Hubris.co.nz

And now it is January the 6th, and that’s lucky cos it means I get to avoid telling you about the handjob I gave my friend that night. So skipping the rest’o New Years Eve, KateH arrived in Whakatane late on New Years Day, and Brad her and I spent the evening lounging around polishing off the rest’o everyone else’s beer adn reading magazines. It was lovely chill time. And then on the 2nd, when people got up, and I got to sleep by myself, instead’o with three snoring boys, one of whom stopped touching me as soon as he came, (selfish!), but anyways, that’s entirely beside the point. But I was bursting to tell someone, so I was very very very relieved when Tom finally got off his ass and rang me there so I could have a decent gossip. Wait, hang on, that was the night of the 1st. On the 2nd, Brad took us on his famous tour’o The’Tane, including wading on Ohope Beach, adn then the biggest icecreams in the world for $1.50 apiece. KateH and I had amusing conversation like; Me: “he kept looking down my top all night” – Kate: “well, what top were you wearing?” – Me: “yeah, but that’s not the point!”. I also made other rather crude remarks about her family. Sorry Katie, but I know you said bad shit about me that I just can’t remember. Blah blah blah. Later that night, we got three bottles of wine and went out to dinner where the service was TERRIBLE – “oh, we can’t take your order right now cos the kitchen is too busy with that big table” but the company was terrific and I managed to make both Brad and Kate’s jaws drop because I fucking HAD to spurt out my little story, because jesus, almost 48 hours? Do I LOOK like a mute to you? And then we had shakers at the Irish pub until this guy kept staring at Kate so we had to leave, adn went to the other bar in Whakatane, where this carnie approached us and kissed our hands and I was like “Dude, you know it’s not actually sunny any more outside eh” and KateH was like “are you wearing your sunnies on your head to keep back your hair?” cos he was totally going bald, and he started going on and on about were we vets, cos he hated vets, etc etc, and we were like “????”. And then he said to me “hey, nice tits” and I was like, “thanks, I grew them myself” ajnd that gave Kate the chance to go “oh, so you don’t like mine? Well you can just FUCK OFF THEN buddy” and she got rid of him, and she can pretend it’s because we wanted to get rid of him, but really, we all know that I have far nicer breasts than Katie, so ha ha ha. Ha.

The next day, Brad had to go back to work, so eventually, after I ahd to endure hours of “Aladdin and the King of Thieves” on TV waiting for Katie to come back from the radio station, Kate and I drove to Hamilton, via Burger King and Rotorua. She let me stop off to go wading somewhere along the way, but she wouldn’t let me get a float from Macdonalds, so instead I got total Passenger Arm instead, and screamed at roundabouts. And then Mazzy Star made us cokefloats in her new house in Hammy, so that was cool, and we went to Briscoes cos it was airconditioned and I didn’t buy any bed linen, and then I took the bus back up to auckland.

Then on the Saturday, me and Megan and Peter went out. Lumiere has yummy cocktails. Peter sucks at playing High-Low, unless your definition of it is taking 40 drinks to get across the cards. Megan is very amusing. Deschlers was shut at 2.30am and I nearly cried. Sunday was boring, and I put my bed together adn tried to sort out my room. Today I got to work at 10.30am, and (umm fuck, did I have a psuedoname for her?) the girl I work with and I had a rather lengthy lunch and then after work she came here and we demolished a couple of bottles of wine, gossiped and I cooked risotto for her and Peter. And so now that’s like, NOW. And I’m up to date. Kickass me. OH! And hi, have you sent me a package lately? because according to megan, there was an envelope in my letterbox for me one day when she went to work, and when she came home it was gone. Mystery! xojo.

Okay, so just because someone produces the magic substance that wakes you up does NOT mean that you should trust their decisions. Oh no. So if the boy who makes you coffee once or twice a week recomends that next time you have a VANILLA soy latte, don’t do it. Even if you love Vanilla Coke. Even if you’re easily swayed. Don’t do it. It tastes RANCID. Moral’o the story is, don’t take tips from men who listen to lifeFM or happy hardcore, and have mutton chops.

Oh look, Jo’s talking real trivial issues, she must be feeling better!

And actually, I am. even if Cipramil leaves me with a dry mouth and totally inadequate orgasms and weird dizzy spells sometimes. Oh, plus I have a totally burnt thumb. But I suspect that has more to do with Guy Fawkes than any other mental affliction.

So where were we? We talked about the coffee, which sucked. I trained today to do the WebDev Guy’s job while he’s away on leave. He put a sign on our office door that has the Communications Administrator Job being done by a “Joanne” McLeod. Apparently this is his reaction to Bridget telling him off for spelling it “McCloud”. I was like “Skew, you just gave me all your passwords for the webserver, are you sure you wanna say bad things about me?”. I hope he knows I do actually like him, even if there is a little “friendly” tension between me and Terri’s replacement. I’m still infamous at work for doing so well at the quiz on Friday night, and of course for the Hula dance that went along with it.

