turns out, she just wanted some clarifications, and to give me a smear, which I pointed out I’d actually had done in May. She gave me a three month script for the lexapro! And ticked the “okay to represcribe without an appointment” box for the next time! I don’t have to schlep around begging for drugs for at least six months! Do you have any fricking idea what a relief that is? Hurrah!
• In other brief moments of awesome, a job that I really want was advertised on one of the twitterstreams that I follow, so I promptly applied for it. Hurrah for social media!

The bad:

• I was at my parents’ house yesterday hanging out with Pixie and doing my laundry. When I left, carrying two baskets of laundry stacked on top of each other, my satchel and a bag of shopping, she came around to the front door and was darting around, so I was wondering if she wanted to get back in. My parents have recently extended the front of their house, and changed the levels of steps, and put new ones in. Their outside light didn’t go on automatically. You can see where this is going, right? A misstep, my ankle twists, my baskets of laundry go flying, groceries roll down their hill, I have time to think “I’m falling” before my hands hit the speckled pebbled ground, my right thigh and right side of my body make contact with the concrete too, my shoulders jar, my wrists scream in protest and I want to stay on the ground and bawl, but I don’t want to freak the neighbours out, so I have to gingerly pick myself up and then pick up all my crap that has gone everywhere. I am covered in invisible boo-boos now and want kisses to make them better.

The scary:

• I was lying in bed at around 1.40am when I heard someone coming up the path. At first I thought it was our steps, but then I realised it was the path of the house next door, which I thought was a little odd, because they’re not normally late night people. But Smoo was home anyway, so it wouldn’t have been our path anyway. I didn’t hear next door’s front door, but I thought maybe they were just super quiet. Then I heard some thrashing around in the bushes by my window that I’d left open for Sebastian and I was like “oh crap, he’s chasing a rat, he’s not normally that loud”. And then I thought I heard someone whispering my name, so I sat up and saw a figure silhouetted against my blinds, with an arm reaching in, and I was very confused. I said “What the hell are you doing?” and the figure seemed to disappear. I reached for my light, not entirely sure if I’d just seen what I’d seen, and then reached for my phone and tweeted about it (yes, lame, I know) before wrapping my duvet around myself, getting out of bed and going for the main light in my room. I pulled up my blinds, and saw that the window that was open but latched was now unlatched. I shut it, dropped the blinds and went and got Smoo, who was luckily awake. We had a prowl around the house, and he looked out the front door, but we couldn’t see anything, so I called Sebastian in, and he snuggled me to keep me safe. Took me another hour to get to sleep though, and yes, I spent some of that time debating who out of the four or so people that I’ve shared a bed with this year would have been the best to respond if someone had actually climbed in. I think it would have been the girl first, because she can be scary and intense, and then the married man, because maybe he could have been manly but would be afraid of  being identified. Then the duck, because he  might have slept through it, then Tingle, who probably would have just been too drunk . I suppose I should call the community constable now or something and report it, in case there’s a pattern happening around town. Weeiiiiiiiiird.

The floor is lava again. I know it will pass, and I know the fact that I have been negligent in my lexapro intake is to blame, but it’s kind of like a vast conspiracy.

I had a glorious week before the lava set in. As I already said on Wednesday, Lisa Fur and I went out to the Hutt and had a marvelous drive around. On Thursday, we went to the zoo! There were otters! And meerkats! And giraffes! As my camera is at Anna Jane’s (I hope) I will pinch some pictures from Lisa’s flickr to display the otterly adoreableness of the trip:

Lisa kept calling the animals jerks every time they wouldn’t pose for photos properly or if they were just busy sleeping and we couldn’t see them, which happened a lot. I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do. However, it did keep me giggling a lot. Afterwards we went to Lyall Bay to eat chips and be sad looking at the burntpout Maranui, and then we drove up and around Maupuia and then up other hills in Miramar, questing to find a particular yellow house we’d spotted from another peak. Spending time with Lisa is lovely and easy and great. I wish we could make out and then I’d never have to hang out with anyone else ever again, if you know what I mean.

On Friday I went to meet up with my old workmates Matt and Ros for drinks at Mighty Mighty. Apparently the SSC has not completely fallen apart without me. I’m as shocked as you are. Ros reads my journal, so I must give her shoutouts. Matt does as well, apparently, although he does not wish to discuss my periods with me. I warned him that I intended to pretend to be Mark Harris the next day and heckle his talk at Word Camp about the SSC blog and yell “Show us your tits!” a lot. He said that would be  a good thing. It’s a shame  I didn’t actually make it along, but I suppose we’ll get to that soon enough.

