Hubris.co.nz

My weekend was a shocking pile of debauchee. I participated in: lying to my manager; drunkenness; sexual harassment; sexual arousal; groping; other people’s hands on Mary-Kate and foul language. And that was just Friday night. Okay, so the lie was totally bald-faced, and was merely an excuse to accompany my cow-orkers to their netball dinner. The drunkenness was nothing special, just a lot of white wine. The sexual harassment was constant, and returned (the boys were trying to look up my skirt, despite the fact that I was wearing trousers), the groping was hilarious and mutual, and the foul language was to be expected (*).

On Saturday I felt great on account of having stayed up til 5am so I was stone cold sober again. I cleaned the house, had a shower, treated Seb for fleas, kicked the boys out of the house and set off flea bombs in my room and in the lounge. Of course, it was after I had locked the front door and exited that I heard the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP of smoke detectors going off, so I had to rush back into the lounge, find a chair to clamber on and pull out the battery, all the while coughing in the flea gas. Still, at least it should have killed the larvae in my lungs, right?

I repaired at the Medditerean Warehouse with a margharita pizza (and one of these days I will learn to spell) and the paper, before continuing the Italian theme with shopping to prepare for ‘Rome at the Country Club’. Later, after attempts at napping and some of The OC, which quite frankly I find myself really not giving a shit about, the darling Lisa Fur came and picked me up, and we went to her house via being served at the mill by Conor Oberst, who has apparently fled to New Zealand where he can shed his cold cold tears on his cold cold bathroom tile before getting up to sell cheap cheap liquor to ladies and say “laterz!” to them. We went to Lisa’s house and she played me absolutely devestating videos by the Dears, which you shouldn’t watch unless you’re prepared to cry. Then Brad and KateB came over (do you like the way I invite my friends to other people’s houses? I’m really good at that) and we had some more drinks and played some more music and then took off for the Aro Valley for Joel’s house.

At Joel’s, we sat in the garden and feared for our lives when he threw more furniture on the fire. I saw people I knew from when I worked for VUWSA and was happy that they were the people I liked. I think we were either very early or very late, but it was nice to see Joel again, even though I goddamnmotherfuckingshitfuckcunt forgot to get my Straitjacket Fits CD back off him. He’s had it for like a year now. Grr. Then we left to wander the streets slowly, and I started a long text conversation with my friend because we happened to be passing his house. Upon reflection, I realise that I do tend to text random things at random times (*). Brad peeled off somewhere, and Kate fell asleep on Lisa’s couch, so I made Lisa play me vinyl and make me popcorn. She’s a good bitch like that.

On Sunday, I was in pukesville. Apparently drinking a lot of bubbly straight from the bottle is bad for you. Who knew? Nevertheless, I soldiered on with Rome preperations, chargrilling red peppers to go in homemade hummus, making trifle with banana cake and pineapple in lieu of tiramisu, and putting pizza dough on in the breadmaker. Eventually I had to call a timeout so I retired to the local cafe for coffee and grease and the paper before coming back to the mountain of dishes and assorted other hospitality tasks that awaited me. And then I awaited my guests. You know, Kate mentioned that she thinks there’s been a drop in recent years in the number of people who actually call (or even text) to say that they can’t make it to an event, and I think she’s right. That said, there was still a stream of “oh, I’m too hungover” or “oh, the formula one is on” texts that made me go grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But the people who did come were very cherished, and appreciative of the effort I’d gone to. Also, my flatmates now think I am the greatest flatmate in the world, because it turns out that while I’d heard that Caligula was quite porny, I figured it’d just be softcore boobs and fake sex. Oh no, my friends. It was hardcore jizz baths, penetration and cunnilinguis. With costumes. And sex with horses. Hurrah! I fear I have set a high standard for further Country Clubs, but oh well. I can rename it the Cuntry club and feature porn from all around the world.

Last night Karen and I went to Kazu for some food on sticks. I should point out that we went to the good new one, without the terrible service and the quivering pizza that are found at the Tory St branch. The one on Courtenay Place is right next to the once beloved Arashi, which has since removed both ginko nuts AND their banana & peanut butter spring rolls from their menu, so what’s the point? Then we wanted to see Sione’s Wedding but it was all sold out so we went to A History of Violence instead, which was good. And violent, strangely enough.

Today at work I sat in on a videoconference featuring Tze Ming Mok, who was almost frighteningly articulate and Tusiata Avia talking about writing from a non-European perspective to an audience of Wellington High and Wellington Girls’ girls via video links, and it was really interesting. It made me think lots of things which I have completely forgotten about now, because it’s the end of the day. The ‘compare and contrast’ between the two of them in pretty much every aspect of their work was really interesting, as was also thinking about identity in general. Oh, I know what I wanted to say, and I’ll have to paraphrase really badly here, but Tze Ming spoke about how there’s a sort of expectation in the circles that she moves in that she will write about certain things, and I suppose that’s something that I feel too – not, of course, as an essayist and a blogger, but as a person with an online journal. It’s something I spent a lot of time talking about in the olden days when I was at counselling, my need to keep people entertained. And then I’d say something deep and then I’d say something else to make Kalpana laugh. Awesome, nice consistency there. Hmmm, this all sounded better in my head over lunch. Nevermind, I’ll call it off here.

Despite the $50 bar tab hangover that I have (I got Daddy to come to quiz night last night so we came second), today is fucking rad. The sun is shining, ‘Float On’ bubbled through my earphones (apparently today my iPod battery has decided to work) and I ate fish’n chips in Waitangi Park with Noizy and Tom. I found out that I got the pay rise that I asked for (which is twice as much as I actually wanted), and I have exciting plans for the weekend (party in Aro on Saturday and the first meeting of The Country Club on Sunday at my house – we’re wearing togas, drinking wine and watching Caligula – you’re invited as long as you refrain from pointing out that ‘Rome’ isn’t actually a country), I have a new old mattress and I vacuumed under my bed. Life is pretty sweet right now. Did I mention that Bic Runga offered to buy me a drink? Cos she did. And that’s RAD.

