Hubris.co.nz

In honour of everyone at my work now knowing about my journal (dammit, although given that I’m number one on Google I always sort of expected this), here’s what I told the journalist via email.

Hi Danielle,

Please find below answers to your questions – I’m sure I will talk at
length, but if I haven’t explained myself very well at any stage,
please let me know.

There may be a lot of questions but please note, that most are just to help me set you up in my mind and provide background. I would also need to know your full name, age, occupation and where you live. That’s to provide background to the reader, and helps to introduce you into the article.

My full name is Joanna Tiare McLeod, and online I am known as Jo,
Joanna and Jo Hubris (there was another girl for a long time who moved
in the same circles called Joanna, and so we were differentiated from
each other by our domain names – she was Jo Starla. She doesn’t exist
any more though). I am 26 years old, I work doing communications for a
government agency (I work for * which is part of the ministry of
*, but I’d rather not specify if that’s okay – it keeps
things a little simpler with our incredibly long Code of Conduct), and
I’ve had an online journal for the past eight and a bit years.

SO what I want to ask is first, WHY the online journal?

An online journal to me is the virtual equivalent of a piece of paper and a pen – it’s about writing about yourself and being inward-looking. Blogs meanwhile are more outward-looking – too often they come across like “here’s a link and it’s funny” and that’s about the extent of their content. I’m not interested in doing that. I write because I would like to think that I am pretty good at stringing words together, and because I like to tell stories. A blog is usually about one particular subject, like politics or food or architecture (or at
least the good ones are), wheras online journals are a record of one person’s existence.

When I started my website in 1997, the word ‘blog’ didn’t exist. Back then as well as walking five miles to school barefoot in the snow, most web pages were done either in special programmes or hand-coded in HTML, and then uploaded onto the internet. There was none of this fill in a box and click tomfoolery that there is now, so people who had webpages had to be more dedicated and in to what they were doing than people who use things like blogger and myspace these days. I think in a way that meant content was a lot better. As a whole, people put more thought into it, and because it was so much more effort to get things
online, people were more likely to stick with it. This will sound incredibly stuck up, and please be aware that I am mocking myself here, but when blogging came along, and the media jumped all over it, it was kind of like I’d been doing all these great complex oil paintings and then all of a sudden people were like “woah, check out these awesome paint-by-numbers kits that people are doing!”.

I know a couple of people from New Zealand like Robyn from secret-passage.com and Annette (who’s now at nutandbee.com) and we were all doing the online journal and heavy content thing back in 1998 when there was like no one else in NZ doing it, and so we like to call ourselves the tangata whenua of the interweb. I can’t help but feel like I should get special recognition for doing it for so long. Man I got shitty when Bizgirl won a netguide award when SHE’S NOT EVEN REAL. Well, not that shitty, because James Guthrie is a friend of mine, but still…

What do you get out of it?

There used to be a lot of people who would write disclaimers on their pages things like “I keep this journal for me, and me only so if you don’t like it you can go away”, but that always struck me as being kind of silly, because if you didn’t want someone to read what you were writing, why would you put it out in the public forum? For me, I love having the audience. I think it pushes me to try to write better, to try and include more interesting stories and therefore even a little bit to try and live a more interesting life so that I have more
interesting things to write about. Knowing that I have an expecting
public (haha, oh, that sounds so wanky) gives me good motivation to
make sure that I continue to update my site, rather than just let it
slide like so many other projects I start without finishing. Hubris
serves as a useful place to let out my feelings when I am angry about
things, a platform for my opinions when I want other people to hear me
and also a place to build a sense of community in a way, so that if
there are ever people who find themselves going through things that I
have been through who come across the site might not feel so alone.
Which sounds very altruistic, but there’s something very cathartic
about writing about crappy stuff, even if it’s just in semi-coded
vague references.

It also means I can keep a record of more mundane things like books
I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, places I’ve eaten and when I get my periods. Looking back over journal entries is an awesome way to track moods and mental health, and also to see how far I’ve come in many ways.

Do you look at it as a place to express your thoughts, political views, worldwide views, talk about your life, your day or to vent?

