1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

• Lived by myself in my very own house
• Went to the emergency vet in the middle of the night
• Ran my own business
• Got my first filling
• Worked for a company that got slash-dotted!
• Appeared on television as an expert in a certain field (Wellington mayoral campaigns)
• Slept with a workmate
• Organised a very successful bach trip away with friends.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

According to last year’s post, my resolution was:

“My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

I was very very dreadful at this. Well, I got better at standing up for myself at work, both in terms of actual work, but also just in my 3 month contract standing up to the dreadful racism, misogyny and general ignorance in the office.  There was a thing at the end of the year though, in which I was unable to say no at the time, but I was able – with the help of good friends – to make it clear in no uncertain terms afterwards that what had happened was not okay, so I’m pretty proud of that.

Oh, I also said that my resolution last year was to try roller skating once. I didn’t. It was too much of a pain to get out to Kilbirnie after work.

As for my resolution this year, it’s pretty simple. I resolve not to sleep with any more workmates, married people or close friends. I think that’s pretty self-explanatory. I also stole Jason‘s resolution to read more books, and there are things I’d like to do, like walk to/from work at least half the time, and take lunch to work at least two times a week, and restrict buying coffee to twice a week at the maximum. But those aren’t such strict resolutions, if you know what I mean. Actually, I have set myself a 11 in ’11 challenge with a whole bunch of stuff I’d like to do.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t think so. My flickr stream is flooded with pictures of babies, but I’m pretty certain they were all circa 2009. Smack me if I’m wrong.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No. But someone that people I care about cared about did, and that was a bit weird, especially when Facebook kept suggesting that I should friend her. Too late.

5. What countries did you visit?

When I found out that I got my current job, Karen and I planned a trip to Tonga, but then the price went up by $800, so we went to Samoa again instead.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

I’ll say it again – a relationship with someone who shouts it from the rooftops that they are in love with me.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

June 29 – I moved out of Balmoral Terrace in Newtown where I’d lived for the past two and a half years. September 20, I started my new job. October 9, I got possession of my very own flat.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting a job that I both love and am very good at. I really like the people that I work with, and most of the time I feel like I have a lot to contribute.

It’s also really important to me that I am close again with people who have played major roles in my life before. Some of those friendships are precarious and teeter a little, but I will continue to work at them.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Given that I’m making the most money I ever have, my finances should not be in such dire straits. Also, that whole going on Yaz to sort out my PMS and then it making me worse than ever was a pretty big failure on the part of my reproductive system.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

The Yaz made me sick. Also, Sebby got beaten up. And oh, the Madder Badder Flu that I got after Tom’s party that knocked me on my ass for a couple of weeks was totally dreadful.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

It’s not a single purchase, but the decision to get a flat by myself was fucking brilliant.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The wonderful people who supported me as So Content, my amazing manager who hired me and has dealt with me being slightly mental and who is super protective and encouraging, the lovely feminists of the internet who fought the good #mooreandme fight as well as all the other usual battles that exist, my family for their help in moving, and the Lovehawks for providing me with a second home.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

That place I worked for three months. My ex landlady who thought it was okay to make me pay $900 for cleaning. The tenancy tribunal who agreed with her. Assorted rape apologists on the internet. The National Party, as usual. The married man for what he did at the start of the year. The other thing that happened at the end of the year.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Booze, debt servicing, and living by myself.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Princess Camp because it came when I really needed it. Getting clients for So Content, and building up a reputation for knowing what I was talking about. Getting hired for a proper real job as Jo Hubris, not just a random ‘Joanna McLeod’ on paper. Getting my own flat. Going away for New Year’s with the Lovehawks. Kissing a boy again after pashing so many girls all year.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?

‘Run this town’ by Jay Z & Rihanna. I came very close to deciding that I needed to move the fuck out of Wellington at the start of the year, when the married man hooked up with another girl (not his wife) and Wellington was too small, and everywhere I went I was reminded of him, and the fucking terrible thing that I did and that he was, and all that. I wanted to run away and hide forever, but then we had Princess Camp and I was reminded that in this case, I’d done nothing wrong, and that actually, Wellington is my fucking city. I fucking run it. And I have my girls, and they have my back, and I ain’t going nowhere. I fucking love my princesses.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

I am fatter, happier and richer. That’s a good balance, right?

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I wish I’d done less shopping, and more saving money. I also wish I’d gone to see my counselor. I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I last talked to her. I tried to make an appointment during my last week of work but she was all full until now, and, as I hoped, I have dealt with it now.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

I probably should have drunk less, and done less shopping, given the financial suckiness of me right now.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

I had an International Sandwich Degustation with Karen and Bad Tom, and then BAMJI came over and we watched Buzzcocks.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

What is this phone thing of which you speak? I don’t call anyone ever anymore.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?

No.

23. How many one-night stands?

Two.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Still Mad Men, Community and Parks & Recreation.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Not hate hate, but there certainly have been a fair number of people who’ve made life more difficult than it needed to be.

26. What was the best book you read?

I really liked most of Player One by Douglas Coupland. The ending was a bit meh though, and it was mega depressing.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

We have Mac Airports at work so we can share our music collections, and also we have speakers anyone can control, so most of my music has come from my cow-orker Kirsten, who is into The Black Keys, Band of Horses and other such indie bands. I like it a lot.

28. What did you want and get?

A tropical holiday, a great flat by myself and a job I love.

29. What did you want and not get?

To clear my credit card and my financial debt to my parents.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Seriously, I’m not entirely sure I went to the movies AT ALL in 2010. Woah!

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my birthday I turned 30. I was working at Customs, and they didn’t know it was my birthday. I got my hair cut by a bad haircutter at a place near the building, and then in the evening I think I went to Le Metropolitan with my family.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

$200 more a week. That would have allowed me to have not felt like such a shut-in while I was on the dole, and now it would allow me to service my credit card debt AND save a little while still having a life. Also, I wish I hadn’t tried Yaz.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Dressy McDresserson. With lots of pillaging of Sue and Megan’s wardrobes. Lots of black eyeliner, and occasionally some dark lipstick, and lots of lasercut jewellery from SuperVery and Cupcakes and Mace.

34. What kept you sane?

Lexapro, Princess Camp, my manager at work who is a saint despite all his swearing, and all my dear friends,  Kim and Megan especially. <3

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Joel McHale, Alexander Saarsgard and Jon Hamm. There was a Jezebel poll to pick the sexiest man once, and it was impossible!

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Let me quote the Feminist Hulk here:

AS SURVIVOR, HULK DISTURBED BY ASSANGE COVERAGE. HULK GLAD WIKILEAKS EXIST. HULK SMASH RAPE SHAME. AT SAME TIME.

37. Who did you miss?

I got to spend lots of time with Kat & Kane and Heather this year, so I’m going to say Kate H who’s over there in Engerland. And Smoo once he moved out.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Via Kim, who I believe was the best new person last year, I met Kate & Jason & Brendan. They’re pretty sweet eh.  And most of the people in my office are pretty awesome too.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:

Moving in with your parents when you’re 30 is never a good idea, even if you need to save money and you’re only doing it for a couple of months!

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

“We gon’ run this town tonight. “

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

• Got made redundant
• Stayed overnight in hospital
• Lost items of value in a burglary
• Had my first threesome. And my second. And my third.
• Had an intern.
• Replied to someone on an internet dating site and then slept with them.
• Received over two grand’s worth of free stuff for being a blogger (the $1200 freeview box made up a lot of that)
• Went to Roller Derby
• Won a “Best Fan” prize
• Kissed 17 people in one night (hurray for kissing booths!)
• Had someone pay for me to get into a strip club, and also tucking money into strippers’ underwear for the first time
• Willingly (ish) went through a break-up.
• Had someone throwing me a surprise party.
• Worn red lipstick frequently and confidently.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Apparently my resolutions for this year were about taking better care of myself, and although I did continue to sleep with the married man for a bit, we did indeed eventually break it off, so yay me. And then I resolved to never sleep with a married person again, which is a good resolution to have and I have yet to break it again. I also resolved to have breakfast with someone after we’d slept together, and while I thought I’d achieved that when I woke up with a boy for the first time since 2004, we didn’t actually have breakfast, unless you count helping ourselves to one another’s genitals again. Oh oh but actually, I did make wedges for a lady caller that we ate in bed together so I guess that counts.