Last weekend was very very choice. On Friday night I went with two cow-orkers and three ex cow-orkers to Tupelo, which freaked me out a little with its redness. I left at 8.30pm when Kate picked me up, and they apparently stayed out until 4am, so it is just as well that I left when I did, especially since Kate and I went home with quadruple chocolate ice cream and Hairspray. Now we both want to learn how to do the mashed potato and other assorted dances. Hairspray is total radsicles (and radsicles is the new awesome – it’s like popsicles but cooler. Hehe). In the morning I made Kate pancakes and used my good china, even going to the extreme lengths of putting lemon juice in the little sake pot. Suck on that, Martha Stewart. Later I put on my pretty new dress that very few people have complimented me on (what’s up with that?) and met up with Lisa Fur and Brad to go to Bic Runga at the Michael Fowler Centre.

*Insert wide-eyed awe and aural orgasms and much spine-tinglingness here.*

She was playing with the whole band who played on Birds and played the whole album, so I might just pop up my review of that from Pulp now and then times that by a thousand and add in the goodness that is Neils Finn’s stage banter, and the amazing hotness of her base player who had his bass at exactly the right height – two inches lower and he would have been a nu-metal wanker, and five inches higher and he would be a geek – for maximum sexiness, and the total adoreableness of Annika Moa and the wonderfulness of our seats right by the sound desk, and the incredible aura and Strong Pixieness of Bic and and and wow. Just wow. I was dazzled. Simon Sweetman, you can suck a fuck, because of course it was polished. They’re the top fucking musicians in the country – how could it be anything but? I do wish that she’d played a couple more tracks off Beautiful Collison like the title track or ‘Election Night’ but that’s okay. It was still wow. I was moved pretty much to tears.

And then of course Jessie was there, and so the lobby was a lovefest of everyone I know – Jimmy and Esther and Ash (who Lisa ran away from when I was like “she’s from the internet” and it made me laugh a lot) and and Amelia, Jess Clayton and um some other people maybe? So I invited everyone to Rome, and was responded to enthusiastically. Me and Lisa and Brad headed down to Good Luck via Lisa’s car to drop off posters, to await Jessie. A couple of drinks later, she texted to say she was at Motel with the band, so Lisa and I went there. The bar was insanely full, and I was intimidated by the beautiful people, and while yes, I have occasionally entertained thoughts of being pressed up again Shayne Carter, it was always in more intimate settings, so I paniced when I finally fought my way to the front to get a drink and didn’t want to ask for a menu but I knew that I wanted a drink that would last a long time, so I remembered Wellurban and ordered a dry martini. I forgot that I haven’t drunk martinis regularly for quite a while. It was definitely a strong drink. It was the right thing to order though, because after that I saw it was what Bic herself was drinking. She came and sat at our table and I squeed, and Jessie told her that I really liked Jessie’s haircut, and I said that yeah, if that whole singing thing didn’t work out for her, she could have a career as a hairdresser, and then encouraged by her laugh, I said that that concert was amazing, and that two years ago when she played the cathedral she’d asked the audience if we liked her tights, and I did like them. And then I realised that despite having said earlier that I didn’t, holy crapping fuck, I was talking to Bic Runga, and she was just so nice that I genuinely did like her tights. And now I will stop using italic tags and just reflect on how stupidly starstruck I felt, but how much I basked in her glow. And of course, it was very very rad to see Jessie again, and her hair is so cute it’s ridiculous. Everything was so wonderful, I was just walking on air.

On Sunday I played Domestic Goddess and shopped and cleaned and cooked dinner for my whole family, which they’re still telling me was great, even though it was just the exact same food that I served my dinner party that one time. It was a very pleasant night though. On Wednesday Anji, Karen and I had dinner at The Last Supper Club, and while the food was tasty (although I asked for my fillet steak to be medium rare and it came out blue), the waiter was smarmy (sample line: “there are three mints for you on that plate” – oh really? Is THAT what they are? Cunt.) and we really didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as last time. Then we went to V for Vendetta which was awesome and left me dreaming of nuclear warfare and being all alone when the bombs started falling and crying cos I’d left Sebastian outside.

Yesterday Mummy took me to lunch at Captiol to thank me for doing some design work for her. I had bruscetta and pasta with zuchini and ricotta and a French wine that was a combination of reisling and pinot gris and very tasty it was too. The waiter asked me if I was Joanna, and I said I was and he pointed out that he went to high school with me, and I laughed and said oh yeah, and pretended to not know what he’d been up to for the past couple of years. It makes me happy though that so many of the beautiful people from high school are still working in hospitality. I am so shallow. Last night we went to the quiz at the Realm, and I had too many beers and sucked at pool so I went home and then Del let herself in and her friend in knee high white boots trimmed with oversized laces and fur accosted me asking for hugs and snuggles. Maybe I shouldn’t have judged her so harshly based solely on her boots, because she said some slightly intelligent things about the Gilmore Girls that I was trying to watch, but she was very very drunk and loud. It was like Courtney Love coming to stay. I sent Bart a text going “come home NOW”. He was very apologetic.

Today there is the goodness that I have already described, and in an hour I’m going to go and have a drink with Sarah, and then maybe stare at all my workmates as they have their netball team dinner, but I should really go home and chargrill the kilo of red peppers that I bought for $1.95 at A-Mart instead. See you tomorrow night or at Rome.

Oh, and also, something I forgot to mention was how great it was to finish something creative that I’ve been working on for ages, and the end product of that is 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You, which you should get, if you want it.

Last Friday was, if you recall, the Prom. Of course, you should all have known that from coming along, but if you did, then you’re people that I don’t know who didn’t introduce yourselves. Wankers.

