Hubris.co.nz

Since I managed to achieve my New Year’s Resolution (or rather, sat fairly passively in a chair while someone else achieved it for me, I suppose), I decided it was time to make a resolution for Matariki too. To this end, I’m going to stop reading the blogs of people I despise. Yes, that’s right, I said the b word. That’s a sign of my disgust at my reading list. I do not need to read about some kitten-eating wanker who posts fairly moderate thoughts but knows full well that his rabid lunatic fringe commentors will take the argument to a much nastier place. I do not need to read about some kitten-eating woman in Hong Kong who thinks that money can buy all and that girl power lies in fucking other women’s husbands (oh shut up), when she’s actually totally transparent. I do not need to read about some stupid little girl in Auckland who thinks Carrie Bradshaw is an inspiration, that Louis Vuitton is like, totally awesome and important, and that proper payment for blow jobs is something expensive, not reciprocal head. Really I don’t.

In the good world of the Internet however, I had lunch with the Wellingtonista crew on Wednesday, and that was very rad. It’s nice to go out with different people so that you don’t keep having the same conversations about tentacle porn over and over again. Not that there’s anything wrong with tentacle porn, of course, but it’s good to challenge myself to try and remember social graces, and how to not punctuate every single thing I say with an in-joke, and how to try and talk about things that everyone can relate to. That said, Martha provided the smut to the conversation, and I was like “hey! that’s what I bring!” in my head. But not in the angry HULK BASH CRASH SMASH kind of anger that other conversations in my head had me having last week.

It’s funny because I can compare myself to the Hulk now, and decide to laugh at myself, but at the time I was biting my arm in the bathroom at Tupelo and then making myself throw up in order to try and get back some sense of control over my life. I spent the rest of the weekend and Monday crying on and off, knowing that it’d take a couple of days to work through the down patch, and that it was truly out of control. I’ve written a lot more about this in my head, but I’m ditching it because it’s too exhausting. Suffice to say I need to find a counsellor again if I’m going to continue to function without pills. My manager at work gave me a list of names (best way to start the week: cry in your weekly catchup at 10am), but meeeeeeeeeeeeeeh, it’s arduous. And besides, now I am up again, and don’t want to think about being down.

Today I am aching from doing yoga stretching instead of cardio yesterday because I just wasn’t feeling it, and also all the project managers and I ordered in pizza from Pomodoro for lunch cos no one wanted to go out in the rain, but I’m still full of love for the high of exercise. Do you know what I did on Wednesday night? I RAN. Sprinted even! Sure, it was only for half a block, but Anji said because she was with her workmate-who-is-stalking-me that I wrote a blog so I went to hit her, and she said “I can run much faster and for longer than you” and took off, so I took off after her, even in the cold-makes-breathing-harder air, and she stopped before I did, and I punched her in the shoulder and felt like I could have run further. And that’s quite exciting. And we saw Take the Lead which wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected it to be, although Karen and I sniggered the whole way through at the dialogue and there were points where I was like “holy crap I need some more sake” cos we’d just had dinner at Kazu, but Antonio Bad-ass was very charming, and the dancing itself was awesome. Now I want some high heels and someone to dance with. Will I sound too Oedipully if I say that I’m rather looking forward to dancing with my father at his birthday party next weekend? It’s just that boys so seldom take the lead. Unless they’re Brad’s tutor from the prom, of course, who I was totally in love with for the duration of our dance.

And on the birthday note, it’s mine tomorrow. Please everyone, keep your legs crossed for me that I will not be spending the day on an IV drip with people poking at my vagina. Some vagina pokage would be acceptable, providing that it’s only carried out by a limited number of people, and if none of them have South African accents. You may also shower me with presents, if you choose to.

But the BEST PRESENT OF ALL is that my current favourite band whose name I won’t utter until I have the tickets in my hot little hands are going to be playing in Auckland on July 12, and I’m going! I’d originally planned to fly up on the 14th for the weekend, but now I will be in town from Wednesday through til Sunday. I would like to hang out with you while I am there, okay? So let’s hang.

I actually can’t think of much else that I wanted to say. I posted a recipe for Lemon Pie, and also the linear notes from my NZM Mixtape Compilation. I need someone to watch soccer with. Shirley left a squeeing message on my answerphone when she received the CD I sent her that contains The Garland Gang CD ROM, The Sound of Garland mixtape in mp3 form (I had to listen to Creed in order to make it, but rest assured that I had my fist and knee up the whole time), a bunch of photos and a copy of the newly digitised Garland tape. I also sent her a copy of 101 Stories. The weather is poos. My boots are awesome. My tummy is full. I haven’t had a period since early April. Maybe my tummy is full of Messiah Baby. Foetal Alcohol Syndromed Messiah Baby.

It’s Friday, I’m in love at home
Last Friday night, I didn’t go out. Yes, I know. I was pretty sure that the world was going to implode too. But the one boy left at work who goes out drinking had some mysterious function on (he refused to tell me what it was, apart from a gay pride parade, but I don’t believe him. I am instead suspecting that he’s been drafted in to sell Amway), and I didn’t want to have to make contact with the ex-cows, because eww, boys have cooties (or BIRD FLU) and all that. However, my being lame at homeness provided me with the opportunity to do the supermarket shopping, tidy the house in preperation for vacuuming the next day and spend some quality time with Bart, so that was nice.

