i'm so angry at new york city.

if you've read my blog even once before you will know i'm going to new york. for a wedding. and it will be awesome. but somehow the wedding is on at the worst possible time for me to see the bands i'm in love with.

yesterday i declared that my life's plan is to dance to interpol. life's ambition denied. because they play NYC about a week before i get there. arctic monkeys are the same. kaiser chiefs are there the same time as me. in fact so much the same time that they are playing the exact same time that my friends are getting married. i contemplated finding a way of doing both but i'm pretty sure it is not feasible. the biggest heart break was morrissey - who i miss by like days. then there are the bands that play hours after i leave (bloc party) or a couple of days after i leave (lcd soundsystem).

luckily though i'm there in time for genesis.

i hate new york.

despite this i'm saving for it. which is why i'm having my weekly to-dos. last week i set the bar low and still failed to deliver. mostly because i keep buying songs on itunes (spandau ballet's gold anyone?). hence my creditcard use. that plus the visit to the bendon outlet store in otaki which somehow is like introducing my wallet to the toilet (in that my money seems to get washed away). but i did everything else: dancing til dawn (or thereabouts), 90210 special features, and lots of toasted sandwich lunches.

this week i will try and raise the super low bar a little, just to inspire some kind of action or inaction on my part. i will know it is a good week if:

• i use my remaining student loan overpayment cheque to pay off some of my credit card debt
• i find some concerts to go to in the USA that do not involve phil collins
• i buy some awesome sunglasses to go with my new bathing suit
• i remember to charge my cellphone consistently
• i take my lunch to work at least one day and have zero berry yoghurt trios for breakfast
• i have a fabulous afternoon tea with hels.
  

i freakin' love it when you go to a movie just cos you want to go to a movie (you know, for the experience) and then five minutes into the movie you realise you love it and it is your favourite movie of all time.

cos that is almost what happened to me tonight. i mean with the exception that i didn't go to see sound of music or grease so it wasn't my favourite movie of all time, but it was pretty good. razzle dazzle. it was a journey through dance. and it also showed mockumentaries are funny again. praise be. because frankly i was worried after seeing for your consideration.

but this isn't a movie blog so i'll shut up. mostly cos i can't explain what i do or don't like about movies. i'm like the game and fiddy cent when they collaborate: love it or hate it. speaking of loves i loved loved loved arashi sushi for dinner tonight. although i didn't eat sushi cos yuck. although i can't explain why. i just hate it. instead i had chicken and rice and soy beans and they were delicious. again i offer no explanation.

rather than in explaining, my strength is more in list writing. and this week it is all about recapping a list of things i basically didn't do. i didn't save more. i didn't beat hrc in scrab. i didn't rock the quiz (but only cos i couldn't muster the enthusiasm to go), i didn't walk to work and i didn't find anywhere for my clothes. anywhere except the floor that is. but they look so at home there i don't have the heart to move them.

i did do some stuff though. rotorua was wonderful and i walked around like i owned the place. i even went to the rotovegas pak n save and guess what? worst shopping experience of my life. it was busy and ugly and full of locals talking about how annoying asian people are. as if they themselves are less annoying. seriously, as if. i also got the world's most uncomfortable massage in rotorua. it involved someone watching me shower and then singing me elton john songs. needless to say i didn't feel superrelaxed afterwards. and obviously i'm too repressed to tell people to leave the room and or stop singing sir elton hits already. success also on the shannon front. and on the way i stopped briefly in otaki, outlet shop heaven. anyway i spent the equivalent of my rent on bits and bobs. mostly bits. and white the proto nano also has rihanna's umbrella on it as well as some gym class heroes.

another solid seven out of ten week.

this week i'm aiming sky high. a hundred percent week. i will accordingly set the bar low.

• no credit card purchasing
• 90210 special features at hrcs house
• dancing til dawn at 24 hour party people, and
  
• making my lunch at least one day this week.
  

i think i may meet all these objectives. ten out of ten week here i come....

oh boy wasn't today beautiful. but people are mental. i forgot my scarf and part way in to town i started to worry i'd be too cold. i look around and notice EVERYONE was in singlets and shorts. what the? it's like it stops raining and being basically freezing and people think it is summer.

speaking of freezing, i am now freezing. and i have the consumption still so i should probably wrap up warm tonight. according to the sunday supplement in the startimes it is scientifically, like, proven that if your feet are warm you sleep better. and i'm sure the consumption is cured by sleeping more. thank GOD i have about a million pairs of socks.

and while i'm on the topic of purchasing too many things, now seems like the perfect time to recap my todo list from last week.

