The Mad Scorpion

2010-10-18T13:05:00.002+13:00

41.

Ok. Dragging myself out of the blogging closet. I have to admit, it's almost as painful as forcing myself to work out... I gave that up too.

Still no improvement on my shoulder and back. Not that I was hoping for it, just thought I'd inform for those of who still think "better" is an option.

Instead of "better", replace it with "more morphine" and you're on the right track.

Still no word from Great Southern Productions on my pitch, but I figure no news is good news. The fact that they liked it enough to consider it is good enough for me... At the moment.

In the meantime I continue to keep visualising the moment they tell me YES, and keep reading my positive affirmations that I have up around the house.

"You WILL

Get a YES

to produce Dark Valley,

and it

will be GREAT!!!"

And I haven't even read The Secret!

I did myself a tarot reading yesterday. It was the first one I'd done for myself in years, and it was quite affirming also! My fingers are still firmly crossed.

My friend asked me recently:

"Why are you in Carterton again?"

I didn't have an answer for her immediately - I have been wondering that myself alot recently.

But in the end I realised that I'm here because I'd rather be independant in the country than reliant in the city.

I do miss my friends though. Especially when they are going through rough times and I can't be immediately there for them...

I am thinking of you (all).

I miss my brother from another mother in Switzerland, Cristo.

I miss my sister from another mother Tara and can't wait to meet her new daughter...

I miss all my cheeky darkies - Lee, Spence, Tara and Lili.

I miss my cousin Renata.

I miss my ginger Gemma.

I miss my big gay Brendan.

I miss Wendy, and Amir.

I miss Rewa.

I miss all my flatmates and my daily interactions with them.

Hell, I miss fuckin everyone, even people I haven't seen since primary school.

I'm a big softie at heart really.

I really don't have much else to say today.

Except that it's sunny outside so I might go bask in it.

2010-09-23T12:42:00.002+12:00

40.

What a shame this is going to be such a lame 40th entry, such a non-celebration. I guess that's how turning 40 can be too...

I haven’t written in a while.
My back has entered a new stage of deterioration whereby I now get crushed nerve-induced migraines and neck pains, and my shoulder has started to curl in on itself. My shoulder blade keeps getting randomly caught in between my ribs and temporarily causes me to drop to the floor in pain winded like someone has just stabbed me in the back.
This, of course, draws some interesting looks from whoever is around me at the time. Especially as said pain, though completely random and unexpected, only lasts for a few seconds - til I wince my shoulder out of the place it’s stuck in, and then I’m “fine” again. Until it decides to knock me down again a minute or two later when I reach for a cup, or turn on the light, or move my right arm in any direction whatsoever…
Except I’m not fine. I’m kind of terrified. If my body has started down this kind of road already, then what wonders can I look forward to in the future? Especially if left untreated because, and I have to be honest with myself about this, it IS going to be left untreated. The doctors and specialists and operations and hospitals and waiting rooms and the so-many-x-rays-I-must-be-Nuclear-by-now that have filled my almost-33 years of life have taught me… nay, they have sat me down and TOLD me, that there is nothing for me down that road. There is no surgery, there are no options. But on the plus side, they keep telling me I’m not getting worse…. Ummm, yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah, but… unless you’re living in this body, then you can’t be the judge of that, are you living in this body, NOOOOOOOO??? WELL THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP AND FUCK OFF THEN.
My family is no help. My mother is too busy stuck on the fact that I smoke weed and am therefore lazy. Comments like “Well, after the way You turned out…” when she’s referring to the way my (much) younger sister is being raised slash turning out… This would be Funny IF she was joking.
My mother is my best friend and my worst enemy. She recently said, during a conversation about my sister being confined to her room to finish her haven’t-started-til-the-last-minute-assignment, “I should have been stricter on You.” I wanted to say to her “Yeah, Newsflash: Strictness and Discipline were NOT where you went wrong with Me, Mother,” but the truth of the matter is that my mother has her head blissfully stuck in the sand, and I have learnt enough times that even though I can pull her head out of the sand and give it a good hard shake and force her to look at the cold harsh world around her, the world that She Put On ME (this is obviously a more personal, metaphorical world I’m talking about, Not the world at large), and she KNOWS it’s there, she’s not stupid… As many times as I can do that to her, she has always retreated back to her sandy bliss-hole, and absolved herself of responsibility for it.
ANYway, the point is my Mother confuses crippling back pain for melodramatics and laziness. Besides, as much as I hate to admit it, she’s getting old. Hell, I’M getting old (I’m only 18 years behind her – in many ways we grew up together really). And when you start to see your mother heading for Old Lady-dom, you start to weigh up what arguments are actually worth having and which aren’t.
Personally, as much as she doesn’t really deserve it, I should probably be a nice son and make her golden years less about the painful fuck-ups of the past and more about the time she’s got left. Not that she’s on deaths door or anything… But I think you start to feel REALLY Mortal in your 30’s, and when YOU start feeling mortal and time rushing by, you KNOW it must feel like gale force winds to your parents, let alone your Grandparents, for whom time must be ticking by like a bomb clock….
So yeah. My family is useless, but I’m not going to argue for change about it. I guess is the moral of that story.
So, just a quick re-cap:
Pain. Lots of it.
All motivation for writing has gone out the window.
May the force be the with you.

2010-08-26T12:31:00.005+12:00

39.

The tree at the end of my street is blossoming again. It changes the view something chronic. A smattering of colour on an otherwise grey and green palette.

Which still remains even after the clouds roll in and the light fades...

Hey watch this, now you see it...

Now you don't...

I quite like the pattern of moss on gravel...

It reminds me clouds in the sky.

I like this weird, flat and square tree too.

It's way less 3D than it seems, and is only about ten centimetres in width, tops.

And then we reach the corner...

and see the full glory of the blossom tree up close.

...it makes for a smooth transition from home out into the world.

(*nb. No, I don't consider walking into Carterton going out into the world.)

2010-08-10T13:45:00.000+12:00

38.
.
I have been thinking about babies lately.
I have been very lucky to have had lots of babies pass through my life. I really do love kids at that age, when they’re just babies, or before they get to about two. After that it’s pretty much all downhill… no, I’m kidding, I love kids. I think I’m getting clucky… Uh oh.
I’m also really buzzed out by all the amazing names the children of my friends have been given. My friends have all done really well at choosing cool and unusual names for their kids – no Steve’s or Barry’s in that lot. Thank god. Who would call a kid Bruce anyway? The poor kid would have to hang his head in shame (Thanks Rubicon… UGH).
I think the plainest name one of my friends kids have gotten is probably Benjamin, but Benjamin is a nice name, plus he was named after another Benjamin so that’s different.
But seriously. The names of my friends children are really, REALLY cool. I love them.
The kids themselves are alright too.
There’s Amir, who came around the same time as Griffin I think.
Narn Blue, and his brother Felix.
Novee and her brother Miro.
The beautiful miss Magnolia Wilde.
There’s Phoenix, Kea, Isabella, and Violet.
Silas, Oscar, Elsie.
Artemis and Hine.
Karma and Shadow.
Oh, and Xander, and Hayze…
Caleb and Jack deserve a mention.
But the winner of most unique and crazy name would have to go to the son of my ex. His name was Mirth Puzzle Starfish.
That’s MISTER Starfish to you… Yes, that’s Actually his last name, even though it isn’t the last name of his mother or father. It’s just the last name they decided to bestow upon him because APPARENTLY you don’t HAVE to name children after you, you can just… slap any old label on them. Well, any label except Doctor – that one they gotta earn later. I guess that way it’s harder for them to track parents down if they get into trouble at school…
To be fair, his mother’s last name is Waghorn, so it was lose-lose either way I guess. God knows why dad didn’t give him his last name of Bryce…
And let’s not forget the new and gorgeous Luisa Iris. I hope I get to meet her before she starts talking…
.
No entries in three weeks. It has been weighing on my mind, although when I have tried over the last few weeks I’ve found that I haven’t had much going on around me to write about – or if I have had it going, I haven’t wanted to write about it publicly.
Let’s just say that having a houseguest for a while (a month, give or take) reminds me of why I wanted to live alone in the first place. Not that I don’t love company… It’s just that my house is too small for two large personalities.
But boy oh boy do I want to rant and rave on this one. It’s just that I have done this via text to others so it’s not so… Out There.
I am glad to have my house back, that’s for sure.
.
What I have discovered to write about, is a show called ‘Real Sex’. It’s on late at night on Comedy Central, and it’s… Bizarre. A nineties HBO series, that is a mix of snippets of interviews of random people on the streets (usually the streets of New York) and documentary style studies of people who work, and or indulge, in all aspects of the adult entertainment industry. It’s presented in a very down-to-earth way, but usually what the people are doing is semi out-there. It’s a very peculiar mix.
.
Ok. My life is empty right now.
I have been staving off sickness, but I drank quite well last week, so now my throat is scratchy and my nose is slightly runny and I have run out of honey for my lemon and honey’s, so I better go get some.
End Report.
.

2010-07-23T12:16:00.004+12:00

37.
.
This week I escaped the hood for the bright lights of the big city.
Unfortunately I realised slash remembered that I’m not incredibly gifted at being able to cram lots of socialising into short periods.
I have an emotional overload threshold, and when that reaches its limits, I’m out.
You can talk til the cows come home. And you may even think I’m listening. But inside I am dead. My eyes have glazed over. And I’m delivering obligatory “Uh huh”’s, and “Mmm”’s, and I’m not even being sincere in their delivery…
Basically, I just switch off. Please leave a message, BEEEEEEEEEEEP.
Chances are I probably won’t check that message either.
No pictures this week folks. What I have to say doesn't need them.
*
COMMUNING WITH THE DEAD:
Yesterday I had an old woman come into my work. I recognised her as the doddery old woman I’d had to chase down the street one day as she’d forgotten to pay for her lunch. Trust me, this was Not an enjoyable experience, especially as she was having to hand me over every last coin she seemed to have on her, and even THEN I let her off a few dollars simply because I wanted to end the fleecing of the old woman.
ANYWAY, the same old woman came in again, and had a look at the lunch menu, and ooh’d and aaah’d over a few items, and decided on some “Nat-cho’s?”, before saying “I think I’ve got enough money for that” before studiously counting out eight dollars in coins and informing me that she was to get 50 cents change…
I smiled nicely and told her she was correct, and gave her the change, and thought to myself ‘Most people, DEAR, would check FIRST that they had enough money to go out for lunch before going out to lunch’. And I then inwardly scolded myself for being so intolerant of doddery old woman, steeled my reserve a bit more, and showed her to a table by the fire.
She then whipped out an eftpos card and ordered a double whiskey.
I often wonder at times like those if I should question the customer on things like “Are you allowed to be drinking?” or “You’re not taking any medications that alcohol might impair are you?”, but I recognise that questions like that shouldn’t be reserved for doddery old woman alone, and if it was good enough for her it was good enough for everyone, and seeing as it is actually Totally Inappropriate of me to ask those questions to ANY customer, I silently poured her a whiskey, straight up. She tipped that back like nobody’s business, and then continued to stare at me and stand at the bar.
I asked if she would like anything else, and she said “Aren’t I getting my lunch?”
“Yeah, but it’s not actually ready yet. I’ll bring it over to you when it is.”
“Does it take forever to make or something?”
At that point the meal bell rang and I said “Actually, it’s ready now, take a seat,” and brought it over to her and told myself again that I had to be more tolerant of doddery old woman.
This isn’t hard to do, as I have a Grandfather will Alzheimers, so I’ve recognised that my tolerance needs to increase greatly in my many areas of INtolerance.
So she sat down and ate her lunch… and promptly proceeded to fall asleep at her table.
I had been busy while she ate, so when I looked over and saw her asleep I was kind of surprised. When did that happen? Damn, now I have to wake her up.
Instead of going over to her though, I just made some gentle clinking noises with the glasses in the dishwasher, hoping that would stir her.
It did, and she slowly sat up, seemingly waking up, and then started to leave.
“Thank you, that was lovely.” She said.
“You’re very welcome.”
“My husband and I used to come in here…” she said.
‘Oh great, here we go’, I thought heartlessly.
“…but… he died, so... I like coming in here… it has some good memories... Thank you.” And off she wandered in her whiskey haze...
As I watched her leave I realised she hadn’t been sleeping at all. She had merely been communing with her dead husband…
I reminded myself that next time she comes in, I must be more tolerant.
*
BRIGHT CITY LIGHTS:
I saw a few bright lights while in Wellington.
Light Number One: I am Not FRIENDS with My Ex. I simply have a long standing dependency on their company – 99% of the reason I left Welly. To break myself free of the habit of them.
Stupidly, I dropped into their house on the way home from a party one night. Thankfully I dragged two REAL friends of mine along for the ride (it was on our way).
I was instantly surprised by, and introduced to, the Ex’s new boyfriend. Their new, very young boyfriend. Cough cough Shudder.
BRIGHT SHINING LIGHTS of realisation shone upon me. Oh yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah… THAAAAAT’S why I need to stay away from this house!
I was very nice, very polite, stayed for a drink, left… and vowed never to go back.
And I felt Ok about this too! I think the spell had finally broken. No, not I think… I Know.
Unfortunately I had to go back the next day and get something I’d left behind, but I made it short and sweet.
My defining thought on this matter was that IF we really were Just Mates, then why did they feel the need to Not Tell Me about their new beau? Especially considering as they’d told all their other mates... hmm?
Whatever. It really doesn’t bother me that much. It was like a wonderful haze lifting and flooding me with warm, FREEING light.
And Boy do I like sunning in it.
Light number Two involved an unhinged friend on an unwarranted frenetic character attack, but I won’t go into that. It was ridiculous and ultimately kind of boring. Plus, I have bigger fish to fry…
*
THE GREAT CARTERTON KIDNAPPING CAPER:
This is an issue close to my heart… hence, I will probably end up being quite heartless about what I’m about to say.
Back in April my niece (my cousins’ daughter) on her way home from school, was approached by a teenager in school uniform in a car telling her “Your Mum’s in trouble, you have to come with me”.
She, being Not Stupid (thank god), said No Way and ran home to her perfectly Not-In-Trouble Mother to tell her all about the guy who’d tried to kidnap her.
This was one in a spate of attempted child abductions in the area at the time. They arrested another man in Masterton for the same thing, and for a while we thought that maybe the case was closed…
Until a couple of weeks ago, when a 14 year old girl on her way to school was suddenly pushed into a car and abducted. The girl screamed at him to let her go, before throwing herself from the vehicle, breaking her wrist and splitting her forehead open in the process.
Yesterday I had the good fortune to meet the guy who happened to be driving behind the car when this happened. At first he thought it was just some arsehole who’d thrown his Mrs from the car, but when the girl told him that she’d just been kidnapped he took her to the police station.
Not long afterwards a friend of mine happened to be walking down that street, and came across a phone and a wallet, which she handed into the police station.
The phone was the girls. The WALLET was His.
Connect the dots and Wa La – Psycho gets caught.
Then the real questions started being asked, and of course in a town like this, everyone knew who this kid was within two days. And rather than the expected “KILL HIM” response, it turns out this kid is from a good home, had a good upbringing, has good, respected parents… Suddenly the humanising factor hits home. This kid is clearly sick in the head and needs help.
Two weeks ago he was sent to Rimutaka Prison on remand, pending a psychological assessment. This assessment was deliberately avoided and on Wednesday this sick kid who is getting no help whatsoever has been sent back home on bail with a 24 hour curfew – ie. he can’t leave the house.
The Mad Scorpion is NOT happy about this.
Yes, I can understand that he will be slaughtered in Prison, and that perhaps isn’t going to achieve much.
Yes, I can understand that he is sick and needs help.
But No, I cannot understand why the Law has failed the victims of this case in favour of making sure this sick kid is… what, Safe and Comfortable?? That same right has not been afforded to this kid’s victims, some of whom live not far down the road from him…
I am utterly FURIOUS about this, and I know that if my cousin was in the country at the moment, this kids’ safe house would probably go up in flames in the middle of the night. And not many people would blink an eyelid either.
I don’t think they should lock this kid in jail and throw away the key, but I do think he needs serious help, and being babysat by Mum and Dad at home is hardly the answer.
Is one of them going to stay awake 24/7 to keep an eye on him, or are they going to take 12 hour shifts…
Somehow I doubt it.
As do I doubt that there is constant police surveillance on their house either.

This kid has messed with very dangerous forces and if his family and the justice system doesn’t deliver on helping him get FIXED… Then the small town lynch mob will kick in to Fix him.
This I know, because I will be at the front of the pack next to my cousin baying for his blood.
NOBODY FUCKS with MY Whanau’s tamariki.
NO-ONE.
*
A NEW RECRUIT:
And on the Tamariki front, after an almost totally bullshit Tuesday, it was topped off with the wonderful news that one of my best friends Tara FINALLY had her overdue baby - a beautiful daughter named Luisa Iris.
Welcome to life Luisa!
Uncle Scorpie's got your back.
Another Cheeky Darkie for the team...
Love it.
*

2010-07-08T11:41:00.006+12:00

36.
.

I'M IN MIAMI, BITCH!

Ok, I'm not really in Miami, nor do I have any immediate plans to go there (oh, but go there I will, one day, for sure), but I sure do feel like the stars are finally aligning for me... Here's the buzz.

Remember a while ago I posted a story on here, the tv show idea I'd ditched after being rejected by almost every television production company in the country? Yeah, you know the one.

WELL... the key word in that sentence is... 'almost'...

Last week, out of the blue, I get a letter from a woman at Great Southern productions (makers of 'The Cult')......who 1. apologises for the lengthy delay in replying to my pitch, and explains there have been some staff changes at G.S. recently and the pitch inbox had been left unchecked for a while,
2. Now that she's looked at the pitch inbox, she likes my idea and wants me to send her further material...

Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh.... WHAT???

So I sit there, shitting my pants for a bit, wondering if I'm dreaming (I can tell by the inane librarian chatter in the background that I'm not), then proceed to go home and freak out for a bit, and then when I finally get it together I take a look at my treatment - the one I'd been sending out and ultimately being rejected for - and decide it's not good enough, oh my god, I have to rewrite it, FREAK OUT! (Le freak, say chic)...

After I've finally calmed down, I decide to make little adjustments to my already perfectly fine treatment, accompanied with a letter explaining that although I was excited at her interest, I was absolutely apprehensive about sending her the treatment because of said earlier rejection, but that as a writer I understand the flexibility of stories, and I was absolutely open to working on the bones of the idea to make it a reality. I also explained the reasons I'd been rejected in the past, and then how I either disagreed with it, and /or how we can work around it.

I think the biggest reason the treatment comes across as intimidating is because it has no dialogue in it, and therefore can't completely portray the kinds of humour I want embedded in the show. The humour is, of course, going to come from the characters themselves, not the outline of their storyline... with all the darkness, you gotta have some light, right? Like they say, a spoonful of sugar...

SO. Off my treatment goes, along with some scenes I spent all night working on for the purpose of portraying some of that humour that is woefully absent from the treatment.

And while I have had positive letters back saying "Got that, feel free to send whatever you want, whenever, I'm in Europe at the moment and should get round to reading it very soon", I'm basically playing the waiting game now.

...I'm trying very hard not to get my hopes up, but the fact that ANYONE has paid ANY interest in my show at all, let alone after I'd practically given up on the idea in television form, is... very exciting, to say the least.

FINGERS CROSSED PEOPLE...

We may just get to live in Dark Valley yet...

SPAZZY:

If you're wondering why I have been so sporadic lately with my MAD SCORPION blogging, that is why. I am horribly addicted to writing scenes that will convince Great Southern I am the best thing since sliced bread and that they should make my show.

Hence, you can probably expect THE MAD SCORPION to be sporadic for a while.

...I knew you'd understand.

Can I just say, that despite being the only boy in Typing Class throughout my college years... what a fuckin genius move that was on my part! Probably the only thing I retained of the education I got from those years really... (I remember My Name, and Tongariro National Park as being the only answers I was able to give for my Geo exam... jesus...)
I don't regret it for a second. Typing probably doesn't even exist as a subject these days...
.
GOOD LUCK, BAD LUCK.
Good:
In theme with the good luck I have been having lately, I was notified the other day that I won a competition on Facebook through Warner Music, and a 'HUGE, AO MADONNA POSTER' was on it's way to me.
JOY!!!
This, of course, was down to the e-mail I sent it.
They asked us to send in our details.
I sent in a rant about how much I loved Madonna and that the poster could only go to one person, that I loved it, that I loved THEM, that I HAD TO HAVE IT, GIVE IT TO ME, LOVE IT, WANT, NEED IT, etcetera, etcetera...
"With such an enthusiastic e-mail, how could we not give it you?", was their response...
Oh yeah baby, come to Papa....
Bad:
Running a few months late in my Sky bill (the reason being the bill payment place is a whole town away, and ugh.. Masterton? I don't think so...) I rejoiced when I realised I could actually set up an A.P. Technology, ay? SO, that's exactly what I did, making sure that I was paying off two months for every one. Sounds reasonable, right? WRONG. The very next week I got cut off.
So, I ring Sky credit management, and get a Total Bitch, who seems to think owing $128 is the end of the world, and that I will get my Sky back on in two months when I've paid the bill, and doesn't care that I've just set up an A.P. to take care of it. Ok, you wanna play like that lady???
ME: Will I be charged for the months that I'm disconnected while I pay this off?
BITCH LADY: No.
ME: Ok, well in a month, when I've paid that $128 off, I'll be closing my account and you've just lost a customer, goodbye!
Hang up.
Not two mintues later my phone rings again. It's Bitch Lady who, "after having a little think about it" (HA!), has decided to reconnect me, BUT SHE'LL BE KEEPING A CLOSE EYE ON ME to make sure my A.P. is going through...
Yeah, yeah, whatever lady, just put my tv back on bitch.
Wa la!
... I guess that was bad and good luck.
See? Being an arsehole pays off!
Good:
I run into my dad's cousin at the pub, and his girlfriend, and her mate... it's only a two second meet and greet before we have to run off and pick up someone.
MUCH later in the night, I have a random text from my cousin's girlfriends mate, and she's interested... This is a BOOTY TEXT. Oh yeah...
For someone who loves the water and has been living in the DESERT for almost two years (Yeah, you read it right bitches, shut the hell up), this is a welcome text. Unfortunately, she's now in Greytown and it's far too late for us to hook up anyway, so we have some drunken text flirting (I don't even know what this girl looks like, FYI), and then I crash out.
BAD:
The next day, I get... thirty-seven texts from this girl. What do you do, where do you live, what are you doing, bla bla. After the first ten, I'm like... Ok, I'm over texting, I'm slightly hungover, I just wanna chill.
But no. This is not good enough. Why aren't you answering, what are you doing, where have you gone, etc etc etc... Uh oh. This isn't looking good... In fact, this is looking stalkerish.
Even later - "I'm wasted in a spa with no clothes on", "I'm horny, what are you doing?"
Normally, this is the kind of thing I'd be jumping into without a second thought... but... I can already tell that this girl is clingy and... well, YOUNG might be a good word. Way TOO young.
Even later, when I'm not answering: "What you doing, why aren't you answering". To shut her up, I answer "I have a friend staying, just gonna chill with them at home". All true.
..."I THOUGHT YOU WERE SINGLE?" "I DON'T DO ATTACHED GUYS" "SO ARE YOU SINGLE OR WHAT?" "YOU BETTER NOT BE LYING TO ME" etc etc etc etc.... for about ten texts...
Ok. This girl is crazy. End communication.
My friend commented "Next she'll be accusing you of cheating on her!"
Yep. Later freak.

2010-07-08T11:18:00.003+12:00

35.

I’m afraid I might have foot in mouth disease this week.

The other day I ran into an old friend who was recently married. We began talking about a mutual friend (who had just been over for the wedding of the friend I was now talking to), and I brought up another friends upcoming wedding, and how our mutual friend was coming back over from Oz for it, and then I said something like “Yeah, I’m going to that wedding!” meaning it in an excited, I-can’t-wait-to-go way, but realising as I said it that it probably came across as “I got invited to that wedding”. That wasn’t so good, I hope she didn’t think that, though it might explain the reason she was suddenly in a hurry…
The very next day I am chatting online (wow, nothing about ‘chatting online’ should look Retro… and yet…) with another old friend. The subject of parenting and Nannies came up. I can’t remember the exact details but I think there was a miscommunication in there somewhere. I answered a paragraph without properly reading it, and then after my answer about Ladies Of Leisure usually becoming alcoholics I realised my speel had nothing whatsoever to do with what she’d just said, and I was a couple sentences behind in the conversation and had missed out a vital part of my sentence anyway… ugh. Crap.
The point I was trying to make old friend (you know who you are) was that well-to-do Ladies Of Leisure who let nannies raise their kids usually become alcoholics, which was what she was scared she’d become etc.
Hope that clears things up.
.
THE ALL WHITES:

So… when exactly did Soccer become a matter of national pride? I missed that. Although I’d guess only about two, three years ago, tops.
Not that I’m not glad. It’s nice that as a country we can embrace the sport the mainstream consciousness has been spitting on for as long rugby balls have been oval. Here’s to Hypocrisy!
No, seriously, go the All Whites.
.
THE HILLS:

Heidi went home to see her mother for the first time since having most of her body reworked by plastic surgery. From what I could gather it had been a couple of months since her surgery, but she still couldn’t really, like, eat properly, or move her jaw much, and no, those staples at the edges of her forehead aren’t coming out, and no, her frozen-in-surprise browline isn’t coming down anytime soon…
Her mother was visibly shocked and disturbed by her daughters’ new appearance, and, believing her daughter was strong enough post-surgery and staunch enough about her decision, basically took the piss out of her.
Out for dinner, a huge hamburger pattie is on Heidi’s plate, and Heidi can’t really eat it.
“Are you ok there?” asks her Mother, clearly reveling in the fact that her daughter is suffering for her new beauty.
“I can’t really eat it,” says Heidi, clearly hating to have to admit that but obviously thinking she’s in safe hands admitting that to her mother.
“Huh… Would you like me to put that in a blender for you?” asks Mum, looking like she’s trying not to laugh.
The Brother and Sister and Stepfather, btw, are sitting around also, just watching the perverse freakshow with a horrified awe, unable to believe their eyes, unable to look away, jaws gaping, heads shaking…
Heidi politely excuses herself before bursting into dramatic tears and running off.
Love it.
That’s what you get for being a dumb bitch... Duh.
I have to admit though, as the weeks go by and Heidi and Spencer lose the plot more and more – eg. Sitting in bars with strangers discussing aliens and crystals – it’s kind of mortifying to watch… like a car crash you just can’t turn away from…
Audrina sucks.
.
BLEEDING ALL OVER FACEBOOK:

I’ve noticed more and more people lately caring less and less about what they put in their facebook status update for all too see.
Shit about arguing with their partners, or calling so-and-so scum fuckwits, etc.
…I so don’t wanna know about your bullshit. I don’t really like to be bombarded with personal shit from somebody’s life that I (more often than not) haven’t seen in years and aren’t privy to enough of their personality to be front-row in their vicious outbursts and attacks on others.
Almost as bad – but way less shocking and way more tedious – are the INANE CHATTER status updates.
My baby kept me up ‘til four in the morning, oh my god, I can’t wait for my husband to get home so I can have a nice cup of tea…
Oh my god… Fuck Off. I Don’t Care. I haven’t seen you since school finished, we didn’t talk much then, and we don’t talk now, why WOULD I care???
BIG. YAWN.
I guess I could always ‘hide’ those people from my list, but I’d rather they weren’t on it at all.
Hence the three-monthly LIST CULL, where I go through my list and get rid of those who shouldn’t be there but are for some reason.
Like sometimes, if I can’t remember who a person is, I’ll accept them, then look at their photos, and realise it’s that person from school I haven’t talked to in, oh, EVER, so then I cull them.
Lately I have been RE-requested by people I’ve culled before with messages saying “Weird, I thought we were ALREADY friends! Silly Facebook, must be one of those bung things it does occasionally”…
Yeah, that MUST be it…
Those people will be on my list ‘til the next round, then… LATER!
Love it.
Watch those numbers DROP.
.