Big in Japan, alright / pay, then I’ll sleep by your on my side
It was quite exciting to get up on Saturday morning and start preparing for a Country Club whilst not being hungover. Yeah that’s right, I said morning. And I also said not hungover. You can faint now. But yes, I managed to be so organised that I even had time to go and have coffee with Karen during my errand-running to pick up Singstar Original, ’80s and Rock and bottles of Asahi and Kirin and sexy big cans of Sapporo from Regional Wines and Spirits. Can I just put out a huge big pile’o love for Regional’s website, which is so damn handy when it comes to planning Country Clubs since they list all their stuff by region? Even if the guy at the checkout did pick up my beer bottles and examine them to say “oh, this one’s made in Thailand, this one’s made in Australia…” while I put my hands over my ears and went “LA LA LA LA LA”. Apparently he also did exactly the same thing to Mike when he and Kart were stocking up.

I dressed up as a slutty schoolgirl (gee, that was hard), and went to pick up Lisa and Beverly, and then Karen who was dressed as a ninja, and then Anji and Delwin who were Harajuku girls. We started out Country Club in the dining room, where I handed out specially purchased pieces of paper and pens and instructed people to write Haiku and give Tentacle Porn a go while Karen and I threaded up sticks of yakitori (LITERALLY barbecued chicken, but we also made vege skewers) in the kitchen. What exactly is tentacle porn, you ask? Well I will answer by sucking Lisa’s “bandwidth” (heh) to repost images of her artwork. I hope she doesn’t mind. She shouldn’t, because you can’t even see her hands in these pictures:

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Then we ran out of chairs, as more and more people arrived, so I moved everyone through to the lounge to watch My Neighbor Totoro. I think people were perhaps a little too drunk at that stage to appreciate the simple beauty of the movie, and the absolute radness of the Nekobasu. Philly-steins (Hells yeah, cheese steak and beer. This is my special shout-out to Brad, although I don’t think he reads Hubris, so I can cut’n paste it into an email for him.)! But they were of course, drunk enough for karaoke, and oh how we all rocked that microphone mightily. Well, Katy mostly fell asleep. But others rocked it long and hard. Lisa as the last person to leave left just after 5am. In the time inbetween, glass was broken, many things spilled, so many wacky snacks were consumed, I punched Bart in the face after he took off his glasses and asked me to, and he showed Lisa his Chuck Norris tentacle. I’m shocked. SHOCKED. It was a fucking kickass country club, that’s for sure.

In the cold light of morning afternoon while everyone’s yawning cleaning you’re high tired

The next day I ran away to hide at my parents’ place instead of cleaning up, under the guise of feeding Pixie and doing laundry. I discovered that they had Live8 on their DVD hard drive, so I went through the whole thing, going “fucking wow” at many of the performances (Pink Floyd, Bjork, ummm some others) and scratching my head at many others. And I wondered why the hell they didn’t set out to collect money along with names, because surely they could have raised some amount, even as a side project. Yeah I know i’m nearly a year late to this party. Shoosh.

I’d been just about to cry when I left the house because I was tired, and hungover, and I couldn’t find my glasses. In the grand search for the glasses, however, Bart finally unearthed my long-missed camera cables, so I’m proud to present a selection from the past couple’o months, although you might be best to go look at them directly in Flickr:

Random people who were also at Kai in the City when we were there with Sarah’s Hens’ Party

The Chocolate Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooosse from Canadia at the Country Club

Karen, Bart’s friends and Bart at his Mexican party. As it says in the notes in my flickr account, one of the girls is wearing a note that says “in case of fire, I put out”, which I think is awesome

Russ and Smoo, looking somewhat worse for wear

Spent the afternoon whole day in bed, trying to figure out what it was you said
Queen’s Birthday Monday was dedicated to listening to Tommy which I had pinched from my parents’ overflowing record cabinet, and devouring The Method Actors, which is a book about a fucked up bunch of people living in Tokyo, and it makes me want to box up all my possessions and stick them in storage, and go live the high life over there, teaching English or hostessing or some such nonsense. Just as well I’m not a skinny blonde or I would actually be seriously considering it. I don’t know how I clicked over from hating Japan and all it stood for in my life to craving it. Perhaps it’s because in the book people meet at Hatchiko, and go to Almond Corner in Roppongi, and they draw maps that go past the 109 building, and Tokyu Hands, and Seibu Loft, and oh oh oh I haven’t finished the book yet, but I’m hoping that they will at some stage need to visit the New Zealand embassy so I can see it again through the author’s eyes.

Working nine to five nine twentyish to five thirtyish, what a way to make a living
I have now seen a cow-orker naked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t any of the ones that I want(ed) to see with their clothes off though. Stupid Peti suggesting another woman from work should join my gym. I hate people who talk to me at the gym. I’m there to escape, to replace the noise in my head with the Arcade Fire, or Shihad, or the Walkmen or Britney Spears or whatever else spins up on my ‘Work it out’ playlist, not make chit chat. Yeah that’s right, I said stupid Peti, and I’m glad that she’s leaving. You hear me, Rebbecca? Heh. Boo-urns to the last person on my floor that I have regular conversations with leaving. Sigh. But like, good for her and stuff.

Something’s cooking, I’m at the griddle electric wok
Tonight for family night, I will be making Papas Garbanzo for Bart and Smoo and Lisa. And then we’re going to play Pictionary, cos that’s what families do. Assuming that I do actually have Pictionary. I’m not sure if the board is in the box. Or indeed if I even have the box anymore. And Twister might not work in these jeans. Or even these genes.

One week and two days until my birthday. Woo!