Then Karen came along and we took a taxi up to Anna Jane’s masquerade flatwarming. Once again I’ll steal a photo from someone else, in this case from Phillip:

I painted and glittered my fan myself, in case you couldn’t tell. It had creepy dolphins on it before, which Lisa made dolphin-killing noises when I painted over them at her house on Monday night. That was not as adorable as the sound the otters made when they saw us coming over and stood up to greet us.

Anyways, the party was fun, for a while. I was feeling very uncommunicative, and drank a lot to cover that, although we couldn’t find a corkscrew for a very long time which meant we couldn’t open the prosecco for a long time and had to resort to drinking white rum. I tried to steal a mask from a canadian guy because it matched my fan. He didn’t want to swap though. There was some piling onto Anna Jane’s bed, and pretty French girls. Then at one stage I was leaning on the bathroom door frame when someone shut the door and it turned out my fingers were shut into the frame. I howled in pain, and screamed until the door was open, and then I bawled and bawled and bawled. I was so very fucking embarrassed at how much I was crying, but once I started I couldn’t stop. It felt kind of cathartic and kind of horrible at the same time. People gave me hugs and ice packs and Bad Tom forcefed me straight brandy, and I still couldn’t stop crying. Karen made me go home pretty soon after that, and I cried in the taxi on the way home, and again once I was in bed. My fingers are still kind of fucked now.

Needless to say, I did not feel very good on Saturday. I was very very hungover, yes. But also, I was just so so embarrassed. I mean, twitter assured me that crying at finger pain is completely okay, but there was an element of just losing total control, letting down my facade, ex cet er ra, ex cet er ra. I was not comfortable about it at all. So I hid in bed, constantly resetting my alarm pretending I’d go to Wordcamp later and later but then I realised I wasn’t going to go at all. Instead I made watery mac’n cheese and watched half a dozen episodes of series four Buffy because I love the recaps of it on The AV Club so much.

Today I have also hidden in bed, beset by strange dreams about dreams, cheese, weddings, Kat’n Kane and cherries the size of pumpkins. I also dreamt that I cloned myself and we had some great sex. I ran away to Elements to eat haloumi and roast beetroot and read the stupid paper. Tonight I might make rhubarb crumble and toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner, and attempt to restore some order to my room. I wish I had a job. I really want to buy that bed that I want. I finally got a call on Friday from the job I’d interviewed for last Monday, and they said that they had no feedback to give me because I’d interviewed brilliantly but the candidate they went with had more general Comms experience and I’m too specialist. Damn my speciality!

Actually, given the soreness of my fingers, and how difficult wanking was last night, I’m not sure I will be able to make crumble, dammit. Hmm. I suppose I can but try.

Because I’m trying to get everything tagged and tucked away and imaged and stuff here on Hubris, I have been reading through many many many entries, and woah, I sure have a lot of angst, don’t I?

I don’t, so much anymore, or at least not all that much today. It is nice to start your day with lunch at the Med Warehouse with Megan, and gossip your hearts out, and then to cruise the aisles looking at tasty things you want to eat, and then do the supermarket shopping, buy healthy vegetables and stuff and make huge big pots of dhal. It is also nice to have a Lisa Fur visit you and to watch Flash Dance together and sing along and twitter incessantly about Sassy Black Friends.

This unemployment thing is handy in that now I am coming off the zopiclone I am not sleeping at night at all so I am sleeping all day, but trying to be financially responsible means that my going out is severely curtailed. That is probably for the best, I suppose, because I am running out of people to drunk text. Getting cease & desist emails was a good thing, and the reaction that I had been pushing for.

Being home during the day means more amusing conversations with Smoo, and also being beaten by him at both Wii Tennis, despite my Williams-y grunting, and at bowling although I’m normally good at it, but beating him at Wii Baseball. It also means that I get to spend more time with Sebastian:

It sadly does mean that I’m churning through bandwidth at alarming rates, although I’m defaulting to simple things, rereading Harry Potter (I have lust for young boys, who knew?) and rewatching Angel.

I’m excited that I get to attend the cheese celebrations of Miss Harvestbird in October, and I’ve booked my flight on airpoints. Nothing good ever seems to happen to me in Christchurch (sorry Good Tom), but perhaps three times is a charm.

