Hubris.co.nz

I’ve moved back to Ngaio and I’ve started reading books again.

I read more than half of Cleaving in one sitting. I thought I had identified with Julie Powell before in Julie & Julia as she worked a boring job, made friends on the internet, watched a lot of Buffy and got drunk frequently. But in Cleaving as she pines for her lover or ex lover, whatever state their relationship was in at the time, as she talks about the sex that they had which was unlike any she’d ever had before, as she sought out anonymous terrible fucking that she told her lover about afterwards in an attempt to make him jealous  – well, I lived all that too.

I worry too that I will never have another lover who will make me lose all control the way that you did, that I will never spend weeks at a time in a permanent state of arousal, driven into a fever by your emails and text messages and story telling. I worry that no one will ever put their hand on my leg while I am driving the way that you did, which almost made me crash my car. I’m afraid no one will ever lock me to them with their kiss. And while there are other people now who can make me come, multiple times, and maybe they fuck me harder than you ever did, it’s not the same. And yes, then I remember that there used to be Thomas, and that I used to think I would never love anyone like that, and now I am “who?” what?” about that. So one day, you will be gone from my mind but for now, there is just passive-aggression, and emptiness, and because this is Wellington I see you everywhere, but we don’t talk and I miss you.

There have been parties. There was my birthday Triple X party, in which a rollickingly good time was had by all. Heather came down from Auckland for it, and we spent lots of time together hanging out and watching Veronica Mars. She took the rest of the DVDs up to Auckland with her and has been making me giggle with her “OMG!” text messages as various things happened throughout the series. But back to the party. I kissed a lot of pretty ladies, both in the kissing booth and out, which is always a pleasure, and never a chore. I went as a Doctor of Fuckology, and had a clipboard full of hypothesis. Here are some more photos.

I also volunteered again at Full Code Press, but I will probably write about that on joannamcleod.com instead of here.

On Saturday night I went to a B party at Anna Jane’s house. I was dressed as Beth Ditto, and while not that many people got that, they did get lectures about Health At Every Size and other fat activism.

The girl that I kissed at the Wellingtonista Awards was there, and we hung out and I told her that I had stopped talking to her because I don’t want to be her friend, I want to be her lover, and it was too frustrating to follow her tweets about wanting to get laid when I was waiting right there to do the job for her. I ended up feeling more than a little like a date rapist because after we kissed, I wanted to kiss again, and she said no, but I heard that as “maybe”. Frustration. I should know better. It was nice though, that she said she heard I was amazing in bed (I am!) although I wonder who said that to her, because our Eskimo bond constantly tells me I was a terrible lay.

I haven’t talked about moving, because it was horrible and culminated in me cleaning until almost 11pm last Sunday night, then getting 100 metres down the road in my car with Seb in a cage and discovering that I had a flat tyre. My father had to come down from Ngaio to help me, which is lucky because as it happened, my jack was missing the turning bit anyway. But now anyway I am safely back in the parental bosom and took them and BAMJI out to lunch at Osteria Del Toro to thank them for all their hard work. Seb has settled in wonderfully, and I have put my DVDs into order of colours, but all the blackness of my sizeable Whedon collection throws things off somewhat. I spend my time at home watching many episodes of The West Wing, and teaching my dad how to play Wii. In the mornings we take the train together and I get coffee at Sweet Fanny-Anne’s. Work is work. Getting paid is nice.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I have been busy. I mean, I did write about it a while ago. But occasionally you get the disconnect between what you say and what people actually pay attention to.

It is strange being in an office again, having to sit in an uncomfortable squeaky chair and digest piles and piles of new information. It’s no six-page site that I’m rewriting, unlike other work that I’ve done for So Content before. And there’s a whole office full of people who all have their own working styles and customs, and I’m the stranger here so it is me that has to adjust to other people’s music. At least my eyes are starting to be able to deal with the florescent lights now. But for all my complaining about the superficial things, it is good to be working again, to feel smart and clever and valuable.

Other changes are happening, with the lease being up on Immoral Terrace at some time in the near but not near enough future. Paying for the rent on the whole house by myself will not be fun. As a consequence, I will be having to move home with my parents for a couple of months in order to pay off that debt, and also the rest of the debts that I have accrued over the past year without a steady pay cheque. I can’t wait until I don’t owe anyone money again, even though that’s a couple of months away. And then I’m going to be subletting a room in my Vitamin Cupcake’s house for a couple of months while the adorable Kate and Jason travel. I am making lists of where all my furniture and possessions will be heading – into storage, to Ngaio or to be shipped out to friends. Tom is taking the bar out of the Tiki Shack, so that will live on a little bit. We had a goodbye shindig in there the other weekend which was lovely, piles of people piled onto each other basking in the warm glow of my heater. That mattress has served hard time, alright. The lovely Smoo has promised to come back and help me move things to the tip later. He’s gone too. End of a long era. I think I miss him already if you will allow me to get soppy for a second.

People from the past have popped up recently at odd moments. I discovered something about someone and it’s still on my mind. It was somewhat of a headfuck.  Heather is coming down for my Triple X party, which I am very excited about. Less exciting is turning 30 in two days’ time. I have the grey hairs to prove it. However, at least there’s a Webstock Mini on my birthday to ease the pain, and then on the following weekend I will be helping out at FullCodePress again like I did last year. I have to meet up with Sue tomorrow to get a dress to wear to it – either one of mine that she’d borrowed, or one of Megan’s. It is handy having a wardrobe extend like that.

Along with the cold and various housing issues has come an increase in the number of television programmes I’ve been watching. Of note lately have been marathon West Wing sessions that just make me miss Good Tom and wish that I was Alison Janney, as well as contemplating becoming a cater waiter due to Party Down, and wondering if I am more pathetic than Kenny from Eastbound And Down or not.   I think that I am not, because I continue to have people who love me, and also people who want to do me, occasionally. Ask me sometime and I will tell you a very amusing story about polylove and children and how I don’t believe that the two should mix. Oh, and speaking of casual sex, you should come to this:

I can’t sleep right now because the wind is too loud, so I might as well write my journal, yes?

Let me start with pictures of cupcakes. The lovely Emma came over to lend me her neat handwriting expertise, and together we assembled these beauties:

If you click the photo, you’ll get to my flickr page where I’ve tagged each cupcake with what it says

We had a tremendous amount of fun coming up with the dirty words and I also got to say to her things like “give me an orgasm” and “I love your meat flaps” which is always a guarantee of a good time. The cupcakes were for Bad Tom’s Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know party, which we will get to in time, but first I have to talk about #opengovt.

