Hubris.co.nz

I spent all of last week at home hiding out. There were occasional distractions – Amy came over on the Monday night for prettyprettypretty stuff, and I made Lisa dinner on Wednesday, but apart from that there were only a couple of conversations with Smoo and George. I kept my phone switched off during the day so work couldn’t call me, and on Friday I sent an email to my boss that said in part:

suppose I’ve been hoping a little bit that by going AWOL I would just get fired, and then I wouldn’t have to own up to all my failures. I haven’t been at work this week because the thought of coming in just absolutely petrifies me. I physically cannot get out of bed and leave the house because of my fear of all the work that I should have done by now that I haven’t, and the thought of having conversations about it, and why I haven’t done it, and how I am not meeting your expectations absolutely terrifies me. That’s why I’ve left my cellphone switched off, which is a total copout for someone who used to pride herself on her communication skills. I think I need to resign, I am not the person that you thought you hired, and I cannot do the work that I have been hired to do. I know that I’m in a down space right now that I will climb out of, but I just don’t see how I will get any better at doing what is expected of me at the *.

As the ever-perceptive Smoo said, perhaps it was a cry for help. She sent me back a really really nice, really really supportive email, which made me cry, which was kind of nice too, because I’ve felt more numb than I should be feeling, and have been questioning whether or not I should be on 40mg, or if it’s actually too strong. But anyways, I cried, I washed my face, I blowdried my hair, I fought off the metallic taste of rising panic, and I headed out to Deb and Mike‘s Emancipation Party.

First up though was dinner at Arashi with Robyn and Shirley and Tom, who bought along really really nice champagne to celebrate, even though I didn’t want to talk about resigning, or not resigning, or whatever it is that’s going to happen now, which will involve a lot of work and conversation and bravery and all that sort of stuff. So instead, here’s photos of them at dinner.

Then we headed up to Hawthorn early to secure the big corner table. I love Hawthorn so much. The bartenders are so charming, and make such good zombies. We laughed a tremendous amount at Shirley saying one was cute when he was standing right behind her. We’re grownups that way. I held court at the big table, drinking more zombies and more bottles of wine. Having not talked to anyone in so long, and after essentially sitting in my own filth all week (well, I showered, but then I put Pjs back on) it felt insanely great to be out of the house again. I could talk and bullshit all I wanted to.

And yes, I got rather drunk, and in fact told the third person ever that I loved them, ((EDIT: actually the fourth. If I was Good Tom, I’d be quite insulted at how often I got left out of the count, but then again he’s probably just relieved!) via text message that I don’t remember sending, and which also quite frankly isn’t true, or rather as I texted the next day, I love them, but I don’t love them. I’m just going to miss them a fuckload. I also invented a new insult in the Twitterverse - “Asscunt”. I hope it’s going to take off. Yes, I drank far more than is healthy, but oh holy crap did I need a huge blow-out and some rants and raves. I’m having trouble having responsibility for the most basic parts of my life (I need a wife) so it totally makes sense to go out and be totally irresponsible, right?

A story from the night that has nothing to do with me but which was incredibly hilarious unfolded in front of me and Robyn. We noticed this guy sitting at the end of the bar looking around a lot and staring at us, and we thought he was Sam Farrow so we yelled out his name but he didn’t look, so we decided that there was something else seedy going on with him. Later a guy in a white pinstriped shirt came in with a girl in red, and the girl in red started talking to Sam-Lite. Next time we looked up, Sam-Lite was gone, and Red Girl was talking to some other random. I was ordering more wine at that stage, and so I got to overheard Pinstripe at the other end of the bar sending down drinks to Red Girl and Random. Then later, Pinstripe found himself a new friend in the form of a girl in a floral dress, who was there with Leather Jacket. In fact, Floral found herself between the two of them, with hungry suburban manhands all over her.

You can’t see Pinstripe’s roaming hands in those photos, but believe me, they were there. Icck. Keep it in the Hutt, please. Small bars are not good places for discretion.

