Yesterday I was on fire. I discovered that my doctor had given me a three month prescription so she obviously doesn’t think I am at risk of taking all my pills at once.I went to the gym and wore a singlet instead of a tshirt because it was so fucking hot, and you know what? The world didn’t end. After work I met Karen and Anji and Lisa down by the lagoon. It was my intention to dive off the plank that’s up on the wharf there, but it was surrounded by squealling teenagers and much higher up than I realised, so Karen and I swam from the floating dock instead. The water was reaaaaaaally warm and nice and it was fun. But there were SO MANY PEOPLE THERE, I felt kind of watched. Eventually I decided that I’d hate myself if I didn’t jump off the plank – especially since it was my ambition to give it a go whilst sober and it being light outside in preperation for inevitable drunken night-swimming, but when I swam to the ladder I discovered that it didn’t go into the water and I didn’t have the arm strength to pull myself up onto it. And it would have been a dreadful hassle to go all the way around and back over the bridge just to jump in again, and while I am becoming more confident, the idea of that much walking around in my togs – hott as they are – in front of so many people wasn’t too appealing. So instead I will steal a photo that Lisa took to show how beautiful it was down there in the water:

Lisa is teh awesome photomagrapher

Then it was 6.30, so Lisa and I went up to the Boatshed for the Great Blend. It was too hot inside, so I got a glass of wine from the ladies at the bar who got nicer and nicer as the night went on, and while I shuddered at the fact that they only had Chardonnay, at least it was unoaked, but I will still blame it for my feeling so seedy today, and we ran away to sit in the shade outside and await Martha and talk about Hanson for some reason. We couldn’t think for ages of what the name of the ugly one was, and Lisa called him Baboon Face. I said that if there was a Q&A session in the talks, and they said did anyone have any questions, I would stand up and say “what is the oldest Hanson brother called? Can you tell me? No you can’t, because you don’t know, you don’t knooow oh oh oh” and then I laughed at myself lots, partly because I had some wine at work before I left. As it happens, Lisa was right and his name was Issac, which I didn’t think it could be because there was a Zack, but that’s short for Zachary. And then we went to meet Martha. I was briefly dismayed at how quickly she brushed me aside to go and meet a puppy-eater, but she came back and fufilled her BFF duties. Plus, she introduced me to fun people like Sally and Sue. And Glen bought me a glass of wine when I already had one, so I quickly looked a lot like a lush. Which is of course not at all how I really am. I talked to Tom and Kim about the magical transforming properties of a lei to make one fit in a tiki environment, and made fun of Stalker. The Back of the Y stuff was hilarious, and it was interesting to see what they’d done for MTV in the UK and how it was exactly the same stuff but much more expensive. I remembered watching it when I was living in Mt Roskill and thinking how awesome it was. I laughed a lot. The second panel was not quite as interesting to me, so I spent a while whispering stupid things to Sarah like “you have to marry one person on the panel – who is it?” (the answer is of course the guy who works for Google, cos duh, rich), before I decided to take myself outside and stop annoying her. So I talked to Joel for ages about what year a particular magazine was worse. We had very different opinions.Mostly I just drank and told everyone how much I wanted to jump off the plank. Sue told me she liked my blog and I was like “!!! I don’t have a blog!” but she redeemed herself instantly by saying that she had ordered the same swimsuit as me because it is so awesome. I introduced myself to Russell and also asked Che about his heart. Good times. The bar ladies seemed to love me even more. In fact, I’m pretty sure that everyone was digging my vibe. Eventually I slipped into the bathroom and slipped into my togs again, so when I left with a group of people I’d just met (I think), I strutted over to the plank and plunged in, followed by Sally. Hurrah! Night swimming is the most awesomeness. Sue carried my bag down to the lower dock for me, and I got changed in public. Lovely.

Then we went to Mighty Mighty and once again more good times were had. I wasn’t even embarrassed seeing Baby Hitler there and remembering how I’d asked him to dance and told off the DJ. Feeling good about yourself really does have positive flow on effects, it’s quite perplexing. I mean, it’s entirely possible that everyone did think I was a dick, but I don’t think so. I had lots of fun. On an extension of that topic, a while ago someone tried to insult me by leaving the comment “but I was just expressing my dismay at your blog [sic]; the purpose of which seems to documenting your desperation for a meaningless pash” and I was like “umm… duh! That’s the whole point of having an online journal, right?” – so in that vein I should declare that I “shared a taxi” home with a boy, which meant he had to wait with me on Ghuznee St while I called a Combined Taxi and babbled about my bad experiences with other companies. Later on the boy told me he saw my left boob when I was getting changed on the dock, which struck me as a most amusing thing to say, and then I laughed at him for a while teasing him about how he didn’t evne know what my name was – before I admitted I couldn’t think of what his was either. And tonight I bought Smoo pizza to make up for the fact that he said he’d gone to sleep with his eaphones in playing music and yet we’d still woken him up. Heh.

