Hubris.co.nz

Kelly and I cleaned the house today – to the level of vacuuming UNDER the sofa pillows and rotating them, and while I was vacuuming I was dancing to Salt’n Pepa, so not only do I have the feeling of productivity, I also have the exhaustion of exercise, and I just feel so GOOD. This euphoria is similar to that of when your antidepressants first start kicking in and your showers and coffees feel like orgasms for a week, and it is pretty great. It has been a long time coming. I have not felt this good, well, all year maybe?

Last Friday I was at Emma’s birthday party when I got a text from the ex telling me that she was seeing someone – and it was her ex boyfriend. They got back together three weeks after we broke up. Suffice to say, I cried and cried and cried. I felt destroyed. It sucked. But Good Tom and Hilary held me and stroked my hair and that helped.

And work has been unbelievably busy and hard and I have not being doing my best, and that frustrates me, but the really busy time is over, and I know it will get better from here. Hopefully.

Kelly is back from Auckland now and just having her around is amazing. The cats love her. We talk shit, and make each other feel supported. It’s great.

The other night I went to a rally at parliament to counteract an anti-gay-marriage prayer vigil. There were sequins and rainbows and laughter, and I have never sung “Going to the chapel” so much. At one stage we were singing “Lean on me” and I’ve never really liked that song, but I was there with Emma and Simon who’ve been taking me swimming, and Kelly who always has my back, and Beth who is a new friend but who called me as soon as she saw my tweets about the ex angst, and I just felt so supported and lucky, and I got a little teary. There are still dreadful people saying dreadful things about the bill, but I am hopeful it will pass.  And that’s a great thing.

Last night I went out with Beth to Hummingbird and I wrote it up for the Wellingtonista, and for the first time this year, I felt like myself again. I wasn’t some broken girl, still in love with her ex girlfriend, crippled with doubt about how all her friends hate her now and a total failure at her job, I was just Jo Hubris, teller of filthy stories, wine drinker and vague flirt. And that felt amazing.

So I will share with you a ridiculous story, because I have many. The other week at Jo’s goodbye party, I got a little drunk (no, really?) and I saw a guy who I’ve had a mini crush on for a while, in that I see him around occasionally and have thought he might be a good person to get to know better, and so I texted him so see if maybe he wanted to go for a drink sometime. He said he was game, and so somehow, because it was 2am and because I was very drunk, and because well, work has been all consuming lately, I thought it might be a good idea to take him on an adventure. That’s right, without warning him, I took him to children’s theatre. I mean, yes, it was a really great play. But honestly, who promises someone margaritas and then does that? Hashtag #foreveralone. But that’s okay, because I have a clean house and some good friends, old and new.

I appreciate that once again, it has been forever since I last wrote. So I suppose that there are a number of things that I should talk about. Like:

1. Webstock
2. Kat & Kane
3. An assortment of things
4. Pretty Pretty Pretty
5. Why I hate having crushes on people, or words to that effect.

I wrote on my professional site about what I learned at Webstock, and I wrote a lengthy thank-you for the Midnight Note site which might get posted at some stage, so at this stage, I can now talk about all the gossip behind the scenes in a non-professional way. Which means talking about ice cream. And how at the pre-webstock tweetup that I organised there were three people I’d fucked, and a couple of others I’d pashed. And how Starla Jo was all “oh, thank you so much for your tweets on New Year’s” and I was like “….huh?” and she was like “You wished me and Thomas another ten years of happiness” and I was like “oh, good for me!” No recollection of that at all but that’s the first time that I’ve ever been told about drunk tweets that were nice, so good for me. And how the whole shebang was dedicated to Darren and Amanda who were getting married the next day, and how they met at my Halloween party, and how if you ever want to get married, I should get a crush on you and someone of the opposite sex at the same time, cos it’s happened yet another time since I ran away from Auckland at the end of 2003.

Oh, in hilarious webstock gossip, on the Thursday night, I got this email:

I said I’d look for you and introduce myself, but once I saw you I
decided not to. You are too gorgeous.

I mean, if you hadn’t been twittering about orgasms I *so* would have
come over and flirted, but I knew as soon as I spotted you I’d be
spending the entire night trying to get into your pants rather than
actually listening to what you have to say. And I didn’t think that
would be cool.

So, next time, when I’m not already thinking about sex, I will say
hello and tell you how wonderful I find your writing (I *adore*
sex-positive women), and then if there’s some flirting or geek talk or
strip clubs I’ll be happy to participate.

Ummm, what? It’s a very strange thing when people feel like they know me from reading my twitter stream, or reading Hubris, because duh, they don’t know Joanna at all, just Jo Hubris’s posturings. I might appear to be open about my life but I don’t feel like I’m asking for emails like that from people I don’t know. But enough about that for now.

Obviously Webstock was all kinds of awesome, as I had expected it to be. I was sitting with Julie, and she was like “wow, talking to you is like hanging out with the Mean Girls” and I was like “it’s so fetch, right?” but honestly, if it looks like a whore and walks like a whore, then what are you supposed to say? (Reason number six thousand and twenty to hate the guy: he made me deal by turning into a bad feminist). That aside, it was lovely to catch up with so many people who I only get to see once a year at Webstock and to absorb all the awesomeness, and to watch people using the Webstock Bingo and Webstocklove channels that I set up. I sent out plenty of messages myself due to a million and five geek crushes. Why are all the good ones (and bad ones) married?

After the official bubbles & beats, we went up to Mighty Mighty for more drinks because people said that Kevin Rose was going to be there, and who doesn’t want to marry a millionaire? Someone had stickers and they thought we should write our names on them, but since we were already all wearing nametags, I gave people other names. We got a Rod Drury, and a Kevin Rose, and a Mark Zuckerberg and a Tom from Myspace before I started to run out of names. Later at the other end of the bar, I got in a conversation with Lisa Herrod who’d spoken earlier that day about accessibility, and was super stoked when she tweeted later that she’d hire me in a second if I lived in Sydney (and if she was hiring). It was really awesome to be reminded that I do actually know what I’m talking about sometimes. And in that vein, her husband Lachlan who had also spoken but I hadn’t seen his talk except for the end where he mentioned Waferbaby (who you might remember from Melbourne 2001, if those entries were actually online, but they don’t appear to be. Odd. But to summarise I met him when I was staying with 0 at Nirvana), ordered a castlepoint, so I told him that it was one of the top five drinks in town, and later on twitter mapped out a path as to how he could have the other four in one day. In fact, we were supposed to go get margaritas for breakfast at 8am on the Friday, but I decided to get one more hour of sleep. I was very impressed that he went though!

On Friday night after more Webstock awesomeness was the ONYAs. I borrowed a dress from Megan that I felt gorgeous in, and after some reshufflings I spent the evening telling gossip to a nice woman from Australia that actually may have been a little terrifying because I had a lot of it to tell and there was also a lot of wine. Then there was an amazing light show. Then we went to the Malthouse and people from Silverstripe were so drunk that I thought that they were speaking Norwegian, and other people were so drunk that they fell over, and really, I felt quite sober comparatively. I got to talk about Mad Men with Peter lots. And I got home sometime after 4am after dallying with that nice girl from last year who went to the bathroom and never came back. Webstock is awesome. I should have written about it a lot sooner and also not today when I’m in a really sulky mood.

In fact, I’m so sulky that I’m not going to finish this entry. Night kids, let’s hope something goes my way in the next couple of days or so, yes? Please?

Sleep lately has been of the 4.30am nightmares, so getting up at 8am to get my show on the road really didn’t seem like a viable option. Instead, I rolled out of bed at 9.30 and waited for an age at Peoples Coffee [sic] before finally getting on the road. The first mix CD that Lisa ever made for me, which introduced me to Bright Eyes (“now your hands are on me / pressing hard against my jeans / you didn’t care to know / who else may have been you before”), the Arcade Fire (“there’s something wrong in the hearts of Man”) and the saddest music video ever for ‘The Death of Romance’ by The Dears (I challenge you to watch that and NOT cry!) guided me through the wake-up period, and then Bloc Party took me to Taihape and lunch at the Brown Sugar Cafe.

My first memories of the Brown Sugar Cafe, (probably from 1997 going up to check on AUT, and then on so many subsequent trips back and from Auckland, including one particularly memorable road trip to Mark F’s 21 where Jo (starla) only got to come along because she returned a teaspoon to her mother in time) were of me drinking cappuccinos, which came with a chocolate-covered coffee bean on the spoon, They used to have monstrously big foccaia sandwiches filled with tomato, alfalfa and thick long slices of Camembert cut all the way across the wheel, and they cost something like $5, but no more. They do still have chicken and cashew croissants, but they’re smaller, staler, and my bill for a tiny croissant, a juice and a bacon in cibatta was $18. State High Way One Robbery, I tell you!

But that area is my most favouritest to drive in, so off I set, cranking up Eight Arms To Hold You and realising that I know all the words still, and – as I twittered once i got off the Desert Road – their songs have essentially the same structure as my essays I used to write in fifth form. Introduce your theme, provide three examples, sum up. And these sheets smell like bayous, not mine, not yours, not yours. It was sweaty and hot, and on the Desert Road all I could think about was the piece I wrote called ‘North of You’ in 101 Stories That I Want To Tell You, and hey, it’s 2009, you’re going to contact me, right? It’s been three years. But it was a different person’s handprint that I have burned into my thighs. I fucking hate being left alone to my thoughts all day eh. It was like every single line of every song I sung was directly applicable to me – even when I switched away from Birds to Britney Spears in total desperation.

