Hubris.co.nz

And because today is probably the first day I have seen everyone at tech since Haley would have sat in a pleniary meeeting and said “well, my problem this week is that Joanna has dropped this paper because she’s having issues so I have to do our project alone” everyone was all “Oh hi, how are you, you must have lots of spare time now”. Spare time – yeah right. Oh yeah, I’m all fucked up and pre-med, and blah blah, does that make me cool, does that make you want to have sex with me? That’s the thing that I probably fear most of all, the whole using bad shit as glamour aspect of the Internet, and I know that I’ve had extended discussions with people about it, the whole what came first, the Internet or the angst angle, and also the blah blah blah etc etc that I will not be listing here. But yeah, some people are really cool and I have fun going out with them .

Originally, KateB oughta be arriving at 2am, but she’s coming tomorrow instead, so I don’t get to sleep with anyone, but if I was, I would chose them entirely on their mouse handling skills. Except oh, I had a freakout moment earlier tonight when I thought I saw the fucktoy again, and out of anyone I’ve shagged, he would have been the most likely to be able to deal with creatures running around the house, but ewww, and it wasn’t him anyways.

I’m sure I never used to be this cynical and angry. I think the world liked me better when I was on zac. And what exactly does “we’ll contact you early next week” mean when i need to commit to a job til after Xmas tomorrow?

But OOH OOOH OOH BradM and KateB in the city tomororw, WOOHAA!

So one of the things that we talked about last night in the so many hours of conversation that my throat was sore this morning about how it’s so much easier to write when you’re unhappy because when you’re joyous you wanna hold it all to yourself and just smile over it, and so I’m going to make an effort to share my glee with the world. Although of course, in that case maybe i should play something other than the Cure, but that’d mean like, Brian Adams or something – my parents have an awful lot of cds, but very few good ones, since Mum seems to have hidden all her NZ music.

But here’s where we’re at. There is a mouse running around in ym bedroom in Auckland, which meant I slept on the couch on Tuesday night, restlessly, having weird codeine spiked dreams. I shrieked at the mouse, and wanted to jump up on a chair. When I rang Tom for reassurance he said I sounded the most feminine that i ever had. And now of course, my landlord’s phoneline doesn’t work, and her cellphone is out of range, so I am not a happy camper at all! Or at least, I wouldn’t be, if i was still in Auckland. But as it happens, I am in Wellington, with a big stupid grin on my face. So there.

Oh for fucks sake Tom, is there anyone you DON’T know? Stop trying to be Kate Hamlin. Or Justin, I guess this case is, kinda.

Where was I? Oh, Bo and I struggling with my suitcase up to behind the Sheraton so I could get the bus to the airport (I have now traded with Momma for her suitcase on wheels), then the flight to Wellington being completely bumpy and horrible. I was smiling like a crazy woman cos we all know i like being scared, whilst trying not to be sick as we landed. Then Momma picked me up and we had lunch at the Crank Cafe, and I got to go home and have a nap before having to drive her places in the van so she could get the tyres changed on the car. Mmmmm nap. And hten I took another one after that, so nice to not have to worry about mice running around. After that, I had dinner with Mummy and Daddy, and they dropped me off at Espressaholic to meet up with Fatty Si Si.

