Hubris.co.nz

Last time I wrote, I was planning for Martha’s new Wanda Harland opening, and now that was a couple of weeks ago. I had a tremendous amount of fun. There was the most amazing cheese in the whole wide world there (one was called “OMG Triple Cream Brie” by Over The Moon) and because I was so in love with it, I get to go to eat more of it tomorrow at a super secret cheese tasting. More details will come on YASE at some stage soon, I’m sure. It is a great space, and there are many pretty things in it that I want to buy.

After the shop opening, Karen and Megan and I went for dinner at Arashi, and then up to Hooch for a quick drink. A couple of bottles later, we’d had enough of old men from Nelson who were up for the rugby and decided to hit on us but accidently showed us picture of their wives. We really should have stopped drinking earlier though so that I could have been less hungover in preparation for the roller derby on that Saturday.

The roller derby was fucking amazing! I wrote about it on Pretty Pretty Pretty and you can also see photos of how hot I looked. Sure, the leopardskin bustier gave me bruises, but it was totally worth it. I was really happy that when I was taking photos of the girls afterwards they’d mostly all heard of PPP, and so I felt totally full of love for Wellington and the internets.

Afterwards, we went up to Hooch for a Cowboys + Indians night. There was a guy in a horse’s head! Behold!

The horse is made a million times more awesome by the guy in the background

I ran into the girl from #madbad and ended up pinning her to the bathroom wall and pashing her until one of the female bartenders came in and told us we were too drunk and she would lose her bartender’s license. I think that was somewhat of an exaggeration. But I went home and did not accept her text invitations to go up to the duck’s house. I had to get up at 9am to go to the airport to pick up Kat and Kane, after all!

The airport mission was pretty heinous but then Kat and I went into town to meet up with the Wellingtonista at Mac’s Brewery because we’d finally managed to literally organise a piss-up in one. We drank our tab we’d won at the Webstock Quiz the year before, hung out in the lovely weather, introduced new people to the delights of knowing the best people in town, and many people brought along their kids. It was thoroughly delightful to sit in the sun afterwards, eat gelato and plot starting up our own crocodile bike business.

Having Kat and Kane around always makes me feel very mellow and content and full of love. I cooked a big old lamb roast for nine people that night, and we crowded around the table stuffing ourselves, drinking red wine and having hilarious conversation. Kat did all the cleaning before and after, which I felt bad about but I didn’t want to fight her on it too much! I was really happy with the way that everything went, that it reminded me what fantastic lovely people I have in my life. Awww.

But I didn’t have too much time to reflect on it, because on Wednesday, Miss Harvestbird was in town, just in time for the RASSLIN! The rasslin’ was being filmed for TV, so it was held in a warehouse here in Newtown with tiered seating and great lighting for taking photos, but of course I didn’t get around to downloading my pics before my camera was stolen. However, the lovely Miss Fur took pics, of course, so you should check hers out. It includes this gem:

Chris DeLorean and Lazarus Volt - bum pinchers!

After that, it was time to go to the Watusi to listen to some lovely drunk girls read out Olsen slash fiction in bad Russian accents. It was very very entertaining. I got somewhat drunk and melancholy afterwards, which was a bit weird, given how happy I’d been previously. I got to spend the whole day in bed on Thursday though, which was a great way to unwind in preparation for the madness that was to follow.

On Friday I went to the Montana World of WearableArt, which again, you can read about on PPP. I got to go in the media room to hang out with Kowhai and Robyn and Russell Brown and Fiona from Public Address, and drink free wine and stuff my face with spicy nuts. It was a really great show, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards I went to Hooch with Kowhai to have a heart to heart, and apologise to Johnny for being snapped the week before in the bathroom making out with that girl. He just laughed.

I’d texted Smoo to see if he wanted to share a cab home from work and he told me he’d been robbed, and I was thinking he meant his restaurant, but no, it turns out that our flat was broken into, two days after the neighbours had been burgled. They took my laptop, my eeePC, my iPod, my camera, his playstation, El’s camera and iPod. Needless to say Saturday was somewhat of a blur of phonecalls with the police, talking to the police, being told that we need to be more social in our flat, crying down the phone to my mother, welcome visits from Anji and Bambi – who told me that I’d sent him a drunken email on Wednesday night asking him to tell Tingle to call me and that actually it wasn’t Tingle who tried to climb in my window. Naturally because Bambi is smart, he saw the 2am timestamp on the email and decided to wait until I was sober before he replied to it. I think I might put the math goggles thingie onto Gmail. And my lovely mother came over as well, and then Lisa came by in the evening to watch 21 Jump Street. Sure, the cops who came over were nice, and seemed to know what they were doing, but they weren’t no Johnny Depp. Le Sigh.

