Hubris.co.nz

This post will be written very quickly while I wait for my flatmate to vacate the bathroom or the kitchen or whatever it is that he’s banging around in.

Things that I have been up to lately have included achieving all the things that I set out to achieve in my last journal entry. I also bought some new jeans. Excitement. I’ll write about them on PPP sometime soon. Posting to PPP is tomorrow’s ambition.

Yesterday Anna-Jane came over, and commanded me to take off my top and bra. Then she rubbed me up and down with passionfruit oil. It felt gooooooood. In exchange, I gave her a teapot and cooked her dinner – mountains of fresh salsa, guacamole, yellow rice, roast pumpkin and quesadillas with black beans, corn & zuchini in gluten-free wraps I had to go to Common Sense Organics for as a courtesy to her and Phillip.  I am the bombdiggity cook, for serious. We also drank an awful lot of mulled wine and did some gossiping.

Today I went and picked up Lisa in Newlands and we went out to Wanda Harland in Petone to meet up with Martha and have brunch at Go Bang. I wanted to buy every single thing in the shop. I met Lucy for the first time and got to have a cuddle, and my ovaries went ping ping ping. Then because it was such nice weather and we had a new early ’00s mix cd to listen to, we drove out to Eastbourne, then went and watched Almost Famous at her house, continuing the trend we’d started with Singles on Monday.

I came up with the hilarious title for this post because I wanted to talk about the commentators on Dooce telling her that her bathroom tiling was ugly, and also the amusing comments I’ve read on sites that I hate but read anyway about insecure girls who pretend to be things that they really don’t seem to be living off trust funds, but really, I need to pee and watch ‘Hush’ so I don’t think I can be bothered getting into all of that. Instead I will say that it’s Karen’s birthday tomorrow, hurrah, and so we’re going to Roxy for dinner. Before that Miss Fur and I are going to go to the zoo, if it’s sunny! Excitement. Not that I can afford it at all, but hey, that’s what credit cards are for, right? And so I’ll sign off and ask you to leave me a comment telling me what you want me to write about in the next post. Cheers!

Haha, I tricked you. Well, sort of. My list of things to do today (well, okay, yesterday since it’s 2.22am now) consisted of “change the lightbulb in my room” and I did that. I also found some whitetac and put up some more Frankie posters, purchased a mask for Anna Jane’s masquerade flatwarming on Friday, and also some accessories for Tom’s #madbad party later in August.

I also had amazing gnocchi at Baobob, great homemade pizza at Lisa Fur’s, and some of the ‘Welcome Home El’ cake that I made. More tasty things in my mouth. Oh, and I had the joy of disposing of what Sebastian wanted to eat – a rat he brought in the window at 4am and was eating under my bed. I picked it up through a plastic bag, but it was warm, and may have squirmed, and I panicked and threw it out the window. Had the rat still been alive, that would have been probably the most humane thing to do anyway. Yucky.

A much more pleasant thing that happened to me this week was on Saturday when I was at Anna Jane’s she decided that she was going to give me a foot rub, and so while she was doing that I said to Phillip “you can give me a scalp massage while she’s doing that” and he actually did. I felt like a pampered princess making ‘o’ faces fit for a tabloid magazine.

And speaking of pleasant things, after she had watch me paint over dolphins (long story) tonight, Lisa and I watched Singles for like, the millionth time. I’m still in love with Campbell Scott, even if he does resemble Campbell Smith, minus the chambray shirt. I miss Jessie. Just as well that she, like KateH, are making home visits sometime this year then, huh?

Okay, so here are the things that I want to do tomorrow:

1. Decide what I’m cooking for dinner, and go to Moore Wilson’s to purchase ingredients.
2. Go to the Warehouse to look for part of my madbad costume
3. Finish the thing I was painting tonight
4. Do two loads of laundry if it’s sunny
5. Tidy my bedroom a little.
6. Cook, mull wine, enjoy the company of my friends.

That’s all achieveable too, right? Right?