But nevermind that. Let’s talk about going to Spotlight at lunchtime with Kateb for netting to promify our dresses, and how I was going to get black but the call of the pink was just too strong:

Then let’s talk about how the skies opened around 4pm and I had holes in my shoes, and my car was parked a long way away and luckily I’d given Kate the spare key to it cos I got to it late, and then we had to schlep over to Newtown to decorate the hall and I was soaking wet and freezing cold and reaaaaaally not in a good mood. Plus decorating was tiring and hard, and we were running late and Brad’s friend who was helping us kept on talking and talking and oh oh oh, just the drama of it all. But when we were done, the place looked fucking rad:

Kate came over to my place to get ready, and since I knew I needed to snap out of my grump, I went to “spend a couple of minutes by myself” (read: rub one out), before showering and sorting out my hair. Of course, we ended up looking fabulous, as the above photo will prove. We spent a while having some drinks and trying to convince Bart and Del to come with us, before abandonning that idea and jumping in a taxi. The hall was pretty empty at first, so I was very worried for Brad’s sake, and I was trying to count and do maths and things, but eventually it filled up, helped along by the arrival of these two, Katy and her flatmate:

We sat and drank coruba & coke for a while, cos it was donated, and then Brad started playing ‘Get into the groove’ which is one of my favouritist songs to dance to evah, and since my friends weren’t feeling it, I went and jumped into a group of strangers including this girl Holly:

They were very very rad people and were very complimentary of my outfit, so I decided that I was ON FIRE that night, and that everybody would be my friend. When Katy and I were slowdancing the first slowdance, I spied two boys standing at the side so we grabbed them instead and they didn’t appear to mind at all. Later I fell in love with one of Brad’s tutors (although I suspect I didn’t realise who he was at the time) when he whirled me around the dancefloor and told me to stop leading. How powerful and manly! Oh how I was swooning.

At one stage, I went outside to find Kate, and found her talking to a 15 year old kid who’d wandered up to boast about how he was on his 20th beer. When he turned around and said to the Asian girl behind him “I don’t like Asians!” I decided that was enough, and it was time for him to move on, so I went and found Brad, who grabbed a very tall friend of his and politely asked the young lad if he had a ticket. He moved on then. Apparently he was also kicked in the balls by a friend of the Asian girl. Excellent.

It was just such a fucking fantastic time. I danced and danced and danced, and although I didn’t win Prom Queen, I certainly felt like it, and so I successfully vanquished all my demons from dances at ASIJ 12 years ago. Oh yes, that’s right, all my demons. I’m totally a demon-free zone now. Honest. Here’s some more photos from the prom – if you want to see them larger, go to my flickr account page, obviously. And the best part of all is that Brad made a whole grand.

When Kate and I got home, we found Mark and Bart sitting out on the front steps drinking, so we stayed and talked to them for a long time, and I did the most awesome fall-flat-on-my-face fall ever. Radical.

The next morning, strangely enough, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus, but I dutifully rolled out of bed, showered and headed off to pick up Anji and Karen, via a ten minute wait at Macdonald’s for them to serve me up a burger instead of the ick that is the Macdonald’s breakfast. Not that their burgers are much better, of course, but this was an emergency. I got Anji to drive to Waikanae, because I still felt drunk. We went to Swell Cafe for Mum’s birthday brunch, which you might remember from the news stories about its quarter mill bronze statue being stolen. Or you might not. I don’t care either way. Ha! It was really nice there, but oh boy I was feeling ill. Then we went to Oma’s house to sort out more stuff and pick up more furniture and I puked some more and sat on an outdoor step and cried. I was very very happy to get home and unload the buffet and bookshelves.

After a nap, I went to the supermarket and made awesome sandwiches of streaky bacon, camenbert, hummus and rocket. Hurray! And I tried gingerly to drink some beer, but then switched to red wine. Around 11pm, I headed off to Nial’s house for Blair’s goodbye party. Luckily it was a very mellow night, just lots of sitting around in the very cute garden. I didn’t know people at first, but I was overly tired so I was in very giggly very saying lots of stupid things mode, so it was alright. The boy who I’d originally thought was gay talked loudly at me about how gay he was, and about how he used to make his ex girlfriend wear a Hayden Christensen mask when he flipped her over, and I felt ever so slightly embarrassed but mostly I just laughed at the things I was thinking in my head (*).I did tell the hot Canadian right as he was leaving that I fancied him rotton, and he laughed at me. Well, it wasn’t quite a “ha HA, like you could ever have a chance” kind of laugh, or even a laugh of pity, it was just a laugh and a “I’m sure you’ll get your pash this year”. And yes, I told him right when he was leaving, because I am laaaaaaaaaame like that, but at least I told him. So that’s all very well and good, and I don’t feel bad about it. And it’s good that he’s gone, because while he was a very easy crush to have, I just have far too much going on in my head right now(*). Oh, and of course he’s also a stupid maple syrup-eating surrender monkey.

Having been up until 5.30 texting, Sunday was a day for lying on the couch groaning and watching season two of the OC. I think much of the week was like that, actually. Hmm. On Wednesday I saw Capote, which wasn’t the feel-good hit of the summer. Then I decided I needed to stop feeling angsty about the number of people in my house (it’s strange getting used to having two boys and one girlfriend who is still trying to find a flat around, after living with only Anji for six months, but there’s no need for me to have a bug up my ass just because oh the pain, they’re sitting on my couches watching tv when I want to lie down and watch the Gilmore Girls in quiet), so I cooked a flat dinner for them and Brad. I was going to make a pear cake too, cos our tree is loaded down with pears right now, but when I got home, Del was already making one. Great minds and all that.