I had a drink there with his friends, and then as soon as we stepped out on the pavement, Henry started making me laugh because he really is a very strange boy. It was so nice to finally get to see Simon again too, cos he kicks so much ass. Anyways, so we headed up the road to Traffic, which was booked out for Ayna’s party. It is SUCH a nice venue, I am so totally going to have something there sometime. It’s the old Indian restaurant that used to be public loos before that (yes i know, it sounds wrong but it’s just so right). One round room at one end had a tiled floor, and a fresco ceiling and turntables set up in it, and the other round room at the other end had a pretty blue ceiling that ended up looking like the ceiling at the Civic to me, and persian rugs and low couches, and in between those rooms is an area with a pool table, and then another area with a regular nice kinda bar in it, and it’s all painted dark red, adn there’s a fire in the bar bit. So yeah, fantastic venue. And there was just such a good vibe going on, cos there were three people having their birthdays, so it was all friends and the place was full, and it just felt really nice. Lotsa djs took turns playing, and it was all fullspectrum drum&bass and also lotsa different kinds of hiphop, and there was a guy mcing over the drumandbass at times, so it was very cool. I danced my ass off. I talked to lots and lots of people. I lisped my way through half a little piece’o cardboard. Si Henry and I sat in the corner of the chillout room for ages and ages and ages, covering a heatvent up with a plant cos it was too hot and I felt like iw as going to die from laughing so hard at them singing a little worker’s song – stampy stampy sorty sorty stacky stacky. If only i had a song like that, I’m sure my workdays would fly by too. At some other stage of the night, a girl pulled out a container of kalamata olives out of her bag, and Si had a sack of pistachios. I love Wellington people who carry backpacks! I wormed my way into conversations with random people when I got bored,a dn defended the “dark arts” that I studied before finally hearing that one of the guys I was talking to worked in Communications anyway. I suggested that someone run around the block if they had too much energy and lauhged soundly when they actually did. I danced and danced and danced and danced, adn then I danced some more. The music was amazing and everyone was dancing so well. I love poeple who do mad things with their feet. It was such a good night! Si left sometime around 12, and I thought about going with him cos he’d said his flatmate was away so I coulda crashed there and saved cabfare, but i was having far too much fun. I didn’t really get much of a chance to talk to Ayna,b ut she seemed really happy that I was there, so that was cool. One very e’d up girl who I’d never met before hauled me to my feet and told me off for crossing my arms in front of myself – “you don’t have to cover yourself up! you’ve got a beautiful body (with a little handmovement curvy drawing thing too)! don’t you like yourself?”. She was scary and made me self concious, wheras before then I’d been far too happy and comfortable and mellow and chilled out to even think about shit like that (oh and i was wearing my cleavage top, which I love). Eventually I just sat on a couch on the dancefloor for hours, having a long and engrossing conversation about the history of Soul Music (“I love hte vibe,” he says, and then he says “let’s just sit here and enjoy it” and he leans in even closer, puts his head on my shoulder and we almost fall asleep). And then I walked him across town and had ot leave in Cuba Street cos there wouldn’t have been any more taxis, and the driver was just grinning at me going “so you had a good night did you?” cos he would have seen the dithering, and hte hugs and the kisses on the cheek. And I smiled all the way home.

This morning Mummy woke me up for brunch – pancakes and bananas and pig, and she wrote me a list’o things to remember, and then they left, and I floated around the house all afternoon. This evening i went to another PR function, this one held in the Portrait Gallery of Bowen House. It was okay – I talked to some people. Steve Maharey (Minister of Tertiary Education and Broadcasting) gave a speech, adn then I went and talked to him and he gave me the name of the guy who runs his media unit so that i can express my interest in working htere. No one flat-out offered me a job. Then I went to see Anji, and she didn’t have a key to our house and i knew I’d locked myself out. I went home to meet up with KateB but our neighbours were out, and the laundry window was shut, so Kate and I had to drive back to town to Karen’s to get the key off her. My time down here is going to be so hectically social. Everyone wants a piece’o me, and while I want a piece’o everyone too, right now after last night, I think there are people that I want more pieces of than others. I’m filthy. Except that I’m actually not, because once again, when I actually really like someone, I respect them far too much to make a move. Darn.

Tuesday September 17th, 2002

1. Oh really, Crushmaster? Someone has just all of a sudden developed a crush on me using “ae” before my domain name? and “gs”? Really? Oh, silly me.
2. When the fuck did I originally design this page if I just used “indigo” as a BGCOLOR instead’o a sexi-hexi decimal number?
3. Am I going to be sick tomorrow? I guess I am, right?
4. One of them had better have been sober-driving it home, or I will be SO mad.
4. I’m sure you knwo me well enough by now to click as to why i haven’t written in ages, if I haven’t written in ages.
5. Bo+Clay+Me flatdinners kick some ass.
6. I don’t think I’ll go to quiznight anymore – I think that ship has sailed. Plus, I have a supershort attention span, and oh yeah, I dunno. Some rant about pointless semi-rockstar semi-crushes etc etc. He’s still real cute though.
7. Clay and I, staggerign up the street, punchdrunk on $50′o liquor with just KateM and Nigel, and he stops to look at some guy, and I figure he’s just angling for a fight cos I thought the other guy bumped him, and I’m like all, oh no, BUT! BUT! It was goddam LEYTON. You know, the first flatmate that I ever kicked out, cos he wasn’t a team player and I wanted Brad to move in.
8. Brad McCormick, calling me on my cellie from work in Whakacarnie after I txted him going “OH MY GOD THE DRAMA” cos he knew I was talking H&A (I love our psychic bond) and he wanted a full description. Oh Kirsty and Kane, when will you find happiness together?
9. I really want to smoke pot with you RIGHT NOW, even if it means that you don’t end up talking at all after that.
10. Should I try and hold out for 32 points?
11. I had a big talk with Joseph today, and feel much better about my PR Practice paper now, even if we probably did quite badly in our report (oh, sorry Haley, I should email you, but to be perfectly honest, I’m more than a little squiffy right now, and I do have semi-proposal type things to write and send you, and then I’ll email you. Oh, that’s not like a “will you marry me?” thing, just in case the audience as a whole didn’t get thta).
12. I’m still loving my haircut and the other Hayley (with two y’s, not one) by default as well.
13. Who was teh fucking mongrel that listed me on crushmaster in the first place? No one has crushes on me. At best, you’d like to put your penis in me for a little while, in one way or another, or just engage me in witty conversation. I know the score, chief.
14. Welly and some valuable chillout alone time tomorrow, yay!