I worked from 10-3pm today, serving at Skew’s leisure so that he could teach me before he gets all mad panicy, and then I went for my eye appointment, which is very heavily subsidized by my organisation, as long as I made it clear that I need glasses to operate my VDU. I made it very clear. The guy was all young and nice, being a final year Opotometry Student, and it turns out that my glasses are WAY TOO STRONG on my left side. He was nice but too close in some parts, and I felt like I was supposed to pash him, because really, that’s the only time you’re supposed to hear people breathing like that. And then we got to the room where to try on frames, and he put the first pair’o frames on me, and he was like “yeah, that’s so it” and we tried on lots more pairs, but he was right, the first pair really suited me, even though they were $300 frames, and we couldn’t find anything nice that was cheaper (“I have expensive tastes!”) plus when someone is so convinced that something looks that good on you, it’s hard to argue, isn’t it? I told him off during my (incredibly long) eye examination cos he kept laughing at me when I was so obviously wrong reading letters, and he was like “hey, it’s boring to be so clinical”. He also got an abridged version of my full medical history because he damn well asked for it, and yes, thank you, I appreciate why I’m having dizzy periods, and I’m paying $120 an hour to sort that out, and I appreciate that you’re taught to do this, but seriously, get back to writing me out a new glasses prescription. Thank you.

And then this evening there was Quiz, but when Clay and I got there, who was sitting outside but *IV (damn, I wish I was into full name disclosure styles, cos it’d sure as hell make things easier) and I was like umm “okay, I’ll go get the beer” because i am LAME and because he totally wouldn’t even look in my direction at Justin’s last party, and then KateH showed up, and eventually Peter (Hi peter, you’re choice even if you’re not scrawny in a tight tshirt anymore) and a friend of his, and that was our quiz team, although Bo and Leo put in an appearrence for a little. At one stage, I went out to the bathroom, and *IV was out having a cigarette, so I kicked his chair, and said hey, and said that he didn’t need to be afraid’o me cos I didn’t mean to cause trouble at all in any way. He said he was back with his g/f and I said that I knew that, and that was cool and I understood, and he was like, “but you were the first girl since her” and I said that he’d told me that at the time, and then I told a kinda lie and said that I was in love with the boy who’s party we’d hooked up at (a lie in that it wasn’t LOVE as such, but definitely some kinda big feelings) and he was like “what, Justin?” and I laughed my head off and I was like “don’t you remember – we were at a party in Herne Bay” and he was like “ooooh” and I said that he was quite probably the nicest boy I’d ever had sex with, and I’m sorry that I’d snobbed him the first time I saw him after we’d had sex but I hadn’t expected to see him again quite so soon, and he was like “I got a snub in the Hub” which was actually really funny and we were both like, mutal admiration for how cool each other was, and he said that he’d got the note I left him in his letterbox that said he was a total sweetheart, which is true, and he said I had great taste in music, and we had a laugh, and just parted on super terms. So that was lovely.

Meanwhile, back at Quiz. OH MY GOD! Okay, so every Tuesday, we call ourselves “The Slab” on account of it being our apartment name, right? Well, tonight not only were there “The SLAB” but there was “Peanut Slab” as another team, and also “FUCK THE SLAB” as a team name. ATTITUDE! Anyways, we won, and so that’s a $50 tab for us to drink next Monday when I’ve finished my first exam. No more Quiz nights at Vesbar anymore, at least not over summer. He took my number and said he’d call if he started working somewhere else, but Meh, I doubt that’s what I would like it to be, then him and me and KateH played with Sparklers in the Quad. It was pretty choice. ANd then I went up to Kelly and Rowena’s and we set off fireworks on their roof and I burnt my hand. I went home cos I was so drunk I could hardly stand up anymore, especially in the rain, and Kara and Clay and Bo and Leo were all watching Harry Potter, and there were Nachoes on the stove, so I was stoked, and that was cool, except, my god, maybe kids have mucher longer attention spans than I do, cos I so could not be bothered concentrating, so after an hour and a half, I headed off here.

But doesn’t it make you happy? Look, Jo all conscious and stuff – and like, sure she’s drunk, but that just means that her OOS doesn’t hurt as much, and yes, I am, I am looking after myself, MUM. ANd soon, I will post you a rant about happiness, and also about Therapy. White MiddleClass Girl Angst etc. Love you all – well okay, that’s a lie. Love all of you who you know who you are, and care about some of the rest of you, and are glad some of you read me, adn would very much like some of the rest’o you to fuck off now please. Thank you. Xojo.

