Hubris.co.nz

I have made a really important decision and decided that my favourite close-to-work source of coffee is Gravel. It’s quick, the Revive beans are tasty and the barrista is lovely and chatty. Today he said that he hoped my coffee would make my day better as I explained it had got off to a terrible start what with getting to the bus stop (late, and sore of tummy) and discovering that I had left my wallet at home so having to go back and consequently being insanely late to work. Assuming I had an actual start time instead of a 7am-7pm guideline. The one problem with Gravel though is that they normally sell out of muffins very quickly, and besides they’re stodgy muffins. The scones at Kiranyi are the bestest, but girls cannot live on scones (and coffee) alone.

Yes, I’m all about the big issues today. I had lunch with my ex cow Frances, and we talked about stoogling, which is my HOT NEW BUZZWORD and I made it up and it means stalking via google. Of course. Yesterday I had dinner at Arashi with Karen and Anji and we talked about ummm I can’t remember what. Afterwards I thought about going to Frindigo but found my couch and my new Xmas lights were more appealing, although I did consider going so I could blank people, because what’s the point in being mad at people if they don’t know about it? Instead I am going to the Matterho tonight for birthday drinks for Kart, and tomorrow I am actually going to go to my Ministry’s Xmas party, despite the fact that I probably will know few people. I suppose this is one way to get to know people. But before that we have our team lunch at Logan Brown, and then on Friday our Comms planning day with lunch at Dojo, and on Saturday our agency’s Xmas party at the bowling club. Hurrah!

Speaking of work, I recently discovered that a guy I’ve been going “I’m sure I know him from somewhere” actually comes from NZM, which makes me happy because I thought I knew him via Skank, and I didn’t want to have to ask him if that was how. Turns out he asked me instead. Yesterday I spent the whole day having Orientation (they do two Orientations a year for everyone new in the past six months), which started off with a lovely Powhiri and now I know the English translation of Tu Teramai Nga Iwi, although we sang it in te reo. It was kind of funny because someone went to teach it to us, and all the macronised letters were missing, but we figured out what it was and everyone around my age knew it already from primary school. I’m still a little flustered by the hongi though, because everyone does it differently – some with foreheads and some without, and some with a cheek kiss and some without, and oh, just the confusion. We should have an official hongi style guide. And I love that this paragraph will make not much sense to people from outside of NZ, but if you’re curious, please email me and ask.

A while ago, I started a Mixtape Club on NZM. The first assignment was a mixtape based on other mixtapes you’ve received. It took a fuck of a long time to get everyone’s submissions in, but finally I (kind of) did. Here are the linear notes that accompanied mine, so you can play along at home!

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.

I’ve been on a big Bic Runga kick this week. This is because I got Drive from the Smoke CDs sale for NZMM to replace my copy which Horrible Gay Jonny stole, and because it was the place in the fortnightly timetable where I have to upload the magazine which means literal hours of copying, pasting and deleting carriage returns at the end of every single line, and Birds goes so well with that (although of course being the album of last year it goes well with everything, especially lying on my bed staring at fairy lights and going “holy fuck, this album is unbelievable”). Then there was the very brief “OMG SQUEE, Bic Runga wants to be my myspace friend! She obviously didn’t think I was too much of a dick about her tights then!“, before I realised that it was of course Jessie. And then through her myspace page I saw the video for ‘Say after me’ and it’s a thing of beauty, and more importantly, I realised that parts of my hair are now the same colour as Bic’s, from Karen putting in blue black streaks very hesitantly for me on Tuesday, although I assured her that it’s impossible to fuck up my hair because it always looks awesome, assuming it’s clean and combed anyway. And to finish up with my Bic Runga links, it’s my birthday in two weeks and one day, so if you’d like to order me the vinyl, that’d be fucking awesome. And finally finally, how was the Brighton gig? As beautiful as you expected, or a severe let-down?

To contrast totally and utterly with the wonderfulness of Bic, on Monday I took Miss Lisa Fur and Anji and Karen and Bart to what is quite possibly the worst movie ever made in the entire history of the world – Poseidon. I hate people who talk in movies and at gigs and everything, but seriously, I’d had a half-bottle of wine very quickly before the movie, and it was just so fucking atrocious that I had to whisper stupid things in Lisa’s ear the whole way through, when I wasn’t falling out of my chair laughing, that is. Everyone should go see it. It’s like, totally awesome. And it cost $160 million. Puuuuuuuke. The next day when Karen came over to watch Serenity again and dye my hair, we commented that Joss Whedon managed to put more character development in the first five minutes of that movie than Poseidon had achieved in its entire length and the subsequent thousand sequels, if you know, they actually made them, which God willing they never will. And then I cried a little on the inside thinking of how many more adventures Captain Mal could have had if Joss had been given that $160 million instead (answer: at least three more), and then I died a little on the inside when I realised I was starting to think about what Poseidon would have been like if Joss had written the script. And now I realise that I am a total geek. Cos I’ve never had that revelation before, of course…

Today Heather is squeeing at me because I sent her flowers for her birthday, and she’s also quoting the text messages I sent her last Friday, which is making me laugh out loud so much I had to tell the girl I sit with. Stupid gaxy boys indeed.

