Hubris.co.nz

Do you notice the time, like, all the time? Because it was 11.11pm when I started this post, but then I had to reply to twitters, read an article on cock that Harvest Bird sent me to cheer me up (I think), and then fast-forward the ads of today’s episode of The Simpsons, and now it’s eight minutes later. Does that sound like a lot to pack in in seven minutes? Because I think I’ve mentioned before that my brain is working overtime these days, and how sometimes I think that I’m on speed instead of citalapram.

And that might explain today’s total mood crash, and why I just fucking wish I could get fired so I could go on the dole or the sickness benefit and how I could stay in bed where everything is warm and safe and okay. It is ridiculous how scared I am to go to work, and how much I feel like I am letting the team down just for existing, but at the same time the assumption that because I took a couple of days off and because i am taking my medication regularly that all my problems have ceased to exist. I cannot get to work by 9am. I just can’t. I can’t sleep, I can’t wake up, I can’t get out of bed. How does the rest of the world do it? I can’t function like that. And holy fuck how much do I hate using the word “can’t”?

This weekend was good. We had a bit of a beer sampling here, with a sausage fest, and then tucking people up on the couch and in the spare room. On Anzac Day I hid, and then on Saturday Heather arrived, and I went to Bar Camp, and then that night we went to Shirley’s for the Unofficial Pretty Pretty Pretty launch party, which was all beauty products and amazing food, and videos, and Lisa Fur gave me a handrub that made me purr. And then the day after Heather and I had brunch at Elements, and then had BLOGFEST 2008, in which we sat down at my dining room table, and blogged for three hours straight. In that time I uploaded a fuckload of photos to flickr with tags, fixed all the colours on Pretty Pretty Pretty since the original purple that I changed the images of the template to weren’t in sexy-hexy-decimal, posted to the Wellingtonista, changed the Aucklandista template (my awesomeness was further enforced today when I managed to do what Heather failed to do yesterday – get images and links to work on the front page (in her defense, she thought I wanted exerpts instead of full posts, but I didn’t), and THEN I figured out the php to add in tags to posts and THEN I built (read: stole) some php to make it have rotating header images. SO AWESOME. I like being productive. But that did of course emphasise the suckiness of having a full time job that is not blogging, at least not blogging for the things that I love. And I know that work has been very accomodating of my recent bout of craziness, but it’s just not as easy to shake as you might think. Or probably don’t think, because you’re on the internets and therefore you’re probably already crazy too.

Miss Amy came over tonight for MakeMonday, and we wrote up our big post about our first PPP party, and while she had to go, she left me and Heather with an awesome foot-care package, so we poured ourselves a glass of bubbly and barricaded ourselves in the bathroom with zabuton (flat Japanese pillows) to perch on the sharp edge of my bath and soak our feet in mint & lavender goodness. It felt lovely, and so I decided to have a huge big bawling sob session. Awesome. Half the time Heather thought I was laughing when it was actually guttural sobs, but half the time I was laughing too, because I am pathetic and lame, and far too fucking hard on myself. It is hard to be me, and yes, that’s fucking stupid, I’m this educated smart girl with these fantastic support networks and a job, and a family, and flatmates, some of whom clean the kitchen every night, and this cat who knows that I am the centre of his universe, and a fantastic counselor who I obviously need to go and see, and yet, it is hard for me.

Some things shake me a lot from out of nowhere. Like, what happens when something happens to someone you used to love? Something awful, and when you find out about it, it throws you for the whole afternoon, but of course, it is not about you, it’s about how best to respond, to say something, to do something if it’s needed. How do you be there when you haven’t been there for many years, no matter what the reason?

I have found that lately there has been a reoccuring theme, and you know what? It’s not even lately. I just want to fix all of my friends’ lives. I want everyone to get their fucking happy ending. I don’t know how to procure those endings though, and I know that I’m not even supposed to. Just, oh, I don’t know. Can’t we all have happy endings? Please? And I don’t mean a happy ending like Jill will deliver you. Well, maybe that.

Oh, but in happy ending news? Here’s a clip from the RASSLIN’ I went to.

It was so fucking great to see Kat’n Kane. We had Rock of Love marathons, and just quiet time together, much like Heather and I are having right now. No alarms and no surprises. Lately it takes MGMT or the Deftones to wake me out of the fog on tthe bus to and from work. I don’t have solutions. I do know though that I missed my meds on Sunday, and so I will blame this on that.

And somewhere out there, unrelated to this, you’re turning 40, or you’re 40 already, and I look forward to your email next year, because that will be another three years, right? And in a thousand other stories, there was a thing that I thought was a thing. Well, not even a thing. It was a tingle. But if I’m honest, it was an amalgamation, it was so many people together. My friends could draw you a picture sight unseen. Still, it was a tingle which was nice to have.

As per usual, let me start off this entry with an invitation to a party:

We’re having Country Club: India on Saturday, and you’re of course invited. I must clean and make curries and try and make mini naans before then. What a busy girl I’ll be. As per usual. I suspect starting my free drinking challenge possibly wasn’t the smartest decision I’ve ever made without being willing to cut down on the expensive events too. But nevermind. Luckily now that I have a camera, I can keep better track of the things that I have been up to.

