Hubris.co.nz

I’ve moved back to Ngaio and I’ve started reading books again.

I read more than half of Cleaving in one sitting. I thought I had identified with Julie Powell before in Julie & Julia as she worked a boring job, made friends on the internet, watched a lot of Buffy and got drunk frequently. But in Cleaving as she pines for her lover or ex lover, whatever state their relationship was in at the time, as she talks about the sex that they had which was unlike any she’d ever had before, as she sought out anonymous terrible fucking that she told her lover about afterwards in an attempt to make him jealous  – well, I lived all that too.

I worry too that I will never have another lover who will make me lose all control the way that you did, that I will never spend weeks at a time in a permanent state of arousal, driven into a fever by your emails and text messages and story telling. I worry that no one will ever put their hand on my leg while I am driving the way that you did, which almost made me crash my car. I’m afraid no one will ever lock me to them with their kiss. And while there are other people now who can make me come, multiple times, and maybe they fuck me harder than you ever did, it’s not the same. And yes, then I remember that there used to be Thomas, and that I used to think I would never love anyone like that, and now I am “who?” what?” about that. So one day, you will be gone from my mind but for now, there is just passive-aggression, and emptiness, and because this is Wellington I see you everywhere, but we don’t talk and I miss you.

There have been parties. There was my birthday Triple X party, in which a rollickingly good time was had by all. Heather came down from Auckland for it, and we spent lots of time together hanging out and watching Veronica Mars. She took the rest of the DVDs up to Auckland with her and has been making me giggle with her “OMG!” text messages as various things happened throughout the series. But back to the party. I kissed a lot of pretty ladies, both in the kissing booth and out, which is always a pleasure, and never a chore. I went as a Doctor of Fuckology, and had a clipboard full of hypothesis. Here are some more photos.

Many of the things that I expected to happen did

Sisters dressed up to party

I also volunteered again at Full Code Press, but I will probably write about that on joannamcleod.com instead of here.

On Saturday night I went to a B party at Anna Jane’s house. I was dressed as Beth Ditto, and while not that many people got that, they did get lectures about Health At Every Size and other fat activism.

Karen as Barbarella, me as Beth Ditto

The girl that I kissed at the Wellingtonista Awards was there, and we hung out and I told her that I had stopped talking to her because I don’t want to be her friend, I want to be her lover, and it was too frustrating to follow her tweets about wanting to get laid when I was waiting right there to do the job for her. I ended up feeling more than a little like a date rapist because after we kissed, I wanted to kiss again, and she said no, but I heard that as “maybe”. Frustration. I should know better. It was nice though, that she said she heard I was amazing in bed (I am!) although I wonder who said that to her, because our Eskimo bond constantly tells me I was a terrible lay.

I haven’t talked about moving, because it was horrible and culminated in me cleaning until almost 11pm last Sunday night, then getting 100 metres down the road in my car with Seb in a cage and discovering that I had a flat tyre. My father had to come down from Ngaio to help me, which is lucky because as it happened, my jack was missing the turning bit anyway. But now anyway I am safely back in the parental bosom and took them and BAMJI out to lunch at Osteria Del Toro to thank them for all their hard work. Seb has settled in wonderfully, and I have put my DVDs into order of colours, but all the blackness of my sizeable Whedon collection throws things off somewhat. I spend my time at home watching many episodes of The West Wing, and teaching my dad how to play Wii. In the mornings we take the train together and I get coffee at Sweet Fanny-Anne’s. Work is work. Getting paid is nice.

A. Dreams:

1. My second best friend from High School trying to tell me that I had COE because I had bought a birthday cake and a lasange for a party I was throwing for her but she thought I was going to eat it all by myself. We had a very vicious fight after that.

2. A bunch of people sitting around watching me and Jesus (or maybe a guy pretending to be Jesus) getting ready to have butt sex and timing it so that we’d both come at the same time as the second big guitary bit in ‘Hysteria’ by Muse. Was this dream caused by:
a) discussions about a particular NZ novel that I FUCKING HATE but everyone except for Karen seems to love
b) downloading too much gang bang porn or
c) listening to Muse too often, too loud in order to escape flood of oppressive emails and the horrible ambient bleeps and clicks music that my officemate plays (and leaves playing when he goes off to meetings),
or d) all of the above?

3. Looking in the yellow pages for strip clubs to go to with Brian from I Keep a Diary. We were looking for one in his home suburb of London, which was Glastonbury (of course). I think the Yellow Pages was kind of Harry Potter like, because the ads all had moving pictures.