Because we didn’t want Mum to have to stress out about Xmas preperations the day after her mother died, on Friday 23 December, Karen and I decided we’d shop for all the food. If you were in Wellington, you might also remember that as the day that the skies decided to bust open and leak bucketfuls of water all over the place, along with some spectacular thunder and some average lightning. It did this especially in the time that it took me to walk to the bus stop. Then at the bus stop I had to wait a good half hour at least (where I felt stupid cos people were talking about why the buses weren’t coming, and I was like “maybe the rain interferes with the trolleys” and a guy said that it didn’t, and I was like well whatever buddy, it always does, and then ten minutes later I looked up and saw that he was wearing a stagecoach uniform), so I should have left the house later and not got so wet. As it was, I left my very soaked hoodie at Karen’s house, after I’d squeezed it out a little over the sink, and when we came back from Moore Wilson’s, it had puddled all over the floor like a puppy.

Have you ever been to Moore Wilson’s two days before Xmas? We went to the dry good section first, and it was when we were just queuing up with our trolley that they announced that eftpos was down. We waited and waited for a while, and it just didn’t seem like it was going to get back up again, so Karen went home for her chequebook. Then we went to Fresh, and the queue for the checkouts started at the door, so I stood with a trolley and nibbled the tasty things that the clever staff were bringing around to pacify customers, and Karen loaded us up with goodies. It was a surprisingly good atmosphere, despite the rain, and the waiting, and the crowdedness.

I can’t remember what I did on Xmas Eve, except for watch parts of National Lampoon’s Xmas Vacation for nostalgic value. It was every bit as terrible as I rememberd it being. Perhaps I hung out with Lisa Fur some more? Oh no, wait, that’s right, I was doing the supermarket shopping and loading up on liquor and snacks for Anji’s birthday, and I ran into Cousin Jacinta so I took her home with me, fed her beer in the sun and made her Pad Thai.

When we’d started to discuss Xmas, and what we’d planned to do on it, I’d suggested we have it either here or at Karen’s house, so that Anji could make an easier escape if she felt the need, and so we were going to have it at Karen’s, but when she started to be all “Oh I don’t know if I even want to come to Xmas” I said “well fuck that, let’s just have it at Mum and Neil’s cos that’s where I want to go, since you’re not commiting to it”. She came along anyway, and had been extensively consulted over our plan to just eat tapas all day long. Then our aunt showed up and stayed for three hours bitching away. Yes, her mother had just died. I can understand why she’d want to hang out with Mum, I really can. But she was just so so so nasty that I eventually stood up and yelled “HEY KAREN, LET’s GO OVER HERE AND DO SOMETHIGN ELSE!” and also “HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT’s COOL? MONKEYS”. Eventually we all cornered my dad in the kitchen and asked him to say something to Mum, who did get my aunt to leave. Nevertheless, it was too late, and Anji was already in a sulk about how we weren’t having a “proper meal” so she left, and the atmosphere got a lot lighter. We took turns reading The Pirates! And the adventure with whaling aloud, and ate chocolate fondue. The taxi took a long cold hour to show up, and I spent lots of money texting everyone like crazy after midnight. Well, Murray anyways.

The next day was Anji’s birthday so I got up to eat crossaints with her, but not to learn how to spell them, and gave her the birthday present that I’d really spent far too much money on – a big fake leather box filled with margarita glasses and rimming salt (heh), and Havana Club Blanco, and Jose Cuervo Gold, and canned stawberries and coconut cream and chocolate-covered coffee beans, and fortune cookies, and Scholl’s party feet, and and and umm that was possibly it. A couple of her friends came over and we had a drink or two in the very hot sun, and then she took all the food and liquor up to Richard’s house, and Lisa Fur came over.

