so i'm boycotting the dancing with the stars finale. but this is no political move. merely negligence on my part. for the second time today i forgot it was on. the ex internet dater said something scandalous today about her doubts that it will be renewed for 2010 due to a lack of celebrities. but that is so entirely untrue because new zealand is filled to the brim with people i would like to see tango and foxtrot and whatnot.

so here it is, my top eight new zealand celebrities that i would like to see on dwts.

1. nick tansley.



he already does standup in the ad breaks for the live studio audience, so he'd have a bit of an advantage. i don't think it will help though. he'll be elminated in the first week.

2. catherine mcpherson. the best ever host of what now? it would be great to see her and jase reunited. basically catherine has no internet presence but she was the one who hosted in the simon barnett era. if she isn't available suggest inspector sniff or frank flash. could go the distance to the grand final.

3. ben lummis.

i would be worried about the hip gyration that marked his idol performances - but that was mostly just poor choreography. when paired with krystal stewart though this shouldn't be a problem. he'll be elminated week four or five.

4. jeff wilson. i met him multiple times. and owned his 'autobiography'. my fifteen year old self was obsessed. now at thirty it has strangely worn off. still i think he'd be worth a go. but would undoubtedly be eliminated week two.

5. robin reynolds. she slept with robbie williams, before our rachel. and ran to the tabloids. officially making it new zealand's proudest day. she needs more time in the spotlight. but won't be in the final.

6. darren hughes, mp.

i'm following him on twitter. he is a bit dry. but could be the next rodney hide. guaranteed giggles. but perhaps he will just prove to be a kiwi battler and blow the competition out of the water. until week three or four.

7. one or both of the evers swindells. they are famous to the maximum. and unlike that mahe drysdale don't drink the water and get giardia the day before the BIG RACE. strong finishers, i think they will struggle but pull through to be in the top half of the competition.

8. paired with steffano judy bailey would be a shoe in for the final. this doesn't even need explanation.

others have tried making lists. like here. but frankly, mine is the best. because noone wants to see more of mark sainsbury than they already do. frankly.

today's post is dedicated to this guy. the grand duke of luxembourg, henri. today julia flies to luxembourg. not exactly to hangout with the grand duke. but it will probably happen because luxembourg is tiny. to quote wikipedia "Luxembourg has a population of under half a million people in an area of approximately 2,586 square kilometres (999 sq mi)."

half a million people AND a grand duke. those are good odds.

i also blame the grand duke for the state of my room. in short: ridiculous. i'm trying to find the perfect wedding outfit for next weekend. so naturally everything i own is balled up on the floor. i would have cleaned up after myself, but i'm too depressed about julia leaving.

luckily there is atomic to put the spring in your step. and in your shimmy. i probably saw you there actually. because EVERYONE who is ANYONE was there. but i ducked out for a malt shake about two and when i came back everyone was gone. luckily jo loves me. i know this because that's what her text said. and i also got some high fives.

today i comfort ate yum char and booked a trip to samoa. in your face grand duke. you're country of less than half a million will have to wait to get my hard earned cash. i'm all about tupua tamasese tuploa tufuga efi anyway.

now i'm lying on my bed trying to finish the invite to my birthday party. which fyi is going to be awesome. no thanks to the grand duke of friggen luxembourg who has stollen my party cohost. he's such a bitch.

i got ready for snoop dogg last night and took selfportraits while i drank tea and ate toast.

totally toasted.

i've been down with snoop since the start. kind of. except i didn't know what indo' was so i never really got the lyrics to 99% of his songs. but all i really needed to know was that snoop was upside my head.

anyway, my 17 year old self would have been impressed with me last night. like how i lined up with hoodlums while they smoked and talked about their bebo pages. and how i put my motherfuckin hands up with bone thugs n harmony. who, due to the nearly hour long line to get in, had already started when we got inside the lame-o-rama tsb arena. bone thugs still killed it (to quote my new favourite stuff dot co dot nz commenter "bigg double double" who you can read here). itunes don't sell a decent version of tha crossroads so i don't have it on my NYC ipod chelsea clinton. but it repeats in my head. and we pray and we pray and we pray and we pray every day every day every day every day......

