Hubris.co.nz

Today the floor was made of lava, and still littered with martini glasses from Sunday’s soiree. I peed, drank a litre of water in 15 minutes, and dragged my full bladder to Pacific Radiology in Newtown ,where I incorrectly took off my pants for a woman who covered my cunt with paper towels and squirted jelly on my belly. “There’s your bladder on the screen,” she said, pointing to the ominous big black shape on the screen. “I give you a 9/10 for fullness. I never give a ten.” Then I was allowed to pee, before she gave me a foot long probe and told me to insert it like a tampon. Luckily, I’m somewhat of a pro at that. She asked me to press down on a certain part of my belly so she could move my ovaries around. Apparently they’re on really loose ligaments. Who knew? Anyway, it appears that yes, my ovaries are full of cysts, but at least my uterus lining is okay. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I guess I’ll find out at my follow-up with the gynecologist on Thursday, as well as get the results of the blood tests I had done the other week. Thank you, public health system. Apart from the fact that they sent me a letter addressed to “Baby Joanna McLeod”, which is pretty fucking insensitive for a girl who’s clearly having problems with her reproductive system.

Speaking of my name, someone came here googling “secret anti joanna mcleod hubris tumblr” – does such a thing exist? I MUST KNOW. And if it doesn’t exist (I couldn’t find it anyway) can someone please start one and give me publishing rights on it too? I’m sure I periodically hate myself much more than anyone else ever could!  Today I was so emo that after I went to dinner at my parents’ house, I drove all the way around the South Coast listening to Placebo.  I think it helped, a little bit.

It’s hard, because it’s been over a month, and I am still very… uncomfortable. That’s a word I could use. It’s a word to describe the intense panicky heartrate and fight reactions I had at the dentist, and also today a little whilst being scanned. It’s a word to describe how things are when paths occasionally cross, and it’s definitely the word to describe how my friends appear to be when I talk about it. Because of course they’re bored of it, of my not being over it, and how I will reference it in casual conversation, and they don’t know how to react or what to do about it. It’s how I feel because I would like to confront it, because that’s my preferred way of dealing with things, but uncomfortable was the reaction of someone else who would rather just forget it. And meanwhile I wonder what the implications are for my future, how I will deal with other people when they get around to touching me.

Oh and of course, me being me, that’s not at all the only drama in my life, because of course I make things way too complicated and stupid and dumb. And I’m so busy right now, there’s pretty much not an empty day in my calendar until March. That’s good for my #11in’11 challenges, but not so good for the noise in my head, if I can’t sleep because I’m trying to figure out what to wear to all these millions of social events, and how I will function at all of them, and also wondering why people would want to see me when I’m just going to get drunk and insult them. And then when I do sleep, I dream about apocalypses. Speaking of which, I guess it’s that time again right now.

My darling Megan, she of the 6am her waking up me still struggling to sleep State of the Union g-chats chats about mutual friend-ish who apparently really is just that oblivious to the hurt he does, bought herself a water bottle that instructs her to keep calm and carry on. I needed a similar thing today, but of course, I don’t want to be a copycat (although would it be wrong of me to buy the same handbag she has, assuming I ever come into any money?) so instead, I did chores, like laundry and cleaning the bathroom. I went to visit Lisa and we watched our boyfriends on Comedy Central. But that wasn’t enough. Oh no.

Ever since I saw this picture, I have been dying to do it to someone’s books. I have begged my friends to let me do it to theirs, and I have considered breaking into Karen’s house (it only took her nine years to give me the door code after all) to attack her library, but she would no doubt kill me if I did. I thought I couldn’t do it to my own books because I am somewhat anal when it comes to keeping my books, DVDs and magazines in perfect order when everything else around me is chaos. Then it hit me – if I deorganise my books, I will have the satisfaction of filing them into a different order, and the next time that I freak out, I can realphabetise them to calm me down.