All of the above. Hubris is full of pretty vapid empty crap sometimes,
like a big pile of whatever my catchphrase of the day is (“The Gilmore Girls are so hot right now”), and fairly mundane descriptions
of my day, while my locked down footnotes are where I vent. I have
political views that I think come through in my writing – I don’t
think anyone could read more than one entry and think that I was
right-wing, but I really don’t want to be seen a “political blogger”
because I’m just not that interested in the details. You’re much more
likely to find fairly broad statements about living as a decent human
being from me, or stuff like “so Don Brash has had sex with at least
three women? Really? Ewww”.

And I will bitch and moan about the state of the media or the state of
the world, but usually only about things related to me.

What made you start?

When I used to write a paper journal, I used to get a little frustrated thinking that I’d be the only person who ever read it. I wrote sometimes with an audience in mind, and would occasionally read (fairly censored) parts of it out loud to my friends.

I first came across online journals in 1998, when I was really into
Tori Amos, so I used to go to a lot of her fan sites, which were
mostly run by angsty American teenage girls who used to keep online
journals that were written in tiny little 8 point verdana font, and I
just really related to what they were doing. They had an outpost for
their thoughts and rantings, and an audience, and through their
guestbooks, they built a sense of community. I didn’t think I was as
angsty, or as obsessed with Tori Amos, and I didn’t like their sort of
competitive nature – it seemed like in order to be cool you had to be
on six different kinds of medication, cut yourself and have a
borderline eating disorder or a history of sexual abuse, but I could
relate to many of the things that others would write about – a sense
of alienation from your peers, and a yearning to be a writer, or just
to stand out, and so I started keeping an online journal too.

What made you carry on?

I enjoy doing it, and I love being able to look back on things. I’m
gutted that there are chunks of my life that are not as well
documented (like having the ihug hacker delete July-Nov ’98) or when I
was just too depressed to be able to write at all, but I am grateful
that there is this record, because basically all I really want to do
with my life is become famous enough that I can get an autobiography
published. Hehe. There’s a reason I had to use Hubris as a name…

But on a slightly less hubristic note, I’m full of regret that I never
got to hear enough stories about my grandparents’ lives. They left
behind some stories written down, but they’re handwritten, and on my
mother’s side they’re in Dutch, so I can’t really read them. I want to
make sure that there is some record of my life for my grandkids that
they can easily access, if they want it. I really admire what Heather
from dooce.com is doing for her daughter in that way, although I find
it kind of weird that I know more about what it’s like for this
complete stranger I’ve never even emailed to be raising a daughter
than my own mother’s experiences. That’s something I should work on.

Now that you are into it, do you think you will still be doing it a year from now? Two years?

Having been doing it nonstop for the past eight years, I have no doubt
that I’ll always be keeping an online journal of some sort.

Did you write a diary as a child/teenager/adult?

Yep. It was all descriptions of “she said ‘blah blah blah’ at school,
and pinings for the first boy I pashed. Hubris is pretty much no
different.

Is is something you gave a lot of thought to before starting or a spur of the moment thing?

I had wanted to start keeping an online journal for a while, but I
didn’t really give much thought to what I actually wanted to write in
it until I got going. Content has therefore evolved over time.

What do you write about?

I write about my day, parties I’ve had, injokes that are hilarious to
me and maybe two other readers, tasty food I’ve written, hatred of
people who talk at gigs, reviews of stuff, and I also post writing
that I’ve done for publication elsewhere.

Do you know who reads it? Do you have some sort of mechanism to find out who reads it?

I’m lucky with Hubris in that it’s a customised system my friend built
for me, so I can track everyone’s IP address, and also people can have
their own logins to the page which means every time they visit and
they’re logged in, it keeps a record. People can get themselves to
Level One, which is what some entries are locked to, but I have to
chose to bump them up to Level Two which is what my footnotes page is,
and any kind of rant about things that make me unhappy which shouldn’t
be talked about in public (like work issues), or things that I am
currently squeeing over – like crushes on people. I can actually put
in more levels too, so I can choose what information what people see.
Mostly level two membership just goes to people who I know really well
(online or in real life) or people who actively contribute to the
Hubris community – and by that I mean leave me comments, because of
course as an attention seeker, it’s all about the feedback.

Do you care? How careful about personal info on it are you? Do you include details about other people in your life?