Wednesday September 12th, 2002

And I can’t remember where we are, but hey, i kinda know her, so my parting words whispered in her ears are “great shorterm, no longterm” cos he’s a friend’o a friend’s, and it’s just too complicated, and blah blah blah alll that bullshit, you wanna backtrack?

So we track it back to class, or to plenary meetings and joseph saying “yeah she’s stroppy, come talk to me” and then we fasttrack through a work afternoon til I leave a little early and go home, and roll up my suit skirt til it ends above my knee, and I go like that in my high heeled boots. In the next two hours I manage six glasses or so of wine, but yet the only significant people I talk to are froom the North Shore City Council that I used to work for, and also, one of my friend’s fathers, who owns one of the most important PR agencies in town. Of course, the last time I saw him was at her wedding when a guy with an English accent was shoving his tongue down my throat til I made him take me outside so I dunno what that does for my cred.

Anywyas, afterwards, somehow we end up at Lauren’s and there was lots’o liquor left after our party, adn I’m composing texts to send to Haley in my head about certain issues (boys boys boys) and oh you know, drinking more. I discoverd that Renee too is also into dnb hphp, and that’s fucking choice, so we is gonna go out sometime. And there were people spilling their red wine on the carpet so I tried to help them clean it up, flushing out the stains, but then I fell backwards into a pot plant, spilling pebbles everywhere, and fuck the guitly conciounse FUCK I AM TOO DRUNK TO EVEN SPELL kicks in, and while we have the vacuum cleaner out, and David’s helping me and continuously patting me reassuringly on the shoulder Is tiil feel bad.

Eventually we all get encouraged tomove on, so I’m at teh Safari Lounge for ages, and KateB’s ex flattie is there, so I’m all blah blah blah and there’s more drinking and stuff but I’m so barely concious and so I take a taxi home and fuck I wish there was someone to cook for me. 5tomorrow there is work all day, then haircuts and parties amnd cleavage and probably at least two people I’ve slept with, soi that’ll be fun! but at least I’ll look sexyh

xojo – oh and did you order my zine?

Tuesday September 11th, 2002

Grr students and interviews and mentors and work and grr and grr and grr. GRRRR! Grrr $218.42 to get the phone reconnected. Grrrr going to work where Terri was also having a bad day. GRRR at ANZ. Grrrr at the HR lady calling me Love and then saying that no, they still hadn’t made up their minds. Grrrr at the memory of the dead mice in the cupboard. Grrr at dynamics that just don’t work. Grrr at the mean receptionist at my doctor’s who told me that Dr. White refused me a new prescription but didn’t say why (yeah, like I can afford $50 for another consultation right now – if my blood pressure is raised, it’s her fault!). Grrr at thousands of clippings to do, adn then GRRRR at problems with avmed stuff. Grrrr at getting rained on the way home. Grrr at Clay being sprawled out on the couch watching some stupid movie when I just wanted to be alone. Grrr at hearing Kara while i was hiding out in my room, rereading the Blind Assassin for the trillionth time. <!– homage mode: He follows her into the empty room, concrete floor bare except for the mattress, piled with messy sheets and pillows.  When she sits on the windowsill, he pushes her against the glass and kisses her intensely, until they move to the mattress. When her moans that she had never heard before have subsided, he tells her his tragedies, and she kisses him every time words fail her. You intrigue me he says, I feel like you’re holding me at a distance.  And she can see his eyes casting around her room, trying to find some clue to her, but there’s nothing, nothing but her Blind Assassin poster on the back of her door.  What’s that about, he asks, pulling her in tightly to his chest.  It’s about lovers who lie in bed telling each other stories, she laughs.) –>

But they went out, and I drifted in and out of conciousness as I have been doing a lot lately, and then I got up to eat spinach soup and watch Buffy. KateM came over half way through it, and asked a lot of questions, but she’s allowed to cos she’s cool. Oh, and I finally got my invitation to Justin’s party, so I can put that slab’o paranoia aside. After KateM left, I ran around my room trying on various clothing combinations. Fuck I need a needle and thread. The slit at the back’o my black dress has split basically almost up to my slit, so I won’t be wearing that tomorrow (eww, did I just use the word “slit” instead of “vagina” or even “panties”? Dirty). Tomorrow is, of course, our industry evening where we all try to impress PR bigwigs and get jobs. I debated wearing my cleavage top, but it doesn’t cover the hole in my bright pink skirt which I really wanna wear, so I think I will stick with my stretchy black skirt, providing it dries in time, damn excess soap powder, and my boots, of course. I figure standing at least 6’1 is one way to make an impression.