then ice cube hit the stage and he started the gansta shit 22 years ago so naturally, he killed it too. again, i am quoting bigg double double. ice cube inducted me into the west coast conference (or whatever, i was high from second hand smoke so who knows really what he inducted me in to). and my newly identified life's ambition was realised when he performed straight outta compton like it was 1989 up in the tsb arena. every moment of ice cube was magical but if pushed i'd say 'you can do it (put your back in to it)' and 'go to church' were my favourites.

at the end of ice cube's set i was about to die from dehydration so i paid five dollars for water and dreamed of sitting down. i'd been standing for hours. there are so many downsides of tsb arena (the only up-side is that i have lots of concert memories from the venue) and one of them is the lack of seating and the way the dancefloor is always sticky and gross beyond words so is not a sitting option at all.

once rehydrated, i was ready for snoop - who arrived on stage in a giant jumpsuit made of bandana material. west siiiiide. and guess what? he killed it. he played my faves (except beautiful, which is like my anthem) and even did a two song salute to tupac (rest in peace) - including one of my top ten tupac faves hail mary. basically he just sang along to a tupac tape - but it is as close as i will ever get to a tupac concert - so i thought snoop killed this too. snoop spent the rest of the night proving that there ain't no party like a snoop dogg party cos a snoop dogg party don't quit. much like snoop. who by the end of the night i was finding weirdly attractive. something i thought was impossible after seeing the disturbing sex scene in 'the wash'. although i suspect (but am happy never to find out) that his scenes in doggystyle the movie may in fact be worse.

i was ashamed for all of new zealand when the crowd disappeared straight after snoop left the stage. without so much as stomping for an encore. but i was tired so wasn't prepared to fight them. all in all it was an OUTSTANDING night. and while the sound and the venue were middling to average the show itself was awesome and i now want to marry icecube. and to the stuff gig reviewer - you need to check yo'self before you wreck yo'self. because a review that spends three paragraphs on the venue and like one on the actual concert is a C minus at best.



west siiide.

ps: tomorrow night i am going to chris brown and rihanna. i hope my shoulder injury (from arm waving) is healed by then.

one of the things that my one counselling session taught me was that i too often over book myself monday to friday and then spend weekends at home thinking i have no friends. but not doing anything about it. it is my form of being socially spastic.

but it doesn't happen every weekend.

this weekend was all highlights, all the time.

i should probably start with blackalicious.

fifteen out of ten. it was off the charts. or off the hook. or whatever the young kids say. i know i'm old cos i turned up two hours early for the show. but pay off! cos i also got to be pretty close to the front when blackalicious came on stage and - after getting caught literally in the middle of a fight - i heard opportunity knock and found a posie right at the front. close enough to get serenaded by gift of gab during some love song i didn't know. and at some point in the song we locked eyes and he pointed at me at the part in the lyrics where he says "you complete me" (this may not literally have been the words but it was the subtext). i have thought about it since, and i should have stayed for the after party. but if i did i probably would have hooked in to gift of gab. on the plus side he is tall and famous, on the down side i'm more into his home boy lyrics born, and i also plan to marry kanye west or simon le bon.

on saturday, i day dreamed about what my life would have been like if i'd succumbed to the obvious chemistry. but mostly i distracted myself with an art gallery tour of wellington. the dowse for craft 2.0 (and some stationery. have i mentioned i heart stationery?) and pataka for the patricia grace related exhibition.

i heart craft 2.0. but there seemed to be fewer people there this time. not that i ever notice the people really. only when they get in the way of me and notecards. the sun was a plus and there were even stalls OUTSIDE. just like a summer market.

i also heart pataka. they have a shantytown you know!!!! you must check it out. if only for the shop window display....

what the???

