Hubris.co.nz

Sometime around September last year I started desperately searching the internet for a house we could rent for New Year’s Eve, as the beloved bach in Waiterere had been sold. Astonishingly, I managed to find one – in Raumati. It had six bedrooms, three bathrooms and was across the road from the beach. And we got it! And so, #raumatirumble was born. You can read Laura’s shorter description with more crying here, or read on.

Obviously everyone who’d been at Waiterere had to return. That was me, Kim & Brendan (KRENDAN SMASH!), Jason & Kate (Kason) and Stacey and Mike, who met and became Macey on that fateful occasion. But we’d also folded in Laura Hungry and Tim (Lim) into our social group, like whipped cream into a coulis. Notice a reoccuring theme? Oh yeah, me amongst a whole bunch of couples. So it was time to find myself a summer boyfriend. I thought there was potential, and there had been a really nice first date, but a second never eventuated. Also we found out that the other Laura (Lozza) was going to be around, and we wanted her with us. Yay Summer Boyfriend!

So emails went around about what we needed to take with us, and we decided to each put in $50 for food, and cases of wine were ordered, and ginger and rhubarb syrups brewed, and limoncello soaked and bottled (well, the bits that Bad Tom didn’t accidently add to our already alcoholic lemonade on Xmas Day anyway). And then the weather reports were read and it was rainy mcrainstorms ahead. Boo, you whore. So I packed some socks as well as three pairs of togs, and hit up the Sallies shop in Newtown for four trashy novels (and a stack more saucers for the #plateproject while I was at it).

Finally December 30 rolled around, after a couple of very long days of anticipation. Rachel came over to catsit, and after about a thousand trips, I managed to get my car all loaded up with food, wine, chilly bin, paddling pool, fancy clothes and all. I collected Kim and Lozza in the rain, and we were off, cranking up our themesong (we run this town, after all) and other Rihanna choones along the way, talking about how major Nicki Maraj is, and loading up on vegetables on our way (avocados at 69 cents and strawberries $1.50 a punnet? Oh hell yes!). We got somewhat lost in Raumati but eventually with our three iphones combined, we managed to make our way to the house, and unload.

Kason and KRENDAN had already secured themselves upstairs rooms, so I headed downstairs. Summer Boyfriend and I took separate bedrooms because I snore, but figured we could do it on the ping pong table upstairs so I could show off some new tricks while I was at it (for serious: I was at Family Planning the other week getting a full range of STD checks (my Xmas present to myself: being assured I am clean. Treat yo’self!) and the nurse was like “your vagina muscles are so strong you should learn some ping pong ball tricks!” because I kept popping out the speculum. Why do I always get the interesting health professionals?). I pushed the beds in my room together none the less, because I am not very practiced at sleeping in a single bed and did not want to injure myself. Also downstairs were Macey, and the biggest room of all was saved for Lim. Seriously, that bitch was like, huuuuuuuuuuge. Which came in very handy later…

Too many details, right? When Lim got there, we held a summit and worked out an approximate meal schedule, and dispatched the menfolk off to the supermarket in the root ute (in this scenario, Lozza counted as a man, on account of being my summer boyfriend). Meanwhile, us ladies drank wine and called ourselves the Real Housewives of Raumati. I was wearing a caftan, after all.
Our 3G connection was weak, but our love was strong. I rang up the property owner to question why there was no TV when there had been one in the pictures, and scoffed at him for saying “there are Sky connections if you brought your own decoder” because what good would that be without a screen to watch it on? He rang back a little later and then I rang him from a telecom phone with better coverage, and he promised to send one over the next day. Victory!

To my extreme delight, Laura had brought along a couple of Babysitters Club books, and so we made Tim give us a dramatic reading about the truth about Stacey and her diabetus (captured on Instagram by Jason here). It was raining but the wine and rhubarb ginger gimlets were warming, and it wasn’t actually cold, so I went for a swim with some of the boys. The beach was beautiful even in the grey, and easily accessed by some steps. The hot shower afterwards was good, especially since I didn’t have to wait for anyone else to finish first.

My wrists were sore from all the wanking pre-holiday chopping and cooking and scrubbing so I assumed the position of Team Leader instead of cook, and we got two huge pans of glorious mac’n cheese in the oven. Cooking teams are great! We spent the evening most pleasantly, stuffing our faces, drinking wine and talking shit. Good times.

The next morning I woke up to a good deal of excitement upstairs. Santa had just dropped off a brand new 42 inch plasma screen, and the menfolk were scrambling around to assemble it while others played barista with Lim’s coffee machine. There were fried potatos and toast and eggs for everyone but me, and once the kitchen was cleaned, the boys (and Stacey) went to the rec room to play Settlers of Catan loudly, while the girls made mimosas, watched The Mighty Boosh (we even had our own Milky Joe), and painted our nails with OPI’s Rainbow Connection and other delights. I even have a picture of it, including glittery cakeballs made by Laura.

So important! So shiny!

