Ampersand

Category: New Zealand

  • Well Wishes

    Iā€™ve been planning this trip for six months, and now, finally, we leave tomorrow. Iā€™m going to the States for the first time since my mom died. Itā€™s been about two and a half years. I meant to go last year, but then I got this job that was supposed to only be for twelve…

  • South Canterbury

    April went by the way someā€”a lotā€”of months do: going to work, going to the gym, going to dinner, going to movie night, going to the Bait House. First itā€™s the first and then itā€™s the fifteenth and every Thursday is recycle day and Sunday morning is the veggie market and on and on. There…

  • Middle Age

    Itā€™s called San Fran now but it used to be called San Francisco Bath House and of course my friend from the Bay Area, when he visited years ago, thought it was Wellingtonā€™s gay bar. ā€œItā€™s not,ā€ I said. ā€œI mean they are gay people there but to, like, see shows. Itā€™s not a gay…

  • Almost Forty

    Today is my momā€™s birthday. She would turn sixty-nine today. Thursday is my birthday. I will turn forty. Turning forty is fine, for me. I donā€™t have many feelings or thoughts about it, other than Iā€™m glad that I have a birthday and that Iā€™ll get to celebrate it in a low-key way this weekend.…

  • Part Of Your World

    My work travel season has begun, and last week I was up north in Whangarei. Besides being the location of various healthcare-sector meetings I had to attend, itā€™s also the easiest place to access some excellent diving in the famous Poor Knights. I have dived the Poor Knights, aaaaaaages ago, and even though the extremely…

  • The New Couches

    After a year of so of complaining about how much I hated–hated— my saggy brown 80-percent-life-size couches, I bought some new ones. They were delivered a couple Saturdays ago and the 80-percenters were picked up by the delightful people from the Mary Potter Hospice shop warehouse. One is light gray and one is sort of…

  • My Dream

    My dream is to go on a round-the-world trip, visiting everyone I know who lives somewhere else. My dream is to not be so tired all the time. My dream is do meaningful, interesting work that pays me enough to do what I like doing. My dream is to eat roasted vegetables with a fried…

  • Fly Away

    This morning the baby bird flew into the lounge window right by my head, as I was sitting on the couch eating my breakfast and drinking my tea. I heard a huge thump and hopped up to lean out of the window to see what it was. At first I didnā€™t see anything and I…

  • The Baby Bird

    On New Yearā€™s Day we saw some birds going crazy outside lounge window. Common blackbirds, a male and a female, who looked nothing alike, chirping very loudly, flapping their wings, diving around the big pink-flowered shrub in the far right hand corner of the little grassy area where the clotheslines are. Earlier in the day…

  • Back To Queenstown

    Itā€™s felt like ages since I had a bit of a holiday (even though I spent, you know, all of January in Thailand) so Thursday morning G and went down to Queenstown for a long weekend. I go to Auckland very often for work but Iā€™ve traveled to the South Island quite a lot this…

  • Early Voting

    I just finished listeningā€”I was mending my leggings so I didnā€™t precisely watch–the final Leadersā€™ Debate, ahead of New Zealandā€™s election on Saturday. I had followed the other debates via Twitter, which is dodgy for echo chamber reasons, so I wanted to experience this one for myself. Thereā€¦wasnā€™t a lot to experience; it was only…

  • Catching Up, Slowing Down

    I caught up with friends last night over tea and cake, under a blanket on someoneā€™s couch because even though itā€™s lighter later, every evening, itā€™s still chilly and damp in that Wellington way. Weā€™ve all been out of town or working a lot or just plain busy so it was nice to just hang…

  • Shortsighted

    I just got back from my friend Amberā€™s house for dinner. This is exactly the kind of way I like to be social, these days: someoneā€™s house that is walking distance from mine, yummy food, nice people, and home by 9 pm. Amber is in cooking school this year and every now and again when…

  • A Good Day Off

    I was at another conference for work over the weekend, so I took yesterday off. First day of Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Iā€™d got home tired and cranky on Sunday night, fit for nothing but shoveling down the lovely dinner G had waiting for me, but Monday was bright and sunny and I thought,…

  • #Straightforward

    In the last couple of weeks, as Ferguson, Missouri got much, much, worse, and thenā€”slowly, painfully, hopefullyā€”began to get a bit better, I thought a lot about how I was consuming and using the news. I was consuming through social media, namely Twitter, because there was pretty much no other way for me to follow…

  • What Are You Doing Musically At The Moment?