2010-06-15T15:43:00.004+12:00

34.
.
Sigh… I’m sick this week. Not Fun. I managed to avoid it last week while everyone around me was coughing and spluttering, but I knew it would hit me eventually. I would get “immunised” but when I did last year I promptly got sick and stayed that way until it was Hayfever season again. Joy!
*
NEW MELROSE PLACE:

As I watched it a couple of weeks ago, thinking “Dang, I’m really hooked on this now, but I bet there are Fuck all people watching this”, I never thought that it would be the last episode C4 would air…
But it was! The bastards have gotten me hooked and then taken it off the air. In favour of Glee REPEATS I might add. They haven’t even shunted it to some godawful late slot, which is normally what happens with a sinking ship first… it’s just Gone. Period.
Not Impressed.
I don’t think the producers let that soup simmer enough before they let the audience decide on what it should be, and I’m talking about in America here. Ashlee Simpson-Wentz was terrible, no doubt about it… but she was so bad she was good! And if you think about it, it’s Melrose tradition to have at least one atrocious actor. Think Andrew Shue’s Billy Campbell.
Plus a psychotic red-head is also mandatory.
But a few (ok, a lot of) bad comments on the internet and next thing you know poor Ashlee is riding off into the sunset with the other bad actor people complained about. By episode ELEVEN. That’s not even half a season… And what are they doing over there, writing the next episode after the previous one has aired??? They barely had time to establish themselves! Mind you, it is very reminiscent of Amy Locane’s Sandy character being shunted off to the Thanks-But-No-Thanks Character Dumpster out the back when viewers complained that her southern draaaawl was too hard to understand. Stoopid Americans. Stoopid Producers.
Don’t worry, Ashlee, I still love you.
.
BOYS GO BUSH:
I know that sounds like the title of a porn movie, but in this instance it isn’t.
I watched this documentary the other night called ‘Boys Go Bush’, and it was about St. Peter’s Collegiate in Hastings (I think… maybe Hamilton, I’m not sure, it was late) that sends their second years (the fourth formers, or year whatever they call it these days) out into the bush for SIX MONTHS OF THE SCHOOL YEAR where not only do they receive all their usual schooling, but they are forced to learn how to look after and survive by themselves. They live in simple flats with 8 boys in each that are pre-determined so they have no say in the matter, they are taught how to cook and clean, they have to chop their own firewood because the flats are freezing otherwise, they have to handwash their own clothes, and then as well as their normal schoolwork they are also taken tramping, caving, rafting, climbing, etc, and are taught how to build a shelter from nothing, how to start a fire, and eventually are sent out by themselves to camp alone for the night so if they haven’t been listening or paying attention, they’re basically in for some cold, wet, hungry nights. Also if any problems arise socially they are dealt with swiftly and appropriately. For example, one boy who had been particularly bullied for most of his school years it seemed, was put in a flat with his biggest bully. By the end of it, after a few weeks of problems and fights to begin with, the boys were pretty much mates, and if not mates then at least more respectful of one another.
When they don’t cook, clean or do any of their jobs to the right standard – and of course they were regularly inspected – they are punished with more work, so eventually they learn very quickly that it’s better to just do what they have to and how to work as a team.
The best part about all this, was that this school is a private boys school and most of the boys came from very well-off families. The head of the program was talking about how 14 year old boys are pretty much ripe for this kind of experience, as they’re kind of at that age where they’ll sit back and let their mother do everything for them for the rest of their lives if they’re not taught how to live by other men. ‘Father Approval’ (and Father-Figure Approval) is something most boys seek their whole lives, and by teaching them how to not only do the work that is required to live but also recognise the work that is being done for them in daily life, it was greatly substantial in providing them with the confidence to become successful men.
I have to say… I think it’s a fuckin’ Great idea. It made me wish I’d had that sort of experience while growing up. And I guess I had half of that experience. That’s to say that from a very young age my mother put me to work around the house, so from about 5 I was on a chair drying the dishes, I was well trained in the location of the washing basket, I was cooking and baking and vacuuming by 7, I was cursing over the wood chopping by 9… I got the ‘learn how to keep a house and cook for myself’ part. But I never got the father-figure approval. Ever. To this day.
My real dad lived 5 minutes down the road and I saw him for less days than a handful of fingers a year, and nearly all my interactions with him were (and are still) awkward and if it wasn’t for my step-mother we would barely know each other. My step-father is a whole different kettle of fish. During his and my mothers' on-off relationship for my entire childhood he was a great guy and lots of fun, then as soon as they married when I was 13 he suddenly and abruptly took up the role of my Stern and Disapproving Father, which in retrospect I guess any guy would do to an extent with their new step-kids, but in my case, at that age, and after it being just me and Mum for 13 years, I basically balked at the show he was putting on and refused to watch. These days we’re civil, and we’ve come to accept the distant relationship we’ll probably always have, and I respect the fact that he takes good care of my mother, but that’s about it. We are just too different and he is just too simple and engrained to ever change, and I am too broken and complex to ever try.
I remember once a long time ago, after he had wrongly yelled at me and held me up by the scruff against the wall about something I hadn't done and I threatened to move to my Father’s (which even at the time I didn’t want to have to end up doing, and there was no guarantee he would have had me anyway), he took me aside and apologised, and told me I could talk to him if I ever needed, but even as he said it he was trying really hard not to cry, and it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to say to me, and he was barely able to cope with it, and I knew then that I would never be able to talk to him about anything. But I did appreciate the effort.
Previous to that, another memorable experience was the time I was 14 and went to work with him building. There was no discussion of this, there was no explained reason for it, I was just told one morning – I assume it was during the holidays – that I was going to work with him. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I didn’t have a choice. Bear in mind that Stepdad is a bricklayer slash builder, and at that stage had been one for over ten years, and is also the son of a bricklayer slash builder – who, incidentally, was a constant guiding presence in my stepfathers’ life – so he was pretty adept at it.
I, on the other hand, had last picked up a hammer in kindergarten. No, that’s a lie, it would have been during my month of Wednesday woodwork when I had been 12.
My stepfather put me to work laying mortar and bricks, but after two hours, when he was utterly frustrated that I hadn’t picked up laying mortar and bricks at lightening speed like he could, he took me home at lunchtime and left me there. And that was about the last male-bonding experience we had.
To me it seems that for every One grand gesture of love my Fathers have shown me, like the 16th car, or the 21st car, there are a thousand kicks-in-the-guts in between. Although I think I’m finally at an age where I’ve realised I can choose the degree and intensity of a. the relationship itself, and b. the impact their actions (or usually lack of actions) have on me. Though I am well aware of the… hole, I guess, that is left behind from the lack of a strong male influence in my life growing up. I did have my Uncle, but only really until his own children came along, and then our families slipped into the birthdays and Christmas routines.
Seeing these boys get this kind of experience sparked something inside. I think that if I ever had boys, and I guess the boy inside me wishes for that experience also, I might just send them to that school… But then I thought what would be even better would be for me to teach my boys all that my mother taught me (hard-arse bitch that she was), ie. have them on stools at 5 drying dishes and cutting wood by 9, AND send them on some sort of long term outdoorsy trip... They might turn out pretty good. Also, I need to send them out to do stuff I wanna learn too, so they can come back and teach me a thing or two.
…but realistically, I’m more likely to end up a crazy cat man, surrounded by cats that I’m allergic too yet refusing to get rid of them. And that’ll be fine too.
*
THE GREAT BP OIL SPILL:

What.

A fucking.

Disaster.
If I was the Queen in the 1600’s, I would be calling “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!”
And not just those responsible either, I’d probably cull the whole country at this point.
It is a total tragedy that this is occurring to the planet… and yet part of me can’t help but think “Good Job. Maybe this is the planet getting back at us.”
I say “Us” because this is a global catastrophe and it will have faaaaaaar-reaching consequences, but what I really mean is “THEM... Maybe the planet is getting back at THEM”. 'THEM' being A-MERRRRRRRRR-ICK-A, A-MERRRRRRRR-ICK-A. The greatest fucking country on the planet with the Biggest dick and the Biggest balls and the Biggest fake tits and the Biggest bottle of coke or the Biggest whatever… You’re SOOOOOO FUCKING GREAT, aren’t you America…

I just hope that we can learn from this mistake. Although something tells me the learning is a looooooooong way off, possibly centuries.
I love life, I love being alive (despite the childhood baggage that continues to haunt me, and my chippy-chopped spine with its relentless pain) but… Human Beings are an awful little infestation on this planet. I don’t wish it on anyone… but when Earthquakes and Tsunami’s and War take out a number of lives, I can’t help but think that Nature is swiping back. Like God culling his/her/its facebook friends list. I just hope it doesn’t swipe back at New Zealand any time soon…

As for the BP idiots who are coming up with ideas like

“Plug the hole with junk!”, and

“Send a nuclear warhead down into the earth and blow up the oil deposit itself!”…

GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK, YOU STUPID FUCKIN AMERICAN CORPORATE CUNTS!!!
Jesus Christ, the world hates you enough already, is that really the best you can come up with???
And now I see BP is actually BUYING UP GOOGLE SEARCHES on the subject so they can redirect people to websites and “information” of their own… UGH. Now THAT’S low.
BP should be avoided at all costs for the next millennia, SHUT DOWN even.
Go and choke on your “big” American dicks. Go on, just Fuck Off.
…
Ok, I’m calmer and rationale-er now. I don’t really hate all of the Americans Ever. Just the dickheads in charge of this mess who seem to be taking their sweet-ass time cleaning it up, but are quite happy to spend a lot of time “researching” whose fault it was in the first place – “He did it.” “Actually, He did it.” “Well, I can see why you might think that I did it, but our studies show that bla bla bla He did it.”
Well, that’s all really helpful and all, but do ya think you could discuss this AFTER YOU PLUG THE FUCKING LEAK YOU FUCKING CUNTHOLE MUTHAFUCKS??? DO YA???
(and there the calmer and rationale-er went…)

*
SEX AND THE CITY 2:

Once upon a time I lived in a flat with a friend who loved Sex and The City - to the point that my birthday party was actually put on hold while the series finale aired. Then I lived in another flat with another friend who got out SATC on dvd to show her boyfriend. Once they were in the house they basically passed around flattie to flattie until we were getting them out independently of each other if we missed them during the first rounds. In the end the end the whole flat had watched and discussed all episodes at length. This was in the lead-up to the first film, so when that came out we all went together on the flat account and loved it.
This time around I didn’t want to go see it with anyone else so I organised a day trip to Welly and off I went with my friend slash ex-flatmate and her boyfriend.
It was a shithouse day, gray and raining, so we taxied into town and proceeded to sit front and centre for the next installment of a much loved story.
And what should happen? A bunch of teenage girls and their boyfriends, who you just know aren’t big fans of the show but have dragged their boyfriends into a movie they might like and can make out in, and out of all the empty seats – and it was pretty empty – in the theatre, they decide to sit down right next to me. Not just near, but RIGHT NEXT to me.
UNIMPRESSED. Why do people feel the need to DO that??? I would NEVER sit RIGHT NEXT to someone at the movies if the whole theatre is next to empty. It's not the first time it's happened to me either. UGH. In fact, this one time (at band camp), a group of people came and sat right next to me and my date in an EMPTY THEATRE and I even overheard one of them say "Ha, we're gonna be the arseholes I hate that sit right next to someone in an empty theatre and then talk the whole movie," which the bitch predicted accurately... I mean, what a Fuckin Mutt.

I scowled at the teens disapprovingly and they decided to move along a few seats, then back next to me, then back a few seats. “Stay there,” I said pointedly.
Thankfully they weren’t too annoying during the film, because if they had been I would have started yelling at them, I know I would have.
Anyway, the film was just ok. Maybe I forgot to expect bottom-of-the-barrel, which is my usual trick because then I am never disappointed. It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t great, but it was ok.
I’m still looking forward to more though. I think those characters are great, and I look forward to the next installment… as long as it’s better than this one.
Abu Dhabi was pretty! Some bad outfits though. Really bad.
*

2010-06-02T12:56:00.007+12:00

33.
.

I have something completely different for you this week. In an effort to salvage my Dark Valley tv series idea, I have tried turning it into a... we'll say Story for now, but The Beginning Of A Novel would be the desired result.

Here is the first 5000 words

Enjoy

Here's to Friendship.

P.s.

For those of you who read this yesterday;

For those of you that noticed certain characters were named after you;

In the interest of artisanship;

And in fairness to changing everybody's name and not just a few -

I have drafted new names for my characters.

If you didn't mind me using your name, and you don't like the one I've replaced it with, let me know and we'll talk.

CHAPTER ONE:

“HAVE A GOOD DAY BACK AT SCHOOL!”

Baxter Black opened his eyes. And groaned. The holidays were officially over – today was Monday and it was time to go back to school. A prospect Baxter was not at all enthused by.

His mother, who’s banging on the bedroom door had woken him, was saying “Bax! Wakey wakey, school today!”
“I’m up, I’m up” He called in response, forcing himself to roll out of bed.

As he pulled back the curtains the weather offered no escape from his mood – it was as gray and bleak out there as he felt.

“Great.” He muttered to himself.

As he stood there staring at the weather, a fantail suddenly came to rest on his windowsill.

"Huh." said Baxter. "Hello birdie."

The fantail cocked his head at him.

"Baxter!" called his mother again.

"I'M UP!" he called back, and when he turned back to the window the fantail had gone.

Baxter showered, got into his uniform, ate his breakfast, got his books ready... It all started as any other normal school day would.

But little did he know that today would be far from normal.

Baxter and his mother Carol drove the old country road to Riverton in relative silence. Baxter being 16, there wasn’t a lot of flowing conversations on these routine drives to school. He didn’t feel like he could talk to his mother about much these days anyway… He mostly just liked to look out at the fields and the mountains, though today they were shrouded in cloud and fog.

Fern Valley, the valley in which Baxter was born and bred, was one of the most dreary and dismal places to live in the whole country. It was pretty, with its rolling farmlands that spread to the coast, but it was also at the bottom, and on the sunless side, of Black Mountain, and the mountain kept the valley in an almost eternal shadow. The weather was overcast 99% of the time anyway – you could count on both hands the number of sunny days Fern Valley saw in a year. Baxter often wondered why people lived in this place at all, and fantasised about the day he could leave this place. He couldn’t wait to get out of here, and dreamed about the day he’d be living in a big city like London, or New York...

Baxter had been fascinated with New York ever since he'd learned that that’s where Madonna had started out. Baxter was a Madonna fanatic – it didn’t earn him cool points, but he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, Madonna was the shit. He couldn’t wait to go to vibrant and creative New York one day, and follow in her footsteps…But for now, he was trapped in a depressing, gray little hole, where people’s minds were simple, and closed, and prejudiced, and racist, and classist, and moralistic, and stoopid…

Even though he was born and raised in the valley, Baxter did not feel at home here. Nor, to Baxter’s mind, did Fern Valley feel it was Baxter’s home. To Baxter, the place had been screaming at him to Get Out since he was 5.

Yes, indeedy, Baxter couldn’t wait ‘til he was old enough to flee this dark valley.

Right now though, it was back to school. Baxter sighed at the thought of it.

“Alright?” asked Carol.

“Mmm. Just… looking forward to another exciting day at school!” he quipped.

Carol rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything else. Baxter was thankful – a speech about knuckling down was the last thing he was in the mood for.

The car was quiet, bar the radio, for the rest of the trip, and soon they were pulling up to the corner of Isabelle’s street.

“Seeya later!” said Carol cheerily. “Have a good day back at school!”

“Oh I’m sure I will Mother.” Said Baxter flatly as he got out of the car.

“Kiss!” said Carol, sticking her cheek out.

God, thought Baxter wearily as he obliged her with a quick peck, praying none of the guys from school were around to witness this.

“Seeya.” He said, closing the door and flicking a half wave at his mother.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he made his way down the street to Isabelle’s house.

Isabelle was Baxter’s best friend, and they had known each other since they were at kindergarten. They were very close, like brother and sister – which also meant that, on occasion, they fought like brother and sister. Neither were inclined to hold back on the other if they felt the other needed a good arse kicking. But, for the majority of the time, Isabelle and Baxter got on like a house on fire and practically lived in each others pockets.…

At least, they used to. But ever since Isabelle had starting going out with Jared Miller four months ago, she had less and less spare time to spend with Baxter.

This bothered Baxter. A lot. Primarily because Jared despised Baxter, as most of the guys his age at school did. Baxter was a bit of an anomaly in this region, in that he was a male that didn’t play rugby, or build cars, or hang out with guys and talk about girls… Baxter hung out with the Girls, and was into Drama, and liked Madonna… Baxter, for all intentions and purposes, was, to the general male population of Fern Valley High, a Fag.

Jared and his best mate Jai Kahu – Jai was also the boyfriend of Baxter’s other good friend Raya – were just two of the many that were more than happy to apply the term Fag to Baxter. It was mostly shrugged off by him – he did, after all, have bigger things to deal with – but it certainly didn’t make life any funner.

Baxter felt more than a little ripped off that two of his best friends were now going out with two of his biggest bullies. Sure, they were both nice to Baxter in front of their girlfriends, but given an unseen chance, Jai and Jared were the first to kick Baxter in the guts. And once or twice, literally. But after some stern words from their girlfriends they had backed off a bit to keep the peace, though the tension still definitely hung around. It was pretty routine these days though for Baxter to ignore them, and them to ignore Baxter. This seemed to work for all parties involved.

It’s not as if Baxter wanted Izzy or Raya for himself, as he found it very hard to sexualise a girl if they were already his friend. And he did want them to be happy, which they seemed to be.

But in Baxter’s mind, and he knew the girls knew this deep down also, those boys were nowhere near good enough for his friends. They were arseholes, pure and simple, and he would relish the day his friends ditched them, and he thought about that day often. Thoughts usually accompanied with a dumb grin.

In the meantime Baxter took what little time he could get with them, and that included the walk to school. Baxter walked to school half of the time with Isabelle, but sometimes with other friends, like Kalista, or Kendall. He was looking forward to seeing Isabelle this morning though, as he hadn’t seen her much over these holidays.

As he knocked on the sliding door and slid it open, the usual O’Shale household chaos greeted him.Isabelle’s stepmother, Justine, was going about the morning routine, attending to the two girls Alice and Delaney, Izzy’s little half-sisters, themselves up to their elbows in a mess of breakfast.

“Good morning Justy!” Baxter chimed cheerily, ditching his car brood for a more family-friendly face.

“Morning Baxter!” said Justine. “Izzy’s in her room, go on through.”

Baxter pulled funny faces at the girls as he passed them and into the hallway, knocking on Isabelle’s door.

“Come in!” he heard her say. Baxter swung open the door to see Isabelle sitting on her floor mattress.

She was drying her wet, curly, matted red mop with a towel in one hand, and holding the phone to her ear on the other. Her face was kinda grim and so was her tone. Baxter was instantly unsettled.

“Uh huh… uh huh… Yeah, I know… No, come… It’ll be alright… Promise?... Ok, I’ll see you there, we’ll wait outside the gates for you… Ok… Love You… Byee.”

“Who was that?” Baxter asked as Izzy hung up the phone, knowing full well it was probably Jared.

“Cindy” said Isabelle.

“Oh.” Said Baxter. “Is she alright, what was that about?”

Isabelle looked up at him with a strange look on her face… was that worry? Or confusion?

“I’m not sure if I can tell you,” she said, then added as an afterthought “Though I guess… you’re gonna find out anyway.”

“What?” said Baxter, now kind of alarmed. “What’s going on?”

Isabelle sighed. “It’s Kate… She died yesterday.”

“Kate Taylor?” asked Baxter.

“Yeah.” Said Isabelle.

Baxter stood there in shock for a moment, his mouth agape… before he said the only thing he could think to say.

“FUCK!”

It was almost Christmas, 1981, and Baxter and Kate Taylor had been four years old when they’d first met. They had both been taken by their Grandparents to the Retired Servicemen’s Association Christmas show, and had found themselves sitting next to one another in the front. It was instant friendship, and the two had been thrilled to find themselves at school with each other two months later.

Their closeness however hadn’t lasted long, and their friendship became… intermittent.

It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other, it was just that they had both been pre-occupied with the problems they were having at home.

Kate had been adopted, and as soon as she could talk she was arguing with her adoptive parents. By the time she was 8 Kate had suddenly vanished from school, and Baxter learnt months later when he saw her on the street one day that she had been sent to boarding school. She then got expelled from said boarding school and was sent to another, far up north. She was then expelled from that boarding school too, and not long after, expelled from the Taylor family period and was put into foster care. All this by the time she was 11. From there Kate had pretty much been bounced from family to family, and even though she had been tentatively accepted into Fern Valley High last year, had stopped going to class long ago. She went out with Men, not guys her own age but Men. Men who seemed like mean bastards to Baxter, who hardly ever talked to Kate nicely, and who loved having a young girl to fuck, and yell at…

Every time Baxter talked to her over those broken years, the black rings under her eyes got another shade darker, her face a little less happier…

The last time Baxter had hung out with Kate was just a few months ago. He’d gotten to school late, having driven his own car that day – a navy blue Vauxhall Viva, affectionately dubbed Dolores The Vivasaurus – and was walking toward the school gates when he heard his name from across the road.

“Baxter!” He turned and saw a large SUV parked across the road, its window slightly down with a hand beckoning from the darkness. He crossed the road to investigate. Kate’s face grinned at him through the smoky air.

“Wanna puff?”Baxter did a quick scan to see if a teacher was around before jumping into the car.

“Hello Miss Taylor!” Baxter said. “I would Love one, Thanks!”

He took the joint from Kate and took a deep puff. Aaah, just the thing to kill the boredom of all the hours that lay ahead.

“What are you doing here anyway?” he asked her as he passed the joint back.

“Not a lot.” She said. “I’ve got the car ‘til Matt finishes work so I thought I’d go for a drive and sorta ended up here.”

“What, outside school? Don’t worry, you’re not missing much.” Said Baxter. Kate passed the joint back.

“Do you remember when we met?” she said, looking at Baxter with a cocked head.

“Sure do.” He said. “The RSA Christmas Show. And they sang that song that we used to sing at school as kids, remember?”

“That’s right.” She said, smiling. “That song, remember how it went?”

“Pfft, do I remember…” said Baxter sarcastically. And then in unison they’d both burst into song.

“Kiss me, Honey Honey, Kiss me,

Thrill me, Honey Honey, thrill me,

Don’t care even if I blow my top

But Honey Honey

–Uh huh? –

Don’t Stop!”

The pair of them then burst into laughter, and Baxter had a coughing fit from his smoke.

He’d then decided he’d better get into school, and they’d said their goodbyes…

Little had Baxter known then, that talking about the first time he’d met Kate, would also be the last time he would ever see her alive…

Baxter and Isabelle walked to school in relative silence. Baxter was dumbstruck. Isabelle was puffing her cigarette anxiously.

“O.k. Hit me.” Said Baxter. “How did it happen?”

“Well… No one’s really sure.”

“What do you mean, was she murdered or something?” gasped Baxter. This was horrible, THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING!

“Well No… not exactly.” Isabelle said.

“Izzy, you’re not making this easier, just spit it out.” Said Baxter.

“Well… she was drinking yesterday… with Jared. And Jai. And Raya.”

“Oh my god.” Said Baxter. “Where were they?”

“At Raya’s house.”

“Noooooooo.” Said Baxter, stunned. “She didn’t die at Raya’s house, did she?”

Isabelle nodded.

“Oh my god.” Said Baxter. “Her Mother. Is Going. To KILL her when she gets back!”

Isabelle nodded emphatically.

“So how did she…” Baxter couldn’t bring himself to say ‘die’.

“Well… she drank herself to death. They think.”

“What? They think? Who, the Cops think??”

“Yeah.”

Baxter shook his head. This was information overload. “Hold up, ok, start at the beginning.”

“Ok.” Said Isabelle, taking a deep breath. “Yesterday Raya, Jai, Jared, and Kate were hanging out at Jared’s. She’d gone round to score weed off Jai, and then they decided to get drunk. Kate bought a bottle of whiskey, they all went back round to Raya’s, and then Kate drank the whole thing in three gulps... And then she was wasted. Apparently she was tryna walk and kept smacking her head into the wall and shit.”

Isabelle stopped to take a quick drag on her cigarette, making sure no cars were driving past that might contain a teacher, spitting into the gutter.

“Umm, so then she was wasted and Jared and Jai put her into the bathtub. They were checking on her every now and then, but then later, just after the guys had gone, Raya went in and Kate’s face was blue.”

Baxter gasped, his hand flying up to his mouth. Poor Raya, having to find Kate like that… He shuddered at the thought.

“She called the ambulance, and they came, but… Kate was dead.”

“So… it was alcohol poisoning, yeah?”

“Well… probably, yeah. But her body has all these bruises from when she was falling around so… the Police sorta think that it was…”

“Murder.” Baxter finished. “The cops think Jared and Jai and Raya murdered her, is that it?”

Isabelle shrugged. “Yeah.” She said. “Well… more the boys really. They’re both down at the station being questioned now.”

“WHAT???” Baxter could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Isabelle could only shrug in response.

“This is bad. This is really really bad.” He said.

“Yup.” Agreed Isabelle.

“How long… when will they get out?” Baxter asked.

Isabelle shrugged again. “Dunno.”

Although he hated to admit it, Baxter inherently knew that neither Jared nor Jai were Murderers. Arseholes, sure, but not murderers…

As the two of them rounded the corner they could see Cindy and Raya waiting for them at the school gates. Baxter’s heart jumped for a moment. He wasn’t at all sure what he was going to say to Raya.

“Hi guys.” Said Isabelle, hugging a red-eyed and teary Cindy. Baxter stood for a moment uncomfortably, him and Raya looking at each other. But on seeing her face – her forlorn, tired looking face – Baxter remembered that Raya was just not that person, and that she was innocent in all this. He moved forward and gave her a hug. Raya returned it.

“Are you ok?” he asked her.

Raya rolled her eyes, stepping back and wrapping her arms around herself, exhaling a long deep breath.

“I don’t blame you.” He said, not taking his arm from her shoulder.

“It was horrible Bax.” She said softly.

“It’ll be ok.” Said Baxter, not really believing this. He happened to glance up and noticed the school flag in between the turrets above the grand entrance. The reality of this hit him like a brick.

“The flags flying at half-mast.” He said.

“What does that mean?” said Raya.

“It means somebody died.”

“…oh.” Said Raya.

Cindy and Isabelle turned to look at this two, and for a few seconds the four of them stood in a stunned trance, staring at the flag. Raya took Cindy’s hand, and they stood, connected…

As Baxter thought about the coming day, a thick feeling of dread began to fill him, and he suddenly found himself panicking.

“Oh my god, I dunno about this guys.” He said.

“What do you mean?” said Isabelle.

“I don’t wanna go in there.”

“Yeah, me either!.” Said Cindy, even more upset than Baxter.

“No, come on guys, let’s get this over with.” Said Izzy.

“It’s all anyone’s gonna be talking about all day! I don’t know if I can do it!” said Baxter, noticing his voice was slightly higher than usual. He started to take deep breaths.
“It’ll be ok, I promise.” Said Isabelle, in her most convincing voice.

“You don’t know that.” Said Baxter, shooting her down.

“It will be!” said Isabelle firmly. “Now, let’s get this over this.” And without another word she hooked Baxter by the arm, still holding Cindy in the other, and started walking. Raya, still hooked on Baxter’s other arm, was forced to move too.

The entrance loomed uninvitingly as they approached. Before Raya opened the doors, Baxter took a deep breath.

Inside, the main corridor was buzzing with students. The first bell had not rung yet, and the students were loading their lockers, talking about their holidays, picking on the geeks…

Baxter looked around at the normalcy of it all, knowing full well that very soon Kate’s death would be the subject of every conversation for the rest of the week. He felt kinda jealous that he was not in their position, cheerful, and oblivious…

As they made their way to their home room Baxter saw Kalista, Fern, Kendall and Bailey approaching them. Isabelle saw this also.

“Ugh.” She sighed. “Look Baxter, it’s your friends!” she said brightly and sarcastically.

“Aw yeah, Please! Make today harder Isabelle, thanks!” Baxter shot back.

Isabelle shut her mouth, but didn’t apologise. There was no fixing that bad blood.

Kalista, Fern, Kendall, and Bailey were Baxter’s other group of girl friends, and the divide between the two groups could not be bigger.

The divide was mostly a class thing. Kalista, Fern, Kendall and Bailey were the daughters of locally important, wealthy academics. Kalista’s father Vincent Steel was an insurance magnate who had carried on his father’s business, while her mother Susan was a lady of leisure; Fern Jones’s parents were both teachers at the High School – her father Dave was head of the social studies department, and her mother Shirley was head of the English department; Kendall’s father Sam Douglas was the judge down at the courthouse while her mother Jan was an occasional lawyer but mostly a lady of leisure with Mrs. Steel; and Bailey Rossi-Dodds’ father John was the Doctor of the region, while her mother, Sally, took care of the Rossi-Dodd’s brood. Bailey was currently the oldest child at home, but was the fifth child of Nine, with two brothers and two sisters older then her, and two brothers and two sisters younger – only a Doctor could possibly support that many children.

Isabelle, Raya, and Cindy, however, were the daughters of working class, down-to-earth families. Isabelle’s father Bryan was a music teacher at the primary school, while her step-mother Justine looked after her younger sisters; Raya’s mother Eyvette was a receptionist at the courthouse (Raya’s father was not in the picture, nor did she have any idea who he was); and Cindy’s dad Pete, a truck driver, and her mother Penny, had recently moved down south to live, leaving Cindy behind at the school boarding house.

One would think that in such a small place like Fern Valley, there wouldn’t be much room for social divides, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The social attitudes and divides were perceptibly concentrated… and, to an observant outsider like Baxter, garishly comical.

Baxter, who liked to spend as much time away from home as possible, and who was personally connected with every one of the girls, had long ago mastered the art of blending into any degree of social standing – one of his mother’s teachings, that Good Manners Will Get You Anywhere, had basically become his mantra. Every Single One of his friends’ parents LOVED him, and he was welcome in all their homes.

The fact that his friends did not get along often drove Baxter insane, but he simply refused to pick a side of the fence. He loved all his friends, but was often frustrated by their varying degrees of hatred for one another – especially between Isabelle and Kalista. While Kalista saved her caustic tongue for less public occasions (usually), and out of respect for Baxter, Isabelle, having known Baxter longer, didn’t really feel the need to edit her mouth for Baxter’s sake.

Despite the tension between the groups, all the girls seemed to recognise Baxter’s loyalty and love for each of them, and therefore they all remained friends with him. Baxter, however, had long ago given up trying to mesh the two groups together.

Isabelle, Raya and Cindy sidled past the other girls silently and went into home room. Baxter smiled meekly at his friends.

“Hi!” chirped the girls cheerily.

“Hi.” Said Baxter forlornly.

“What’s wrong?” said Kendall.

Baxter sighed. “A lot.”

“Hey, I heard Kate Taylor died!” said Bailey, excitedly. This was typical – Bailey was the biggest gossip Baxter knew, and he knew she would be THRIVING on this juicy steak of a rumour.

“Yeah do you know anything about that?” asked Kendall, in the same bright, excited manner.

He couldn’t blame them for being inquisitive – Baxter knew he’d be asking about it too had he not already known. The difference was he had known Kate personally. But he also knew that none of these girls really knew this – in fact, most people would never have guessed that Kate and Baxter even talked to each other. But despite this, their questions bothered him. All four girls were staring at him expectantly.

“It’s true. She’s dead.” Said Baxter.

“I heard she was murdered.” Fed Bailey to the group.

“She wasn’t murdered.” Said Baxter, although he knew he did not know this for sure. “She died of alcohol poisoning at Raya’s.” That last part kinda slipped out.

The girls all gasped at this tidbit, their eyes growing wide, and greedy for more. This irritated Baxter to the extreme.

“Oh my god, tell us!” said Bailey clapping, absolutely delighted to be hearing such juicy treats. But her tone stopped Baxter dead. He was done talking about this.

“Look… I don’t wanna talk about it.” Said Baxter flatly, and started to walk off.

The four girls were slightly perplexed by this reaction, but only Fern was astute enough not to be offended, and she grabbed Baxter’s arm.
“Hey wait. Are you ok?” she asked.
“No, not really.” He said.Fern gave him a hug. The other three girls looked at each sheepishly.“I… I’m sorry!” said Bailey, realising her mistake.
“It’s Ok” said Baxter.
“I didn’t realise you two were friends.” Said Kalista.