And so let’s talk about Saturday October 27, which started off with a pony at the Houghton Bay School Fair that I wasn’t allowed to ride (I didn’t actually ask) so I settled for sitting in tiny little very sturdy seats in the kindergarten with my knees around my ears instead, hiding out from the freezing cold that my jandals and 3/4 length (actually on me they’re more 5/8) tights were not equipt to deal with. But man, when did school fairs become so fancy? I ate pad thai, and samosas, and there was all kinds of other posh food like falafels and morrocan curries as well as the usual sausage sizzle. In the car, Kat said to me “Me and Sebastian are becoming great friends since I feed him all the time. If you don’t stop going out drinking he’s going to think that I’m his mummy” and I actually cried. But then me and Kat and Kane and Kenna and Tavers moved on to a long extended trip to the Warehouse for costuming for the event that night:

What were we up to that night? Why, the MOTHERFUNKIN’ RASSLIN’, of course! Holy crap, it was exciting. I have a video on my camera of Purple Haze, who is, according to Kat’s sign “New Zealand’s sexist[sic] masked man” (it was only Tom G who noticed her missing e), wrestling the Condor, and you can hear me screaming my lungs out and it goes all jerky when I jump to my feet at the end of the match. SO MUCH FUN! And then at half time we got CORN DOGS! And I was dressed as a zombie bride! And then a Bush Wacker came out! And walked all funny! And there was SO MUCH CROTCH EVERYWHERE! SO SO SO AWESOME! And the kids in front of us, who’d previously been screaming for bloody genuinely started crying when their father got cut up for serious. And there was the most hilarious except for the racism and homophobia kid yelling behind us. And my insults were also very witty too. And Tom G giggles like a girl and was great company for RASSLIN’ cos he knows everything about it. Here are some more photos to show you the awesomeness of it all:

It’s good to know I already have the outfit for when I totally marry Chris DeLorean, whose crotch is pictured here. Sans the large errection that other wrestlers were sprouting.

My sign which hadn’t dried in time (too much glitter paint) said “Lazarus Volt, fast like a colt”. But obviously a quarter of the size of Trooper

H. Flame & Max Damage vs The Overstayers (in the shiny trousers)

After the RASSLIN’ was finished, Jimmy, Tom G and I strolled down to Mighty Mighty to meet up with Tom B and listen to the band of the fantastic Mitch. I was very very very amused when a boy came up, and invited me to join their stag night, on the basis that I must be on my hen’s night. I was like “what? Why would you think that?”, deciding to pretend that I wasn’t wearing a large veil, since he had obviously missed the sunken eyes and bloody mouth. When he said that it was the way I was dressed, I was like “what? But I just got up this way!” and pointed out that I was actually sitting with three guys and it would have been a rather poor Hen’s Night if that was the case. And then I leant back to show him the blood gushing from my wrong-sided heart (it’s hard when you’re not wearing a shirt to do the maths when applying fake blood stains,really! Especially when you’ve dyed your hands red and need to scrub them with detergent, a dish brush, turpentine and sugar and still fail to lift the stains), and he said it was obviously just red wine, and I was like “no no sir, I spent half an hour holding a hairdryer on this to set the stain” and then he went to suck my shirt, and I moved it away from my body. You know, he may have had a little bit of a stupid approach, unless that was his act, but he was very cute, as was his friend who came and started stroking my face later, so Ir eally need to drop my whole insulting people when they hit on me defence. Like, seriously. We drank many bottles of nice red wine, and had dances, and finally Tom G and I left and had a sizeable debate about whether or not we felt like going to a strip club. I suggested that the way I was dressed would not result in me getting free lap dances, so we decided to save it for another time, and went and got kebabs instead. Some girl overheard us talking about why you shouldn’t sleep with lesbians so she and her boyfriend came and joined our table, and we had a very strange conversation that I can’t actually remember. We left her with the parting advice of “remember not to sleep with lesbians!” and she sounded offended, all “my mother’s a lesbian” and so I was like “umm, that’s probably a really good reason not to sleep with her then”. Heh. Then in the morning, my hair looked like this, so it’s just as well that the turquoise Clairol shampoo is as de-dredging as its ads make it out to be!

So that was the Saturday. I think I stayed in bed for a lot of the Sunday. Possibly until 6pm that night. Or maybe I got up and did things. My memory isn’t what it used to be, with me being like a trillion and six and all. Oh no wait, I made homemade chicken soup for all my sick friends! Well, all the ones who were ill anyway. Here’s how I did it, it was bloody tasty:

• Brown some chicken wings all over in a frypan
• Dice two onions, a whole head of garlic and two thumbs of garlic, and lightly saute
• Pour one litre of chicken soup over the onions and bring to the boil. Add the chicken wings, and deglaze their pan with some white wine, adding that in too.
• Add the juice and rind of one lemon, and some chili if you have it. Bring to the boil, then turn down and simmer lightly for 30 minutes or so, until the chicken starts falling off the bone
• Pull the chicken pieces out of the soup with tongs, and strip off the meat, throwing it back in the pot
• Add three peeled diced potatoes, or alpabet noodles. Add in diced carrots, celery and red pepper. Cook until the veges are soft

Of course only Shirley was home to receive her soup, so Lisa and Dylan missed out on getting well again. And I made Impromptu Flat Dinner since Smoo showed up as well, having been away for a couple of weeks, and a good time was had by all. Monday was a beautiful night of veging in front of the television. Tuesday night was Quiz and we got the right table and so we won again, hurrah. Wednesday night was ummmm hmmm, perhaps nothing? And then on Thursday was the free drinks which I have already written about.

Which brings me to the glorious weather of Friday, and this series of photos.

What you’re looking at is 1. the view from the cafe at the Archives where I ate some of the nicest corn fritters I have ever eaten, except they needed sour cream on the side. 2. A slightly suspicious-looking man on the tables at Zarbo that Tom B and I dragged out into the sun across the walkway with permission from the waiter. 3. The Mexican Wrestlers lining the coffee machine at Sweet Mother’s Kitchen where we ate mountains of food and they didn’t charge us for one pitcher of margaritas, and 4. Dylan’s ear at Mighty Mighty.