there is also an exhibition of photos by my favourite photographer ever. desiree dolron. check out the pataka website here for clues at how awesome she is. or deireee dolron dot com here.

being cultured is exhausting though so i had to have lots of pit stops for coffee, tea, berry crepes and fruit toast (the latter coming from the aunt daisy cafe in titahi bay, 8/10 for decor).

in the evening i went to 24hr pp. and it was awesome.

have i told you i'm so in to robert palmer right now? this outfit was loosely inspired by the simply irresistable girls. plus with a lime green bow how can you go wrong?

i had sore feet so was waiting for sux, or less good songs, but finding a chance to sit down was impossible. as i tried new dance moves (more twirls and footwork as well as some bgirl fusion - adapted from blackalicious the night before). hrc and i also got to dance with some of our favourite dancefloor celebrities as well as adopting a new friend for the evening who knew almost as many words as i do. almost. luckily the verve was played at some point and i had an excuse to leave. that point didn't come until after three sometime.

then this morning i went to the zoo zoo zoo with ryles. he was less interested in the animals than in pretending to be one. there was a heartbreakingly cute moment where he saw three otters lying in the sun and he demanded that he be put inside their enclosure so he could play with them. i could understand that. otters look like they would be wonderful to play with. he ws disappointed when i wouldn't lift him up. and when i said that if anyone was getting otter hugs it was me. but i handled the resulting tantrum the way any good aunt does. with ice cream.

then i spent the rest of the day watching dvds and trying to rest up for the working week. i watched the original (not harrison ford remake) of sabrina (7/10 overall, but 10/10 for the wardrobe and for audrey hepburn's eyebrows), and pillow talk with doris day (7.5 for the movie, 12/10 for rock hudson for being dreamy).

how come i've never read a confederacy of dunces before? don't worry though. i am making up for the oversight by reading it obsessively.

and as a result i'm progressing nicely on the 1001 books to read before you die challenge. i may have even caught up to the one book a month target after i finally finished the motivation sapping eva trout, and read the delightful miss peddigrew lives a day.

this week has been fierce. some weeks are. a election has been called, which of course is a highlight. for the first time in years i'm interested. i think the last time i was five and i wrote a story about how my mother was going to vote for david lange. my school principal gave me a smiley face stamp on my hand for that one. i have also voted in the stv vs fpp city council poll. i'm such a citizen right now.

i also did some dancing at a ball on friday night, which is perhaps the real reason i spent yesterday reading confederacy of dunces and not going to atomic. ie i needed to recover. the ball itself was fine, but low key. i wore sixty dollars of equip jewels and pulled out my disco moves once again. turns out i actually prefer dancing by myself though, so i kept moving away from my partners so i could twirl alone. anyway after the ball i drank whiskey in the holiday inn hotel lobby until two am while some soccer team ate sandwiches. as an aside, they weren't as hot as i had anticipated.

i also got pretty cultured this week. i went to see the rita angus exhibition at te papa. seeing the island bay boats in real life, and not in a faded poster in someone's living room, was like a pilgrimage for my island bay bred self. and like most great art works, it was smaller in real life. but still fierce. that same night i ate coq au vin at hippotamus. food was like a 9 out of ten. views were great. but music was random and i think the glass food by the entrance could do with a dusting. anyway, i'll be back. i also ate at plate at the holiday inn. food was pretty good. maybe a seven and a half. and i ate at the koru club and about a hundred times at my work cafe. i also went to dorkland this week. for all of about two hours.

this week i also have two new favourite songs. one is mase's feel so good. and the other is this one.



i thought i hated this song because it was on a grey's anatomy like that terrible song. how to save a life. by the fray. but then this weekend i listened to it again and decided actually it is the greatest song of all time.

anyway, i can't believe i have spent this long not reading confederacy. better get back in to it...

the problem with having a night on the town with a different group than you're used to is that you end up listening to disco music and holding hands with some random boy.