Oh boy, have I ever been busy! Where to start? Perhaps with photos. On the 14th of July, Bart had a party at his house, which was Rubik’s Cube themed. We were instructed to dress in all the colours of the cube and try to swap with others to end up in just one colour. Thinking that it wasn’t likely that I’d find anyone to swap clothes with, I hit the $2 shops in search of multi-coloured accessories, and wore them with all black clothes. It proved to be a great idea, as this photo that Lani took will prove:
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As befits the party host, Bart went all out with his costume:

Gradually people built up their costumes:

Bart, Dylan and dirty Shirley

I was trading my mardi gras beads for looks at boy titty (and also for those hot pants that Dyl’s wearing in that photo). At the start of the night we hid out in the kitchen because people were watching rugby in the lounge, so I hijacked the stereo and tried to play the cheesiest music on Bart’s ipod. At one stage I ended up wearing a flower garland, but it was covering up my cleavage so when I saw a boy wearing a Hawaiian shirt I asked him if he wanted to get leied. He was confused then, but of course, after many more drinks I found myself downstairs in the hallway making out with him. As there were many people up on the landing above us, I tried to move us into the gap between the stairs and the wall, thinking it was more out of view, but instead I found myself lying on my back, looking up at people looking down on me while he tried to take off my shirt. As texts from Lani later in the week (she went to Auckland first thing in the morning) said after I accused her of being a pervert & always watching me when I was trying to celebrate hooking up someone without her walking in on us – “LOL i wasnt the only one wtching!” (who else was watching?) “I dnt knw sme rndoms. I jst cme 2 c wat they wre lking at lol” AWESOME. Anyways, the boy and I went into one of the bedrooms down there, and made out a bit more – strictly second base only and then Bart walked in and looked really shocked and I felt terrible because honestly, so tacky to misappropriate someone else’s bedroom for your pashage. Of course, later when I apologised to Bart via email he said he knew what was going on and just thought it would be funny to walk in. Anyways, we finished kissing (<!– And when I say “we finished kissing” what I really mean is that we were frotting on the bed, or dry-humping if that’s a word you’re more comfortable using, and it was very much hands above the waist kissing, and then he started thrusting more and more, and groaning, and I had my hands in his hair and was like “ummmmm” and he thrust away a bit more and then made orgasm noises, and I was like “really? REALLY?” and then he got up and left and I laughed and laughed and laughed. –>) and I went back to the party and hit on Lani’s cousin, apparently. Much later, I really really needed to pee, but people were in the bathroom talking, and I was like “what the hell?” and since the door didn’t lock, I barged in. The guy I’d pashed was sitting in the bath talking to some other guy who was sitting on the floor, and I was like “I NEED TO PEE!” but they showed no signs of moving, so I went ahead and urinated anyway. That’s right, I’m Robin Tunney in Empire Records. I’m hardcore, yo! The party was a tremendous amount of fun. At the end of the night around 4.30am I was left with Dyl and Smoo and Bart who were playing yelly metal in the lounge. Bart disappeared to go buy cheeseburgers (I can has?) and Smoo tried to hit me when I tried to wake him up to take a taxi home, and Dyl had much the same reaction when I tried to get him up off the lounge floor so I left them and went home to giggle about how that makes three pashes in six weeks and at this rate, I’m going to kiss 26 people before I turn 28. Hurrah!

I am allowed to play silly buggers on the weekend because I had a very grown up week to follow that. I met with four recruitment agents! That’s a lot of having to get out of my pyjamas and comb my hair! Apart from that, I also went to the VIP night at Beckon where Hadyn, Amy, Tom and I all won spot prizes, and I took this fantastic photo:

Karen came to meet up with me and she and Hadyn and Amy and I went for a very pleasant meal at Longxiang afterwards:

I liked the orange beef best

The next night I went to the Ponoko beta product launch night at the Paramount, with the lovely Sue and the very intelligent Alan. Sue gave me an awesome bunny necklace, and I gave her some scrub in return. Then a group of us went for dinner at Royal India and I bossed my way through ordering for everyone like I tend to do.

On Friday I saw people from the Wellingtonista yet again, on our big night out, first at Vintage, then Hawthorn and then of course Boulot. And all I can say is that it’s just as well that Martha is my BFF, or she’d be in for a serious talking-to.

MG plied us with wine

Kim and Tom held court

Martha is queen of the dramatic

My mouth is the size of my head. Photo plundered from Stephen

And then on Saturday I called Karen many names because she wouldn’t surrender my copy of Harry so I changed my sheets for nothing. I got him on Sunday but had to go to Ngaio to do washing and to print out a presentation on how the government could use YouTube. I had two job interviews on Monday that I heard back from straight away, and started a six-week contract yesterday, and received a verbal offer from the other this afternoon. Fingers crossed that my references check out and the paperwork comes through!