There was tar on my shoes from Taihape, which made the pedals sticky and somewhat scary to operate. When I got a can of the newly redesigned coke from the Tairua Caltex and waited an eternity for their one bathroom because it was just after 5pm when the public toilets close, it exploded on me in the car. I lost my glasses somewhere before Hamilton and spent a frenzied frantic ten minutes tearing my car apart to re-find them. I got stuck behind a Newman’s coach liner from Hamilton to Huntly, and then I overshot the city because I got confused about Great South Road and State Highway One and ended up on the expressway to Auckland before I manged to call the Romantic Getaways place and finally found it. I was overwhelmed by seeing Kat again, and trying to hustle into my room, and trying to get a shower, and discovering that my room hasn’t been renovated at all, and in fact they’d given me a single bed because I’M NOT MARRIED but Kat insisted that I’d paid for a double so I may in fact be sleeping on the owners’ bed, and that is why I only have two pillows, despite all the other furniture piled up in this room. Half the corridors here are still linoleum, and i need to use school-camp quality bathrooms – unless I go down to K&K’s honeymoon suite, where their shower has two heads, and oh yes, I had them both going, at different temperatures on top of me and I giggled and giggled and giggled at the sensation, and also at the thought of wasting all that water, and then Kane came back to his room and I told him that his wedding treat was waiting for him, and oh how we laughed!

Eventually after more cat-herding than even I would ever be able to deal with (parents, cousins, brothers, oldies, littlies) we headed down the hill to the Old Courthouse Cafe for a lot more waiting for late people. I got some wine as soon as was civilized to do so, and oh, it was nice, It’s been hard being so dry lately when my friends are all so wet, The staff were very unsure with wines, but the wood-fired scotch fillet was oh my fricking good amazing.

More cat-herding found me and Kat and Brooke and Vanessa in Kat’s suite, ever so vaguely watching The Princess Bride, while Brooke practised doing Kat’s makeup, and Vanessa and I had facials and hand jobs. I’ll put links in to the appropriate PPP posts when I have internet, I swear. But now I might find my book, see if I can read little while I wait for zopiclone, and get my eyes ready to cry lots tomorrow! OMG OMG OMG! They’re getting married!

Yes, I have been remiss. But yesterday, Kimora Lee Simmons told me that I was beautiful and ultimately powerful, so I know you will forgive me. Yes, that’s right, Kimora Lee Simmons. Told me. Personally. On a swing tag. Attached to my new jeans. That I got for half prize from Torrid, in a 33.5 inch leg, woohaa. That according to Lani make me appear to have no ass (This is comparatively true. Not to Lani, but to other Women With Curves. And also sizedly to my sister and my mother. They got the Stadtman hips wheras I keep my Presbytarian McLeod weight on my puku. Mostly). But which do have a solid gold(esque) butt tag). And according to their sizing I am more Baby than Phat, as they are a little bit too falling down. And they’re too baggy around the knee. And these half sentences have gone on way too long, but they are my tribute to a misunderstanding about comments about jeans that I had with my friend yesterday. So I will keep using them.

That’s a lie, actually. From now on, I’ll try to use full sentences, but if I break off, it’s probably because this is where I’d like to insert a while bunch of swearing, but as someone with a CV out in the marketplace and a number one google ranking, I will control myself. A little, anyway. Haha half sentences!

Kyuss is on the TV now, so I feel like I am in the back seat of Fatty Simon or Milhouse Mark’s car, and we are speeding from Hamilton to Auckland. I spent a long time saying that I thought that Kyuss were a lot more interesting than Queens of the Stoneage, but I’m not entirely sure that’s the truth. I’m watching Watch This Space which I recorded last night, of course, and it’s 8.56pm. Yes, it’s Friday, and I am home alone. The Double Ds failed in their role as the usual Friday entertainment, but given the blackness of my mood, that’s probably for the best. It’s times like these that I wish that Extreme Makeover – Home Edition could still make me cry. I’m not too worried though – I mean I did have Hell Day, but given how I’m also Hungry Like The Wolf and also mangoing like woah, I know that I’m pre period. Which will make a nice change from my cunt stinking like, and oozing out, Canestan. Stupid goddamn yeast! And stupid one dose pills not being enough. At least I only went for the 3 day treatment and not the 6. If only bread and beer weren’t so tasty. And sugar. It’s funny because after the Ginger was such a cunt with his insistence that I had diabetes, I was all “Well I hope he’s saying that because I had a yeast infection and therefore my cunt tasted rancid”, but the boy I was with last week was very nice so I’m hoping it wasn’t all bad then. And speaking of that, it is very strange to have slept with someone who has known me at the time the second longest of anyone that I had sex with. It kind of makes me go “umm, but I am crazy, and I sit around watching TV all day in my PJs, and I overthink everything, oh also, and I am crazy, why the hell would you want to do me?”. Oh drunken me taking advantage of people, you make the world go around.

Yeah no, I totally want Josh Homme to touch me in dirty places now, I totally get the QOTSA obsession.

I pretended briefly that I was upset to be home alone tonight, but that’s pretty much a lie. Life has been waaaaaaaaaaaay too hectic (I almost wrote Hexic, so you can see why my wrists have been bunger lately – and no, it’s pretty much nothing to do with the increased screen time Sara Ramirez has had). When was the last time that I wrote? A bloody long time ago. The 22nd. So that was the day of the last night of Wellingtonista Bowling League? I spent the time inbetween work and bowling crying on Anji’s shoulder. Metaphorically of course. I sat upright in my chair on the balconey at Concrete, and only wept, not sobbed, so i didn’t even have to touch up my mascara. My frustrations with someone at work had led me to run away to the waterfront at lunchtime but there I cursed the citalapram that meant I couldn’t even really cry even thouhg that was all I felt like doing. After work it was a little easier, but tears didn’t fall. Bowling was awesome, and I’m so glad that I started the league, even though I was frustrated with a lack of players who were actually in the Wellingtonista, especially since we had to get in a substitute player from Xero who, umm, was lovely, but not quite up to the standard of a couple of people from the Wellingtonista who’d played in early games, so ClickSuite beat us by 14 points and therefore we came in last in the league. And of course, I didn’t find a job through thet league, or a rich husband, so in my eyes, it was a complete and utter failure. Heh. Oh, but did I mention that Anji and I had a very tasty dinner at Finc before – pork belly and also pear & beetroot dip with lesbian bread (heh), and the waitress was like “I’m the dessert menu!” and I was like “i’m not sure I want to eat you…” (who am I kidding?) and she was like “you’re dirty!” and I was like “tehehe”? No, well we did.

The end of bowling meant that we had an awards ceremony at the Southern Cross on the Friday night. I’d booked 20 people into ‘The Den’ which is the long thin area to the right of the bar at front at 7pm, but by 7.15 I was still sitting by myself feeling like a spaz every time I told people to go away because I’d booked the area. Apparently Silverstripe had shown up early, and, finding noone there had gone out to the garden and didn’t find us for a very long time after that. But then people showed up in a rush which was good. There was a Skank moment in the bathroom but after a quick “omg, eww” moment to the double ds, I totally forgot about that until the next day. I gave everyone their awards and made them shake my hands and let me kiss their cheeks. The darling Sue had made up Wellingtonista badges that I’d designed and we’d had a secret rendevouz in Midland Park for me to get them off her, and they went down a treat. I had lots of fun. The ever-entertaining MG, who was the only one representing Clemenger suggested that he’d set up a meeting for me with someone from a magazine that I have a review of to do for the Wellingtonista. Someone in ClickSuite that I’d never met before invited me to an Apres Ski party, cementing their status as the most sociable team. I gave everyone invitations to English County Club, and fought off questions such as “is that really your house?” and “what’s Tapiri Manor?” Although I wasn’t very drunk when I left, I asked Dave to walk me to the taxi and make sure that he remembered the company because I am trying to make sure that I’ve trained myself into safer habits for times when I’m not so in control. I was proud of myself for that. I wonder how much people think I’m being overly anxious. It’s really hard to make the transition between thinking that you are bullet-proof to trying to do what’s right, so I will continue to salute myself.

Mmmmm Josh Homme. Mmmmmmmmm. Oh yes, lick me like I was your guitar…

I wish Crazy Canadia was online right now. Or that I was in Vegas too.

