Hubris.co.nz

Here’s a story I didn’t tell you about Saturday night. Except that in order to tell it, I have to go back a couple of months. So, we’re in the time machine, right? Cool. And so now I’m lying in bed, and it’s like 3am or something, and I get a text message going “Hey Jo, if you hear a loud banging noise, it’s because I’m locked in the toilet and am trying to find a solution” from Smoo. So I got up to see if I could help him, and let him in the back door (if you know what I mean) and then we took off the lock with a screwdriver, and he kicked it open, yelling “L.A.P.D!” as he did it. Awesome. We still had the locking latch, so we were perfectly fine without the doorknob.

However, when we had a flat inspection, I thought I would mention the story of the doorknob and so I got an email or some kind of message from the landlady saying she’d talk to the owners about it. Then nothing happened, and we were like, oh well no biggie. Then, about a week or so ago – maybe two – I got a call from some repairmanguy who said that he was going to come over and fix the doorknob. He showed up late, and had a friend, and they hummed and harred for a long time, then went away. When they came back, it took the two of them like an hour or maybe more – I don’t know, my bladder was hurting – to put the knob on, and then they went away. The new knob had a twisty lock on it as well, but it did seem to be a little bit loose, Oh well, a knob’s a knob, right?

Then on Saturday, after I was exhausted from Strip Club antics the night before, and much much waiting around for the Cuba Street Carnival, I came home totally exhausted with Lisa. I took my sleeping pills and after we watched Skins, she left. I mention this because I was going to pee while she waited for her taxi, but decided to just chat to her instead. Anyways, so she left, and I went to the toilet, read some of the new Idealog and did my business. Then I went to open the toilet door. It was locked. Hmm, odd, I locked the latch but not the twirly bit, right? So I twirled it, and it still didn’t open. I wriggled it, and jiggled it, and it still didn’t open. WHAT THE FUCK?

Oh, did I mention the part where noone was home? Where El and Smoo were both in Australia (apparently not together, but where’s the rumour-starting fun in that?) and that George was out, and frequently is out until like 4am and this was only about midnight? So strangely enough, banging on the door with my fists didn’t help much. I thought about climbing out the window, but peering out into the spiderwebs and the drop and the long bushes and stuff, I luckily remembered that there were no windows open in the house, or any chance of getting them open. I contemplated jumping out anyway and breaking into the Tiki Shack to sleep there, but really, that mattress is for getting lei’d on, not for sleeping on, and plus, I was so tired, I just wanted my own bed so much. So, what to do?

With a lot of wriggling, I managed to get the screws on the knob a little bit loose, and then using the zipper on my hoodie as a screwdriver, I managed to pull them out, but of course the knob on the other side of the door fell off before I could grab its axle. Fucking buggity bugger. I banged on the door some more, and thought about crying, but instead I fastened Ze Frank’s song to combat anxiety in my head, and tried to think logically. I pulled the toilet roll holder apart, and tried to jam its point in the axle-hole and to make it click around, but it wouldn’t fit properly, partly because of the other end, which scratched a circle around it like a compass. I’m very good with these intense mechanical descriptions, right?

Because the guys who’d installed the doorknob had done such a bad job, and because the door is thin-ish plywoodish stuff, I realised that there were broken bits around the hole in which the knob should be, and through those broken bits, I could see the latchy mechanism. I decided that I needed to get in at that mechanism, even if it meant tearing the door apart, so I started hammering away at the hole with the side of the knob that I had left. I kept doing that for a while before I started alternating it with levering the toilet roll spoke into the hole, and breaking bits off. It was a long, long long slow process, and I was cold and tired and about to fall asleep from the zopiclone. Eventually though, my combined hammering and levering had broken off enough plywood to expose the latching system, and I tried fiddling with that for a bit before I realised that it was totally fucked, I had to lever bits of that off as well, metal bending before my awesome might. Fuck I am glad that our toilet roll holder wasn’t made of plastic! Shoving my fingers into the hole, I managed to find a tiny littlle trigger, and with an amazing CLICK, I was free. OMG OMG OMG! Checking Twitter, I saw that I’d been in there for a whole hour. Not how I wanted to end my night at all!

Turns out that George didn’t get home until 5am, so I’m very glad that I got all Mcguyver all up in it, and released myself. It makes me kinda proud at my resourcefulness, even. When George came home, he saw something was up with the lock, and so he tried shutting it – and locked himself out. He raced to get up in the morning to open the door when I got up to pee, and climbed in the window for me, and I pointed out where the trigger was. The latch is now duct-taped open (or shut) so that these incidences can’t happen again, although I have yet to email the landlady and tell her what muppets the “handy”men were. I really should do that now, eh?

Also on a mac note: I made lots of mac’n cheese yesterday, and then beat Good Tom at Trivial Pursuit. That part’s not so related, but I like to boast. In other success stories, I found a new flatmate as well, and also rang up Philips to ask them where I could buy a new remote contrl for my stupid DVR, and they’re apparently sending me a new one, and aren’t charging me for it. HURRAH! If only I’d asked for one a year ago, how many broken nails would I have avoided? And also, I made cupcakes for all the lovely people who organised Webstock and they liked them and that makes me happy. And I think that’s about it, for now,

xojo

PS: the title of this post would be much more awesomer if my last name was ‘Macleod’. But that’s okay.

