Hubris.co.nz

So is anyone else out there ridiculously lonely? I suppose it’s partly my fault for not really leaving the house this weekend, but I wanted to. I wanted someone to call me up and take me on an adventure, to drag me laughing through the streets, to dance with me, make me laugh, make me cry, make me feel something other than the usual “there is a piece of me that’s missing” nonsense. But alas, it was not to be.

I found myself saying in an MSN conversation that I am starved for physical contact, that I am like a baby in a Romanian orphanage. I probably stole that analogy from a Coupland book. I did just finish reading Eleanor Rigby after all. I am totally afraid of getting old alone, but then again I am totally afraid of being 24 alone. And 25. And 26. Etc. Today I watched Lost in Translation with K and every shot of Tokyo made me teary eyed. I still feel like I have something over the people in the film though (although I guess at least Scarlett Johanson gets to look at her boobies every day) because I could vaguely understand most of the Japanese in the movie. When I first moved to Tokyo, we lived for two weeks on the 28th floor of the Keio Plaza in Shinjuku (where the hotel in the movie was), so even though I was ten then, everything was very vivid. It’s amazing how well Tokyo is captured in that movie. I sometimes wish I could tell people about what it was like growing up there, besides the usual “I was bullied at the horrible American school” (speaking of which, they keep writing to my parents for donations, the other night after a few drinks I almost started a letter back to them asking for the money I spent on counselling), like the smell, and the noise, and the time trhat I saw a man pushing a handcart covered in little glass bells for sale and there was wind for the first time that year and it was the last day of sixth grade and every single one of the bells was ringing. I can’t do it justice, but I think Sofia Coppola did.

I can’t remember the other things that I wanted to write about. Maybe it was a plea for some company, conversation, contact. A hand on my back between my shoulder blades, a hand on each of my hips steering me in another direction, which brings me back to Tokyo again, 5150 and the guy is 35, so twice the age that he thinks I am, and he thinks Beth shouldn’t be smoking and that I shouldn’t be hanging out with her, and that’s ten fucking years ago.

My letter to the Editor of the New Zealand Herald about this story

“The day before Parliament is set to hold a conscience vote on the Prostitution Reform Bill, the Herald runs a front-page story about a convicted rapist visiting a brothel. This isn’t news. The story isn’t about police catching Michael John Carroll red handed committing another crime (remember that under the double-standard current law, prostitution isn’t actually illegal, just solicitation). This isn’t a serious debate about whether or not he should have been paroled. The story is just an absolutely sickening editorial attempt to sway the vote away from law reform. By linking sex work with rapists, the story intends to imply that sex workers are entirely responsible for the moral decline of society. The front-page placement of the article, despite its lack of newsworthiness (it happened “some time”, not yesterday), clearly demonstrates the editorial position the Herald has taken on attempts at law reform. If prostitution remains illegal, the Herald will have more opportunities to publish those “12 year olds sell themselves for a can of corned beef” moral panic stories that it so dearly loves. Heaven forbid that such a conservative paper should actually support a bill that would improve people’s lives instead of scare mongering to raise sales.” 200 words only

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So it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Well, when did you last hear from me and what did I say then? Ahh June 12, the night before my birthday party. That was a jolly good night, with people dressed in bear costumes (!), much gossip and scandel and me lusting after not one but two gentlemen. I had so many friends there, I wasn’t able to talk to anyone really. That was a shame. Oh well, a good time was had by all, except for Kara, but really, why is that such a suprise? It’s not. The following Tuesday (the 17th) I had my dinner at Canton, and that was lovely dovely, except for losing my wallet and feeling like no one cared about that fact. It was found later, and of course people cared, as I am constantly reminded.Yes, people care about me, I get that. I just feel really isolated a lot lately, and have discovered that it’s far more convinient and possibly a little more mature to push bottle caps into your arm so that they leave marks for a couple of days rather than scarring up with hot knives in hidden places. I’ve been questioning my current meds a little bit too because I feel sometimes like I’m at the stage where I can’t be bothered with people at all (re: Clayton being upset at Kara’s storming off at my party), while at the same time I’m feeling lonely and scared and freaked out. I guess it’s just generally weird when you hear Live on the radio or get books about monkeys and it brings to mind “You took advantage of me. I don’t know why I bother with you”.