Umm, that was Friday. On Saturday, Lani and I cleaned the house, then went up to Ngaio to drop off the Mysteriously Broken Chair (“Daddy, I have an exciting new craft project for you!”) and pick up my early birthday present – an 8 gig nano that Daddy somehow bartered the Australian duty-free man down to A$303 (as opposed to NZ$450), and managed to talk my father into making pancakes for us. It wasn’t very hard, it mostly involved me saying “hey, have you guys had lunch yet? I’m starving!”. Then it was back home for more preparation and some stress-related grumpiness and control-freakery for me. I picked up Lisa and also Other Lisa, who I hadn’t met before and who was a little surprised by my embrace. But she took it gladly at the end of the night. I was dressed as Antoinette (my mother’s middle name, not that she’ll admit to it) Chocolat Tophey-Smythe, the second wife of a terribly rich terribly old terribly high society British man, who happned to be away while I hosted the party. Lisa was Emoly McBlack, an exchange student from the future (she had “This ain’t a scene, it’s a goddamm ARM (s race)” written on her arm (SO AWESOME. Despite the badness of the song)) and Other Lisa was Olivia Inkton, the society reporter. My new C4 comment is that Bauhaus’s (Top 10 Alternative 80′s [sic])singer sounds just like Matt Bellamy. I love ‘Ziggy Stardust’. Other people came in their costumes, and we had very civilised food and drink and conversation and back stories. A boy told me I was the most interesting person he’d ever met and I went “tehehe” even if he was taking hte piss because I told him that I’d seen Spiceworld 28 times. A jolly good time was had by all but I can’t remember the exact things I wanted to write about ti. But Oh! The Cult! This fucking chart is totally my sisters’ album collections. And this song (‘She sells sanctuary’) was so ripped off by both the Foo Fighters and The Donnas!

Sunday meant struggling out of bed with sore feet, and Lani and I jumped on the bus down to the stadium (that walkway is so like the walkway to Tokyo Disneyland – a million miles to the station when you have sore feet). We got in to the Food Show, and I had an attack of the grumps, but her savign seats and me going off to find a bathroom (it took me forever, and oh boy, it stung just a little more to see that a company that didn’t hire me was blocking off a female toilet with their stand) and grabbing a latte and a couple of nibbles put me in a better mood. We met up with Anji and Karen to watch Hayden Wood make cocktails, and although the techno music was annoying and he seemed like a bit of a plonker, I love his books, and watching the flairing was very amusing. And he called me Sweetheart when I ran up to grab a Feijoa and rum concoction.

With that icey drink in my belly I felt much better, and we went off to drink our way around the Hawkes Bay. In previous years, Karen and I have started off on the other end, so that by the time we’ve reached that area we’ve been too drunk to try everything, but given how much time we’ve spent with Wairarapa wine lately, it just made sense. There were some very nice drops, and I bought too much, and we bumped into Karen’s old flatmates Alistair and Korina, which was rad. We drank and ate and drank and ate and drank and ate, and then Lani and I got seperated from Anji and Karen, and time started running out so we ran around getting as much in as we could. I thought I did brilliantly at the Prenzels’ Schnapps stand trying every flavour until I found out that Anji and Karen bought the ends of every bottle for $20. But we got free cereal and free tubs of guacamole, and chocolate and apples to take away, not to mention the ton we ate, so woo! Plus I got to semi-shock several older gentlemen showing them my humping unicorns hoodie that I had in my bag. It made sense at the time, but in reality, I got drunker at the Food Show than I did at our party the night before. Woo! $18 is TEH AWESOME. Especially since I’m pretty sure I tried the Wairarapa wines for free since I took a dirty glass from one of the winemakers – on his suggestion (or perhaps my coercion). Heh.

Then on Monday I just wanted to crawl into bed again all day, but instead I went home and made kickass Dhal for Lani and the double Ds, and also Lani’s friend David, which I suppose makes it the DDDs. We tried to rouse Smoo, but he was sleeping the sleep of the dead, even after I woke him up, so no flat dinner was to be had. And Dyl didn’t do our dishes like he was supposed to for not bringing wine, but we did play Cluedo and I did win.

Tuesday was umm, I can’t rmeember. Crappy? I do remember reading Q in my room after work suggssting I was in no mood to talk. On Creative Wednesday, I went for a swim at the pool – half an hour of laps and then half an hour in the spa. Halfway through the laps, I decided that the old man in the lane next to me was perving at me far more than was deserved (me in a swim suit is really not hot), and then I saw a strap trailing in the water and realised that my halter had come undone. AWESOME! *goats motion*. I really wish I could find a fat-person two-piece with a racerback top, but apparently practical swimwear is out of the question. Because people with my shape should just be lounging about,not trying to improve their current situation or something. Same thing with the hardness of finding a proper sports bra.

Yesterday was Thursday and I ummm hmmm, stuff, blah blah blah. Oh! Karen, Anji and I had a most amusing and delicious dinner at Medina, that I must review on the Wellingtonista. And today was Friday and oh man, I think we covered that already today, or at least I have in texts, and forwarded emails, and just AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. And now my port is empty, so I must go over to my shiny silver tray ($1) and realise that my decanter ($2) is empty, so I must refill my glass (50c) from the bottle from my parents (free) that is in my sideboard (free). So I might go do that instead.

So apparently, unless you want to lie away for a significant part of the night listening to your stomach making noises similar to that of Homer’s when he took many a cannonball to the stomach in ‘Homerpalooza’ (one of my all-time favourite episodes), it’s not a good idea to swig most of the bottle of cherry-vanilla robotussin over the course of a day when it says “may have a laxative effect” on the label. Why didn’t my parents teach me this when I was growing up? But I had to have that much cough syrup. I had to leave a lecture on accountability in the public sector twice because I was coughing so much, and the second time I coughed so much that I puked. Fun times. That’s when I ran away to beg a chemist for the strongest thing she had. Now I have to find a new chemist to go to cos my bottle is pretty much empty and I only bought it yesterday and I wouldn’t want her to think I had a problem. Of course the good thing now is that since I missed most of the talk, I can’t possibly be held accountable for my actions. This means I can go to the Dub Pistols’ myspace page and listen to see if it’s their version of ‘Rapture’ that I heard and liked, right? Wrong. I’m not that much of a badass.

What are some other things that I wanted to write about? I had my first Creative Wednesday this week, but I was so sick that I decided to let myself sleep in until whenever I woke up, which was 1pm, and then I just sat on the couch coughing until Brad went and bought me vodka and fresh OJ. Before I got stuck in to making myself feel better though, I paid a visit to the new Ezibuy shop to get a shirt for the lovely Hadyn and stunning Martha to screenprint for our Bowling League. My other achievement as a project on Wednesday was in finally getting that all sorted out, via many mailings to our mailing list. As I said about my shirt to the list today: “It’s pink! And lowcut! So people will recognise me! All my sentences are going to end in exclamation marks today! I am high on cherry-vanilla robotussin!”. Heh.

But today I am not wearing a lowcut top because I also bought leggings which are so much less of a pain than tights, so I’m wearing my short pinstriped dress and boots instead. Hurrah! And my nails are bright bright green, which I’ve decided will be my new trademark thing. Hurrah nu rave! Heh. Oh my stars, why am I being so vapid? I really must add more bad influence websites to my list of things to give up for Matariki, since that’s coming up soon. Also my main Matariki resolution is to wake up with someone this year and not want them to run away ASAP. That’s what grown-ups do.

And on that note about grown-ups, the divine (and crazy for walking 100km) Kimberley asked me five questions, as part of a fad which all the cool kids are doing, so here they are with my answers.

How many nicknames do you have? What’s the story behind each one?

I don’t really have that many nicknames, apart from a thousand variations on Jo (Jo Burger, Jo Blo, Jo Jo Jo etc). Before I left high school, I tried to keep Jo in reserve only for my friends, so people I didn’t like had to call me Joanna, or my father if I was shitty with him, and so on and so forth, but then when I started working and leaving phone messages everywhere, it was easier to call myself Jo than Joanna because I don’t talk very clearly. I will still write Joanna if I’m doing anything where I can’t sign off “xojo”. When I went online in 1997, I called myself Astrid, so I had nicknames based on that – Strid, Striddy, and so on. Also in order to seperate me from the other one (no capital letters) I became known as Jo Hubris to match my domain. To me these days Jo Hubris is the fierce, brave and outgoing side of me, my super hero identity to Joanna McLeod’s Clark Kent, if you will. I am Jo Hubris when drunk, Joanna when sober. There’s also a Canadian who calls me Trouble but I’m not entirely sure why.

What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do in your life? How did you feel afterwards?

Everything when it happens feels like the hardest thing EVAH (moving to Japan, moving to Auckland, that horrible drawn-out fucked up relationship and subsequent horrible drawn-out fucked up break up), but now I will say having Depression is the hardest thing ever, because once you’ve got to a place where you don’t want to be alive anymore having to claw your way back from that to not just a place where you’re surviving but where you’re actually thriving, well, I think that makes me pretty fucking awesome. And I say this as Jo Hubris, not Joanna, of course.

Have you ever forgotten to put on underpants?

How could you forget something like that? I’ve had to wear shortshorts instead of underpants at primary school when I ran out of clean ones, and once I left my skirt behind at a guy’s house when I ran away in the middle of the night (I had pants as well) cos I couldn’t find it in the dark and had to go back the next day to get it, but I’ve never forgotten to wear underpants, no. If it’s terribly terribly late in the laundry cycle, I might not be able to put on thunderpants though, despite having ten pairs…

Where/ with whom was the last kiss you had?
My last kiss would have been after the Great Blend in my bed, with the ginga who turned out to be an asshole (damn my weakness for English accents!). I don’t know if we’d actually kissed at Mighty Mighty, or in Cuba Mall or in the taxi before then or not. It was the hottest day of the year, we were sweaty (despite the late night swim) and bloody noisy. And I had the Killers on repeat because I couldn’t find any of my records (they were in the lounge).

I think that was my last kiss anyway. I do drink an awful lot.