On December 27, we had the funeral, which my mother had argued my aunt down about the need for it to be in Paraparaumu where Oma had lived for the last twenty plus years and where my Opa had his funeral. Mum’d asked us at the hospital if one of us would mind saying a few words, and since neither Karen or Anji wanted to, I said I’d be happy to, just like I had at Opa’s seven years ago, only this time I wasn’t going to be wearing an old suit of his. Much like at Opa’s, I hadn’t really prepared for what I was going to say. I knew that I wanted to talk about Oma’s legendary hospitality, and about how dedicated to her grandkids she was, without trying to raise the hackles of either my mother or my aunt, and about the chilli jam she tried to foist onto anyone who ever came to her house. The celebrant spoke about how Oma’s father had taught her to use her pencil box as a way of defending herself when she was young because she was so little, and so later another ex diplomat’s wife got up and said “Dee was the only one of us who used to play the pros at tennis in the Phillipines, and now I know why!”. It was lovely all the people who got up and shared small memories of her. Most of them also included stories about the food she would cook. I started crying when my aunt spoke of how Oma always used to order a speckook (I cannot spell that to save my life, but it’s a Dutch/Indonesian type layer cake, and when I say layer, I mean each layer is crepe thin, and it’s a mix of batter and then spiced batter so it’s all stripey. It’s quite rich so you eat it in thin slices) for all the people she knew back in Holland every Xmas, and how every single one of the people that Diz and Mum contacted to say that Oma had died mentioned that they’d just had their speckook delivered, and also that when they got to Oma’s house to start sorting out her things, they’d found that someone had sent Oma one, and so that was served afterwards. People kept coming up to me to talk about Oma, which was cool, but also it was strange, because they were people I hadn’t met before, and I had to do a lot of smiling and nodding. One woman, who was dressed in a tie-dyed outfit with dolphins on, said that I seemed to be the strongest one, and I was like “huuuuuuuuuuuuh?” and when she left she told us grandkids that there was strength in the circle, and I smiled and nodded. Because I’d ever so cleverly not had breakfast, I was starving by that stage, and the savouries were really not doing it for me. I jumped in the car with KateB’s parents to guide them to Oma’s house, and there we all waited in clumps with Aunt Leonie and Uncle Graeme who are on my dad’s side for someone with a key to show up, and we finally got to have some decent food. Then we were told to go through the house and pick out what we wanted, and jewellery was dolled out and oh my god it was just horribly painful. Not because of the emotion, although there was that too, but it just seemed like my aunt was taking out her rage about her children living far away from her out on me and Anji and Karen. Bleh. And it took sooooooooooooooooooooooooo long, and it was so hot, and fuck, it was just a horrible afternoon. It was nice to celebrate Oma’s life at the funeral service, but did we have to go and pick over the bones so soon?

We took Mum’s car so that we could leave, and headed straight for Burger King. When I got home it was after 7pm, and I knew that both Heather and Jessie were in town, so it was time to go out and have many many MANY drinks.

To be continued. Again.

Hott news!

Hott food: Pods.

Oh how I love pods. If I ever find out who did the copywriting on the box, I will be proposing marriage. I just want people to get out of the kitchen so I can go and get a glass of milk without the inevitable strange looks that grownups drinking milk generally get. Also a hott food trend: whatever the goat cheese from a great cheeseboard was that I ate on Saturday night at a very pleasent if floorbound gathering I was at.

Hott fashion: Morrocan bead necklaces, turquoise singlet bras, and boobs boobs boobs.

Except not all together. Well, maybe. On Saturday night, Katy had to assure me many times that I didn’t look like white trash. Actually, she never said that I didn’t look like white trash, because she just said that I looked hott – so maybe I could still be white trash? It was probably a bad idea trying to match my eyeshadow to my bra, but I don’t care!

Hott TV: Rockstar: INXS, NZ Idol, The O.C Season One.

Every week I love Rockstar a little more. I’m wondering though why they haven’t done any U2 songs, and I’m thinking it’s because of a HUGE BIG FEUD between INXS and U2. Except that I’ve just this minute remembered that ‘Stuck in a moment’ is apparently about Michael. Oh well, there goes that theory then. Or does it? Meanwhile on Idol, I am drawn in by Steven’s shiny shiny hair, and continuously repulsed by the Merkin, and disappointed in Nik and Teresa. On Saturday night before we went out to Lisa’s (Not Lisa’s, though!), Katy and I watched the first couple of episodes, and then I watched a couple more. So much more betterer than season two! Also hott: getting texts from people I leant my Buffy DVDs to going “Oh my god! Angel’s EVIL!”. Not so hott: people that I leant Angel DVDs to lending them to their friends, who then absconded with them to Australia, probably. Telling me that they will be replaced though is back on the hott list.

Hott way to kill time at work

Move to a new office. Have them give you a morning tea and a string of compliments last week. Be let in on a secret club in response to a scandal. Have workmates set off stinkbombs. Spend the day trying to reconcile transcripts with clips of Michael Hurst talking about Macbeth. Eat too many pods.

Hott personal trend: Agreeing with people when they try to insult you

This one is lots of fun, and incredibly disarming.

Hott entertainment trend: taking Dave over to my parents’ house in an attempt to save their marriage

Thanks to him, Mum can use the computer again. In the meantime I got drunk. Just for a change.

Hott shopping trend: everything in sight, but especially headphones, rechargeable batteries, groceries, hotel rooms, lip gloss, salt scrub and corona.

