...a long and indulgent post on how i met ethan hawke....

on wednesday i went to dorkland. to see the killers. but frankly, somehow, i'd almost forgotten about the killers in my planning, because i was so fixated on how i desperately needed to be a lady of leisure. sometimes you just need to get your groove back. you know what i'm saying?

to cut a long story short: success.

to cut a medium length story long, i hadn't really eaten dinner before the killers on wednesday night. just lukewarm chips from the venue. so afterwards i was starved. but also i couldn't eat. because i sometimes get waves of horrible as i think that maybe brandon flowers and i will NOT be together for a moment, let alone forever. so i ended up fulfilling essentially my OTHER life's ambition by eating in the bright green korean place on the corner of queen street and mayoral drive. and it wasn't too bad. the korean television show that was on took my mind temporarily off brandon.

the next morning we got up early for a swim and jacuzzi. the langham, where we were staying, is the best dorkland hotel i've ever had. top notch. anyway, after the health club morning, we ate breakfast and then went to mt eden. if you know mt eden, you'll think we were nuts. but on the airport bus it looks so hip and happening. it must have been the confusing dusk light though. because it was a bit of a fail. but at least we got a cup of tea at a chain cafe and mistaken for students. the latter is the impressive bit. given i'm now thirty mumble.

anyway, next stop (after a hail storm) was equipoise in herne bay. so good i fell asleep i think. i can't be entirely sure. it was all a blur of aromatherapy and relaxation. which, while dealing to the stress i carry in my shoulders also served to remind us that we were starved. so after a trip to $3Japan (my vote for auckland city top shop) we went to a hole in the wall japanese place on elliot street. for noodles and gyoza. at some point hrc mentions that she saw this ad for a play or something that had some guy who looks like ethan hawke in it. i'm all like "it IS ethan hawke". because tv 3 cannot leave him alone, so i've picked up the knowledge by osmosis. we also looked at my $3Japan purchases. the pens were not as good as i'd hoped, but otherwise it was cute overload.

then we hit the liquor.




here we are at honey. the cocktail is a honeyberry sour. the taste is delicious. and the company sublime. there is nothing like talking about microwaved ham, stefano oliveri's mouth and the dorkland super city. we had like a hundred cocktails. it was awesome.


then we left honey. the token male of the group left the girls to fight a fire. LITERALLY. as in a bin was on fire. we rang the fire service. and took a lot of photos. one of the fire men asked us if we started it. we giggled (barely, compared to how we were soon to giggle, but at the time it seemed like school girl behaviour) and the fireman pointed his hose at us and turned it on. just a bit. we were untouched by the water. unlike the rubbish bin, which he expertly doused. such a hero.



after the rubbish bin inferno there was nothing for it but mexican food. on the waterfront. where somehow al rationalised it was better to pay for a hostel than go back to waiheke. so we headed up the hill to the langham and watched episodes of brideshead revisited until we fell asleep (which didn't take long, refer to cocktails above).

friday was waiheke day. there was a queue for the ferry. so we took basically the first seats, near the gangplank. and watched people come on. apparently, ethan hawke had already been to waiheke. feeling stink that we'd missed a star encounter we played this game where every man that came on the boat we'd nudge each other and say "there's ethan". it was hilarious.

until ethan hawke walked onto the ferry and ruined it.

he went upstairs. and for the next half an hour i was in hysterics. i couldn't read. i couldn't look at the view. i couldn't do anything but think of reality bites trivia. and wipe the tears from my eyes.

in the last five minutes of the ferry ride we couldn't handle it anymore. and decided to "see the view from the top". we found a position right next to ethan. and promptly began to laugh nervously and uncontrollably.

you know what i learned about myself in those minutes: i'm an opportunist. so when it came time to disembark, i lined up directly behind him. basically touching his brushed cotton shirt. almost holding his hand on the rails. and actually snorting and unable to hold it together.

once we finally got off the boat, i made hrc pose for a photo but hello, it wasn't about her. it was all about ethan....

i'm telling myself ethan's fist has nothing to do with being photographed. and btw: hottie alert!

and then we spent the next four hours on waiheke laughing uncontrollably and wondering what ethan was doing. we ate a small seventy dollar a head lunch at mudbrick. and i hoped that at any moment he would walk in....


he didn't.

on waiheke we went to al's bedsit, we read (or attempted to) and we visited beaches and patted dogs. we also talked a LOT about ethan hawke. we called him ed. to be less obvious. and my stomach was in pain from the laughing.

