Hubris.co.nz

While obviously every birthday weekend that is not spent with needles in your arms and lumps the size of testicles growing on your labia can be classed as a success, this one was particularly good. I didn’t go to a tremendous amount of effort in order to organise a party and have almost no one turn up because it was in Ngaio and I didn’t really have many friends anyway, I didn’t lose one of my closest friends because his friend told him what I’d been saying about his (now ex, yay) girlfriend, I didn’t get locked in a toilet at a Turkish restaurant, I’m not still hungover from my 21st or feeling happy for the first time in over a month either. All in all, I think I’m rather on top of things.

Last Friday I was about to get very frustrated and angry again, but some textage to Bart saw him come in as my wingman, and that was fucking awesome (*), and I ended up having a fantastic night, with $2 Speights drunk very very quickly first at the Establishment, then Red Square where I was able to prove that it wasn’t just that I was being a bitch about something, that it actually was a problem, and then to Boulot for pizza, and by that stage there were about ten of us around a table designed for six, and the boys were piling up the glasses and oh, we were just there for a long time. Then we went to The Tasting Room, and Smoo joined us, and when a couple of the boys started hitting on a taller-than-me-even blonde girl, I said, in a fit of awesome Girl Power-ness “You do realise that she’s a guy, right?” and they were like “how do you know? ” and I was like “girls just know these things. Besides, she’s totally got an Adam’s Apple”. Of course, she totally didn’t. But I felt like stirring. And naturally, I wasn’t the only one who felt things. Heh. *. But around 2am D had been kicked out for appearing to sleep on the table, and Shiny had disappeared to get food or something, and Bart and Smoo were hanging out to watch the soccer at 3am so I decided to go home so as to not be too hungover on my birthday.

On the Saturday itself, Daddy picked me up and we went for a family brunch at Capitol. I love Capitol, and so you can go and suck a fuck, Karl Du Fresne. Coffees and potato&mushroom cakes served with rocket and bacon, and bubbles and coffee and truffles and florentines = a very happy giggly stupid McLeod family. Daddy said something very obvious to me that I can now no longer recall, and I replied “Yes, nor am I an artichoke”, and that has been somewhat of a catchcry lately. I went home for nappage and bubbly, and then my old workmate Anita came over for a drink. After that Bart and I jumped on a bus to meet up with everyone at Cafe Istanbul, and by everyone I mean Lisa Fur, and Lisa B, and Katy and Kartini & Mike, and Anji and Karen. A bottle of Brown Brothers Everton, walnut bread and three kinds of meat for dinner put me in a jolly good mood. Kristen showed up, and we walked up to pick up Chrisana from her work, and then we went to Happy to see the Real Hot Bitches dance. Even though my throat was sore and coughy, I yelled myself hoarse at the awesomeness of their music and outfits and moves. I love that they’re all ages and sizes and that they prove that there is not a single person in the whole world who could ever look good in a leopard g-string leotard, and yet they all looked great. Yeah. And then there were more drinks at Good Luck, and then it was hometime.

I would put in a paragraph here about the awesome presents that I have received (Lisa gave me The Wall and Quadrophonia on vinyl, Jessie sent me the Bic Runga vinyl, Heather offered me a subscription to a healthy eating magazine, Karen gave me a POP UP PIRATE BOOK, Anji gave me an assortment of goodies including stripey socks and a knife, as did my parents), but while all of that stuff is truly awesome and well-received, I think what I appreciated most was the fact that people made efforts to be with me, or get in contact with me, and that they bought me things that they knew I’d love because they know me, and like, excuse me while I get all soppy, the fact that I got to be surrounded by the people I care about, who give me every impression that they care about me too, well that’s the best thing of all – people caring about me show that I am a person worthy of being cared about. Unless they’re all fucking stupid. But I don’t think that’s the case.

