Hubris.co.nz

Yesterday I was on fire. I discovered that my doctor had given me a three month prescription so she obviously doesn’t think I am at risk of taking all my pills at once.I went to the gym and wore a singlet instead of a tshirt because it was so fucking hot, and you know what? The world didn’t end. After work I met Karen and Anji and Lisa down by the lagoon. It was my intention to dive off the plank that’s up on the wharf there, but it was surrounded by squealling teenagers and much higher up than I realised, so Karen and I swam from the floating dock instead. The water was reaaaaaaally warm and nice and it was fun. But there were SO MANY PEOPLE THERE, I felt kind of watched. Eventually I decided that I’d hate myself if I didn’t jump off the plank – especially since it was my ambition to give it a go whilst sober and it being light outside in preperation for inevitable drunken night-swimming, but when I swam to the ladder I discovered that it didn’t go into the water and I didn’t have the arm strength to pull myself up onto it. And it would have been a dreadful hassle to go all the way around and back over the bridge just to jump in again, and while I am becoming more confident, the idea of that much walking around in my togs – hott as they are – in front of so many people wasn’t too appealing. So instead I will steal a photo that Lisa took to show how beautiful it was down there in the water:

Lisa is teh awesome photomagrapher

Then it was 6.30, so Lisa and I went up to the Boatshed for the Great Blend. It was too hot inside, so I got a glass of wine from the ladies at the bar who got nicer and nicer as the night went on, and while I shuddered at the fact that they only had Chardonnay, at least it was unoaked, but I will still blame it for my feeling so seedy today, and we ran away to sit in the shade outside and await Martha and talk about Hanson for some reason. We couldn’t think for ages of what the name of the ugly one was, and Lisa called him Baboon Face. I said that if there was a Q&A session in the talks, and they said did anyone have any questions, I would stand up and say “what is the oldest Hanson brother called? Can you tell me? No you can’t, because you don’t know, you don’t knooow oh oh oh” and then I laughed at myself lots, partly because I had some wine at work before I left. As it happens, Lisa was right and his name was Issac, which I didn’t think it could be because there was a Zack, but that’s short for Zachary. And then we went to meet Martha. I was briefly dismayed at how quickly she brushed me aside to go and meet a puppy-eater, but she came back and fufilled her BFF duties. Plus, she introduced me to fun people like Sally and Sue. And Glen bought me a glass of wine when I already had one, so I quickly looked a lot like a lush. Which is of course not at all how I really am. I talked to Tom and Kim about the magical transforming properties of a lei to make one fit in a tiki environment, and made fun of Stalker. The Back of the Y stuff was hilarious, and it was interesting to see what they’d done for MTV in the UK and how it was exactly the same stuff but much more expensive. I remembered watching it when I was living in Mt Roskill and thinking how awesome it was. I laughed a lot. The second panel was not quite as interesting to me, so I spent a while whispering stupid things to Sarah like “you have to marry one person on the panel – who is it?” (the answer is of course the guy who works for Google, cos duh, rich), before I decided to take myself outside and stop annoying her. So I talked to Joel for ages about what year a particular magazine was worse. We had very different opinions.Mostly I just drank and told everyone how much I wanted to jump off the plank. Sue told me she liked my blog and I was like “!!! I don’t have a blog!” but she redeemed herself instantly by saying that she had ordered the same swimsuit as me because it is so awesome. I introduced myself to Russell and also asked Che about his heart. Good times. The bar ladies seemed to love me even more. In fact, I’m pretty sure that everyone was digging my vibe. Eventually I slipped into the bathroom and slipped into my togs again, so when I left with a group of people I’d just met (I think), I strutted over to the plank and plunged in, followed by Sally. Hurrah! Night swimming is the most awesomeness. Sue carried my bag down to the lower dock for me, and I got changed in public. Lovely.