1. As expected, Webstock blew my fucking mind. I cried on Day One when Ze Frank spoke and then I cried on Day Two when Tash wrapped it up. I had many free coffees, and tubs of ice cream. I ate friands until they came out of my ears, sort of and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the catering too. I had a thousand glasses of champagne. I met a million people, I told half a million of them that I loved them, and I learned so many awesome things. Yes, I am talking here about the food and not the knowledge, because there were so many things that I will be talking about in the weeks to come that I think it’s okay to take a little bit of time to talk about coriander chicken noodles, and the blue-cheese filo cups at the Embassy, yes?

2. At the afterparty at the Embassy, we played Crowd Bingo. I won the most challenges I think, but I was still somewhat surprised when Kowhai jumped on my back. I made Alan listen to a thousand long stories about how everything is connected and revolves around me (the guy who won my dinosaur is I think the younger brother of the first guy that I ever said “I love you” to, albeit in a Tori Amos & Cindy Sherman-quoting email sent on Valentine’s Day in 1998. The younger brother didn’t like me at all based on IRC, because I laughed “ha ha ha” and he thought that made me really sarcastic. There were more of these types of story. Some of them involved diabetes. I’m surprised Alan put up with it all. Hadyn tried to take credit for my Crowd Bingos so I punched him. He twittered that I’d found Jim. People with iPhones all have herpes. Perhaps the greatest achievement in the bingo was Kowhai getting Ze to sign a card for Miss Fur, but we will come to that later, probably.

3. I told pretty much everyone that I loved them, although I’d already been twittering that all day. I told Matt Jones that I was going to marry him instead of Tom Coates. Sarah and I had it all worked out between us. We’re going to wear kaftans and and play majong. It’ll be brilliant. I made people hold my glass so I could hug people with two arms. I must in particular throw out mad love for Jeff who I hung out with for much of the night, and also for anyone who didn’t run in terror from me despite the booze and the enthusiasm I had flowing out of me like river about to burst its banks. I suspect also that my cleavage was more than terrifying, because it was a new dress (Yup! Sweaty and gross and it got worse at Vintage).

4. Vintage was hot and sweaty, but I found myself a seat and taught people how to play Front/Back. It’s a bit similar to Marry/Fuck/Kill, but simpler – you name two people, and someone has to decide which person they’d have fuck them in the ass and who they’d go down on. The first time Lisa and I played, it was Mike Patton vs Eddie Vedder. I decided I wanted Eddie to make sweet tender love to my heini, and Mike Patton to fuck my mouth as dirtily as possible. It’s a beautiful game. The funnest part was on Saturday when I asked Dylan “Good Tom/Bad Tom?” and he was too embarrassed to answer. I met some very amusing boys from Auckland and they indulged me in playing for a long time, talked to me about Marcus Lush and Newsnight and just generally kept me entertained, until they had to leave. I managed to find other friends though.

5. Me and a lady friend and two guys found ourselves with nowhere to drink after Vintage closed, so we went to Mermaids strip club. The guys paid for our entrance fee, bought us drinks and gave us laminated mermaid dollars to tuck in the thongs of the dancers. Yeah that was me, smashing the patriarchy. I talked to one of the dancers for a while, as it appeared to be her job. She didn’t take her top off and looked down on the dancers who do. I thought that was a bit weird. I couldn’t stop looking at things through a feminist window. The white bits on my dress glowed and I felt like it was 1997 and I was at a rave. She had a really nice ass, even if I’m not an ass girl, but I really wanted to see the redhaired stripper come out again. I had been drinking for 12 hours. I woke up the next afternoon and all the lights in my room were on.

6. Somehow I managed to make it out to the Cuba Street Carnivale, three colours of eyeshadow on and plastic flowers woven into my hair, It was so lovely to see Dylan again, and I love the people cheering for the wind blowing the bunting around. I don’t like Olmecha Supreme so we went and had cocktails at SFBH because sitting down is nice,and then went and watched the parade from Marion Street. It was pretty average, but there were some scantily clad ladies to oggle, which is always nice, because obviously I haven’t done enough of that lately. And then when we were waiting at the bus stop for a taxi, a guy ran past with a bagguette tucked under his arm so we were all “ahurhur hur hur” like a Frenchie.

7. Yesterday I had brunch ostentainably by myself, but Hadyn happened by, and then I saw Dylan too, and then I went and hung out with Lisa for a bit, who was still VERY VERY EXCITED that she got to meet Ze Frank at the carnival, and then there was an attempt at a nap but I was so excited that I’d get to nap that I couldn’t sleep.

8. Today I couldn’t face work, but I did three loads of washing, tidied the house, cleaned the bathroom, made cupcakes and delivered them to the lovely Mike & Deb and Tash & Ben to thank them for the awesomeness that is Webstock. The cupcakes are in boxes decorated in glitter goop that’s all smeary and dreadful but I’m hoping that they’ll thin it’s Outsider Art.

9. I am so excited about all the knowledge in my head, and I hope that it means that this year is going to be awesome. I fell from grace so hard in 2008, in so many ways. I hope I can regain some of that long lost grace. That is all.