Maree emailed me this afternoon to rave about the article in Next with me in it that has apparently come out now, but all I could find was the February issue, not the March one. She said I sounded intelligent and that the photo was gorgeous. Hurrah! That made things more gooder today. I was grateful that I had many mindless web updates to do (adding in div id=”page” tags to about 20 pages and so forth) because I was somewhat tired and not feeling in the best health. I also seem to have bruises on every part of my body, a hole in the bottom of my foot, a cut-up toe from last Friday night when I peed under the X-Air hump, and a lump in my arm. I also had a couple of knots in my hair about the size of my fist that took half an hour of brushing to get out. I like salt water in my fringe, but man, I really should have combed my hair a little more often this week. Tomorrow Lani’s moving in, hurrah ,and then I am going to Ngaio for my Mummy’s birthday party. All in all, things are pretty fucking awesome. Everyone loves me. Including me, right now.

At the Phoenix Foundation gig on Friday night, after I’d yawned my way through Cassette and found myself waiting for Magni to come on stage (yes, I’m obsessed), there were a lot of people talking. So much so, during the quiet under the ocean song, that I actually turned around to the British wanker behind me who was droning on about what a good song it was and how Kiwi it sounded and said “you know what makes this song even more awesome? Not TALKING THROUGH IT”. They gave me evil looks, but then straight after that Scott dedicated ‘Nest Egg’ to everyone who didn’t talk through it. Shout outs! Radsville. The gig made my feet hurt for a long time though and I was disgusted with myself because I found myself racially profiling taxi drivers on my way home since I didn’t know which company the skeezy guy last week worked for and I wanted to make sure I avoided him.

I felt not unlike this on Saturday. Almost everyone had a reason – although many of those reasons were “I’m too hungover/tired” but the fact that not a single person from the tripleK came to our party made me more than a little unhappy. Yes, I have too many parties, and timing was off, and they’re not responsible for my insecurities, and I’m just being a dick, but ouch. Still, mad props must go to those who did actually make it, and I had a thoroughly amusing time, most of which seemed to be spent talking about circumcision. And distributing 105 vodka jelly shots. And the house didn’t get trashed, and I didn’t punch Bart in the face again (in my defense, he apparently asked me to, and I said that I didn’t hit boys with glasses so he took them off – you can’t get more asking for it than that, except of course if you have the misfortune to be a woman), so that’s got to be good, right?

I have yet to find a job, but I have found a bach for the tripleK for New Year’s, and I have found a flatmate, so that’s 2/3 and we know how Meatloaf feels about that. And he was in the greatest movie ever made, which we may watch when we do the UK for Country Club, assuming I still keep doing Country Club, which I’m sure I will as soon as I do some cardio and shake off this funk, and so therefore it must be okay.

I am looking forward to the summer, especially the four nights that will be spent in the Orongorongos. It’s also only FIVE WEEKS til I go to the States. I think I’m going to buy a new mp3 player before I go, just a 1gb $99 one that I can give to Karen for Xmas afterwards maybe, or keep because it’s got a dictaphone built in. Assuming I’ll actually get my laptop back before I go, of course. Bah. Both the dictaphone and the laptop are essential for my New Master Plan. There’s a part of me that thinks that knowing your opinion on 101 is also important (and maybe I’ll find out in 2009), but that’s probably also the part that listens to Lukas singing “you make my head spoon” and enjoys it – ie the twelve year old inside of me. And yes, maybe I should let her free, but if it’s good enough for the Czechs then it’s good enough for me. Or was it the Austrians? I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.

EDIT: Maree had a baby! A girl named Isla. Awwwwwwwww!p

You know, I’d decided that I was going to start this entry out by pondering how the hell people did the Big Day Out without cellphones, but then I was forced to remember. Oh yeah, if you have my number, can you please text me your name (or email me your number?)? Yeah, that’s right, it’s new Sim Card and phone time. Same number though. Stupid fucking D List ‘celebrities’.

But we can scoot backwards in time, to Thursday morning and I’m leaving the backdoor key out for our downstairs neighbour Eve so that she can look after Sebastian that night since Anji had already flown to Auckland for work, and loading my bags into Lisa Fur’s car boot and folding myself into the backseat because Fran was in the front. And then it’s a week later, and I’m switching from present tense into past, because I’m not a choose-your-own adventure book, as much as I’d like to be. A quick study guide to the BDO was playing on the stereo, and there was a monkey to show the country to. Goats were thrown at first sightings of mountains, which resulted in the people in front of us pulling aside to let us pass. The toilets in Tirau are still the best place in the country to stop, and driving into Auckland still sort of feels like a kick in the guts six years later. Lisa’s car made it on one tank of petrol though, which is incredible.

Heather wasn’t home for Fran to be dropped off to, so we headed to the place that Lisa and I were staying, the Comfort Inn on Newton Road. We’d scored ourselves a big two bedroom apartment with parking for only $65 a night each, sweet sweet accomodation candy. Heather showed up and had some beers, and we headed up the road to Gina’s for dinner. If you’re not familiar with Auckland, Gina’s is (in)famous for its ridiculously hot and over-the-top waiters. The food’s pretty good too, but it’s insanely busy, and took a long time, and it was very very crowded. We went back to the apartment and had more wine. I love the litre bottles of Banrock.