What thing about yourself do you like the most?
I like that I am such a giving and accepting person. I can validate that statement too with things that others have said about me too. In fact, I spend a lot of time discussing it with my counsellor when I’ll be all “oh I am so selfish, I am so caught up in myself, I let my friend down this one time” and she’ll be all “so you let them down once and that means all the good things you do are wiped out?” and I’ll be all listing things and she’ll be like “hello, duh” and I’ll be like oh this is why I pay you, for that validation. Heh. No but seriously, I’m pretty confident that if you are someone I care about, I will accept anything about you, and I will do whatever I can to be there for you in whatever capacity you need me to be. And that’s awesome. Wahoo!

EDIT: Questions from the fiesty Miss Heather:

1. If you had the chance to wake up with a completely new personality, what would you be careful not to change?
I would make sure that my openness was still there – the way that I will accept people for who they are, the way I try to be completely honest with the way that I’m feeling, and my willingness to take on board new ideas.

2. Desperate for a shag, or frigid?

Seriously? Does this question even need to be asked? Did you not read the part above where I slept with a ginga? So to most people, I would be desperate. To a couple of poor lads who were around at the wrong times though, I suppose I may have appeared frigid.

3. On girls: greying, or dyed? Worst option for dyed? On boys: balding, or wig? Comb-over? Facial hair?

Greying or dyed is fine, but I’m not a fan of platinum blonde on most people. Balding is okay, but is best when shorn real short. I like to rub heads with short haircuts. Never a combover, generally never facial hair. A little stubble’s okay, unless you’re making out with it.

4. What do you think are the seven cardinal sins of blogging? Obviously this doesn’t apply to you, since you’re not a blogger.

Writing “Here’s a link and it’s funny”, and thinking that counts as content.
Apostrophe catastrophes.
Holding political views that are different than mine. Puppy-eaters.
Worshiping anyone that I don’t like.
Not writing about me as often as possible.
Refering to Hubris as a blog.
Constantly doing memes. Like we care.

5. What would the cover stories be on the first ever issue of your own magazine?

Ooooh, I adore this question, although I would have prefered you to say “will”, not wood.

Cover stories:
- The definitive guide to cocktails in Wellington
- How my website got me laid, paid and on display: an autobiography.
- Do get me started: a how-to for new media startups.

So if you want me to ask you five questions to answer, and you want them to be all probing and hip, comment or email me.

I don’t think I have any plans for this weekend. Someone make some for me?

xojo

In the time that I’ve written lately, IK really should have given some shoutouts to Harvestbird because a couple of Saturdays ago, Lisa and I spent some awesome time in her company.

Oh yes, that’s right, did you enjoy that link? Cos it’s going to get more linky. So linky. Like when I talk about how we went to Bic Runga and it was so much more awesome than Alan’s experience, like Lisa’s photos will no doubt show you. Highlights include Bic stopping to point at a man peeing in the bushes. SO AWESOME! SO Intimate. We got seats RIGHT AT THE FRONT and enjoyed them mightily until some fuckwits came and sat in front of us drunkenly and talked and talked and oh man, I wanted to bottle those fucks. In fact, the ten dollar venison burger was plenty tasty but didn’t fill me up so I could have eaten those dumb fucks. Oh yes. But, as I said to Alan tonight, I wanted to retract all the things I said about kids befre, cos they were so much more awesome than the stupid fucking drunken grownu dicks. Oh, and I must give mad props to the girls (ummmm Georgie and Lindsay?) who came up to me and asked if I was Jo, Jo Hubris, and said that they loved my website, and made no mention of my blog or of Next (unlike the cleaner at work, and the woman behind the counter at the gym). Hurrah!

That was Saturday. Friday night was the gorgeous Peti’s 30th at the Southern Cross, and that was much much fun. D&D were actually rather drunk, as was Miss Fur, who was somewhat of a sad panda, and while I would hope that I’d never take advantage of that, I totally took advantage to stroke her hair and cuddle her like woah. Perhaps the boys were drawing off me in their insanely handsiness – apparently my Mary-Kate and Ashley locket is a total magnet. And yes, I will take some responsibility for like, the total hottness of my boobies, but like, woah. WOAH. Heh.

Which brings us to Sunday, which was officially (by me) declared to be Jo Day. This meant an hour and a half brunch at the local cafe with the puke-filled paper (OH MY HOLY FUCKING GOD I HAVE so MANY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THE POLICE RAPE THINGS), and then a swim at Lyall Bay in which the waves were over my head and there was so much sewaweed it ended up in my togs when I was showering, but the insane dunkings were kind of fun. And then I saw Ash in the supermarket so she came over for a beer in the sun, anad we talked about oh, you know, being crazy. I’d hoped to have a BBQ but of course that didn’t work out, so I fought off the associated “OMG EVERYONE HATES YOU” feelings in favour of a “wow, it’s entirely possible that one day someone will die from food poisoning as a consequence of you, but meh” feeling.

Monday was very very meh, and pretty much the only highlight was my parcel from torrid.com, that included patent wedges with 4.5 inch heels that are SO FUCKING HOT all capital letters-esque, but you know,the practicality of actually walking and existing in them had me trying on many outfits (well, okay, two) for Lani and Smoo’s thoughts. Naturally we ignored what Smoo had to say, because he’s a boy, so of course he’s going to go for the red dress. Which meant of course that tonight found me wearing my brand new purty suit, for which I spent much of the evening giggling and chuckling at my pretense of actually being grown up and professional and all. Of course, that’s frequently like totally not true, although I did do a fuckload of work today, despite spending two hours stuffing envelopes. Apparently if we get another 300 people on our mailing list, we get to outsource the job, so are you keen?

But yes, so I went to the Paramount for Webstock Mini all dressed up and pretending to be a grown-up. I was of course there to support Sue and to support Martha, but I was also interested in what the speakers would have to say. Naturally I found myself giggling like a norty school girl in the back row, with other Wellingtonistas, but I felt I redeemed myself when someone (actually a sort-of client) was trying to introduce me to Skank, and I was like “oh yes, I used to know her” and he as was all “but she’s here tonight, you should meet her!” and I was like, wow, what’s the best way to put the emphasis on Iused to that would make it clear that I kind of wish I was 8 so I could scratch out her eyes. Do eight-year-olds do that sort of thing? Well, I suppose they don’t go to jail for it anyways. But blah blah. I’m pretty over people who are all “yes, we met before, I was there when you went swimming, remember?” because clearly I DON’T remembver, as well. I cheered loudly for Martha when she spoke, and when they asked if anyone else wanted to get up and talk about how the internet had changed their life, I knew exactly how I’d start, and it’d go a littl elike this: “Recently I got an email from a Canadian. this isn’t that unusual on the interweb, of course, but the fact that he told me that I was the reason that he stareed taking his bi polar medicine is pretty fucking special”. And the speech would go on to talk about the online community, and how in many ways you get the same giggling cliques (ie: the Wellingtonista giggling before Martha spoke), because of the bigger numbers even the most outside of the outsiders could find a place. Yeah!

But instead of saying that, I just talked to Martha & Glen and Sue, until they left and I still had a glass of wine in my hand, so I ended up going to Sweet Mother’s Kitchen for dinner with some people I knew and some I didn’t. we of course couldn’t get a table straight away, so I was drinking margaritas in an alleyway with the postboxes, and when we could sit I talked to our sort of client – or are we their sort of client? – about how their presentation was hilarious because their page of doodles included a couple of doodles of jizzing cocks, and umm, hi, inappropriate, but HILARIOUS. and it’s okay cos two of the Comms team are married, so they explained it to us. I had fish tacoes but I think almost no one got the “heh heh heh” of the title, and I got bored whilst eating and someone else finished it off for me. And then at the end I had another margarita and things were cool and fun, and I was talking ot a handful of people, but then the boy that I fucked a couple of weeks ago was all “so is your insulin level the way it is cos you’re fat?” and I was like “What the FUCK?” and got really angry, and stated loudly for the record and also for me that umm hi, my insulin levels are actually really fucking awesome (I have been tested many times and do not have diabetes), as is my cholestrol and my everything, except for, you know, my blood pressure in December. And that just made me so rarked up, like, oh, so the whole time that you were fucking me and I was feeling good cos I thought I was all like, good times and confident and awesome, you were all “wow. your. diabetes. is. like. amputatative. And. I would. like. to fuck. your stump. hole. ” and he wouldn’t step away from it, and I got so angry, because yes, I’m fat (okay, you didn’t notice?) but hi, I go to the gym at least three times a week, I go swimming at least three times a week, excetera, excetera, there are so many ways to be in which you can be worse than mine, and I always thought that my fucked-up part was my mental health, not my physical, so I left with the whole “Okay bye, nice to meet you”, “nice to meet you”, “nice to meet you” “wow, you’re a fucking cunt and I thought you were actually a nice guy” goodbyes and laughed at the “ooooh”s. So I took a 14, and got moody, and ended up crying at the foot of Smoo’s bed (or mattress) while he sat there not entirely knowing what to do but offering sound logic instead of hugs instead. Poor Smoo. It was just about the how things that make you feel good about yourself can sometimes backfire, and that’s dumb, and boo. And also, one of the guys tonight who did his two minute talk about how the interweb changed his life had talked about literal life-saving in the Balklands, and that’d made me want to cry at the time. Like, for serious,yes. Blah blah. Waaaaaaaaay too tired to write more now.