Monday the 15th of July, two thousand and two

At work today, I was running MSN Messenger (cloud_tiare) cos it was on my computer and cos both Teri and Bridget were out of the office and I didn’t have anything to do except answer their phones if they rang (in the morning, I rushed over to answer Teri’s, picked it up and was like “Good morning Communications Office, Teri speaking” before I realised my mistake and I had to go “wait wait wait, sorry, I’m not actually Teri, I meant it was her phone” when the woman on the other end started talking all familiarly) and of course Skew didn’t tell me until I’d made a mad dash across the office for Bridget’s phone that I could just dial her extension on my phone and push 8 to get her call. But anyways, what was my point? Oh yeah, I was talking to Peter on MSN, and he said that there’s a theoretical petition in existence that I should write my journal every day, and so far him and Jane have signed it. And if he’s making up fibs about you again Jane, then I’m sorry, but hey, it’s Peter, and what do you expect? And also, I think you should write about wanking – people will think you’re weirder if they suspect that you don’t do it. And have I got Pete in trouble enough yet?

Anyways, the 13 minutes or so that it took for me to eat a sandwhich sitting outside in the sun froze me to the bone, but at least it was sunshine, right? What else is noteworthy? The fax machine in our office doesn’t like me, and it won’t work, unless i’m alone, in which case it works fine. I think it’s trying to make me look incompetent – and it’s succeeding. But I mastered it while I was alone, and so I resolve never to let it smell my fear again. So yeah, obviously a very productive day all around. I have two days off now, finally, then part two of my induction course on Thursday morning (this time we get a tour around the main part’o the organisation, exciting!) and work on Friday afternoon, then back to tech on Monday. I worked out my time table – it sucks. Well actually, I have no classes earlier that 10am, which is excellent for me, but I will be working 4.5 hours on Wednesdays after class, 2.5 on Thursdays, and then all day fridays. Grr. Still, money is good. I like money. Also today, I got 2/3 of my exam results – a B and a B+, but I have no idea which papers were which, cos they just give you the paper #, not its name, and who ever remembers those? Still I’m pleased, and will be even more pleased if one of those is Persuasive Communication ie: the exam I don’t remember sitting cos I was so doped up. And speaking of which, soon I will find out if my migraines are going to be a reoccuring theme.

OH! OH! OH!!!!!! OH OH OH! That’s the other thing I had to tell you! I got my birthday present from Olivia and s5 in the mail today. They sent me a Vinne’s Tampon Case and Journal! I am in love with Vinnie now, and also o and s5, but then I always loved them anyways. It kicks ass! Clay was like all “ummmmmm. ummmmmmmm. ummmmmmmmm” when he first saw it and I told him it was a coffee table book, but then he picked it up and flicked through it and saw how cool it was. I like talkign about bleeding, and now I get to write about it even more too! Speaking of which, according to my packet, I am one day late. Oh well. I’m all mango enough now to know it’ll be real soon, like tomorrow. Also, isn’t it weird how your period cramps don’t kick in until you go to the bathroom and see that you’re bleeding? Yes, yes it is!

Okay, that’s about it. Hopefully tomorrow I will be all domesticated and clean my room and the lounge and do the dishes and go vege shopping. It’s holidays but all my friends are busy working super duper hard, as per usual, at their jobs and careers. Shucks. So no holiday for me. Bops comes back on Friday – I want her back NOW.

Tuesday July 2

You have to excuse me if i sound a little shitty while I write this – I’m in the lounge and Clayton is watching ‘Duets’. Yes, the Gwynnie movie. I know he has to do it for his work and all, but still. Oh yeah, and as to why I’m in the lounge, well, my landlady rang me up at 8am today to tell me that I was getting carpet laid between noon and two, so I must move all my personal stuff out of my room, but leave my furniture. Righto. She rang me later at work to confirm that I’d done it, and I had – well, Bopha did it for me cos I had to go to work, and Bopha is a sweetie and everything. I got home to find a note from the carpet layers saying we needed to move the furniture out and vacuum before they’d lay carpet. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKETY FUCK FUCK FUCK. Grrr. I was txting Brad angry things about my landlady, and he said I should put on a bear suit and maul her, and so I asked him if he’d do it for me, and he said sure, if I could get her to dress up as a salmon. Heh.

Work today was good, I did the clippings, wrote some stuff, killed some time. There were mini scandals, but nothing to do with me. I did maths! With a calculator and a ruler and everything, figuring out most efficient ad spend. I drew pictures in my report and impressed everyone. So that was exciting. I really must remember to take my muff in to work, cos my hands just about freeze off on the way home. Also, what, you think I didn’t see you lurking in that doorway? I may be blind without my glasses but not THAT blind.

KateH came over after work and we had Thai food together, sitting on the sofa together like the old days, although she couldn’t stay for travel.co.nz which she shoulda! So after she left, I went over to KateM’s instead, and met her new flatmate who was very nice, and kinda intriguing. Ligen ligen ligen. Heh, special personal message to you after all.

