Hubris.co.nz

I’ve been consuming media like crazy lately, and maybe I haven’t told you about it, so here goes:

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.

Monday August 19th

On Saturday, I meant to leave by 9.30am, but instead I ended up getting up then, which meant I left at 10.30am, cos it took time to shower and gather up glam rocker clothes and accessories and my princess dress and bedding and bundle it all into the back of my car and fill up with bagels and petrol. But yes, I was on the way by 10.30am. It was a gorgeous lovely wonderful day, and I was all happy and smiley as I drove along. It only took like an hour and a quarter to get to Paeroa, home of Gil and too many people who listen to Sublime, apparently. So many small towns, so many memories of people who came from there. And there was Waihi, where Shirley took me to one day, so that was choice and I tried to spot her old house as I sped along, but I didn’t – I did pull off the road to text her though – I’m so glad that there are text links to the UK. My wrists got a little sore eventually from the driving, but it was all so sunny and nice, especially the island-like driving just outsidea Tauranga. And then as I was retuning my radio, I suddenly heard Brad’s voice, so I realised i must have found Bayrock and that Whakatane couldn’t be too far away, and it wasn’t. 3.5 hours easy driving – loverly.

So I met Brad’s (intellectually challenged) flatmates and giggled lots, and then he took me on a tour of the town. It actually took a lot longer than I thought it would, and he took me up over the hill to a lookout point where we Parked (i’m using the capital letter there cos we were both like at the same time “hey, we can go Park” although of course we didn’t actually make out or any monkey business like that – I may lick Anji’s belly from time to time but I’m not actually incestuous) and took photos of the pretty view, and then went down to Ohope Beach where he used to live. So that was all cool. Then we went to the completely authentic Whakatane experiances of The Warehouse for masks and Pak’n Slave for food (I got baked potato chips, and let me tell you, they were nice, but they just didn’t satisfy on a chip level – they were far more like crackers). After that, I kicked Brad’s ass at Monopoly without even cheating at all. I am a railway mongol. And then we watched the Olsen twins’ TV show to reminisce about the old Garland Full House days and made lots of savvy commentary.

Eventually after dinner (he’d offered to make me Rice Risotto with Mince, his signature dish, but i declined) we started drinking and got ready for the masquerade party which had provided the extra incentive for me to visit him. Brad wore old blue flares of Fatty Si’s, a brown shirt and my purple feather boa, and I did his makeup all fabulous, and I wore my princess dress and tiara and lots of glitter. His flatmate Asher and some carny friend of his came home and made me play 3Man with them, go the dice drinking games. They were a little suprised at what a filthy mouth I have. Eventually we set out in the mist to this party. Oh dear. All the lights were on in the house and the music was turned down really really low – and plus, it was like, hits from 1999, which would have been fine if the house had been filled with Garlandketeers, but it wasn’t – they were mostly old people, and no one was dressed up. Oh well. We ended up sitting in the kitchen playing 3Man again with a larger group of people. That’s okay though, cos all I wanted to do was get to dress up and see Brad, and I achieved both of those things fabulously. I guess eventually we ended up walking home, but I don’t remember that, and we got changed and went to town. Brad bought me a KGB in keeping with local traditions (ewwww) and we danced like dicks in a bad bar called The Boilerroom cos the rest of town was completely deserted. Eventually the music was just too hideous to put up with any longer so we went and sat in a taxi office for what seemed like hours to get a taxi home. We listened to more music and sent off random texts and watched m2 for a while and I (apparently) told his flatmate in great detail just why Linkin Park are so crap, and then I fell asleep pretty much as soon as I had the couch open.

Brad had to work from 10-2, so I woke up before then, feeling more than a little seedy but fighting it. He left for work and after I’d had a shower and stuff, I managed to extract my car and set off for town. After driving around a little and checking out what times the movies were playing, I decided it was far too nice a day to sit inside crying at people chasing fences, so I went to Ohope Beach again instead, and sat outside in the cold sunny wind reading the paper, fightign the urge to throw up. Eventually I got too cold, so I went and found a suprisingly good coffee and some bad food and sat in that cafe for like an hour and a half reading magazines, getting rude comments from the couple sitting behind me who said to themselves that “you could read magazines at home” but it’s not like there was a shortage of tables or anything, and besides, they ordered Steinlager, so what would they know about anything? Damn carnys.

Finally it was almost 2, so I went to the radiostation to meet Brad and he gave me a tour around it. After that, he was hungry so we went to a cafe called ‘Friends’, and yes, it’s painted the same colour as Monica’s apartment and is hung with posters of the cast. It was scary. But there was a cool purple corduroy couch and they made really good smoothies that made me feel a lot better. And then we went and rented movies. Here’s a tip – if you would like to see Angelina Joile’s breasts, you certainly do get to see a lot of them in “Original Sin” but that’s pretty much within the first 15 minutes, adn you should TURN OFF THE TELEVISION after the long extended softporn scene (complete with softporn music). I want the two hours of my life that I wasted on that movie back please. And then we went and had dinner in an Indian restaurant overlooking the harbour, and it was all 1960s decor (we might have our wedding reception there) and we were the only people in it and it was just carny carny carny. And then I had to drive home. I hate driving in the dark, I must remember to remember that.

And now my back and shouldersa re SO sore from all that driving and I’m tired, and we had Nicky Hager come talk to us today but I don’t feel like deconstructing him right now, so I won’t, but if anyone has suggestions about what I should get Clay for his birthday, do email me.