On Saturday I went to an Open Government Bar Camp, because I am a big nerd. In order to appear less governmenty, I wore really bright-coloured clothing:

I am so in love with my new tights from welovecolors.com, although I think the footless ones fit better than the footed ones. I’m pretty sure I am going to need to order them in more colours than just kelly green, scarlet red and fuschia at some stage. Anyways. Bar Camp. I knew a tremendous amount of people there, and even more people knew me. I tried to remind people that we weren’t entirely representative of the rest of New Zealand in that normal people don’t tend to spend sunny Saturdays cooped up in the National Library of their own free will, and I think I did quite well at that. I also ate some really tasty proscuitto. I will write about it more on my portfolio site sometime soon, probably. My social media expertise was paid for by drinks at the Loaded Hog afterward where the bar man kept giving me over-pours, probably because I was one of very few women there.

But I couldn’t stay and drink free booze all night there, because I had a party to get to. So I jumped in a taxi and went up to Karen’s house in order to get dressed up, meet Chiara and have more drinks. This is what Karen and I dressed up as:

If that’s unclear to you, click here for the reveal.

Bambi and Anji also dressed up as Bad Tom, who was suitably impressed and perplexed. I put a naughty schoolgirl spin on my outfit, which proved to be quite handy, not least because the amount of Mary-Kate & Ashley available enabled people (well, maybe just Tom) to do lines of snuff off my breasts.

Photo stolen from Bad Tom’s flickr.

Did I mention that there was homemade laudanum? And absinthe? And a general all around dirty atmosphere? Here are some more pics to show off the mood in the room:

I like it how it appears that Chiara is about to give me a lapdance in this photo, but she didn’t actually. I did watch her and Anna Jane shake and shimmy and undulate in the hallway. There was kissing booth malarky. I also pashed a drag queen named Candy. At one stage I found myself on Tom’s crazy comfy bed with a cute girl and a guy I used to work with. We spilled absinthe on his sheets and tried to shut the door but people kept walking in on us. It is somewhat disconcerting to be making out with someones while your sister stares at you through the window. Still, I got to tell the guy that I’d wanted to fuck him because I thought he was kind of misogynistic, so that was amusing, although he protested that he wasn’t. And then later on the cute girl and I went home with the duck. It was somewhat of a strange night, and I am paying for it now with a cut-open thumb from cocktail making, and bruised knees from god knows what. Ahh debauchary, how glad I am you are in my life.

Last week was totally exhausting. Actually, the week before that was exhausting as well. But I can say quite definitely that it also contained one of my top career highlights so far, so that’s pretty awesome, right? Should we mix it up and go topically, or go chronologically like usual-ish? I guess if we go chronologically, I will remember more about my time in Sydney, so let’s start there, shall we? And if you don’t like that, then perhaps you could leave me a comment to register your discontent. Rad.

Sydney and FullCodePress

So, as you will no doubt recall, I tried out for Full Code Press, and didn’t make the team, so the lovely Tash suggested that I come along anyway as volunteer. It meant a flight at some ridiculous time in the morning, but also my first Koru Club experience in 15 years or so. I love Air NZ’s newish inscreen entertainment screens, especially since a flight to Sydney involves stupidly long amounts of time on the tarmac. I got to meet all the Code Blacks people that I hadn’t already met, and it made me chuckle how we all had webstock satchels.

My hotel wouldn’t let me check in early, so I went and had a walk around Darling Harbour, having breakfast, reading the (tabloidy) paper, drinking average coffee and enjoying it being t shirt weather. I went back up to the hotel and they still didn’t have a room ready, so I sat sulking in the lobby for a bit before I rode the monorail and went and got a very nice pedicure inside the mall. And then, finally, I could check in. This was my room:

The bedroom looked out into the super huge giant atrium, and the living room had these awesome nighttime views:

I like views of the city at night. I also like getting to finally have naps, and wake up and have Kate B be there, and I like going swimming with her, and then drinking wine with her and looking through her portfolio. I like that her web work is pretty much the opposite of mine, it being all advertising, all flash, whereas I am all advocating for accessibility, in theory if not quite so much in practice.

Anyways, so Kate and I sorted out our hair and jumped in a taxi to go and meet up with her friend Rob and The Mayor of Newtown, at a pub called Cooper’s that was not dissimilar to the Southern Cross with its outdoor terrace. There we compared handwriting, broke glasses and spent a very long time trying to decide where to have dinner. The Mayor’s initial suggestion of a place across the seat was vetoed by Kate on account of the bad lighting, and my criteria was that it needed to have wine. Eventually we set off for a different Vietnamese place, but it was closed, so we went to find a different one. King Street is almost exactly like K’Road, in terms of architecture and people and shops and eateries. We found a Vietnamese restaurant that may have been called Viet Maison, which had a Tiki-Bar although I didn’t see that initially, and OH MY GOD, we ate the most fantastic food – soft shell crab with garlic butter, salt & pepper eggplant, crispy pork hot pot, duck pancakes, lemongrass tofu, coconut rice, oh my god oh my god oh my god. It was so fresh and amazing. I want to eat there every day. Can’t we swap half Wellington’s Malaysian restaurants for some more Vietnamese places? Please? Kate broke another glass, and so we went to another bar called Zanzibar. The Mayor bumped into a friend of his who was in a band and owned his own tiki shack. I’d had enough wine that I was struggling to not imply that the friend was in INXS. It was 1am before I knew it. It was very much fun.

The next day was FULLCODEPRESS so I found my way down to the Conference Centre, and then into the Exhibition Centre, which is the largest building I have ever seen. It’s like, a kilometre long, at least. The FCP stuff was taking place in the middle of all the shiny technology exhibits, so it looked like this:

I hung around for a bit while they were just getting started, and was given access to the official FCP blog, and then I went and met my cousin Jacinta for lunch. She took me to a really lovely Thai place past Chinatown, and I shamed myself by being unable to finish my chili and basil tofu because it was too hot. Laaaaamer.

Another swim and a nap later, I was ready for the FCP lock-in. My role was to blog and twitter about it using the #fcp09, to talk to the nice judges, and to try and sniff out mysterious smells in the media room. It was lots of fun. I also enjoyed making Clint from Rainbow Youth dance for me. Okay, so I wasn’t really helping anyone very much at all, except in my capacity as entertainer. I still felt good about being involved. But not so good that when 2am rolled around and people started sleeping that I didn’t feel stupid for being there when I had a nice hotel across and up the road waiting for me, so I found a security guard to let me out and had a heart-pounding but brightly lit walk back.