Then we went to Mighty Mighty and once again more good times were had. I wasn’t even embarrassed seeing Baby Hitler there and remembering how I’d asked him to dance and told off the DJ. Feeling good about yourself really does have positive flow on effects, it’s quite perplexing. I mean, it’s entirely possible that everyone did think I was a dick, but I don’t think so. I had lots of fun. On an extension of that topic, a while ago someone tried to insult me by leaving the comment “but I was just expressing my dismay at your blog [sic]; the purpose of which seems to documenting your desperation for a meaningless pash” and I was like “umm… duh! That’s the whole point of having an online journal, right?” – so in that vein I should declare that I “shared a taxi” home with a boy, which meant he had to wait with me on Ghuznee St while I called a Combined Taxi and babbled about my bad experiences with other companies. Later on the boy told me he saw my left boob when I was getting changed on the dock, which struck me as a most amusing thing to say, and then I laughed at him for a while teasing him about how he didn’t evne know what my name was – before I admitted I couldn’t think of what his was either. And tonight I bought Smoo pizza to make up for the fact that he said he’d gone to sleep with his eaphones in playing music and yet we’d still woken him up. Heh.

Maree emailed me this afternoon to rave about the article in Next with me in it that has apparently come out now, but all I could find was the February issue, not the March one. She said I sounded intelligent and that the photo was gorgeous. Hurrah! That made things more gooder today. I was grateful that I had many mindless web updates to do (adding in div id=”page” tags to about 20 pages and so forth) because I was somewhat tired and not feeling in the best health. I also seem to have bruises on every part of my body, a hole in the bottom of my foot, a cut-up toe from last Friday night when I peed under the X-Air hump, and a lump in my arm. I also had a couple of knots in my hair about the size of my fist that took half an hour of brushing to get out. I like salt water in my fringe, but man, I really should have combed my hair a little more often this week. Tomorrow Lani’s moving in, hurrah ,and then I am going to Ngaio for my Mummy’s birthday party. All in all, things are pretty fucking awesome. Everyone loves me. Including me, right now.

Jimmy Supergood asked me the other day why I wasn’t updating Hubris anymore, and I had to tell him that it wasn’t really intentional, but I’ve been waiting to finish writing about my American exploits, and those are such long stories that I haven’t felt up to writing them, and I haven’t wanted to update until I got myself up to date, and oh the vicious circleness of it. So here I am, updating. And I will tell American stories later.

Firstly, sorry to Shayne Carter for making him feel violated (or, apparently torn between violated and flattered). Secondly, The Wellingtonista of which I am of course part, have launched their First Annual Wellingtonista Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence so it would be awesome if you would go and vote for them, and also if you should feel like it, join us for our awards ceremony on December 1, in a secret venue which we will inform you of when you vote. And it’s totally not secret just because we haven’t picked a place, oh no. That would suggest a level of casualness and uninformity of which we are not at.

Sentence construction is a little hard for me now as I have been sitting on the front steps all afternoon basking in the gorgeous sunshine, aided by one admittedly large vodka lime and soda and so I am more than a little dizzy – and also in need of a good neck massage but I suspect that’s on a different note. This weekend has been fairly low-key. On Friday, all our managers were away on a retreat, so we got an email about “when the cats are away…” which meant BYO food and drinks to our communal eating area. It was bucketing down with rain which meant I walked through Kirks on my way to Rumbles to buy booze, and was drawn into the chocolate and wine shop hoping for free samples of chocolate. Instead I was waylaid into doing a tasting, and when the man said “I make the wine..” I was like, oh, it’s the actual winemaker, I suppose I should buy a bottle then. And of course Kirks are too wanky to put visible prices on things (as I told someone later that night, the last time I actually went into Kirks proper instead of their related food shops was in sixth form to buy stay-up tights for the ball, and they looked down their noses at me so much that I resolved not to go back ever) so I ended up buying a $29 bottle of Tohu Pinot Noir when really I was after something for around $12 that I could leave behind. Stink. Of course, that meant I had to stay and drink it all, which was good in a way because it meant I talked to many people I’d never talked to before, and apart from people talkijng about my father (because where I work is a place that people work for for life, and so therefore even though Daddy hasn’t been there for ten years or something (someone asked me why he left and I know the answer is for Mum)) I learnt lots about other people. Still no rich husband prospects though. I guess I should expect that, working for the government and all.