I had a hot chocolate at Shoc yesterday when I caught up with my lovely Hubrette Frances, who is ex work, and oh boy, I must squee about that. It was pretty much pure melted dark chocolate with cardomon, and was like omgwtfpolarbear amazing. Sure, it cost $5, but my mouth hasn’t had so much pleasure in quite a while.

What else do I have to tell you? Oh, I remember now. You know that I didn’t join the gym with the active goal of losing weight because I didn’t want to get to a point where I was freaking out about not losing grams or whatever, well after I had that big “you’re shrinking!” speech from one of the trainers, I went in on Tuesday and got weighed, and I’ve actually put on seven kilos since I started in November. Cue the “it’s muscle!” speech, but meh, just as well my reason for exercising – keeping my mental health in better condition and sleeping better – have proved to be such total successes. But she measured me up all over, and so now when I go back in six weeks time for another go, I’ll be all like “holy fuck, I put on another 20 kilos of solid muscle and my buttocks are 2cm smaller”. Radsville. Exercise is funny. My pants are falling down, and I’m presuming that’s a good thing.

Anji reminded me last night when I was at her house for dinner about how my pants have also totally fallen down at Boulot, but like, not in the way you’re probably imagining, unless I already wrote about this, but rather because the bit in the button in between the two holes split, so off came the button and down came the pants when I stood up to go to the bathroom. Luckily I was wearing a skirt over the top, and was able to just discreetlyish kick the puddle of pant under the table. She made me and her friend Delwin vegetable lasagne and boysenberry apple crumble. Yum. My belly was about to pop. Her house is pretty, but I still think I like mine better because I have a dining room. And couches. Mmmm couches. Speaking of which, I haven’t cleaned the house properly in like, a couple of weeks. But don’t you worry, by the time 8pm tomorrow rolls around bringing it with Japan at the Country Club, it will be all shiny again. Honest. I spent ages at A-Mart yesterday picking up all kinds of wacky Japanese snackies. When I was rereading Number 9 Dream which is set in Tokyo, I found myself actually missing the city, rather than wanting to throw up at the thought of it. Perhaps this is what growing up means. That and I can laugh at the profile of this guy on Myspace on whom I used to have a massive crush on, but who was (of course!) part of the people who made 7th grade a living hell for me. Ha ha. Sucks to be him. Rocks to be me on a sunny day like today with my skin smelling all clean and good, and my boots currently rocking my universe.

I came home about 10.30pm last night, and the kitchen was absolutely spotless, so I immediately asked Bart to marry me. He said yes so I walked back out to my parents’ car and they gave me a cheque for three grand, and I showed it to him and he said “well, I guess we’d better get a wriggle on then”. But then I decided to pay off my credit card with the cheque instead, since he hadn’t actually caught the mouse that we apparently have in the kitchen which was the reason for his cleaning. And yes, that’s right, I’ve had a credit card for under a month and I already have over three grand on it. But I also have tickets to America figuratively in my hot little hands, so that’s okay.

And I was home that late at night because Anji and I had gone to Capitol for a bottle of wine (I <3 Capitol, the service is outstanding, and the toilets smell so good, and the bruschetta is yum), and then we'd joined up with the rest'o the family at Hazel, where much more jolly awesome wine was drunk, and mountains of tasty tasty food eaten. I am currently craving more squid rings from there, and I don't even like squid. Perhaps I am pregnant. With the second coming.

If you're wondering why I am so much more chipper in this post than I was in Tuesday's, well it appears that the one/two emotional gut punch of watching 'The Body' and 'The Gift' together paid off. Well, that and large doses of the Arcade Fire, St John's, exercise, listening to 'Kim' on repeat (geez, why are you so angry, Marshall?) and all twelve episodes of the unbelieveable hip hopera Trapped in the Closet, which is just so fucking wow that it deserves another round of Holy Fucking Crap!.

Other things of note that I have been up to lately? Hosting the work quiz last Friday. After much debate about the amount of wine we were to have, we did end up running out. My arms ached from carrying eight bottles one block, so in a way maybe it’s better we didn’t have more. The quiz went well, even though I was having initial “no one likes me!” thoughts at the number of attenders, although we ended up filling the room very well. On Saturday I went to see the Dukes of Leisure play at the Carter Observatory, and I was drinking straight vodka from a small bottle, and it was all misty with lamp posts on the way there like Narnia, and we had pillows and got to lie down, and I got to have snuggles with first Anji and then Karen and we all know that I’m a Romanian orphan starved for physical affection so that was nice, and I fell in love with the man who gave us a star tour, because I love story-tellers, and they made us popcorn in the middle, and the music was good too and oh, it was just great and I was crazy giggly, and that amused me muchly. On Sunday I went to a private screening of The Imposters which was hilarious, and found out various bits of gossip that I might reprint here if I could be bothered footnoting it but I can’t, and I just felt choice.