My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Fucking buttloads of people had babies this year! Specifically Martha and Brenda and my best friend Penny from high school. Still more of my friends are pregnant right now, and it’s all a little bit over the top, if you ask me. I can’t have breakfast with a boy and you all can get married and buy houses and have babies? Unfair!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, but people very close to people I am very close to did, and all I could do about it was text stupid jokes every day and send care packages of Noel Fielding.

5. What countries did you visit?

Sydney for FullCodePress (thanks to the lovely Tash Mahal) and Vanuatu for fun.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Breakfast with someone, obviously, since I can now cook eggs. Also, a job. And let’s say a proper public relationship where the person I am with shouts it from the rooftops.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The Wellingtonista Awards again because of the work and the memories that I was a bit scared of. December 10 because it was my ten year anniversary of fucking. July 17 for my ten years of Hubris party and because it was when I relaunched this site in WordPress. June 30 for being my last day at the SSC.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly, I had a motherfucking buttload of bad shit happen to me this year, and so the fact that I’m still in good spirits, that I’m happy, sort of healthy and am able to keep going on, and that I’ve ended the year with all my friendships intact and even with new friends is pretty fucking awesome. Go me!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Honestly, I’m shocked that I don’t have another job yet. I know that I am hireable, that I have many skills and talents and the fact that I’m still unemployed is really weird. I’m also disppointed that I’m not as over someone as I’d like to be, but that’s not something you can force and you definitely can’t get over someone by being under as many people as possible. I’ve learnt my lesson on that front quite a few times this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Depression as per usual, some nasty flus, withdrawl from zopiclone when I finally came off them, and also hospitalisation after an ingrown hair gave me cellulitis. But apart from that, no!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My laptop(s) that allow me to download and watch copious amounts of television. Also every present that I’ve bought for others that has allowed me to demonstrate even the smallest fraction of how much I care about them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My family who have continued to lend me money and buy me things like a new laptop after mine got stolen and I didn’t have insurance, who paid my power bill for me so I wouldn’t get disconnected and who aren’t demanding that I pay them back for our trip to Vanuatu. Also everyone this year who’s bought me a drink or a meal in exchange for my company, especially Tom, who is insanely generous. My friends who’ve helped me out of emotional jams, listened to me bitching and moaning and kept me company through the long dark winter, Smoo whose quiet presence in the house is always welcome, and everyone who gave me orgasms this year and fucked me til my thighs ached.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Management at SSC and everyone else who didn’t hire me, people who think that hitting kids is okay, the cunt who burgled us, and anyone who has treated my friends badly.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Double rents and unemployment.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Roller derby! Kat & Kane’s wedding! Harvestbird & Knedd’s wedding! People having babies!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

‘So here we are’ by Bloc Party becasue it played while I was lying in my lover’s arms for what we thought was the last time, and so that he wouldn’t see me crying I buried my face in his neck and we fucked because it fit the narrative structure that way. And also ‘Some time around Midnight’ by the Airbourne Toxic Event, even though or actually because as Good Tom says there’s far too much pathos in it for one song. It’s like the story of my life condensed down into four minutes. Oh and because it was so recent, ‘Halo’ is standing out in my mind right now too.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier, despite all the crap. I am getting better at dealing with everything.
ii. smaller or larger? Larger, by a lot probably.
iii. richer or poorer? Much much poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Physical activies and community service. Also, I wish I’d put more work into You Are So Entertaing but I still can!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on Twitter and Spider Solitaire and watching crappy television. Passive-aggressive texting and emailing. I sent some spectacularly nasty drunken emails this year and I am very not proud of them. My defense of being desperate for any kind of reaction is not good enough.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

My parents and Karen came over to my house and were joined by Bad Tom and Shirley and I cooked amazing food and we gorged ourselves and had a thoroughly pleasant time of it.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
WINZ. Heather and Kat <3.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

I didn’t fall, I stayed in.

23. How many one-night stands?

Three? In terms of one-offs, there was a girl, there was Tingle and there was the guy from Internet dating. I did see the girl again though, but only in a friend capacity. In addition, there were multiple occasions with the married man, the duck and the crazy girl. Oh, and I had intended to have a playdate with the boy who’d watched me and the crazy girl in his hotel room, whose kiss made me a little weak at the knees, but despite some textage, the stars didn’t align. Which is probably for the best.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Mad Men, Community, 30 Rock, Dollhouse (!!!!!)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope.

26. What was the best book you read?

Oh god, have I actually done any reading this year? I liked Generation A but not nearly as much as Generation X. I don’t think I can remember any other books, really, which I know is pretty terrible. Don’t tell Karen okay?

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Umm, getting a subscription to Last.FM? And taking all the contents of Emma and Lisa’s hard drives?

28. What did you want and get?

A laptop. To wake up in someone’s arms. Lots and lots of pashes. Amazing collections of friends. An overseas tropical holiday and some weekend jaunts other places. To get on the dole and be left mostly alone (well, I’d rather I didn’t have to, but it was a struggle to get here anyway). The ability to sleep without zopiclone.

29. What did you want and not get?

An invitation to Foo Camp – I worked really hard to prove myself this year hoping to get one and I didn’t. Sad face. Also, a new job, and at the time of writing, a full house. Paying extra rent is killing me. A real relationship. An ONYA nomination.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I’m not sure what movies I actually went to this year. There weren’t very many of them, that’s for sure.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my actual birthday I got free coffee from Green Land, I went to work, then I went to the Backbencher for someone’s goodbye drinks. I was feeling nauseous so I only drank gin. Then with my family I went to Elements for dinner which was amazing. Prior to that, my amazing sisters threw me a freak show surprise party! It was amaaaaaaaaaaaazing! I turned 29, which means I’m almost 30 now. Crikey!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Finding a new job shortly after being made redundant with a bit of time for a holiday in between.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I’ve got really into the Fatshionista community and started posting outfits of the day before my camera got stolen. I’m still trying to be Joan Holloway. I’ve also started wearing red lipstick, thanks to the lovely Megan.

34. What kept you sane?
My amazing counsellor, my family’s love and financial support and my fantastic friends.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Noel Fielding? Jon Stewart still makes me moist. As does ummm oh I don’t know. People? Stuff? Things? Tom Coates and that other guy from Webstock. Matt Bidulp? I can’t remember. Oh! And Victor from Dollhouse.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Ridiculous bullshit redundancies, strangely enough. Oh yeah, ICT’s totally not going to be a growth area…

37. Who did you miss?

The secret relationship. All my friends who are in other cities, especially Heather and Kat’n Kane. Really angry I missed out on meeting Ghetsum again cos I was too sick. And Good Tom, who shouldn’t have left to go to America, fucker.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Oh my gosh, I met so many awesome people this year, like Kim and Laura and Amie through Twitter, Chiara and Theresa and Julie through Pretty Pretty Pretty and also my new flatmate Thigh Voltage and through her the derby girls. Also, I’d already met Megan before but I feel like we became really good friends this year and that’s always worth celebrating.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
The people that care about you want to be there for you. You just need to learn to ask for help.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I get by with a little help from my friends”.

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.

Yeah, exactly.

So I wrote a journal entry last night, as you have no doubt read. Since that time I had a nice sleep, I drank some coke, I watched some episodes of America’s Next Top Model (I am totally on Team Isis and love Faux-Kimora for her open mind. And there’s just been the Irene Cara ‘Fame’ song on TV and I’ve realised that pretty much the entire cast is Isis, not least because of their bad hair). Then I got my shit together and put on my old red dress and went into town and Cafe Istanbul for Megan‘s redrunkening.  Her friends were mostly couples but I won’t hold that against her, and also I was amused to see the girl I used to work for at Ausm/Debate and we had a quick bitch session. I couldn’t believe how busy Istanbul was, and we managed to try to leave at the same time as another big table of cute lesbians so it took forever to do the bill and pay.