Cider was drunk and the weather cleared up a little bit, so we got our ocean swim on, my summer boyfriend squealing away. It was cold, but we all had a lovely splish splash, and when we got back to the house, after hot showers and putting PJs on, I busied myself making fried cheese sandwiches for people. Mike’s friend arrived around that time and didn’t bother to introduce himself to the other room of people. In his defense, Mike didn’t introduce us either. So we drank some more cider and did some prep for our fancy dinner. I made bread rolls! The dough rised! And rised! And then it rose again after I balled it up! SUCH AN ACHIEVMENT! Then Laura brandished pipe cleaners at us, so it was time to get our cat ears on. Stacey did mine for me, and I got my fancy duds on:

Turns out my Summer Boyfriend gives great pussy too:

My tweet at the time said we should be on the cover of Cat Fancier magazine, because WE ARE FANCIER THAN CATS. We are major. More catting followed, and we also decided to give the boys cat head dresses. Not all of them were keen on having their toenails painted though.

After arguing backwards and forwards about whether we could fit the outdoor table into the dining space as well, we ended up setting up the ping pong table for dinner, which worked very well for the eleven of us. There was lamb and beef from the bbq, amazing potato gratin, my rolls (and rolls and rolls. Get it? I’m fat), and then because we suddenly realised there were two vegetarians, we also made a carrot salad and asparagus very hastily. And we sat down and ate and ate, and talked about what our resolutions for the year had been, and if we’d kept him. I had resolved not to sleep with any more close friends, workmates or married people. I didn’t sleep with any workmates in 2011, woo! (Or did I?) And I resolved to shoot a gun in 2012. After dinner we broke out the limoncello that I had made for dessert, and started singing songs from Community, which may have been a little disturbing for those who were not familiar with it. Mike’s friend revealed that he voted National, which made everyone uneasy. There was some dancing, and at midnight I put down my glass of Glen Coco Juice, and warned my Summer Boyfriend I was going to dip her and kiss her, which I did. As a good hostess, I thought it would only be fair enough to kiss Mike’s friend too, because everyone should have a good time. And then there was more crazy dancing, some wacky waving arms to ‘Wuthering Heights’ of course, which I hope someone will post the video of. Cigars were smoked on the deck with whiskey, and I felt very manly. More drinking was done, and I showed more hospitality, painting the friend’s toenails and introducing him to the delights of the Arcade Fire and gave him a place to sleep. Because I am a good host, okay?

On New Year’s Day, we got to go to Wendy’s for lunch, huzzah! And then we watched Mean Girls and started drinking again, and the sun came out, and the ocean was a lovely place to swim off a hangover and feel bad in. That evening we watched Point Break as Jason made us pizza after pizza, and once again we resolved to shoot a sequel, starting with Patrick Swayze washing up on Raumati Beach. I think Kate is going to play Gary Busey.We played Articulate with some amazing calls like me “Someone who talks to the dead” and someone else yelling “…. Necrophile!”.

The next day was glooooooooooriously sunny. After fantastic breakfast triple pikelets, there were many card games outside in the shade, much devouring of Rivals by Jilly Cooper which is so fantastically trashy and also happens to be Laura’s favourite book so she constantly receited lines at me about people’s bushes. Very major. More cider was purchased, along with some other treats, and more swimming was done. There was still almost no cellphone coverage, so we heard that people were angry with Libra Tampons for transphobia, but couldn’t watch the ad. So we drank more and bbqed a feast. Later, a commitee was sent downstairs to Lim’s room to build us a blanket fort. Holy fucking crap. I thought last year’s was spectactular, but this was astonishing. Four clothes racks provided central support, and there were mattresses and pillows galore, as well as a chilly bin and a stereo so we could party in there. Here’s a picture taken by my Summer Boyfriend. Naturally the first game inside a blanket for is Marry, Fuck Kill, and as Mean Girls was fresh in our minds, it stirred up some hefty debate. Most everyone would marry Karen, but there was a lot of argument about who was richer – Regina, or Gretchen. Obviously it’s Gretchen, because her dad like, invented toaster strudel. Plus I think Gretchen would work much harder in bed because she wants people to like her, and Regina would just lie back. But if you fucked Regina, there’s a good possibility that Amy Poehler might walk in on you, which would be great. INTENSE DISCUSSION! Someone has a video of it which they might post. Of course, we also played I Have Never too, and I discovered that the past six months of my life result in me getting raaaaaaaaaaaaaather drunk during that game. Then there was some wailing to Adele, and a great big hangover the next day.

Macey had to leave us, but we consoled ourselves with the saddest sight in the world ever – Jason playing paddle tennis by himself on the beach. I had the best swim ever, and then sent the day alternating between sun and shade and wet and dry. Monkey butlers even brought me G&Ts. And I very nearly won at cards after making Tim shift into the paddling pool with me. Yes there was an ‘f’ in that, thanks. And then some kittens came to visit, as snapped by Laura in front of the paddling pool!

I feel like I am failing to capture this magical holiday and have no way to describe all the injokes and the number of times I sang “YOU’RE WELCOME, YOU’RE WELCOME FOR EVERYTHING” like Pierce, and the number of times I told people I loved them as Laura ate golden syrup off her knife or Lozza wrote “I LOVE LAMP” on the beach. There was lots of laughter and also enough quiet time, the house was plenty big enough for us all, and the bad weather over the first couple of days didn’t matter. We ate and drank like kings, and didn’t even spend all that much money on it. On our last night we watched slide shows of the pictures and videos people had taken, looking back already. I was very very sad to leave the next morning, but super happy to come home to Sebastian.

So that was my New Year’s. How was yours?

Since the last entry was short and boring, I figured I would use some pics to help tell better stories about what I’ve been up to for the past month or so. Most of these pictures are from my cellphone, which doesn’t take very good or big pictures, so just grin and bear it, okay?