spending less was a joke. over the past week i bought two pairs of shoes, a bag, a dress, gloves, a hat and a hat box. clearly it is a cute hat box. but savings? what savings? i justified almost all purchases because they are part of my wedding ensemble. well not my wedding ensemble, but the ensemble i plan to wear to JHo's wedding in NY. think black and ruby. which i realise may sound a bit black widow, but i think, no - i KNOW- i will rock it.

so the spending less didn't happen. i also didn't beat hrc at scrab. but i'm doing pretty well on scrabulous (on facebook dot com) right now so not total shame. and regards the activities for NY,NY i haven't planned anything yet. i haven't even emailed the dude who has agreed for me to stay on his apartment floor or whatever to thank him. but hello, i have totally planned the most awesome outfit for NY so again, not total shame. walking to work didn't happen but walking to town did. and my hair will never be the kind of hair that has one sure fire way to up-do it. over the last week i have become resigned to this fact. but a new blue ribbon from the ex-internet dater has given me new lease of life in terms of experiementation.

on the success side: placed third in quiz (which while success in terms of achieving my to-dos is still actually a bit embarrassing), got my clothes clean, saw friends, updated whitey (my ipod) and got the world's best togs in the mail. and ian curtis movie. heartbreakingly awesome. take tissues.

so, i think a seven out of ten week. the spending thing was huge. i suck at spending. or rather i rule at it. it is the saving part i suck at.

so this week:

• in a change of approach i will save more.
• i will watch selected episodes of 90210 projected large like i'm at the movies. only because it is 90210 it will be better than any hollywood feature i can think of.
• go for an early morning walk around rotorua. this wont be totally impossible as i'm spending some of my time in rotorua this week. i'm such a highflying mandy.
• beat hrc at scrab
  
• rock the southern cross quiz, big time
• walk to work more
• put some poppy hiphop on whitey, my ipod. secret shame: rhianna's umbrella = gold. someone has already taken the screen name "i can be your cinder ella ella ella hey hey" on bebo dot com. damn them. because that would have been a great handle for me.
  
• see ryles. i've missed the light of my life who moved to shantown to be with the cows. i hope he remembers me. just in case i'm making a tshirt for him with my face on it. world's greatest aunt? probably.
  
• find a place to put all my clothes. i've run out of hangers. so have resorted to the floor as a backup wardrobe. but i'm over it. the piles of clean stuff are merging with the piles of dirty. it is not a good state to be in. especially since i'm not a teenager (despite what wellington bouncers seem to think).

and that will do. note i haven't tried to get over seth rogan this week. cos it's impossible. but as an interesting aside someone found this site using the search terms marcus lush's girlfriend. mmmhmmm. you know it.

so today i have been thinking about how awesome last night was. if i forget about how some drunk chick spilt red wine right beside my hot white kicks, and how the dj didn't have my most favourite song of all time (shout to the top, shout...) it was one of the best nights of my life. singing at the top of my lungs to ABC's poison arrow. and to simple minds. so much so that i'd lost my voice by hometime and the taxi driver asked me why and i said singing and then he assumed i was in a band and tried to talk to me about the awesomeness of being a musician. and it was like five in the morning and i couldn't actually find the words to tell him to he was on a way wrong track.

i have also spent the day contemplating movies. last night i went to edith piaf, the biopic (not its real name, but its real name escapes me). depressing. i can't believe mrs jones made us sing edith piaf's swan song (pun alert) at high school prize giving one year. then again, what can you expect from a woman who, with zero irony, made us sing she's leaving home to our parents.

today i went to the doco on on danny williams - one time lover of andy warhol and missing person. which was pretty good. but it meant hanging out at te papa for a few hours because i was too tired to walk anywhere else between buying tickets and movie start time. and i couldn't figure out the te papa maps and it took me about fifteen minutes to find the bathrooms. i was so tired i nearly cried in frustration. i also spent a lot of time in the gift shop. looking at the rangi kipa tiki. and the man at the counter told me i really should consider them because i'd rock it. and i was like: i already have one. but you're right. i rock it.

wow that's a lot of links. here's one more. to my list of things to do over the past week. haven't done badly this week. no (new) world dresses so i've managed to spend less. i won convincingly at scrab (like seriously, it was almost like HRC was letting me win, but since that is 100% unlikely it is actually just that i was seriously on form), and i watched project runway - a great introductory episode too, one where someone got kicked off for having contraband in the apartment!. i rocked AUT with my lecture on health policy and funding. and at the end people were inspired by my life story. like honestly. i know, i'm surprised too. and i went to the edith piaf movie and danced til almost dawn at atomic - as already mentioned. my failure was i didn't walk to work one single time. and i'm still in love with seth rogan. but i did join facebook dot com so that probably evens it out. overall about an 8 out of 10 week in terms of meeting my key performance indicators.

this week i will

• spend less
• go to the ian curtis biopic
• walk to work more
• plan some activities for when i am in new york, new york.
  