The next day it was Friday and therefore bdoing day. Lisa and I went to meet up with Heather and Fran at Roasted, and then I called an incredibly incompetant taxi driver who took half an hour to find us and kept calling me on my cellie. We got there just before Pluto started. I forgot how many people go to the Big Day Out. There were a lot of people there. Pluto were okay. They played some new songs which was nice, and drums were pounded very heartily, but I just don’t know if their heart is in it anymore. Then I put my earplugs back in (hurray for being a grown-up!) and waded through the crowd trying to get out of the stupid (but I’m sure it’s important when the stadium is actually full) D-Barrier. Texts to Lisa found her again, and we went and got our passes for the Immortals Lounge, courtesy of a wonderful friend.

I felt special as we got to ride the big glass elevator up to the sky. We got to use cleanish bathrooms, and the bar queue was short and there was a better selection (but only Lion Red or Steinie, so I saw that it would be a beer-free day for me). The view was very choice. Then it was time to skootch back down to the Green stage for Sleater Kinney. I wish I knew their music better. If ever there was going to be a replacement for Hole in my “strong women make me feel strong” listening, it could very well be them.

Breaks Coop were playing next, and I’m not a repetitive old woman so I decided to run away quickly to a clean bathroom up in the Immortals Lounge again. I checked the time on my cellphone while I was up there, and bought a drink, and then discovered that my phone was gone. Rad. I went through my bag and looked on the floor by the bar. No phone. Excellent. Then Lisa showed up, luckily, and after asking at the bar after my phone, we went down to see the Go! Team. It made me feel very grumpy though, losing phones sucks. I was going to try calling it from Lisa’s phone but realised I’d never hear it.

Then the Go! Team started, and they were fantastic, and I had a boogie, despite my knees being already like “hey lady, remember us? We don’t like this kind of behaviour one little bit”. I wish I could shake my bottom like Ninja. Fuck it – I wish I was Ninja. Their album is definitely going on my ‘to buy’ list.

I can’t remember when it was that the Brunettes started to play, but I took a photo of all the people on stage.

Someone said that there were 20 people in the orchestra (You don’t expect me to actually try and count do you?). Their rider can’t go very far. I wish I’d stayed for them, but I’d already realised that I am much too old for the Big Day Out.

My knees led me over to the fence by the beer area and I sat down for the Magic Numbers and took some Nurofen Plus. Mmm codeieney. But people don’t look at the ground when they’re walking, and they kept kicking or tripping over my legs – despite the fact that there were people sitting all the way along against the fence, and it was just pissing me off too much so I decided to pop up to the Immortals Lounge again. More liquor and more codeine was taken, and I pulled an armchair up to the window at the back of the lounge and settled down for Shihad:

They played their standard fare. If I hadn’t been so doped up, I might have been a little sad that I wasn’t in the mosh, but then again, if I had been, I wouldn’t have been able to see how fantastic the crowd’s arms looked when they did ‘Pacifier’. But I was, so that was okay. When I felt lonely I had another drink. Haha excellent. Then a guy who was Kateb’s brother’s best friend growing up who’s now in a band that I interviewed for Pulp a while ago came over and hugged me, and tried to introduce me to his fiance, but given that she was a friend of Kateb’s at uni, I already knew her. And that was the only people at the Big Day Out who I bumped in to, apart from Jessie. That was strange, cos I am used to seeing so many people I know there, and I was actually a little bit afraid of who I might bump in to.

Franz Ferdinand played, and they were pretty average, and my arm chair was very comfortable. Then Iggy started, and I was like “what the fuck am I doing? This is the Big Day Out and I’m sitting up here like those wankers that I hate at gigs who only go because they get in free, and they don’t even like music”, and plus the BDO book talked about a cocktail bar in Lilyworld, so I went off to find that. Apparently, the cockails are only in Australia. I also couldn’t find the Krishna food stall, so I had a $9 kebab instead because I realised that I’d had one TEN YEARS AGO at my first Big Day Out, and washed it down with a Lion Red, Mate. I contemplated having a dance, but I was too chicken/sober to dance by myself with the models. Did I bitch about the girl carrying the Nova bag yet? I mean, hi, you’re wearing high heels and an expensive looking dress, and you’re stick thin and gorgeous. We get the point. You’re a model. You don’t need to tell us what agency you’re with. If I was to bitch about the other 30,000 people there though it would take far too long. I’m too old and jaded. And I was also kind of lonely. It’s fine to be by yourself at the Big Day Out if it’s your choice, but if you’re just a lost puppy who can’t contact people cos no one has handed your phone in, then it sucks.

I sat at the back of the stadium and took photos of the human lightening people, who could have been a lot more impressive than they actually are:

Then the White Stripes started.

They looked kind of cool, but the sound was craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy at the back there, and I couldn’t stomach going up closer.

I went to go and wait at the rendevouz spot that I’d (phew!) arranged with Lisa earlier in the day, and then Jessie was there, and I was like YAY and hugged her and felt a bit like I did that one time at the Gathering when I found Katy and Anji after I’d been lost for a couple of hours and thought tents were frozen bodies from Titanic and that there were Jim Henson creatures walking around me and I’d lost the ability to speak, except, you know, without the acid. And Lisa showed up, and Fran, and we got told off for walking on the road by a policeman, and we took a taxi and we went home, hurray! It was strange to leave a Big Day Out and still be able to walk and not have my ears ringing,and I wasn’t too badly sunburnt except for my nose. I am no longer hardcore. I miss being hardcore.

