Hubris.co.nz

Things that I have been up to lately:

I fought off my anxiety over whether or not anyone would actually show up for America at the Country Club with the phrase “Well KateH is coming, and that’s all that matters”. But then when I went to Chrisana’s goodbye Paramount drinks on Friday night, after expensive but tasty Thai with Karen at the Oriental Thai, everyone was like “fuck yeah!” about coming, so I informed them that the official colours of the university were black and green, because that was the colour of balloons that I’d happened to buy at the supermarket the night before.

This of course meant that Saturday was spent in cleaning the house and decorating the lounge with said balloons which had been blown up by me and the boys with the aid of a balloon pump the night before while they watched the Steel Mill and I tried not to get beaten up for making derogatory remarks about metal, and green and black streamers, and rasturbated banners that said “Pledge Eta Beta Pi!!!” and “Pledge Gamma Gamma Gamma!”. The boys, meanwhile, went to Bunnings and apparently had long discussions with one of the men there and spent $38 and came home and built Liz the Funnel with valves and all. Why Liz? Because apparently all funnels are supposed to be named for whores. Bart said “Liz Phair!” and I would have growled at him except that I knew he meant L** S*** instead. Smoo was like “Liz Phair’s still a whore” and I was like “hush your mouth! She’s a boring suburbanite mom now. I miss the blowjob queen!”.

The keg was delivered in the afternoon, and we had many long discussions about where to put it – if we left it on the front doorstep, would ferals come up and steal it? But if we put it inside the dining room, would it make a mess? Eventually we compromised by closing off the kitchen door at the end of the hallway and putting it there. I dressed myself up in the university colours

This pic was actually taken at the end of the night, so imagine how fantastic I must have looked sober. And yes, I do appreciate that anyone who knows me probably has very little idea of what I actually look like sober…

and was just about to go and pick up Brad and Karen when I got a voice mail on my phone from some guy saying “I got a link to your blog from Public Address, and it sounds like you’re inviting all and sundry to your party, and I don’t know anyone in Wellington so if I ask politely, can I come?”. I was like “huh? I don’t write a blog” but since the guy had left his number twice, after he took my interogation questions in good stead (“1. Gilby or Izzy? 2. Who would win in a fight between a pirate and a ninja? 3. What word did you use wrongly in regards to talking about my website?”), despite him giving all the wrong answers I texted him my address, warning that the party would be fairly small – around 16 people or so, and that he would stand out.

It turned out that at first, the party was very split, with Bart’s Eta Beta Pi clustered in the dining room, while us Sorority sisters were in the lounge. Ash or perhaps Kristen even said when Sebastian came running in “Sebastian, what are you doing in here? You’re a boy!” and I was like, ummm, what about Brad? But we mixed it up more when people went outside to do funnels:

Bart sucks it down

LisaB takes in her own body-weight in beer, while Kristen is caught in the act of being so very 2006 with her camera-phone

Eventually, having laughed at the boys enough, Gamma Gamma Gamma were also persuaded to do keg stands.

LisaB fearlessly went first, and achieved full verticalness. She is our hero

Ash loved it so much she went twice

KateH showed up late for the party but hurried to make up for lost time

I was worried that they wouldn’t be able to hold me, but they assured me they could, and so I did a couple as well. The first time my arm slipped and hit against the keg which wasn’t fantastic, but holy crap, keg stands are my new favourite thing in the entire world ever. EVAH. Except that I am so fucking sore today, or at least I was until I took a lengthy spa at the gym in my lunchbreak instead of doing a proper workout. I am naughty. My arm also got hurt when we jumped Smoo as soon as he came home from work and forced him into a kegstand while Bart paddled his ass with a cricket bat, except that he got my wrist a lot more than Smoo’s ass, and Smoo kicked out, and knocked Kart over, but to be honest, I’m not sure if she even realised. Even Karen did a keg stand when we agreed to let her put a plastic cup of daquiri and straws down on top of the keg so she wouldn’t have to have beer.

