Hubris.co.nz

Auckland is always such a city of contrasts. I got to Wellington Airport with much time to spare, so I read the paper cover to cover, perching preacriously on a stupidly slippery stainless steel stool, after surrendering my armchair to an army of annoying angry women who surrounded me and chatted incessantly and loudly. Of course being there early meant my flight was late coming in, and so in a hurray I decided to take a shuttle to my hotel instead of the airport bus. $26 bought me a seat with nine others, a long trip through Grey Lynn past Heather’s house and Canton where I was due for dinner, and I was the last person to be dropped off. Dammit!

But there was no time to fume. The Quadrant’s lobby was stark white and filled with scented candles. I rolled my bag down the long white walkway through the bar area and into a lift that had an embedded TV screen playing Juice. My room was tiny but functional. I discovered to my perverse joy later that I could sit on the toilet, blowdry my hair, drink vodka and watch TV all at the same time. What more could anyone want? A quick shower later, I was in a corporate cab from the Hyatt next door on my way to Kingsland. The sun was setting and reflected in all the shiny new architecture along Symonds Street. It was a beautiful view, but holy fuck, $18 for that distance? That amount would have got me to Greenlane in the olden days!

I grabbed two bottles of wine from Weta Wines, pleased it was still there and still open, and headed to Canton. There were still people at the table I’d booked (bastards!) so I went and stood on the street outside. Bopha came up and left to get cash and wine. Amy & Ross came along and left to get wine. Then came Martina and Heather. Robyn and Heather’s b/f Ben eventually completed our party, since Clay and Nige flaked.

I had been salivating over the prospect of dinner at Canton since I booked my tickets up to Auckland, and while the large group and noise of the place made converastion difficult, the food didn’t disappoint. As usual, I was appointed/appointed myself chief orderer, so with some deference to Martina’s vegetarianism, we had: black bean hapuku, sweet & sour pork, sizzling venison with ginger & spring onions, crispy roast pork, special black chilli chicken, sizzling vegetables and egg noodles with fried veges. YUM! Two people took doggie bags home, and with tea and dim sum and rice and corkage, we each paid $19.25. So good!

Afterwards we were going to go to Ruby for more drinks, but it was too loud, and so we settled on the Kingslander for a couple more bottles of wine. There were television screens EVERYWHERE, it was most distracting. But good to be able to converse. I like my friends. I cabbed back to the hotel eventually, and debated ordering porn from the in-house video system, just because I could, but it was $17.95 per movie, so I settled for watching Wild On: Naked instead. Genius.

The next morning, I set my alarm for 10.30 so I could wake up to meet Heather who was coming to the hotel at 11. We discovered that breakfast stopped being served at 10am, so tragedy of tragedies, we had to go straight for bubbly and cheese. As we sat in the sunny courtyard and I started to burn, we heard someone playing an electric guitar, and the sound bounced off the building next door. Given that Heather’d spotted John Toogood and Phil Knight in the lobby, we were happy to think that it was Shihad playing in our hotel, but it sounded pretty terrible, so maybe it was Grinspoon instead, who were due to be opening for Muse that night.

Once the sun got to be a bit too much, we tried to pay our bill, which took forever (the staff were friendly but not highly competant), and we got changed and went into the spa. Hurray! Yeah, a spa on a hot day after drinking caffiene and alcohol might not be the smartest idea ever, but it was loooooooovely. And then it was quite obviously time for lunch, so we strolled down to the Art Gallery, hoping to have lunch there, but found it was shut. Luckily Rueben at the New Art Gallery was open, so we parked ourselves on one of the balconies there, I had an average lamb salad, Heather had amazing french toast, and we had a totally unnecessary but very happy bottle of Deutz as well. Mmmmmm indulgence! And then just to show that we’re not totally cultureless, we went around the art gallery too. Upstairs was an exhibition called Making Worlds, which was really bloody cool. They had a seven minute animation loop called “City Glow” going on in a darkened room, which I totally could have watched all day. Although it made me feel far too Jessica Simpsony lame and pointless when I saw it was produced by Takashi Murakami and I was like “He did those brightly coloured Louis Vittion prints!”. Like I need to know that.