On Saturday Lisa and I met Heather and Jamie from NZM at Benediction. I’ve decided that avocado on turkish bread is quite possibly one of the best breakfasts ever. Then I made Heather come to St Lukes with me, and I used a Farmers voucher leftover from Xmas to get myself a new phone. Then, of course, I went back to her house to charge my phone and check my email, because that’s the only reason I’m friends with her. I also got to watch Alt TV, and I wet my pants in delight at seeing a Guns’n Roses video that I’d forgotten even existed. Awesome.

I went home and had a bath and tried to nap but it was too hot so I read magazines and texted people back going “who is this?” because of the lack of numbers. Exciting, yes, I know. Luckily my social secretary KateH had booked us all for a dinner at 8pm at Canton. Holy crap I love the food there, it’s soooooo good. And for $16 each, we certainly ate plenty. Then people came back for some more drinks, and someone called me trying to arrange a booty-call for the morning (*) and I was metaphorically speechless.

This is Shirley and KateH and her boyfriend Andrew:

This is Maree, who was up from Hamilton for the weekend:

This is J.C and Nigel, who is doing his best J.D Fortune look, while claiming never to have watched ‘INXS: Rockstar’:
.

What’s more interesting than looking at photos of people you don’t know? Relating dialogue from the night? Yeah, so I’ll stop this now. On Sunday Lisa and I drove back down to Wellington. I like visiting my friends in Auckland. I love the Arcade Fire. The end.

Where she left a trail of red & spunk & puke across the North Island
So, my trip to Auckland. I’m going to drip-feed it all into the one entry, so keep coming back (it works if you work it).

Thursday 2nd December
Last Thursday, I hopped in my mother’s car and I started driving and I started singing. Nine hours or so later, with stops to grab coffee and laugh at the fact that The Brown Sugar Cafe hasn’t changed its menu in seven years at least, and to eat lunch in Taihape and to gratefully make it to Tirau right on the dot of five pm in order to make it to their nice bathrooms before they shut, and without a stop to paddle in Taupo cos I kept going “next bay, next bay” and then I’d run out of bays, but with a stop in at Volcanic to leave a note for La begging him to call me and to be disgusted at what they’ve turned my proud house into, and with a little extra time spent getting lost in West Auckland, I finally arrived at KateB’s place in Oratia and got to stop driving and stop singing.

Kateb and I drank a lovely bottle of Sacred Hill Rose out of tea cups, ate dinner and talked a whole pile’o shit. I convinced her to let me sleep in their lounge instead of their spare room in which Glyn had been screenprinting, cos it was a little fumey to my oversensitive nose. So lovely to catch up and gossip. I slept really well when I went to bed too.

Friday 3rd December
I had a super hot wonderful date booked at 10.30am in Grafton so I had to haul my ass across town to get to that. Hayley was thrilled to see me, of course, and we spent a long time debating the merits of semi vs permanent, and in the end we decided on an as-permanent-as-possible semi, in order to maximise the shine. I picked a reddish colour for all over, and a darker purpley shade for low-lights. Bright bright bright! We had a wonderful gossip while she did the foils, then her trainee (I think) painted the rest of my head and one of my nails is still tinted from scratching my ear. Whoops. Nevermind. When they put heatery things around my head, they sat me in a chair with a massager built in – oooooooh lordy I giggled at first and they laughed and laughed at me. Hayley gave me a headrub when she was shampooing my hair and I purred. Then she cut the layers back in, and the fringe, and decided to do funny things on my left hand side. She was like “I love that you’re not arguing with me” and I was like “you’re holding a pair of sharp scissors!” but I of course trust her completely. Fuck my hair looked SO FUCKING GOOD when it was done. I told her I was going to dinner with all the Kates (thinking that KateM got her hair done by Hayley, when in fact it was one of the other hairdressers, nevermind) and that they’d all be inspired to get their acts together and book in for another/their first appointment. I got a fiver off for that I think. So yeah, it was $180 all up, but if you saw me on Friday, or even Saturday, you’ll know that I totally got my money’s worth, purely in saunter factor.

By the time I was done, it was midday, and I was heading to Newmarket anyways to try and find something posh to wear to the wedding/pulp party/whatever, and so I figured I’d pop up to Katem’s office to say hi. There’s parking at her office, which is great, and she was at work and thinking about lunch, which was even greater. So we headed down to some cafe on Remuera Rd (Umbria?) for some good food and nice wine and fantastic conversation. The trouble with KateM is that she’s very good at saying what I want to hear, so in discussing a particular boy she was all “I really do think he actually liked you, it was just really bad timing for you both”- which is great to hear but probably not very healthy cos it means that I obsess more – and lord knows I already obsess enough! But we had a really good catchup and gossip and she told me she was coming to my dinner that night and that I should order her something meaty if it looked like she was going to be running late.