On Sunday I went to buy a new laptop (no, I don’t have insurance), and spent the afternoon fighting with Vista. Firefox wouldn’t install, so Chrome is totally my new lover for life now. Then a boy said he’d buy me consolation beers so we went to Hashi Ogazeke, and I bought him a beer from Invercargill that tasted like bacon. He was still there in the morning – and then the afternoon – which is something I am very very unused to, and I didn’t know how to act. Plus, I really wanted to check my email. There have been sleepovers with girls, but the last boy I woke up with would have been Good Tom, all the way back in 2004. Apparently when you have sex with married men, they go home to their wives afterwards and don’t spend the night. Who knew? And I don’t like sleeping in other people‘s beds either. Etc. Anyways. Today continued the lesson that Wellington is a very small place, and that I really do know everyone and everything about everybody.

Yesterday I went to the new bar Betty’s with the lovely Amie to try Tohu wines and find out all sorts of gossip. I will write about that sometime on YASE – the wine and venue, that is. And then I went to dinner at Thai House and Quiz Night where I got to have a good gossip with Anji, which I really do need to update. I didn’t manage to sleep at all though, so I was still awake at 11am waiting for the tsunami. I don’t know what to say about that without sounding trite. The place where Karen and I had an amazing holiday - Coconuts Resort is apparently completely destroyed as are of course many other houses and lives that I have no connection to other than, y’know, having  a heart. So I baked cupcakes for Megan instead, and now I am wondering who will get to see my amazing new dress first.

I really have been having the most excellent week, and it’s kind of making me go “how did I get to be so lucky?” I love the post period period. Period. Lols.

On Wednesday night, I built myself a new site, based on an old zine of mine called You Are So Entertaining. Dot Com.It’s a party/recipe/stuff site, and I hope you like it. It will continue to grow. I could build another site based on my other zine, but really, this site is pretty much BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS and 101 Stories That I Want To Tell You anyways. And I don’t get to tell You & Me in the Last Days of Bush ever anyway.

On Thursday I headed out to see Martha at Wanda Harland and plan the opening of her new shop. You can read more about the planning on You’re So Entertaining, in fact.

Then I headed home to prepare Miss Fur’s birthday dinner. We had papas garbanzo, and Karen made PANDA CAKE (based on this bread) and Megan made raspberry umm cobblers, and Shirley just sat and looked pretty. Even though it was her birthday, I still beat Lisa at some singstar songs. Go me!

Yesterday I did some serious work on a comms plan for my old workmate Ros, faffed around with stockings and got dressed up, and then Miss Emma picked me up. I spooged coconut cream all over her house and we had cocktails. Simon did his sexy dance for Lisa, and went to spank me which I found rather awesome, except for the whole being someone’s husband thing. We had tremendous fun and I didn’t even have to use a coaster.

Today I woke up with a hangover and a big pile of compliments (god i ADORE Fatshionista so much! I’m having trouble keeping my clothes on these days). I had trouble starting my car because of the rain, which served me right for asking how many Brents it took to change a lightbulb because he was struggling to fix his headlights, but when I got to Hadyn & Amy’s there was coffee and pastries waiting for me, and it was almost like being in Vanuatu again, only with better coffee and less tropical fruit. Amy and I discussed secret PPP business (we’re coming close to 1000 comments and so the 1000th person will be getting an awesome prize. Also, we’re having another girlie party, possibly on Oct 17ish), and then she cut my hair. Hurray!

After that, she told me many things about her vacuum cleaner, such as how it has a motor in the head as well, that it can stand up by itself without needing to lean on anything, and that she can push it with just one finger. I was entralled. I know I am supposed to say that Beatles Rockband was much more awesome, but really, who doesn’t like a good suck?

Beatles Rockband was fantastic though. I like that there can be harmonising. I also loved singing ‘Here comes the sun’ because of the aforementioned happiness, and how it feels like the ice is finally melting and all. They bought me fish’n chips and I had a very long conversation with Amy about my uncomfortableness with any lack of financial independence, but she said that I give back with generousity. And I did a panda dance for her.

Then! I went out to Newlands to pick up Lisa and also got Shirley and we went to the James Cabaret to see HEAD LIKE A HOLE. Oh my, they were so very awesome after Luger Boa finally got the fuck off the stage. The crowd was all old school, and there were people stagediving, and the bass was all rumbling and my skirt was vibrating, and they played all the songs that i love, and they had a hot girl come out and play the trumpet, and oh, it was just the most giggy gig I’ve been to in a very long time. Love.

