Hubris.co.nz

So what I feared about peanuts and monkeys has proven to be true (*) but let’s ignore that and focus on the positives instead.

I received a Valentine today! It’s from Outback Jack, and it says “Strewth! ur a hot sheila!! LOLZ!! ur teh only lady I wanna pair up in twos with!!! OMG!!! HAWT!!!” I wonder if Natalie knows. According to the latest NW they’re engaged. According to the Herald Milan is engaged. Bastard.

Also! I have a hairdressing appointment booked. You can be like “so what?” but if you know me well enough then you’ll know that my beloved hairdresser Hayley is in Auckland, and therefore I must be Auckland bound – as indeed I am. I fly in on Friday the 25th at 9.30am and I leave at 3pm on Sunday the 27th. This does mean that I miss the Cuba St Carnival AND Dimmer, but hey, these things happen. Whilst in Auckland I will be getting my hair cut at 12.30pm on the Friday, going to Goodshirt at the Zoo on Saturday evening for KateH’s birthday, and then painting the town red later that night for KateM’s going away. Possibly a bbq will be attended the next day before I fly back. On the friday day I intend to meet up with my biggest client since I’m sure I owe her a glass of wine or two, and also see Gemma who I haven’t seen since Easter 2004 perhaps? Other than that though, I would like to hang out with you. I think I will hopefully be playing with Heather that Friday night.

Why did no one tell me about p2p porn before? I downloaded Limewire yesterday, and when I clicked the “new files” I was overwhelmed. Now I just have to figure out what kind of porn I actually want to download – I suspect “please for the love of god cut your nails and take off those ugly shoes” is too long a search string to start out with. Still, there’s always Buffy slash I guess…. Sick. Sick sick sick sick sick (but if you’re going to do the Buffy slash thing, google “bankhead academy”).

That’s about all I have to say for now. I’m going to a d.vice fuckerware party on Wednesday, which I’m quite looking forward to. Given how ridiculously sore my arms are these days (remember how I first got OOS cos I hated Foodstuffs so much?), I’ll be looking for something handsfree, I do believe. I think my dearly beloved Fiesta Party has carked it, although not from overuse.

I am so over today (*), I would like it to be 5pm right about now please thanks bye.

<B>Friday</B>
<LI>Handing in my notice
<LI>Job interview at lunchtime. The one question that stumped me was “how would your colleagues describe you?” I confessed to having just resigned so they would probably use a few choice words about me, and then talked about last year’s colleagues instead. Then the interviewers all left me alone in their office with assorted laptops to go get lunch while I did a test. I wonder if part of the test was them spying through spyholes at me. I don’t mind if they did because they also bought me a smoothie. I would like that job please.
<LI>BBQ with Karen and Mummy and Brad, and much foodage. Later we tried to make s’mores although the biscuits were stale and it took a long time to get the fire going again. Have I mentioned how disturbing it is that my parents turn Mum’s 80kg gas bottles into flame throwers in order to start the BBQ in their outdoor potbellied pottery fireplace? No? Well it’s really disturbing. What was less disturbing, and in fact, great, was watching two hours of <I>The O.C</I> goodness (last week’s episode for Brad’s benefit first).

<B>Saturday</B>
<LI>Dinner with Mummy at Daawat in J’Ville. J’Ville has a bar now! What goes on?
<LI> 1000ml bottles of Banrock Station are back. Hurray!
<LI>Drinks at Jessie’s, followed by a party in Mt Vic, and then Indigo. I networked all comms like! I plotted all politically like on the deck of Indigo. Random girls made me try their random drinks! All very exciting stuff.

<B>Sunday</B>
<LI>’Home and Away’ Omnibus.
<LI> <I>The House of Flying Daggers</I>. Oooh pretty.

<B>Today</B>
<LI>Guess which magazine has pages laid out in COMIC SANS this week?
<LI>Tonight I am going to take Jessie to The Shins. I only know that one song, but hey, if y’all knew I had free tickets and didn’t go, you’d probably spit at me, right? Plus, hopefully I can get Jessie to <strike>put out</strike> buy me a beer in gratitude. Or something.

So my mother has osteoarthritis. I just found out this morning, after we’d been to breakfast at the local cafe which was blasting out Appetite for Destruction (which i <3 and would love to receive a copy of). Her mother had it, and Anji's doctors suspect she has it, so chances are that I will have it too. I know she's probably a bad example of worse case scenarioism, but they're going to Morroco soon, and she's all "I need to get things out of the way this year because I won't be able to do them next year". While I don't know how much of that is true, it's still kind of fucked. She can't even knock on doors cos her fingers are so sore right now.