Edit: this morning my breasts are totally glassy, so ooooooooooh, I’m premenstrual! Aha! It all makes sense now.

A rediscovered fragment that should have been in 101 Stories if I’d remembered about it, that I found tonight when I was looking for a story I wrote about The Gathering to send to Ali.

The sex I used to have made me feel like a bystander in my own life. He would move my legs around, hoist them over his shoulder, turn me on my side, or whatever he wanted, and I would lie there compliant, thinking “it’s not him”. It was only when he went to hold my hand afterwards that I felt that something was wrong. I am not in love with you, please don’t try to force intimacy on me. I am fucking you precisely because you are not him.

And it felt weird, someone different touching me in different ways, in different places. His cock was totally different, of course, and the feelings involved were different. It was easy to spell them out in this case: I am drunk, you are not him and I need to be with someone who’s not him to prove that I can be with someone who is not him. That could be the mantra of each thrust into me. I.am.not.the.man.you.are.in.love.with.I.am.not.your.whole.world.I.have.not.left.you.for.your.best friend.

So it doesn’t matter that he seems like he is a sexual deviant. It doesn’t matter that he rejoices in my hairy legs that he takes the time to rub his cock up and down. It doesn’t matter when he licks my armpits, or tries to fuck me in the morning when he’s still wearing the same condom. He is no one. He is nothing. It doesn’t matter.

---

I’m not sure of the words we said to each other or anything, only the look that he gave me; the single dirtiest look in the history of one night stands EVER. It wasn’t a “I want to fuck you” look; it was a “I’m going to fuck you in this position and this position and this position, and you’re going to love it, because you’re a dirty whore and you want nothing but my cock inside you” statement. And of course he was right.

If only it could have been simply that simple. He was a mystery, a boy of extreme contrasts. He was sweet and charming in conversation, but he had my clothes off the second we got in his bedroom door. He didn’t call a taxi as soon as I said I’d go home with him because he said that would be presumptuous, but straight away on his bed he told me he had a treat for me and rolled on a spearmint condom. For a nice guy who told me that he hadn’t had sex outside a relationship before, he still managed to fuck me in half a dozen positions, transitioning seamlessly between them. He played me Jeff Buckley, and then a song he wrote named after a girl with the same name as me, but also wanted to fuck me in the ass.

That’s the first time, of course. The second time is a year later, when he’s had a chance to get back together with his ex girlfriend and then break up with her again, and I’ve had a chance to realize that running out while he was sleeping because I thought I was in love with someone else and terrified of developing intimacy with him and using the excuse of not having a Connection was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. There were two beers each in a pub, conversation where we talked about our families and how bad Sex in the City was, and we really seemed to be on the same page. I was able to say that I wished I had got to know him the year before, and he smiled at me. It felt really nice, but I was still completely surprised when he said “How about I come over to your house later with a bottle of wine?”

Then when he kissed me on the street outside, my legs felt like they were going to buckle underneath me and I ended up walking down the street in a total daze. At home later, I watched videos with my flatmate in an attempt to keep calm – after I’d changed my underwear, of course. He arrived, shyly knocking on the front door, we opened the promised wine. My flatmate stealthily retreated as soon as the movie ended, and him and I were left together on the couch. So, alone, not at a party, or a bar, or a cafe or any of the places I’d seen him since we went to bed. Over the course of the conversation, my legs crept up onto the couch so that our knees were touching. Our tastes in music were dissected to find places where we were compatible. And finally, we put our glasses down on the ground and he took my hand and we kissed again, this time for much longer than the pavement encounter earlier that night.

If I had melted into him at that very moment, I wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d been on my mind in various guises for a year – first in sweet nostalgia, and then in regret for leaving, and then in “I WANT HIM AGAIN NOW” capacity.

---

I wasn’t talking to her. He wasn’t talking to me for that reason, and it all stemmed from the same thing – good lovers making great enemies and best friends falling out over a boy and all the usual cliches. And there they were at the bar that I was at, and I’d been drinking beer, bubbly, and more beer. As soon as I saw them I sunk shots of Green Chartreuse to hide it, but it didn’t work, I still knew they were there. And why should they get to run me out of every bar in town? Plus, I’d run out of money for liquor and I knew that they had large bank balances. I stumbled over and plonked myself down in their line of vision. I was hot and knew it, after all. My boobs were on display for the entire world to see and it felt really nice.

I’m not sure who was more surprised – her or him. I guess we’ll say Her, because I did sometimes talk to him, even if he’d been ignoring me as of late. “Oh my god,” they said, “Joanna’s talking to us”. I suggested to them that they owed me a drink or two and she scampered off. More Corona with shots beside. I told them how no one liked me anymore. I was leaning forward to talk to them, my arm resting across his knees. They knew all the names that I was mentioning; they asked me over and over if I was okay, if I was really all right. They genuinely cared about me. I leaned forward more. She moved off to talk to other people and I took her seat. All of a sudden we were kissing each other with more fierce intensity than we’d felt in three years. Hands were all over each, in places that shouldn’t be in a nightclub. If it had been possible, we might have devoured each other whole. But instead, I was across his lap, whispering filthy things in his ear, rubbing his cock through his trousers in what I thought was a covert manner, promising him pleasures beyond what we’d ever experienced together before. I don’t know where his wife has gone, but really, it doesn’t matter as I follow him into the men’s room. He has me pinned to the wall and his hands are so rough in what inside my jeans that I have to tell him he’s hurting me as my top is dropped on the floor and my bra is pulled up. Our mouths are dissolving into one another, his hands are rough on my breasts and all I can do is tell him how much I want to fuck him. Always responsible, he asks me if I have any condoms, but of course, my bag and my jacket are somewhere back out in the bar, stashed under the seat where we first started getting dirty, and so that’s a no.

He has a solution for this of course, and he shoves my head down to his crotch, telling me to suck his cock. I do this gladly, reaching into his jeans like I’ve done a million times before. I want to show him how good I am, how much better I’ve become since he left me, and why he never should have left me. I do the best I can, and it’s not long before the pre-come is dribbling into my mouth, the salty taste turning me on instead of grossing me out. The fact that we’re in this barren concrete space makes the whole experience that much hotter. This is illicit near-fucking, and my god that’s a turn-on. His hands are on my head, pushing back my hair to secure his view and to make sure I don’t move my mouth away. I can taste his tang and it’s all I want for now, all that I could ever want, but there’s a knocking at the door, and he says that it’s her – his wife.

In honour of everyone at my work now knowing about my journal (dammit, although given that I’m number one on Google I always sort of expected this), here’s what I told the journalist via email.

Hi Danielle,

Please find below answers to your questions – I’m sure I will talk at
length, but if I haven’t explained myself very well at any stage,
please let me know.

There may be a lot of questions but please note, that most are just to help me set you up in my mind and provide background. I would also need to know your full name, age, occupation and where you live. That’s to provide background to the reader, and helps to introduce you into the article.

My full name is Joanna Tiare McLeod, and online I am known as Jo,
Joanna and Jo Hubris (there was another girl for a long time who moved
in the same circles called Joanna, and so we were differentiated from
each other by our domain names – she was Jo Starla. She doesn’t exist
any more though). I am 26 years old, I work doing communications for a
government agency (I work for * which is part of the ministry of
*, but I’d rather not specify if that’s okay – it keeps
things a little simpler with our incredibly long Code of Conduct), and
I’ve had an online journal for the past eight and a bit years.

SO what I want to ask is first, WHY the online journal?

An online journal to me is the virtual equivalent of a piece of paper and a pen – it’s about writing about yourself and being inward-looking. Blogs meanwhile are more outward-looking – too often they come across like “here’s a link and it’s funny” and that’s about the extent of their content. I’m not interested in doing that. I write because I would like to think that I am pretty good at stringing words together, and because I like to tell stories. A blog is usually about one particular subject, like politics or food or architecture (or at
least the good ones are), wheras online journals are a record of one person’s existence.

When I started my website in 1997, the word ‘blog’ didn’t exist. Back then as well as walking five miles to school barefoot in the snow, most web pages were done either in special programmes or hand-coded in HTML, and then uploaded onto the internet. There was none of this fill in a box and click tomfoolery that there is now, so people who had webpages had to be more dedicated and in to what they were doing than people who use things like blogger and myspace these days. I think in a way that meant content was a lot better. As a whole, people put more thought into it, and because it was so much more effort to get things
online, people were more likely to stick with it. This will sound incredibly stuck up, and please be aware that I am mocking myself here, but when blogging came along, and the media jumped all over it, it was kind of like I’d been doing all these great complex oil paintings and then all of a sudden people were like “woah, check out these awesome paint-by-numbers kits that people are doing!”.

I know a couple of people from New Zealand like Robyn from secret-passage.com and Annette (who’s now at nutandbee.com) and we were all doing the online journal and heavy content thing back in 1998 when there was like no one else in NZ doing it, and so we like to call ourselves the tangata whenua of the interweb. I can’t help but feel like I should get special recognition for doing it for so long. Man I got shitty when Bizgirl won a netguide award when SHE’S NOT EVEN REAL. Well, not that shitty, because James Guthrie is a friend of mine, but still…

What do you get out of it?