and it doesn't look this cute either. but his dancing was below par and i was hungry so i escaped to kenny's cafe for a cheese burger. it was gross, obviously, but also entirely delicious. and now i'm lying in bed trying to digest it while watching sarah palin vlogs. the US presidential election is the new olympics. in other words, i'm obsessed.

so i'm planning to go dancing because hello, that is the way hip young things spend their saturday nights. but hip young things usually have hip young clothes. but i haven't got a stitch to wear.

ps, this is not a real photo. i just copied and posted two photos with brick walls in them. amazing, i know.

morrissey and i are so in sync over these things. this is said despite how today i did a wardrobe stocktake and i own twenty dresses and nine black skirts. yes. so that is at least 29 things to wear. but you know, nothing young and hip or whatever.

anyway, i am blogging so i remember the exact moment i decided there was a clothes buy freeze. three months. can i do it? only time will tell....

i am in hoi an. it is beautiful. and i wonder if monty was kicked off dancing with the stars. probably. if i could be bothered i'd check stuff but i'd rather await an email update from AL (hint hint).

i love vietnam.

today i went to my son sanctuary and then climbed marble mountain, which wasn't a mountain so much as a staircase, and hung out in caves EVEN THOUGH I COULD HEAR ANIMALS SQUEEKING. i am so goddamned brave.

i have eaten a lot of great food too. oh my god, the vietnamese know how to make a salad. light on the vegetables, heavy on the vinegar and shrimps. they also know how to make bread and banana pancakes. the two things (apart from cheese) i think may be my very favourite foods of all time. the vietnamese don't really know how to run hotels yet. which is why so far we've been kicked out of one hotel and in another asked if three people could share one bed (on the assurance it was a big bed, but guess what: it wasn't). everything else though is faultless. unlike my bike riding. which if you are my facebook friend you may have realised - my cycling is crap. which is why i fell off into a tree when i was trying to find china beach. like a soldier in the vietnam war i sought refuge on the white sand shores of china beach. but no dana delany for me. only a street urchin trying to sell me beads. i showed her my injury, seeking sympathy. she told me shit happens. i bought a five dollar necklace. afterall, it was good advice.

anyway, one other thing about vietnam, it is effing hot. which is why i'm in the hotel lobby right now. i came out to get them to adjust the air-con to twenty degrees because it feels like thirty five in our room. they seemed to have done it but to be sure i'm lingering out of the room as long as poss.

tomorrow is my last day in hoi an. i will miss it, but there is so much more of vietnam to see. and since i declare whole heartedly that i love vietnam, i guess i'd better get right on now and see it.

goodnight (and i hope monty made it to the finale).

i don't know what is more shameful: telling off the IT department for offering me training in how to use a laptop one day and ringing them up the next because i can't turn my new work laptop on or watching jason gunn trying to be sexual.

probably the latter.

so obviously because i adore tele, i watched dancing with the stars tonight. i was led to believe, by my mother and great aunt, that dancing with the stars was wholesome entertainment. for the family. but the web buzz around the show talks about one of the dancers as looking like "a 13 year old prostitute dressing up as a naughty school girl for fetish sex". which, if you ask me, was on the money. so not actually that wholesome. for more informed comment about the new greatest show of all time click here. and you have probably gathered: i highly recommend it.

i also recommend puhoi yoghurt, roses lime cordial, sir breadwins muesli and being nice to people. especially people in your IT team.

before i launch in to a blow by blow account of new york city let me get one thing out of the way. in new zealand i regularly tear up the dance floor. and impress the socks off people. but i thought it was a case of big fish, small pond. but then last night on a dance floor in downtown new york when in response to my dancing some like hip hop professional whispered "damn gurrrl" in my ear, i knew i'd hit the big time.

now for the not-really-but-sort-of blow by blow. i've been in new york since monday. i've shopped. shopped. eaten expensive tasty food, eaten cheaper tasty food, and navigated the subway like a freakin professional.

i went to a concert at madison square gardens and blissed out (that is before i almost passed out, i'm wearing myself out i tell you). and saw al pacino's limo*.