Consequently, having drunk all but a glass of that tasty tasty pinot noir within an hour and a half (I shared the love), I was a trifle tipsy by the time I arrived at Tupelo to meet Karen and Dylan, but I think I managed not to come across as such too much. Karl and Amber joined us later and had the brilliant suggestion of going to umm Siam Reap (?) for dinner. They were full at the time, but took my number and said they’d call in a half hour or so, so I suggested we go grab a drink at Mighty Mighty, which I’d (of course) just found out about on Wellurban. Guess who I’m voting for as best Welly Web Writer? Mighty Mighty was very cool, and I got to wave to my old flatmate Justine from Newtown there. I like that they offer about four kinds of house wine named only by kind, and that you can also get cask wine for $5. And it’s so green and pretty! And the bathroom is painted the same cotton candy pink that the bathrooms at Occam are. Yes. And then we got the call from Siam Reap so Karen and I went to buy wine while the others finished their drinks, but motherfucking Starmart in Manners Mall had its locked-up screens down becasue the guy behind the counter looked younger than 18. That’s so fucking lame, and made me rully rully angry. Luckily the restaurant was licensed, and with an $8 per bottle corkage, it probably wasn’t much more expensive anyway. I’d never been before, but holy fuck it was tasty. My medium beef salad seemed much hotter, but my curry main was much easier eating. And so damn tasty, oh yes.

Afterwards Karl and Amber went home and Karen, Dylan and I went back to Mighty Mighty where we found a wide windowsill to sit on and proceeded to make fun of people for what felt like a couple of hours. He was all “it’s so funny how nasty girls get as soon as they see another girl in a miniskirt” so we took the time to explain to him that it wasn’t just that this girl’s skirt was so short we could see out her nostrils, but also that it looked like a pillowcase and that it had obviously been a really nice knee-length frock that she’d tacked up inside it. So it wasn’t just the tartiness of it, it was also the ugliness. We were less chastised for making fun of an older lady who was pulling people onto the floor with her scarf and making them dance with her. I was rather inclined to tap one hipster on the shoulder and say “dude, you’re going home to a sweeeeet threesome!” when his girlfriend was kidnapped away from him, but I was afraid he would think I was including myself in the equation. I also saw James who edited Salient this year, who with a couple of bear hugs made me feel much better about whoever the anonymous person posting nasty comments about my skills as an ad manager being responsible for VUWSA’s financial difficulities on another website (because yes, I never said I was a good salesperson, but seriously, if you’re going to write something like that then get enough fucking balls to put your name to it, lamer), and tried very hard to avoid the attention of The Mime, although it was amusing to see him as it inspired a whole round of “help me, I’m trapped in a box!” type posing. Then we spotted a guy with a German flag badge on each shoulder and for some reason that just really got my goat, so I encouraged Karen to teach Dylan the phrase “Do you have an old washing machine?” in German to ask the boy, in some kind of “Ha! You’re like, not even German!” cheekiness. I didn’t hink Dyl was actually going to get around to asking him, but he did, making the boy even more confused by miming a cigarette while asking. The boy was like “Huh?” and brushed him aside. Ten minutes later on our way out I decided to repeat the experiment, without the cigarette, and was rewarded with a “oh, Deustch, nien!!!” combined with much miming and pointing to his flags and shaking of his head. He he he! Oh II adore the fact that I can now often keep a straight face even whilst doing very silly prank type things.

On Saturday I had brunch with Anji and Delwin at Mojo, and then for dinner Lisa and I went to the Mediterranean warehouse where she became obsessed with the Pinnochio figures. We watched Thirteen and I didn’t blub nearly as much as I did the first time, although there are still many many things about that movie that hit home with me. Today I have sat in the sun and read Q, and did two lots of washing. Yes, it’s big time excitement around here indeedy. But I must wholeheartedly recommend Neil Jordan’s Shade to you – as a reviewer says “Why does he bother writing movies when he can write books this well?”, and just as another example of how late to the party I am (have you heard about this awesome new band called the Arcade Fire?), I also loved The Great Gatsby as well. And that’s all.