    Itā€™s been over a year since I sang in public. It was last Easter for my bandmateā€™s leaving gig, at what used to be Medusa but is now something else. I sang two songs I wrote and one cover, wearing a Def Leppard t-shirt and some heavy eyeliner my bandmate applied to my face while…

  • Just A Cosy Sunday

    I got up early-ish this morning, and waffled back and forth between going to the Sunday market and going to the Bait House, even for just a little while. The Bait House won out but not before toast with plum jam and Greek yogurt with honey, over a foo-foo magazine, with a cup of tea.…

  • Easy And Ordinary

    The yearā€™s almost half over, and I have been spending it about as youā€™d expect, doing the things youā€™d expect Iā€™d do. Iā€™m working what seems like a lot but is still really only nine to five, with some travel thrown in. Because this job is only for a yearā€”only eight more months, nowā€”Iā€™ve been…

  • It Was So Clear To Me That It Was Almost Invisible

    I went to see Neko Case last night, right around the corner from my house. It was my birthday presentā€”I turn thirty-nine on Wednesdayā€”and at first I was a little ambivalent about going. Not because I donā€™t love Neko Case, but because itā€™d been a long day at work and it was sort of chilly…

  • A Little Haven

    A month home now, a month into my new (great!) job, and thoughts of traveling and dive mastering and heartbreaking recede into the distance every time I wash my hair in the mouldy, paint-peeling shower of this flat or bemoan the lack of bench space in the kitchen. Itā€™s meant to be the second day…

  • The World And My Place In It

    PLEASE DONā€™T READ THIS IF YOU DONā€™T WANT TO READ ABOUT RAPE OR ASSAULT. It feels like everyone I know, in New Zealand and to some extent further abroad, is talking about the Roast Busters right now. Brieflyā€”and seriously, if you canā€™t read about rape, or rape culture, or rape apologia, then please skip the…

  • The First Week

    The job ended last Friday. Since then I have: got my eyebrows threaded for the first time, which was pretty painful but not as bad as plucking, which I canā€™t even do correctly anyway; applied for five jobs; gone out to lunch with some very lovely friends and had some excellent conversation; had at least…

  • Sad and Tired

    Last weekend I was sickā€”sinus infection run amokā€”and I wrote a post for this blog about that. About that, and about how I have somehow lost that new job I thought I was going to take me to the end of the year, and about how I miss my mom. Youā€™d recognize it, I think,…

  • Forms

    In the weeks since I got back from Nelson, I have been naked on a massage table during another major (but not too damaging!) earthquake, had a meeting with a financial advisor so that I can get my multi-hemisphere act together, baked a lot of cakes and cookies, listened to a lot of history podcasts,…

  • The Prayer I Cannot Pray

    I went down to Nelson for a long weekend, and on Sunday after a visit to a the Centre of New Zealand we walked up to the cathedral, just because the weather was good and it was nearby. Iā€™ve been to the park there several times before but never inside the cathedral itself; Iā€™ve never…

  • The Shakes

    The earthquakes weā€™ve been having for the last couple of weeks have been big, but not too big. Or theyā€™ve been big, but theyā€™ve been far enough away from Wellington not to seriously damage anything. Or theyā€™ve damaged things, but not permanently. Or theyā€™ve damaged things permanently, but not too badly. We had two not…

  • Or Something

    There was a big storm here in Wellington a couple of weeks ago, and there has been a lot going on politically, all over the world. Iā€™m still doing my physio exercises and getting more into my volunteer gig at the marine science centre. Wellington On A Plate and the Film Festival are coming up.…

  • The Bait House

    This past Sunday I went to volunteer for the first time at the Island Bay Marine Education Centre weekly Open Day. Itā€™s a pretty cruisy setupā€”the coordinator emails everyone during the week, you tell him if you can make it that weekend, and then you roll up on the day and do your thing. Thatā€™s…

  • Her Pink Room

    If sheā€™d been able to leave us at home on the island, I think sometimes. (ā€˜Sometimesā€™ means ā€˜once.ā€™ ā€˜Sometimesā€™ means ā€˜I thought that once, a week ago, and I am still thinking it.ā€™) If I hadnā€™t come back to Wellington for those five months last year, if she hadnā€™t moved to Tampa as sheā€™d planned…

