In the best journalistic tradition, I spent today and yesterday (when I could actually log on at work) rewriting press releases. But then again, it is kinda PR cos it’s for our publications offering stuff. I think I’m rully rully going to love this job eh. I get to be creative, and I feel like I have my finger on the pulse, and all the ideas I’ve had so far have got the go ahead. YAY. I deserve good job karma.

Ammy came up to me tonight and put her arms around me and thanked me wholeheartedly for making this flat work, and that was just totally sweet of her, and it’s just really cool here and nice and stuff, and yay. Even if we still don’t have a tv (or washing machine) which meant I had to go to KateH’s last night ot watch SS. Not that that’s any hardship of course (well at least not for me). And then I met Ammy and Darren and Megan and James in town and saw LOTR again. I texted Tom right before it to say hi, but told him not to reply cos it’d make me vibrate. He replied a couple of hours later saying “Now if I can just time this to be at the same time that Aragorn opens the doors, won’t I be the man?”. He got the timing wrong but still, I appreciated the sentiment!

Mazzy thought that I would write about how she told me that she couldn’t come to my party but then showed up as a surprise in a “bear” mask, but she was wrong. My skin is peeling off in big chunks from everywhere – it looks particularly gross around my neck. I have too many boys on my mind right now and I can’t figure out which ones I’m using as an excuse not to fancy the other ones, and it’s driving me crazy, but not must-find-cash-for-Kalpana crazy. What else? We have a “staff development day” at work on Friday which means a talk, and then lunch at a bar, and then early home. Asskicking. Just as long as they don’t try to make me wear a polarfleece. My god but it’s hot in Auckland! And I have finally been bitten by mosquitos here. Oh well. Also I’ve made the disturbing discovery that Jonny plays the bagpipes. We’re planning on getting him to march up and down in front of the houses across the street playing them, since we figure that one of them must have called Noise Control on us.

Tomorrow I am doing a market survey on soft drinks. Crazy.

xojo

And now it is January the 6th, and that’s lucky cos it means I get to avoid telling you about the handjob I gave my friend that night. So skipping the rest’o New Years Eve, KateH arrived in Whakatane late on New Years Day, and Brad her and I spent the evening lounging around polishing off the rest’o everyone else’s beer adn reading magazines. It was lovely chill time. And then on the 2nd, when people got up, and I got to sleep by myself, instead’o with three snoring boys, one of whom stopped touching me as soon as he came, (selfish!), but anyways, that’s entirely beside the point. But I was bursting to tell someone, so I was very very very relieved when Tom finally got off his ass and rang me there so I could have a decent gossip. Wait, hang on, that was the night of the 1st. On the 2nd, Brad took us on his famous tour’o The’Tane, including wading on Ohope Beach, adn then the biggest icecreams in the world for $1.50 apiece. KateH and I had amusing conversation like; Me: “he kept looking down my top all night” – Kate: “well, what top were you wearing?” – Me: “yeah, but that’s not the point!”. I also made other rather crude remarks about her family. Sorry Katie, but I know you said bad shit about me that I just can’t remember. Blah blah blah. Later that night, we got three bottles of wine and went out to dinner where the service was TERRIBLE – “oh, we can’t take your order right now cos the kitchen is too busy with that big table” but the company was terrific and I managed to make both Brad and Kate’s jaws drop because I fucking HAD to spurt out my little story, because jesus, almost 48 hours? Do I LOOK like a mute to you? And then we had shakers at the Irish pub until this guy kept staring at Kate so we had to leave, adn went to the other bar in Whakatane, where this carnie approached us and kissed our hands and I was like “Dude, you know it’s not actually sunny any more outside eh” and KateH was like “are you wearing your sunnies on your head to keep back your hair?” cos he was totally going bald, and he started going on and on about were we vets, cos he hated vets, etc etc, and we were like “????”. And then he said to me “hey, nice tits” and I was like, “thanks, I grew them myself” ajnd that gave Kate the chance to go “oh, so you don’t like mine? Well you can just FUCK OFF THEN buddy” and she got rid of him, and she can pretend it’s because we wanted to get rid of him, but really, we all know that I have far nicer breasts than Katie, so ha ha ha. Ha.