“Me either.” Said Bailey.

“I know.” Said Baxter. “No one did. But I’ve known her since we were four, ya know?” Even as he said it, Baxter felt himself getting teary. This was dangerous – he knew being seen crying in the very public main corridor would be enough ammo to get him teased for the rest of the year. He immediately wiped his eyes. The girls exchanged looks – they were suddenly feeling very awkward.

Bailey lunged forward to get in on Fern’s hug. “I’m sorry!” she said.
“It’s ok. Really.” Said Baxter. “I’ll see you guys later.” And with that he went into home room.

The girls watched him leave as the first bell rang.

Fern turned to Kalista. “Did you know he was friends with Kate?”

Kalista shook her head. “It’s news to me!”

“Yeah, I’D never seen them talking!” added Kendall.
“Well… Baxter is a bit of drama queen.” Said Kalista.

Baxter sat down next to Raya, who immediately noticed his wet eyes.

“You ok?” Raya asked.

Baxter shrugged. “How ‘bout you?” he asked.

Raya shrugged back. Baxter put his arm round her shoulder. Their fellow students began to fill the room and soon their home room teacher Mr. Wallace joined them. The sight of him turned Baxter’s butterflies into bats. He knew that even though he knew already, the Official School Announcement of Kate’s death was going to hit the news home like a mallet.

“Alright everyone, quiet down please, quiet down!” called Mr. Wallace. The students slowly silenced.

“Good morning everyone, and welcome back!” said Mr. Wallace, in his usual, constantly jubilant manner. “Now don’t get comfortable because the whole school is heading over to the gym for a special assembly, so come on everyone! Off we go!”

While the rest of the class gathered their bags and proceeded to leave, Baxter, Raya, and Cindy remained glued to their seats. Only Isabelle stood up.

“Come on guys, we have to.” She said to the others. The others, however, were extremely reluctant to move.

Mr. Wallace, holding the door open and having ushered everyone out, now noticed his four remaining students.

“Come on guys, quickly!” he chirped.

“Mr. Wallace, do we have to go?” asked Baxter.

“Yes, of course, come on!” said Mr. Wallace, waving them toward the door.

“But we already know what the assembly’s about!” said Baxter.

“Oh rubbish, come on!” said Mr. Wallace, clearly Never going to let them stay. Isabelle looked at the others.

“Come on guys.” She said quietly. “In ten minutes the worst will be over.”

Baxter sighed as he stood. Raya and Cindy slowly followed.

The four of them walked to the gym in a thick bubble of silence, while all around them the buzz of other students was deafening.

They entered the gym, found themselves a spot on the floor, and waited for the axe to fall…

After a few minutes, when all the students had finally filed into the gym, the Principal, Mr. Masters, stood up in front of them all. A hush fell over the crowd.

“Good morning everyone, and welcome back to the new school term” he said, in his most sterile and official voice. “I’m sorry to tell you that I have some bad news for you this morning.”

The tears were welling in Baxter’s eyes already, and he started to feel slightly sick.

“A student of this school, Kate Taylor, passed away yesterday, and we are very saddened to hear of this loss.”

And there they were… the words Baxter had been dreading to hear. They crashed in his ears like bricks, and their weight pierced his heart. The tears began to flow freely, and he let them. Fuck everyone.

In the back of his mind he heard Cindy begin blubbering too. He tried to block it out. He felt Raya’s arm slide around his shoulder, and he let himself lean into it.

Mr. Masters continued. “The school offers its deepest condolences to her family and friends. There will be victim support counseling available all day in Mr. Bain’s office for any students who feel they need it.”

Thank god, thought Baxter. Going to actual class was definitely Not on the menu today.

“But I would also like to remind students that end of year exams are coming up, and I hope that you all can keep focused, and move past this sad event.”

‘Sad Event? A Sad Event? Really? Is that the best he can come up with?’ thought Baxter.
Mr. Masters then began to read from a poem, something about angels and flying free, Baxter wasn’t really listening. But then, to Baxter’s amazement, Mr. Masters exited the gym, and, just like that, it was over. The students were already beginning to stand and were being ushered out by the other teachers. The whole thing had lasted less than two minutes.

Baxter was flabbergasted. As were the other three girls.

“Is... that it?” asked Baxter, confused.

“I think so.” Said Isabelle.

“I don’t believe it.” Said Raya.

“That was nothing!” cried Cindy.

“It really, really was” agreed Baxter. And just like that, his sadness turned into anger. “That Fucking Arsehole!”
“What a cunt” muttered Raya.

“He barely even mentioned her, that makes me SO MAD!” yelled Cindy, enraged, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to turn and look.
“If it had been one of the First Fifteen or a Netball girl," said Baxter, absolutely seething with fury, "they’d be building a gold fucking statue at the gates!”

“I reckon!” said Raya.
“Come on.” Said Izzy, standing. “NOW we can do what we want.”

It was the first agreeable statement Isabelle had said all morning.

Within a minute the four of them were sitting outside the Art room, chain smoking cigarettes. Smoking was in no way allowed on school grounds, but right now, none of them cared about getting detention.

Nor did any teacher or prefect that walked past them seem to care about giving it to them. In light of the news that had just been delivered, it seemed that, for now at least, they had a free pass.

2010-06-02T12:42:00.004+12:00

32.
.
LOST FINALE: Once upon a time, I watched a show. I watched a show for six years.
I watched Every Single Episode of a show for six years.
I watched a show with the kind of dedication it takes to look after a baby. You nurture it, you love it, you burp it at night…
And then that show grew up, moved out, and called me a Bitch on its way.
YUCK, ICK, UGH, PFFT, and CACK.
I WILL admit that it was VERY PRETTY, and had certainly dressed itself up to the nines before it left, but…
Well let’s put it this way – a really long way.
You can dress up a donkey in a rabbit suit, and take it to the pet show and tell everyone it’s a rabbit, and some of the people might even believe it but most everyone is looking at the donkey in a rabbit suit thinking “Hmmm, I dunno about that rabbit… looks a bit like a donkey in a rabbit suit. But it’s doing some pretty amazing tricks!”
And then just after the donkey in a rabbit suit has impressed the pants off of everyone and is being trotted out of the pet show with a big blue ribbon for Best Rabbit, the bright fluorescent lights of the exit lobby do their trick and suddenly everyone can see that the “amazing rabbit” is very clearly a donkey in a rabbit suit, and now the people feel offended and a little bit foolish for believing the amazing rabbit’s tricks…
It’s kinda like that.
THUMBS WAAAAAAAAAAAY DOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWN.
Does anyone know where I can find the last six years of my life please??

.
VISITS FROM FRIENDS:
I LOVE it when my friends visit, and I’ve been very lucky to have had two visits from old friends this week!
Last week my friend from Auckland popped into work, though this was actually the suckiest visit because she breezed in and out in less than ten minutes to go pick up a couch… UN-impressed.
And realistically, Not better than nothing.
But then on Sunday I got a surprise visit from another old school friend, Christie Cameron. Christie and I have known each other since I was 14 and she was 13, and we catch up sporadically over the years, and, like the best friendships do, we always pick up right where we left off. I love that.
She stayed for over an hour – HEAVEN! – and we talked non-stop. I was a little hungover from my wine-guzzling Lost session, but that hardly slowed me down.
Christie is getting MARRIED THIS SUMMER and I LOOOOOOOOOOVE going to old friends weddings! I used to be kinda cynical and grossed-out by the whole marriage concept – one person for life? REALLY?? – but I have to say that over the years, as I’ve watched people I love declaring their love for one another, my heart has definitely softened to the idea. Not to say that those particular marriages have always lasted BUT… I think the idea of celebrating a relationship that makes your friends sickeningly happy is One Damn Good Reason To Celebrate. And also a great reason to buy a new outfit.
Congratulations to my friend Christie and my-friend-by-association-whom-I’ve-yet-to-meet Tim.
I can’t wait to celebrate your big day with you!!!
.

A POEM:
This week I went digging
in the dirt of my ancestors
as I helped clean my friends
fathers’ grave.
I dug up the weeds
and the worms,
and I couldn’t help but realise
that my friends father
was now the dirt
and maybe even
inside the worms stomach.
I was muddy,
and sweaty,
before ten in the morning…
I liked the feeling of dirt
underneath my fingernails.
.

2010-06-02T11:36:00.003+12:00

31.
.
THE LOVELY BONES:

I watched this in tandem with Avatar the other night. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it!
I know reviews have been mixed, and I can see why, but I just thought it was good. Entertaining.
Not quite as… mmm, cohesive, and, mmm, satisfying as, say, Vincent Ward’s ‘What Dreams May Come’. I mean, that murdering creep deserved more comeuppance than that… Although his comeuppance was pretty crunchy.
And the script could have used a taaad more plotline to tie some bits together, buuuuuuuuuut… overall, I liked it!
THE LOVELY BONES RECEIVES A MAD SCORPION BLESSING.
DING!
.
MY AMAZING GREAT-AUNTY ROSIE:
I wish I had a picture to post here, but I don’t.
My friend Anja was over from New York recently. I didn’t get the chance to catch up with her however because I had already planned a visit with my family to visit my amazing Aunty Rosie in Eltham.
…
My amazing Great Aunty Rosie was born in the year 1918.
Can you imagine that? Born in the year Nineteen-Eighteen… She really has lived through it all.
She is 92 years old, and if she manages to make it another 8 years, she’ll be a certified centurion.
Unfortunately, her health has started to fail a little over the last few years, but I have to say, she’s done INCREDIBLY well, and continues to do so.
Her vision is fine, she can still walk, still has all her faculties, all her intellect, personality, brain… She even still lives in the big old family homestead – a house even older than her – and won’t hear a word of living anywhere else, nor does any member of the family wish to remove her from it.
As long as she’s still capable, then everyone is fine with it. She is, of course, kept a good eye on, but I am afraid my days with her in my life might be shrinking rapidly. She has been in and out of hospital lately, with her heart not so strong and her breathing getting harder… She’s fine, but taking a little longer to get better when she gets sick these days. Poor, beautiful Aunty Rosie.
She is my mother’s aunt, and for as long as I can remember her and her sister, my Aunty Sylvia, were the wonderful duo of great-aunts who would drive down from Eltham in their just-as-old blue car ever so often, with lollies and money in tow.Aunty Sylvia, bespectacled and reserved; Aunty Rosie, constantly fussing and smiling. One of them sliding me some secret money, not to be shown to Mum, the other sliding me some money, with the same instructions.
For years and years she lived in the house she grew up in with her sister Sylvia, but after Aunty Sylvia’s death in 2003, Aunty Rosie has continued to live in their big old homestead.
They haven’t always lived in it, but just about. Around 85 of those years anyway.
I visited her on May 16th. Although I have seen her lots growing up, I haven’t been to her house since I was very young – let’s put it this way, I have almost no memory of it.
I have been very curious about this house, hearing all the tales about it. I have very vague memories of it, and I’ve seen photos of my Aunts in the garden, but I didn’t really have a clear picture of it in my head.
Although the outside was pretty much on par with the picture in my head (though the paint job was a lot newer than I had expected) it was the inside that really blew me away.
For one, it’s Huge. It’s got high ceilings, it’s wooden, and old, and steeped in history.
On seeing it, I began to worry immediately that it was exactly that. All those things about a house usually mean COLD IN THE WINTER. Her curtains weren’t nearly thick enough, some of her windows didn’t even have curtains (don’t panic, I’m talking about the kitchen and bathroom, which don’t always, but with a house like that…)… I was instantly more worried about Aunty Rosie than I ever have been.
I wouldn’t ever want her to live anywhere else if she doesn’t want to, but at the same time I couldn’t help but think of all the little ways I wanted to impose on her lifestyle to make things more comfy for her.
I hope she wasn’t too overwhelmed by us all actually. There was quite an influx of us at one point.
I went to sit in the (huge, all the rooms are HUGE) lounge and worked my way around all the photos on the walls and on tops of cabinets…
Although Aunty Rosie and Aunty Sylvia have always been constants in my life, I have to admit… my mother’s side of the family – apart from her brother – have never been a huge part of our lives.
I talked about my Nana Doris recently… After her death, some fairly awful things happened on that side of the family, and from a very young age, I turned my back on it. I kinda had to, just to get by.
To be fair, however, I gotta say… Pakeha folk just aren’t all that keen on their extended families.
Not all, but most. That side of the family are those type of folk, and to be honest… I don’t think we’re missing much. They’re all a bit weird really… But maybe that’s just because I don’t know them.
I don’t think it is, but anyway…
The house is amazing. Old, probably cold (although with all the heaters she has constantly running, she’s never actually cold), but amazing. Kinda like the quintessential farmhouse – all wooden, and with a verandah running round the outside, and big old windows, but in the middle of the suburbs.
It is sparkling white, with a huge front lawn, and an old old greenhouse that is mostly used for garden tool storage these days but still has RIPE grapes growing in it, and a back garden that is more like a back drop, with an overgrown, windy, steep path that heads down through the bushes, stopping intermittently to fork off in either direction that lead to little, flat, small garden banks, but continues to eventually end at the river. It is an amazing piece of land, that although isn’t that big, manages to contain a lot. Like a TARDIS lawn plot – All together now, “IT’S BIGGER ON THE INSIDE!”
It wasn’t exactly awash in colour at this time of year – it was mostly just lush, overflowing green – but I imagine in the summer that overgrowth is teeming with flowers…
As I went through her photos – all her black and white originals, from a time when capturing images had only just been invented – and saw her as a child, with her siblings (most of whom have died), as a young woman (abs and all), on the beach, with her mates, outside the landmark buildings of various cities around the country, graduating and becoming a nurse, amazing Morticia-like white streaks of hair appearing before it finally graduated to the all-white bun I’m familiar with… An entire lifetime spread before my eyes, crammed into these photo books, and all this before colour film had even been dreamt up…
It was quite an overwhelming experience really, and also, very gently, allowed the gates to that side of the family that I had kept shut for so long to finally open.
I was really… not forced but… swept in, to the fact that this was my history too. That this woman’s life runs through my blood (or at least would if my mother hadn’t been adopted).
Realistically, yeah, I could denounce that branch of my tree, simply because they are NOT blood. ...
But I am not stupid enough to believe that whanau is only blood. ‘Cause it isn’t.
Whanau, family, whatever you wanna call it… It is the people we know, the people we love, the people we were raised with… It doesn’t matter if those people have your blood in their veins, because you are still an integral part of who they are, and you are still in their system…
I am probably babbling a bit here, but… It has taken me a long time, and I’m finally beginning to accept… that I am made up of many things.
Maybe the blood roots aren’t there, but – and in a way this quite apt, and just like my cut-up and stitched-together spine – other branches have definitely grown and been grafted onto my tree.
I love my Aunty Rosie with all my heart, and I am glad she is, and will forever be, part of my family tree.
…
My friend Anja wanted to know more about Aunty Rosie, and what was her secret…
I don’t know what her secret is. Personally, I’m not sure I’d like to live that long (especially in this body, I already feel 80), but I imagine never having kids or getting married certainly kept a lot of fuel in the tank.
.
THE NATION’S BUDGET, DELIVERED LAST WEEK:
….I know you’re expecting me to be all over this one. Ranting and raving like a mo-fo.
But I gotta tell ya… I’m still ingesting it all, and doing some thorough research before I open my trap to speak this time.
I know that the dreaded POLITICS monster is, so a Blogging Bible tells me, one of the ten commandments of blogging no-no’s, can be personally offensive to some people, and all the rest of it, but that’s just too bad because Me being Me, I’m going to say shit about shit I don’t like one way or the other, but… this time?...
And this will shock a lot of you…
I’m not so sure that I do don’t like it.
This shocks me a lot, because Me? And National? UGH. They disgust me to the core.
And yet… I’m not seeing a lot to not like so far…
Sure, it ain’t Great, I’ll give it that much, but…
Like I said, I have to think more before I go into this like I want to, but…
It currently has me in an intellectual tail-spin.
More news at 11…
.
A BIT OF A DUNEDIN RANT:
I mentioned earlier that I have been missing Dunedin a bit lately.
It has been in my mind, in my dreams, in my thoughts.
I can picture in my mind vividly the city, the streets, the hidden pockets, the buildings, the beaches…
And when I do, I am flooded with good feelings, happy thoughts, etc.
I’m under no illusion that I was always happy while I was there, but when I try and think about Wellington in the same way, it doesn’t really fill me with the same feelings.
I get more of a “Meh” feeling with Welly. Take it or leave it.
Perhaps because I’m relatively fresh off the boat from living there, I’m sure the fact that my ex is there probably weighs in there somewhere – although, these days, not as much as they once would have, which is a nice revelation – but as a city it just isn’t all that inspiring for me.
Dunedin just has that magical creative vibe – or at least it used to when I was there, I’m hoping it still does – that Wellington… not so much.
In Wellington, the creative sector is quite… hmm, what word do I wanna use for this… industrailised? Not quite commercialised, I don’t mean that, but it is… a Business. And let’s face it, Wellington is very business oriented.
In Dunedin, the creative sector is everywhere, high class, low class, and everyone appreciates everything. Not only that, the amount of quality, council funded public street art that pours through the Octagon at almost every opportunity that comes along earns it bonus points just on that alone.
Plus, Dunedin has Thai Hanoi restaurant, which makes one of my two favourite dishes ever.
TANGENT!
The first of my favourite dishes ever comes from Cinta Malaysian Kitchen Restaurant in Wellington.

They make this DELICIOUS Sweet and Sour Tofu, BUT you have to eat it wrapped in roti bread with coconut rice and their amazing satay sauce… It is the BEST.

I have been going in there to get it sporadically since 1996, to the point that the old man who runs it (who I’m afraid might have died because I don’t see him in there when I go anymore, I hope not!) calls out “Hello My Friend! You want your tofu, yes?”

My second favourite dish ever comes from Thai Hanoi Restaurant in Dunedin,

and it is Seafood Claypot Rice, and Oh My God… It is Also the BEST.
Whichever city I lived in, I was constantly craving the dish from the other.
Man life is hard sometimes…
ANYway. What was I saying?
Ah, yes. How much I’m missing Dunedin…
There are many reasons I’m living where I am right now. But when I think about where I’ll live next, Dunedin feels like a good choice.
…except for the cold.
I miss ski-suits, but I don’t miss having to wear them.

.
FRITTERS:
I have been on a real Fritter buzz lately. I rediscovered them last week, and by god if they aren’t the easiest thing to whip up.
What’s better, is that in rediscovering the fritter, I am realising their potential for greatness.
This week, I’m going to provide my FIRST EVER RECIPIE!
Here’s a nice comfort food dinner that, of course, you can twist and turn however you like.
*
THE BASICS:
1 cup Flour,
½ - ¾ cup of Milk – it pays to add ½ cup first, then add a bit more if necessary,
1 Egg,
1 ½ tspn Baking Powder – don’t be stingy or exact about this. There’s never any harm in fluffy-ER fritters.
*
That’s the base for any self respecting fritter. And here’s where you can get interesting. These are my current flavourite additions:
*
½ cup (roughly) diced, fried chicken fillet
¼ cup mixed veggies
¼ cup corn
A handful of chopped basil
Some shakes of pepper, ½ tspn salt
A crumbling of vegetable stock (optional, but delicious).
*
Mix to a good consistency – not too thick, not too runny.
Add large spoonful-sized amounts to a hot, oily frying pan, and flatten out the mixture to make them round and not too thick.
Fry ‘til little bubbles start popping in the middle – or until the underside is golden brown, you don’t wanna burn them stoopid – and them flip ‘em over. Keep frying ‘til the other side is golden and
WA LAH.
Perfect winter night dinner.
*
Before you start the Fritters, just dice a couple potatoes, salt and pepper ‘em, veggie stock ‘em, basil ‘em (I love Basil in just about everything), oil ‘em, and chuck ‘em in the oven on 200°, and by the time your Fritters are done, you’ve got chips mate.
*
Next, smother it all in whatever sauce you’ve got on hand (I don’t recommend Watties Tomato Sauce for this, I’m talking Sweet Chilli, or Sweet and Sour) and you’ve got the perfect winter nights meal.
NUM NUM.

2010-05-17T15:11:00.006+12:00

30.

WELLINGTON AIRPORT:Just as I predicted, the Wellington Airport has come back with a list of top ten ideas for a sign on the Mirimar hill after running a forum on facebook, but warns that Wellywood is indeed still in the running.
Top ideas include Lord of the Rings, or some kind of wind, sculptures, which I’m all for. The two big statues standing guard on either side of the river in Lord Of The Rings is a great idea (nerd points), or a giant weta maybe?
In theme with the Hollywood sign comes “WELLYWOOD”, the rather obvious “WELLINGTON”, and “WETAWOOD”, the latter of which I would pick over just about anything else. If we’re going to copy the City of Shallows then it may as well be something made up as opposed to just putting Wellington up there with Mosgeil… woo hoo.
So. My vote's for a giant weta or WETAWOOD.
What’s everyone else’s opinion on this? I’m interested.
.
CAROL-HANNAH SHOULD HAVE WON THE FINAL OF PROJECT RUNWAY:
That’s all I have to say about that really.

KIDS BRANDED LIKE CATTLE:
Mark Seamands, from Washington state, is on trial for branding his 2 sons, 13 and 15, and his 18 year old daughter, with the letters SK – for Seamands’ Kids.
He is charged with assaulting the sons but not the daughter because she was old enough to give consent… WTF??? She gave consent??? Yeah, but it gets worse…
The boys are testifying in DEFENCE of their father because they are proud of their brands…
OWEEE OWEEE OWEEE…
Idiot Kids sound like they belong with their white trash freak of a dad…
.
MOTHERS DAY BEATING IN MEXICO:
This is just Fucked.
The mayor of the town Pentantepec, in the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico, during a Mother’s Day concert in the town of Pueblo Nuevo, PUNCHED, KICKED, AND PULLED THE HAIR OF HIS WIFE(!!!) in front of the entire TOWN last Tuesday… Talk about Inappropriate…
“I tried to help her but the Mayor threatened me,” said the Mayor of P.N. to a reporter. “He beat her hideously!”
The Bad Mayor then tried to BRIBE the reporter on scene to Not report the story – epic fail.
Later in a radio interview, Bad Mayor and his wife are both heard denying anything out of place had happened…
Gee, what a heartwarming story…
.
COCAINE RING USED A PICENZE, ITALY, CONVENT AS A COVER:
Excellent. I love it when God gets mixed up with Drug Trafficking…

.
SO… GOOGLE IS THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SPY HUH?: Yeah, did you hear about this???
Freaky shit.
I’d tell you all about it, but it’s best to read it for yourselves…
Personally, I’m freaked out by this revelation, and WHY OH WHY is the media not on this like it’s 9/11???

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/3695625/Google-cars-gathered-home-internet-data-without-telling

.
JAMES CAMERON’S AVATAR: YAAAAAAAAAAAWN.
In case you were wondering why I hadn’t jumped on this bandwagon yet, it’s because I was waiting to watch it all alone and develop my own opinion on it.
And My Opinion?
MEH.
1. Pretty, but silly too. I mean, if I wanted to live in a glow world I’d take some drugs and go to a rave in the 90’s.
2. The whole thing, not just the silly coloured Pandora, looked CGI. BADLY.
3. Gee, a big corporation trying to wipe out a tribe of natives, how imaginative and futuristic… OR, HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN THIS DAY AND AGE AND ISN’T NEARLY SO CUTE AND PRETTY!!!
I hope James donated some of his millions to the tribes of all the depleted rainforests of the world… yeah right.
Overall?
Pretty, entertaining, and utterly forgettable. Just like Transformers 2. Yuck. .
JAMES WEBSTER AND THE BOOZE-DRINKING CULTURE:
You know, when I wrote that, I really wasn’t meaning to parody a Harry Potter title. But whatdoyaknow… I may as well go with the kids story theme…
***
Once upon a time, in the last couple of weeks, there lived a young man named James Webster, who lived in Auckland. James was an utterly unremarkable, ordinary, but happy 16 year old boy who lived with his Mum and Dad, went to an all boys school, had lots of mates, and loved to play his sports – especially rugby.
Unfortunately for him, James was born in a country that had a terrible binge drinking culture. Not only this, but the drinking culture within males who played rugby seemed to be doubly so. The young males who played this aggressive and competitive sport liked to celebrate their wins, or commiserate their losses, with an equally aggressive and competitive attitude towards drinking. They drank fast. They drank loud. They drank long… well… most of them tried to drink long. You see, it was the general goal of young drinkers to drink until they passed out. Usually in a pool of their own vomit.
One Saturday night, James told his family he was off to a friends place to study. Although the words “Saturday”, “Night”, and “Study” very clearly do not belong in the same sentence together, James’ family trusted him, and off he went… to his Nana’s liquor cabinet to steal a bottle of vodka and go to an 18th birthday party.
Once there, James was turned away at the door because it was at an R.S.A. Club. Rather than ditch the alcohol and go inside, James sat in his car and proceeded to scull the most of the contents of the bottle. Straight.
A little later on, James was discovered heavily intoxicated, and was placed in the recovery position and left on the lawn to sleep it off. In the morning, however, James was discovered dead, having died from alcohol poisoning.
THE END.
***
This story reminds me a lot of the 16 year old story of a friend of mine…
***
KATE BROWN AND THE BOOZE DRINKING CULTURE:
Once upon a time, 16 years ago, there lived a young girl named Kate Brown.
Kate Brown lived in Masterton, and was an utterly unremarkable 16 year old young woman, but she was not at all happy, like James Webster had been.
Kate Brown didn’t live with her Mum and Dad. And the Mum and Dad she used to live with weren’t even her real Mum and Dad!
You see, Kate Brown had been abandoned by her birth mother, and was adopted by Mr and Mrs Brown. But as their daughter grew, Mr and Mrs Brown decided that parenthood just wasn’t really for them, and so when Kate was 8 years old they sent her off to boarding school.
Kate was very unhappy with this decision, and soon relations between her and her parents were at an all time low.
No longer wanting to make a scene, and finding their difficult daughter just far too much trouble to deal with in the holidays, Kate was sent into foster care two years later.
Kate found herself bouncing from family to family, most of them not very kind or loving towards her, and by 12 she had inevitably found her way to booze, drugs, and boys. These things seemed to take care of those awful feelings inside her, and so she embraced them as tight as she could.
Unfortunately, Kate Brown grew up in the same binge drinking country that James had, and even more unfortunately, nothing about the country’s attitude toward binge drinking changed in the 16 years between their deaths.
One Sunday afternoon, the last day of the school holidays before the new, and last, term for the year began, Kate and some of the people she partied with – none of whom were exactly “friends” – decided to get drunk.
Kate, in her haste to get wasted, bought herself a large bottle of whiskey and sculled the whole thing back in three gulps.
Unsurprisingly, not much later Kate was heavily intoxicated and passing out. Her friends put her in the bathtub to sleep it off, but unfortunately, Kate was never to wake up again.
THE END.
***
The Moral of these stories?
It doesn’t matter where you come from, or what kind of upbringing you have, or even what era you are born in…
IF THE COUNTRY DOES NOT RADICALLY ADJUST IT’S STEADY AND PROUD BINGE DRINKING CULTURE, THEN TEENAGE ALCOHOL DEATHS ARE INEVITABLE.
Why aren’t there people in our teenage classrooms right now teaching the simple chemistry of “TOO MUCH ALCOHOL + YOUNG BLOOD = DEATH”?
I’m fairly certain I wasn’t taught anything to do with alcohol intake at school when I was a teenager, presumably because the school a. doesn’t want to touch it with a ten foot barge pole, or b. because they view that sort of thing as the parents’ responsibility.
When really?
IT IS EVERY ADULTS RESPONSIBILITY. I know quite well that James or Kate could just have easily been Me. Or quite a few of my friends too.
We were never taught about alcohol intake. And we only learnt from experience. Some of which I guess we were lucky to wake up from.
If we want the kids of today to survive tomorrow, then maybe it’s time we started looking at ourselves, and what we are teaching them just by our living.
And if it’s a case of “Don’t Do As I Do” then teach them WHY you don’t want them to do what you do. If you can do that convincingly then more power to ya, but… everyone knows Kids Do What We Do. Mostly.
At first, I was just annoyed that Kate’s death didn’t get a big song and dance like the popular, well-liked private school white boy’s death did.
Kate’s death, in fact, was given barely any fanfare whatsoever.
The principal told us all in a mass school assembly, followed quickly by a speech about how he didn’t want this bad news to affect our main purpose of studying for end of year exams, and that was that. The whole affair was over in 5 minutes.
Because Kate had Not been a star pupil, there was no song and dance for her. I remember saying at the time
“If it had been one of the First Fifteen they’d be building a gold statue in the middle of the fucking Oval.”

James Webster, in effect, has been given a metaphorical golden statue. His name is now and forever etched into public memory.

But he is not the first teenager to die from alcohol poisoning, nor will he be the last.
There was no nothing for Kate. No news stories, no mass outcry…
Fellow students were BANNED from attending her private funeral, and we were threatened with Expulsion if we did decide to go.
When we EVENTUALLY managed to convince Mrs. Brown to allow us to view Kate’s body and have our own goodbye, the principal turned it into a sick School Trip – permission slips, school uniforms, and a ride in the school Van MANDATORY.
To be honest, however, I’m glad we got even that.
It was good for us to have that goodbye with Kate, rather than nothing… Even IF she was dressed in the kind of Nightgown she really WOULD have only been seen dead in.

And for some reason I’ve never been able to understand, her Neck was… missing.

An empty and hollow flap of skin tucked in between her head and shoulders…

It was TRULY bizarre, and I’ve never seen anything like it before or since, NOR has anyone been able to offer me an explanation as to why this might have been…
But I’m sidetracking.
And you all get the drift.
This kind of teenage binge drinking death has been going on forever, and it seems to be only lately are we finally opening our eyes from the hangover and starting to think about what alcohol is doing to this country.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a drink as much as the next person, and I’ve been known to drink for days and days on end – a week straight during one Dunedin winter with my mate Dave.
But I know my limit.
NOW.
The younger generation just need to be SHOWN, not TOLD, that drinking to oblivion is Not the point…
Unfortunately for them, the generation above them is going to have to embrace this first…

I wish the teenagers of tomorrow the best, and sincerest, of Luck... .