To elaborate more about my night, it started in the sun at Zarbo, and moved indoors when it got colder. The service was very very slow, but it was their first week, so perhaps it will improve. After that we went down to Sweet Mother’s Kitchen and ate hush yo’ mouth puppies, swamp dip, curly fries and I had Boom Boom chicken with bourbon potato mash, and we washed it down with a couple of jugs of margaritas, one of which they didn’t charge us for so I really must make amends. Mmmmm far too much food. Then we went up to Other Lisa’s party in her friend’s apartment, and she grabbed my boobs. Twice. Shock horror! I talked shit to Dylan for ages, and then I shocked Lisa’s friends by telling them a terrible joke and grabbing her boobs in return, but only because we were on our way out the door to Mighty Mighty where we danced to bad music and I had to leave because it was too fucking hot. I went to bed about 4am, but I hear that was much earlier than some people.

Needless to say, Saturday was spent largely in bed with Sebastian. Eventually I dragged myself up around 2 or something, and considered going into town to try and look for a sari, but then I realised that my hoodie was really dirty and I’d have to get changed, so I settled for pizza at the Med Warehouse, then supermarket shopping at Newtown New World which I’m loving for its tiny size but good selection. I cleaned myself up, had a nap, and then went into town to meet Karen and TomB and Yenping and Nick at the Oriental Thai for dinner. We were seated in the back room, which meant we had appallingly bad service – Yenping was extra to the booking, so they totally failed at bringing her a chair or a place setting, and when a glass of water got knocked over they laid another mat on top of the damp, finally, and requests for water glasses were ignored, but luckily all our wine was screwcap, and the chicken came served inside a pineapple, so that was all very well. Their Pad Thai was crap though. We had many amusing conversations though, and some very nice Reislings, and a Pinot Gris made out of the blood of an army of clones. Muahahhaa.

Then it was time to go up to the Party on the edge of the Hill, so Karen, Tom and I rocked on up there. There was much standing around in the kitchen. There was giving people sparklers to make new friends. And there was absinthe. Oh yes, there was absinthe. Behold.

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Karen and I thought that the Absinthe was disgusting, and yet we continued to drink it because it was delicious. Meanwhile Tom drank enough to start seeing the Green Fairy

The best thing about drinking Absinthe was that instead of events getting blurrier, they seemed to get clearer and clearer. While outside getting some air (it was HOT inside), Karen and I spotted a car parked with a beer bottle on its roof, and as there were people inside the car, we went through a long round of miming “there’s a beer bottle on your roof!” at them which they didn’t get at all, so eventually I went down to move it for them, and was thanked with a “Show us your boobs!”. Awesome, almost as classy as the guy who pissed in front of us. But there were actually some very nice, very cute boys, some of whom were a little bit handsy when they shouldn’t have been because it’s just not fair! I met a very nice French boy who may have actually kissed my hand and made me giggle like a schoolgirl, and we talked about how being 27 means it’s important to act like a dead rockstar. I had a desperate lust for any kind of man-flesh but ultimately settled for every fat girl’s fall-back – finding a gay boy to tell you that you’re fabulous and feel you up when you’re dirty-dancing.Naturally. It was a looooong night. I tried to call a taxi sometime after 3, but someone stole it, so I ended up sitting on the porch until around 4am, taking photo after photo, most of which have since been deleted, because normally I wouldn’t put up bad photos of my friend. But in retaliation for some atrocious ones of me that Tom took, let me show you this as a lesson in why Absinthe isn’t always your friend:

And now it’s today and I need to do some cooking and find a sari before Saturday. Hurrah!

Today I started my new job. I get the most awesome chair ever. It’s all posh and adjustable and sexy. Yeah that’s right, the chair was the most exciting part of my job, except for all the very interesting conversations that I had with people about interesting things and stuff that’s going to happen.

Of course in order to start my new job today, I had to finish my old job last week. I was sad to leave. They gave me a lovely card and a present and said so so so so many nice things about me. We had wine and gossiped and went to Siem Reap with the account manager of the design agency we use who I used to know when I worked at VUWSA for dinner and had more wine and more gossip, and then we went to Mighty Mighty for more wine, and I saw really random graffiti on the wall in the toilet that said “I don’t have any Heroes / they are all useless” on the wall and thought “hey, that handwriting looks familiar” but I wasn’t sure because of the lack of punctuation, and also just the plain randomness of it, so I wrote the phrase on a piece of paper and got others to confirm for me that yes, unfortunately that was my handwriting. D’oh! Don’t remember that at all. Maybe it was post Great Blend.

Anyways, it was a super fun night and a lovely way to end six of the best working weeks of my life. It was – as I said to them – just like a beautiful summer romance. But getting up early on Saturday morning to go to Zinefest wasn’t so fun. My new dress arrived that morning, and I decided to wear it, which wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made – after I set up my zine table, I went and had breakfast in Doria, then was using the church bathroom when I looked down and was like “JESUS CHRIST!” at the amount of cleavage I was showing, and I was like “oops, sorry!” looking up. And so I put my hoodie back on for most of the rest of the day. Zinefest was kind of fun, talking to new people, but I was so tired that I wasn’t very talkative. And it was strange watching people reading my zines right in front of me. Because I primarily do my dirty-talking to strangers via the interwebs, I’m not used to seeing their faces when they read it. This was much more immediate. But it was nice to see people giving me their hard-earned money, and people asking me where I stock. And now you can read my zines in the Wellington Public Library collection, if you’re that way inclined!