It’s not all that though, there’s also gigglestyles at boys in bands who I saw play on Saturday at the Kings Arms for the ‘Here Come The Bulletholes’ release party who I have crushes on and I get to email them and say that they look sexy on stage. And then there’s that I got to talk to Tom McRae last week (thank you soooooo much darling!) and he was absolutely lovely. English people should be banned from saying “erm” instead of “um” because it’s just SO DAMN CUTE. I sounded like a fawning sycophant in the interview, but oh well. How could I help but be anything but?

I’d like to think that Iva has settled well into our flat although I’m sure she finds my disappearing chequebook a little annoying. Our computers are intemittently networked, so I can access her huge amounts of TV and movies. Oh how in love with Bernard Black I am! In other flat gossip, I’m incredibly pissed off with Johnny for buggering off to Queenstown without paying his rent, leaving me almost literally penniless and unable to purchase tampons or painkillers. GRRRRRRRRRRR. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Daniel is coming out of his shell more and more, and although Lance’s fetish for bringing home white picket fence pailings is more than a little disturbing, I adore him, he’s very fun.

Other things going on in my life right now? I think my Masterplan is never going to come to fruition. I’m annoyed with my failing lack of ambition, and the fact that I just churn out shit at work – when I’m doing anything at all, that is. It’s more than a little disconcerting to think of all the people I told about my brilliant idea, and how supportive they all are, to know that that’s going to be swept away in a tide of self pity and bleakness. I think that it’s probably quite likely that I should be going back into counselling (so.much.anger), but the prospect of starting all over again is more than a little daunting.

I miss having people love me. Even if I don’t deserve the love – but surely everyone deserves love? I know this entry is more than a little pukefest, but just like Bobby Brown, that’s my prerogative. There were so many more narratives that I meant to include but have forgotten. Probalby something to do with vidoes. I watched ‘S.F.W’ which I fucking worshiped when I was 15 (people fucking to “Teenage Whore”, Stephen Dorff walking in slow motion through a mall to “Creep” – what’s not to like? Oh, and Amber Benson is in it! I adore Tara. Oh Buffy, how can you be coming to an end so soon?), and it made me feel very nostalgic for a time when I thought I had the right to be “angry at the system, maaaan”. I have no idea what the hell I thought was oppressing me back then, but I want it back. I wanna jump up and down and scream “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” in the mud again. But instead, I will just watch more videos and cry in joy at the end of “It’s a wonderful life”. Is this growing old? I guess so. Shit, I’m 23 now. Time to call out the knackers.

I’m wearing new Napolean mascara Karen sent me (although it’s weird – mascara? rather than eye shadow or lipgloss what I asked for? Surprises are cool.) and I feel like it’s making me open my eyes extra extra wide. That’s no bad thing.

There’s been some restructuring at work, and today we were all given “a document”. Mmmm. People aren’t happy at all. Morale is terrible. People are very stressed out. A lot of people are looking for new jobs. It’s not fun. Oh, and the girl I work with doesn’t know how to make paper snowflakes.

I had a job interview today (yes, another one), for an NGO. I think they liked me. I also think that maybe i’m not qualified enough. Well, I can do pretty much everything they want, EXCEPT, and this is a big except, budgeting. Bleh. However, I do have another job interview on Monday, and I think I am ideally qualified for that job, so we’ll see.

I boxed some stuff up today, and also met a potential flatmate, and I think we clicked really well, so hopefully when he sees the inside’o the place, he’ll still want it. I hate looking for flatmates.

Kalpana rang me today to see if I wanted to make another appointment before Xmas (sheesh, psychologist stalker styles) and so I capitulated, and made one for next friday morning. Actually, it’s not a question of capitulating at all – I really fucking need to talk to someone right now. And at least if I’m paying her, then she’ll have time for me. (And if you think that’s a dig at you, you’re probably right. You know, Anji hasn’t returned my calls in nearly 3 months? When she did call, she was so drunk all she could do was talk about how she was in love – she has no idea what’s going on in my life. And don’t get me started on everyone else. Yes, I know you’re all busy. You also know I’m incredibly self absorbed and IT’S ALL ABOUT ME, goddamit).

