I remember it sounding better.

"Head Like A Hole" by Nine Inch Nails, that is. For it seems that is the NIN (see? I'm hip) song I have been thinking I really liked for about the last 11 years, and it's okay but not that great. Good thing I got the CD cheap in a sale, I guess.

So. My weekend. After my super-moody scowl-a-thon through Friday afternoon (I did get shoes though), I headed off to collect the G-beast from dog daycare. I know...soooo middle-class, but she loves it so and it means we don't have to deal with the trauma/stress on those random occassions when she goes batshit crazy on someone else's dog, not that this is a common occurrence. Being a smarty-pants I decided I would act all 'local' and head home via the backroads & 'burbs, thus avoiding the fiasco created by the unfinished motorway access roads in town. And this I achieved brilliantly, sweeping and swooping elegantly along the lesser used boulevards (I think the classical stuff on iTunes is having a none too subliminal impact) for about 5-6km, until I took one wrong turn. One wrong turn that landed me roughly 1km down the road from where I had started. And nowhere near to avoiding the aforementioned fiasco.

Anyway, I fed the dog and readied myself for a mixed bag night on the town. It was cold, it had been raining intermittently, I hadn't eaten and I was off to meet Jo (post-massage) and then onto the rugby ("Hurricanes! cha-cha-cha. Hurricanes!" repeat ad infinitum). I opted for the less flattering yet warming jeans, gap hoodie sweatshirt and Drizabone. At The Malkovitch Centre (so named for its very low ceilings) I met up with Jo and had a brief chit-chat with the very lovely Lesley, our masseur. Honestly, if you are ever in Wellington & fancy a massage, go and see this woman, she has thumbs that could snap a crocodile in half, is not adverse to conversation during massage and will let you bring your own CDs. What more could you want? Off to the Westpac Stadium, the "Caketin" 'cos it looks like a caketin, with a quick stop off to buy a really ill-judged quiche (I was starving), and once inside we collected our high quality and exclusive free to season ticket holders only "Hurricanes" portable radio. These seem mainly to be for the purpose of tuning into the referees' radio frequency and repeating what has just happened, very loudly, to your neighbour. This helping to facilitate my new look, the one that says "I know I just saw that happen on the pitch, or do I look blind?" without words.

Watching the 'Canes (see? It's like I'm local.) is quite good fun as they actually have some players I've heard of. This is not because I know anything about rugby, but because they are very famous in rugby eg Tana Umaga & Ma'a Nonu (who is the one I nearly ran over when I was a learner driver). Ma'a Nonu even hit someone, someone who was picking on Tana, and got sin-binned this week - how exciting? Generally, it was bit of a cruddy game, but the Hurricanes won by one point scored at the final whistle, so that was nice. One thing though - they have really bad cheerleaders. In fact, I'm not sure they qualify as cheerleaders, more like piss poor synchronised dancers in shiny orthapaedic tights.

Intelligent quote of the evening:

Me: It's raining. I'm going to have to wear my scarf on my head to stop getting soaked. I'll look like a Romanian.
Jo: Why don't you just put your hood up?
Me: Don't have one on this coat.
Jo: But you do on your sweatshirt.
Me: Oh.

I think I am thick.

Post-rugby off we headed to meet Harriet, Rachel and a couple of others for a drink or two. So began the compulsory "where are you?" text marathon -

- Where are you?
- The Big Kumara...We're heading to Mighty Mighty...Mighty Mighty has cover charge, going to Good Luck Bar

We got to the Good Luck Bar and promptly left for The Southern Cross. Make your mind up, why not? What neither Jo or I quite realised at this point was that our new companions had been drinking large vodkas since about 6pm, and it was now 9.30pm, but a bottle of Five Flax sav blanc evened up the odds a bit. The Southern Cross has a really good outdoor bar/garden with open fireplaces, BBQ, lots of comfy seating and excessively long tables, and it meant that Jo could actually go and have a proper look at the room I have booked for our civilisation party (luckily, she thought it was pretty nice and would do the job). The garden bar is one of those places that makes you feel like you are on holiday. I'm just going to leave that hanging there.

After a hour or so we headed over the road to Havana. Small, sweaty and deeply fashionable, I truly fitted right in. Ahem. I think the next couple of hours were spent talking nonsense, Jo got a bit tipsy and ripped the piss out of a Welsh bloke who is on the same netball team as her (she plans to apologise to him at netball tonight) and I recall being asked if I wanted another drink and shouting "YES!" a tad over-enthusiastically. And I got my "pleased by simple things" moment for the evening (always the same one in bars) when the very cool and hip barmaid went out of her way to ask what I wanted when there were clearly other people ahead of me - I always like to delude myself that this is because they find me magnetically attractive, but it may just be because I am tall and always look a bit pissed off. Nah, it's the magnetic thing.