And yes, because of all the good feelings that I’ve been having lately, I’ve resolved to try and go a week without saying anything nasty about people I know. I can do this, right? After all, the things I hate the most in other people are the traits that I’m worried that I myself exhibit. And honestly, all this snarking that I do is partly because I’m trying to impress Megan and Emma since they’re both fairly new friends to me, but putting other people down doesn’t really make me happier (although it can be entertaining!) so I might make a conscious effort to stop, for a week, and see how I feel about that. Of course, this only applies to people I know. #TV3news is still very much an open target.

Why hello there! I am back from Vanuatu. It was fantastic. Karen and I stayed at Breakas, got lots of sunshine, ate amazing food, drank a lot of French wine, did the most amazing snorkelling ever and read huge stacks of trashy books, magazines and watched many episodes of The Mighty Boosh at night on my laptop. You can see all the photos in this flickr set, but here’s a couple to whet your appetite:

The restaurant & pool at Breakas at night

This is what holidays are all about. Even though they didn’t have sex in the book til page 270.

One night we went to Iririki Island for dinner as we’d almost been going to stay there. It was beautiful.

Other girls staying at the resort traded magazines with us and gave us booze when they left.

Good times. It was lovely to be offline and away from Wellington. I turned my phone back on when we were taxiing into Auckland Airport and was immediately like UGH! Sometimes I really hate the internet.

And then sometimes there are days when I drive out to Petone with Megan, listening to power ballads all the way, to buy things from Martha at Wanda Harland, and in the evening I go to Lisa Fur‘s house and twirt (ha!) with Emma, and I get to see Wellington twice from the motorway and realise that I really couldn’t leave this city.

What else? The post office haven’t delivered us any mail since July so today I picked up all the packages waiting for me. It was fantastic. I got 21 Jump Street and Dollhouse on DVD, and some fantastic tights that I wrote about on PPP. IThe other day I got all dressed up and took photos of myself, like this:

I’ve been posting outfits to Fatshionista on Livejournal and today someone commented “*fans self* I’ll be in my bunk” and I squeed and squeed in glee. I adore easy self-esteem boosts. I also like it when I do nice things like send KateH flowers in London, and forget that I did it and then be all surprised when she thanks me for it. I really should do more nice things for people.

Finally, a list of things that have been making me happy lately:

• Wheat gollums
• Marlee Marlin impersonations
• Stalkers
• Getting paid in cheese and wine and beer at a GOVIS talk
• Plans to get dressed up like a slut and totally ask to get raped
• Drinking zombies at 11am in the morning to celebrate my new tiki mug, and also to kill my nerves at a thing I was nervous about that is actually happening next week instead.

This post will be written very quickly while I wait for my flatmate to vacate the bathroom or the kitchen or whatever it is that he’s banging around in.

Things that I have been up to lately have included achieving all the things that I set out to achieve in my last journal entry. I also bought some new jeans. Excitement. I’ll write about them on PPP sometime soon. Posting to PPP is tomorrow’s ambition.

Yesterday Anna-Jane came over, and commanded me to take off my top and bra. Then she rubbed me up and down with passionfruit oil. It felt gooooooood. In exchange, I gave her a teapot and cooked her dinner – mountains of fresh salsa, guacamole, yellow rice, roast pumpkin and quesadillas with black beans, corn & zuchini in gluten-free wraps I had to go to Common Sense Organics for as a courtesy to her and Phillip.  I am the bombdiggity cook, for serious. We also drank an awful lot of mulled wine and did some gossiping.

Today I went and picked up Lisa in Newlands and we went out to Wanda Harland in Petone to meet up with Martha and have brunch at Go Bang. I wanted to buy every single thing in the shop. I met Lucy for the first time and got to have a cuddle, and my ovaries went ping ping ping. Then because it was such nice weather and we had a new early ’00s mix cd to listen to, we drove out to Eastbourne, then went and watched Almost Famous at her house, continuing the trend we’d started with Singles on Monday.

I came up with the hilarious title for this post because I wanted to talk about the commentators on Dooce telling her that her bathroom tiling was ugly, and also the amusing comments I’ve read on sites that I hate but read anyway about insecure girls who pretend to be things that they really don’t seem to be living off trust funds, but really, I need to pee and watch ‘Hush’ so I don’t think I can be bothered getting into all of that. Instead I will say that it’s Karen’s birthday tomorrow, hurrah, and so we’re going to Roxy for dinner. Before that Miss Fur and I are going to go to the zoo, if it’s sunny! Excitement. Not that I can afford it at all, but hey, that’s what credit cards are for, right? And so I’ll sign off and ask you to leave me a comment telling me what you want me to write about in the next post. Cheers!