Then I went home for naps, and to tidy up the house, before going to pick up Lisa and Jay and Jasmine who’d already been drinking. We made the house all purty with lights, and the party began. Highlights included the tasty Martina from Auckland showing up, meeting Other Lisa’s very tall boyfriend, having a cute Dutch boy compliment my boobs a lot and then grab them a lot – and then a little while later he fell asleep on Lisa’s shoulder when we took him outside for fresh air. A Scottish brother and sister sang the national anthem together – loudly and a couple of times. Dylan told me he loved me when I “licked my own nipple”. I use quotation marks, because to tell you the truth, and all secretly now, I didn’t actually. You know that Ashley’s tip is waaaaaaaaaaay low down, and I would have had to haul myself out of the halter in order to properly do it (I can’t get close on Mary-Kate) so I settled for dipping my tongue inside my bra, and that satisfied the crowd.Lisa’s crowd sang loudly. The Scots brother broke a glass, the Scots sister broke a chair – admittedly I think it was the already broken chair. But they were hilarious and cute, so it’s okay. Everyone molested Sebastian, who responded by bringing in a live mouse that I had to take outside. I got to meet Anji’s new gentleman caller, Bambi, and Lisa squealed and jumped up and down in glee when I gave her the cake I made:

I also gave her Liam Finn’s I am Lightning but since she already had it, I offered her up my brand new Appetite for Destruction – which she gave me back in the morning saying she couldn’t take it from me. So after we’d cleaned up the house and got pizza from the Med Warehouse, we went to Real Greedy and found her CSS, and I bought The Gossip for myself, woo. And I have my ticket to their gig, so hurrah!

Okay, earlyish night for me tonight, new jobs are exhausting. So much paperwork!

So this is the thing. It’s 11.37pm, on Tuesday August 7, 2007. I just got home from Wellingtonista Quiz League, on the last #2 bus, and while I listened to melancholy music the whole way home, that does not do enough to illustrate the terror I feel at holding an A5 envelope in my hand from Robyn. Yes, obviously, she has replied to my calls for someone to send me a copy of BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS which I wrote, since I’m going to be selling it at Craft 2.0 along with my mother’s pottery (check out the blog)- anyway. But that was so long ago. I finished it in 2002, anyways, so you have to hope that I’ve changed since then. I remember glancing through a copy in August when I had dinner at Annabel’s house but that wasn’t a full-on confrontation of the way you were five years ago. But I suppose now that there are Korn videos on the TV, and Sebastian curled up on my lap, I should confront it now.

Wow, so that wasn’t quite as bad as I expected. I suppose because I wrote it in 2002, things have changed so much since then. I mean. looking at who read Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, in so-far as who was in it, *IV said it was the sexiest thing he’d ever read, although, you know, that was after we’d had sex another time. The ex boyfriend (you know, of all of those ex boyfriends that I’ve had) has read it, but didn’t comment, surprisingly enough, for all the speaking out that he ever did when we were together and afterwards.

I had other things to say. I had photos in my flickr account to link to. I would have talked about how my new home project was Lisa and I watching Firefly at home. I would have talked about a buttload of social events that I’ve been to with the Wellingtonista, partially revolving around the Wellingtonista Quiz League and partly with awesome fresh fish at the Port Cafe last Friday, and oh, you know what? Whatever. Maybe I’ll post tomorrow or maybe I won’t. But hurray for Robyn, and now things will be awesome. Oh, and hopefully there’ll be new Hubris as soon as Heather can do it!

Now I am 27, and thusly, I have been living life to excess. It’s the rules of being the age of a dead rockstar, after all.

First, I should tell you about my party. It was many many boxes of supplies that I lugged over to Karen’s house which involved many trips and much lugging. Things like couches, blenders, and stacks and stacks of canned goods from a long excursion to Pak’n Slave (man I hate that supermarket!) found their way up into her spacious apartment. More crap got dropped off. I spent Friday night on the couch at home with Lisa and Jay watching Twin Peaks. Mmmm Agent Cooper. I haven’t been out on a Friday night for around a million years, but I knew I would need my energy for the next day. Saturday involved Karen and I trekking around Moore Wilson’s for a long time because obviously four boxes of food and booze wasn’t enough, and then I cleaned her bathroom and we set up the house for the party. I went home to chill out, get ready, pick up al the stuff i’d forgotten (so many lists!) and grab Lani, and we went back early to make sure everything looked perfect. This is what the bar looked like at the start of the night:

Oh HELL yes! Glassware, mixers, syrups, tools, booze, garnishes, fruit, canned mixers, pear brandy champagne fixings in the blender

Karen and Lani both looked like total rockstars, as you can see in this photo:

So obviously it was time to start drinking. Intially, it was me who made most of the cocktails.

This Appletini made with Rhubarb Syrup was possibly my favourite drink of the night.

People started showing up, including Karen’s flatmate in a stunning Beyonce outfit, and Anji and her friends, and some more of my friends, bringing booze with them to add to the collecion. And then, holy crap, Dimebag and a friend showed up! I thought he was dead!

Bart and Blair are awesome like WOAH

The lovely people from the Wellingtonista showed up too, and foolishly placed themselves far away from the bar which meant that by the time I got to them with a blender full of whatever deliciousness was on offer, it was mostly empty. But they still managed to humour me through flat camera batteries long enough for me to take this picture:

I so wish that you could see Martha’s “Human” and “Being” tattoos in this photo to add to her fierceness

And here’s some more photos out of order probably.