OH! Hot gossip scandal I discovered sometime recently…. ummm nah, I won’t break it yet. I’ll hold it in for a while. However, I am hoping that the person it involves will hurry up and get his ass back into the country, or how am I ever going to get laid again?

KateH complained that I hadn’t written up my party yet, but we agreed that by now it’s too late. Suffice to say, it was fucking cool, except for the landlady showing up cos she’d had “complaints” (plural) about the noise – of course our fucking neighbours couldn’t have come and knocked on our door and asked us to turn it down, oh no. And also, why are all Englishmen obsessed with nakedness? And how can people turn up empty handed and expect to be fed copious amounts of liquor at any occasion other than a 21st? But BALLOONS! And my ladies! And when I got up on Sunday, Bopha had already done half the dishes and cleaning cos she felt so bad about getting too stoned to talk. ANd then the next day there was the soccer, and Brazil won, and YAY. Yeah. That was all the good shit.

Dialogue just now: Me “So, who’s playing tonight?” Bopha, about to cry “don’t Jo! You’re evil! Absolutely evil. That’s the bad shit right there”. Soccer withdrawl has set in already. That’s why it’s okay that I’m going to Welly tomorrow.

So I’ll write this quickly cos it’s actually really really really cold tonight. Let me firstly start out with a great big AAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHmotherfucker! You know how my computer is brand new operating system and all (so new in fact that it has no Microsoft Word on it, causing me large amounts of swearing and throwing stuff and having to go into tech at 8am to completley rewrite assignments that group members thought only needed to be a bulletpoint list – um NO)? Yeah, well you all know that, but what you probably don’t know unless you’re in my address book is that I HAVE A VIRUS. This is why you should never ever use Outlook Express, kiddies. It was one of those horrible ones with attachments that are hiddenly imbedded, which I used to receive like 1 a day of which was fine when I was using hotmail, cos it could read the MIME headings properly and not open and install the attachments, but of course Outlook is gimpy and stuff and GRRRRRRR. I think I cleared it – I only realised I had it after I started getting weird emails that I didn’t send returned to me, and then IMDB sent me an automatic email saying they were blocking me for being infected, but luckily they also included a link for where I could get help from, so I went and read and learned and downloaded and cleaned. Phew. But still, motherfucker! In a virus related note, did I mention that I DON’T have any stds? I don’t think I did, and I worry that while I wrote very explicitly about the smear process I didn’t mention the fact that the tests all came back negative. And that’s a good thing, and I guess my reward for this whole celibacy 3.0 thing which I am SO bored of.

What else? Today I went out to Henderson again to pay the rest of the money to the gentlemen who fixed my computer for me, and Peter hooked me up with some stuff that I needed and gossiped with me for a while. Peter – just imagine that I’m reading this over your shoulder if that makes you feel better. And don’t forget to give me a login and password for what we were talking about. And don’t do freaky shit with my stolen site design or I will have to give you the bash. I also went to my IMC class for the first time in ages and ages,and got my essay back. I got 41/50 on my Branding essay! I kick so much ass! I’m pleased cos it really clarifies for me that I totally made the right desicion to come back to school. I love learning.

Do you know what else I kinda love? Job interviews. Or at least, I love the one that i had yesterday, because I was confident that I have all the skills that they want, and they asked me questions that made me think, and plus I think we all know how much I enjoy talking about myself. And it’s been a while since I got to dress up in a suit, and that’s always fun. It’s a part time job doing Communications work, and really, it’s ideal. I had to send them some writing samples afterwards, but of course I’ve lost every file from the past five years basically, so I sent them the interview I did with myself (and please don’t tell me you’re all of a sudden going “ooooh YOU wrote that?”) and one of my Com Strat essays. Today I went to fax them some articles i wrote in 1997 but the fax wasn’t working so maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.

Other things I’m loving today include The West Wing, as usual. I’ve decided that I want Allison Janney to play me in the movie’o my life, so she’d better some getting young real quick smart! I think I(‘d like to) see myself kind of as a cross between CJ and the trailor park trash she played in Drop Dead Gorgeous. When I saw my landlady yesterday and told her about my job interview she was like “but who could not love you Jo?” which is always nice to hear. I would also like to hear the sound of workmen laying down some new carpet, but hey… Also, Kyla kicks ass cos she’s gonna sell me a ticket to True Colours for only $40. PACIFIER!!!!!!!!!!!!! Excuse me while I wet my pants in anticipation. Oh my god, lots of exclamation marks are so tacky aren’t they? Why yes they are. Anyways.