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.

I have been reading my journal from 1999, spurred on by stumbling across Shakespeare in Love on TV and deciding to find what I’d written about it, and realising what was going on with my life at the time, but anyways, I fucking wish I could be that honest and upfront right now. I mean, yes, in the olden days I did write my secret thoughts in the source code, but at least I wrote them. In the past couple of years, I’ve become so boring and sheltered and so fucking cafeful. I miss pre-google days when you could write about how fucking stoned you got with various people and call them by their names.

But I don’t smoke pot anymore, of course, and man, I so fucking miss that. Did you see the parts in my journal in 1999 when I used to be in my pyjamas, and someone would call, and my flatmate would be in love with them so I’d put on my grandfather’s silk dressing gown and get driven across town to go smoke with them and then go home? Good times. I wish the world was that simple right now.

Yes I know that I am full of “oh I wish that things were still that way or that way or whatever it is that I want”. And yes, I realise that might make you think that I am unhappy with the way that things are right now. I wish I could write and explain the things that are causing me drama. I have layers of privacy written into this journal, and I could make posts on different levels, or write in different spaces, put in linked footnotes, or be really obscure, but I don’t want to do that. I wish I could tell you what I dislike about my job, very specifically, but I am reduced to saying “government can be a little bit slow-moving”. I wish I could tell you what the problem is with my homelife, but I will sumarise by saying that Kat and Kane are moving out in February to go to Tauranga to be nearer to Kat’s Mum, and you can’t argue with that. But oh yes, of course it doesn’t actually matter when they’re going, as much as I love them and will miss them so much, because oh yes, that’s right, I’m BEING EVICTED. They’re terminating the lease on this house that I love so much on February 3, so I will need to be gone, and find somewhere new. I left a note for Smoo telling him about it and saying that I hoped he would come with me when I set up a new house, because I love living with him, but he’s gone to Hamilton for Xmas, so I don’t know what he’ll say and I’m a little bit scared that he’ll be all like “oh you know what? Done our dash at this flat, time for me to move on”. But I suppose if that’s the way the road goes, that’s the way the world goes.

I am trying to be very calm and very philosophical about everything in my life right now. It does not help that I have failed to go to the gym for a couple of weeks, that my alcohol intake has increased exponentially with the season, that I can’t remember the last salad that I had, that there’s a full moon and most significantly that I am down to a pill a day, if that, because apparently it is far too too hard to find five minutes to cut them up and fill my seven-day box.

So there have been more than a few tear-bouts. Like when my car got towed from the carpark near work that I’d only parked in because I’d failed to sleep and was running an hour and a half late, and that was all the coins I had. I didn’t know who to call and I didn’t want to bother anyone with my drama, but as I later suggested to my counsellor, if anyone was in my position and they failed to call me, I’d want to punch them in the head because of course I’m always there for them (so I have resolved to treat myself like I’m actually my friend, so that I will see that I am actually important and special and deserving of cherishing and nourishment – the way I view my friends but have difficulty seeign myself). So yeah, I called Shirley, and cried and cried, and through a series of navigational mishaps, we ended up driving out to Petone. I had a big panic attack – or is it an anxiety attack – in her car. My heart rate went out of control, my entire body tensed up to the point where my left side felt like it was a heart attack, my flesh tingled, and I had the most disgusting metalllic taste in my mouth. I was more successful in fighting it because I was in someone else’s company than I normally would be. And we wen to the beach, and I stood ankle deep in the cool water and tried to unclench my body, which had of course gone into total survival clenched mode.

We wandered down Jackson St forever, trying to find a place for dinner that was open which would fit us in, and finally we came across Gusto, down the opposite end from Wanda Harland. Yum! We had a cheese plate which had a brie that gooed everywhere, and antipasto with four kinds of preserved meats. The service was a little new, but very well intentioned. And after we had retrieved my car from the towing yard, $180 later, I stopped by quiz and was so upset and stressed out about my workshop the next day I hardly even noticed when the Quizmaster hugged me.

The next day I had a huge big challenge organising an interactive workshop on wikis for 50 people. I panicked and doubted myself and thought I’d fucked up room bookings when it was of course some people overstaying their time in rooms, but other than that, it went pretty good. And then after work I got drunk over dinner at Longixang with Karen and Kowhai and Lisa, and we drove out ot Martha’s shop opening and I drank more champagne and bought presents for Anji and Karen, and a bear-shaped rug that I am SO going to fuck someone on, while my fire-place video plays on the TV. Maybe I will add in photos some other time.