but last night might have been the bestest night so far. erin, the bride to be and my reason for new york being, celebrated her big 3 zero at some bar in nolita (see how these ny areas just roll off my tongue - i'm basically a local now). there were drinks in an oven or something to begin with but then we moved to the main room and i drank strawberry balsamic martinis and they were delicious.

by midnight i was starving (that's the thing with new york i'm either too full to think about food or starving which is why i hadn't eaten dinner yet). so a posse and i went to little italy for pizza. but city that never sleeps my foot because everywhere was closed. everywhere except this one place. where we ate delicious bread and garlic oil and then pizza, while drinking probably poisonous new york tap water. after that we took a limo (see photo...)

to this club. which is where i was whispered damn gurrrrl and where there were impromtu breakdancing battles and there were people banging on drums and they sold water for five dollars a bottle. best water i've ever tasted though. my guess is that water had no contaminants. and the djs were awesome. and everyone was beautiful. and i really understood what missy elliot is talking about when in that song she talks about sweating out all of the troubles of the day on the dancefloor.

i had the time of my life.

now i'm sitting in the best apartment in new york looking out on the rest of manhattan and wondering what the day will bring. i can only hope it will be at least half as fun.

*may not have been al pacino's limo.

sometimes i say "i had an awesome day" or whatever but i don't think i know what i'm talking about. often all it takes for me to declare a day awesome is some barman giving me a free drink. but yesterday was awesome because my sister gave me a new nephew. needless to say i'm thinking of expanding my vocabulary.

anyway, my new nephew (te koha) is just as you'd expect.... wonderful. he looks like a gnome right now, but ryles - my first nephew - looked like a robot because of wires and whatnot coming out of him. so everyone is well pleased with our little gnome.

the only disappointment is that my brother is a terrible photographer. he took this photo and i wish he'd told me to take my sunnies off. but whatever.

also i'm pretty in to how te koha arrived at a time that was convenient for everyone. he obviously knows he's got a lot of ground to make up in the favourite stakes... (ryles has had two and a bit years of adoration and my brother has had like twenty five years, it is stiff competition).

this morning, even though i was EXHAUSTED from going to atomic and dancing til (almost) dawn i hauled myself out of bed and went over to visit my sister. i tried to convince ryles that having a nap together would be more fun than the wiggles. he wasn't convinced. and i spent at least an hour just holding te koha and marvelling. and even the midwife who was visiting (who incidentally delivered me, incidentally at strongerlight's current apartment) was afraid to take him off me. in the end exhaustion got the better of me, i handed over the baby and went back home for a power nap before playing (and losing) a boardgame marathon.

anyway, i wanted to talk about atomic today too because hello it was excellent. i must have been looking even more h.o.t than at 24 hour party people when i nearly passed out and i got hit on twice in quick succession. i mean, if someone tries to dance with you then whisper the words to take on me in your ear they can only be hot for you. anyway, i didn't take him on. also guess what? shout to the top was played. and even though i was expecting it, i got overexcited and forgot my literal dance moves. i made up for it with a few ad-lib spins though. i am sure noone noticed anything but some awesome dancing. it took me the next few songs to recover from the song and the daydreams i was having about finding a time machine, going back in time and hooking in to paul weller c. early 80s. sigh. also i tried to get the photog to take more photos of me but i think he thought i was joking. we did take a cab home together though where i clarified that i was certainly not joking and that i love digital cameras with all my might. anyway hrc assumed sharing a cab meant sharing a pash and was super jeal but hello i'm a lady of class, not a lady of the evening. but i did get a dancefloor kiss from someone else. well really a dancefloor peck on the cheek. and i have to say i'm not surprised. i bet more people wanted to do it. plus i got to meet a blog reader of mine! excitement plus. but of course i'm much more dull in real life. still i hope it was at least half as good for her as it was for me.

now... list time....

last week i delivered on nothing except the whole becoming an aunt again thing and i think we can agree that was entirely out of my control either way. so like a 2/10 week (i did try to clean my room and attempt finding out about taking wine to the USA so that stops it being a one out of ten week).

this week i have two action points:

• check my passport every day to make sure i know where it is
• fly to hawaii on wednesday.
  

the rest will take care of itself....