  • At The Farm

    Last week I took a couple days off and went with my friend G up to his sister and brother-in-lawā€™s farm near Warkworth, about an hour or so out of Auckland. There was no real reason to go, other than for a little change of pace. Gā€™s family had very kindly invited me to spend…

  • Studies Have Shown

    I randomly read this article today, and left its browser tab open for the afternoon. Itā€™s pretty standard, I guess: you can either have high-flying ambitions and move to the big city, or you can live next door to your parents and teach in the local school and when you get cancer your community will…

  • Another April

    I was done with the pool by 5:30 this evening and had plenty of time to make dinner, had the vegetables right there and everything, but I had dip and pita bread instead. I got fleece-lined ankle-length slippers for my birthday and have opted for them and my fleece-lined hoodie this evening instead of hauling…

  • We Will Have Band Practice Again

    Saturday night my good friend and bandmate Jez had his last Wellington gig. It was easily the best one Iā€™ve ever been to: I got to Bar Medusa early for soundcheck and he did my makeup in the bar toilet and the place was as packed as Iā€™ve ever seen it and for his final…

  • My Birthday

    I celebrated my birthday last week too, three days after my momā€™s. I spent the day itself in an all-day Content Management System training and then put on my new jeans and a top I got for five dollars one of the recent times I was in America, I donā€™t remember which, and met a…

  • Her Birthday

    Today is my momā€™s birthday. She’d be sixty-seven. I woke up early to dye my hair this morning and thought, ā€œOh, Iā€™ll Skype her while itā€™s setting,ā€ just for a tiny, terrible moment. Iā€™ve been wanting to call her for days. This time last year I was in Miami with her, making pasta for her…

  • Baking

    Iā€™m only working part-time at the moment and my work is just a half-hourā€™s walk from my house so I have what feels like the most free time since I was in kindergarden, these days. I do things like go for swims in my new, highly supportive and highly unflattering one-piece togs and get documents…

  • Another Trip To Golden Bay

    I went down to the South Island last week for a holiday with a bunch of friends. I was still in Tampa when they started planning it and I wasnā€™t completely paying attention to all the details at the time, so it was a bit of a nice surprise that theyā€™d planned this really fun…

  • Will Continue Sending

    So I went to Los Angeles (saw a friend I hadnā€™t seen since the 90s, when we both had very different hair!) and I went to Mexico (dived with seals and sea turtles and ate a lot of huevos divorciados!) and then I came back to New Zealand (sat on a plane for many hours…

  • Can’t

    Two weeks ago the math abruptly changed. Thatā€™s the best and simplest way to describe it. There were phone calls and emails and tearful conversations on Skype and at Wellington cafes; there was a prognosis to receive, and a decision to be made. At first I thought there would be three weeks to sort out…

  • Doing The Math

    Itā€™s supposed to be spring soon–supposed to–but Iā€™m still sitting in front of the heater in my robot hoodie and wool knee socks, sipping tea and listening to the southerly howl and screech outside. Tui courtship season, ostensibly; I feel sorry for those poor noisy birds huddled up under the whipping branches. This morning when…

  • Finally, The Winter Boyfriend Video

    Last year I wrote a song. I sang it to myself a lot and talked about a lot and practicing it a lot with my friend Jez. At first I used to say ā€˜band practiceā€™ in quotes because I reasoned that thirty-six year old public servants with no musical ability donā€™t really go to band…

  • More And More And More

    Been back in Wellington for two months now, pretty much as long as I was away. Itā€™s freezing cold here, just the start of winter, and I have a wool cardigan, two pairs of socks, and both the heaters on tonight. My friend Theresa is visiting until Wednesday. I just got back from dance class…

  • Waiting In Vain

    After our road trip to Tampa to see what Iā€™m referring to as New Places, because I cannot bring myself to say the words ‘Assisted Living Facility,ā€™ the car is the last place I want to be, yesterdayā€™s mind-numbing drive across Alligator Alley being what it is. Radiation is still at 10:15 five days a…

  • sex shop ucuz satan yer

    sex shop ucuz satan yer

  • Circulation

    Last weekend I went with my friends Rachel, Angela, and Miriam for Circulation, a big olā€™ circus festival down in freezing cold yet oddly sunny Dunedin. I have been super extra busy for the pastā€¦well, for the past forever, I guess, and since I havenā€™t been doing circus for months I just forgot about it…