Hubris is the number one result on google for a search on Joanna
Mcleod, so I write on the basis that anything I write can be read by
anyone – although as I mentioned above, I do have some security
measures but I’m aware if someone was dedicated enough they could hack
me. In the olden days before google, I used to use people’s full names
when I wrote mean things about them, and use my friends’ full names
and so forth, but I am much more aware of self-googling now so I don’t
do that so much. My restraint also includes never mentioning who I
work for (I don’t want to get dooced!) and trying not to give away too
much information about other people’s crap. One of my friends last
year made me remove every occurence of her name on the site because
she found her parents searching for her and therefore didn’t want her
name associated with drinking and drugs. Many years ago the first
time I went to bed with a certain boy in the morning he was like “this
isn’t going in your journal, is it?” – well that particular incident
didn’t go in, but I’ve said some very non complimentary things about
him since then, and him being a little drama queen, he’s done the
whole “lawyers, defamation, blah blah” speil. But funnily enough the
only legal letter I’ve had in regards to my website was regarding my
improper use of the word Sellotape (r) without using the registered
trademark symbol. Laaaaame.

Have other people, complete strangers (Like me!) been in touch?

Yes, many many many. In 1999, my friend and I used to have a thing
called The Breast Club, where we made scans of our chests in our bras,
and put them online and encouraged random people to send in theirs,
and so I met lots of people through that. Another time someone wrote
to me and said that since they read my site every day and it made them
happy they really wanted to send me a 21st birthday present.

Have you made new friends from it?

More than I can count – oh I’m so popular. Heh. But no, internet
friends are easy to make – you swap “i like your site” emails – well,
in the olden days you did, nowadays you comment instead, usually, and
that can progress to instant messaging, and then maybe you meet in
real life, and it’s all hunky dory.

Sometimes I meet (online and/or in real life) people through them
coming to my site – getting links from publicaddress.net brings them
in – and sometimes I meet them through contacting them on their sites,
or on forums, and then they come to my site to find out more about me.
It’s a way of demonstrating common interests or feelings, I suppose,
like joining a book club or a sports team might be in the real world.

Do you pay particular attention to what you write should someone you do care about it read it? Like your mum?

I do find myself censoring myself more than I’d like to sometimes
knowing that my friends read the site – sometimes I’d just like to
have a bit of a vent about a particular person without having
repercussions about it, but there are ways and means to get around
that, with different levels, or secret journals that others don’t know
about that.

I asked my parents not to read my site, although my dad did but I
think he was more embarrased about it than I was. I don’t have a lot
of boundaries anyway, so I’d like to think that the person I am online
is the person I am if you talk to me in real life – I don’t have that
much to hide.

Do you expect your family/friends to read it?

I’d actually kind of rather than my family didn’t read it, because
who’s more fun to bitch about than family? No one. And I feel
differently about different friends reading my site – I mean, when
it’s people I met online to begin with, that seems perfectly natural,
but the juxtaposition of my real life friends being in my online world
can be odd (and I know that contradicts my statement of being the same
in both worlds). If I’m away, or if my friends are away, I might cut’n
paste from my journal into emails to save telling hte same story over
and over again.

And if you do, do you feel offended if they haven’t?

If they’re not regular readers of my site, I don’t feel offended if
they don’t read it, but if they’re supposed to be regular readers and
I’m talking to them and they’re like “what? when did you do that?”
I’ll be all “DIDN’T YOU READ MY JOURNAL?” mock angry. But seriously, I
know that my journal can be a higher level of self disclosure than
some people might be comfortable reading (case in point: my review of
the Dimmer gig that was just sex sex sex).

But I would like to think that everyone wants to stalk me and know
every single detail about me ever.

Do you read other online journals or blogs?

Yeah there’s about 70 that I read religiously. Thank god for
Livejournal friends lists and RSS feeds, otherwise I’d be surfing all
the time.

Do you have a favourite? WHy?

One of my current favourite sites is what I’d call a blog if I didn’t
cringe at that word so much – it’s http://wellurban.blogspot.com. Tom Beard who writes it is passionate about Wellington, and he takes the time to
read council submissions and all those things I’d never bother doing,
and provides handy summaries, and he always finds new bars, shops and
restaurants for me to try.

I also love www.dooce.com because Heather writes in an easy, funny
way, but she also writes in great detail about her struggles with her
mental health, and she’s just an inspiration, even though that’s a
cheesey-as-fuck word to use.

and I love my friends’ sites because I like catching up with their
lives. And I like it when they write about me, of course.