2010-05-12T12:32:00.005+12:00

29.
.
GOOD BOOKS… AND WHY I DON’T READ THEM:
Winter is just around the corner and the time to huddle up on the couch with books is upon us.
I could really use some suggestions on this front people!!!
Please leave your lists in the comment box below, or e-mail them to
themadscorpion@gmail.com
and I will definitely take them into consideration.
Hell, I’ll even review them… although, if you’re recommending them, you probably know what they’re about and what they’re like… cough cough…
Anyway, good books please.
For a writer, I’m an extremely bad reader.
I never used to be.
I used to be an avid reader, and Roald Dahl was pretty much my idol.
AND THEN…
And then I went to Writing School.
I was the first student they’d ever allowed onto the course that was straight out of high school.
Their usual policy was Not to let in people That Young and straight out of school because,
quite frankly,
they didn’t think One could be that good a writer without even a little bit of Life Experience behind them. Fair enough.
However, based on the stories I sent in– and one day I will dig them up and post them on here
(‘Dear Louise’ – a trilogy of short stories centered on the after-effects of letters sent in to a homicidal magazine psychic)
– and after they interviewed me, they decided to accept me!
(There is a point, I’m getting to it)
My interview was… well let’s put it this way.
*
SCENE: A young SCORPION, and his 35 year old MOTHER are sitting in a polytech classroom. On chairs in front of them are ADRIENNE, the course director, and MARIANNE, one of the tutors.

ADRIENNE: We were very impressed with the stories you sent in.
SCORPION:…… Thank you.
MARIANNE: How old are you Scorpion?
SCORPION: 17.
MARIANNE: Well they were very good. It’s clear that you know how to write a story and you understand the structure of writing.
SCORPION:……. Ummmmmmmmm…. Thanks.
ADRIENNE: Why do you want to do this course?
SCORPION:…… *Shrugs* I just wanna write.
MOTHER: It’s true. Ever since he could write he’s just always been writing stories.
ADRIENNE: Really?
SCORPION:…… Yeah.
MOTHER: He used to enter short story competitions all the time. He even won a few prizes, didn’t you?
SCORPION:… I only came second.
MARIANNE: And why do you want to be a writer Scorpion?
SCORPION:…*Shrugs* I dunno. I’ve just always done it. I don’t really know what else I’d be.
*
I think I eventually warmed up and probably told them my interests were Writing and Acting, but basically, I didn’t really have to Convince them to let me in because I was Clearly too Green to be anything other than Earnest. So between me shrugging and managing to spit out a few nervous words, and Mum actually filling in some gaps, I was the first Secondary Student Entrant to the Whitireia Community Polytechnic Writing Course, at the time the ONLY writing course in the country.
HOORAH!!! WHOOP WHOOP!!!
Anyway,
THE POINT:
…And it was THERE that I was told, pretty much within the first week and probably on the first day, that

“One could not be a good writer if One did not Read”.
Now, the REASON they told us this was partly because A. it’s true, and B. because 10% of the total course marks were based on us having to read two books a month and write reviews on them.
But, Oh… Alas… I was Young, Dumb, and Full Of… Arrogance, and I decided, right then and there, that I was going to be a good writer WITHOUT reading! I’d show them ALL, I’D PROVE THEM ALL WRONG, FUCK THE ESTABLISHMENT, AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
…..
Stupid.
Little.
Scorpion.
While I Aced every single one of those course units – short stories, feature writing, poetry, writing for children, bla bla – I pretty much forfeited 10% of my marks by not reading a single book all year.
Towards the end of the year, the course director told me I had to hand SOMETHING in for my book reviews, so I made them up! I made up two books and wrote reviews about them.
They were BLATANT fabrications, and my course director knew it… but she was never the sort of director to be angry about anything, and pretty much laughed at my creative handling of the situation.
Book Reading, however, was the one course unit I Failed with flying colours.
That was pretty much the end of my avid reading career.
These days, I’m pushing a book a Year. At the Most.
Ugh. If only I’d listened.
HOWEVER! I still do enjoy reading, I just have trouble finding good books! I certainly know what Bad books are, and man there’s a lot of bad books out there. If I’m not liking it in the first two pages,
It’s Over.
Hence, I need your help.
Help Me to Help The Avid Reader Inside Me.
Don’t let me down kiddies.

.
41,834:
The amount of words I’ve written for this blog so far. How bout that!
A pat on my humped back for me.
.
CONFEDERATE FLAG, BEGONE!:
I walked past work this morning and realised somebody must have FINALLY cracked the Boss about the Confederate flag outside because… TA DAAAAAA!!! IT’S GONE!!!
HOORAH!!! It only took just over a year but thank god for that.
And here I was about to send anonymous e-mails to the Boss with links to informative pages hoping that maybe the INTERNET might open his eyes a bit, but… in reality? The Boss probably thinks the Internet is a lesser version of his brain and couldn’t possibly know anything more than himself…
In it’s place is… cough… an Australian flag,

but…
At least it’s not a Swastika…

And hey, Summah Bayee ees een Ostraaaaleeah!

.
THE U.K. ELECTIONS: Are sounding FUCKED UP right about now!
What’s with that?!?!?!
Can you say “REEKS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION???”
“Yeah, we know you guys voted for this, but we’re gonna give you this other thing anyway…”
…
‘And I think to myself
What a wonderful world’…
.
WHAT TO DO WITH DEAD PEOPLE’S NUMBERS ON MY PHONE:
I’ll never need them again, but I can’t quite bring myself to delete them…
.
BEST STORY FROM MY LITTLE BROTHER EVER:
This story is over a year old now, but I have been chuckling to myself about it recently, so, I thought I’d share.
*
My little brother, 18 at the time, goes out on the town, Wellington, with his mate. They go to a strip club for a while, then later on at a nightclub they see one of the strippers there.
They get talking to her then offer her a sesh, so they go for a walk.
Along the way, my brother says to her
(And the award for Best Line Ever goes to…)
“Keen for some Dick?”
Keen For Some Dick… The most excellent words ever spoken.
As it turns out, she was, and they ended up having a threesome in the bushes outside Te Papa…
Now THAT’S some cultural learning for ya, HAHAHAHAHA.
Go the bro.
And here I thought I was the only deviant in the family…
.

2010-05-10T12:04:00.004+12:00

28.
.
NEW DOCTOR WHO:

At first I wasn’t too sure about this new, eleventh Matt Smith Doctor. That first episode he just seemed like he was doing an impression of David Tennant’s Ten. And who wants to see that? Yawn.
However, this second episode sees him settling into the role a lot more and that combined with a great plot pretty much dials in a home run! Awesome! Loving it. What’s with the mysterious crack, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.
.
GREEN PORNO:

Isabella Rossellini’s short films on… Animal Sex. Literally called ‘Green Porno’. Youtube them.
Ho. Ly. Shit.
Award Winning Stuff, Apparently!!! Weird and Funny As Fuck.
Watch Them.

2010-05-06T11:10:00.004+12:00

27.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: Wow… Apart from a few, RARE gems… this show is really really BAD. What the fuck??? Like… TERRIBLE. Embarrassingly bad. Like… REALLY FUCKIN BAD. I can’t actually believe how bad it is. It’s disgusting that there are people in the world being paid tens of thousands of dollars to write complete and utter shit.
… I wish I was one of those people…
.
MY DRINK DRIVING WHANAU:It’s crazy that in 2010 and after all we know, people still get behind a wheel drunk. I’m unlucky enough to have a drink driving whanau. Not unlucky to have them FOR whanau, just unlucky that they happen to be the Luckiest whanau on the Planet when it comes to drink driving.
They – luckily for them, unluckily for the big picture – VERY RARELY get pulled over for it, which enables the illusion they can get away with it.
Most of them don’t even think twice about it – it’s just what they’ve always done and will probably always do. It doesn’t help at all that the ones who are inclined to drink drive are also Bad Drunks who can’t handle their piss yet drink like fish, AND have young children in tow.
Drive to the party, get absolutely rotten, then fall in the car and somehow drive home even though they can barely walk or hold their eyes open isn’t an accident – it’s A PLAN.
It’s the routine.
It’s the NORM.
I hate to say it, but it actually would take something really big, awful and life-changing like a fatal accident for some of them to change their ways. I would never wish it on anyone, but it’s unfortunate that that’s what it would take for some of them.
…It Fucks me Right Off.
What Fucks me off the most about it all, is the Kids that get dragged along for the ride, especially the babies…
Last Saturday night, because I’d been working all evening and got to the party later, I found myself offering to drive because my blitzed cousin was about to roll in the car with her kids and I’d only had two beers so I thought I better. After dealing with having to find the keys to move two cars that were parked thoughtlessly in front of others so I could finally drive one lot home, I got back to find another cousin in the freezing cold with her two screaming babies about to blindly roll her van home, and yet another cousin having a tantrum because I had his keys from moving his car and I’d been gone for all of three minutes... After spending ten minutes getting the babies into their seats and getting ready to go, hello, no keys.
“Where are your keys cuz?”
Shrugs.
Go back inside to party to find the keys, only to discover a raging argument going on inside between more whanau, who are then trying to ask me to sort their shit out.
“Actually, I’m just dealing with your sister and her two screaming babies at the moment so deal with your own shit.”
Five minutes looking for keys later, and no results. So I have to go outside and do what I’d been telling her to do all along – get the two screaming babies and the now crying drunk mother into the other car so I can get them home. Finally, we’re all in the car and hello, "where’s my daughter?"
ARE YOU FUCKIN KIDDING ME?
SO, go back into the party to get sleeping daughter on the couch, drag her through the housefight, into the freezing cold, and into the car with her drunk mother and two screaming brothers.
Now, only a few people in the world really KNOW how hard it is to try and organise ANYTHING, let alone a pack of drunks and moving cars and kids, while there is a screaming baby in your ears. The noise of a really tired, inconsolable, shrieking baby really stunts your thought process, kills your ears, and shreds your heart up which makes you want to go faster but you can’t think very well… It’s an awful, STRESSFUL place to be. And to have other drunks around you who are completely selfish and can’t even start to LOOK at the bigger picture while asking you to do shit for them like Roll a cigarette, or do this or get that for me… Fuck I just wanna slap my cousins sometimes, and in fact, I’m thinking I might have to pull some rank on their asses and dish it out to them as their older cousin.
But if I’m to spread out the bigger picture even further, it’s not just my cousins. They’re just doing what all my aunties and uncles do too. They’re just doing what they were brought up to do. And here I come back to the kids again.
I DON’T WANT MY NEICES AND NEPHEWS AND YOUNGER COUSINS TO PERPETUATE THIS BULLSHIT CYCLE!!!!!
I don’t want the fact that my whanau is one of the biggest drink driving families in the region to REMAIN a fact, KEEP ON BEING a fact well into the future. A sick tradition carried on through generations.
Fuck that shit.
It’s BULLSHIT and WE ALL KNOW IT.
There is No Reason for it anymore.
As adults and parents, they have to know that what they are doing isn’t productive, it isn’t positive, it’s just bad form all round, and that’s putting it lightly.
There is NO REASON that a plan for travel, a plan for staying the night, A PLAN AT ALL (!!!) can’t be put in place BEFORE you’re actually so shit faced you don’t know what you’re doing…
A lot of things make the Mad Scorpion Mad, but THIS… My beautiful baby cousins being dragged along for a drunken night time ride while their parents remain totally and blissfully oblivious???
THAT MAKES ME MAD.
Fuckin.

Selfish.

Cunts.

…I may even have to tell them that next time I see them. Fuck it. What’s the worst that can happen? They ignore me and carry on doing what they’re doing??? Oh no, how will I cope…
Perhaps I should just start calling the Cops on their ass.
“Gee, how did I end up in the cells cuz, I can’t remember!!!”
“Mm, yeah, neither…”
…
.

MY NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR:

I live in a house that is split into two flats. In the other flat lives an older guy - like, mid 40's - named Warren. Or Wazza, as I like to affectionately call him behind his back.

I had probably my first decent conversation with him EVER this morning. We ran into each other at the bakery. Last night as I got home from work he was talking to the cops on his doorstep, so this morning I asked him what was going on.

Turns out he was chased with a knife by a young guy as he got off the train from Masterton.

...IN CARTERTON?!?!?!?!

What's the world coming to when knives are being pulled on people at the Carterton fucking Railway Station... That's BULLSHIT.

Warren is kinda like... the personification of where I might be in fifteen years time. A lone, an easy target with mental and health problems who lives alone... gulp.

He's actually harmless, a nice guy even, but this morning he was lamenting his life somewhat. He is frustrated that no matter what he does with his life, trouble always seems to find him and whenever he tries to right his life it all turns to shit, and he is basically about ready to give up on life.

...I resisted the urge to bleat on about Positive Visualisation, and if you picture it happening it more often than not does happen, and bad thoughts attract bad happenings and people, and go towards the light and bla bla...

I didn't know how to say it without sounding like a patronising Hippy.

I believe him too. I KNOW he's not a trouble Seeker. The stories he was telling me about how he ended up in the position he's in - with a fucked back because he got a beating from the Cops and sub-standard after-care - lead me to believe that he really IS a good guy finding it extremely difficult to do the right thing.

When he told me that he was recently put ON the Invalids Benefit - much to his chagrin I might add (one of his pet hates is having too much money) - we had a good ol laugh about Irony and the bullshit Health System and how Doctors are mostly arseholes bla bla.

It seems almost like fate that we have been drawn together like this...

Perhaps I need to be conversing with my neighbour more often.

I think we might have a bit to learn from each other.

...or not. Never know 'til I find out.

HOLE:

Courtney Love's at it again!

I'm not sure wether to be joyous or... cautious.

Instead of "Oh YEAH!", I'm going "...Aaaaaaaaw yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaah?"

I wish I was excited, buuuuuuuuuuuut...

Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

We'll see.

2010-04-29T11:22:00.010+12:00

26.
.
WELCOME TO THE NEW AND IMPROVED
MAD SCORPION:
I thought I might start throwing pictures into the mix.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.
VERY Two Thousand Ten…
And can I just add… The fact THAT it’s Two-Thousand Ten is STILL weirding me out.
I might just be biased, but I do think being born in the seventies and growing up in the eighties is the coolest period to have come from. Although it’s probably a close tie with being born in the sixties and growing up in the seventies…
I mean… fuck the 90’s, and most of the 00’s too. What did they get?? Nirvana was the only great thing to come out of the 90's... The rest consisted of fluro and the Spice Girls...

YAWN...

SHORTLAND STREET:

Now has two straight-out, cold blooded Murderers in its core cast. That ain’t right!
Wow, who knew it was THAT EASY to knock off people that Fucked you off, or get away with running someone down while you were speeding…
But I have to admit… I’m quite liking it these days. I really wish I didn’t watch it, but… Home And Away is just Not Doing It for me these days.
Roll on the days of ‘Dark Valley’. The world is Long overdue for a completely over-the-top, giddily addictive, breakneck speed Trash Show.
Ooooh Yeeeaah.
.
FLASH FORWARD:

Dear Flash Forward,
What’s with having half the cast of 'Lost' in your show, huh???
You automatically put me off purely because I know I’ll get confused, what with BOTH SHOWS being about confusing timelines and sci-fi goodness…
What a STUPID idea.
.
TVNZ:

What’s with playing ‘Flash Forward’ and ‘Lost’ back-to-back, HUH???
What a stupid, STUPID idea.
.
MY NANA DORIS:
My Nana Doris was a character. Think of a less glamorous Dame Edna and you’re starting to get the idea.
With a head of flaming red hair and those… vulcan-eared, thick black rimmed glasses that Gary Larson always draws on the Mother characters, and loud, LOUD brightly coloured paisley or floral dresses, she was one of those quintessential Nana’s whose grandchildren are the centre of their universe. When I think of her, I am filled with the kind of love and… safety that only something like your Nana’s hugs could provide.
I was only 5 when she died. I don’t remember her voice anymore, or her idiosyncrasies, or flaws. But I’ll NEVER forget what she looked like. She was just Big. And Red. And Patterned.
And she made THE BEST Pav’s in town. Oh my god… those Pav’s…
You weren’t allowed ANYWHERE NEAR the kitchen when a Pav was in the oven, but she would ALWAYS make more than she needed to, just so she could make a few little mini Pav’s for me.
Yes, she was one of those Nana’s who feed up their grandchild on sugar before sending them home.
….Soooo much sugar…
She ALWAYS had lollies on hand, and the freezer was continuously loaded with ice cream and Fruju’s.
I remember the day she died… I was young, but I remember it. Clearly.
My mother came and picked me up from school, and I could tell something was wrong because she looked like she’d been crying. She took me to the park and we sat on a bench, and then she very quietly told me that Nana had had a heart attack. I suppose I didn’t really know what that meant, but I asked if she was ok. “No,” said Mum, crying. “She’s dead.”
And then I burst into tears, and we cried and cried together in the park.
I’ve been thinking of her a bit lately.
For all sorts of reasons, when I think of her I often wonder what Life might have been like for me, for my whole family, had she not died. It was obviously her time, but… I know for sure that a lot of the…not so pleasant forks in our roads would have been VEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRY different had Nana been around.
I’d like to think so anyway.
Those forks were obviously supposed to happen… cause they did. But I do sometimes think fondly of a time that never was.
I don’t know if it’s usual for people to wonder about the What If’s in ones life, but when I think of Nana, I do sometimes think What If…
She would have three more Grandchildren now, all girls. She would have loved that. Although she would have clashed with my cousin Kate, for sure, Haha. And my little sister Michael would still love her other Nana most (because she’s susceptible to her Father’s judgments about her Mother’s family).
But her and Amy would have been best friends. And me, of course. There’s no escaping the curse of Favouritist, Eldest And Only Grandson. It was a short lived curse, but one I liked being afflicted with.
Yeah, Nana would definitely have loved more Grandkids… It’s not fair at all that I’m the only one of the four of my generation that got to know her, even if only for a short time. I treasure those years that I got to have a Nana. The most perfect Nana in the entire universe…
Apparently she was a bit of a bitch, but hey… I was lucky enough to be her only grandkid, so of course she’ll always remain Perfect to me.
I miss ya Doris. You’re never forgotten.
.
ALIEN QUADRILOGY ON C4 OVER THE NEXT MONTH OF SUNDAYS?:

HELL YES!!! SIGN ME UP!!!
.
DEXTER:

Awesome. Loving it.
.
NIP / TUCK:
Has REALLY been cooking lately. It’s fuckin’ Awesome. Like, ‘Dexter’ Awesome. Not quite ‘Buffy’ Awesome,

but definitely Awesome.
.
HEATHER LOCKLEAR:

Has had waaaaaay too much plastic surgery. She should NOT have been watching ‘Nip / Tuck’.
Amanda Woodward and Michael Mancini do NOT a remake make (I mean they’re well in their fifties and their faces are just… tight. And Weird.) BUT… I am liking Melrose 2.0 suddenly. It seems to have kicked into gear a bit. I like breakneck speed. And Melrose was ALL about that. Bring it on.
But, as I suspected, the explanation of her return was… well, why don’t I just quote it.
For those who aren’t clued in, in the finale of Original Melrose, Amanda and Peter faked their deaths and ran away to the tropics to live on an island happily ever after.

WORST.

ENDING.

EVER.

Such a sad death for such a great show, but I digress.

SCENE: Michael Mancini comes home to his L.A. mansion to find Amanda Woodward waiting for him.
AMANDA: Well, haven’t you done well for yourself Doctor.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I’m a pretty amazing guy.
AMANDA: So, I hear Sydney got murdered, how bout that?
MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, real shock, sad… sad stuff, so anyway, when I saw you last you swore to never set foot in L.A. again, what’s the story? What happened to happy ever after in the tropics?
AMANDA: Oh yeah that. I got bored. I’m a city girl! And Peter? *shudders*
…
Good old Melrose. Quality writing as always.
.
CHRIS ISAAK:

I’ve always loved his music (weirdly) but today on 63 I saw the music video for ‘Two Hearts’, and in it he was playing a concert wearing a Mirrored-Panels Suit, a la Disco Ball… only a Suit!!!
How could such a glorious thing exist and me not know about it until only Today?!?!?
I don’t know either, but
I
WANT
ONE.
.
ANIKA MOA:
My friend Stephen “statused” on crackbook the other day –
“Does anyone else think Anika Moa’s new song ‘Running Through The Fire’ sounds like PJ Harvey, especially circa ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’?”
I had to agree, and had thought the very same thing when I heard it for the first time.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s an alright song. But… yeeeeeaaaaaaaaah. PJ’s sound was better. I hope the rest of Anika’s album isn’t a thin rip.
.
DUNEDIN:

How are ya mate? I do miss you so. I don’t miss your winter, or your tap water, but I do miss you.
.
JUSTIN BEIBER:
Ok. This is the one and only contribution I’m going to make to this… Frenzy.
EW.
YUCK.
MUSIC.
CRIME.
I’m already shaking my head in disgust about how cushy this boys life is gonna be ForEVER at only 16.
But I have to admit, I’m mildly surprised and impressed that he can actually play the guitar. Two reasons to hate him.
Here’s hoping he puts out something listenable and not for 12 year old girls in the rest of his career.
.
WHAT WAS I SAYING ABOUT COMEDY CENTRAL?:

I just saw an Ad saying that ‘Married With Children’ is gonna be playing soon… OH YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.
Problem Solved.
.

2010-04-26T15:13:00.004+12:00

25.
.

As you can probably tell, I am writing this very sporadically these days.
I have been pushing my latest creation out to various production companies in the hopes that one of them will pick it up and turn it into a tv show. So I can finally live in the lap of luxury and buy lots of amazing massage gadgets to keep the endless pain at bay... JOY!
Here’s the 250 word “hook” I’m currently using to reel prospective producers in. Let me know what you think of it. Does it intrigue at all? Would you watch it?
…Actually, don’t answer that.
…
DARK VALLEY

A black dra-medy series set in rural, isolated, and eternally overcast Fern Valley, which lies in the shadow of Black Mountain. This shadow seems to seep into everyday lives, as though the Valley itself is cursed – the fact that it’s prone to natural disasters only adds muscle to the myth…
.

It revolves around the lives of teenager Baxter Black and his two distinctly different circles of friends – separated by class, but all of whom are girls.
One group are daughters of wealthy, locally important academics – uptight, judgmental, concerned about appearances and reputations. The other group is the polar opposite – crass, crude, creative, carefree, impulsive, and from down-to-earth, working class families.

While these kids live in a small, sleepy, pretty town, this is starkly contrasted by its dark, sinister conduct behind closed doors.
As they grow they are finding their once safe world a cold, dark place, and are constantly confronted with life-changing troubles – evils no-one should have to face, and with barely any parental support. In many cases, their predicaments are their parents…

Although the show will venture a lot into taboo, melodramatic, slightly supernatural, sometimes just impossibly unlikely territories as far as its storylines go, razor-sharp humour from protagonists and a rural, realistic setting will keep viewers grounded, connected, and not too overwhelmed by dark overtones.

The series begins as the characters return to the new school term and Baxter learns his lifelong friend Kate has died. Kate’s murder inquiry will turn all their worlds upside down…

NIGHTY NIGHT:
What a disturbing show! LOVING IT!
Only the British can pull of shit like this…
So wrong it’s Great.
Watch It.
.
COMEDY CENTRAL:
What has happened to this channel? Apart from a few gems dotted here and there, do we REALLY need an ongoing avalanche of quadruple re-runs of M*A*SH everyday??
I DON’T THINK SO.
.
OUT OF THIS WORLD:
Someone needs to make a remake of this show, don’t you agree?
If your memory is failing you (and trust me, unless you were a real TV kid like me, you really won’t remember this show, so don’t expect to), it was about a half-alien girl named Evie who talked to her father on another planet through a cube-phone and had a few amazing powers like time-freezing and materialisation. Ringing any bells?
Anyway, what an awesome concept. The actual show itself was very cheesy and low-budget, but the concept of this with today’s special effects standards would probably go off.
In fact… I’M gonna make THAT one of my projects.
… how DOES one go about rebooting someone else’s creation?...
I’m not so sure the same could be said about 'Small Wonder'… The girl robot in the red-and-white polka-dot dress who lived in her human brothers’ wardrobe?? Don’t ask. It was bad.
…I mean really… you gonna leave a pre-pubescent boy with his very own girl robot in his wardrobe every night and tell him its’ his Sister, so hands off??? Yeah… Good Luck with that one.
“Gee, her circuitry keeps getting clogged up with this… goo.”
No shit.
.
FLOWERS FROM MY GARDEN:
Last Sunday I decided to attack my overgrown flowerbed. The flowers had gone from bright pink blazing suns to looking like they were about to cough up their lungs and die from cancer. Time to go.
After I’d hacked and slashed, made it pretty and gathered the last few good flowers up, I decided I had too many and thought I would finally make good on my promise to drop in on Mrs. Goodin.
Mrs. Goodin, or Nana G as I’m instructed to call her but don’t, is my Uncle’s Wife’s Mother, or my Aunty’s mother to be more precise, and I see her a bit at family dinners and birthdays and such. She is getting on now, in her 80’s, but still very clear and onto it. The last time I saw her at one such dinner we realised we only lived round the corner from each other, and she made me promise to come and see her some time. Sure, sure, I said, and ten years ago I would never have made good on that promise, but now, as I get older and mortality really starts to set in, and if you’re someone like me who is in daily pain and can appreciate the sorts of daily pains that an old folk might be going through, I said it and meant it.
And it was with that in mind that I took the flowers, put them in a jar, and procedayseded to walk with my giant jar of pink flowers down the road, hoping it wasn’t going to be one of those days when everyone I know drives past me at once.
Mrs. G was home, I had a cup of tea and ate all her biscuits, and actually had a great afternoon with her! She can talk, but I found I was actually extremely interested in what she had to say. It was probably the first time I’d had an actual conversation with her that didn’t revolve around “Oh you’re home, where are you living these days, are you still in Wellington, what did you get for Christmas”… THOSE conversations. The automatic ones where you exchange required info quickly and then dive away.
She had very similar ideas to me on Politics and Religion, which REALLY surprised me. The woman basically believed in Karma, that the government was evil, that war was a horrible tragedy on mankind, etc etc. She certainly wasn’t the fascist racist old biddy that most white old woman around these parts tend to be.
In fact, I was there for about an hour and a half having an intelligent conversation about Politics, Religion and The Afterlife, which I have to admit, are very rare conversation topics in my life these days. I had a blast! And many sugary biscuits, which was great cause I was out of food that day. Yeah, actually out of food. I had to have just plain RICE for dinner that night, which I haven’t had to do in a REEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLY long time, but which, surprisingly, didn’t bother me all that much! Not that I’d want to do that every night, but… hey, some kids don’t eat at all, right?
But the issue of why half the world is obese and the other half is starving is a WHOLE other story…

After the visit I went to my work and mentioned my elderly visit with my workmate, who then joked

"Gee, TRYNA get into everyone's will!"

HA!!!

2010-04-26T14:14:00.002+12:00

24.
.

HIPPO FETUSES:
It’s weird, but there’s an apricot tree on the corner of my street that has been dropping the last of its’ fruit on the footpath. The apricots rot in such a way that, I kid you not, make them look like a Hippopotamus has come along and emptied its’ egg sacks of fetuses.
Yes, I know they don’t come from eggs (…right?) but seriously. It’s quite disturbing to walk past that every morning, knowing full well that it’s just rotting fruit, and yet seeing dead hippo babies everywhere… Cereal. What is one supposed to DO with that image everyday…
.
NEW MELROSE PLACE:
How come the new cast is all 12?? Except, of course, for the washed-up has- been former residents who must be, like, 50 now. And with whom the new residents are all banging. Please. As IF Ashley Simpson-Wentz would be rooting old old Thomas Calabro. Mind you, he’s actually lookin’ pretty good for his age. I’m not looking forward to haggard, alkie beast Heather Locklears’ eventual “grand” entrance. Why oh why didn’t she just stay on her desert island with Peter. Ha! I hope they don’t even try and explain that away. Like they did with Sydney’s death/resurrection/murder. See, that should have been Amanda. Having Sydney back permanently would have RULED.
Anywho…
.
FUN WITH WINZ AND THE HEALTH SYSTEM:
I really, REALLY wish I didn’t have to have anything to do with either of these evil, EVIL systems. I believe I will eventually be able to cut free from them forever, but in the meantime, reluctantly, unfortunately, I need them.
My latest round of paperwork hoop jumping has been a long, drawn out process, but I’m determined to see it through to it’s conclusion. As opposed to giving it up, which is exactly what they want me to do.
It began when my Invalids Benefit expired and I had to go to my (relatively new) doctor and get it renewed.

