Hubris.co.nz

On Thursday night I had my first summer ale and then yesterday I had my first swim of the summer. Around 1am. At Oriental Parade. In my panties. With my now ex workmates and Bart. It was awesome, and not very warm. Luckily the booze in me kept me warm.

Today, consequently, has been rather slow. I spent a couple of hours at Elements in Lyall Bay eating, drinking latte bowls and reading the paper very very slowly. Now there’s been Thai takeaway and Fred Prinze Jnr movies on the television. And my laptop that I picked up from the shop last weekend is STILL ticking and overheating, but I know that htey must have done something to it because now it says ‘Packard Bell’ on the screen the second time I turn it on. It’s an NEC though. And I say second time because the screen stays blank the first time, every time. Good times.

What else should I talk about? I can’t start my new job yet because my security clearence still hasn’t finished. This is a good thing though because it means I get to have a couple of days off first, wahoo! I can go buy some fancy schmancy clothes to match my fancy schmancy new offices down Lambton Quay way. I’m proud of myself for running around in my underwear last night. It makes me feel more prepared for New Year’s, and it also reminds me of the good times skinny-dipping in KateM’s dad’s pool with not a care in the world, or the olden days when I was regularly doing bad things with bad people when I’d get up and walk around the house butt naked and go read magazines in the lounge – if I knew Clayton was out, of course. Or open the curtains if morning sex was to be had, for the benefit of people in the office building across the road. Heh. My self esteem has been very weird lately, I had some total wigginsing on Thursday night, even though I knew at the time I was just being a dork. If only I’d never gone to that damn talk about Myspace!

Now it’s Sunday, and today would have been Oma and Opa’s 60th anniversay. To celebrate, we got together at my parents’ house and scattered their ashes together around a magnolia tree we planted. That sentence does nothing to describe the comedy of errors that the occasion actually was, with the unmowed lawn all wet and long, and the bugs biting me. The containers with the ashes in them didn’t want to come open for a long long time, until finally Cousin Andrea cleverly pointed out that there were latches on the bottom that could be open and the ashes shaken out. There is something a little bit strange about shaking out your grandparents like salt and pepper, passing the containers around so that everyone could have some time with each of them. But the tree – once we managed to get it staked – is really pretty, and I think it was a nice thing to do. Afterwards, we watched super8 home movies that my parents, my uncle and Oma had all shot in the seventies. The clothes were fabulous, and we were all such fucking cute kids (yes, I wasn’t alive in the seventies, but I whined enough that we got out some ’80s footage too). Mum and Aunt Diz were running around in bikinis and looked hot. My dad was in a floral speedo and despite his womanly hips he still had a good body too. Also, eww, did I just say that? The whole effect was a litle bit like watching many many L&P ads. Or perhaps looking at current fashions. Or super 8 footage played behind the Phoenix Foundation…

I also grabbed Deuchlandriser, which is a board game in which you travel around Germany, and also some large beer mugs. Germany is on October 14, the day after Dimmer, and I’m so very happy because Jessie may be at it. And also I’m very happy that I will finally get to see Dimmer. Assuming that it hasn’t sold out yet. Woo!

Oh, and one more thing that I wanted to talk about was how nice the goodbye speeches for me were, and how genuine they seemed. And also, the best part about them was that they were surprisingly similar to my answers in many job interviews lately about what others would say about me – my ridiculously large banks of trivia in my head, my dry wit and my social skills. If I hadn’t put my card in Bart’s backpack along with my purloined coffee cup (shoosh!), I’d put in actual quotes. But yes, very very good times were had. And everyone who left their computers on will be looking at my face when they get to work as their desktop image…

Last Friday was, if you recall, the Prom. Of course, you should all have known that from coming along, but if you did, then you’re people that I don’t know who didn’t introduce yourselves. Wankers.