And of course, because it was Country Club we passed around our pieces of trivia, and I made everyone hot dogs (which were fucking good) and also oatmeal cookies (I really should remember to bake more often) and assorted other snack foods. Eventually most of the people had left (*), so me and Karen and KateH and Bart and Smoo just sat around the dining room table eating apple pie and vodka jelly. Bart was falling-off-his-chair drunk, and incredibly entertaining. He decided to call up everyone in his phone who wasn’t at the party, and even though it was 3am, we let him. Yes, we are enablers. And we laughed our heads off. Then Karen left, and KateH and I decided that it was time to watch Mischa Barton die, so we did, even though the boys were dividing their time between bitching about it and falling asleep. I am so so so so glad I got an Auckland friend to attend a Wellington friend and Country Club event, and that it all went well. We only made $85 back on a $200 keg, which sucks, cos obviously not everyone who drank it chipped in, but meh, I generally spend about $100 on each Country Club anyway, by the time I add up all the costs.

In the morning KateH and I went and had coffee (She was like “I didn’t think I’d stay, but of course I did – when have I never stayed after one of your parties?” and I racked my brains trying to think of an answer), then I spent the day doing laundry and watching videos, dozing, and avoiding the large pile of dishes in the kitchen. I wonder if they’ve been done now…

September’s Country Club will be Morocco, after we realised that we have totally neglected Africa, and then there’ll be a German Octoberfest in October, strangely enough. Then when I come back from San Fran, we’ll do a Mexican Day of the Dead, and that’ll be all of North America polished off…

So I end the weekend with at least three more stalkers, and a strained thigh muscle, and a missed opportunity to do some stalking of my own. How did this happen?

I realise that my last entry starts out with me talking about friday night drinks with my workmates. This one’s going to be like that as well. We had a farewell for a much beloved girl last friday, and consequently there were many many drinks. There was also a game of “pick up the box in your teeth without touching the ground with anything except for your feet” and every round the box was cut lower and lower. I got down to three inches before I had to pull out, damn pearls and boobs and hair in my face. This is where the thigh pain comes from, but not the bruises. They’re always a mystery to me.

Then there was a singalong. Hurray! It was rully rully choice and I was drunk enough that I was bringing one hand up as I sang, pretending that I was an idol – or perhaps Jordis. Damn I wish I was Jordis. Also, who has singalongs at work? That rocked!

And then we moved off to Havana Bar where many many more drinks were consumed, and all appropriate levels of self disclosure were breached (since I told my workmates, I might as well tell you guys that I think I have worms, and oh my oh my, my bottom it itches. But Anji refuses to shine a torch up there and have a look. She’s so selfish.) I saw Anne which was strange since it’s been more than a year, and then at one stage I cried quietly in a corner and had some more to drink. Eventually I decided that it was really really time for me to leave, and as I was trying to go, some random guy started trying to pick me up, and then I think I was sitting somewhere and talking to someone and then it was noon and I was getting up to feed Sebastian and pee and then it was 4pm and I felt very very sick.

Anji was speculating on whether or not I had picked up since apparently I did a lot of talking when I got home. I figure it was just Sebastian I was talking to though. I don’t know how I got home. I have no memory of the taxi ride. That’s probably not a good thing at all. I’m really not looking forward to going to work tomorrow either. I’m hoping that everyone was as drunk or close to drunk as I was. They probably were. I’m wondering if I got to tell the girl who was leaving just how rad she was and how welcome she made me feel when I moved into the new building and she gave me the secret directions to the secret solution to the not secret scandal. I hope I did.