Half my books in piles, sorted approximately by spine colour

The end result is nowhere near as awesome as it would be if almost all of my book spines had not faded to a pale blue. Ah well, behold a crappyass picture anyway:

Pink to red to orange to yellow to green to blue to grey to black to white

And now that’s done, I might go and soak my stupid thighs in a hot bath. You will no doubt be pleased to know that the occasional chunk of blood is coming out today, which means that this current bout of preMS is over. Tomorrow I will: do some work, drop off a present for someone, drop off Kim’s coat, go to the doctor who won’t give me another lexapro prescription over the phone but at least this way I can ask for a referral to a gynocologsyt in the hopes of getting some help with the way that my periods hold me hostage – and also maybe some more sleeping pills, then I will do some community consulting with Ros, then go to Matt’s goodbye drinks. Crikey.

First, off, in elsewhere links, I got my hair done at  a new hair salon on Cuba Street and I liked it a lot. And you like food reviews? Here’s one of the Cellar-Vate dinner for Coney Wines.

Now some pictures so that if you disapprove you stop reading there.

This picture of Kane's enormous penis is because he's coming to stay this week

My ass, my gash.

I think the reason that I tend to only update my journal when I’m about to get my period is because this is when the noise in my head , that occasionally dies down to the faintest whisper if I’m exercising and taking my lexapro and happily employed and not financially struggling etc, tends to build up into the loudest roar which comes at me like being in the ocean on a windy day at Lyall Bay but without the bracing feeling of really being alive that comes with the cold cold water. See, even that sentence – so fucking belaboured and over the top. Shut up, Joanna.

And more than the normal pre-periodness, the past week has been clusterfucked with intensity. Wellington is too fucking small. I found myself last night telling someone who doesn’t really know me about why my Friday had ended up with me having a lounge room dance party with Kim and Kelly and Kate and why I was so fucking drunk that I ended up falling over and sitting on a wine glass and consequently have gashes in my ass, but the explanation of why I felt the need to get so drunk was really ridiculously complicated like “he abandoned his family and left his underpants on my deck and we tried to set fire to them” and “she’s a whore although I had a week of trying not to say nasty things and Mean Girls says calling her a whore doesn’t make me any more pure” and “in ten years she’ll show up and get the black baby I’m trying to adopt” and “and I was having an affair with him but then he hooked up with her” and “I hooked up with him a bunch of times to try and get over someone else but it didn’t work, and then there was this crazy girl” and  ”he used to make me cry every day at work” and really, what one should just say is “why the hell were you drinking with all these people anyway?” to which the inevitable answer involves the smallness of Wellington, and something about Rihana. And of course what I was saying in my head was “shut up Jo shut up shut up shut up” but because I was tipsy when I had this conversation but not drunk, I just kept babbling.

So my current theme is I should run away from Wellington as far as I can, but then today of course was a series of highs and lows. Most of the highs initially revolved around Piako yoghurt, which is of course the drug de jour for my set of friends. And Wendy at Cultured gave me more cheese. And Amie gave me petrol money when I drove her home tonight after the Girl Geek Dinner when of course I asked a question of the woman from Park Road who spoke about 3D about the impact it’s having on the porn industry and was rewarded with a Google notebook for my trouble. And I won a prize I’m going to give to someone who deserves it much more than me and will make much better use of it. And I pledged to join more community projects. So there are many good lovely things about Wellington, of course. It’s just that in the week before my period I struggle to remember them sometimes.

The lows are financial and no one wants to hear about that, and also dealing with this email that I got yesterday which just makes me want to bawl my eyes out. I’m worried that I’ve given up faith in myself and if I don’t have faith in myself, how could anyone else? Trying to explain to someone who doesn’t really know me that I’m terrible at freelancing because I’m so shit at talking myself up, he was all “but you seem so confident and able to sell yourself” but alas, Jo Hubris may have the ability to talk people into bed (after all the angst of all the issues of the weekend, being able to use a very simple “hey I want to shag you” is very refreshing) but Joanna McLeod is a pile of failure in getting anyone to pay for her services, although she has been rather busy lately providing expert advice and guidance in the S***** M**** area to friends & acquaintances in exchange for coffee and pints. And she still has some work to do tomorrow, so really she should go have a shower because she has coconut body wash, find some clean sheets (side effect of slicing your ass open when you’re drunk – waking up covered in blood and having no idea what the fuck happened until people tell you on twitter) and PJs and watch Dorota & Vanya get married on Gossip Girl and hope that she actually will sleep tonight before 7am. And stop talking about herself in the third person.