One day I will be a New York Hipster too. Wait, does this mean that I have to put a picture of Carrie Bradshaw at the top of my page, and write about the perfect Louis Vuitton handbag my perfect boyfriend gave me, and about how people who buy stationary at the Warehouse are third class citizens and how those homeless people obviously deserve it because they frowned at me? You know what I’m talking about. Some websites are total car crashes – you hate them passionately but you just can’t stop reading them.

Speaking of Reow, I just saw one of my friend’s comments to someone else on their journal, and hot damn, it was excellent – but very reow. I’m sure the reow was well deserved, from the sound of things.

B. Moving:

Last night I went to Anji’s to pick up my key for our new place, and she drove a vanload of her stuff over and I helped her unpack it. We used torches cos the power wasn’t on yet. It felt ever so vaguely X-Filesy. The place wasn’t quite as big as I remembered it being, but that’s okay, it’s still more than big enough for us. I just hope Sebastian will be okay with the move. Pixie will sure be glad to have him gone though.

I’m going to take some more stuff and Jessie over to it tomorrow, hopefully, and then of course on Sunday we’re going to Oma’s to pick up my fridge and fill up the van and car with more of my stuff. I hate moving. Still at least this isn’t being done on the hottest day of summer, and I’m quite determined not to be hungover for this move. Hopefully. Although if anyone has anything that they want to invite me to tonight, please feel free.

I haven’t told my parents yet that I’m moving out. I could text them, but that’d be pretty spac. They sent me some big long text message in Dutch to pass on to Oma. Altavista reckons that they said: “Kind mam. Congratulated warmly with your anniversary. Sorry that the photograph von me on camel gestuurt cannot become on Neil’s tel. von Moroko. Have the Sahara survives. Hops that you the little girls have gezein. Many liefs. Aimee and Neil.” So there you go, if you were curious about their trip.

C. Watching:
Trading Spouses: uptight vegan vs crazy alligator rassling Cajuns. Bless this show.
The Secret Life of Us – Season Two: arrived this morning by courier, less than 24 hours after I bought it on Trademe. Hurrah! More Evan goodness,
Scrubs: goddamit, isn’t Garden State out yet?
In My Father’s Den: I bought the DVD. Now I’ll finally get to find out what that Mazzy Star song is called.
The OC: Brad’s coming over tomorrow night. Good times.

Here’s a lesson for you all. If you’re planning on moving house on a hot summer’s day, it’s probably a good idea NOT to drink nearly four bottles of bubbly the night before. Yes sure, it’s fun at the time, but you’ll pay for your happiness. What makes yesterday’s hangover even more infuriating is that everyone else there wrote gleefully about not having one.

But my (now ex) flatmate J’s 30th party was good. Hubrettes in attendence included Jess, Jessie, Jimmy and Joel. In fact, that was all the Hubrettes. Karen was also there for a while, but she left pretty early. We mostly sat in the garden and talked. Once everyone had left I wandered down the road to another party by myself, where I danced for ages. Then I wandered back home and danced for ages. The vibes at the two parties were totally different, which was interesting. I felt like I was on a very very mild trip, it was grand. Then when I checked the time it was 4.30am, so I went to bed, despite the noise, and turned off my tv sometime after 5am. I nearly saw the sun rise.

Stupid fucking sun. SO HOT. Moving is horrible. Sebastian being freaked out by being put in the van is horrible. Having to get up before 8am is horrible. Reconciling to the fact that I’m now living with my parents again is pretty horrible, because it makes me feel like I did NOTHING last year, and accomplished nothing. That’s never cool.

There’s more than one type of ooooh, you know.

Friday’s ooohs were of the dirty perverted kind when you realise that you want to do things to Harry Potter that shouldn’t even be expressed since he’s supposed to be 13 in that particular movie. We’ll say no more about that. To make myself sound better, there were also ooohs as I realised why things became important, and I shut up with the laughing at innuendos long enough to talk like a stupid person in the movie ie: “oh of course!” and “look out behind you!” type things.

Yesterday
There’s the ‘ooooooooooh’ when you sit down on the bench outside your soon to be ex flat, after you’ve done six trips carrying drawers, and a couple more trips carrying boxes down your steep Victorian staircase.

There’s the ‘ooooh’ noise when you’re folded into the back seat of your parents’ van because your boxes and chest of drawers are taking up the rest of the room and your sister is on the front seat and the heat is making you feel sick, and there’s the ‘oooh’ of relief when you get to unfold yourself and sit in the front seat cos you’ve dropped your sister in Tawa, ha ha.