Then we went to the Taste of Korea to do karaoke. As is my way, I grabbed a mike and opened things with ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ as I always rock the fuck out of that on Rockband. Our Soju “cocktails” were neither strong nor actually cranberry flavoured (raspberry miranda is NOT cranberry) but people warmed up eventually and we all sang some more. I ended up getting another hour, and because I didn’t know the people I didn’t ask for any money, which possibly was not the best financial decision ever, but Megan got the first hour, so whatever. Anyways, so mostly I sang power ballads. I sang “Sweet Child’O Mine” because I now take any chance to exercise old demons. And then I sang ‘Careless Whisper’ but I am too used to the Gossip version, and also having the lyrics up on the screen was like a punch in the face. As these things go. But anyways, I fucking adore karaoke like so much. I could sing all night.

Except that we only had two hours and we finished on “We are the world” and most people went home, so I went up to Atomic to find Karen. I couldn’t spot her on the dancefloor initially, but I did spot Smoo and Blair out on the balconey so I hung out with them for ages,  before I went and had a sweaty dance (I was all in synthetic fibres, stinky) and found my friends. I alternated between dancing and hanging with the boys after that. Acgtually, I also managed to combined the two, making Blair slowdance with me to OMD’s “If You Leave” as a tribute to John Hughes.  Blair and Smoo had some guy with them who managed to believe that Karen and I were identical twins – after I sadi that I’d eaten all the pies. He did some clever detective work, asking me what my birthdate was, and then asking her, and strangely enough, she said the same date. Karen was in very fine form that night, saying that there had been quite a few young boys hitting on her that night, including the duck – “but then again, I am moving/have a pulse. Not that I think he’s that fussy.”. Blair and Smoo didn’t seem to accept “Not married!” as a justification for anything, and if you add that to the fact that Smoo has a cricket bat in his room for chasing intruders then you’ll understand why i left a note on his door when I got home telling him that I fricking adore him. And now it’s 4am, and kebabs have been eaten, so let’s finish this journal and maybe have sleeps, yes?

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.

I have lots of stuff to write about but I haven’t got time, so very briefly:

1. The clever Alison Green has created an archives page for the Gathering (you remember that, right?) which you should definitely go check out and my story about long distance IRC love and bad acid trips can be found here.

2. Please go vote for the Wellingtonista Awards, and try to get into our Awards Night. I have a stunning pink dress to wear to it. I’m going to look damn hot. When you’re voting, I recommend voting for the poached pear punch at Superfino as the best drink, and of course for the Bowling/Quiz Leagues as best event.

3. I am so very in love with the new Q CD for the best of 2007, especially Hard Fi, Rilo Kiley and Jamie T – “I ain’t an abacus but you can count on me”. I’m pissy with PJ Harvey for coming to Auckland on the 13th of February when I’m going to be up there for the 8th. Err, presuming I get an invite to my cousin’s wedding, that is. Are you coming back for it, Cous?

I think if you’d been at San Frindigo tonight, you would understand why I am all about the comparing this gig to sex (you know, aside from intense sexual frustration, of course). It’s not a new thing for me to review gigs like sex – I started doing it with Shihad, but tonight Shayne’s face said “my guitar is a penis, and it is an awesome thing”, and it truly truly was.

Dimmer opened with ‘Crystalator’ (or as others have refered to it, the “reeeeeeeeeeeeh reeeeeeeeh reeeeeeeh song”), and has it really been TEN YEARS since I got that on the Pop Eyed Flying Nun compilation for Xmas? Holy crap! It was loud, so loud that I could have believed that the speakers had come to life and crawled in my ears. After a couple of songs from There My Dear on which the absense of Bic and Anika and Annna doing backing vocals demonstrated even more how Straitjacket Fitsy that album is, they played ‘Drop you off’. Live, it was perhaps a little less menacing than the video – trees out the back of a car window at night time, like lying in the back seat as a kid, normally makes it, but it was more pounding, and thrusting, and pushed and pushed and pushed at you, and my breathing sped up to go along with it, and the very strong coffee I’d made before I left the house and the nurofen plus worked together in harmony, and it was all washing all over my body. ‘Seed’ afterwards was even more thrusty, and it went on and on, and even in the bourbon-washed summer of 01/02 that I believe you are a star was on high rotate in my computer and I was actually literally fucking, I was never fucked as intensely as that song brought it tonight. Well, maybe a couple of times.

The only time that Shayne took off his ‘O’ face was when they played “You’re only leaving hurt”, the first chords of which made me well up, naturally. For that, he was cradling his guitar like it was the last dance with a lover, instead of the pornstar stance of other songs (and I mean that in the best possible way, of course). He said at the end “That’s a sad song”, and then said “this is another sad song” as an introduction to ‘Scrapbook’. I recently managed to find Siamese Dream on vinyl ($50 secondhand, mind you!), and so I’ve been listening to that quite a lot, so I can say with good authority that ‘Scrapbook’ reminds me (see, I told you I had authority) of ‘silverfuck’ – most especially the pounding pounding pounding drums, but ‘Scrapbook’ manages to be a thousand times more bitter and powerful , the whole “bang bang, you’re dead” line aside.

The last gig I saw at San Frindigo was of course the Phoenix Foundation, so I enjoyed the contrast between the highly personable stage banter between Sam & Luke, and stony silence and the eyes of daggers it seemed like James was getting as he tuned his guitar. A couple of songs in, it seemed like someone flicked the “make smalltalk with the audience now” switch though, and even the way too fucking predictable wanker yelling “Play ‘She speeds’!” and the so very stoic “Ta” after applause didn’t detract from the overwhelming intensity of the gig. During ‘Scrapbook’ I even wished that it was Shihad on stage, because I so so wanted to throw some goats, and they’re the only band I’ve seen that you can get away with non-ironic goats at.

The last track of the two-song encore had huge rolling cymbals that were waves of sound, and the feedback was totally consuming, just flooding into every last inch of me. I’m sounding like some druggie loser right now, I know, but I’m not. On drugs. Except for the aforementioned caffeine and codeine, of course. I’m just all woah still. My head is buzzing, and there are oceans of feedback still playing in my ears, and every inch of me is sore from the dancing, and from the bass that rose up from the floor, but I don’t care. I came in my pants like a thousand times tonight.

And awesomely, I just got a text from my friend going “Do you feel like Shayne is making love to you with the music?” Hahaha! Yes, yes I do! And holy fucking shit, I hope it was as good for him as it was for me.

Part of my grump came from thinking about how grumpy the weather was and how I’d have to drive to Castlepoint the following day, and I so didn’t want to (*). But as it turned out, the weather was fucking gorgeous on Saturday. I picked up Chrisana at 11, and then went to Katy’s to get her and Puck and her flatmate Jacob. Trying to fit all them and all their things in my little bittle car was interesting. After we went to the supermarket and loaded up on SO MUCH food, we had to unpack everything and get the boys to play tetris to fit it all in. That’s what boys are for, after all.

I filled my petrol tank all the way up for the first time since I’ve owned the car and my head went boggle at the fact that it cost $56, when it used to be $35. Many jokes were made about the Hutt as we drove through it. CDs were sung along to by me, which was unfair since I’d told Katy she’d have to walk if she sang. But my car, my rules. Heh. I was imagining it’d be like an hour and a half to get there, like it sort of is to Martinborough, but oh no, it was a solid three hours, splashing through flooded roads on the way there and considering whether or not to stop the car to change a sign in the field with an explicit picture on it from ‘This is a life, not a choice’ to merely ‘this is a choice’. We eventually decided to do it on the way home instead.

