Hubris.co.nz

I used to carry around a tin that mints from a recruitment company had once come in, filled with half pills. It was of course my citalapram, since I have to take a pill and a half, and they’re crumbly pills so I have to cut them at home with a big knife and a chopping board so they don’t totally fall apart, so I prepare them in advance. When I say “I used to”, I of course mean until last Saturday night, when I lost the tin, so I hope someone picked it up and decided that it was full of half Es, and is now off dancing in a club somewhere feeling really nausesous. Because I am nice like that.

On Monday night we had a flat dinner and I made a fucking awesome roast beef. Then because Bart had found a video that his social group had traded around themselves in 1996, I undid all the feminist thinking that I’d been doing since a post by Tze Ming on Public Address made me realise that I need to do more to reinforce feminist thought – so I bought Bitch magazine – by watching German porn with the boys while Lani did the dishes. It was amusing but also really sad. There was a woman dancing in the video who had breast implants the size of her head, and she just looked like a freak. I know that there are some porn stars who make a lot of money and have a lot of power in the industry, but this woman didn’t seem to be one of them. She was just an object of ridicule and that made me really sad.

On a more upbeat note, Bowling League on Tuesdays is still fun. Surprisingly, I don’t think that the Bowlingtonista are going to win the league, but damn we’re pretty. And it’s so much fun to get to hang out with BFF Martha while the men do the hard work.

On Wednesday I went to a wine night at the boatshed called ‘Meet Your Maker’. There were stalls there from various “unique and boutique” winemakers from the Wairarapa, and everything was free to try. I took a series of very detailed notes that included the following dialouge about a Hudson Sav:

Me: it tastes like silver in the mouth
Daddy: No it doesn’t.
Me: Well I think it tastes Metallicy, and Nothing Else Matters.

Tehehe. My favourite wine was the Julicher reserve Pinot Noir, which tasted like chocolate babies, and also the Tirohana wines because the guy remembered us from when we were up for Mum’s birthday and asked where our other sister was (she was across the other side of the room). And they have a dessert wine that’s like woah. There wasn’t really enough food so I ate and enjoyed ham rolls, and craved more of the duck, mushroom and quince paste tarts. Mmmmmm. But why is the Boatshed always so damn hot? Last time I was there for Public Address Great Blend I could go swimming afterwards, but not in May. Too much heating. Nevermind. And I saw a friend of my parents’ who is an MP whom I hate personally, politically and professionally so I made very sure that I didn’t have to talk to him. Afterwards we had dinner at Ernesto, where I was a little silly and had chicken, which was boring, but the potato and prune gallette that accompanied it was tasty like woah. I was just envious of the pork bellies of Karen and Anji, but that’s okay.

On Friday night I went home after work and napped on the couch, before driving in to town to pick up Miss Lisa and Karen, and see Jimmy and Miss Jessie at Dimmer. It didn’t feel quite as sexylicious as last time, but when they played the long, thrusting ‘Seed’ I still wanted to touch myself inappropriately, but settled for stroking myself behind my ears, as that is somewhat less inappropriate.