I had wanted to get back to FCP by 11am in time for the finish, but that zopiclone, she is a hard task mistress, and it was not to be. Instead I went and ate barramundi in the sunshine. That was lovely – trying to find the FCP annoucements was not so much fun. In fact, I felt somewhat like I was in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix when he needs to get a piece of paper signed. Not a single “information” desk in all of the kilometres of building actually had the information. In fact, a couple of them gave me unformation, and sent me miles off in the wrong direction. Luckily I eventually found some of the judges, but not before I had discovered a conference called “What causes happiness?” (apparently, cupcakes for afternoon tea causes happiness) which would be a nice counterpoint to the conference I’d see the next day at the Powerhouse Museum called “Depression in older people”. Anyways. I got there just in time to hear the judging, which was really really interesting to find out what makes a site good, according to the experts. And The CodeBlacks won! Hurray us! And hurray charity, as I wrote about in my work blog. Etc. So really what I should write about now was the cat-herding required to get everyone to the Pump House for drinks, and then off to the Spanish area for dinner, but everywhere was full so we ended up in a really old Greek restaurant where the lamb was tasty but I suspect that the vegetables had been cooking probably since it opened in the olden days. People appeared to be flagging so I taxied back to my hotel, but they actually stayed up drinking until 2am. Good for them!

The next day was a nice sleep in, a leisurely checkout, then freshly squeezed juice to treat my swineflu/airconditioning flu, and i set off to the Powerhouse Museum. More walking. I was determined to get there because I’ve always been impressed with Seb Chan’s work, and I really enjoyed it, although the ghost figures it used were spooky, and there were a lot of school children loitering about. Who are they to enjoy the culture? Pah! I was hungry and their cafe was uninspiring so I walked down to the madness that is Paddy’s Market, purchased a light shade and two Chinese cigarette posters (in case we ever start an opium den in the tiki shack), and kept looking because I didn’t feel like foodcourt Asian. In fact, I walked all the way back to Darling Harbour and made my way down all the cafes, looking for a plate of fish’n chips that would be under $30. In the end, I came to a place with an adequate bbq, and beers that I guzzled down, but because I had so much time left and I didn’t want to walk anymore, i plonked my fat ass down at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe to eat a degustation plate by myself. Mmmmm. I left with a sea of brown floating around in my eyes, it was so intense. Back to my hotel to collect my bags and be collected by the shuttle driver, and into Sydney Airport. I made my way directly to the MAC counter as soon as I spotted it, where with the lady’s help I purchased a Russian Red red lipstick, but she lacked a matching liner and advised me to look at other brands. I also bought a compact of colours from their special collection that no doubt I did not need but I dearly wanted. I pulled up a seat at the bar, and strangely enough, the other NZers found me there. I watched In Bruges on the plane, and thoroughly enjoyed it, along with the pie I got. I also thoroughly enjoyed getting home to my own bed.

Cupcakes and Mini Webstock

Now I’m not sure if you remember, but after Webstock earlier this year, I made cupcakes for Tash and Ben and Mike and Deb to say thank you so much for their hard work. Well, it turned out that they liked them so much that they hired me to make 100 cupcakes for their third birthday party. Here’s a photo of how some of that looked:

Because I am slightly insane, i decided to make six flavours – vanilla w chocolate frosting, mocha, lemon & cream cheese, mixed berry & white chocolate, gluten-free chocolate and almond, and vegan pina colada. I ended up pretty much drowning in batter and my stomach hurts just thinking about the leftover icing in the fridge!

The Webstock Mini night made it all worthwhile though. It was a lovely chance to get really dressed up, hang out with my besties, try to corrupt Alan, and heckle people drunkenly via Twitter. Even if i did end up drink at the Malt House – at least they had signs up saying they were renovating the male bathrooms and were hopefully removing their incredibly misogynistic urinals.

#GOVIS09 and twicking up

That was the Tuesday. On the Wednesday I was at work until after 11pm, duvet and all, struggling to sumarise 18 months of work into one 34 minute slide presentation. According to the Twitter feedback, I did quite well (scroll down) – or here or ,here – the problems of multiple identities! Once I managed to get some proper cafenet access and had a chance to read all that, well, I was just completely blown away and may have had a little cry. I definitely had a hugely swollen head and cut’n paste the praise into an email I sent to my whole family. It was just so amazingly nice to be acknowledged for the work I do – even though, or especially because there’s like 40 days left of me working there. It’s a tiny bit of a “oh, are you sure you’re doing the right thing, SSC?” and also a “I know that I am smart and talented and can be employable”. There were drinks, and I met a stalker who brought me wine then there was dinner at Roxy. It was tasty and entertaining, even if I had to talk to Australians for ages. Oh god the pain of it all!

The next day at the conference, I felt much much more secure and safe and smug, and more people wanted to talk to me. I even started calling myself a ’social media expert’ but you must believe that I was saying it as if I was saying “I’m Rick James, Bitch!” Nat’s closing speech was of course my favourite of them all since I missed Matt’s but his was very highly regarded too. It was fun. I learnt things.

And then there were drinks. And more drinks. And a lot of fish on sticks, and hot roast beef sandwiches, and homemade pistachio ice cream, and more drinks, And then I ended up going to Hummingbird for the Tweet Up, and then I went to China Delight for dinner with the Toms and some new friends, and then we went to Hummingbird for a drink or two more. Alisa left my old work to manage the bar there so it was nice to catch up with her.

My weekend and the future

There has been a lot of sleeping and trying to stay warm. There has been feasts at Siem Reap. There’s been a lot of twitter time. There’s been a lot of duveting. That’s really about it. Tomorrow I go for an eye example, since glasses are still subsidised at work. Then on Tuesday I’m going to EAP to plan for the future. After that, well, who knows? I could use some quiet times but I’m not seeing a whole lot of that happening any time soon. I am more confident about being hireable based on GOVIS though. Career highlights are nice.

Sleeping and so forth

It is odd to have bedded two people in such a short space of time, (although my record is still 3 in two weeks in 2003) because of the contrast between the old and the new. It’s also redonkulous that I’ve bitched and moaned about wanting to be able to actually have sleepovers, but when it comes down to it, I had to leave a warm bed and go out into the cold cold night because of how I am physically incapable of sleeping without taking zopiclone. Doing a line-by-line comparison would be amusing for me but also totally totally inappropriate, so I will just leave the public exposure of private things to the contrast between my necklaces clacking together as my head moved back and forth, and the moment of having a lover gently unclasp my necklace, which seems to be even more of an intimate act.