On Friday after work my workmate Sarah and I escaped down to Monsoon Poon for some very good conversation and some wine. She’s getting married in less than a month, and so she keeps asking me questions about things like invitations or social graces, or accomodation and stuff, which is fine, cos I’m happy to help, but it’s making me plan my own wedding something crazy, and hello, I’m not gettign married for another five years (that’s assuming Brad’s still single then). We were joined by the boys a while later, and then by Rene who is an ex collegue. Eventually KateB showed up to and by that stage I’d consumed quite a lot of wine. Sarah left and we had a platter of food which probably wasn’t nearly enough in proportion to the amount of wine we were drinking, and we went to Ponderosa where I watched Kate pee and she did the same to me. Not like, cos we were doing it in public or anything, just that we assumed that there would be stalls but it was one big room and so we decided to have a significant bonding experience instead. I was thinking that the bathroom looked mighty familiar and then I realised yesterday that it’s tiled like the one in Veronica Mars in which she does all her business. Ha HA ‘business’, do you like what I did there? (Yes, wow, that is a poo you should be proud of).

Somehow we managed to convince Dylan to come to a uni party with us (I did mention that the last time I went to a party at Jess’s there were both nipples shown AND a person in a panda costume), and we headed up to Kelburn via the supermarket for more wine. We probably didn’t need the wine. I had a good time at the party talking to Arthur and Brad who are at drama school together, and the fabulous Jess, and also Robbie, who as it turns out isn’t Lemon Cohen at all, and most awesome of all was that there was no one else from Salient there. Then Kate was a little worse for wear, so we decided it would probably be a good idea to get her home(*). When I saw Jess yesterday in Aro, she laughed at me for being like “omg, leave my friend alone! She’s been my best friend since we were 5, don’t hurt her!” cos people had placed flowers on her head. They laugh because after delivering that speech, I delivered Kate an all-mighty slap. Sorry babe.

Yesterday morning was consequently not much fun either, but I rallied by around 4pm when Anji and I went up to Mum and Neil’s for a BBQ. Boy it was hot, so very hot. I like BBQs. Then I went and picked up Karen and we headed over to Aro Park for the Bitchcraft carnival. I bought pretty earrings and we went and got fish’n chips and settled down on the grass to watch the Dukes of Leisure play. They looked like this:

I’m aware that you probably can’t see that much, but I’m hoping that it’s just that I have a crap monitor. If you can’t make it out, that’s a tree with a string of dead dolls hanging behind them. Anyways, the Dukes were very cool. They’re kind of sonic soundscapey like HDU or Jakob, and since I was lying on my back looking up at the stars, it was perfect. The Bitchcraft fair looked awesome when all the stalls turned on their little lamps. I felt like I was in an alternative Stars Hollow, and that is a rad thing to feel.Then I went home to dance the panda dance for Brad. I contemplated going to the Bitchcraft afterparty, but it was on the other side of town and my hands were still tingly with hangover. One of these days, I’m going to cut down on the amount I drink. For serious.

Prom tonight. Vote for me for prom queen. Brad came over last night to discuss decorations, and he ripped some music for slowdancing. Please, for the love of all things good and shiny in the world, will someone slow dance with me tonight? I want to be all triumphant and “check out how much cooler I am now than when I actually went to a real Homecoming dance” but there’s a part of me who’s scared I’ll sit on the metaphorical bleachers and cry when they play Guns’n Roses’ ‘Don’t Cry’ and the cool kids will laugh at me.

But I don’t really have too much time to worry about it, because I have to go and buy black netting at lunchtime to promify my skirt, and then after work KateB and I must rush over to the Wellington Pipe Band Hall to decorate it, and then rush home and get dressed and rush to get drunk and go back in. I also need to make sure I pack a change of clothes, cos while the twins will be definitely coming to the party, I may not be quite as free with my movements as I would like to be in that outfit.

It’s been very rad having KateB back in town. We’ve been eating lunch together every day this week since she’s been freelancing around here, and on Tuesday I took her home with me for drinks and soup, hair dying and watching of the Garland video. I can’t wait until Brad becomes a famous actor so I can unleash his dancing upon the world. Actually I really should take the clip of the Garland Gang cd rom and put it up on the interweb. That sounds like an excellent idea. I’m sure he’d thank me for it. Also, who knows a good place in Wellington to get a crappy old VHS digitised so I can keep it safe forever? You’d think I could do it at work, but the developer was all “no no no”. Dammit, I know how to do it (or at least I did five years ago), you’d think I could borrow the G5 in my own time.

Bart’s been living in my house for nearly two weeks now, as has his girlfriend, who is having trouble finding a flat, so if anyone knows of a place going, please please please let me know. He and She and Mark who is yet to move in are all trained chefs, so I’ve had some dinners cooked for me. That’s great, but a little strange. I’m used to being a much better cook than the boys I’ve lived with. But they’re all lovely, and I’m getting bits and pieces of furniture trickling in from Oma’s in order to fill in the gaps, and that’s great. I’ve also got a car now. Or rather, I have Mum’s old car and I’ll be paying for insurance and registration and all that, but if any of the cousins need to borrow it they’re allowed to. Can you drive, Cous? Not that I’m expecting to see you in Wellignton any time soon probably though.

I saw Brokeback Mountain on Wednesday and decided that I should just punch the girl I fancy in her face and ask her to go fishing with me. I thought there was a little too much scenary, and that Salon’s review of made some really good points, and that if I was to speak like Joss, I’d say that it did more telling than showing. But it was still great, and there were boobs, and hot boys pashing (although not enough), and I cried. But I saw it at a Newstalk ZB preview, and they were the worst audience ever. Maybe because they’re used to talking to the radio they thought it was okay to talk through the film and wear way too much perfume and go “oh yes” and “oh no!” out loud the whole way through? Stupid long time listener/first time movie watchers. And while we’re on the subject of sexuality (oh yeah, Newstalk ZB is like, sooo sexual), I read an interview with Dan Savage in the Onion AV Club, in which he said (to paraphrase) “if your boyfriend is a homophobe, that means he’s also a misogynist because he’s reacting to the belief that in gay relationships one person assumes the role of the woman and he’s seeing it as a bad thing to be a woman” and I was like “yes!”. I like it when people who are smarter than me articulate things real good.

