1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

• Worked for a not-for-profit
• Went to an Asian country that wasn’t Japan
• A whole bunch of sex-related stuff that I won’t go into detail about here
• Made bread by hand that rose!

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

According to last year’s post, my resolution was:

“As for my resolution this year, it’s pretty simple. I resolve not to sleep with any more workmates, married people or close friends. I think that’s pretty self-explanatory. I also stole Jason‘s resolution to read more books, and there are things I’d like to do, like walk to/from work at least half the time, and take lunch to work at least two times a week, and restrict buying coffee to twice a week at the maximum. But those aren’t such strict resolutions, if you know what I mean. Actually, I have set myself a 11 in ’11 challenge with a whole bunch of stuff I’d like to do.

I didn’t sleep with any more workmates! Congratulations to me! The results of my 11in11 are also tallied up on that page – I did pretty well at it.

For 2012, I set myself some 12in12 challenges. I also resolved to renew my driver’s license, like my job, only sleep with people who like me, and shoot a gun.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No one particularly close to me, no.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No.

5. What countries did you visit?

I went to Thailand with Karen, and we also spent eight hours in Sydney.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Once again, exactly what I said last year: “I’ll say it again – a relationship with someone who shouts it from the rooftops that they are in love with me.”

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

August 8 –  I started my amazing temporary job at the not-for-profit after being made redundant from SilverStripe. Also December 18, for the reasons detailed in this entry.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting through unemployment without losing my mind, and ending up doing a really great job for an organisation that I really cared about, where I felt like I made a difference.

Also, getting over the date rape. And fostering cats was really rewarding despite the heartaches.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I had finally started to not give the married man much thought at all, and was going on with my life and was able to hope that he had a happy life, when a bunch of stuff happened, and he sent me accusing emails, and fucked things up further with a friend of mine, and now I have the rage back. And I know that I’m not nearly as entitled to the rage as his wife is, but arrrgh. It bubbles up inside me and the fact that I am still so angry after three years, well, argh. It’s a failure on my part, because while he’s the pathological liar, I’m the crazy one.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I had a long-lingering cough that was pretty shit, and took a lot of sick days from my new job because it’s a sick building. I don’t have any STDs though, hurray!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My iPhone, early in the year, which luckily was largely subsidised by my work.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Kim, who is always logical and calm and non-judgemental. My other princesses. The staff and volunteers at the Wellington SPCA. Everyone who adopted my foster cats. Kason for the Parks & Recreation birthday dinner they made me. Rosie for the amazing cleaning she does for me.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

My old boss who took away all my access rights and responsibilities because I made a spelling mistake. The people who voted in National again. All the people who made Slutwalk necessary. People who thought that others knowing I’d slept with them was OMG THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD EVER. Everyone who continues to hang out with anyone I don’t like, because I don’t understand why they’re not shunned and driven out of town.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Same as last year – booze, debt servicing, and living by myself. Also, Webstock ticket, unemployment, dentistry and a really expensive trip to Thailand.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The trip to Thailand, #GGG (GossipGirl and Gin and Girls), our amazing New Year’s at Raumati, some really really amazing sex I had, cats, and ummm I think that’s about it.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Two songs – ‘Friday’ by Rebecca Black, cos Kirsten and I played it every Friday at SilverStripe, as part of our “Bad Music Fridays” which were a lot of fun, and also, ‘Someone like you’ by Adele, because I used to come home drunk and play it over and over again and think that if my two exs would just listen to that song, they’d understand everything. But of course they wouldn’t.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

I am fatter, probably happier and poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I wish I’d done more physical moving. I can feel my body atrophying. I do so love to dance, I wanna do that more.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Wasting even one second thinking about the married man. Letting my old boss get to me. Dry-retching thinking about the date rape. Spending money without realising I was going to be laid off.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

As per tradition, I spent the morning with Tom and Keith, eating croissants and drinking very boozy lemonade, and then I strolled down to BAMJI’s, for Family Xmas. I was rather drunk, and my mother told me to stop swearing, which made me swear more. We watched DVDs of our old super8 family movies, and it was lovely.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

I probably messaged Kim the most, and spent a lot of time online chatting to Jo. No phone calls.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Nope. Had a good crush though.

23. How many one-night stands?

If we’re only defining it as at night, and for one night only, then two and a half. If we include nooners, then that’s another three, I guess. And some others who I saw more than once. I had a busy little beaver. I also went on dates (ACTUAL DATES!) with three people, two of whom I’d already slept with.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

PARKS AND RECREATION! So glad I got all my friends into it (to the point where Kate and Jason made me an amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing Parks and Rec themed birthday dinner. It was so good I cried and they were like O_o). Also continued to love It’s Always Sunny, enjoyed Gossip Girl in the context of GGG, Revenge was the most perfect trash ever, and Homeland was like woah.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Yeah probably. Also disappointed in a number of people, but it’s been really freeing to just decide that oh yeah, they’re not actually worth bothering about.

26. What was the best book you read?

I’m going to say Rivals by Jilly Cooper, which was exquisite trash and perfect for #Raumatirumble. I loved having Laura quote lines of it at me about people’s bushes.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I have continued to be more about individual songs than actual whole albums, so I don’t think I can claim any discoveries.

28. What did you want and get?

An iPhone, some new jobs after I got laid off, and laid.

29. What did you want and not get?

To stay in a job for a year, to have a relationship and to get out of debt.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I saw one movie at the cinema, and that was Hanna, in Sydney. I fell asleep during a chase scene. But as far as movies I saw for the first time, I fucking LOVED Cabaret.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 31 and celebrated with a full-on birthday week. On my actual birthday, I drove to Martinborough with Tom and Heather, where I’d rented a nice house with a spa pool. Some of my workmates and Keith came up, and we got very very very drunk. I also had the amazing Parks & Rec meal cooked for me by Kate & Jason, and also a big dinner at Namastey, and afterwards I went to Mermaids with Tom and Rachel and got a lapdance. Awww yeah.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Not getting laid off – or getting to stay at the not-for-profit instead of it just being temporary.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

I don’t think I had any style actually.

34. What kept you sane?

The Lovehawks, Princess Camp and Twitter. Also, Jo’s support during my career struggles. <3

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

James Deen (NSFW)

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

The general election. Ugh.

37. Who did you miss?

I got to a point where if I didn’t see my princesses at least twice a week I missed the fuck out of them.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Laura, without a doubt. I also met some other awesome new people via Twitter.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:

Fuck the haters. You don’t have to put up with that shit. Oh also: it’s really easy to find really good sex – as long as you don’t want good conversation as well.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I’M A MOTHERFUCKING MONSTER!”

I need to be very clear here – at no point did I say no. I didn’t have a chance to. But at no point did I say yes either. When he had me pinned down, if I had been able to move at all, I could have tried to push him off – but I was terrified that if I tried, he still might not stop, and that would turn it into a whole different situation. I had friends in the next room, and while it was one thing for them to have to hear me having good sex, I didn’t want them to hear me having bad sex. And I was in shock, believing that this was what I’d been asking for. He stayed in my bed for a while after that, dragging my hands down to his cock repeatedly, continuing to touch me. I opted for a “I’m trying to sleep” approach, sliding across the bed, too hot to hide under the covers but just hoping that he’d leave, which he did eventually, sheepishly mumbling goodbye as he stumbled out.

I spent the rest of the day pretending like nothing had happened, apologising to my friends who were staying for all the noise, and making jokes about how fucked up my hair was. “He was clearly right-handed” said my friend as she took a photo of my hair from the back. Turns out that a guy continuingly shoving your head down to his dick and then later pinning you down makes it pretty hard to comb your hair out afterwards.

(That’s not the first time I’ve posted that image on Hubris. The first time I described the guy as “kind of pushy”. Back in January I was still determined not to talk about it or to acknowledge it really. But y’know what? No.)

On the Sunday afterwards, I went to Xmas Dinner with the Lovehawks, and I told them the story, trying to frame it in a “hey, isn’t this funny, ha ha, oh you should have seen my hair, hilariousness” kind of way, because I’m one of those douchebags who uses humour to deal with things that they’re not okay with.  But of course they saw through my false bravado, and were like “You know, that sounds kind of rapey”. And there it was. There was the word that I’d not wanted to use. For months I would cling to the ‘y’ on the end there, before my counselor asked me how else I would define sex without consent. But I am skipping ahead of myself.