10. Oh hai! If I met you, and you liked me, please let me a comment and we can like, hang out or something.

Hey, remember my adventures last year at Webstock? Well guess what I’ve been doing today???

I should warn you that I am a barrel of all kinds of emotions today. Webstock is the highlight of my professional life each year, because so many of the things I learn are so directly applicable to the work that I do, but it’s also about my extra activities and communities like the Wellingtonista (I wrote the Beginner’s Guide to Wellington for the Webstock Site). I have been pleasantly surprised over the course of the day and also last night at pre-drinks at the Southern Cross to have people go “ohh, you’re in the Wellingtonista!” really excitedly, or even “OMG you’re JO HUBRIS!” from Twitter. The latter girl was rewarded with spare trading cards (my wad is so big it hardly fits in my envelope any more, if you know what I mean) and then when she suggested that I should have my own card because I was such a personality, I was like omg, let me give you all the cards I have in my hand. Except I won’t, because we have a community of shared knowledge that we need to build on.

That paragraph above appeared to be very long. I did have some free drinks before (trading surplus cards for drink tickets was a great idea, and yes I’m that confident that i can do that) and then there was sake at dinner, but mostly if I sound slurry, it will be because of the zopiclone fighting it out with the two coffees.

I FUCKING LOVE WEBSTOCK SO FUCKING MUCH. There, I’ve declared it. I won’t be doing the point by point all my notes here assessment. In fact, I might just step out of webstock all together, and talk about how on Tuesday I took my car in for my warrant. The place was right opposite a Dick Smith’s, so I thought I’d go in and buy a universal remote control because my DVD remote is so completely fucked it physically hurts me to make things go on it. Anyways, so I got it home, and it was all “Dude! Check out my DVD! It’s like, SUPER EASY” so I was all like, okay, sure, so I put it on, but I had to use my old remote to get it to go, and that was aaaaaargh, and then it turned out that manual was much more helpful than the DVD anyway. I managed to tune in the power on/off button, but none of the other keys were working, and while I was sitting on the wood floor in front of the tv, swearing madly at it, George decided that would be an appropriate time (when El and Smoo were off to Aussie the next day) to tell me that he has found a cheaper flat and he’s moving out.l
I swore at the remote control, went to my room, and had one of the worst breakdowns I have ever had, in terms of condensedness. I was hyperventilating and the lack of oxygen made my scalp tingle and the front of my face go numb. I had the metallic taste in my mouth, I was howling out loud along with the tears that did not stop for half an hour, I thought at one stage that I was going to black out and kind of hoped that I would. the thoughts going through my mind was “I am such a fucking smart girl, why can’t I figure out that remote?” which of course was linked to “I am such a fucking smart girl, why was I not capable of delivering a better performance assessment at work, why did I not support my intern better, how could I have allowed myself to fall for someone completely wrong for me, why have I subsequently been begging them for attention when obviously they are trying to cut off my air supply like I’m a troll, why can’t I keep a flat together, what the fuck is wrong with me?” and I howled and howled and every time I thought I’d settled down a bit, my body locked up, so I’d make a move, and I just started crying more and more, The part that was fun though, that I texted back to a concerned sisterly text was that I was blowing my nose on my really big really heavy dark brown Egyptian cotton bath sheet, so I was like “I’m blowing my nose on a bear!” (and speaking of which I so need one of these bags!). The physical aspect of the crying was kind of terrifying, the input of the oxygen and the way it wasn’t going out again, and I was high, and I thought about putting my head between my legs, and my boobs got in the way, and that didn’t make any sense, and quite frankly, it was really not a good time. Until I was like “umm, actually, I think that remote control was actually officially uncompatible with my DVD player, since it’s a DVDr, and then it was easier to see that no, I’m not actually a complete failure at everything, and I actually had a conversation out loud, taking the voice of my counsellor on.

So it was a good rich cleansing cry that has been building up for a very long time (readers of my twitter have obviously seen that), but still today, in Ze Frank’s presentation he talked about how one of his readers asked him to write them a cheer-up song for a situation that sounded really similar to the way I’d been on Tuesday night, and he started it up, and I cried and cried because it was exactly what I needed Luckily the lights were off in the hall at the time, and of course I twittered about it and saw everyone else saying that they’d cried too. Powerful. I shook his hand later and told him he made me cry. Looking at Twitter, an awful lot of people feel that way.

I want to talk more about other things, like venn diagrams (people at the conference that I’ve slept with, people at the conference I don’t want to talk to, and how they overlap but only a little bit and so I’d have to throw in another ring about something), and how much Star Wars sucks, and the free coffee, and the free ice cream, and how much I’m caught up in the trading card game because I’m going to win a baby dinosaur, but it’s like, midnight and tomorrow is going to be INTENSE and I have to replan my outfit since the motherfucking thong in my birki jandal broke, but i realise that I haven’t even mentioned how AWESOME the last half of the Fur Patrol gig that I made it to was, and how I cried again when they were singing ‘Silences and distances’ which is all “Please don’t make this hard – at least be willing to try” and the night was perfect, and the air was blowing hair, and everyone was lovely, and we humped Lisa a lot and I just so adore getting Alan drunk, and Craig Terris has cut his hair to look like Carlos D, so I’m wondering if he also likes to bang fat chicks, and therefore I can get herpes off him and give it to the whole iPhone world. These jokes will make no sense to you, I’m sure, but as my final “this is how awesome Webstock is” for the night – I bitched on Twitter about how i had no handcream and I was twittered back to inform me that there was 8 Hour Cream at the front desk. SUCH BRILLIANT CUSTOMER CARE. <3 <3 <3 and there’s a whole ‘nother day to go tomorrow in which I may just marry Tom Coates. Watch this space.