Item! Once again, I am anticipating my period. My boobs are sore and I’m starting to get cramps when I orgasm. Is this the information you’re looking for when you google “Jo Hubris” or when you look me up when I apply for jobs with you? I really must reiterate again that this is an online journal where I have been writing about my periods since 1998. I don’t believe it is a reflection on my professionalism. That’s what www.joannamcleod.com is for.

Item! That whining out of the way, I want to tell you about my friend Peter. For his 20th birthday, me and the good people of Garland bought him a Britney Spears doll. That was a good ten years ago. Recently he was back from the UK for a bit, and came to a party at Shirley’s and then Anna-Jane’s flatwarming with me. He brought Britney with him! And took her out of the box for the first time!

Say hello to my little friend

He carried her in his pocket all night and talked to her too. I adore Peter.

Item! There’s stuff written by me in a new magazine called FishHead. I went to its launch. The Masked Barfly went too.

Item! I had a blogsplosion today and updated EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY BLOGS apart from the Aucklandista. That’s an awful lot of blogs. Ones you might know about include Pretty Pretty Pretty, the Wellingtonista, You Are So Entertaining and Joanna McLeod Dot Com. Ones you might not know about I suppose will stay that way. Oh, but you should follow my tumblr if you’re into that sort of thing.

Item! I am having a potluck dinner party on Good Friday and am trying to use it to meet people that I might follow on Twitter and the internets but don’t really know. Would you like to come along? Let me know!

Item! Finally, because Robyn did it, let me present you with the top search terms for today on my site:

homemade duck blinds	6
ingrown hair vagina	2
picture of ingrown hair on breast	2
ingrown hair genital	2
the feelers suck	1
musician calls potential sponsor whore	1
in grown hair on arm	1
infected ingrown hair crotch	1
anal sluts wellington	1
gmt.co.nz	1

It’s true, I did have an ingrown hair. And the Feelers do suck. The rest, I don’t think I can help you with, sorry. Except to say that if I hadn’t been blind drunk, I may not have needed a “the duck” tag.

EDIT: oh yeah, I already told you to delete my feed and resubscribe if you’re not getting full posts in your RSS reader, yes? Good.

• You will be pleased to know that I officially don’t have tuberculosis. I had my follow-up follow-up today and I’ve been given the all clear. This means I don’t get to die romantically of consumption while Anne of Green Gables nurses me, but I suppose that’s for the best.
• You will hopefully also be pleased to know that I am the very grateful recipient of some funding from The Midnight Note which will partially cover the cost of my attendance at Webstock. I know of three people who wrote lovely letters for my nomination, but there may have been more. I am well-loved by my community, apparently, and that is a beautiful thing.
• I have discovered over the past couple of weeks just how lucky I am to have the wonderful friends that I do. There was a thing that happened, and it brought back all the anger and emotion that I’d covered up last year and it was a really really difficult time. I seriously considered moving to Auckland just to get away, but luckily attendance at Princess Camp made me play “Run this town” many times in my head and I realised that actually, fuck yes I do.
• Miss Kim Cupcakes & Mace stayed here at Immoral Terrace on and off for the past couple of weeks while she was looking for a flat, and it was so lovely having her here. We had LAN parties and cheese and watched DVDs and stayed up late giggling about boys every night. It’s a bit weird not having her here anymore, to be honest. I am really glad that I could help her out of a jam, and she definitely helped me out too, not just by buying Seb cat food when I was broke but also making me a happy Jo again.
• If I could find my other knitting needle, I would use it to remove my uterus right about now. I cried every day last week, including two different occasions at Hooch, and today I am in total fricking agony and bleeding like a stuck pig. I should go to the GP to ask to be refered to a gynocologyst, but that’s money that I don’t have. It wouldn’t be a hubris update without me talking about my period though, would it?
• A lot of my friends have been going through difficult times. We had decided that the first two weeks of the year didn’t count because they were just the hangover from 2009, but two thousand and zen has taken a while to get going. My main drama, apart from the thing that knocked me flat on my ass for a couple of weeks is the ongoing job hunt. I got very close to a job that I really wanted, reference checks and everything, and because they took a while to get back to me I dared to dream about what it would be like to actually have an income again, which of course became a big let-down again. I hate that my friends have had crappy-ass times, but if it had to happen, I’m glad that we’ve had each other to go through the crap with.
• I almost left the house for a night this summer to go camping, but it was raining in the Hutt so we camped in Amie’s lounge instead. Princess Camping for the win! We had tremendously good times.
• I went to a random hipster party in Roseneath where we sat in an empty room and played a variation of Truth or Dare. I went to a keg party in a big flat on Cuba Street where goths went without makeup, a kitten romped around and that nice girl from last year kissed me again although it’s against her rules, which I don’t understand. I went to a couch-surfing gathering in Mount Vic where I drank gin and played Animal Motions. There have been tiki shacks here, and macaroni parties at Laura’s. There’s also a Pretty Pretty Party coming up on March 6. It is hard to be as entertaining as I want to be when I lack the funds so drastically.
• My family has continued to be awesome and supportive. BAMJI took me for my first swim of the year, and last night we had a bigass dinner at Hazel for Mum’s significant birthday. It was lovely. I should review it for the Wellingtonista sometime soon.
• Still loving my flatmates. And I’m super excited that Kat & Kane are coming down next week. Not to mention WEBSTOCK! And I have a fabulous frock from Megan to wear, and I leant one to Sue. What goes around comes around, hurray!
• Oh, and finally, I spoke at Bloggers Predict the other week, and you can watch the video of it here:
  