The next day, Brad had to go back to work, so eventually, after I ahd to endure hours of “Aladdin and the King of Thieves” on TV waiting for Katie to come back from the radio station, Kate and I drove to Hamilton, via Burger King and Rotorua. She let me stop off to go wading somewhere along the way, but she wouldn’t let me get a float from Macdonalds, so instead I got total Passenger Arm instead, and screamed at roundabouts. And then Mazzy Star made us cokefloats in her new house in Hammy, so that was cool, and we went to Briscoes cos it was airconditioned and I didn’t buy any bed linen, and then I took the bus back up to auckland.

Then on the Saturday, me and Megan and Peter went out. Lumiere has yummy cocktails. Peter sucks at playing High-Low, unless your definition of it is taking 40 drinks to get across the cards. Megan is very amusing. Deschlers was shut at 2.30am and I nearly cried. Sunday was boring, and I put my bed together adn tried to sort out my room. Today I got to work at 10.30am, and (umm fuck, did I have a psuedoname for her?) the girl I work with and I had a rather lengthy lunch and then after work she came here and we demolished a couple of bottles of wine, gossiped and I cooked risotto for her and Peter. And so now that’s like, NOW. And I’m up to date. Kickass me. OH! And hi, have you sent me a package lately? because according to megan, there was an envelope in my letterbox for me one day when she went to work, and when she came home it was gone. Mystery! xojo.

And now it’s the 5th, and it’s SO FUCKING HOT that unpacking my boxes and sorting out my room and the prospect of putting my bed together is far too daunting, so I’m going to continue on with my dentist story instead. Where was I? Oh yes, because it was Xmas holidays, almost all dentists were on holiday, and the ones that weren’t couldn’t fit me in, so I rang up this one and he said I could come in and wait and he’d try to fit me in between patients, and so I said Okay and Mummy very kindly drove me in . The waiting room was jammed full, but after about an hour, they said I could go in. The dentist put sunglasses on me and looked in my mouth, and said that my gums were inflamed because my mouth wasn’t quite big enough for my wisdom teeth, and gave me the option of him prescribing me something to get rid of the infection and sending me away, or of taking the three remaining teeth out now, although that could be a little risky due to the already present infection. I asked him which would make the pain go away quicker, and he said operating now, so I said okay, and he injected me very painfully with painkiller. And then he said “right, well that will last for up to two hours, so go and sit in the waiting room while i see another patient”. Righto. That meant trying to explain to Mum what was going on with a numb mouth, but she finally understood, and said that she’d come back in an hour. Half an hour later, during which time I had sat reading Next magazines and trying not to drool on myself because of course, the lower half of my mouth was numb so I couldn’t manage my saliva properly, they called me in to the office. I tried to spit out the mouthfull of saliva that had accumulated, but I couldn’t control my lips enough to manage that. The dentist started prodding inside my mouth and asking me if it hurt, and I yelped and said yes, but then he touched my bottom lip and asked if I could feel it and I said no, and so he grabbed my top lip really really hard adn made me scream, so he said “I think we’ll judge how the pain relief has worked in proportion to the noises you make” and “since you can’t talk, either it’s working or you went out to the pub while you were waiting” so he poked some more and I declared as loudly as I could that it FUCKING HURT, but he ignored me and got started on ripping out my teeth. I screamed and screamed. He got his nurse to SHUT THE DOOR instead of giving me more pain killer. FUCKER. Oh I was so not impressed. And the noise! And the pain! OWWWWWWWWWWWWW. And then I had to wait another half hour for Mum to show up, bawling my eyes out in the waiting room from the pain and trauma of it all. It was not a fun time at all!  But Mum did tuck me up and read to me that night. I’d cried on Xmas Day (well actually, I cried about half a dozen times on Xmas Day) when she disclosed to me that the night before when I’d asked her to read to me and she said “You’re milkign this whole illness thing a little too much” what she actually meant was “I can’t be bothered walking downstairs and getting a book”. Yes, sure it sounds like I am completely pathetic. That is the point that I am trying to convey – how fucking patheticly sick I was. Thank you.  Anyways, because I was so sick and stuff, and cos I didn’t wanna risk being stopped by the police without a warrant or rego if I drove to The’Tane for New Years, Mummy very kindly changed my plane ticket which was supposed to be on the 29th up to Auckland to one on the 31st to Whakatane. Actually, that’s not strictly true – my flight on the 29th wasn’t exchangeable, so we just threw it away. How extravagent,and there’s children starving in Africa, I know.  Other things that I did in Welly besides be sick? I saw ‘The Two Towers’ at The Embassy, where it was made to be screened, adn it was WONDERFUL. MmmmmmmAragon. I hung out with Anji lots on her birthday, which was cool. I bought Mum and Neil dinner at an Indian restaurant for being so nice to me, even though Mum wouldn’t let me drink because as his final pain giving legacy, the evil dentist prescribed me antibiotics that the chemist warned Mum that I would get very sick on if I consumed alcohol with. EVIL MAN! I’m sure it was all a plan. And what else? That’s about it. I bumped into Si a couple of times on the street, but was too sick to make stick to plans to actually catch up with him properly. He has chrome holes in his ear that I poked my finger through though, so that was fun. I got frosty phone receptions. I slept a lot. I managed to not fight with my mother too much, because being ill meant that we could revert to the traditional Strong Mother/Weak Child roles that make everything so much easier to deal with.  And so then on the 31st, I flew up to Auckland, and got on a tiny little plane that was actually much more comfortable and roomy and flew to Whakatane. Brad picked me up from the airport (which looked like a 1970s house) and we went to the supermomarket for supplies and back to his house, where we were met by Justin and Nellie and Lovely Paul and Jarrod and his friend Stuart and Sarah. There was eating and drinking and talking and stuff, and then once we were all quite drunk, we took a taxi van over the hill to Ohope, where there is no cellphone coverage, and went to a scary carnie toga party where people were drinking beer through funnels and tubes so we left quite quickly adn went to a bach where Sarah’s sister was at. That party was much cooler.