I hadn’t been to Castlepoint since I was ummm 8ish, so I had no idea what to expect. As we headed out deeper and deeper into the countryside, our conversations became more and more focused on zombies, and survivalism. Castlepoint itself seemed like a tiny little place, and yet the hill we drove up to find our house reminded me of Churton Park, all new houses that seemed unoccupied. The place Katy had rented for us, Magic Thymes, was lovely though, in a very early nineties split-level kind of way. I grabbed myself a room and set off to laugh at and disobey the signs in the toilets that stated “if it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down” and “if it’s pee, let it be, if it’s poo, flush the loo”.

Since everyone had been drinking in the car except for me, of course, since I was dridving, I quickly cracked open the cask of red, and we sat on the balcony, looking at the water tanks and the empty lot beneath us and out to the sea. Everyone decided to go for a walk, and I was tempted, but I decided to volunteer to stay behind to get eaten by the zombies first wait for Ash & the other carload to show up. There are worse places to be than on a balconey in the sun with wine, cashews, JPod and Black Holes and Revelations blasting out of the stereo down the right-of-way. After about half an hour or so I saw Ash’s car driving up the hill and going to wrong way just as we had done, so I stood up and windmilled for all I was worth, until eventually they saw me and I could give them strange pointy directions as to where they were supposed to be going. Ash drives the same kind of car as me, except hers is dark green. She parked it next to mine and we left them alone to make babies together. She thinks mine is the female car, because it’s white, but I know that hers is the female because it has a rack. Hehe, I am so hilarious.

Since I had done my duty and guided in Ash, Jo, Helen and Kartini, I was free to take my iPod, and roll up my trousers and trot up the little hill behind the house to take in this view:

Bloody gorgeous it was too. I followed a very very muddy little track around for five minutes and found a bench to sit on and listened to ‘In the backseat’ and had a wee little cry at the beauty of it all and also my remaining grr from the night before. Then I laughed at what I thought was Puck and Chrisana and Jacob scaling the top of the tallest peak because it was a long way up. It wasn’t the warmest of days ever, but I still wanted to get down to the beach. The only access looked to be a long way away though, and I wasn’t keen to scramble down the hill in the mud, strangely enough, although the two glasses of wine I’d had made for some serious giggling every time I slipped, so I went back to the house where we assembled a feast. A FEAST.

It seemed like everyone had brought along their favourite snack bits, and Katy is even more of an over-the-top entertainer than I am, so she’d bought six kinds of hummus (to be fair, she was staying two nights to our one). Platters of goodness were assembled, and Peaches CDs and various iPods were played. Have you tried peanut butter pretzels before? Holy crap they are awesome. So is wine. So is good company that just sits around talking and eating and drinking. That’s pretty much my idea of perfection right there. The boys started the fire, because that is what they needed to do to feel manly, and we drank some more. Eventually we split into four teams to play Scrabble. Katy and I won, despite the hardcoreness of some of the players. Me, I’m more along the lines of “well, if you can define it, I’ll let you make up words”. Not that I’m too easy-going or anything, honest. Puck and Ash pulled Who wants to be a millionaire? and Trivial Pursuit off their respective cellphones and we freestyled competition, although I tried to make everyone buzz in. You know who else liked their trivia under control? Yeah that’s right, the NAZIS. There was no 021 coverage at the house, so 8/9 people were cellphoneless. I don’t wear a watch, so with no need to keep my cellie around, I had no idea what the time was ever. We found Grease in the house’s collection of videos so we put that on and had a lengthy singalong.

Eventually everyone was outside smoking and looking at the thyme bushes around the door and checking up on the cars’ humping progress (they acted all coy when we were around), and I was like OMG HOLY SHIT look at the sky, and made people turn off the outside light, and it was just amazing, stars EVERYWHERE, so bright, and the Milkway arched overhead, and being (just a little bit, honest) drunk, I was like “wow, it’s like the Dukes of Leisure are playing and we’re at the star dome!” and I climbed up to look out at the back harbour again (*). More drinking was done. Gorgeous cake was eaten. Good times were had. More walks were taken in the mud, this time with handy cellphone flashlights. Good times.

In the morning, I didn’t feel quite so flash. In fact, once I finally managed to get a bathroom, I was sick for quite a while. Of course, I should have been happy that I wasn’t eaten by zombies, after a lengthy discussion had concluded that my being a virgin (ish) wasn’t going to save me. But instead I sat on the floor to put my clothes back on after my shower and considered crawling downstairs but settled for sunglasses and a duvet instead. I took my coffee and sat out on the deck and thought “wow, this looks just like an XP screen” and died a little more inside. It’s not my fault! I was raised in Tokyo, dammit! But while I lazed around on the couch drinking hot chocolate listening to Ryan Adams and Patti Smith, Ash and Jo went off to the carnie store for toilet paper and cooking oil, and most of the rest of the girls bustled around doing the dishes and cooking breakfast. Once again, the food array was dazzling, and heavily seasoned with magic thyme. We had mushrooms and potatoes and toast and avocado and bacon and kransky sausages and everyone else also had crumpets and salmon and eggs. After that I felt much much better. More lazying around was done until finally at 2.30 I was in a state to drive again, just as the second night’s shift showed up (*), so we scarped off so we wouldn’t have to do the dishes. Muhahaha. We chased Ash for a good while, until she went the wrong way, and then we got in the lead. They caught us up in Featherston when we stopped for a pee break, but since they were all about antiques and gelati, we won. And I made it home in time for The Gilmore Girls. Yay! Countryside is good. I like it a lot. I wanted to stay forever.

The Performance Show

Stop the press! Dave’s breaking up with Carmen! I wonder why? Could it be because he’s banging one or more of the rockers? I bet it is. And I bet he’s doing ummmm hmm Zayra? Surely that’s the only reason why she’s still in the competition?

Patrice fought Shakira for ‘Helter Skelter’, and I’m damn glad she did, because she rocks. Her hair is now black and platinum, which confirms what I’ve already said, and that’s that she is the new Suzi McNeil. I wonder if she’s going to start going out with Hank Azaria too now.

I want to punch Josh in the face for his booooooooooring version of ‘Come as you are’. Why the hell are they allowed to do this to so many Nirvana songs? Dave is miming sleep on his throne and it makes me laugh.

Storm is growing on me. I suspect that’s because she reminds of Mean Girls era Lindsay Lohan, and I’m not just saying that cos I’m perving on her boobies. I also really like ‘Just what I needed’.

Lukas’s ‘Let’s spend the night together’ doesn’t sound at all Marilyn Mansony, although admittedly I’m in the kitchen making toast for most of it, and our toaster is incredibly slow. His eyeshadow is still pretty.

Shakira is still hideous, and ‘Alright now’ is a terrible song. I don’t get what crack Supernova are smoking when they say they like it. There’s no way that they’d ever choose her, so why is she still here? She must suck a mean cock. I suppose being only three and a half feet tall must help with that.

When Ryan sings ‘Fortune’s Son’ I like him for the first time ever, but he still isn’t doing it as well as Brandon Calhoon did it last year. Perhaps I just really liked Brandon because he reminded me of James Robinson though. And then when Ryan actually smiles, he looks really hot, if your definitition of ‘hot’ is “looks like Warren from Buffy” which disturbingly, mine often is. Anji sends me a nasty text message which I won’t reprint here as to her opinion of his looks. That girl lived in Australia too long.

If only Phil would lose that fucking goatee, he’d probably be my favourite, purely because he looks like the type of boy that I normally go for, although his singlet should be tighter and he should swaying like he’s drunk if he’s not. But ‘White Rabbit’ sounds real good all hard like this, although apparently it takes a while to build up dancing-together chemistry because he and Jason keep bumping into each other.

I’ve always thought that ‘It’s my life’ by Bon Jovi sounded exactly like ‘Larger than life’ by the Backstreet Boys, and a quick search on Wikipedia confirms that they’re both written by Max Martin who, as we all know, is most famous for ‘Baby one more time’. That doesn’t explain why it’s SUCH A TERRIBLE SONG though. Sucks to be Dana. As she says in the results show, “how was I not rocking? I was pumping my arm in the air!”. Oh, is that what rocking is? Right, I get it now.