Eventually Heather and I parted company, and I went back to the hotel for naps and snacks, before KateH came to pick me up in the evening. We went to her beautiful house which is down by the water, and had a few drinks while we waited for the Checks and Grinspoon to get off the stage. Drive-thru burgers from Wendy’s ensured that our timing was perfect to actually get a park by the Waitakere Stadium, and we’d only missed two of Muse’s songs. We’re both so old now that we didn’t mind that at all. When did I stop queuing for things hours before they began? Was it around the same time that my knees started to go? But anyways, the gig was AMAZING. So good. When they played ‘Hysteria’, I had an auralgasm of the kind I hadn’t experienced since Dimmer. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Totally matched up to my dirty dream that featured it prominently in it. And we saw Amanda and Darren, which was nice, and left when they turned on the lights. And then we were naughty and had an after-hours spa back at the hotel, which was fantastic for sore feet and knees, especially since it was merely lukewarm. Best Friday EVER!

The next morning was Saturday, and I slept in, loving the bed, before I decided it was time to drag my ass out into the streets. I strolled down to Gloria to have breakfast, where my French toast wasn’t as good as Heather’s, but the coffees were nice and I read the paper cover to cover. Then I got on the link bus to go to the museum, but I started feeling all nostalgic and weird, because of all the memories of the route (which are detailed in ‘Link’ in 101 Stories that I want to tell you of course) and so I decided to just stay on the bus and go all the way around the city. Well, I got off briefly in Ponsonby to buy vodka and bread, but you know what I mean.

Finally it was time for me to meet Martina and David and also Karl at the Queen Street bus stop to go to the Lynfield YMCA for the wrestling. Oh yes. I went west, life is peaceful there. I went west, people had terrible hair. The ride on the 257 was pretty full of nostalgia too, given the two flats I lived in on/off Dominion Road. It was also interesting hearing other people’s stories, like where they lost their virginities. And drinking vodka from a ginger ale bottle made me feel like a fourteen year old again, and who doesn’t like that? We got to Lynfield with some time to spare, so we hunted out food for the boys, and I sang the YMCA song a lot with the actions, and we took this photo in front of the vets. And now I might just revert into a photo montage to sum up the awesomeness of the wrestling, and my brand new boyfriend with a spectacular ginger mullet.

After a cold long wait for the bus, we all started falling asleep on the back seat. Nevertheless, Martina and David came back to my hotel room for a while, and helped me polish off the remaining food and vodka, and I stayed up late watching E! again. Good times.

On Sunday I was expecting to have brunch with Bopha and Clayton, but she was stuck out west somewhere, and Clayton made other plans, so after checking out at 12 and leaving my suitcase with reception, I returned to Gloria to have a very very long breakfast by myself with the Sunday Star Times. Finally it was getting near time to find myself an airport bus, so I went to get my suitcase, and I asked them where the airport bus stop was, and they told me down on Symonds Street. So I rolled my case up to a stop in the hot hot sun, but couldn’t find any markings on it to indicate that the airport bus might stop there. I rang Maxx, and they gave me the number for the airport bus company, and I couldn’t find a human, but it did mention the route, listing the Hyatt which was right next to the Quadrant, so disgruntledly I rolled back up to the Hyatt, and the doorman told me the stop was right in front of the Quadrant. Cheers clever desk staff! So I was hot and stinky and smelly then, and worried that I might not make it to the airport in time, when a shuttle pulled up in front of me and told me he’d drive me to the airport for $15, the same as the bus, since he was going that way anyway. Yay! That shuttle totally redeemed the shuttle in. And so that was the end of my time in Auckland. Very good fun indeed.

Today I started my new job. I get the most awesome chair ever. It’s all posh and adjustable and sexy. Yeah that’s right, the chair was the most exciting part of my job, except for all the very interesting conversations that I had with people about interesting things and stuff that’s going to happen.

Of course in order to start my new job today, I had to finish my old job last week. I was sad to leave. They gave me a lovely card and a present and said so so so so many nice things about me. We had wine and gossiped and went to Siem Reap with the account manager of the design agency we use who I used to know when I worked at VUWSA for dinner and had more wine and more gossip, and then we went to Mighty Mighty for more wine, and I saw really random graffiti on the wall in the toilet that said “I don’t have any Heroes / they are all useless” on the wall and thought “hey, that handwriting looks familiar” but I wasn’t sure because of the lack of punctuation, and also just the plain randomness of it, so I wrote the phrase on a piece of paper and got others to confirm for me that yes, unfortunately that was my handwriting. D’oh! Don’t remember that at all. Maybe it was post Great Blend.