Then I went up to Benediction to have coffee with KateB and she gave me a yellow mesh RJC scarf that she’d been sent but that suited no one, except me because I have fucking great colouring and can wear pretty much any colour. So yeah, it means I get to be way posh, since RJC is all like fancy and stuff, and expensive, and I’m so not naturally. I took the time to consult the paper to try and find a movie I wanted to see at a convenient time where I wouldn’t have to pay for parking. There really wasn’t a hell of a lot of choice, so I ended up going to the 3.45 session of Bridget Jones (again) at The Lido (which, if you are unfamiliar with, is on the cover of Dimmer’s album).

The Lido is in Epsom, which meant that I popped into The Millhouse to try and find something nice to wear. Big mistake. Sure they had my sizes, but the only things I liked were over $500. The Millhouse stocks Trelise’s fat-people range. I get to say ‘Trelise’ because I know someone who works for her, so hehehe check out me namedropping designers in this entry. So so wrong. Anyways, there was no one in the theatre except for me and two old ladies who talked loudly during the ads. The movie was funny enough I suppose, even though I was sober this time around.

I was due at KateH’s at 7pm, so I figured I’d go to St Lukes and continue my quest for Wedding Outfit. I found it! A black dress in flippy floppy material, it’s sleeveless and a little empire-waisted, and it had a pink and grey geometric print on it, which is a little strange, because that’s so much more mainstreamy than something I’d usually wear, but it is perfect for weddings, so (and let me put this in capital letters) YOU ARE ALL ALLOWED TO GET MARRIED NOW since I have the perfect outfit to wear to your wedding. Cos you’re inviting me right? Right? Yeah, anyways, so I can wear my tie-front black mesh cardigan over the top until the liquor sets in and I stop minding my arms so much. Excellent. Anyway, I was running around St Lukes when KateH texted me saying I should get to her house half an hour earlier so that we could go buy snacks in preperation for our slumber party, but I figured since I was already at the mall, I’d just do it myself. Three bottles of cheap bubbly for me, a bottle of Wither Hills Sav for her and a whole pile’o junk food loaded up and I was on my way to Pt Chevalier.

How’s my tensing going? It’s pretty shit right? I mean, for a Grammar Queen, I’m pretty loose. Oh well, y’all love me anyways because I am still SHRN. For serious.

At Kateh’s I got to wash the Auckland sweat off, and we drank a bottle while we got poshed up and watched Shorters. Then we taxied in to Kingsland to Mekong (which the divine Miss. H had booked, and then I’d rebooked to change the numbers from 9 to 11). The guestlist? On the AUT side of the table: KateH, KateM, KateB, Justin, Maree and Shirley (Me: “Just call them all Kate, they’ll get over it”). On the NZm side of the table: Heather (who wrote about it here) & Paul and Martina & her brother Chris. And then there was me at the head of the table. There was some gooooood food and some good conversation. There was a lot more wine. There was sticky rice! I heart sticky rice so much. Dinner stretched out over a long time cos we had entrees first, and people were late and all that kinda stuff. I tried to talk to everyone and to make sure everyone was having a good time, as I always do. I am a good hostess, fo’sure. Well I hope that everyone had fun anyways.

Once dinner and many many bottles of wine were finished, the AUT side headed up to Ruby while the NZm side went home after one drink. I heart Ruby! It’s a small place, but they play great eighties music and make really yummy cocktails which people kept buying for me. All my friends were drunk and they kept touching me, and I was like “aaaaaargh! I haven’t had sex in a very very long time, what the hell are you doing?” We were all dancing and singing in that tight space when a guy came up and started dancing with me. He was very hands-all-over but was very cute, so I was like oooh, and all my friends were like oooooooooooooh. He kept dancing with me and I kept grabbing his ass and we were laughing and giggling for a long time, and so when someone suggested leaving I was like “ummm no, let’s just wait a bit”. He kept leaving and coming back and then hugging me and telling me how gorgeous and wonderful I was, and then finally I realised that every time he left it was to go and talk to another boy, and so click click click, I was like “oh you’re gay right?” and he was like “yeah” and I was like DAMMIT. But we still continued dancing and having ridiculous amounts of fun. Eventually the bar called last drinks and according to my bank statements I paid $49 for a bottle of Deutz. I have no idea what time it was but it was decided it was time for us to leave – since like, they were kicking us out and shit. Plus I’d just about got into a brawl for some reason with some girl – apparently I knocked her drink but she was a total bitch about it. Anyways.

We got dial-a-driver since Maree had her car there and so while we were waiting I had a very entertaining conversation with a very drunk Justin. I don’t remember much of it, but I was probably complaining about all of his friends that I’ve scored, and recounting the conversation about the one in particular that I’d had with KateM at lunch, and he was like “hmmm” and I was like “no, I know we’re right!!!” and then he said that I was one of the most intelligent women that he knew, which is always nice to hear. And then the dial-a-drivers came and it was all very entertaining squeezing into the back of one of the cars and stopping to let Shirley out somewhere. The rest of us went back to Pt Chev and KateH’s to watch Dawson’s Creek. Yay Dawson’s retroness! Justin passed out in the bed I was supposed to sleep in, and KateM went home at some time, so it must have just been me and Maree and KateH watching. The next morning I was supposed to go to brunch with Martina and Heather but I was too hungover so I stayed napping in KateH’s lounge and watching more episodes. Season Two is totally where it’s at, since that’s when they got all self-referential-ironic and actually had a sense of humour that they later lost. I’m suprised by how hot Pacey isn’t though. I’m sure he used to make me swoon. Then again, so did Eddie Furlong – and various real life people who now I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. Ahh growing up is funny. So is revisiting your not-so-grownupness .