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.

i bet that you look good on the dancefloor....


you'd be right. and at last i have photographic evidence of the fact. my new nikon is pocketsized which meant that i could take photos and videos of me dancing my heart out.



and that is like at two in the morning too. look how serene i am when i'm in my natural habitat. but note too many girls crowding me. i almost basically got into a fight with a drunk woman who kept stomping on me with her awful boots. and then banging in to me and drinking my water just cos it was there. she had a sense of entitlement i didn't appreciate. she literally asked if i would hit her. i was like (a) i doubt it and (b) i battle on the dancefloor honey.

despite what the photo shows there were lots of boys there. which is in contrast to the last similar event i went to where there were lots of mature men. dancing and 'whatnot'. a happy medium would be better. late twenties, hot, single. as opposed to the nineteen and hot or the 45 and not. anyway i was there for the music.


we don't talk about love, we only want to get drunk....

before 24 hour party people, i went to the cross to spend my bar tab from the quiz earlier in the week. the money was spent on the first drink a cosmopolitan.

the adorable barman was there and he adorably spilt the second cocktail we ordered all over his pants. adorable. i would have married him right there.


eyes without a face....

and here is my parting photo for you. which is evidence of the fact that in four in the morning simply pushing the shoot button on the camera is an achievement. this late night selfie was the best of about thirty. but that's what is good about me (apart from my dancing skills) i'm not afraid of public and late night self portraiture.

today was an odd day. i think i vaguely remember reading something once about how when you're stressed your personality changes. which explains why i'm basically the grumpiest person alive. and how basically everything that happened today should be viewed through that lens.

the first thing that happened was i put on my tracksuit. good.

i walked into work but walked slow. like a snail. bad. but then walking slow meant i got to watch the sun rise over the harbour as cargo ships were sailing. or whatever cargo ships do. good.

i decided to treat myself after the long long walk with scrambled eggs at liquidate. good. the scrambled eggs took freakin' ages. bad. but that meant that the ex internet dater had time to join me for coffee. very good. and while i was waiting both for her and the eggs something awesome happened. the guy sitting next to me got asked out on a date because he looked like a nice man. first he was asked if he was single. yes. then he was asked if he was interested in meeting a nice woman. he kind of nodded. and then if he would meet the woman's mother at twelve thirty for lunch. and he said yes. awesome. i fell in love with the man and the woman (who was asking on behalf of her mother) at once because hello, talk about movie made for jennifer lopez and richard gere. a shall we dance two, if you will.

anyway i couldn't go to liquidate at lunchtime and spy on the date. bad. because i was in budget lockup. very bad. it wasn't bad per se. but i had a lot of work to do today and being locked in a room for three hours or whatever lost its novelty around hour two. two water options though, still (okay) and sparkling (great).

then i went back to work and people kept asking me about the budget. bad. and i couldn't remember a thing that i learned over the three hour period. bad. except what i ate, which i could remember in minute detail. and then some reporter from stuff wrote a semi amusing article on being in lockup and it irked me. bad. cos i'm grumpy. bad. but i can't figure out why else it would make me grumpy.

then i worked and arranged a whip round for a colleague who is graduating and celebrating her birthday. all in one day. today. anyway that is filled with politics. because that is just the way things are right now. and i'm sure i did it all wrong. but guess what. best bouquet ever. good.

this was followed by will he wont he indecisiveness on the part of another colleague who couldn't decide whether to go to the graduation party. bad. and did i care? no. did i have to hear all about it. yes. bad. but anyway i go to the party thinking it will be some drinks and chips in town and guess what. a catered party with wait staff and the expectation of speeches. as in people expected speeches from me. so when i did speak and attribute her success to my letter of recommendation there was silence. bad. people don't get humour. bad. i should have gone to the comedy show with d3vo. except that the catering was really really good. and the wait staff really really responsive. and the night really really not about me. bad.