Oh, and what with today being you know, THAT anniversary, kinda, except a day ahead, it also means that today it’s also a year since I started taking the everlovely fluox. Of course, I stopped in umm February I think, but I still think it was like an important anniversary for me, cos that was such a fucking hard thing for me to do, and it of course kicked off my whole “why can’t I feel anything? maybe I should have another drink or some more cock” phase. Fun times. And I lost someone I cared about. And etc. Oh inncidently, I think I still have about a month’s worth of fluox, which I’ll trade anyone for a month of estelle35, or some more straight codeiene. I also have voltarin and brufen and maxolon, in case you too have excessive nausea. I like my pill drawer, although most of the pills in it don’t do anything, but some of them, like the brufen and the fluox are pretty colours, and it makes me feel like I’m some late sixties housewife.

Sunday September 8th, 2002

So my favourite new game to play on Sundays is to find a friend whom you know was more than a little drunk at a big social function and text them to say that there’s a photo of them snogging on the back on the Sunday Star Times. Muhahaha. Sorry.

This morning I had brunch with KateH at BoxHouse. It was choice! We gossiped lots, as per usual, and I replayed for her all the conversations that we’d had on Friday Night that she didn’t remember. The service was lovely and the food was excellent, and so it made for a very enjoyable time all around. But eventually I had to drag myself home. Haley came over in the afternoon, and we actually got a lot of work done – well, we drafted our first press release, and tried to organise other things, and freaked out about how much work we have to do. I’m so craving a time machine that can zap us to the afternoon of November 21st when I have finished my exams and we have handed in our final report and all we have to do is worry about how to wear our hair to the actual show. Not that I’m shallow or anything, oh no.

But of course, no time spent working on our assignment is without at least twice the amount of time gossiping. Haley’s like “Wow, I learn something new about you every Sunday”. Today was intimate details of my sex life, poor girl, oh, and also that I have a website. Hi Haley! Now get back to work.

This evening I did nothing at all. Oh, that’s not strictly true – I talked to KateM on the phone which was super choice cos I hadn’t talked to her in a zillion years. She says the reason that people love me is for my paranoia. I think she’s been smoking crack overseas. Then I watched Buffy and then The A’Team. And now I’ve done the reporting in to our mentor/client, like the good girl I am, and am trying to arrange my day for tomorrow. I can’t remember if I have one interview or two tomorrow. Uh oh. I think it’s just one, and then I have two on Tuesday – hopefully. I guess right now I really should try and plan out some interviewing questions. Dammit, I’m supposed to be in PR, not Journalism! Oh wait, that’s right – us PR people fulfill ALL the media functions while you others are just lazy. Call us the dark arts, will you?

Also tomorrow, I must send out zines. Have I plugged that enough? When you write to me to ask me for one, if you’re especially polite, I may even send out one of my last remaining copies of The Garland Gang cd. I wonder if I still have a page about that. Hmmm, apparently I don’t. Oh well.

And I’ve been stupid, and have been reading your old letters, and I wonder if you’re still out there watching, or what. And did I do something wrong, and is that MY editor’s tread I hear approaching? And just finally, no one calls me verbacious any more. And that sucks.

I did write up how I’m going to Welly, yeah? Yeah I think I did. Which means I’ll have to rearrange my work days to fit that in, and coupled with the fact that I’m interviewing fashion students left right and centre, I’m pretty fucking busy eh. Also tomorrow I must go to the chemist in Mt Eden and plead with them to fill my pill repeat for me even though it was supposed to have expired on the 7th of September – I so don’t wanna have to pay $20 for another prescription. I’m not entirely sure how beneficial it’s been to me – I still have pimples, and I’m still hairy, but maybe less so. And who knows what’s going on in my ovaries. Oh, that
reminds me of amusing critics:

landscribe says: uhm.. i have issues with how your expenditure and income match up.. you eat out lots
Joanna McLeod says: well
Joanna McLeod says: I have an allowance
landscribe says: and you live in auckland.
Joanna McLeod says: plus I work 15 hours a week
Joanna McLeod says: plus I’m good at eating cheaply
Joanna McLeod says: you too can have a lifestyle like me!
landscribe says: i dont have ovary and pill issues.. nor do i like dry martinis… i can only *aspire*

Oh you get my point. Shut up.

Thursday September 5th, 2002

I’ve had whispers of conspiracy theories going on in my head, which really serve just to demonstrate what a paranoid paranoid paranoid girl I am. Nevermind.

Hmmm, what have I been up to lately? Working yesterday afternoon, but Terri was out sick, and Bridget’s away for a month (dammit, I nearly called them by their real names) and I didn’t have very much to do and I couldn’t move further without help from Terri, so I did do some more work on my zine. It’s nine pages long now, but I figure I have to make it at least 16 to make it worthwhile doing, and I’m finding that really, there’s not all that much more I can write. I’ve already outsmutted myself, I think (oh, for those of you who’ve just tuned in, my zine is called “BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS”). Still haven’t found out if I got the job yet or not. It’s stressing me out more than just a little bit.