Last Tuesday I was on the bus home, and I was texting Kat saying “I hate everyone in the whole world. Except for you” because I was having a really horrible shitter of a week/month/year, and all I wanted was someone’s shoulder to cry on. Then when I was stumbling down my street trying not to cry, I suddenly thought “Well, why the fuck don’t I just go visit her?” and decided that if I could get flights for under $500, I would. A quick flick through the Air NZ site and a text to confirm that she was free for the weekend later, I found myself with flights booked for Friday-Sunday, and as she told me that they live in a bedsit, I searched wotif.com for a hotel, and then ended up making a booking straight through the Hotel On Devonport site as it was cheaper – $130+gst for a deluxe room. Plus, they emailed me back almost instantaneously saying that they saw I requested a 10am check-in, to let me know that if my room wasn’t ready at that stage I could still park and leave my suitcase there. Very impressed with that.

That made the rest of the week a little more dealable-with-able, along with sending a series of “this is why I am angry with you” emails to a series of people. And so on Friday morning I found myself up before 7am, with the shuttle picking me up at 7.20am. Golly gee, that was an early morning. Air NZ has gone all super high tech at the airport, where you check yourself in at a kiosk, print your own sticker for your bag, and just biff it on the conveyor-belt yourself. At this stage I would like to mention that the Caltex in the Newtown shops still sends an attendant out to pump your gas for you. What is happening to service in the rest of the world? Won’t someone please think of the children? Anyways. I had heaps of time so I got a coffee from Fuel and read the paper, but if I’d known that they wouldn’t give me a stamp for the coffee, I would have gone to Wishbone.

The flight itself was uneventful, and touching down in Tauranga was pretty. As soon as my taxi driver found out that I’d never been to Tauranga before, he proceeded to narrate everything, which is what I hoped for. He gave me so much information that I was constantly able to pull it out over the weekend and impress Kat & Kane, or at least make them start calling the taxi driver my boyfriend. He answered my questions about how much a taxi to the Mount would be, pointed out where the buses went from, explained that the Strand went off on Saturday nights (his words) and lifted my suitcase out of the car for me. The reception staff at the hotel were just as friendly and nice, finding me a room that was available then rather than making me wait, and asking when I’d like my complimentary drink delivered. My room on the fifth floor was absolutely lovely:

However, I couldn’t make the lights go. And yes, I saw the large plastic key thing that you’re suppose to slide into the switch, but it wouldn’t go in. I rang reception, and told them, so they sent someone up, who couldn’t make it go either because there was something jammed in the hole. They found housekeeping who unjammed it, but the lights still didn’t go on and they blamed a broken fuse. Five minutes later, I had electricity, and they checked to make sure. Hurrah! Kat wasn’t due to finish work until 2pm, so I decided to venture out and find myself some brunch.

Devonport St is the main shopping street in Tauranga, apparently, so there were lots of places around. There were also lots of vacant shops, but mostly it was a pleasant little high street full of chain stores. A block over and down I found a little plaza area, and decided to eat at Bravo because they had lots of sunny outdoor tables. I had mushrooms on toast with super crispy bacon and enjoyed the sunshine. I found the city art gallery and marvelled at the collection of NZ paintings that BNZ bought during 1982-1987 before they went bankcrupt or whatever, and talked to the attendant about how patronage of the arts will no doubt suffer in this current R-Word climate. After that, I strolled around a bit more before heading back to the hotel for a lovely nap on the huge big bed. Even Damian Christie recommends the hotel, and that says a lot.

Then it was KAT TIME! She came to meet me at the hotel and I hugged her so hard I almost went all Mice & Men on her. I offered to buy her a pedicure, so we went off in search of a place that would take us. The first place we tried right across the road was busy, but the second one we found (there are nail salons EVERYWHERE in Tauranga, it’s a little weird) the woman said she could do us both at once. Oooer. So we clambered up into the massaging chairs and soaked our feet while she slid back and forth between us. I know we didn’t have appointments, but she was really rushed because as we discovered she had another client coming in, and I just don’t think we got a very good deal. I was really disappointed that we didn’t get the dead skin razored off our feet, or any kind of massage (in fact, she only rubbed lotion into one of my feet!) and the nail polish job was patchy, and since my toenails are unnaturally thick, I always put polish on their edge, but she didn’t. For $48 each, I thought it was seriously lacking (although looking at their site now, what they list is what we got). Still, I bought some bright yellow nail polish as well, and it was relaxing to have the soak and the electric massage, and that’s what I was after. Perhaps I was spoiled by my only other pedicure experience in New York. And in fact, looking at prices of other places on the net right now, maybe that’s pretty standard or actually fairly cheap. Ahh well.

Then we headed to a convenience store for snacks and a bottle of wine, and sat out on my sunny balconey until it got too hot and then we flopped all over my bed. We booked dinner at Cafe Versaillies for 8.30pm so we could watch NZNTM first, and Kane came and joined us in my hotel room for television watching, napping, and making sex-faces on the big suede headboard to confuse the housekeeping staff:

Eventually though, we were so hungry that we decided to change our booking to 7.15pm. We were seated in a corner that if we’d been on a date we could have had butterfly-adorned curtains pulled around us.The very French man at the restaurant was very accomodating, even though we felt obliged to try and thank him in French, which made me want to speak Japanese, as that’s my default “not English” language, and Kat was the same with Spanish. I tried very very hard not to make any “aw haw haw Baugutte!” exclamations, which was hard, because I was very very giggling, and also our napkins were arranged thusly:

And how can you fight that? Especially if you’re a cheese-eating surrender monkey. YOU CAN’T! It’s NOT POSSIBLE! So instead we surrendered to the duck in orange sauce and eclairs with incredibly intense chocolate sauce, and some beajolais and potato gratin. What did the French person say when they’d eaten a lot of amazingly delicious food, including eggs in Kat & Kane’s chocolate mousse? I’ve had an oueff!

After that we adjorned to my hotel for more lol-ing and lolling around on my big bed before they finally went home, with plans to pick me up at 10am the next day. I slept fantastically, the double-glazed doors keeping out the sound of street hooliganism that I expected but never saw. If I could change one thing about the hotel though, it would be that they didn’t have aloe vera-flavoured moisturiser because I don’t like aloe vera scent. But that’s just me being super picky. I should have remembered to pack my own lotion.

So yes, anyway, Saturday. They picked me up and we went to Grindz on First Avenue for breakfast after we flagged walking up to Fifth for some sort of market. They said that the staff at Grindz can have bad attitudes, but my french toast and coffee were great, even if the toast was more eggy than I personally prefer. Plus I love that Grindz has a whole dedicated playroom for kids to keep them out of my ears. We did some shop-browsing, then jumped on a bus over to the Mount. Kane wanted to go to a particular op shop, so we went to the “bad” part of the Mt Manganui shops. It all seemed a bit sad and shut down. I tried on a thousand pairs of sunglasses, but I still can’t find any I like as much as the glasses I wear these days which I’ve had since 1999 (May 1, 1999 to be exact! Which was also the first day I told someone to their face that I loved them is how I know that for a fact) and they’re all scratched up to hell. Eventually we got to go and plonk our asses down on the beach and watch a family learn to surf. I couldn’t help but cheer every time any of them caught a wave, especially the 10 year old girl. Kat also made me laugh and cheer and clap by performing the chicken dance from Arrested Development for me and also for Lisa, except that it was too high-res to mms to her. But here it is for you. Turn your head!