We drank a lot of wine tonight. Boy did I need it. Here's a pop quiz for you. Which disturbing line has the new editor said to me in the past couple of weeks?
A) "I'd like a milk chocolate sante bar please - I don't like dark chocolate"
B) "I really love the music from The Phantom of the Opera”
C) “I have never seen an episode of ‘The O.C’”
D) “I love it up the butt with three fists please”
E) Everything but admitting to the buttsex

Yeah you know how it is.

Last night, after I’d stayed til almost 9pm proofreading (and I didn’t get to do the whole magazine, and based on the half that I did, I wish that my name wasn’t on the other half – although i’m sure that my dislike of the music pages for example is that it’s no longer Hott Boy writing them), I saw a hunched old lady carrying bags up the hill and since my parents had left me the van at the station I offered her a ride home. She said she lived on the big street that goes past where you turn off to where i live, so it wasn’t very much out of my way. However, when we got to her place, she stopped and chatted for a very long time. She’d just had a couple of her teeth replaced at over two grand each. She’d just had some verucas off except that she thought they were corns. She asked me where I lived and I gestured. She asked em what I did and in the same breath if i was a mother. Okay, I was driving a van in Suburbia, but it still felt weird. For some reason I said that I was a student. I suppose ti was because I knew that if I said what I did, I’d have to explain it, and she’d ask me if I liked it, and I’d be all FUCK I HATE THAT SHIT, butr I just wanted her to get the fuck out of the van. She told me that she’d studied various things trying to cure her ‘illness’ – she was talking about being crazy – and had done a B.A in Philosophy and Psychology. Her father was an English professor and her mother was one of only 3 women in her accountancy degree. She built her house 25 years ago when she was 40 but it still didn’t feel like a home. She studied yoga in India trying to fix herself. I know too much about her. Please just get out of my car. It made me realise though that what I really want is a baby, to not have to do my fucking job that I hate. It’s so hard trying to actually have a career. I believe that raising good healthy children is a valid (and important) lifestyle, so why can’t I do that instead?

Today was teh suck. However, tonight The OC is the greatest show in the entire world ever (except for Buffy).

Oh, I should point out to you that if you’re a Hubrette, and you get a message that says something like “you need to be logged in to read this entry”, and you’re all like, but dude, I’m totally logged in, well, chances are that the entry is at a higher level than your status. What you need to do is comment more, and then I’ll move you up, and we’ll be closer than ever. Hooray!

And something about being able to count at least five different fonts in BODY TEXT across 64 pages (well, taking out full page ads and the cover 57). Something about lacking punch and cohesion. Something about thankless work and fuckheads. Something about the fear in their eyes that I enjoyed so much that I kinda wanted to sabotage things except that that’d have meant staying longer. Something about how I almost don’t want to lock this entry to level two (hi anyone who’s reading this! Thank you for commenting enough for me to have bumped you up a level / being a good friend) because I’d fucking love to get fired so that I can go on the dole straight away. Something about AAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGH and the proofreading that I haven’t done and am worried about how the rest of the magazine will read. Did I mention the multiple fonting? And the pages which weren’t columnised?

If I wanted to pretend to be all oh I’m so political, I’m so intelligent Blogger type, I would say that when I got to work this morning I realised that there was someone asleep on our couch behind a stack of insert boxes, and I whispered to the editor as she was making coffee “do you know that there’s a homeless man crashing in our office?” when she told me it was Matt Nippert, who I have of course met before. Still looks like a homeless tramp but…

But I wouldn’t want to be a political circlejerk blogger. I’d much rather be a cliquey journaller, which means that I get to tell you about how when I was in a three way (chat. Sigh) with Heather and Martina the other night I told them that I was going to leave them for the second sexiest pair of females in the universe (being Lorelei and Rory, of course), and then later on Mary-Kate&Ashley and Hilary. Oh it’s funny to me.

You’re sending me Valentine’s Day Cards aren’t you? Just remember that my PO Box (600, Wellington) isn’t entirely mine, so you’ll need to put my full name (Joanna McLeod) and the name of the part of the organisation that I work for if you know it on there. If you don’t, it’ll still get here, just slower.