The next day someone asked me in that nudge nudge wink wink kind of way how my Friday was, and told me everyone knew what I’d been up to. That made me sick to my stomach and I couldn’t stop crying, so I rushed home to hide, which made for a really awkward conversation with my manager, who was really concerned about me but I didn’t want to tell him what was going on. I was supposed to be having lunch with Iva who I hadn’t seen in years, so she came over instead, and my first introduction to her boyfriend was for him to hear me talking about what had happened, trying to be calm. After they left I was still shaken, and another friend came over to see if I was okay. She held me while I cried some more, and then helped me compose an email to the guy telling him that what he did was not okay.

“I think it’s important to let you know that I was uncomfortable with some of the things that happened on Friday night. I’m not sure what you’ll do with this information, but you need to know that it left me feeling more than a little upset. I had a lot of fun before we went to sleep, but that doesn’t mean it was okay for you to wake me up by forcing your dick into my mouth again. I didn’t say no at the time, because I was pinned down, but I didn’t say yes either. And that’s not okay.”

I held off on sending it for a couple of hours while I thought about it, wondering if I should escalate the situation or not, or if I should just accept that sluts like me eventually get what they deserve, and I should just fucking deal with it. And I knew that thinking like that made me a bad feminist, and the fact that I lacked the fortitude to stop it happening when it happened made me a bad feminist, and that thinking there was such a thing as a bad feminist also made me a bad feminist. Eventually I pushed the send button though, after tracking down a non-work email address for him.

I went out to dinner that night with Kate Benton who I hadn’t seen in years, and it should have been amazing because that’s when I found out she and Rob were engaged. Instead I could hardly open my mouth, I was spacey and shaken, terrified thinking about what the response to my email would be. And also, I was feeling dreadful for having sent it. It would have been a hell of  a thing to receive. I felt awful for the way that I was with Kate and Rob and Jess, that I was too wrapped up in my own shit to celebrate properly with them, or be responsive in any way, and I didn’t want to talk about my own life at all, which until then had been going pretty great. And so I got home to his reply. He was shocked, apologetic, and thought he had behaved like a dog. I cried some more, and wasn’t sure how to respond. I ended up getting my ex boyfriend to help me with my wording. For someone who works in communication, it was particularly frustrating to find myself so short of words to express myself.

I decided that unlike the time that I was assaulted when I was 14, this would not be something I felt the need to bottle up and keep secret, so I spoke about it openly with my friends when I felt it was appropriate. That was a hell of a learning experience. One girl said “Oh, if you’d done self-defense courses, you’d have been able to push him off”. Oh, is that so? Cos what I really needed was another way to think about what I had done wrong. Thank you so much! That was the tipping point with her, and she was gone from the people I cared about. When I told another friend, she asked me how much I’d had to drink and went back to talking about her work. I switched off then too. I was reminded of a friend who when I’d told back in 2006 that a taxi driver had tried to grab me in his cab was like “well, were you flirting with him?”. No, and even if I had been, that still wasn’t okay. Others tried to move off the subject as soon as possible. My silence was their comfort. I found myself wondering if some of the uneasiness some of my male friends displayed was due to them questioning if they’d ever done a similar thing and hadn’t realised it. I think that I made jokes about it also was disconcerting for some, but that’s the way I process and handle. At times I felt guilty for talking about something that was hard for people to hear, but I didn’t know what else to do. I found myself telling people I didn’t really know about it, because I needed somewhere to put it. I couldn’t keep it inside.

Outside of the mostly safe place with my friends, when I had to have interactions with him, my body would tense up, and I’d spend time dry retching afterwards. My work suffered and I got in trouble for making stupid mistakes. I thought about leaving but reminded myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I started reading his twitter feed, stalking like a crazy person, looking for any sign of remorse or an indication that he wasn’t having an easier time of it. I drank more and laughed louder when he was around.  There was a lot of arguments on the internet at the time about Julian Assange, and a lot of people who I thought I respected going off onto CIA plots, and talking about how sex without a condom doesn’t mean rape, and every single thing I read about it made me feel worse, and like I had less credibility. And I was terrified thinking about the next time I slept with someone, wondering whether or not i’d be able to handle it, if I’d freak out, and if I’d ever be able to enjoy giving blow jobs again.

As it happened, I ended up getting drunk and going home with a female friend of mine, who said she wanted to give me a safe experience to help me move past it. For the most part, it was lovely, and positive. But I still couldn’t get over it. And strangely, I started worrying about him as well. I doubted that he had the same kind of amazingly caring friends that I had who would sleep with him to help him work through it. I didn’t know if he’d told anyone at all. And I wondered if he thought it was just an “oops, my bad!” situation that could be easily overcome, that hadn’t had any lasting damage. I wished that I’d said more in my initial email to him, but wasn’t sure if it was fair to bring it up again. I ended up messaging him at 4 in the morning asking if he wanted to go get a coffee sometime and have a chat. “I’d rather we just talked on email” came the reply. I felt shut down, and angry. I was trying to be good about this but I was not okay. So I went to see my counselor again.

I hadn’t seen her in over a year, and so I felt a little defeated going back, although I know I can go see her any time I need maintenance. So I cried in her office and we had intense discussion about semantics. As always, she suggested that I examine myself the way that I would a friend, because I am too hard on myself. If I heard about someone pinning one of my friends down and forcing their cock down their throat, how would I feel? I’d feel like fucking killing them. She suggested that I might have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when I told her about having an anxiety attack in the dentist’s chair as I was held down and stuff done to my mouth by the dental hygienist. I failed to articulate to her that I know that he didn’t mean to have sex with me against my will, but because I didn’t consent that’s exactly what happened. She said that I was being too nice to him, that I shouldn’t be so worried about his comfort because he clearly hadn’t been worried about mine, and that I was well within my rights to send him another email, if I thought it would help me.

I asked if you wanted to go get coffee, with the intention that we’d talk about, like, music, or movies, or pop culture, or pretty much anything at all that was just casual conversation and nothingness, but I didn’t explain that properly. I said I wanted to “normalise”. What I meant is that I wanted it to be different from how it is right now when every time I have to be in the same room with you, I tense up and I get panicky. I know you didn’t set out to violate me, and that you are sorry that I felt that way, but the truth is that I’m not over it, and I’m not okay.

I struggled with whether to tell you this or not, because I wasn’t sure if it would help me at all, but the not talking about it isn’t working, and I need that to change. I’m sure that you were shocked when I emailed you to tell you how unokay I was about being pinned down, but did it have an impact on you beyond that at all? Like, did you even give it a second thought ? Did it make you question the way you live your life? Worry about how you will deal with people in the future? Stir up a whole fucking bunch of assault trauma that happened in the past that you thought you’d dealt with? Because that’s what’s happened to me.

And yes, it’s been a couple of months, and no, I am still not over this. And I don’t know what to do about it. I do want to normalise, I want to be comfortable around you. I hate that I can’t offer a solution, that all I am presenting is a problem. Maybe there’s nothing that can be done about it but time. I know we weren’t really friends before we slept together, and I don’t expect that we’ll ever become so, but I hope you understand why I need to say these things instead of being bottled up and seething with useless rage. I don’t have the solution now, and I don’t know when I will, and while I’ve tried to express or at least sumarise everything that I’m feeling right now, there’ll probably be new emotions later that I haven’t dealt with. Like I said, I don’t know how you feel about this – or if you’ve even thought about it lately, but I’d really like to know – do you have any ideas on how I (and you) could feel better about what happened?

His reply was really good, and considered. He asked me a couple of questions which were totally okay to ask, and we agreed that time would be the best way to heal, and I said that I was going to move on. Rather than focus on what had happened, I tried to make plans for the future. When I finally got a chance to talk to the married man about it – the only person I’ve ever slept with in which every single thing I did I absolutely wanted to do, rather than feeling a sense of obligation or whatever – once he was done offering to get his friends to beat the shit out of the guy, he made the good suggestion that the next time I slept with someone, I should tie them up in order to feel more comfortable. That’s exactly what I did when I met a guy from OKCupid and took him home. I explained that I didn’t like having hands on my head while I was sucking cock, and that actually, I’d like to tie him up.  Success!