I started sharing cocktail-making duties with this very attractive young lady who was called tAtu 1. Well, that wasn’t really her name but I kept forgetting what it really was. Later she and the boy she was with-ish showed off their genital piercings, so Bart pulled out his as well. When I heard that he was showing everyone but me I demanded a look and so I saw his weiner in the kitchen. It was indeed pierced.

There is a sixteen year old in this photo. Guess who it is? In other discussions, see how many people there are packed into the kitchen? It was pretty much like that all night, which made it rather hard to mop up after one particularly drunk gentleman, who’d been Captain McGrabby Hands all night causing some people some distress got a drink thrown in his face, and then also spilt water all over the floor. And puked in the bath, but his fiancee cleaned that up, luckily.

See all the red plastic cups? Yeah that’s right it was a special-enough occasion to break those bad boys out. And yet we still resorted to all drinking from each other’s cups without washing them. Now everyone is sick. Also, how disturbing are Bart’s cutoffs? SO disturbing, and yet so erotic!

On the stroke of midnight, I was in the kitchen making cocktails, when a very drunk Lisa who’d shown up late announced it was my birthday as it was now the 17th. I was giving someone a hug when all of a sudden everyone rushed me all at once. I was thinking it was a group hug, but it turned out it was a group hump. Apart from squealling a lot, I ended up being speechless for about five minutes afterwards. It was a GOOD kind of shock though, honest!

What else were highlights? Seeing Kartini and Mike again. Drinkign many delicious cocktails. Having Shirley there, who’s told me a couple of times since then how nice all my friends are and how they all said lovely things about me. Aww shucks. So here’s some more photos:

Check it out, it’s my old boss (from VUWSA) front’n centre. See how demonstratably employable and sociable I am? Yeah!

This was near the end of the night long after most people had left, and we sat around the table making up shakers to share.

So yes, that was my party. At the end of the night I managed to convince a young lady to come home with me, and so we played records “and stuff”. We were happy in the morning and it didn’t seem awkward but then Lani walked in on us, which means that i’ve decided that my new Matariki resolution, since I’ve achieved the waking up with someone one is to score someone in my house and not have Lani walk in on it. Sheesh, you’d think she’d knock before she walks into the lounge or my bedroom next time. Heh. So anyways, the girl texted Anji to come pick her up, so I texted Anji to bring us coffee. She jumped in bed with us and it was very amusing. Then we went for brunch at Roxy, and to clean Karen’s apartment which reeeeeeeeeeeeeeked of booze.

I was super super tired but I didn’t nap after that, I don’t think. Instead I bonded iwth my couch and the Gilmore Girls before my parents came to pick me up with Anji and Karen in tow, and we went for my birthday dinner at the Tinakori Bistro. It was BYO so I tried to drink the hangover away, and we had lots and lots of food. I got handy presents from people – a seven day pill box from Karen so now I know when I’ve taken my meds and when I haven’t, and an iPod cover to go with my early birthday present of a Nano from my parents, and Anji gave me an awesome carved hairstick, and a purple melamine tray. Karen also gave me a Wham! vinyl, and oh boy, I can’t believe people didn’t realise that George Michael was gay a lot earlier. Dinner was lovely, and I got to tease someone there a lot about someone else that they’d hooked up with the night before (key line used in anything even loosely vaguely able to be interpreted in a dirty way like “I just stuffed it in the envelope” is treated to a round of “That’s what * said!”. heheeh. Between that and the OHMYGODSOMETIMESMYYOUNGESTDAUGHTERISLIKE,ALESBIAN, my poor parents were rolling their eyes a lot. It was a lovely time.

Then what did I get up to this week? I wanted to go to Webstock Mini on Tuesday but I realised I so did not have a spare $75. We had a delightful flat dinner on Monday with much much humourous banter and Lani laughing at me and thinking that people actually know more than they’re letting on. I had a job interview on Wednesday and had to work in the afternoon because I was off sick for Monday and Tuesday with my brain trickling out of my nose. On Thursday I umm I dunno, nothing? No wait! I went to MG’s work with Alan and Sue and Martha and was seriously impressed with the cleverness of them all. We had some wine and some cheese and then went to Medina for dinner. Thanks again MG! I love the way that by describing the night in one sentence I made it sound so cilivised. Heh. When I got home I found that not only had Smoo removed the dead mouse that Seb had caught last night (I presume he ate the other one that was still alive when I ran away tearfully because the mouse kept going up to its dead friend before Seb would pull it back in again. And when I say that he ate it, I mean Seb, not Smoo. Although if Smoo wants to eat dead mice I won’t judge him) but he also cleaned the house so I was very very stoked. And of couse I’ve since messed it up again. And then on Friday Lisa and I hung out with Agent Cooper some more.

Yesterday Shirley and I went for brunch at the Maranui Surf Cafe, and a lack of tables led us to sit outside and freeze to death happily over our deluxe fish burgers. Then we decided to throw a mini cocktail night to try and finish off the booze leftover so I didn’t have to find a home for it all in the overful cabinet. We invited Lisa and Bart over, and Smoo was off work which was exciting, and of course Blair showed up as he tends to do all the time. We had tasty Grasshoppers, and Lisa updated my journal for me, and umm, good times. Lisa and Shirley are making fun of me for something, but that is okay. And today I’m at my parents’ house doing laundry and eating their food. I was supposed to be working on my zine, but hte file corrupted over email, apparently. So instead I’m watching terrible reality TV. But I think my second load is dry, so I might take off now. Woo ha!

Hi peeps. My name is Lisa and you can find my little interwebbed foot home at Ratpony. It’s a crap website.