Do you expect your online journal to take on a particular direction in the future that you haven’t yet established or are thinking about?

I want to write more stories about things that I did in the past -
like the Lost in Translation entry I wrote recently about moving to
Japan. I want to start writing my autobiography (yes I know, I’m 26,
I’m not that interesting and I haven’t really achieved anything, again
with the hubris), and so that’s what I’m keen to do.

How many times a week do you write in?

I used to write every day, but I also used to have a huge list of
people I could only talk to online that I’d spend hours chatting to
and write at the same time. I also used to be a student who didn’t
have bung wrists, so now I only update a couple of times a week. I
wish I wrote more.

For how long?

Entries take about an hour to write – more if there are pictures and
many links, but that’s an hour of much surfing at the same time.

Would you say this takes up a lot of your time? Does reading other blogs take up a lot of your time?

Yeah it does. But that’s okay.

Before email, were you big on writing letters? Or still are?

Only when I lived overseas. Now I wish I kept the letters I used to write.

Are you personal friends bloggers/online journalist or website owners? Family members?

I’ve always had online friends who were journallers (not journalists -
that’s like, media. Although I am trained in that too), and now it’s
weird, I have a group of friends who are so not into computers but
because of goddam myspace they’ve started keeping blogs. And boy are
they ugly…

What do they think of your new hobby?

Eight years isn’t a new thing. People used to think I was weird, but I
suppose at least the one thing I can thank the word ‘blog’ for is that
it’s mainstreamed me. Hang on, do I really want to be mainstream?

And do you consider it a hobby or something else entirely?

My job is writing website content, so writing online hones my job. And
one day I’d love to write a novel – or an autobiography, so maybe it’s
research for that. I just want to have a legacy, even if it’s a “I
watched Buffy all day and then laughed at some emos and got drunk”
legacy.

Ummm, sorry about the novella-length answers, I hope this helps!

Jo

Friday the 8th of January, 1999
Penny and her boyfriend Graeme came around to see me this afternoon. He was like, old, and had a beard. Well, he’s 23 I think, but that just seems so old because in my mind, Penny will always be 15. He’s a navy guy too, and he was quite quiet. We showed him some of the drawings Penny did back in school of Ms Caldwell – naturally he was shocked. She’s a worry, man! Or she used to be anyways. It’s weird to think that she has a boyfriend now, because we were so single together throughout all of school.

In the evening, I went with Jo to a party in Te Aro. The house was up on a hill, and we had to park waaaaaay up the street because the road was so narrow and otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to park properly because I suck. The house was really cool, sorta half in the middle of renovations, but it was very styley. I had a glass of really yummy punch but that’s all I could have cos I was driving and it was leathel. So yeah, I was sober, which probably didn’t help much.

People were having such bullshit conversations, man, like “what do you think about about the pyramids”. God, three thousand years from now, will people think that the Sky Tower was built for religious reasons? I had to tune out of that conversation before I opened my mouth, so instead I zoomed in on a bunch of dishy guys. That was choice until they started talking about starwars. Am I just too cynical? Cos I swear to god, they were like getting turned on by the trailer for the new ones and shit.

Eventually I just went into this quiet room lit by candles and went and laid down on a sofa for like an hour, staring at a trippy screen saver. Then Reece, who was definatly my Eye Candy for the night, and this guy Jeremy who is friends with my friend Hulita, but who’s also in Vision, came in and started playing around on a music making thing. Yeah, good grasp of terminology there, Joanna!!! It was um some sampler& beat thingie or something. So they started playing techno on it, so I danced for a long time which was choice.

Yeah, that’s about it, eh. They were spinning some funky ass old hip hop in the red room, but there were so many Goths and boganny people that I didn’t know in that room. I’m sure goths are all nice as individuals, but they seem so set in their culture that I don’t belong to that they don’t strike me as being very approachable. You know what I mean? If you do, you’re doing bettter than me.