Tomorrow I will make grovelling phonecalls to the LTSA to see if they can send me copies of their road safety ads so I can present them in my seminar on Wednesday. Members of the general public – being youse guys – if you’re in Auckland and you know me and you’re watching anything you videoed on TV and you happen to see a road safety ad, could you please email me straight away and let me have the tape? Thank you I love you! And also if I sent you an attitude and behaviours survey, could you please send it back? (And I’m SO sorry if I sent you a virus, I really hope i didn’t). I’m actually brimming with good ideas about my seminar right now, so I guess it’s just a question of getting it all down. Still, I don’t think I’m doing anything at all this weekend, so there’ll be time for that then. Stink.

Hi! So. It’s been what, like, two and a bit weeks? Well, I’m here now. And I’d just like to start with this:

I love this girl so much

That’s Bopa Chai, the Shaolin Monk on Crack, aka my new flatmate whom we are still very much enamoured of. And while we’re speaking of photos, while she was around tonight, KateM demanded that i take some of her that don’t feature her cleavage prominently and in which she isn’t rather boozed, and so if you’re interested (and I guess I’m looking at the J-Crew here mostly, not that you probably even realise that you’re called the J-Crew now, but maybe we’ll get there in this entry) you can find them here.

Anyways, so I guess maybe you’d like an explanation as to where I’ve been for the past three weeks. Well, I’ve been right here, pretty much, but for the most part, I have been computerless. That’s right, you may recall how I kept getting electric shocks off my box? (oh ha ha ha, that one was a little too obvious) Those shocks eventually managed to fry pretty much every single inner component of my computer, and so I went a week without it, and then Peter’s workmates rebuilt it for me, at a cost, of course. This means that i lost everything on my hard drives, which SUCKS (and therefore all cd donations of mp3s will be very very gratefully accepted, thank you) but the one silver lining in the cloud was that therefore they didn’t find the folder full’o old topless photos (and yes of course i had topless photos on my computer – show me any girl with a webcam who doesn’t have one, and I’ll show you a girl who knows how to use her delete key). Oh yeah and Pete – if you did manage to extract them, you’d better have enjoyed them and not turned away in disgust, or I’ll be like, hurt and shit. Anyways. That’s why I haven’t been updating my website, and so yeah, thank you all for your letters of concern. Oh wait, hang on – like hardly anyone sent me one! You people think you can all sit here and read and not tell me about it – I’m looking at you, Kate Oliver, and you, Jane Yee, but believe me, I know. Also, Jane – apparently you said that I was really fucked up, but I heard that from a source with no credibility so that’s okay.

Of course there are people who do read my journal and tell me about it. I have hazy memories of one night recently having a big arguement with John and JeremE who were trying to tell me that this journal online isn’t the real me, but I can’t remember if they were saying one was better than the other or not. I think I was trying to argue 1. “Hey John, you’ve only just met me tonight, buddy” and 2. of course it’s me, but I don’t know if I got my points across because I just ended up quoting Tom and KateB who probably know me better than almost anyone and they say that I’m not as open as I think I am, so I kinda dug my own hole. Later, KateH and I managed to reach an agreement whereby Hubris is Ginger Spice and I’m Geri Halliwell (I mean, the physical resemblence is obvious) so that was good.

Other stuff that’s happened over the past while? I meant to write lists, but I didn’t. I’ve hung out with Bopha lots and lots and lots, and all her friends have decided that our flat has an excellent vibe, so they hang out here too. I get to watch them doing kung fu, having intelligent discussions, drinking endless cups of Jasmine tea and smoking very nice pot ever so often, which are all good things, even if the Kung Fu makes me exhausted just hearing it.

We had cigar, martini and poker night last week, which was fucking excellent. Everyone (was supposed to) dressed up 1920s/1930s gangster style, and we played and played and I smoked many many cigars. My friends don’t actually like martinis (wusses!) so we degenerated into apple martinis and cosmos instead, and then towards the end of the night everything just thrown together, but still out of martini glasses so I guess that’s okay. I don’t know who won at poker – we pushed all the chips in the middle for the last round and I think maybe Clayton won, but I can’t be sure.

My parents are in Mexico right now. Before they went away, Anji rang me up and told me Mum had gone into her work and been really spassy saying “Umm, I don’t know if we have a will or not, but you know that we have three houses right? So if anything happens to us, you can have one each”. I got email from them today saying that Neil got his wallet stolen on the first day that they were there, and that I shouldn’t try to buy anything online with their credit card number cos they canceled it. Also, apparently every time Mum goes to say something, she speaks Japanese instead of Spanish. Silly multilingual parents!

Oh yeah, I rang Mum up a week before they left, bawling my eyes out over my dead computer and the fact that my car had been broken into YET AGAIN and was generally unwarrantable and everything. That’s three fucking back windows, all for NOTHING. Grrr.

