this past weekend: what is the single biggest worry when you're hosting a party? that's right, that noone will come. i have a new way to deal with this: only semi host a party. that is let your friends hold a party at your place. if they have enough friends that you adore then you get most of the benefits of hosting a party but at the end you don't have to clean up.

monday: my landlord's wellington representative came over(thank god for the post party cleanup). she probably didn't suspect a thing, but this means that she thinks my flattie and i are alcoholics judging by the liquor bottles in our recycling this week.

tuesday: i had a hell day at work. and just wanted to go home and sleeeeeep. but the arctic monkeys were playing and i had tickets so had to go. thank god i did, cos it was a much better way to spend the evening that hitting refresh on facebook status updates. for more, read this.

wednesday: i was supposed to take annual leave. but went to work for an important meeting and took a long lunch break. i went to my new favourite city eatery. and i am so reluctant to tell you about it because i don't want everyone to go.... but i'm going to anyway: picnic. and after the walk up the hill you deserve a friggen chocolate milkshake. and maybe a breakfast burrito. but beware the birds. they've got brave, which is unfortunate because they are two wings away from being mice. and you should all know by know i equate mice with the devil.

thurday: the world sale. ie the most important fashion date on my calendar. i didn't go exactly nuts there (two tops, both awesome) but i was so jubilant that on the way back to work i accidentally bought two pairs of shoes, a clutch purse and a fascinator. can anyone say 'economic crisis'? anyway from tomorrow i'm starting my next 101 in 1001 days task: no clothes purchases for three months. i will not know what to do with my time!

i am in melbourne about to be professionally developed. i had to fill out a form about why i am here. luckily they had the option of "i wanted to get away and experience new things". ie shopping at IKEA.

IKEA was both better and worse than i imagined. because of course i'd never been. i will have real difficulities getting my suitcase packed with all the ribba photoframes i bought. my companion thought they could fit a whole table in their suitcase. luckily we were such novices we didn't understand the writing down the numbers for aisle etc... so we couldn't find it.

right now i'm about to be called for breakfast. this place has twenty four hour cakes. so why would i ever need cereal i wonder? oh well, this is the price of being professional.

since the whole cat incident my easter weekend has improved. i spent friday doing laundry, which obviously is an improvement on the cat. and watching so you think you can dance. my quest to bring tele back continues.

saturday i just about passed out from exhaustion numerous times. i went to craft two point oh where i saw about eight million things i wanted to buy. i restricted myself though. because i'm going to vietnam in under a week. i will hold off buying unnecessaries until then. i couldn't resist the cupcakes however. and got a sugar rush and a headache immediately after.

i also did my new favourite saturday activity: la cloche followed by playing with the puppies at animates. rounded out by a trip to the supermarket and looking for trendy but unrequired homewears at nood, my day just kind of evaporated.

then i went to the palliser hotel. the what? exactly. some of my readers will appreciate that. anyway, it doesn't have a website but since i'm evidently all about links today, try this. it was for my cousin's 21st. the theme was black and white....



and my cousin did the mtv standard birthday party appearance dressed in red. so super sweet sixteenth. there was lots of food. and speeches. and singing (they even sang my favourite song of childhood) and some fights. i even went to break up the fight i saw. the three taekwon do lessons i had that time have made me cocky. but there was no need as my cousin got there first to do same.

after speeches, pavlova and some dancing i left to head back to town for 24 hour party people. i was just about dead on my feet by that point. in part because instead of wearing sneakers, which would have been sensible, i was wearing black girl shoes to match my black and white outfit. my feet just about fell off. and my eyes were just about permanently closed. but i managed to dance up a storm to the arcade fire and interpol in particular, but to most of the awesome music generally. and my favourite barman was there. and he recognised me. it really must be love.

but even that adrenaline couldn't keep me on the dancefloor after two thirty. by which time the line to get in was metres and metres long.

yesterday i brunched at the recovery room, where i was also recognised by staff. i am such the girl about town. then AL and i read fashion and gossip mags at scorching bay where we could feel the jealousy of everyone else at the beach who wished they were us on our pink beach chairs. i also got to play cards with my family and eat a sunday roast care of my mother.

today though is when it starts going bad again. today i'm trying to get a bit of work done. i just have a few things i want to finish off before vietnam. damned sense of responsibility. it is so lame. i wish i could be more devil-may-care. anyway, so far i've put in about thirty seconds. i have spent the bulk of my time being an excellent aunt at the swimming pool and shopping for new slippers at the warehouse (what happened to the reserve i displayed at craft two point oh i wonder?).

oh and it is my birthday this week. i've put some energy into pretending it isn't real. but i am starting to come to grips with it. it being old age obviously. maybe the black cat that attacked me was just the shadow of old age rather than the shadow of death as i first predicted.

it is entirely unoriginal, but i hate having a cold. for the past week i've felt constantly tired and really uninterested in anything other that the adventures of meredith grey and my duvet. and i've gone through about three boxes of tissues. my nose even looked bright red and someone pointed it out in a meeting. which was a bit shame. but hello, like i could help it.

on friday afternoon i got home from work early - about three pm - and slept until seven then watched tv for two hours which was exhausting and i had to go back to bed. and yesterday i went out for a party planning brunch (btw: my party is going to be AWESOME. you should rsvp already) and i had to sleep for two hours to recover. after which i only had the energy to make chocolate and banana muffins and watch grey's anatomy. somewhere in there i managed to get enough energy to go to hide a surprise gift for my mother at mum and dad's house. and i am possibly underestimating my level of sloth yesterday. yet i was still exhausted.

so it has been such a surpise that today i managed to do some housework and go on a fact finding mission to porirua. on my fact finding mission i also soaked in some culture at pataka where the contemporary samoan art exhibition was choice but let's face it: i spent more time in the gift shop. due to my new found energy i even managed to talk myself into buying a present for myself. a felt tiki brooch.

then i went to save mart where i also managed to convince myself that one day soon someone will invite me to an 80s party. and so i bought myself a dress that would make cyndi lauper green with envy...

it is hard to tell, but it is lace and has puff sleeves. and a bit of a ra-ra skirt. if an eighties party doesn't present itself soon i may just introduce it to my everyday wardrobe. or start a goth rollerskating dance troupe. it is a truly versatile dress.

so, anyway, now i'm home from porirua and while i could obviously go a nap i actually think i will survive without one. meaning i may well and truly be close to recovery. after a week. gosh darn, colds suck.

so i bought a dressing gown. well actually elle mcpherson calls it after wear. after what i want to know but whatevs. i rock it. here i am in my dressing gown. this photo gives you no clue of how it looks or how it feels (awesome on both counts) but i played with the lighting and whatnot and my eye looks choice so i figured it would do.
anyway my dressing gown is so comfortingly warm. which is just as well because after a summer like spring weekend it is cold again. like really cold. like i'm wrapped up in my warehouse fake mink blanket with my heater on cold. plus the dressing gown which we've already established is comfortingly warm.

the dressing gown was purchased as part of a post meeting shopping spree at dressmart hamiltron. cos yeah, i was in hamiltron today. last night i stayed at tainui novotel and had the best sleep i've had in at least a week. something about chrisp white bedding and watching david letterman as you fall asleep. and i know, i'm surprised too: who can sleep through letterman?

anyway the dressing gown will also be very useful as part of my travelling ensemble. to protect my dignity from any males that may be in any of my accommodation spots in the USofA. where incidentally i will be in two weeks and one day.

anyway trivial pursuits time:

what should you never keep right next to eye makeup remover? (answer: nailpolish remover. i nearly blinded myself tonight. but crisis averted due to my keen sense of smell).

so because i'm about to embark on a world tour all over again, i've invested in a stylish new camera. behold, my first selfie....
i've done better, but for a first it isn't too bad.

in other news today i got a taste of stay at home motherhood. fyi i need to have babies soon because it was so much more awesome than working. i took a day off and entertained ryles. he's like a hummingbird in that he's always out for a snack so we went to cafes and played at the park mostly. and he got to be my supermodel as i tested the new digicam. i also tested the movie function as he was climbing up the climbing frame and he fell off. it is funny now to watch, and rewatch, but at the time i saw my life flashing before my eyes.
the down side of stay at home motherhood is that you'd have to watch a lot of the wiggles. honestly, i'm so over captain feather sword. the other downside is that other parents at the park try and talk to you. i'm like, i wouldn't talk to you at a cafe so why here at the park, arguably a bigger space? and they all assume a) ryles is a girl (as if) and b) that i'm his mother. at first i corrected on both counts but after my second park of the day i just gave up. once i started correcting them it was like a license to share life stories. and i really was more in to singing the alphabet with ryles. but i've seen my sister at parks and she's a lot more IN to the whole sharing thing. maybe i will be too when i'm a full time stay at home motherhood woman. which would mean that the only downside was the wiggles. and since they know how to rock a skivy (just like i do) i could be brought around.

i hope you all don't think i spent my entire weekend watching high school musical and sisterhood of the travelling pants. because actually i have a full life.

like on saturday before hsm on dvd i went out to dinner with the ex internet dater and her boyf and we talked about how awesome tracksuits are.

so naturally the next day i walk into town in my hot green and white sneakers and look for a matching tracksuit.

after minutes of searching i find this beauty (here i am pxting myself and looking very uncoordinated but you get the idea, also fyi my phone still isn't sending pxts to anyone and so this whole taking a pxt to ask for second and third opinions did not work because the messages kept failing). thanks canterbury of new zealand.
there are lots of reasons i need a tracksuit.

one: my old tracksuit pants are over three years old, are too long, too big and have sparkles. basically they are a product of their time. and if i recall it was near impossible (at the time i bought these trackies) to find a pair without hot stuff written on the behind.

two: i had nothing to wear to the gym. and that was stopping me from actually going.

three: i had nothing to wear that was both comfortable and tidy looking that i could wear to walk into work in. and that was stopping me from actually walking.

four: sunday afternoons are made for tracksuits. and since i didn't have a tracksuit i wasn't fully enjoying sunday afternoons.

five: i want to look like i'm in the sopranos wherever possible. a tracksuit helps with this.

AND

six: my shoes were running out of things to match perfectly with.

so anyway now i'm looking for as many opportunities as possible to show off my tracksuit. today i got next to know work done. because my numerous meetings were along the following lines...

also i wore my tracksuit in to work today and put off changing into my work dress and cardigan ensemble until the last possible moment. and then for walking home again i put my tracksuit back on at the first opportunity. meaning i was in my work clothes for about fifteen minutes over the lunchbreak. more or less.

when i was walking along the waterfront, i even started to think about how my tracksuit deserves a poem. or an ode to it. blue white and green, you look mean. i can tell the runners are jealous, and wish me malice. they'll try and stock me. oh tracksuit how you rock me. it is windy and you keep me sort of warm. and the boys are starting to swarm. like bees to their queen. cos tracksuit you look mean. or something like that. it was cold. and i was hungry. i forget now exactly how it goes.

incidentally i used google to see if there are other odes to tracksuits and can you believe references to tracksuits appear to be derogatory. confirming my belief that poets need to get off their high horses. because guess what? tracksuits are awesome. thank the lord i now have one.

something is wrong with my phone. i haven't been able to send pxts for days. which led me to buy these clothes without consulting anyone. which led me to break my no shopping rule. but hello i am awaiting a refund cheque from inland revenue due to me overpaying my student loan. so technically it is a cost neutral purchase or something.

but bigger issues: my phone. i hate it.

i hate it because it charges me seventeen cents for every text message. when c4 has the top 40 fifteen minutes of fame-ers that means like seventeen dollars in text messages. because you have to send at least two text messages per song to your bff... but more like three or four for some of the songs. like when they played train's drops of jupiter. and there were numerous text messages accusing mr leadsinger from train of being the best soy latte i ever had. which fyi wouldn't be hard because i thankfully have never had a soy latte.

also i hate my phone because even though it lets me type in web addresses like it MIGHT connect you to the internet the sad truth is it never ever ever does. but my phone people tell me it is all connected up and ready to go. so tonight at dinner when i desperately wanted to know the proportion of maori living in households with internet access i couldn't look up the statistics nz webpage. but then luckily someone else could because they had a better phone (fyi 25% as at 2001 census).

also my phone is quiet. like even when you turn the volume up super loud you can barely hear the person you are talking to. which, even though i don't have a hearing impairment, is simply unacceptable given the marvels of modern technology.

when my last phone before my last phone started to annoy me it refused to die. so even though it was five years old (and FYI it was lena's old phone from when she lived in sydney, so it was OOOOOLD by phone standards) it just kept on trucking. i even dropped it on the motorway... and it survived. this suggests that my current phone, which is also of the nokia family will last forever out of spite.

what else about my phone? actually very little else. and now that it is written down it just looks petty. hmmmm... funny that. i'm still going to post this though because, hello, that photo of me is awesome.

goodnight...