Last night I was supposed to go out to Mike’s party and stalk the boy that I’m stalking but there was just no way that was going to happen. It was a struggle to get from the couch to the door to get my pizza (and wow, who knew that Domino’s Vegorama had bacon and pepperoni on it? Not me!). Instead it was pyjamas and duvet and rockstar. Then when I was watching the start of Donnie Darko, my cellphone rang with a number I didn’t recognise. I was hoping it was someone who was gutted that I wasn’t at the party, but instead it was a voice I didn’t recognise. He told me that he’d found my business card and was really intrigued, and I was like “………………..huh?” And he said it was the “I like words. I really like words” bit and he wanted to know what I did. I was like “yeah, I do really like words” and he said something about ti being a hard question for a saturday night, and so I said I was an editor, and he was like “okay cool, thanks bye” and hung up, and I was like ??????????? Where the fuck did I leave my cards?

And then today I got a series of dirty text messages from a random number that started out asking me if they could lick my pussy dry before I licked theirs. I was like “okay, where the FUCK did I go on Friday night?” but I texted back to say “Aren’t you supposed to lick it wet?” and then pointed out that text language made me think that they’d be a lazy lover. A great number of texts followed with me going “hmmmm, I really wonder who this is” before she revealed herself to be a friend of Trixie’s. Trixie – you have strange friends.

AND THEN! Oh yes, it keeps getting worse. I was at the local pub for a roast dinner with Anji and Dave, and then Anji’s friend Jo showed up, and Anji was like “Jo (me) doesn’t remember what she did on Friday night and she’s getting all kinds of stalkings” and Jo said “I bet I know what you were doing…. you were at Havana Bar” and then I just about started crying. Turns out she’d just seen me there but we hadn’t talked or anything cos I was out the back where apparently people were smoking pot. Shocking!

Let’s not have a repeat of these kinds of incidents next weekend, okay, J Crew? Please? Thank you.

I was sitting on a stool at the bar in the Kings Arms, with KateH and her flatmate Karen, waiting for the Heavy Jones Trio to come on when the girl next to me looked at me. “Excuse me,” she said, “but are you Joanna?” Yes, yes I am. “You don’t know me,” she told me as I racked my brain trying to think of who she was, “but I used to read your journal all the time. I even submitted mine to the Breast Club”. Ohhhhhh. I didn’t catch her name and I thought it’d probably be out of line for me to ask her to pull up her top and see if I remembered her that way, but still. And then the girl she was with knew KateH from her job, and so we both laughed at Karen because she wasn’t famous. Exciting! Oh, and if you did decide to start reading me again and you’re here, the singer told you to have a horrible night as y’all walked out, which was mean of him but ever so cute. I think the last person who fan-spotted me was Secret Passage Robyn.

And so as cool as that was, it paled in comparison to how cool the Heavy Jones Trio were. They opened with “Straight Into Your Arms”, the song of oh so many mix tapes, and I instantly fell in love with the singer. Later when they played “Special” it was so beautiful I almost started crying, and that of course led me to thinking about how nice it is to actually have feelings again, having completley wasted the last six months feeling numb, drinking too much, smoking too much pot, watching too much shit tv and having empty boring sex. I can do so much better with myself! Really! But back to the Heavy Jones Trio, unless I get too distracted watching the Westpac Trust Helicopter land outside my window. Yeah, anyways. I hope they get a record deal real soon, although they did mention their EP a couple of times, along with trying to get us up off the floor and dance. He was looking at me the whole time, (I swear!) and he did this funny leg jiggling thing that was so fucking endearing. I swear, I have such a fatal weakness for scrawny boys with very very short hair who look like they need mothering. The old soup&blanket theory, if you will.

And with that last (incomplete) sentence, I can nicely link into the big discussions we had about grammar in Persuasive Communication today. I LOVE class discussions. I don’t so much love speeches about umm fuck,I can’t remember which one it was that made me feel really bad about myself. Probably the drinking age debate one. Italia spoke about how AUT is a university and I was just laughing to myself, especially when she said (to paraphrase) that it’s only wankers who have inferiority complexes who like to stress that we were originally a polytech. Te he he. Discussions about monarchy spilled out of the classroom and into the lift all the way down to the ground. I love Com Students. I hate the lifts which steal at least 15 minutes of my life a day. My speech went pretty well, I’m gonna send a copy of it to my notify list, and then eventually one day I plan on having an academia section on my site, so I might put it up there too.