Shirley helped me break the rest of the glass out of the window and ducttaped it up for me. She’s my Manly friend. However, she’s going tomorrow for ever and ever and ever. I have to drive her to the airport and while I promised her I wouldn’t, I know I will cry and cry and cry. We had chocolate fondue and girlie night at her place on Friday, her and Maz and Morrison. I had flashback panic attacks in the car on the way home, partly about Shirley and partly about friends in general and other stuff. Other Stuff in capital letters even. When I set my mind to something, I want to do it as quickly as possible, get it over, out of the way and what have you. No drawn out trauma and thinking extremely, so later that night there were hugs and tears in my kitchen, and hours and hours of talking, excrutiating exhausting talking. I’m so conditioned to say “that’s okay, that’s alright” when someone apologises to me and I physically had to stop myself from saying it because it would have been insincere and everyone knows that. But there’s peace at least, and maybe that’ll stop the dreams.

Yesterday I drove to Pukekohe and got lost for half an hour because I came in at the other end of the town than where KateH anticipated that I would, and therefore rights were lefts and therefore wrong, which frustrated me immensely and I was burning up with fever, but finally I managed to find her and we went via Pak’n Slave to Nikki’s bach at Clark’s Beach. I think I wasn’t really expecting a good night, but it turned up to be excellent. Eight girls, two of them married, one with two children – it was an interesting cross section. They were all from Waiuku/Pukekohe though, so I was a little on the outside, but that’s okay, we bonded as girls always do over “I have Never” and I didn’t even end up sticking out like a deviant sore thumb as I have been known to do when playing the game with d-sters. It was also really nice to be out of the city, even if we could still see the sky tower in the far distance. I didn’t get much sleep though, cos it was hot, and I was sleeping on the couch in the lounge, cos the bunks were too short, the bottom bunks were too claustraphobic and I didn’t wanna sleep on a top bunk when I’m used to a mattress on the floor. But anyways. Nikki even cooked us all breakfast this morning, kickass. And then because I’m lovely, I took KateH to Waiuku so that she could see her mother for Mother’s Day. Her family are cool, except I was scared when someone was talking about the Baha Men, and so I complained about how I’d have the song in my head for the rest of the day, and Jane offered to put a different song in my head and I said okay, then EVERYONE at exactly the same time went “do do do do do do do do” in the manner of bears driving around in cars being the ballet. But Katie pumped me full’o gas and bought me chocolate too, so I love her.

And that’s it, I guess. Not very much for the past three weeks, I just can’t think. There’s been classes, of course, which I have even been to sometimes. I’m worried about tomorrow, my first friend off on her OE. Of course, there’s also KateB who’s doing so fucking brilliantly she makes me teary with pride when she calls me with news of her latest achievements (Kate – call me! Hi, I like you). OH! completely new topic now, so I should probably put in a new paragraph because it’s going to get a little dodgy.

What does the word “trans” mean to you? Do you even give it much thought? And if so, if you were told you were going to have a “transvaginal ultrasound” would you realise that it was going to be done from the inside? Well, I certainly didn’t, and believe me, I got one of the biggest shocks’o my recent life when the radiographer pulled out this huge fucking girthy 13 incher and rolled a condom over it. She told me to insert it “like a tampon” and I was like “ummmmmmmm holy fuck” Her reassurances that it didn’t all have to go in didn’t count for much. Afterwards she just left and told me to leave the door open when I’d cleaned myself up. I felt so cheap and used! But end of the story is that after extensive consultation with my doctor, I’m now on the pill again. Not evil evil femulen though; estelle35 which is what pretty much everyone with polycystic ovarian syndrome gets put on. And if I find after a couple of months I’m going psycho and losing my sex drive again, I will just stop taking it. Dr White was very amusing when she was going over it with me, asking if I’d be using it for contraceptive purposes, and I was like “yeah I doubt it eh” and she was like “well, if you DO meet Prince Charming tonight or something…”. I like her lots and lots. Also, yeah, so apparently I don’t ovulate all the time and I might very well have difficulty concieving children BUT I’m not infertile and I’m supposed to remember that and not worry and that was why my blood pressure was up a little, apparently, cos I was worried and cos I’d been running around. Normally I have excellent blood pressure. I asked Anji if she’d carry a baby for me, and she promised me an egg, and even offered to put it on ice now, so that’s okay. There’s a backup plan.

And now I think that’s probably enough eh. My back hurts – I’m sitting on the ground again. However, the rugmunching possibilities are looking good – or at least the rug part, because I’ve seen one of the flats downstairs has actually been moved out of, and they’re pulling up the carpet in there, and once they’ve laid new stuff there, they’ll be putting new stuff in here as well, adn then I can sort out my room and reassemble my desk, six months after the actual flooding.

I’m still downloading Hubris – the only links I have left to my computer past – but maybe I can rejig the order and upload this now.

I accomplished a great deal today.