Anji loves of the Toby, because she says it’s nice to have someone who is drama-free, but oh man, he’s just ugly, and that Australian accent is so put on in order to differentiate himself, and also, Soul Asylum, ‘Runaway train’? You can mime “call me!” at me all you like, Toby, but I’m never going to like you. You’re showing the band your emotions are you? Riiiight. Anji’s like “I like him because he’s a surfer” to which I text back “Surfers are responsible for Jack Johnson”. Enough said.

Magni is well suited to ‘Plush’, but to me, there’s something a little lacking. Maybe it’s because it’s almost identical to the original, which is fucking great, but where’s the Icelandicness in this?

Oh yeah that’s right, Zayra stole it, doing her best Bjork impression on ‘Everybody hurts’, which is that song that all news media ever plays when they do a story about suicide. Not to be crass or anything, but Zayra’s wailings, coupled with that seethrough sparkly sweater dress kind of make me want to jump off an overpass. Why did the band say they like it?

Jenny doing Incubus is adequate, but yaaaaaaaaaaawn, as Supernova tell her. Go back to the super short skirt, lady. Don’t worry, Sheryl Crow called to tell you that soon you’ll be gone and you can go and find yourself a one-balled biker too.

I decided on the bus this morning that Dilana is a lesbian (because yes, you’re allowed to make snap judgements of people’s sexuality like that. Honest), which makes her perfect for the band, because she won’t sleep with Tommy and therefore there’ll be some sexual tension, not sexual boredom. Girls in corsets are awesome. The Cranberries are pretty naff, but she does well with ‘Zombie’. It’s so going to be her or Lukas or Magni that wins overall. I can’t see anyone else in the role.

The elimination
Ryan is spot on when he says that Dana belongs on a pop show, but I really like that Dana did an unknown song. It does well for her. Zayra’s all like “I so can’t believe I am here” and I want to punch her in the face just a bit more. Josh IS DOING NIRVANA AGAIN AND IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY THAT I NEED TO BUST OUT THE CAPITAL LETTERS. Courtney, I know that rehab is expensive, but really, did you have to sell them the entire catelogue? Also, Josh makes me laugh because he’s been all “I hear you” to the musicians, and I recently had an amusing conversation with an incredibly cheesy boy who told me that you should always use an action verb appropriate to what the person you’re talking to does in order to build up trust, so if you’re talking to a painter you’d be like “I see what you’re saying” or a massage therapist would be “I feel what you’re saying” and a singer would be “I hear what you’re saying”, and oh the cheese of it all. Jenny doing STP looks like Avril Lavinge, and she is not fit enough to run around and sing at the same time. Anji and I both agree that it’s going to be Jenny that goes, and of course we’re right. A girl is not going to win this competition, unless she’s Dilana. Sorry Patrice, but I figure you’re in this like Marty Casey anyway – you’ve got your own thing going on and you want the publicity. I dig that, bro.

The story-telling is fantastically over the top, with ‘Formed a Band’ talking of how they want to write a song that will make Israel and Palestine get along and ‘Emily Kane’ being a lament for a long lost first girlfriend, that he hopes to find through making the song so successful that school kids start chanting her name on buses. Meanwhile ‘Rusted Guns of Milan’ is a tribute to impotence, with Argos assuring his partner that they’re beautiful, and a chant-along chorus of “I know I can, I know I can”.

The music, meanwhile is danceable rock of the kind that the U.K is excelling in lately – think Kaiser and Franz, et all. You may have trouble dancing to it though because you might be rolling around on the floor going “oh it’s funny cos it’s true” instead. Rock Rock Bang Bang is a hilariously good time.
4/5

Pulp

1. Patti Smith: ‘Free Money’
This song should be on every mixtape ever made, it?s just that awesome. My number one fantasy until recently has been based around sitting on someone?s floor while they play me all their favourite records which would definitely include this from Horses. But then I decided to stop waiting for the fantasy and to just buy my own bloody record player.

2. The Dead Souls: ‘One More Little Death’
“Oh yeah Jo, we all know why you put this track on”.
“Shut up, voice in my head. I really like this song”.

3. Liz Phair: ‘Fuck and Run’
When I started ninth grade, the American school I was at had a Big Brother/Big Sister programme in place. I’d circled that I didn’t want either a big brother or a big sister, and had listed ‘Grunge/alternative/weirdo music’ as my interest in life, which meant that I got matched up with one Brittany Tobiason, who wrote me a letter going “you seem about as interested in this as me, so how about we team up?”. It was 1994, and Brittany was from SEATTLE. She was basically God to me, the way she wrote lines of poetry on her cigarettes, drank rum from a Superman drink bottle and discussed philosophy over endless cups of coffee. She also made me my first ever mixtape called Jerry, which introduced me to many bands that would be incredibly important to my development, like Liz Phair, and PJ Harvey and Hole. Brittany was so fucking awesome.

4. American Music Club: ‘Last Harbour’
I once received a 23 page letter from someone who reads Hubris who’d emailed to say that since he read my site every day and it made him feel happy he wanted to send me a present for my 21st. Some people would go “freeeeeaaaaak” in reply to that, but I said “hell yeah” and he included this song on one of the compilations he sent me.

5. Bright Eyes: ‘Lover I Don?t Have to Love’
As the divine Miss Fur said on NZM “It seems to win Joanna’s affections musically you need to include songs about sex… see Bright Eyes – Lover I Don’t Have to Love…” well, that?s what she did. I heart this song and while I am of course not a shiny Emo rockstar boy, I can relate somewhat.

6. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood ‘Summer Wine’
All good mixtapes should have some auld-skool gem on it. That’s the rules. I remember singing this song on long long family car trips, and more recently I resurrected it for a compilation of summer songs I gave to everyone I was friends with that summer. I’m sorry if it puts Jessica Simpson in your head though.

7. Augie March: ‘Asleep in Perfection’
When my friend Annabel had to borrow an episode of The Secret Life of Us that I’d taped off me, she made me a mix CD called Cherries in return. This waltzy song from the Australian band who were played on the show quite a lot ties it all together.

8. Ani DiFranco: ‘Soft Shoulder’
“I will say I have saved / every letter you ever wrote to me”.
I am a prolific letter-writer, but what I hate is that if it’s an actual pen and paper affair, you give it to someone when you’re giving them metaphorical pieces of your heart, and then you don’t get it back afterwards, when it turns out that the letter receivee totally wasn’t worth your words. I don’t think the boy who used to play me this song ever kept my letters. He made sure I had very few physical momentos of him as well. But you can read all about that in my zine 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You. Haha, advertising myself in linear notes. So classy.

9. The Cure: ‘Fascination Street’
Yeah, you’ve probably heard this one many times before, but have you ever heard it loud enough? I don?t think I have. This is one of those songs that needs to be turned up so loud that all you can do is drown in it ? and “move to the beat like you know that it’s over”. It gets to be included here because the man mentioned in #4 put it on a mixtape (an actual tape!) of songs about lust. Ahhh long distance impotency, how amusing you are.

10. PJ Harvey: ‘A Perfect Day, Elise’
The boy from #8 gave me Is This Desire? with a note taped to it saying “Yes!” and I thought that was the most romantic thing in the whole wide world ever. Then he left, and I lost this CD, and when PJ played the BDO she didn?t play anything off this album, and for a while I started to think that maybe it didn’t exist at all. But of course it does, and this song is so awesome that it makes me hold my breath while it’s playing, and then I get all light-headed and that makes the song even more awesome.

11. Fur Patrol: ‘The Lover’
This song is so underrated. I put it on a compilation of all my favourite Nu Zulland Music for someone a long way away, and they said they loved it too, and that’s good.

12. Big Star: ’13′
Phew! After all the intensity of most of the other tracks on this mix, I thought it’d be good to finish off with something incredibly sweet and simple. This came from a CD called Pimpu wa doko desuka? (Where are the pimps?) that arrived in my old work PO box, and I had no idea who the hell it was from for a long time, because it had someone’s real name on it, when I only thought of them by their online nickname. So there you go.

