Hubris.co.nz

Let’s go with some bullet-points really quickly.

• For the past couple of months, I have been working at my new permanent job. It’s in the private sector, at a web company, and I’m their writer. There is cereal in the cupboard, and chocolate biscuits and many kinds of beer on Fridays. I am supposed to use Oxford commas in the work that I do for them, but they’re not the boss of my journal, so I can write whatever the hell kinds of lists that I like. Such as: the things I like about my job include my lovely manager, the jovial atmosphere in my team, the way the marketing girl and I have declared Friday afternoons to be Cheesy Music Time, I have a laptop and another screen, almost all my work can be done remotely if I needed, it’s in a good part of town and I love what I do. Oh yes, I am listing the superficial things, but oh my god, I get so much done! It is immensely satisfying to be able to write things and have them take effect that week – or sometimes that day. Fuck the public service, man. I’m still serving the public, but this way I’m actually effective.
• Having such a great job has been very beneficial to me because the last month has been absolute shitballfuckinghell. You know how the week before my period it always seems a little bit like the world is ending, even if I’m taking my lexapro and being good and all? Well my counsellor suggested last year that I should talk to my GP about talking to a gyno about going on The Pill to stop that, so in May, when I had to go in to see my GP for a Lexapro extension, I asked her to refer me to the public health system, which gave me an appointment with a gyno in OCTOBER. You’ll remember (or not) that my whole depression thing actually was kickstarted when I was 19 and went on Femulen for birth control, but of course, that’s a bit chicken-egg, because was it the drug or was it the circumstances around my relationship with Thomas that made me depressed? Etc. And then there were the MIGRAINES OF HEAD EXPLOSION DEATH when I was 22 and on Estelle35 to sort out my PCOS. So naturally I was hesitant. But after the very nice lady doctor had gone elbow deep in me (my cunt was all “what’s this? Who’s touching me? Am I supposed to enjoy this?” while her pushing on my stomach made it ache like I’d swallowed a gallon of semen or something), we thought that maybe Yaz could help me get the PMS under control. Turns out, not so much. I was on it for a month, and the entire time I wanted to cry every day and kill the world Oh, and I’ve had my period for 21 days now. Luckily now I am in the gyno system, I  could call up and talk to a nurse who had all my notes, and stop taking the pill on her advice, but I’m just so angry that I made myself feel so terrible for a whole month. Like seriously, if I didn’t have such a great manager and the ability to work from home, I don’t know how I could have dealt with it all. It was like a big reoccurance of depression again, except I could see how clearly it wasn’t actually based on anything in my life at all except for that fucking pill. Now I’m hoping it will get flushed out of my body ASAP. I have to go in again in January for another internal ultrasound, but I don’t know if I’m going to risk any pills again. The nurse rang me today to see if I needed another form of birth control, and I was all “no no, I’m a condom girl anyway”. How sweet of her to actually think I had an actual sex life. For the record, even though I have a super comfy brand new bed, I don’t. Actually,  my bed is so damn comfy I am never sharing it again.
• As well as a new bed, I have a new house ALL TO MYSELF in Mt Vic. It is glorious. I call it Casa Sans Hosen. I can’t spell. I have a spare room so you should come and stay, like Heather and like Kat & Kane. I’ll wear pants for you if you’d like, providing you give me enough notice.
• Clearly I have sucked at keeping this journal updated, but we don’t need to go over each and every thought I’ve had. But to sum things up, the Yaz has made me angry all over again about that married man, even though that’s coming up on two years. And I’ve been hanging out to Thomas again lately which is really nice because it is reassuring to know that there are people who will always know you and it’s nice to see the ways you’ve grown. And I saw Good Tom the other day which was lovely although the circumstances were horrible, and holy crap I miss the fuck out of that boy.
• I will update more often with more pithy updates, okay? Yes.