Tomorrow is Canadia, as I’ve mentioned before, and then The Phoenix Foundation at Indigo, and then on Sunday Luke Buda at Caberet. And now it is nearly 5.30 so I must put on lip gloss and harrass the boys downstairs until they come out for a drink with me. My feet hurt from being an escort to a group of people who came to look at the clever things that we do at work. And then one of the directors referred to me as a handmaiden. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen…

My weekend was a shocking pile of debauchee. I participated in: lying to my manager; drunkenness; sexual harassment; sexual arousal; groping; other people’s hands on Mary-Kate and foul language. And that was just Friday night. Okay, so the lie was totally bald-faced, and was merely an excuse to accompany my cow-orkers to their netball dinner. The drunkenness was nothing special, just a lot of white wine. The sexual harassment was constant, and returned (the boys were trying to look up my skirt, despite the fact that I was wearing trousers), the groping was hilarious and mutual, and the foul language was to be expected (*).

On Saturday I felt great on account of having stayed up til 5am so I was stone cold sober again. I cleaned the house, had a shower, treated Seb for fleas, kicked the boys out of the house and set off flea bombs in my room and in the lounge. Of course, it was after I had locked the front door and exited that I heard the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP of smoke detectors going off, so I had to rush back into the lounge, find a chair to clamber on and pull out the battery, all the while coughing in the flea gas. Still, at least it should have killed the larvae in my lungs, right?

I repaired at the Medditerean Warehouse with a margharita pizza (and one of these days I will learn to spell) and the paper, before continuing the Italian theme with shopping to prepare for ‘Rome at the Country Club’. Later, after attempts at napping and some of The OC, which quite frankly I find myself really not giving a shit about, the darling Lisa Fur came and picked me up, and we went to her house via being served at the mill by Conor Oberst, who has apparently fled to New Zealand where he can shed his cold cold tears on his cold cold bathroom tile before getting up to sell cheap cheap liquor to ladies and say “laterz!” to them. We went to Lisa’s house and she played me absolutely devestating videos by the Dears, which you shouldn’t watch unless you’re prepared to cry. Then Brad and KateB came over (do you like the way I invite my friends to other people’s houses? I’m really good at that) and we had some more drinks and played some more music and then took off for the Aro Valley for Joel’s house.

At Joel’s, we sat in the garden and feared for our lives when he threw more furniture on the fire. I saw people I knew from when I worked for VUWSA and was happy that they were the people I liked. I think we were either very early or very late, but it was nice to see Joel again, even though I goddamnmotherfuckingshitfuckcunt forgot to get my Straitjacket Fits CD back off him. He’s had it for like a year now. Grr. Then we left to wander the streets slowly, and I started a long text conversation with my friend because we happened to be passing his house. Upon reflection, I realise that I do tend to text random things at random times (*). Brad peeled off somewhere, and Kate fell asleep on Lisa’s couch, so I made Lisa play me vinyl and make me popcorn. She’s a good bitch like that.

On Sunday, I was in pukesville. Apparently drinking a lot of bubbly straight from the bottle is bad for you. Who knew? Nevertheless, I soldiered on with Rome preperations, chargrilling red peppers to go in homemade hummus, making trifle with banana cake and pineapple in lieu of tiramisu, and putting pizza dough on in the breadmaker. Eventually I had to call a timeout so I retired to the local cafe for coffee and grease and the paper before coming back to the mountain of dishes and assorted other hospitality tasks that awaited me. And then I awaited my guests. You know, Kate mentioned that she thinks there’s been a drop in recent years in the number of people who actually call (or even text) to say that they can’t make it to an event, and I think she’s right. That said, there was still a stream of “oh, I’m too hungover” or “oh, the formula one is on” texts that made me go grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But the people who did come were very cherished, and appreciative of the effort I’d gone to. Also, my flatmates now think I am the greatest flatmate in the world, because it turns out that while I’d heard that Caligula was quite porny, I figured it’d just be softcore boobs and fake sex. Oh no, my friends. It was hardcore jizz baths, penetration and cunnilinguis. With costumes. And sex with horses. Hurrah! I fear I have set a high standard for further Country Clubs, but oh well. I can rename it the Cuntry club and feature porn from all around the world.

Last night Karen and I went to Kazu for some food on sticks. I should point out that we went to the good new one, without the terrible service and the quivering pizza that are found at the Tory St branch. The one on Courtenay Place is right next to the once beloved Arashi, which has since removed both ginko nuts AND their banana & peanut butter spring rolls from their menu, so what’s the point? Then we wanted to see Sione’s Wedding but it was all sold out so we went to A History of Violence instead, which was good. And violent, strangely enough.