  • Daylight Savings

    Itā€™s Daylight Savings now, light later and later. My sun guilt is very firmly entrenched but I sit on one of the 80-percent-life-size couches anyway, up against the large lounge window, looking at the outside drying racks in the back yard, the chittering birds and peeling paint and golden sun of Mt. Victoria. Meant to…

  • Creative Collaboration

    Since Iā€™ve got back from my trip itā€™s been all go re: the video for the the song. Did I mention? (Um, yes, I believe Iā€™ve mentioned I wrote a song). My bandmate has done several videos for his own fantastic self so I knew it could be doneā€”I certainly wasnā€™t going to let something…

  • Wellyversary

    Last night I celebrated my five years in Wellington with a gig at the limiest-green dive bar in Wellington, where the owner happens to be a friend of a friend and where I see shows all the time. Iā€™ve been planning this for months, referring to it as my Wellyversary: two friendsā€™ bands played, some…

  • Weakness

    I started taking a circusā€”specifically, adagioā€”class a couple of months ago at the instigation of my friend Rachel, who is a certifiable circus freak and who is on mission to recruit everyone she knows so that she can have a Friend Circus. She drives a hard bargain; after telling me to do it for months…

  • Happy Place

    We went for a walk along Oriental Parade after Chrisā€™ waffle party this afternoon. Itā€™s been such a warm winterā€”today felt much more like November than July. The sun was shining and I was only wearing two shirts and a hoodie and there was no wind. We went to what Rachel calls her happy place,…

  • I Wrote A Song

    My big new thing is that I wrote a song. Iā€™m thinking a lot lately about my family, and feminism (a LOT about feminism), and social media and its discontents, and circus, and money, and how I want to knit a lot of scarves all of a sudden, but underneath and around and on top…

  • Expiry: Indefinite

    Yesterday morning I walked down to Immigration half an hour before they opened and stood in the queue for a while before taking a number and taking a seat, my application with its two laughably unflattering passport-size photos in hand. A nice man called me over to his desk, I paid him a hundred and…

  • That Was My Tuesday

    I bought this super cute pink-and-red-and-gray-and-black cameo-pattern skirt the other day at Recycle Boutique for like sixteen dollars and then on Saturday, after a strange series of events, I bought these super-awesome knee-high boots, which has sort of been this everlasting quest of mine for longer than I care to contemplate. Anyway over the past…

  • Leaving

    Itā€™s not all the time now, the way it was when I was first in Wellington, a leaving do every weekend. Now it will be quiet for months and then there will be a big sudden push of Facebook invites to last-night-in-Wellington drinks. Since March, I guess, a lot of friends have been leaving, one…

  • Affiliation

    For me my nationality is a pretty random identity or affiliation, not something Iā€™m proud or not proud of. I didnā€™t have anything to do with it: my parents chose for me to become an American citizen when I was two–my naturalization paper is typed in wonky typewriter and lists my height as ā€˜2 FEET…

  • All About Me

    About ten years ago everyone was getting married and I was so jealous. I was going to like five weddings a summer and everyone was all loved up and full of their plans: to have dinner parties, to buy a house, to have children, to do all those things that I thought meant you were…

  • Notes From My Visit To Golden Bay With My Mom

    First Night After the ferry, after the six hours in the car from Picton to Takaka, after a dinner of goat cheese and crackers on the tiny little balcony looking out over the bay, I walk down past the outdoor tea house and the Buddha in its lavender bed, to the beach. Itā€™s my birthday,…

  • Christchurch Earthquake

    Christchurch had another earthquake todayā€”for you non-Kiwis, they had what was supposed to be the Big One, in September, and theyā€™ve juuust started rebuilding. We heard about it at work and watched some of the footage, before anyone knew what was going on in terms of deaths or injuries, and it was already pretty brutalā€”Christchurch…

  • Atomic

    I was in the mood to go out on Saturday night. Iā€™ve been very busy socially lately but itā€™s hasnā€™t been the going out kind of social, if that makes sense; like I go to a lot of dinners and shows and house parties and things like thatā€”sometimes even events–and I have people over to…

  • This, Here, Now

    Yesterday I didnā€™t have yoga after work and I also didnā€™t have any food in the house. A quick perusal of the produce section at New World indicated that broccoli was expensive but that asparagus was (kind of) cheap because weā€™re finally getting into spring, and then in a flash I recalled that I had…