In fact, if you really want to see the proper damage from that one, then you need to see it from behind (lollerskates!):

So after Xmas Party shenanigans, it was time for actual Xmas.

On Xmas Day, Karen and Tom came over for an international sandwich degustation. Spellcheck suggests that word should be “devastation” instead which is close to accurate.

They bought it at the Ministry of Stories, because I’d tweeted about it right when they happened to be going to Hoxton!

Then I went away to Waiterere for five nights over New Year’s. I forgot to take my camera, so these are the only two snaps I have.

And I’ll just steal one photo from Kim’s magic ones on Facebook to sum up our holiday, which was THE BEST TIME EVER:

Oh wait, there’s an ANIMATED GIF! Watch my boobs bounce around as I smile and unsmile! Thanks Jason!

I have been as busy as a mongoose lately. A mongoose! And consequently, there is not a part of my body that doesn’t ache. Except for maybe my right ear. But that’s it.

After work on Tuesday, Karen and I went to jump into the ocean by the lagoon. Something went wrong with the way I was holding my head as I jumped off the plank though, and as I plunged into the water I felt as if I was receiving an enema through my nose. Not a pleasant feeling at all, I tell you. In fact, it made my throat and ears ache, and made me feel really sick. Add to that the teenage boys yelling “stingray!” at each other, and then the something solid that brushed my hand that made me swim and hide behind Kar, and when she saw a jellyfish I was well ready to get out. So I texted the divine Miss Fur and she came to pick me up and we went to the fish’n chip shop in Lyall Bay then drove out of the sun to go eat on the pier by my secret beach.

On Thursday Anji and I went to a pilates class at our gym for the first time. It seemed easy enough while we were doing it, although I got trembling holding my left leg in the air for so long, but afterwards, my abs were screaming. Oh yes, I apparently have abs. And for the rest of that night and all of Friday I felt like I was wearing a corset, I was so aware of them. I drove out to the airport to pick up Lani and three of her giggling friends who are staying with us, and then Lisa came to get me again for the Julia Deans (that’s her from Fur Patrol for those of you not in the know) solo accoustic gig at Happy. We got there shortly after 9pm, and were told it wasn’t on til 10 so we went to Karen’s house and made fun of her for a while before going back. Man oh man was I tired. Ryan Prebble didn’t start playing until after 11, and even though I’m sure he’s a lovely man and that some people were into his music, I started having fantasies about his guitar strings breaking as he was twanging them so hard and cutting him and him bleeding out and dying on stage so that Julia could start sooner. And then the taste in my mouth let me know that I’d actually fallen asleep for half a minute. But when Julia finally started singing, ti was all worthwhile. She did lots and lots of new stuff, no old Fur Patrol, and ‘Freak show’ and wow, her voice sure is stunning. The annoying part was that someone had brought along a baby, who cried. What the fuck? Yes, the baby was wearing ear muffs, and yes, apparently the mother was known to Julia who stopped and said “I know it’s not the volume cos that baby’s been to Shihad gigs!” but hi, you are not Gywneth, and this is not Live8 (and no one should ever aspire to be Gywneth anyways, because dude, could you pick a more bland milksoppy role model? Maybe Andie Mcdowell. But still.). I can put up with screaming kids at the beach because I suppose I do swim by the kids’ playground so I’m asking for it, but I don’t care if Happy was the first smokefree bar and it was fairly quiet, children are totally inappropriate in that context. Yes sir. But yes, apart from that, good times. I thought about how I can totally see the way I’m replacing you in the role that you used to have, and how even though I know what I’m doing is dumb it’s going to happen anyway, but meh, maybe I will go with this week’s counselling work whereby instead of being all “I should be doing this or that” or whatever, I can be all “I am making a choice to do blah blah blah”. I totally dig on how she gets my semantical issues.

Because Lani’s friends were sleeping in the lounge when I got home I couldn’t have my usual unwinding time with the television when I got home, so I couldn’t get to sleep for ages so Friday morning I was dreadfully dreadfully tired, but hopped up on excitement about the forthcoming weekend. After work I went to the ministry social club drinks where Lani introduced me to her friends – many of whom know my father, and I laughed at where a couple of the boys apparently thought my eyes were. I suppose the Mary-Kate and Ashley locket I was wearing that Martha made me buy at Craftwerk did help to draw the eye down to Mary-Kate and Ashley, which was of course totally the point. But it made me feel appreciated. Yes. I only stayed for one glass of wine though, because I ahd to go home to eagerly await the arrival of KateH and Shirley, hurrah! We had a couple of bottles of bubby while doing much gossip catch-up, and it was lovely. A couple of times I felt a bit weird, because I always used to be better friends with both of them than they were with each other, but of course now I live in Wellington and they don’t, so they have all these stories about people I don’t really know and tales to tell about nights together and I was just like “waah, left out”. But Shirley has just moved to Palmy now to finish her grad dip, so the balance will be restored again. Muahaha. We’d planned to go out to dinner but instead I fished bolognaise out of the freezer while they went for more wine. Then we went to Fia’s birthday party, and I didn’t check the address so we wandered around the top of Ghuznee St for ages trying to find a number that didn’t exist, being invited to student parties playing Metallica before I checked my phone and saw I had two digits wrong. So we got there in the end. Mostly I just talked to Karl and Amber, and laughed at the very very drunk very very young lady who tried to hit on both Shirley and KateH because she was missing her girlfriend. When we were in the taxi home I rang Lisa and decided to go to her house to panda-dance, so the girls went home to watch taped Daily Shows which Shirley didn’t like and is therefore off my weddding guest list.