Today at work I sat in on a videoconference featuring Tze Ming Mok, who was almost frighteningly articulate and Tusiata Avia talking about writing from a non-European perspective to an audience of Wellington High and Wellington Girls’ girls via video links, and it was really interesting. It made me think lots of things which I have completely forgotten about now, because it’s the end of the day. The ‘compare and contrast’ between the two of them in pretty much every aspect of their work was really interesting, as was also thinking about identity in general. Oh, I know what I wanted to say, and I’ll have to paraphrase really badly here, but Tze Ming spoke about how there’s a sort of expectation in the circles that she moves in that she will write about certain things, and I suppose that’s something that I feel too – not, of course, as an essayist and a blogger, but as a person with an online journal. It’s something I spent a lot of time talking about in the olden days when I was at counselling, my need to keep people entertained. And then I’d say something deep and then I’d say something else to make Kalpana laugh. Awesome, nice consistency there. Hmmm, this all sounded better in my head over lunch. Nevermind, I’ll call it off here.

You know, I’d decided that I was going to start this entry out by pondering how the hell people did the Big Day Out without cellphones, but then I was forced to remember. Oh yeah, if you have my number, can you please text me your name (or email me your number?)? Yeah, that’s right, it’s new Sim Card and phone time. Same number though. Stupid fucking D List ‘celebrities’.

But we can scoot backwards in time, to Thursday morning and I’m leaving the backdoor key out for our downstairs neighbour Eve so that she can look after Sebastian that night since Anji had already flown to Auckland for work, and loading my bags into Lisa Fur’s car boot and folding myself into the backseat because Fran was in the front. And then it’s a week later, and I’m switching from present tense into past, because I’m not a choose-your-own adventure book, as much as I’d like to be. A quick study guide to the BDO was playing on the stereo, and there was a monkey to show the country to. Goats were thrown at first sightings of mountains, which resulted in the people in front of us pulling aside to let us pass. The toilets in Tirau are still the best place in the country to stop, and driving into Auckland still sort of feels like a kick in the guts six years later. Lisa’s car made it on one tank of petrol though, which is incredible.

Heather wasn’t home for Fran to be dropped off to, so we headed to the place that Lisa and I were staying, the Comfort Inn on Newton Road. We’d scored ourselves a big two bedroom apartment with parking for only $65 a night each, sweet sweet accomodation candy. Heather showed up and had some beers, and we headed up the road to Gina’s for dinner. If you’re not familiar with Auckland, Gina’s is (in)famous for its ridiculously hot and over-the-top waiters. The food’s pretty good too, but it’s insanely busy, and took a long time, and it was very very crowded. We went back to the apartment and had more wine. I love the litre bottles of Banrock.

The next day it was Friday and therefore bdoing day. Lisa and I went to meet up with Heather and Fran at Roasted, and then I called an incredibly incompetant taxi driver who took half an hour to find us and kept calling me on my cellie. We got there just before Pluto started. I forgot how many people go to the Big Day Out. There were a lot of people there. Pluto were okay. They played some new songs which was nice, and drums were pounded very heartily, but I just don’t know if their heart is in it anymore. Then I put my earplugs back in (hurray for being a grown-up!) and waded through the crowd trying to get out of the stupid (but I’m sure it’s important when the stadium is actually full) D-Barrier. Texts to Lisa found her again, and we went and got our passes for the Immortals Lounge, courtesy of a wonderful friend.

I felt special as we got to ride the big glass elevator up to the sky. We got to use cleanish bathrooms, and the bar queue was short and there was a better selection (but only Lion Red or Steinie, so I saw that it would be a beer-free day for me). The view was very choice. Then it was time to skootch back down to the Green stage for Sleater Kinney. I wish I knew their music better. If ever there was going to be a replacement for Hole in my “strong women make me feel strong” listening, it could very well be them.

Breaks Coop were playing next, and I’m not a repetitive old woman so I decided to run away quickly to a clean bathroom up in the Immortals Lounge again. I checked the time on my cellphone while I was up there, and bought a drink, and then discovered that my phone was gone. Rad. I went through my bag and looked on the floor by the bar. No phone. Excellent. Then Lisa showed up, luckily, and after asking at the bar after my phone, we went down to see the Go! Team. It made me feel very grumpy though, losing phones sucks. I was going to try calling it from Lisa’s phone but realised I’d never hear it.

Then the Go! Team started, and they were fantastic, and I had a boogie, despite my knees being already like “hey lady, remember us? We don’t like this kind of behaviour one little bit”. I wish I could shake my bottom like Ninja. Fuck it – I wish I was Ninja. Their album is definitely going on my ‘to buy’ list.

