Hubris.co.nz

I spoke too soon about how nice it was to not have anyone extra staying. The German girls are back tonight, they just waltzed in and dumped their stuff – “we’re back”. I think I’m going to have to have a word to Ammy about it, because no one here can actually afford to subsidise their living costs. And I just want some peace!

Actually, I’m a little richer that I expected to be, because my darling frined Nikki ran my number through the IRD and I get $350 back in tax. Then on Saturday, despite that we were both hungover, she took me to the battery shop and fitted a new battery in my rusty old engine, and checked my oil (there was none) and my water, and asked me if I could change a tyre. I can. Just whip out your cellphone and call 0800 500 222. Duh.

Anyways, Friday night was dinner with KateH and Nikki here, and some copious amounts of beer consumption, before going to Steven’s apartment for more drinking. Steven lives in the same building that nigel used to live in, so there were far too many memories for me of crying in stairwells. Oh well. Steven’s friends were rather amusing, and Nikki (and to a lesser degree I) had arguments with the boys about whether or not Pearl Jam should have broken up a long time ago (yes). There was a suicide girls sticker in the bathroom, and three spacies machines in the lounge. There was also a boy there with Frodo eyes, so that was very cute. Eventually Nikki and I went home to drink more beer and hide in my bedroom from Jonny. Later I had to get up to go to Megan’s bed where Nikki was sleeping cos she came-a-knocking on my bedroom door demanding that I go and tell her stories til she fell asleep. I cheated and receited Douglas Coupland.

Then yesterday, being Saturday, there was the assorted car battery madness (it goes now! how exciting!) and much laying around doing nothing at all. In the evening, Allison showed up, which was lovely, and Ammy made us lovely food, and her and me and Bo and Allison all went to the biggass party at Milton Road that the Kids were playing at (Okay, so they’re actually called The Midnights now, officially apparently, so I must stick to that). There were many many many people there, so many that I couldn’t even watch the kids play, cos the lounge was too packed and it freaked me out. At other parties I’ve been to with the rogues, conversations came super easily to me and I was all outgoing and friendly and hot chicks were scored, but it wasn’t like that last night. Maybe I was a little introverted, I dunno. I did have a very interesting long talk with this guy who works for an organisation that’s kinda parellel to mine, and he was cool, but then there was the whole conversation finished “i’m going to go and check out the rest of the party” thing. I found Bo sitting with a bunch’o the kids on the back of a truck, but it was too cold, and they were all smoking up, which you may reemember I can’t do, so I decided to go home. It was about a twenty minute walk, and only one car offered me a ride. I rejected it, strangely enough. Anyways, so I was very very cold and lonely, but I got home and Seb came running out,so there were many many snuggles and a gorgeous warm bed, and that was fabo.

This morning (well, actually it was this afternoon), Ammy and I went to St Lukes and did a ridiculous amount of running around, and I bought a Sony video player. Yay! I owe her the money though, cos my bond refund and IRD refunds haven’t come through yet. We also got picnicy foods, and eventually headed on over to Potter’s Park, which is just a smidgen up the road, for the peace concert. We got a spot in the shade and spread out blankets and mats and had a lovely afternoon of it, even though whoever was m’cing was a dick. After that, there was more struggling with the video before I managed to get the tv tuned to it, and so now it’s all good.

Tomorrow Bo and Leo are working for me handing out shit. I’m so excited. I’m also super excited that our plans for the School Fair themed b’day party for Megan have developed, and so now along with a kissing booth and a gypsy and pony rides, we’re also going to have a second hand clothing swap meet. This party will be fabo. I hope. I was supposed to clean the bathroom tonight but I might just go to bed instead. xojo.

There is a ridiculous amount of good food (ie – vegetables) and liquor in the house. You should come over. I will cook you the best dinner in the world.

Well hello there! It’s been a long time hasn’t it? Today has been spent in my pajamas, some of the time watching “The Shining” and some of the time standing in Bo’s doorway hissing “REDRUM! REDRUM!” and some of the time making and eating kickass guacamole. Freshworld, what used to be ummm something else, near Mt Eden Foodtown is now officially FUCKING EXCELLENT. Karen and I were drooling at vege shops up in Kerikeri, but this is now officially as good.