There used to be a lot of people who would write disclaimers on their pages things like “I keep this journal for me, and me only so if you don’t like it you can go away”, but that always struck me as being kind of silly, because if you didn’t want someone to read what you were writing, why would you put it out in the public forum? For me, I love having the audience. I think it pushes me to try to write better, to try and include more interesting stories and therefore even a little bit to try and live a more interesting life so that I have more
interesting things to write about. Knowing that I have an expecting
public (haha, oh, that sounds so wanky) gives me good motivation to
make sure that I continue to update my site, rather than just let it
slide like so many other projects I start without finishing. Hubris
serves as a useful place to let out my feelings when I am angry about
things, a platform for my opinions when I want other people to hear me
and also a place to build a sense of community in a way, so that if
there are ever people who find themselves going through things that I
have been through who come across the site might not feel so alone.
Which sounds very altruistic, but there’s something very cathartic
about writing about crappy stuff, even if it’s just in semi-coded
vague references.

It also means I can keep a record of more mundane things like books
I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, places I’ve eaten and when I get my periods. Looking back over journal entries is an awesome way to track moods and mental health, and also to see how far I’ve come in many ways.

Do you look at it as a place to express your thoughts, political views, worldwide views, talk about your life, your day or to vent?

All of the above. Hubris is full of pretty vapid empty crap sometimes,
like a big pile of whatever my catchphrase of the day is (“The Gilmore Girls are so hot right now”), and fairly mundane descriptions
of my day, while my locked down footnotes are where I vent. I have
political views that I think come through in my writing – I don’t
think anyone could read more than one entry and think that I was
right-wing, but I really don’t want to be seen a “political blogger”
because I’m just not that interested in the details. You’re much more
likely to find fairly broad statements about living as a decent human
being from me, or stuff like “so Don Brash has had sex with at least
three women? Really? Ewww”.

And I will bitch and moan about the state of the media or the state of
the world, but usually only about things related to me.

What made you start?

When I used to write a paper journal, I used to get a little frustrated thinking that I’d be the only person who ever read it. I wrote sometimes with an audience in mind, and would occasionally read (fairly censored) parts of it out loud to my friends.

I first came across online journals in 1998, when I was really into
Tori Amos, so I used to go to a lot of her fan sites, which were
mostly run by angsty American teenage girls who used to keep online
journals that were written in tiny little 8 point verdana font, and I
just really related to what they were doing. They had an outpost for
their thoughts and rantings, and an audience, and through their
guestbooks, they built a sense of community. I didn’t think I was as
angsty, or as obsessed with Tori Amos, and I didn’t like their sort of
competitive nature – it seemed like in order to be cool you had to be
on six different kinds of medication, cut yourself and have a
borderline eating disorder or a history of sexual abuse, but I could
relate to many of the things that others would write about – a sense
of alienation from your peers, and a yearning to be a writer, or just
to stand out, and so I started keeping an online journal too.

What made you carry on?

I enjoy doing it, and I love being able to look back on things. I’m
gutted that there are chunks of my life that are not as well
documented (like having the ihug hacker delete July-Nov ’98) or when I
was just too depressed to be able to write at all, but I am grateful
that there is this record, because basically all I really want to do
with my life is become famous enough that I can get an autobiography
published. Hehe. There’s a reason I had to use Hubris as a name…

But on a slightly less hubristic note, I’m full of regret that I never
got to hear enough stories about my grandparents’ lives. They left
behind some stories written down, but they’re handwritten, and on my
mother’s side they’re in Dutch, so I can’t really read them. I want to
make sure that there is some record of my life for my grandkids that
they can easily access, if they want it. I really admire what Heather
from dooce.com is doing for her daughter in that way, although I find
it kind of weird that I know more about what it’s like for this
complete stranger I’ve never even emailed to be raising a daughter
than my own mother’s experiences. That’s something I should work on.

Now that you are into it, do you think you will still be doing it a year from now? Two years?

Having been doing it nonstop for the past eight years, I have no doubt
that I’ll always be keeping an online journal of some sort.

Did you write a diary as a child/teenager/adult?

Yep. It was all descriptions of “she said ‘blah blah blah’ at school,
and pinings for the first boy I pashed. Hubris is pretty much no
different.

Is is something you gave a lot of thought to before starting or a spur of the moment thing?

I had wanted to start keeping an online journal for a while, but I
didn’t really give much thought to what I actually wanted to write in
it until I got going. Content has therefore evolved over time.

What do you write about?

I write about my day, parties I’ve had, injokes that are hilarious to
me and maybe two other readers, tasty food I’ve written, hatred of
people who talk at gigs, reviews of stuff, and I also post writing
that I’ve done for publication elsewhere.

Do you know who reads it? Do you have some sort of mechanism to find out who reads it?

I’m lucky with Hubris in that it’s a customised system my friend built
for me, so I can track everyone’s IP address, and also people can have
their own logins to the page which means every time they visit and
they’re logged in, it keeps a record. People can get themselves to
Level One, which is what some entries are locked to, but I have to
chose to bump them up to Level Two which is what my footnotes page is,
and any kind of rant about things that make me unhappy which shouldn’t
be talked about in public (like work issues), or things that I am
currently squeeing over – like crushes on people. I can actually put
in more levels too, so I can choose what information what people see.
Mostly level two membership just goes to people who I know really well
(online or in real life) or people who actively contribute to the
Hubris community – and by that I mean leave me comments, because of
course as an attention seeker, it’s all about the feedback.

Do you care? How careful about personal info on it are you? Do you include details about other people in your life?

Hubris is the number one result on google for a search on Joanna
Mcleod, so I write on the basis that anything I write can be read by
anyone – although as I mentioned above, I do have some security
measures but I’m aware if someone was dedicated enough they could hack
me. In the olden days before google, I used to use people’s full names
when I wrote mean things about them, and use my friends’ full names
and so forth, but I am much more aware of self-googling now so I don’t
do that so much. My restraint also includes never mentioning who I
work for (I don’t want to get dooced!) and trying not to give away too
much information about other people’s crap. One of my friends last
year made me remove every occurence of her name on the site because
she found her parents searching for her and therefore didn’t want her
name associated with drinking and drugs. Many years ago the first
time I went to bed with a certain boy in the morning he was like “this
isn’t going in your journal, is it?” – well that particular incident
didn’t go in, but I’ve said some very non complimentary things about
him since then, and him being a little drama queen, he’s done the
whole “lawyers, defamation, blah blah” speil. But funnily enough the
only legal letter I’ve had in regards to my website was regarding my
improper use of the word Sellotape (r) without using the registered
trademark symbol. Laaaaame.

Have other people, complete strangers (Like me!) been in touch?

Yes, many many many. In 1999, my friend and I used to have a thing
called The Breast Club, where we made scans of our chests in our bras,
and put them online and encouraged random people to send in theirs,
and so I met lots of people through that. Another time someone wrote
to me and said that since they read my site every day and it made them
happy they really wanted to send me a 21st birthday present.

Have you made new friends from it?

More than I can count – oh I’m so popular. Heh. But no, internet
friends are easy to make – you swap “i like your site” emails – well,
in the olden days you did, nowadays you comment instead, usually, and
that can progress to instant messaging, and then maybe you meet in
real life, and it’s all hunky dory.

Sometimes I meet (online and/or in real life) people through them
coming to my site – getting links from publicaddress.net brings them
in – and sometimes I meet them through contacting them on their sites,
or on forums, and then they come to my site to find out more about me.
It’s a way of demonstrating common interests or feelings, I suppose,
like joining a book club or a sports team might be in the real world.

Do you pay particular attention to what you write should someone you do care about it read it? Like your mum?

I do find myself censoring myself more than I’d like to sometimes
knowing that my friends read the site – sometimes I’d just like to
have a bit of a vent about a particular person without having
repercussions about it, but there are ways and means to get around
that, with different levels, or secret journals that others don’t know
about that.

I asked my parents not to read my site, although my dad did but I
think he was more embarrased about it than I was. I don’t have a lot
of boundaries anyway, so I’d like to think that the person I am online
is the person I am if you talk to me in real life – I don’t have that
much to hide.

Do you expect your family/friends to read it?

I’d actually kind of rather than my family didn’t read it, because
who’s more fun to bitch about than family? No one. And I feel
differently about different friends reading my site – I mean, when
it’s people I met online to begin with, that seems perfectly natural,
but the juxtaposition of my real life friends being in my online world
can be odd (and I know that contradicts my statement of being the same
in both worlds). If I’m away, or if my friends are away, I might cut’n
paste from my journal into emails to save telling hte same story over
and over again.

And if you do, do you feel offended if they haven’t?

If they’re not regular readers of my site, I don’t feel offended if
they don’t read it, but if they’re supposed to be regular readers and
I’m talking to them and they’re like “what? when did you do that?”
I’ll be all “DIDN’T YOU READ MY JOURNAL?” mock angry. But seriously, I
know that my journal can be a higher level of self disclosure than
some people might be comfortable reading (case in point: my review of
the Dimmer gig that was just sex sex sex).

But I would like to think that everyone wants to stalk me and know
every single detail about me ever.

Do you read other online journals or blogs?

Yeah there’s about 70 that I read religiously. Thank god for
Livejournal friends lists and RSS feeds, otherwise I’d be surfing all
the time.

Do you have a favourite? WHy?

One of my current favourite sites is what I’d call a blog if I didn’t
cringe at that word so much – it’s http://wellurban.blogspot.com. Tom Beard who writes it is passionate about Wellington, and he takes the time to
read council submissions and all those things I’d never bother doing,
and provides handy summaries, and he always finds new bars, shops and
restaurants for me to try.