Pulp

Thickly textured and layered with intricate detailing, Skallander is a chunky blend of lo-fi, electronica, and indie, which sometimes suggests Smith’s other projects, or perhaps The Phoenix Foundation. The title track, which is undoubtedly the album’s highlight even sounds a fair bit like American Music Club relocated to Wellington. It’s easy listening music for the complicated person. The Camels is one of those soft albums perfect to crawl into at the end of a long day and it comes highly recommended.

Pulp

The production of the album by collaborator Mathew Herbert (Bjork’s Vespertine) is as distinctive as Roisin’s voice. Some songs, like ‘Off on it’ with its horn section sound like scratchy old jazz records while others like ‘Sow Into You’ are pure pop with clicky house beats like Moloko’s biggest hit ‘Sing it back’, yet all tracks have their own very different identity. On the album highlight ‘Ramalama (bang bang)’, drums pound along like the George of the Jungle theme song transported to Mars ? and it works. Ruby Blue is like nothing else you will hear this year, and it is utterly brilliant.

4.5/5

Pulp

After that (although quite a lot later, cos most of the other groups finished really late although we finished quarter of an hour early), there were drinks. Many many drinks in fact, and although I was supposed to go and meet Karen for dinner, we’d got pizza so I wasn’t hungry, and I was having far too much fun having very inappropriate conversations with my workmates (the word “quiffing” was used a lot, which they claim is a fanny fart. I’m not entirely sure that it’s a real word). But I knew Karen was pissy at me, so I headed over to her house just before 9pm. Arriving with leftover brownies, and also potato chips and wine appeased her somewhat, I believe. So we chatted, and I had a shower (and didn’t puke in it) and we trotted off to Indigo to meet up with Dave and his friend who turned out to be rather cute and exciteable like a puppy – but not Humpy-like, if you get the difference (or even the injoke).

I’m being stalked – again. Friday night, and then today outside my place of work, oh and also that one time in March 2002 (<3 google desktop, although if I ever decide to become obsessed with anything that I’ve been obsessed with in the past, I will be in a lot of trouble – assuming that you define trouble as “reading many old entries” as I sometimes do). But anyways, the stalker. I was at 24 Hour Party People, and I went to the bathroom, and there was a cute girl there who was like “HEY! You’re Joanna!” and I was like…….. and she was like “I’m blah blah blah, and we’ve actually met before” and I was like “oh yeah!” and I did actually remember who she was, which is incredibly impressive for me, and she said she was stalking me, and had a crush on me, and it might have been then that I picked her up and swung her around as much as I could, or that may have been later when she introduced herself to my companions as “Joanna’s stalker”. Awww how sweet! Except I think she was laughing at me today. But like with any stalkers – or indeed the very minute number of people who say that they have crushes on me, it’s like “and then?” (speaking of Chinese drive through people, Anji and I discovered that the Chinese takeaway in Hataitai is awesome. But back to the main narrative…). Or, as Katy – and the bard – put it “Would you leave me so unsatisfied? / What satisfaction can you get tonight? / Howsabout you lick my clit, bitch?” Ahh people who quote Shakespeare, how nice it is to know you.

I impressed yet more of Katy’s friends by not taking shit from them, and dishing it straight back (“Oh, you work at a cinema huh? So what’s your film script about then?”) and we hung out until around 4am when it was time to go home via the takeaway shop and some very amusing discussion with some very very drunk young boys.

Oooooh Nightline just played some remix of the Prodigy’s ‘Voodoo People’ and i got an involuntary flashback feeling in my stomach. Crazy. Nevermind. Let me catch up with myself. Hmmmm, where was I at? Saturday? Ahh yes. Saturday. The day was really weird and I had no idea of what was going on because I’d lost my cellphone – Anji kindly ended up picking it up for me from Indigo and I don’t have a clock in my room. In the evening after the aforementioned good Chinese, I drove her into town for SJD and swung past New World for brunch supplies cos I was hoping that either Anne or Brad would be joining me for Alf’s 60th birthday party the next morning.

As it happens, I ate my brunch alone, and got choked up when they showed a brief flashback of Shane dying on a rock. I am crazy! CRAZY! And I napped, and drove Ethel back into town to pick up Anji, who is the new proud parent of an iPod Mini so she’s gone Walking Crazy, and we did the supermarket shopping, and I made a tangine, and Brad came over for dinner, and Shiny Shiny Steve(n) sang CREED and Oh, I was overwhelmed with a strange combination of lust and amusement.

Work was a bit streesssssssssful today. They’ve put me on the schedule so that I can be booked like any common resource. Oh the pain. Then I had lunch with Mum, which was surprisingly pleasant. The Tasting Room does food + a beer or a coffee for $15. Since I am doing Hard Work (my email to limegreen today said something like “I am supposed to be writing a guide to the wazoo when I don’t even know where it is!” and he said something about how he’d heard how large and impressive my wazoo was, and I got offended, cos dude, who wants someone to say “my, what a large roomy asshole you have”?) so I had the coffee instead of the beer. The steak sandwich was served with really really good fries, and also two big onion rings in it, but it’s on very garlicy garlic bread, so make sure if you eat it you pick up some peppermints afterwards.

I just had a moment of remembering exactly why I used to be so in love with The West Wing when CJ told Josh she’d cook him dinner, and he asked if she’d wear an apron and she said she’d wear anything he wanted, and his eyes went !!!!!!!! I think I’ll stop this now. Oh, and some guy saying to Toby “what if they have seven or eight kids?” and Toby says “tell them to try renting a DVD sometime instead” – remind me again why I stoppped watching this show?

Okay, on with the show. What have I been up to the past week? Hmm. On Thursday, we had a quiz night at work. I think I impressed several people with my dazzling knowledge of mostly useless facts AND I managed to drink quite a lot too. What an achievement! While I wasn’t hungover the next day, I was full of cringe for arriving at work two hours late – when I’d woken up at 7.50am, I reset my alarm clock, as I always do, but I made it 7.30 instead of 8.30, and so it didn’t go off, and so I didn’t get up and oh the crapness that is me. That combined with things like Thursday Morning Teas, and taking off on the dot of 5pm on Friday to go up to the other building to polish off the beers left over from the quiz night has meant that my output is down. But I will also put that down to the fortnightly cycle. Yes.

Anyways, drinks on Friday were pleasant and amusing as usual. I went home around 8ish I think, cos we’d finished the beer, and I brought takeaways and put on my pajamas and settled down to watch TV. But then I was like “no! I want to go out!”, and I was still annoyed cos I was supposed to be hanging with Dave but he’d gone out with my sister the night before to an event I hadn’t been invited to and was too hungover. So I texted Katy, and found out that she was intending to go to Ghostplane, so I ran a hairdryer over my hair and dusted off my chucks. I was apprehensive about showing up and being a no-mates, but I didn’t want to stay at home any longer, so after texting Lisa Ratpony and discovering she was going to be on her way, and knowing that Kartini and Co would be there, I set off via eftpos taxi. Stupid no cashness.

I found Kartini & Mike and LisaB at the bar, and so I hung out with them. I really must remember what Lisa’s last name is more in the future, to avoid the sort of confusion that happened a couple of weeks ago with the girl whose birthday party it was not being that Lisa Lisa. Not that it was the end of the world or anything, but y’know, it just makes sense to know where you’re going or why you’re there. Meestar were playing, and they sounded pretty choice, even though I only know one song of theirs and that’s off a CD called Pimpu wa doko desuka? (Where are the pimps anyway?), so we sat outside and they smoked instead. It was a pretty damn cold night out in Wellington, and only two of the heaters were on, so I was glad to go inside when Ghostplane started playing. The stage was all set up with blue and green lights and waves and stuff, in keeping with the whole Under the Lagoon theme, and damn it looked purty. Then Katy showed up, and I felt like talking to her, so we went outside again, because as you know, people who talk near the stage at gigs are evil motherfuckers who need to be killed a lot. There was much discussion of graffiti in the toilets – including one particular piece that needed to have a last name censored out of it (by the way, has anyone found my KA messages yet?) and more beer was drunk, and blah blah blah, it was just a really good time, and I’m so glad I left the house again. Katy and I split a cab home via takeaway cheesecake from Midnight and I stayed up late watching watching taped Rockstar: INXS and getting teary at Jordis’s ‘Imagine’ and Marty’s ‘Wish You Were Here’. Awww bless.