But nevermind that. Let’s talk about going to Spotlight at lunchtime with Kateb for netting to promify our dresses, and how I was going to get black but the call of the pink was just too strong:

Then let’s talk about how the skies opened around 4pm and I had holes in my shoes, and my car was parked a long way away and luckily I’d given Kate the spare key to it cos I got to it late, and then we had to schlep over to Newtown to decorate the hall and I was soaking wet and freezing cold and reaaaaaally not in a good mood. Plus decorating was tiring and hard, and we were running late and Brad’s friend who was helping us kept on talking and talking and oh oh oh, just the drama of it all. But when we were done, the place looked fucking rad:

Kate came over to my place to get ready, and since I knew I needed to snap out of my grump, I went to “spend a couple of minutes by myself” (read: rub one out), before showering and sorting out my hair. Of course, we ended up looking fabulous, as the above photo will prove. We spent a while having some drinks and trying to convince Bart and Del to come with us, before abandonning that idea and jumping in a taxi. The hall was pretty empty at first, so I was very worried for Brad’s sake, and I was trying to count and do maths and things, but eventually it filled up, helped along by the arrival of these two, Katy and her flatmate:

We sat and drank coruba & coke for a while, cos it was donated, and then Brad started playing ‘Get into the groove’ which is one of my favouritist songs to dance to evah, and since my friends weren’t feeling it, I went and jumped into a group of strangers including this girl Holly:

They were very very rad people and were very complimentary of my outfit, so I decided that I was ON FIRE that night, and that everybody would be my friend. When Katy and I were slowdancing the first slowdance, I spied two boys standing at the side so we grabbed them instead and they didn’t appear to mind at all. Later I fell in love with one of Brad’s tutors (although I suspect I didn’t realise who he was at the time) when he whirled me around the dancefloor and told me to stop leading. How powerful and manly! Oh how I was swooning.

At one stage, I went outside to find Kate, and found her talking to a 15 year old kid who’d wandered up to boast about how he was on his 20th beer. When he turned around and said to the Asian girl behind him “I don’t like Asians!” I decided that was enough, and it was time for him to move on, so I went and found Brad, who grabbed a very tall friend of his and politely asked the young lad if he had a ticket. He moved on then. Apparently he was also kicked in the balls by a friend of the Asian girl. Excellent.

It was just such a fucking fantastic time. I danced and danced and danced, and although I didn’t win Prom Queen, I certainly felt like it, and so I successfully vanquished all my demons from dances at ASIJ 12 years ago. Oh yes, that’s right, all my demons. I’m totally a demon-free zone now. Honest. Here’s some more photos from the prom – if you want to see them larger, go to my flickr account page, obviously. And the best part of all is that Brad made a whole grand.

When Kate and I got home, we found Mark and Bart sitting out on the front steps drinking, so we stayed and talked to them for a long time, and I did the most awesome fall-flat-on-my-face fall ever. Radical.

The next morning, strangely enough, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus, but I dutifully rolled out of bed, showered and headed off to pick up Anji and Karen, via a ten minute wait at Macdonald’s for them to serve me up a burger instead of the ick that is the Macdonald’s breakfast. Not that their burgers are much better, of course, but this was an emergency. I got Anji to drive to Waikanae, because I still felt drunk. We went to Swell Cafe for Mum’s birthday brunch, which you might remember from the news stories about its quarter mill bronze statue being stolen. Or you might not. I don’t care either way. Ha! It was really nice there, but oh boy I was feeling ill. Then we went to Oma’s house to sort out more stuff and pick up more furniture and I puked some more and sat on an outdoor step and cried. I was very very happy to get home and unload the buffet and bookshelves.

After a nap, I went to the supermarket and made awesome sandwiches of streaky bacon, camenbert, hummus and rocket. Hurray! And I tried gingerly to drink some beer, but then switched to red wine. Around 11pm, I headed off to Nial’s house for Blair’s goodbye party. Luckily it was a very mellow night, just lots of sitting around in the very cute garden. I didn’t know people at first, but I was overly tired so I was in very giggly very saying lots of stupid things mode, so it was alright. The boy who I’d originally thought was gay talked loudly at me about how gay he was, and about how he used to make his ex girlfriend wear a Hayden Christensen mask when he flipped her over, and I felt ever so slightly embarrassed but mostly I just laughed at the things I was thinking in my head (*).I did tell the hot Canadian right as he was leaving that I fancied him rotton, and he laughed at me. Well, it wasn’t quite a “ha HA, like you could ever have a chance” kind of laugh, or even a laugh of pity, it was just a laugh and a “I’m sure you’ll get your pash this year”. And yes, I told him right when he was leaving, because I am laaaaaaaaaame like that, but at least I told him. So that’s all very well and good, and I don’t feel bad about it. And it’s good that he’s gone, because while he was a very easy crush to have, I just have far too much going on in my head right now(*). Oh, and of course he’s also a stupid maple syrup-eating surrender monkey.