And if that video doesn’t make you happy, then you are officially (OFFICIALLY!) the lamest person on the face of the planet. Now, when I twitted that I was going to Tauranga, I asked people what I should do. Almost everyone who replied told me I should go for a walk up the Mount. Here is a picture of the Mount.

I don’t walk up shit like that. In fact, I was already starting to develop a blister, as well as having one on the back of my heel still from my stupid new shoes, and my arms were banged up from walking into a pole. So it was nice to sit on the beach and chill for a while, but eventually I declared that I needed scheduled relaxing free time, and we made a plan to go and get a bite to eat. I picked Slow Fish at random, and it turned out to be a very clever thing to do, because the haloumi that came with my greek salad was the best haloumi I have ever ever eaten. Because I feel bad for you because you didn’t get to share my haloumi, here is a bonus picture of a tree with big bouncy branches that we rode like ponies:

Then we went to the Hot Pools. Because I mysteriously found myself in possession of a Tauranga library card, I got in for $6, but it would have been worth the outsider rate of $14. We sat in the passive pool for a while because it had a shade sail over it, and I impressed K&K with my sign-reading-and-retention knowledge by telling them that it was called the passive pool, and that it was 35 degrees. Then we switched over to the active pool in the sun, but it was a much cooler-feeling 33 degrees, and so we were more active. We did interpretive water dances about our jobs. Apparently my job involves me typing with my toes. The salt water made me super extra buoyant. I couldn’t help but float, so I impressed them with my abilty to float with my legs crossed. My sunglasses are so big Kane could wear them happily over his glasses, but they did get salty. We finished with a soak in the spa pools (38 degrees) and then went across the street for Copenhagen ice cream. I discovered that a Black Cow Soda Shake is made with coke and chocolate ice cream, but since I’d already had coffee and a coke my heartrate was being a bit racy (like a Victorian lady showing off her ankles!) so I settled for a lemonade & chocolate concoction. It was weird and tasty but I don’t think I’d want to have one every day.

Back at the hotel (my room was apparently aproximately the size of their house) there was more napping (I LOVE napping with people, I could totally be friends with Bret and Jermaine) and many episodes of The Simpsons before we strolled off to the fish dock for dinner.

It’s very nice eating 100 metres from where the fish comes in. People in the know bring along their own picnic sets and booze, but we just ate out of the paper. The fish was amazing, so fresh and crispy and yum. It made me a very happy Jo to be sitting with two of my favouritest people watching the sun set. Kat says that one of the reasons that i like them so much is that they don’t make me do anything, that we can just be still in each other’s company and not have to be rushing around doing anything, and maybe that’s true, and we proved it when we went back to my hotel to watch Grand Designs and Richard E Grant being awesome in Miss Marple. We giggled with glee a lot and told stupid jokes and just generally had an amazing time, and then they left and I was a bit sad. So I changed the time on my cellphone for daylight savings ending, and then I went to sleep.

When I woke up to my alarm, I looked at the time on the alarm clock that I’d also adjusted, and realised that MOTHERFUCKING SON OF A BITCH my cellphone had ALSO changed its time, and there was 25 minutes until my plane left. I grabbed all of my shit and rang a cab and dropped off my key. After waiting ten minutes for my taxi to show up, the driver tried calling the airport for me, but the flight was already gone. At the airport they offered to put me on the next flight to Auckland, but it was only going to save me $20 or so and I would have had to wait around there too, so I decided that I’d just take the next flight to Wellington – at a cost of $370 extra. I waved my arms in pretendish-fiero when I found out that at least I’d get air points for that flight so that I wouldn’t cry. I took my complimentary Herald On Sunday to a picnic table outside and waited three hours for my flight, really regretting not having taken the time to call the airport before leaving the hotel so that I could have showered and had a decent coffee and breakfast in town. Sigh. And then the fucking shuttle in Wellington went all the way around Oriental Bay and then back into Newtown while I sat there fuming and just wanting to be home and clean and with my kitty. Grrr. Bad way to end a holiday but oh man, it was a glorious time, so chilled out, relaxed and pampery. It was exactly what I needed and the perfect time to have it too. I will go back.

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Other things in very very brief format that I have been up to: getting better at Hottest Dance Party Ever! on the wii, even though my knees might disagree / organising the Pretty Pretty Pretty First Birthday Party for April 18 (come along!) / discovering that me and much of my team are being made redundant at work / stressing out about Sebastian when he got a big nasty abcess and was in a lot of hurt at the vet’s / freaking out my new GP with all kinds of crazy questions and cut-up arm from falling against the evil wall outside the National Library while she was giving me a smear / trying to figure out ways to expand my circle of friends because I’ve been having Wellington claustrophobia because everyone has slept with everyone and it’s kind of stressful keeping it all in balance / having a million kinds of difficulty getting ahold of my shrink before and after my prescriptions ran out / making the married man sit at the back of a cafe and watch me cry for 45 minutes just to be sure that it registers with him how much I’m hurting but neglecting to ask the things I wanted to ask / buying a new laptop and becoming obsessed with season two of Gossip Girl / being perplexed by people who have different values than mine to the point where I was going to call my journal entry “My cunt: who’s in it and who’s not” before I went to Tauranga, and it would have gone into more detail about my smear and no one really wants to read that do they? / going to the most fantastic Steam Punk party ever where everyone was dressed up, there was a whole ballroom and a Klemzer band playing and pashing the woman that I pashed at Kowhai’s party last year again / I think that’ll do for now.

I bought Robyn’s wii, and I bought a new Wii Fit, and last saturday some people came over for Wine & Wii. All was going well until I stepped on the board, found my centre of gravity and did some leaning, and then it was all “YOU ARE TOO HEAVY! THE BOARD IS RESETTING” and I wanted to cry but instead I drank some gin after we ran out of wine and was glad that it didn’t do that all the times that I’ve done it at work. It is highly plausible that I put on weight recently, especially with my brief summer diet of red wine & cum for breakfast. Oh, good times.