I didn’t write about the Wellingtonista awards yet either. Such an amazingly good night. I can’t believe that things went as well as they did. It was such a stressful period leading up to ist, but on the night, it appears that we pulled it off quite well indeed. My dress was pretty, and that;’;s what’s most important, right? and OH MY GOD Blam Blam Blam were so astonishingly good,a nd I jumped up and down and up and down and dancd and danced and then I hugged them and the whole time I was dancing I had the biggest grin on my face going “BLAM BLAM MOTHERFUCKING BLAM ARE PLAYING AT AWARDS I FUCKING HELPED ORGANISE!” (although props for the actual night must go to Mitch and Russell) and it was just so fucking lovely to know that 678 people voted, compared to 57 from last year. The Wellingtonista have filled my social calendar this year and I love them all dearly, even when they don’t read their emails properly.

And there are other things that are lovely in my life. Kat and I may have finished our Veronica dates, but the other night on our girlie date night we watched Dirty Dancing and then The Breakfast Club and I know that even when they’re gone in February, they’ll be coming back all the time for wrestling. And fuck, I so don’t want them to leave. Do you know how amazing our vege garden looks right now? I don’t want ot have to leave this house, it’s just not fucking fair. This is my home. How dare they “consider their options”? Shirley’s consoling words have been all about promising me that I’ll find a place with a better kitchen, but how will I find a house big enough to fit in all my crap? I have so much crap. My aim over the holidays is to throw out three things a day, but I dunno if I’ll get that done. Yesterday I was hungover all day from end of work drinks, with Tom buying Bollinger at Arbituaguer, and then much sake at Hede, and teapots at Alice, and more wine at Hawthorn, and today I had half a dozen people (Karen, Tom, Kowhai, Shirley, Frances, Lisa, Kat & Kane) over for drinks in the sun, which of course turned into drinks with candles outside and everyone wearing my hoodies and wow, I’m so fucking huge. My idea of spontaneous entertaining starts with texts at 10am, and then there’s bratwursts and frozen samosas and a trillion cocktails. We’re having Xmas at Mum and Neil’s, even though their deck isn’t finished (I am SO dreading the mess already) and so Karen and I went entree shopping this morning. And I have already finished the white rum, apparently. D’oh!

What more did I have to say? I am so fucking craving some physicality. I want to devour the world. So let’s end it there, yes?

1. Some photos that the lovely Miss Fur took on my request.

My sexy new filing cabinet, all painted up and installed in my room and full of bed linen

My sexy new Sharondalier. Sort of.

(oh okay, she hasn’t uploaded them yet, but when she does, I will edit this)

2. I went to the Great Blend last night. Beforehand, Karen and I met up with Alan and Tom at the Port Cafe where they didn’t have any of the fishes that Karen wanted to eat, but her eventual decision of Bluenose and my Groper were fucking awesome. Their food is so yummy, their decor is so crap. Oh well. At the Great Blend I found the scrumptious Miss Kimberley and she came and sat with us at the back on leather couches where I could drink and giggle and whisper to my heart’s content without bothering so many people.

My text to Martha: RB namechecked me in his opener – “We moved venues so that Jo of Hubris has a better place to swim” I’ve fucked at least 2 ppl here. I was pleasantly surprised it was only two people. I was expecting up to four.

My text to Robyn: Russell Brown just gave you massive shoutouts, woo! xojo

I hadn’t hung out with Alan very much previously, so it was awesome that I got a chance to last night, and hopefully I didn’t make too much of a drunken nuisance of myself with my hilarious commentary – and my yelling anger when the guy from TVNZ showed a total lack of understanding about egovt guidelines (I’m gearing up for my new job already, obviously) although later when he said he was the boss of the captioning division his lack of knowledge made more sense. Alan was shocked when I announced my intention to hit on Damian Christie (He likes banging fat chicks! I should be so in!), and told me I could do better, which is sweet, but awww, poor Damian, haven’t we bashed him enough? At the bar Kowhai Montgomery introduced herself and we had a good talk, and she was awesome. I also saw CJ who used to do the job I used to do, and who’d been on the Silverstripe bowling team in the Wellingtonista league, and so now she is totally my WBLTMNBFFIMDAHTRFL (that’s ‘would be like totally my new best friend forever if Martha didn’t already have that role for life’ in case you’re not down with the kids’ slang). It was funny watching Karen’s face during the talk, because she’s not overly internetly inclined, and she doesn’t even own a TV. Plus she had to drink Chardonnay. I told Tom from TVNZ that I hope that they show all three alternative endings to the Shortland Street serial killer (incidently, I am so loving it – I was totally shocked when Claire showed up dead – really didn’t expect that, though I keep getting Meg confused with the new MILF character so I didn’t care about her, and I knew Jay was going to die when they gave her a long, lingering goodbye) and then babbled something about Idol slash and something more about how awesome Robyn is. He and Damian kept going outside to have cigarettes whenever I went to talk to them, so my seduction plan totally failed.