And I think that’s my lot for today. Just come to The Prom okay? And vote for me for Prom Queen. I made the ballot forms so I really should have rigged them, but I was good and didn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, you wanna hear about Fiji huh? Well, I guess I don’t blame you. There’s a lot to tell, but if I write it chronologically, it might not work. So maybe I’ll put it under themeatic sections and alphabetise them.

ACCOMODATION
We stayed at a place called Club Fiji, which was nearish Nadi Airport, but had the added distinction of actually being on a beach. Sure, Nadi Bay was really shallow, and when the tide was out the sea was miles and miles and miles away, but it wasn’t too bad to look at. The pool was salt water, which was nice, and there were sun loungers all around, and lots of pretty thatched permanent umbrellas everywhere to sit under, and palm trees and flowers and it was just lovely. Our bure was the futherest away from everything, which meant big long walks to and from the bar & pool, but that’s okay. It was a really nice bure too – wood floors and wood lourves, a big high ceiling, a mosquito net over the double bed which lovely Kate let me have, and a little frige that we filled to the brim. The bathroom was quite spacious too. One night there was a three inch spider in it, so I screamed, but Katie bravely put it outside. I was quite suprised at her coolness in the battle.

The man in the other half of our bure wasn’t quite so cool, however. Oh no. In fact, he told us to turn off our music at 5pm because he was trying to nap (wanker!) and then came and yelled at us when we came back from dinner at 11.30pm (slightly more justified – he should have knocked on the door and been more polite, however). We hypothesized like mad about him, since he appeared to be by himself, before deciding that he had been jilted at the altar and had decided to come on his honeymoon by himself. The fact that a security guard told us that he’d complained another night about the fact that we were LAUGHING, (because how dare we enjoy ourselves on holiday?) seemed to solidify this theory. When we had to get up at 7am to go on a day cruise, I walked ahead of Kate, and he came out and hurled buckets and buckets of abuse at her, saying that we sounded like a pack of drunken hippos, and that she was a fat piece of shit (I don’t know if you’ve seen Kate, but suffice to say that she really isn’t) and that he recommended that she didn’t eat for a year. After that we told the reception staff that we wanted to change rooms, but we didn’t get around to it. We just stalked the guy at the restaurant instead, making loud remarks about how hippos come in herds, not packs. If he’d said something to me instead of Kate, i was going to play Good Cop, and invite him in for a drink and a hug, but he didn’t.

AIRPORTS
I hate airports. Especially if they’re not airconditioned. Or your parents (apparently) think you’re coming back the next day and no one is answering their phone and you are outside in the freezing Wellington wind and you don’t have any house keys and you’re supposed to be at Jessie’s party soon and it’s so cold and your flight was so delayed and you’d already waited for hours the night before at Auckland Airport for a bus and oh I just hate you airports. I’m always crying at you.

BOATS
I was thinking last night that before I went to Fiji I hadn’t been on a boat since January 2nd, 1998 (post The Gathering), but that’s not true cos I went on a ferry between Russell and Paihia, and also on the Hokianga ferry, but we took a lot of boats in Fiji. We went on a Sunset Cruise which we thought would be a big boat, but it was just a rowboat with an outboard motor that we had to cross the sandflats to get to, carrying glasses of wine, and then the guy asked us if he could go faster, and it was great but all the wine flew out of our glasses. Then there was a catamaran out to South Seas Island, and a little boat to get to the island & the submariney boat, and a smaller boat to get to Malamala and their little boat and that’s about it. Well, it certainly felt nautical to me. This is a boring thread.

BOYS
It seems that there is some appreciation for the curves in Fiji – or perhaps because of the heat I was wearing lower cut tops than usual and it would have been the same in NZ. But I’m not sure. One night Kate and I were sitting out on the porch of our bure having a drink, talking shit about the next door neighbour and just generally enjoying ourselves. Kate went inside to pee, or get more drinks, or cheese, or something, when along came the security guard. No, he wasn’t there to tell us to shut up, he just wanted to hang out. Okay. So we made chit chat, and blah blah blah, and Kate came back out again, and we talked some more and then he was boring us and we wanted him to leave but by that stage he was already sitting on the steps of our bure smoking. Since Kate and I had already discussed whether or not we were going to go to mysterious Hell bar that only appeared at night and blasted out bangra til all hours, we asked him if there were any good places we should go to if we were going to go out in Nadi. He was like “you want to go to nightclubs? I know some good places. I’ll take you out tomorrow because I finish my shift at 10pm, so you can get some dinner and I will meet you here”. We were like “oh okay, that sounds okay” before he was all “but you can’t let my bosses know, we’ll have to go secretly, blah blah blah” and “my friend is a taxi driver, I’ll get him to take us” and it just seemed a little more dodgy. And he was staring in the bad way, not the good way. After he finally left, we decided we’d wait and see if we were still keen to go out the next night. After an early morning and a long day on South Seas Island, we decided that no, we weren’t particularly keen to go out, and so we debated all the ways that we could get out of going out – like pretending to be sick, or hiding, or going out by ourselves. He was waiting in the dark for us to walk past though, so we just said we were too tired and he said maybe another night, he’d get his friend to take us out and join us when we finished at 1am. Well, we certainly weren’t very keen to be passed around like that, so in order to get out of it, on another night, we got a guy from the bar to walk us back to our room….