Every fortnight I seem to spend most of my pay packet in one go. I’m sure that’s probably a bad thing.

Hott sex life

:
Sigh. I suppose that’s what the rechargeable batteries are for.

Hott SRHNness: Still me.

So there.

Hott edits: Reasons why I haven’t posted lately

I was kind of busy. On a completely unrelated note:
ro

Monday September 9th, 2002

I got heat stroke today, which is pretty fucked for early spring. And when I say heatstroke, I mean a sun-induced headache that has withstood drinking lots of water, sponging myself off, naps, beer, nurofen and coffee. So that kinda sucks.

This morning I went to the chemist in Mt Eden to try and get a 3 month repeat on my Estelle35, but they noticed that the repeat expired on the 7th, and said I could have it but the government wouldn’t pay for it, which would have made it $25.95 instead of $3 (incidentally, the only good thing that Jenny Shipley EVER did was subsidise the pill), so I figured I may as well go back to the doctor for a subscription cos that’ll cost $20 but hopefully they’ll give me a 6 month script. The chemist was like “well, you had an extra month written in to the prescription in which to pick it up” but of course, I got a month’s free Diane35 (there is something SO insidious about drug companies giving away free pills) so I’d actually been on it for 4 months, hence why I missed picking it up on time. Because you care. So anyways, that annoyed me.

And then I went in to tech to do an interview, and it wasn’t all that fabulous, so I’m dubious, but hey, and I sat around til one waiting to see if I had another interview to do, but I didn’t, so I went home and decided to go shopping. Bo was like “oh, I’ll come with you and get some shoes” but I was like “nah, I’m just going to the ‘burbs” cos I was all grumpylike, and wanted some alone time. So I got a new top, which is the lowest cut top that I have ever owned. I’m pretty excited.

although I’m guessing at least 60% of my readers have seen everything anyway

And then since I was driving home through Greenlane (past Garland Road and I went “awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww”) I got to shop at Vege World as well, so that’s good cos their produce is much fresher and less smelly than Silverbell. Incidently, does anyone know a good cheap fresh vege place nearer the city?

This evening I put on my top to show Bo, and Clay came in the room and wasn’t really looking at me and was just talking away, and then he looked over and he was like “oh hello!” and kept perving for ages after that. I asked if it was too much, and he said no, so that’s cool. We all went out for coffee, and Bo made me drive down the evil street off City Road in neutral. It was fun. Then we decided to go to Mezze, so we could sit on their lovely lovely deck with the candles and faerie lights, even though we’d originally intended to go to Ponsonby. I like hanging out with my flatmates.

Back at home, Bo and I sat around untangling a big ball’o jewellery of mine that I’d fished out of my drawer tryign to find a suitably dangly necklace to go with this top. I started to watch Lolita, but 1. I didn’t like the book and 2. I fucking hate Kubrick movies, so I decided to go to bed instead. I’m still debating whether or not to wear this top to a PR function. According to Maz, they’re just big pervefests where Joseph lines up the pretty blonde girls to greet the lecherous fifty year old men he invites, but then again, this year might be different, since it’s being organised by students. Hmm. We’ll see.

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.

Saturday, July 20th 2002

In which Joanna tries to right all the wrongs in the world

So, this afternoon, Bops and I went to Newmarket. We were looking for a Sony/Aiwa/Pioneer microsystem under $400 with a cd player, cassette and RCA ports looking good for me, and a computer under $2000 for her. I found a Phillips one which the guy in Bond&Bond woulda dropped to $420 for me, so I figured the guy in Noel Lemming since they’re owned by the same company woulda done for me on an Aiwa woulda done for me for the same price, but it was kinda mintgreen tinged, so I’m not sure if I liked it. But we did find Bops a computer for $1700, and managed to talk the shop guy into being able to put less than a 20% deposit on it. I scrapped up $170 outta my account and she had $60 cash. We felt like we was scrounging for coins under the sofa. T has agreed to set us up a network, so I’mma do my best to not piss him off til he’s done that. Hi T, don’t get shirty with me for writign this. Lately I have been having mad flashbacks about all sorts of things, and I have this image of you in my head of you jumping on my bed and hitting your head on my dusty chandelier. That’s all.