Anyways, it was a super fun night and a lovely way to end six of the best working weeks of my life. It was – as I said to them – just like a beautiful summer romance. But getting up early on Saturday morning to go to Zinefest wasn’t so fun. My new dress arrived that morning, and I decided to wear it, which wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made – after I set up my zine table, I went and had breakfast in Doria, then was using the church bathroom when I looked down and was like “JESUS CHRIST!” at the amount of cleavage I was showing, and I was like “oops, sorry!” looking up. And so I put my hoodie back on for most of the rest of the day. Zinefest was kind of fun, talking to new people, but I was so tired that I wasn’t very talkative. And it was strange watching people reading my zines right in front of me. Because I primarily do my dirty-talking to strangers via the interwebs, I’m not used to seeing their faces when they read it. This was much more immediate. But it was nice to see people giving me their hard-earned money, and people asking me where I stock. And now you can read my zines in the Wellington Public Library collection, if you’re that way inclined!

Then I went home for naps, and to tidy up the house, before going to pick up Lisa and Jay and Jasmine who’d already been drinking. We made the house all purty with lights, and the party began. Highlights included the tasty Martina from Auckland showing up, meeting Other Lisa’s very tall boyfriend, having a cute Dutch boy compliment my boobs a lot and then grab them a lot – and then a little while later he fell asleep on Lisa’s shoulder when we took him outside for fresh air. A Scottish brother and sister sang the national anthem together – loudly and a couple of times. Dylan told me he loved me when I “licked my own nipple”. I use quotation marks, because to tell you the truth, and all secretly now, I didn’t actually. You know that Ashley’s tip is waaaaaaaaaaay low down, and I would have had to haul myself out of the halter in order to properly do it (I can’t get close on Mary-Kate) so I settled for dipping my tongue inside my bra, and that satisfied the crowd.Lisa’s crowd sang loudly. The Scots brother broke a glass, the Scots sister broke a chair – admittedly I think it was the already broken chair. But they were hilarious and cute, so it’s okay. Everyone molested Sebastian, who responded by bringing in a live mouse that I had to take outside. I got to meet Anji’s new gentleman caller, Bambi, and Lisa squealed and jumped up and down in glee when I gave her the cake I made:

I also gave her Liam Finn’s I am Lightning but since she already had it, I offered her up my brand new Appetite for Destruction – which she gave me back in the morning saying she couldn’t take it from me. So after we’d cleaned up the house and got pizza from the Med Warehouse, we went to Real Greedy and found her CSS, and I bought The Gossip for myself, woo. And I have my ticket to their gig, so hurrah!

Okay, earlyish night for me tonight, new jobs are exhausting. So much paperwork!

I’m now writing this almost two weeks later than events, which is strange cos I didn’t realise that time went by so quickly. Nevermind, let’s plunge into my last couple’o days in the Auck town shall I?

Monday 6th December
I finally managed to have myself a merry little sleep in, tucked away in Oratia, which was certainly very pleasant, even though I felt terrible cos I got a text from Martina going “Okay I’m ready! Meet me on K’Road” and I had to reply going “umm I just woke up, see you in an hour or so?” But eventually I made my way into town and picked her up, and since it was a gorgeous sunny day we drove over to Devonport and had lunch at Manuka. Then, because it was so very nice and because we both found ourselves being the only other people we knew who wanted to do it, we set off to look for a beach. Now, you’ll of course recall that I once spent the summer working for the North Shore City Council and that my job then seemed to consist of little more than driving around all day getting suntanned. However, that was a long time ago, so we went for a rather extended drive up the motorway to Greville Road and then a long way back down East Coast Bays Road (which pretty much doesn’t go past the sea at all!) trying to find a nice little beach, before I took drastic action and found our way to Milford Beach.

There weren’t very many people there, which was great, and there was a changing shed with showers and an open-roofed area like an Italian courtyard which was great, so we got suited up and tried to get away from any boys on the beach. The water was very very cold and it made me hyperventilate a little bit (“sorry Martina, I know I sound like I’m heavy-breathing at you…”) but it warmed up a little, at least enough to frolick and try to do headstands in. When I started trying to do yoga poses and pretty much ended up nearly drowning myself, it was time to call it a day. The showers weren’t warm, but at least they weren’t salty. We headed back to the right side of the bridge to Occam for some more food and a perusal of Civic’s video sale (Cruel Intentions, Far from Heaven and umm something else for $12) before Martina left me for a ride home. I was waiting for Iva to call me so we could meet up, so I found myself a park to sit in and cuddled up with The Dirt. It’s soooo good. I wish I was in Motley Crue, for serious.