A couple of hours later it was back to The Southern Cross for a rousing game of Connect 4 and to eat almost all the gingerbread biscuits they had by the bar, though we left one uneaten because we didn't want to look rude.

Went to bed at 3.30am with Jo muttering about how her mum was coming over at 9am the next day to join her in walking the dog. Woke up at 7am to the dog barking her head off at something, then at 8.30am to Jo telling me she was taking the dog for a walk, then at 10am by Jo phoning and asking me to go and pick them up otherwise she wouldn't be home in time to meet with the Civil Union celebrant who was coming over to meet us at 11am. Ugh. Celebrant man is lovely though, Calum. I chose him because he has a really nice accent (scottish, from Fife or somewhere) and I have a thing about voices/accents.

Then it was off to the Cuba St Carnival, which is not so much a carnival as a fair/fete. Luckily, it was sunny because I had to wear sunglasses to hide my very small and red hangover eyes. Not much to report from the fair/carnival - too many people for my liking - but I did buy what are either the coolest or the most disgusting trainers ever. Fake fur leopard-print Pumas & only $70! Now that deserves an exclamation mark. I'm wearing them right now. Jo told her mum about them and I think she was considering getting some herself, but I have vetoed it on the grounds that having the same shoes as your mother-in-law is just heartbreakingly wrong. It's making my chest go tight just thinking about it. Only other point of interest from "carnival" was the discussion in a second-hand clothing shop about the relative revoltingness of second hand shoes/swimwear/underwear - and how those shops always smell like old people.

The afternoon ended on a high with the discovery that Kaffe Eis on the waterfront sells freshly made poffertje - lovely lovely tiny dutch pancake thingys - so we sat at the water's edge with a plate of these before heading home to an evening of American Idol and off to bed at 10pm.

Sunday = not much happened. Dog walking, special olympics bocce coaching, "Gilmore Girls", catching up with "Supernatural" on video (it's like The Hardy Boys, but with plots and sets from The X-Files. I miss Scully.).

And today? Pay mobile phone bill, go and get a blood test (checking if my thyroid is as screwed as I think it is), quick chat with Mrs Clarke, and then reading reading reading in readiness for my "Should mummies be in museums?" gig at Te Papa on Thursday night. Can't believe I'm actually going to have to behave like a professional archaeologist for a whole 2 hours.

laters.

Self-realisation

I've just had a quick read through of previous blog posts, you know just to see what I've been yabbering on about (when I bothered to write) and have come to the following rather unpleasant conclusions:

1. I use exclamation marks like a hormone-fuelled teenager (!!!)
2. I seem obsessed with my "British-ness" (presumably because I am a foreigner in these parts)
And (this one really upsets me)
3. I keep using the word "huzzah". Making me sound like Emma Thompson on a bad day.

Bollocks.

I shall from this point forward attempt to avoid continuation of these foibles, because they make me feel a little queasy and clammy when I read them.

Not very constructive.

Had one of those mornings where half the people I "interacted" with seemed to be in a shite awful mood. One caused by me, apparently. I think it had something to do with the MTV Unplugged CD at work, though how anyone who listens to that can be offended by my witty repartee I'll never know.

So I decided to be mature and adult about it. You know, the don't let their bad mood rub off on me etc etc etc. But in reality I just bitched and moaned to anyone stupid enough to listen to me. Plus it is raining and I got stuck in TWO separate crowds of people watching jugglers (at least one was juggling fire clubs, or whatever you call them) when I was on my way to a very important, yet clandestine, shoe buying appointment. What is the point of jugglers/ing? Almost as aggravating as unicycling - woo hoo, you've got great balance. I don't care. Though I do have a truly shocking sense of balance & can barely walk in a straight line, which did once result in the cliched (how do I do accents on this bloody thing?) fall off the balance beam in school gym class. Only I didn't as much "fall off" as "fall onto", one leg to the left, one to the right.

And, yes, it does hurt quite alot when that happens, but I did a great job of walking away as if I hadn't a care in the world. Almost as much fun as when I got hit in the head with a hockey ball, though at least that made me laugh intermittently for the rest of the day. Or the time I ran into a rose bush wearing shorty shorts (it was the 70s). Could explain my fascination with high level gymnastics? Feel the fear and do it anyway. Or, in my case, watch it on TV and hope noone's kneecaps implode.