  • Wait Till You Get All Your Stuff In

    The good thing about having a very immediate-yet-mostly-dealable crisis is that it focuses all your nervous energy into a very specific direction: Do This Thing, Now. Make It Happen. Make It Work. The night sweats and the upset stomach and the inability to concentrate all of a sudden have a reason and a purpose: I…

  • Crying In August

    I did so much crying in August. I did lots of different of kinds: the kind where you canā€™t get out of bed and have to remember to drink water at hourly intervals to replenish your vital fluids; the kind where you start sobbing at work; the kind where you weep silently on the bus…

  • Boxes Of Books

    When I was in Seattle in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2008, I got rid of something like three hundred books which my buddies at the Blue House in Ballard had been storing for me in three identical IKEA bookcases (I had another one upstairs in the cloud room, also full to bursting) along with…

  • Four Year Anniversary

    Itā€™s four years exactly today since I first came to Wellington, coming from Napier on the Intercity Bus, waiting to meet Deirdre at the station with my big green backpack. That was so long ago. For my one-year anniversary in 2007 I was in Australia, not even paying attention, and for my two year I…

  • There Is No Requirement To Still Your Mind

    The yoga teacher seems to want to touch the American a lot in class tonight. She doesnā€™t correct or realign her, she just lays her hands on lightly, gently, softly: spread-out fingers in down dog, shoulders in Warrior II, the small of the back in childā€™s pose. She can tell, thinks the American, lowering down…

  • Pompeii To Paris

    I met the beautiful and talented Leimomi last year at the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies ball, which she brilliantly organized and at which I discovered a predilection for wearing top hats and frock coats. We became Facebook friends, as you do, and saw each other at parties and whatnot, always very enjoyably; we may…

  • Easter Easter Kayak Kayak

    Iā€™d been talking with Theresa, kind of randomly, about taking a trip together somewhere for Easter weekend this year, without coming to much of a decision. I wanted to go to the top of the South Island, maybe to Shambhala again or something, but tickets to Takaka were sort of expensive and they close for…

  • Returned To Sender

    I canā€™t help wondering: what happens to the love, the kind that never gets to the people it was so earnestly meant for? Sometimes thereā€™s a reason and sometimes there isnā€™t: they werenā€™t paying attention or they didnā€™t understand what would be required, or they just plain werenā€™t interested, they just plain didnā€™t want it,…

  • Projecting An Image

    Last night I went to a party with some really pretty people and I wanted to step things up a bit, outfit-wise, so I wore a short (for me) flowy blue dress with my knee-high boots, over tights and a merino. This constitutes stepping it up, for me. I even put on some lip gloss…

  • Dilemma

    I paid off four months of my student loan the other day, which leaves me roughly two hundred and forty more months to go. My debt is pretty serious, by Kiwi (and, coincidentally, my own!) standards, and paying American loans with New Zealand money is not for the faint of heart, nor for those who…

  • FIRE!

    Itā€™s still rainy and cold and windy and awful here in Wellington today. I opened my bedroom window a couple of hours ago, just to air it out a bit, and when I came back in? There was hail on my pillows. Okay? Okay. So I havenā€™t really done much with my long weekend so…

  • Come On Baby

    As we speak I am wrapped in a doubled up blanket, underneath which Iā€™m wearing yoga pants, two pairs of socks, a shirt, a fleece, and a hoodie (hood up). Iā€™d be adding gloves if I werenā€™t attempting to type, but am still seriously considering a scarf. My fingers and toes are honestly numb right…

  • Residency, At Last

    My New Zealand residency came in the mail on Friday, just like that. Itā€™s in my passport along with my visa stamps from Australian and Fiji and Rarotonga and a truly horrifying passport photo that makes me look like a well-meaning glasses-wearing emu. All the forms have been filled out and all the fees have…

  • Sort Of Typing

    I wouldnā€™t say anything much has changed in the last couple of days re: This Annoying What-Does-It-All-Mean Angst Thing I Go Through Every Couple Of Months, but Iā€™m ready to have something else be the front page so here I am, sitting basically on top of the electric heater in the lounge at 9:00 on…