back at the ferry terminal we thought it was too unlikely we'd have the good fortune to be on the same ferry as ed. so we played the "there's ethan" game again. hrc spotted some dude and was all like "he's familiar". i dismissed him as a former melody rules star: then it hit me - it was principal charleston from gilmore girls. this was almost too much to take. although al also thought she saw chandler from friends. so some of our guesses were WAY off.

as we walked to the ferry to line up we looked back and lo! ethan was buying coffee. we became hysterical again. once on the ferry we tried calming down. al was the best but me and hrc were hopeless cases. especially when principal charleston sat in direct view. but it gets worse! or better? ethan hawke sits directly opposite me.

albeit one table away, but nothing obstructed our views of eachother. i stared a bit. thank god for sunglasses (which by the way become unplausible at six thirty in the evening so had to come off after a time).

after a time of pretending to read, it became obvious that ethan was doing the cross word and was stuck on a question. he was asking his cast mates (who were also on the ferry, including dakin matthews and sinead cusack) the questions. but we had resourcefulness in our favour. and cellphones. so it was all lined up when ethan leaned across his table, looked me straight in the eyes and said

"do you know new zealand's largest cattle station".

you know what i learned about myself in these moments: i cope well under pressure. so i can't walk off a gangplank with him but i can answer his questions directly and charmingly.

i admit that i've been listening to his conversation and have been thinking about it. "i think it's molesworth".

there is near tragedy when he asks if it is north or south island ("god only knows" i'm thinking). but a simple 'south of here' kind of sort of covers me. although al and hrc probably have different opinions. we talk about fort worth. or something, it is a blur. and he thanks me for playing a part in completing his crossword.

the ferry ride is over in a flash and i'm mourning it. until, as we are disembarking together for the second time that day, ethan comes up to me and says that his 100% completed cross word is all due to me. ME. i tell him i'm proud of him. he tells me he's proud of me. it's what you'd call our bit. or shtick.

at this point al takes over and i go into a haze. who knows what happens but somehow we end up across the street. ed-less. when ethan catches up with us again. as in troy dyer hastened his pace to catch up with me. ME. i won't bore you with details but he mentioned his hotel room. okay, i will bore you, he wanted to know where to buy poker chips because he wanted to play poker in his room. still, awesome ahe?

btw during this entire three part conversation hrc says nothing.

but once we lose ethan we all break back into hysterics, and are exhausted from holding it together as long as we did. we go back to the langham and sit in the jacuzzi trying to list the other hollywood stars we would feel this way about (keanu reeves only, although i also think maybe ewan mcgregor could almost make up the holy trinity - people considered but not admitted to the trinity include will smith and brad pitt by reason of them being too famous. but also thank god i haven't met will smith. he owes me $15 and two hours of my life after seven pounds).

the end. there is unfortunately no post script. except how al went to see his play the next day. sadly, hrc and i had to fly back to wellington. so missed it. apparently it was very very good.

you know what else was very very good? everything about ethan hawke. he is so my fallback guy if me and brandon don't work out. and he is charminger, hotter and sexier voiced than you can imagine.

my heart is full. basically because i've had the time of my life this weekend.

first i got to eat homemade and organic pancakes (well the blueberries were organic, not sure about the rest) and drink tonnes of coffee at the ex internet dater's love nest on saturday. best start to the weekend ever. over the coffee i realised i had no life plan. which was initially a bit shocking but then when i got home i watched three hours straight of gilmore season six instead of doing laundry and i noticed that rory gilmore also has no life plan but she's going about finding a life plan all wrong. ie with logan and not jess. so i felt like i wasn't so bad afterall.

then i spent like five years getting dressed to go to 24 hour party people. i am all about functional clothes but for some reason i decided to wear like a million layers. because that's what you need when you're dancing - to be dressed for sub zero conditions.

as a warm up for 24hrpp i went to hrc's house and we watched the special features on the 90210 (season 2) dvd if you recall i've already watched them but they were AT LEAST AS FUNNY the second time around. probably because nothing is funnier than how brandon thinks menial labour is righteous.

speaking of righteous: 24 hr pp. i don't even want to talk about it because it was so awesome. and i'm someone who basically passed in the middle missing my favourite song a design for life. i think it is hilarious how i spent the entire nineties avoiding manic street preachers and now when that song comes on - BLISS OUT.

and at the same time the song was playing and i was lying on a table on the balcony with my head next to a dirty ash tray i got hit on twice. that's right, i was looking so hot in my millions of layers that boys couldn't help themselves. which is super frustrating cos usually i put so much effort into looking kempt or whatnot but apparently all i need to do is look like i'm about to pass out. boys are an enigma. or simple. one or t'other.