But seriously wii – fuck you. That said, I’ve been playing at least a half hour on it every day since I got it, except on Wednesday and today in which I went swimming instead. OH MY GoD. Holy fucking wow, swimming feels amazing. I can’t believe how amazing the water feels all over my skin, and how the breathlessness that comes from being unfit translates so quickly to a lightheaded sensation of total euphoria when you’re scrubbing yourself in the shower afterwards. And the lanes – they’re set up all the long way, which seems like forever to swim, but as you get down them, you find yourself over the super super deep parts under the diving boards. I know that I will always float on the surface of the water, reassured by both my levels of floaty blubber and also my absolute belief that I will always float, but the deep deep depths of the pool is a serene temptation, like when you’re swimming in the ocean and you become aware that if you just _let go_, and you could go out into the blue and it would be like, so beautiful. But instead, I was all “omg, I did ten lengths of a 100m pool, that’s totally 1km!” but maybe it was only 500 metres. Still, it was a good half hour as well, both times.

What else? The new flatmate has moved in and he seems nice. He leaves the toilet seat up, which means that I can no longer use an up seat as a clear method of telling whether or not Smoo’s been home.

I’m doing a big presentation at work next week. Maybe I might ask Lisa to do animations for it, or maybe I’ll save that for GOVIS. Her and her flatmate filled me so full of meat last time that I’d be doing the oxy moron signal right now if I wasn’t a lady.

Also while I was at Lisa’s, my computer started totally friztzing out,, and I was like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHG but she googled on Pearl how to restore the factory settings and it is now as good as new. Except without any of my files, but with bonus flash back, woo!

I’m really sleepy. There has been some weirdness. There has been some “huh?” and some “”thank you but no”. Those were nice things to happen at the end of a terrbily low self esteem week. I had hoped that all my jiggling around had managed to shake out my ovaries, but apparently not. I really should go ahead and book a smear, and the mnybe I’ll get my bleed as she cranks me open,and I’ll gush right past the light and up into and all over her face.Awesome. Squirter Gyno Doctor Porn! I’m going to be rich. Rich I tells you. And oh man, I would kill for a cheeseburger right now.

Tonight I went to a party in Hataitai that had amazing views, and a totally empty downstairs nad a very seventies pool. I took Top Model photos of Nigel and some guy in it, it was very Fierce. Had you been there, I would have pulled you into the empty walk-in wardrobe in the big empty bedroom, and you could have furnished my rooms.

Oooh here comes my pills kicking in finally, ni n!

Hey, remember my adventures last year at Webstock? Well guess what I’ve been doing today???

I should warn you that I am a barrel of all kinds of emotions today. Webstock is the highlight of my professional life each year, because so many of the things I learn are so directly applicable to the work that I do, but it’s also about my extra activities and communities like the Wellingtonista (I wrote the Beginner’s Guide to Wellington for the Webstock Site). I have been pleasantly surprised over the course of the day and also last night at pre-drinks at the Southern Cross to have people go “ohh, you’re in the Wellingtonista!” really excitedly, or even “OMG you’re JO HUBRIS!” from Twitter. The latter girl was rewarded with spare trading cards (my wad is so big it hardly fits in my envelope any more, if you know what I mean) and then when she suggested that I should have my own card because I was such a personality, I was like omg, let me give you all the cards I have in my hand. Except I won’t, because we have a community of shared knowledge that we need to build on.

That paragraph above appeared to be very long. I did have some free drinks before (trading surplus cards for drink tickets was a great idea, and yes I’m that confident that i can do that) and then there was sake at dinner, but mostly if I sound slurry, it will be because of the zopiclone fighting it out with the two coffees.

I FUCKING LOVE WEBSTOCK SO FUCKING MUCH. There, I’ve declared it. I won’t be doing the point by point all my notes here assessment. In fact, I might just step out of webstock all together, and talk about how on Tuesday I took my car in for my warrant. The place was right opposite a Dick Smith’s, so I thought I’d go in and buy a universal remote control because my DVD remote is so completely fucked it physically hurts me to make things go on it. Anyways, so I got it home, and it was all “Dude! Check out my DVD! It’s like, SUPER EASY” so I was all like, okay, sure, so I put it on, but I had to use my old remote to get it to go, and that was aaaaaargh, and then it turned out that manual was much more helpful than the DVD anyway. I managed to tune in the power on/off button, but none of the other keys were working, and while I was sitting on the wood floor in front of the tv, swearing madly at it, George decided that would be an appropriate time (when El and Smoo were off to Aussie the next day) to tell me that he has found a cheaper flat and he’s moving out.l
I swore at the remote control, went to my room, and had one of the worst breakdowns I have ever had, in terms of condensedness. I was hyperventilating and the lack of oxygen made my scalp tingle and the front of my face go numb. I had the metallic taste in my mouth, I was howling out loud along with the tears that did not stop for half an hour, I thought at one stage that I was going to black out and kind of hoped that I would. the thoughts going through my mind was “I am such a fucking smart girl, why can’t I figure out that remote?” which of course was linked to “I am such a fucking smart girl, why was I not capable of delivering a better performance assessment at work, why did I not support my intern better, how could I have allowed myself to fall for someone completely wrong for me, why have I subsequently been begging them for attention when obviously they are trying to cut off my air supply like I’m a troll, why can’t I keep a flat together, what the fuck is wrong with me?” and I howled and howled and every time I thought I’d settled down a bit, my body locked up, so I’d make a move, and I just started crying more and more, The part that was fun though, that I texted back to a concerned sisterly text was that I was blowing my nose on my really big really heavy dark brown Egyptian cotton bath sheet, so I was like “I’m blowing my nose on a bear!” (and speaking of which I so need one of these bags!). The physical aspect of the crying was kind of terrifying, the input of the oxygen and the way it wasn’t going out again, and I was high, and I thought about putting my head between my legs, and my boobs got in the way, and that didn’t make any sense, and quite frankly, it was really not a good time. Until I was like “umm, actually, I think that remote control was actually officially uncompatible with my DVD player, since it’s a DVDr, and then it was easier to see that no, I’m not actually a complete failure at everything, and I actually had a conversation out loud, taking the voice of my counsellor on.

So it was a good rich cleansing cry that has been building up for a very long time (readers of my twitter have obviously seen that), but still today, in Ze Frank’s presentation he talked about how one of his readers asked him to write them a cheer-up song for a situation that sounded really similar to the way I’d been on Tuesday night, and he started it up, and I cried and cried because it was exactly what I needed Luckily the lights were off in the hall at the time, and of course I twittered about it and saw everyone else saying that they’d cried too. Powerful. I shook his hand later and told him he made me cry. Looking at Twitter, an awful lot of people feel that way.