Oh, okay, so where were we? Okay, KateH on the phone at 7.40pm, saying let’s meet soemwhere BYO at 8pm, and so we go through the yellow pages togehter and agree to meet at Sri Panang on K’Road so I don’t have to walk down the hill, but once I’ve finally got my shit together, i finally realise I’m on the wrong side’o the road, and when she calls I dunno where she is, so we decide to meet at Saigon instead. So yeah, super yummy Vietnamese for dinner, and then we go home for Martinis. Emma showed up with some crazyass friends, so that was amusing for a while, especially cos she called me really fucking beautiful and you know I pretty much fall for anyone that calls me beautiful – or maybe that’ sjust everyone I’ve fallen for has also called me beautiful.<!– cos you know I always thought Emma was HOT –> Chicken -> egg -> chicken etc. Katie read my list’o memories from Garland (or from the bathroom, laundry, hallway and kitchen, cos that’s only as far as I’ve ever got with those lists) while I got changed and reapplied makeup. She was impressed that I had “There’s a glass of water out here for you Jo” as a memory, cos that’s what she remembered from the bathroom too. That’s all I wrote down, cos what else can you say about a month of throwing up constantly and stressing out all the people that you care about? Especially since she was just “Justin’s Girlfriend” then (sweetei I love you and I don’t even need to say how much more you are now).

Anyways, where was I before I started talking about things that let’s so not go there right now. Oh yeah, Martinis at home, then we went to a party of her friends’, who are also my friends at tech who apparently actually really like me, so I’m so not a Grand Dick, and that’s yay. They were just down Symonds Street, and their party was on the roof of their building. I spent most of the time talking to the editor of Craccum from 2000, and we had astonishingly similar taste in music, and laughed about teh same things, and he was so cool and I was really surprised that apparently he wasn’t gay. It was choice to see where Kelly and Rowena lived as well. And then, we went to a party at Khuja, which was in the private back room so that was excellent, and I had long indepth conversations with assorted people, mostly to accomodate Katie chatting up boys. The boy I was talking to was talking close and whispering in my ear, and I had to whisper in his since the music was really loud, and I was mocking his partial English accent, and I dunno, I just had a real urge to kiss him behind his ears, and the last boy that I felt that for ended up kissing me, but this boy didn’t cos we left to go do sonmethoing else. What did we do? it’/s hard to remember. Drinks at The Supper Club maybe? And then Oporto, and I rang Justin to see where he was at, and he was like “hey, if you wanna hang out, you should call me before 2.46am” which made me laugh lots cos I ahd no idea what the time was cos Katie had had my cellie in her bag all night.

Then we talked about it, as we had been talking about it all night, and had had a big debate before we went into Oporto, but we went into Starks to have a very loud discussion in front of this FUCKING DICK who has done bad things to someone cool and you so don’t do that on our watch without us having to say something, and yeah, so loud obnoxious indignant conversation til we got the “You ladies would be more comfortable in the Civic Lounge” line, and fuck Katie, when i started this evening, I had $75 in my pocket, and now I have $6 for laundry and like $4 in scrapnel. What DID we get up to? Love you SO much baby xojo.

Today was a long leisurely lunch with KateH, devouring the wonderful vegetarian antipasto at Roasted Addiquition (I can never spell that right) <!– She said terrible terribly funny things –>. After that she asked me to drive her to St. Lukes to buy socks, so I said okay, temporarily forgetting how much eviler malls are when they’re crowded on public holidays. But hey anyways. So she got socks, and then cos there was a big sale on we went and looked at underwear and she said “you’re going to write this in your journal aren’t you?” but I’m not going to write what she thinks I am going to write, so HA!. Apparently I am not to email her to her work address to ask what kinda panties she’s wearing though – go figure. Bonds panties kick ass. PANTIES! PANTIES!

Then I sat on a sofa in a clothing store and read magazines while she tried on other clothes. A girl stripped off her top to try on something else in the middle of the store – I was suitably impressed. I heard someone else say “Bok! Bok bok!” so I immediately thought it was o and I spun around but it was just someone random commenting on a feathered top. Stink. I guess I just had panties on the brain. After that there was lipgloss and eyeliner purchases at Kmart and we walked around for ages and ages trying to find a present for her younger brother. I was full of helpful suggestions like “what about a toaster?”. She ended up buying Singing in the Rain for herself, and we went back to her flat to watch it. That film kicks ass! (Sidenote: when we were in Farmers, there were tshirts with lame logos like “girls kick ass” on them. There was one that was okay, but fuck, I can’t remember what it said now, except that it should have had an apostraphe in it but it didn’t, so she couldn’t buy it). But anyways, yeah, now I am wishing that I was a tap dancing star, and lusting after all the clothing and houses and stuff in the movie. While we were watching it the phone rang and Mazzy scared Katie by singing the title song down the wire at her, because she was after me and Clay had told her where I was and what I was doing. I love my stalky stalky friends.