Oh yeah, I’ve been up north. For four days it was just me and Karen and my parents’ van and the open road. It was pretty choice. We stayed in Whangarei, Paihia and Pukenui. I went swimming in the ocean, through great big forests’o Kauri, to NZ’s northern most point, and horseriding along Ninety Mile Beach. All of it was pretty fucking spectacular.

My holiday came at the end of my exams, which were also the end of my graduate diploma, my year of study etc etc. It’s strange cos I’ve been happy ever since I started on cipramil, but there was just the hugest sense of an anticlimax at the end, and I cried some, cos it felt like no one fuckign gave a damn at all. For some reason, I still expect people to care when I achieve things. I guess I have this vision of someone popping up with an enormous novelty cheque. But anyways, later that night, Ammy managed to get all excited for me (I’m so glad i’ve discovered her again) and with her help, I perked up and we drank many bellinis and went out to see the Rogues play at the Galatos basement, and Lawerence did fat harmonica improves and it turned out ot be a fucking excellent night after all.

I have one week of only working part time, then I start full time til the 10th of January in the office I currently work in, only doing some’o the computer guy’s job as well as my own. I feel very not up to the task, but it’s okay, cos if there’s ever anything too complicated, I can email him and say “oh, shall I go into your database and fix it?” and he’ll freak out and do it by remote access from Ireland instead. Muahhaha. I’m liking my office – although it is currently full’o turmoil and drama. Maybe that’s why I like it -because it doesn’t affect me.

I’ve been having an influx of very very vivid dreams lately. I dreamt about my latest crush twice – probably my mind’s way of reminding me it’s highly doubtful I’ll ever see him again. Those were nice dreams but I’ve also had very traumatic realistic ones as well, which I could so do without.

Homework that I’m supposed to be doing for Kulpana (look, I learnt her name!) is writing a list of all the things I like about myself vs. all the things that I don’t. I’m becoming even more selfaware but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m any more in touch with my feelings. She’s suggested that maybe I am far too influenced by other people’s opinions of me. If I say that maybe she’s right then I’m just proving her theory aren’t I?

Next Saturday, I am going to Rumba – the pop music festival. Brad’s dad got tickets for free, and to quote Brad – “well you were the first person i thought of, of course. i mean, who would appreciate a whole days worth of crap pop music better than yo ho jo?”. Yo Ho Jo is of course my pirate name. Yaaaarh.

Last night I went to a BBQ at Dee’s house. When her husband introduced me to people, he was like “oh, you’ve met them before, but you were drunk”. Well at least I wasn’t fucking wearing boat shoes or talking about yachting! I couldn’t drink last night as I was driving. Still, it was nice to catch up with Dee again. I’m giving up on people who don’t return phone calls or texts, I can’t be assed making the effort all the time.

Hmm, that’s probably about all the update you need for now. If you want to know more, then you can email me. You know how.

xojo

So today I am in a happy blissful content mood, and it’s lovely. Maybe it’s because it was gorgeous and sunny today and KatieH stopped by and suprised me, and we went to Devonport together and ate wonderful food and then walked by the water getting icecream all over my hands. Maybe it’s cos my drugs have kicked in. Maybe it’s cos I know that I’ll be okay, jobwise, cos I can stay working where I am, cos it’s only $16 a week less than the dole, and i’m really liking the people I work with. Or maybe I’m happy cos’o the crazy party last night, at the Rogues’ house, with mad crazy drumming styles improvs in the kitchen, and a man in a reverend collar, and lots of crazy people and fireworks and making out in the kitchen with a lovely young lady. Actually, it was really more just a lot of kissing than actually making out – I tried to restrain myself. But anyways. Life is definately looking up. Stuff is all going to be okay. So maybe this is what happiness means to me – security and not needing to worry about everything so much. And that’s great. I have more to write but I might go call Tom instead cos my wrists hurt, adn I have an exam tomorrow – for corporate com, which I’ve already passed. Kickass.