I was naughty and wagged my HR Tut this morning, but luckily it turned out that it was canceled anyway. Joseph was more than usually disturbing in our PR Practice tut, so Haley and I ever-so-grownuply wrote notes to one another, mostly about DiscoDan and I think I caught her up on my conspiracy theories and she just laughed at me. She also wrote me a note saying that I should tell Clayton she thinks he’s hot and that he should give her a call if he ever breaks up with Kara. I laughed. Oh, I’ll interrupt me with this side story here – Clay is a little grumpy with me tonight, cos he was telling me a story about this guy who tried to pick him up on the bus, who kept quizzign him about his background and what school he went to and stuff, and so when Clay told him, they tried to compare names of people they knew from there but they had no one in common, so Clay went “oh, but I know (umm forget his name) from Queer Nation”, so in the retelling of it I was like “oh of course Clay – all gay people know each other and they all watch Queer Nation” and so he’s shirty with me for accusing him of stereotyping, but oh well. Typical self loathing!

Anyways. Where were we? Oh yeah. So after our very long plenary meeting, Haley and I went to the Playhouse cos we thought we mighta been meeting the fashion students for an interview, but we weren’t sure cos Haley had sent out the email and not checked it recently (grr!) but they didn’t show, as I kinda expected, so we just had a drink and did much gossiping instead. Then I went home and phoned Momma, and booked plane tickets to Wellington. Yes, I’m going back there, even after declaring loudly many times to many people that I never ever wanted to again. Here’s why:

1. Ayna had invited me to her birthday party on the 18th of September.
2. We’re having a PR social down there to meet and greet (and apparently get leered at) by prospective employers.
3. Mummy and Daddy are going away for a week on the 19th, so I will get the house to myself, plus since I’m flying down on the 18th, I will get to see them for a day,which is probably all I can handle of them.
4. Karen and Anji and my KatieB and my FattySi are all down there and I miss them all and wanna hang out with them big lots.

So now I just have to get the time off work, or rearrange my days somehow. Luckily I do have a day in lieu up my sleeve.

This evening James picked me up and I went to see the team named “Stupid Horse” play indoor netball. It was fun! And it made meeee wanna play, although I haven’t since the glory days’o Standard 4. I have no doubt that I would suck at it – a lot. But still. Oh and Kate – I didn’t say this tonight, in fact I didn’t even think of it, but then I was watching Juice, so guess what? TEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHE. Love you baby.

Bo is still staying at her aunt’s, babysitting her cousin, so I rang her earlier today cos lord knows I can’t go three days without her ray of sunshine in my life. I’m so glad she moved in. Speaking of people that I like, have I said lately that I miss you? And I miss you. And you.

I have been having major crazy dreams lately – last night’s involved the cast of Home and Away, and a supervillan who was placing poisonous evil nasty creatures everywhere. It was fucked up. And oooh, I also dreamt about Amy and Andeee, so I really must give them a call sometime. I have a lot of catching up to do, I’m really quite slack huh?

Wednesday July 31

Lending your cellphone to people so that they can use it as an alarm clock is generally unfortunate when it means that they’ll be waking you up at 7am to return it and you’ll be feeling sick as a dog with the first decent hangover you’ve had in ages. I spent $5.80 to get drunk last night. This was made possible by being with four other people at Quiz Night at the AUT pub, two of whom thought that they’d be driving home (well, one did, and the other Bo convinced to stay the night) who nevertheless feel like they should contribute to the camradarie by also buying their rounds. Thanks largely to me, we came third and won a $20 bar tab. Wahoo! So we’ll go back next week to spend it, and so the Quiz host guy can give me more shit. But I dunno if I’ll go with Clay-bo BradC and JeremyO again, because to be perfectly honest, I probably annoyed them by answering too quickly. Oh I’m so smart, I’m so cool, everyone fucking worship me.

But anyways, it was a lot of fun and I bumped into Jonno again, which makes it twice in two days, and I was able to confirm for KateB that actually yes, he does well and truly have a mullet now. After the quiz, and foozeball <!– which actually, i didn’t play, cos I was engrossed in conversation and knees and shoulders touching–>, Jezza went back to his house, and the rest’o us went back to theslab (which is also our team name) to drink so many martinis that we not only ran out of Skky but also Absolut (can I drop in a few more vodka labels in here? there was a question in the Quiz about what kinda liquor Finlandia was. I laughed. That’s my housebrand right there, presuming that I was actually a bar instead of just spending all my parents’ money in them). I also made everyone my special roast potatoes with garlic and peppercorn feta, which I’ve developed a mad fetaish for. Get it? Ha HA. Hehehee I love Bo so much when we’re both on a mad buzz, which is pretty much every evening – we ran around for like half an hour saying “you’d feta not fuck with me”. It was hilarious. Really. And we played Agitation which got nasty and then Leo showed up and was rarking me up which was cool cos normally he doesn’t say much but last night he was all “sheesh, get two drinks in Joanna and she’s all over the show with the abuse”. Leo and I bonded lots over the past weekend smoking spots together and feeling ill at ease when Bo had friends over who were very much not at all like her. Eventually pretty much everyone went to bed and BradC made me a cup of tea like a good gentleman and we hung out for a bit, and then I managed to pour myself into bed.

