Hubris.co.nz

Things are all bleeding into other things right now, except for my twat bleeding into my panties like it should be, except for the occasional days of spotting. Oh yes that’s right, it wouldn’t be a proper Hubris entry if we didn’t spend at least part of the time talking about my period now would it?

When you last heard from me, I was heading off to a house in Otaki, where the water in the ocean was warm like a bathtub, and the shelves stacked with trashy books. Behold:
.

I have been reading a lot lately. I have to mention Barbara Taylor Bradford’s dreadful book about some family dynasty, which read like a radio play, with the characters narrating all the action “Oh how well you look in that blue satin dress with the intricate lace trimming that highlights your eyes” and “oh look, there is a horse running toward us wildly and it appears that the rider has lost control”. Uggh. It was also like The Odyssey in its repetition of how handsome and brave and loyal the main character was. You know, despite his mistresses and everything.

I know that this book was not important enough in my life to warrant a paragraph like that, but I’m trying to bring back more of the trivial experiences into my writing. I don’t want Hubris to be only about my depression. But in that area, I’ve switched back to taking my meds during the day, they definitely weren’t helping me sleep. Sleep is still a weird thing, dreams are incredibly detailed and realistic-seeming, apart from random nakedness of neighbours. And sleep comes at the wrong times, after 4am, and during meetings when I’m sitting at the back of the room. I’m hoping the end of daylight savings will help me sort out a little of my body clock.

I keep planning things when I know I’m not supposed to. We’re having a wine quiz on Friday at Karen’s, email me if you want come along. At some stage we want to have a TEN THOUSAND party for The Wellingtonista because we’re getting 10,000 unique hits a month now, which is exciting. And I’ve set up The Aucklandista as well. It’s been fun being a master of my own domain. But I am probably doing too many things at once.

At Lisa’s flatwarming party this Saturday, she shoved a cock in my mouth, so later I shoved my tongue in hers. Then her temporary guest kicked me out of his bed where I’d gone to sleep because the house was full of people sleeping everywhere. Who kicks hot girls out of their beds? Exactly. When Karen, Dylan and I shared a taxi back into town, I made it all the way to my street, $47 later, but when we stopped outside of my house, I had to open the door to puke luminous green bile into the street. So classy. Also, whoever thought it was a good idea to let me have access to my cellphone when I’m drinking?

There are other things, other parties. Foot rubs in Mt. Cook, foot rubs here at home. Wine festivals in the Wairarapa. Quietish nights on the couch watching Black Books. Playing records until 6am with new friends. Anji’s flatwarming with piles of meat, dancing and pole-dancing. Being a lady-who-lunches with Martha. Trying to deal with the piles and piles of paperwork at work that is piling up. That’s not really a party though I suppose. Internet dramas. Sharing Jill NSFW’s rage at the new ALAC ads.

On the domestic front I spent Thursday cooking for an hour and a half so I felt all domesticated, but I need to clean. I do have someone coming in to fix the washing machine tomorrow though. I have Anji’s signature on a piece of paper so maybe I’ll get my bond back from Hataitai finally. Etc.

The most important thing is that I’ve decided exactly what I want for my future. Unfortunately I didn’t win the lotto, but I figure maybe I can work on parts of my dream (Read: New Media Empire) without necessarily having the huge warehouse-house on the edge of the city to house my offices, my social life and to act as a venue for the community. Maybe that bit will come after I’ve IPO’ed.

Okay, so I’m kind of cheating this week. The drinks weren’t free. But I could say that I paid for the entertainment and the prospect of finding true love, and the booze was additional. So with that in mind, this week (two weeks ago, fine) the free drinks came courtesy of:

VINO EROTICA!

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 27th

Now this tasting is purely by customer demand (it has nothing to do with us).
Strictly limited to 24 people – this is a night of speed-date-wine-tasting.

Each person booking in for this exclusive tasting must be single and bring a
single friend of the opposite sex with them
(to ensure a high calibre, you understand).

Upon arrival you will recieve an aperitif, and then be sorted into random teams
of 6 people to answer multi-choice questions on each of the wines you will be
tasting. At the end of each round of wine – 3 people must move to the next table
for the next wine and a new bunch of people!

A night sure to be filled of intrigue, adventure, hilarity, erotica and romance!!!!!

$30 PER PERSON
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 27th
6.30pm

PLACES STRICTLY LIMITED – Remember singles only and you must include a friend
of the opposite sex with your booking!

I like wine. And I like my friend Tom, so I went along to chaperone him. Because obviously as an old cougar spinster, I am the ideal chaperone. However, the best thing was that upon arriving, I didn’t feel at all like a cougar. I was at least five years younger than all the other women there. Hurrah!

Actually, that’s a lie. The best thing upon arriving was the glass of delicious bubbly that tasted like it was Italian and prosecco-ish, but was in fact an Australian bubbly chardonnay. We drew numbers out of big jars for our table places, and after another glass of the delicious bubbly, we sat down in groups of three men/three women, and had to announce our star signs. Simple, I’m a Gemini. No one else at the table was, to the best of my recollection. We were poured tastings from a bottle in a brown paper bag, and had to answer three multichoice questions about it. I knew straight away it was a Sav, and I was pretty sure it was from NZ, and Marlbourgh at that. Yay me! But we were assisted in our blind tastings by Nicola’s explanations of what the regional differences were like, had our glasses topped up, and smiled and nodded.