  • Signs

    How do you know if youā€™ve made the right choice? Do you look for external cuesā€”signs, signals, messages from Godā€”or do you depend on internals, on how you feel? Can you tell the difference? How do you know when a choice has been made, made finally and all the way through so that itā€™s not…

  • Approval In Principle

    I got the email Monday night and the actual letter this evening when I got home from work: Iā€™ve got the Approval In Principle for my New Zealand residency application. They want my passport and another three hundred dollars and, within two-to-three weeksā€¦that will be that. Residency: affordable health care, ability to switch jobs without…

  • Nights

    Nights I dreamed so hard I tore the sheets off the bed. Nights I looked at the clock and waited for the dinner to be over. Nights I spent online shopping for the perfect pair of knee-high boots. Nights I spent listening to the Disintegration album and writing made-up Sassy magazine interviews with my future…

  • Thirty-Four Is A Very Nice Age To Be

    My birthdaysā€”I celebrate it in both hemispheres, now–have been really lovely. Yesterday I wore a skirt with sequins on it and got off work early and then I painted some directional signs to my house from the street with my new watercolor set and then I video chatted to my mom and to my sister…

  • The American Thing, Again

    Last night I got an email from New Zealand Immigration saying that theyā€™ve done the first stage of my residency application and needed some extra information about my job to continue on. This was pretty exciting because a) the information they wanted was really easy to get and I had it in the mail this…

  • I Could Fall In Love Again

    This morning I went to Sunday Tribal Jam, which would be my first dance class since, like, August. Everything I thought would happen did happen: I forgot how to stand in angled formation: I remembered how to three-quarter shimmy: I got sore arms merely from holding them up, let alone doing anything with them: I…

  • Sick Of It

    Iā€™m turning thirty-four in a couple of weeks and itā€™s all I can talk about lately. Not in the sense that I canā€™t shut up re: which feather boa to wear to my birthday party, but in the sense that all of a sudden I hear the words ā€œIā€™m too oldā€¦ā€ coming out of my…

  • Cuba Carnival 2009

    It was Cuba Carnival this weekend, you seeā€”when I got the job in November I told everyone via Facebook status update that I would be back in time for it. After my beautiful friend Angela left for the airport and I was walking down to the Hataitai bus stop I thought about that, and about…

  • Down To Earth

    The days are beginning to be just days, now: up early, stumble down the stairs into the shower, out the door and down to the shops, into the car, into the office. Morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea. Meetings, emails, phone messages, stopping to chat to co-workers in the corridor, more meetings, more emails. The sun…

  • Body And Mind

    Even though I started my new job last week, this past one was the first full-forty-hour week Iā€™ve worked since

  • Wellington Sevens 2009

    It was Waitangi Day on Friday so I had a long weekend, which was great because by the end of a mere three eight-hour days at the office I was a wreck. I did various things with my free time such as unpack some of my stuff, go to brunch, buy a new bed, attempt…

  • Anything Other Than Temporary

    Iā€™m pretty glad I didnā€™t update last night after moving my stuff (which at this point in time consists of two stuffed-to-the-brim bags that barely made it into checked luggage and some very pretty bedding I got at the half-off sale at Briscoeā€™s last week) from my dear friend Aliceā€™s house in Mt. Victoria to…

  • Learning To Drive

    Although I had a couple of opportunities to do so, I actually never drove on the right side of the car and/or left side of the road the first time I was over here, almost two years. I bummed rides or walked or bussed or trained everywhere and that actually worked out very well for…

  • Anti-Climactic

    Today I woke up late because I was up talking with Alice until three in the morning, drank some tea, had lunch at the Italian cafĆ© with my friend Julie, submitted my New Zealand residency application, went to Farmerā€™s for moisturizer, and stopped at New World to pick up ginger nuts on the way back…

  • Supposed To Be Packing

    Iā€™m supposed to be packing but I had to make dinner and I had to ride the bike to the Quiet Gardens to take pictures of ibis and sandhill cranes, I had to drink tea, I had to read a book I borrowed from my sister. Iā€™m supposed to be packing but I got a…

  • A Few More Weeks To Go

    This time next month, with all due consideration of time changes and the International Date Line, Iā€™ll have just got into Wellington from San Francisco. Iā€™ll have a couple of weeks before I start work–a couple of weeks to hug all my friends and to see if I recall how to get around the city,…

