Hubris.co.nz

These are highlights from my journal that I kept in my red book in Australia. Obviously, it’s not everything. I was doing a whole bunch of thinking, and no one needs to read all of that. But these are the entertaining highlight parts.

Monday, June 19th, 2000

I kept waking up all night and going back to sleep. Anji told me a couple of times to stop snoring. She herself was snoring too though! But anyways, yes, I woke up about 9am although that felt like 11am to me, which was good. Anji went out with Mike to get her hair dyed, so I stayed to potter around the house. I heated pizza under their funny grill, read Lolita and wrote in my journal. It feels a little more chore-like now to record everything, but I want records so I’ll have to get over that. Anji came home around 12.30 and showed me stacks and stacks of photos before we finally went for lunch.

We went to Atomic, because Anji said they had the best coffee. Fuck it was sooooooooo good. The place reminds us both of Olive – limited food selection, because the focus is on the perfect cup of coffee. But I had a cibatta sandwich anyways, with brie and advacado and salad and capsicums and mmmm it was yummy. Then we went to a net cafe, so Anji could check her email. I checked mine as well – I only7 had one from Jody, and sent a group SMS to Shirley, Maree, Popular Kate and Brad. I also showed Anji my cd rom. She’s threatened to chant “cunt cunt cunt” to me while I sleep so that I start to believe it.

We walked to a mall so Anji could pick up a shoe she was having fixed, and go to the movies. The place had purple carpet and walls, with gold painted pillars and screens – very swish. And the actual theatre had sparkly gold speakers and comfy seats with lots and lots of leg room. The movie we saw was pretty dumb, but kind of cute anywas. It was called Keeping the Faith and stared Ben Stiller as a rabbi, Edward Norton as a priest, and Jenna Elfman as the chick they were both in love with. Edward Norton – what a spunk, man! So it passed the time nicely.

After that, we walked home and sat around for a while before Anji decided she was hungry, so we went out for my birthday dinner. We just went to the end of Napier Street, so a place called “Growlers” that she said was extremely casual. Our waiter had blonde dreads and a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He dropped a hunk of bread with a knife stuck in it onto our table, which was to be drizzled with olive oil and devoured. There was also a small bowl of olives which I steadily made my way through. Yum! I never used to like olives, until one time I had them on pizza with pineapple at Craccum whilst very very stoned, and that seemed to be a winning combination. And then of course there was the Martini phase where the olive was the best bit of the whole drink! But yeah, anyways. Anji had wild mushroom risotto, which I’d been considering, 0-until I saw Duckling on Black Rice. Oh my god it was so so good! It came with prossocuitio, and creamy lemon sauce as well, and I was just in absolute heaven. As we ate, we drank a very nice bottle of red wine, and talked. It’s astonishing the parallels she was able to draw from her relationship with Son of Satan.

Anyways, then Mike came to join us for dessert. I was completely full so I didn’t order anything, he just spoonfed me a bit of his sticky date pudding because he said it would change my life. Here’s hoping!

Later in the evening, we smoked pot and Anji got real stoned real fast, so she went up to bed. I stayed up later, reading magazines and watching the boys playing Ape Escape.

20/6/00

Anji had to go to work at 12, I think, so she got up before me. Once I finally got up, I just pottered around reading Lolita, writing my journal and that kind of thing. Eventually i had a shower and got dressed. Then Timmy and Mike were going into town and they invited me to go along too, so I did. We walked in, and they spent ages in a comic book shop. I read a comic of Brothers Grimm faerie tales that were pretty nasty. I could remember most of them from my childhood, though I can’t quite place them. Maybe I had some of the stories on tape, and others in a novel book, as opposed to something illustrated.

We went to Hungry Jacks, and I had a grilled chicken burger. It wasn’t as nice as I remembered them to be. Ahh well. Mike told me to take more drugs so that I’d like crowds better. he also said his ex girlfriend always dresses up as Roller Girl to go to the Box on Retro Night. They made fun of my pop obsessions. I didn’t really mind.

Then we went to Myers, and looked at male underwear for a bit. I never got to pose very much in underwear, unless you count slips. Which may or may not be a good thing. Then we went upstairs to spend ages looking at videos, cds, playstation games, television….. It was quite quite boring. But still, I guess it was good of them to get me out of the house! And then we went to another playstation store and stayed there for a million years. Damn I wanna cd burner and a digital caamera! I gotta get me a decent job! Then we took a very crowded tram back to Brunswik Street. I felt a leetle bit bad cos I probably looked scowly, cos I was a little bored, and a lot tired and shy. So we had a drink at Joe’s, and I waited for Anji while they went to Bar Open. Once Anji had her staff drink, we went and joined them, and drank a bottle of red to their white.

Then we debated for a while as to where to have dinner (for a change) and Anji said we should go to a pub near home called the Builders Arms, so we did. The food wasn’t all that – i had lamb fillets on greek salad – but we played pool while eating, which made it more fun. Mike made it his mission to teach me to play – he said he’d made his ex one of the best pool players in uckland. Everytime he leaned in to help me with a shot, I wanted to laugh at wha a cliche it seemed like, but unfortunatly, he was just trying to teach me pool, I think. Damn! Ahh well, I guess the lesbians are sleeping in his room anyways!