I also love www.dooce.com because Heather writes in an easy, funny
way, but she also writes in great detail about her struggles with her
mental health, and she’s just an inspiration, even though that’s a
cheesey-as-fuck word to use.

and I love my friends’ sites because I like catching up with their
lives. And I like it when they write about me, of course.

Do you expect your online journal to take on a particular direction in the future that you haven’t yet established or are thinking about?

I want to write more stories about things that I did in the past -
like the Lost in Translation entry I wrote recently about moving to
Japan. I want to start writing my autobiography (yes I know, I’m 26,
I’m not that interesting and I haven’t really achieved anything, again
with the hubris), and so that’s what I’m keen to do.

How many times a week do you write in?

I used to write every day, but I also used to have a huge list of
people I could only talk to online that I’d spend hours chatting to
and write at the same time. I also used to be a student who didn’t
have bung wrists, so now I only update a couple of times a week. I
wish I wrote more.

For how long?

Entries take about an hour to write – more if there are pictures and
many links, but that’s an hour of much surfing at the same time.

Would you say this takes up a lot of your time? Does reading other blogs take up a lot of your time?

Yeah it does. But that’s okay.

Before email, were you big on writing letters? Or still are?

Only when I lived overseas. Now I wish I kept the letters I used to write.

Are you personal friends bloggers/online journalist or website owners? Family members?

I’ve always had online friends who were journallers (not journalists -
that’s like, media. Although I am trained in that too), and now it’s
weird, I have a group of friends who are so not into computers but
because of goddam myspace they’ve started keeping blogs. And boy are
they ugly…

What do they think of your new hobby?

Eight years isn’t a new thing. People used to think I was weird, but I
suppose at least the one thing I can thank the word ‘blog’ for is that
it’s mainstreamed me. Hang on, do I really want to be mainstream?

And do you consider it a hobby or something else entirely?

My job is writing website content, so writing online hones my job. And
one day I’d love to write a novel – or an autobiography, so maybe it’s
research for that. I just want to have a legacy, even if it’s a “I
watched Buffy all day and then laughed at some emos and got drunk”
legacy.

Ummm, sorry about the novella-length answers, I hope this helps!

Jo

For Kate (Kate, do you have another name? There’s already too many damn Kates!) and Noizy and Llew, and for me, since this is all rattling around in my head right about now.

Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. Which (if any) have you broken? Give examples.

Lust:
The example that first springs to mind when I hear this word could probably very well also fall under ‘wrath’, given the history involved, and how in that stall in the men’s room in a skanky goth bar I used to go out with the guy who was there with me, and also how I’d also fucked his wife who was banging on the door, so maybe I should wind the tape back to about four years before that, when I’d only pashed two boys, and I went to the movies for the first time with the gentleman in question. Just sitting next to him, our arms touching was so unbelieveably arousing that when I went to the bathroom and wiped, I was so wet that my hand slipped and I nearly punched the back of the toilet bowl. That was very unexpected for the girl that I was then.

I think it can sometimes also be hard to seperate lust from all the other things going on in my life, like needing other people’s approval to feel good about myself, or drinking too much, or needing to feel alive to combat antidepressants, or confusing love with sex, or having an overly developed sense of irony, or whatever. I suppose another example that would be appropriate here would be the first time that I hooked up with my stupid flatmate Ben III, and the following weeks. He wasn’t my type of guy – I mean, when I say he was stupid, he was stupid, but one night, he just smelt really really manly (read: sweaty) and the pheremonal connection was like “badoinga!”

On a slightly less disturbing note (I think), the character of Evan on The Secret Life of Us is so exactly my type that it hurts to watch the show cos I want to jump his bones so much.

Right now my head is full of pretty much nothing but lust. I haven’t had sex in a very very long time. Y’all didn’t think that I got OOS from working at a soul-destroying job with a really really bad computer set-up did you? Oh wait…

Gluttony:
This one is probably most apparent to everyone as something I have a problem with. The question then becomes “why is it a problem?” Quite frankly, I can’t imagine anything worse than being the type of person who would become obsessed with denying themselves the pleasures of food. To not know the joy of wine and cheese (CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!), or fillet steak, or fresh baked bread with butter, or even dhal with fresh coriander on top or avocado on soy & linseed bread is just freaky. I use the last two as examples of how food can be goooood and good for you at the same time, but I suppose gluttony comes mostly in the form of ‘bad’ food. The thing is though, if you’re going to eat the ‘bad’ food anyway, then why hate yourself for it? Why not enjoy it? I would like to stop mentally beating myself up for it. I have accepted the fact that I am never going to be thin – I was born huge, for starters – so I would like to enjoy my life. At the same time, partly because I so often don’t enjoy my life, I’m more than a little nihilistic – like, if I’m going to get hit by another bout of crippling depression and decide that this time I can’t get through it, then why should I have skipped the cake? And please don’t start in on the whole “but exercise and healthy food can make you happier” crap, because I know that. That’s why I went vegan, and that was great for a while, although half of my enjoyment of that was a big “Fuck you, dairy and meat! I don’t need you anyways!” defiance that wore off. There’s so much cognitive dissonance going on in my head at all times that I could easily present a seminar on it in relation to the LTSA ads. Oh wait, I did that already…

And of course, gluttony doesn’t just apply to food, cos there’s drinking too. I like to drink. I will probably drink more than you will if we go out together. I like the taste of the things that I drink. I like the social aspect of it. I also like the feeling of confidence it gives me, which is not even about the wine anymore, it’s about me. If one bottle is good, two bottles is better. And while I have a few friends who don’t drink, and some friends who aren’t very in to food, I can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable around them if I was eating or drinking, because while I get it in my head, at heart I don’t understand why they’re not indulging in the pleasures.

Sloth:
Have you seen my couches? It took me a long time to find ones as big and comfortable as they are. I am happiest when I am lying down fully stretched out. I hope that when I am lying down on my couch I am in my pyjamas, and that it’s cold so I can have a duvet to snuggle under. I have no idea how people find enjoyment in tramping, or running. A leisurely walk in nice weather with an iPod and comfortable clothing might be okay, but I have bung-ass knees due to the gluttony section, and flat feet so long periods of walking are no fun. I like dancing, if the music and environment is right, but mostly if I go out I want comfy couches to sit on. Part of my perfect week off plan would involve a day spent watching many episodes of a favourite show on DVD. I <3 the Sloth. I feel no cognitive dissonance about it at all.

Wrath:
I’m a pretty angry person. I’d like not to be, but I’m really really not good at letting things go. Now, I’ve just been to look up the word, to try and figure out if being full of wrath makes you actually do things, because my only reference point here is 7ven, and I haven’t killed Kevin Spacey any time recently. Mostly my wrath consists of me not getting over things, and steaming about them for years and years. I have strict moral codes of things like the Two Year Rule, and if people break them, I get really really angry. I think more people should just suck it up and be miserable instead of hurting people. I am very very angry about people who hurt me and get to have their happy endings, because where the fuck is the justice in that?

Envy:
I am extremely guilty of envy. I envy people with pretty shiny possessions like houses, and DVD hard drives, and then I envy people without few possessions, who can pack up their lives in a matter of minutes. Mostly when I envy people I try to belittle them in some way – the phrase “skinny bitch” comes out of my mouth an awful lot, or when I see couples making out in public I’ll be like “get a room” when I am really thinking “I wish that was me”. I am envious of anyone who gets to hear someone tell them that they love them. I am envious of my friends who are having successful careers in areas that I want to work in. I am envious of people whose webpages get more hits than mine when they’re not even fucking real, Natalie. I am envious of people that I look down on for appearing to be happy with who they are. I am envious of people who seem to have taken the blue pill if we were going to go all Matrix comparison-y – is the blue pill the ignorance one? Well that’s the one I want. In a way, and this is disgusting to admit, I am envious of people with real identifiable trauma in their lives, and that’s something I spent a long time on when I was in counselling. I would like to be able to say “the reason that I am like this is because ___ happened”, and have it be all nice and easy like that. And if you think that I actually think that other people have lives that are all nice and easy, then you’re a dumbass. I’m well aware that the grass is always greener on the other side. It’s just that it’s often very hard to see what people would be envy about me.

Pride:
Hello, have you looked up the definition of ‘Hubris’ lately? This links in to the wondering what people would envy me for. Being well-educated, raised upper-middle class and given the opportunity to travel the world before I was ten and having parents I can rely on to back me up? Sure, that’s lucky, but I don’t know if it’s something that I can take pride in, because it’s not something that I’ve achieved – unless we go “yay little sperm, nice work on hitting that egg”. I would like to take pride in overcoming depression, having friends, being a good writer, but it just seems like those are all things that come naturally, or are things that I have no alternative but to achieve, so that seems dumb. But yes, I am condescending. I am snobby. I can cook well, and sometimes am capable of carrying out a good stimulating conversation. I used to take pride in giving really great head, but since the throwing up on someone’s cock whoopsie, my confidence in that area has been shattered. I would like to think that Hubris the site is really interesting, and I’m proud of that, but it’s not like I’ve got a book deal or anything. So meh. Perhaps pride is my least sinny of the sins. Rock on.

I’m not going to tag anyone – when you presume that people want to do things, you make a press out of you and me! – but please feel free to riff off your own if you like.