Thursday, July 18th 2002

In which Joanna ponders her ovaries in some detail

Yesterday I’d half written this excellent disection breaking down the stereotypes in the Breakfast Club which I’d watched that afternoon on two glasses of wine and some codeiene cos I was bored, and I wrote how I could easily match up the nerd, the weirdo and the stupid jock to people that I’ve shagged, and also probably the badass but I was having trouble matching the Molly Ringwald princess character until Tom told me exactly who it corrolated with because of major Princess Complex going on with that particular person and he was so right, but anyways, I lost that whole entry because I had to go and take a drunken phonecall from Anji, and spent over an hour only saying “Yep”, “ahuh” and “yeah”. I could have been a character on the West Wing, if I’d said it with that funny abbreviated swallowing their words kinda way that they all do (Incidentally, I can’t remember who it was that said it, but someone suggested that there’s only one character on the West Wing and I sometimes think that they’re right. CJ is still fabulous though.)

But anyways, that was yesterday, along with Maree phoning to say thank you for the faxes I sent her the other day, so I invited her around to eat vege lasange with me (it was the fucking best lasange ever, with leeks and onions and mushrooms and bromocoli and kidney beans for protein and pumpkin and tomato and everything). That was probably the highlight’o my day, seeing her. No wait! The other highlight yesterday was a suprise coffee in the courtyard of Strawberry Alarm Clock with KateH who is my sunshine although she shoulda been working. Was that yesterday? Or the day before? I can never remember. Wait, I think I wrote about that already, so maybe that was Tuesday. Who knows?

Blah blah blah. Work today. Right now Clay and BradC are at Pluto and Gomez, the bastards. I asked them to bring me back Milan, but I doubt that they’ll remember to, since it took BradC exactly one month to bring me my birthday present. And I still maintain that a cinnamon donut really ain’t any kinda present. They were drinking Soju and also Cider before, so I laughed at them over the top of my dry martini with a twist and the olives on the side. Then BradC got under my duvet cos he was cold and Clay gave me looks, which is ridiculous cos he already gave me full permission to pursue him if I want to, but I don’t think I do. I need to learn to make myself happy without having to disengage my brain all the time, etc. Plus, I’ve done enough pursuing for the year.

Also, I have had the dull distant ache of a soft headache all day, so I know it’s the goddam pill, and I’m going to have to do some serious thinking. If I skip the sugar pills, there’s a risk that I’ll have PMS all month, and I don’t think anyone would be able to deal with that. If I don’t, then I might always have this ache when I’m on the sugar pills, and while it’s not the fullscale migraine’o last time, I do realise that i’m going to have to make sure that I have full oxygen going to my brain at all times in order to keep it from getting to that evil “I think I’m going to die because something has exploded in my skull feeling”. And you know what maintaining proper breathing means that I can’t do. Grrr. So I guess I could go off the pill. I’m not using it as birth control, cos ha, do you ever see anyone actually fancying me enough to have a dedicated relationship with me where I trusted them enough to stop using condoms? I doubt it (side note – I am 22 years old and only one person has ever told me that they loved me). But in theory, the pill is regulating my ovaries – and also apparently clearing up my skin and making me less hairy. My skin isn’t really that bad though, is it? And yeah, I have horrible hairy hobbit feet, but that hasn’t seemed to have changed over the past two months. However, yeah, I do want to get my ovaries in line. Hmmm. Maybe I will wait til I’m next sick and needing to see my doctor and then I’ll discuss it with her. Dammit, if this was two months ago, I could still go see her for free cos of the whole U22 free sexual health visits.

Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. I think I had more to talk about but maybe I don’t. Bopha is coming back tomorrow – oh how I have missed my little girl! And I get to see KateH again too, and that kicks ass. If I had been good and gone to watch them all playing indoor netball, I coulda seen her and Maree and JeremyO today, but Maz said that they weren’t going to be wearing short skirts, so really, what would the point have been?

I really wanted to go to Gomez, but it was $60, and I’ve been increasingly crowdfreakouted, so I dunno if it woulda delivered $60 worth’o satisfaction to me. But fuck, Pluto are great live. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll play an individual gig sometime soonish, and at least this way I wasn’t subjected to Chris Knox.

NEWSFLASH! Clay and BradC just got back, and apparently they met a friend of Jarrod’s from Wellington, and OH MY GOD it was the first boy I ever kissed who I was madly in love with for a very long time afterwards. Now I’m really bummed that I didn’t go.