I shouldn’t drive around by myself at night, or space out and think. I’ve figured out too much about myself now, and I’m really not liking what I’m seeing. People have told me they like my journal because it’s happy – I guess that idea’s gone now. I’m so thinking of stopping doing this, or maybe starting up a second journal

Thursday the 7th of January, 1999

I dunno, I just so feel like there’s something missing from my life. Now that Charly is staying with Amy, I have too much time to think, and this is resulting in me feeling all hollow. We all rented “the Ice Storm” tonight, and I guess that echoes my feeling of emptiness. Except you don’t see me sleeping with Mr Russia, or showing myself to Catholic Richard & Matthew. (Those are my neighbours in case you were wondering). It was so scary watching those freaks live out their loveless lives, just dying to get a little excitement. I mean, my life is excitingish, I guess, but I dunno…. when I was parking outside my house tonight, I just didn’t want to get out of the car. I wanted to stay in it and go somewhere. I don’t know where – I didn’t think that far.

I’m very emotionless these days (sure, I say that after bawling my eyes out after driving in a hole). Okay, maybe a better way to put it would be I just don’t CARE. Like, I told Annette I am SO sick of listening to my friends bitching about their men, and she was like “note: don’t bitch to Jo” but what I meant basically is that I can’t be bothered hearing Charlotte, and I don’t want to hear about Amy and Neil. Amy said tonight that she’s single, but I know that won’t last, and it makes me so helpless that I just want to wash my hands of it entirely. Does that make me fully heartless? Yeah I guess it does.

And there’s no one I’m lusting after right now. Not even like a crush. I don’t want Hugh anymore, I’ve decided. (Oh shock horror, there’s his name). That was just a slight infatuation stemming from how funny it is when he gets drunk and comes on to me. That’s another way that I’m empty – that I get more kicks out of turning people down than I would accepting them. I prefer people disliking me than not knowing me. “I’d rather be hated than pitied”. Go Go the Spice Girls.

Where is this all leading to? Maybe I’m just feeling like this because I am moving in four days and I don’t really want to. Maybe it’s the Aunty Flo. I played Quake today, for the first time ever, but I didn’t kill anything because I sucked at it. But I will learn. Yes please, I am a geek. No I’m not. I’m a giant hollow bubble, and I’m so fragile and I really don’t know what’s come over me. This is so Verdana. Next I’ll tell you about my lithium prescription and my new cigarette burns up my arms.

I can hardly remember the summer of 96/97. 95/96 is vivid, as is 97/98, but I guess maybe because 96/97 was boyless there aren’t so many associated memories. All it was noteworthy for is my first acid trip and the first Gathering.

Wednesday the 6th of January, 1999

Okay, so I’ll be a verdana girl today. Except it’s not like, really really small. Or is it? Maybe I do have scars after all. I hope y’all know what I mean. You musta read those sorts of journals. Okay, the font’s going bigger again. Hey, it’s one am. If I wanna play, I will. (because I want to, because I want to)

We went to the beach again today, and these three little kids were singing all of Billie’s greatest hits (hahaha). Jo and I almost shit ourselves laughing as we joined in singing “Girlfriend”. Only, we don’t know all the words, so if someone wants to email them to me, I’ll love you long time. Then we did the “give it to me baby” thing as well, and got funny looks for grunting the “uh huh, uh huh”. Honestly, the kids were all like under ten. You’d think they’d be a bit more open minded. Jo didn’t try to drown me today, unlike last time, which is sort of a relief. She said that she never tried to, but we all know that she is lying.

Oh yeah, there was more to my day than just swimming. I left the house at 9am, and took Momma into the Bakehouse, then I went and did three hours at Leonie’s, and finished all the work she had for me to do. I got to use an Iris pen some of the time – that was fun. That’s like a tiny wee scanner thing that goes directly into text, if you didn’t know. It actually took more time than typing, but I was bored. Then I went home and picked up Charly, and we went to lunch with Karen.

We went to Sardine in the Duke’s Arcade, which used to be Cafe Aroma, with the most heinous organ player. But obviously it’s not anymore. All the food looked really nice, so I was kinda disappointed in my cajun chicken pasta, but it was still nice. This really scummy guy was sitting too close to us, which was a tad off putting. At one stage he asked Karen if he knew her from somethingorather – she so froze, it was kinda funny.

And Charly bought me a piece of chocolate cake, because I bought her lunch. Neither of us mentioned last night, so that’s a good thing I guess. I mean, I do feel bad about being so mean about everything. It’s just a bad time of the month I guess, and I’m super-emotional. No Mum, I’m NOT pregnent. I took so many pain killing drugs today, and they didn’t kick in until after the chocolate cake. Mmmmmm.