So tomorrow, or sort of todayish, it will have been a year since I cried and I screamed and I hoped and I begged and I cried some more in joy and Obama was voted in as president. There are plenty of people who will write about the political implications of all that, and about the terrible puppy-eating thing that happened a few days later in NZ when my hair looked all amazing and I was pretending to be Joan Holloway, but I will pretend that night never happened. And I suppose that’s where it would be easy to start the fantasies, to pretend that the things never happened, but lately and for very little reason other than maybe getting my period and the associated END OF THE WORLD right before it, I am reminded of all these things and all these touches, and I react funny, and I cry in strange places and contact people that I shoudn’t because I just want some kind of attention and I know that mostly this is me, not you, and yet I have come to the conclusion that it’s not that I am still in love with you, but rather that it has gone out the other side and I hate you for what you have done to me, and for what I let myself become and that maybe it is easier if I loathe every single thing about you. But of course, that’s not actually that much easier. It just took me by surprise a couple of nights ago when I was just totally overcome with thoughts of the things that briefly were things, but not for very long and anyways, let’s end this paragraph. I am not good at dealing with anniversaries of things that are teh sux0r.

Now I have a a toss-up between good or bad. Let’s go with the bad, then the good.

I will try to keep this paragraph relatively spoiler-free, but I have been watching a certain show set in 1963 on torrents, and so yes, you can expect that Mad Men WILL deal with the assassination of JFK (oh, spoiler alert, apparently the president got assasinated in November 1963..) and I was watching that episode last night and because of course, much like you, my moment of “This is history happening right now” was 9/11, and so it was all played out in flashback sequences last night, the starting on Fluox, the Buffy episode at 3am, the flicking to the news channel, the “oh wow, what movie is this?”, the text messages to Kateh and Thomas, the wondering whether or not to wake Clayton, and then the flatmate hunt in the weeks after, but most relevantly, EM’s letters about what he told his son about the bad men when his son’s cartoons were taken off the air. It’s 2009, EM, shouldn’t you be emailing me right now?

But oh, the happy anniversaries! They can wipe out all the badness. And this is where the glee comes in, with going to Christchurch for one night for Harvestbird and Ned’s wedding. I feel very tongue-tied and inadequate and actually quite useless in recording such a lovely mellow event (although I can say that some dumbass Kwikimart clerk gave me terrible directions and it took me 30 minutes to walk to the bar instead of two), but what I can do instead is embed a drunken video for you that I took of the crazy lights in my crazy hotel room:

Apart from that, Christchurch was AWESOME! There was the girl on the plane who recognised me from a rollerderby match (“you’re Jo from Pretty Pretty aren’t you?”) who gave me a tour around the city to my hotel and an adventurous trip back to the airport the next day. There were hungover drinks with Emma Hart who managed to make ME blush which is practically as unheard of as the word “squozen” and the brunch the next day with Kebabette at C1.