It’s funny seeing your old workmates on TV. I still <3 the Brandon Calhoon lookalike and the young gumshoe and the girl who shows her nipples while drunk , and the guy who was the only one of my workmates to come to my flatwarming afternoon tea muchly, but it's like someone said on NZm tonight, if you wanna talk conspiracy theories, my, what splendid timing! (This is some degree of sarcasm, okay? Good. So excuse me if I seem a little b-wordy tonight, I’ll get to the oh the pain angst real soon. I promise!)

Or, as I said tonight:

Jo Hubris says: wow that’s a bad dress

* says: which channel?

Jo Hubris says: 1
it’lll be on 3 as well

* says: hahaha russell

Jo Hubris says: hahaha drink!

* says: hahahaa!
man, the whole current affairs thing just keeps becoming more and more of a massive circle-jerk

Jo Hubris says:
that’s what I’ve been saying for YEARS
YEARS AND YEARS

* says: yeah
but I only really noticed recently

(speaking of which)

Jo Hubris says: Robyn got two PA shoutouts today

* says: yeah, noticed
I was a bit disappointed with her poem

Jo Hubris says:
yeah
i wrote nzidol slash tonight
it was much better

It was late one night at the Idol House, and Steve(n) had eaten so many Allen’s lollies that he couldn’t sleep. The sounds from the bed next to him suggested that his special room buddy Jesse wasn’t asleep either.

Jesse thought for a minute, and then realised that as a married man, it was his duty to fill Steve(n) in on a few details, so he did.
“Jesse,” said Steve(n) finally, “I want to save myself for marriage, but right now I’m just so frustrated, and my shiny young manhood is longing to find shelter. I know it would be wrong to sleep with a girl before we were married, but do you think…”
Steve(n) didn’t get to finish his sentence because he immediately felt a crushing weight on him.
“Steve my boy, tonight I’m going to show you no ordinary love. I’m going to take you higher. I’m going to teach you the missionary position” promised Jesse as he waggled his fingers in…..

Hahhaha.

And now the angst! After the black holes in Friday night, I was afraid to go into work, which meant that I got almost zero sleep, and then combind that with Daylight Savings, which even my internet boyfriend hates and it’s just a recipe for badness. And to make things worse, I ended up feeling like a character learning her lesson in an episode of The Brady Bunch, learning a valuable lesson never to gossip again – oh the snappage. But no one said anything bad, so that’s a good thing. Still, stupid having to shop after work, and stupid groceries whilst standing on the bus, and stupid non moving people, and stupid heat and stupid stupid uncomfortable shoes and then when I slipped on the outside back steps cos of the rain and fell and jammed my feet really hard again seperate walls, and arms and limbs went akimbo and I screamed I found that all I could do was sit there and howl for a good ten minutes, because this is how I am going to die when I am old and alone.

I’ve had my left foot elevated all night with ice on it earlier on, but it’s so fucking sore, and so is my neck, and so is my other foot, and so are my wrists. Time to break out the codeine shortly. Mmmm codeine…

Also, hurray, no more merkin!

Mostly I like to bitch and moan about my own life, and only use links to other things on my site or my friends, to show you how cool/deep/SHRN/So No Longer Hott Right Now/whatever I am, because that’s what I think the interweb needs – fewer links. But today I’m going to spend a paragraph talking about Critic’s drug rape story. And no, I’m not going to take this opportunity to talk about how Salient uses comic sans non ironically, so you can see that this is like, totally serious. The scandalous article in question is actually really quite good. Sure, it’s vaguely stomach churning, but come on – I’ve read at least three books by Brett Easton Ellis that are much much much worse. Not to mention Blindness or an assortment of other Nobel Prize for Literature winners. When I was at Debate, for our first issue we published a guide to safety, which the International Student Coordinator type person loved, but we got no other feedback on. Cosmo seems to run a drug rape story every other month, as do squillions of other magazines, but they really are all the same, and with anything that’s all samey, you stop paying attention. The Critic piece is different. I think it was valid, and justified. Just because within student media rape is sometimes described as “surprise sex” (thanks to letter writers) doesn’t mean that it’s not understood to be a real issue. And Holly was certainly very very articulate in defending the article, as the media links from Critic’s weblog will show you, if you care. Thank god it wasn’t someone from Craccum trying to justify themselves (and not just because this way there were pictures of Shiny Shiny all over the news from the ad on the page). I think we all (by which I mean me) remember Honest Colin’s mumbleness.