So yeah. Then I sent Charly to meet Jo at the fountain cos I had to go to the bank, and they took sooooooo long, like half an hour. I needed a bank cheque out of my savings account, but I couldn’t find my passbook, and I don’t have a card for it, since it’s supposed to be SAVING, and so there were all sorts of hassles. Eventually, I got it sorted though, a loverly big cheque for $3384. Unfortunatly, it’s made out to AIT, not me. Whatever happened to Free Education?????? Fuck you very much, Lockwood and Wyatt.

Annnnyways. Then we went to Jo’s house and quickly got changed, and went back to the beach we went to the other day. That’s where the kids were. It was cold, but it was still good, and it felt really healthy and bracing and all that good shit. Then I drove back to her house in my wet clothes, cos last time her and Charly perved too much while I was changing. You’d think they’d never seen a girl trying to put her bra on discreetly before or something!

So yeah. Back to Jo’s house, then to the dairy for eyescreams, and then I dropped her off in town and picked up my parents. We had nachoes for dinner, then I went to bed at 6.30pm, for a nap. I woke up sometime later, when i heard the vaccum cleaner, but drifted off again. I figured if Charly wanted to use the net, she could go on Dino (Baby doesn’t have a login script, and no one knows my Ihug password). When I woke up, it was after 10pm, she was reading in the lounge with my parents, and they’d unassembled the Xmas tree. I was so glad I missed that, cos I hate doing it. Stripping it of its ornaments and chucking it over the bank is so depressing. And boring too. Then I went online, so unless Charly was online this morning while I was at work, she wasn’t on all day long. Which is probably healthy.

Si thinks I’m not all that much of a bitch about the whole thing, which I guess is kind of a relief. I mean, I feel bad that I haven’t been very supportive. I wish wish wish i was a nicer person.

Sunday the 20th of December

So according to my grudge book, I’m a concept. And I’m fucked too. Coool. I was thrilled when I read that cos I was like “YAY! My Helenafication begins now”. But then I realised that no, it doesn’t because I know who wrote it. You’re right, I did ask for it. I think it’s interesting that someone who wants so little to do with me keeps coming back to read more, and also knows enough to quote it. But then again, you always were in denial about everything, weren’t you?

That said and done, I can move on. (No, really I can). I worked four hours in the Bakehouse today. It wasn’t too busy, except there was practically always people LOOKING in the shop, just not buying. They’ve got really cool purple tissue in now – I guess Jo got the last of the orange. After that I came home to the message in my grugde book, and took a minute to work out who it was from.

I was sitting around working on Karen’s Xmas pressie, when the phone rang. Within a minute I was out the door, on my way to Johnsonville to pick up my Onslow Best Friend (I figure I have to catergorize my best friends since I’ve got like a girl in every port – or so to speak). I haven’t seen Penny since like – June maybe, cos she’s always away with the Navy (yes, i know!). So that was fantastic. Her parents have moved to Cortina Ave, which is like the personification of Johnsonville Suburbia. So many of my friends from Onslow live close to it. It’s like Edward Scissor Hands town meets a big treeless hill. So that was kind of weird to be going there, given how few Onslow people I’ve kept in touch with. Sarh used to live at 80 Cortina Ave, in such an ugly characterless house. I soooooo want to call Dylan, espeically since I saw he has a story on the front page of the Independant Herald. So what if Sarah gets mad? There’s no friendship there to loose now anyways.

The Benton Parents were also over for dinner, but Penny and I took over the lounge, giggling over my scrapbook of saved notes and her drawings (just wai til I get a scanner!) Ahhhhhhhhh the old memories. We played hardtrance in the car to bring back those old rave memories. And we watched Spice World. That’s like the tenth time for me. It’s gotten to the stage where I start giggling a minute before my favourite bits, because I know it so well, and because it’s SO good. That’s not sarcasm. I fully love the Spice Girls. Geri Forever!

When I took her home, we stopped in the quad at Onslow so she could have a go driving the van. Then we turned the stereo up as loud as it could go, and danced hardtrance in the wind and the mist, in front of a school and a life we can’t return to. That hyped us up fully, so then we drove up and down the driveway, managing to get airbourne over one of the speed bumps. Driving back to Cortina Ave, we left the windows open and roared, Scary Spice style, at all the kids we passed. We went avisiting to Rosalie’s but she wasn’t home, so we went to Narelle’s – who wasn’t home either.