After that I went home in time to meet my mummy and her friend Paul who have been in Auckland for a potters’ convention. We went and had dinner at Fraser’s in Mt. Eden, which was really really yummy – I had a kaffir lime infused risotto with bok bok bok choy and crusted chicken breast, mmmm. And because the place was unlicensed, they had to come back to The Slab afterwards to drink a bottle of wine, and it was uncomfortable cos Ben was around and he was being his usual stupid moron self. They’re gonna be back here in exactly eight hours to pick me up so I guess I should finish packing and get some sleep. I’m all warm and glowing from a bath using the passionfruit and echinecia bath bomb that Willow Shoes sent me. Also, my willow shoes are great and I love them a little more every time I put them on.<!– gee, look at how fucking self centred I am – “I” had lunch, “I” drove to St Lukes, “I” am self centered – that’s terrible, I’m such a terrible person –> (Explanation from 2010: the Hamilton guys attacked me in my guestbook for daring to be upset when I found out that Scott had died in the cheese factory)

I don’t actually spend all of my time drunk. I’m not sure if I’ve made that clear enough recently in my journal. I do actually do other things. Really. I just don’t write about them, although in my head, I’m constantly telling stories.

A couple of days ago, Kate H and I took Brad shopping for a new shirt. We were hoping to be able to end up doing a shopping montage scene, ala Pretty Woman, but he wouldn’t try many things on. Eventually though, we did get him a really cool shirt, and so he bought us coffees.

Shirley dropped lollipops all over my bed today when she came in while I was still sleeping. Well, I was half asleep anyways. Justin had been over much much earlier, and he’s kinda hard to sleep through. I made scones, and we had Sunday Lunch, with her and Kate B and Kate M who was still there although Brad was not. I find it very amusing the way Shirley speaks of her man.

I have a crush on yet another boy after dreaming about him. This amuses me greatly too. I’m 13 again, I swear. I also had a rather horrid dream this morning, in which I was a guy, and abused some women rather badly. That was nasty.

I have three papers worth of work to do still in the next two weeks. If you’re looking for me, I’m imagining you’ll find me at tech. I hope I remember to take earphones. You can go here in preperation for my Expo.

The other night, Brad and I went over to Kate Morrison’s to watch “Bringing Out the Dead”. We stood in her kitchen gossiping while Brad cooked himself dinner, and that was fun. The movie made me think about all sorts of weird things. It was really good and really disturbing too. I borrowed a stack of books of her – teenager crap. Remember Paula Danziger? I finished “The Pistachio Prescription” today, and now I have some “Freshman Year” books to read. I like reading crap when I’ve been reading Literature for too long. I still haven’t made much headway into “A suitable boy”. On the way to Kate’s, because Brad’s car has no radio, he named all the songs that he’d heard on Classic Hits that day, and I sang them. On the way back, we sang Song Association. It was Very.

Yesterday I got lost on the Shore, trying to find my way to Penny’s house. Her fiancee and a couple’o navy guys were there, and I felt quite out of place. They probably thought I was a prissy snobby bitch, and maybe they’re right. It was lovely to see Penny though, but I don’t understand how she could let herself be treated like that. I have quite a diverse range of friends, I think.

Last night Kate M came around and had a few drinks with me and Kate B. Later Kate B and I got ready to go out to the Space party that I described in detail. Brad drew the eyes on our foreheads, in wet coloured pencil, and he even drove us too, lovely boy that he is.

Today I spoke to my mother on the phone. She was all grumpy cos she’d rung three times and I hadn’t answered cos I was in bed. Her and Neil are coming up for the expo, and Anji might too, which would be cool. I got her to test my site for me. I really should stop writing and go to bed now. I should have gone a while ago. I’m just feeling really – I dunno. I haven’t said everything that I’ve been up to lately, you know, so I feel like I’m lying to my general public or something. Well, not lying, but just not delivering all the facts. And it’s not that I’m hiding anything, just that I’ve forgotten all the things I meant to say.