The boys moved over to the next table to be replaced by a new lot, and the question we needed to answer to get was “what kind of car would you be?”. I said I’d like to think I was some big brash mustang convertible in some fantastic colour, but I’d probably be a white prius – not the best kind of hybrid available, and like, so last year in trends”. One guy said he’d be a concept car, and I said “Like Homer’s with the giant cup-holder?” and the table went completely silent and I watched tumbleweeds roll past. Really? REALLY? Not even that basic a Simpsons reference could get recognised? Woah. Tough crowd. And a tougher wine. I think it was a viogner. I can’t remember. Nice work Jo. Perhaps Tom could post if he remembers what the wines were.

In the next group, we had to say what our favourite word was. I thought of a long-gone friend’s long letter to me, and claimed ‘succulent’ as my own. I got to use the word ‘onomatepaia’ in my explanation, which luckily was out loud so I didn’t have to spell it. Someone said “you’ve practiced this answer”. I said “I work in communications”. Other than that, there wasn’t much talk of work. One guy said that his favourite word was ‘Orb’, and I said “so do you like The Orb?” and he was like “well I like the planet earth” and I was like “huh? I meant the early ’90s techno band” and he stared at me like I was crazy, so I was very happy when the guy across the table was like “I like The Orb” and named some of their albums. Finally someone understood me! I wasn’t actually talking crazy after all! In fact, that guy was probably my favourite of the night. He laughed at my jokes, and seemed normal, and didn’t have a mo. I could have put down at the end of the night that I wanted his email address, but that would of course have opened me up to the possibility of rejection, and god forbid I should ever take any chances! We drank some red wine. It was delicious. That’s all I remember about it. Perhaps it was Italian. Or Argentinian.

In the next group, we had to give examples of the best or worst pickup lines we’d ever heard or used. I offered up “Your curtains scare me – can we go to your room?” as laaaaaame (although that worked), and as possibly the best ever, “I’d buy you a drink but I don’t buy girls drinks because they use me too much” as most powerful, because it got us talking, made me buy him a drink to make up for all the other girls, and introduced the user as a wounded flower who obviously needed someone to take care of him. At least three times that night. Heh. We also drank more red wine. There was a girl at my table who was getting most of the wine questions right. The other girl at the table was not very forthcoming with answers. Some of the guys weren’t either. One of the guys in the previous round had said he didn’t have a favourite word. I told him his new favourite word was ‘banana’ and he had to use it in the future. I suspect this meant that he would have had to tell every other group as he went around about it, but somehow I doubt he would have. Shy people freak me out. People at the table talking about how hard it is to meet people when you’re in your thirties and don’t like bars also freak me out a lot. Thank god for being 27.

The next group, with a delicious bubbly shiraz was all about the “naughtiest thing you’ve ever done”. Both Tom and I, comparing notes later, were very much like “Seriously? WTF?” about people’s “naughtiest” stories, which consisted of things like “knocking a book out of a teacher’s hand” at age five, or their boss – not even them – throwing up in a cab. My story was of revenge in a toilet stall. It got shared in front of the whole group. Awesome. At least I was happy to participate. I’d had Lominger Competencies earlier in the morning at work, and had been pissed off then too by people who wouldn’t talk and join in. What’s the point? So I had some more wine, and then ran off to Quiz Night where the quiz master told me to shut up because I was drunk. Heh.

EDIT: Tom says “The second one was a Pinot Gris from Argentina, there was a Malbec there somewhere, plus a Negroamaro from somewhere in southern Italy (Puglia, I think).

Your description of the night was bang on. All I remember was getting drunk quickly and acting too loud and inappropriate for what was pretty much a bunch of wallflowers.”

Of course, he could have commented that for himself, but oh well.

Auckland is always such a city of contrasts. I got to Wellington Airport with much time to spare, so I read the paper cover to cover, perching preacriously on a stupidly slippery stainless steel stool, after surrendering my armchair to an army of annoying angry women who surrounded me and chatted incessantly and loudly. Of course being there early meant my flight was late coming in, and so in a hurray I decided to take a shuttle to my hotel instead of the airport bus. $26 bought me a seat with nine others, a long trip through Grey Lynn past Heather’s house and Canton where I was due for dinner, and I was the last person to be dropped off. Dammit!

But there was no time to fume. The Quadrant’s lobby was stark white and filled with scented candles. I rolled my bag down the long white walkway through the bar area and into a lift that had an embedded TV screen playing Juice. My room was tiny but functional. I discovered to my perverse joy later that I could sit on the toilet, blowdry my hair, drink vodka and watch TV all at the same time. What more could anyone want? A quick shower later, I was in a corporate cab from the Hyatt next door on my way to Kingsland. The sun was setting and reflected in all the shiny new architecture along Symonds Street. It was a beautiful view, but holy fuck, $18 for that distance? That amount would have got me to Greenlane in the olden days!

I grabbed two bottles of wine from Weta Wines, pleased it was still there and still open, and headed to Canton. There were still people at the table I’d booked (bastards!) so I went and stood on the street outside. Bopha came up and left to get cash and wine. Amy & Ross came along and left to get wine. Then came Martina and Heather. Robyn and Heather’s b/f Ben eventually completed our party, since Clay and Nige flaked.

I had been salivating over the prospect of dinner at Canton since I booked my tickets up to Auckland, and while the large group and noise of the place made converastion difficult, the food didn’t disappoint. As usual, I was appointed/appointed myself chief orderer, so with some deference to Martina’s vegetarianism, we had: black bean hapuku, sweet & sour pork, sizzling venison with ginger & spring onions, crispy roast pork, special black chilli chicken, sizzling vegetables and egg noodles with fried veges. YUM! Two people took doggie bags home, and with tea and dim sum and rice and corkage, we each paid $19.25. So good!