Hah. Anyways, so like I’m at Jo’s right now with Jo and Shirley.. we’re all incredibly drunk. Jo just witnessed me huffing nail polish remover and then tossing the bottle with numb fingers behind the couch and then giggling sanely… and uh she said “You should write a Hubris entry” and I was all YEAH BITCH. So take it all.

We’ve been drinking the leftover booze from the party last weekend. We used Timtams as straws to drink minty or caramelly cocktails and then ate the delicious booze-infused biscuits. It’s been a good night.

We started out watching Bart and Smoo play some gay soccer game on PS2. So gay. Then they left and we stayed behind and talked ABOUT THEM. Yes that’s right.

I am rubber faced. I can’t feel anything. Hahahah. I keep laughing like Muttley from that show… with Dick Dastardly… or precious pup. HEY! Remember Shirt Tales? Kip! Bogey! Great cartoon.

Anyways, I really have nothing to say of great value. Jo has a lot of groupies… I’ve been with her when she’s been approached. Where are my fucking groupies?”??? Is it because I’m boring?? Is it because of my big ears children? EH?

We love Justim Timberlake. And the Bloc Party. And the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And Sebastian. And Bart Smoo and Blair. And me. And Jo . And Shirley… who has recently moved to Wellington which I am excited about because she is awesome. I tend to like all Jo’s mates. She has WAY better friends than I ever had.

So. Do you like stuff?

Uh…. I can’ tfocus. I’m going to wrtite this next senticen without looking at the keyboard! hEY HOW DID i DO? i AM awesomese!!!!

Ok.

Bye for now eh. Eh? CANADA EH?!?!?!

If I tell you that the highlight of my weekend was squeezing a lump on my arm and actually hearing an audible pop as it gushed, you might think that I had a very bad, very lame weekend. But no no sir, you would be wrong. My Saturday was totally kickass. I slept in until 2, and then rolled around on my bed for another hour listening to Public Address Radio. Since the only time I listen to the radio is for about six minutes as I get dressed on weekdays, and since that’s Raido Active, I’d totally forgotten how fucking annoying radio advertising is. But nevermind. I learnt something interesting that I thought I would remark on, but I totally can’t remember what it was. Nevermind. I did absolutely nothing else all day. Fuck it was awesome. Even my supermarket trip was just about buying snacks and not weekly groceries. The only person I talked to aside from Smoo in the evening and Sebastian who didn’t talk back was the person at the checkout. Bliss! I just read the paper, and caught up on assorted television that’d been recorded over the week, and veged and veged and veged. I didn’t even feel bad about not cleaning. BEST DAY EVAH.

Today I went for brunch at Fidel’s with Mum and Neil and Karen. There was no parking, and that was stressful, but once I finally made it in, I got to say hi to Fia, so that was nice. We talked more about going to Rarotonga for Neil’s 60th. I want to stay here, as I have no money anyway, and am completely reliant on getting a loan to pay for my ticket, so why not dream about staying in a house that costs $3000 a week? That’s even more than our apartment in Tokyo was! I also did washing, changed my sheets, cleaned the house and prepared a Beef Burgandy for our flat dinner party tomorrow. Productivity is nice.

Just in case you were thinking that I’d become too healthy, parehaps I should tell you about my Friday night. I went to Social Club Drinks, but Lani wasn’t there, and after talking to Jarrod just long enough to find out that he can bring Brazillian porn to Country Club Brazil (April 14! Come!) I felt like a no-mates, so I ran away to Arizona to find Lisa. Man, Arizona is a horrrrrrrible bar. But obviously not too horrible for Jimmy, whom I spotted as I cam out ofo the bathroom. So obviously Lisa and I had to get away from him, so it was off to Vintage Bar (underneath Zibbibo, part of the old police cells) to meet up with D&D, and to drink cocktails made with Absolut Pepper, Franjelico and Passionfruit. YUM! Just like Duffman, I was thrusting drinking the pain away. Jimmy showed up again, so we had to run away to Mighty Mighty. Lisa did her own running away then, as Dave did a little while later, but luckily Bart showed up to make up the magic three. We had many jugs of beer, and then Dyl decided to buy us pizza at Scopa. There were no tables for us for a while, except for the foozeball table, so of course we played. And then we ate. Tasty tasty tasty. Bart kept freaking me out because his moustache kept making him compliment me, so I decided to get my own back. When I came out of the bathroom, I pushed him back in his chair and made like I was about to start lapdancing, and his face was like “eeeek” and I was like hahaha, and that was hilarious. Then we went to the Southern Cross where really they shouldn’t have served us, and/or kicked us out earlier. Glasses were broken when boys decided to drink without using their hands. I fetched straws. Walking towards Mt Vic to find a taxi for me, I spotted a cute boy on Vivian St, and asked him to come home with me. And he did, and we “watched the simpsons together”. Yes, it was Smoo. And those quotation marks weren’t needed. LITERALLY. But let me pretend for a second that I have a chance of actually finding someone to sing Bloc Party songs to. I mean the happy ones, not the ones about empty hollow sex. Mostly.

The awesome side of having depression is that when you start to get better, it’s like, so fucking awesome. Yes, this is pretty obvious, but when things have been bad, and you take steps to make them better, and all of a sudden you feel good, you can feel this amazing sense of inner peace and feel like you’re glowing, and everything, just everything is fine, and it’s so fucking good. I’ve had this recently while watching the sun set at Lyall Bay, and when I had Lisa and Brad and Bart around the table for the flat dinenr roast on Tuesday night and my face was starting to ache from smiling, and today while floating in the ocean tryng to pretend that my toes weren’t going numb from the cold. And I know it won’t always be like this, that there are going to be more ups and downs all the time, but you know, let me have my moment in the sun. I deserve it.