I want to talk more about other things, like venn diagrams (people at the conference that I’ve slept with, people at the conference I don’t want to talk to, and how they overlap but only a little bit and so I’d have to throw in another ring about something), and how much Star Wars sucks, and the free coffee, and the free ice cream, and how much I’m caught up in the trading card game because I’m going to win a baby dinosaur, but it’s like, midnight and tomorrow is going to be INTENSE and I have to replan my outfit since the motherfucking thong in my birki jandal broke, but i realise that I haven’t even mentioned how AWESOME the last half of the Fur Patrol gig that I made it to was, and how I cried again when they were singing ‘Silences and distances’ which is all “Please don’t make this hard – at least be willing to try” and the night was perfect, and the air was blowing hair, and everyone was lovely, and we humped Lisa a lot and I just so adore getting Alan drunk, and Craig Terris has cut his hair to look like Carlos D, so I’m wondering if he also likes to bang fat chicks, and therefore I can get herpes off him and give it to the whole iPhone world. These jokes will make no sense to you, I’m sure, but as my final “this is how awesome Webstock is” for the night – I bitched on Twitter about how i had no handcream and I was twittered back to inform me that there was 8 Hour Cream at the front desk. SUCH BRILLIANT CUSTOMER CARE. <3 <3 <3 and there’s a whole ‘nother day to go tomorrow in which I may just marry Tom Coates. Watch this space.

When I think back on this summer, I hope the memory that stays with me the most is of standing in my new paddling pool in my back yard, a slight breeze ruffling my skirts and hair, and I’m buzzed on the sun and daquiris, singing Bic Runga’s ”Gravity’ – “I forget myself when I’m with you, please remind me of who I am”. The tiki shack that I built with the help of many friends has been a tremendous success, and it will continue to be open all sumer.

There’s been so much going on. I’m so far behind in telling you stories that I don’t even know where to start. The Wellingtonista Awards consumed an awful amount of my time, and my mindspace (even though Hadyn was project-managing, I was an evil micromanager). The event went off fantastically, we had swag bags and prizes and all kinds of goodness from all kinds of wonderful people. So many of the nominees came along, and Bunnies on Ponies played, and just, so many awesome things. You’ll need to check my flickr stream for photos from it. I’m trying to think of my highlights from the night. One of them was definitely Callum from Green Cabs winning Wellingtonian of the Year. I think the other was just that there was so much build up, and anticipation, and we totally pulled the thing off.

Pretty Pretty Pretty is going really strong right now as well, we’re doing heaps of giveaways and people are reading us, and it’s nice, and stuff. One day we’ll be rolling in money and I won’t have to have a day job, honest.

It is nice to be on holiday. My intern at work is very smart and clever and is getting many things done. I’ve been a bit crazy lately and I don’t feel very smart. I’m hoping that will change in 2009. I’m hoping to sort ut my head, stop doing bad shit, go to the gym and get off the sleeping pills. My dreams are too intense and weird and extreme, every day. I don’t need that right now.

This is the worst update ever, I know. Xmas was good, we had it at Anji & Bambi’s, and ate a lot. Kat and Kane are getting married in under two weeks, and they asked me to MC their wedding. I’m going to cook MCs like a pound of bacon. Mmm bacon.

I’m identifying with people I don’t want to identify with lately. I’m happy to report though that my lease has been renewed at the same rate for another year so there will be many more drinks in the tiki shack to be had. The flat is ticking over really nicely. The boys are away right now. El cleaned today while I sat on my bed looking at the clock, and pretending to read. She thinks it may be the spark plugs in my car that are fucked, rather than my alternator, which I hope is the case.

Blah blah blah. Something about Singstar at Lisa’s. Something about New Year’s Eve coming up, and something about SausageQuest perhaps? Something about something.

The good news is though that now that I’ve done this long overdue update, I can do more posts more regularly. Awesome.

There’s things. I mean, right now, mostly there’s 2-for-1 Tigers, and also Zopiclone, which makes me want to talk about how I ran out of it, and didn’t go to work that day, so I couldn’t go to the pharmacy underneath (have you figured out yet where I work?) and I knew from after one night – umm maybe it was Romania/Fetish that no matter how much I’d had to drink or what time I went to bed I can’t actually sleep without pills, so I busted out a halcyon that I had leftover from my breakdown in 2003 (I’d like to link here but old Hubris isn’t online right now, I need a personal computer with a CD drive and a good net link to sort all that out), and Halcyon made my scalp feel weird, and I woke up half a dozen times in the night, rather than just once when Seb bites my toes at 6am, and the dreams weren’t quite as textured, and while they were horrible I didn’t wake up and feel all the things that’d happened to me in my dreams (zopiclone dreams make me miss work, that’s how real they feel), but maybe I felt a bit fuzzier? I dunno, I’m trying to restore proper work days that would give me a chance to do proper exercise in the gym at lunch that would help me feel more normal. I’m also asking for a wii and wii fit for Xmas (and a big chilly bin, an outdoor recliner, books by David Sedaris, John Hodgeman and umm other Daily Show people, no doubt). We just finished Bowling League. I know that doesn’t really count as real exercise. but it was fun.

I launched Sausage Quest, and also Mike has saved your future for you, if your future is in entrepreneurship, anyway. He dropped a tarot card between the slats of my dek and then asked for a hammer to take the whole thing apart. Manly. So yes, now if I read your cards, it may end up that you may be an entrepreneur when you grow up. Thanks Mike! My card readings are pretty accurate. Also, a nice way to talk to boys. I think I might have missed that part in my coverage of Kowhai’s party last time I wrote.

Next week I’m going to Canberra for work, but with the way my flights have worked out, I’m going to have a bit of time to explore, My hotel’s near Parliament, but I’ve been warned that the city is not at all as easy to work out or as small as it appears on maps. I’m planning on cabbing (on my visa, not work’s!) to the National Museum one day because for me museum > art gallery, but do any of youse have any other hot tips? Hit me back just to chat, yo!

Celebrity issues: I am so gutted that Holly and Hugh have broken up. Makes me want to cry, like for serious.

Web stuff: Amy and I are kicking so much ass right now on Pretty Pretty Pretty. Enter our Delicious competition now. And the Wellingtonista Bowling League has just ended, but we’re moving towards our annual awards – or rather the TAWAS!!!! (third annual wellingtonista awards). And! As a secret surprise few people know, I’m planning a scavenger hunt competition for January sometime.

Other things I’m organising in part is the catering for Kat’n Kane’s wedding. I figure I’ll drive up on Jan 9 in time for the Hen;s Party, and on the 11th I will book a room in Hamilton to stay in so I don’t have to cross-country when I may be hungover. And that way I get to see Maree and her stretchy vagina, and maybe Chelsea’s real tight one. Heh. Oh text message jokes, how I love you.