Afterwards we were going to go to Ruby for more drinks, but it was too loud, and so we settled on the Kingslander for a couple more bottles of wine. There were television screens EVERYWHERE, it was most distracting. But good to be able to converse. I like my friends. I cabbed back to the hotel eventually, and debated ordering porn from the in-house video system, just because I could, but it was $17.95 per movie, so I settled for watching Wild On: Naked instead. Genius.

The next morning, I set my alarm for 10.30 so I could wake up to meet Heather who was coming to the hotel at 11. We discovered that breakfast stopped being served at 10am, so tragedy of tragedies, we had to go straight for bubbly and cheese. As we sat in the sunny courtyard and I started to burn, we heard someone playing an electric guitar, and the sound bounced off the building next door. Given that Heather’d spotted John Toogood and Phil Knight in the lobby, we were happy to think that it was Shihad playing in our hotel, but it sounded pretty terrible, so maybe it was Grinspoon instead, who were due to be opening for Muse that night.

Once the sun got to be a bit too much, we tried to pay our bill, which took forever (the staff were friendly but not highly competant), and we got changed and went into the spa. Hurray! Yeah, a spa on a hot day after drinking caffiene and alcohol might not be the smartest idea ever, but it was loooooooovely. And then it was quite obviously time for lunch, so we strolled down to the Art Gallery, hoping to have lunch there, but found it was shut. Luckily Rueben at the New Art Gallery was open, so we parked ourselves on one of the balconies there, I had an average lamb salad, Heather had amazing french toast, and we had a totally unnecessary but very happy bottle of Deutz as well. Mmmmmm indulgence! And then just to show that we’re not totally cultureless, we went around the art gallery too. Upstairs was an exhibition called Making Worlds, which was really bloody cool. They had a seven minute animation loop called “City Glow” going on in a darkened room, which I totally could have watched all day. Although it made me feel far too Jessica Simpsony lame and pointless when I saw it was produced by Takashi Murakami and I was like “He did those brightly coloured Louis Vittion prints!”. Like I need to know that.

Eventually Heather and I parted company, and I went back to the hotel for naps and snacks, before KateH came to pick me up in the evening. We went to her beautiful house which is down by the water, and had a few drinks while we waited for the Checks and Grinspoon to get off the stage. Drive-thru burgers from Wendy’s ensured that our timing was perfect to actually get a park by the Waitakere Stadium, and we’d only missed two of Muse’s songs. We’re both so old now that we didn’t mind that at all. When did I stop queuing for things hours before they began? Was it around the same time that my knees started to go? But anyways, the gig was AMAZING. So good. When they played ‘Hysteria’, I had an auralgasm of the kind I hadn’t experienced since Dimmer. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Totally matched up to my dirty dream that featured it prominently in it. And we saw Amanda and Darren, which was nice, and left when they turned on the lights. And then we were naughty and had an after-hours spa back at the hotel, which was fantastic for sore feet and knees, especially since it was merely lukewarm. Best Friday EVER!

The next morning was Saturday, and I slept in, loving the bed, before I decided it was time to drag my ass out into the streets. I strolled down to Gloria to have breakfast, where my French toast wasn’t as good as Heather’s, but the coffees were nice and I read the paper cover to cover. Then I got on the link bus to go to the museum, but I started feeling all nostalgic and weird, because of all the memories of the route (which are detailed in ‘Link’ in 101 Stories that I want to tell you of course) and so I decided to just stay on the bus and go all the way around the city. Well, I got off briefly in Ponsonby to buy vodka and bread, but you know what I mean.

Finally it was time for me to meet Martina and David and also Karl at the Queen Street bus stop to go to the Lynfield YMCA for the wrestling. Oh yes. I went west, life is peaceful there. I went west, people had terrible hair. The ride on the 257 was pretty full of nostalgia too, given the two flats I lived in on/off Dominion Road. It was also interesting hearing other people’s stories, like where they lost their virginities. And drinking vodka from a ginger ale bottle made me feel like a fourteen year old again, and who doesn’t like that? We got to Lynfield with some time to spare, so we hunted out food for the boys, and I sang the YMCA song a lot with the actions, and we took this photo in front of the vets. And now I might just revert into a photo montage to sum up the awesomeness of the wrestling, and my brand new boyfriend with a spectacular ginger mullet.

After a cold long wait for the bus, we all started falling asleep on the back seat. Nevertheless, Martina and David came back to my hotel room for a while, and helped me polish off the remaining food and vodka, and I stayed up late watching E! again. Good times.

On Sunday I was expecting to have brunch with Bopha and Clayton, but she was stuck out west somewhere, and Clayton made other plans, so after checking out at 12 and leaving my suitcase with reception, I returned to Gloria to have a very very long breakfast by myself with the Sunday Star Times. Finally it was getting near time to find myself an airport bus, so I went to get my suitcase, and I asked them where the airport bus stop was, and they told me down on Symonds Street. So I rolled my case up to a stop in the hot hot sun, but couldn’t find any markings on it to indicate that the airport bus might stop there. I rang Maxx, and they gave me the number for the airport bus company, and I couldn’t find a human, but it did mention the route, listing the Hyatt which was right next to the Quadrant, so disgruntledly I rolled back up to the Hyatt, and the doorman told me the stop was right in front of the Quadrant. Cheers clever desk staff! So I was hot and stinky and smelly then, and worried that I might not make it to the airport in time, when a shuttle pulled up in front of me and told me he’d drive me to the airport for $15, the same as the bus, since he was going that way anyway. Yay! That shuttle totally redeemed the shuttle in. And so that was the end of my time in Auckland. Very good fun indeed.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. My free* drinks last week were supposed to come courtesy of the seminar I attended – Social Media’s Impact on Communications at the posh old Wellesley Club. But my cow-orkers left straight after the seminar, and it was so damn hot in the room that when I saw the bar wasn’t even fully set up yet, I hightailed it out of there to pay for a glass of wine at Plum (and trick Tom into buying me one) instead. Just as well then, that we had $100 in Southern Cross bartabs to drink that night then.