Yesterday I sent out a twit saying “Oh man, I cheated on Jane & Paul this morning and my punishment was a latte made with trim and a very blah scone. I’m so sorry! #whitewhines”, and that clearly demonstrates both my crime (in my defense, the scone came from the cafe in the Dom Post building where I having my photo taken, all zoomed in on my hands like L** S*** except I didn’t have dirt under my fingernails and the focus was on my sugar scrub instead of my open vagina and I did it for Kimberley instead of NZ Idol). Anyways, today I told them about my infidelity and they still made me the most awesome coffee ever, and I got to have a roast vege sandwich with feta, even though I had to run off to a depressing meeting about the economy while I still eating, but then I had lunch at Cellar-Vate and their dip had salmon in it which I hate, and meanwhile Green Land was giving out rum. So the punishment lingers.

Also yesterday I was twittering about how I was wearing my “I love Helen” badge that Bad Tom gave me for Christmas (hey, so it turns out that public servants are actually allowed to have their own thoughts and opinions! Who knew?) but as punishment from the gods, I was working on a comms plan and I had to emphasize the value for money and the outputs for the public in it. As my (life-long public servant) father had said right after the election and I’d been missing work to stay at home and cry “awww it’s so cute that you think things will actually change with the change in government”. It is still the same project that my intern and I have been working on. It still has the same purposes, ideas and findings. We just have to wrap it up in different language, because apparently, that’s value for money. Retch.

Other crimes and punishment themes that I meant to expand on. I still need a spanking. Wait, what’s the line between want and need these days, in this post 9/11 world? And when will Austrians find Nazi jokes funny?

On that note, I spent the day working from home on Wednesday because I wanted to concentrate on doing some serious writing on case studies instead of being distracted by wiki issues, which meant that I was in theory about to watch the Inauguration, but without Sky there were too many people talking on TV3 so I went back to sleep and read Gawker media commentary on it later and cried. Then I went to Lisa’s to watch Skins 2 and hang, and in the car on the drive home I cried when Roxette played on the radio, and then I cried in joy watching The Daily Show coverage, not least because of all the joy that was so clear in them, not just because it was change that they could believe in, but it was challenging comedically too to capture those moments that were so amazing but to still be all Daily Show all up on them.

Kowhai says that she wishes she could be as in touch with my emotions as I am, but this is me with total motherfucking eat a bag of dicks PMS and I feel like the world is ending, and I want to eat all the bread in the world and oh my fucking god, could I just start bleeding already please? Please? Tonight I was bitching furiously to Good Tom and Good Anita (did we decide to call her that?) about my period’s control over my body and how like, nine years ago KateB told me to have a keep-a-nigga baby when Ass was doing the very long drawn-out breaking off, and I was like “OMG TERRIBLE” but I think there are too many signs of an imminent period (not to mention the whole thing where I’m probably infertile) to think that there was something amiss, especially since my last period was two weeks long.

I was going to go home and get drunk and cry by myself after work today, but I needed to buy a new cellphone charger cos mine has died, and also potentially a new remote control for the lounge dvd player cos that bitch is a fucking bitch, but then there was TCD store open which I’ve never seen before and it was so pretty and shiny, and there was this sexyass dress, and then on the other side of the shop it was available in purple, and I didn’t think it was right and then I thought “what about if I had a belt?” and I thought “what would Joan Holloway do?” and just as the shop assistant was asking me if i wanted help, Good Tom rang to see where I was at, and I asked him if I should buy the dress, and he said “does it make you look ugly?” and I said “no” so he told me to buy it, and the shop lady complimented me In on my whole outfit with it, so I bought it. And now I am poor. #whitewhine. In fact, I’m feeling like an exceptionally poor mother right now, because we’re out of cat biscuits, which means I’ve been giving Sebby extra wet meat, which of course he loves. Also that last expression sounds so eww.

Also, there’s things and there’s stuff, of course, and historians – or rather me reading this two year from now will go “what history? what stuff?” but for now I will nod smuggly. Mostly, being pre-period makes me totally feel like there’s the end of the world arriving, and I know that it’s not, but it’s like you try playing “So here we are” as loud as possible by Bloc Party and put your head down on your desk and see if you don’t cry. I’m considering creating a fictional list like the FCC fictionally assembled after 9/11 of songs that are all no-gos. Pretty much the only things I am left with is hip hop. I know that all things considered, that was as best and as good as it could be. But like still, I’d rather be in Samoa eating snails right now, if you know what I mean.