I’m still crazy, a little bit. But with travelling for work, pages of wikis to edit (and I’m gonna break Code of Conduct and say FUCK YOU, G S N! Everything you touch turns to crapness!) and my very own private intern starting in November, I feel more connected. Hell, I even blogged yesterday. And watched a whole episode of Gloss but uhh, not at work, obviously.

Sebastian is still my favourite smoodlepoodle, his curling up in my armpit the highlight of every night, In the mornings if it’s cold he’s even more adorable and occasionally n peeds to the day=be reminded that I need to go for work before he’ll start biting me enough to make me get up. It’s a hard enough life for us. I still so totally think that poverty > creeeeeeeeeeepy.

Dates to remember:

Saturday Oct 26, Beer Quiz at my house 1pmish. Bring some mysterious beers (enough for a good tasting for ten people or so, and then extra for later boozing) and also salted snacks for sharing. You need to write 3 multi choice questions about your beer and bring them along too, ala: (example)
November 8: Tom’’s Mad Men Election Party. Just as in the show, we will (probably) be drinking mass amounts of Crème De Methe from water-cooler, and we’ll be dressed ala 1960 – points & lust for the best Joan Holloway representative;
December 6: Country Club “South Pacific” – and there’s a secret awesome amazing surprise due at this party. It will be AWESOME. Clues later to titillate you but stock up on bikinis. hawiian shirts, pineapples and multiple rums please.

Sometime; I wanna do a PPP clothing and products swap before AND after Xmas. What do you reckon Amy? We’ve made $9 US so far so please keeep clicking our google ads!

The TAWAs – third annual Wellingtonista Awards are on Dec 18, so far: I have a terrible fear that Hadyn will hate me with a firey passion by the time it’s over, because he’s project-managing but I have no off-switch.

Also, I have secret projects going on, so if you get me asking for power tools, please don’t get confused with a rabbit when I[m really asking for a mouse sander (although wanking helps me realise while I bowl better with my 3rd and 4th fingers in the hole rather than my pointer. You can totally wear out the pointer on my masturbating habbits. But you know, if we all get SausaageQuest right, we can end that. Tonight I had a couple of “really? her? really? moments, but I guess that’s just me and i’m a lamer and there are things that were a million years ago and weren’t even things. So anyways, what’s your favourite fact about monkeys?

I spent all of last week at home hiding out. There were occasional distractions – Amy came over on the Monday night for prettyprettypretty stuff, and I made Lisa dinner on Wednesday, but apart from that there were only a couple of conversations with Smoo and George. I kept my phone switched off during the day so work couldn’t call me, and on Friday I sent an email to my boss that said in part:

suppose I’ve been hoping a little bit that by going AWOL I would just get fired, and then I wouldn’t have to own up to all my failures. I haven’t been at work this week because the thought of coming in just absolutely petrifies me. I physically cannot get out of bed and leave the house because of my fear of all the work that I should have done by now that I haven’t, and the thought of having conversations about it, and why I haven’t done it, and how I am not meeting your expectations absolutely terrifies me. That’s why I’ve left my cellphone switched off, which is a total copout for someone who used to pride herself on her communication skills. I think I need to resign, I am not the person that you thought you hired, and I cannot do the work that I have been hired to do. I know that I’m in a down space right now that I will climb out of, but I just don’t see how I will get any better at doing what is expected of me at the *.

As the ever-perceptive Smoo said, perhaps it was a cry for help. She sent me back a really really nice, really really supportive email, which made me cry, which was kind of nice too, because I’ve felt more numb than I should be feeling, and have been questioning whether or not I should be on 40mg, or if it’s actually too strong. But anyways, I cried, I washed my face, I blowdried my hair, I fought off the metallic taste of rising panic, and I headed out to Deb and Mike’s Emancipation Party.

First up though was dinner at Arashi with Robyn and Shirley and Tom, who bought along really really nice champagne to celebrate, even though I didn’t want to talk about resigning, or not resigning, or whatever it is that’s going to happen now, which will involve a lot of work and conversation and bravery and all that sort of stuff. So instead, here’s photos of them at dinner.

Then we headed up to Hawthorn early to secure the big corner table. I love Hawthorn so much. The bartenders are so charming, and make such good zombies. We laughed a tremendous amount at Shirley saying one was cute when he was standing right behind her. We’re grownups that way. I held court at the big table, drinking more zombies and more bottles of wine. Having not talked to anyone in so long, and after essentially sitting in my own filth all week (well, I showered, but then I put Pjs back on) it felt insanely great to be out of the house again. I could talk and bullshit all I wanted to.

And yes, I got rather drunk, and in fact told the third person ever that I loved them, ((EDIT: actually the fourth. If I was Good Tom, I’d be quite insulted at how often I got left out of the count, but then again he’s probably just relieved!) via text message that I don’t remember sending, and which also quite frankly isn’t true, or rather as I texted the next day, I love them, but I don’t love them. I’m just going to miss them a fuckload. I also invented a new insult in the Twitterverse - “Asscunt”. I hope it’s going to take off. Yes, I drank far more than is healthy, but oh holy crap did I need a huge blow-out and some rants and raves. I’m having trouble having responsibility for the most basic parts of my life (I need a wife) so it totally makes sense to go out and be totally irresponsible, right?

A story from the night that has nothing to do with me but which was incredibly hilarious unfolded in front of me and Robyn. We noticed this guy sitting at the end of the bar looking around a lot and staring at us, and we thought he was Sam Farrow so we yelled out his name but he didn’t look, so we decided that there was something else seedy going on with him. Later a guy in a white pinstriped shirt came in with a girl in red, and the girl in red started talking to Sam-Lite. Next time we looked up, Sam-Lite was gone, and Red Girl was talking to some other random. I was ordering more wine at that stage, and so I got to overheard Pinstripe at the other end of the bar sending down drinks to Red Girl and Random. Then later, Pinstripe found himself a new friend in the form of a girl in a floral dress, who was there with Leather Jacket. In fact, Floral found herself between the two of them, with hungry suburban manhands all over her.

You can’t see Pinstripe’s roaming hands in those photos, but believe me, they were there. Icck. Keep it in the Hutt, please. Small bars are not good places for discretion.

And yes, anyway. Have I mentioned how much TV I’ve been watching? Carnivale (love it so much, sad it’s all gone now), Green Wing, Strangers with Candy, This Life, and more, I’m sure. I’m pretty sure I can’t remember how to stand up anymore, but I will need to find out tomorrow when I go into work. Oh also I have to pash 20 people before next Tuesday when I turn 28. Volunteers please? And my birthday dinner is on Saturday and we’re going to Karaoke afterwards, you should come along if you like that sort of thing. And um, I think that’s it for the night. It’s too cold to have my arms out from under my duvet any longer.