“P.S I’ll overlook the fact that you came to Hamilton [possibly numerous times] and didn’t see me, if you overlook my excessive use of brackets and caps. Thats what a friend would do. Thanks.”

Andeee honey, you used square brackets. :]. heh.

I have been a bad bad girl and not kept in contact with my darling Hamilton friends Hole and Andee. This was by no means intentional. I also miss Miss Maree Hamilton Mazzive like crazy, so perhaps a trip to the city that’s “So much more than you’d expect” is in order pretty soon. Not next weekend though, because Nikki has me booked, and by that stage I wouldn’t have seen her for two weeks, and I’m going fucking crazy without her. I also miss Tom extreme amounts and am very much looking forward to going to Chch at Easter.

On Friday night I stood in a line with Ammy, who is skinny, and Jody, who is a personal trainer, while three boys groped our asses to compare them. They declared that rugby was the winner on the day. KateM’s flatmates’ friends gave us funny looks. The boys had started it though, making us judge their asses first. It was a thoroughly enjoyable party. KateM’s house was apparently the first brothel in Auckland, and it’s this darling little thing in a semi industrial area, which is a little weird but very cool. I consumed very vast amounts of liquor which I had been unable to do all week leading up to it, so that was fun, although yesterday didn’t feel so fun. My head is aching from the sugar pills part of my estelle35, begging me to take more hormones. It fucking sucks, especially since KateH still has all of my codiene.

Bo came round last night to hang out, so that was lovely. We’re full of plans for another dinner at Canton, so we gotta choose a date and hurry up and book in. Right now I would give anyone head for a neckrub, it’s so fucking sore. Then again, right now I’d probably give anyone head full stop. I am more than a little sexually frustrated lately. However, I do also have a pretty new grey skirt that matches my grey hat what I got at the clothing trade we had at the school gala – where inncidently I made 50 cents in the kissing booth – and if Katie would give me back my black lycra top, then we’d all be happy. And I’m not hassling you Katie, I just know that I’ll forget to ask for it at any other time, and you’ll read it here and that will be good. Wonderful.

And yay, I can still scrape together $11, so I’m off to rent six movies. What should I get? Hmmm. I’ve just finished Hunter S Thompsen’s biography – although yes, a review of it appeared in my last edition, so shoot me, I wrote it before I finished the actual book – so I’ll probably get ‘Fear and Loathing’. And maybe ‘The Ice Storm’, cos feeling hollow and empty is just what I need! And some kinda teen movie, and and and. Maybe the original Buffy movie. Heh. I have such good taste, really I do. But it’s okay, cos I’m not going to Videon so the guy can’t snob me out. It’s funny though, cos Bo was in there after ‘My Friend Totoro’ which they didn’t have, and the guy was all “oh but we’re getting ‘Spirited Away’ in on DVD soon” and so Bo got to go “well I saw that at the press preview with my friend” and he was very jealous and I wish she’d said “the same friend who you turned your nose up at cos she was renting Molly Ringwald movies”. Nevermind.

xojo

What was that I was saying about a user interface? I was lying. Look at it this way – extreme minimalism is the new postmodernism.

So it’s been about a week or so, and during this time period, I have been drunk too often, at Quiz Night where I just about fell flat on my face walking out because of bad chair/carpet configurations and trying too hard to make a good impression, and then the next night with Nikki, bawling my eyes out on her shoulder which was good and cleansing, except that I hate that it makes me cry when she said that people love me too much to want to hurt me, as an explanation of how I was left out of the loop of major Dramas within my circle, and i HATE how I couldn’t have been there for anyone because I didn’t know, and I hate that people see me as being that being that much of an emotional screwball, and I know that they don’t really, and I guess I’m totally glad I never had to choose sides, but still, ugh, I hate that people I love so much had so much bad shit going on.

<!– And I hate that she whimpers in her sleep –>and I hate that I can’t fix the world, and I hate that I’m going to have to take steps to fix the parts of me that I’m utterly terrified of.

On up notes, I love that I bought a TV. And I love that when I was planning on staying at home on saturday night by myself drinking champagne alone and feeling morose by myself (how dare my friends be on holiday in welly, or living in other cities for their jobs or stricken with glandular fever or at reggae festivals in Raglan?) Darren rang up and so I had dinner with him and his friends and Jonny, and then we went to see his new studio, and it was cool, although I think I had a drunken slurred argument with him about whether or not Audioslave are shit (yes). And what else is there? Visits from special friends to look forward to, although it totally sets back my whole Taking Affirmative Action plan with someone. These are two letters that I want to write and send but I won’t:

Dear Boy A, Don’t you think that it’s a little strange that I started emailing you out of the blue? No? Good. But you shouldn’t interupt other people and go all excitedly “Oh, I’ve been emailing Jo!” if what you mean is “Oh yeah sometimes I reply and then other times, like when I get a group invitation to hang out with her at her workplace which quite obviously was just a lame set up excuse to get me to get her to have coffee with me, I won’t reply”. Jesus boy. I have excellent taste in music, and I don’t think I was too bad a fuck, and I’ve tracked you down and apologised to you for being a spaz. Take a fucking hint!