  • Contingency

    The last week or so, I guess, after I had to resubmit the visa, I was just starting to allow the concept of not going back to Wellington to lick at the edges of my brain, quickly and cautiously, nervously. After yet another paperwork-related mistake last Wednesday that involved panicked calls to the New Zealand…

  • My Way Back

    I have been trying and failing to write an entry that will adequately describe to you how I felt when I got the call yesterday offering me a new job in Wellingtonā€”the job that will get me there, that will expedite the residency application process, that is actually something Iā€™m excited about career-wise. I was…

  • My Time And Place

    I still have New Zealand Google as myā€¦Google, I guessā€¦and yesterday the icon had little flowers for the double OO, and when I rolled over it said ā€œHappy first day of spring!ā€ Thatā€™s what theyā€™re having in Wellington now, springā€”theyā€™re occasionally taking off their coats outside and still getting grit blown into their eyes from…

  • See You Next Time

    Here’s where things stand at the end of the summer. My Expression Of Interest, which is the first step in applying for New Zealand residency, was accepted a couple of weeks ago, much earlier than I expected it would be. They choose from the pool every two weeks and my application was chosen the first…

  • Selling The Books

    Yesterday evening I completed and submitted my Expression Of Interest for New Zealand residency. This afternoon I started bagging up all the books I will be selling, in an attempt to get rid of many of my possessions here in the States. Five minutes ago I had to stop bagging and decide that I won’t…

  • South Island: Abel Tasman National Park

    Ladies and gentlemen, we are now at the part of my South Island Pictures: The Neverending Series where I show you that awesome trip I took about a month ago with my awesome friend Alice, a trip of such fun and happiness and gossip and chatter and general silliness that it rivals only my South…

  • South Island Pictures: Picton, Kaikoura, and Queenstown

    I am writing this in Auckland, having left Wellington yesterday in something of a flurry of tears. I’ve been planning my Northland trip (diving the Poor Knights! Cape Reinga!) and getting ready to see some friends up here and the South Island feels like it never happened, really. But! Thanks to the magic of crappy…

  • Interesting People I Talked With During My South Island Trip

    S, Kaikoura. Half English, half Egyptian with curly curly hair and a sibilant, unctuous name, trying to decide if she wants to get married and have children or continue trying to make a living as a modern dancer. We talk about yoga and vegetarian recipes. E and S, Queenstown. Both English, both had affairs with…

  • In The Movie

    Last night after yoga class I walked down to the main house at Shambhala where Hannah and Ors and Donald were cooking up a red Thai curry to go over some leftover rice I had. The hill was so steep that I felt like I would walk smack into a hanging curtain of stars, the…

  • Golden Days, Golden Bay

    Since the last time I wrote I have taken an eight hour bus trip, cried my little eyes out during Once while eating an entire bag of gummy worms, spent a lot of time feeling sad and lonely in Nelson, been to the Warehouse no less than three times in three days, seen baby seals…

  • Ice

    This morning I got up early and got on a bus and put on a lot of clothes (stripey long underwear shirt, Fat Freddy’s shirt which confused my Kiwi guide a little–“where are you from?”– capri pants, fuzzy, big huge socks, big huge boots, big huge crampons, and stripey hat) and climbed up a glacier.…

  • Wandering Wanaka

    I don’t know if you’ve been reading long enough to remember the days when I planned out every single minute of my overseas trips, but trust me when I tell you that I used to plan out every single minute of my trip. During the eight months in Seattle between getting the visa and actually…

  • My Actual Birthday

    I was so sick when I got back from the dive last night that I got into bed at six and didn’t wake up, head throbbing (“Your eardrum,” said Lucas the impossibly gorgeous Czech dive instructor, “it was a little bit stressed, yes?”), throat on fire. It wasn’t until I turned on my phone this…

  • Alone In Te Anau

    Yesterday in Te Anau was nice. I walked along the lake, climbed a tree and read a book in its branches, had lunch in the sun, and walked over to a little wildlife centre with a girl staying in the hostel. I had a couple of mildly interesting conversations and a nice dinner of veggies…

  • Backpacker Lifestyle

    Things That Are Cool About This Particular Hostel In Queenstown In Which I Am Staying Until Saturday: –Fast, free internet –Lots of cool movies –Nice couches and drink coasters –Crunchie bar on the pillows when I checked in –That’s right, I said pillows: two pillows! Bliss to someone who prefers to sleep with at least…