It was a Saturday the next day, strangely enough, but much like last weekend when I didn’t get to sleep in because I went to the Petone fair with Shayne and Lani to see the wonderful Sue and Martha, I had to get up early to make the most of the day. This meant Shirley, KateH and I taking the bus in to the Cuba St Carnival, leaving like before 11am! I know right, haaaaaaaaaardcore. We were as awake as lemurs. Even though I’m sure it got much more crowded as the day went along, Cuba St was buzzing, and I was so fucking proud to be a Wellingtonian. I was also stoked that all of my “I am the boss of the weather and it will be sunny tomorrow!” blustering had paid off and it was still and baking. We wandered around for an hour or so, People’s Coffee from Plum in hand (I actually don’t really like it. Stink), and KateH bought a top, I found a hat that actually fit my huge head in Frutti so I bought that, and Shirley got a hat too. We also popped into Slowboat to see Ev, and now she probably thinks I am insane. Nevermind. Then it was just after 12 and we’d seen everything so I decided we should go home to get my car and go to my secret beach. So we did. KateH and Shirls were all “oooh eeek arrrgh too cold!” so they sat on the beach and read “Next (heh), while I had a bloody nice swim.

Lani and her friends were on salad duty, which cut down on my prep work for Country Club: Australia rather substantially. I went to the supermarket for beer (VB) and assorted snarlers and charcoal and ice and so on and so forth while Shirley and KateH did the dishes. We made dips, filled up a tub with ice and beer and then I turned our washing line into a pavilion in the style of Spiceworld (remember? In the grounds of the big old spooky house and they’re all wearing different coloured bathrobes, sucking chuppa chups and planning how to set up Debra and Clifford) with the help of a large couch cover, some pegs, some lime green netting curtains and assorted mattresses, pillows and lanterns. It looked bloody marvellous by the time I was done, even if it didn’t provide quite as much shade as I’d hoped. The absolutely fantastic Jimmy turned up and for a very long time it looked like he was going to be the only boy there, so he had to Make Fire by himself, although I stood around and fetched beer. Luckily Dave showed up to be manly with him. I had a period of total Hostess Anxiety because the bbq was going slowly so we thought we might have to cook some things indoors, and I didn’t know what, or when or how, and Lani’s friends were in the house so I thought if we took the food outside they might not get anything, and my friends Anne and Frances were in the kitchen preparing respectfully shrimp and falafel and I wanted to talk to everyone at once and make sure that everythign was going okay and the ghetto blaster on the stairs kept skipping on the mix CD Lisa brought (AC/DC and Powderfinger and Icehouse and Midnight Oil and the Vines and Jebidiah etc) aaaaaaaaargh freak out! So I made a choice to just sit down and have another beer. And things got much easier from then on in. I grilled some venison burgers indoors and the shrimp and falafel were fried, and people ate, and the boys tended the bbq most faithfully and more people came adn the sun went down, and ahhhh bliss. Lisa left for a while to go see the Phoenix Foundation play, and Lani and her friends took off, so it was just my posse hanging out. Instead of eating the pavlova I’d bought to be controversial, we toasted marshmallows and pears over the coals and the sugar cominded with the mango margaritas once the beer ran out made me incredibly fucking hypo. I jumped around and danced in the garden to CDs that reminded me of Volcanic and also the Pulp Fiction soundtrack that soundtracked my first-ever pash, and was just very very amped to go back into town to meet up with Shirls and KateH who’d left earlier and see the Battacuda Sound System, or whatever the correct spelling is.

We managed to squeeze six of us into Miss Lisa’s car so we could drop Frances home, and so Kar and Dyl and I were dropped off by Manners Mall to head up to Swan Lane to the big stage and crowds. I was still VERY VERY HYPER and yes, I am writing much like I was talking and jittering. It was fun. While we were waiting for the band to start the boy from the Great Blend showed up, so we chatted for a bit and it was nice to see that contrary to the stoogling results I’d turned up, he is actually just a secret ginga. Heh. Battacuda were SO MUCH FUN! I danced like a crazy person and so my calves are still aching today, because apparently dancing on concrete is not as soft and accomodating as you might think it could be. If you were stupid. I was all very hyped up so we went to Havana after, and danced some more. KateH and Shirley went home but Dyl was all let’s stay out! so I did, and then after one more drink both him and Kar were like “tired now, let’s go” and I was like you guys are DICKS. But there was a taxi right outside the door, and so that was handy. I told Karen to remember it was a black’n gold one, and texted her when I got home fine. I wasn’t that drunk, but I’m trying to form good habits in case of insane drunkenness at a later date. Ahh taking care of myself, nice work.