Okay, so those letters are crap and not at all eloquent or proper explainy, but they’re what’s rolling around and around in my head. Oh hush, I’ll write whatever I damn well want to write. After all, I am self absorbed. And vulgar.

In the best journalistic tradition, I spent today and yesterday (when I could actually log on at work) rewriting press releases. But then again, it is kinda PR cos it’s for our publications offering stuff. I think I’m rully rully going to love this job eh. I get to be creative, and I feel like I have my finger on the pulse, and all the ideas I’ve had so far have got the go ahead. YAY. I deserve good job karma.

Ammy came up to me tonight and put her arms around me and thanked me wholeheartedly for making this flat work, and that was just totally sweet of her, and it’s just really cool here and nice and stuff, and yay. Even if we still don’t have a tv (or washing machine) which meant I had to go to KateH’s last night ot watch SS. Not that that’s any hardship of course (well at least not for me). And then I met Ammy and Darren and Megan and James in town and saw LOTR again. I texted Tom right before it to say hi, but told him not to reply cos it’d make me vibrate. He replied a couple of hours later saying “Now if I can just time this to be at the same time that Aragorn opens the doors, won’t I be the man?”. He got the timing wrong but still, I appreciated the sentiment!

Mazzy thought that I would write about how she told me that she couldn’t come to my party but then showed up as a surprise in a “bear” mask, but she was wrong. My skin is peeling off in big chunks from everywhere – it looks particularly gross around my neck. I have too many boys on my mind right now and I can’t figure out which ones I’m using as an excuse not to fancy the other ones, and it’s driving me crazy, but not must-find-cash-for-Kalpana crazy. What else? We have a “staff development day” at work on Friday which means a talk, and then lunch at a bar, and then early home. Asskicking. Just as long as they don’t try to make me wear a polarfleece. My god but it’s hot in Auckland! And I have finally been bitten by mosquitos here. Oh well. Also I’ve made the disturbing discovery that Jonny plays the bagpipes. We’re planning on getting him to march up and down in front of the houses across the street playing them, since we figure that one of them must have called Noise Control on us.

Tomorrow I am doing a market survey on soft drinks. Crazy.

xojo

And now it is January the 6th, and that’s lucky cos it means I get to avoid telling you about the handjob I gave my friend that night. So skipping the rest’o New Years Eve, KateH arrived in Whakatane late on New Years Day, and Brad her and I spent the evening lounging around polishing off the rest’o everyone else’s beer adn reading magazines. It was lovely chill time. And then on the 2nd, when people got up, and I got to sleep by myself, instead’o with three snoring boys, one of whom stopped touching me as soon as he came, (selfish!), but anyways, that’s entirely beside the point. But I was bursting to tell someone, so I was very very very relieved when Tom finally got off his ass and rang me there so I could have a decent gossip. Wait, hang on, that was the night of the 1st. On the 2nd, Brad took us on his famous tour’o The’Tane, including wading on Ohope Beach, adn then the biggest icecreams in the world for $1.50 apiece. KateH and I had amusing conversation like; Me: “he kept looking down my top all night” – Kate: “well, what top were you wearing?” – Me: “yeah, but that’s not the point!”. I also made other rather crude remarks about her family. Sorry Katie, but I know you said bad shit about me that I just can’t remember. Blah blah blah. Later that night, we got three bottles of wine and went out to dinner where the service was TERRIBLE – “oh, we can’t take your order right now cos the kitchen is too busy with that big table” but the company was terrific and I managed to make both Brad and Kate’s jaws drop because I fucking HAD to spurt out my little story, because jesus, almost 48 hours? Do I LOOK like a mute to you? And then we had shakers at the Irish pub until this guy kept staring at Kate so we had to leave, adn went to the other bar in Whakatane, where this carnie approached us and kissed our hands and I was like “Dude, you know it’s not actually sunny any more outside eh” and KateH was like “are you wearing your sunnies on your head to keep back your hair?” cos he was totally going bald, and he started going on and on about were we vets, cos he hated vets, etc etc, and we were like “????”. And then he said to me “hey, nice tits” and I was like, “thanks, I grew them myself” ajnd that gave Kate the chance to go “oh, so you don’t like mine? Well you can just FUCK OFF THEN buddy” and she got rid of him, and she can pretend it’s because we wanted to get rid of him, but really, we all know that I have far nicer breasts than Katie, so ha ha ha. Ha.