EDIT: whoops, I forgot
Greed:
I think this is pretty much covered by all the other ones, isn’t it? I’ll just go with the Hole quote to sum this one up, cos I’ve already wasted too much time: “I want to be the girl with the most cake”. Chur. But actually no, let me change that to say that I’m well happy to pay as much tax as I do, because I want to live in a world where the people who aren’t as well off as I am can still have things like oh you know, housing and healthcare and education…

Hi! So. It’s been what, like, two and a bit weeks? Well, I’m here now. And I’d just like to start with this:

That’s Bopa Chai, the Shaolin Monk on Crack, aka my new flatmate whom we are still very much enamoured of. And while we’re speaking of photos, while she was around tonight, KateM demanded that i take some of her that don’t feature her cleavage prominently and in which she isn’t rather boozed, and so if you’re interested (and I guess I’m looking at the J-Crew here mostly, not that you probably even realise that you’re called the J-Crew now, but maybe we’ll get there in this entry) you can find them here.

Anyways, so I guess maybe you’d like an explanation as to where I’ve been for the past three weeks. Well, I’ve been right here, pretty much, but for the most part, I have been computerless. That’s right, you may recall how I kept getting electric shocks off my box? (oh ha ha ha, that one was a little too obvious) Those shocks eventually managed to fry pretty much every single inner component of my computer, and so I went a week without it, and then Peter’s workmates rebuilt it for me, at a cost, of course. This means that i lost everything on my hard drives, which SUCKS (and therefore all cd donations of mp3s will be very very gratefully accepted, thank you) but the one silver lining in the cloud was that therefore they didn’t find the folder full’o old topless photos (and yes of course i had topless photos on my computer – show me any girl with a webcam who doesn’t have one, and I’ll show you a girl who knows how to use her delete key). Oh yeah and Pete – if you did manage to extract them, you’d better have enjoyed them and not turned away in disgust, or I’ll be like, hurt and shit. Anyways. That’s why I haven’t been updating my website, and so yeah, thank you all for your letters of concern. Oh wait, hang on – like hardly anyone sent me one! You people think you can all sit here and read and not tell me about it – I’m looking at you, Kate Oliver, and you, Jane Yee, but believe me, I know. Also, Jane – apparently you said that I was really fucked up, but I heard that from a source with no credibility so that’s okay.

Of course there are people who do read my journal and tell me about it. I have hazy memories of one night recently having a big arguement with John and JeremE who were trying to tell me that this journal online isn’t the real me, but I can’t remember if they were saying one was better than the other or not. I think I was trying to argue 1. “Hey John, you’ve only just met me tonight, buddy” and 2. of course it’s me, but I don’t know if I got my points across because I just ended up quoting Tom and KateB who probably know me better than almost anyone and they say that I’m not as open as I think I am, so I kinda dug my own hole. Later, KateH and I managed to reach an agreement whereby Hubris is Ginger Spice and I’m Geri Halliwell (I mean, the physical resemblence is obvious) so that was good.

Other stuff that’s happened over the past while? I meant to write lists, but I didn’t. I’ve hung out with Bopha lots and lots and lots, and all her friends have decided that our flat has an excellent vibe, so they hang out here too. I get to watch them doing kung fu, having intelligent discussions, drinking endless cups of Jasmine tea and smoking very nice pot ever so often, which are all good things, even if the Kung Fu makes me exhausted just hearing it.

We had cigar, martini and poker night last week, which was fucking excellent. Everyone (was supposed to) dressed up 1920s/1930s gangster style, and we played and played and I smoked many many cigars. My friends don’t actually like martinis (wusses!) so we degenerated into apple martinis and cosmos instead, and then towards the end of the night everything just thrown together, but still out of martini glasses so I guess that’s okay. I don’t know who won at poker – we pushed all the chips in the middle for the last round and I think maybe Clayton won, but I can’t be sure.

My parents are in Mexico right now. Before they went away, Anji rang me up and told me Mum had gone into her work and been really spassy saying “Umm, I don’t know if we have a will or not, but you know that we have three houses right? So if anything happens to us, you can have one each”. I got email from them today saying that Neil got his wallet stolen on the first day that they were there, and that I shouldn’t try to buy anything online with their credit card number cos they canceled it. Also, apparently every time Mum goes to say something, she speaks Japanese instead of Spanish. Silly multilingual parents!

Oh yeah, I rang Mum up a week before they left, bawling my eyes out over my dead computer and the fact that my car had been broken into YET AGAIN and was generally unwarrantable and everything. That’s three fucking back windows, all for NOTHING. Grrr.

Shirley helped me break the rest of the glass out of the window and ducttaped it up for me. She’s my Manly friend. However, she’s going tomorrow for ever and ever and ever. I have to drive her to the airport and while I promised her I wouldn’t, I know I will cry and cry and cry. We had chocolate fondue and girlie night at her place on Friday, her and Maz and Morrison. I had flashback panic attacks in the car on the way home, partly about Shirley and partly about friends in general and other stuff. Other Stuff in capital letters even. When I set my mind to something, I want to do it as quickly as possible, get it over, out of the way and what have you. No drawn out trauma and thinking extremely, so later that night there were hugs and tears in my kitchen, and hours and hours of talking, excrutiating exhausting talking. I’m so conditioned to say “that’s okay, that’s alright” when someone apologises to me and I physically had to stop myself from saying it because it would have been insincere and everyone knows that. But there’s peace at least, and maybe that’ll stop the dreams.

Yesterday I drove to Pukekohe and got lost for half an hour because I came in at the other end of the town than where KateH anticipated that I would, and therefore rights were lefts and therefore wrong, which frustrated me immensely and I was burning up with fever, but finally I managed to find her and we went via Pak’n Slave to Nikki’s bach at Clark’s Beach. I think I wasn’t really expecting a good night, but it turned up to be excellent. Eight girls, two of them married, one with two children – it was an interesting cross section. They were all from Waiuku/Pukekohe though, so I was a little on the outside, but that’s okay, we bonded as girls always do over “I have Never” and I didn’t even end up sticking out like a deviant sore thumb as I have been known to do when playing the game with d-sters. It was also really nice to be out of the city, even if we could still see the sky tower in the far distance. I didn’t get much sleep though, cos it was hot, and I was sleeping on the couch in the lounge, cos the bunks were too short, the bottom bunks were too claustraphobic and I didn’t wanna sleep on a top bunk when I’m used to a mattress on the floor. But anyways. Nikki even cooked us all breakfast this morning, kickass. And then because I’m lovely, I took KateH to Waiuku so that she could see her mother for Mother’s Day. Her family are cool, except I was scared when someone was talking about the Baha Men, and so I complained about how I’d have the song in my head for the rest of the day, and Jane offered to put a different song in my head and I said okay, then EVERYONE at exactly the same time went “do do do do do do do do” in the manner of bears driving around in cars being the ballet. But Katie pumped me full’o gas and bought me chocolate too, so I love her.

And that’s it, I guess. Not very much for the past three weeks, I just can’t think. There’s been classes, of course, which I have even been to sometimes. I’m worried about tomorrow, my first friend off on her OE. Of course, there’s also KateB who’s doing so fucking brilliantly she makes me teary with pride when she calls me with news of her latest achievements (Kate – call me! Hi, I like you). OH! completely new topic now, so I should probably put in a new paragraph because it’s going to get a little dodgy.

What does the word “trans” mean to you? Do you even give it much thought? And if so, if you were told you were going to have a “transvaginal ultrasound” would you realise that it was going to be done from the inside? Well, I certainly didn’t, and believe me, I got one of the biggest shocks’o my recent life when the radiographer pulled out this huge fucking girthy 13 incher and rolled a condom over it. She told me to insert it “like a tampon” and I was like “ummmmmmmm holy fuck” Her reassurances that it didn’t all have to go in didn’t count for much. Afterwards she just left and told me to leave the door open when I’d cleaned myself up. I felt so cheap and used! But end of the story is that after extensive consultation with my doctor, I’m now on the pill again. Not evil evil femulen though; estelle35 which is what pretty much everyone with polycystic ovarian syndrome gets put on. And if I find after a couple of months I’m going psycho and losing my sex drive again, I will just stop taking it. Dr White was very amusing when she was going over it with me, asking if I’d be using it for contraceptive purposes, and I was like “yeah I doubt it eh” and she was like “well, if you DO meet Prince Charming tonight or something…”. I like her lots and lots. Also, yeah, so apparently I don’t ovulate all the time and I might very well have difficulty concieving children BUT I’m not infertile and I’m supposed to remember that and not worry and that was why my blood pressure was up a little, apparently, cos I was worried and cos I’d been running around. Normally I have excellent blood pressure. I asked Anji if she’d carry a baby for me, and she promised me an egg, and even offered to put it on ice now, so that’s okay. There’s a backup plan.

And now I think that’s probably enough eh. My back hurts – I’m sitting on the ground again. However, the rugmunching possibilities are looking good – or at least the rug part, because I’ve seen one of the flats downstairs has actually been moved out of, and they’re pulling up the carpet in there, and once they’ve laid new stuff there, they’ll be putting new stuff in here as well, adn then I can sort out my room and reassemble my desk, six months after the actual flooding.

I’m still downloading Hubris – the only links I have left to my computer past – but maybe I can rejig the order and upload this now.