When I woke up on Sunday I felt like I’d been hit by a truck, what with the calves, and the pimple just inside my nose, and the cut on my foot and the scratches from Sebby who was a little unnerved by the masses of people at the BBQ – so much so that he almost didn’t want to eat steak – but he dragged it away to eat in private and emerged much calmer – and all, but I still managed to get showered and dressed and to take the girls to the Maranui Surf Cafe for breakfast. We had to wait for aaaaaaaaaaaaages to get a table and then for our food but it was well worth it because dude, Wellington is so fucking rad. I dropped KateH in town after that and said sad goodbyes to Shirley who had to return to Palmy for her first day of school today. I spent the afternoon lying in the pavillion reading Prep (so good! although I expected more sex and panties from a book set in a boarding school) and then bonding with my couch and HDD once the wind got too strong. I did a mountain of dishes and threw away salads and prawn heads, but cleanup wasn’t too bad thanks to the wonders of disposable plates. I discovered that Smoo wasn’t actually dead in a gutter but had instead gone to Hammy with Bart for the weekend. When they got back they came over to bbq up the leftovers. But it turns out that Jimmy is teh BBQ King and they can’t even touch him. Much like Hammer. While Bart trying to catch flaming pieces of paper with his bare hands was somewhat entertaining, we resorted to cooking on the stove instead. Smoo ate about a thousand chops, so KateH and I were looking forward to seeing Bart polish off a whole pavlova, but that didn’t happen, sadly. So there is still some passionfruit pav with Kiwiberries (so weird!) in our fridge if you are hungry. Okay? Okay.

Today I got up early to take KateH to the airport, but she fetched me coffee while I was in the shower so I love her for that. And that’s about all I have to say for now, I think.

Once again, I have been neglectful, and for that I apologise. But look outside. Do you really expect me to be indoors at my computer when it’s as gorgeous as it has been for the past week? Well yes, as a matter of fact, I spent all day at my dining room table typing away, because I slept very badly last night and consequently felt like shit this morning, and so asked permission to work from home. And that’s not even “work from home” as I did a page by page analysis of our site, proofreading, editing and planning for the future – and there’s about 100 pages on it. I was particularly impressed with one page that has “Image: please supply an image and caption in landscape form” developed as part of the text body, in title tags even, becasue um, hello, wakey wakey whoever developed it. Which wasn’t me. It was a long long boring job, but it was made easier by the fact that I was in my pyjamas, and Sebastian was curled at my feet, and all the doors and windows in the house were open to let in some air. That was much better than being in the office. It was also great that I managed to do three loads of washing whilst working hard, and also in my lunchbreak I went for a swim.

I have been doing much swimming lately, sometimes in my totally hott new togs, running to the beach after work, or on the weekend when I got totally sunburnt on Sunday. But let’s talk about the total and utter joy of last Friday first. In fact, let me paste in my drunken summation of it:

So, today I was clever and took my togs to work. But sadly, at lunch today as I wasn’t going to the gym, I ended up spending $50 at Farmers on lip gloss, tweezers, handcream and eye shadow. Then I thought I would pop into Zebranos cos they were having a sale, amnd I found a dress that I thought would be okay to try on since it was two sizes smaller than I thought i needed, but it ended up being fucking hot, if a little Twee-able, so I ended up buying it, on the rationa that it was $250 cheaper than usual on account of the sale (skipping that it meant it was $200), and then I had to go to Farmers again to buy a slip to go under it. Then at 5pm I ran away and took at #15 and went to the children’s playground near the Tugboat and found AWESOME private changing rooms and put my togs on and then Karen was there and we went SWIMMING! She pointed and made “want to?” motions at me, and so we decided that yes, we would swim out to the raft anchored in the harbour. It was about 100 metres out, and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to make i, because while I am an excellent frolicker and floater, actual swimming isn’t actually my thing. But I paddled out there, and clambered on board, and felt my heart go bang bang bang, and we hung out there until we saw hordes of wetsuited people heading for us, so I dived in, and OW, must have done a booby flop cos while I thought it was a good dive, it hurt my tits like woah, but I swam back to the show mostly, and woah like FUN!

Then we were going to meet D&D at Red Square, but since Karl had tezted me about Waitangi Park, we walked through there and found him and Amber and Fia, so we were persuaded to stay, and went to the supermarket for booze and cheese and bread and pesto and corn chips, so we feasted and drank and drank and I played Hackey for the first time ever, and also baseball using a wine bottle as a bat. The police came and told us about the liquor ban, and said we should finish what we had and then move off to Oriental Bay, and I thought “you are awesome” and eventually we moved to the other end of the lawn. Fun was had, and Lisa showed up, and then we went to Boulot and the pizza was AWESOME but no one would come swimming with me so I came home. The end.

xojo

PS my dress is AWESOME

It is good when things are awesome. When I saw my counsellor last Tuesday I told her I kind of didn’t even want to come and see her since I was feeling so good and I knew that talking to her would be hard, and we talked about that some more. She asked me about my relationships and I laughed, and later she said “do you think you deliberately go for unavailable men?” and I laughed and laughed and laughed, not just because it’s funny because it’s true, but also because it seems like such a counselling cliche. I feel a little like she’s trying to tick every box with me, because now we have decided on something she says that many of the things about me are typical of that thing. But the thing that is grand is that she made me realise that while the pills have started to work, and the sun plays a part in lifting my mood I can also be proud of all the work that I have done to get myself into this state of being mostly okay again. So hurrah for me! What a clever girl I am.