One of the vouchers had actually expired the week previously (I’d left it at home accidently, so we had to pay that night, shock horror) but we calculated that the somewhat inept staff would fail to notice that, and we were right. Also, I should now direct your attention to this very gracious comment from the general manager, because it is very gracious. $100 + $10 bought two bottles of Five Flax Reisling (standard sweet reisling, quite drinkable but I’m getting a bit bored of drinking it every week, however it’s a big jump from its $30 price to $45 for Rose) and two jugs of Emerson’s Bookbinder for the boys. We got the right table-booth, and the Quizmaster was back from his knee operation so we didn’t have to resort to calling ourselves “Anus. Heh heh, anus” because my arch nemisis The Poo from 2004 (remember that horrible fashion show that I did?) was reading the questions. A good time was had by most (the numbers of people on our two teams did my head in somewhat), and we won $80 in bar tabs which we drank this week. Hurrah!

* Free to me, obviously, the seminar was paid for by my work.

I used to carry around a tin that mints from a recruitment company had once come in, filled with half pills. It was of course my citalapram, since I have to take a pill and a half, and they’re crumbly pills so I have to cut them at home with a big knife and a chopping board so they don’t totally fall apart, so I prepare them in advance. When I say “I used to”, I of course mean until last Saturday night, when I lost the tin, so I hope someone picked it up and decided that it was full of half Es, and is now off dancing in a club somewhere feeling really nausesous. Because I am nice like that.

On Monday night we had a flat dinner and I made a fucking awesome roast beef. Then because Bart had found a video that his social group had traded around themselves in 1996, I undid all the feminist thinking that I’d been doing since a post by Tze Ming on Public Address made me realise that I need to do more to reinforce feminist thought – so I bought Bitch magazine – by watching German porn with the boys while Lani did the dishes. It was amusing but also really sad. There was a woman dancing in the video who had breast implants the size of her head, and she just looked like a freak. I know that there are some porn stars who make a lot of money and have a lot of power in the industry, but this woman didn’t seem to be one of them. She was just an object of ridicule and that made me really sad.

On a more upbeat note, Bowling League on Tuesdays is still fun. Surprisingly, I don’t think that the Bowlingtonista are going to win the league, but damn we’re pretty. And it’s so much fun to get to hang out with BFF Martha while the men do the hard work.

On Wednesday I went to a wine night at the boatshed called ‘Meet Your Maker’. There were stalls there from various “unique and boutique” winemakers from the Wairarapa, and everything was free to try. I took a series of very detailed notes that included the following dialouge about a Hudson Sav:

Me: it tastes like silver in the mouth
Daddy: No it doesn’t.
Me: Well I think it tastes Metallicy, and Nothing Else Matters.

Tehehe. My favourite wine was the Julicher reserve Pinot Noir, which tasted like chocolate babies, and also the Tirohana wines because the guy remembered us from when we were up for Mum’s birthday and asked where our other sister was (she was across the other side of the room). And they have a dessert wine that’s like woah. There wasn’t really enough food so I ate and enjoyed ham rolls, and craved more of the duck, mushroom and quince paste tarts. Mmmmmm. But why is the Boatshed always so damn hot? Last time I was there for Public Address Great Blend I could go swimming afterwards, but not in May. Too much heating. Nevermind. And I saw a friend of my parents’ who is an MP whom I hate personally, politically and professionally so I made very sure that I didn’t have to talk to him. Afterwards we had dinner at Ernesto, where I was a little silly and had chicken, which was boring, but the potato and prune gallette that accompanied it was tasty like woah. I was just envious of the pork bellies of Karen and Anji, but that’s okay.

On Friday night I went home after work and napped on the couch, before driving in to town to pick up Miss Lisa and Karen, and see Jimmy and Miss Jessie at Dimmer. It didn’t feel quite as sexylicious as last time, but when they played the long, thrusting ‘Seed’ I still wanted to touch myself inappropriately, but settled for stroking myself behind my ears, as that is somewhat less inappropriate.

Saturday was a very amusing night. I had drinks at home with Lani and her friend Nikki who is staying, and then we went to a party in Kelburn. Nikki and I amused ourselves taking photos with someone else’s camera that had be left lying on the TV. Then I spilt red wine on the carpet so we ran away and I watched very guiltily as someone else cleaned it up. I am not normally the type of person who doesn’t clean up after themselves, but I was all like “they’ve got a white carpet! It’s their fault! Everyone always spills stuff on MY carpet…” So of course I was unimpressed with myself for that crappy attitude, and when I found myself in a bathroom queue with the girl who’d cleaned it up I apologised and confessed. She came up to me later to say it was awesome of me to confess, and so Nikki and Lani decided that she was a lesbian and was totally in to me. I was like “ummm, I don’t get that vibe at all”, but I think we all know that I have little to no female gaydar. I still went and tried to talk to her later (because if she was a lesbian obviously she’d fancy me, right?) but I was saved from myself by the need to take photos with someone dressed as a reindeer. Then we went into town, and despite all my protestations, I found myself at Coyote. Shudder. I hate Courtenay Place on weekend nights, I really do. The music was bad, the crowd was bad, and yet I stayed and constantly had a drink in my hand, and I’m not sure how that happened. At one stage a guy came up to me and was all “oh, you are so beautiful, can I get a kiss?” and I was like huh? But I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he turned his head and asked for another one, so I did, but then he was going to go for a pash, and I was like “hey buddy, you know nothing about me! You don’t know my hobbies or my interests, how can you want to kiss me?” and he was like “what?” and I was all “I mean, for all you know, I could be a member of the Hitler Youth” and he was like “I don’t know what that is” and I was like “I’m a white supremicist!” and he ran away and I laughed and laughed and laughed. And felt like Lily Allen. “I’ve got herpes!” Because after all, my Matariki resolution (along with doing something that will earn me a slow clap) is to wake up with someone and want them to be there, and sifty guys in sifty bars will not help me accomplish that. After that we finally left Coyote for the best kebabs EVAH from Hadi Gari, and then people were going to queue to get into GoGo and I was like “umm, nahuh, there is no way I’m going to wait to get into that crappy place” so I went home with Lani.