I can’t remember when it was that the Brunettes started to play, but I took a photo of all the people on stage.

Someone said that there were 20 people in the orchestra (You don’t expect me to actually try and count do you?). Their rider can’t go very far. I wish I’d stayed for them, but I’d already realised that I am much too old for the Big Day Out.

My knees led me over to the fence by the beer area and I sat down for the Magic Numbers and took some Nurofen Plus. Mmm codeieney. But people don’t look at the ground when they’re walking, and they kept kicking or tripping over my legs – despite the fact that there were people sitting all the way along against the fence, and it was just pissing me off too much so I decided to pop up to the Immortals Lounge again. More liquor and more codeine was taken, and I pulled an armchair up to the window at the back of the lounge and settled down for Shihad:

They played their standard fare. If I hadn’t been so doped up, I might have been a little sad that I wasn’t in the mosh, but then again, if I had been, I wouldn’t have been able to see how fantastic the crowd’s arms looked when they did ‘Pacifier’. But I was, so that was okay. When I felt lonely I had another drink. Haha excellent. Then a guy who was Kateb’s brother’s best friend growing up who’s now in a band that I interviewed for Pulp a while ago came over and hugged me, and tried to introduce me to his fiance, but given that she was a friend of Kateb’s at uni, I already knew her. And that was the only people at the Big Day Out who I bumped in to, apart from Jessie. That was strange, cos I am used to seeing so many people I know there, and I was actually a little bit afraid of who I might bump in to.

Franz Ferdinand played, and they were pretty average, and my arm chair was very comfortable. Then Iggy started, and I was like “what the fuck am I doing? This is the Big Day Out and I’m sitting up here like those wankers that I hate at gigs who only go because they get in free, and they don’t even like music”, and plus the BDO book talked about a cocktail bar in Lilyworld, so I went off to find that. Apparently, the cockails are only in Australia. I also couldn’t find the Krishna food stall, so I had a $9 kebab instead because I realised that I’d had one TEN YEARS AGO at my first Big Day Out, and washed it down with a Lion Red, Mate. I contemplated having a dance, but I was too chicken/sober to dance by myself with the models. Did I bitch about the girl carrying the Nova bag yet? I mean, hi, you’re wearing high heels and an expensive looking dress, and you’re stick thin and gorgeous. We get the point. You’re a model. You don’t need to tell us what agency you’re with. If I was to bitch about the other 30,000 people there though it would take far too long. I’m too old and jaded. And I was also kind of lonely. It’s fine to be by yourself at the Big Day Out if it’s your choice, but if you’re just a lost puppy who can’t contact people cos no one has handed your phone in, then it sucks.

I sat at the back of the stadium and took photos of the human lightening people, who could have been a lot more impressive than they actually are:

Then the White Stripes started.

They looked kind of cool, but the sound was craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy at the back there, and I couldn’t stomach going up closer.

I went to go and wait at the rendevouz spot that I’d (phew!) arranged with Lisa earlier in the day, and then Jessie was there, and I was like YAY and hugged her and felt a bit like I did that one time at the Gathering when I found Katy and Anji after I’d been lost for a couple of hours and thought tents were frozen bodies from Titanic and that there were Jim Henson creatures walking around me and I’d lost the ability to speak, except, you know, without the acid. And Lisa showed up, and Fran, and we got told off for walking on the road by a policeman, and we took a taxi and we went home, hurray! It was strange to leave a Big Day Out and still be able to walk and not have my ears ringing,and I wasn’t too badly sunburnt except for my nose. I am no longer hardcore. I miss being hardcore.

On Saturday Lisa and I met Heather and Jamie from NZM at Benediction. I’ve decided that avocado on turkish bread is quite possibly one of the best breakfasts ever. Then I made Heather come to St Lukes with me, and I used a Farmers voucher leftover from Xmas to get myself a new phone. Then, of course, I went back to her house to charge my phone and check my email, because that’s the only reason I’m friends with her. I also got to watch Alt TV, and I wet my pants in delight at seeing a Guns’n Roses video that I’d forgotten even existed. Awesome.

I went home and had a bath and tried to nap but it was too hot so I read magazines and texted people back going “who is this?” because of the lack of numbers. Exciting, yes, I know. Luckily my social secretary KateH had booked us all for a dinner at 8pm at Canton. Holy crap I love the food there, it’s soooooo good. And for $16 each, we certainly ate plenty. Then people came back for some more drinks, and someone called me trying to arrange a booty-call for the morning (*) and I was metaphorically speechless.

This is Shirley and KateH and her boyfriend Andrew:

This is Maree, who was up from Hamilton for the weekend:

This is J.C and Nigel, who is doing his best J.D Fortune look, while claiming never to have watched ‘INXS: Rockstar’:
.