Oh yeah, my main reason for this entry was to put in a link to Adbusters. They were in “No Logo” a lot, and I like. I don’t like flies. Why are there flies in my room? Fuck off!

I don’t like fireworks very much

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

Wednesday 21/6/00 , 2000

Again, Anji had to work early, so I stayed in bed. Either today or tomorrow, I had really crazy odd dreams. In the first one, I was like the receptionist at a brothel operating out of a school. In the second, I had me a big bag’o heroin that basically looked like kava powder, all brown like. I remember Anji was telling me not to touch it, yet I was snorting it off my little finger. Being on heroin was really dreamy. I was dumb though, and drove my car home, absolutely fucked up. But yeah, it was just a dream.

Another cruisy morning around the house by myself. I just wish that my bed was more comfortable! Around 3, I got my shit together, and headed off to Brunswick Street. I wal,ked leisurely down it, aking time to go into lots and lots of shops on the left hand side of the road. I had another brilliant coffee at Atomica, and another brilliant sandwich. They were playing Che Fu – Anji says it’s owned by New Zealanders. They sell a coffee blend called ‘Aoteraroa’ which is apparently Coffee Supreme – the same stuff they use at Olive.

I went back to the cyber cafe also, to find a nice long email from Maree. Apparently Kate Benton has moved in. Yay! That was very very exciting news. I find it amusing especially that it took Maree to tell me. I sms’d her to tell her I was emailing her, and lo and behold, she wrote me back straight away. She’d been watching Full House. Heh!

Eventually I met up with Anji at Joe’s, and had a drink. Then she and I went to meet her friend Leila and this other chick at a pub called the Punter. I got a trifle bored, cos they talked nonstop about work. Eventually we left and Anji and I went to a restaurant called Retro for dinner. It was really cool – old formica tables, mismatched chairs and tea towels as serviettes. I had linguine with tomato, bacon, basil and parmesan, which was yummy – not quite the creamy pasta I was craving, but close enough. Anji had a thai beef salad and we shared a bottle of red (for a change) We got cake takeout from Joe’s on the way back home.

We rented and watched Plunkett and Macleane about highway men with Johnny Lee Miller (yum!) and Robert Carlyle. It was dumb, but entertaining. I want an 18th centuary breast-squishy dress! Then we watched Angel whilst smoking the ever present pot. My clothes reek of smoke. Must wash them before I hit customs.

June 2000 – Thursday 22nd

Okay, going back in time now (it’s actually Saturday). That’s okay though, cos I am actualyl pretty smart and I think I can follow my own diary. Hopefully anyways!

So yes, Thursday. It was raining and all horridible and grey, so I didn’t really want to leave the house. I played psx for a while, but couldn’t find Tekken, unfortunately. When I did eventually leave he house, it was with my hood up. I debated abut buying a tshirt with a picture of japanese girls taking photos on it, but i restrained myself.

Anji was watching people playing cards when I got to Joe’s. Her and Guy are no longer friends anymore, unfortunately. Appparently he wanted her, but when he got over that he was also over the friendship. Ahh life’s a beetch, isn’t it? Yes indeedy.

Anyways, I was really sick, and getting steadily sicker, a cold degenerating down into a cough. Still, we walked to Lygon Street to meet up with her friends – Boring Mark from Wellington, and Helen Preston from oldskool days. And maaaaaaaaan, were they boring! I mean, they’re very nice people, but so so boring! We went to dinner at some Italian restaurant that looked nice, but the food was very mediocre. I had fettucine with bacon, mushrooms, cream and pesto. It should have been hotter. The waiter kept filling up our wine glasses, which I don’t like because we’re all perfectly capable of doing that, and it sucks to be rushed. What was even worse was the speed with which they cleared our plates. Not impressed! Fuck I’m such a hospo snob!

After dinner we went to a bakery for coffee, lured in by all the goodies in the window. I had a florentine but it was too thick, and not buttery and cherryily like it should have been. Ahh well. Then we wnet to some comedy club by the Nova movie theatre. It was about 150% of the size of the Classic, and painted black. The tables were pushed together so it reminded me of Soup Plus. I went and threw up cos I felt sick, and was really disturbed by seen bits of blue plastic in the toilet bowl, until I figured they must have been from day/night capsuales.

The comedy was okay – the sets were too long though. We left after the MC and one act. I was sooo tired, you see. Taxi’d home. If I ever find a meellion dollars, I owe it ot the cab driver. Okay then! In bed, I read for ages Love in the time of Cholera. It’s amazing!