Last night me Karen and Anji made a three course meal for Mum’s birthday, which is actually today, but it’s our first production night so god knows when I’ll be able to get away. We figured if we cooked her dinner it would reduce the chances of a repeat of the drama over Neil’s birthday dinner, and we had it at Karen’s house, since Anji’s is too small. I did the entree, which was individual pear, blue cheese and walnut tarts, which I think I have finally perfected. We drank a Pegasus Bay Sauvigon Semillion with that, which cut through the cheese really well (hehehe cut the cheese). For the next course Karen made a salad of chicken baked in orange juice and chilli, strawberries, almonds and various other goodies, and we had a Rymer’s Change Rose with that, which I first tried at that winery when Karen and I went to the Hawkes Bay in 2003. It was all strawberry like, and the most gorgeous colour, and it was an excellent match. Then Anji had made four fancy espresso mousses in champagne flutes, and one small bowl of leftovers when she realised that for nearly twenty five years now there have been five members of the McLeod family, with which we had almond biscuits and a Saints Noble Semillon dessert wine. Oh what a splendid dinner it all was, and a thoroughly good time was had by all. You know what I’d really like to receive for Valentine’s Day? You know, besides like, a valentine in general? A vineyard. Yeah!

I think whoring mysef for a living is wearing me out. If only I could just lie on my back and spread my legs and let them have full access to Hilary, that’d be fine. It’s the trying to rattle up business that drives me crazy. Still, I made over 14k today, which is nice.

Oh yes, Hilary. Today I observed that in this bra, Mary-Kate & Ashley collectively look like Lindsay Lohan boobs (ie: hott but padded), so I figured why not try for a full set – plus, I can go all cockney rhyming slang with Hilary Duff/Muff. Oh the hilarity! And oh the hilary! And if I ever feel political, it can become Clinton, not Duff.

Not that Hilary is going to be doing any campaigning any time soon (or promotional tours, or singles, or what have you). It’s kind of distressing to think that even if people were queuing up to get in, I just don’t know if I want to. I think my confidence has been shattered by the puke incident (I was supposed to be great, and yet all of a sudden I develop a gag reflex? What’s that all about?) but also I’m disgustingly still pining for another boy. Nevermind.

In happier news, there’s a Red Wine Cake baking in the oven, although it sucks that the recipe giver will be leaving the country very shortly. Also, if I counted correctly, there’s only 101 sleeps until I GO TO FIJI. Wahoo! I will be staying here and going on this (and if you see the words “open bar” and presume that’s how Kate and I picked it, well, you’d probably be almost right), if you want to book your tickets now to stalk me. On a stalking note, you know how people talk about how owners get to look like their dogs? Who knew the same happened between husbands and wives (although maybe they’re the same thing), and that a person could go from logging on five times a day during the high drama period a couple of weeks ago, desperate to figure out what was going on, to going cold turkey?

In TOTAL HAPPY NEWS, you know how it was like, no more sleeps today when the good thing was supposed to happen? Well it happened at work. Hoepfully it’ll happen at home too. Soon.

What else do I have to tell you? Probably not very much. My father’s wearing my pearls right now, which is vaguely disturbing. He also hasn’t got the hang of when something’s widescreen and when something’s not, but hey, nevermind. Mum’s trying to figure out Morocco, cos they’re going there soon. Hopefully I will have a flat by then, of course. Katy gets back soon, and then we’ll have the incredibly fun task of flatfinding. She wants Mt Vic. I’m dubious. Nevermind. We’ll see.

Okay, it’s time for me to go and take Marie Antoinette’s advice and eat cake. Wahoo! Oh yeah, and if you’re new, and not a Hubrette yet, and you’ve just come here from Bizgirl (like most of you do), and you’re like “omg, this girl has just told me about the name she’s given her vagina, and I don’t know who she is, and wtf?”, well, get used to it. And do come back. But you know how people write about what they think about? Well I’m like the Korn song, so be warned.(Also, how fucking cool is it that The First Lorelei was renting out her house to Korn? Even though Korn suck.) However, since my image directories are down, y’all can imagine me as being the hottest bitch in the world, and that will be cool. I am, you know. Just maybe like, two or three of the hottest girls stuck together. With a normal amount of arms.