Monday August 12th

Most of the weekend was made shit because of the tremendous inconvienience of the fucking film crew in our house blocking off access to the bathroom, phoneline and even electricity for my computer. GRRRR. There were good bits though, like going for a drive with KateH to try and find food – apparently almost every cafe has a closed kitchen at 4.45pm, but I wouldn’t recommend Fire&Earth just cos it’s open – the food really is mediocre, and the service is SLACK and it’s overpriced for what you’re getting. But Saturday night was cool at times – Bo and I went to the Temple to see the rogues play (that’s not their actual band name, it’s just the rogues’ band – you know, Leo and Berrin and Chris and Will, although I guess Lawerence is the original rogue but he’s not actually in the band, he just dances madly and there was a girl there who coulda been his doppelganger in a skirt). We did spots before hand, and then Bo made me walk down that really really steep street off City Road and through the carpark, and I just couldn’t do it, it was really really freaky, and I thought that there were cliffs and she kept pretending like she was going to jump off them, and that coupled with her Coyote Ugly impressions were just sending my head swimming. The rogues were really good, except for oh wait, I actually don’t really like reggae very much. But it was weird to see Leo singing, when he’s normally so quiet and stuff. He was goood though.

And today I had to do a client presentation, and Haley gave me strict instructions to dress all in black, so I wore my new black shirt and my getting old short black skirt, and put my boots in my backpack cos I can’t walk down hills in them, they’re purely just for looking like a hoochie in (except in this case, it was a corporate PR hoochie look I was after). We had Brian Edwards lecture us this morning, and he was fucking excellent and really really interesting. Next week we’re having Nicky Hager, the king’o self PR. And we’re also going on a field trip to Westfield Newmarket for Corporate Communications. Exciting!

Anyways, so I made it down the hill after my lecture safely and comfortably in my birkis, and then switched to my boots and raised my height and self esteem by about 3 inches. Haley and I were working on our presentation, starting from scratch, but then she wrote me a note, since we were working in a crowded office, and we started writing notes to one another, and it turns out we’ve both got a crush on the same boy (there’s not very many boys doing PR at all), and we both kept getting distracted by staring at him or trying to say witty things. And then when we were running through our presentations to practice, he kept trying to catch my eye and distract me, but I ignored him, excellent. Tehehehehhe. I did include in my note to Haley that I have crushes on a dozen boys right now, but in later conversations with Bo tonight, we narrowed it down to four or five. It’s just fun having a crush on a boy at tech, cos like, he makes me smile when I see him, and get all giggly, and that makes class much more exciting! So yeah, plus having collective crushes is all good when it’s not serious (well not yet it’s not). Anyways. So our client came in, and she was impressed with our appearances, so we fessed up that we’d both dressed in black on purpose and had probably spent more time discussing that than what we were gonna say to her, and we presented to her and Aline and it went okay despite being nervous. We’ll probably not get very good marks, but hey, at least that’s step one over. And now we have to start doing some actual work. Our client ended up honking at me and giving me a ride up the hill afterwards, which was excellent cos I was still wearing my uncomfortable boots. She told me if I didn’t want them, she’d have them, which was very flattering cos she’s very well dressed, and opening a hatshop next week that we’re invited to. She even said “I ordered two extra cases of champange when you guys RSVP’d cos you look like lushes,” and when I said that i was, she said I was a girl after her own heart. Excellent.