Friday June 23rd 2000

It’s been two weeks. I must say those two weeks have gone by amazingly fast. I hope the rest of the time from here to that elusive “Long Term” that i’m better off in goes by as quickly.

Anji didn’t start work until 12, so we’d discussed going shopping to get a pressie for Niel, but I was too tired, and feeling a little too sickly. But later I got off up and set off (got off indeed, Gary Glitter!) for Brunswick Street – for the last time.

For my first stop, I went to a shop called Fun that sells jewellary and accessories. I bought a pewter coloured lurex scarf that’s so cool it can stretch out to shawl size as well. I also bought some body glitter. I wanted to get Anji some flowers, and also something candle-y. So, i looked in lots of shops. I went back to Net Central, but had no new emails. Then I decided it was time for some food, but i had no idea where to eat. I investigated a couple of cafes, but nothing really appealed. Then I went into a place called The Fitz thinking it had counter food, but they didn’t. However, I felt kinda intimidated, so i stayed for coffee and a muffin. They served the muffin on a full sized dinner plate, dusted with icing sugar and a flower out of raspberry coulis, which seemed a little over the top. It was too hot, and I burnt my fingers on melted marshmallow. Other than that though, it was nice!

I finally managed to find Anji a little paper lantern candleholder, and I bought her a candle to go in it as well. The woman in the African store I went into was like “wow, yo’ve got so much hair” – and I didn’t know how to reply to that! Everyone kept trying to sell me poetr or their new novel and stuff – I just smiled and shook my head. I was in a brilliant mood! I stopped at this funky flower shop to combind electric-purple little flowers with orange daisy thingies – it was an unusual combination but I think it worked well! Then I went back home and had a lovely bath, languidly shaving my legs and stuff like that. Then I lay in bed for a couple o hours, reading the fabulous book and doing my nails. Just before six, Ange walked past the door and was like “oh, I didn’t know you were home – I’ll cut your hair now if you like”. Which, of course, I liked. So I wet my hair and went down to the kitchen. While Ange cut my hair, her and Rachael and this guy Richard were talking about the flat they’re going to move into probably – in a building called “The Max” (I must remember to tell Brad!). Richard was going to call his mother to do a tarot reading on the vibes of the place. They were also talking about how Ange gets energies off the poeple whose hair she is cutting, so she uses protection balms and washes her hands and the energies way after each person. Luckily I had my hair over my face so I didn’t have to smirk too much!

Later we drank red wine while waiting for everyone else to show up. Richard was playing the Coldcut cd, so I asked if he had gone to the gig and we had a good chat about free tickets and and rock bands and yadda yadda. Eventually Timmy surfaced and Anji came home with Lee, so we were just waiting for Mikey. He came home with a prompting phone call, in a car with two other chicks, so Rachael and Richard went with him, and the rest of us piled into Lee’s car. I am so stoked with my hair. It’s about 3 inches shorter, and just has so much more shape now. Which is good!

Mihn Mihn’s looked really full, but they found space for us upstairs – lucky cos there were 10 of us. It took aaaaaages for everyone to order – Anji and I got sweet&sour fish, and duck with plum sauce. Dishes all arrived at seperate times, which meant we all had to drink a lot to fill in time. I tried one of Racheal’s scallops, and it was really nice. Everything tasted so good, apart from Timmy’s cold rice paper rolls. If they’d been hot, it would have been scrumptious. The fish was exquisite. Unfortunately, the duck came last, by which time we were almost too ful. But of course, I managed to cram some in. Mmmmmmmm! The bill came to $13 each – so good!

Back home we went to open the last bottle of red, and smoke pot, as per usual. I went upstairs and promptly threw up. A lot. It’s a mark of how good the food was that it tasted almost as good going out as it did in! By that stage, I was quite quite drunk, and turning melencholy, almost crying in the darkness. I associate the taste of vomit very strongly with someone. More than anything, I wanted to make a call, but I knew it was past 2am in NZ, and that no one would answer the phone. I even wanted to leave a voicemail message, but somehow I restrained myself. It helped how drunk and cute Racheal and Ange were. They took lots of photos of us, in between kickboxing and telling stories that went nowhere. Eventually, Anji and I were both really tired, so we went upstairs and I finished “Love in the Time of Cholera” – awww such a sweet good book! Love CAN last 70 years!