Hence the hangover this morning, which was more than a little unprofessional, since I was meeting my client for the first time at 10am today. But I needn’t have worried, because she was seriously one of the coolest people i’ve ever met, and now I’m re-energised and excited about my course. Also, it’s been fun talking ethics and trying not to get in fights with people in my classes and stuff like that. I followed Kant, you went Utilitarian, and I guess you won. And I think I learnt some other things too maybe this week, but I could be wrong.

After Haley and I met our client, I went and got Wendys for the hangover and ate it while reading “Fast Food Nation” which I gotta do a book review on for Corporate Communication. It’s the new No Logo, don’t you know? And then I had to skeedaddle to get to work to sit and look pretty and make jokes about Yogi. That lasted til five, but was made much more interesting with emailed gossip flying back and forth, and then passed on to Teri, who just laughed at me. Oh, and I also drew a stunning picture of a stick panda dancing in a bamboo forest and faxed it to KateM. I’m clever and talented. I did actually do some work too, you know.

As soon as I got home from work, i put my pajamas on, cos I was still a little dressed up (ie – wearing my black dress, that none’o you woulda seen cos it’s Posh and none of youse guys are. Actually wait, I distinctly remember wearing it OH MY GOD it would have been exactly today when I had lunch with KateH right after I cleaned out my desk at Foodstuffs ten minutes after I said I wanted to resign on this day last year. YAY! that’s worth another drink. Tomorrow.) and there would have been no point changing into slumier clothes when all I was gonna do was lie on the couch and pretend to not be hungover any more and make more bad jokes about feta to Bo and have her say “oh Jo, you’re so Punny” to me, and feel like we were on our way to becoming Brad&Justin – ie going straight to hell. Are my sentences running away with me? I suspect that they are, eh. Nevermind. (Another interlude while I go to Bo’s room to say “hey, next time we wanna make a pun, we should just growl bearlike at each other” all intervention styles, and then we got talking about Leo and how he was mocking me last night and also how he was worried when I was psuedoyelling at BradC for kicking me out of my own lounge) My point was that when KateM rang me in Shortland Street, I had to put clothes on before agreeing to meet her at Hugo’s Frog Bar for dinner.

(another interuption while I go tell Bo’o the current scandals and gossip. She’s excited that she hopefully will get to put faces to many of the names and stuff on Friday night, but then again, she probably won’t. Also, I picked up a film I’d had sitting in my camera for ages, thinking it’d be photos of my 21st, but no, it’s from Graduation. Excellent.)

Anyways, driving in to meet Kate, I couldn’t find a park anywhere so I went into a dreaded parking building (which ended up costing six dollars, good lord). I had to sit in my car for ages though, cos bFM were playing a new Pluto song, you know, the really rock one that they do in concert lots and Milan’s all glam rockstar screaming at the end and everyone’s panties melt. We chatted lots and stuff, and she said my hair made me look like a punk chick. That’s not really what I was aiming for, but hey, that’s okay. Oh yeah, did I mention that I got my hair done last friday? I might not have. You can go look at the “red” jpgs in my cam dir if you’re interested. After dinner, I was lovely and went back to her office with her to read magazines while she finished her work. I am so rent-a-crowd. She paid me in zinc defender lozenges and gave me a fax that she’d meant to send me, depicting a fat panda with bamboo in its stomach. The fax also said “what does ‘macking on’ mean anyway?” on it, in reference to the contents of the fax I’d sent her. You do the math.

Now I’m at home again, typing away furiously in fingerless gloves but (as evidenced by this journal entry) getting up constantly to tell Bo more things. Bo bo bo. Fuck she’s cool. This isn’t like the honeymoon period either, cos she’s been here since April. We’ve grown into each other. Okay, I gotta go sleep now, so much so that I think I will load this up tomorrow night, cos my net has fucked up cos she was trying to check for phone messages from Leo, but he’s just here now anyways.

Tuesday, July 23rd 2002

In which Joanna and Bopha have Retro Night

“I haven’t done it either. I’m not a nymphomaniac – I’m a compulsive liar”. Guess who’s been watching ‘The Breakfast Club’ again?