In the evening, KateH came around after her work, and invited me to dinner at her house,and told me that the HJT were playing at the Kings Arms. I was so fucking stoked, because they’d opened for the Proclaimers, and I so badly wanted to see them that if i’d been given a free ticket, I would have gone. And then they played at an Industry gig that some of my friends got to go to, and I was very very jealous, but now YAY finally I’ve seen them live,and apparently they’ve moved to Auckland so I will be able to see them more often. Now all I need is for them to get a record contract so I can buy their album, and everything will be special…..

This is me resisting doing a booty call but I’m so real tempted, and if you’re reading this, you do know you’re fucking excellent in bed, right? Like, that thing you do with your fingers and my clit, OH MY GOD. But from now on, I’ll be PG. Oh, did I mention it’s been one of those nights? I’m sure you’ve realised it anyways.

Where was I? Oh yeah, answering phones for KateM for three and a half hours, playing on an internet that actually works, as opposed to this one at home. Although finally it seems to be working. Anyways, so yeah, day spent at KateM’s work, trying to be all cool and shit, adn then I had coffee with Thomas to say like an official goodbye. Like,you can go “what the fuck?” and all, but yeah, it was important to me. So I did that and stuff. And then I came home and Clay hugged me lots. Ohmy god, did I mention that he knew about my fuckbuddy all along? And there I was thinking i was so sly and discreet. But I’m sure I’m talking about something more important.

Like maybe Inco being parked in Mt. Eden at KateM’s house. Hi Scott! Hi KateM. Damn stalkers. Anyways, their party was lots of fun. I talked to lots of programmers and got all defensive and thought I was boring til they pointed out that they could have quite easily have walked away. Hamish and I had another staged political arguement, this time about the Treaty of Waitangi and I was arguing on the side of the Tangata Whenua, so that was fun. There would have been more dancing only ummm, I can’t remember what my excuse was. Oh yeah, I wanted hip hop only it was all house. I miss Ayna! I wanna be at her house listening to oh baby I like it raw and you can call me dirty and then lift up your skirt. I like the hip and the hop. And I punched Justin lots for something that’s not his fault but which I blame him entirely for. And I talked to Lovely Paul and all and eventually we ended up in taxi going to town, even after I knocked bottles off the porch onto the ground.

And I talked to Jody a lot whichwas ex OOOH NEW PLUTO VIDEO. Okay, so I’m back from that. I did Moscow Snow. Hey EM, I’d love to send you Pluto and other stuff, except of course that you haven’t writeen me in aaaaaaages. Meh. Oh wait, I was going to stop saying “meh”, because the boy used to have an ex with the same name as me who used to say “neh” all the time, but really, it’s not all about the boy. It’s about drinking too, I’m sure. And dancing at the oh my god, what the fuck is it called? The Grand Circle. Yeah. That aws cool. And then walking home all blah blah and saying “hi” too much and i’m sleepy and I gotta boot up wordpad to do my index since notepad won’t take it. Etc etc. Also, programmer Jason – KateM agreed with me that you had hairwhen I first met you. So there.

Monday 8; Febuary, 1999

this came from Engine. Sorry if I’ve broken any copyrights

I scanned this in today for someone and I figured that you might enjoy it too. I mis Frankman, and I miss Engine too.
I finally talked to Dee this morning. Sheesh, I haven’t seen her in like, years. She rang me while I was lying in my new big bed, feeling kind of like I was on honeymoon only I was wearing scummy pj bottoms and an ugly tshirt instead of my authentic 1970s orange and yellow honeymoon neglige or my 1960s Barbarella slip.

There are some tasty visuals for you, huh? Anyways, she was just as enthralled as me to learn that her best friend from early High School, Theresa is none other than the Theresa of Kate’s friend fame who has been responsible for a great deal of damage to my body these past weeks. So yeah.