Yesterday I got up half an hour before my family were due for an afternoon tea to break in my cake-plate. It was so very civilised! I provided mini afghans and feta & spinach savouries, Mummy & Daddy baked mini scones and brought cream & jam, Anji brought coffee and shortbread, and Karen made chicken, almond and watercress sandwiches. We used fancy china and a good time was had by all. And we also finalised our plans to go to Rarotonga for Daddy’s 60th birthday and now Mum’s booked the flights. Because my job doesn’t finish until June 29, I’m going a week later than them all, and am consequently paying significantly more for the flights, damn it all. But still, Rarotonga, hurrah! We’re hopefully renting a four-bedroom house with a pool as well, so that should be nice.

Tonight instead of doing the whole flat dinner thing, which I really can’t afford to produce any more, I’m just going to make dessert crepes so we can eat the maple syrup that Lani brought back from Canadia. What’s that all aboot eh?

Help, I can’t breathe! But it’s not what you think. It never is. In fact, I’ve just laced on my corset for the first time in aaaages, and I’m waiting for Lani to be free so I can go and rendevouz with her in the 21st floor bathroom to get ready for our work quiz. It’s actually a quiz organised by my agency, but her part of the ministry has entered a team, and I’m playing on it. We’re called the “M*** Marauders” because pirates are awesome, but now I have Fat Freddy’s in my head, dammit!

Tomorrow the fridge man comes back and I will have to unwrestle our fridge out from under the house where it is face-down and hopefully draining (that’s not a easy thing to do by yourself, let me tell you!) and then I will have long brunch by myself, and then get a hair cut, and then I have an outing with the Wellingtonista. I may very well look something like this:


Me looking smokin’ hott. So there

Speaking of the Wellingtonista, you should join our bowling league. In fact, I’m wondering if starting a team of Hubrettes would be viable? Cos of course my first loyalty is to Hubris. Let me know.

The Wairarapa was mostly fun. I spent a great deal of money and buggered up my neck falling off a barrel. Not a clever idea. My personal highlight was the (drunk) winemaker from Mebus telling me that his reserve pinot noir tasted “like angels fornicating in your mouth”. Apparently angel fornication tastes a bit woody. It was nice wine though.

Okay, Lani just rang so I must pirate up. Next time I will tell you about my grand schemes!

So I know that I have yet to write about my Big Day Out weekend, but I’m hoping I will do that tomorrow because quite frankly, I am too damn tired to do it right now, because it will be a lot of effort, and will require flickr links, and pillaging Lisa’s photos and all that sort of complicated stuff which I don’t have the brain capacity to do right now, but suffice to say that a good time was had by me.

Monday was of course Anniversary Day, and I’d realised the night before when I was starving that Anji still had my car, so I got her to come over and pick me up and we went to Elements for brunch. After dropping her off in Newtown and grocery shopping, I spent too much time fucking around at home reading the paper so that by the time I got my ass out to the south coast the sun was hiding and the wind had come up something fierce. Nevertheless, I plunged into the ocean and spent 15 minutes or so kicking and flailing frantically to keep my legs and hands from going numb while floating up and down on some pretty fiercesome waves. It was fucking fun, but ohmygod so fucking cold.

I can’t remember the rest of the day, which suggests that it wasn’t all that. I do know that there was spinach & cashew pesto involved somehow, and perhaps a steak, although perhaps that was the next day. And celery! I’ve never prepared celery before (because wow, it’s so hard topping and tailing it and vaguely stick-ifying it!) but I felt like a salty treat and thanks to Jane‘s article about better foods to crave during a hangover or PMS (that is the awesome thing about Jane – it’s not all “boiled egg, wholemeal toast, steamed lettuce” diet, it acknowledges that you’re a human being and will drink until you puke – and then gives tips for how to feel better in the morning) I knew that celery was salty.

The next day, I was supposed to go to work again, but after sitting on the edge of my bed for half an hour being unable to reach out and grab the clothes that were an arm’s length away because I just couldn’t, I had to give in and text my manager and tell her I needed a mental health day. In fact I ended up feeling really fucking nauseous anyway. I did have a counselling session at 1.30pm, so I kept that, and holy fuck, that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I found that I was talking without cohesion, and that really annoyed the narrator in me, because while I was throwing out a series of ideas about things that may have been linked, I didn’t feel like I was making the links clear, but I think she knew what I meant. We discussed the semantics of things again, with me not knowing the word that I thought I should use, and she declared it without a second of hesitation, and I was like aaaargh, and then I laughed at my body language, the tension in me, and we were laughing at the end at something completely inappropriate, but fuuuuuuck, it was a hard time. And part of me doesn’t even want to write about it here, even this obliquely, but i want to keep it as a record. And why do anything in private? If only I hadn’t left that mp3 player on the plane, I could podcast my counselling sessions. Heh. Wow, that’d be comfortable for all parties involved. And yeah, you’d get to hear me cry some more.