Then I was forced to make a really hard decision in a two party system. Would I vote Newtown or Brooklyn for election coverage watching? Well, I went with the one with Hott Boy possibilities (Jimmy aside, of course, because obviously he’s SHRN, but not this particular Hott Boy). Saturday was DEMOCRACY DAY, and I was as excited as a kid at Xmas, except I was also terrified that there might be cunts in this country who would sell us out for an extra $20 a week who would result in us all getting a rather nasty lump of coal in our metaphorical stockings. But when Anji got home, I LITERALLY (not really) skipped up to the polling booth. We debated for a while about where to go (email suggestions telling me where to go are welcome) and since she wasn’t entirely sure if she was registered in Wellington Central or Rongotai we decided we’d give the school on Elizabeth St a go, since we were going to be going to Liquor King anyways. Since I’d spilled beer on my red top the night before, I was all about my green t shirt. I had debated with myself and others long and hard about whether or not to vote Labour or Green with my party vote, and the night before i’d finally decided to do what was in my heart, and on the basis of them being the only party ot talk about public transport, I went Green. I was going to be ticking the Annette King box anyways, so I was all red and green like an Xmas tree. Of course, I got to stick it in the special short box since i was out of my electorate – like many other green voters, I’m hoping. But perhaps we’ll come to that later.

Supermarket shopping was done and vodka was purchased, although I do kind of not like the fact that I got ID’d for vodka but not for voting – I mean, which one is more important? Then I made three flavours of vodka jelly (Raspberry Labour, Lime Green and Orange elections) and napped and blah blah blah, then it was a green scarf wrapped around my neck and red raspberry fizz to go with my vodka, and off to Kartini’s went I. You know what’s fucking choice? Watching TV with people who say things like “I think Steven Parker has a Giles-like past” and knowing what they mean, and then having those same people later compare Gerald Brownlee to Crab and Goyle. Ahhhh politics + pop culture = SHRN. We cheered and cheered every time Labour went up a .1, and cackled when National went down. We also drank in delight when the marvelous John Campbell threw shoutouts to the drinking game, saying “I just have to cut in now – oh and that means that all you drinking game players need to drink now”. How incredibly meta. I think I might try to develop a line of DVDs of cult movies with drinking game rules built in as subtitles. OI, BACK OFF, PREDATORS. Anyways. Maybe you should play a drinking game with my journal whereby you take a drink every time I do, and also every time I use my phrase de jour (such as SHRN). That’d rock. Rock! Okay, now you must drink.

After that, Katy tried to call her parents in Mexico so we missed out on a taxi with some people so we took another one in to a place in town which is a place of work where people were drinking, and the lovely Nial put a beer in my hands while some guy was metaphorically humping Katy’s legs, so I went to the bathroom and texted her that, and then when I came back he was literally doing it. Ahh it’s nice to be back on the Internet where I can make jokes about Humpy and know that youse guys get it. Or at least the footnoters do anyways. Go Level Two Hubrettes! I tried to be brave and stalk a hott boy across town, but when I finaaaaaaaaaaaally got to where he was, he was just on his way home. Sigh. Spring sucks! I am so in desperate need of being sprung. Of course I am on heat for many many boys but this is the only one that I could imagine actually telling. I think he’d be the kind to appreciate the straight talk.

Speaking of appreciating my pajamas (ha! see how I slipped in a masturbation joke right there? No? Well I’ve obviously not slept with you then), Sunday was a perfect day for duvets and pjs and DVDs. It was also good for getting texts with HOT GOSSIPICIOUS SCANDAL from Karen (for those in the know: it’s the same thing again), and roast dinners around the dining room table. How civilised!

But I’m still feeling a little sad, because on Sunday morning I dreamt I was at my book launch, and it was the most fantastic elaborate party ever – there were huge big trays going around with large slabs of expensive European chocolate, and kiwifruit champagne was pouring by the gushful, and lots of people I loved were there, but no one would give me a copy of my book, and I knew I wasn’t particularly happy with it, because it was something that I’d started writing in seventh form English, and I threw a tantrum at the publishers because they hadn’t arranged for me to actually get to read the book before it was published. Then after I’d stopped crying, and I’d left the party, I bumped into someone who used to be a big part of my life, and I wanted to show him my fabulous achievement, when he was all “oh, check out this book I just wrote” and I was trying to find a copy of mine and I couldn’t. Waking up and finally remembering that I haven’t actually written a book was even more devestating than the time I woke up and realised that I wasn’t actually recording an album in Bic Runga’s studio.

EDIT: Inspired by Heather’s comment, I now present A VERY EXCITING COMPETITION. Create ten rules for a Hubris drinking game. Best entries win hott prizes. Post them below.

The Town Hall was a lot smaller than I remembered it being, but eventually I figured out that was probably because the stage needed to be so large in order to accomodate all eleven people on stage – four gospel singers, two percussionists, a bassist, a guitarist, an organist (keyboard player? what is the prefered title these days?) a violinist, another guitarist/keyboard player, and of course Cave himself, who paced around the stage, sometimes cat-like, sometimes kicking out his legs in glee, dancing like a marionette or worshiping his fellow musicians.

The gig was sold-out, so I was hoping that everyone in the crowd would be feverishly worshipful fans, who would know to SHUT THE FUCK UP when he was playing, especially during the quieter songs, but alas, some dirty looks were needed to be dealt out when he was playing ‘Easy Money’ and the song that is a serious contender for the first dance at my wedding, ‘Babe you turn me on’(because when he says “I put one hand on your round ripe heart / And the other down your panties” I just about keel over in a swoon – plus it’s got dreamy waltzy timing).

As far as songs go, the set was dominated by their recentish Abattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus , (‘There She Goes, My Beautiful World’, ‘Abattoir Blues’, ‘Breathless’, ‘Supernaturally’ and one of the highlights for me, ‘O Children’), as well as obvious standouts from their long career – ‘Red Right Hand’; ‘The Mercy Seat’ which built up until the sound was so solid you could breathe it in; ‘Deana’ which made people dance like crazy; ‘Do you love me?’ which was just as dark and menacing as it could be; and a couple of ones that I didn’t know, one of which he said was on their b-sides album and a very soothing song about God being in the house. When they came back for their second encore, he played the first couple of notes of ‘The Ship Song’ and I felt pathetic because my eyes welled up. I have to say that “We talked about it all night long / we defined our moral ground / but when I crawled into your arms / everything comes tumbling down” is right up there with the most expressive and vivid lyrics ever. And then of course there was the song they played afterwards, ‘Stagger Lee’ whose lyrics are somewhat different – “I’m a bad motherfucker, don’t you know / that I’ll crawl over fifty good pussies just to get to one fat boy’s asshole / said Stagger Lee”, but fuck me if seeing that live wasn’t one of the sexiest things I’ve ever heard (it made me feel bad afterwards when I said to my sister “this is what it must have been like when him and PJ Harvey were fucking” and I bent my hands back and banged my wrists together to make that horrible ouch skinny sound). Plus, Stagger Lee shooting the devil? Fucking Rock.

I’ve never heard louder or more passioned cries for encores, and few bands have managed to pull off performances that deserved them quite so much.