If there is a God...

then please let this not be true.

I heard rumour that they are making a US version of "The Vicar of Dibley", and it's going to star Kirstie Alley.

So very, very wrong.

Why don't I just change my name to "Big Ole Lesbo"?

To clarify -

I am currently sitting at my "home office" desk eating a hummus sandwich (wholegrain bread), wearing Ugg boots (but cheap-a-likee version), my girlfriend/partner's sweatshirt, Joni Mitchell is playing on iTunes shuffle...and I am writing a blog. Christ on a bike. Right, time for some rampantly non-lesbian music - Dee-lite (retro disco time! Oh, that's quite camp isn't it? Arse.). I'm going to try some "late" Depeche Mode instead.

And...and this is a big AND, later this year Jo & I will be entering into a civil union. That sounds very grown up, doesn't it? Is being uncivil to one another grounds for separation, sort of a less dramatic irreconcilable differences? Makes me think of having tea & cake and making polite conversation. But more of that later.

Yes, I have been lax in blogging. I know. In fact, I doubt anyone will actually read this because they've probably forgotten about the blog, which is quite liberating. I can say all sorts of stupid crap now. Huzzah! But I/we've been busy. The run up to Christmas was a bit nuts - flying trips to the UK, job interviews, turning down job following aforementioned interview, finishing one temp contract, starting another, one half of parents arriving, and the weather being so monumentally crap that people are still talking about it. Honestly, it came up in conversation with a neighbour last night. After Christmas wasn't much more settled (though I did manage to pass my restricted driving licence test - go me! Jo says I have to let the thing about almost causing a huge accident go.) and January was a maelstrom of socialising, particularly the combined whammy of parental visit/departure and one of my closest friends over here selfishly being forced to move back to Sydney. Mutual consolation has been given (?) by a promise to go over for Mardi Gras next year - we get free accommodation and excellent company, they get the benefit of seeing my scowl in full effect. Everybody's happy!

I've mostly spent the last few weeks in recovery mode and doing intermittent training for our latest athletic endeavours - the annual Round The Bays 7km run. That was last Sunday. Jo jog/walked with a friend, whilst I jogged the whole damn way! Woo hoo. I've been doing my running locally and whilst Newtown itself isn't frantically hilly, it's quite hard to go any distance without having to go uphill, so that was quite knackering to begin with. I was taking the dog with me for a while, you know delusions of being one of those really hearty outdoorsy/sporty types you get on feminine hygiene adverts, but she thinks running on a lead is boring and starts to go really slowly. The 'dragging dog down the road' look isn't all that hot, so I've taken to leaving her at home whilst I go out and look dead fit. Sort of. Anyway, Round The Bays was a darn sight easier than I thought it would be, so that was gratifying.

But yesterday I was inspired to re-blog. This was mainly due to a blog I was reading called "Ham & Cheese on Wry", which I would heartily recommend as it made me laugh so hard I started crying at one point. So I thought I'd best get back to it, rather than just being a slacker. I even considered starting another anonymous blog so I could be really and truly rude about stuff without anyone knowing it was me, but I am aware of my limitations, both of ego & of writing time/inspiration. Though one of our neighbours would make great material. Yesterday I mentioned watching something on YouTube and she asked if I'd checked out PornTube? Excuse me? And, please note, this is the first conversation I have ever had with her. Being British I, of course, just quickly moved the conversation on. But, what the? She mentioned that they might be having an 80s themed party in a couple of weeks, so I can torment everyone with my supercool music collection. I'm fairly excited, and yet strangely nervous.

Hole on iTunes now - is that lesbo or rrrriot grrrl? Or however the hell you spell it. I went to the local independent music shop and bought a whole load of CDs for dirt cheap, including Hole and Nine Inch Nails (I'm sure there is a song of theirs I like, but have no idea what it is). This was a direct result of spending the morning working at the cafe and having to listen to the Best of MTV Unplugged - I actually started laughing during the Alanis Morissette 'number' and got strangely angry during Bryan Adams - so off to the shops it was to counteract it with something/anything else. I really wanted something by the Jam (I watched "The Matador" the other week, crap film, but reminded me how good "a Town Called Malice" is), but they didn't have anything. Ho hum.

Will get back to you with news of "civilisation"...and yes, I will be wearing a dress. A "friend" (they know who they are) made some comment about the fact that if Jo wore a dress and I wore trousers/slacks we would look like a couple of lesbians, I pointed out that a couple of women getting 'married' was going to look pretty lesbian no matter what we do.

Arrivederci!