What else do I have to tell you about? Tomorrow I am going to the Great Blend where people will no doubt refer to me as a blogger, and I will no doubt cringe. On Saturday February 10, I will celebrate ten years of Internetting. Yes, I surfed before, but that was the first day that I stumbled upon IRC, and therefore became addicted. In July I will have had a personal site for ten years. Ten years. Imagine that! And on that note, it must be time to put away my computer for the night. I am tired from doing so many loads of washing, and work, and making pesto, and cooking Papas Garbanzo for Lisa, and then going for a sunset swim at Lyall Bay. But before I go, I must throw mad props to Tori Spelling, because Donna Martin in Season One? Fucking hilarious.

Yesterday was pretty much the first summer day that I’ve had all summer holidays, and so of course it was also the day that felt like I didn’t need to go back on pills. Nevertheless I took my half, as I’m easing onto them for the first week and headed off to Newtown for blood tests, and was somewhat surprised that the woman in the clinic didn’t wear gloves while she was doing it. Granted, it does seem all very clean and stuff, and maybe she didn’t want to disturb her manicure, and she’d obviously done it before because I hardly felt the needle go in at all, but still, shouldn’t she have worn gloves? Anyone?

Afterwards I came back home and sanded down one of my small bookshelves and spray painted it golden. Then I went to the beach! Yes, that’s how hot it was. I had my first swim of the summer – if you don’t count the night that I finished up at CWA – and I realised as I was in the cold water at my special secret cove (okay, so there is a concreted path and a handrail down to it, so it’s not actually that secret, but it is the perfect place to swim and yet is often populated only by two other people) that it was a really good way to describe the physical manifestation of the anxiety I’ve been feeling – like you know how when you get in really really cold water your breathing becomes really shallow and your heart rate speeds up? It’s like being like that all the time.Other things going through my head nonstop is the line from The Killers’ newish album which I have been listening to despite my total hatred of Brandon Flowers, and I am much enamoured of ‘When you were young’, so I’m all about the “you sit alone in your heartache / waiting for some beautiful boy to save you”, because I am still 14 and still thinking that Nuno should have been there and busted in and saved me and consequently I will always be expecting someone to save me from myself. And I’ve been so with the trying to figure out exactly where everything went wrong with my life that on New Year’s Eve if I’d had her number I probably would have called up my form one teacher, Ms. Petz, and asked her why she didn’t like me. Because I am teh crazy after all, and all of this stuff keeps me up at night and can’t turn off in my head. Except not so much yesterday, because as I said the sun was shining and that meant that I actually got things done. I did two loads of washing, hung them on the line to dry and actually folded them and put them away afterwards. I changed my sheets. I sanded down a bookshelf and spraypainted it gold, and then put coats of spray-on varnish on it. I installed new shelves in the kitchen. It was fucking amazing how much of a positive effect the sun had.

Today of course, the sun wasn’t out and so I stayed in bed for a couple of hours reading Danielle Steele before I managed to get my shit together to go to the warehouse to buy frames for my art – via the Maranui Surf Cafe, of course. And then I realised that I shouldn’t have taken my half pill on an empty stomach because I got spacey and nauseous, and I spent what felt like hours in the Warehouse, eyes glazed over in the DVD section, fighting impulse buy urges – I want to watch Deadwood but they only had the second series, I probably wouldn’t be that in to 21 Jump Street now that I’m actually old enough to stay up past 8pm and would therefore be able to watch it if it was on TV now, and then I decided that I didn’t need to spend $85 on Beverly Hills 90210 (and got it for $25 US from Amazon instead, natch). I did, however, come across The Breakfast Club by itself for $14, but decided to get the triptich with Weird Science and Sixteen Candles instead. The eighties’ movie fest continues. I felt sick for a couple of hours and weak and kitten-like, so I’ve been hiding under my duvet on the couch since I got home, you know, just for a change. Lisa came over and we watched The Breakfast Club together and made really smutty dirty jokes about the movie and also about a choice selection of NZ musicians. You know, just for a change as well.

I’m starting to feel a bit like Osama Bin Laden here. I mean, apart from the bit where he fancies Whitney Houston and plots to kill people, of course. Just that me sitting here, sending journal entries out into the ether as proof of my continued existence instead of actually talking to people. I am still ducking the phone, and I have emails from some nice people I should reply to, but oh man, that just seems like so much effort. I should talk to people and find out about what’s going on in their lives instead of just thinking about mine. And I will. Soon. It’s going to be sunny tomorrow, right?

December 23rd. Finished work at 2pm. Drinks in Amanda’s office for her last day. Jeremy was already putting his name on the door. We ran out of liquor. Then we ran out of the vodka I fetched from my office’s freezer. We went to someone’s house via the dairy for more wine. I’m not entiiiiiirely sure who’s house it was. I ordered pizza off our work tab and of course didn’t realise it was actually my client I was talking to until it was too late and I’d already embarrassed myself. Everyone made a big deal about thanking me. We trekked down to Lambton Quay and then up to The Big Kumara. It was 10pm by that stage and so I peeled myself off from the group and cabbed home.

December 24th
Death on a stick. Nevertheless I managed to scrub both bathrooms and shop for Xmas Food and feel like dying some more. Drinking with workmates never ends well.