I went to Slutwalk, in the dress I was wearing the night of the party, and was interviewed by Radio New Zealand about it. I thought the march was great but had to leave during the speeches because they were too much. Mad props to Jason and Kate for being there.

Time passed and the memory faded somewhat. Eventually the guy was leaving for greener pastures, and since people were talking about him, it made me remember everything again which was really hard, although I wished him well. In the speeches, someone referenced the party, and everyone turned and looked at me and laughed. I was the punchline of a joke that actually wasn’t funny at all, and so I am super glad that Kelly was around for me to bawl and bawl and bawl onto. That shook me for days.

Time has helped a lot though. What’s also been incredibly healing was finding a dom and experiencing what consensual submissive sex is actually like. Discussing your limits beforehand and knowing you can change your mind at any time, and having someone be absolutely aware of how you are feeling while ostensibly treating you like a wet hole is really liberating. You’re actually in charge the whole time. I appreciate that this isn’t the solution for everybody, but it’s nice to know that rough sex doesn’t actually have to be the kind that leaves you traumatised for a year.

So what do we take away from all of this? Because it has to be a learning experience, right?

I guess most importantly, there is nothing as sexy as enthusiastic consent. Don’t ever presume anything in bed. Make sure your partner is really into it. And you or your partner can withdraw consent at any time.

If your friend tells you about a negative experience they’ve had, make sure you listen to them. Don’t judge them, or suggest other ways that they should have coped. They did whatever they needed to do in order to get through the experience at the time. Believe me – they’ve already worked over all the alternatives in their mind a thousand times. However they need to talk about it or act out afterwards is up to them.

And I hope that you never have something similar happen to you, but if you do, you need to remember that no matter what, it wasn’t your fault, and that there are many amazing people you can talk to about it. If your “friends” make you feel bad about it, find someone better to help you deal with it. Time helps a lot. It’s not a magic fixall though, and I’m still kinda choked up as I finish this off, but at least it’s done now.

I found out that Posie got adopted, but that the family who were going to adopt Milo aren’t going to now.

I discovered a use for my crate full of records using them to tie to the door handle of the spare room so that Milo can’t keep escaping and running around everywhere all night long. I didn’t get a lot of sleep.

Instead of hanging out with my girls, today I sent text messages to two guys I’m sleeping with, one guy I want to sleep with, and one guy that I used to sleep with. I did not, however, go for the easy solution of shutting my brain off through fucking, so that’s something.

I ate pasta with asparagus, feta and salami, drizzled with expensive olive oil, but I didn’t do the dishes.

I read the annual report belonging to my current organisation, but had to pass on doing the final proofreading of the annual report I did for my last job because I’ll be in Induction all day tomorrow and won’t have a lunchbreak.

I don’t have a lot to say today because I am exhausted and have rubbed tiger balm into my very soul pretty much, but I wanted to keep up with this thing of updating every day. I hope it was worth it to you.

• Turned 31, celebrating with a weekend away in Martinborough and also a dinner at Namastey then more booze and lapdances.
• Ate a lot of Malaysian food and reviewed it.
• Got restructured out of a job. Cried a lot.
• Went to Thailand for a week and had the most fabulously lazy holiday ever. I was going to write it up but I am too lazy. Here are pictures of it though.
  

  At Kata Beach Resort, cocktails were served IN PINEAPPLES. Fried rice was served IN PINEAPPLES. Ice cream was served IN PINEAPPLES.

• Came back to the (temporary) job of a lifetime at a not for profit that will remain nameless on account of how they are awesome and probably don’t need to show up in search results along with me talking about my vagina all the time, but needless to say they are centred around animal welfare and while I worked there as their Marketing & Communications Manager I was always covered in cat hair and puppy slobber and surrounded by the most dedicated passionate people I have ever worked with. It was also amazing in that it made me feel really competent and that I was helping to make a difference. I miss it like crazy and it’s only been two weeks.
  

  Arthur and I. You should adopt him, he's lovely. Anji took this picture.

• Started fostering cats.
• Had a bunch of sex with an assortment of people. Not at the same time though. I also have a mad crazy crush on someone, but they are not someone I am sleeping with, sadly. Except of course that when I really like someone, I find it hard to think about sleeping with them, because I respect them too much.
• Made an bedroom wall installation called The Plate Project. It’s a combination of Trixie Delicious and Tracey Emin.
  

  The first picture of the Plate Project. Not pictured: 2011's entries.

• Got a permanent job at a government department
• Became really good friends with Laura Hungry & Frozen and also her Tim. This has led to me eating lots of great things. Also some tasty food. HEYO!

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

• Lived by myself in my very own house
• Went to the emergency vet in the middle of the night
• Ran my own business
• Got my first filling
• Worked for a company that got slash-dotted!
• Appeared on television as an expert in a certain field (Wellington mayoral campaigns)
• Slept with a workmate
• Organised a very successful bach trip away with friends.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

According to last year’s post, my resolution was:

“My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

I was very very dreadful at this. Well, I got better at standing up for myself at work, both in terms of actual work, but also just in my 3 month contract standing up to the dreadful racism, misogyny and general ignorance in the office.  There was a thing at the end of the year though, in which I was unable to say no at the time, but I was able – with the help of good friends – to make it clear in no uncertain terms afterwards that what had happened was not okay, so I’m pretty proud of that.

Oh, I also said that my resolution last year was to try roller skating once. I didn’t. It was too much of a pain to get out to Kilbirnie after work.

As for my resolution this year, it’s pretty simple. I resolve not to sleep with any more workmates, married people or close friends. I think that’s pretty self-explanatory. I also stole Jason‘s resolution to read more books, and there are things I’d like to do, like walk to/from work at least half the time, and take lunch to work at least two times a week, and restrict buying coffee to twice a week at the maximum. But those aren’t such strict resolutions, if you know what I mean. Actually, I have set myself a 11 in ’11 challenge with a whole bunch of stuff I’d like to do.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t think so. My flickr stream is flooded with pictures of babies, but I’m pretty certain they were all circa 2009. Smack me if I’m wrong.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No. But someone that people I care about cared about did, and that was a bit weird, especially when Facebook kept suggesting that I should friend her. Too late.

5. What countries did you visit?

When I found out that I got my current job, Karen and I planned a trip to Tonga, but then the price went up by $800, so we went to Samoa again instead.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

I’ll say it again – a relationship with someone who shouts it from the rooftops that they are in love with me.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

June 29 – I moved out of Balmoral Terrace in Newtown where I’d lived for the past two and a half years. September 20, I started my new job. October 9, I got possession of my very own flat.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting a job that I both love and am very good at. I really like the people that I work with, and most of the time I feel like I have a lot to contribute.

It’s also really important to me that I am close again with people who have played major roles in my life before. Some of those friendships are precarious and teeter a little, but I will continue to work at them.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Given that I’m making the most money I ever have, my finances should not be in such dire straits. Also, that whole going on Yaz to sort out my PMS and then it making me worse than ever was a pretty big failure on the part of my reproductive system.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

The Yaz made me sick. Also, Sebby got beaten up. And oh, the Madder Badder Flu that I got after Tom’s party that knocked me on my ass for a couple of weeks was totally dreadful.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

It’s not a single purchase, but the decision to get a flat by myself was fucking brilliant.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The wonderful people who supported me as So Content, my amazing manager who hired me and has dealt with me being slightly mental and who is super protective and encouraging, the lovely feminists of the internet who fought the good #mooreandme fight as well as all the other usual battles that exist, my family for their help in moving, and the Lovehawks for providing me with a second home.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

That place I worked for three months. My ex landlady who thought it was okay to make me pay $900 for cleaning. The tenancy tribunal who agreed with her. Assorted rape apologists on the internet. The National Party, as usual. The married man for what he did at the start of the year. The other thing that happened at the end of the year.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Booze, debt servicing, and living by myself.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Princess Camp because it came when I really needed it. Getting clients for So Content, and building up a reputation for knowing what I was talking about. Getting hired for a proper real job as Jo Hubris, not just a random ‘Joanna McLeod’ on paper. Getting my own flat. Going away for New Year’s with the Lovehawks. Kissing a boy again after pashing so many girls all year.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?