Of course, all that said, as the woman from Rape Crisis pointed out, drug rape may be all the hot topic right now, but the big issue generally is still alcohol.

On a completely new subject, tonight is Go Out Drinking Night. Hurrah! Okay, that was a bad topic juxtaposition, but you know that it was intentional. It’s 24 Hour Party People tonight, hurrah. Before that there are leaving drinks at work for one of the many computer people who all have the same name. I wonder what his replacement will be like. Hopefully oggleworthy, although of course, after a conversation with Anne I have given up on all boys ever. In fact, I was tempted to call our quiz team last night “Death to the Y Chromosone” but then I couldn’t remember which were boys and which were girls. I think I remember Xander saying “your double Xs don’t look too bad in that dress either” to Willow (when of course they did, because Anya’s bridesmaid dresses were pretty hidi), but I’d like to think that everything I learnt about science didn’t actually come from a Buffy episode, so we went with “The McLeod” instead. Anji was going for “The McLeod’s Daughters” but I was like NO NO NO NO NO. We got 7/10 in Sports. Huh? What the hell? That was our average score for every round. We NEVER get that high in Sport. Very very strange. Nevermind.

Oh yes, but tonight. I need a new outfit. I always wear the same thing to Indigo it seems. Could a bar be bored of my boobs? Surely not. But there must be a new way to showcase them. Surely? Surely? Yeah. There, I mentioned boobs. That’ll be a good steady stream of shots for you all. Err, that’s shots as in drinking shots. Not photos. Thanks to Heather for being the only one to come up with any things for my drinking game, by the way. I hate the rest of you and I’ve flicked you all back to level one. Oh no wait, I haven’t cos I am lazy.

Work has become more amusing with the advent of having colleague (singular, and still spelt wrong, probably) on my MSN list. I am still loving being over with the young’n hips. I’m also doing more work that I’ve done before too. I have create a new style guide for us, compiling three together. Comic sans for Africa, I say! Oh no wait, no I don’t. Speaking of MSN, can I get a great big BOO HISS for Martha for putting a photo of the winner of Rockstar: INXS on her site without a cut, or hiding it or anything? AAAAAAAArgh. Stupid Internet.

Social plans for the week: 24 Hour Party People tonight, Home & Away omnibus on Sunday for Alf’s 60th, perhaps Jess’s picnic in the park. Coming up: Brad in some child’s play (I have been promised people in animal costumes), and also Brad in drag for his Caberet show. Hurrah! Also: I really must get my act together and plan my birthday party for some time.

Before Shihad on Saturday night (they played DEB’S NIGHT OUT! Holy crap! I cried!), I was at Karen’s, and at Karen’s house I went to the bathroom, as I tend to do, and in Karen’s bathroom there was the latest <I>Salient</I>, (and I’m not going to say anything about how it tends to belong these days), and so I picked it up and read the editorial, and became absolutely disgusted. Apparently there’s going to be an SGM to attempt to roll the vice president, Jen Jones.

ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?

Jen works harder than anyone else at VUWSA. She is passionate about helping students. Unlike most of the executive, she delivers results. Jen cares about what she’s doing. It makes me so mad that people could even suggest rolling her, so I implore you, if you are a Vic student, please go to the SGM, and please vote AGAINST rolling her (I’d tell you when it is, except that suprise suprise, the <I>Salient</I> site isn’t up to date). You might not agree with all of her ideologies, if you’re of a right wing nature (although hi, if you’re right wing, why are you reading my journal? Why aren’t you out eating puppies or something?) but surely you must see that she’s doing an excellent job.

I hate so much that there’s such a large number of ring wing people on the exec this year. That’s bad news for students. It’s also pretty shocking for the student magazine to have right wing connections too, but let’s not even go there….