Sometimes I feel like I must appear to be such an asshole to the outside world. I’ve cut down my “you’re a fucking idiot” type posts on NZm, but there’s twice as many bubbling inside me (and to my defence, this is possibly the funniest topic ever, especially given what a fuckhead that poster has shown themselves to be in other topics. And if he’s a made-up troll, then he’s doing an unbelieveable job!). I bought Brazilian beer yesterday just cos I liked the packaging and I’d never seen it before (it’s labeless, with yellow and green paper over the cap). I bought a Lindsay Lohan movie at the same time as I bought a Michael Winterbottom one. I’m a fucking asshole. Perhaps I’m not quite as bad as Anji, who wrote the answers to those dumb picture puzzles in the Dominion Post next to them in the cafe today at breakfast, but still….

As an asshole, I am well within my rights to bitch about the wind and the cold and the fact that I am forced to wear a hat and scarf in my office in winter, and now complain about how it was probably close to 30 degrees in there on Thursday. I left on the dot of five to go home to cold beer and a cold shower, and the editor was like “oh, you’re not staying for the party?” Party? Oh yeah, the BYO liquor, BYO pizza money in the office “party”. Right. What a shame I missed that one. I also skipped a workmate’s party last night because while she’s great, it was a combination of her party and her 18 year old son’s. I’m not sure if I could handle the young boys. Worse case scenario, I would have ended up ‘handling’ one of them, and that’s never a good thing. Plus the party was in Wilton, which is in the middle of the bush, so it wasn’t really a logistic possibility, unless I was to not drink, and drive instead. Yeah right. It’s okay though, cos she didn’t actually give me the address until I saw her yesterday in the supermarket, so I didn’t have much planning time any way.(*)

Since Mum & Neil are away in Martinborough for the weekend – Mum’s doing the fair, but they decided to spend two nights there in order to save early morning trips, and just so they could have a mini break (haha Bridget) type thing for Mum’s birthday – I have been very rapidly spreading mess through the house, which no doubt i will have to pick up in a mad dash before they come home. I watched Return of The King – the extended version – last night, but their TV’s sound was so good I had to leave the lights on cos it was a little scary. When did i become such a wuss?

Today I am dancing around in my panties and singlet to The Sisters of Mercy. Well, I’m not dancing very much. A shake here or there and then it’s too damn hot and I have to stop. I’ve had two showers already. I had brunch today with Karen and Anji at Coco. I wanted to go to Yum Chow, but Anji had dinner there last night. Anyways, the corn fritters at Coco were, as it happens, great, and a good time was had by all. Then I drove home via The Warehouse in J’Ville, where I purchased a singlet in a size 6 sizes smaller than the bra that I also bought, but it fits and it is the SHRN Yellow, and plus, it was $4. Meanwhile, the bra cups are a little too big on Ashley and rattling around on Mary-Kate, but you get what you pay for, and plus, it’s damn near impossible to find small enough cups with a big enough back. Other things that i’ve been doing is mixing a drop of vanilla essence and a teaspoon of sugar into my parents’ Smirnoff in a bid to recreate Absolut Vanilla, but suprisingly for me, I only had three drinks last night. That’s the most i’ve had all week – three drinks. Something weird’s going on! Surely it can’t be too hot to drink? Surely?

And on that note, it must be cocktail hour…..

There are lots and lots of things that I am TREMENDOUSLY excited about right about now.

The first is FOUR SLEEPS til something super duper happy chappy, and I’ve already put it in place. Hopefully it will make someone else as happy as it is making me to just think about.

The second is that when I went to Hamilton I pretended it was Fiji, baby. Now I am going to Fiji, and I won’t be pretending it’s Hamilton. Kateb emailed me two days ago and said “Do you want to go on holiday in two weeks time or at the end of May? We could go to the Gold Coast or Fiji” and so I said “yes please,” and went to Flight Centre and now I just have to confirm our booking and pay for it. I will be spending the night of Saturday May 28th in Auck, if you wanna see me, and then Friday 3rd of June, which is inncidently Penny’s birthday, and she just got engaged! Hurray!

The third is television. Gilmore Girls daily! Scrubs! Lost! THE MOTHERFREEKING O.C coming back real soon! Also, how cool is it that Mutton from The OC played a whore in Firefly? So good.