What’s more interesting than looking at photos of people you don’t know? Relating dialogue from the night? Yeah, so I’ll stop this now. On Sunday Lisa and I drove back down to Wellington. I like visiting my friends in Auckland. I love the Arcade Fire. The end.

Six months in a leaky boat

On Friday December 16, we packed up our offices in the morning, computers, phone cords and everything. I therefore had people yelling at me to pack up my phone when I had just received an email from my mother telling me that Oma’d had another stroke and was in the hospital again. I couldn’t reach her on the phone, so on the pretense of untangling computer cords, I crawled under my desk and cried. We lugged some crap around, and went over to the office building. Eventually I skipped out and took a bus back home for a cold shower, and my workmate came and picked me up and we went to her house to get ready for our Loveboat themed Xmas party – and for those of you playing at home, it took us exactly the length of Purple. Now there’s a flashback. Anyways, so we went back to our other work building and had drinks and then sat around on the street for a while, before being loaded up on a bus, driven down to the docks, and then walking a ways to the Sweet Georgia. The bars along the waterfront were loaded with people, and I was dressed like a bride, so I felt a tiny bit silly – although I suppose there were other people who were dressed sillier. But that’s okay, cos we got on the boat and headed out onto the harbour, and there was much food and booze and Titanic impersonations and a little too much sing-alonging. And there were DOLPHINS! A whole pod of them swimming alongside the boat for ages. And then there was anchoring at Soames Island, and ghosty stories, and eventually there was flashage, although not from me, because I was surprisingly soberish. I still went home and cried on Anji’s shoulder though, because I am a fucking idiot. You can see all of the rest of my photos from the Xmas party in this tagged part of my flickr files.

Call me loyal

On Saturday December 17, I went to my cousin Iain’s wedding, or rather the reaffirmation of their vows. It was held at my aunt & uncle’s place in Waikanae, cos they have a massively huge garden, with ponds and geese and bears, oh my. I didn’t see any bears though. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I was making the bears up. It was very very hot in the sun, but everyone looked lovely, as you can see for yourself in this part of flickr. My father tried to make a speech, which was rather embarrassing, and Karen mocked me for running away from the geese, and I kept getting locked in the toilet cos the handle turned funny, and yet it all made me want to get married ASAP please. Cheers. Oh, and Iain, if you’re reading this, Karen Anji and I were the ones who didn’t label the gifts, so the 500 thread count sheets (mmmm) and the greenstone necklace were from us. Thanks for having us, it was grand!

Crowded House

After we got back from Waikane around 11pm that night, I convinced my daddy (since Mum and Anji had gone to Oma’s house to try and catch Oma’s cat to take him to a cattery) to take me home so that I could get changed and then drop me at Kartini’s party in Aro Valley. I took nine minutes getting changed. Don’t ask me why I keep telling you how long it takes me – I just feel like telling you. Don’t mess with my self-disclosing. Kart’s party was at Nial’s house, and there were an awful awful lot of people there crammed on steps and doorways and kitchens and benches. I had a long conversation with a girl who’s in an up-and-coming Wellington band, and she made me feel special when she was like “oh, are you that Joanna – you and Heather are the people whose opinions I listen to there!” and I was like awwwwwww and we talked about what works in music and what doesn’t. I saw the boy who makes my vagina go boing, and it went boing, and there was lots and lots and lots of dancing to records. Mike played hip-hop, and then Kris (who I finally didn’t address as Jess – the name of her dog) played Atomic-y type music, and I laughed and laughed and laughed when she played ‘This Charming Man’ and then ‘Love will tear us apart’ one after another the way that the Atomic DJs always do. And then I saw Ammy! And that was very exciting because of course she left the country in Julyish 2003 and I hadn’t seen her since, and so I had to catch her up on two years in ten minutes. The party was full of creative people, from crew on Kong, to musicians, to people who talked loudly about the short films they were making. It was nice and stimulating – so much so that I was out til well past 4am, which was a capital effort on my part, I thought, considering the amount of sun and bubbly I’d had.

Oma

On Sunday Anji, Karen and I made merry at the Mediteranean Food Warehouse in Newtown, pausing not long enough for me to learn how to spell Meditblahblah but long enough for pizza, and gelato, and the buying of many, many antipasto type things (and your knowledge of Anji buying them will come back into play later)