Christmas Day
Mum and Neil showed up just before 11am which made me tetchy cos I was still washing dishes, and dropped off a trestle table and a whole bunch’o food. Mum went off to pick up Anji&Richard and Karen, and then we proceeded to eat (crossaints, bread rolls, pear brandy champagne cocktails) and eat (nibbly bits) and eat (more nibbly bits) and open presents and eat and drink. Anji and Richard left sometiem around 6, so the rest of us ate some more, then watched Shorters (stupid getting teary-eyed at weddings) and then ate dinner – which was just a beef fillet salad. And we drank some more and drank some more and Mum read aloud all of the book Karen had given me – The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists – which is quite possibly THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN and it had us thumping the table and yelling “HAM!” and “RUM!” and “ARRRRRR!” and “GROG!” and “HAM!” and occasionally a foray into “BRAINS!” when zombies were mentioned. It was all great. Until about 1am when I got really sick, of course. Stupid fucking blue cheese.

Boxing Day
Still blue-cheesed to death. I had an awful lot of dishes to do by myself. Sigh. I made myself feel better by reading slash and feeling glad that I’m not the type of loser who writes it. Then I felt worse because I realised I’d just been reading slash for a couple of hours.

Today
Sunshine! Swimsuit! Corona! Avocado! Reading! Yeah. Bored now. I want someone to play with.

PS: if you’re one of the few hubrettes who received xmas giftie from me but who hasn’t had the charm and decency to say thank you, well you’re still fucking welcome, and I hope you had a fucking choice-ass xmas anyway. You fucking rude sods.

I have never taken my pants off while driving before today, and I must admit it was kinda fun. It’s fucking hot coming home in the late afternoons, and traffic moves slow enough to allow you to do things like that – if you’re wearing a skirt over pants as usual anyways, that is. I wanted to take my shirt off and just be in my sparkly singlet as well, but as my singlet was on over the shirt, that might have been a bit too much of a mission.

No driving today except for the commute which seems to get more and more annoying every day. I did make lots of phone calls and send out lots of official emails and stuff. I write up my every move on my task list in Outlook and it’s way too satisfying to be able to tick things off. I also emailed my dad and he called me an Angel. I thought that was so very sweet you can see it here. Yes, new page section alert. It’s kinda sparse right now. Kini gets it though, so she rocks.

Shopping in The’Puna at lunchtime, I came across a store called “Between the Sheets” and so I’d just like to actively encourage you all to spend $429 and buy me the duvet cover set on the first bed in the store. Thank you. I found what I wanna get Clay – a book on under $15 wines (Or maybe i should get him a book on under 15 girls), and we’re getting Jeremy one of those barking flipping dogs (don’t ask) but I could not find a book about Bears anywhere. Well admittedly I only went into two book shops. So instead I rang Karen in Welly since she does work for the best bookshop in the country, and told her to find me one. You know, more people should write books about bears. In fact, I think that all you people out there planning on writing novels should just flag that idea and write bear books instead. If you’re too poor to actually photograph bears, get your friends to dress up in animal costumes and photograph them instead. IN FACT, do both animals and animal suits if you can. That’d be great. “Bears and Bear Costumes” – how good does that sound?

I got my final results today – straight A’s, unsuprisingly. Well, an ‘A’ in Instructional Design, a slightly disappointing A- in Multimedia Project, and an A+ in Multimedia Broadcasting. I got an ‘A’ in Multimedia Production last semester, and I should have got an A in Graphics only I fucked up the exam and got a B+ so I did pretty well. (We just won’t mention the B- in 3D modeling, cos that was to be expected, as was the C in Mass Comm). Who’s a little girlie swat? Who’s a little girlie swat?

I’m applying for more jobs already now. I think an eight page cv/portfolio was waay too excessive though. I must learn to be more abrupt. “Order! Order!”

I’m so so sunburnt. Well, not drastically so, but enough to give me a headache. Too much sun from driving around in the morning in a station wagon this time. I’m actually getting a little tired of traffic, strangely enough.

I got my first pay slip today! It was only for three days work, but now for the first time in the past six months, I actually have a positive bank balance! Xmas shopping here I come.

I talked to Mum on the phone tonight and she asked if I was going to be in Welly for New Years and said that they were going to go tramping in Mt Tongararo. For a minute there I was afraid she was going to invite me along, but she wasn’t. Phew!

I’m assembling my portfolio which means that my mailing list is currently going to get emailed a whole stack’o old articles that I wrote back in 1997. Lucky them.

I only have restricted Internet access at work – “This Page does not appear to be work related – please view it after hours”. How rude!

Brad’s in Australia for the week with Morrison. Jeremy goes away for a month on Sunday. We’re going to buy him a flipping barking dog. Clayton’s going on the 23rd. I am too. But Brad will be back by then, so don’t get any burglering ideas.

All the motels in Taupo are fully booked. I wonder if random people would mind if we just pitched tents on their lawns. I really must get someone to call Jarrod.

“Order! Order!”

Tuesday 26; January, 1999

Ahhhh sweet nothing days. Bliss. Umm. Did I do anything today? Not really. Let’s see. Hmm. Nope, still nothing.

Simon’s friend Don was around for a while. He has really ugly tattoos and he’s a total slut too. Slept with so many chicks off chat. Lame lame lame. Chat’s lost all its thrill for me now – which is a good thing. Basically the only person I talk to on a regular basis on there is Andee, now that I’m living with Simon and Hulita is still overseas.

Clayton and his friend Lucy came around in the evening, and we watched some of the globes. Apparently, Layton is 25. Lucy warned me that Layton is boring, and that he’ll probably ask me out. Well, I don’t think that’s too likely, but oh great – a boring flatmate.