And yes, there have of course been ups and downs. I had two days off work last week because I was dizzy and nauseous or just wanted to hide under the covers all day, but the good news is that my blood tests came back clean and when I went to the doctor’s to get a half-hour long blood pressure test, it turned out that I’m down to 118/74, so they didn’t even bother doing the whole half hour thing. Wahoo! I saw my counsellor for the first time on Thursday, and she’s going to make me an appointment with their career counsellor as well as she was quick to discover that I get depressed when I’m bored. She ventured a theory that I rely too much on other people to validate me, and I was like “well, since you said it, it must be true”. Heh. And then I cried when she asked me what I was good at, and what the ideal me would be like. One thing that I’m not good at is talking about what I’m good at without tagging on caveats to everything I say, like “I’m good at writing – but I don’t do it often enough”, “I have a tremendous capacity to love and be compassionate but there are many people that I think I have let down”. I like big buts and I cannot lie. And I talked a lot about feeling like I was 12 years old again and she implied that I was hanging out with a bad crowd and I laughed. The one way that I thought she wasn’t as good as Kalpana who I used to see in 2002/03 was that it was obvious she was looking at her watch all the time, wheras Kalpana had this tremendous ability to guide conversations perfectly in the available time without feeling like anything was rushed, and finding perfect ending places. But that’s okay, I’m sure it’s something I’ll get used to.

Just like I’ve got used to not drinking. Two weeks sober now! Who knew that was possible? Sure, dinner with my family on Friday night was a bit weird, but I’m going to blame that on the disappointly tiny portion of food that the vegetarian dish at the Manhattan Lounge was, and the fact that Horrible Gay Jonny was working behind the bar there, and that made my skin crawl so much that I got my parents to pay for my meal so that I wouldn’t have to talk to him. Brad brought over bubbly on Tuesday to celebrate him landing his first commercial, so I thought I’d have a half a glass to celebrate with him, but after a couple of sips Sebastian knocked my glass over, and so I figured that was a sign. And I tried to have a half glass of red wine tonight with my cumin gouda, but it just didn’t feel right. Of course, it might be that the wine’s oxidised or whatever it is that happens to wine that’s bad since I opened the bottle two weeks ago. I’m planning on drinking again when I get to Auckland, but until then, it’s a no. Did I mention that my doctor warned me to be careful if I do drink on the citalapram “because it lowers your inhibitions quicker, and then come the calls to your ex boyfriends” and I laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m now up to 3/4 pill a day, or I suppose 15mg. I was expecting to go from a half to a whole after a week but I think because I’ve been so nauseous she thought it would be better to take it slower with easing me on it.

I’ve been scatty and spaced out at work, but tonight I finished a thingie that I’ve been trying to work on, so I feel good about that. I also sanded down the other little bookshelf and spraypainted it gold. I bought magazine holders the other day, and sorted out my magazines today. My car is working again although I suspect a new alternator will be on the cards when I get my warrant in February. I found a new flatmate yesterday who I have a really really good vibe about – she works for the same ministry as me, loves Sebastian, wants a home not a house, said she was addicted to Buffy and smiled at my STD paintings. Now I’ve hung them, although they’re not straight. I feel like I’ve been achieving things, and that is good, even if it’s just doing the dishes, doing laundry, going swimming in the ocean. I found a headscarf to wear to the Big Day Out and I’m looking forward to coming in my pants at Dimmer the night before, and then again when Muse play, as long as they play ‘Hysteria’ which once featured in a dream of mine where I was making a porn movie with a guy who looked like Jesus, and we were timing our anal sex so that we’d both come right when this particularly impressive bit of guitar comes in in the song. And also I’m annoyed that I wrote two ‘in in’ together like that, because that’s so Danielle Steele with her bad writing skills being all about the “had had” and I fucking hate that. I also hate that I read two Danielle Steele books in a row, but I’m blaming that on the scattiness and blaaaaaaah of adjusting to my pills, like the proliferation of teen movies I’ve been watching. Much better are Jasper Fforde’s books about the Nursery Crime Division – The Big Over-Easy has Jack Spratt solving the case of who murdered Humpty Dumpty and the sequel The Fourth Bear speaks for itself. Sooo good. And full of word jokes which make me hot.

And that was far too long a paragraph, wasn’t it? Now all I have to do is tax returns for 2005 and 2006 because apparently they owe me money from 2001 (which is odd since Nicky did my tax returns for 2002 and 2003 and they said nothing then), set up a term deposit account and get my stuff back from everyone who has it (my camera is at the Aro house – I’m hoping I can sweet-talk Lisa into retrieving it for me) and reply to people’s emails and I’ll be like, totally on top of my life. For now. And that’s nice.

I skipped work on Friday, because I was feeling like crap. When I woke up in the afernoon, I was feeling much better and able to run many errands and spend much much money on things I didn’t really need, like bottles of brandy, and new Xmas lights and wig hireage. It also made me happy when I went out for a drink with Dylan and Dave that night and there were no gaxies. I made them come to United Video with me to look for Swedish porn, and I think the man browsing in the adult room was unimpressed by Dave taking photos of us. We couldn’t find anything that looked Swedish, although we were tempted by Anal Grannies 4, except that I hear that the sequels lose the magic of the original. Then we ran into Fia on the street who said that Teanau was having his goodbye drinks at the Cambridge Arms so I popped in there after the boys had buggered off, but I only stayed for one drink and then went home on the bus in the rain. I baked a sour cream, almond and apple cake when I got home, but left it in the oven too long because Sebastian was sitting on my lap and I was enjoying our cuddle, so the sides of it are a little too tanned for my liking.