But when I got home, I was just totally exhausted, too long spent in class and working and gossiping and giggling and being stressed out about formal presentations, plus I had a bad caffiene crash (normally I don’t have caffiene, but if I have a coffee at lunch, I tend to follow it with a coke later – like just one is not enough). So I took to my bed to read American Gods (SO GOOD) some more, and have a siesta, and woke up feeling much better. Then Bo and I went to Two Monkeys for noodles, and hung out lots. We had a big big analytical talk about an issue in my life, and we decided that her and KateH will suss it tomorrow night, and give me the full report back (Katie, don’t forget, you’re mine tomorrow – you WILL get to meet the boy (also, HA, I think it’s funny the way I will use ‘the boy’ a million times in journal entries and will be talking about many different people and I just expect you to know who I’m talking about), who incidently rang to talk to Clay tonight, except that of course Clay was out so he just talked to me for ages and ages, and I called him angsty and traumatised some more, probably in a sick attempt to make him so). We turned out the lights in the lounge to watch two cars get towed outside, and laughed a lot when we realised that the people in the apartment across the hall were doing the exact same thing. Oh yeah, things get pretty exciting in our street!

Friday June 21st

It’s 3.27am (okay, so it’s Saturday) and I’ve just got home. I’ve had a kickass night! It began with Bopha and Leo and Laurence and Brazil/England (YAY! Brazil won!) and now it ended with Brad dropping me off after begging the bartender at Deschlers to make me Honeycomb cocktails (he looked it up in his rolodex). It was a good night. Becky was really cool. We won the soccer, did I say that already? Bridget sent me home from work early; apparentky I don’t have to make up hours I take off sick (that’s DANGEROUS knowledge) so yeah, I decorated Emma’s cake real pretty. The boys came over later – fuck, Laurence is the hell breaker, I am so impressed. He’s like 6’2 so at some stages he was hitting the lampshade with his leg swing arounds – wow. Can I just say wow again? Bops is all good at it too, I wish I knew how. And also, Brazil won, yay. I was like, so on the verge sometimes. Exciting. And then Brad and Becky came over and took me to Lumiere and The Supper Club and 76 and Oporto and Deschlers and now I’m home, and dude, aren’t you coming over now? xojo

Gentlemen start your engines – it’s one month until my birthday. Don’t worry, I’ll post my wishlist real soon. Start saving though, cos we’re looking for things such as a cd burner and some new glasses, and maybe even some panel beating due to rust, a new back side window and registration and warrant for Inco.

Today I’m sick, just for a change, throat all sore and coughy. Needless to say I lazed around on the couch for most of the day, wickedly missing my Per.Com class and I’m hoping and praying that I won’t get in trouble for that. Because I was home today, I was able to take a phonecall from KateB in Wellington, and in the space of twenty minutes, she managed to say the following things to me:
1. I’ve got low standards.
2. I’m a geek.
3. I’m a nymphomaniac.
4. I’m paranoid.
I think there were a couple of other things too. What I should have said to her was “OH YEAH KATE? WELL I HAD SEX WITH SAM AFTER YOUR TWENTYFIRST WHILE YOU WERE OUT WITH JONNO”. Ahh longtermbestfriends are great, aren’t they?

Also today I spent ages and ages and ages on the phone to the LTSA getting the run-around, but eventually I managed to get put through to a very lovely and helpful guy (in the PR department, naturally) in Wellington. While I was talking to him, he was like “So you’ve got some Sublime playing there in the background?” Sublime? Do I sound like I’m from Paeroa (Gil – if you’re reading this, email me!)? It was just one’o Bopha’s reggae cds I think. But other than that, he was very cool, especially since he promised to personally courier me a video of the assorted road safety ads. Yay for helpful people!

In the evening, after her and Bopa got back from Kung Fu, Emma started making honey roasted peanuts from scratch. It got to the stage where she was individually coating each one in salt/sugar so I was giving her a hand when the divine Kyla showed up, bringing me my True Colours ticket which she sold me for $40 rather than the $50 they retail for because she’s lovely and I’m a poor student. YAY PACIFIER! I’m wetting myself in anticipation. Then Berrin, Leo and Will came around and we devoured communal food from troughs (okay, so it was a big baking pan of chickpea nachoes with lettuce – SO fucking yum) and now they’re watching Kung Fu videos. But even watching it seems to sap my strength, plus I’m sick so I should get an early night. Fuck, it’s 2am already. Bed for me soon I guess.

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:

I love this girl so much

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.