Whatever I did on Monday doesn’t actually matter. I’m going to use this entry to write about my weekend. No doubt I’ll go into everything in glorious detail, and if you still want more after that, you could possibly check Jo’s journal, or email and ask me yourself. Loverly. Here we go.
Saturday morning, 9.11am. A train pulls into Ngaio station, and a blonde girl exits from a carriage near the back. A dark haired girl runs down the platform towards her, half skipping in excitement. They hug, and climb into the van driven by the dark haired girl’s mother.
It was like hitch hiking, really. Mum drove us to my aunt Diz’s house, where we went to wake up my cousin Jacinta – Jo got to meet her nose, cos the lazy tart hid under her blankets instead of getting up to be nice to us. Then Diz drove us (us being me and Jo – and that’ll apply throughout the whole entry, probably) out to Paraparaumu Station, cos she was going out to my grandmother’s house anyway, while asking us all sorts of questions about the internet. No, we’re not geeks, honest! At Paraparaumu Station, we waited for Simon to show up in his car car, and Brett to come in on his train train.
We finally got on the road by 11am, and I got shotgun all the way to Hunterville. In Hunterville, we stopped for lunch, and this place that claimed to be a cafe and bar but it so wasn’t. It was a tearoom/pub – and if you don’t know the difference, I’m suprised you’re on the internet. The lady who served us obviously doesn’t get out much because she told me not to break her crystal bottle when she gave me a plastic squeezy of tomato sauce. Jo and I were really tempted to get up and dance to whatever the hidi music they were playing, but we decided to flag because there were no locals there to scare – I can only perform when I have an audience. The good thing about Hunterville is that there’s a little statue of a sheep in one of the streets, so we clambered on that for a photo opportunity. Honestly we’re not sick in the head. Really we’re not.
Jo got shotgun then, and also got to play stereo-nazi. It didn’t really matter what got played, cos I could sing along to almost all of it, except Simon’s thrashindustrial crap. And I tried my best to sing that too. Yeah Soulfly, stacks of talent there. That’s cool though – I’m trying to be more open minded. I pitied Brett heaps, because I do believe he is a homie, and I therefore don’t think he would have liked much of our music at all. Plus he was so quiet compared to me and Jo, and even Simon. It’s so weird having a friend called Jo – if Simon wanted to talk to me he had to say “Jo…Anna”. I’m only Jo to my friends, whereas she’s only Joanna to special people. I spent so much of the trip looking at myself in the rear view mirror. Yes okay, I’m vain. It was just fascinating watching my lips move as I sang. I have a real problem with mirrors, because I get obsessed with my own reflection. Having a black background for this journal (which isn’t done for teenangst reasons, by the way) is a problem too, because I can see myself in the screen and I often stop typing and just stare, or sit puckering my lips. Wow, sharing that is like, really scary, more scary than anything else I could tell you, I think. That’s choice though. Go go Self Disclosure Girl!
We stopped again in Taupo, and walked to a cafe (a real one this time) so I could have coffee. The chick working there reminded me so much of an eighties relic, because of her perm, I think. I can imagine her being a aerobics instructor, in flourscent lycra, shooting up on steroids. But the coffee was good, AND I got a minature chocolate fish with it. We had to sit up by the bar cos that was the smoking area, but the other areas have paper and crayons on their tables. Walking out, I stopped to write my URL down, so we all scribbled ours, and ummmm I think Si and Brett put down porn addresses too. We’re such geeks. The thing is that none of us look like the typical geek. Si’s a retroboi, Brett’s a homie, Jo’s cool and me…. well I looked good too. I guess this is the nineties, and a wide variety of people use the internet now. All I know is that I never would have talked to Brett in school (we were in the same homeroom) because I didn’t think we had anything in common, but he’s actually kinda cool in a mostly quiet way. After taking photos in front of the Super Loos, we sped outta Taupo.
We stopped in Tirau really briefly so Jo and I could be photographed in front of a giant sheep shaped shop, and a dog shaped information centre. Once I’ve got my film developed, we’re going to make a webpage together documenting our trip – that’s assuming I get a scanner for Xmas. After Taupo, Jo was in the back seat, so we both sat there together fully drooling over 3D’s voice. Risingson has got to be THE sexiest song in the universe, along with Inertia Creeps and Karmacoma. I want him bad. If I ever met a guy with a voice like that, he could have me with just one word. We’re both really obsessed with him now, but as it says on Jo’s page, I get to marry him. By Sunday, our obsession had gotten to the stage that by the time Angel was drawing to a close, we’d both be in hysterics of anticipation, threads of saliva dangling out of the corners of our mouths almost.
Simon wanted to go to Te Aroha to pick up some computery things from a guy called James Spooner that he knew off Chat, so we did. However, he only had an ascii map of how to get to the guy’s house, so naturally we got lost. Well, not lost, because it was such a small hole, but we didn’t know where we were supposed to go. Naturally I had to ask for directions because no one else wanted to. The chick in blue blockers that assisted me was spot on, so we ended up at the end of James’s drive. Simon had no sooner driven into the curb (he drives well, but has problems parking) than James – or cmos as I know him from chat – came out with the cds. Talk about Rugger, man! He even had the collar on his rugby shirt turned up. I so didn’t want to meet him, so me and Jo decided to swap names – she was going to be Joanna and I’d be Jo. As we were getting out of the car, I tripped, cos my legs were tired from sitting (that does make sense, if you think about it for a moment) and so I started laughing. We introduced ourselves, but he so didn’t care, cos he was trying to wrangle an invite to the party. She whispered in my ear that he was playing dire straits so we started having hysterics – the boys all told us to calm down, but then I noticed there was a gillete lady sensor blade lying in his driveway and that was just the most bizzare thing ever so we laughed more and more. Mr Spooner was like “have they been drinking already?”. He thought we were literally on the piss, but we knew it was him who was. Driving away, Jo was like “collar down!!!!”. Such a loser was our cmos. He thinks I’m Jo now. I know this cos he told someone else that “wu, twiggy, joanna and some fat bitch” went to his house. I’d be really hurt, but no.