after what seemed like hours of going over nuances of other people's behaviour, which you know i love, someone somehow convinced me that it would be okay to change into my tracksuit (not much convincing required). then after moments, i was convinced that if i bat my eyelids i could get into boogie wonderland in my tracksuit. seemed like a challenge. bad. that i was up to. good. so i got in and danced and requested celebration.

and then hrc and her posse turned up. and i left. and came home to watch buffy. but now i'm too tired. i hope i wake up on the right side of the bed tomorrow and am less grumpy. grumpy bad. but i like the way the tracksuit features throughout the day. even though it is ready for a wash, i'd be supportive of it playing a similar part in tomorrow's activities.

when you get home at four thirty three AM after dancing your heart out, you are a legend.

ergo, i am a legend.

i bet that you look good on the dance floor....

but not as good as me. i went black and white...


the music wasn't eighties so using molly ringwald as a muse was harder, instead i jumped to emphasise lines i loved and did something like the twist other times. boys, i noticed, were really, really, rocking the air guitar. which is always good to see.

girls who like boys, who like boys to be girls...

probably because i looked so hot, boys were asking me if i was a lesbian. apparently my friend and i were flicking off the boys. which is true because they were all ten years younger than me, but also concerning. if i just give the vibe off of not being interested in the boys around me i really will die alone. but at least at my funeral they can say i was legendary, for reasons including dancing.

oh you've got blue eyes, oh you've got green eyes, oh you've got grey eyes...

and now i feel like crap. but on the upside i'm booked in for yum char in 45 mintues. just what i need.... deep fried shrimp toast. mmmmm. i took a photo of myself to see how crap i look. but even though i'm so tired i'm typing this with my head leaning against a pillow and i can barely see the screen, my eyes were surprisingly open for the photo. i have trained myself well. i am also legendary for selfportraiture. clearly.

i am such a nanna these days that i have to set myself staying-out-late goals. shame. the plan - after some discussions - was to go here and stay until it closed. atomic at the san fran bathhouse. eighties punk through to new wave through to pop. LOVES IT.

so anyway, i went. and started the dancefloor when duran duran's planet earth came on. noone has ever done such a good job of interpretive dancing to i ran by flock of seagulls as i did last night. and we requested the buzzcocks. ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with? it rang true, and after a moments contemplation i again assaulted the dance floor with a stella perfomance. the dance floor really was mine. i have the badge to prove it (a gift from mr dj).

by one am i was dehydrated (not helped by swimming during the day and cocktails at the cross immediately before going to the san fran bathhouse. fyi the elderflower mojito at the cross is pleasant enough but too sweet for my liking). so took a break but all the underaged drinkers who had somehow got past security were smoking on the balcony and ruining my buzz. fortunately the dancefloor was smokin' as well - even without me - so i went back for more.

then some drunk underaged girl kicked me . she was trying to get on stage when blue monday came on. i was just trying to dance my heart out. her exhibitionist tendancies offended me. so i told her off. like a nanna. i thought about getting security involved, but who likes to cause a scene?

oh and some chick knocked over my drink with her handbag. she was good about it. however, since i was alread dehydrated i kind of lost perspective and thought this was the end of the world. plus, you know, it was waaaaay past my bedtime. i was ready to rumble.

so after nearly getting in to two fights i went back to concentrating on the dancing. i fell back in love with simon le bon. mr dj played hungry like the wolf and i just about passed out due to the excitement.

at three i thought it would end. but mr dj has stamina and put get into the groove on. i thought i might collapse. i had been gearing up to a three am finish. so i went to the coat check. got my jacket and vacated the premises. i knew i'd gone hard, but i was running on empty. a few more songs would have been the death of me.

i await the next atomic so i can make another attempt at staying out until the end of the event.