Tuesday June 25th

Just before midnight, that thing in my head snapped again, and the entire left side of my head started to throb and pulsate and ache ache ache. The pain was incredible, I hadn’t felt its like except for on Saturday and Sunday nights as well. I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat up in bed and cried for about fifteen minutes wondering how badly it would scare my mother if I’d rung her at that hour. My head was really freaking me out, and I needed it to stop. It’s kinda terrifying to feel like a blood vessel has burst in your brain. Bopha was fast asleep with two exams the next day, and Clay wasn’t home, so I ended up canvassing opinions via txt, until someone agreed with me that yes, maybe I should go to the hospital since I’d been in pain for three days and it wasn’t getting any better – in fact, it was getting worse (and I know I don’t say enough good things about you sometimes, so thank you, I’m so glad to know you’re always there for me when I’m having a crisis, and you know I’m always there for you too, if you need me). I woke Bops because I had no money for a taxi, and she offered to come with me, but I said she shouldn’t, because I knew we’d end up waiting hours and hours, and because I was crying and in pain to the point where I could hardly talk, and because of her exams. I managed to scrape together $5 in coins, which was just enough.

I felt so fucking stupid, telling hte guy at the counter that I had “a headache” because it sounds so goddam prissy and lame, but he was very nice and told me that three days was an extreme length of time, and he called me sweetheart in a really nice way. He took me to a room in the ER and left me there for ages, which I understand cos I know they have to prioritize. I held my head in my hands and felt nauseous, and listened to the staff calling for diazaphan for the guy in the room next to me who was having fits. That made me feel kind of like a fraud, but there is only so much pain and misery a girl can take. It was a fucking hard call to make though, having to take enough responsibility for myself to seek treatment. Meh. Eventually a nice nurse called Jayne came along and took me to another room, and gave me a wristband with my name and phone number on it, and told me to get undressed and put on one of those funny hospital gowns. I’d be expecting them to just shine a light in my eyes and tell me I was pathetic and wasting their time, so I was like “umm, you have the right piece of paper right? I’m here with a headache?” and she laughed at me. Once I’d changed, she told me to lie down on a half propped up bed, took my blood pressure and pulse, turned out the lights and said the doctor would be in to see me soon. I think it must have taken about an hour for him to get to me, in which time I just cried like the big sooky girl I am, because it hurt, and because I was lonely and because I just wanted my mum. I really wished that there was someone who I could have called to go with me, that I wouldn’t have felt bad about asking, and so I decided that I need to have kids as soon as possible cos I figure by the time they’re 15, they can drive me and also, they’ll be completely obligated to me and everything, so I won’t need to feel guilty, and they’ll be matyred to me. And yeah, I know that when my darling friends read this, they’ll all be like “you could have called me” but how do you call someone at 12am and say “hi, I have a headache, can you please get up and come to the hospital and wait a couple of hours with me?” It just doesn’t work like that. Still, Auckland Hospital is a scary horrible place to be alone in. It was miserable and I considered putting my clothes back on and running away, except that it wouldn’t have been running, it would have been a very slow, very painful crawl, and I would still be worried about what exactly was going on inside my skull.

Eventually the doctor came and examined me and asked me all the same questions that the nurse had asked me. He said that everything seemed fine, but that I had done the right thing to come in, and he told me that I didn’t have meningitis, which hadn’t even crossed my mind. He said that although I had no history of them, it might just be a particularly violent migraine, and said he would work through levels of pain relief with me, from basics, to heavier, to hooking me up to a drip and keeping me in overnight if need be. This meant sending in a nurse with panadol and voltarin and a glass of milk which she ordered me to drink to counteract the nasty stomach munchingness of voltarin, and leaving me for half an hour “to get some sleep”. Righto. I started tripping out, and could feel the pain in my head breaking free and floating loose, and then working its way into a little knot by my eye. What the fuck is it with hospitals and their fucking panadol? It’s like the time when I got hit by a car and they gave me panadol, only this time i wasn’t drunk and abusive, and I wasn’t inflicting hours of waiting torture on James and Maree. Anyways, finally my doctor came back to re-evaluate me. He said he was happy to keep me in overnight, but he thought that I’d probably sleep better at home and that was what would probably do the best for me, as long as he gave me some more pain relief before I went. Knowing that I had an exam in six and a half hours time, I agreed with him, so he dosed me up on straight codeine, wrote me out a script for some more, ordered me to see my GP as soon as possible for follow-up and gave me a piece’o paper detailing my tragic story.