Our waiter at dinner the first night very coconspiritoratorly asked us if we smoked, and I thought he was after a lighter, but then apparently he said somethign about Bob Marley, and I was like “ooooh. No.” but he kept asking, like he wanted to sell us weed, and then he kept touching me, always patting me or stroking me from then onwards and it seemed like he’d go for wherever my sunburn dejour was. I don’t like being touched so much, dammit!

One night we were sitting at the bar having a drink when three local boys asked us to play pool with them. Being obliging young ladies, we said yes, and so we ended up playing two games against them. One of them decided that the best way to pick me up was to talk about how fat I was, first touching my upper arms and saying “powerful muscles!” and then when they asked us if we smoked (dude, what the fuck is it with everyone trying to sell us pot?) and I said no, he was like “oh, I thought you were so fat because you smoked so much”. I was like “I think you’re the rudest boy I’ve ever met. I didn’t say anything about how bad your skin was, you know, where are your manners?” He didn’t get it. Turns out they didn’t get a lot of things. When they kept trying to force their beer on us, telling us how great Fiji Draught was, we asked if they worked for the brewery, or if they were doing viral marketing. They didn’t get it. The guy that was trying to pick Kate up apparentlyl taught web programming, so she told him that I edited websites. He asked me what I did, so I said that I wrote the content for the site. He didn’t understand what content was, and asked me if I wrote in php. It’s nice to know that programmers universally don’t realise that websites actually have to have content! The other guy that was trying for me, who kept touching me got really nasty and competitive when he thought he was losing, while the guy with the bad skin got really bitter that I was playing with his friend. We had to call it a night right about then. They were just toooooo pushy.

Another night at the bar we were talking to everyone there, including Marilyn from Blehiem who we’d got to know on South Seas Island (her and her husband had been coming to Club Fiji for twelve years, twice a year – they took one holiday together and one holiday apart each), and a couple of expats. One of them said he was developing a new resort, and he said he could get us tickets to go out there. Well, yeah, we’re oppotunistic, so we did talk to him for a long time. We got to talking about the upcoming election, and he said he wasn’t voting, so I (of course) went off on a speil about how you’ve got to believe in something and stand up for it (but only if it’s something that I believe in, of course!) and we got on to the civil unions bill – which he thought was wrong. Homos are unnatural. But lesbians are okay – are you guys lesbians? He asked about three times. I told him the say thing every time, that I wasn’t gay with Kate, but yes, sometimes I like women. And then we went into a loooooooooooong speil about how it was perfectly natural. His arguement of course came down to “anal sex with men is gross”. I felt a little bad saying in front of the bartender “so when you’re with a woman, all you ever do is put your penis in her vagina and that’s your whole relationship there?” I think he was too drunk at that stage to get it. He started going on about the bible, so Kate asked him to quote specific passages that spoke out against homosexuality, and I was waiting for him to say Levidicus, but oh no, he didn’t even know that, so we told him that there wasn’t a single mention of it in the bible but boy that was a nice shirt he was wearing of mixed thread. Then Kate said “I’m a scientist…” (which anyone who’s ever heard the story of how outrageously angry she got when we were playing headbands and she was Einstein and when she found out she yelled “BUT YOU SAID I WASN’T AUSTRALIAN!” and we were like …………… until Simon said “are you thinking of Young Einstein?” should know means that she is full of crap, but I was too drunk to hear her say that bit) and launched into a story about how in Africa, there’s been studies done that show there are gay lions who are totally welcomed, because they don’t represent a threat to the leader’s authority, but they help to protect the female lions. Hey, it seemed plausabile at the time, the guy totally believed her – probably partly because he was still hoping we were lesbians together with him. In retrospect, if Kate ever tells that story about the lions again, I told her she should said it’s been written about in a book called Gay Pride. I am hilarious. Anyways, eventually the bar closed, and we realised that the creepy security guard – who had periodically been asking Kate where I was would be lurking around our room wanting to go out with us. We asked the guy to walk us back to our room, and his eyes went !!!!!!!!, so when we got back to our room I said “you do realise we’re not going to have sex with you, right?” and he said “do you have anything to drink?” and then peed in the bushes while Kate went back to reception to get them to unlock our room cos we’d lost our key (inside, we’d left our room open but housekeeping must have locked it). Charmer. Eventually I got bored, and he hadn’t given us tickets, so I went to bed. He asked Kate to go for a moonlight walk on the beach, but strangely she declined, so he finally left. I hope that our gay lions have changed his outlook on life.

COMEDY DUO

Apparently Kate’s dad has suggested that her and I together are a comedy duo. Once she told me that, it was a phrase that I heard many times in my head, when Kate’s suitcase weighed 30kg at check-in, or when we lost our room key, or when we couldn’t get out of the water on Malamala Island because of the undertown and slippery sand, or when we got caught up in hammocks etc…. Possibly the biggest mistake this comedy duo made was to try to walk through the field between our resort and the next. It was dark, deep and full of infectious mosquitos, ditches and streams. No snakes though.

FLIGHTS
The flight to Fiji was much more spacious than I thought it would be. I loved the tan fake leather seats. We asked if we could be upgraded, and they checked, but apparently it was full. The continental breakfast was quite good. I didn’t have champagne. The movie was Lemony Snickett so I didn’t watch it. The flight back was much more squishy. I drank some wine. The movie had Vin Diseal and kids in it. What was Lorelei thinking?

FOOD
I ate a lot of rib eye. The food was mostly decidedly average, but the steak was good.

INJURIES

A couple of weeks ago my bus went past this guy walking along the street, and I thought ‘hey, he looks vaguely familiar’, and then I realised who it was, and it was someone that I slept with two years ago. As a matter of fact, he’s the guy that I slept with who I always forget about whenever I try to match up names with the number of people I’ve had sex sex with (sex sex as in penis-vagina. Sometimes I consider it to be sex if he goes down on me. But not always). This would be like another total “so what?” if he was just a one night stander, but he wasn’t. I wonder how my brain manages to shut off memories of him so often when it used to be that I talked to him every single day at great length and thought that without him as my best friend I wouldn’t survive (*), and we had a whole wealth of injokes and phrases and to this day I can’t remember if Paul Schaffer was my arch nemisis or his. I conclude that my brain is dumb.