I was so suprised to hear from Penny, especially since I’d just been thinking about her this morning – after dreaming about Pixie (the girl, not the cat). I’d been feeling so much that nothing had changed since I’d left school, and I’d kept feeling like it was still 1997, but I know now that it’s not. A whole year has past, and I’ve changed a whole lot. I reaslised just how confident I’ve become when we were dancing in the Quad. Blossomed I could say – if I wanted to blow my own trumpet.

“And if you could see me now

Said if you could see me now

Girls, you’ve got to know when it’s time to turn the page”

Saturday the 12th of December

Saturday. This makes two weekend nights I’ve been home in a row. No wonder I’m depressed. EVERYONE is either busy tonight, or too tired to go out. Jen Troup told me to come to this d&b rave at the James Smith, but I don’t wanna go if I can’t go with anyone. Sigh. And there are like a thousand movies I wanna see and all, but yet I’m just sitting here at my computer. I’m really trying to finish off my Gathering story, but it’s hard. It was nearly a year ago after all, and it was just so… I dunno. Very intense.

I was in Tandys today, and I saw the Gathering cd and I just about cried. I so so so want to go this year, but I can’t afford to, and none of my friends or sisters are going. Besides, I figure it’s time I moved on. I mean, I’ve been to the Gathering two years in a row, and while both times were very different, they were still the same location. I should get some more experiences. In 95/96, I went to the party where I met Ben. That was just a regular couple of parties, and that turned out great, so I don’t NEED to be up on a hill to have a good time, do I? Besides, if I go to the Gathering this year, I’ll just spend the whole time thinking about Matt, which I don’t need to be doing. It’s funny cos I went to Nelson in 96/97 so that I wouldn’t be thinking about Ben, which is when I wound up going to the inagural Gathering. The next year I went back with my sisters and to meet Matt. And now I think that it’d be a good idea for me not to go, so that I can move on with my life. Jo said that I could hang with her, which’ll be choice, if I can just relax and actually get comfortable with strangers.

Today was her picnic in Civic Square, which was cool. She has so many friends man! Just like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower is Our Jo. I just felt a wee bit out of place, because I didn’t know anyone, and I was really tired and not at all chatty. But it was cool anyways, I still had fun. It’s just funny how seamlessly she blended in with MY friends. I guess some people are just more outgoing than others. I’m just not so comfortable in large groups. Or in any enviroment that’s not my own. For example, on chat, I’ll be like the queen bitch, and totally dominate, but pretty much only in #left or possibly #mirc – rooms that I’m used to. That’s okay though, cos I know I’m so much more outgoing than I used to be. I wish that ASIJ held a reunion in Wellington, or my Onslow friends came to Auckland. I’ve got this real need for revenge, or to like, prove that I’m better now. It’s kind of sick I guess. If I still have that need, maybe I’m not better. Fucking hell! I’m thinking too much. This is the problem with staying at home and being bored. I watched ‘To Die For’ with my parents, but that only took up like two hours. Now I’m talking to some guy called Mark from the Vision project, and I’ve sent him some of my short stories that are going to be used in collabarative efforts. The only problem is that ‘Frozen’, one of my favourites, and the one he wants to use, is the story that Justine stole, and had published on reckoning.net. Bitch. I mean, it’s weird cos I don’t know her at all except from hearing a few things about her from Simon, and from her webpage, but I feel like we could maybe have been friends if we’d met a different way. That doesn’t excuse her stealing my whole story concept and claiming as her own, without giving me an inspiration credit or anything. I hate being petty, but it really does bug me that she did that.

While I have all this time, I’ll tell you a wee little story that i was just thinking of while working in the Bakehouse yesterday. No, actually I won’t. This entry is long enough already, and not everything needs to come out on here.

Friday the 11th of December

I worked at the Bakehouse AGAIN today, and NO ONE, female or otherwise, came on to me. Maybe I’m loosing my charm. But OOOOOH Oooooooh, something exciting DID happen to me – I got quoted in Annette’s journal, and now I feel like a star. Thanks Annette! Not that I know her, other than reading her journal every day. I have like five people’s journals bookmarked. I feel like a voyer sometimes, but it’s so fun, especially when I start interacting with those people a little.