On Sunday, Mummy came and picked me up and we had coffee and planned out Daddy’s Animal Farm party which is next weekend. We bought much liquor for cocktails, and much foodage, and some more liquor and some more foodage. Good times. And then in the evening I went to a private screening of Labyrinth at the Paramount, which was grand, and was coupled with much gigglage by everyone every time the bulge was on screen. Awesome.

This week I have been coughing up first dry lungs and now wet ones. I took Monday off work, and yesterday morning and this morning. I also discovered that due to the selection of a new staff member, just like I can now say that I’ve seen a workmate naked (due to an accident at the gym), I can now say that I’ve had sex with a cow-orker. Even if I haven’t talked to him in the past two and a half years at all. If we were still friends, this would make faxing him pictures of monkeys much easier(*).

Weekend

Easter went by far too quickly. I was super tired on Saturday, although not nearly as hungover as I should have been. On Sunday I was in a really bad overthinking mood, so I went to the gym. This just in: exercise is the new sex. It’s how I can switch off my brain for short, sweaty bursts. Then I drove up to my parents’ house in Ngaio to see Pixie, who was super happy to see me, and shower in their tremendously endowed-with-water shower. I fixed my pyjamas so that you can no longer see my pajimba through the hole in the crotch and did two loads of washing and drying. I read the paper, ate their food and Brad came over to watch Veronica Mars, except that their DVD Recorder is all expensive and complicated, and I don’t think they’ve cracked it so we couldn’t watch Region 1s on it. So we watched House of Daggers instead which was leftover from China, and had hilarious hijinks trying to turn off the dubbing and turn on the English subtitles with the non-intuitive remote. We ended up laughing ourselves silly because the best I could manage was English for the Hearing Impaired, so every so often we’d get “Romantic Oriental plays” – “Music intensifies” subtitles. Thank heavens they told us how we needed to be feeling at that time! After he left I ordered pizza and watched Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! and decided that I need to join a girl gang. It was nice to get out of the house.

On Monday I did pretty much sweet fuck all again. Brad came over for some real Veronica Mars action, and oh it was so good, but he’s going to Philly for three months on Sunday so we’ll have to put it on hold. That means no more hot Logan Echolls action for me for a long time, and hopefully it’ll be long enough for me to forget that he’s actually a scientologist. Waah. And speaking of which, what’s your favourite Katie Holmes theory? I’m currently loving the “She gave birth to Chris Klein’s baby months ago, but continued to fake her pregnancy to Tom in order to hide the dates discrepency”. Anji and Karen came over for a roast dinner which we shared with the boys, and it was lovely, and then I gushed over John Safran some. And that was all my time off.

Weddings

The girl I sit with who does the scheduling is on leave, so another girl is sitting next to me this week. This particular girl just got engaged and is getting married in three months, so it’s on her mind quite a bit. Yesterday I went to Carly Harris with her at lunchtime and watched her try on a succession of gorgeous outfits and lusted for the clothes myself. Of course, as you may recall, I have already worn Carly Harris, and my, wasn’t that a good time? The dress was gorgeous though. Today’s wedding topic has been flowers. Maybe I should become a wedding planner, since I’ll never get to plan my own. Sob.

Woes

On Tuesday I wanted to go home and cry for most of the day because I got myself all worked up about the need to apologise to the workmate that I’d slapped on Thursday night vs. the desire to forget that it ever happened. Naturally I got more worked up about it when the engaged girl from the above paragraph told him that I was sorry, against my wishes, to which he rightly replied “so why doesn’t she tell me herself?” Awesome. But then after lunch I apologised and he was very nice about it and came up with a theory about why I’d slapped him that I accepted (even though I suspect it was only a 1/3 of the reason), and I was like “man, why the hell didn’t I just apologise first thing this morning instead of feeling like crap all day?”. I should really become a mole when I grow up, cos this country is totally running out of mountains. And of course really all I needed to do was crank up ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ for a fucking huge big smile on my face and the urge to pump my fist in the air and run a victory lap over the end credits of a movie. I love that song.