Having been up until 5.30 texting, Sunday was a day for lying on the couch groaning and watching season two of the OC. I think much of the week was like that, actually. Hmm. On Wednesday I saw Capote, which wasn’t the feel-good hit of the summer. Then I decided I needed to stop feeling angsty about the number of people in my house (it’s strange getting used to having two boys and one girlfriend who is still trying to find a flat around, after living with only Anji for six months, but there’s no need for me to have a bug up my ass just because oh the pain, they’re sitting on my couches watching tv when I want to lie down and watch the Gilmore Girls in quiet), so I cooked a flat dinner for them and Brad. I was going to make a pear cake too, cos our tree is loaded down with pears right now, but when I got home, Del was already making one. Great minds and all that.

On Friday after work my workmate Sarah and I escaped down to Monsoon Poon for some very good conversation and some wine. She’s getting married in less than a month, and so she keeps asking me questions about things like invitations or social graces, or accomodation and stuff, which is fine, cos I’m happy to help, but it’s making me plan my own wedding something crazy, and hello, I’m not gettign married for another five years (that’s assuming Brad’s still single then). We were joined by the boys a while later, and then by Rene who is an ex collegue. Eventually KateB showed up to and by that stage I’d consumed quite a lot of wine. Sarah left and we had a platter of food which probably wasn’t nearly enough in proportion to the amount of wine we were drinking, and we went to Ponderosa where I watched Kate pee and she did the same to me. Not like, cos we were doing it in public or anything, just that we assumed that there would be stalls but it was one big room and so we decided to have a significant bonding experience instead. I was thinking that the bathroom looked mighty familiar and then I realised yesterday that it’s tiled like the one in Veronica Mars in which she does all her business. Ha HA ‘business’, do you like what I did there? (Yes, wow, that is a poo you should be proud of).

Somehow we managed to convince Dylan to come to a uni party with us (I did mention that the last time I went to a party at Jess’s there were both nipples shown AND a person in a panda costume), and we headed up to Kelburn via the supermarket for more wine. We probably didn’t need the wine. I had a good time at the party talking to Arthur and Brad who are at drama school together, and the fabulous Jess, and also Robbie, who as it turns out isn’t Lemon Cohen at all, and most awesome of all was that there was no one else from Salient there. Then Kate was a little worse for wear, so we decided it would probably be a good idea to get her home(*). When I saw Jess yesterday in Aro, she laughed at me for being like “omg, leave my friend alone! She’s been my best friend since we were 5, don’t hurt her!” cos people had placed flowers on her head. They laugh because after delivering that speech, I delivered Kate an all-mighty slap. Sorry babe.

Yesterday morning was consequently not much fun either, but I rallied by around 4pm when Anji and I went up to Mum and Neil’s for a BBQ. Boy it was hot, so very hot. I like BBQs. Then I went and picked up Karen and we headed over to Aro Park for the Bitchcraft carnival. I bought pretty earrings and we went and got fish’n chips and settled down on the grass to watch the Dukes of Leisure play. They looked like this:

I’m aware that you probably can’t see that much, but I’m hoping that it’s just that I have a crap monitor. If you can’t make it out, that’s a tree with a string of dead dolls hanging behind them. Anyways, the Dukes were very cool. They’re kind of sonic soundscapey like HDU or Jakob, and since I was lying on my back looking up at the stars, it was perfect. The Bitchcraft fair looked awesome when all the stalls turned on their little lamps. I felt like I was in an alternative Stars Hollow, and that is a rad thing to feel.Then I went home to dance the panda dance for Brad. I contemplated going to the Bitchcraft afterparty, but it was on the other side of town and my hands were still tingly with hangover. One of these days, I’m going to cut down on the amount I drink. For serious.