The difference between the Invalids and the Sickness is this:
The Sickness benefit is designed for temporary sickness, and also designed to get you OFF it as soon as that sickness is over by being so low that you can’t really exist on it and are forced to go back to work.
The Invalids benefit is designed for people who are blind, can’t walk, or have an incapacitating birth defect that is likely to last longer than two years, and is just enough to exist on without accumulating further debt just from existing. If you get my drift.
Is my spine fucked? Yes. Have I had it forever? Yes. Is it going anywhere? No. Can it be fixed? No.
It’s all fairly to simple to me, but that’s because I have the “luxury” of living in this body and understanding what it can and can’t do. But I understand that to the outside world? I look fine. I stand, I walk, I talk, why can’t I stand behind a counter all day, all carry shit all day, or sit in a chair all day HMMM?
Because you can’t see the crushed nerves, or the cracking neck vertebrae’s, or the tension headaches, or the feeling of gravity itself being a problem, that your shoulders actually feel like the weight on your shoulders, and the answer to that is More Morphine you say??? And THEN I’ll be able to function in the real world??? Good one.
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh… ANYway…

As it turned out, the Carterton Medical Centre had recently come in for dinner at the restaurant I have a part time job at. When I asked my doctor for a renewal, he was surprised I was on it at all, and didn’t I work at the restaurant?
Having to explain my entire medical history with him, that the specialists have written me off as unfixable, that the pain clinic has talked a lot about help for me and followed through on nothing, that I only work part time hours during the quiet time of the day because my bosses are family friends and understand my position and very graciously give me those hours even though they should probably just close up instead, and that even those three hours a day leave me fucked, the doctor then signed off a form and gave it to Winz.
The form he signed said I probably wasn’t a candidate for the Invalids, but definitely for the Sickness.
What happens then is my pay is immediately reduced by $120 a week – over six grand a year. Not only that, I now have to go to the doctors and pay $40 every three months (maybe more, depending on what the doctor signs) so they can sign a form that says Yes, Scorpion’s back is still fucked.
So now, I am basically incoming less than my outgoings. Neat.
But you know, I’m not ungrateful. I’m glad to get something, and if I’m stuck on the sickness then so be it, but what frustrates me the most is the ignorant judgments about it, and, obviously, the stress of accumulating debt just by being alive isn’t great fun either, and oh, neat, stress actually inflames my back pain, hoorah! It also frustrates me that the whole system balances on the opinion of a doctor, which unfortunately has never been a consistent thing with me having moved up and down the country a bit, and differs from doctor to doctor anyway.
After that happened, I went to go back to my doctor only to learn he was away on holiday, sorry. Gee, nice for some. I decided to change doctors because a. the doctor simply wasn’t there, and b. the doctor I’d had wasn’t a great listener and his answer for everything was another pill.
The new doctor listened to my case, had a look at my x-rays and even asked if I could leave them behind for him to look at closely, he agreed with me, signed off some forms, and I went back to Winz with them.
Sidenote: Winz now have a new system. No-one gets a case manager anymore, they just get seen by whoever’s available. This, of course, works really well for consistency in ones case… insert blank fucked-off look here.
“But these forms are written by another doctor.”
“Yeah. My doctor was conveniently on holiday so I had to see someone else.”
“But this box here it says you’re working.”
“Yes, I have a part-time job.”
“But you can’t work on the Invalids.”
“If that’s true then why are you allowed to earn up to a hundred dollars?”
“Hmm, that is true…”
Eventually, after much discussion and me using big words like “CONTESTING PREVIOUS DECISION”, I was assigned another appointment by a – dreaded – designated doctor. In other words, a doctor hired by Winz whose job it is to say No to me.
Fine. Whatever. Sure, I’d love to get a bus to Greytown in 2 weeks time for your appointment.
“Hello Carterton Medical Centre. I need my x-rays back from doctor 2 please.”
“Oh I’m sorry, he’s away on holiday at the moment…”
Are you fuckin shitting me?? Is this a joke???
No. It really isn’t. And bitch receptionist couldn’t care less about my predicament. So I ring them. Every day for four days until I know that my x-rays are waiting at reception for me to pick them up. They finally are.
So, I’m finally seen by the new doctor – doctor 3, but who’s counting...

It's very obvious to me that doctor 3 has already made up his mind about me before he's even called out my name.
He doesn’t really look me in the eye when he’s talking to me, or while I’m talking to him, he doesn’t ask to see my back AT ALL, and even says No to my offer of looking at my x-rays.

And trust me, I was practically shoving the bag in his face. But no… doctor knows best, as always.
So after – I suspect vainly – explaining my situation to doctor 3, he asks me if I’m depressed.
I tell him I have been. That I have been at suicidal rock bottom before. That it totally sucked, and that I never want to go there again and that although I do get frustrated and down about my situation, I believe I’m on top of my depression and that that isn’t my biggest concern, and that I am actually trying to work towards a better future through writing and such, and that I try and keep busy by babysitting and writing, and that I don’t believe I’m suffering from uncontrollable depression.
….
The doctor then concludes that I’m suffering from depression and should be on medication, but if I don’t want to comply with that then he can’t force me.

...

Er... what??

I ask for him to be clearer.
He tells me I’m depressed, that I’m not on top of it, that he is offering me a way to get back into the work force but if I don’t want to take that up, then he can’t make me.
I ask him again, I’m not quite sure what he means, does he think that if I’m not depressed I’ll be more able to work?
He tells me I’m depressed and that he’s offering me a way out of that by counseling and medication, but he can’t force me to do it.
I leave somewhat confused, and not really sure that he’s assessed me adequately or in my favour at all, but I’m hardly surprised. I guess summarising a person’s physical condition doesn’t actually require a physical examination of any sort OR looking at x-rays…
But then I’m no doctor…
…
…
…
GRR.

2010-04-08T13:24:00.002+12:00

23.

OUR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT:
My opinion?
UGH.
I cannot even begin to explain how fucked off with them I am... But I’m sure I’ll manage.
Dirty rotten irresponsible fuckbag cunts sorta scratches the surcace. I actually woke up angry with them this morning, enough to be writing this almost immediately.
I can’t say I’m surprised though. Just horrified.
Can you imagine 5000 hectares of National Park being dug up? They say they have reduced that number to 700 but trust me, once they’ve started, they won’t just stop at 700.
In fact they may even pretend to take up public consideration about the issue when the time comes, but this is a farce also. Like the ‘Wellywood’ issue at the moment – more on that later.
That’s one reason I hate the government at the moment.
A 40% tax cut (in fact, I think it may even be higher than that, I’m not 100% certain on that number) for the already extremely rich?? And infinitesimal tax breaks for the lower earners, that will be completely eaten PLUS SOME by a raise in GST anyway?
BULLSHIT.
That’s TWO reasons I hate the government right now.
Hmm, what else can I hate them about… Oh yeah, I read a stunning article on how it wants to pretty much nullify Maori Land ownership, and then have the iwi’s reapply and dole it out as it sees fit…
This one just actually leaves me speechless.
That’s three reasons I hate the government right now.
Surprisingly, I don’t hate all of what it’s doing with its benefit crackdowns at the moment, even though I am being given the complete runaround with my own.
The process remains the same, but the people you have to deal with change every step of the way just so you have to explain yourself a trillion times… much like the health system really.
I hate that the process only has so many boxes to fill, and asks nothing about a persons’ capabilities or pain levels… much like the strangers presented with your case every step of the way.
I hate that the last time I ended up ignoring my back I ended up in this situation, and I’m STILL back to thinking “Fuck this shit, maybe I should just work myself to the bone”, knowing full well that that will crank my pain up to Torturous so I’d have to be taking so much morphine I’d be almost dead anyway, take about three months to achieve tops, and that afterwards I’d be well and truly munted for life, purely because the process is such a fucking exercise in endurance and frustration that it makes you MAD. BAD MAD.
That’s four, FOUR reasons I hate the government right now.
What else can I hate them for, oh that’s right. How about we take even LESS care of our elderly than we currently do by taking away their (meager) discount travel cards and superannuation! That’s sounds like a top move, PLUS, it’s money they can give to THEMSELVES for things like free travel for themselves and families, free food, free accommodation, things like that. On top of their already stupendous salaries. That all sounds pretty fair, right? I mean you can TELL they’re working hard for their money because they’re all in such good shape!...
What a pack of major Fuckbags.
That’s five, FIVE reasons I HATE the government right now, AH HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Bitches.
Worst of all, they just get away with this shit because at the end of the day, they have final say, no matter what the country is saying, and mostly, they couldn’t care less anyway.
Fuck you John Key, and all those fat cunts whose necks actually burst out of their collars because they’re eating a third of the nations’ food supplies for dinner...
You’re all despicable.
Aaaaah, nothing like a good Vent in the morning…

A WELLYWOOD SIGN IN WELLINGTON:
For those of you overseas, Wellington Airport is planning on building a big white WELLYWOOD sign on the Mirimar Hills, so landing tourists can go “Ooh, cause they make films here TOO, I GET IT!”
Most of Wellington seems to be in agreement with me.
And my opinion?
Tacky. Unoriginal. Gross.
Hollywood sucks, Wellington doesn’t.
Wellington is in no way like Los Angeles.
Don’t do it.
And again, I think the airport is playing like the government.
Right now it’s saying “Come up with something better, or Wellywood stays.”
What a load of shit. That is the biggest placating tactic. It’s something you use on children to give them the illusion that they have some power over the situation.
“Do you want weet-bix or toast?”
“Gumboots or shoes?”
Of course I couldn’t care less which one they choose as long as they eat and have warm feet and in the end, I’ll end up with a fed, dressed kid just like I intended.
And that’s what the airport’s doing.
“Come up with something better, or Wellywood stays” is just an illusion of choice that is very soon going to be followed by
“Nothing was better than Wellywood so that’s what it’s going to be.”
Here’s hoping the first few waves of vandalism are enough to get it removed for good once it’s up.

RE-RUNS OF THE X FILES:
And my opinion?
Awesome. Right this moment I am watching Mulder and Scully kiss for the first time at midnight on New Years Eve 2000. Iconic TV moments like that are pretty cool to catch.

RE-RUNS OF BAYWATCH:
Ok. This one I’m actually ashamed of. BUT…
My opinion?
I gotta tell ya… I don’t know how it happened, but I’m hooked. Lately I have come to cranking up the volume whenever that AWESOME theme song starts – which has me wanting to take up the piano again just so I can play it at parties – and from then on in I’m sittin’ there with a stupid grin on my face actually feeling my brain melt out my ears…
Imagine being the guy who Ok’d the scripts! He was either a college graduate who hated his job, or a college student who LOVED it.
Ok, ok, Baywatch was hardly around for its amazing writing, but I can’t help noticing things like that. The other thing I notice is all the really bad 90’s swimwear. And, of course, all the hot bitches in it.
But man, it is mind-numbing beyond belief. Somehow they even manage to jam in at least three musical number montages to fill up the time as well. No wonder it was the biggest show of all time, it was a hypno-show. Like Everybody Loves Hypno-Toad.

RAT DOGS:

My street is full of Rat Dogs.

Seriously, every house from my house to the corner has at least one.

Despite the fact that I've been there for over a year now, they still hate me.

They wait for me, behind gates and bushes, until I am near, not approaching but NEAR, and then start yapping their stupid little heads off, usually making me shit my pants in the process.

Yes, despite the fact that I have been there for over a year now, I often forget they exist and am usually given a heart attack every time I leave the house.

I would lean over the gates and snap their little necks, but their owners are often around, chuckling at their "naughty little scamps" and their escapades... if only they knew that their dogs are actually posessed by demons. Then they wouldn't mind me murdering them.

THE POPE:
Gee, a cover up involving a priest molesting boys?
My opinion?
NOOOOOO.
I’m shocked…

2010-03-25T11:57:00.007+13:00

22.

ALRIGHT!!!

I just can't help myself. I've been working on other things, but a couple of things have made me MAD lately. I cannot help but think... It's VENTING TIME.

You can certainly tell National is in Government.

Welfare crackdown? Check.

Selling off national industries to overseas bidders? Check.

Sucking the land dry of any resources slash money it can get? Check.

Giving anyone who earns over $80K a year a 40% tax cut? Check.

Making the divide between the rich and poor a fuckload bigger and harder to bridge? Check.

Stuffing their fat, ugly faces while they fly themselves, friends and family around the world on taxpayers money despite the fact they already earn squillions? Check.

I have some advice for those in Parliament - when we can't see your Neck anymore, you AREN'T WORKING HARD ENOUGH, and you're also a Glutton.

Stop indulging yourself and abusing your power, get off your Fat Fucking Arses and WORK FOR THE COUNTRY, not FOR YOU!

Fuckin indulgent irresponsble elitist CUNTS, that's all you are.

I have recently been denied a renewal of my invalids benefit. Which wouldn't bother except for the following number of reasons:

My income is now down $120 a week.
Instead of only going to the doctors for to get him to fill out work and income paperwork only Once a year, I now have to go in four times a year. So now, not only am I down $6240 a year, my bills are also automatically Up an extra$140 a year.
My outgoings now outweigh my incomings. Any normal persons response to a financial dip would be to work more. This is no longer an option for me as my body is rapidly becoming less and less able to things. I can feel the vast difference in my physical ability and my pain threshold from even only one year ago. I'm now sore ALL THE TIME, and I have bad days and worse days, with some ok moments. I am CONSTANTLY fighting with pain, and it is exhausting.
My doctor is an idiot, and when I went to clarify with him exactly why he felt I needed to see him three more times a year than neccessary, I was told he was away on holiday for a few weeks. Nice for some. Thanks to me, I'll now be able to contribute $110 MORE to His holidays, and throw any dreams of a holiday of mine out the window. I made an appointment with a new doctor who I'd heard was a bit more understanding than my current one. I went to that appointment only to find that he was away also. I rescheduled my appointment again. Thankfully, my new doctor was able to comprehend my position and gladly recommended to winz that, yes, my condition IS permanent, seeing as, you know, I've had a fucked spine since BIRTH, that Yes, it more than likely will last for more than two years seeing as it has lasted 32 thus far, and that No, it wasn't likely to get better nor can it be fixed.

I have this battle with Winz every so often, so this time I - with ALOT of gusto, prep work, and a goal - was going to get this matter resolved come hell or highwater because if this is a fight I'm going to have to go into every year or so for the rest of my life, I want them to remember me as a fighter. I have finally realised that it all comes down to a doctors opinion, and that no-one ever asks You how You are. This time I'm going into the ring yelling and screaming, so that in the future, I won't have to explain myself again. For the thousandth time.

I don't know why people are acting surprised by the actions of this government. This is National after all, and they are doing what they were always going to do and what they've always done - look after the rich and fuck the poor, rape the land and sell off its assets.

And I don't know why they seem to be getting away with it, or why the media isn't taking a negative spin on them or making more of a big deal of things. Up until recently, National have been paving the way right up to this point fairly under the radar as far as public response went.

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, National. I'm not totally against all of your actions - I just think you aren't necessarily concerned with any of their consequences as long as they line your pockets.

LADY GAGA:

I've sung praise before, I'll sing it again - what a cool bitch.

THE NEW MELROSE PLACE:

Not quite as good as the old, but still just as intriguing and twisted. I'm liking it.

LOST:

I'm NOT liking it. I am, in fact, finding this the worst season ever, which pertubes me quite a bit as this is the last one, and I LOVE this show. There seems to be a lot of wishy washy nothing much going on, altho fast music and running accompany this nothing to make it seem as if it's something. I am not amused. It better get better and pay out on my six years of addiction.

Having said that, Lost just isn't the same without my Lost watching buddy. Siiiiiiiiiiiigh.

ALPHA MALE SYNDROME:

You get this alot around these parts. In fact, because most males here ARE alpha males, most if not all the little boys end up striving to and becoming alpha males also. This means that when you get males drunk and together, it really is a primitive display of who can yell over each the loudest and not actually listen to a word of what anyone else is saying, who can lift what how many times... it's basically a battle of Who Has The Biggest Mouth, Ego and Arms.

I've been seeing a lot of AMS lately, and it is fuckin UGLY. Right from a young age I can remember looking up at the men around me and thinking "...Ugh. I don't ever want to turn out like that."

I just think it's animal. I think human beings have evolved slightly more than apes, so it's depressing to see people actually wanting, AIMING to become Biggest Ape In The Bunch.

Ugh. Get out in the world, and get a clue. Being a real man has nothing to do with the size of your biceps... Though it will help you get laid.

Out.

2010-03-02T12:24:00.010+13:00

21.

SUMMER SWANSONG:

SUMMER MEETS AUTUMN /

BEAUTY MEETS DEATH.

2010-02-27T11:08:00.000+13:00

20.
.
THE END.
Hello. For all you people who actually do read this?
You haven’t done a good enough job of spreading the word and getting me readers, and I don’t think I can tell anymore people without sounding psychotic, and it all feels a bit hopeless so I’m out.

Thanks for those of you who did enjoy it.
Remember:
Watch Lost.
Love Music.
Take care of your kids.
Don’t litter.
Be kind.
.

2010-02-09T12:08:00.005+13:00

19.

IT'S JUST (AAAH) A LITTLE CRUSH (CRUSH).

Another week in paradise. I made a vow to myself to start going out more and make some new friends around this place. However, "going out" around here pretty much involves only one pub.

Where "busy" in the afternoon means four or five customers. Much like my workplace actually, but I digress. Quite often the local homo publican is sitting around with a few homo friends, usually old men, who have all decided that I'm a choice piece of ass (literally) and gush over me embarassingly. I know I sound conceited when I say this, but what can I say, It's true. This is uncomfortable for many reasons - not least of which is the fact that they're all ugly and old and completely out of MY league (hehe).

Secondly - and I can't believe what's happened as I write this but I'll get there in a sec - I have a ridiculously schoolboyish crush on the barmaid. I find myself going there more and more often just to see if she's there. And even when she is, I can't talk to her much. This was made especially awkward after last week when my cousin's father-in-law and I were at the bar having a drink. Because he's there Often, he knows them all quite well. When I had a chance, I asked him if said barmaid was single. "Yeah, she's just broken up with her boyfriend, why, are you interested in her?"

"Hell yes."

"HEY! BARMAID!* (not her real name) MAD SCORPION'S INTERESTED IN YOU."

At this point everyone in range, including all three of the other bar staff, stop and stare, and said barmaid goes red. I can literally feel any chance I may have had come crumbling down around me. The other guy behind the bar just looks at me - we are both thinking the same thing. If there was ever going to be a game, it's Game Over.

"Gee. Cheers Tim. Thanks... thanks.. heaps."

It's all in good fun. Slash slightly mortifying.

Hence, I've been going in more since that day a week ago, just so the both of us are forced to get over the embarassment.

But, gentle readers, the amazing thing I can't believe as I type this, is that said Barmaid has walked into the library and sat down just in front of me the minute I started to write this story...

Right This Second she is sitting her gorgeous self down on the couch while I try to smother the grin that won't go away and pretend I'm NOT writing about her... This is especially weird as I have NEVER, not once, Ever seen her in the library before. Hmm, the universe might just be working for me here. I have asked it for a nudge, and I have been very, VERY positively visualising her lately...

The problem is, you never quite know, when you're a patron and they're a Paid Employee, wether they really do like you, or they're just being nice 'cause they have to. I'd better start stalking her. And visualising us drunk together at a party...

I really should grow some balls and just talk to her now while we're in a tad less public glare. Although it is really quiet in here today and I don't fancy whispering to her. That would just be creepy. Dang, she really is hot. No, I'm going to have to take my time on this one.

Wow, she's even got pink toenails...

LOST:

Lost is back, Lost is back, Lost is back, SO excited, SO excited, SO excited.

Looks like the gimmick for this season is not flashbacks, not flashforwards, but flash sideways - alternative timelines goin on. I like I like I like!

DOCTOR WHO - DEAD TIMES TEN:

David Tennant's Tenth Doctor died on New Zealand television screens this week. I liked this Doctor alot, but to be honest, his last adventure was so milked for everything it was worth - everybody's facial expressions were taut and emphasised, the dialogue was deep fried cheese pizza (thanks Greg), and the sweeping BBC Orchestral soundtrack didn't help matters. It was so over-the-top on every level, that by the end, I was praying for him to die. 'Hurry up and get on with it'. It was good to see poor poor dumbed-down Donna and poor poor pre-Doctor adventures Rose again though.

I'm looking forward to Eleventh Doctor adventures. And I'm especially looking forward to seeing how they plan to get around his supposedly final thirteenth regeneration so they can carry on the franchise. There's no way they'll kill Doctor Who for good... will they???

THE SIMPLE PHOTO UPLOADER ON FACEBOOK:

Ugh. Hating it.

MY COUSIN RENATA:

My cousin Renata and I are two weeks apart in age. We - and I mean All of us as cousins - are a tight knit bunch, and Renata and I refer to ourselves as the Middle-Men. This is in reference to our place on the age scale. There were Two Waves of us cousins, and we are in the middle of the first wave. He lives in Sydney these days and was home recently over the festive season. We always have a great time when he's back, and it always sucks arse when he leaves.

Anyway, Ren had a heart attack last week whilst palying rugby. He actually died for four minutes on the field, but they managed to resuscitate him. He died again twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. It turns out that Ren, who is one of the fittest of the ALL of us, who doesn't smoke, who keeps fit, who plays sports, who lives a relatively healthy lifestyle (much more so than say, for example, Me) had two blocked arteries. At 32! He gets out of hospital today, a week after the incident, and is off work for a month while he does rehab...

This news rattled us all to the core. Not least because Renata was the least likely candidate for one of us to drop dead - we have asthmatics and dieabetes sufferers, who BOTH smoke and drink alot. For a brief moment in time we had to consider the possibility that Renata was almost no longer with us. I can tell you now that probably my entire family would have fallen apart at this shock. And that's 60 odd people out for the count whilst trying to organise a tangi for hundreds more.

At this age we get paranoid about other people dying, particularly our children, or our parents. Unless they're sick, we hardly ever face the possibility that one of our peers, someone our own age, might not be around anymore.

I can only imagine what a mortality check it was for Renata.

I'm (for want of a better word) dying to see if he had an afterlife experience. Hopefully his uncle, or our one and only dead cousin, kicked his ass and told him to get back down here cause it wasn't his time yet.

It's cheese pizza, but lets take a moment to be grateful for our lives, and the lives of our treasured. Aaaaaw.

2010-02-09T12:08:00.003+13:00

18.
.
Wow. What a slow few weeks I’ve been having. I feel sorry for anyone reading this drivel. Which, I’ve realised, isn’t many. Hence, The Mad Scorpion will be stopping at number 20.
There. You’ve been forewarned.
Besides, there’s really only so long I can talk about my cousins shed parties every weekend. Or what tv show I watched this week. Isn’t there? God, even I’m bored. If I was watching me on TV, I’d have switched me over months ago.
So I guess I’d better try and say something profound in these last few weeks….
…
..
.
Yeah, I got nothing.
.
Sometimes, I wonder what the hell I’m doing here, and other times I know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. As slow and boring as this town is, the people in it continue to fascinate me. For all the Right reasons, I might add. Mostly.
I have encountered so many characters here. The raving homos who run the oldest pub in town are but a speck in the landscape. My whanau take up maybe a fiftieth of the whole picture. Everyone I meet continues to be a complete individual. With adventures and experiences under their belt that, while not completely out of the ball park (especially in my chain of friends) are still pretty amazing.
People my own age and lower own houses. Run businesses. Have two or three kids. Go diving in weekends. Play sports.
I’m concerned that my life is not filled enough… stuff.
I’m concerned that I’m unable to, either physically or financially, do the stuff I want to.
I’m concerned this it for me.
I’m concerned that sooner or later, I will BE the crazy but harmless loner I live next door to.
Only possibly hunchbacked.

I was told by my psuedo-aunt the other day:

"If you fail to plan, then you're planning to fail"...

This is Deeply Unsettling.

How exactly do you plan to be a soap opera writer other than by writing soap operas???

Methinks I need to start stalking some soap opera writers. Perhaps kill them, then wear their skin to work??
.
DEAD TATTOOS:
Ok, get this.
A grieving New Plymouth mother is pissed because the Public Trust Fund Office hadn’t informed her of a special request in her son’s will before he was cremated.
Said Special Request was that the son’s tattoos be removed from him and preserved.
All fair enough so far. I’d be pretty pissed too if I found it out after my son had been cremated.
But then you read what his tattoos actually were:
A playboy bunny.
An Aries sign,
A Taurus sign,
And a DB Export Beer logo.
And yet all I can think is… Thank Fuck his mother didn’t find his will in time.
I mean, come on. What an utterly tacky legacy.
Mind you, for New Plymouth, it all fits…
.
THE GREAT GATE DEBATE:
In Masterton, at the Queen Elizabeth Park, there have been problems afoot.
A gateway known as the Hosking Gates were recently moved from the north to the south end of the park, at a substantial cost to ratepayers, only the gates were left unaligned.
A front page debate in the Wairarapa Times-Age has been raging for weeks – Who oversaw the project, What was going to be done about it, When were they going to be fixed, Where were the people responsible, Why were the gates unaligned, How were they allowed to be moved in the first place, … Etcetera, etcetera.
It was, of course, front page news last week, when at long last the gates were realigned, for free no less, by a generous crane company. Hoorah! Ratepayers could rest at last!
…Or could they?
In a truly stunning affirmation that in small towns just about anything can appear on the front page of the paper that day if nothing happening happens to be actual news, this was the front page headline of the weekend Wairarapa Times Age edition:
“GATE DEBATE: NEW TWIST:
SHOULD THEY BE KEPT OPEN OR SHUT?”
…
.
DINNER WITH SARAH:
Last week I had the pleasure of meeting up with an old friend for dinner.
Her name is Sarah King, and I went to high school with her, and for a while we lived across the road from each other in Wellington, and times between us have pretty much always been great.
So it stood to reason that when we met up for dinner, it was pretty much a laugh fest, and I really enjoyed seeing her. It was especially nice because lately I’ve really felt like all my teenage-hood friendships have been disappearing into the ether faster than you can say “Let’s go park up at McDonalds.”
In the soap opera that I wrote for years and years during my teens and beyond, the character of Sarah was pretty much a teenaged version of Kimberly from Melrose Place, times ten, and also had a psychotic older sister. It wasn’t pleasant when I had to tell her that her character had been cut from the new rewrite I am working on, but I’ve figured with a psycho like that, Sarah will eventually be written back in.
As will Lucy… and Julie… and Janine… and Melissa… and Olivia…
Hey, I’ve had to be ruthless.
ANYway, Sarah praised The Mad Scorpion. Long time fan, she called herself.
When I told her about my decision to end it, she was not at all impressed, and asked why. I told her because fuck all people read it.

She didn't care about that, and felt that it (this blog) was like keeping in touch with me, without actually having to! Like talking on the phone, without actually having to do the pesky 'talking' half of the conversation.

She urged me to continue...
And so I shall. It seems a little arm twisting was all it took.
Even if I’m just writing to Sarah once a week, that’s ok with me.
.

RANDOM FACTOID:

My favourite number is 18.

It makes sense to publish this post in my favourite colour.

2010-01-29T13:14:00.001+13:00

17.

NEUROTIC IN THE CITY:
The other day I discovered more than 50, count ‘em, 50 PAGES of a blog I used to write on my Myspace called ‘NEUROTIC IN THE CITY’, all about my slutty, drunken life in Welly. Mostly.
It was kinda weird to read it again. It was not so long ago, and yet it seems like a lifetime away from where I am now. It’s set around the Just After I Met The Ex period… Yikes.
Although I get the feeling about as much people read that as they do this…
I’ve been writing my life in cyberspace for over 5 years… That’s just weird.
Maybe I should change the name of this blog to ‘Neurotic in the Valley.”
.
AC/DC:
No, I didn’t go.
Nor am I jealous or bitter in the slightest...
..
Fuck off.
.
THE MARQUIS:
I have been resorting to the local pub more and more often lately, in a desperate attempt to make friends outside my whanau. It has been enjoyable, but hardly successful.
Two old gay men run this pub, and therefore I am descended on by them whenever I walk into the room. One is fine, but the other is a bit intense. This isn’t helped by the fact that he’s my neighbor.
They have been having karaoke nights at least three nights a week during the holiday season, but this has reverted to its usual two. I am stoked that just about everyone who comes to the pub on these nights LOVES it, and will usually get up and have a go. No stage fright in this town. Except from me, ironically. I have to be well on my way to drunk before I’ll get up.
Which I have.
‘Daydream Believer’ and ‘Roxanne’ are the current pickings. I’m gonna have to change that up a bit though.
In the next room, the pokies shine brightly, calling my name, telling me to come in and win the jackpot.
I never have, and never do, but if I manage to get even $20 more than what I started with, I’ll pull out before I’m spent.
I, for the first time, went to The Marquis – lovingly nicknamed The Zoo by the locals – wearing my work shirt after work yesterday. As soon as people realised that I worked in a local bar, it was like I was royalty suddenly. That was a good trick, I’m gonna have to do that more often.
The Marquis has recently been put on the market for…
One.
MILLION.
Dollars.
…
My boss recently commented “Who’s got the money for that.”
“Rich gay couples with no kids” was my workmates answer.
.

2010-01-21T10:48:00.003+13:00

16.

PORN:

I have just about run through all the decent "movies" at our local video store. They don't seem to be large on adding or refreshing their porn library... What's that about???

My favourite so far has to be a "Best-Of" 3 1/2 hour compilation called Missionary Impossible. They also have Buffy The Vampire Layer, but only on Video, dammit. They don't have anything with Jenna Jameson or Peter North... YAWN.

Maybe I'll have to get on the net soon so I can get back to my favourite of all Porn websites - http://www.xtube.com/

Like Youtube, only with a happy ending.

SAY WHAT??? NOT AGAIN...:

So. There's this old guy who lives up the road. We'll call him Dave.

He recently had a young, twenty-something guy, we'll call him... Vladimir, move into his house a few months back. While I would exchange hello's and wave while I walked past, I hadn't really had a decent conversation with them ever.

Until the other night.

I go to the pub for drinks for my cousin's 30th birthday. There is karaoke on (YES!) and we are all getting pretty happy on it. Vladimir appears, and we start having conversations finally. I am glad, because I have realised I need to make more friends who aren't my cousins around these parts.

Unfortunately, the first thing he starts talking about is his sexuality. He's Bi, he tells me, though leans more towards guys, and from then on in, I can't turn around without him being Right There. Nobody else is blind to this either. I spend the rest of the night trying to politely avoid any more conversation with him. He's not my type, he's too young, he's too Drunk, and he's far too desperate.

At some point my younger cousin finally clicks and announces "HE'S GAY!".

"No shit." I tell him.

Vladimir must have overheard this, because he vanishes not long after.

He, in fact, seems to have vanished from my street too, as I have not seen him or his car since.

The next night I am at my other cousins 36th birthday - January's a big month for us.

A whanau member - an older man who spends time at the pub - tells us that Vladimir is HIV positive...

Now, I don't have anything against HIV positive people, let's get that straight. Far from it.

But I am instantly reminded of the time I fucked someone (safe sex, thankfully), then fuck them again six months later, and THEN they decide to tell me that they are HIV +...

I don't believe this should be the first thing out of the mouth of a carrier. It doesn't define them as a person, after all. But I do believe it definitely should be brought up before anything intimate happens... WAAAAAAAAY before.

In case you're wondering, I threatened the person who did that to me with Death if I ever found out they had done or would do this to anyone else. This is not an idle threat. Nor did they take it idly. Thankfully, they learnt from this experience with me. They know that I am watching, and will have no reservations should I need to act...

THE B-52s:

Out of the blue, I get a facebook letter from Cindy Wilson's P.A. (I'm guessing)

She asks for my mailing address and tells me that Cindy - having since read my horror story from a previous blog - wants to send me something. She says it won't make up for not seeing them, but Cindy and others really were gutted they couldn't play that night.

I am elated, and give her my address...

Fast forward a week. I receive a package in the mail, and it's (as predicted) a couple of signed photos of Cindy, and a copy of Funplex signed by all four of them.