There’s the oooh your tummy makes when you’re struggling to hold in laughter when your mother complains about her mother, and the oooh of disappointment when you realise that the cookies your grandmother is offering you are stale. There’s the oooh when you breathe out after holding your breath through her stale smelling rooms, and the oooh of relief that you have all your boxes stacked in the room off her garage now and as soon as you have made with the social niceties you can leave.

There’s the oooh when you dip your toes into the water at Paraparaumu Beach and realise that it’s not that cold, and the oooh that you want to whistle at yourself when you take off half your clothes and run in to go swimming. There’s the oooh of cold when you finally duck your head under and realise that it’s much colder that way, and the oooh as your muscles unwind in the waves. Somewhere in the spluttering from the water going up your nose there’s an oooh or two as well.

There’s the oooh when you see the newborn second child of your sister’s best friend and he’s gorgeous, and it’s just weird to see her all married with kids when it seems like only yesterday she was buying you vodka and taking you to gigs as a surrogate when your sister was on her OE.

Later there’s ooohs of little lightbulbs lighting up over your head when the plot of Firefly twists and turns and characters pash.

Today
There was the oooh of muscles cramping as you stay in bed for four hours, polishing off what was essentially a Jackie Collins novel in a Literary Type looking cover. You can’t even remember what the book was called, but it was great – in a Jackie Collins type way, of course.

There was the oooh that goes along with websurfing and coming to a page that jsut makes a person look like such a fucking tosshead that you can’t believe that they ever meant anything to you.

There was the oooh of tastebuds being tantalised in Bejing, and the ooh of frustration at not being able to pick up, fill, roll and eat duck pancakes all in one swift move with chopsticks. Then there was the ooh of a full belly, and the oooh when Clementine first started talking in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and you realised taht you were in love with her, and in love with the movie. There was the oooh when you worked out who Elijah looked like in that movie, and the oooh when you realised it was all coming around in a circle and that was yay. Then there was the oooh of delight in putting in an old video tape that your parents told you had The Lost Boys on it, and the oooh of discontent when the start wasn’t on it, and then the delight again every time Corey Feldman entered the frame. And then there were many ooohs of just amazement at commercials from 1994, and the ooh at the how loudly you were laughing at the episode of The Young Ones on the end of the tape. And now there is the Oooh of You Must Go To Bed, and anticipate the oooh of the release you’ll get thinking about Corey*. And the oooh of the pain in your wrists.

Tomorrow will be the oooh of the man, I am so over hunching over my laptop, and the oooh I just discovered more interesting facts about the band I am profiling, and then eventually the oooh, finally I am done. And that will be exciting. I mean, oooh, I get to go into a whole new POV tomorrow and all!

*You know I’m kidding about this one yeah? Keifer all the way! Well, all the way to the finish line tonight anyways.

Bo moved out today, so needless to say, I’m excessively sad and despondent and just so fucking lonely. I don’t care if she’s coming back in February, I still need her to be HERE NOW. I just need someone to listen to me and actually give a damn. Bleh self pity.

Stupid bloody notes from stupid bloody landladies. Let me get some sleep you vile creature.

PLEASE LET ME GET SOME MOTHERFUCKING SLEEP, CONSTRUCTION!

I hate boxing things up and packing and cleaning.

There’s restructuring and turmoil at work, and people’s personalities are really starting to fray.

I just wish I could have my old flatmates back – maybe ummm say Brad and Simon to balance out numbers for me and Bo rather than having to answer stupid people’s stupid questions. How many fucking times do I have to tell you that no, you can’t see the place until the 15th? Grr. Oh yeah, you do want to move in with me, by the way. Email me.

I emailed Shirley today, for like the first time in about three months, so I had to recap all the shit that I’ve been going through, and that’s never fun. On a similar vein, I’ve been keeping a list of things that I want to talk to Kalpana about, next time I can afford to go see her, and I’ve included on that list something that really, I very much would rather not talk about, but i guess if it still affects me then maybe actually I should. Ick. Maybe I will book my next appointment in for the afternoon after our staff Xmas Party so I can at least be drunk and it’ll be a little easier. Except then I’ll just end up bawling and I haven’t done that yet. She only has one box of tissues in her office. It’s way too sterile.

I had a job interview today and I think I impressed them a lot. I’m afraid the job environment could be very Foodstuffesque though, so I will be forced to think very very very long and hard about what my priorities are if they offer it to me (pay rent or feel like I’m going somewhere? pay rent or feel like I’m going somewhere?)

Tomorrow Ammy and I will be interviewing prospective flatmates HERE, rather than at the actual house. Personally, I think the most important thing is that the people are cool and we can get along, and if they don’t feel that way well then that tells you somehting.

Tonight I had emmediate and watched “Not One Less” instead of drinking vodka. It was a good movie. I have leftovers.