<B>Update!</B>: Apparently it was
13 in favour
98 against

I’m fucking overjoyed. Thanks for making the right decision guys, you have renewed my faith that while the evil puppy eaters might talk louder, good sense and decency will prevail on the day. Yeah!

So what I feared about peanuts and monkeys has proven to be true (*) but let’s ignore that and focus on the positives instead.

I received a Valentine today! It’s from Outback Jack, and it says “Strewth! ur a hot sheila!! LOLZ!! ur teh only lady I wanna pair up in twos with!!! OMG!!! HAWT!!!” I wonder if Natalie knows. According to the latest NW they’re engaged. According to the Herald Milan is engaged. Bastard.

Also! I have a hairdressing appointment booked. You can be like “so what?” but if you know me well enough then you’ll know that my beloved hairdresser Hayley is in Auckland, and therefore I must be Auckland bound – as indeed I am. I fly in on Friday the 25th at 9.30am and I leave at 3pm on Sunday the 27th. This does mean that I miss the Cuba St Carnival AND Dimmer, but hey, these things happen. Whilst in Auckland I will be getting my hair cut at 12.30pm on the Friday, going to Goodshirt at the Zoo on Saturday evening for KateH’s birthday, and then painting the town red later that night for KateM’s going away. Possibly a bbq will be attended the next day before I fly back. On the friday day I intend to meet up with my biggest client since I’m sure I owe her a glass of wine or two, and also see Gemma who I haven’t seen since Easter 2004 perhaps? Other than that though, I would like to hang out with you. I think I will hopefully be playing with Heather that Friday night.

Why did no one tell me about p2p porn before? I downloaded Limewire yesterday, and when I clicked the “new files” I was overwhelmed. Now I just have to figure out what kind of porn I actually want to download – I suspect “please for the love of god cut your nails and take off those ugly shoes” is too long a search string to start out with. Still, there’s always Buffy slash I guess…. Sick. Sick sick sick sick sick (but if you’re going to do the Buffy slash thing, google “bankhead academy”).

That’s about all I have to say for now. I’m going to a d.vice fuckerware party on Wednesday, which I’m quite looking forward to. Given how ridiculously sore my arms are these days (remember how I first got OOS cos I hated Foodstuffs so much?), I’ll be looking for something handsfree, I do believe. I think my dearly beloved Fiesta Party has carked it, although not from overuse.

I am so over today (*), I would like it to be 5pm right about now please thanks bye.

<B>Friday</B>
<LI>Handing in my notice
<LI>Job interview at lunchtime. The one question that stumped me was “how would your colleagues describe you?” I confessed to having just resigned so they would probably use a few choice words about me, and then talked about last year’s colleagues instead. Then the interviewers all left me alone in their office with assorted laptops to go get lunch while I did a test. I wonder if part of the test was them spying through spyholes at me. I don’t mind if they did because they also bought me a smoothie. I would like that job please.
<LI>BBQ with Karen and Mummy and Brad, and much foodage. Later we tried to make s’mores although the biscuits were stale and it took a long time to get the fire going again. Have I mentioned how disturbing it is that my parents turn Mum’s 80kg gas bottles into flame throwers in order to start the BBQ in their outdoor potbellied pottery fireplace? No? Well it’s really disturbing. What was less disturbing, and in fact, great, was watching two hours of <I>The O.C</I> goodness (last week’s episode for Brad’s benefit first).

<B>Saturday</B>
<LI>Dinner with Mummy at Daawat in J’Ville. J’Ville has a bar now! What goes on?
<LI> 1000ml bottles of Banrock Station are back. Hurray!
<LI>Drinks at Jessie’s, followed by a party in Mt Vic, and then Indigo. I networked all comms like! I plotted all politically like on the deck of Indigo. Random girls made me try their random drinks! All very exciting stuff.

<B>Sunday</B>
<LI>’Home and Away’ Omnibus.
<LI> <I>The House of Flying Daggers</I>. Oooh pretty.