I know Kebabette from PPP, so this is a good time to say how awesome the Pretty Pretty Party was. Also awesome? The Pride & Prejudice & Zombies ball. There are great pics on that link, by the way. I do so really love to dance, and the girls and boys at that dance swept me off my feet and all over the floor and I really should have hitched up my skirt better so I wouldn’t have slipped over so much. The fact that I ended up crying behind my (Theresa’s) fan at Motel later that night and sending texts to inappropriate people because I wanted some attention is clearly irrelevant. Honest!

I had a period for like, almost two weeks or something? Which was annoying but at least it kind of made my body make sense. Now I’ve got a three-week contract working from home but all I seem to want to do is take naps, so my hours are a little sporadic and off the standard chart. I have Fridays in the office to ground me however, and I feel really good and confident about the work I am doing. It is very much aligned with my skill set and close to my heart. Someone commented to me on Facebook the other day about how they can’t believe that I still don’t have a job yet and I feel pretty much the same way that they do, only more so.

El moved out but a lovely girl from Twitter who is on Brutal Pagaent (boo!) at Roller Derby (yay!) will be moving in. Brent’s going to move in with his girlfriend so I still need another flatmate. My social calendar is insanely busy. Hubris wasn’t updated for a while, but now it is. Good. Gossip Girl time now, right?

Except Lisa has me watching a Pearl Jam clip where they’re singing ‘Black’ and I expect him to start singing “We…belong…together” like he does in the Unplugged video, not altogether too different from Campbell Scott (that’s right, isn’t it Jessie? I get the two confused) in Singles but then he sings lines from ‘Good Woman’ instead about how he’s lying when he says he doesn’t love me no more, and oh, they’re too much like a text message when someone said that they were going to say that they were over me because they were weak, and oh, fuck you Obama, I am holding you entirely responsible for this, apart from the parts that are Guy Fawke’s fucking doings..

There is going to be an immense amount of whining and wailing and weeping in this entry, so if you’re not down with that, go read this instead. Caution: contains insanely adorable children in tutus.

Things have taken a swing for the worst for me lately. I know it is at least partially related to the miniscule trickle of blood that’s occasionally dripping from my cunt, but really, $200 parking fines, and discovering that WINZ won’t let me sign up for the dole unless I go to that horrible degrading seminar AGAIN and needing new a new flatmate, and still no jobs on the horizon, and continued burglar-related crap and assorted personal dramas and the very very small amount of money that I have left in my account are really piling up. I’m not coping very well with it. I have hid in bed for the past two days, and unless something drastic happens, I imagine that’s probably where I will spend tomorrow as well, at least until I go to Petone to eat cupcakes.

Here’s a story that is NOT the centre of my problems, but it is something that is weighing on my mind in the grand scheme of things. You know that boy who slept over in a post recently? And how although that was strange for me, it was actually quite nice? He stopped replying to my texts after that, and then didn’t show up for roller derby. Perhaps he’s too busy winking at my friends via online dating sites the day after he fucked me (Wellington is a very small place). I know there was no contract or anything, but it still seems like a shame. I thought we got on well, and that my gut instinct was right in thinking he was a nice guy. Oh well. I could tell him this in person but of course I have deleted his number so I won’t drunkenly passively aggressively text him. Does this mean that I shouldn’t trust my gut instinct then?  I know that my gut instinct is correct in thinking that the boy I kissed this past Saturday is trouble, but oh, what a kiss. And then on another note there’s Anji asking me if I think people are crazy because they’re crazy or because they like me. And there’s me wondering if I hold my cards too closely to my chest at all times because I don’t want to get hurt again and wondering whether or not I use not being over someone I could never have had anyway as a way to hold others at a distance.  I guess I’m getting ahead of myself somewhat, and lord knows I’ve been complaining enough lately about people who tell stories in a non-linear non-sequitarial fashion.