Sleep lately has been of the 4.30am nightmares, so getting up at 8am to get my show on the road really didn’t seem like a viable option. Instead, I rolled out of bed at 9.30 and waited for an age at Peoples Coffee [sic] before finally getting on the road. The first mix CD that Lisa ever made for me, which introduced me to Bright Eyes (“now your hands are on me / pressing hard against my jeans / you didn’t care to know / who else may have been you before”), the Arcade Fire (“there’s something wrong in the hearts of Man”) and the saddest music video ever for ‘The Death of Romance’ by The Dears (I challenge you to watch that and NOT cry!) guided me through the wake-up period, and then Bloc Party took me to Taihape and lunch at the Brown Sugar Cafe.

My first memories of the Brown Sugar Cafe, (probably from 1997 going up to check on AUT, and then on so many subsequent trips back and from Auckland, including one particularly memorable road trip to Mark F’s 21 where Jo (starla) only got to come along because she returned a teaspoon to her mother in time) were of me drinking cappuccinos, which came with a chocolate-covered coffee bean on the spoon, They used to have monstrously big foccaia sandwiches filled with tomato, alfalfa and thick long slices of Camembert cut all the way across the wheel, and they cost something like $5, but no more. They do still have chicken and cashew croissants, but they’re smaller, staler, and my bill for a tiny croissant, a juice and a bacon in cibatta was $18. State High Way One Robbery, I tell you!

But that area is my most favouritest to drive in, so off I set, cranking up Eight Arms To Hold You and realising that I know all the words still, and – as I twittered once i got off the Desert Road – their songs have essentially the same structure as my essays I used to write in fifth form. Introduce your theme, provide three examples, sum up. And these sheets smell like bayous, not mine, not yours, not yours. It was sweaty and hot, and on the Desert Road all I could think about was the piece I wrote called ‘North of You’ in 101 Stories That I Want To Tell You, and hey, it’s 2009, you’re going to contact me, right? It’s been three years. But it was a different person’s handprint that I have burned into my thighs. I fucking hate being left alone to my thoughts all day eh. It was like every single line of every song I sung was directly applicable to me – even when I switched away from Birds to Britney Spears in total desperation.

There was tar on my shoes from Taihape, which made the pedals sticky and somewhat scary to operate. When I got a can of the newly redesigned coke from the Tairua Caltex and waited an eternity for their one bathroom because it was just after 5pm when the public toilets close, it exploded on me in the car. I lost my glasses somewhere before Hamilton and spent a frenzied frantic ten minutes tearing my car apart to re-find them. I got stuck behind a Newman’s coach liner from Hamilton to Huntly, and then I overshot the city because I got confused about Great South Road and State Highway One and ended up on the expressway to Auckland before I manged to call the Romantic Getaways place and finally found it. I was overwhelmed by seeing Kat again, and trying to hustle into my room, and trying to get a shower, and discovering that my room hasn’t been renovated at all, and in fact they’d given me a single bed because I’M NOT MARRIED but Kat insisted that I’d paid for a double so I may in fact be sleeping on the owners’ bed, and that is why I only have two pillows, despite all the other furniture piled up in this room. Half the corridors here are still linoleum, and i need to use school-camp quality bathrooms – unless I go down to K&K’s honeymoon suite, where their shower has two heads, and oh yes, I had them both going, at different temperatures on top of me and I giggled and giggled and giggled at the sensation, and also at the thought of wasting all that water, and then Kane came back to his room and I told him that his wedding treat was waiting for him, and oh how we laughed!

Eventually after more cat-herding than even I would ever be able to deal with (parents, cousins, brothers, oldies, littlies) we headed down the hill to the Old Courthouse Cafe for a lot more waiting for late people. I got some wine as soon as was civilized to do so, and oh, it was nice, It’s been hard being so dry lately when my friends are all so wet, The staff were very unsure with wines, but the wood-fired scotch fillet was oh my fricking good amazing.

More cat-herding found me and Kat and Brooke and Vanessa in Kat’s suite, ever so vaguely watching The Princess Bride, while Brooke practised doing Kat’s makeup, and Vanessa and I had facials and hand jobs. I’ll put links in to the appropriate PPP posts when I have internet, I swear. But now I might find my book, see if I can read little while I wait for zopiclone, and get my eyes ready to cry lots tomorrow! OMG OMG OMG! They’re getting married!

When I think back on this summer, I hope the memory that stays with me the most is of standing in my new paddling pool in my back yard, a slight breeze ruffling my skirts and hair, and I’m buzzed on the sun and daquiris, singing Bic Runga’s ”Gravity’ – “I forget myself when I’m with you, please remind me of who I am”. The tiki shack that I built with the help of many friends has been a tremendous success, and it will continue to be open all sumer.

There’s been so much going on. I’m so far behind in telling you stories that I don’t even know where to start. The Wellingtonista Awards consumed an awful amount of my time, and my mindspace (even though Hadyn was project-managing, I was an evil micromanager). The event went off fantastically, we had swag bags and prizes and all kinds of goodness from all kinds of wonderful people. So many of the nominees came along, and Bunnies on Ponies played, and just, so many awesome things. You’ll need to check my flickr stream for photos from it. I’m trying to think of my highlights from the night. One of them was definitely Callum from Green Cabs winning Wellingtonian of the Year. I think the other was just that there was so much build up, and anticipation, and we totally pulled the thing off.