Now, speaking of fantasies, and fucking, and the nearest best thing, last night I went to a Fuckerware party and it was tremendous fun – although I ended up spending a hundred bucks more than I’d intended to. But really, when a vibrator is all shimmery and squirmy and pearly rotating and sixty dollars off, and lights up like a disco ball, how can one resist? It was the most popular purchase, and even though I don’t know the names of most of the girls at the party, it’s like we’ve got our own little club now, inappropriate as that may be to suggest to strangers. And the other thing I bought is on back order, which means I get fun delivered to me at a later date as well, hurray! Also, __ was like “omg, you’re not going to post explicitly about this in your journal are you?” so I reassured her that hey, of course I was, but I’d leave her out of it. As I did.

On a sexless note, hoooo boy I’m looking forward to tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps I will start writing the letter now.

I’ve been reading through my old reports, because Mum found an envelope of them, and it’s extraordinary the story that they tell; at the American school I started out really smart and full of enthusiasm and blasting my way out of the remedial writing class they stuck me in thinking that I was a ‘dumb Australian’, and then as I got into seventh grade, comments read like “Joanna does not participate as much in class as she used to” and my marks start falling and there’s even “I believe underlying problems may be affecting her results”. Oh really? Underlying problems like ooooooh maybe I was being bullied every day, and I was fucking miserable and I wanted to die? Do you think that might have affected my marks. FUCK YOU to every single fucking teacher at ASIJ. Just looking at the reports, it’s so fucking obvious what was happening to me, and what the fuck did they do about it? Nothing. And my mother just now is like “Should we have taken you to a shrink so that you could realyl have fit in with those Americans?” Well, yes, maybe, Mum. Or maybe you could have spent at least one day in those four years not telling me how miserable you were, and tried to make things a little easier for me. This is so pathetic of me; this stuff was like, ten years ago, and it’s making me cry right now. I’m okay, I survived it all – thank god for Beth Dodd arriving at ASIJ in 8th grade, and for Lisa Gonser and Ryan Rimschnider leaving at the end of 7th grade.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

Last night, I went around to Fatty Si’s house. We went adn got coffee at Midnight Espresson, and then rented DVDs – Zoolander and Nurse Betty. We chatted and hung out and stuff. It was cool. He said that a long long time ago, his girlfriend at the time, Heidi, used to worry about me before she met me, cos he talked about me a lot, but then she met me and thought I was super cool and loved me. As soon as you actually meet me, you realise that there’s no way I could take your boyfriend away from you, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, ever. Ladies, I am not a threat to your man! Statistically speaking, I am far more likely to score your girlfriend. I’ve only slept with one guy who had a girlfriend, and she was far too good for him anyways (as was I, which is probably one of the main motivating factors for me to do it, since it was in the six months I spent last year trying to reach rock bottom). On the drive home, through the wilderness of Wilton, I suddenly started feeling very lonely. It was a little odd.

Now I am sitting in the very warm lounge listening to the Topless Women Talk About Their Lives soundtrack (I love this album so much, although the current association i have with it is of a sweet boy’s white bum shining in the dark as he bent over to put it on at my request), and thinking about doing some writign that i told someone I’d do for them, which I wish I hadn’t. I’m too nice, I think. But my word is my word and I hate to let people down. Maybe I’ll work on it tonight when I come home leeringly drunk from “a quiet dinner” with KateB. We’ll go BYO, drink two bottles’o wine and see where the night takes us. I get to see my baby girl again, YAY. Then I just have to spend lots’o time with Karen, Anji, go visit Oma, see Fatty again, see Hulita, adn maybe call the Rimu Crew (Bopha’s old flat). It’s probably just as well that the Welly Massive doesn’t really seem to exist anymore – Ayna’s on holiday in Indonesia and Daniel moved to Korea to teach English, cos i probably don’t have the time and energy to take e and go out dancing for hours and hours and hours.

When did I last write? Probably a while ago. Ahh, Wednesday, when I was sick and dying. Right. Well, Thursday I got up and cleaned the kitchen with Clay – we scrubbed inside cupboards and everything. Ben started moving out around 6pm, which was also when Bopa started moving in, so I found that kind of amusing. When Ben left finally I wished him good luck. Apparently he’s going back to Thames and he’s going to become a fisherman. It seems that the big city has broken his spirit. I’d feel a little guilty for that except that i told him he owed me $175 and he only gave me $80.

We had some bubbles to celebrate Bopa moving in, and chatted to her friend Rabbi who was very nice. She went out to some gig, Clay went to hockey, and KateM picked me up and we went down to The Classic to meet up with KateH and see EyeTV’s last ever gig. After watching Sammy doing his MC intro, Katem and I realised that we hadn’t had dinner, so we went down to the Tanuki’s cave for yakitori. When we got back to The Classic, Soda were still playing. They were okay; nothing exciting. I was amazed at how empty the place was, and that it continued to get emptier and emptier, just because it was after 11pm by the time that EyeTV started playing. But they were so good! I love the singer. Of course, you may very well have noticed that i have an obsession with the singers of Kiwi bands, which works out well with KateH fancying drummers. Then again, I have started to notice the finger-work of bassists more and more, but that might just be my dirty mind. Anyways, they played Basement Static so I was stoked, and of course they played their other hits (if I was to reference you, ‘Just the Way it is’ would cut out in the middle), and we boogied lots and lots up the back. As a followup, Luke Casey noticed us dancing, and I’m sure he was impressed, so that’s cool. I couldn’t figure out why I was so comfortable with Sammy, since i’ve only met him a couple’o times whilst working for KateM and I realised that he reminded me completly of someone, but it took me until today to work out that he looks just like Olivia’s Steve. I was still very sick, and when the discoball started spinning, I was spinning too, doped up on night&day, and brufen and champange and passion cosmos. Kate was like “are you okay?” and I was like “I pay hundreds of dollars to feel like this sometimes!” which was of course an exaggeration, but still, the swimming feeling was kinda fun.

On Friday I met with my tutor in Persuasive Communication to discuss my forthcoming seminar, and she gave me some starting points – cognitive dissonance and social judgement theory if you wanna send me some papers on those topics. She also reminded me that attendance at all classes is compulsory, and then gave me back my mark for my first speech. I got 14/20 on it, and I’m wellstoked, because I also got a whole bunch of constructive comments and yeah, I kinda wanted to pin my mark to our fridge.

After that, I ran a bunch of errands and got my hair cut. Mmmmmmm scalp massage. Note to anyone who ever wants to watch me purr – play with my hair and rub my head. Thank you. After that I went up to the Office and did a whole bunch’o research using proquest; AUT’s library has gone all hightech and e-resourced since I left. And then I went to Mezze to have lunch with Dee and Shirley and Maz. Two PR girls & one in training vs one unemployed journalist; if we’d gone with our stereotypes (Dee walked in talking on her phone) it could have been very amusing. But we didn’t. So yeah, it was nice to catch up. I haven’t seen Dee since I went to see all her wedding photos, so I really should stay in touch better. She didn’t ask about the microbiologist friend’o her husband’s, and that is probably a good thing.

After lunch I was still feeling weak and tired and sick , and I got home to find a note from Bopa saying she was gonan be away for the weekend, so I decided to rent some videos. I joined the Source and got 10 for $10, even. So I watched ‘Occasional Course Language’ (shit) and later ‘Angst’, which I really liked. That’s about it, I think. Yeah, sleepysick, duvet on couch.

This evening (today being Saturday of course), Clay and I were watching ‘The Sting’ (which is excellent) when his friend Brad-friend-of-boatshoeguy showed up on our doorstep. He was just bored, so he stayed and watched the rest of the movie, and then when Clay went to bed (giving me a pointed look on his way out that suggested that I was not to seduce Brad or I’d be in trouble) he stayed and watched ‘Nightwatch’ with me as well. Exciting. Actually, it was just nice to have company; Clay’s always out, I’m not even entirely convinced that Bopa lives here yet and I’ve been too sick to pursue my friends very much and too sick to really go out (i probably shouldn’t have gone to EyeTV, but LAST GIG EVER waaaah, I was almost teary at the end). Now I’m wearing too much red lipstick and pouting in anticipation of the gangster-poker dressup night we’re planning. But I really should go to bed; after all, I’ve been ever so active today.