Kate came over today, and told me I was going to her place on Saturday for drinks before the Hero Parade. I told her I don’t like parades. She was like “but it’s the HERO Parade”. I don’t care if it’s the Hero Parade. That’s no different in my mindset than a Santa Parade, a Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, or that really really stupid thing they had back in ’95 when everyone wore red socks and threw paper in the street because of some boat winning some expensive race and I was the only person left in my English class because everyone else wagged to go and see it but I was protesting. Anyways, Kate doesn’t take no for an answer ever. Someone remind me please to take along RED wine with me so that I don’t have repeat inncidents of last time’s capers. Choice.

Speaking of stalkers – not that I was, but hey, my rinky dinky counter told me this morning that I’d been linked to from a journal entry on Olivia’s page. Who is Olivia? Well, I was asking myself that same question when I got an authorization request from her on ICQ. So yeah, I had a chat to her, and she was really cool. She said that she’s been seriously thinking of ringing me up on my cellphone, which made me giggle heaps. Can you imagine that, being rung by someone you don’t even know while you’re out in public and are showing off anyway? Well, I got good visuals of it, anyways.

What else? Oh yeah, Kate helped me dis-assemble my single bed (“if you were a green metal bedframe, you’d want to be hit with a hammer too” as I said to her when she complained about the noise) and so this evening I rearranged the lounge to acomodate it

Clayton: “I’m jealous because both you and Simon have beds with wrought iron headboards”

Me: “Well soon, anytime you feel like playing ‘tie-me-up’ games, you can just do it on the single in the lounge”

Of course, that conversation didn’t take place today, because he’s in the Coramandel. That’s actually kinda lucky, all things considered, because I got a tape in the mail today from Andee. It’s got awesome stuff like 5ive and Billie on it. I was singing and dancing like there was no tomorrow.

And if there is no tomorrow, you’ll need the following websites to amuse yourself with:

www.myboot.com | www.jailbabies.com – I reccomend Felicia

thanks to kini for the urls and for stalking me so well

Monday 25; January, 1999

Yay, I had a stalker today. Right before Shortland Street, someone rang my cellphone three times. I could hear what I think was a female breathing in the background. Rock on. So that was amusing. Maybe that’s because I put my number in my ICQ information. Oh well, let’s tempt fate. 021 21 27 920. Sorry, I don’t know how to call that from overseas.

Mum had to ring me on it, cos Si was on the net all day. (Well, I was too – but not for as long cos I had to clean and cook and stuff – oh, is that backstabbing? Sorry, I don’t really mean it). Annnnnnyways, so here’s the deal with Karen – and thanks to all of you who have asked and sent well wishes and shit.

She took two days off work last week because she felt sick, and on the third day she went to the doctor, which is something she hardly ever does, and he told her to go straight to hospital cos she was running a fever, and there’s something wrong with her ankle. Apparently her blood is doing something wrong, related to her liver failure and CF. She’s going to be in hospital until like Wednesday, but probably won’t be able to go back to work for a long time, because obviously she can’t stand on her ankle. So yeah. I guess Mum probably doesn’t know the whole story, because Karen’s pretty secretive, but she seems to think Karen’s okay – just bored. So I guess that’s a relief. I still wish I was in Wellington.

Our bath curtain has fishes printed on it, and it smells like new PVC. Mmmmm. I pretty much gave up on the bathroom today. It’s superficially clean anyways.

I so need a job. I was going to ring up about telemarketing, but yeah – the phone line was in use. Besides, it’ll probably be like a long way away, and I haven’t got a car and all that funky shit. Simon’s thinking about going to Wellington like the day after tommorrow, which’ll leave me all alone and like, semi-frightened. Oh, and then Layton will move in, and that’ll be stink – having to talk to someone I don’t think I have much in common with. But hey, I might be pleasantly suprised. Hopefully. Or I’ll find friends. Or I’ll get stalked and murdered – which’ll at least make a good story for the journal.

Yay. ‘The future stretches ahead of me like a black highway”. Okay, that’s not an exact quote, but DAMN T2 was a great movie.

xioxoxox