As stoked and grateful as I am, I can't help but think that her P.A. was right... It doesn't make up for not seeing them...

HJ rightly remarks "And what do the other 4999 people get?"

Sigh.

All we can do is hope hope hope hope hope hope that they ever come back...

'THE HILLS':

I am LOVING Kristen as a replacement to Lauren. This girl is Great, and personally I love her and don't see why everyone thinks she is a bitch from hell.

Frankly, AUDRINA has been the real bitch this season. Dumb brunette whore.

Die Heidi and Spencer. DIE.

LMFAO:

My new favourite group. If you haven't heard of them, download immediately.

With lyrics like "I am not a whore, but I like to do it", and "Sir, your royal penis is clean", you can't go wrong!

THE WEATHER:

Has been all over the show lately! I love it.

It's is blisteringly hot for hours, and then suddenly it will POUR down. For five or ten minutes. Then back to sunshine and heat again.

It did exactly this yesterday. I started to walk out of the house, had to return to put on overclothes so I could get to work dry, and then when I arrived at work looking like a drowned rat, the rain stops.

Murphy loves me...

2010-01-13T13:16:00.005+13:00

15.

.
NEW YEARS, AND ALL THAT WAS BEFORE AND AFTER…
I spend the next couple of days doing Fuck All, then decide it’s time to split and head over the hills to Welly to catch up with my other family, that of my friends.
That does Not include the weird whateverness that is the relationship between me and The Ex.
That’s in its own separate category all together. They are, however, my first port of call.
We hang, we eat, we watch movies, we drink… the usual.
So far, so good.

.
The next day is New Years Eve. I am getting texts from my friends asking what I’m up to, and none of them are impressed that I’m planning to spend the evening with The Ex.
As expected, I am also bombarded with texts, at 4.30 on New Years Eve, from my cousins asking where I am, what I’m up to, and that they might be coming over to Welly later. I am of the frame of mind that we’ve had weeks to discuss the matter, and they can come over if they want, but I ain’t strayin’ from my plans for them. I am already planning to have a perfectly selfish New Years and not let anyone else’s bullshit get me down. I’m going to do what I want, when I want, who I want to do it with.

If you happen to be there, then sweet. If you don’t wanna join me then step off, bitch.
I also hear that my bitchier cousin and her mates are coming over too, so I – in pretty much these words – inform my other cousins that they won’t be seeing me tonight if they’re with her. Fuck that shit. Like I said earlier, I’d be a Fool. Like they say, fifteen times bitten...

.
So, much to the chagrin of my besties, I head out to Petone with The Ex in the afternoon, armed with Vodka and Meat – the two staples of any Barbeque.

I have a great afternoon at Matt Hunt’s house, and me and Sheree discover that we both have a mutual dead friend from school.
This dead friend, Kate Brown, has been ever present in my thoughts since her death. She is the genesis for my soap opera, and her death is the starting point. Since I’ve been trying to pitch and re-write this series for the last year or so, she really has been present.
Kate Brown was the person I had known the longest in my life (until she died), and the very last time I talked to her we discussed the very first time we met… I am glad for that memory now.
ANYway…

.
Our posse of people moved on to another party in Petone, but after a while my conscience got the better of me. Especially when I was led to believe that all my besties were gathering in one place. Once I had that in my brain, I thought it best I leave. I ditched the Petone buzz, got on a bus – freshly armed with ciggies, a red bull concentrate to wake me up, and my trusty vodka – and headed to HJ’s apartment to surprise all my friends who don’t think I’m coming.

.
When I get there, I see that I’m almost the first to arrive. Typical.
I’m also the loudest, drunkest person there. Also typical.

It doesn’t help that the others are stoned off their tree.
I continue to be the mouth of the party until Tom Box arrives. I’m glad he’s here, but he won’t shut up about how dull the party is and that we should leave immediately. I spend half an hour trying to placate him.
It’s then that I – for about the fourth time in a row – start to give my mate Dan shit about his shit-for-brains brother… Long story, but it basically comes down to me – in all my drunken glory, and every time I’ve dealt the shit to him – forgetting that Dan stood up for HJ to his shit-for-brains brother. So, I proceed to deal it out to him, like I usually do, only this time Dan isn’t so forgiving.

He, in fact, kicks me out.
This suits Tom perfectly, but I am pretty much doomed to feel BAD about it for the rest of the night and a few days after. I totally deserved being kicked out and wish I had actioned my New Years Resolution (which, by the way, I NEVER make) that I had JUST BEEN TALKING ABOUT:
“I, The Mad Scorpion, vow to count to ten and try and think before I speak.”
Dang, where was THAT when I needed it…
SO… A happy Tom and a kicking-himself Scorpion head into town.

.
Ah, Wellington, I have spent so many New Years’s in you, I can’t even remember them all. All I know is you are usually the last place I feel like being, only this year, I’m up for you hard and proper, bitch.

.
We head for Wautsi, which, thankfully, is somewhat off the beaten track and at the opposite end of Courtney Fucking Place, so only those who know of it and want to be there, are there.
We walk in and I am immediately displeased. The place is pretty empty, and hardly any of our friends are there. Acquaintances aplenty but… pretty lame. I head straight for the bar to dump my shit and get a drink.
The next few hours pass quickly. Bands, dancing, drinking, and it’s actually pretty fun.

.
Tom grabs me at ten to twelve so we can “go somewhere” for the twelve o’clock strike. Little do I know he plans to drag me to the most populated part of town – Civic Square. Even as we walk, most of the city is heading in our direction. I complain, but it means little to Tom, who is ferocious when he has a plan.
Luckily, and hilariously, Tom has to hand his bag over to get searched by security before we go in, and he declines because he has vodka in his bag. So instead, we go sit on the waterfront, pop a lolly, and I enter 2010 with – most appropriately – one of my best friends Mr. Tom Box, and I am glad I ditched my other crowd earlier.

.
We go back to Watusi where Tim has now appeared, and where I’ve also run into my old friend Rachel who I’m really stoked to see, and I continue to drink and dance until the bands are finished and the place is starting to empty and be boring.
All the while I’m being texted by The Ex – we’re here, we’re there, come here, go there – so as we bail into a taxi I inform the others that we have to stop off at their house.
When we get there, however, the house is open, and there isn’t a soul in sight. Turns out they’re all at Watusi now.
No matter. We go back to Tom’s, crank the music, pour the drinks, and dance til dawn.

.
It’s around 5.30am when we are going to bed that I get a phone call from The Ex. They’re home now, and the party is in full swing, so I grab the vodka and head on over – there’s no way I’M going to sleep anytime soon anyway.
I get there – it’s just round the corner thank god – and we sit in the back yard with the sun rising and talk talk talk our little heads off. At around 6 or so I get a text from my little brother Henry, asking where I am.

Henry isn't my blood brother, but I met him when he was twelve - about ten years ago - in a play where he was my little brother. From then on in, if anyone needed brothers in a play, we got cast. From there on in, Henry IS my little brother.

I barely ever see Henry so I call him and he wants to come to me, so I tell him to get in a taxi and I’ll pay for it. He shows up not long after and we proceed to spend the next three hours or so talk talk talking our little brains out.
So much so, in fact, that soon we are only ones left awake. Eventually he leaves, and I go back to Toms, and I crawl into bed around 9.30am. The room is so light, however, that I’m kidding myself if I think I’m going to sleep...
Besides, Tom is getting up now, and informs me that he’s going to go for his New Years Day swim. I decline, but when I hear the door shut I change my mind and race after him.
We head to the beach – which is pretty much deserted – and dive right on in.
The water wipes my tiredness, aches, and pains away, and I am fully refreshed and raring to go again. But I don’t. Instead, sensibly, Tim comes over and we watch movies instead and talk about our other friend with whom unrelenting dramas never seem to end. And no, that friend isn’t Me.

.
The next night, I decide to spend it with my friend Tara, who has gotten herself knocked up and decided to move back to Dunedin to surround herself with family… Selfish Bitch.
We spend the day and night and following morning doing what we do best – which normally would include wine, but seeing as she’s pregnant and I’ve been drinking for about a week straight, it’s probably not best – which is sitting around, watching the ultimate in Crap Reality TV on Sky, eating every couple of hours, and talk talk talking our little brains out.
I finally have an alcohol-free 24 hours and a decent nights’ sleep.

.
The next day, I’m starting to get antsy. I know it sounds rude, but I have been keeping in my sadness about Tara leaving, and I’m starting to lose my grip on it. I decide it’s best I leave before I start abusing her for leaving. Thankfully Tom and Kate show up, so I decide to get a ride home with them.
This, however, does not go to plan in the slightest.
We go to the dump shop. Seeing as I pretty much detest op-shopping, I stay in the car.
½ an hour later, they decide to drive to the basin and find something to eat. I’m not hungry (yet) so I’m not interested. It’s around this time that I start getting texts from HJ, who wants to talk about the other night. Uh oh, this can’t be good, so we try and organise somewhere sometime to meet, but as I have no idea what my driver is up to, it’s kinda difficult. We stop by the basin, but I haven’t heard back from HJ so I tell them to drive on. THEN I hear back from HJ but by this time we’re on our way back to Newtown. I tell her I’ll get hold of her once we Stop. As we’re about to drive back THROUGH Newtown, I ask to get out of the car, but Kate the driver informs me that we’re just going to drop off Tara back in Island Bay so I may as well stick with them until they come back. Ok, I sigh.
We get to Island Bay, where the rest of the gang decides they want fish and chips. I am starting to get hungry – this is, after all, about another ½ hour later – but not quite for grease, so again, I wait in the car and tell HJ to just call me.
She does, we talk, it’s fine, but I come away from the conversation feeling even less like being around people, and even more like it’s time for a drink.
After about another ½ hour the others finally return with their meals and yes, now I’m hungry. But I figure I’ll just get something when we get back to Newtown.
Ah, No.
We drive back to Tara’s house, and suddenly they turn OFF the car and start to get out. I see a DVD in a hand.
“Um, are you guys watching a movie here now?”
“Yeah!” they tell me, like I’m stupid. “Are you happy?” I am stupidly asked by Kate.
I decide now is a good time to implement my New Years Resolution, and resolutely keep my mouth shut.
“I’m going.” I tell Tara, who knows exactly what I am thinking.
“Why, where do you want to be?” I am stupidly asked by Kate.
“Um, about where I wanted to be ¾ of an hour back.” I answer. Obviously my resolution isn’t holding out so well.
I’m apologised to profusely, and asked why I don’t just chill out and stay and watch movies. The bombardment of questions cracks me.
“I JUST DON’T WANT TO BE HERE, ALRIGHT?” I answer to the best of my polite abilities.
This seems to be enough of an answer for them, and I am finally allowed to leave the house I tried to leave an hour earlier.
I am sad to say goodbye to Tara, and quite frankly, suck at it. But I’m glad to be walking away, even if I am crying down the street as I do it.
I get the bus, I get my shit from Toms, and I head straight for my drinking buddies house. Slash, The Ex. This, in retrospect, was the point where things started to go wrong.

What. A. Surprise.
We eat, we drink, we watch movies. Actually, THEY watch movies. They’re movies I’ve already seen before like, a million times - Alien, anyone??? - , so I sit outside in the cabana and watch the wind and rain piss down and listen to Heavy Metal Greats on tape. It’s actually quite fun, though my feet get wet.
When they’re done with the first movie, they watch ANOTHER movie I’ve seen, so I give up and go into the bedroom to watch TV, and eventually go to bed.
The next day I still have half a box of wine left, so I do what any self-respecting binge drinker would do and start drinkin’ it. It’s a lovely day, there’s not a cloud in the sky, and I pull my computer out into the cabana and start playing my music and dancing in the sun. It’s about 9am.
I have a rather large conversation with Francis about theatre and my spine – unrelated conversations FYI.
I run out of wine, and we get beers. We run out of those beers, so we get more. My friend Brendan shows up around 6pm, and we go for a walk, talk about our various problems, then return to the party.
…..and it’s around Here that my memory starts to get hazy. All I know is two things:
1. I haven’t eaten today, and
2. At some point, someone offers me half a something. I have no idea what it is, and stupidly take it anyway.
From here on in, my brain is pulp. I swim in and out of consciousness, but do not realise this.
When I start to “come to”, it is long dark, everyone around me is FUCKED on whiskey, and people are telling me to fuck off, or go to bed, and I have no idea why they’re being so rude to me, or why they’re telling me to go to bed because I am WIDE awake.
I pretty much sit there quietly, dance when I feel like it, and mind my own business, but there are still jibes and remarks being directed toward me and I’m getting a little fed up with it, especially as, in my opinion, I am just having fun and minding my own business. In my long drunken state I can still see that the Whiskey is starting to turn everyone around me. The Ex is sticking in Fat and Obsessed jibes whenever he can, but I am not quick enough to pull him up for it, and he’s already changed the subject before I can speak, so I’m left wondering. Eventually I realise… I am not the one who is too fucked for partying, but rather the party around me has become Fucked. Everyone is starting to get Whiskey Mean. Had I actually taken this fact in good and proper, I would have ignored them. But because I’m in a state and trying to figure out what I’VE done to piss everyone off, the clash of the minds continues to be so.
I decide to shut everyone out and just dance. Here is my remedy.
At some point I hear Larry ask “why doesn’t Nathan just fuck off?” and I can’t believe it. I’m in earshot and everything, so I just confront her.
“Are you serious?? I’m just sitting here, what have I done!”
Dave sticks up for me and Larry shuts up, and I can’t quite hear what’s going on over the music, but I’m done being the butt of Whiskey Mean, so I go outside to the cabana with the neighbor Emily.
Emily validates my thinking, and asks why I am taking such a thrashing from everyone, and can’t believe how rude everyone is being to me. I am Grateful that, yet again, I am not just being paranoid and, in fact, people ARE just Arseholes.
And then, she asks the questions that hit home:
“What is going on between you and The Ex?”
“Nothing! We’re just mates!” I say.
“Bullshit.” Comes her reply. Guess I ain’t pullin the wool over anyone’s eyes.
And it’s here that she points out to me, like countless others before her, that I am too good, that I am pouring so much energy into someone I will never get it back from, that they aren’t worth it, that I can do better, bla bla bla.
Only this time, in my deepest drunkest state, it actually strikes a chord.
And right then and there, at 2 something in the morning, I decide I can’t stay here a second longer, and I go inside, pack my bags, and Walk.
I am stopped by Emily, and Dave, who try to talk me out of leaving, but there is no changing my mind. I have my mind set on getting to the train station, and getting Home. NOW.
And so, I walk. With a 30kg+ backpack and a deadest attitude on, I start the long trek from Newtown to the train station in the dead of the night.
I don’t see a single car or person. I am alone in the city at night.
I am clear headed and determined.
And get more and more irate with each step.
My sarcastic apology texts to The Ex have turned into abusive tirades by the time I reach the train station about an hour and a half later.

I bum a cigarette from the taxi driver, who offers to take me to Carterton. I ask him if he’ll do it for 14 bucks – the train fare – and he pretty much laughs at me. I don’t mind. I am here at least, and almost home.
It’s still dark, around 4.30am, so I find a bench, sit back, park up, and Wait.
The train isn’t until 8.25, and it seems like forever but finally, it is.
I get on the train. The train is not leaving. I am getting more and more frustrated by the minute. I have, after all, been waiting for 4 hours.
It isn’t until 9 the train FINALLY decides to go, and by then I am ready to yell at something. BUT, I have kept my New Years mantra flowing in my brain, and as soon as the train starts to move, I feel better.
The Ex starts to text – they’re obviously awake now – and I proceed to, resolution out the window, slam them with abuse about the bullshit I had to endure last night. They reply with their usual – that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that they are right, and that I am wrong – so I cut the argument short and give up.
It isn’t until that night, when I’ve had a feed and a decent sleep, that I see I may have been wrong about some things, and offer up an apology. My bad habit of drinking and texting – a habit I fall right back into around The Ex, of which I’m aware and am SEVERELY trying to break – needs apologising for, at the least. Things have, after all, gone pretty well up until we were both blind drunk.
However, I have not forgotten, nor do I intend to forget, what has been done to me. Like they say, fifty times bitten…
…
And so, it is 2010. Before I know it, I am back at work again. I am surprisingly looking forward to it. I need the distraction desperately. I have not liked being at Home since I got back. I see now, more than ever, that I am severely lacking in company here. I have 3 or 4 cousins that I might hang out with, and 2 friends. 2.
For a party animal like me, this is no longer enough. I have gotten by for a year like this, but now…
Home just looks different. The whole reason I came here is long since up in smoke, but the thought of moving back to the city, where high rents and bad flatmates are the norm, and where I will undoubtedly fall back into my Must-Hang-With-The-Ex-Everyday habit, and where ALL my friends are paired off in Oh-So-Grown-Up-Relationships, makes me cringe.
Coming down from a two-week-long drinking binge, and living in a house that hasn’t been cleaned since before Christmas, isn’t helping either.
…
After a couple of days, when I have slept, eaten good food, and generally feel a lot better inside, I finally force myself to clean. This doesn’t take long as it’s mostly surface shit, and eventually makes me feel slightly better about life in the small smoke.
But not enough.
This is the year of drastic change. If not outwardly, then definitely inwardly.
I must write like I have never written before.
I must feed the friendships I wish to keep before they fade into the sunset like so many before.
I must learn to love myself – loneliness, crooked spine, constant pain, big bitchy mouth, big whanau, and all.
I must make my life happen, because White Horses have never existed…

Here’s to 2010.
May It Be Bitchin’.
…
Oh, and if anyone I know dies this year,

I’ll kill them.
…

2010-01-13T13:12:00.001+13:00

14.
.
I am currently on the train to Wellington for New Years. Yet Another New Years in Wellington.
There are quite a few people on the train today and I am surrounded by a family who are just about pissing themselves with excitement about the fact that they are on the train.
Grandma just stood up and announced “I can see hay bales!” and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the enthusiasm over hay bales… When they finally came into my view I realised they weren’t even real hay bales, but large green and white plastic rounds with hay in them.
Now they are enthralled at the all the cows… and yet these people don’t seem to be from a foreign country OR another planet.
.
CHRISTMAS DAY:
Was probably the most enjoyable I’ve had in a good few years. Very relaxed, no dramas, no cousins waiting ‘til I’m wasted for the chance to fuck with my head for their own entertainment… Just Nice And Enjoyable.
I got up, drove to Masterton for Christmas at Wairarapa College Hostel – my old school where my parents now live as hostel supervisors thereby subjecting me to reliving the worst years of my life every time I go to see them – and proceeded to spend most of the day doing the following:
1. Presents.
2. Breakfast.
3. Having other family arrive.
4. More presents.
5. Lunch.
6. Dessert.
7. General lazing around and trying to ignore everyone while I read my new book ‘Life With My Sister Madonna’.
8. More food plus a few rounds of Wii.
9. More reading and eating.
10. Saying goodbye to family and thinking maybe it’s time I bugger off myself. Which I do.
I get home, laze around for a bit longer, sort my shit out, then head to my cousins to get some serious drink on.
Which I do.
And for once, there are no dramas, and we all have fun.
.
BOXING DAY:
Is my cousins birthday. Her 30th to be precise. But she’s been so rank to me lately – after I took the day off work to pick her ass up from the airport too – so I’m not feeling inclined to participate.
Instead, I go to another cousins’ – the ones I spent Christmas Day with, who have also decided not to go – and continue to get my drink on there. Well into the night.
Much later, around 1am, when me and my cousin are well pissed, we decide we’re drunk enough, and the current party is winding down enough, for us to bike round to the other party.
I don’t feel like I wanna be there, and I can tell from one glance that my bitchier cousin and her mate are in exactly the same mode that they were in the other night, so I give her a swift kiss and a “Happy Birthday” then leave not long after with my two friends that are leaving.
I’m glad to be with them, as they have pretty much been my rocks through ’09. They help me out with everything, much MUCH more than my whanau is ever willing to do for me, so we go to theirs and continue to party. Altho I do fall off my (waaaaaaaaaaay too small for me) borrowed bike and end up face first on the road with a car and a truck approaching from either way and manage to drag my ass off the road before they pass. Whoops. I now have quite an impressive bruise on my leg, but at least it’s not a mystery bruise…
We get back to their place – interesting side note: their house is my parents old house and, interestingly, it feels more like home now than it ever did – and promptly crank the music, pour the drinks, and proceed to dance.
Around 2 in the morning a bunch of 18/19 year olds visit us. They have heard our music and want to party with us. They are quite a shock as we have pretty much just had the music cranked and been dancing on the porch, and visitors are the last thing we are expecting.
I hear maybe one or two sentences from their wasted, young, dumb mouths and decide I am probably better off just keeping my mouth shut and ignoring them – they are extremely easy targets, and in my state I will slaughter them, probably to end up punched over.
I try not to laugh as they tell us we must be “so old” to own a house like this, and I wonder what exactly they think our situation is… They try to guess our “old” age and reason that we’re probably 24 or so. We all go with it. I am POSITIVE they wouldn’t have guessed 24 if they saw us in daylight, or when they’re sober, but hey, when you’re 32 and the best someone can guess is 24… Mate.
From then on I pretty much ignore them and dance and try and not hit on the particularly hot blonde one as I’m pretty sure they’re all hooked up with one another, and that would just be bad.
At some point the hot blonde girl asks us if we can score Ecstasy. I stay right out of that one, and my friends act affronted and ask “what makes you think we’re that sort of people??”
The young dumb ones apologise and start to feel stupid.
They don’t stay long and before we know it we’re – the three of us – dancing on the porch alone again. At some point I stumble home. Done and dusted.
.
ON THE 27th:

I wake up and spend most of the day on the couch reading, and finishing, my book, and it isn’t until about 4pm that I start wondering what else is going on in the world. I go round to my friends’ house, where we decide to drink again. But after a few we decide movies are the plan for tonight, so after a quick shop and dinner, we sit ourselves down to ‘The Hangover’ and ‘Star Trek’. I’ve already seen ‘Star Trek’, but my mate hasn’t and I know he’ll like it. Which he does.
A quiet day in all, but enjoyable nonetheless.
.

2010-01-13T13:04:00.002+13:00

13.
.
CHRISTMAS CHOICES:
Families are an interesting thing. Unlike friends, you don’t make and choose them. They’re blood, and that means, usually, you’re pretty much bound for life. I have a very large whanau, but I’m very much an only child. I have two half brothers and two half sisters, but I grew up alone with a solo mother. So I’m an only child who’s now the eldest of five. I have not one but two father figures, both of whom have little to do with me and neither of which I strive to emulate. They both have good qualities, don’t get me wrong, but for every good experience with them there are ten kick-in-the-guts ones.
The people with whom I most relate to, and spend a lot of time with these days, are my cousins. As cousins who spent a lot of time together growing up, we are pretty much like a large brood of brothers and sisters. Like, but not. Cousins hang out, but no-one backs you up and shares your life like a brother or sister. So even when I am with a large group of them, I am still alone.
Now, it’s fairly normal for people, when they have a few drinks, to start joking around with one another, maybe taking the piss a little bit. We certainly do that. But last night, as I was at another shed party for my cousins 21st, I began to get déjà vu as I tried to evaluate my surrounding situation. The familiar experience that was unfolding were certain cousins sitting around playing “subtle” mind games. Jibes that seem harmless enough, stuff you can’t really even point out specifically, but is cruel, and juvenile, and relentless.

As I sat in my ponderous state wondering yet again if this was actually going down, and what the hell certain people’s problem is, another cousin next to me said she was going to leave, and I decided it was probably a good time for me to leave to. No point in suffering through an uncomfortable situation with people who are willing to use you as their whipping boy, even if it is just in your head. Bare in mind, I say this is a familiar situation because at least once over the holiday period for almost every year of my life, I usually come away from hanging with my cousins feeling a bit head fucked from their mental slayings for entertainment, then usually just hole up til I’m feeling strong enough to face them with an Everything’s Sweet And Nothing Happened attitude.
And then, a Revelation.
As I stood up to leave a member of the whanau goes “Sick of being picked on ay?”.

I said “Yeah, pretty much. And thanks for saying that!” Then I left, feeling great.
My other cousin, as we’re walking out, asks “Fuck cuz, I just felt like I was getting shit. I was feeling too paranoid so I had to leave.”

I said “It wasn’t just you cuz, don’t worry. Everything you thought was happening was.”
I had someone else outside my head validate my reality, and suddenly I felt very Free. It wasn’t just me after all, and some people are just bitches for the sake of it and cause it makes them laugh.
And I would be a FOOL to suffer through another Christmas of that crap.
That said, I am SO doing whatever the hell I want this year. Fuck obligation.
Be that taking off to hang with friends, or staying home with a movie and chocolate.
I figure the best present I can give myself this christmas – aside from the t-shirt I got that says ‘Sex, Drugs, & Sausage Rolls’ – is the choice to stay away from situations that are gonna make me feel like shit.
Don’t you agree?
.
SECRETS:
Don’t ya love ‘em?
Holding that knowledge that could potentially fuck over people’s lives??
It’s a big responsibility.
.
CARTERTON WAS ON THE NEWS RECENTLY:
Because somebody had done a flyer drop down a street alleging one of its residents – an 82 year old man, I think, from memory – is a confirmed peadophile. Apparently there were hundreds just dumped and floating in the wind down the street.
The news article itself was angled from the alleged offenders’ irate children, and the mayor thinking it was rather gutless of the accusers to not own up to their actions.
It seems that this is an unsubstantiated accusation, and if that’s the case then I really do feel sorry for him and his family. That would Suck.
But I have to say, if it isn’t bullshit, then I’m glad someone is doing something about it.
Silence is not always golden.
.
‘FREE RADIO’:
Is a great show. It’s about a radio show called ‘Moron in the Morning’, and it’s great. Watch it.
.
CHRISTMAS SHOPPING:
Having still not bought a single present for my family and friends, I have to do this mission tomorrow. On the 24th of December. Gee, that won’t be hard or overpopulated or anything… Why does it always seem like such pain to buy people presents?
I think I just don’t like to choose. I’m an efficiency guy. I like to know what I’m getting, get in the shop, get my shit, and get out of the shop. I DON’T like going into a shop having no idea what I want – worse, what other people want – and having to trawl around going through every shelf, every rack, every box in the shop to try and find something, whilst trying to avoid people you can’t be arsed talking to. UGH.

You know what happens when I try to do that? My body revolts and usually around five minutes into the arduous task, I find myself needing to go to the toilet and having to leave. Sigh.
And my mother just vetoed my idea of just bringing a pile of scratchies to the Christmas table. UGH. Now I have to be creative and thoughtful, dammit.
.

2009-12-18T11:14:00.008+13:00

12.
.
MY CHRISTMAS SPIRIT:
Is Vodka. Santa, feel free to leave this on my doorstep. But don’t come in. I’m not into your old man sacks. Har Har.
.
ANOTHER SHOT AT DEATH:
Yesterday I discovered my mate Mike was dead. I met Mike in Dunedin years ago, and saw him again recently when I was in Wellington. As it turned out, I was in Wellington for my other mate’s funeral at the time.
Mike has been known to struggle with depression. It seems he still was as he hung himself by a river near Murchison, and remained there unfound for a few days until some kayakers happened past.
His funeral is next week in Palmerston North. I will not be attending.
Christmas is no time for funerals. And coming straight off another… well, no thanks.
I’m choosing to remain in the positive. In the fact that my whanau is already gathering from around the globe, to come back to the home valley and Get Merry. The lengthy shed parties have already begun, and though I’m quieter than usual – mostly due to the painkillers, mmm neat – I am Loving the Christmas togetherness. That’s what it’s all about right?

It might be selfish, but I don't care. For Christmas, I'm choosing to celebrate My Life instead of my friends' extinguished one...
.
MY B-52s EXPERIENCE:
SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIgh.
Well, here it is. The account of my heaven turning into my hell.
…………..
Cosmic Thing was the first album by The B-52s that made me take notice of them. After that, there was no stopping me. I looked into what they’d done before, bought all their albums afterwards… They were weird, and nonsensical, and so much fun to sing and dance around to. I developed a special place in my heart for them.
When I met my friend H-J, we discovered that the two of us were that rare breed of people that know all the words to their songs inside and out, and would have epic nights involving lots of drinking and playing entire albums whilst singing along word for word, and when it finished we’d turn it over and start again – usually to the dismay of unfortunate others who happened to be trapped in the “singing”.
(Hair is also guilty of this treatment.)
So happy were we both when we discovered they were coming to New Zealand. When I learned they would be playing right here in the Wairarapa, I was stoked. Me, H-J, and her partner Dan made a definitive plan to go, got the tickets… and waited with baited breath.
We would text each other almost daily, about what we were going to wear, how excited we were, song lyrics to some of our favourites… I acquired a few more songs that were missing from my collection, learned the words to songs I still didn’t know…

Cindy Wilson from the B-52s themselves even requested my friendship on Facebook! I wrote her the most gushing fan letter explaining mine and H-J’s love for their music, how excited we were to be seeing them, how thankful I was that they were coming to play on my home turf, and how loudly we would sing on the day. She wrote back saying “Make sure you sing loudly!” H-J and I were so excited that she’d written back to me at all! We were just so damn stoked to be seeing our favourite band together. Neither of us wanted to see them with anyone else.
.
The day arrived. H-J and Dan arrived from Wellington.
I had bought 3 fold out chairs for the occasion, borrowed a chilly bin, we went shopping and bought lots of luxurious snack foods, and made giant cob loaf sandwiches.
For the last two days I had been soaking a giant tub of fresh fruit salad – including individually squeezed juice free pineapple and watermelon – in a third of a bottle of Absolut. I topped it up to a half bottle just before we left, and we poured the remaining half into a bottle of sparkling water and closed it tight hoping the seal wouldn’t be checked too closely.
We had chairs, a picnic rug, a mass of great food, some sneaky piss… We couldn’t have been more prepared. I’d had a long time to think to about all this, and wanted this to be an amazing amazing day for me and one of my best friends. I had five other friends/acquaintances come to stay as well, and hopefully I made them feel welcome, because quite frankly – and this is in now way a negative thing against the others – everyone else was almost irrelevant to me. As far as I was concerned, this was mine and H-J’s Christmas, and no one else was going to encroach on our day. Nothing was going to stop Our Day.
Well, maybe one thing.
.
“We’’ll dance in the garden in torn sheets in the rain,
In the RAAAAAAIIIIIIIIN!”