I handed in my letter’o resignation today. It felt really good.

When I was walking back to The Slab after work where I’d parked my car, a guy on a bicycle said “Sexy!” at me so I scowled at him, and then he stopped and asked me for directions to High Street, so I thought maybe I’d misheard him, and then as he rode off, he said “you’re still really sexy” so that was a little odd. I smiled after that though.

I swear, if my ex landlady calls me ONE MORE TIME I will totally lose it. In fact, I’d almost be willing to forfit the whole $1200 bond she owes us if I could have a guarantee I’d never have to encounter her ever again.

Megan is super cool. We still need a fourth flatmate. Megan is serving at my work Xmas party tomorrow, and then at the Shortland St function at Ammy’s work tomorrow night. We’re so good to her.

I still haven’t come to terms with the fact that it’s less than a week til Xmas. I feel decidedly unfestive.

There’s been some restructuring at work, and today we were all given “a document”. Mmmm. People aren’t happy at all. Morale is terrible. People are very stressed out. A lot of people are looking for new jobs. It’s not fun. Oh, and the girl I work with doesn’t know how to make paper snowflakes.

I had a job interview today (yes, another one), for an NGO. I think they liked me. I also think that maybe i’m not qualified enough. Well, I can do pretty much everything they want, EXCEPT, and this is a big except, budgeting. Bleh. However, I do have another job interview on Monday, and I think I am ideally qualified for that job, so we’ll see.

I boxed some stuff up today, and also met a potential flatmate, and I think we clicked really well, so hopefully when he sees the inside’o the place, he’ll still want it. I hate looking for flatmates.

Kalpana rang me today to see if I wanted to make another appointment before Xmas (sheesh, psychologist stalker styles) and so I capitulated, and made one for next friday morning. Actually, it’s not a question of capitulating at all – I really fucking need to talk to someone right now. And at least if I’m paying her, then she’ll have time for me. (And if you think that’s a dig at you, you’re probably right. You know, Anji hasn’t returned my calls in nearly 3 months? When she did call, she was so drunk all she could do was talk about how she was in love – she has no idea what’s going on in my life. And don’t get me started on everyone else. Yes, I know you’re all busy. You also know I’m incredibly self absorbed and IT’S ALL ABOUT ME, goddamit).

Bo moved out today, so needless to say, I’m excessively sad and despondent and just so fucking lonely. I don’t care if she’s coming back in February, I still need her to be HERE NOW. I just need someone to listen to me and actually give a damn. Bleh self pity.

Stupid bloody notes from stupid bloody landladies. Let me get some sleep you vile creature.

PLEASE LET ME GET SOME MOTHERFUCKING SLEEP, CONSTRUCTION!