Because we didn’t want Mum to have to stress out about Xmas preperations the day after her mother died, on Friday 23 December, Karen and I decided we’d shop for all the food. If you were in Wellington, you might also remember that as the day that the skies decided to bust open and leak bucketfuls of water all over the place, along with some spectacular thunder and some average lightning. It did this especially in the time that it took me to walk to the bus stop. Then at the bus stop I had to wait a good half hour at least (where I felt stupid cos people were talking about why the buses weren’t coming, and I was like “maybe the rain interferes with the trolleys” and a guy said that it didn’t, and I was like well whatever buddy, it always does, and then ten minutes later I looked up and saw that he was wearing a stagecoach uniform), so I should have left the house later and not got so wet. As it was, I left my very soaked hoodie at Karen’s house, after I’d squeezed it out a little over the sink, and when we came back from Moore Wilson’s, it had puddled all over the floor like a puppy.

Have you ever been to Moore Wilson’s two days before Xmas? We went to the dry good section first, and it was when we were just queuing up with our trolley that they announced that eftpos was down. We waited and waited for a while, and it just didn’t seem like it was going to get back up again, so Karen went home for her chequebook. Then we went to Fresh, and the queue for the checkouts started at the door, so I stood with a trolley and nibbled the tasty things that the clever staff were bringing around to pacify customers, and Karen loaded us up with goodies. It was a surprisingly good atmosphere, despite the rain, and the waiting, and the crowdedness.

I can’t remember what I did on Xmas Eve, except for watch parts of National Lampoon’s Xmas Vacation for nostalgic value. It was every bit as terrible as I rememberd it being. Perhaps I hung out with Lisa Fur some more? Oh no, wait, that’s right, I was doing the supermarket shopping and loading up on liquor and snacks for Anji’s birthday, and I ran into Cousin Jacinta so I took her home with me, fed her beer in the sun and made her Pad Thai.

When we’d started to discuss Xmas, and what we’d planned to do on it, I’d suggested we have it either here or at Karen’s house, so that Anji could make an easier escape if she felt the need, and so we were going to have it at Karen’s, but when she started to be all “Oh I don’t know if I even want to come to Xmas” I said “well fuck that, let’s just have it at Mum and Neil’s cos that’s where I want to go, since you’re not commiting to it”. She came along anyway, and had been extensively consulted over our plan to just eat tapas all day long. Then our aunt showed up and stayed for three hours bitching away. Yes, her mother had just died. I can understand why she’d want to hang out with Mum, I really can. But she was just so so so nasty that I eventually stood up and yelled “HEY KAREN, LET’s GO OVER HERE AND DO SOMETHIGN ELSE!” and also “HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT’s COOL? MONKEYS”. Eventually we all cornered my dad in the kitchen and asked him to say something to Mum, who did get my aunt to leave. Nevertheless, it was too late, and Anji was already in a sulk about how we weren’t having a “proper meal” so she left, and the atmosphere got a lot lighter. We took turns reading The Pirates! And the adventure with whaling aloud, and ate chocolate fondue. The taxi took a long cold hour to show up, and I spent lots of money texting everyone like crazy after midnight. Well, Murray anyways.

The next day was Anji’s birthday so I got up to eat crossaints with her, but not to learn how to spell them, and gave her the birthday present that I’d really spent far too much money on – a big fake leather box filled with margarita glasses and rimming salt (heh), and Havana Club Blanco, and Jose Cuervo Gold, and canned stawberries and coconut cream and chocolate-covered coffee beans, and fortune cookies, and Scholl’s party feet, and and and umm that was possibly it. A couple of her friends came over and we had a drink or two in the very hot sun, and then she took all the food and liquor up to Richard’s house, and Lisa Fur came over.