I was worried after my manager’s text about needing to talk the next day, but of course I shouldn’t have been, because when I told her what was going on, she was lovely (as of course a sane person would have realised anyway), and I said that I expected to be straighted out and normalised by the end of the week, but what I needed most was more work to do. As it happens, I seem to have actually achieved a lot this week, making many changes to the website, and taking on new projects, and also making my cow-orkers laugh quite a few times. Today I helped three people set bookmarks in their browser, which made me go “Really?” but I suppose not everyone has a tertiary qualifcation in Multimedia.

When I got home on Wednesday Smoo had cleaned the house and I nearly cried at that, but instead I decided to tackle the huge pile of dishes, and then scrub the bathroom. Briar helped me by drying, and it’s nice that she’s moving out so amicably to go and flat with her brother, and that while she’s taking her bookshelf which fits my books perfectly, she is leaving me her blender because she has another brand new one, and she knows how often i use it, so hurrah for that!

Yesterday I went for dinner with Karen and Anji at Siem Reap and we plotted Mum’s birthday present. We were going to send them to Martinborough for her birthday weekend, but we might send them up to the Wairarapa Food & Wine Festival instead on the 17th of March, except that it sounds like so much fun we’re looking at booking a house that can sleep five and tagging along on their romantic weekend. Heh.

Today after work, much to my disgust I went to the Loaded Hog to meet up with D&D, because Dave’s cow-orker was having goodbye drinks there or something. There was no sun so it was cold outside on the balconey, but coronas were two for $7.50, and when I only ordered two and was polite the bartender said that he loved me and that I was his favourite as it was crowded with stupid rude demanding people. Then when we went to Boulot Gabe welcomed us with happy new years and cheek kisses, and addressed me as “Pretty”. Awww. Bart and Blair joined us for a bit, and pizza was eaten and shit was talked. You know, the usual kind of Friday stuff. When I left I got a taxi with a green sign, and made sure that I repeated the name of the company – Amalgamated – to myself several times. I didn’t talk to the driver either, even though that felt somewhat unnatural, but it made me really fucking angry last week when I was telling my friend about how a taxi driver had groped my leg as I was paying right before Xmas, and the friend was like “were you flirting with him?” and I was like “NO!” but the point was that even if I had been, which I wasn’t, he still had absolutely no right to do that, and I wasn’t to know that I was putting myself in a bad situation when I thought I was taking the safe option home. My counsellor agreed with me that it’s okay if I decide to only use Combined from now on and call one if there’s not one on the rank, and I decided that as long as I try to make sure I don’t discriminate in other areas, the number of bad experiences that I have had with a particular kind of taxi driver means that am I well justified in trying to avoid them. That said, my cab tonight was only $8.70 when it’s usually like $13. Go Amalgamated! And if I remember to call them on 3888 4000, then I can call and complain should I need to as well. I know I am ranting, so I will return to my 90210 dvds now. But I will say that tonight I am in love with Cold War Kids’ “Hang me out to dry”, and if you have perhaps been living in a basement worried abotu an atomic bomb for the past 35 years, look up “dick in a box” on Youtube. That is, of course, mostly a suggestion for D&D who apparently actually read my journal and I never knew until tonight. Party.

xojo

Jimmy Supergood asked me the other day why I wasn’t updating Hubris anymore, and I had to tell him that it wasn’t really intentional, but I’ve been waiting to finish writing about my American exploits, and those are such long stories that I haven’t felt up to writing them, and I haven’t wanted to update until I got myself up to date, and oh the vicious circleness of it. So here I am, updating. And I will tell American stories later.

Firstly, sorry to Shayne Carter for making him feel violated (or, apparently torn between violated and flattered). Secondly, The Wellingtonista of which I am of course part, have launched their First Annual Wellingtonista Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence so it would be awesome if you would go and vote for them, and also if you should feel like it, join us for our awards ceremony on December 1, in a secret venue which we will inform you of when you vote. And it’s totally not secret just because we haven’t picked a place, oh no. That would suggest a level of casualness and uninformity of which we are not at.

Sentence construction is a little hard for me now as I have been sitting on the front steps all afternoon basking in the gorgeous sunshine, aided by one admittedly large vodka lime and soda and so I am more than a little dizzy – and also in need of a good neck massage but I suspect that’s on a different note. This weekend has been fairly low-key. On Friday, all our managers were away on a retreat, so we got an email about “when the cats are away…” which meant BYO food and drinks to our communal eating area. It was bucketing down with rain which meant I walked through Kirks on my way to Rumbles to buy booze, and was drawn into the chocolate and wine shop hoping for free samples of chocolate. Instead I was waylaid into doing a tasting, and when the man said “I make the wine..” I was like, oh, it’s the actual winemaker, I suppose I should buy a bottle then. And of course Kirks are too wanky to put visible prices on things (as I told someone later that night, the last time I actually went into Kirks proper instead of their related food shops was in sixth form to buy stay-up tights for the ball, and they looked down their noses at me so much that I resolved not to go back ever) so I ended up buying a $29 bottle of Tohu Pinot Noir when really I was after something for around $12 that I could leave behind. Stink. Of course, that meant I had to stay and drink it all, which was good in a way because it meant I talked to many people I’d never talked to before, and apart from people talkijng about my father (because where I work is a place that people work for for life, and so therefore even though Daddy hasn’t been there for ten years or something (someone asked me why he left and I know the answer is for Mum)) I learnt lots about other people. Still no rich husband prospects though. I guess I should expect that, working for the government and all.