When I woke up on The Day, it was absolutely pissing down. I’d read the forecast the day before, and it had said it would be rainy in the morning, clearing up in the afternoon, but with gale force winds all day. I had faith things would work out ok. I’d asked for all sorts of help from the universe and watchful spirits. I had faith that nothing would stop the day from happening the way I hoped.
I silently continued to pray for the rain to stop as I went about the morning, and eventually the sun came out. Goody! That was one thing out of the way.
My friends arrived. We went shopping, got our shit together, had some drinks. My other friends arrived, and they set up camp in the backyard. We got dressed into our outfits – I had a red tuxedo jacket with a red shirt, black pants, black shoes, black skull tie. I was set.
We made our way to the bus stop, where other groups of people were waiting to catch the bus also. But they weren’t true fans, we could tell. They were just in it for the day out. They would be the people that we’d been joking about for a while – the ones who would drunkenly be yelling out “Play Love Shack!”, the only song they knew.
.
Not long after, we arrived. We were not even close to being first to arrive either. It seemed everyone had decided to arrive at 4 sharp. There was a large swell of traffic and people, neither of whom were sure where to go next. The bus parked somehow, told us it would be leaving 30 minutes after the band stopped playing, and off we went. Dan was bravely carrying the rather large and heavy chilly bin round for the team.
The gate to the vineyard is right by a T-junction in the road, so there were cars and people converging from all sides. We walked into the fray and found a clearing by some parked cars to sit in and observe. No one seemed really too sure about what was going on, but I didn’t care about them. We could be a lot closer to the front, I suggested to the others, and moved us across the road and closer to the gate. Very obviously cue jumping, but too bad. Me and my cousins had long ago mastered the art of Find-Your-Way-To-The-Front. We wanted to get in fast and stake our claim. We did, after all, have 4997 other people to contend with.
The gates were supposed to have opened at 4. By 4.30 however, nothing seemed to happening, and the wind was definitely still blowing hard. I carried on ignoring that however, resolving to let absolutely nothing get me down, including what could be a very long wait. I knew that once we were in, everything would be worth it.
Around 4.45, the main gateway was opened. In retrospect, this was purely an attempt from management to ease the masses somewhat, give the illusion that things were under way.
We made our way down the driveway towards the vineyard. And then the stage came into view over the bank. It was an impressively large dome deal, plenty of lights, big speakers, lighting towers beside it, a large area directly in front of the stage where lucky punters willing to pay more had reserved seating, plenty of other tents scattered around the site where they’d be selling food and booze… It all looked pretty good, and upped the dial a notch on the excitement front.
But at the end of the driveway was another gate. We had maybe a hundred people in front of us, though we were certainly at the front end of things. And suddenly the movement came to a stop again. We stood another twenty minutes or so, and eventually an official looking man appeared over the bank to tell us that they were waiting another half hour on Metservice to tell them if the wind was going to die down.
At this point, everyone sat down. On the ground, on their chairs, on the bank. Impromptu picnics began happening. Random strangers began joking amongst themselves.
We decided to brave it and crack out a fruit salad. We were starting to sober up, after all. Our new friends around us asked if we had managed to sneak in some booze. “Who, Us? No, no.” I lied, not wanting to give our game away to anyone. You never know who is listening and/or jealous. But as I opened the giant tub to scoop us out three cups, I was hit with more than one heckle.
“Gee, that smells suspiciously alcoholic!”
“Mmm, wish we had fruit salad, that’s a great idea for next time, soak it in gin!”
“Where’s that smell coming from??”
Whoops.
We gave away nothing and sat quietly eating our salads, which were way potent and packing quite a punch.
And the wind continued to blow…
.
Every time I seemed to think that maybe it was easing up, off it would blow again.
Half an hour passed. The wind continued to blow. After another quarter of an hour, I finally gave into my fears and said “You know… I’m starting to think this might not happen.” H-J had said this a couple of times during the wait, as well a few “God, they better not cancel it”s. I hadn’t dared myself to think it so far. But as time dragged on, it really wasn’t looking good.
Finally, just after six o’clock, a boy who couldn’t have been more than 16 – obviously the poor dishwashing sap management had sent out to tell everyone – appeared over the bank with the words “Sorry guys. You’ll get full refunds where you bought the tickets.”
“What about travel and accommodation?” yelled out the guy behind us.
“Sorry guys, that’s just the luck of the draw.” Said a woman behind the boy.
And then, with pretty much no complaint, everyone stood up and started to make their way out. H-J was GUTTED. I, on the other hand, was puzzlingly ungutted. (At the time - the mourning would come much later, in private.) In retrospect, I believe this to be because I had always, somewhere, deep in my heart, thought it was just too good to be true.
I tried to make H-J feel better, but it wasn’t working. She was just bummed. Understandably so. They would probably never play here again, and that may just be our only chance to see them blown. No pun intended.
The bus ride back was sullen. And of course, even as we were driving out of town, we could tell the wind outside was easing… A few jokes were made about what an awesome day that was…
Once we got home, I couldn’t believe I was having to think about other things to do that night. Like, what movie to watch, or what music to listen to. Of course, the one band we wanted to listen to was the one band none of us could bare to listen to. I couldn’t believe that just that morning I’d been dancing round the house to them, their music filling me with joy.

I know that their music won’t bring me joy again for a long, long time…
.
In the paper two days later was an article about the cancellation. Included was an interview with the promoter, who admitted it was a devastating decision to have to make. She also said that the wind had died down by 6.45, but by then the 5000 strong crowd had evaporated. UGH.
My one regret, the thing you think of later that you wish you’d said or done, is that I did not stand up when we were told we’d get refunds and say
“What if we’re prepared to wait for One More Hour???”
I’m not sure if everyone else was, but I know H-J and I would have been…
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh…
.
“Oh, you broke my heart at the Funplex,
Yes you did, yes you did”…
.

2009-12-11T10:09:00.002+13:00

11.
.
KIDS AND WAYS THEY MAKE ME LAUGH:
.
We’’ll call him… Fack. For Identity purposes. Fack is a cracker. At 3 years old, he’s the kid who’ll do exactly what he’s not supposed to just to see what kind of punishment he’ll get.
For example, if he’s really playing up and his parents start counting “1…”, he’ll respond with “2, 3, MACK!” and stick his butt out. He’s also started to pick up “a few choice words”. Me and his mother once saw him drop something and then say “For fucks sake”. His mother looked at me and said “Damn, I can’t blame that on anyone!” – that’s exactly what she says all the time.
.
Or… we’ll call her Maddi. Asking her Dad to put on her favourite CD whilst in the car with Grandma, and being informed the CD she was trying to put on wasn’t the one she wanted. “Bullshit.”
.
Or the time I tried to trick… we’ll call her Miolet. I hadn’t seen her since she was a toddler. Now school age, she asked if we could go and see *insert name of any painful kids movie*, pointing to the picture in the paper. “Oh, sorry honey, that’s not on today.” I lied. She looked at me confusedly and said “Yes it is, see? It says here, on at this time, and this time, and this time...”, then looked at me quite concerned and said “Can’t you read?” “Yes,” I confessed, “I just didn’t think you could.” Which made sense, seeing as she was now about 8…
.
Or Maleb, who spins imaginary decks whilst dancing to Michael Jackson when he thinks no-one is watching him. Not that he stops when he realises we are.
.
Apparently, so my mother tells me, as a toddler I used to “store” food in my mouth – usually Weet-Bix – long after the actual meal. One day I was in a clothing store with her and sneezed…
.
MYSTERY MUSICIAN WHO TRIED TO FORCE HIMSELF ON 16 YEAR OLD GIRL IN ALLEYWAY:
Reluctant apologies go to Dane Rumble… Siiiiiiiigh… Sorry Dane. I have discovered the actual identity of the suspect.
Drumroll please…
And the winner for Best Rape Attempt By A New Zealand Musician Recently goes to….
DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM…
P MONEY!!!
What a dick.
Mental note: Avoid P Money like he’s Chris Brown. Or Dane Rumble.
.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ‘DAYS OF OUR LIVES’???
My favourite guilty pleasure has disappeared from the afternoon airwaves. UGH. Better be back after Christmas.
.
ABORTION:
Is illegal in Ireland. Did you know this? I didn’t. Three women are in the high court of Ireland trying to get this law changed at the moment. I’m all about pro-choice, on just about every aspect of life, so… good luck to them.
.
KATY BRAND’S BIG ASS SHOW:
I like it a lot.
Have a look on Youtube for her pisstake on The Sugababes... Classic.
“And now there’s a new Bitch to get used to,
Some other slag with an attitude…”
.
NEW RIDE AT RAINBOWS END:
WOW, now that really is breaking news… Now Rainbows End will take 50 minutes to get through instead of 45…
.
PIPPA WETZELL FROM ‘BREAKFAST’:
For some reason, she annoys me even more than Paul Henry. I mean, Paul Henry’s just Paul Henry, not going anywhere, never gonna change. But Pippa is a total wet blanket Auckland snoot. Hate.
.
STEVE GRAY FROM ‘GOOD MORNING’ HAS BEEN “LET GO”:
Which is the polite way of saying “TVNZ is not going to renew your contract for next year, so get your big gay ass out of here bitch.” Now, I personally think that sucks. Steve is a much needed element of ‘Good Morning’. Otherwise, it will turn into a show much like, oh, I don’t know… ‘Breakfast’. Mind you, Sarah is a lot more accessible than Pippa. Ugh. BAD MOVE TVNZ.
.
CELEBRITY SPOTTING:
Normally, I try not to look twice when I see Celebrities. But I have to say, seeing George from ‘Seinfeld’ walking up Cuba St would probably have stopped me in my tracks.
Me and my friend once saw Keiran from 'Shortland Street' outside Felix Café. This was shortly after he began on the show, and a big deal was being made out of his shift from Coro to Shorty. We gave him a scowl and carried on walking, hehe. You’re in New Zealand now, bitch. Where we ignore our celebrities… mostly.
Funny case of Starstruck Slapper: Years ago in Dunedin, my good friend and flatmate let some of her mates crash on the couch while they were in town for the weekend. As it happened, they were from the band Rubicon and were in town for Orientation.

Now, let me just get something clear – Rubicon were a bit of a joke to us. You know, Marshall from Shortland Street’s band? Who would call a kid Bruce anyway? UGH. Not I or any of our friends were into them, but hey, whatever. Everyone’s different. Later that night, I’m out with my mates and a girl from my theatre class comes running over to me.
“Hi! Oh my god, you’ll NEVER believe who I’m hanging out at the bar with!”
I laughed, and kind of shrugged, hoping I gave the impression that I didn’t care much.
“The guys from Rubicon and Tadpole!!!” she flapped, her face alight with Celebrity Syndrome.
I had to not choke on my drink and just kind of said “Oh! Wicked!” I held back from saying “Rubicon’s sleeping on my couch” for fear that she might follow us home. Plus, I didn’t want to appear to know them. Which technically, thankfully, I didn’t.
The best, and still one of the most surreal moments of my life, celebrity run-in I ever had happened early one Sunday morning in Wellington. I had just opened up shop, done my morning grind, and went outside onto Manners Street for a cigarette. It was still relatively early and there was barely anyone else around, so when I realised that the lone man walking past the shop, past me, was Sam Neil, I was stunned.
“Sam Neil?!?!” I blurted loudly.
He turned and said “Yes.”
And here, I must admit, I had a spurt of starstruck babble. But I think Sam Neil probably warrants it.
“Wow, I really like your work Mr. Neil, and I especially love ‘Event Horizon’, that’s, like, one of the scariest movies ever”, is what came pouring out of my mouth before I could even think about it.
“Thank you”, he said.
“Have a nice day!” I said cheerily, and he smiled and carried on walking down the street. And I was left to stand in shock, looking around to see if anyone else had just seen that encounter. Which, of course, they hadn’t…
Thankfully, I won’t have to deal with the dilemma of How To Deal With Celebrities much longer, as most of my friends, and a few enemies, are rapidly becoming the genius’s, or flukey pratts, they always were in their field. I have seen more people I know in the paper than not recently! All articles documenting their success too, which is fantastic, and makes me wonder if I should start scrapbooking… Or would that just make me weird… Yeah right, like scrapbooking would make me weird…
.
LADY GAGA COMING TO NEW ZEALAND:
I’m going to have to go to this. I usually reserve going to major acts for Music Icons only – like Snoop Dogg, or Kraftwerk, or The B-52s. And even though she’s only been around for a few years, I think this girl’s here to stay. So, I’m gonna go and see her early incase this is her one and only big show here.
.
MADONNA’S A FUCKING BITCH FOR NEVER HAVING COME HERE:
FUCKING Bitch. Now hurry up and put out another album. And it better be better than your last one, Bitch.
.
MUSE:
Loving them! More please!
.
TIGER WOODS:
Oh my god… SHUT. UP. I’ve never been so dis-interested in a celebrity’s life. For a start, the guy plays Golf. No offence to my golf loving friends. Even I’m partial to a game every now and then, as long playing something that slow involves a copious amount of drinking. And I can’t deny the guy’s talent. But golf is a Sport, ergo UGH. But talent comes in many masks… anyway, what was I saying?
Oh right. The overload of Tiger news. Who cares if the guy had affairs?? He’s an AMERICAN SPORTS IDOL… Isn’t that kind of part and parcel when it comes to them?? And if there were that many – we’re up to 9 – you can’t tell me that she didn’t know. Like she has another life or anything. Apparently, according to the front page of the paper (UGH!), his public approval rating (? – who or what the hell measures that???) has slumped by 24%. Er… Okaaaaay, if you say so…
I think anyone who cheats on their wife is a bit scum – and I mean, have you seen his wife??? Wow… what a dog… cough cough – but personally I’m quite happy to see that he’s human after all. My public approval rating has probably gone Up 24% if anything.
.
I STILL HAVEN’T BOUGHT A SINGLE CHRISTMAS PRESENT:
I’m more focused on my own personal Christmas – The B-52s concert this weekend. Which will undoubtedly be selling drinks at heinously ridiculous prices, and when you’re going to be spending about 8 hours there, you need to be prepared for the long day ahead. And oh, am I prepared.
Today I will be shopping for glitter wigs, party poppers, and large Tupperware bowls in which to put fruit salad. Which all basically means that my family’s presents can just wait until I’m done partying.
.
NEXT WEEK: I imagine mine and Jared from Moon Over Martinborough’s blogs are going to be wholly similar in subject… Expect an entire page dedicated to my B-52s day. WOO HOO!!!

2009-12-04T13:12:00.004+13:00

10.
.

Occasionally, one gets down about one’s life. It’s during these times that one must learn to suck it up and take a good hard look at what’s important in ones life. What brings one joy in ones life. What really kicks arse about ones life.
Me? I like sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. Though I haven’t had nearly enough of at least two of those things of late. One might even say I’ve been BONE DRY.
What I am looking forward to is The B52S in Martinborough (of all places) next weekend, though they hardly count as rock n’ roll. Maybe Pop n’ Roll, or Whacked-Out-Dippy-Trippy-Loved-Up-Space-Hippy n’ Roll… Either way, I can’t wait.
My friend is jealous, but she’s going to Fleetwood Mac, which I’m jealous of. So at least we can be jealous of each other together.

I mostly have a lot of questions this week. Although, speaking of stories, I have been thinking about an online soap opera, which I am currently working on too. (Yeah, he scoffed, that and the 200 other projects you’ve started over the years. Key word: started. Oh shut up. No, You shut up!)
I’m going to write them out for you now. Please, feel free to answer any of them.

.
· How come, no matter which line I choose at the Supermarket, every single other line will move through three times at the speed of light and I get the arsehole who wants to pay in ten cent pieces, and yes, they will have their frozens wrapped, and oh, I’m sure it’s the right pin number, let me try again, and who just has to run and grab one more thing they forgot, and oh I must have left my purse in the car I’ll just go grab it (says the old lady in a walking frame, before she hobbles out at snail pace to her car).
Now, don’t get me wrong. Murphy’s Law and I were acquainted many years ago. I have come to accept Murphy as a solid platform for my life to unfold on… BUT EVERY FRIGGIN TIME??? COME OOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN!!! I swear, if you assembled all the camera footage from supermarkets of Me standing in line, you would think there was a conspiracy too…

· When, oh when, will this rain fuck off?

.
· Why is “Leave It To Lamas” so completely lame-arse? Those people are fuckin’ idiots, oh my god.

.
· Why are Lorenzo Lamas’ children so thick?? Like, thicker than your usual L.A. kid. Which is really saying something.

.
· Why does the E Channel think endless, back-to-back, year long repeats of their lame reality TV shows is a good idea?

.
· Why don’t people appreciate Buffy the way I do?? And for what it is – ONE OF THE GREATEST TELEVISION SHOWS OF ALL TIME! Not many TV shows get their own papers in Universities. Don’t people know that angsty girls were gettin’ with vampires and werewolves LONG before – CACK – Edward and Jacob? Ugh. Respect where respect’s due, people!

.
· Why can’t I get Miley Cyrus’ “Party In The USA” out of my friggin’ head? I don’t even like it!... well… ok, maybe a little… But still, does it need to camp out in my brain?? You too, Deathcab For Cuties. BEAT IT.

.
· Who is the mysterious NZ singer that tried to force a 16 year old to give him a blowjob in the back alley??? Oh, I mean that’s been in the news lately. He’s been granted Name Supression because – get this – “A scandal like this might affect his reputation and income”… GEE, YA THINK??? I’m going to speculate on Dane Rumble. He seems like a dick. SHAME ON YOU DANE RUMBLE…

.
· What shall I have for lunch?

.
· What on earth do you buy your Nana for her 70th birthday?

.
· They are called broaches, right? It just occurred to me, for the first time ever, that Broach is one of those double meaning words, and wow, they are so unrelated it’s not funny.
· “How would Elizabeth broach the subject that Susan had stolen her Grandmothers broach?” HA!

.
· I wonder when and how a Broach got its name?

.
· Howcome it seems like only yesterday that we were knocking on the door of the year 2000? Weren’t we just partying like it’s 1999??

.
· What the hell did I do for the last ten New Years’s?? And No, I can proudly say that it wasn’t EVER The Gathering. I remember the Millenium one, where I was in Masterton and we got too drunk to drive to the river and camp out as per the plan so ended up watching other peoples New Years on TV before popping our poppers at midnight, watching the power Not go out, and going to bed...

And I can remember the Bad one at Visionz where I took too much and ended up getting lost in the bush trying to escape the non-stop techno while the trees spoke to me in Maori and I cried because I knew they were trying to tell me something but I couldn’t understand them...

And the good one in Nelson at Shihad in the park for five bucks where I found forty bucks on the ground whilst waiting in line and then promptly lost everyone but ended up with all the drugs and naked in the bath at 6 in the morning with Bernard, Donna and Yemia… HA!

And one in Dunedin rolling through Fuel...

At least 3 in Wellington (all of them pretty average)...

Oh, and last years that I spent in Carterton getting drunk at my cousins (just for a change of pace… cough), then deciding I needed to find a nice, dark, quiet patch of grass to lie in at 2.30am and was snapped walking barefoot through town in the rain by my Mother of all people… DOH!
…Wow, I just accounted for most of them, huh…

.
· Has anyone been throwing an eye at the early days Shortland Street repeats on TVNZ6?? WOW. Fascinatingly bad. It must be only six months in, at the most. Back in the days of Marge, and Jenny, and bogan Nick, and a younger but just as bad Chris Warner, and Dr. Hone Ropata A.K.A. Jake The Muss A.K.A. The One, The Only, our man Tem. It’s amazing to think that some of these actors were actually actors, who went to actual drama school and stuff before they got the then-Roles Of Their Careers… Pfft.

.
· I wonder if they will allow me to take in placards of worship to the B-52s? I have plans to make and take them. And if I make and take them, there’s no way I’m handing them over at the gate… Mind you, it may be dark by the time they come on... Maybe not.

.
· I wonder if I can sneak in Vodka?? Where there’s a will, there’s a team of security guards ready to foil your efforts...

.
· What’s up with Tiger Woods, huh? Haha. The Fame Monster chooses another lamb to slaughter.

.
· Does everyone really leave a name or ten off their lists? Man… I wrote up mine recently just out of interest, and just when I thought I had them all, I would then sporadically remember someone I’d forgotten and add them to the list, until I had a whole new dozen… and I’m not entirely sure I’m done yet. There are a few I’ve kept off for technical reasons, but even then… Exactly how much is it until you’re just gross?? I have a feeling it’s a lot more than my total. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

.
· Should I go to the library and post this? Or continue to be distracted by very loud B-52s and dancing around my lounge…

Dancing will win every time. Lataz.

2009-11-26T13:53:00.002+13:00

9.

The other day I was sitting in a café. I do this once in a blue moon in Carterton. I don’t usually need coffee and muffins while I write, but on this day I’d decided I was due a treat.
As I sat writing my blog, a man in his mid forties – definitely a local – approached me and said “What are you doing there ay?”
“Umm… I’m writing.” Was my reply.
“Writing!” He exclaimed. “Don’t you have a job?”
Anyone who knows me knows this is not the sort of thing I let slide. But it is the sort of thing I let slide around these parts – explaining creative urges and artistry is kinda pointless.
But not this day. Who the fuck did this guy think he was. And did you just belittle WRITING???
“Fuck you.” Was the first thing out of my mouth. Followed by “What’s wrong with writing?”
To my surprise, the guy laughed, turned to his friend – one of the women who worked there – and said “Ha! I like this guy!”
“What do you write?” was his next question.
“Stuff and things.” I replied, not really wanting to give this dick any information about my life.
“Aw, true. Good on ya!” he said, giving me a completely genuine thumbs up and returning to his seat.
Why thank you, random stranger, for your validation…

AVATAR: THE LEGEND OF ANG:
My new favourite cartoon series, although probably best left for DVD. An epic story involving the fulfilling of one’s destiny. Plus wicked character development too. Like seven seasons of Buffy packed into one. Very cool. Watch it.

BRITNEY:
HA! What a lovely slut.
Her new song is called ‘3’. It’s about threesomes…
“1, 2, 3,
Peter, Paul and Mary…”
Hot though.

BEYONCE AND LADY GAGA’S ‘VIDEO PHONE’:
What a pair of lovelies…
And Beyonce’s not bad either.

MY COUSIN HAS GOTTEN THE REGIONS’ BIKE PREGNANT:
This is the latest drama to inhabit our lives…
I’m not very impressed with my cousin. The “woman” he has ALLEGEDLY impregnated is… barely human.
I’m not usually so rude about people (pfft) but My God. Seriously, I had to consciously stop my jaw from dropping when I met her. It’s like a pig got up and started walking and talking. And didn’t bother showering. EVER IN HER LIFE. And has had a litter of babies, ALL of them taken away by CYPS – three of them, I kid you not. And gives blowjobs for tinnies. And has fucked half of the Wairarapa. Which means there’s some pretty fuckin’ desperate cunts round here cause how you get a hard on for THAT is beyond me.
And I’m not joking about one word of this, boys and girls.
The pig is simply the most disgusting thing I have ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes on.
Worse, even, than the obese Samoan pre-op transvestite I pity-fucked way back when.
Waaaaaaaaaay worse.
And she has the personality to fit. She really isn’t all there.
Anyway, she reckons she’s pregnant to my cousin. Everybody’s first reaction is:
“Oh god… No no no no NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…”
The second thing they say is:
“How does she know it’s his???”
Which is exactly right – she doesn’t. My thoughts are she wants it to be him because she knows he wants kids. He’s the only one of her Fucks that might actually give a shit.
So, the only thing to do now is wait. Wait to see if she’s actually pregnant – mental note: tell my cousin to stop fucking her IMMEDIATELY so he can’t get her pregnant in the meantime if she’s not – and then when she has this mutant baby, get it DNA tested.
If it’s his, then sweet. His whanau will take that baby off her and raise it and love it as one of their own, which it is.
But if it ain’t, then she can fuck right off.
I really don’t want this bitch as part of my family, let alone the mother of any of my relatives.
Or the mother of my dead Uncle’s grandchildren, for that matter.
UGH. YUCK.

THINGS I CURRENTLY HATE:
1. Aforementioned beast-pig.
2. Fat Freddy’s Drop – So over them. And so Not looking forward to a summer of their music bashed to death again. Ugh.
3. Twilight Mania – OVER IT. Robert Pattinson’s not even hot. Taylor Lautner on the other hand…
As my friend hilariously said:
“Twilight: New Moon. The story of a young woman’s choice to practice either beastiality or necrophilia.”
4. Paramore – UGH. HATE. Annoying, untalented, Music Crime.
5. The News. As you may or may not have noticed, I have not been commenting on politics or news lately. So over it. I accidentally watched a few minutes of Parliament TV the other day… It’s like someone stuck a camera in a kindergarten and dressed them up in suits then took their toys away. Which, by the way, seriously needs to happen.
TAKE THEIR TOYS AWAY AND LEAVE THEM WITH NOTHING TO DO BUT ACTUAL WORK.
6. Owl City’s “Fireflies” – Has anyone actually listened to the lyrics of this prissy shit??? GOD it annoys me. It sounds like it should have meaning or something, but it’s just NONSENSICAL RUBBISH!!! SERIOUSLY! It’s like it’s trying to be soulful, but is a song about describing objects in a room… UGH! THUMBS WAY DOWN.
7. Being lovesick. What a crock. Who the Fuck came up with this shit anyway…

I plan to function perfectly well Alone (with a well stocked cupboard of great friends and whanau) for the rest of my life. Leave this love shit to all you other suckers.

SIDENOTE:
I came to the library, and couldn’t help but browse the newspaper.
Two pages in and I already wish I hadn’t.
Hellooooooo… Does nobody see anything wrong with:
“Wellington High School’s agriculture and horticulture class has produced more than
100 bottles of wine this year. And they have passed the all important taste test – getting the thumbs-up from a wine expert… The wines are also proving popular with the pupils’ parents.”
End quote.
Wow. I hope they are also being taught important drinking culture conducts too. Like ‘Tactical Spewing’, and ‘How To Score Drunk Chicks’…

THINGS I CURRENTLY LOVE:
1. Summer arriving. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah… Good parties, good friends, good food... Good times. Summer and all that it encumbers.
2. Having my lawns freshly mown. Yep. I said it. Domesticated, I know.
3. Dizzee Rascal’s “Holiday”. Lovin’ it.
4. Seeing episodes of South Park I haven’t seen before. Sweeeeeeet.
5. Drinkin vodka, tonics and limes. Mmmmm.
6. Music videos in the morning. Like coffee, only much, Much better.
7. Fruit toast. Num num.

2009-11-17T14:11:00.007+13:00

The Mad Scorpion is another year older this week.

I swear my gray hair population quadrupled overnight.

I spent an hour on the morning of my 32nd birthday pulling out grays.

I'm not sure if that amounted to age paranoia or just straight out shock. I am positive they were not there the night before...

According to The Dominion Posts' Horoscopes I am:

Sensitive,

Emotional,

Adaptable,

and Serious-Minded.

I am

Passionate,

Possessive,

and Impatient.

I take GREAT offence to all of this, though logic tells me to go with the flow.

I impatiently wait for a much better description of MY star sign in next years paper, GODDAMMIT!!!

Time for a little history lesson in

SCORPIO:

Scorpio is the eighth sign of the zodiac symbolised in four forms : the 'eagle', the 'phoenix', the 'lizard' and the 'Scorpion' and is often poorly mistaken for being a sign that can think of little else but physical passion. Yet Scorpio is a truly mystical sign and can transcend far beyond the physical realm to depths often left wanting in others.

In ancient times we know that Scorpio and Libra were linked, believed to be as one form, when the scales were held between the claws, in the 'Claws of the Scorpion'. Hence the desire for truth through examining all the available evidence and more is a powerful Scorpion trait, always supported with a sense of cautious investigation. The claws and scales indicated the power to preserve or destroy.

The ancient ruling planet of Scorpio was Mars, the God of War, associated with aggression and wrath, seen as tempestuous with explosive energetic outbursts.

Mars, father of Romulus and Remus, had Venus as his mistress and a sister-wife Bellona. This ancient ruler perhaps gives some insight into why the sign is much maligned.

Pluto is now the ruling planet of Scorpio, symbolising the beginning of life and its end, creation and destruction most patently described in the life-forces of the earthquake, the volcano and subsequent explosive force. Yet it must then be remembered that Pluto also symbolises life after death, the resurrection. In Roman mythology, Pluto was seen to be the Guardian of the Underworld, known to the ancient Greeks as Hades.

In ancient Greek mythology the hunter Orion was stung by the scorpion after boasting of his prowess, that he could kill any animal. Hera secretly commanded the scorpion to act and subsequently raised Scorpio to the Heavens, known as Scorpius.

The qualities of Scorpio are seen to be magnetism, mystical intensity, dependability, indulgent, probing, defensive, changeable and secretive (Hera connection). On the negative side Scorpio can be self-destructive, seen as serious with a desire to control, especially in love.

The symbol of the Scorpion is inextricably linked to Creation myths, more specifically the creation of man and woman, and their subsequent fall (the sting in the tail). The eighth phase of the journey of the Sun is experienced here, that of the middle aged adult determined to succeed in their abilities.

Scorpio is a fixed and negative water sign associated with the statements

'I control',

'I experience all things', and

'I know'.

It rules the generative system.

- That's the cock and vag.

...As if all this weren't enough to contend with. Apparently it's not enough just to be a human alive and experiencing life - we have pre-destined personality traits ruled by the planets too!

Neato!

So, what else can we do to make things interesting... I know... we'll chuck some Chinese Asstrology into the mix too.

What would happen if we put this Scorpion, and this Snake together???

ME, THAT'S WHAT.

Go on, poke a stick at that shit.

I dare ya.

I think only a Leo Dragon could come close...

I'd like to see the Scorpion-Snake and the Lion-Dragon in a Pokemon fight...

"You Gots Some 'Splainin' To Do Boy!":

I feel the need to do some explaining on some of my rants in 7.

Yes, I was an idiot blurred by alcohol and hazed emotions.

Yes, I made some baaaaaad decisions.

Yes, I acted vindictively.

Yes, I used people I shouldn't have.

But all of these realisations are retrospective, and None of it was intentional at the time.

Apologies to those I used and abused,

and Aapologies to those who feel I wronged them.

...See? I'm not all bad.