Saturday was a very amusing night. I had drinks at home with Lani and her friend Nikki who is staying, and then we went to a party in Kelburn. Nikki and I amused ourselves taking photos with someone else’s camera that had be left lying on the TV. Then I spilt red wine on the carpet so we ran away and I watched very guiltily as someone else cleaned it up. I am not normally the type of person who doesn’t clean up after themselves, but I was all like “they’ve got a white carpet! It’s their fault! Everyone always spills stuff on MY carpet…” So of course I was unimpressed with myself for that crappy attitude, and when I found myself in a bathroom queue with the girl who’d cleaned it up I apologised and confessed. She came up to me later to say it was awesome of me to confess, and so Nikki and Lani decided that she was a lesbian and was totally in to me. I was like “ummm, I don’t get that vibe at all”, but I think we all know that I have little to no female gaydar. I still went and tried to talk to her later (because if she was a lesbian obviously she’d fancy me, right?) but I was saved from myself by the need to take photos with someone dressed as a reindeer. Then we went into town, and despite all my protestations, I found myself at Coyote. Shudder. I hate Courtenay Place on weekend nights, I really do. The music was bad, the crowd was bad, and yet I stayed and constantly had a drink in my hand, and I’m not sure how that happened. At one stage a guy came up to me and was all “oh, you are so beautiful, can I get a kiss?” and I was like huh? But I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he turned his head and asked for another one, so I did, but then he was going to go for a pash, and I was like “hey buddy, you know nothing about me! You don’t know my hobbies or my interests, how can you want to kiss me?” and he was like “what?” and I was all “I mean, for all you know, I could be a member of the Hitler Youth” and he was like “I don’t know what that is” and I was like “I’m a white supremicist!” and he ran away and I laughed and laughed and laughed. And felt like Lily Allen. “I’ve got herpes!” Because after all, my Matariki resolution (along with doing something that will earn me a slow clap) is to wake up with someone and want them to be there, and sifty guys in sifty bars will not help me accomplish that. After that we finally left Coyote for the best kebabs EVAH from Hadi Gari, and then people were going to queue to get into GoGo and I was like “umm, nahuh, there is no way I’m going to wait to get into that crappy place” so I went home with Lani.

Yesterday I got up half an hour before my family were due for an afternoon tea to break in my cake-plate. It was so very civilised! I provided mini afghans and feta & spinach savouries, Mummy & Daddy baked mini scones and brought cream & jam, Anji brought coffee and shortbread, and Karen made chicken, almond and watercress sandwiches. We used fancy china and a good time was had by all. And we also finalised our plans to go to Rarotonga for Daddy’s 60th birthday and now Mum’s booked the flights. Because my job doesn’t finish until June 29, I’m going a week later than them all, and am consequently paying significantly more for the flights, damn it all. But still, Rarotonga, hurrah! We’re hopefully renting a four-bedroom house with a pool as well, so that should be nice.

Tonight instead of doing the whole flat dinner thing, which I really can’t afford to produce any more, I’m just going to make dessert crepes so we can eat the maple syrup that Lani brought back from Canadia. What’s that all aboot eh?

So Cheney is briefing Dubya on the events of the day, and of course Dubya isn’t paying much attention because he’d rather be playing with his toy cars, but when Cheney says “…oh and three Brazilian soldiers were killed today in Iraq,” George looks up and his eyes seem terrified. “Dick,” he says, “how many is a Brazilian?”

Aha ha ha ha ha. Yes, that’s right, I created a whole Country Club theme just so that I could tell you that very lame joke.

But before there was Brazil there was driving out to the airport in the crazy wind to pick up KateH on Friday night, and then cooking her rare sirloin steak sandwiches in fresh french bread with tamarillo chutney and caramalised onions, and then being picked up by our (and everyone’s!) chauffer for the night, the everylovely Miss Lisa who took us to San Fran to see Sam Flynn Scott play with Lawrence Arabia. They sounded good, but I was tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired and coming down with a nasty sore throat and cough. Katie meanwhile had enough energy to get up and sing on stage.

The next morning she and I went and had brunch at Elements before picking up more party supplies, and she vacuumed while I made Brazilian rice and finished off the feijoada. Then we jumped on my bed (Smoo declined our invitation to join us – wtf?) to listen to the Wellingtonista on Public Address Radio, which you can download here and I giggled at the fact that I got bleeped once but I mostly sounded fairly articulate. The mp3′s not online yet, but I’ll post a link as soon as it’s up. I think that we sounded like pretty smart, on-to-it people, and that’s good, because that’s who we are. And I sounded less nasally and cackly than I expected to.

After that it was nap time before finishing off preparations and heading off to pick up Lisa and Jimmy. I was planning on dressing up all fancy in my hott green dress, and fishnet stockings, and my 4.5 inch wedges, but by the time I’d found my suspenders I’d lost my stockings, and given how low cut the dress is, I thought it was also a bit short (boobs or legs, not both, after all. Not that I’d normally go for legs, until I get to the bit where I write about my day today) so I wore jeans underneath, and didn’t risk breaking my ankle on my shoes. One day I’ll find an occasion to actually wear them. Honest. Maybe when I act out a Tori Amos lyric with someone sometime – “he liked my shoes / I kept them on”. Speaking of Tori Amos, I discovered that someone most unexpected is really in to her music, but I will keep his secret. I was very very surprised though. Anyways.