On December 27, we had the funeral, which my mother had argued my aunt down about the need for it to be in Paraparaumu where Oma had lived for the last twenty plus years and where my Opa had his funeral. Mum’d asked us at the hospital if one of us would mind saying a few words, and since neither Karen or Anji wanted to, I said I’d be happy to, just like I had at Opa’s seven years ago, only this time I wasn’t going to be wearing an old suit of his. Much like at Opa’s, I hadn’t really prepared for what I was going to say. I knew that I wanted to talk about Oma’s legendary hospitality, and about how dedicated to her grandkids she was, without trying to raise the hackles of either my mother or my aunt, and about the chilli jam she tried to foist onto anyone who ever came to her house. The celebrant spoke about how Oma’s father had taught her to use her pencil box as a way of defending herself when she was young because she was so little, and so later another ex diplomat’s wife got up and said “Dee was the only one of us who used to play the pros at tennis in the Phillipines, and now I know why!”. It was lovely all the people who got up and shared small memories of her. Most of them also included stories about the food she would cook. I started crying when my aunt spoke of how Oma always used to order a speckook (I cannot spell that to save my life, but it’s a Dutch/Indonesian type layer cake, and when I say layer, I mean each layer is crepe thin, and it’s a mix of batter and then spiced batter so it’s all stripey. It’s quite rich so you eat it in thin slices) for all the people she knew back in Holland every Xmas, and how every single one of the people that Diz and Mum contacted to say that Oma had died mentioned that they’d just had their speckook delivered, and also that when they got to Oma’s house to start sorting out her things, they’d found that someone had sent Oma one, and so that was served afterwards. People kept coming up to me to talk about Oma, which was cool, but also it was strange, because they were people I hadn’t met before, and I had to do a lot of smiling and nodding. One woman, who was dressed in a tie-dyed outfit with dolphins on, said that I seemed to be the strongest one, and I was like “huuuuuuuuuuuuh?” and when she left she told us grandkids that there was strength in the circle, and I smiled and nodded. Because I’d ever so cleverly not had breakfast, I was starving by that stage, and the savouries were really not doing it for me. I jumped in the car with KateB’s parents to guide them to Oma’s house, and there we all waited in clumps with Aunt Leonie and Uncle Graeme who are on my dad’s side for someone with a key to show up, and we finally got to have some decent food. Then we were told to go through the house and pick out what we wanted, and jewellery was dolled out and oh my god it was just horribly painful. Not because of the emotion, although there was that too, but it just seemed like my aunt was taking out her rage about her children living far away from her out on me and Anji and Karen. Bleh. And it took sooooooooooooooooooooooooo long, and it was so hot, and fuck, it was just a horrible afternoon. It was nice to celebrate Oma’s life at the funeral service, but did we have to go and pick over the bones so soon?

We took Mum’s car so that we could leave, and headed straight for Burger King. When I got home it was after 7pm, and I knew that both Heather and Jessie were in town, so it was time to go out and have many many MANY drinks.

To be continued. Again.

The next week was spent in visits to the hospital, in which I’d cry almost every single time, so I spent more time fetching coffee from the miles-away main building and hauling it through the long tunnel to the Grace Neil building than I did actually sitting with Oma. She’d had another stroke, and possibly a heart attack, and she’d fractured her ankle and had pneumonia as a result from falling out of bed and being there all night with the window open, so she was unable to talk. Sometimes when we showed up she’d try to sit up, and sometimes she could squeeze our hands, and often she’d give signs that she recognised us – she appeared to laugh when I commented on how soft her hands felt, but the doctors talked to Mum and Diz about palliative care options. Cousin Andrea flew down from Auckland for the day to see Oma, and Cousin Jacinta came over from Sydney. It was no longer a question of if Oma would die, but rather when. Having watched Granny make herself stay alive until her sons came back from overseas to see her last year, I wondered what Oma was staying alive for. Fiesty Dutch lady that she was, every time I thought about how frustrated she would have been at her lack of ability to communicate I had to go and hide in the bathroom. Anji was wonderful, touching me and shielding me and talking to Oma when I could think of little to say.