GAINING WEIGHT:

As someone who has never been able to weigh over 58 kilograms his entire life, it was quite a shock to me when I went to the Doctors about 8 months ago, and he decided to measure and weigh me. Just for the hell of it.

When the scales read 68kgs, I stared at him blankly and told him the scales must be broken.

They were not.

Turns out ten years of living in cities with hills may have had something to with my oh-so-slim figure, not my metabolism at all!

As someone who has even TRIED to gain weight in the past to no avail, this came as quite a shock.

As someone who has NEVER had to contend with weight issues, I wouldn't even have the slightest idea as to how to go about losing it.

I tell ya... all this middle-aged shit hit me like clockwork at 31.

I see a diet of lettuce and vodka on the summer horizon...

THE ALL WHITES WIN OVER BAHRAIN:

Don't care. Fuck off.

Yes, I like soccor more than rugby, but still...

Do we have to act like it's Sevens Week people??

Dial it down a notch ay??

STAR TREK:

The latest film version.

SEE IT.

Even if you've never been into Star Trek before, don't let the title put you off.

Yes, I realise that is A LOT easier to say than do... but Trust Me.

The new Star Trek is AWESOME. Not just as a reboot of the old franchise, but also as a stand alone action flick.

From the makers of Lost, it's honestly one the best films to come out this year.

SEE IT.

KARISSA AND KRISTINA:

Hugh Hefners' new twin girlfriends.

That's some hot shit.

I wouldn't mind being 84 if I had those two running around naked all day.

GRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWL.

ANYA CHRISTINA EMANUELLA JENKINS:

Harris...

I think my favourite of all Buffy characters, Anya was to Buffy as Seven Of Nine was to Voyager.

Slaughtered like a bunny during the last battle of Sunnydale, Anya will be forever missed...

Although I'm currently enjoying her on re-runs.

BIRTHDAY BURRITO:

With my birthday falling on a Monday and very few friends around to celebrate with me, I had a very lacklustre Thirty-Second.

With no cake in sight and a burrito for dinner, I decided to grab and candle and jam it in the burrito so I could get my Birthday Wish.

I lit it, made my birthday wish -

which, at the last second, I realised was the same wish I had made for the last three or four years to no avail, and so changed it -

took a deep breath,

and sent my wish up in smoke...

Here's to an exciting and joy filled year for everyone in the Mad Scorpions' World.

PEACE OUT.

2009-11-11T12:00:00.002+13:00

7.

Hello again.
Well, what should be 9 has instead become 7, as I’ve been… not so much slack, as… otherwise engaged for the last couple of weeks.
The Mad Scorpion had a short sharp lesson in

DEATH:
The ultimate in goodbyes. The only sure thing we know is going to happen to every single one of us.
Every day it happens to someone, and every day a new family and network of friends is washed in the ripple-effect.
Just think about that for a moment.
Every day, someone is consumed by death grief.
Never mind the circumstances of said death, which inevitably vary for everyone.
The circumstances of my friend’s death were particularly grim... A drug overdose that leaves others to find and clean up and be traumatised by the mess. Not the first in my life either, but here’s hoping the last.
But there was something oddly… calming? comforting? about the fact that we all knew what path our friend had chosen. In some cases, there’s only one way things can end.
We also knew that he was cheating death on an entirely different level by suffering all of his life from Cystic Fibrosis. On the one hand, his conclusion was inevitable. On the other, he was totally beating the odds anyway and going out in style with a bang. Albeit slowly and over years.
Which I guess leads me to my next subject:

THE AFTERLIFE:
I don’t know if I believe in a god. Not THE God, anyway. If an old man with a white beard whose face you can never really see is waiting to greet me, sitting on a throne scolding and judging me before pulling the lever and opening the trap-door to hell is all that’s out there… I’ll be seriously disappointed.

I don’t even believe that there’s one heaven and one hell.
It can’t be that simple.

What I believe –

and brace yourselves because I’m about to get seriously hippy on it, no matter how hard I try to avoid it –

is that when you die, you just join the Universal Energy.
Everything is energy, and energy is Everything. It’s just in different forms.
Think about the smallest speck of dust and then zoom out to your house, your town, your country, the world, the solar system, the galaxy, then out and out and out past that until everything out there becomes as tiny as the smallest speck of dust… It’s all Energy, and everything’s connected. Whether it’s in a living being or not.

You’re still you, but if you were a seriously unhappy soul with a shit life who hated everything and everything bad happened to you and woe is me, then that’s what kind of energy you’ll be afterwards.
But if you were slightly more than this in your core, if you even have the capacity to be halfway happy, (let alone kind, loving and empathetic) then you’ll still be that, only free of a body. And joined by anyone and everyone you ever loved who’s been released from their bodies.
And you can still see Us in the living. And you still love us, and talk to us. You live through us. You stay alive in us.
But I’m kind of digressing.
I’m using some simple and childish terms here but I can’t think of any other way to describe it, so it will have to do.

Guardian Energy as part of the whole Universal Engery.

That’s where my dead whanau and friends go.
When I’m down, or feeling scared, or even want the weather to clear up for a good reason, I literally do a roll call in my head and ask for help from the appropriate spirit. Or even the whole Universe if the occasion calls for it.
But I swear to “god”… I don’t think it’s failed me yet.
Well… none of them have helped me win lotto yet but let’s not go there.
I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in The Power of Love.
…sick yet?

MORTALITY:
I’ve been hearing more and more people from my parents generation saying “I’m getting’ old!”
And the scary thing is, it’s true. People I never regarded as being old are now not far off being… *shudder*… Elderly.
Which begs the question… Euthanasia – Yay or Nay?
I’m a believer in Yay.
And I’m talking a huge distinction between Euthanasia and Suicide.
If you have a really really REALLY good reason, and carving your own end date out gives you a dignity and relief you would otherwise be denied… then who is anyone else to object?
After all, if it was a decision you were making about your life, as opposed to your death, no-one would object. Or they might for a while but once they realised you were determined, or were making the same decision over and over again and just weren’t listening, they’d throw their arms up and be done with you or simply say something along the lines of “Well… it’s their life, we can’t do anything about it”, or better yet “They made their bed, now they can lie in it”.
And most on the receiving end of those lines would be fine with it. In fact, they’d be pleased.
Getting the drift?
Go Yay.

THROAT CANCER:
I hope I haven’t got it.
I fuckin smoked myself silly over the last few weeks. Feelin a bit raw in there.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION:
I decided something the other day as I lay in bed pondering my life.
I moved from my last location to get away from… well, let’s just say –

and I’m being unusually open here… this comes from the

deepest

darkest

recesses of

The Mad Scorpion’s soul –

I wanted deeply a relationship that was never, and IS NEVER, going to happen.
After they dumped me, know what I did?
I proceeded to fuck anyone and everyone that they had ever been with, or wanted to be with, or looked at, or were friends with… I turned my Slut on HARD.
“Maybe the jealousy will drive them back!” I blondely thought.
WOW. What. A dick.
My next decision, to become a version of myself so great that they’d inevitably realise what they were missing out on and come to their senses... Didn’t work either.
My next step, I thought, was to just try even harder to be an even bigger and better version of me. Get a career, become a great writer, who’s so famous and so rich that they will FINALLY realise what they are missing etceteraaaaaaabla bla.
But there are two pitfalls to that idea.

1. I’m not getting any younger or thinner, and
2. I have concluded that that is PaTHETic.
And thank god I am Not.
If I’m going to do that, it’s for myself because A. See Above, re: Not Pathetic, and B. See Above,
re: NEVER going to happen.
I finally swam out of my drunken hurt and realised I needed to seriously snap out of it.

Of course while all this went on, we became FRRRRRRRRIEEEEEEEEEENDS.
NO-ONE who knew me before this person came along could understand what I saw in them, or why I was such a loyal friend to them. Let’s face it, they still don’t - this person was pretty arseholey to me at times. Apart from the obvious reason, of course.
Which is that I am still in love with them.
Which is odd, because even if I had a renewed chance with them, I’m not entirely sure I’d take it.
Too much has gone on, water, bridges, etc.
What’s worse, is that this particular person has quite a few ex’s who are still obsessed with them.
And I’m talking photos of them, and enlarged photos of their various body parts – one in particular – Oh, ok, a giant photo of their cock – next to their bed.
I’m talking large gold framed pictures of them together on the wall in front of their bed so it’s the first thing they see when they wake.
I’m talking their artwork all over their bedroom and lounge.
I’m talking about keeping a bag of “Things That They’ve Ever Touched.” Like bus tickets. Or theatre programs. Or condom wrappers.
I’m talking OBSESSED.
Thankfully, they are my Craziness Benchmark. I at least have that to remind me that I will never get that bad.

It’s the idea of What Could Be that haunts me. I guess. I’m not sure what it is that connects me so, and enduringly.
This is not blind love, that’s for sure.

And so, after years of pining and a heart that had not changed its mind, I decided to move.
To be fair, a large chunk of my closest and bestest friends also flew the coop within months of each other, which made the decision a lot easier. But I decided to throw away whatever life I’d created and get the fuck out of there to clear my head.
And another year passed. And we still remained friends. Best friends even.
…And nothing has changed.
I don’t even see anyone else that rattles my bones.
I understand and accept the need that I need to be free of this soul-ball-and-chain for my own good.

But how do you tell someone who's your best friend and done nothing wrong and everything's "fine" to Fuck Off and get out of your life for good???

You can't really.

Which leads me to my next idea…

I am going to move

To the opposite side

of the PLANET.

I haven’t exactly worked out where that is yet (I’ll get on google earth later) but… I reckon that’s my place.
It’s an extreme and dramatic decision…
which is exactly why it’s Perfect for me.
I have spun my imaginary globe and landed on the X.
…Which Google Earth tells me is…
*drum roll please…*

MADRID, SPAIN!!!

Perrrrrrrrrfect.

And don’t get bitchy on me. We all know the heart and the mind follow you wherever you go.
We all know it’s my mind that needs to escape.
But maybe this will be easier to do in Spain!
Fingers crossed.

….eh. Who am I kidding.

Fuck you all.

Please turn on your magic beam,
Mr. Sandman, stop making me scream.

2009-10-22T12:37:00.002+13:00

6.

Ok. I really wanted to stop trashing politicians, but… let’s face it, they don’t make it easy for me to keep my trap shut. In fact, they make it darn right easy. Get a load of this one -
ACC Minister, National’s Nick Smith, on their plans to scrap support for the families of suicide victims:
“If my doctor told me that I was terminally ill and I had 30 days to live, with the ACC rules the way they are I’d be finding myself a train to throw myself under on the 29th day because my family would be treated so much more generously.”

Granted, I think he was voicing his against stance about the whole issue, but oh my… Poor choice of words, buddy.

MOON OVER MARTINBOROUGH:
www.moonovermartinborough.com
A gay American and his hubby move from the big city to the sticks. Hilarity ensues… I smell a sitcom.
Well written, worth a look, and quite funny.

MY LIBRARIAN:
All through the power of eavesdrop, I have managed to decipher that my Librarian:
- Drinks soy, is a vegan, is wheat and dairy free, and eats Alpha One Rice Bran products.
- Has been “communicating” with a man over the internet and is going (has actually already gone) to San Francisco to meet her new “Friend”. And I quote: “People keep asking me if I’ve fallen in love over the internet, but no, I’m just communicating with him!” She says this with her tongue firmly in her cheek too. Here’s hoping her communication works out well.

BILE OVERLOAD:
Ok folks. I have been pushed so far to my stress limits that I actually broke this week. So it’s time let loose on some personal issues. Be warned: The first three rows will get wet.

SCOLIOSIS:
…is a well-heard-of but little-known-about congenial birth defect. It usually involves a couple of bits missing from your spine when you are born, causing your spine to grow in bend in all sorts of directions, and all the muscles and nerves being crushed and pulled in unnatural angles causing immeasurable life-long pain and suffering. In a nutshell. Only in reality, a nutshell doesn’t do it justice.
I happen to be one of those circus freaks. I’ve had two major operations which involved hacking off a piece of hip and whacking it in my shoulder the first time, and the removal of most of the back right half of my ribcage the second. (Sidenote: Ask any of my schoolmates about the day I took my ribs to school and they leaked through my bag… Mmmmmmm.) Even though my spine is now shaped like a question mark – literally – and it continues to twist and collapse and give me all sorts of daily grief, I have been told by the “Medical Profession” that there is nothing more they can do for me and I have basically been left to my own devices. That’s fine. I can deal.
What I can’t deal with, is that once arriving in that point, the “Medical Profession” seems to swiftly forget why I was there in the first place. Like they suddenly came down with amnesia, or alzheimers, and then turn to me going “Huh? What? Who are you again? Why are you here??”
CASE IN POINT: This story requires going back a bit to the beginning of September, when I had a friend over from Wellington staying for a coupl’a days, and I ran out of pain medication.
Now, I’m on some fairly strong, highly monitored stuff – which, in case you’re wondering, barely even touches the sides of someone like me, and is actually on the lower end of the scale as far as highly monitored prescription drugs go – so there can be a fair bit of rigmarole involved in getting it…
Anyway I’m digressing and my poison can’t hold back. Here’s how it goes –
I go to Doctors, I get prescription. Supplies are doled out to me on a fortnightly basis. This lasts for three 2 week cycles. I go back to Doctors. Repeat til dead.
It’s early September. I’m working and I’ve got no time to go in and get my script. I call the Medical Centre, order my next prescription, tell them I’m working, ask them if it’s ok that my friend (who was over staying from Wellington) comes in to pick it up for me, they tell me it’s fine, I call the Pharmacy, ask them if it’s ok that my friend comes in to pick up my meds for me, they say that’s fine, I carry out my plan, and all goes well. Bar the fact that I rack up a small bill in the meantime.
Six weeks go by, I run out of meds.
I go in to make an appointment. Bitch receptionist demands to know when I’ll be paying off what I owe on my account. In front of the entire waiting room. Loudly.
I politely tell her I am well aware that I owe them money, and that if she’d like to she can come around to my house and see the bill pinned up on my wall, right in line behind my other bills, that I can’t do anything about until Pay Day, and in the meantime can I please make that appointment.
She kinda looks at me stunned and blank for a moment, before demanding to know when my Pay Day is.
By this point I’m kinda ready to reach over the desk and pummel her face into the counter, so I tell her not to bother and storm out, slamming the door behind me just like the shitty teenager I was impersonating.
I resolve to not go back until I have paid my account fully so that evil old bitch can never have anything to look down at me for again. Yes, this will involve suffering for a few weeks without medication, but I can do it. I cannot STAND being treated like shit by anyone, but in this case, it means giving them nothing to go on.
And so, fast forward two weeks. My bills are paid, my back is killing me, and I legally and honestly go into the Doctors to order, and pay for, my next prescription. It’s a Friday, I’m sore as fuck, I know I’ve got a largely Have-To-Be-Upright Weekend coming up, and I’m pretty much at my pain threshold looking forward to some long postponed relief.
I go into the Medical Centre. I order, and pay for, my next prescription.

“That should be fine, it’ll be ready for you this afternoon.”

But all is not fine. Come the afternoon, I get a call from the Nurse, who says

“You were given a prescription last week, so where are all your pills?”

Uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh…. What now?
She repeats herself, with the steel tinge of Judgement rife in her voice.

“Uh, I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“According to Dr. McArthur’s files, you were given a script on the 8th of October.”

“Uuuuuuhhhhhh, No. No I wasn’t. I haven’t had any pain relief since I ran out over two weeks ago.”

“Well why didn’t you come in then?”

With a completely deadpan face:
“Because when I did the receptionist was such a bitch to me about owing money I felt obliged to pay off my account before I came in again.”

“…Oh.” (Yeah, take that bitch.) “Well, I’ll have another check around and get back to.”

“I’d appreciate it. THANKS.”

Half an hour goes by. My breathing has turned thick, and I have a new and interesting rage knotting in my stomach. My phone rings again. I am looking forward to not having the fear of pain relief being held from me.
It’s her again. Lisa the Nurse.

“Look, I’m sorry, but according to us you were given a script last week and the receptionist remembers your friend coming in to pick it up for you.”

“Uuuuuuuhhhhhhh… yeah, they did, but that was almost two months ago, not LAST WEEK!”

“…Oh.”

“And look, if I was given a script on the 8th of October, WHERE IS IT AND CAN I HAVE IT?”

“Yes, well, we did have a look around it’s not here, and we also checked the chemists and it hasn’t been taken in there either.”

“Riiiiiiiiiight. So what you’re saying is I NEVER USED THE PRESCRIPTION I NEVER GOT.”

“It would appear that way, yes.”

“So, can you just get another one from Dr McArthur then???”

“Well no, because he’s away today and we can’t ring him and he won’t be back until Monday.”

Snap. Now panic really sets in. Stress (and here comes the wonderfully ironic part) actually causes my spine to cramp up into all sorts of new and exciting pain enhancements. Am I really going to have to suffer through the weekend because these idiots can’t sort their shit out???

“Listen, Lisa, here’s the thing. I HAVE A SPINAL DISORDER AND I’M IN SEVERE PAIN AND I HAVEN’T HAD ANY PAIN RELIEF IN TWO WEEKS. I NEED IT.”

By now, I’m past caring if I make scene. Fuck you lady, I ain’t suffering because of someone else’s mistake.

“Well sorry, there’s nothing we can do about it until Monday now.”

Oh no you didn’t, Bitch!
And with that, I hang up, squish all that pain induced rage down into that growing knot in my gut, and go straight down to the medical centre. I’m there within two minutes of the phone call, making it very obvious to anyone who has eyes, that I am just on the edge of losing it, and someone had better come out and explain this shit to me NOW.

I am told that the available Doctor is busy until five, but I’m welcome to wait and then he’ll see me.
Oh don’t worry lady, I’m not going anywhere.
Five to five rolls around, and just when I think I’m going to start throwing up from rage sickness, start throwing things, start screaming wildly, and generally start acting like the Junkie I am being judged to be, Nurse Lisa reappears and whisks me into a side room. She gives me just enough pain relief to get me through the weekend, and suggests I make an appointment with the Doctor on Monday to sort all this out.
Yeah, No Shit Bitch.

SO… Crisis TEMPORARILY averted.
Here’s Monday. I go to my Doctors appointment.
Let it be known that the general consensus around town is that my particular Doctor is an idiot. I haven’t had him for long, and I haven’t minded him either. Let it be known that I now know why the whole town thinks this.
I sit down, I tell him the events of the Friday before. He takes one look on his computer and says “But you were given a prescription on the 8th of October.”
SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.

“Look, do you remember writing that script out for me?”

“Well, I write out a lot of scripts every day, that’s my job.”

“So you don’t remember then.”

“Well the receptionist says that your friend came in to get it.”

“Yes. SIX WEEKS AGO, NOT LAST WEEK!”

Completley judgmentally, he replies:
“Well maybe your friend came in to pick it up again.”

…Oh THAT'S IT, you Mutha Fuck!

“Three things. One: The friend that came in to pick up my prescription for me? They live in Wellington, so they’re not even in town, and they did that for me because I had run out, I was working, and I asked them to do that for me, with the FULL permission of both the Medical Centre and the Pharmacy.
Two: I don’t actually have friends that would do that to me. They don’t do shit like that and I don’t appreciate you suggesting so.
Three: Here’s an idea, MAYBE SOMEBODY AROUND HERE FUCKED UP.
I am Not a JUNKIE, and my friends are not THEIVES.
Yes, I was probably DUE for a prescription around the 8th, BUT I DIDN’T GET IT. And while we’re on the subject, where IS this mysterious script? It isn’t here, it hasn’t been taken to the chemists, so WHERE IS IT???”
And yes, I did actually say all of this.

The Doctor kinda sat there with a dumbfounded look on his face for a moment before deciding to shrug the whole incident away with a “Oh, it’s probably gotten lost around here somewhere. But that’s ok, we’ve talked about it now, I’ll just write you out another one!”

“Thanks. That would be great.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Like pulling teeth! Or jamming nails in your spine, if you prefer.
I cannot word enough how much I RESENT those sorts of judgments from the very people who are supposed to be helping me. I can tell you what though - All this is going in a complaint letter to the Health Board so this bullshit doesn’t happen again. I’ve spent many a year fighting for relief, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to put up with this shit forever. Fuck ‘em. I bet no other Junkie they ever met can string together the words DISCRIMINATION CHARGES. Fuckers.

And so ends part one of my bile vomit. Take a breather, then prepare to enter the world of

I HATE MY BITCH OF A PROPERTY MANAGER:
So. I move into a little one bedroom flat last April. It has a bedroom, a lounge, a kitchen, a laundry and a toilet. Everything you need really. Except curtains and curtain rails.

On moving in, I am assured by the seemingly lovely Property Brokers Property Manager Karen Dickinson (be warned people), that she will arrange for curtains and curtain rails.

I sign the lease, I move in.

Winter arrives. The house gets cold. Still no curtains. Now, the bedroom and the lounge have windows that go out and round in a half circle shape. The bedroom is a freezer without them, and I’ve resorted to nailing a blanket over the windows, but this isn’t working, so I start using the lounge as my bedroom. It’s easier to keep warm, and I’ve made makeshift curtains from couch throws, hooks, and nails.
MONTHS pass. In the meantime I have two house inspections, and both times am assured by Karen that she’ll “get onto that” when I bring up the curtains. So I continue, in my naïve good faith, to patiently wait.
Last week, and SEVEN MONTHS LATER, a handy man FINALLY arrives to put up my curtain rails. But, he informs, only on two of the windows. A little one by the front door, and over the windows in my bedroom. HOWEVER, he’s been instructed to go straight across with the rails and not around. Effectively making the room smaller and forcing it to have curtains as big as the wall itself and not just as big as the windows. Are you with me? Good.

This, I decide, is not good enough. I’m on a roll after my stint at the doctors, and I’ve had enough of being fobbed off and treated like shit, so I text Karen asking her to call me. I text her every five minutes until she does. This takes about an hour and a half, so by then, you can imagine that she’s had a few texts. She sounds annoyed and tells me she hasn’t been able to ring because she’s been driving.

I care little, memories of a winter spent freezing my arse off fresh in my mind, and suggest she could always have pulled over. But no matter, you’ve called now, and I appreciate it. Before she can even speak, I launch into the question:

“Why are you getting the man to put the curtain rails up straight across instead of around?”

“Because it will be too expensive otherwise.”

“But that means I will have to find curtains as big as the walls instead of the windows.”

“Oh I’ll find the curtains!”

“You will?”

“Oh yes, you don’t need to worry about that. We provide the curtains.”

“Really Karen? Like you’re providing me with curtain rails SEVEN MONTHS LATER???”

“...ah, er…”

“What’s with that anyway Karen? WHY HAS IT TAKEN THIS LONG?”

“Um, oh, er, because I had to get in touch with the landlord and organise it.”

“Oh Puh-lease, Karen. Really? SEVEN MONTHS???”

“Mm, yes, that is a long time isn’t it.”

Yeah, No Fucking Shit Cunt.
But Ok. I’ve had my vent, and it’s clear she feels above apologizing, so I say goodbye and hang up on her.

Two days later, I’m thinking, Fuck this bitch. If it took her that long to provide me with rails, Fuck knows how long she’ll take for curtains.

I look into the legalities of tenancy agreements, and discover (Thanks to my ex flatmate and best friend, daughter of two great lawyers and pseudo-niece of the Head of the Tenancy Tribunal) that I can serve my Property Bitch with a ten day notice in which they have to provide their agreed upon services.
But, weirdly, just as I’m organizing all this, I get a Text from an unknown number telling me that I am $220 in arrears with my rent, and to contact my Property Manager.

Now, this is TOTAL news to me. As far as I’m concerned, I have paid my rent on time every week bar ONE. And on that occasion, as soon as I realised it hadn’t gone through, I wrote to Karen the next business day explaining that it hadn’t gone through and that I would pay it in halves over the next two weeks.
I paid the first half, but the next week decided I would pay the other half when I got my curtains. And this was around early September.

This text, on top of everything else my week has served me, surges a new kind of bile through my system. I actually start getting hives. I feel like a demon has latched onto me and is pumping acid through me. It is an all new venom coursing through my veins, and I break, and see a new kind of red. Again.
I head straight to a computer and send an e-mail:

“Dear Karen,
I just received a Text on my phone supposedly from Property Brokers, although it didn't come from your number, that I am $220 in arrears with my rent.
Could you please send me this in writing, as well as the dates of the missed rent payments. I don't think text is an appropriate medium for these types of messages.
I was aware of being $60 in arrears, but I'm fairly certain the figure quoted to me by text is a mistake. However I'm unable to confirm this until I have been over my bank statements. If there has indeed been a mistake on my part I shall endeavor to correct it as soon as possible.

Also if you could give me in writing a reasonable time frame in which you are going to provide curtains for the bedroom of my property it would be appreciated. Taking SEVEN MONTHS to provide the curtain railings was totally unreasonable, and I don't really believe the flimsy excuse provided that it took that long to get in touch with the landlord and to organise. I would appreciate it if it didn't take as long this time and I can finally start using the bedroom for its intended purpose.”

Simple, to the point, and non-abusive.

This was Karen’s response, received within minutes:

“Nathan,
I sent the text as an informal way of contacting you regarding the rent arrears but if you want it in a more formal manner ie a Ten Day Notice, I will issue you with one.
I was being a nice guy about it but obviously this hasn’t gone down too well.
Could you please advise as to which curtain tracks have been installed so I can organize the curtains.”

I think I could actually hear my blood vessels burst when I read this. And lo and behold, a whole new vista of stress and rage knots, twists, and surges through me. Now I’m actually seeing red because my Eyes are Bleeding. And wow, who knew stress like this actually causes Nails to appear hammered between my vertebrae!

But no matter. I’ve played the Tenancy Tribunal game with cunty landlords before, with some of the best in the business by my side. And won.
You wanna play that game with me? Well I am MORE than prepared, Bitch. Bring it.

Without missing a beat, and actually trembling with toxic rage, I sent her this in return:

“Karen,
A ten day notice will be fine, as long as the dates of the missed payments are included.
I know all about ten day notices, as I was about to issue you with one myself.
Personally, I don’t think you were being nice at all, and now I think you are using threat tactics.
P.S. The curtain tracks that have been installed are the ones in the bedroom and the little side one by the front door.”

Although in hindsight I wish I’d added:

“… and now I think you are using threat tactics as a direct response to me pointing out that you aren’t doing your job properly. It sure does seem that way, seeing as I was only informed of supposed rent arrears after telling you that taking seven months to provide me with curtain rails was unacceptable.
Is that what you’re doing Karen? Threatening me?
By the way, I’m STILL not hearing an apology about you taking so long with that. You think I’m being unreasonable? I tell you what, Karen, why don’t you go home and next year between April and October, why don’t YOU take down all the curtains in YOUR house and freeze YOUR arse off, and THEN tell me I’m being unreasonable.
I thought I was being the “nice guy” by getting you to provide a reasonable time frame in writing instead of just issuing you with a ten day notice… but I guess that hasn’t gone down to well.”

Admittedly, in hind hindsight, it’s probably best I didn’t.
Fuck you Bitch. You work for ME, not the other way round, and tenancy agreements work both ways, Fucker.

Somewhat surprisingly, I got this response:

“Thanks Nathan.
I will arrange to get the curtains.”

Yeah, that’s right KAREN. You WILL.
Of course, this is in No Way Whatsoever providing me with a time frame in which she will “arrange to get” the curtains, but it isn’t a thinly veiled threat either, so I’m just glad she’s realised that I am prepared to go to War with her if that’s what she wants, and that I’m as well armed as she is, and not the usual small town hick she’s used to dealing with.
I’m not scared of you, or your Ten Day Notices, or even your Eviction Notices. A house is a house and there’s plenty more out there, and quite frankly, if they don’t involve you as a landlord, then bonus.
I couldn’t give a rats arse if I have to move. You can play your power tripping game all you like, but I tell you what… they only work on

People

That Aren’t

Me.

Kisses!

2009-10-14T12:07:00.004+13:00

5.

A brief one I think this week...

Still no word from my dear love Rosemary. I hope she got my letter...

LADYHAWKE:
Masterton’s hottest female musical export is due back in town this week to go stay with Mum.
Aaaaaaaaaw.
And get this, she recently bought her childhood home for her parents and they are going to do it up.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw.
What a good bitch.

AISLING SYMES’ BODY FOUND:
It’s a real shame, but aren’t you glad she isn’t being kept in someone’s basement?
Surely a fate worse than death.

ANGUS KEBBELL:
The Martinborough man making a fortune off his mother’s muesli recipe.
Nice.

MELISSA LEE, NATIONAL POLITICIAN:
Gee, what do ya know, another dodgy National politician. What a shock. I’m SO glad people like this are running our country… (insert deadpan look here).

'BODY BLOW' BY THE HEADLESS CHICKENS:
Has recently been making a resurgence in my playlist. This is the album I lived most of my teenagehood through. Well, there were three. The other two were 'Very Necessary' by Salt N Pepa, and 'Erotica' by Madonna. But that’s another story.
Headless Chickens were my favourite band and I still think they’re great.
Not to gush, but FUCK yeah.
Dig it back out of your CD collections and give it a whirl.
…yeah yeah, I know 'Stunt Clown' is the benchmark, bla bla…
“Oh, do the Headless Chicken,
All together now, fingers clickin’,
You’re not safe in mother’s aaaaaaaaooooaaaaaaaooooaaaaaooooaaarms, LOOK OUT!”

PLAYIN’ TV & MIND GAMES ON SKY:
Don’t bother. Ugh.

THE THEFT OF CARTERTON FIRE STATION’S CENTURY OLD BRONZE FIRE BELL:
What the???
The thing weighs over 200 kilo’s, for one.
And would only fetch $700 sold as scrap.
What a dick.
Having had an Uncle in the Carterton Volunteer Fire Service for as long as I’ve been alive, I find this sort of petty theft abhorrent.
Surely the history of our town is worth more than $700.
TUT TUT.

LITTLE BOOTS:
Something about her has got me. She’s infectious, and entirely too cute.

THE SUGABABES REPLACING THEIR LAST REMAINING MEMBER.
BAH HA! Good luck with that one.

THE B52’S:
I am SOOOOOOOOOOO looking forward to seeing these guys in December. In MARTINBOROUGH of all places. Now if anyone wants to give me an ACDC ticket, my wish list will be complete. For now...