Pretty Pretty Pretty is going really strong right now as well, we’re doing heaps of giveaways and people are reading us, and it’s nice, and stuff. One day we’ll be rolling in money and I won’t have to have a day job, honest.

It is nice to be on holiday. My intern at work is very smart and clever and is getting many things done. I’ve been a bit crazy lately and I don’t feel very smart. I’m hoping that will change in 2009. I’m hoping to sort ut my head, stop doing bad shit, go to the gym and get off the sleeping pills. My dreams are too intense and weird and extreme, every day. I don’t need that right now.

This is the worst update ever, I know. Xmas was good, we had it at Anji & Bambi’s, and ate a lot. Kat and Kane are getting married in under two weeks, and they asked me to MC their wedding. I’m going to cook MCs like a pound of bacon. Mmm bacon.

I’m identifying with people I don’t want to identify with lately. I’m happy to report though that my lease has been renewed at the same rate for another year so there will be many more drinks in the tiki shack to be had. The flat is ticking over really nicely. The boys are away right now. El cleaned today while I sat on my bed looking at the clock, and pretending to read. She thinks it may be the spark plugs in my car that are fucked, rather than my alternator, which I hope is the case.

Blah blah blah. Something about Singstar at Lisa’s. Something about New Year’s Eve coming up, and something about SausageQuest perhaps? Something about something.

The good news is though that now that I’ve done this long overdue update, I can do more posts more regularly. Awesome.

Hello fans and friends and family… though I understand they’ve been instructed to keep out?

This is one of Jo’s sneaky readers who has sneaky access and did warn Jo that she might post. So, uh, I guess I’m not so sneaky? Or I’m a very very stupid sneak. Sneaker. I can’t keep a sneakret.

Etc.

ANYYYYWHO, last night I attended the 3-month anniversary of prettyprettypretty.com. There were lovely cupcakes that looked like boobs, pink wafers, pink and purple drinks, streamers, Sebastian, Jelly beans… basically so much sugar and food colouring that I may not sleep for days.

Everyone had a smashing time. Though I’m not of the girliest nature, I did use the 4 step Mary Kay hand delightfulnator which made my hands feel like they’ve never worked an honest day in their life. Though probably the girliest thing I did was giggle inanely about how prettyprettypretty Eddie Vedder is.

I came away from the night right before the karaoke… and took with me a lovely gift box with a bath bomb cupcake in it which I might feed to my flatmate if she misbehaves and a CD full of groovy tunes. AND I got a purple bottle of straightening goo from sunsilk which I have used today. Not sure at this stage how much difference it has made because I didn’t use a straightener (didn’t want to goo it up and I avoid that on a Sunday… it’s sinful and Jesus is watching).. I just used a hairdryer. To be honest, at this point, my hair feels no different but the true test will be this evening. If I have rogue curls then I’ll declare it a bust.

…

Sorry Jo. I couldn’t resist.

I spent all of last week at home hiding out. There were occasional distractions – Amy came over on the Monday night for prettyprettypretty stuff, and I made Lisa dinner on Wednesday, but apart from that there were only a couple of conversations with Smoo and George. I kept my phone switched off during the day so work couldn’t call me, and on Friday I sent an email to my boss that said in part:

suppose I’ve been hoping a little bit that by going AWOL I would just get fired, and then I wouldn’t have to own up to all my failures. I haven’t been at work this week because the thought of coming in just absolutely petrifies me. I physically cannot get out of bed and leave the house because of my fear of all the work that I should have done by now that I haven’t, and the thought of having conversations about it, and why I haven’t done it, and how I am not meeting your expectations absolutely terrifies me. That’s why I’ve left my cellphone switched off, which is a total copout for someone who used to pride herself on her communication skills. I think I need to resign, I am not the person that you thought you hired, and I cannot do the work that I have been hired to do. I know that I’m in a down space right now that I will climb out of, but I just don’t see how I will get any better at doing what is expected of me at the *.

As the ever-perceptive Smoo said, perhaps it was a cry for help. She sent me back a really really nice, really really supportive email, which made me cry, which was kind of nice too, because I’ve felt more numb than I should be feeling, and have been questioning whether or not I should be on 40mg, or if it’s actually too strong. But anyways, I cried, I washed my face, I blowdried my hair, I fought off the metallic taste of rising panic, and I headed out to Deb and Mike‘s Emancipation Party.

First up though was dinner at Arashi with Robyn and Shirley and Tom, who bought along really really nice champagne to celebrate, even though I didn’t want to talk about resigning, or not resigning, or whatever it is that’s going to happen now, which will involve a lot of work and conversation and bravery and all that sort of stuff. So instead, here’s photos of them at dinner.

Then we headed up to Hawthorn early to secure the big corner table. I love Hawthorn so much. The bartenders are so charming, and make such good zombies. We laughed a tremendous amount at Shirley saying one was cute when he was standing right behind her. We’re grownups that way. I held court at the big table, drinking more zombies and more bottles of wine. Having not talked to anyone in so long, and after essentially sitting in my own filth all week (well, I showered, but then I put Pjs back on) it felt insanely great to be out of the house again. I could talk and bullshit all I wanted to.