Dreams this morning involved me scoring some random guy so that my friend could cheat on her boyfriend with the other guy that we were with, and one of the those guys happened to be Josh from Home and Away. We ended up crashing a Hercules plane into the desert in French Morrocco, and my friend got taken by white slave traders, and there was much hiding behind rocks and stuff until I woke up. Mm. It’s full moon kinda weather, right? My periods are no longer nsync with the moon, but my dreams apparently still are. Then again, if Bopha and clay jump on me again like they did tonight while I’m trying to swallow my bleed pill and make me cough it up, then who knows what will happen. Chaos, utter total chaos. Possibly.

Human Resources Communication lecture was actually really good, and plus I really like Lenny, so that’s cool. Hey Maz, if you read this before I have a chance to call you (and if that’s the case, then we are LAME) which text books should I buy this semester?). Then, cos I had a two hour gap before my next class, I hopped on a link and went to Newmarket to look for a stereo. Or rather, I waited 25 minutes for a link bus that is supposed to go every 10 minutes, which then took 20 minutes to get to Newmarket. Plus, I didn’t find a stereo. All I want is an Aiwa, Sony, or Pioneer microsystem stereo that has an RCA input plug and looks good for under $400. Why is that so hard? Actually, come to think of it, I haven’t seen a single Pioneer stereo anywhere. What’s up with that – are they just out of my price range or what? See, my parents hav always had pioneers, and me and my sisters have always had Sonys, so you know, I just wanna stick with waht I know. But then again, half the reason I want a new stereo is because the laser in my Sony stereo has been dead for a year and a half. Then again, I did buy it at the start of 1995, but it cost $800 then. So who knows.

OH MY GOD! I almost strangled someone in my Coporate Communication class this afternoon. We were doing an exercise on evaluating a particular politician’s postives and negatives and suggesting tactics for them before the election, and my group was working on Peter Dunne. There was one girl in my group who was like “Who? I don’t know who any of the leaders of any of the parties are”. OH MY FUCKING GOD! Okay, so maybe Peter Dunne was until last week one of the lesser known politicians but you HAVE to know him by now! And so I was like “what? how can you not know?” and she was like “oh, I have no interest in politics – I don’t really watch the news or read the paper” and later she was like “oh, I don’t htink I’ll vote – I don’t know what anyone’s about. Mum doesn’t like labour though”. I was just about ready to jump across the desks and throttle her. SHE IS A THIRD YEAR COMMUNICATIONS STUDENT FOR FUCKS SAKE! There is absolutely no fucking excuse for that kind of bullshit. Okay, it would have been fair enough if she’d grown disillusioned with the system, or disliked the policies of everyone, or was making a protest non-vote, or even if she was voting for Winston Peters cos she liked his three fingers, or ANYTHING like that, but NO! She didn’t have a single thought or opinion. Sure, maybe later years of the BCs didn’t have the benefit of the best Politics tutor in the world, Marcus, but if she can’t follow the media, she has absolutely no fucking right to be doing a A GODDAM MEDIA DEGREE! Especially with a major in PR. In Multimedia possibly there would be the faintest chance in the world that she could bury her head in code and never see daylight, but in PR, it is completely essential you have a grip on the environments that your organisation is operating within, and politics is vital to that. You don’t have to like it, but you should at least be able to identify who the leader of a party is. Even goddam fucking personification of stupid old flatmate Ben probably would have been able to tell you who he was voting for (because he like d cannibas and thought that the Greens were a single issue party in that respect) and would have had one or two issues that would have concerned him – ie the closing of Thames Hospital cos his parents were nurses. But oh no, not this girl. One of the other girls in my group was voting for Winston, which is tragic, but I still really like her as a person, and the other was going National, but she explained her standpoint, and while I didn’t agree I could at least respect it.

But yeah, after wadling up the hill in the rain, Bopha and Clay shared my total and utter indignation at that girl’s complete ignorance, and then I went a little bit mental, completly hypo. Hmm, I can’t remember what teh end of that word is – hypo ummmmmmmmmm. Hyperactive. It was fun, and Bops laughed at me lots, which is also kinda fun. So us two planned a retro night, with liquor and ‘The Breakfast Club’ since she’d never seen it. We were in the bottle store in Newmarket when the guy ID’d us – which is probably fair enough cos we spent ages debating the virtues of drinking RTDs in retroness, and I just laughed at him, and then was like “fuck, actually I don’t think i have my drivers license” and I was rattling out the same prattle that I used to use 8 years ago when I wasn’t actually legal to drink, but then finally I found it, and was hugely relieved cos I was just about to be really embarrassed. Yeah anyways. We tried to play a drinking game with The Breakfast Club, doing shots any time anyone said that their homelife was worse than anyone else’s, anytime anyone was called by their name, any time you saw a clock, any time Allison stole something and anytime anyone swore but eventually got lazy. According to Bops, if I was a Breakfast Club character, I would be Claire the princess, played by Molly Ringwald, with elements of all the others except for the jock thrown in. I kinda think Bopha would be the jock, except she’s so not, but she’s no one else better, and Clay would definately be the nerd. That’s all I’ll say about that movie (for now, anyways).