Eventually someone yelled out that a taxi was leaving, so I ditched Karen totally and ran off with Russell and CJ and Tom TVNZ and ummm someone else was in the cab – maybe Kowhai – and we went to Mighty Mighty. Of course. More drinking was done, and I saw Luke Buda there, and decided it would be an awesome time to congratulate him for his costume in Eagle Vs Shark (which is great and you should see it) – if you’ve seen it, you’ll know that he is in a bear costume in one scene, which is hilarious on so many levels because a) I love me some Phoenix Foundation and b) I love me some bears and c) I love me some people in animal costumes and d) I love me some pretending that Sam Scott is a giant bear, and so therefore e) Luke Buda dressed up as Sam Scott! So awesome! But he failed to see how awesome it was. Strange that, I mean I always love it when drunk girls come up to me and slur at me and act like dicks. Also he said he didn’t get to choose his costume and sounded a little grumpy about it. So luckily there were other people there for me to talk more shit to, and so I proceeded to do that at great length. Yeah.

3. I still haven’t found a flatmate. I don’t understand why not.

Things that I have been up to lately:

Oh boy, have I ever been busy! Where to start? Perhaps with photos. On the 14th of July, Bart had a party at his house, which was Rubik’s Cube themed. We were instructed to dress in all the colours of the cube and try to swap with others to end up in just one colour. Thinking that it wasn’t likely that I’d find anyone to swap clothes with, I hit the $2 shops in search of multi-coloured accessories, and wore them with all black clothes. It proved to be a great idea, as this photo that Lani took will prove:
l

As befits the party host, Bart went all out with his costume:

Gradually people built up their costumes:

Bart, Dylan and dirty Shirley

I was trading my mardi gras beads for looks at boy titty (and also for those hot pants that Dyl’s wearing in that photo). At the start of the night we hid out in the kitchen because people were watching rugby in the lounge, so I hijacked the stereo and tried to play the cheesiest music on Bart’s ipod. At one stage I ended up wearing a flower garland, but it was covering up my cleavage so when I saw a boy wearing a Hawaiian shirt I asked him if he wanted to get leied. He was confused then, but of course, after many more drinks I found myself downstairs in the hallway making out with him. As there were many people up on the landing above us, I tried to move us into the gap between the stairs and the wall, thinking it was more out of view, but instead I found myself lying on my back, looking up at people looking down on me while he tried to take off my shirt. As texts from Lani later in the week (she went to Auckland first thing in the morning) said after I accused her of being a pervert & always watching me when I was trying to celebrate hooking up someone without her walking in on us – “LOL i wasnt the only one wtching!” (who else was watching?) “I dnt knw sme rndoms. I jst cme 2 c wat they wre lking at lol” AWESOME. Anyways, the boy and I went into one of the bedrooms down there, and made out a bit more – strictly second base only and then Bart walked in and looked really shocked and I felt terrible because honestly, so tacky to misappropriate someone else’s bedroom for your pashage. Of course, later when I apologised to Bart via email he said he knew what was going on and just thought it would be funny to walk in. Anyways, we finished kissing (<!– And when I say “we finished kissing” what I really mean is that we were frotting on the bed, or dry-humping if that’s a word you’re more comfortable using, and it was very much hands above the waist kissing, and then he started thrusting more and more, and groaning, and I had my hands in his hair and was like “ummmmm” and he thrust away a bit more and then made orgasm noises, and I was like “really? REALLY?” and then he got up and left and I laughed and laughed and laughed. –>) and I went back to the party and hit on Lani’s cousin, apparently. Much later, I really really needed to pee, but people were in the bathroom talking, and I was like “what the hell?” and since the door didn’t lock, I barged in. The guy I’d pashed was sitting in the bath talking to some other guy who was sitting on the floor, and I was like “I NEED TO PEE!” but they showed no signs of moving, so I went ahead and urinated anyway. That’s right, I’m Robin Tunney in Empire Records. I’m hardcore, yo! The party was a tremendous amount of fun. At the end of the night around 4.30am I was left with Dyl and Smoo and Bart who were playing yelly metal in the lounge. Bart disappeared to go buy cheeseburgers (I can has?) and Smoo tried to hit me when I tried to wake him up to take a taxi home, and Dyl had much the same reaction when I tried to get him up off the lounge floor so I left them and went home to giggle about how that makes three pashes in six weeks and at this rate, I’m going to kiss 26 people before I turn 28. Hurrah!