And yes, I got rather drunk, and in fact told the third person ever that I loved them, ((EDIT: actually the fourth. If I was Good Tom, I’d be quite insulted at how often I got left out of the count, but then again he’s probably just relieved!) via text message that I don’t remember sending, and which also quite frankly isn’t true, or rather as I texted the next day, I love them, but I don’t love them. I’m just going to miss them a fuckload. I also invented a new insult in the Twitterverse - “Asscunt”. I hope it’s going to take off. Yes, I drank far more than is healthy, but oh holy crap did I need a huge blow-out and some rants and raves. I’m having trouble having responsibility for the most basic parts of my life (I need a wife) so it totally makes sense to go out and be totally irresponsible, right?

A story from the night that has nothing to do with me but which was incredibly hilarious unfolded in front of me and Robyn. We noticed this guy sitting at the end of the bar looking around a lot and staring at us, and we thought he was Sam Farrow so we yelled out his name but he didn’t look, so we decided that there was something else seedy going on with him. Later a guy in a white pinstriped shirt came in with a girl in red, and the girl in red started talking to Sam-Lite. Next time we looked up, Sam-Lite was gone, and Red Girl was talking to some other random. I was ordering more wine at that stage, and so I got to overheard Pinstripe at the other end of the bar sending down drinks to Red Girl and Random. Then later, Pinstripe found himself a new friend in the form of a girl in a floral dress, who was there with Leather Jacket. In fact, Floral found herself between the two of them, with hungry suburban manhands all over her.

You can’t see Pinstripe’s roaming hands in those photos, but believe me, they were there. Icck. Keep it in the Hutt, please. Small bars are not good places for discretion.

And yes, anyway. Have I mentioned how much TV I’ve been watching? Carnivale (love it so much, sad it’s all gone now), Green Wing, Strangers with Candy, This Life, and more, I’m sure. I’m pretty sure I can’t remember how to stand up anymore, but I will need to find out tomorrow when I go into work. Oh also I have to pash 20 people before next Tuesday when I turn 28. Volunteers please? And my birthday dinner is on Saturday and we’re going to Karaoke afterwards, you should come along if you like that sort of thing. And um, I think that’s it for the night. It’s too cold to have my arms out from under my duvet any longer.

Do you notice the time, like, all the time? Because it was 11.11pm when I started this post, but then I had to reply to twitters, read an article on cock that Harvest Bird sent me to cheer me up (I think), and then fast-forward the ads of today’s episode of The Simpsons, and now it’s eight minutes later. Does that sound like a lot to pack in in seven minutes? Because I think I’ve mentioned before that my brain is working overtime these days, and how sometimes I think that I’m on speed instead of citalapram.

And that might explain today’s total mood crash, and why I just fucking wish I could get fired so I could go on the dole or the sickness benefit and how I could stay in bed where everything is warm and safe and okay. It is ridiculous how scared I am to go to work, and how much I feel like I am letting the team down just for existing, but at the same time the assumption that because I took a couple of days off and because i am taking my medication regularly that all my problems have ceased to exist. I cannot get to work by 9am. I just can’t. I can’t sleep, I can’t wake up, I can’t get out of bed. How does the rest of the world do it? I can’t function like that. And holy fuck how much do I hate using the word “can’t”?

This weekend was good. We had a bit of a beer sampling here, with a sausage fest, and then tucking people up on the couch and in the spare room. On Anzac Day I hid, and then on Saturday Heather arrived, and I went to Bar Camp, and then that night we went to Shirley’s for the Unofficial Pretty Pretty Pretty launch party, which was all beauty products and amazing food, and videos, and Lisa Fur gave me a handrub that made me purr. And then the day after Heather and I had brunch at Elements, and then had BLOGFEST 2008, in which we sat down at my dining room table, and blogged for three hours straight. In that time I uploaded a fuckload of photos to flickr with tags, fixed all the colours on Pretty Pretty Pretty since the original purple that I changed the images of the template to weren’t in sexy-hexy-decimal, posted to the Wellingtonista, changed the Aucklandista template (my awesomeness was further enforced today when I managed to do what Heather failed to do yesterday – get images and links to work on the front page (in her defense, she thought I wanted exerpts instead of full posts, but I didn’t), and THEN I figured out the php to add in tags to posts and THEN I built (read: stole) some php to make it have rotating header images. SO AWESOME. I like being productive. But that did of course emphasise the suckiness of having a full time job that is not blogging, at least not blogging for the things that I love. And I know that work has been very accomodating of my recent bout of craziness, but it’s just not as easy to shake as you might think. Or probably don’t think, because you’re on the internets and therefore you’re probably already crazy too.

Miss Amy came over tonight for MakeMonday, and we wrote up our big post about our first PPP party, and while she had to go, she left me and Heather with an awesome foot-care package, so we poured ourselves a glass of bubbly and barricaded ourselves in the bathroom with zabuton (flat Japanese pillows) to perch on the sharp edge of my bath and soak our feet in mint & lavender goodness. It felt lovely, and so I decided to have a huge big bawling sob session. Awesome. Half the time Heather thought I was laughing when it was actually guttural sobs, but half the time I was laughing too, because I am pathetic and lame, and far too fucking hard on myself. It is hard to be me, and yes, that’s fucking stupid, I’m this educated smart girl with these fantastic support networks and a job, and a family, and flatmates, some of whom clean the kitchen every night, and this cat who knows that I am the centre of his universe, and a fantastic counselor who I obviously need to go and see, and yet, it is hard for me.