So I’m cruising around the East Coast Bays this morning, in one of the fleet of company cars, air conditioner and stereo cranked up, sun shinning, pohutakawas in full bloom and seas sparkling, and I was like “this is my job? this is what I’m getting paid for?” and oh lordy was I ever smiling! I had meetings around our various area offices today to discuss suitable venues for our roadshow. I felt so so fake every time, like a kid dressed up in her mother’s pearls and high heels. But i think I did well anyways. I wrote a three page report on my findings that my boss was too busy to look at anyways.

Course, it wasn’t all fun and games. Right after my first meeting, walking through a carpark in Glenfield, I discovered that my Thai silk skirt, made out of 50 year old fabric, was ripped right across the thigh and ass, and it would have been like that throughout my whole meeting. It’s always so professional to be clearly displaying your black satin panties, isn’t it? So I had to drive home, in the coporate car, and get changed, but that was cool.

I also got my “induction” today, so now I officially know where the lightswitches are. And the first aid kit. And I have full stationary cupboard priveledges – ph33r me!
I’m really really really dizzy right now – the desk is doing dives and leaning all over the place and stuff. It’s very very odd. I get to sleep over 5 hours tomorrow – exciting! Plus there’s a BBQ and goodbye drinks for Hayley. Everyone’s fucking leaving me. That makes me wanna cry. But I won’t, because mostly it’s just over the summer, and that’s cool, I’m too busy being corporate woman and all.

We changed our answering machine message tonight. Now it sounds like an ad in the personals column. I wanted to end it “I like walks on the beach, going to movies, kittens, commitment and SODOMY” but Brad wanted to say “FUCKING IN THE ASS” and we couldn’t agree so it’s neither. Which is probably slightly more palatable for the landlord and associated tradespeople that call.

Godboy broke into our house today and used up practically the last of our toilet paper. I’m getting a restraining order against him.

“Subject to the provisions of the * Information and Meetings Act 1987, all transactions, records and information pertaining to the business of * shall be held in strict confidence by you both during the period of employment and also after its termination”

So my official title is “Communication Assistant” and I know how much I’m getting paid per week, and it’s quite nice – well, more than three times as much as my current income anyways, and yeah, it’s all quite exciting. I start next wednesday, and before then, I have a whole mountain of paper to read my way through. It’s slow progress, but by the end of February, y’all will be able to ask me ANYTHING about wastewater and I’ll be able to tell you. So that’s exciting.

Today there were chainsaws and sunshine and landlady’s sister, and as a consequence, there’s no nasty tree outside my window. Hurrah for that! And Brad mowed the lawn, which inspired me to do the lawns, and clean out the drain in the bathroom (some bitch sheds her long brown hair all over the place!) and put out about 12 bags of newspapers for the paperchase. House cleaning is good. Kate B ran off with my car for a couple’o hours cos it has a tow bar and hers doesn’t to put her stuff in storage. Jeremy hasn’t moved his stuff out of the lounge yet though.

Jeremy was watching The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson this afternoon, and I got teary. I conceed that I’m a headcase, yes. But Jim Henson DIED, okay? Have you ever seen muppets crying? It’s not a happy sight, I tell you! I made vegetable soup, and it was really nice.

Brad’s got part time work at More FM. Clay’s working at a media monitering place. We’re so Savvy. Of course, I have a PR job instead of a multimedia job, and that’s just fine with me. Clay rang on the way home today and asked if I wanted anything, so i said “summer ale”. We moved the lightest couch onto the deck out the front of the house, which we foolishly have neglected until today when the bushes had all been trimmed back and sat out there. I was hoping to do some dancing, but then Jan – Clay’s friend that we don’t like – showed up and her and Clay went off to get dvds and stuff from the supermomarket. I rang our friends and made sure they were invited to Thanksgiving Lunch. Hayley got all confused, cos I’ve never talked to her on the phone before, and straight away I was like “Hi, this is Joanna McLeod from Garland here; I’m just ringing to confirm your reservation for Sunday”. Well, I thought I was pretty funny anyways. Godboy Peter can’t come (we have a $500 that he’ll ADMIT to being Christian again before 2005) but pretty much everyone else is. I was stoked that Helen can make it. She sent me email yesterday that said “THis is so freaky deaky, trippy dippy. I just came into your website to try and find your email details, and there you leave me my own personal details to get in touch. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, how lovely. I’ve always wanted to be the person who gets their own message. ” which made me giggle for ages. And Andee sent me email today too so it’s been a good day, emailwise. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to email me anyways! I like email from people called Ernest.

I hope it’s as sunny tomorrow as it was today – I want to do lots and lots of washing and stuff. I’m trying to tidy the house and my room before I start work next week. I was going to clean my room today, but then I somehow got sidetracked into talking to Olivia about rockstars. Well, no ‘somehow’ about it – I talked to Olivia because she’s the bee’s knees. Jeremy mentioned later something about our dumbass oven and how it dropped open on him at a part one time, and I was like “do you feel kind of like you’ve always watched these pop stars on telly and now you’re meeting them finally? I mean, you always used to come to parties here, and now you live here”. He just laughed at me. I guess that’s the appropriate response. I laugh at me. Time goes by so fast.