I hate boxing things up and packing and cleaning.

There’s restructuring and turmoil at work, and people’s personalities are really starting to fray.

I just wish I could have my old flatmates back – maybe ummm say Brad and Simon to balance out numbers for me and Bo rather than having to answer stupid people’s stupid questions. How many fucking times do I have to tell you that no, you can’t see the place until the 15th? Grr. Oh yeah, you do want to move in with me, by the way. Email me.

I emailed Shirley today, for like the first time in about three months, so I had to recap all the shit that I’ve been going through, and that’s never fun. On a similar vein, I’ve been keeping a list of things that I want to talk to Kalpana about, next time I can afford to go see her, and I’ve included on that list something that really, I very much would rather not talk about, but i guess if it still affects me then maybe actually I should. Ick. Maybe I will book my next appointment in for the afternoon after our staff Xmas Party so I can at least be drunk and it’ll be a little easier. Except then I’ll just end up bawling and I haven’t done that yet. She only has one box of tissues in her office. It’s way too sterile.

I had a job interview today and I think I impressed them a lot. I’m afraid the job environment could be very Foodstuffesque though, so I will be forced to think very very very long and hard about what my priorities are if they offer it to me (pay rent or feel like I’m going somewhere? pay rent or feel like I’m going somewhere?)

Tomorrow Ammy and I will be interviewing prospective flatmates HERE, rather than at the actual house. Personally, I think the most important thing is that the people are cool and we can get along, and if they don’t feel that way well then that tells you somehting.

Tonight I had emmediate and watched “Not One Less” instead of drinking vodka. It was a good movie. I have leftovers.

1. I’ve long finished rereading all the Narnia books, and god bless the No Logo in me, I had a dream the other night that was a cross between Prince Caspian and The Last Battle, where i was with a group of the last desperately free animals and so forth, adn they got all excited saying that when we took back Cair Parvel, they could get credit cards and go shopping at The Warehouse, and I was like “NOOOOOOOOOO”.

2. I have also read Harry Potter 2 and 3, and they’re okay, but they seriously don’t stand up to C.S Lewis, although the whole kiddie-Internet-Porn aspect of the Chamber of Secrets was amusing (oh come on, young girls SHOULD NOT be writing in diaries to random strangers!)

3. There’s an ad for our flat up on the channel z website, clearly stating the cost’o the rooms, and that there’s OSP. I got this email about it: “Hi Joanna Just seen your advert on the channelz site for a flatmate. Im 23 yr old prof male. Is there off street parking? How much are you charging for the room? Im a great guy to have around on those mornings when your car wont start! Cheers” On second reading, I realised that his email address is wrx_channelz@* . I’m not very enthusiastic about the idea of him moving in, eh.

4. We had our last ever Party At The Slab. Much sangria was consumed. It was fun.

6. The Departure Lounge has put in booths now, yay. However, they’re now serving Allpress instead’o Gravity. Semi-boo – it’s still nice though.

7. I would like back the three hours of my life that I just gave to Pearl Harbor tonight please.

8. Clay and Bo have both started boxing stuff up. WAAAH!

9. I very very much need to find some flatmates ASAP. Gorgeous house in Balmoral, and all that good stuff. Tell your friends. Email me. Thank you.

10. I got rather drunk at the Admin lunch on Friday. Office ladies oggling waiters – scary.

11. If you’re planning on sending me Xmas pressies (or my late birthday present even) you should email me for my new address, or send them to my parents’ house, cos I am moving out in ONE WEEK’S TIME.

12. I dropped my cellphone in a glass of water. D’oh. If anyone has an old vodaphone they wanna lend me til after Xmas, I will kiss your feet. I miss txts, especially Tom, like crazy.

13. I can’t even afford Therapy anymore. Ick.

Exciting news!
FLATMATES WANTED:
One smallish room (that would fit a double bed) and one sleepout(that would also fit a double bed) plu a study available in a large gorgeous house on a lovely quiet street in Balmoral, one block back from Dominion Road. There’s two bathrooms, a bigass front porch, a biggerass backporch, lawns to frolic on, and carports built for two. You’ll be sharing with two gorgeous mostly chilled out lasses, and paying $110 a week. You want this flat. You need this flat. Move in on the 16th of December, and email me now . Thank you.