Doctors

Yesterday I went and bared my pajimba at the local doctor because I was overdue for a smear. It hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, and the walls of her office were adorned with pictures of another doctor at the King Kong premiere hugging Peter Jackson, and I really didn’t find that comforting. It was a little like when I first had blood tests before we moved to Japan, and the lady told me to count the catepillars in the picture so as not to look at the needle, but there were only two, and so I looked back at the needle. The speculum opened up with a crack crack crack and I felt the sensation of someone extending a telescope backwards or something. Because that was so much fun, she cranked open my ass as well. That hurt a lot less, which I was very surprised about. I apologise to people who’ve read this twice. She sent me off with prescriptions for Diflucan and Proctosedyl, which is exactly what it sounds like. The trouble in paradise will be all cleared up now.

Then I went back home and shut Sebastian up in a vacuum cleaner box and drove him to a new vet in Kilbernie. Now, you may recall that I had crushes on the vets in Balmoral and Khandallah, not because they were outstandingly hott, but rather that they were good to Sebastian, and anyone who likes and respects cats is okay by me. I could put in a “they handled my pussy really gently” line here, but I really really hate the word ‘pussy’. Give me cunt any day. As it happens, the Kilbernie vet DID, because she was a woman, with a Scottish accent and very short hair, and ha ha stereotypes are funny. I now have a crush on her as well, because Sebastian behaved himself beautifully, and let her lance his abcess without requiring sedation. He’s such a good kitty, he only mewed a tiny bit in the box, which made things really easy for me, cos I get very upset when he’s upset.

Feedback on 101

Here is what a selection of people have said about 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You:

“Really fresh as well as being eloquent… the more recent stuff especially. A huge evolution from Boys Boys Boys. Couldn’t put it down…. it’s amazing how your writing has evolved. So much more sophisticated somehow.”

“No doubt this isn’t the kind of feedback you were expecting, or possibly hoping for, but it’s seriously good. As a whole, it’s the best work I think I’ve ever read of yours. Gutwrenching & evocative, flows really beautifully, even the pictures & layout work together, the whole thing just blew me away.”

“My favourite bit, I reckon, was the Link piece. It takes the cliche of the public-transport zine article, douses it in petrol and cheap vodka, and sets it on fire (yeah!). I know about that feeling when just the ordinary task of walking down a street or catching a bus conjures up all sorts of memories, and this was good way of structuring it.”

Yeah! Of course, I have yet to receive ANYTHING back in trade for it, and I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. It makes me a sad panda.

Weekends

Tonight I get to play domestic goddess and supermarket shop and clean, as tomorrow night I am having Miss Lisa Fur and the Sunday Star Times-noted ‘blogger’ Jessie for dinner. I have been thinking for the past couple of weeks of all the elaborate and dazzling things that I could cook for them, and then scratching out many of the options that I came up with, and pondering how many courses and blah blah blah, but I think I’ve finally come up with a menu (main and dessert only, plus snacks) that is incredibly simple but still tasty. I always overthink and overcomplicate things, and I need to stop. If you’re free and in Wellington on Friday night, you should totally come over afterwards for drinks. That’d be lovely. Then on Saturday I get to see my lovely KateH. Hurrah!

And that’s it. Talk to me about Tomkat, Carly Harris and perfect dinners, if you will.

So now that I have finished writing about Fiji, finally, I can write about my health. Because you care. Because if you weren’t reading this site, you’d be reading something else, and that something else would probably not be talking about vaginas, and who doesn’t like to read about vaginas? Exactly.

But before I begin, I’d like to give a huge big shout out to Mr. Peter Mahoney for the voicemail he left me on my birthday. I miss you, sir. Say hi to Kate for me. Kate who? Kate Morrison? Is she even still alive?