‘Run this town’ by Jay Z & Rihanna. I came very close to deciding that I needed to move the fuck out of Wellington at the start of the year, when the married man hooked up with another girl (not his wife) and Wellington was too small, and everywhere I went I was reminded of him, and the fucking terrible thing that I did and that he was, and all that. I wanted to run away and hide forever, but then we had Princess Camp and I was reminded that in this case, I’d done nothing wrong, and that actually, Wellington is my fucking city. I fucking run it. And I have my girls, and they have my back, and I ain’t going nowhere. I fucking love my princesses.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

I am fatter, happier and richer. That’s a good balance, right?

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I wish I’d done less shopping, and more saving money. I also wish I’d gone to see my counselor. I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I last talked to her. I tried to make an appointment during my last week of work but she was all full until now, and, as I hoped, I have dealt with it now.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

I probably should have drunk less, and done less shopping, given the financial suckiness of me right now.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

I had an International Sandwich Degustation with Karen and Bad Tom, and then BAMJI came over and we watched Buzzcocks.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

What is this phone thing of which you speak? I don’t call anyone ever anymore.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?

No.

23. How many one-night stands?

Two.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Still Mad Men, Community and Parks & Recreation.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Not hate hate, but there certainly have been a fair number of people who’ve made life more difficult than it needed to be.

26. What was the best book you read?

I really liked most of Player One by Douglas Coupland. The ending was a bit meh though, and it was mega depressing.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

We have Mac Airports at work so we can share our music collections, and also we have speakers anyone can control, so most of my music has come from my cow-orker Kirsten, who is into The Black Keys, Band of Horses and other such indie bands. I like it a lot.

28. What did you want and get?

A tropical holiday, a great flat by myself and a job I love.

29. What did you want and not get?

To clear my credit card and my financial debt to my parents.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Seriously, I’m not entirely sure I went to the movies AT ALL in 2010. Woah!

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my birthday I turned 30. I was working at Customs, and they didn’t know it was my birthday. I got my hair cut by a bad haircutter at a place near the building, and then in the evening I think I went to Le Metropolitan with my family.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

$200 more a week. That would have allowed me to have not felt like such a shut-in while I was on the dole, and now it would allow me to service my credit card debt AND save a little while still having a life. Also, I wish I hadn’t tried Yaz.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Dressy McDresserson. With lots of pillaging of Sue and Megan’s wardrobes. Lots of black eyeliner, and occasionally some dark lipstick, and lots of lasercut jewellery from SuperVery and Cupcakes and Mace.

34. What kept you sane?

Lexapro, Princess Camp, my manager at work who is a saint despite all his swearing, and all my dear friends,  Kim and Megan especially. <3

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Joel McHale, Alexander Saarsgard and Jon Hamm. There was a Jezebel poll to pick the sexiest man once, and it was impossible!

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Let me quote the Feminist Hulk here:

AS SURVIVOR, HULK DISTURBED BY ASSANGE COVERAGE. HULK GLAD WIKILEAKS EXIST. HULK SMASH RAPE SHAME. AT SAME TIME.

37. Who did you miss?

I got to spend lots of time with Kat & Kane and Heather this year, so I’m going to say Kate H who’s over there in Engerland. And Smoo once he moved out.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Via Kim, who I believe was the best new person last year, I met Kate & Jason & Brendan. They’re pretty sweet eh.  And most of the people in my office are pretty awesome too.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:

Moving in with your parents when you’re 30 is never a good idea, even if you need to save money and you’re only doing it for a couple of months!

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

“We gon’ run this town tonight. “

• For the past couple of months, I have been working at my new permanent job. It’s in the private sector, at a web company, and I’m their writer. There is cereal in the cupboard, and chocolate biscuits and many kinds of beer on Fridays. I am supposed to use Oxford commas in the work that I do for them, but they’re not the boss of my journal, so I can write whatever the hell kinds of lists that I like. Such as: the things I like about my job include my lovely manager, the jovial atmosphere in my team, the way the marketing girl and I have declared Friday afternoons to be Cheesy Music Time, I have a laptop and another screen, almost all my work can be done remotely if I needed, it’s in a good part of town and I love what I do. Oh yes, I am listing the superficial things, but oh my god, I get so much done! It is immensely satisfying to be able to write things and have them take effect that week – or sometimes that day. Fuck the public service, man. I’m still serving the public, but this way I’m actually effective.
• Having such a great job has been very beneficial to me because the last month has been absolute shitballfuckinghell. You know how the week before my period it always seems a little bit like the world is ending, even if I’m taking my lexapro and being good and all? Well my counsellor suggested last year that I should talk to my GP about talking to a gyno about going on The Pill to stop that, so in May, when I had to go in to see my GP for a Lexapro extension, I asked her to refer me to the public health system, which gave me an appointment with a gyno in OCTOBER. You’ll remember (or not) that my whole depression thing actually was kickstarted when I was 19 and went on Femulen for birth control, but of course, that’s a bit chicken-egg, because was it the drug or was it the circumstances around my relationship with Thomas that made me depressed? Etc. And then there were the MIGRAINES OF HEAD EXPLOSION DEATH when I was 22 and on Estelle35 to sort out my PCOS. So naturally I was hesitant. But after the very nice lady doctor had gone elbow deep in me (my cunt was all “what’s this? Who’s touching me? Am I supposed to enjoy this?” while her pushing on my stomach made it ache like I’d swallowed a gallon of semen or something), we thought that maybe Yaz could help me get the PMS under control. Turns out, not so much. I was on it for a month, and the entire time I wanted to cry every day and kill the world Oh, and I’ve had my period for 21 days now. Luckily now I am in the gyno system, I  could call up and talk to a nurse who had all my notes, and stop taking the pill on her advice, but I’m just so angry that I made myself feel so terrible for a whole month. Like seriously, if I didn’t have such a great manager and the ability to work from home, I don’t know how I could have dealt with it all. It was like a big reoccurance of depression again, except I could see how clearly it wasn’t actually based on anything in my life at all except for that fucking pill. Now I’m hoping it will get flushed out of my body ASAP. I have to go in again in January for another internal ultrasound, but I don’t know if I’m going to risk any pills again. The nurse rang me today to see if I needed another form of birth control, and I was all “no no, I’m a condom girl anyway”. How sweet of her to actually think I had an actual sex life. For the record, even though I have a super comfy brand new bed, I don’t. Actually,  my bed is so damn comfy I am never sharing it again.
• As well as a new bed, I have a new house ALL TO MYSELF in Mt Vic. It is glorious. I call it Casa Sans Hosen. I can’t spell. I have a spare room so you should come and stay, like Heather and like Kat & Kane. I’ll wear pants for you if you’d like, providing you give me enough notice.
• Clearly I have sucked at keeping this journal updated, but we don’t need to go over each and every thought I’ve had. But to sum things up, the Yaz has made me angry all over again about that married man, even though that’s coming up on two years. And I’ve been hanging out to Thomas again lately which is really nice because it is reassuring to know that there are people who will always know you and it’s nice to see the ways you’ve grown. And I saw Good Tom the other day which was lovely although the circumstances were horrible, and holy crap I miss the fuck out of that boy.
• I will update more often with more pithy updates, okay? Yes.

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.

Many of the things that I expected to happen did

Sisters dressed up to party

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.

Karen as Barbarella, me as Beth Ditto

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 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:

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

Case in point – the lovely Amy – formerly a Wellingtonista PAG and now a blogger in her own right – and I have started a new website about girlie things. We’ve decided to have Make(Up/Over/Under) Mondays as well when we try out new beauty products, so you should come and play with us.

In very very very exciting news, Kat and Kane are coming down on Thursday night, and we’re going to the wrestling to see “New Zealand’s Sexist Masked Man” on Friday night. I can’t wait to see them again, it’s been far too long. And I have a backlog of ‘Rock of Love’ episodes to watch with Kat, not to mention the finale tonight. Exciting! When Season II starts, I’m going to recap it like I did ‘Rockstar’. That’s how much I love it.