Some things shake me a lot from out of nowhere. Like, what happens when something happens to someone you used to love? Something awful, and when you find out about it, it throws you for the whole afternoon, but of course, it is not about you, it’s about how best to respond, to say something, to do something if it’s needed. How do you be there when you haven’t been there for many years, no matter what the reason?

I have found that lately there has been a reoccuring theme, and you know what? It’s not even lately. I just want to fix all of my friends’ lives. I want everyone to get their fucking happy ending. I don’t know how to procure those endings though, and I know that I’m not even supposed to. Just, oh, I don’t know. Can’t we all have happy endings? Please? And I don’t mean a happy ending like Jill will deliver you. Well, maybe that.

Oh, but in happy ending news? Here’s a clip from the RASSLIN’ I went to.

It was so fucking great to see Kat’n Kane. We had Rock of Love marathons, and just quiet time together, much like Heather and I are having right now. No alarms and no surprises. Lately it takes MGMT or the Deftones to wake me out of the fog on tthe bus to and from work. I don’t have solutions. I do know though that I missed my meds on Sunday, and so I will blame this on that.

And somewhere out there, unrelated to this, you’re turning 40, or you’re 40 already, and I look forward to your email next year, because that will be another three years, right? And in a thousand other stories, there was a thing that I thought was a thing. Well, not even a thing. It was a tingle. But if I’m honest, it was an amalgamation, it was so many people together. My friends could draw you a picture sight unseen. Still, it was a tingle which was nice to have.

Things are all bleeding into other things right now, except for my twat bleeding into my panties like it should be, except for the occasional days of spotting. Oh yes that’s right, it wouldn’t be a proper Hubris entry if we didn’t spend at least part of the time talking about my period now would it?

When you last heard from me, I was heading off to a house in Otaki, where the water in the ocean was warm like a bathtub, and the shelves stacked with trashy books. Behold:
.

I have been reading a lot lately. I have to mention Barbara Taylor Bradford’s dreadful book about some family dynasty, which read like a radio play, with the characters narrating all the action “Oh how well you look in that blue satin dress with the intricate lace trimming that highlights your eyes” and “oh look, there is a horse running toward us wildly and it appears that the rider has lost control”. Uggh. It was also like The Odyssey in its repetition of how handsome and brave and loyal the main character was. You know, despite his mistresses and everything.

I know that this book was not important enough in my life to warrant a paragraph like that, but I’m trying to bring back more of the trivial experiences into my writing. I don’t want Hubris to be only about my depression. But in that area, I’ve switched back to taking my meds during the day, they definitely weren’t helping me sleep. Sleep is still a weird thing, dreams are incredibly detailed and realistic-seeming, apart from random nakedness of neighbours. And sleep comes at the wrong times, after 4am, and during meetings when I’m sitting at the back of the room. I’m hoping the end of daylight savings will help me sort out a little of my body clock.

I keep planning things when I know I’m not supposed to. We’re having a wine quiz on Friday at Karen’s, email me if you want come along. At some stage we want to have a TEN THOUSAND party for The Wellingtonista because we’re getting 10,000 unique hits a month now, which is exciting. And I’ve set up The Aucklandista as well. It’s been fun being a master of my own domain. But I am probably doing too many things at once.

At Lisa’s flatwarming party this Saturday, she shoved a cock in my mouth, so later I shoved my tongue in hers. Then her temporary guest kicked me out of his bed where I’d gone to sleep because the house was full of people sleeping everywhere. Who kicks hot girls out of their beds? Exactly. When Karen, Dylan and I shared a taxi back into town, I made it all the way to my street, $47 later, but when we stopped outside of my house, I had to open the door to puke luminous green bile into the street. So classy. Also, whoever thought it was a good idea to let me have access to my cellphone when I’m drinking?

There are other things, other parties. Foot rubs in Mt. Cook, foot rubs here at home. Wine festivals in the Wairarapa. Quietish nights on the couch watching Black Books. Playing records until 6am with new friends. Anji’s flatwarming with piles of meat, dancing and pole-dancing. Being a lady-who-lunches with Martha. Trying to deal with the piles and piles of paperwork at work that is piling up. That’s not really a party though I suppose. Internet dramas. Sharing Jill NSFW’s rage at the new ALAC ads.

On the domestic front I spent Thursday cooking for an hour and a half so I felt all domesticated, but I need to clean. I do have someone coming in to fix the washing machine tomorrow though. I have Anji’s signature on a piece of paper so maybe I’ll get my bond back from Hataitai finally. Etc.

The most important thing is that I’ve decided exactly what I want for my future. Unfortunately I didn’t win the lotto, but I figure maybe I can work on parts of my dream (Read: New Media Empire) without necessarily having the huge warehouse-house on the edge of the city to house my offices, my social life and to act as a venue for the community. Maybe that bit will come after I’ve IPO’ed.