Consequently, having drunk all but a glass of that tasty tasty pinot noir within an hour and a half (I shared the love), I was a trifle tipsy by the time I arrived at Tupelo to meet Karen and Dylan, but I think I managed not to come across as such too much. Karl and Amber joined us later and had the brilliant suggestion of going to umm Siam Reap (?) for dinner. They were full at the time, but took my number and said they’d call in a half hour or so, so I suggested we go grab a drink at Mighty Mighty, which I’d (of course) just found out about on Wellurban. Guess who I’m voting for as best Welly Web Writer? Mighty Mighty was very cool, and I got to wave to my old flatmate Justine from Newtown there. I like that they offer about four kinds of house wine named only by kind, and that you can also get cask wine for $5. And it’s so green and pretty! And the bathroom is painted the same cotton candy pink that the bathrooms at Occam are. Yes. And then we got the call from Siam Reap so Karen and I went to buy wine while the others finished their drinks, but motherfucking Starmart in Manners Mall had its locked-up screens down becasue the guy behind the counter looked younger than 18. That’s so fucking lame, and made me rully rully angry. Luckily the restaurant was licensed, and with an $8 per bottle corkage, it probably wasn’t much more expensive anyway. I’d never been before, but holy fuck it was tasty. My medium beef salad seemed much hotter, but my curry main was much easier eating. And so damn tasty, oh yes.

Afterwards Karl and Amber went home and Karen, Dylan and I went back to Mighty Mighty where we found a wide windowsill to sit on and proceeded to make fun of people for what felt like a couple of hours. He was all “it’s so funny how nasty girls get as soon as they see another girl in a miniskirt” so we took the time to explain to him that it wasn’t just that this girl’s skirt was so short we could see out her nostrils, but also that it looked like a pillowcase and that it had obviously been a really nice knee-length frock that she’d tacked up inside it. So it wasn’t just the tartiness of it, it was also the ugliness. We were less chastised for making fun of an older lady who was pulling people onto the floor with her scarf and making them dance with her. I was rather inclined to tap one hipster on the shoulder and say “dude, you’re going home to a sweeeeet threesome!” when his girlfriend was kidnapped away from him, but I was afraid he would think I was including myself in the equation. I also saw James who edited Salient this year, who with a couple of bear hugs made me feel much better about whoever the anonymous person posting nasty comments about my skills as an ad manager being responsible for VUWSA’s financial difficulities on another website (because yes, I never said I was a good salesperson, but seriously, if you’re going to write something like that then get enough fucking balls to put your name to it, lamer), and tried very hard to avoid the attention of The Mime, although it was amusing to see him as it inspired a whole round of “help me, I’m trapped in a box!” type posing. Then we spotted a guy with a German flag badge on each shoulder and for some reason that just really got my goat, so I encouraged Karen to teach Dylan the phrase “Do you have an old washing machine?” in German to ask the boy, in some kind of “Ha! You’re like, not even German!” cheekiness. I didn’t hink Dyl was actually going to get around to asking him, but he did, making the boy even more confused by miming a cigarette while asking. The boy was like “Huh?” and brushed him aside. Ten minutes later on our way out I decided to repeat the experiment, without the cigarette, and was rewarded with a “oh, Deustch, nien!!!” combined with much miming and pointing to his flags and shaking of his head. He he he! Oh II adore the fact that I can now often keep a straight face even whilst doing very silly prank type things.

On Saturday I had brunch with Anji and Delwin at Mojo, and then for dinner Lisa and I went to the Mediterranean warehouse where she became obsessed with the Pinnochio figures. We watched Thirteen and I didn’t blub nearly as much as I did the first time, although there are still many many things about that movie that hit home with me. Today I have sat in the sun and read Q, and did two lots of washing. Yes, it’s big time excitement around here indeedy. But I must wholeheartedly recommend Neil Jordan’s Shade to you – as a reviewer says “Why does he bother writing movies when he can write books this well?”, and just as another example of how late to the party I am (have you heard about this awesome new band called the Arcade Fire?), I also loved The Great Gatsby as well. And that’s all.

All of todayk, I have been about to collapse over and fall asleep. I didn’t sleep at all last night. Stupid pre-period bright light, lower back pain, stupid brain going tick tick tick. Stupid girl drinking coke at 7pm. Stupid oversensitive-to-caffiene existingness. YEAH! SO this afternoon, I was very very mcuh like “hi, I know we have our weekly production meeting right now, but do you mind if I fall asleep right here and now?”

As it happened, we were actually bidding farewell to a colleague, and they talked in her speech about the air of calm she gave, and since she was one of my project managers, I can totally agree that yes, she was calm-making. And now she’s gone. But at least we had butt-loads of Pandoro goodies to ease the tradition. And we all know that pandoro muffins are so hot right now. Oh I’m sorry, that’s err “da bomb”. I forgot it was 1996. Also, haha Joel, seriously, you’re all crazy and shit – you are planning on the face punch right? Remind me to put those links in when my ISP actually catches up to reality. Did I say my ISP? Oh you all know I’m using my mother’s account. (Edit: see how I blamed my inability to link properly on my ISP, rather than the many glasses of Church Road Sav Blanc? Nice. That’s what my Grad Dip PR Com was for. But I think I’ve put in the right links now…)

It’s funny, cos for five minutes or so, I was like “huh, those ex-workmates of mine that I’m making fun of – what if they make fun of me?” but then I was like “well, what would they say that I wouldn’t agree with?” and then I laughed some more. But on a more serious note, the directors put on some drinks tonight (*) and we were at the Courtenay Arms, which is where VUWSA had its Xmas party last year when I was like “I’m going to be leaving after Orientation, cos I am 10k short of what I should be making”, and now I am 12k up, and working happily, and not having to deal with RANK ARROGANT AMATUERS all the time (and if I spelled that wrong, it was Anji’s fault, cos she spelt it for me,a nd she has like, a degree in literature) and also just, I like almost all my workmates. Where the fuck was I? I can’t remember.