Now, I mentioned a couple of times that I had some infected mosquito bites, and obviously you got to read about how my party was canceled, etc, but here’s the long story. I got bitten by a lot of mosquitos in Fiji, mostly whilst walking through a paddock at night because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Because I do not sleep in mittens, I scratched them. Everyone scratches their mosquito bites, right? It’s what humans do. And then mosquito bites heal. Except that these ones didn’t. They got puffy, and red around them. The chemist said that I should go to a doctor, but I had to work, so I took some disinfectant cream instead, and applied it regularly and tried to keep the bites clean and not pick at them. The red around them got bigger and bigger. And I didn’t go to the doctor, because I was working, and because I don’t have a doctor down here, and because I didn’t want to go on antibiotics and get thrush. All the mosquito bites got bigger and more and more achey. But I’m a dumbass, so I didn’t go to the doctor.

But then on my birthday I had the fabulous present of realising that the lump that I’ve had on my labia for years had become swollen with pus overnight and sore. I had a good look at it (and I don’t have a hand mirror, so instead of being like a ’70s housewife doing her first self exam after reading a feminist pamphlet, I was all pornstar-like straddling a full length mirror). If that wasn’t a sight enough to behold, it turned out that my labia was about four times the size that it normally is. Pus does not belong there! Of course I had a squeeze but OUCH! It didn’t pop. I went to sleep (somehow) fantasizing about someone sinking a large needle into me and pulling out the fluid. That’s not a cool thing to fantasize about. Do you get how painful and uncomfortable it was? When I woke up in the morning it was even more so, and that’s when I knew I had to call a doctor. The local place was closed, so I cried and asked my sister to take me to the After Hours clinic in Newtown. Let me put the pain in perspective for you gentlemen – imagine that you grew a lump on your penis the size of one of your testicles, and you could feel all the pressure that growth was putting on your skin, and every time you walked, or changed position while sitting it increased the pressure. Couple that with the fact that by this stage half of my left calf was bright red and I was in a pretty bad state, and I was totally freaked out that the infection in my legs was the reason for the big pus-y (pusy? How do I avoid saying “pussy”?) lump.

Of course, I had to wait for an hour at the clinic, in a horrible waiting room full of screaming children, on an uncomfortable chair that I shifted gingerly on. I sent Anji to go do the supermarket shopping for our party, which was supposed to be that night so that she wouldn’t have to wait there too. We got to the clinic at about 11am, and I got called up by a nurse around 12pm. She took one look at my leg and said that I needed to get on antibiotics as soon as possible, took my urine and my temperature (38.1), blood sugar (apparently infected things are a diabetes issue – but I still don’t have diabetes. I’m not sure how come. You’d think I would), and sent me through to the doctor’s exam room for a little more privacy for the doctor to look at my lump. The doctor said I’d be really lucky if I could escape going to hospital to be put on an IV drip for antibiotics, but they’d try giving me some via IV to see if that would help. Then I climbed up on the bed (ouch!) for her to have a look (ouch ouch ouch!). She said it was a balkan (that’s not the word, but it was something similiar. I wa?) cyst – that there are glands there for lubrication, and sometimes they become blocked – much like how pimples are formed. Great, except that pimples aren’t THAT BIG. She also said she’d call the on-duty gyno at A&E to get them to see me as soon as I’d had some antibiotics and had my sores dressed.