Ummm. That’s really about all. Thanks for reading this anyways! I’m so sure there was other shit I was going to mention, but now I can’t remember. I sent a letter to sothere.com today. I bet it won’t get accepted but oh well.

AAAAAAAAAAAH can’t take the pressure but I have nothing else to say. Umm Helena’s journal entry today is SO nasty, and so I figure if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all, and I’m going to cut this short now.

What to give Joanna for Xmas

cds – or just cd vouchers to make sure you get it right

*The Gathering CD, either Placebo, Portishead Live (enhanced version), “My Body the Hand Grenade” (Hole bsides) etc

makeup – I especially want some rogue pulp loreal lipsticks in any colour

more vouchers from any store

umm stuff. Cool stuff.

Jewellery

stuff from infomercials, especially knives and pots\

spice girls merchandise – but only if it features Geri

Radiohead’s Video compliation thing – Seven Television Commercials -

Wednesday, November 25th

Tahoma. That’s my font. Yeah. Annnnnnnyways.

What do I have to say for myself? Not a great deal actually. I can tell you about my really weird dream though. Okay. I was back in Auckland, walking around, and for some reason I came across my friend, and his ex girlfriend, and her friend Helena, whose page I’m always reading. I’ve never met the ex, or Helena, but both of them looked completly different from photos I’ve seen, and they were completly different from their webpages – and by that I mean they were all sunny and happy and friendly, not at all dramatic or angry. Helena took us up to her flat and it was HUGE. It just went on for ages and ages, all brand new and flash, although she said she only paid $100 rent a week. I remember walking around in it, asking her where each single piece of furniture came from, because it was all so cool. So yeah, anyways, that was just a dream. They really really liked me in the dream, and I just felt like I was completely on their level, which is different from real life I guess. I go and read Helena’s guestbook every so often – there are like 1600 entries now, and it’s such a clique, and it’s kind of amusing. Like, I fully respect her honesty and her strength, and her writing blows me away, but I dunno – there’s just something not quite right about her attitude. In my opinion anyways. I guess that’s the trouble with fan clubs. They make your head swell. Isn’t it about time you signed my guestbook?

Honesty and strength huh? Two things I pride myself on, two things that I lie to myself about. When I was writing up my Born page, I was all “I am Happy” and it’s true – just that there are things that worry me. I’m not perfect, and no man is an island. That’s choice though – I guess it’s just a question of looking at the WHOLE picture, rather than the little fragments. And as a WHOLE, I am blissfully happy. I’m going to a “Where the Wild Things Are” partay on Saturday at Anji’s flat, and if we’re both less sick, it’ll be fucking fantastic.

I’m so fully in shock when people make comments about stuff in my journal to me. Hulita and Andee read through ALL of Lovesong – now that is dedication! It’s also sorta psycho, but that’s okay – if any of you guys had online journals, I’d be the first to read it. Voyers’R Us.

Anyways, speaking of Lovesong, I realised that I only included like, the love songs in there. Now, that might sound obvious, but they’re not the only songs that move me – although they are generally Happy Memory songs, despite the fuckedupedness of it all. There are songs like “Daughter” by Pearl Jam that make me want to cry – that one’s the song I always pair with Emily – a girl I know who died of a brain tumour. Then there are songs like “Sweet Child of Mine” by GNR that really scare me. They played that at Dee’s party, and while all my friends were going crazy, I had to go outside to escape. My immediate reaction was to head for the toilet, then I realised that was the worst place I could go.

So I was sitting outside, enjoying the solitude when Brad came out so I had to talk to him. He probably figured I was completly drunk and on the verge of puking or something, which was totally not true. I had so little to drink at the party – I guess that’s the benifit of drinking in bars where you have to pay lots for each individual drink. It was still an enormasly cool party. I was first on the dance floor (Derek made us go onto it when they played the Backstreet Boys) and like last to leave.

It was really lovely, cos at the end of the night, they played “Loyal” and all of us – it was mostly Tutorial D people left – just stood in a circle with our arms around each other. Yes, cheesy and sweaty I know, but hey! I can’t believe how fast this year has gone by, and how much I’ve changed.

Who would have known at the start of the year that I’d dance publicly when not drunk? Or that I’d get so into the TMI I’d put my diary online?