Of course, I’d used up all my coins on the taxi to get to the hospital, and in my zonked state, I decided that it would be a good idea to walk home. When I left the hospital I thought the moon was half full – by the time I got over the Grafton Bridge, it was full, and I was by the graveyard and I kept seeing things and I couldn’t feel my legs anymore because of the 60mg of codeine. Things were a little odd, to say the least. The sky was really clear, and all the branches were ghostly, and I was doped off my tits, and yeah, fun times. At least my headache had subsided to a dull roar though. It was 3am by that stage, and then I woke up at 4am when the drugs wore off and my head was screaming again and my chest cavity felt like my ribs were all imploding. Odd.

So of course, there was extreme lack of sleep, and residual dopiness from the codeine, and the headache was back as soon as I got up this morning, so I had to take more nurofen plus. I would have been bouncing off the walls if I wasn’t reduced to sliding along the floor. In my exam, it took me fifteen minutes to be able to focus enough to copy down the question to the top of my page, and that really really fucked me off. I did an appalling job, and I’m really upset, because I could have done so much better. I know my LTSA topic inside out, and I’d done well on going through the other stuff too, ducking in between major migraineness, but I was so vague and blurry and doped just to try and get rid of the fucking pain. I went to fill out compassionate consideration forms straight after, but they’ll only allow me a “pass” which I think I might just get anyways, not an actual indication of the good mark that I could have got if it wasn’t for all this bullshit.

After the exam, I went to pick up my prescription – more codeine and voltarin, lovely. Everyone from my Persuasive Class was meeting at The Playhouse for lunch and drinking so I went along, spaced out and only able to drink coke. But the girl I dislike more than anyone kept screeching in my ear, and I was fading fast after the quick pickup of pills, so I went home, told Clay that I couldn’t talk because I wasn’t coherant, and slept for four hours. When I got up, there were concerned phonecalls from Maz and a bigass gorgeous lovely bunch of flowers from KateH, stark contrast to being alone and miserable in a hospital bed. They also came over really briefly, and Kate told me she’d deliberatly asked for Serene, Calming flowers. Awww. I’m looking forward to my party on Saturday, especially since I’ve had to forsake alcohol today and BradC and Clay are currently drinking Soju in honour of Korea/Germany. I’m also foresaking hte soccer as well, because I just can’t handle. I’m so fragile and fucked, and if I move my head, it hurts. Arrgh. At least I get to go home to my mum next Wednesday.

Thursday; September the 30th, 1999

I’m feeling so lonely that I went onto IRC and sat in #teen while the kinderwhores – or maybe it was Jess, in which case she isn’t a whore, told me I looked really good in the last shot, and I thought that was pretty funny since I was crying.

Oh, Brad came home, which was good cos I had chocolate and company for a little bit. He also told me funny stories about his work at the Video store. He had to ring up a family to report that “Japanese Sex Tours” was out, and the father was like “what, we never rented that” and ended up coming down to the shop to rage about how someone had let his 14 year old son rent porn. Poor Brad was like “I’m so sorry – it wasn’t me!”

Yesterday night was cool, bonding with Kate M who hung around to watch Topless Women Talk About Their Lives with me (again) and she plaited my hair. I made her watch Pokemon Island, and we all talked like pokemons when Brad got home.

Today I did laundry. Simon’s gone to Wellington. I’m lonely and wanting hugs.

Oh yeah, there’s a bit more Australia story if you want.