Monthly Archives: December 2002

To the bridge

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One takeaway latte, made by the bass player in one of my favourite bands of all time. So now everything is ok. Cranky-ass bitch? She’s gone. I’m happy and inspired now!

Raggiz:

1. Browsing around Raglan Dealers brings up all sorts of dilemmas. Should I buy the collection of bridge scoring pads and folders? Or what about an old cigarette tin? Or maybe I should get those leather shorts?

2. There used to be a cafe called Molasses. It was sold and the new owners have called it the Aqua Velvet Ballroom. This is troublesome for various reasons. First, naming a cafe after Aqua Velva, that cheap aftershave, is kinda weird. And it’s not a cafe anymore, it’s now a ballroom. Except I doubt that there would ever be a ball held there. It’s like ballrooms in hotels that only ever seem to house conferences and motivational speakers. But the worst bit is that they’ve taken down the cool metal Molasses sign and replaced it with a couple of boring painted signs with the new name.

Also: I hate TV news. Tonight there was an item about a question on “Who wants to be a millionaire” that had two possible correct answers. OMG OMG OMG!!! I know that news is typically slow at this time of year, but, really.

From tha chuuurch to tha palace

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1. A china bowl with lid shaped like a cauliflower. Possibly the most hideous gift I have ever received.
2. A wire basket. Quite nice, of use as a fruit bowl.
3. A calendar.

And that’s it. That’s my Christmas booty for this year. No books, no CDs, no underwear (and I would actually have liked some new underwear). No Justin Timberlake.

I’m supposed to be getting something else from my parents. I said I wanted a printer, but now I’m not sure. I don’t think I’d use a printer all that much. New underwear – now that would be useful. Yeah, this is what it’s like being on a low income.

Christmas started to get boring when my cousins started having kids. Aunts and uncles became grandparents, so Christmas stopped involving going to visit relatives. It’s just another family dinner. Pass the broccoli. I toasted “from the church to the palace.”

Mum: What does that mean?
Dad: Robyn just made it up.
Me: No, I didn’t.

Sometimes I envy those families where Christmas Day ends in tears. Uncle Garry gets drunk and makes a pass at someone’s girlfriend. Auntie Kim has too much to drink and flashes her boobs. Gran falls asleep. Ross stands on Conner’s brand new toy and breaks it. It ends with someone screaming “you’ve ruined Christmas for everyone!”. But then, maybe people in situations like that would be happy to swap for one of my boring Christmases.

Robyn pulled a pistol on Christmas

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Hey, you know how near New Year’s there’s always some hilarious person who makes a list of new year’s resolutions and suggests giving up smoking but (ha ha) if you don’t smoke (ha ha), start smoking and then quit!! Ha ha ha!

So that’s what I’m doing. Only it’s possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. Do you know how much it sucks to be suffering from nicotine withdrawal? Like, it sucks a lot.

See, I’m at my parents place and I don’t want to be all “d’you mind if I smoke?” Cos shit like that would make my momma cry and it’s not really work going through the “mom, dad: I smoke” when I’m just going to be quitting in a week. So I’m just tolerating it. I should have got some gum, or the patch, or, or, or maybe I should have just not started smoking in the first place, Yeah, that would have been the best thing.

bFM sent an email mourning Joe Strummer but somehow felt it was necessary to remind people to buy a b-card. I thought that was a little insensitive. Can’t commerce be kept out of stuff like that? Especially at this time of year.

I got the coolest birthday present from my bro in England. It’s a book called “Rainbow Climbing High” by Mike Anderiesz. It’s a subversive but loving look at “Rainbow”, the British children’s TV program. It’s totally perfect and has plenty of dirty old adult jokes hidden amongst the Bungle-in-a-tutu pictures. I literally laughed my arse off. I’m hoping I’ll get a new arse for Christmas.

Sentiment, sediment

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There was a big ol’ box at the post office. Inside it were the following items:

* Two wooden salt and pepper shakers shaped like cats, complete with googly eyes. When you tip the pepper cat up, it makes a noise like a cat would make if it was really sick. The salt one doesn’t make it, probably because it’s broken.

* A wooden mortar and pestle. Which is cool, but wood doesn’t seem like the right material for a mortar and pestle to be made out of. Possible solution: use the bowl for pot pourri and give the pestle to a special friend for Christmas but pretend it’s an exotic sex toy.

* A wooden box with a blue tile lid. It’s quite nice. I’m not sure what to put in it. If I had some cigars I could keep them in it. But I don’t have any cigars. Perhaps I should buy some?

* “Incidental Furniture” a book published in 1953 about how to make all those incidental pieces of furniture around the home. I think I need to make a radio cabinet.

* “The Autograph Man” by Zadie Smith. I’ve been wanting to read this. Hooray!

I had dinner at the OLC with Dylz, LL Cool R, Jakmes, and that other guy. Actually, I just made up all those nicknames five seconds ago. I don’t actually call them by nicknames. Sometimes Dylan is called Trixie McLicious.

Dylzno gave me a CD with a video selection of me talking about the goddess. It was at the Basque Park festival in early 2001 and my hair is short and blonde. It’s quite funny, and Dylzno has threatened to shrink it down to a small size so I can have it up on my web site.

Finally, I drove down Franklin Road. There were so many people driving down there to check out the Christmas lights that traffic was crawling. But it was ok. the slow traffic meant I could see everything. There were heaps of people walking along the footpath too. The locals were hanging out on their front porches, someone had a stand selling coffee (yeah, yeah, it’s becoming commercialised, totally selling out. T-shirts next year, perhaps?), but there was a really good vibe to it. A song by Nesian Mystik came on the radio and everything felt right, like this is what Christmas in Auckland in 2002 is meant to be like.