It turned out that Iva was trapped on the shore, so we decided to see each other the next day instead, and I eventually made my way towards KateH’s, via a phone call to La to see if he wanted to come along to the party we were going to that night, for a girlie website that I won’t name – which, after I uttered the magic words “free booze” of course he did, so I told him where the party was at and he said he’d meet us there. At Kate’s I believe we probably watched Shortland St together, and got poshed up, me making the last minute decision to switch from my party frock to my cleavage top (and of course SHRN yellow scarf), which I think in hindsight was quite fortuitous, and we set off to pick up her friend Olly, who is British but edits a certain ‘lifestyle’ paper. Haha, that’s me exercising my ‘get out of jail free’ card again. I get to say “but” because we all know that I find British accents ridiculously hot, BUT I try not to waste my time hankering after boys if I know straight away (as opposed to at Ruby on Friday) that they’re gay. Y’dig? Yeah. Anyways. We had to trek around and around and around The Secret Garden looking for La, cos the entrance isn’t actually on the street that it says it’s on, but eventually we kind of gave up and went in, keen to get started on the free liquor. Or at least I was. Given that KateH was driving, I imagine that she was a little more restrained. I got severely fucked off because Horrible Gay Jonny (and let me point out here that the ‘gay’ tag is used because before him I’d had another Horrible Jonny flatmate) was serving drinks and grrrrrrrr he makes me so mad with his theiving and then his fakeness. Bah. I’ve vented about this already. But I am setting the scene for what comes later by giving a partial reason as to why I downed so so so many glasses of bubbly very quickly ie: I was angus and also a little bored until La showed up. KateB was at the party too, but she left pretty early, so mostly I just talked to Olly and KateH (although they knew lots of people) and La, until much later in the night when we were out the back adn the bubbly had run out and I’d switched to beer and was talking to a whole bunch of random guys and a couple of other people I knew. Now, in further stage setting, let me tell you about the toilets at the Secret Garden – they have shower curtains for doors. Yuck! I’d had one piece of cheese that went straight to my bowels and I was like aaaaargh, but then I thought “Well, you know what? These girls here jostling for space to adjust their makeup, I don’t respect them, why should I care about what they think of me?”. Later though the toilets were all floody and still really crowded, so I couldn’t have a quiet puke, which meant that all the beer and bubbly stayed in my stomach. Foreshadowing.

Eventually almost all the people I knew had left – KateH with the oh so subtle “call my cellie when you get to my house – or if you should happen to be staying in (certain address implying that I would be in someone else’s bed), I can come and pick you up from there”. Aww bless her. I imagine I said something like “Well, I’d like to say that’s not going to happen but I’d probably be lying”. Needless to say pretty much as soon as she’d left, perhaps, I found myself making out with a boy, and soon we were in a taxi on our way to his house. Now, I’ve made out in taxis with three other boys before (oh hush, not all at the same time) and the drivers have always been the embodiment of discretion. This driver was an ASSHOLE. Okay, admittedly I can’t remember exactly what it was that he was saying, but I think it was of the nudge nudge wink wink “go on my son” type commentary which was really really unnecessary, and which probably contributed a little to my later unease. Anyways so I found myself in a house that is very familiar to me, and in fact on a bed that I’d been on before, peeing in a bathroom where I’d peed so many times before mid-coitally, and it was just a little bit strange. Before I knew what was what, he had a condom on, and I was like “woahhhhhhh, wait a minute….” I know that I’ve bitched for a year and a half about my total lack of sex, but what with it staring me in the face like that (so to speak, of course), and the feelings that being back in that house stirred up again, I suddenly realised I couldn’t do it, and I told him so. I’ve been without sex for so long I’m a second-time virgin, and I just think it’d be really wrong to do it with someone that I’m not in love with – or failing love then at least Ridiculously Hot wrists-tied-above-my-head, him-whispering-in-my-ear-about-all-the-things-he’s-going-to-do and then how-he’s-going-to-pass-me-onto-all-his-friends-cos-I’m-such-a-fucking-whore Dirty Passion Violent Fucking. Giggly-drunk-friend-scoring isn’t good enough, unfortunately. So instead, I went down on him (well, I would have anyway) but I was in much more of a hurry for him to hurry up and come so that he’d stop begging me to let him fuck me. He still had the condom on at the start, and that was strange, and of course, his dick was hitting the back of my throat, and I was still full of beer and bubbly, so what happened? Oh yeah, I started gagging and my mouth filled with vomit. Now, I thought I’d just swallowed it back (heh) but after he’d finally finished, he was like “umm, I’m going to go sleep in the lounge, cos you threw up on this side of the bed” and I was like “omg, wtf?” and then I got all offended and was like “FINE! If you won’t sleep with me then I guess I’ll go to Kate’s” (cos you know, I totally had the moral highground on my side – hahahaha) and after he’d left, I groped around in the dark (some more, haha man, how many fucking double entendres can one entry have? I guess this is like, a year and a half’s worth poured into one night) trying to find my clothes, since he doesn’t have a lightbulb in his room. I left without a skirt (luckily I was wearing pants underneath) but with pearl necklaces (haha, see previous-to-previous brackets) and hiked up to the main road to get some cash and find a taxi and hope that my cellphone battery didn’t die, which it seemed to be doing. Somehow though I managed to get a taxi, and the driver seemed much nicer when I complained about the previous one, and KateH got up and let me in and all seemed well in the world.