And yes, anyway. Have I mentioned how much TV I’ve been watching? Carnivale (love it so much, sad it’s all gone now), Green Wing, Strangers with Candy, This Life, and more, I’m sure. I’m pretty sure I can’t remember how to stand up anymore, but I will need to find out tomorrow when I go into work. Oh also I have to pash 20 people before next Tuesday when I turn 28. Volunteers please? And my birthday dinner is on Saturday and we’re going to Karaoke afterwards, you should come along if you like that sort of thing. And um, I think that’s it for the night. It’s too cold to have my arms out from under my duvet any longer.

It’s official. Sue is a bad influence. An hour and a bit talking to her online has cost me nearly $300 on my credit card. That’s on top of the $110 I spent at Farmers at lunchtime on firing protection. I should explain.

I think it’s also official that I am not just in a weekend come-down. For the past couple of weeks I have been saying to myself “I will always have depression but I won’t always be depressed” on account of how it’s been more than three occurances but there’s the euphoria too. But then there’s the gap where the euphoria of initial pillage was and it’s the “oh, so this is what it feels to be normal huh?” but then there’s the gap underneath where the normal is supposed to be. I didn’t go to work yesterday, because I couldn’t get out of bed, and also my throat was as swollen as a 17 year old virgin’s balls. I found myself at Lyall Bay in the afternoon, in the water cursing at the waves every time they failed to drown me. I wanted the cold water to wake me up, to make me grateful for being alive, to make everything feel real again, but instead I was angry because I couldn’t cry, because I was feeling numb, and because the lure of the water out to where it was deep and green and peaceful was stronger than it should have been for someone who is in theory on the mend. And of course just when I was about to start yelling and screaming out loud, no matter how much I was trying to supress myself because while I’d been the only one in the ocean when I started, two ten-ish year olds had shown up and were squealling at the waves too by that stage, I turned my back on the ocean and didn’t jump quite in time and a huge fucking wave crashed in to me so hard that for a moment I thought it’d broken my arm and that made me laugh lots and lots and cry “AHA TOUCHE!” at the waves. And so I left the foam behind and went home in a daze.

Today I made it in okay, but everything went downhill from there.At lunchtime I decided to be oh so very girly and go shopping in an effort to make myself feel better. I went to Farmers and laughed at the new labels they have in their fat section, because if you wnated to spend $130 on a skirt, would you really buy it there? No no sir. At least I hope not. But then I found a totally cute (yes, that is my phrase for everything now, and no I will not be changing it this week) grey tweedish skirt for $50, and a matching shortsleeved jacket for $60 (the skirt is curved to fit curves, with netting petticoat trim and a slight fishtail, the jacket is semi puffed sleeves and two buttons, and is two sizes smaller than the skirt, as if I needed further evidence of the pear shape of I. If you can’t picture it, I should say it’s sort of late 1940sish, pre Dior-new look but not all with the “oh there’s a war on” strictness), so I bought that on the grounds of if I get fired from work soon I will need some nice clothes to go to interviews in. Half of me doesn’t think that I will need them, of course, but then there’s the half that thinks I am worthless and useless and that everyone hates me and that I am a burden to everyone who knows me. It was nice to not have that half for a while, but meh. Oh, but of course when I got to the register, it turned out I’d left my wallet at home. When I got on the bus in the evening, after spending half an hour crying in the toilets after discovering that all the work I’d done int eh past couple fo weeks may be lost due to a syncing problem (euphemism), I got on a Lyall Bay 03 instead of a Lyall Bay 06, so had to get off and then because I was wearing my uncomfy mary janes I thought I’d walk back to Mt Vic and bus it rather than walk through the horrible Hataitai tunnel. Of course, I just missed a 5 getting to the bus stop, so i decided to cash in a voucher I had from Coruba for a free 4-pack of testing taster RTDs (I said free, right?) and while I was waiting for a guy to actually serve me a 2 went past. Then I lost my earphones and had to go back to the store to get them, then i had a long wait for a bus, then there was a long queue at the 4 Square and my avocado was $3.50 and and and oh man, badness. So tonight has been all about orange juice, frozen vodka ands peach schanpps and you know what? I think my flu has retreated a little. And Sue made me buy two pairs of shoes from Torrid, and also a ticket to Mini Webstock. And I don’t care. Somehow my credit card bill will be paid off, and my depression will get better, and we’ll figure out something at work about syncing and oh, blah.