“am I famous for just one thing?”

(Picking up the narrative about Saturday night from yesterday)
It was also nice that it was good wholesome alcohol free fun too, for a change. Not that it’d last though…..

Half the crew disappeared off to town, taking Andy with them, but me Clay Brad and Kate M weren’t sure if we wanted to go, so we decided to meet up at the Dog, cos Kate B was supposed to be working. Brad got in Kate M’s car, and I took Clay and Pete. Half way home, Clay called Kara @Garland, and there was a little domestic or something, so I had to take him home. We tried to call Brad or Kate M to let them know, and to see if they’d follow us to Garland so we could leave my car and all go with Kate M to Ponsonby. But noooo, of course neither of them had their cellies with them, so it turned into a mad game of chase, with me yelling at them although they couldn’t hear me, because the boys didn’t roll down their windows. You know how you’re not supposed to drive drunk (and I don’t)? Well, I think you shouldn’t be allowed to drive on that much sugar either. It was lots and lots and lots of fun though! We finally managed to make them follow us and not take the Newton off-ramp, but then just as they rolled down their windows to hear us yell we were going to Garland, they were on the Grafton offramp and we were on Manukau/Hamilton. People with cellularmaphones that don’t turn them on are dumb!

But anyways, we got home and I changed my shoes and Brad rang us from Kate M’s. Pete and I decided to drive to her dad’s house and leave my car there, and walk to the Dog. So that’s just what we did, stopping for Red Bull. By the time we got to her house, Kate M had fallen asleep, so only Brad came out with us. By the time we got to the Dog, it was past 1am, and the place was closed. We could see Kate sitting with the staff at the bar, but they pretended they didn’t see us banging on the windows. So we had to move on, and found ourselves at Grand Central. The front bit was full of Old Slappers dancing to dumb music, but we managed to snag ourselves a room all to ourselves; sofas around a fireplace with a chandelier above – a super cosy living room. We had a bottle of wine and texted Hayley, to find out that everyone was at Deschlers. Bottle finished, and we set out to walk to Deschlers.

It’s a long walk from Ponsonby to town! Well, maybe not THAT long, but 20 minutes or so, which is long when it’s cold and you’re already tired from dancing and haven’t drunk that much. But I shouldn’t whine, cos it was actually kinda fun. At Deschlers, everyone was already squozen (see, that word sounds so good when you say it, but you can’t write it down) into booths so we pulled up seats at the counter and had more drinks….

Bah, I’m bored of telling that story already. Maybe I’ll finish it tomorrow. Or maybe not. I got my hair cut today, and it looks cool. Since I got it done somewhere I’d had it done before, they had a file on me, and I saw that the last time I had a haircut there it was April 5th, so I looked back in my journal to see what my trauma’o the day then was. I only ever get haircuts when I’m excited or when I’m sad. Oh, I had a haircut in Melbourne actually, but that was in the kitchen of Anji’s flat, and it was done by her friend Ang. Incidently, you know the Libra ad for Charlies Angels that’s in a bright pink hair salon? That’s where Anji’s old flatmate works. He wanted me to get a mullet, because apparently they’re back, but I resisted. But that was all a tangent, because the woman today just cut my hair how I wanted it, whilst going on about how tall I was. However, I forgive her for that because she gave my head a massage while washing my hair, and I just about purred. I’ve decided I don’t want a boyfriend anymore – I want a hairdresser. Does it make them whores that I pay them money for the physical pleasure they give me?

Kate B came home at lunchtime today and said “oh you’re having a champange lunch” and me and Shirley and Jeremy said “yes”, and I waited for her to ask why, but she didn’t. That amused me.

Tonight Maree lured us around by making us cookies and promising to rent us a video – a NEW RELEASE even. We watched “Drop Dead Gorgeous” which was very very funny, but went on a little too long. She woke me up AGAIN at 7am this morning when she came in wearing her pajamas. I begged her not to do that last night and all! I should really go lock the dead bolt, but I need her to wake me up tomorrow morning. We’re going to have coffee before she goes to be a Teacher’s Helper at her kid’s school, and I go off to work.

Oh yes, I got a job. WAHOO! I’m not actually starting tomorrow, because by law I need 7 days to review my contract, but I am going in tomorrow to meet the staff, and to get my contract and get some background readings. I’m so stoked that I didn’t even need to interview for the job, because I met the big boss at the Expo and he was more than happy for me to come work for them, and I’d already been recomended for the position. So, a week after tech finally ended, I already have a full time job. It’s only contracted til February, but still, it’s experiance… and money. Yay! I’m very very nervous though.

“am I famous for just one thing?”