We got home in time for Buffy, of course. Before it was on, the boys were playingp psx, and Anji got all shitty with them because she was bored. But once miked rolled her a joint, she was better. I’ve realised the reason I don’t enjoy smoking pot that much here is because they put tobacco in it, so it’s just not nice. Apparently, that’s because the pot is grown hydroponically, so it’s heaps stronger so they have to thin it out, but blaargh why?

After Buffy, it was pretty much straight upstairs to sleep. But OH MY GOD Willow shacks up with a girl! “I’M NOT MARRYING SOME BLOODY LESBIAN”

We rang Neil to say Happy Birthday to him. I lied adn told him I’d gotten him something TREMENDOUS for his birthday. Well, Anji and I might get him a Grease Karaoke video! Mum told Anji she’d pay for shoes for me if I could find any. Well, I haven’t found any. I can’t relaly go for guys dress shoes, so I might have to go for some streetwear style. But I really don’t like Royal shaped ones, you know?

Sunday 31; January, 1999

kate’s the only girl I know who has messier handwriting than me

(copyright jan 31st 1999 by Kate Benton)
Clayton moved in early this morning. I’ve never been inside a truck before, but I have now, after stamping up the ramp. It was really kinda bizzare. I felt like I was in a circus or something.

So yeah, Clayton’s moved in, and he’s pretty cool. Definitely more interesting to talk to than Layton although he’s got a voice which is a whole lot like Dylan’s which is kinda weird. The one thing that annoyed me though is that when I was just sitting in my room, lying down and reading, he kept coming in and talking to me. Ohhhhhh the humanity huh?

Kate and her friend Theresa came over around 1pm and we all went to Wendy’s together, and stole lots and lots of packets of sugar because we have none. I’ve previously stocked up on napkins from there too. Wendys rocks for free stuff. One day I might just take in a bottle and fill it up with tomato sauce. They were waiting to get a call back from a guy about a flat that they wanted in Ponsonby. Eventually they rang him, and were really sad that they didn’t get it. So then we decided we should get really really drunk to de-celebrate. The only problem with that idea though, is that it was a Sunday, and liquorshops and supermarkets etc aren’t allowed to sell alcohol on Sundays, because of stupid stupid laws. So that sucked to our asthma alright. We thought we could ring up all our friends and invite them to a “byo and some for us too please” party, but then we remembered that hey! We don’t actually have any friends. Well, actually we do, but none of them were available. So yeah, that sucked. Eventually, they went to go visit Theresa’s momma, promising to return somehow with stuff to drink. (Man, I felt so fourteen again!)

They came back around seven pm, so I rang up and invited Shirley over as well. We ordered pizza from Pizza Hutt, and since I was feeling rich cos Clayton had given me cash for bond and rent, I forked over the money. Half way through our thin crust half meatlovers half vegetarian, Kate decided to ring up and complain about the crust, to get a free pizza. She told them that it tasted like an Arnotts water cracker biscuit, and from her experiance working at Pizza Hutt, that is not what they should taste like. The woman begrudgingly sent over a regular size, instead of a large. Bitch. Hhahahaha we must already be on Pizza Hutt’s blacklist now. Kate and Theresa were going to flash the delivery boy, but then it was like an old man, so they didn’t.

Anyways, we’d finished the one cask of wine Theresa had been able to scab off her old work, so we decided to go to Newmarket. Well – Kate, Theresa and I did anyways. Shirley and Clayton didn’t want to come, but they said they’d clean up, so that’s more worthy. So we went to Newmarket to play pool, not entirely sure where exactly we were heading, until I spotted the PLANET POOL sign. Kate and I played on a team cos we both suck. We won the first game! I was so proud. Sure, Theresa fucked up and got three of our balls in on one shot (how she managed that, I will never know) . Anyways, we got bored of there, so we went to the Carlton instead and had lots of shakers. The shaker containers were so cool that despite the fact that we were sitting right by the bouncer, we slipped one into Theresa’s bag. The bartender there was so hideous, sticking his tongue out everywhere, and shaking his booty. I use that phrase because that’s how cheesy it was.

So yeah, eventually we went home, and sat around watching some really bad movie with Christopher Lambert in it. Theresa decided she wanted pizza, and after calling some guy at Dial A Dinos three times, he decided he’d send some out to us, even though we’re out of the delivery area. I’m starting to get the feeling that Theresa can talk herself into anything. So yeah, once the pizza arrived and I’d paid for it (again, I was the only one with cash) , we realised we weren’t actually all that hungry, especially since it had jalepenos on it. So oh well. Oh yeah, before we ordered pizza, I’d gone online to send an email from Kate, and found myself being forceably removed (Kate pushed me to the ground then sat on me, completly knocking out all my breath and doing some serious damage) so that Theresa could start messaging everyone on my contact list telling them she was me, and that I was in love with them. MMMmmm. So that was vaguely funny only i was in so much pain it wasn’t actually that cool. What was even more damaging however, is when they’d been sitting on the sofa going “UH OH UH OH UH OH” so I picked up Geri and threw her at them as hard as I could. She hit the wall with a smack, and her legs broke off. AAAAAARrrrrrg. She’s a collector’s item now, too! So yeah, if anyone wants to buy me Ginger Spice merchandise, please do so.

Oh yeah, and about the note – that was Kate trying to terrorize my poor flatmate who was probably traumatized enough by the screams and giggles.