So what have I been up to lately? Last week there was tea and cake with Chrisana which was lovely because I hadn’t seen her in a very long time and I very much enjoy her company. There was making economic decisions to go home and sit by myself on the Friday night instead of drinking with the Wellingtonista. I painted signs for Roller Derby with Miss Fur. There was a crafternoon with Megan in which I made the aforementioned tutus that I sent to Maree’s daughters. She made me a skirt to wear to the roller derby on Saturday, so I looked suitably hot:

I got to meet Kim who took this photo and Laura for the first time before roller derby, so that was awesome. Anji’s friend stuck her tongue in when I gave her  birthday kiss, and another girl pulled me into a toilet stall, pushed me up against the wall and felt me up quite roughly. It was kind of fantastic and hilarious at the same time, because there were a lot of people around and she was pretty loud. Loud enough that she ended up getting kicked out of the derby, and I had to leave the afterparty really early to go meet up with her and her friend in his hotel room. The baths at the Duxton are not as good as the baths at the Museum Hotel, I can report but the staff are great at finding super glue for you if your boots are coming apart. It is strange however, that they let people smoke inside. Even the Garden Bar where we went and danced to drum & bass doesn’t let you do that. Then when I took a taxi home the driver didn’t have any credit card slips so he let me pay with a Farmers voucher instead. Mint.

Today my fitted sheet blew off the line when I was doing laundry and now it is gone. That seemed like an insurmountable obstacle to happiness for me so I stopped doing chores and went back to bed. I’m tired of all this shit. I just need some catharsis and probably to have a talk with someone so I don’t end up screwing them over. But for now, I will watch many many episodes of Weeds in a row, pull the duvet over my head, and sleep some more until this mood goes away.

I twittered today that I’m about two weeks away from sucking cock for crack, financially speaking, and that’s pretty true. I’d say that I’m also about two weeks away from taking up sucking cock for crack just for something to do because I’m so fucking bored, but yet I keep finding myself way too busy, no matter how sexy and appealing It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia makes crack addiction look.

My period has been fucking with me, resulting in many nights of not sleeping until 5am, and thinking too much about things that are in the past. Consequently, when Megan was over yesterday, I cried a little, and then she made me laugh, so that was good. I’m just so tired of things not going my way, of the endless having to deal with stupid things like bills, and police, and letterboxes, and landlords, and applying for jobs,  and no doubt WINZ soon, and finding a new flatmate (El’s moving to the beach), and just ugh. URGH! I need a PA, like, so bad. And also a salary with which to pay said PA.

I got a text on Monday night from a guy I know asking me to go for a drink with him and his wife because she had a proposition for me. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m pretty sure that it will be of the blog promotion variety type proposition, but because my weekend was somewhat interesting, I chose to assume the most sordid scenario. I was hugging my heater, however, and didn’t want to wash my hair, so I didn’t leave the house.

On Saturday though, I left the house for about 15 hours straight. I played Urban Golf. It was tremendous fun!

Fore!

I’m not feeling particularly articulate right now after very long conversations about other people’s lives tonight, so instead I recommend that you read Phil’s description of the day. I like dressing up, and taking back the streets, and chatting to the people we met along the way, and also the meeting new people part of the day, indeed. It was more sober than I expected it to be though.

I fixed the sober part afterwards when I went and met up with that girl and we had drinks at Pollux and The Garden Club which weirds me out because it used to be the Repertory Theatre where I did drama lessons and now it’s a gay club. I suppose they’re practically the same thing though anyways, right? The night ended with me sitting topless in someone’s living room eating Burger Fuel, which is the way most nights should end, right? I think most nights should involve less of other people’s drama though, maybe. But for my last occasion of spending substantial amounts of money, it was pretty good.

Schedule-wise, there’s roller derby coming up (we have tickets to give away on PPP!) and then then the PPP Girlie Party & Clothing Swap, and then I go to Harvestbird’s wedding, and then there’ll be the Halloween toss-up between rasslin’ and derby. Then I may end up going to Auckland for a couple of days with Lisa in November if I am not gainfully employed before she drives up for Pearl Jam. I suspect I will need to hold the wheel steady for her, so great will her excitement be. Oh, and you should suggest nominees for 4TAWA.