But I don’t love it as much as I love ‘My So-Called Life’, which I have been devouring eagerly in the privacy of my own bedroom. It still makes me cry because I can remember how strongly I identified with Angela. And how hot is Jordan Catilano? Daaaaaaaaamn! It makes sense to me now. I was watching TV the other day and decided to be mean to Smoo, so I was all po-faced “I need to tell you something” and he was like blanched, and I was like “I think I’m kind of obsessed with 30 Seconds to Mars videos” and he was very relieved and I laughed and laughed. Anyways. What I am so loving about MSCL right now is the mcguffin that is Tino. Where did Rayanne get the Chinese food from? Tino. How did they know about the Buffalo Tom (so good!) gig? Tino. Etc. And I love that you never ever actually see him.

Today I stayed at home because I have a horrible head cold, and I got my work emailed home to me, but then I fell asleep on the couch. Perhaps I’ll do some later. Right now there is a big pot of curry bubbling on the stove, but Smoo is at work, and George doesn’t want any because he’s on a health kick. That’s okay, that’s what the big freezer is for!

What else did I want to talk about? We had a wine quiz on Friday that went very well, and a Newtown pub crawl on Saturday that was low-key, but fun as well. Then dinner with the family at the Med Warehouse on Sunday. The service was atrocious, the pizza was good. There’s wrestling coming up, and Webstock Mini (yay!), and hmm, I dunno, other stuff. I need to get more work done at work, but I am keeping on top of life in general. And that is a good thing.

And now I gotta go, cos Tino’s coming over to bring me a panda.

These are the things on my mind right now:

• Getting together the rest of the swag that I’m responsible for and then putting together the swag-bags for the GirlGeek Dinners tomorrow night.
• Speaking about my career at the dinner tomorrow night. You know, that career.
• Much much much paperwork at work that I have not done because I’ve been worrying more about the Big Picture
• The small remaining details of the Big Picture at work which seem to have no end.
• My assessment at work tomorrow. The predicted verdict: it would probably be helpful if I was at work more often. And more paperwork needs to get done. Which is where the ability to get out of bed would be nice.
• All the things that I should be doing to enable me to get out of bed a little easier, but because I’m not doing them I don’t feel like I’m entitled to go and talk to a counsellor about it, and so it goes.
• The creative projects that I have bubbling over in my head right now. I need my next paycheque so I can proceed with these. Or at least with the domain names
• The neglecting of all my current projects in favour of staying in bed/lying on the couch staring at the TV
• Social things coming up like KateH and Heather coming down, and the Wairarapa Harvest Festival, all of which I am looking forward to, but which will require me to be peppy and functional.
• Ideas kicking around in my head for a sorely-needed work function to build inter-team bonds
• The many many bills that I need to pay.
• The many errands that need to be run – getting a new prescription, taking the microwave in for fixing, getting my warrant. I need a PA to coordinate this kind of shit. Essentially, I’m just so fucking tired of having to take responsibility for my own life. Not in like, a mortal way. I just wish that someone would make me up in the morning, and give me a coffee, tell me what I was going to wear that day, and drive me to work. Then they could pick me up via the supermarket where we’d buy vegetables that I’d eat, make sure Sebastian has flea treatments, and tell me when my schedule’s overlapping so that I don’t overbook myself. Even just a couple of days with someone working like that for me would be great. I don’t understand how it is that people manage to function all the time with looking after themselves. I would like to book myself a couple of nights at a house in the country, but I can’t take time of work until we’ve launched and that’s settled and oh, nuts, it’s just all errrrrrrgh.

But it’s funny though, if you talk to me, if you see me, I will be doing my very best to pretend that none of this is going on. Or I will pick one thing, and roll my eyes about it, and make some lame joke. Last week one of my friends I hadn’t seen in ages told me that she was making more of an effort to say no to people, so I decided for my homework I’d try to say no at least once over the past week. Instead I seem to have picked up more projects and things to do. Maybe I am on the wrong medication. Maybe I should go back on fluoxetine so I can think about nothing instead of thinking about everything. But I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I failed today at going for a swim (my body is aching from doing nothing because my mind is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love functioning properly) and also at cleaning the bathroom and kitchen. But at least I have the Mighty Boosh on divx to watch. And Australia’s Next Top Model was on last night, exciting! Not to mention hundreds of episodes of The Simpsons which are very handy for sleeping through.

I think I love you. Can it please be Webstock every day? Even if we would all die from over-knowledging, over-caffinating and over-drinking?

I got home today sometime after 5pm. It’s been a hell of a week. I will update more when I have napped.

• The Innovation Workshop
• Day One
• Day Two

The Innovation Workshop

My first Webstock twitter (The WS is to send it to the Webstockbo so that everyone subscribed could read it): ” Ws I am late for my Scott Berkun workshop. I find nothing innovative about mornings! “

Despite having stressed out about the bus being late, I stopped off at the Dixon Street Deli for coffee, before heading off to the Town Hall to check in. The lovely Jeff was on the door, which is always a good way to start, and things got even better when I was handed my webstock bag. So sexy! And so filled with intriguing things! I took my bag and my coffee upstairs, and found Amanda waiting in the foyer for the workshop to begin. I flicked my way through the brochure, marveling at the beautiful design of it all, and tried to figure out what talks I wanted to go to. And then the workshop began, and things came alive again.

I should say here that I had been having a really rough couple of weeks at work and in my life in general. This is why there’s been no updates on Hubris. Moving proved to be such a stressful experience that I stopped going to the gym and stopped taking my meds properly. It was of course that stupid downward circle spiral that I periodically get stuck in. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t functioning, and that coupled with the rather large project that I’ve been struggling with at work, and how hard that’s been to launch has made me pretty despairful. Before Webstock began I forced myself to fill my pill box properly, so that I could go back to 30mg instead of 20, and so yes, there’s that working in my favour again. That said, Scott Berkun was so fucking amazing that even if I hadn’t been on my proper dosage, I still would have had my world utterly rocked.

He started out by showing us slides of things we see every day- big macs, arches, browsers, google, and an assortment of other things, and asked which of those we thought were innovations. Then he explained how they all were, and that every successful innovation will eventually be taken for granted, and that its value may only be obvious after it has been created. He also suggested that if people are using the word innovation, it probably isn’t happening. I have pages and pages of notes that I don’t want to write out in full here (I’ll stick them on my work wiki though) but essentially, he talked about the process of innovation, and where things fall down. That was really great for me, because I was able to slot in my work project, and go “oh wow, apparently I’m not the only one who ever has any problems”. That sounds simple, but it has been really hard to see. He also mentioned that old “Genius is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration” saying, that you would normally expect to see on the poster of some lame cow-orker, but it didn’t sound trite or cliched from him, it sounded like the truth. Oh yes, perhaps I am buying into a cult here or something, but it was just SO GREAT.
@johubris says <3 the branding, <3 the sandwiches and most importantly am feeing good about my big project again! 10:34 AM February 12, 2008

I was sitting at a table with Amanda and with Mike Brown and Anna and Belinda from SPARC, so it was nice to know people around me. I was introduced to Kris, and it turns out that he’s the brother of the guy I work with. Small world! At one stage, we all had to contribute random words, and then we had to pick three and create a new company with them. We created Robert’s Ecoterrorist Adventures, it was awesome. And he made us come up with ideas for the worst cellphone in the world, so that we could work backwards from there to create a great product. Really nice ways of changing thinking.

johubris Ws the couches at the town hall are for napping on, right? Being re-enthused by scott berkun is FTW,but i’m so tired! 12:54 PM February 12, 2008 from txt

At morning tea we had rolled sandwiches and friands. There were mountains and mountains of friands, but the sandwiches ran out quickly. They were mighty tasty though. At lunch we had a buffet that had the added distinction of having a written-out menu by the plates. It’s always nice to know what you are eating. I mention this because everyone who went to Webstock in 2006 talked about the food. And also because I like to talk about food. The conference rooms were nice because they were old, and stately, instead of being all bland like you might expect. I wrote pages and pages and pages of notes. Scott asked if anyone was having a bad day, and I didn’t raise my hand, but when he asked if anyone was having a bad week, I did. He got the whole room to applaud me and then asked me what story I wanted him to tell. Awww. Thanks Scott! Not just for the applause, but for just the sheer awesomeness of it all. Without transcribing all my notes it’s probably really hard to express just how inspiring the talk was, so I suppose you’ll need to take my word for it, or check out his work yourself!

johubris ws I wish it was Webstock tomorrow, and that I didn’t have to wait until Thursday for more awesome learning and company! 09:26 PM February 12, 2008 from web

The conference proper

Again, I was running late, but I stopped to get coffee anyway, not quite realising that the lovely Peoples’ Coffee people would be making free coffee all day long (we asked, and one of the charming baristas said his record was drinking 30 double espressos in one day. Woaaaaaah). I found a seat for myself at the back and chuckled at the Pulp Fiction soundtrack pumping over the sound system to hype up the crowd. Mike Brown did the introduction, showing a photo of CJ and the end of this series of twitters:

• Jo Hubris: I have two dates on Valentine’s Day. But they’re both work-related. At least there’ll be booze at Webstock, right?
• Maupuia: @johubris oh hell yes there will be booze! 12:08 PM January 10, 2008 from web in reply to johubris Icon_star_empty
• Ceej75: @maupuia and there better be hotties cos its v day!
  12:14 PM January 10, 2008 from web in reply to maupuia
• @ceej75 there will be enough alcohol that everyone will seem a hottie 12:21 PM January 10, 2008 from web in reply to ceej75

Hehe!