First, the nurse took a big marker pen and drew all over my leg, marking where the redness had spread to. Then it was antibiotics time. The thing about getting sick is that your veins run away and hide. It took three pokes with a needle to get the “butterfly” in (butterfly? huh? Your medical speak confuzzles me. Although I suppose part of it did look a little like a butterfly), and then the nurse had to flush my vein with saline, but couldn’t, so she had to move it to another vein. There she could flush it okay, but when she got to the injecting me with antibiotics stage, it HUUUUUUUUUURT so bad that she said that it obviously wasn’t in, so she tried again without any success and had to get the doctor to come and redo it for her. Third time’s a charm. It took half an hour or so for her to sloooooooooooooowly shoot me full of antibiotics. Then I had to lie down on my stomach, bare legs and feet slowly freezing, while she cleaned up my wounds. This wasn’t a simple washing proceedure, oh no. It involved a scalpel blade, cutting off bits of scab and digging out pieces of fluff, a lot of twitching on my behalf, and a lot of apologies from her. Have I mentioned that I was crying all the way through this? Well I was. My labia hurt like mad, the injections and the butterfly left in my arm hurt, having my sores cut open hurt, I was cold, I felt lonely because I’d sent Anji home, I was sick, I was miserable and I was just feeling really sorry for myself, and then I was crying because I was so ashamed that I was acting like a big baby and crying. Fuck I’m a dork. The whole process took a couple of hours. I took a cab to A&E because there was no way in hell I could have walked there at that stage, and gave the letter from the doctor to the lady at the counter, who said that I’d have to see a registrar first, and that there was a two hour waiting period. It was 4pm at that stage and I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before, and I was just so tired, and so sore and so I cried some more while I read the paper and waited. Luckily the lady on the desk turned out to be a truly lovely woman, and she called the gyno registrar who came down to get me, and we walked a long long long way through the hospital up to the gynocology ward because there were no rooms free in A&E. The gyno was South African, as was her supervisor, and together they proded and squeezed me and ignored me as I cried out in pain, said it wasn’t a balkan cyst and declared that I needed to have surgery. They said that if they were in South Africa, they’d just lance the lump under a local anesthetic, but in New Zealand it had to be under general. I was like holy crap! They asked me when I’d last eaten, and I told them, but because I’d had a half a cup of water an hour earlier I wasn’t going to be given the surgery that day. Instead they sent in a Scottish nurse to do more obs on me, who gave me a hug cos I was crying (again) and wrote me a script for some painkillers – thank god. And then Mum showed up, thinking she would just be visiting, but it was time to take me home, after they told me not to eat anything after midnight, and to come back at 7.30am for surgery. Surgery! Holy crap!

So I cried and cried and cried on Mum’s shoulder, and she took me home and stayed around while I had a shower cos Anji went out to pick up dinner. I’d sent out texts (i have never typed the word “vagina” so often!) whilst having my wounds cleaned telling people the party was off, but Dave and Karen came around to hang out, and then Joel showed up with a crate cos he hadn’t seen the notice on my site that Heather had put up for me. They got drunk and rowdy and laughing at me while I sat in my pjs trying not to move, getting slightly dopey on painkillers and feeling sorry for myself. I went to bed before midnight, but they were still banging about at 3am. Best birthday party EVER!

So somehow in the cold dark very very thirsty painful morning I managed to get myself up and Mum picked me up at 7.15am. I didn’t take any more painkillers cos I didn’t know if I was allowed them or not. I got a bed in a ward with one other woman in it, and the nurse told me to change into the hospital gown by 8am when she’d come and do obs on me. Well, she didn’t do them until about 11am. I managed to sleep some, with my lovely mother sitting by my side reading magazines. Then a security guard came to wheel my bed away. I was a little suprised – I guess I thought that the doctor would come and talk to me in the ward. But perhaps I watch too much TV. The anesthetist came to talk to me, and he was a horrible little man, talking about how I was a risk because I was so big (which is something no one else had bothered to mention) and how someone of his size was much safer – but he had to pump my bed down so he could look me in the eye, so you know what buddy? You’re not normal either. One of the nurses was lovely though, and was really nice about taking my obs and just seemed calming in general. Then I met the surgeon – he was young, and kind of cute, and his first name was Nick, so hi everybody! I said that it seemed kind of full on having to get general anesthetic and all, and he said that we were more humane than the South Africans. But then I was wheeled into the operating room, and that was just extreme – knowing that there were at least six people standing around who were going to be dedicated to my vagina for the next 20 minutes or so. Freaky.