I am allowed to play silly buggers on the weekend because I had a very grown up week to follow that. I met with four recruitment agents! That’s a lot of having to get out of my pyjamas and comb my hair! Apart from that, I also went to the VIP night at Beckon where Hadyn, Amy, Tom and I all won spot prizes, and I took this fantastic photo:

Karen came to meet up with me and she and Hadyn and Amy and I went for a very pleasant meal at Longxiang afterwards:

I liked the orange beef best

The next night I went to the Ponoko beta product launch night at the Paramount, with the lovely Sue and the very intelligent Alan. Sue gave me an awesome bunny necklace, and I gave her some scrub in return. Then a group of us went for dinner at Royal India and I bossed my way through ordering for everyone like I tend to do.

On Friday I saw people from the Wellingtonista yet again, on our big night out, first at Vintage, then Hawthorn and then of course Boulot. And all I can say is that it’s just as well that Martha is my BFF, or she’d be in for a serious talking-to.

MG plied us with wine

Kim and Tom held court

Martha is queen of the dramatic

My mouth is the size of my head. Photo plundered from Stephen

And then on Saturday I called Karen many names because she wouldn’t surrender my copy of Harry so I changed my sheets for nothing. I got him on Sunday but had to go to Ngaio to do washing and to print out a presentation on how the government could use YouTube. I had two job interviews on Monday that I heard back from straight away, and started a six-week contract yesterday, and received a verbal offer from the other this afternoon. Fingers crossed that my references check out and the paperwork comes through!

Now I am 27, and thusly, I have been living life to excess. It’s the rules of being the age of a dead rockstar, after all.

First, I should tell you about my party. It was many many boxes of supplies that I lugged over to Karen’s house which involved many trips and much lugging. Things like couches, blenders, and stacks and stacks of canned goods from a long excursion to Pak’n Slave (man I hate that supermarket!) found their way up into her spacious apartment. More crap got dropped off. I spent Friday night on the couch at home with Lisa and Jay watching Twin Peaks. Mmmm Agent Cooper. I haven’t been out on a Friday night for around a million years, but I knew I would need my energy for the next day. Saturday involved Karen and I trekking around Moore Wilson’s for a long time because obviously four boxes of food and booze wasn’t enough, and then I cleaned her bathroom and we set up the house for the party. I went home to chill out, get ready, pick up al the stuff i’d forgotten (so many lists!) and grab Lani, and we went back early to make sure everything looked perfect. This is what the bar looked like at the start of the night:

Oh HELL yes! Glassware, mixers, syrups, tools, booze, garnishes, fruit, canned mixers, pear brandy champagne fixings in the blender

Karen and Lani both looked like total rockstars, as you can see in this photo:

So obviously it was time to start drinking. Intially, it was me who made most of the cocktails.

This Appletini made with Rhubarb Syrup was possibly my favourite drink of the night.

People started showing up, including Karen’s flatmate in a stunning Beyonce outfit, and Anji and her friends, and some more of my friends, bringing booze with them to add to the collecion. And then, holy crap, Dimebag and a friend showed up! I thought he was dead!

Bart and Blair are awesome like WOAH

The lovely people from the Wellingtonista showed up too, and foolishly placed themselves far away from the bar which meant that by the time I got to them with a blender full of whatever deliciousness was on offer, it was mostly empty. But they still managed to humour me through flat camera batteries long enough for me to take this picture:

I so wish that you could see Martha’s “Human” and “Being” tattoos in this photo to add to her fierceness

And here’s some more photos out of order probably.

I started sharing cocktail-making duties with this very attractive young lady who was called tAtu 1. Well, that wasn’t really her name but I kept forgetting what it really was. Later she and the boy she was with-ish showed off their genital piercings, so Bart pulled out his as well. When I heard that he was showing everyone but me I demanded a look and so I saw his weiner in the kitchen. It was indeed pierced.

There is a sixteen year old in this photo. Guess who it is? In other discussions, see how many people there are packed into the kitchen? It was pretty much like that all night, which made it rather hard to mop up after one particularly drunk gentleman, who’d been Captain McGrabby Hands all night causing some people some distress got a drink thrown in his face, and then also spilt water all over the floor. And puked in the bath, but his fiancee cleaned that up, luckily.

See all the red plastic cups? Yeah that’s right it was a special-enough occasion to break those bad boys out. And yet we still resorted to all drinking from each other’s cups without washing them. Now everyone is sick. Also, how disturbing are Bart’s cutoffs? SO disturbing, and yet so erotic!