Nat Torkington

I’ve never met Nat before, or read anything of his work, but I’ve heard a lot about him (mostly because I’m jealous I didn’t get an invitation to Foo Camp), so I was really interested to hear what he might talk about. And now I know a whole lot about the Crimean War. My only note from his session is “www.overcomingbias.com”, so I suppose I really should look up this site. What amused me the most about his talk was that for some reason he’d chosen to use some really weird font for his presentation, and hadn’t checked it, so half the letters didn’t show up. Despite that, he was a great presenter, and I was really interested in what he had to say. Even if I’m not entirely sure what it was now that there have been so many talks on top of his. Oh, looking at the book, he was talking about the past as a way to predict the future. That makes sense.

Molly Holzschlag — Why Web Standards Aren’t

I work for the government, as you’re no doubt aware, so it is important for me that any sites that I work on conform to web standards,and that they validate (Hubris doesn’t validate, by the way, but that’s the flickr and twitter codes that fuck it up, as far as I’m aware). Other than that, standards really aren’t my area, so I admit to tuning out a bit during this talk. Molly was clearly very very passionate about it though, and CJ said that the Webstock IRC channel was lighting up during her talk because she was saying some controversial things. Awesome! And the line that I took away from it is that web standards isn’t validating like editing isn’t spellchecking, which is a fantastic simile for someone word-obsessed like me to understand.

After Molly spoke, it was morning tea time, with little sandwiches and mountains of mini sweet muffins. I caught up with CJ and Frances and looked around at the various booths set up by sponsors, deciding to investigate them further at lunchtime. And then, because I was trying to make sure I had a written-content focus, I went to see

Rachel McAlpine – Look Ma, no quills!

To be honest, I was rather disappointed with her presentation. I felt like it was a little bit all over the place, and didn’t really have a focus or direction. I did come away with a few tips, like that 20% of people have a low literacy rate, that only professional communicators are trained to communicate and that everyone else is just thrown in the deep end as we’ve moved away from blue collar work, and that you should check your work’s readability with a Flesch plugin.
johubris Ws dear webstockers, remember to get cash out at lunch to buy valentines for CJ and I at Craftstock! 11:25 AM February 14, 2008 from txt

Peter Morville – Ambient Findability and the Future of Search

My very first note from Peter is “Don’t throw away your org chart, but provide other options too”. Oh hell yes. I’ve struggled in past jobs looking after websites whose navigation has been built around the organisational chart, which makes little sense to anyone on the outside. I want everyone in the world to know that often isn’t a very good idea! He also used the line “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” which is so true. As our haystacks get bigger, how can we make bigger needles?

And then it was lunch. Mmmm lunch! I loaded up my plate and went and talked to Belinda and some nice people from the National Library. Someone was eating ice cream, and so I found my way to a freezer full of it, sweet little tubs from Kapiti. Mmmmmm! I had a big decision to make in regards to which talk I should go to after lunch, but luckily, I decided to go to:

Liz Danzico – The Framework Age

Damn! It was so fantastic! The idea behind it is that assorted Web 2.0 aps provide a framework for communities to grow off, like jazz music has a loose frame compared to that of classical music so there’s room for things to happen. She talked about social patterns, and hacking of public signs like the New York Subway (adding in “downtown” to train routes that don’t specify things), and oh, it was just so so wonderful. She brought all these random strings together and wove them into a beautiful tapestry, and I could have listened to her talk all day. But unfortunately, it was only 50 minutes long. I really need to look her up online and see if I can get more ideas out of her.
johubris Ws Liz is talking about how classical music leaves no room for participation. @ceej75 is man-hunting, @darren is playing bingo. WEBSTOCK IS SOFA KING RAD 01:47 PM February 14, 2008

Kelly Goto – Getting unstuck. Moving from Web 1.0 to 2.0

Kelly’s talk was all about ways of finding your “AHA!” moment, and moving into “the flow” when you’re just working on the highest possible level. She was a total bundle of energy, and was one of the many presenters who made me go “Damn, I want to be her when I grow up!”

Michael Lopp – Primal software development

Michael works for Apple, and he said that they don’t do secrecy – they do theatre, which made me laugh almost as much as when he asked how many people had iPhones, and when a whole bunch of people (like seriously, many many people) raised their hands he was like “hmmm, they’re not available here though…”. He had some good ideas about the types of people that you should have on a project team, although it did have a bit much of an American perspective – if you work for government, you don’t get to hire & fire really. But he had some great ideas about getting the job done.

Jason Santa Maria – Good design ain’t easy

I think this twitter sums up the awesome power of Jason Santa Maria:
Ws wow, for the first time since i was 18 i’m thinking design might be nearly as important as actual content! Go Jason! 04:47 PM February 14, 2008 from txt
His slides were beautiful, as was his idea that design tells a story. I learnt about the golden ratio of 1:1.618, and about the rule of thirds, and just marvelled at the pretty pictures. It made me happy to see Fray up on the screen cos it made me remember the olden days a million years ago of The Vision Project and how we wanted to be them.

And then, there was a fireside chat between Rowan Simpson and Sam Morgan. I liked that Sam admitted to ripping off many other people’s ideas and designs, but I was absolutely furious when he was talking about his micro-credit work, and said that they don’t lend money to men because the men would just drink and gamble it away. Way to move forward with helpful stereotypes! And he was so clearly a National supporter, and that made me bristle.

Then we had Powerpoint Idol, where presenters had to talk on a random assortment of slides, including lots of Lol Cats. Lol Cats were a reoccurring theme, of course. I liked the judging panel, of course.

And even more than the judging panel, I loved the cocktails upstairs, with Wellingtonistas selling crafts, and fun people to talk to. Eventually I went to the Phoenix Foundation with CJ and other assorted Silverstripers, and that was wonderful. We’d taken a Canadian we met (Hi Johnny!) along, and so I was like “here, the Phoenix Foundation is my country’s gift to you in exchange for the Arcade Fire”. It’s good to share. Wellington SO turned it on!

Day Two

Again, it was a rush to get there on time, and again, I opted to pick up coffee first, correctly anticipating huge lines at the Peoples’ cart. I found myself sitting at the back by myself again, but I knew by now that wasn’t a big deal, even if I did briefly have school cafeteria flashbacks over lunch with seating indecisions. But nevermind my ridiculous insecurities! On with the show!

Russell Brown – Creative Deficits & Publishing Realities

As a regular reader of Public Address, a lot of what Russell spoke about wasn’t new to me. He talked about Keith’s fisking of Deborah Codswallop, and other times when the community came together, and also about how it’s a site where commenters actually behave – at least most of the time. The part of his talk that took my interest the most was regarding online advertising, because that’s something we’re starting to give some serious thought to over at The Wellingtonista, because while we don’t want to be sell-outs, we would dearly love to have a proper site design and an entertainment fund. It’s just a question of how fifteen people who all have day jobs can walk the fine line between editorial independence and actually getting some ads on that don’t compromise our values. I need to have more conversations with Miss Biz and also Russell to resolve this.