Anyways, I have nothing to say, sorry. Except the stalker was a silly girl called Tammie – go figure.

I’ve so got to get a job.

Tuesday the 5th of January, 1999

I guess the fact that Oma rang me twice while I was still trying to sleep should have cued me into the fact that it wasn’t going to be a good day. At one I worked for three hours at Leonie’s, finally managing to finish cateloging all her Japanese books that she bought from my grandfather’s collections. How can one man have so many books? Have had, sorry. There’s a tshirt at the Markets that says “The man who dies with the most books still dies”. Mum wasn’t impressed when she saw it, for obvious reasons, but I had a good chuckle.

So yeah. After finishing work at four, I veged at home for a bit before Charly rang, wanting to be picked up from town. She said she’d hardly talked to Graeme all day that she’d been out with him, which I really think is a bit off, if she came to Welly to sort things out with him. So yeah. We had dinner and stuff like that. While she watched “Party of Crap” I came online and did a bit of work on my journal and stuff – I’m falling behind, sorry. (I know there are people that care, because I’m addicted to checking the stats page – which doesn’t make it go up). I’m so vain and self absorbed, it’s terriffic!

Anyways. Then we watched some more of the taped Glastonbury. Charly had the audacity to diss Nick Cave AND Jarvis Cocker. Some people wouldn’t know class if it ran them over in a green MG. I logged on to Ihug for her (since she doesn’t know how to log in, and she doesn’t have my password). I saw that the K Man was on, and I haven’t seen him for aaaaaages and I really really felt like talking to him, but Charly wanted a go, so I told him I’d talk to him in an hour. Sweet, cos he said he’d wait for me. So yeah. I went off and had a bath and shit (mmmmmmmmm rose oil and candlelight – that’s making me sound really seedy – oh well). And yeah, then after an hour, i went back into the computer room, bored and wanting to do my computery stuff, and she was like “oh, Graeme just came online” and she gave me OH such a sincere “Sorry”. So that just right royally fucked me off. I know that I’m too possessive about my computer, but she knew I hadn’t talked to Kamahl in ages, and that I have journals to do and I have people to talk to as well, you know? And I just have so little sympathy for her and the whole Graeme mess because she got herself into it. Okay, that sounds too harsh. It’s just that I know how fucking crap and pointless internet relationships are, and if there’s a problem, I’d rather talk it out than sit in silence and get on a plane and then sit in silence again.

Okay, so after that spew, what did I do? I was like “fine” and left the room, and went sulking into the lounge, where my parents suggested I go to town or something, since I couldn’t bring myself to kick her off my puter. So I did, rejecting the idea of going in my pajamas, so I had to throw on some clothes first. So yeah. I was so mad I was fuming by the time I got to town, so I’m glad I managed to drive okay. I went over a hedgehog before I realised what I was doing, but I think it was lined up between the wheels, so it should be okay. So yeah. I stopped into United Video, who tried to tell me that my prize was probably sent to Mount Roskill – bastards! Anji wasn’t at Axolotl, so I had a hot chocolate and talked to Kirsten and her friend Amber, who was really cool and we instantly got chatty. Then as I went to call Anji, I heard someone call out my name, and it was Nicola! So yay, I talked to her for a while, after finding out Anji was in bed. Although we email and talk on the phone occasionally, I haven’t seen her since Onslow ended. She was looking SO styley. Great hair. We’d sit in Economics talking about our hair all year long. No wonder I had to learn the whole course in a day long mass cram with Kate. We ended up getting exactly the same mark too, which is kinda amusing.

Anyways. So I walked back to the car, and bumped into Siobahn, who invited me and Jo to come out and play on Saturday Night – YAY since I’m going back to auckers on Tuesday. Mmmm. I got back to the car, and put Little Earthquakes on, which probably wasn’t a very smart idea at all. It came in right at ‘Tear in Your Hand’ and I suddenly got very melencholy, singing my heart out, and I just wanted to keep driving and driving, so I decided to take a long way home. Then of course, it was ‘Me and a Gun’ which made me cry. I mean, I’d been worked up enough as it was, but well, that song……. I was driving along feeling really really bad, when suddenly I felt something go bang, like I’d hit a dog or something. That completly freaked me out, and I started bawling, but I couldn’t stop because there was a car right behind me. As soon as I could, I turned around and went back, but I couldn’t see anything. I was so blubbering my eyes out, at the thought of having just killed an innocent animal and a beloved family pet. I was so freaked out that I’d go back and find a wounded animal and it’d look into my eyes accusingly as it died, but I couldn’t see anything. Then I remembered that there’s a big hole in that stretch of road, and that was probably what had shaken the car. I was so worked up by that stage that I just stopped the car in the Ngaio library carpark, and after checking the front of the car for blood, I cried my eyes out. Then I really wanted someone to talk to, so I drove past Kate’s house, but I couldn’t see any lights on, so I went on home.

I snuck into the house so quietly because I really didn’t want to talk to Charlotte, but she was waiting up for me. No sooner had I crept up the stairs than she told me that her and Graeme were all over (no duh). I mean, I do feel bad for her, and I’m a terrible friend and all, but honestly, there’s like nothing I can do. So I talked to her about it for a bit, and leant her a teddy bear. She didn’t ask me where I’d been or anything, so I don’t feel quite so bad.