On the stroke of midnight, I was in the kitchen making cocktails, when a very drunk Lisa who’d shown up late announced it was my birthday as it was now the 17th. I was giving someone a hug when all of a sudden everyone rushed me all at once. I was thinking it was a group hug, but it turned out it was a group hump. Apart from squealling a lot, I ended up being speechless for about five minutes afterwards. It was a GOOD kind of shock though, honest!

What else were highlights? Seeing Kartini and Mike again. Drinkign many delicious cocktails. Having Shirley there, who’s told me a couple of times since then how nice all my friends are and how they all said lovely things about me. Aww shucks. So here’s some more photos:

Check it out, it’s my old boss (from VUWSA) front’n centre. See how demonstratably employable and sociable I am? Yeah!

This was near the end of the night long after most people had left, and we sat around the table making up shakers to share.

So yes, that was my party. At the end of the night I managed to convince a young lady to come home with me, and so we played records “and stuff”. We were happy in the morning and it didn’t seem awkward but then Lani walked in on us, which means that i’ve decided that my new Matariki resolution, since I’ve achieved the waking up with someone one is to score someone in my house and not have Lani walk in on it. Sheesh, you’d think she’d knock before she walks into the lounge or my bedroom next time. Heh. So anyways, the girl texted Anji to come pick her up, so I texted Anji to bring us coffee. She jumped in bed with us and it was very amusing. Then we went for brunch at Roxy, and to clean Karen’s apartment which reeeeeeeeeeeeeeked of booze.

I was super super tired but I didn’t nap after that, I don’t think. Instead I bonded iwth my couch and the Gilmore Girls before my parents came to pick me up with Anji and Karen in tow, and we went for my birthday dinner at the Tinakori Bistro. It was BYO so I tried to drink the hangover away, and we had lots and lots of food. I got handy presents from people – a seven day pill box from Karen so now I know when I’ve taken my meds and when I haven’t, and an iPod cover to go with my early birthday present of a Nano from my parents, and Anji gave me an awesome carved hairstick, and a purple melamine tray. Karen also gave me a Wham! vinyl, and oh boy, I can’t believe people didn’t realise that George Michael was gay a lot earlier. Dinner was lovely, and I got to tease someone there a lot about someone else that they’d hooked up with the night before (key line used in anything even loosely vaguely able to be interpreted in a dirty way like “I just stuffed it in the envelope” is treated to a round of “That’s what * said!”. heheeh. Between that and the OHMYGODSOMETIMESMYYOUNGESTDAUGHTERISLIKE,ALESBIAN, my poor parents were rolling their eyes a lot. It was a lovely time.

Then what did I get up to this week? I wanted to go to Webstock Mini on Tuesday but I realised I so did not have a spare $75. We had a delightful flat dinner on Monday with much much humourous banter and Lani laughing at me and thinking that people actually know more than they’re letting on. I had a job interview on Wednesday and had to work in the afternoon because I was off sick for Monday and Tuesday with my brain trickling out of my nose. On Thursday I umm I dunno, nothing? No wait! I went to MG’s work with Alan and Sue and Martha and was seriously impressed with the cleverness of them all. We had some wine and some cheese and then went to Medina for dinner. Thanks again MG! I love the way that by describing the night in one sentence I made it sound so cilivised. Heh. When I got home I found that not only had Smoo removed the dead mouse that Seb had caught last night (I presume he ate the other one that was still alive when I ran away tearfully because the mouse kept going up to its dead friend before Seb would pull it back in again. And when I say that he ate it, I mean Seb, not Smoo. Although if Smoo wants to eat dead mice I won’t judge him) but he also cleaned the house so I was very very stoked. And of couse I’ve since messed it up again. And then on Friday Lisa and I hung out with Agent Cooper some more.

Yesterday Shirley and I went for brunch at the Maranui Surf Cafe, and a lack of tables led us to sit outside and freeze to death happily over our deluxe fish burgers. Then we decided to throw a mini cocktail night to try and finish off the booze leftover so I didn’t have to find a home for it all in the overful cabinet. We invited Lisa and Bart over, and Smoo was off work which was exciting, and of course Blair showed up as he tends to do all the time. We had tasty Grasshoppers, and Lisa updated my journal for me, and umm, good times. Lisa and Shirley are making fun of me for something, but that is okay. And today I’m at my parents’ house doing laundry and eating their food. I was supposed to be working on my zine, but hte file corrupted over email, apparently. So instead I’m watching terrible reality TV. But I think my second load is dry, so I might take off now. Woo ha!