After Te Aroha, Jo and I achieved a great feat – the boys put the Spice Girls on for us. We were so impressed. I was impressed too that I can remember the dance moves for ‘Stop’, which Brad taught me. Four songs into the tape, we hit Paeroa, for the most important of all our touristy photos – in front of the giant L&P bottle. FAAAAAAANTASTIC baby. Then I asked directions from the lad in Mobil as to how to get to Gil’s house, and we found that easily. She gave me a mirror! I love her to bits. It’s a broken record and it’s truely cool. We heard Sublime being played upstairs – apparently that’s a very Paeroa thing, so yeah, we got in touch with the locals and all. Gil crammed into the back seat with me and Jo and of course we used the excuse of doing up our seatbelts to cop a feel. Well, we pretended we were going to, but I figure Gil was traumatised enough as it was. She didn’t know the Spice Girls, or the words to Garageland later either. She did however know a quick back route to Hamilton, so we flew down that, even if Si’s Honda accord isn’t a Holden V8 like she’s used to.
Eventually we got to hamilton and somehow found our way to Andee and Amy’s place. I tried to rush up there before the rest of the car to let them know that Brett and Jo were there too (they didn’t know) but I didn’t really have enough time. It was so sad, because A&A (I’m sure you can figure out who I mean) are moving out of their flat so there were like, boxes everywhere. Seton, their neighbour and one of the main attractions of that flat popped in for a chat, and so he got introduced to everyone. He is SO the man. Such a stud. A&A bitched at each other, and at Si lots. It’s their way of showing affection. I felt bad for gil and jo and brett cos I wasn’t sure how seriously they were taking it, but oh well. I warned Gil and Jo both the weekend would be nuts. Ren showed up, so that was choice cos I love her. Of course her and Andee weren’t coming to the partay, given that they were UNINVITED, but we won’t go there. Jo and I got all girled up – love my lilac eyeshadow long time. Gil was gonna, but then she didn’t. I so love getting dressed up, and I wanted to look good for the crazy party. After a food run to Caltex, where the crazy guy at the counter tried to lock Jo in, we had a couple of drinks (more specifically, I had two midori and lemonades and two shots of bacaardi that Andee gave me) and a bit of a chat. Eight people really filled up their shoebox flat! Then Amy and Ren drove us in their cars to Mark’s place. Us being me, si, jo, gil and brett, since as mentioned before Andee and Ren weren’t invited (not that they would have gone anyways) and Amy didn’t want to go. So yeah. I left my midori at the flat, cos I didn’t want it to all get drunk, so I only took along a bottle of red to share with Jo.
Walking in, the first person I saw was the looser named Tim (Jazz on IRC) who I took a bible to once (long story). EWwwwwww but I was like “Hi Tim” and sailed right past him. Jo knows him from the Undernet, and was waiting to see if he’d recognize her. Gil wasn’t so lucky – he waylaid her as the rest of us breezed into the back yard to talk to Mark. I didn’t realise she was gone – in fact, I forgot all about her – whoops. But eventually she managed to get free, and came outside too. She only stayed for like ten minutes though, cos her friend was having a party up the road, and that was probably less scary. I introduced Jo to everyone as my bitch, which was buckets of fun. I’d be the luckiest lesbian alive if it was true, and if I was – but I’m not. Jo decided to introduce herself to Tim, which was probably a bad idea, given that he spent like the rest of the night following us around after that. We realised that it was going to be a bit of a problem only having the one bottle of red, so I rang up Andee and her and Ren brought me my midori over. I had to wait for them in the driveway, and I was like, dancing all by myself. I thought it was funny.
Tim kept coming over like to talk to us, so Jo and I started hitting on one another, to see if we could drive him away, because he’s very homophobic. However, I think it just attracted him more. We certainly caught the eye of others! We did explain to everyone that we were just fucking with his head, but I think there were a couple of guys there who really wanted to believe I was a lesbian. We said something about snogging, and naturally Hugh was like “yes please”. Oh – apparently it’s not cool to pretend to be bi/lesbian because it undermines the work of the pioneers. I say having that attitude is what sets it back, cos how is pretending to be with Jo any different from pretending to be with a guy? I guess girls are sort of different though. Jo was being really stupid, so she asked me to slap her. I was like “can i really? can I slap you really hard?” and she agreed to it, so I did. The *SMACK* noise of it richocheted around the garden, and heads turned in exclamations of shock. I felt so guilty that I made her slap me back – and fuck it hurt! People were all like “REOW!!!!!!!!”. I do believe they thought we were mad. Hahahahah they probably would have been right.
Yucky Timmy Boy came to sit next to me, and I was so not impressed, so I put my hand on his knee and I was like “so tim, how about it?”. He started to say “yes” so I screamed, and ran away to Mark’s bedroom, where everyone was clustered around this chick called Annmaree. It’s so traj how all the boys want her. I don’t know what they see in her – her personality strikes me as bland, and she looks like Ainslie from Young Entertainers. Plus she doesn’t put out – so I have no idea what’s going on there. Anyways, it’s just sort of disgusting to watch. When Timmy followed us into there, Jo and I hid in Mark’s closet. Looking at the closet again in the morning, I have no idea how the fuck we fitted in there.