to be continued

Oma’s sick again. She’s in hospital now with gall stones, but on Saturday she was still at home, so on Saturday morning Anji and I set out to visit her. However, we had to go and pick up Karen from a house that was not her own first, which was annoying but was also an endless source of amusement – at least to me and Anji, because Karen was getting more than a little sick of our jokes. I was extremely overtired, and more than a little hungover, so we did the drive-through thing, so then I was hyped up on caffiene. Ethel’s getting on a bit in years so we took her up to Ngaio to swap her for Mum’s car, which has the additional bonus of a CD player. We played Led Zepplin and I waved my arms around a lot like I was Bonzo. Eventually someone suggested to me that I only talk in rhyming couplets, and so I did (*). For like half an hour until we got to Oma’s, and then for a while then when I wasn’t talking directly to her (language and hearing miscommunications would have just made that way too hard). I suggested to my aunt that she might like to take the opportunity of us being there to go out and have some time to herself, which she did – which meant we had to stay for ages. Anji was great, talking up a storm. I was less so. When Aunt Diz got back though, she said that Oma had totally perked up and that we’d worked like a tonic on her. A tonic with gin, perhaps? It had been quite amusing to hear Oma telling us that Diz had been bullying her (much like it’s hilarious when Mum complains about Oma complaining about Mum not returning her phonecalls). Oma was also very very big with telling us old stories, which was great. I could have done without the whole “this is how much you guys are getting in my will when I die” speech though.

On the way back from Paraparaumu we made a short but scary stop in Coastlands for something to eat, and we all pretended to be Britney Spears with frappe type drinks from Muffin Break. I dazzled Anji and Karen with my amazing grasp of geography, managing to figure out a much quicker way out of the mall through the cinema. We went back up to Ngaio and Anji picked up Ethel while I absconded with the car and took Karen home. Then it was nap time, finally.

Later, Miss Lisa Fur picked me up for our hott bear-cub planning date, otherwise known as seeing The Phoenix Foundation with SJD at the Opera House. While we were waiting the long time before the show started, we played the “who knows more people here?” game. Because of the number of musicians present, we made it that you’d had to have at least talked to the person in the flesh for them to count. I only managed four – Mr and Mrs Noizy, Sam Scott and Nato. Umm, not to name drop or anything. But while I AM namedropping, I’ll say that we were sitting by the door to backstage, and sometime during the Phoenix Foundation, someone that I think was SJD came and collapsed in the seat next to me, talked to someone behind me for a while and then sat there texting away for a couple of songs before leaving again. Not cool. The light was really distracting. That said, the Phoenix Foundation was unbelievably excellent. I think I am now a huge fan of sit-down gigs, and large scale production values, and comedy lead teams and cute home movies with adorable kids and and and oh yeah so good. Yes. Fantastic. I think it’s one of my top three gigs’o the year, along with Nick Cave and the Straitjacket Fits. Ohhhhh yeah.

On Sunday, since my parents were at Toast Martinborough and the car was still at our house, I drove all the way around the Miramar peninsula, starting at the old Navy base or whatever it is, and then all the way up to Owhiro Bay and back through Brooklyn. It was really nice to be playing party mix CDs really loud and singing along, and it was sunny despite the wind, and just really great time to myself. Then I grocery-shopped, which wasn’t nearly so interesting, but had to be done. And that was the weekend, with a little laundry thrown in there as well. I am a party animal. At least I got home late on Friday night *), because I am a spaz. Today I am really tired, just for a change, although going to the gym has perked up my mood (who’da thunk it?), and tonight I am going to Serenity again with Lisa, and my mother who needs a healthy chunk of escapism right about now, I reckon.

When I sat down and thought about a date to have my belated birthday party on, I texted the three people that form the core of my friendships in Wellington, to make sure that they’d all be free that night, and to reserve them in advance.

On Saturday afternoon, I got a call from one of them saying that he’d had to go to Auckland, and therefore wouldn’t be coming. Okay, two out of three is fine, and I was more concerned for his welfare. Then later, the second one called me, and said that surprisingly enough, complications had come up with something that was bound to get complicated anyway, and so he wouldn’t be coming. Righto. I’m aware that I’m being very much less than supportive here, and that makes me a bad friend, but when I hear through my SISTER about another friend being ***, when my sister doesn’t even know that girl, I get more than a little shitty. And this isn’t about the *** friend, it’s about the inevitable feeling of being replaced (ie: it’s all about ME. And also about the vicious circle of me becoming more pissy and less pleasant and therefore less desireable as a friend). At 9.30pm when no one had showed up and Anji and I had tired of taking photos of each other’s boobs (we were both in corsets, making us go “kaboinga”),

I decided that if the third person from that original trio didn’t show, I would move back to Auckland.

But then at 10pm there was a big rush and everyone (excpet for Karen) arrived within ten minutes of each other, of course. And then it was choice, and mostly very civilised, except for setting off fireworks in the backyard and forgetting that there’s a grannyflat with a very nice nurse called Eve who lives under us. Here’s a photo that doesn’t feature my boobs – or in fact, me at all:

Karen stumbled in very drunk very late and so I made up a bed for her in the study, and Al and Korina were the last to leave around 2.30am. I had a really good time, although someday someone’s really going to have to teach Joel that when you say “oh and this is my workmate”, the correct thing to say is not “but you don’t do any work, Jo, you just post on your site all day long”. Nevermind. There’s glitter on my sheets and also on Sebastian from my very good imitation of a pirate (everyone said I needed an eye patch – I said “I’m a good fighter and I’ve managed to avoid getting poked in the eye”). Miss Lisa Fur and I got to exchange Knowing Looks about something else too, and that was very amusing.