The next day, Brad had to go back to work, so eventually, after I ahd to endure hours of “Aladdin and the King of Thieves” on TV waiting for Katie to come back from the radio station, Kate and I drove to Hamilton, via Burger King and Rotorua. She let me stop off to go wading somewhere along the way, but she wouldn’t let me get a float from Macdonalds, so instead I got total Passenger Arm instead, and screamed at roundabouts. And then Mazzy Star made us cokefloats in her new house in Hammy, so that was cool, and we went to Briscoes cos it was airconditioned and I didn’t buy any bed linen, and then I took the bus back up to auckland.

Then on the Saturday, me and Megan and Peter went out. Lumiere has yummy cocktails. Peter sucks at playing High-Low, unless your definition of it is taking 40 drinks to get across the cards. Megan is very amusing. Deschlers was shut at 2.30am and I nearly cried. Sunday was boring, and I put my bed together adn tried to sort out my room. Today I got to work at 10.30am, and (umm fuck, did I have a psuedoname for her?) the girl I work with and I had a rather lengthy lunch and then after work she came here and we demolished a couple of bottles of wine, gossiped and I cooked risotto for her and Peter. And so now that’s like, NOW. And I’m up to date. Kickass me. OH! And hi, have you sent me a package lately? because according to megan, there was an envelope in my letterbox for me one day when she went to work, and when she came home it was gone. Mystery! xojo.

I think I’m menopausal, cos I am full of hot flushes. Although the fact that I’m currently bleeding might suggest otherwise. Oh well.

Today I went to Rumba! It was hilarious, and also super choice because of the following reasons:

Thursday September 5th, 2002

I’ve had whispers of conspiracy theories going on in my head, which really serve just to demonstrate what a paranoid paranoid paranoid girl I am. Nevermind.

Hmmm, what have I been up to lately? Working yesterday afternoon, but Terri was out sick, and Bridget’s away for a month (dammit, I nearly called them by their real names) and I didn’t have very much to do and I couldn’t move further without help from Terri, so I did do some more work on my zine. It’s nine pages long now, but I figure I have to make it at least 16 to make it worthwhile doing, and I’m finding that really, there’s not all that much more I can write. I’ve already outsmutted myself, I think (oh, for those of you who’ve just tuned in, my zine is called “BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS”). Still haven’t found out if I got the job yet or not. It’s stressing me out more than just a little bit.

I was naughty and wagged my HR Tut this morning, but luckily it turned out that it was canceled anyway. Joseph was more than usually disturbing in our PR Practice tut, so Haley and I ever-so-grownuply wrote notes to one another, mostly about DiscoDan and I think I caught her up on my conspiracy theories and she just laughed at me. She also wrote me a note saying that I should tell Clayton she thinks he’s hot and that he should give her a call if he ever breaks up with Kara. I laughed. Oh, I’ll interrupt me with this side story here – Clay is a little grumpy with me tonight, cos he was telling me a story about this guy who tried to pick him up on the bus, who kept quizzign him about his background and what school he went to and stuff, and so when Clay told him, they tried to compare names of people they knew from there but they had no one in common, so Clay went “oh, but I know (umm forget his name) from Queer Nation”, so in the retelling of it I was like “oh of course Clay – all gay people know each other and they all watch Queer Nation” and so he’s shirty with me for accusing him of stereotyping, but oh well. Typical self loathing!

Anyways. Where were we? Oh yeah. So after our very long plenary meeting, Haley and I went to the Playhouse cos we thought we mighta been meeting the fashion students for an interview, but we weren’t sure cos Haley had sent out the email and not checked it recently (grr!) but they didn’t show, as I kinda expected, so we just had a drink and did much gossiping instead. Then I went home and phoned Momma, and booked plane tickets to Wellington. Yes, I’m going back there, even after declaring loudly many times to many people that I never ever wanted to again. Here’s why:

1. Ayna had invited me to her birthday party on the 18th of September.
2. We’re having a PR social down there to meet and greet (and apparently get leered at) by prospective employers.
3. Mummy and Daddy are going away for a week on the 19th, so I will get the house to myself, plus since I’m flying down on the 18th, I will get to see them for a day,which is probably all I can handle of them.
4. Karen and Anji and my KatieB and my FattySi are all down there and I miss them all and wanna hang out with them big lots.

So now I just have to get the time off work, or rearrange my days somehow. Luckily I do have a day in lieu up my sleeve.

This evening James picked me up and I went to see the team named “Stupid Horse” play indoor netball. It was fun! And it made meeee wanna play, although I haven’t since the glory days’o Standard 4. I have no doubt that I would suck at it – a lot. But still. Oh and Kate – I didn’t say this tonight, in fact I didn’t even think of it, but then I was watching Juice, so guess what? TEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHE. Love you baby.

Bo is still staying at her aunt’s, babysitting her cousin, so I rang her earlier today cos lord knows I can’t go three days without her ray of sunshine in my life. I’m so glad she moved in. Speaking of people that I like, have I said lately that I miss you? And I miss you. And you.

I have been having major crazy dreams lately – last night’s involved the cast of Home and Away, and a supervillan who was placing poisonous evil nasty creatures everywhere. It was fucked up. And oooh, I also dreamt about Amy and Andeee, so I really must give them a call sometime. I have a lot of catching up to do, I’m really quite slack huh?