Other interesting tidbits from Russell’s talk included the fact that 92% of New Zealanders don’t use RSS, and that he wants historical data and trends out of government websites. Another note that I have at the time was “I wonder how many of the audience here now are hearing impaired”, because for all the main speeches, there were wonderful signers standing at the side, signing away, and believe me, some of the speakers would have really made them work hard with the speed at which they spoke. Although of course, perhaps the signers were actually really crap, but I doubt it. One of the speakers did say out loud that he was wondering if he was being editorialised, but I can’t remember who that was. Anyway, I thought that was just another sign of how fucking awesome Webstock was, the way they were making it accessible, and I hope that the signers were videoed so they can be a resource as well.

johubris @verymiao Russell Brown is namedropping u (as Ball) in relation to his Webstock speech about moral panics about “bebo suicide cults”. Random! … … 08:59 AM February 15, 2008 from txt

Simon Willison – OpenID and decentralised social networks

I don’t use an OpenID logon, but I found this talk much more interesting than I expected, to be honest. I thought it would be very technical, but actually, it was a lot more about the ideas of trust, and perceptions of trust and who you feel comfortable giving your password to. This relates very very strongly to the GLS, and if you don’t know what that is, you probably don’t have to worry about issues of government and authentication. I wonder if there is a way to take the good work that people have done on OpenID and run with it. What I loved about Simon’s speech was the way he personified all that he was talking about, so that OpenID was like “Hi Simon!”.
johubris Ws I just refered to Webstock as ‘this festival’ rather than a conference, and that’s so true. So much love! 10:50 AM February 15, 2008 from txt

Then there was morning tea. CJ and I went and had our photos taken in the very sexy Verb.Ltd photo booth, and collected our robots, but apparently the photos of us were too ugly to go online, even though we hit the green button. That’s a shame, cos I thought they were damn cute. Ahh well.

Tom Coates – Designing for a web of data

johubris Ws Tom Coates saying “darter” instead of “dater” and using the word “thrusty” is reinforcing his cute hotness. 10:57 AM February 15, 2008 from txt

Your site is not your product. Your territory is anywhere your network touches. Tom’s presentation was really really lively, good looking (He said at the end he was using Gotham Rounded Bold, for the font geek in all of us) and he talked extensively about twitter, which is something that I get. Hurrah! Plus, he had such a jones for data, it was very endearing.

johubris If i was a dirty bitch, i’d say i wanted Tom Coates to open up MY ‘data source’. And i am dirty. 11:41 AM February 15, 2008 from txt

Luke Wroblewski – Web page heirarchy

What I love love loved about Luke’s talk was his many ‘Before’ and ‘After’ shots of websites that he’d worked on. It so clearly displayed how he’d made changes, and why. Although what I didn’t like about his talk was thinking in my mind about Hubris and the Wellingtonista, and how they could be a lot clearer than they are right now. Oh well!

Amy Hoy – Usability for evil

Amy used Hitler examples! Therefore, she wins! Also, the audience were the winners, because she was fricking hilarious, while still managing to be very informative and on-to-it. Did you know that ads work better if the pretty lady keeps some of her clothes on and is presented to the left? Well now you do! Although I do question whether New Zealanders turn right when they go into shops. I seem to always turn left. Is that to do with the way we drive on our roads?

Anyways, she talked about the five types of evil that can be done, and made me yawn by saying the word “yawn” (and now as I write this, I’m yawning again) and talked about emotional buttons to add things to orders. She was great. I am terribly terribly embarrassed that I only met her the next day, half wrapped in a towel, but I suppose that’s a story for later.

The 8×5 sessions

Mike took his clothes off and I filmed it, but I think other people took better videos. Sam Farrow from NZPA made me furious, as this twitter will demonstrate:
Ws apparently news 2.0 uses Comic Sans and stereotypical crime. DO NOT WANT! 03:01 PM February 15, 2008 from txt .

EDIT: I have explained myself quite badly here. Let me paste in an email I just sent off:

Thanks for your email. I think it was certainly more well thought-out than my hasty twitter deserved in response, but obviously my flippant remarks should be better explained.

On the subject of comic sans, well, I just have an irrational hate for it as a font, especially when there were some presenters who had some truly beautiful fonts. I didn’t get the self deprecation in it, which is no doubt my bad, I was probably far too tired and over-stuffed with ideas at that stage to be a very good judge of sarcasm or irony.

As for the idea of stereotypical crime – I suppose I had this idea that Webstock was this magical shiny happy land, where everyone was working together for the greater good, but your use of a South Auckland crime as an example reminded me of the many frustrations that I feel with mainstream media in general – especially the way that Maori and Pacific Islanders have their ethnicity pointed out when they commit crimes and Pakeha don’t. And yes, I know you didn’t use any ethnic identifiers, so it’s possibly my own biases showing through when I presume that you were talking about them when you refered to South Auckland. I’m going to also put a little of the reason for my hating on Sam Morgan’s throwaway comment from the day before about how they don’t give loans to men because they’ll just drink it away. Whether or not there’s statistical evidence that says more crimes happen in South Auckland or that men drink away loans, I don’t feel like it is particularly helpful to continue to say that, unless you’re specifically talking about ways to deal with those problems. I like the idea that we’re all likely to kill or drink away our money much better than targetting specific groups, so I wish that you had used a different example is all. But again, as a representative of the NZPA, you were copping the flack for all media in general, so look at that, I’m doing exactly the thing that I hate.

I’m really sorry if my post came across as a personal attack, and I’ll fix this up. It really wasn’t meant in that way. It was just some rough ideas tossed out into the wind that I obviously didn’t explain well enough. Thank you very much for taking the time to write to me about this, it’s much appreciated.

Jimmy Hendrix came out to play on a ukelale. I can’t spell. I like the idea of the 8×5 sessions, people covered a really diverse range of subjects. I just kinda wish that more women had volunteered to do them. That aside though, I really appreciated the number of women speakers at Webstock in general, and the number of women in the audience. I thought that was hugely encouraging and awesome.

Then Scott Berkun spoke again, and it was as awesome as his workshop. I enjoyed looking around the room at everyone whose energy had been flagging during the 8X5 because afternoon tea was delayed, and seeing them being woken the fuck up, as one twitterer put it. Fan girl squees all around. And then we got afternoon tea.

Damian Conway – Web 2.odium

I wasn’t a huge fan of Damian’s Powerpoint Idol presentation – I thought it was just too obvious to go for something on sex (yeah I know, right? Me saying that is weeeeeird), but his odium was fantastic. He took the point of view that we were elitists and we wanted to protect the web from the evil Morlocks by making it not accessible or proper (what’s a morlock? I must go look it up) so he gave us a list of 28 or so ways to fuck the web up. He used humour to teach! Just like those teachers that Edna Krabapple beat to Teacher of the Year! Except actually funny. And useful. I think no matter how brilliant everyone at Webstock was, they’re probably guilty of doing at least one of the naughty things on Damian’s list, so it was very useful indeed.

But oh man, it was a long talk, and it was already time for cocktails but we still had one more speaker to get through.

Kathy Sierra – Cognitive Seduction 2.0

There seems to be a bit of a strange cult around Kathy. The first I ever heard of her was when she was getting threats online so didn’t go to a conference, and it was really hard to get those thoughts out of my head when she was talking. Admittedly also, many of my thoughts were on the bar. It had been a loooooooooooooooooong day, and my brain was overflowing with thoughts. I did like that she suggested we should give users a “WTF???” button.

And then, that was that. It was all over! Or at least the talking part was. We were released out into the foyers where waitstaff circled with trays of drinks, and massive pyramids of seafood could be found. I made my way upstairs where it was quieter and easier to get wine, and found myself talking to the Silverstripe boys, CJ and Jonny again. It was fun, we talked and ate snacks and drank and good times were had. Finally around 9pm, the doors into the main hall were opened up again and we found ourselves in a totally transformed space:

So pretty! Thanks Google, I hearby pledge to do all my searching with you in exchange for that glorious dinner. Prizes were awarded, more speechifyings were made, and wine and conversation flowed. I was expecting a buffet-style dinner, but oh no, this was fully plated goodness. Behold my beef fillet on polenta:

That’s a terrible photo, I know. Did I mention the wine? And the dessert trays with lemon tarts, noughat and something else that was also delicious? I wandered around in between courses and afterwards, talking to people and embarrassing people who gave me stern “I’ll talk to you later!” eyes. I caught up with Brendan and also Mark, who I’d known online in Vision but didn’t realise was the same person when he did his 8×5. And then it was time to go to Vintage Bar for the after-party.