My brain is dumb because when I was stuck in very slowly crawling traffic through the Terrace tunnel today and I was in a car piled to the gills with boxes and thinking about how at some stage I’m going to have to disassemble my bed (and while I might think “ooh, Daddy can do that for me!” last time when he assembled it, it took an hour and was SO MUCH HARDER for me to do bits of rather than doing the whole thing by myself in half an hour), and there was a honda civic in front of me and it made me think of a boy who once told me that his whole bed could be taken apart and folded up to fit into the back of his honda civic, and then I thought about how icky that boy was, and how stupid I was for sleeping with him, and then I thought about why I did that – because I’d just sold my ex boyfriend’s bed and used the money to pay for a party with a LOT of booze, and then I remembered all of that, which was about five years ago exactly and how fucking horrible it all was, and even though I’m still like woah I’m all good now, but then there was already a ten year anniversary this year that threw me for six (is that a real expression?) and that was pretty fucking crappy and aaaaaaaargh oh the pain the pain the pain that is my brain that just doesn’t shut the fuck up.

So in real world news, last night Brad came over for dinner and a pile of junk food, and The OC, Team America (fuck YEAH) and Bad Santa. I am in love with Therman Merman, I want to bake him in a pie. At my request Brad drank more beers than he could drive on and camped out in the guestroom. Today we got up in time to watch an hour of Home and Away before I had to take off to go to Oma’s. I love that my new place is five minutes walk away from him. Well, sort of – there’s a couple of hills in between, so it’s varied, I suppose. I went to Oma’s to meet up with Anji and Karen, and ate the fondue, and then loaded up the car and van before eating Crepes Suzette. Mmmmm heartattacky. Then it started to pour. I hate driving in the rain. I also hate shifting furniture and stuff in the rain. How do I have so much stuff? I wish I was like Ani di Franco says that she is. I of course also wish that I had some love letters to treasure, of course. At least now I will have my box of memory treasures back now (which, if you’re oldskool you would have seen in that mega big flash file I used to have which has now vacated my computer to somewhere else). Not that I need trinkets to remind me of things when my mind so obviously works overtime. Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Have I mentioned to you that you need to be marking off June 18th in your diaries for my birthday / flatwarming party? Please to do so. I’d like everyone to come along, even if I don’t know you. That way it can be all awkward and stilted and I can feel bad when my guests don’t mingle! Heh.

EDIT: so there I am feeling sorry for myself when I get a text from Kateb saying “This time next week we’ll be drinking cocktails on the beach”. WAHOO!

Hi, this is Kate Benton speaking. You know, like, that girl with that like, magazine and shit. You know it.

Anyway, today I am going to tell you a story about identity theft. Has that ever happened to you? Like, someone totally pretends that they’re you? Well tonight, it happened to me.

There’s this guy, and he’s like, crazy, and on his website he wrote:
“Oh yeh get rid of “Teen” orientated magazines too – Cleo, Cosmopoliton, TV Hits, Pulp, Girlfriend – They are all Criminal publications and MUST be banned – The magazines creators and journalists as well as the retailers MUST be destroyed in a massive firey purge while those caught in possession of such should be subjected to a beating, Criminal Record, jail time not exceeding 2 years and/or an unlimited fine and loss of civil and human rights for life. Such magazines shalt be chucked into a bonfire ala the infamous “Burning of the Books” – we need to get rid of “disruptive” influences of an american controlled media amongst our young people. ”

Now, if you’ve been paying close attention, or have ever looked at a masthead (and I don’t mean in pirate sense, arr) you might have gathered that actually, my name appears as editor on one of those fine publications, and if you have any kind of sense at all you’d realise that hey, Jo (as in like, Jo Hubris, as in your lord and master since you’re obviously a Hubrette to have gained this level of readingship) also writes for that magazine. So, obviously the idea of being burned in a massive purge doesn’t reaaaaaaaaally appeal. What DOES appeal, however (despite our series of misgivings and worrying about turning someone who seems postal into someone who acts postal) is prank calling people when we’ve had a glass or two. To this end, Joanna assumed my identity and made a phone call to a particular bogan in Upper Hutt.

This is how her script went. Sort of. It’s hard to pay attention when you’re dying to laugh and also have hit the wine:
“Hi, is * there please?”
Disgruntled sounding female: “I’ll just see if he’s around. *(extended name!”
Bogan: “Hello, this is * Last Name speaking”. Joanna tells me he sounded very curious and eager and confused all at the same time.
Joanna as KateB: “Hi, this is Kate Benton speaking. I edit * Magazine. One of my writers reads your website, and she told me you’d been saying you had some problems with the magazine?”
Bogan who actually talks very much like a bro:”Ï don’t have any problems with your magazine.”
JasK: “Well I was told that you’d said some things on your website like that you believed we should all be burned on a bonfire?”
Bogan: “Can I ask who told you?”
JasK: “It was one of my writers called Joanna McLeod”
Bogan: “Oh, she’s a friend of mine”- you should have seen Jo’s face at this point, I can’t believe she didn’t collapse laughing and give the whole game up. She is a true professional and I am going to give her a huge pay rise. Or at least, like, pay her. And go to her wedding when she marries Butch Vig.
Bogan: “well, we know each other on the internet”.
JasK: “right, well she saw it and was concerned”.
Bogan (very hastily): “I can take the website down if you like…”
JasK: “This isn’t a legal call, I’m just always interested in people’s opinions. I mean, I’ve been in this job for less than a year, so I’m always keen for feedback”.
Bogan: “Well I think my opinions are quite different from other people’s”.
JasK:”It’s just that I don’t really think of * as being that similar to Cleo or Cosmo. I mean, it’s not like we run 50 different sex positions every week. Our fashion isn’t just about people in mini skirts. So we’re interested in getting people’s opinions”.
Bogan: “I don’t want to be in a story.”
JasK: “That’s not what I had on my mind right now. I just don’t think you’re giving * a fair go. I mean, we write a lot of things that you might be interested in. I mean, I hear that you’re quite a heavy metal fan, we ran a story on Velvet Revolver last issue”.
Bogan: “I don’t really read magazines”.
JasK: “well I’m not really here to telemarket, I just thought that you had some things to say about the magazine, so I was interested to hear your opinions”.
Bogan: “I don’t want to be quoted”.
JasK: “That’s fair enough, I just thought if you had a problem you should talk to someone involved with the magazine. Thank you for your time.”
Bogan: “Okay, bye”.