<B>Today</B>
<LI>Guess which magazine has pages laid out in COMIC SANS this week?
<LI>Tonight I am going to take Jessie to The Shins. I only know that one song, but hey, if y’all knew I had free tickets and didn’t go, you’d probably spit at me, right? Plus, hopefully I can get Jessie to <strike>put out</strike> buy me a beer in gratitude. Or something.

So my mother has osteoarthritis. I just found out this morning, after we’d been to breakfast at the local cafe which was blasting out Appetite for Destruction (which i <3 and would love to receive a copy of). Her mother had it, and Anji's doctors suspect she has it, so chances are that I will have it too. I know she's probably a bad example of worse case scenarioism, but they're going to Morroco soon, and she's all "I need to get things out of the way this year because I won't be able to do them next year". While I don't know how much of that is true, it's still kind of fucked. She can't even knock on doors cos her fingers are so sore right now.

We drank a lot of wine tonight. Boy did I need it. Here's a pop quiz for you. Which disturbing line has the new editor said to me in the past couple of weeks?
A) "I'd like a milk chocolate sante bar please - I don't like dark chocolate"
B) "I really love the music from The Phantom of the Opera”
C) “I have never seen an episode of ‘The O.C’”
D) “I love it up the butt with three fists please”
E) Everything but admitting to the buttsex

Yeah you know how it is.

Last night, after I’d stayed til almost 9pm proofreading (and I didn’t get to do the whole magazine, and based on the half that I did, I wish that my name wasn’t on the other half – although i’m sure that my dislike of the music pages for example is that it’s no longer Hott Boy writing them), I saw a hunched old lady carrying bags up the hill and since my parents had left me the van at the station I offered her a ride home. She said she lived on the big street that goes past where you turn off to where i live, so it wasn’t very much out of my way. However, when we got to her place, she stopped and chatted for a very long time. She’d just had a couple of her teeth replaced at over two grand each. She’d just had some verucas off except that she thought they were corns. She asked me where I lived and I gestured. She asked em what I did and in the same breath if i was a mother. Okay, I was driving a van in Suburbia, but it still felt weird. For some reason I said that I was a student. I suppose ti was because I knew that if I said what I did, I’d have to explain it, and she’d ask me if I liked it, and I’d be all FUCK I HATE THAT SHIT, butr I just wanted her to get the fuck out of the van. She told me that she’d studied various things trying to cure her ‘illness’ – she was talking about being crazy – and had done a B.A in Philosophy and Psychology. Her father was an English professor and her mother was one of only 3 women in her accountancy degree. She built her house 25 years ago when she was 40 but it still didn’t feel like a home. She studied yoga in India trying to fix herself. I know too much about her. Please just get out of my car. It made me realise though that what I really want is a baby, to not have to do my fucking job that I hate. It’s so hard trying to actually have a career. I believe that raising good healthy children is a valid (and important) lifestyle, so why can’t I do that instead?

Today was teh suck. However, tonight The OC is the greatest show in the entire world ever (except for Buffy).

Oh, I should point out to you that if you’re a Hubrette, and you get a message that says something like “you need to be logged in to read this entry”, and you’re all like, but dude, I’m totally logged in, well, chances are that the entry is at a higher level than your status. What you need to do is comment more, and then I’ll move you up, and we’ll be closer than ever. Hooray!

And something about being able to count at least five different fonts in BODY TEXT across 64 pages (well, taking out full page ads and the cover 57). Something about lacking punch and cohesion. Something about thankless work and fuckheads. Something about the fear in their eyes that I enjoyed so much that I kinda wanted to sabotage things except that that’d have meant staying longer. Something about how I almost don’t want to lock this entry to level two (hi anyone who’s reading this! Thank you for commenting enough for me to have bumped you up a level / being a good friend) because I’d fucking love to get fired so that I can go on the dole straight away. Something about AAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGH and the proofreading that I haven’t done and am worried about how the rest of the magazine will read. Did I mention the multiple fonting? And the pages which weren’t columnised?

Dear Mr Cobain,

As I write this to you, the closing credits of NZ Idol are playing on my TV. The world has changed quite a bit since you’re gone. How ’bout that Belgium guy singing ‘Lithium’ on World Idol eh? I bet you liked it. I think you have a sense of humour. And when are they going to get rid of Robin? God I hate him. But I’m going off on a tangent now. I started this letter to you because now it’s been ten years exactly since you… you know.