Tuesday 7th

I woke up around 10.30am, feeling pretty damn sorry for myself, let me tell you. Kateh had left a room outside the room that I was sleeping in with her worknumber on it, so I gave her a call cos I knew she was supposed to come home and turn the alarm on when I left. When I told her that yes, I had gone home with the boy, she briefly wondered why I hadn’t just stayed the night there then, but accepted my explanation that it was weird. I don’t know if I mentioned the puke thing or not – I probably tried to conceal it so that she didn’t worry about her flatmate’s bed. Who knows? Anyways, it transpired that she wouldn’t be able to make it home until lunchtime so I had a cold shower (like I should have had the night before, but nevermind) and settled down with my laptop to write the ‘Things Not To Do Whilst Sucking Cock’ entry that only my Hubrettes can read, and to contemplate how much my black and silver skirt meant to me vs the having to go back to the boy’s house and pick it up. Well, when KateH finally got home it was 2.30pm so I realised I couldn’t put it off anymore, so it was off to the boy’s house with me. Him and all his flatmates were all sitting out on the back porch in the sun. I had no idea what he’d told them, but I do know that the walls there are paper thin (and that the girl he shares a wall with is a prudey little virgin, hahahah). I tried to play it all casual, just “hey, how’s it going?”. He was laughing at me when I had to say “so um, did I leave my skirt in your room?” so I double-casualed it by saying “haha, that sounds really bad”. Yeah I’m going to pretend that your flatmates didn’t hear me faking an orgasm if I want to, okay? Sweet. They were like “oh what are you up to today?” which meant I had a trump card up my sleeve – I told them I was going to go see Iva, which was true but also I knew that there was bad blood between them all, so they started going blah blah blah which took the heat off me and I got to leave holding my head up high. Phew!

Next up on my agenda was a visit to Wendy’s and then to the shore to see Iva Beaver. we sat in the sun and talked about Bernard, amongst other things. Ahh sweet sweet dusty cups. Then I went to meet up with OLIVIA and STEVE and KYLA, once I finally found her house, that is (stupid Americans saying “eighteen” instead of “seventeen”, or more likely stupid hungover not-awake&capable of listening me). After cruising Franklin Road to see the lights and marvel at the audacity of the house with a COFFEE CART in front of it, we went to Joy Bong for dinner, where I struggled to question how the tofu was done in a tofu and eggplant dish I was eyeing up (when I’m around vegans I eat vegan). I got a different dish instead cos I was afraid it’d be the squishy kind I don’t like, and as Olivia said of my tofu, it turns out i want it done like it’s a bouncy castle. It was so great to see them again, cos I haven’t seen them since umm forever, but they were tired from the flight, and I was tired from the debauchary and found myself only able to say “the thing with the stuff” and “so hot right now”. Whatever happened to Verbacious Joanna? We fought over the bill and I thought I won and paid it but the next day I found some cash in my bag so either they slipped it in or I am just terrible with money. Then we went back to Kyla’s to watch half of Harry Potter 3 and make dirty jokes about paedophilia. Have some chocolate little boy, and all of that. Of course the night didn’t last nearly long enough, but sigh, I guess I’ll get to see them again in a couple of years or something.

Wednesday 8th
Having stayed at Kateb’s again, I got up in time to do some research on a Certain Band Who Have A Lot of Members adn Wear Robes because I was interviewing their frontman. He was a little grumpy and the line wasn’t that good. Sigh. Then I drove back to Welly and Sebby was overjoyed to see me. The end.