The operating table that I clambered on to was much smaller than the bed, and they had me half sitting up on a large stack of pillows. Then they attached arm rests out the sides of the bed and had me pinned down – inserting a drip on one side, and a blood pressure thing on the other, and then they pushed an oxygen mask down on my face, and I started freaking out, because it was like they were trying to smother me (which is dumb, of course – it’s like they were trying to starve me to death with chocolate cake), and I was whimpering so the nice nurse stroked my arm and I had Tyler Durdan saying over and over in my head “oxygen makes you high” and they told me to keep my eyes open even though they were gradually putting me to sleep through the drip, and then I opened my eyes and it was later and I was in the recovery room. I still had the damn oxygen mask on, and I tried to take it off, but the nurse told me to leave it on for a bit more. By then I hadn’t had water for over twelve hours, and I had a sore throat anyway, so I could hardly breathe because of that, so I asked for water and she gave it to me, but then kept freaking me out by telling me to take deep breaths because my oxygen stats were still too low. She put those nasal oxgen things on me instead, and that was better, although it was still hard to breathe deeply. I asked if I had to stay awake and she said no, but I was still aware of them rolling me back through miles of hospital to the ward, where Mum still was. I said I was going to sleep for a while so she left. I still had a pump thing in my hand, and a pad to soak up the blood and pus, and to make things extra jolly I started my period. But I slept amazingly well. They wouldn’t let me leave until I ate something, so I had the bread and fruit that went with my long-ago-gone-cold lunch, and Dr Nick came in and asked if “my friend” was going to take me away, the big cheese – Mum quite obviously looks like a mum. But he is forgiven because he wrote me a script for codeine because halabuton or whatever else I’d been given the night before is like a dollar a pill. He said codeine was an old fashioned drug, just like him, and asked me if I was old fashioned too. Well, when it comes to codeine, I sure am. Now I can bribe more people to wear bear suits for me! When I have my party! Which I will! And I will be drunk at it! And not in pain! Hurray!

On the clinic’s doctor’s orders, I had a week off work, during which time I took my antibiotics like a good girl mostly (it’s hard cos there’s two types, and one I am supposed to take two hours after eating and an hour before eating, and hello, I graze) and mostly avoided alcohol, and didn’t go out and all that, and had a follow up appointment with the doctor on my street who has a horrible receptionist gatekeeper, and a nurse who put bits of gauze on my legs with one piece of tape and thought that was a good enough dressing. And in exchange for that goodness? I now have the flu, and thrush. Hurray!

But I’m going to Rarotonga in two sleeps. So I guess it’s not all bad….

OK, hi, I’m not Joanna…she’s currently indisposed, so she asked me to hack her site and leave a message for anyone that was planning on partying with her this evening…

Poor lass has been sent to hospital because of a run-in with a fijian mosquito. Instead of partying, go visit her and take lots of presents please.

Chur
Heather

EDIT: this is Joanna. After spending six hours at the doctor’s, having them fumble to insert IVs to give me antibiotics since most of my left leg was BRIGHT RED WITH DISEASE, and having wounds descabbed and cleaned and I was crying all the way through and then they sent me to A&E where a gyno took me upstairs and prodded my ladybits because what was a small bump has now become LIKE I AM GROWING A PENIS. Holy fucking ouch. Tomorrow I am having surgery under general anistethic to drain it. I wish my painkillers were stronger. I have cried all day like a big baby.

Kids, if your mosquito bites go a little icky, go to a doctor STRAIGHT AWAY. Please.

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.

I guess any day that starts with a woman in rubber gloves painfully inserting things into you can only get better.

So yesterday, after I got home from the doctor’s (I only got a “down below” check as she put it, rather than blood taken for Hep C and HIV, not because I have a fear of needles – in fact, I freakishly kinda like watching my blood being taken – but just because) I went and took a nap, and I actually fell into a really really deep sleep. I put this down to the fact that I’ve been getting an average of 5 hours a night lately, which is not enough to sustain me. I know that it was a deep sleep because i had very very vivid dreams, that started with me inviting Dr. White home for a cup of tea because I thought she was lonely. I won’t go into all the details, but it ended up that there was a rave at my house, and then in the dream I woke up and thought it was all a dream and it went on and on and on. Yeah.