There’s also oh so much mess now. How can fifteen people trash a house so much? It just doesn’t make sense. And cleaning is something I’m pretty much very very over right about now, given that on Thursday night I broke into Mummy & Daddy’s house (oh okay, I used Karen’s key) and cleaned their kitchen and lounge for them as a nice surprise cos Mum’s been very stressed out lately. She rang me today and was very grateful, so yay, good times. And then I cleaned lots on Saturday to get ready for the drinks. Our house looked fabulous, by the way, with fairy lights and candles everywhere. Very civilised. It functions very well as a house for entertaining in, which is great even if my couches are so comfy that Al fell asleep for hours on one. So instead of cleaning yesterday, Anji and I camped out on the couches after a hearty lunch, eating leftover food (there’s still chocolate crackles and garlic bread and wedges if you’re interested, but sixty something jelly shots have been shot) and watching the last five episodes of Buffy Season VII, both of us crying our little eyes out over ‘Chosen’, of course. Keeping it spoiler-free, it’s the final speech that kicks back in as a flashback, with Buffy walking around in her living room wearing a fancy blouse that I can’t figure out if I love or hate, and then the girl with the bat and oh oh the tears they bucket out at that point, every single time I watch it.

I had a long conversation last night with Miss Fur about how dorky I am, in terms of how much trashy television I watch, and the Buffy obsession, and the reading of tabloids, but she says that my dorkiness could be endearing. Hmmm.

EDIT: Here’s another picture of me that Anji must have taken at the party and I rully like it. Please note the partial throwing of goats.

It’s funny seeing your old workmates on TV. I still <3 the Brandon Calhoon lookalike and the young gumshoe and the girl who shows her nipples while drunk , and the guy who was the only one of my workmates to come to my flatwarming afternoon tea muchly, but it's like someone said on NZm tonight, if you wanna talk conspiracy theories, my, what splendid timing! (This is some degree of sarcasm, okay? Good. So excuse me if I seem a little b-wordy tonight, I’ll get to the oh the pain angst real soon. I promise!)

Or, as I said tonight:

Jo Hubris says: wow that’s a bad dress

* says: which channel?

Jo Hubris says: 1
it’lll be on 3 as well

* says: hahaha russell

Jo Hubris says: hahaha drink!

* says: hahahaa!
man, the whole current affairs thing just keeps becoming more and more of a massive circle-jerk

Jo Hubris says:
that’s what I’ve been saying for YEARS
YEARS AND YEARS

* says: yeah
but I only really noticed recently

(speaking of which)

Jo Hubris says: Robyn got two PA shoutouts today

* says: yeah, noticed
I was a bit disappointed with her poem

Jo Hubris says:
yeah
i wrote nzidol slash tonight
it was much better

It was late one night at the Idol House, and Steve(n) had eaten so many Allen’s lollies that he couldn’t sleep. The sounds from the bed next to him suggested that his special room buddy Jesse wasn’t asleep either.

Jesse thought for a minute, and then realised that as a married man, it was his duty to fill Steve(n) in on a few details, so he did.
“Jesse,” said Steve(n) finally, “I want to save myself for marriage, but right now I’m just so frustrated, and my shiny young manhood is longing to find shelter. I know it would be wrong to sleep with a girl before we were married, but do you think…”
Steve(n) didn’t get to finish his sentence because he immediately felt a crushing weight on him.
“Steve my boy, tonight I’m going to show you no ordinary love. I’m going to take you higher. I’m going to teach you the missionary position” promised Jesse as he waggled his fingers in…..

Hahhaha.

And now the angst! After the black holes in Friday night, I was afraid to go into work, which meant that I got almost zero sleep, and then combind that with Daylight Savings, which even my internet boyfriend hates and it’s just a recipe for badness. And to make things worse, I ended up feeling like a character learning her lesson in an episode of The Brady Bunch, learning a valuable lesson never to gossip again – oh the snappage. But no one said anything bad, so that’s a good thing. Still, stupid having to shop after work, and stupid groceries whilst standing on the bus, and stupid non moving people, and stupid heat and stupid stupid uncomfortable shoes and then when I slipped on the outside back steps cos of the rain and fell and jammed my feet really hard again seperate walls, and arms and limbs went akimbo and I screamed I found that all I could do was sit there and howl for a good ten minutes, because this is how I am going to die when I am old and alone.

I’ve had my left foot elevated all night with ice on it earlier on, but it’s so fucking sore, and so is my neck, and so is my other foot, and so are my wrists. Time to break out the codeine shortly. Mmmm codeine…

Also, hurray, no more merkin!