Meanwhile at work, we’d all shifted in to the offices in the other building, so people were doubling up on computers, or “working from home”. Because of the lack of computer access, I went to see Oma in the mornings and then go to work and cry. Lots of people were stressed out about various things, and it was so hot, and I was really upset about Oma, and at the same time I was paranoid about other things (*), and that made me feel like I did when Granny was dying and I was just worried about the flights I’d booked to Auckland to go and see *IV, and fuck, it just made me feel like such a stupid bitch. I felt useless because I’d cry on the phone to Mum and feel bad about it because she was under enough stress as it was. I felt useless because I couldn’t talk the brave talk like Anji, and I felt stupid for feeling stupid. Plus, with the heat and the increased stress, I stopped going to the gym, and was eating pretty badly too, and that took effect really fast on making my moods even worse.

On Thursday 22 December, we were told that if we’d finished all our work, and if we didn’t mind being on call the next day, we could leave at lunchtime. Me and some of my workmates went to the Brewery Bar for very mediocre food, pinot gris, lots of wind and hot hot sun, where despite the liberal application of olay complete, I got burnt. I hadn’t been to see Oma that morning because Anji was going to take me at in 6pm in after work. I didn’t want to go in by myself because I’m just so bad at hospitals and Oma’d become much more unresponsive. we had a couple of bottles of wine, and then Anita guiltripped Dave into give me a ride home. They stayed for a cup of tea, and Anita and I gossiped, and then they left. I cleaned the house, hung Xmas decorations and lights, and cursed fate for thwarting various stalkerness. All that kind of stupid every day blah blah blah stuff.

Jacinta, if you wanna skip this bit, please do so.

Mum had said she was going to be at the hospital until 6. Anji and I got there around 7pm. Oma looked much worse than she had the day before. Her skin was yellow-tinged, one eye was open, and so was her mouth. After saying hello to her, Anji sent me out of the room. I composed myself, and went back in. We couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. It really didn’t seem like it. There’s a question I never want to have to wait ten minutes at the nurses’ station to ask again “Is my grandmother still alive?” Of course, I won’t ever have to. Then the nurse got called away while I was talking to her. Finally, another nurse came along, and she went in to check for us,while Anji and I waited in the hall. Oma had passed away. Passed away? She was dead. Ever the considerate hostess, she’d waited until she was alone. Anji called Mum. Helpfully, I’d left my phone at home. Then I cried even more because all I could think was how much it felt like the Buffy episode ‘The Body’, now to the angles that focus on the medical professional’s shoulders, and how I was just in a stupid singlet, and I was all sunburnt and la la la, that’s not what is dignified at times like that, so I put my shrug back on.

The nurses had moved Oma onto her back and closed her eyes, so Anji and I sat down in her room to wait for everyone else. To me, that was the important part, because I was still a little upset that Mum and my aunt had decided that Oma was a lapsed enough Catholic that she probably wouldn’t have wanted the last rites. I’m not a religious person at all, but I guess I lean towards religion around death – like how I loved the presbyterian service at Granny’s funeral, so I had wished that she’d had it, although of course, it wasn’t my choice. But we sat with the body, and while it wasn’t for three days, I think it was wake-enough. Another one of the nurses came in to hug us and apologise for how we’d had to find her like that, which I thought was incredibly sweet. I have so much respect and gratitude to the nursing staff – they all seemed like really great people.

My aunt Diz and uncle John arrived before Mum, and when Diz started crying it set Anji off. Diz was like “Jacinta said that by hook or by crook Oma would get us all together to see us at Xmas” and that seemed entirely appropriate. Mum and Neil showed up, and then Karen, and there was much switching of seats, and fussing around, and there was hugging and joking and laughing. Oma’s death wasn’t sudden, and while she died alone, she had seen and recognised her family around her in the days leading up to her death, and I know that she felt loved. I’m incredibly relieved that she never had to move out of her house into a home, because she didn’t want that, and I’m (selfishly?) relieved that it wasn’t a long drawn out process for her death. She was greatly loved, and she’ll be greatly missed. I feel really stupid (again) because I wish that I had the words to describe her, or to memorialise her. Mum asked one of us to speak at her funeral, so I did, just like I did at Opa’s, but just like at Opa’s, I didn’t write anything down so I can’t share it with you. Instead, to really remember Oma, I think you should just go and click this link, becuase I think this is how she’d like to be remembered – always the ultimate hostess.