When I woke up for real though, I had such a sore throat, so I complained mightily about it to Clayt when he got home – “Claaaaaaaaay, my throat is sore! Claaaaaaay, my vagina is sooooooore! I’m supposed to go out tonight but I won’t be able to do ANYTHING like this waaaaah”. He sympathized with me as much as possible. Poor Clay; I’m sure he has daydreams about having a flatmate with a lower level of self disclosure. But anyways. Shirley came over from her last day of work, all bubbly and happy, bringing with her Lemsip for my throat and red wine to heal my other aching body bits, and KateH came over as well and we listened to excellent music and chatted. Eventually we rang the King’s Arms to see what order the bands were playing and they laughed at me for telling the bar man that he was a wonderful person when he went and asked for me.

We got in a taxi and went there and met up with KateH’s flatmate Karin (okay, maybe her name is spelt Karen – i’m not sure, but if I call her Karen then you might get confused with my sister, so I’m damn well gonna call her Karin and if you have a problem with that, well that’s just too damn bad). We sat in the garden while Handsome Geoffry were playing, because of course we were really there to see The Heavy Jones Trio. Mmmmmmmmm I’ve got such a rockstar crush. Kelly’s just so completely adorable and he was doing a little sideways kick thing instead of the knee jiggle, and it was just so endearing, like a little puppy. Oh that voice and that soul! I don’t think I have any interest in meeting him because that just wouldn’t be the same. Plus, as I said to Annabel, I’m far cooler on screen than in real life (and this is where my detractors say “but you’re not at all cool onscreen” and where i say back “then why are you reading me?”). Golden Horse afterwards were good too, but by that stage I was too busy laughing at the very camp guy hitting on Shirley.

After the Kings Arms, we taxied to Lovely Paul’s house, where there was supposed to be a party, but we just found them all watching David Blane Magician videos being completly in awe. Justin rang my cellie then, and told me he was at a party around the corner from my house, where I’d been to a party before after my 21st adn they’d told me they were Norwegian porn stars, so Shirley and I got yet another taxi and went over there. The party was actually one house up from the Norwegian Porn Star House, which just meant that I’ve got around more of my street, which is excellent. It took ages to find out who actually lived there, but that was alright, cos when I did meet him, he was very nice and also very cute, and he’s gonna come to our next party. Brilliant. Also in attendence at the party were KateM, and Jason (oh look, adreniline rush!) and JeremE <!– oh my god he has a billion dollar smile when he saw me –>which was cool, so I met lots of new people who were all very nice, even if there was one guy who was off on some tangent about something to do with chickens that I couldn’t follow. For a while I felt a little 15 again, off giggling in a corner with Shirley and KateM cos they hadn’t seen each other in ages. But then I smoked a lot of pot, and it was cool. Shirley left around 1amish, since we were right around the corner from my house so I gave her the key and she went and slept in Clay’s room. I stayed til some time after 4, cos it was all peaceful and mellow, sitting around laughing and listening to PJ Harvey for ages and ages. So that was cool.

I had an excellent excellent sleep which makes me think that i really should smoke pot more often perhaps, and then Shirley woke me some time around 7am to say goodbye. I went back to sleep until KateM rang me for a gossip and catch up. She told me that she’d spent hours that night talking to the boy I fancy, alternating between praising me to the high heavans and warning him not to treat me badly and saying it was all or nothing. Awww, how sweet of her! She apologised cos she said maybe she’d been a little over the top. I know a huge part of it was residual frustration from a couple’o years ago when everyone wanted to yell at a particular person but I asked them all not to cos the repercussions just wouldn’t have been worth it. And so far today all that I’ve done was start to watch “Enemy at the Gates” but it seemed too gruelling, even for Jude Law and what is apparently one of the best onscreen sex scenes. So I’ll go watch “The End of the Affair” now and see if I can find someone to go out to dinner with.