after i'd upped my sugar levels and rested in the relative cool of midnight espresso i returned triumphantly to the dancefloor where i was basically given the eye a million times. but then it was also odd because i thought everyone thought hrc and i were lesbian lovers. due to the way she wore a tie and how every two seconds we had to whisper in eachothers ears. but the whispers were always about one of three things: how much we love whatever song was playing, how awesome the night was or how we could get into photos. there was another line of whispering, all about how one of our favourite dancers was talking to us like we were his new besties. but when i say us, i really mean me, because hello he didn't say a word to hrc.

anyway, danced, drank water, took off more than half of my clothes. and lasted til the end when i went home and started taking photos of myself so i could see what was so hot about me that boys couldn't resist themselves (and girls too actually, we were hit on by everyone).


i think it must have been the blue bow (which you can make out if you look hard). which was a gift from the ex internet dater. which is like how this post began. what a well rounded entry.

this is the kind of thing you find in swimming pool changing rooms. really insightful stuff. some days i wish i carried a vivid with me.

but i don't. i do, however, usually carry my togs with me. so that when the mood strikes me i can duck off and do like a million handstands in thorndon pool. i did it yesterday for example. and rocked the recreational swimming area like a maniac. there were two pre teens trying to out-do me with their handstand attempts. but basically i had more control. and grace. and talent.

speaking of talent, guess who rocked their presentation today? why, that'd be me. i rocked it even though technology failed me and the powerpoint literally crashed the computer after i hit next slide for the second time. the old guard suggested a return to overhead transparencies. i agreed whole heartedly. one of my childhood highlights was writing out the words to songs on transparencies in differently coloured markers so that the class could sing a long. you just don't get that kind of joy from power point.

i do get joy from my nephew however, as i may have mentioned already. tonight he fell asleep in my arms. i nearly cried.

i actually cried last night when i was watching gilmore girls and jackson proposed to suki. it was both a personal high and a personal low for me. a high because i was really moved, obviously. a low because IT IS ONLY A DVD BUT IT BECOMING MY REALITY. the actual lowest low was saturday when i was imagining what i would have said to mr gilmore if i were lorelai (after they had a fight about telling rory she could keep the car dean gave her).

it is really ironic how i'm relating so fully to the characters in gilmore girls. in 4th form history i got super low marks because i wrote lame diary entries for historical figures. if i could turn back time i think i would rock that task. just like i'm seemingly rocking everything else today.

so my current frustration is work. what a dumb frustration. i wish i was like rory gilmore having three hot boys fight over me. that is the kind of frustration i would welcome. but work is such a lame frustration.

i can tell i'm frustrated by work because i'm finding it hard to get out of bed. it is a sunday and i should be spending the day alternating between swimming in the sun and reading in the sun. instead i will spend the day alternating between writing a presentation on one thing or writing a presentation on another thing entirely. to mix it up i may send some grumpy emails about how the inability of certain people to do their jobs is impacting on my weekend. any advice on how to make it particularly pointed is completely welcomed.

also my house is a mess. i think i need a maid. when i'm frustrated at work i tend to go out more in the evenings. which means i tend to not spend any time at home except to throw my clothes on the floor and make midnight snacks which i never do the dishes from. a maid would make this behaviour sustainable.

also when i'm frustrated about work i get really in to tele. like last night i was really in to this programme called how i met your mother. it wasn't half bad, even though it was a bit predictable and never really got anywhere. actually, now i'm not sure why it wasn't half bad. maybe it was the cast - doogie howser, one of the chicks from buffy and a dude who i think was on freaks and geeks. but the world is conspiring against me because the remote control has gone missing so this simple pleasure is now significantly less pleasurable.

anyway, time to make some banana on toast for breakfast and face the day. sigh.

oh my god i have had the lamest weekend. i've made about a million (or really 13) crochet squares, watched eight episodes of gilmore girls and have loaded the dishwasher. oh, and taken a million and a half self portraits.

it hasn't been all dire (i've been out of the house etc...) but really, am i twenty seven or seventy two? objectively, based on my activities so far, it would be hard to tell.

today i am going in to work, which would at least suggest i'm under retirement age. so that is something.

also, on friday i got given flowers by some friends as a thank you (remember when i helped people after they'd taken recreational drugs? it was from them). and when i was walking back to work someone saw me and said: i hope you bought those for yourself and not someone else. and i just smiled. but really i was thinking of my favourite saying: i'm in the business of receiving flowers, not giving them. anyway, here are the flowers.

happy and friendly. personally i prefer thorny and dramatic. but then i'm the one who has watched eight episodes of gilmore girls this weekend so who am i to say what is right and what is wrong.