Oma, May 20 1920 – December 22 2005.

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.

Dave and Jessie asked how Oma’s doing now. The short answer is: I don’t know. I went to see her on Monday and found her to be a lot more perky than she had been on Sunday, but the nurse was dressing her arm, and the wound from where she fell was the size of my fist, and suppurating (ha, I learnt a new word at work from editing transcripts of Michael Hurst talking about Macbeth and the transcriber had written “soppy raging sores” and I thought that was what it was, and my mentortype person raged/laughed at me), and her arm around it was all black and rotton and it just made me feel so bad to look at it. Oma was talking much clearer, but the battery in her hearing aid was flat, so it was like the worst conversation ever, and I fled after twenty minutes. She was supposed to go home today, with someone coming in to check on her and change her bandages and stuff, and I think Mum was going to go with her for a bit, but apparently she’s not as well as she thought she was. My cousin Jacinta’s written about how Oma is a stroppy Dutch woman (and I also found out she’s 87), but she’s so teeny tiny and from everythign I’ve ever heard, strokes aren’t something that are that easy to get over. But she IS doing better.

Did you read between the lines in the previous paragraph where I listed the people who took the time to find out more about the things that are affecting me in my life right now? Yeah. This causes a conflict in me, because yes, I turned off the comments on my last entry because I didn’t want a string of “hope she gets well soon!” nothingness, because I know that I hate having to do that publically too, but you know, I’m not exactly very hard to get ahold of. Ick, yes, I’m making this all about me, when she’s the one who’s sick.

Speaking of being all about me, and all about the people I know over the interweb, and my insecurities and everything else, I’m having my not-in-hospital Birthday & Flatwarming and Halloween Drinks on October 29th, and you should come, please. I’m calling it drinks cos I’m scared I won’t have enough friends to make it a ‘party’, so I will try to keep expectations low key so as to avoid disappointment. Please bring a friend, and you get bonus points if you come in costume, and super super bonus points if you a) dress up as me or b) come in a bear costume.

In keeping with my Wellingtonisa post about Drinking Wellington on the Cheap, Karen and I went to Chow for cocktails and then dinner tonight. Her apartment isn’t up to fire standards. The builders suuuuuuuuuuck. Then we tried to come up with metaphors to be the opposite of “I love you like meat loves salt” for how much I hate someone (I am petty. I need to let things go). She texted me after I got home to say that I hated her like ten thousand spoons when all I needed was a knife, and also that she’d forgotten to give me Gareth’s book, yet again. I think Wellington needs a large system of tubes, or flying monkeys. That’d rock.

Remember how last week I was all bawling my eyes out cos I slipped down the stairs, and then I was like “this is how I am going to die, alone and old”? No? Well it definitely stuck in my mind, and seems especially stupid and/or poignant today. Oma had a stroke on Saturday night. When Mum rang me today on my cellie I was like “oh man, I so can’t be assed answering this” cos I thought she’d be hassling me to write her a brochure, but I decided the grumpy answerphone message would be even worse, so I answered and found out that Oma was in hospital and that they didn’t know how long it’d been between the stroke and when she finally managed to push her panic button. Mum had slept about three hours and she wanted us to go to the hospital to see Oma.

I hate hospitals. That’s a dumb thing to say, because of course, I don’t think that there’s anyone who actually likes them. But the idea of death, or mortality, or any kind of situation that I can’t do anything to fix scares the crap out of me. I feel really fucking useless and I don’t know what to say. I fall to pieces. It all seems like foreshadowing to me. That said, it was easier to go there with Anji and Karen by my side, except when we got to Oma’s ward, she was asleep, and neither my mother or my aunt was there, so we didn’t know what to do. We found some seats further down the corridor and I suggested that maybe we should go and get coffee while we waited for my dad to text me back and/or for Oma to wake up. When we were strolling out through the maze of hospitalness, our aunt drove up, so that was good. We went to The Ballroom, and when we got back up, Oma was awake.