Oh wait, foozeball. I have searched the archives right now, and am curfrenly laughing my guts out about feta jokes that Bo and I made together. Also, WHERE THE FUCK has peppercorn feta gone? I don’t think it exists anymore. And now I spent like half an hour looking for an obscure reference to our first year Peach Pit environment (yes, htat’s Pizza Pizza I’m talking about) or how there happebned to be some boys who had happened to come across half a Nikki Watson poster from Sandringham Road that haapppened to be in our backyard and I was lying on her boobs in the photograph, and wait, what was my point? I totally forget. But I will say hey, remember that time that I had two girl friends,and then there were these three guys that we all hung out with? And remember how the three of us had it all worked out? Yes.

ALSO! FUCK OFF SHORTLAND STREET! Stop having our motherfucking glasses onscreen! It’s bad enough that our three new water glasses are the stripey ones are the same as the ones in the cafe. Tonight Anji pointed out that our gingerbeer cocktail glasses have showed up in Coltrain. FUCKING SUCK IT, YOU QUEERS! (That’s the OC, k? xojo) Because I am a potter’s daughter. I care very much about the vessel things are served to me in, and I feel like you just fucked my daughter’s navel cavity. Hott! But also, unless it’s you making the mule, back the fuck off!

Okay, I have a lot more work to do that I really should get around to doing (damn you, Julie/Julia blog!), so I’ll do a bullet points update. That’s okay with everyone, right?

Please come to this:

Truth be told, I kind of wish that it was Sunday and that it was over already, or perhaps the Saturday afterwards so I wouldn’t have any more “Oh, how was your party? Sorry I couldn’t make it” type smalltalk to make. I haven’t had a big successful party in Wellington EVER. Trying to have one is making me a little crazy. I am terrified of no one showing up except for a few suckers who have to try to put on a brave face and me wanting the floor to open up and swallow me before getting too drunk and abusive at the people who actually made an effort. That said, there’ll be great music and snacks and atmosphere, and costumes, and so please, do come along. If you don’t have my address and you’re not a Level 2 Hubrette and therefore able to read the secret footnotes that have my address in them, just drop me an email – anything @ hubris co nz – and I’ll tell you where it is and that will be choice okay rock.

Thanks to the ridiculously hott boys in The Edukators I have decided that I will buy No Sweat shoes instead once my chucks finally give up the last gasp of ghost that they have left in them, which won’t be long given that they are only held together by their stench right about now. Yum. The other thing that was they played song association in it, and by virtue of a) being raised on tracks “Greatest hits of 1985″ records that my parents brought in Germany when we were living there (which featured Nena, amongst other songs sung in German) and b) having Anji tell me about the joke beforehand, I was able to laugh when they talked about “Tausend-und-eine nacht”. Okay, no one else will get this paragraph. Nevermind.

Anji and I – but mostly me – went homeware crazy on the weekend, during a very pleasant drive out to Lyall Bay (which coupled well with what I’d said to my workmates on Friday night when we were having some jugs – “I had my first ever pash at the house of the bar manager here” – since that was the last time that I went to Lyall Bay, to the best of my knowledge). I bought tealight holders galore along with little candle lanterns at the warehouse, and we spent aaaaaaaaaaaaaages trying to choose wine glasses (we’d gone to the ware whare with the intention of purchasing a box of 18, but since they didn’t have those, we got six very large ones and two very large ones in a different shape) along with assorted tumblers destined for gingerbeer & vodka and handtowels at Briscoes. I agonized over bed linen and ended up getting some at Spotlight the next day. We also had lunch at The Empire – the new/old movie theatre in Island Bay, except that my friend who works there had the day off. Nevertheless, their gelati is fucking OMG mouth explosion.

Speaking of fucking OMG, Miss Lisa Fur had sought shelter at my house on Saturday night, and after Moulin Rouge she was like “It’d be so cool if you had Spiceworld” so I was like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and nearly fell to my knees to perform cunnilinguis on her, but since I was not sure about the spelling, I instead got out the video and we watched it together and it was great. 27 times and counting and it still feels fresh. And now I hear that Ginger Spice is preggers? Woah!

And speaking of fucking brilliant rock star biographies, I got sunburnt on Saturday sitting outside reading The Dirt again. I still want to fuck Motley Crue. I’d even take the time out to learn how to umlaut their name if they’d just umlaut me.

Oh that’s right, the umlaut made me remember that after Anji and I had brunch at The Realm on Saturday, as we tend to do every fortnight or so, or at least often enough that the staff recognise us and seem to laugh at us a lot, we discovered that the bottle store across the road was doing a wine tasting. Who doesn’t like free wine? Well, certainly not us anyways. There were three ladies there with varying degrees of product knowledge and professionality (the last one raved on about Jacob’s Creek being $7 when she was ‘promoting’ a very different brand), and they were a little bored, so I tried thirteen wines or so in a short space of time, and got rather lightheaded. Most of the wines were things like Sacred Hill and Gunn Estate that I’d tried before (indeed, Gunn Estate seems to be the default wine at all the bars around here, so I’ve had quite a lot of it), but one that I hadn’t was a sparkling sav from Mount Riley called Savee, so this is where the umlaut comes in, because it’s actually Sav’ee, and given that my mother’s name is Aim’ee you’d think I would have learnt how to put in accents – but I can’t. Nevermind.

Corpse Bride, which I was able to furnish 19 people with free tickets to, thanks to the lovely KateH, is absolutely fantastic and you should go and see it and also buy me posters for it. Hurrah.