Blah. I have been on a big downloaded TV glut lately (thanks The AV Club!) and so I will return to that now if you don’t mind.

Because I have been severely premenstrual and hating everything and feeling like I am a worthless piece of shit, I have spent a bit of time contemplating telling everyone everything about everything, burning every single bridge I have and being herded out of town by an angry group of people with pitchforks and torches. But then the lovely Tash sent me a twitter making me promise never to leave Wellington and also wrote me a 140 character poem about how awesome I am, and then there was a vague bit of blood in my gusset and then I felt better.

Today Anji came over because she had the day off, and it was sunny, and she weeded my garden, and I did two loads of washing, and cleaned out the tiki shack, and the mouldy towels and mats and cardboard boxes and other sundry rubbish from the garden, and hiffed loads and loads of weeds over the fence into the nothingness. It was hard work, I tell you. So I am very tired. It was great hanging out with Anji though because I could talk about the things that I can’t talk to anyone else in Wellington about, and this makes me feel all Barbara Kruger like, and all altruistic and stuff, because my silence is other people’s comfort and all that, but also, again, pitchforks and torches. But we had a lengthy discussion about my tendency to sleep with people that I have no risk of falling for after I’ve had my heart broken (see this and this and this (although that one backfired) etc) in an attempt to safeguard myself again. Etc.

And then to continue on that note, I went for a drink with the girl from Saturday night tonight,  and we were having a grand old time, and then boy #2 from that night also showed up and I found that hilarious because they were all not talking much and I was talking lots, and I adore Johnnie at Hooch so much. But I was very sober, so I took off to bus home and be talked to by strange women on the street surprising me out of my loud Interpol head noise. Tonight I’ll rest my chemistry instead.

My ambition was always to use the time between jobs to come off the zopiclone, so for the past month I was gradually cutting down my dosage. I’ve talked before about how my shrink has gone AWOL (as Shirley put it the other day “trust you to get a crazy shrink”) so I can’t get new prescriptions, and so about a week ago I ran out completely. I had been on half pills for a week, so I was ready for it. Or so I thought.

The other day I didn’t get to sleep until 11. That’s 11am. Last night I was still awake and making sandwiches around 4am. When I finally do sleep, I do so until all hours of the afternoon because I don’t have a solid reason to get up in the morning. I think I might become a phone sex operator for a service in the UK or something, I might as well use my powers for good, right?

It’s been interesting though, watching twitter falling silent as first NZ and then Australia goes to sleep. I’ve learned that listening to pod casts doesn’t help me, and that there are only so many hours one can watch Whedon shows or read young adult fiction. I’ve learned that if you know you’re going to be sneaking out afterwards  because you’re not going to sleep that you should make sure that you throw all your clothes in the one place to make finding them in the dark easier. I’ve learned that the benefit of having friends on random morning shifts or up with babies is that occasionally you’ll get to pass twitters in the night and that’ll help you not feel quite as alone as watching the sun come up by yourself tends to make you feel.

Other than the sleeping thing, and the unemployment thing, time is passing rather nicely. I mean, it would be nice to sleep properly so I could achieve more during the day, but my social circle is pleasing right now, and I have numerous events to look forward to. People are providing me with delicious food and delicious company, and that is nice. I am struggling to not spend money which is annoying now that I have so much more time in which to spend it, but I’m cooking more for myself at home which is pleasing and cost-effective. I made some killer blueberry & almond pikelets the other day, for example. And with the eating of the vegetables, and with some photos of Jon Hamm on vacation that Jezebel did warn me would tug at my ovaries came a brief day of bloodening, and I’m still glassy and stomach-crampy when I orgasm so I know that there’s another period coming soon, which means two in the space of a month, which is like, woah, that’s what normal people do. It’s somewhat pleasing to me.

I still have miles to go on tagging all my hubris entries and getting that squared away, and I need to build my portfolio site as well. But there are so many upcoming events! Flatwarmings and Word Camps and Bar Camps and Bad parties, and birthdays of Karen and so  on and so forth. Oh, and Vanuatu, in less than three weeks. That pleases me tremendously.