• receive my first on line clothing purchase, apart from t. shirts that is, in the mail and it will fit like a dream
• beat hrc in scrab
• at least freakin' come third in the pub quiz that has all of a sudden become popular (note i blogged about it two weeks ago, then it started getting popular. conicidence?)
• do some washing. i'm running out of clean clothes and when that happens i often convince myself to buy new ones.
  
• update my ipod. i have all these awesome songs to put on my ipod but no space. i guess that is a drawback of a nano, but small and perfectly formed is my preference for technological things.
• actually find time to spend with friends. i've been a bit bad at this lately.
  
• find a way to wear my hair that is quick to do and awesome looking. this may be the impossible dream but we'll see how it goes.
  

so this week i have been moderately successful with my to do list. top of the table: i didn't ask a single person to spin my necklace, but others asked if they could. the ideal situation really.

i didn't win at scrab, but i won hundreds of games of connect four. did you know that is my game? connect four. i'm like a genius at it. i can't remember the last time i was beaten. and i don't try half as hard as when i play scrab. or monopoly. or ticket to ride. anything vaguely complicated i guess.

i was also the world's greatest aunt. i spent yesterday with ryles. we went to the beach among other things.

ryles is hilarious now. i mean he always had a gift. but last night he rocked my world he was so funny. he was tired so kept lying down to nap. including in other people's gardens on the way home from the park. he will make an excellent vagrant.

i went to quiz, i got over marcus lush (somewhat), i spent less, went to shananana, finished listening to every song on my ipod in alphabetical order and watched the big chill.

this week i will:

1. spend less
2. beat hrc in scrab
3. not go to cas-fri drinks in order to get home in time to watch project runway. I FREAKIN' LOVE THAT SHOW and still haven't seen a single episode of this season. and since love isn't a feeling it is a series of actions, my actions are suggesting my declared love is a LIE. and i'd hate to be a liar.
4. give a lecture. that's right. a lecture. in dorkland. which means i will also get to qantas lounge it up. all the biscotti i can wrap up in a napkin. i love their biscotti.
5. atomic, saturday. i will dance til dawn. then feel awful all sunday. i can't wait.
6. go to the edith piaf movie in the filmfest. same day as atomic. but i'm hardcore, i can do both.
7. walk to work more. this was my failure from last week (that and the scrab). i will try and remedy it.
8. try and stop laughing from last night when i saw knocked up. part of the reason i'm over marcus lush now is that i've fallen for another man. although it has been a long term relationship really.
   

this week i will:

• wear my new necklace without asking people to spin it.
• go to quiz, as in actually go rather than be in some other city and wish i was there. which is so ironic since i go there and complain about it when i am actually in town.
• finish listening to every song on my ipodnano in alphabetical order (by song title). i'm up to W. once i've finished listening i can finally delete some songs and add new ones. and by new ones i mean style council's shout to the top. how have i lasted this long without listening to shout to the top every morning to kick my day off right?
• watch the big chill on dvd. i borrowed it from my mother because it is set in georgia, USA and i'm going to georgia, USA. my mother hopes i will get to see the beautiful house in which it is set. i'm doubtful about seeing the house. but certain about watching the dvd.
• try to get over how in love i am with marcus lush right now. i want to be a media star that then becomes an enigma who moves to a small town. or be married to one. reow. that man could not be getting more publicity right now if he tried. but this week i'm not going to be sucked in by it.
• beat hrc in scrabble. i'm not sure how she keeps winning since i'm obviously the smartest person around. then again, maybe scrabble is simply a game of luck.
• spend less than last week. not spend nothing, just less. baby steps.
• go to shantown on saturday to spend time with ryles and continue to be the world's greatest aunt.
• read a large chunk of the blind assassin. i've been avoiding reading this book for seven years. i think the time is right. kind of the opposite to the last book i read (generation x, i know, i'm like twenty years behind the times).
• not go on bebo obsessively. what started as a way to remind my cousins that i am young and hip has become a twice a day obsession. shame.
• walk to work more. it means getting up early, but that is good for the soul.
• become a better person by doing the above things, obviously.