My Saturday day was also about that exciting. I spent a significant amount of it making meatballs, tidying our dining room and stringing up Xmas lights in preperation for Country Club. Oh, and I got dressed up.

If I tell you that I am wearing two mismatched stripey socks, will you know who I am?

Sweden started out really slowly, although Fia and her man showed up on the dot of 8, and we sat around drinking glog. Once again, no one from the tripleK showed up, although Katy had the courtesy to text me to tell me she had to work. I just don’t know how to make them like me and value me, it makes me feel like I’m 12 again and if only I got the right pair of shoes, maybe I’d have some friends. And I know that’s lame. Lisa and Fran came along then, which was lovely, and Dylan came by to drop off the Swedish porn he’d downloaded and burnt to DVD for me, and ended up staying for the smogasbord.

This is what the leftovers looked like in the morning

Fia said that the food tasted Swedish, so I felt really good about that. It certainly went well with the Abba/Roxette/The Hives CD that Fran and Lisa brought over, and the glog went down a treat. Then we watched the DVD, which featured a German cartoon with Norwegian subtitles, and then a couple of standard porn scenes with Swedish girls in them. We all made the standard group-watching-porn kind of jokes that you make. Porn is silly. But at least this was very vanilla stuff, and Fia translated the stunning dialogue for us (who knew that it’d be stuff like “oh yeah baby, you want to do me?”? Sparkling!).

Today I went for brunch with Karen and Mum at the Maranui Surf Cafe, and then I got mesmerized by the piles of things at Briscoes. This afternoon was spent stalking a handful of unsuitable people on the internet (you finished a novel? That is so awesome. I want to read it), and doing the mountains of dishes whilst singing along to Abba/Roxette/The Hives. Now I am watching Poltergiest II although I didn’t bother finishing the first one, and talking pseudo-dirtily to someone else entirely unsuitable. Yes, my life truly is that exciting. Oh, and Smoo cut his hair and now he looks like JD Fortune, except with his shirt done up. It’s all rocking all the time here.

Sorry Wellington, I blame myself. I promise I won’t write about summer again so prematurely. The hot water bottle tucked into my bed right now is a sign that I’ve learnt my lesson.

This week I have become a Lady Who Lunches. I’ve spent my time off still waiting for my security clearance (they must have found out about Mum’s communist background. Or perhaps googled me. Try it. I’m number one! I’m number one!). On Monday I went out to Petone because there is an abundance of clothing shops there for ladies who have an abundance to spare. All I ended up buying was a 1940s’ style turquoise short-sleeved blouse and an electric pink mesh hoodie though. Yes I know. And you’d probably hate it too, but I adore it so. Then I went to Martha‘s house and we had civilised conversations, coffee and her delicious, delicious ginger crunch.

On Tuesday I……. um… I must have done something. Oh yes, I went for a drive around the south coast to The Empire to see Katy. I spent a long time reading the paper and then Rolling Stone, and had a most pleasant time. On my way home I did the grocery shopping in Newtown, and purchased actual fruit and vegetables, which was very exciting. Then Bart and Karen came over to share in the bountiful flat dinner of kickass roast pork (one day I will master the art of getting crackling to actually work properly), apple sauce and all the goodness that many kinds of roast vegetables can deliver.

On Wednesday Smoo and I had hilarious hijinks trying to get Briar’s coffee machine to work, I spent a very long time making empanadas with lentils for Food Baby and I cleaned my room. Yesterday I went in to my new work to check out the offices, pick up a fuckload of reading material and decide when I want to start (Monday). Then I oggled ridiculously expensive clothes in the new Zebrano’s and went to Mummy’s house to set up her new laptop for her. I battled their weird modem (Telstra Clear drilled holes in their floor. Huh?) trying to get their new wireless router to play nicely with it, but I was hampered in my efforts by lack of another ethernet cable and also by the unbelievable amounts of mess piled around the computer. You know how some parents downsize their houses after their kids move out? Mummy and Daddy have just put in a new storage room under the house that’s apparently not for hiding Jews in, despite my best efforts, and they’re also planning on putting in an extension. I made “you’re overcapitalising and spending my inheritance!” type noises over lunch at the Ngaio Villas (So. Many. Children. Yelling. Oh. God. The. Pain) but she just laughed at me.

Then last night in the disgusting weather I made my carefully planned way to Kristen and Chrisana’s for Food Baby. They live in a pedestrian-only street in the middle of a big hill, and the only other time I’d been there, I’d walked up from the bottom when I was really drunk and’d had an awful day at work and was exhausted from the gym anyway and so I’d sat down halfway up and cried. This time I was cleverer and started at the top. I’ve been really dumb recently though and haven’t been to the gym in about two weeks, and my taking of St John’s has decreased in regularity as well, and I found myself feeling somewhat awkward again, and that makes me shitty with myself. I don’t know where my insecurities come from, there certainly isn’t any justification for it, as far as I can see. Bah, nevermind.

Today I am sobbing over Extreme Makeover: Home Edition as I dearly love to do, and tonight I will go out for drinks with the old workmates, no doubt. Well, maybe some doubt, but not very much of it. I’m currently gutted because I’ll be working during the Zombie March next Friday but maybe I’ll work my way up to go watch it, even if I can’t participate. Must. Eat. Brains. Now. Or go and make some tea to try and thaw out my fingers. Or maybe both.

EDIT: Oh, and apparently today is Catmas, therefore behold my four-legged hairy son’s tummy in all its glory: