so basically while i was all negative about my new job it has its bonuses. for example i'm working in what is clearly a male dominated workplace. there is a first for everything i guess.

it is just like i expected. the women's toilets are miles away.

plus men flirt. i'd forgotten. interestingly, there are no flirts in my actual vicinity, but IT are all about inviting you out for coffee. or at least dropping it into conversation casually that they drink coffee. same difference i reckon.

remember when i was in vietnam. that was awesome in terms of boys. but they only wanted me for my sunnies...


this guy stole my sunnies in a handicapped handicrafts shop without warning. i was alarmed, but ready for the photo opportunity. obviously.

this weekend i was invited to hubris hq for a boy party. but i'm pretty lame about these things and in the end watching the West Beverly class of 93 attend their senior prom proved too hard to turn down. brandon walsh is such a loser. unlike hunk of burning love steve.

but, while that was lame i did manage to haul myself out of the relative 'warmth' of my house to prove my friendship and go wedding dress shopping with a bride to be. not only was this awesome in and of itself. but i was reminded of how people hook up at weddings. i know all about this cos i've seen the wedding crashers. fingers crossed for an owen wilson type.

although, right now in all honesty i'd settle for an electric blanket. my house is so not aligned with the world health organization's healthy home guidelines. 18 degrees is the healthy house temperature. that is just a pipe dream for me. which is why i think i've come over all sickly. either that or i have slow developing malaria. which seems unlikely given how i was covered in deet all through vietnam and cambodia without fail.

and in vietnam and cambodia i was hot. stinking hot even. i am struggling to remember the feeling. i bet it was choice.

when i was ten i was MAJORLY in love with a boy who was 19. well semi-majorly. my actual love resided with luke goss, who i was sure i would marry and have thirteen babies with and we would live in a house decked out in those glass bricks everywhere, backlit. and venetian blinds. but yeah, i was semi-MAJORLY in love with this 19 year old boy.

i was a regular lolita.

except for how he basically had no idea i existed. he was the son of a family friend. and HANDSOME. although i couldn't for the life of me describe him now in any great detail, he was basically tall, dark and handsome.

he told someone, while i was in the room, that when he turned 21 he was going to use the birthday money to buy a motorcycle.

he also thought margaret urlich was a fox. which was a knife through my tender heart. so i learned the moves from the escaping video. and asked my grandfather if he could leave me enough in his will to buy a cropped leather jacket (as an aside my grandfather said no, because he thought margaret urlich was too exposed).

anyway, at christmas my dreams basically came true because instead of totally ignoring me, he gave me the mix tape from his car to listen to. i see now it was probably just to get me to leave him alone for 45 minutes. but to me it was the christmas miracle. and he left it behind. and i hid it away, listening to it on my immidation walkman, secretly, at every opportunity. and to secure the tape i even broke off those little tabs at the top - so i didn't accidentally tape over it.

i had mostly forgotten about the mix tape - which was THE GREATEST MIX TAPE OF ALL TIME - until the other day when i was brainstorming what new material to add to chelsea clinton (my american ipod).

since then i have attempted to recreate it. i am failing. so far there are only two songs i remember.

the first is ZAPPs "i want to be your man". now, the version i can find on the internets is (i am sure) different from the mix tape. the song is basically a slow jam, but the synths and special voice effects elevate it to the boogiest slow jam ever. i hope someone proposes to me using that song.

the second, though, is actually my favourite. robert palmer's "i didn't mean to turn you on".


i know what you're thinking. and yes. it is actually even better than you remember. i haven't decided what my favourite part is, but i think over all it is robert palmer's sexy sexy voice. and the lyrics full stop but especially the part "why should i (pause) feel gulity cos i won't give, guilty cos i won't give in (pause) i didn't mean to turn you on". also i am watching the video clip quite a bit in down time. there is a link here. basically identical to other videos of his in this period (c. 1988/89).

i am certain that these were the two best songs on the tape, but together amount for at the most ten minutes. which leaves 35 minutes. if you made a mix tape in 1988, and you put zapp and robert palmer on it, what else would you have included?

anyway, as a postscript the semi-MAJOR love of my life went on to a life of drug related crime. i never got my cropped leather jacket, and my crush on luke goss morphed into a crush on brandon walsh. robert palmer dueted with ub40. and zapp faded into oblivion. sometimes, in my darker hours, i miss the eighties so bad.

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.

staying at home on saturday nights is the new black. it saves you money (my initial motivation) but also lets you catch up on watching the final disc of 90210 season 2. THANK GOD.

i still have the very last episode and the much talked about special features but the first two episodes: TELEVISION GOLD.

the first: things to do on a rainy day sees the gang meet color me badd. that's right. color me badd. i laughed. i cried. i swooned. and i took a photo. here is kelly calling brenda to tell her that she is in color me badd's penthouse suite at the bel age.

note that kelly is wearing the floral dress of my dreams back in 1992. and she also has a small leather handbag (not pictured) which i would have killed for at the time. also in this episode: brandon does right by a stripper.

the second episode: mexican standoff broke my heart. steve is vulnerable, as always, but it is more poetic somehow. and grant show finally makes his appearance as jake hanson: drifter, jack of all trades and melrose place dweller. brenda wears capri pants and gets stopped by a immigration officer (apparently unrelated). also in this episode: brandon does right by his sister.

the other thing about staying home on a saturday night is that you get to hear your neighbours having the time of their lives. they are partying. before i could hear under the boardwalk blasting like it was 1965. meanwhile, i have a treat in store for me: wedding bell blues... the cliffhanger ending to 90210 season two. I CAN'T WAIT.

thanks to internet lovin' from jessica i have been reminded that i am awesome. and THANK GOD. because until that point i'd been lying in bed, doing work (it is sunday, which is why this is particularly lame) and thinking "i decided not to go out last night so i could sit in my room alone watching 90210 and then i cap off my weekend with business planning in bed?". i was just about questioning my will to carry on.



it is cyclical though. you can't be on all the time, right?


and when i'm on, i am ON. like friday night. friday night i held a matariki party. well, i was in charge of the decorations for the party. and guess what? best party decorations ever. i had underestimated how much other people like crafts. i set up a craft corner expecting that people might make one star each. but there were literally hundreds.


then i went to the yearly midwinter swim party. forgot my bathers so no swimming for me, sadly, but did get to outshine one of my arch nemeses who was being an absolute child. implying i wasn't hilarious. like GO AWAY. but since he was too busy trying to be funnier than me (as if, by the way) i was the one often seeking refuge. mostly in the fifty plus men. cos hello, that is my target audience.


i think the fifty plus men were impressed too. cos i am actually quite charming. the way i can talk about the wonders of pretzels and black and white brownie pie in one breath and the ins and outs of institutional theory (okay, so i used the word institutional theory hoping that it implied the ins and the outs) in another has to appeal to SOMEONE.


anyway at some point in the night someone suggested i give my arch nemesis a lift home. i swiftly feigned headache and left the party instantaneously. i think that makes me a bitch. which, hello, makes me awesome just like jessica says (because brenda walsh = a total bitch about all of brandon's girlf's but also brenda walsh = awesome, ergo, bitch = awesome).

shannon is cold. i know this because i spent most of the day at shannonfarm, which is where my sister lives. i went dressed warmly but i didn't realise i would be as cold as i was when i was in austria that time and old women laughed at me because i was so underdressed for the weather.

going to shannonfarm was somewhat of an achievement for me given that there are mice living there. but just for safety's sake i didn't ever put my bag on the ground. mice like to hide in bags apparently (thanks karori wildlife sanctuary for FREAKIN' ME OUT ABOUT THIS WITH YOUR SURELY SUPERFLUOUS BAG INSPECTION ON ENTRY). i also tried to spend as much time outside as possible. i went to look at the cows. but they smelt like effluent so i kind of tired of that quickly. also, i got to wear my gumboots on the farm. i think this is the first time ever that they have gotten muddy. it only took me three years to break them in.

if i ever had to live of a dairy farm i think i would go insane. it would be nice to have lots of room to move. and it is really really quiet at shannonfarm. but i am fully dependant on brunch locations and movie outtings and bars with expensive cocktails. not to mention my aversion to mice. but luckily for me, i "studied" dairy farming in fifth form for geography. so i am by no means a novice. i am familiar with the ins and outs of rye grass and clover and whatnot. okay, so you've got me. rye grass and clover, along what they do with bobby calves, are the sum total of what i remember from fifth form history. but they are very solid building blocks.

which reminds me that i still haven't found anyone who went to my highschool reunion last week. so i have no idea whether the peacocks were present at the walk of the grounds on sunday afternoon.

which also reminds me that even though i have no desire to join the oldgirls in thinking about the good times at high school, there is one high school reunion i have been adoring this weekend. i have finally got my hands on season two of 90210. and guess what? if anything it is better than season one. who would have thought it possible. not me. and fyi joanna: steve sanders continues to be hotter than i remember. but since brandon is essentially my first love (behind gilbert from anne of green gables and luke goss from bros) he retains a soft spot. and dylan in a wet suit, reow. so basically i'm hot for all of the boys except brian austin green. if only i'd gone to west beverly high instead of the east girls college i did attend. miss fortune is such a cruel bearch.