After that, we was watching music tv, so we had to run out into the hallway and try to learn the dance moves to ‘Step By Step’ by NKOTB on the public staircase. We think we got something going on, except then we were throwing in the panda dance, and also the crazy maraca thing Bops and I had been doing to a Santana song on Sunday night, so it got pretty fucked up. According to her, we’re almost at hte point where we don’t even need to talk anymore to know what each other mean, adn soon we will be communicating entirely in a language of clicks and beeps and “BO BO BO badabibi” I keep telling her stories, and she keeps wanting to meet people she’s heard about, so fi you’ve never met Bops, now is the time to get your act together and drop round.

ALSO! On July 17th, it was Hubris’s THIRD BIRTHDAY. This is very special and important, and hey, actually, I might like, you know, release merchandise soon. THREE! I can’t believe it.

Monday, July 22nd 2002

In which I attempt to be a professional student

So I had class today at 11am, which is an excellent time to start the day, but I’d meant to get up around 9am cos I wanted to you know, actually make use of my mornings. Unfortunately, that plan interupted one of the nicest dreams I’d had in a while – I was sitting somewhere when this guy walked past who looked really familiar walked past, so I was like “Simon?” and it was Simon Darby who I had a crush on in 6th and 8th grade (not 7th though, cos that would have been too easy) and he turned around and gave me this really huge big really nice hug, and it was really cool, and like, we just had this big connection in the hug, and so after that, we just had an understanding, and he introduced me to his dad, who was like “Have I ever heard of this girl before?” and when Simon said no I was like “but wait a minute! you had a crush on me in the 5th grade! howcome you didn’t tell your dad then?”. Anyways, it was cool, but then my fucking alarm went off. Still, it set me up to feel all mellow and peaceful.

That of course changed when I got to tech and everyone was trying to figure out their schedules. See, the Grad Dips in PR (that’s me) take Public Relations Practice class, and the BCs students (that’s most of the people who I like) take Public Relations Planner class, and the only difference is that Planner is worth 2 credits so they have to do twice as much work as us. This means that I won’t be able to work with my friends, which is fine, cos I am a grown up after all, but it meant that classes are all fucked up, cos we have a workshop, a lab, a tutorial and a meeting each week, and schedules are all fucked, and room numbers were crazy and I was actually put into a Planners class not a Practice class, and and and. Yeah. Anyways. So, as our Planners assignment, we’re supposed to take on a Not-For-Profit client and deliver them professional results (as one of our tutors said “we’re expecting you to service the clients in any way that they need”). You might remember this kinda thing from my work for the NSCC while I was doing my multimedia major which resulted in the NSCC hiring me after that to do PR for them. Unlike in Multimedia, this time we get to have some input into which clients we chose, so all week we’re going to get presentations from various groups who want us. I will be kinda vague, but I gotta list them to explain to you my choices. The first one sounded interesting, sculpture exhibition stuff to raise money for Women’s Refugee, but there’s already a BCs student working on it, which means that i can’t do it (we work in groups, but in segregated groups). The next presentation was from a cute guy in a sharp looking suit (I’ve decided that dress is very important to me, unfortunately) but he wanted help on a “hugs not drugs” campaign, and there’s where I have to exercise my own personal ethics and say no, because it’s not something I believe in (see, PR people DO have ethics). Other ones that followed didn’t sound at all interesting, apart from the AUT fashion show, so I might try for that, or otherwise hopefully there will be some interesting sounding ones I can pick up later this week. I think it’s about time I had an interesting and styley client.

In other exciting news, apparently I am banned from Starks. !!!. This is cool because I have never been badass enough to have been banned from anywhere before. And it makes me laugh, so much so that Bops and I dropped in on KateH tonight to laugh in person. But we had to leave cos it was reaaaaally hot, and I’d already accomplished my mission of taking Katie chocolate as an act of retribution for crimes I committed against her on Saturday night.

Later tonight I watched an episode of “Queer As Folk” that I’d taped last night after I joyously discovered that TV4 were doing late night repeats of it and ‘Sportsnight’ on sundays. It was still excellent, of course, but I’m sure that Stuart and Nathan were so much hotter two years ago. Perhaps it helps if you’re watching it with a boy who’s similarly salivating.

Hmm, i think Saturn5 is under repairs so I can’t upload right now. Nevermind. I can always do this later, although I should probably go to bed soon. I’ve got a new fetish for my hotwater bottle which I rediscovered in teh great closet cleanout of last week. Now I should just do some laundry so I can actually see my nice new carpet and I’ll be all sweet. Oh, and pay my domainz fee. I already let one lapse.