Brazil turned out to be really good. Caipirinhias are a fantastic drink, especially mixed with copious quantities of cerveza. Rice’n beans is tasty, and Jimmy had made some fantastic sweets that went along with his fact that Nestle stole all the cocoa in Brazil in the 1940s and imported mass amounts of condensed milk instead. Who knew that Nestle could be so tasty and so evil at the same time (well, me, since I’m currently writign a piece on Fair Trade – and calling it Free Trade 70% of the time. Whoops)? I had bought planes, trains & automobile lollies to illustrate my facts about Brazil’s capital Brasilia having been laid out in the shape of an aeroplane and built from scratch in 1960, and also the fact that someone else snaffled, that 40% of Brazilian cars run on ethanol made from corn. I also found tasty ranch-flavoured corn kernels in the scoopermarket bins that went with the theme very well. We didn’t get around to eating fried bananas, but I did scoop out a pineapple that Karen had brought along and serve communal pina coladas in it. In fact, as the night wore on – and oh lordy, did it wear on – many, many more cocktails were served up in that same pineapple and delivered to the boys who were outside playing “soccer” and to the girls sitting civilly on the couches using many many words starting with ‘C’ for some reason. I tried to pressure people into joining the Wellingtonista Bowling League, and since everyone except Barbara, Jack and Nicole were Country Club veterans, there were many facts to be shared. Blair showed up with his iPod so we could listen to CSS and Sepultura instead of our very inauthentic attempts at Brazillian music (One Million Dollars), but no sambaing was done.

Instead the night wound down around 4am with some highly amusing and rather disturbing antics that involved a lot of mocking, bluff-calling and toe-sucking. When are people going to learn that I will always call their bluff? And when I laugh at changes in morality, I am taking the piss out of myself, as I watch myself acting out in jest parts of actions that I’d used in previous lifetimes but then in a serious capacity. This is what happened in that bathroom. This is what happened after the Placebo concert. This is what happened when you so conveniently happened to leave your laptop at my apartment and came back to pick it up at 3am. This is what happened when the boy I was hooking up with at the wedding wouldn’t come home with me so I decided to substitute you instead. And it makes me laugh, and I will always, always go for the cheap laugh.

Sunday was very slow. I went for coffees and the paper and sat and read it on the front steps in the sun while the house was cleaned up behind me, hurrah! Brad came over and did the dishes on Monday as well, so it was like, easiest party evah! We watched a million episodes of The Simpsons off the hard drive and it made me remember how horrible the time around New Year’s was for me. Shirley came down visiting from Palmy in the evening, and we all went and had dinner at Cambodinia in Kilbernie (it’s Cambodian, in case you couldn’t tell), because I wanted something more interesting than the very bland Nahkon Thai in Hataitai. Then we played DVD Cluedo and I went and finished reading the Anthony McCarthen book that I think is called The Death of a Superhero but I’m not entirely sure. If only there was some system of tubes that I could type into that could deliverme the answer…

On Monday I was still coughing up my lungs – assuming that my lungs were dry like wheatbix, so I didn’t go to work. Instead I lay on the couch and napped on and off and moaned with sickness. Brad came home and cooked us dinner and I thought about breaking Katie’s legs so she couldn’t leave but instead I took her to the airport. Today to work I wore my new green dress from Torrid with my new black opaque tights and boots. The dress is, like all my torrid dresses, too short to wear over bare legs (but not bear legs), but I thought it would be fine with the tights since there was no chance of my vajayjay showing. I was super paranoid about the dress coming up, and the tights rolling down – although being footless helped them keep their crotch in the right place – but I like the way it made it look like I had legs a million years long as I strode purposefully down Lambton Quay to meet Jessie for lunch at Kapai. We walked down to the waterfront and sat and shot the shit, and watched the Water Whirler whirl. Good times. Tomorrow I have the day off, hurrah!