I love Vintage, it’s such a pretty bar. Lots of fun was had. I talked to people I haven’t talked to for a million years, without oddness. I made new friends in the bathroom. I talked to Keith Ng lots. I talked to an assortment of new people, and I’m not sure I could match all of their names to their faces. And then there was a kiss on the stairs, and I found myself going home with one of the key speakers of the conference, except by home I mean to the Museum Hotel. And here again we find evidence of the awesomeness of the Webstock planning people – Russell and everyone else might have complained about the wifi in the hotel, but daaaaaaaaaaamn it was a nice place. The bath was as big as my couch, so big in fact that I had to take a splash. I was brought pasta and wine in the bath. SO FUCKING RAD! Best choice of speakers ever, dear Webstock. People are fantastic. I have mad love for my flatmates at this stage too:

progcunt My flatmate is awol and we,re thinking of calling the police 11:05 AM February 16, 2008 from txt

Around 12pm, I got woken up by a knocking at the door, and figuring it was housekeeping I wrapped a towel around myself and went and opened it, hiding half behind the door because the towel wasn’t that big. Amy Hoy was standing there, and she was like “oooooooooh… have I got the wrong room?” and I laughed and said no, and she was like “well okay, do you guys want to come for lunch? Meet in the foyer at 12.30″. I was like sweet, and passed the message on, but then went back to sleep. It was a mighty comfy bed. I only woke up sometime after 4pm when Kat rang me to make sure I was okay. She wouldn’t have been so worried about me if she hadn’t bumped into Hadyn and Amy, who reminded her of my tendency to jump into the harbour at night. But anyways, I tried and failed to throw up discreetly, and went home to my Kat and my cat, both of whom were pleased to see me.

In conclusion: I LOVE WEBSTOCK! Greatest collection of people ever, superbly put together, so inspiring and invigorating, and just wow. I wish it was 2010 already…

But I don’t smoke pot anymore, of course, and man, I so fucking miss that. Did you see the parts in my journal in 1999 when I used to be in my pyjamas, and someone would call, and my flatmate would be in love with them so I’d put on my grandfather’s silk dressing gown and get driven across town to go smoke with them and then go home? Good times. I wish the world was that simple right now.

Yes I know that I am full of “oh I wish that things were still that way or that way or whatever it is that I want”. And yes, I realise that might make you think that I am unhappy with the way that things are right now. I wish I could write and explain the things that are causing me drama. I have layers of privacy written into this journal, and I could make posts on different levels, or write in different spaces, put in linked footnotes, or be really obscure, but I don’t want to do that. I wish I could tell you what I dislike about my job, very specifically, but I am reduced to saying “government can be a little bit slow-moving”. I wish I could tell you what the problem is with my homelife, but I will sumarise by saying that Kat and Kane are moving out in February to go to Tauranga to be nearer to Kat’s Mum, and you can’t argue with that. But oh yes, of course it doesn’t actually matter when they’re going, as much as I love them and will miss them so much, because oh yes, that’s right, I’m BEING EVICTED. They’re terminating the lease on this house that I love so much on February 3, so I will need to be gone, and find somewhere new. I left a note for Smoo telling him about it and saying that I hoped he would come with me when I set up a new house, because I love living with him, but he’s gone to Hamilton for Xmas, so I don’t know what he’ll say and I’m a little bit scared that he’ll be all like “oh you know what? Done our dash at this flat, time for me to move on”. But I suppose if that’s the way the road goes, that’s the way the world goes.

I am trying to be very calm and very philosophical about everything in my life right now. It does not help that I have failed to go to the gym for a couple of weeks, that my alcohol intake has increased exponentially with the season, that I can’t remember the last salad that I had, that there’s a full moon and most significantly that I am down to a pill a day, if that, because apparently it is far too too hard to find five minutes to cut them up and fill my seven-day box.

So there have been more than a few tear-bouts. Like when my car got towed from the carpark near work that I’d only parked in because I’d failed to sleep and was running an hour and a half late, and that was all the coins I had. I didn’t know who to call and I didn’t want to bother anyone with my drama, but as I later suggested to my counsellor, if anyone was in my position and they failed to call me, I’d want to punch them in the head because of course I’m always there for them (so I have resolved to treat myself like I’m actually my friend, so that I will see that I am actually important and special and deserving of cherishing and nourishment – the way I view my friends but have difficulty seeign myself). So yeah, I called Shirley, and cried and cried, and through a series of navigational mishaps, we ended up driving out to Petone. I had a big panic attack – or is it an anxiety attack – in her car. My heart rate went out of control, my entire body tensed up to the point where my left side felt like it was a heart attack, my flesh tingled, and I had the most disgusting metalllic taste in my mouth. I was more successful in fighting it because I was in someone else’s company than I normally would be. And we wen to the beach, and I stood ankle deep in the cool water and tried to unclench my body, which had of course gone into total survival clenched mode.

We wandered down Jackson St forever, trying to find a place for dinner that was open which would fit us in, and finally we came across Gusto, down the opposite end from Wanda Harland. Yum! We had a cheese plate which had a brie that gooed everywhere, and antipasto with four kinds of preserved meats. The service was a little new, but very well intentioned. And after we had retrieved my car from the towing yard, $180 later, I stopped by quiz and was so upset and stressed out about my workshop the next day I hardly even noticed when the Quizmaster hugged me.

The next day I had a huge big challenge organising an interactive workshop on wikis for 50 people. I panicked and doubted myself and thought I’d fucked up room bookings when it was of course some people overstaying their time in rooms, but other than that, it went pretty good. And then after work I got drunk over dinner at Longixang with Karen and Kowhai and Lisa, and we drove out ot Martha’s shop opening and I drank more champagne and bought presents for Anji and Karen, and a bear-shaped rug that I am SO going to fuck someone on, while my fire-place video plays on the TV. Maybe I will add in photos some other time.

I didn’t write about the Wellingtonista awards yet either. Such an amazingly good night. I can’t believe that things went as well as they did. It was such a stressful period leading up to ist, but on the night, it appears that we pulled it off quite well indeed. My dress was pretty, and that;’;s what’s most important, right? and OH MY GOD Blam Blam Blam were so astonishingly good,a nd I jumped up and down and up and down and dancd and danced and then I hugged them and the whole time I was dancing I had the biggest grin on my face going “BLAM BLAM MOTHERFUCKING BLAM ARE PLAYING AT AWARDS I FUCKING HELPED ORGANISE!” (although props for the actual night must go to Mitch and Russell) and it was just so fucking lovely to know that 678 people voted, compared to 57 from last year. The Wellingtonista have filled my social calendar this year and I love them all dearly, even when they don’t read their emails properly.

And there are other things that are lovely in my life. Kat and I may have finished our Veronica dates, but the other night on our girlie date night we watched Dirty Dancing and then The Breakfast Club and I know that even when they’re gone in February, they’ll be coming back all the time for wrestling. And fuck, I so don’t want them to leave. Do you know how amazing our vege garden looks right now? I don’t want ot have to leave this house, it’s just not fucking fair. This is my home. How dare they “consider their options”? Shirley’s consoling words have been all about promising me that I’ll find a place with a better kitchen, but how will I find a house big enough to fit in all my crap? I have so much crap. My aim over the holidays is to throw out three things a day, but I dunno if I’ll get that done. Yesterday I was hungover all day from end of work drinks, with Tom buying Bollinger at Arbituaguer, and then much sake at Hede, and teapots at Alice, and more wine at Hawthorn, and today I had half a dozen people (Karen, Tom, Kowhai, Shirley, Frances, Lisa, Kat & Kane) over for drinks in the sun, which of course turned into drinks with candles outside and everyone wearing my hoodies and wow, I’m so fucking huge. My idea of spontaneous entertaining starts with texts at 10am, and then there’s bratwursts and frozen samosas and a trillion cocktails. We’re having Xmas at Mum and Neil’s, even though their deck isn’t finished (I am SO dreading the mess already) and so Karen and I went entree shopping this morning. And I have already finished the white rum, apparently. D’oh!

What more did I have to say? I am so fucking craving some physicality. I want to devour the world. So let’s end it there, yes?