She was struggling to talk, only managing about two words at a time, and what with her being deaf, and also us not speaking Dutch, it was really hard – at one stage we could see that she was close to tears with frustration. but she was glad to see us and seemed to perk up some. She was covered in bruises from falling over though, and so battered. Oma’s always been tiny, but she seemed even smaller. So fragile. I just made stupid jokes. The old lady in the bed opposite us lent us her chair because she said no one would be coming to visit her and I wanted to cry some more. They don’t know if Oma’s speech is going to be permanently affected, and obviously she can’t go on living by herself anymore. I haven’t even called my mother to see how she’s doing, although Anji talked to her.

I don’t want to get old.

A couple of weeks ago my bus went past this guy walking along the street, and I thought ‘hey, he looks vaguely familiar’, and then I realised who it was, and it was someone that I slept with two years ago. As a matter of fact, he’s the guy that I slept with who I always forget about whenever I try to match up names with the number of people I’ve had sex sex with (sex sex as in penis-vagina. Sometimes I consider it to be sex if he goes down on me. But not always). This would be like another total “so what?” if he was just a one night stander, but he wasn’t. I wonder how my brain manages to shut off memories of him so often when it used to be that I talked to him every single day at great length and thought that without him as my best friend I wouldn’t survive (*), and we had a whole wealth of injokes and phrases and to this day I can’t remember if Paul Schaffer was my arch nemisis or his. I conclude that my brain is dumb.

My brain is dumb because when I was stuck in very slowly crawling traffic through the Terrace tunnel today and I was in a car piled to the gills with boxes and thinking about how at some stage I’m going to have to disassemble my bed (and while I might think “ooh, Daddy can do that for me!” last time when he assembled it, it took an hour and was SO MUCH HARDER for me to do bits of rather than doing the whole thing by myself in half an hour), and there was a honda civic in front of me and it made me think of a boy who once told me that his whole bed could be taken apart and folded up to fit into the back of his honda civic, and then I thought about how icky that boy was, and how stupid I was for sleeping with him, and then I thought about why I did that – because I’d just sold my ex boyfriend’s bed and used the money to pay for a party with a LOT of booze, and then I remembered all of that, which was about five years ago exactly and how fucking horrible it all was, and even though I’m still like woah I’m all good now, but then there was already a ten year anniversary this year that threw me for six (is that a real expression?) and that was pretty fucking crappy and aaaaaaaargh oh the pain the pain the pain that is my brain that just doesn’t shut the fuck up.

So in real world news, last night Brad came over for dinner and a pile of junk food, and The OC, Team America (fuck YEAH) and Bad Santa. I am in love with Therman Merman, I want to bake him in a pie. At my request Brad drank more beers than he could drive on and camped out in the guestroom. Today we got up in time to watch an hour of Home and Away before I had to take off to go to Oma’s. I love that my new place is five minutes walk away from him. Well, sort of – there’s a couple of hills in between, so it’s varied, I suppose. I went to Oma’s to meet up with Anji and Karen, and ate the fondue, and then loaded up the car and van before eating Crepes Suzette. Mmmmm heartattacky. Then it started to pour. I hate driving in the rain. I also hate shifting furniture and stuff in the rain. How do I have so much stuff? I wish I was like Ani di Franco says that she is. I of course also wish that I had some love letters to treasure, of course. At least now I will have my box of memory treasures back now (which, if you’re oldskool you would have seen in that mega big flash file I used to have which has now vacated my computer to somewhere else). Not that I need trinkets to remind me of things when my mind so obviously works overtime. Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Have I mentioned to you that you need to be marking off June 18th in your diaries for my birthday / flatwarming party? Please to do so. I’d like everyone to come along, even if I don’t know you. That way it can be all awkward and stilted and I can feel bad when my guests don’t mingle! Heh.

EDIT: so there I am feeling sorry for myself when I get a text from Kateb saying “This time next week we’ll be drinking cocktails on the beach”. WAHOO!

A. Dreams:

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

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

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

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

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

B. Moving:

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

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

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

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