We nearly died. Totally. Oh the hilarity. I haven’t laughed so hard over a prank call since Joanna told me just now that in Japan she and her friend used to call up random numbers and ask in their very limited language if the callees liked to eat shrimp. Genius.

I dreamt this morning that I and a friend of mine had been making out – well, more sort of illicitly stroking each other almost platonically, and she’d been like “Well, should we make something out of this then?” and there was some sort of really annoying girl scout leader making us play stupid games when all I wanted to do was make out with my friend some more. I said that yes, maybe it was something, and she ran up and down the street telling everyone she was now a lesbian. Some woman made a homophobic comment, so Arnold Schwartzeneger leapt off a video box and shot her with a freeze ray, so Jean Claude Van Damme leapt off another video box and shot Arnie, and then Russell Crowe entered the fray. Then my alarm went off and for a minute after I woke up I was still all “yay, I wonder if I get to see my girlfriend today?” and then i felt weird.

Nevermind. Ignore that. Think about the two little kids at the bus stop this morning with their mothers (the kids must have been about two) who spotted each other. The little boy approached the girl, but because he was wearing his mother’s backpack, it was too heavy and it pulled him over onto his ass. When his mother tried taking it off him he cried, so she gave him a smaller side bag to hold. The girl grabbed her mother’s side bag and showed it off all proudly, because now she was just like him! Then they sat down together and she fed him Japanese crackers that he made a yucky face at. Aww true love! Why can’t it stay that easy when you’re older?

Stupid lack of having crushes on anyone except for the vaguest glimmer in one direction that’s a big no no no. Still it made me chuckle when I realised it existed.

Speaking of young boys, I emailed the guy that I threw up on last time I was in Auckland to see if he wanted to platonically hang out this weekend. I don’t even know if he has that email address anymore, but nevermind. I’m sure he’s not one to hold a grudge. It still made me feel really bad though. Nevermind.

Other things? Hmm yesterday I took a mental health day, but of course, Mental Health Days aren’t quite so healthy when Mum is home (I know right, how dare she be at home in her own house?) Back at work today there are SO MANY CHILDREN running around. Stupid <A HREF=”http://www.hubris.co.nz/entry.php?id=501090047&type=6″>loud</A> children who talked all the way through Julia Deans’s set before The Shins. The Shins were cool, but it was so goddam hot. Am I getting too old for big gigs? Surely not.

Auckland tomorrow! My day looks a little something like this
9.30am: Arrive, get picked up by Gemma, go for breakfast
11ish: Pop in and see KateB if she’s free
12.30pm: Haircut with Hayley
1.30pm: Lunch with a client
2.30pmish: check into hotel, meet Iva to go swimming at said hotel.
6pm: Meet Heather for dinner (mmmm food on sticks)
8pm: Meet Kateb for <I>Bugs Bunny on Broadway</I> and some kinda afterparty
Late: Maybe meet up with Heather and Paul after their gig?

Saturday:
……… hopefully something with Kyla and or Chelsea
5pm: The Zoo for Goodshirt and KateH
9pm: Out on The Town via a quick change at the hotel for KateM’s going away

Sunday:
10am: check out
10.30am brunch with Heather in Grey Lynn
12pm: KateH’s bbq

Is that enough detail for you to stalk me?
3pm: fly back to Welly

There are lots and lots of things that I am TREMENDOUSLY excited about right about now.

The first is FOUR SLEEPS til something super duper happy chappy, and I’ve already put it in place. Hopefully it will make someone else as happy as it is making me to just think about.

The second is that when I went to Hamilton I pretended it was Fiji, baby. Now I am going to Fiji, and I won’t be pretending it’s Hamilton. Kateb emailed me two days ago and said “Do you want to go on holiday in two weeks time or at the end of May? We could go to the Gold Coast or Fiji” and so I said “yes please,” and went to Flight Centre and now I just have to confirm our booking and pay for it. I will be spending the night of Saturday May 28th in Auck, if you wanna see me, and then Friday 3rd of June, which is inncidently Penny’s birthday, and she just got engaged! Hurray!

The third is television. Gilmore Girls daily! Scrubs! Lost! THE MOTHERFREEKING O.C coming back real soon! Also, how cool is it that Mutton from The OC played a whore in Firefly? So good.

The fourth is that I got a pay rise yesterday. I’m not sure yet how much, but I think it’s probably a 25% pay rise. That’s quite substantial. It’d be more substantial if said pay rise was for my day job rather than for my REAL job, but hey, still, yay! (edit: it was 25%)

You know why I need these things. They’re what keep me from completely going crazy. Suprisingly I have cut down on my use of the phrase “I would like to put my fist through so&so’s head”, I guess because 2/3 of my arch nemisisisisis are now gone since I’ve left the Nu’Town (bus driver, flatmate). I’m searching for ways to get rid of the remaining one, and as soon as I find one, I’ll be done. And then I’ll get some more arch nemisisisisis, because what is life without them?