What are you up to these days? I like to think that maybe you’ve seen the error of your ways, and that maybe you’re sitting around drinking cups of tea with Mr Hoon, Mr Wood and Mr Staley. The drugs are different down here nowadays, although heroin did make a comeback for a while. Antidepressants are better too – they might have helped you, but then again maybe not. Your wife certainly knows a lot about prescription drugs. I get the feeling she might be catching up with you pretty soon, and that really sucks because for a while, before I traded in my Riot Grrl slogans for the much easier “Girl Power” shtick, she meant almost more to me than you did.

There are so many things that I need to thank you for. I know you’ve had tributes a hundred times more eloquent penned by thousands of people. But this one comes from my heart, because I’m one of those people for whom your music – and the grunge scene that you brought attention to and symbolised – saved my life. In 1992 I was fucking miserable and alone at an American school I didn’t belong to. Much like any teenager, I suppose, I was full of pain and anger and sadness that I didn’t feel like I had any way of expressing. The music I listened to didn’t help. I hated all the Whitney Houston crap, and while sure, Mr Rose did look awful nice in that kilt, and the power ballads could make me cry, I couldn’t help but feel that maybe it was all a load of cheese. I?d only read that music could change the world but I?d never believed it until I heard Nirvana. Out the window went the bloated guitar solos, the on-stage posturing and the hairspray. In came this incredible sense of realism, of passion, truth and integrity. It was like you were playing just for me. Nirvana and the other bands that came to MTV with you had as much angst as I did. You were all disenfranchised freaks, and ironically, you were all accepted by the mainstream.

I guess something similar happened to me. Because of the ?grunge scene? I was able to finally find my niche as (the now so clich?d)?Alternative Girl? instead of just being a reject. It finally seemed like it didn’t matter that my hair was messy instead of in a perfect perky ponytail. I wore through two pairs of doc boots instead of wishing I had dockers. And I could take refuge in baggy flannel shirts. I found other people who liked your music and we made zines together. It was a glorious time for me, and for people like me all around the world. I’m sorry it turned out so shit for you. You didn’t deserve that.

Thank you for being a male artist who had a feminist background. Thank you for wearing a dress and admitting to being bisexual at a time when that just wasn’t done. Thank you for calling a song ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter’. I’m sorry there were stupid assholefuckwits who took ‘Polly’ literally. I’m sorry that you felt so violated by people trying to interpret your songs, but thank you for expressing that in ‘Rape Me’ because I will never forget the look on my eighth grade English teacher’s face when a fellow doc-boot-wearer announced she’d be using that song for a class project on lyric interpretation.

Thank you for being wise enough to make sure your legal matters were well in hand before you went, so that ‘Teen Spirit’ will never be used on a deodorant ad. I wouldn’t trust that Mr “Yawn Rock” Grohl as far as I could throw him either. Thank you for inspiring all the bands whose cds in my collection aren’t quite as dusty as yours. Don’t worry – I’m not blaming you for Puddle of Mudd or Creed – I guess I know as well as you by now how big and consuming bandwagons can be (but if you’re friends with someone in power up there, could you please do something about Mr Durst?).

I’m sorry about how someone painted a great big bleeding hole onto your poster in our seventh form common room, but I figure you’d like that more than the spooky idolatry of the poster by itself. I’m also sorry I’m being cheap and cashing in on the Ten Year Anniversary as well, but I just had to pay some kind of tribute to you. I miss you. I was really angry with you for a while (what does it say when the ‘spokesperson for your generation’ kills himself? That my generation is doomed?), but can we put that behind us please? When they released ‘You Know You’re Right’ last year, I felt alive and passionate and excited about music and life again, just like how ‘Teen Spirit’ made me feel more than ten years ago. You changed music and lives for the better. You were important. I know that was too weighty for you, but thank you. You really meant something to an awful lot of people.

Joanna

(Originally published in Salient 2004.)