The fourth is that I got a pay rise yesterday. I’m not sure yet how much, but I think it’s probably a 25% pay rise. That’s quite substantial. It’d be more substantial if said pay rise was for my day job rather than for my REAL job, but hey, still, yay! (edit: it was 25%)

You know why I need these things. They’re what keep me from completely going crazy. Suprisingly I have cut down on my use of the phrase “I would like to put my fist through so&so’s head”, I guess because 2/3 of my arch nemisisisisis are now gone since I’ve left the Nu’Town (bus driver, flatmate). I’m searching for ways to get rid of the remaining one, and as soon as I find one, I’ll be done. And then I’ll get some more arch nemisisisisis, because what is life without them?

(overture)

Last night I
went out TO
(heavy organing) The PHANTom
of the OPera

I wasn’t QUITE
prepared FOR
the AMOUNT
of SINGing
that THE movie
would conTAIN

And NOW
I cannot STOP
Thinking of everyTHING
in SONG

I knew too many of the songs
They went on far too long
I blame KateB
For surely it was she
and her family who ingrained them in my head.

(change in pace)

Where are my socks?
My socks, they are gone!
No no, you fool
Your socks, your socks
they are here
Give me my socks!
I must cover my feet with them
Cover your feet!
You must cover your feet!
But it is too hot for socks today!

(extended dance sequence, flashy editing)

If there’s ever a next time
And I hope you get the chance
I must remember
That I hate musicals
But what about Moulin Rouge?
That was different
But how was it different?
The songs, they were current.
The singers, they did not talk through song
exclusively
But what about ‘Singing In The Rain’
Again, they sang extra to the story
Not to drive it along
Drive it along
Drive it along
But what about Buffy?
Bite your tongue you foolish voice!
Buffy is Buffy & they had no choice!
There was no a trace of humour
In that goddawful movie
I’ll trace your humour
I bet you’ll trace it real good too.

(new song)

My client, she called me up
My client, she told me
She was slipping into something more comfortable
My client, she plied me with wine
My client, the meeting was fine

(new song)
The heat is opressive
The sun is impressive
It makes me want to hide
And sit in the shade outside
But you complain of the cold!
I wouldn’t be so bold
But you complain when it rains
And no doubt I will do again

(arm flourish)

Tonight in the dell
If all should go well
Phoenix Foundation
Will cause a Sensation
But I’ll probably stay at home

What I think I don’t tell you about, or maybe what you don’t want to hear, or maybe it’s just what I wouldn’t want to read from other people is how although yes, just this morning I was sitting on the bus thinking about how nice it is that I’ve been nearly a year without being on antidepressants and haven’t I coped well, is that I still get it, it still slams into me and while I can feel the buildup coming, there’s not much that I can do except brace myself and realise that in an hour or so, I’ll be sitting pretty much unable to move and everything will make me want to cry, and there’ll be big tight knots in my stomach. The knots are made up of dread, the dread that I feel knowing that every night I have to go back to a house where there’s a person I can’t stand because she hates me and Sebastian so much, and the dread of working with another person I can’t stand all year, and knowing that I have done no work for a long time, adn that I can’t seem to bring myself to do anything, and that even the projects that I wanted to do I leave unfinished, and that all I want to do is get roaringly bollicksingly drunk and then I know that it’s ten years tomorrow and I wish wish wish that I was still in therapy for times like this, and fuck, I just want these fucking attacks to fuck off and die, I’m so not going back on celepram again – you can take your dry mouth and dizzy spells and shove them up your ass, but I’m just scared that it’s never going to change, I’ll be fine fine fine until I get bad again, and I don’t want that, and I hate that the smallest things upset me and that every single insecurity that I’ve ever had seems to be on parade for me lately – like Seb staying out all night, or even just the fucking fact that no one has joined hubris in a couple of weeks. And these are just the examples, and yeah, there’s probably more underneath the surface but it just all piles up and I just fucking hate it so much. And if I was still seeing Kalpana, she’d tell me off for thinking that I SHOULD be able to deal with everything, that I SHOULD be able to function as a normal human being does, and just do my job, and go home, and eat vegetables, and do my laundry, and hang out with my flatmates, and spend quality time with my pet, and maybe see my friends or like, call up that boy, or whatever the fuck it is that ‘normal’ people do, and she would say that I shouldn’t use the word ‘should’ and she would say that I shouldn’t use the word ‘normal’ and I would say that I feel like I’m some kind of fake, and that I’m sure there are people out there who actually have real problems and she’d say something about ‘real’ and I know I’m making her sound like some kind of terrible air-quoter person, which she isn’t, and I also suspect that this entry is making me sound like my problem is that I should still be in therapy and am not, but it isn’t.