I was sitting on a stool at the bar in the Kings Arms, with KateH and her flatmate Karen, waiting for the Heavy Jones Trio to come on when the girl next to me looked at me. “Excuse me,” she said, “but are you Joanna?” Yes, yes I am. “You don’t know me,” she told me as I racked my brain trying to think of who she was, “but I used to read your journal all the time. I even submitted mine to the Breast Club”. Ohhhhhh. I didn’t catch her name and I thought it’d probably be out of line for me to ask her to pull up her top and see if I remembered her that way, but still. And then the girl she was with knew KateH from her job, and so we both laughed at Karen because she wasn’t famous. Exciting! Oh, and if you did decide to start reading me again and you’re here, the singer told you to have a horrible night as y’all walked out, which was mean of him but ever so cute. I think the last person who fan-spotted me was Secret Passage Robyn.

And so as cool as that was, it paled in comparison to how cool the Heavy Jones Trio were. They opened with “Straight Into Your Arms”, the song of oh so many mix tapes, and I instantly fell in love with the singer. Later when they played “Special” it was so beautiful I almost started crying, and that of course led me to thinking about how nice it is to actually have feelings again, having completley wasted the last six months feeling numb, drinking too much, smoking too much pot, watching too much shit tv and having empty boring sex. I can do so much better with myself! Really! But back to the Heavy Jones Trio, unless I get too distracted watching the Westpac Trust Helicopter land outside my window. Yeah, anyways. I hope they get a record deal real soon, although they did mention their EP a couple of times, along with trying to get us up off the floor and dance. He was looking at me the whole time, (I swear!) and he did this funny leg jiggling thing that was so fucking endearing. I swear, I have such a fatal weakness for scrawny boys with very very short hair who look like they need mothering. The old soup&blanket theory, if you will.

And with that last (incomplete) sentence, I can nicely link into the big discussions we had about grammar in Persuasive Communication today. I LOVE class discussions. I don’t so much love speeches about umm fuck,I can’t remember which one it was that made me feel really bad about myself. Probably the drinking age debate one. Italia spoke about how AUT is a university and I was just laughing to myself, especially when she said (to paraphrase) that it’s only wankers who have inferiority complexes who like to stress that we were originally a polytech. Te he he. Discussions about monarchy spilled out of the classroom and into the lift all the way down to the ground. I love Com Students. I hate the lifts which steal at least 15 minutes of my life a day. My speech went pretty well, I’m gonna send a copy of it to my notify list, and then eventually one day I plan on having an academia section on my site, so I might put it up there too.

In the evening, KateH came around after her work, and invited me to dinner at her house,and told me that the HJT were playing at the Kings Arms. I was so fucking stoked, because they’d opened for the Proclaimers, and I so badly wanted to see them that if i’d been given a free ticket, I would have gone. And then they played at an Industry gig that some of my friends got to go to, and I was very very jealous, but now YAY finally I’ve seen them live,and apparently they’ve moved to Auckland so I will be able to see them more often. Now all I need is for them to get a record contract so I can buy their album, and everything will be special…..

Sunday 10th of January, 1999

Oooooooh controversy!

Honestly, how have you people gone so long without reading my journal? Did you really expect that I’d be all light and sweetness in it forever?

I’ve been told that if I don’t change my attitude, I will lose all my friends. The interesting thing is that was said to me by someone who isn’t high on my list of priorities anyway (even before I got all fucked like I have been lately). He wasn’t impressed with my descriptions of his friends that I wrote about in my journal over a month ago. (Dec 5). Why does everyone expect me to like their friends? That’s not the way I work. I can be polite, nice, tactful, but if I don’t like them, then I don’t like them.

It’s my parents’ 29th anniversary and Shortland Street begins again tommorrow.

Gosh, this centre formatting is fun. I will continue with it.

As for my attitude, I have always had an attitude, and if I can make friends with it, I’m sure I can break friends too. That, by the way, isn’t connected to the numbness I’ve been feeling lately. I just get tired of people being suprised if I do something bitchy, when they should totally expect it.

See, I accept me, and I’m perfectly happy. Now I feel like I’m going on the defensive, which is sort of unnecessary, but all I did today was read and sleep, and this gives me something to write about.

Speaking of reading, I finished “My Year of Meat” today. I’m so glad that my father works for MAF and can reassure me that the NZ Beef industry is nothing like the US one.