  • Dolphin Karma

    “Why the HELL,” I grumbled to myself as I stumped along the empty Kaikoura streets, shivering in my jumper and fleece and hat and waterproof jacket, “am I paying ACTUAL MONEY to jump into FREEZING COLD WATER at FIVE IN THE MORNING?” I was not, initially, in a good frame of mind to get the…

  • Refuge

    In Rarotonga walked on the beach for multiple hours every day, went for two dives and three snorkels, got a rather embarrassing sunburn on my butt, ate coconuts fresh off the tree, wore flowers behind my ear, and rode around wearing jandals and no helmet on motorbikes around the island. I saw: hermit crabs, beach-colored…

  • Enough Of Denial

    I started crying yesterday afternoon while taking down the various little decorations in my sweet silly room: the flower garlands and postcards and pictures that I’ve accumluated over the past eighteen months, the things I look at when I first wake up in the morning and that let me know I’ve arrived home at night.…

  • A Very Good Wednesday

    Yesterday I was on an early-ish bus to town because the previous evening, while I was snorfing down some veggie couscous and indulging my very camp inner gay man by watching back-to-back showings of Priscilla and Truth Or Dare, David had texted me to let me know that my (and everyone else’s) boyfriends

  • Loving And Leaving

    Itā€™s seven in the morning and I just got home four hours ago but Marcy leaves today and sheā€™s graciously agreed to be a mule for me and take some of my stuff back to the States, including this laptop, so have only a little while to tell you what an amazing time I had…

  • A Week And A Half To Go

    Everything is so crazy right now, my people. Tomorrow is my last day of work and Saturday is my leaving do and Marcy is visiting from Olympia this week and it turns out that Stormy, Danica, and Danicaā€™s two teenage brothers are coming with me for the first three days of my Raro trip and…

  • Crushes

    Dear Everyone On Whom I Have A Crush: First of all, hereā€™s who youā€™re not: the heartbreakers. You arenā€™t the dissemblers for whom black was white and up was down and anyway, what does black and white even mean. You arenā€™t the silent treatment dispensers or the faders-away, the lookers-over-my-shoulder-right-before-we-kiss. You arenā€™t the ones I…

  • Tongariro Crossing

    Last year Wellington Anniversary Day took me a bit by surprise, but I managed to make it down to Marlborough Sounds and enjoy myself just fine. Youā€™d have thought Iā€™d have been ready for it this year, but no, it wasnā€™t until the Tuesday before the long weekend that I figured out what I was…

  • In Denial

    I got back from my awesome Tongariro Crossing trip on Monday evening and I was all fired up to post a photo entry, with pictures of me standing by craters and me standing by lakes and me standing by Mt. Doom and me standing under tree ferns, but I was having power cord issues so…

  • Today

    Today I woke up about ten minutes before my alarm and the sun was shining, so I got to put on a somewhat flouncy skirt. I put in a load of laundry and a load of dishes and made sure to put on sunblock before I left the house and I listened to Fat Freddyā€™s…

  • Multiple Beaches

    It had been a while since Iā€™d got out of town, even for a day. Iā€™ve been trying to save as much money as possible, of course, as Iā€™m very aware (very very very aware) that Iā€™m leaving soon I feel like I want to do as many Wellington things as possible with as many…

  • To Take In

    I should really be in bed right nowā€”itā€™s been another rough day at work and tomorrow promises to more of the same so basically: UNH BRING IT SOCIAL WORK YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME oh man what am I doing hereā€”but I havenā€™t been writing much lately and I get to feel a little weird…

  • First Week Of The New Year

    The first week of the new year has been pretty fun, I am happy to report. The weather has been good a lot of the time, Iā€™ve hung out with some excellent people, I saw a great show for New Yearā€™s Eve, work has calmed down a little bit, and I successfully made some dulce…

  • 2007

    2007, as I think about it, has been like most years: ups and downs. You know how it goes: some confusion and anxiety and even a tiny bit of heartbreak, but mostly silliness and happiness and fun. Itā€™s been pretty ordinary in terms of how I spent my time; as usual, I spent the year…

  • Christmas in Wellington

    None of my pictures came out and it rained for most of today, but Christmas went okay this year. I had to work Christmas Eve and had a really rough day, so by the time Alice came over to make tiramisu I was pretty tired and grumpy and not really feeling the spirit, to say…