Tag: Everything
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Lucky
We are so lucky, we all say. My mother, my sister, all our friends, all the radiation techs and nurses and neurologists and social workers and clinical psychologists and registered dieticians and cancer clinic receptionists and schedulers. Everyone: āWe are so lucky.ā Let us count the ways: She was over 65 when she got this…
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Waiting In Vain
After our road trip to Tampa to see what Iām 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, yesterdayās mind-numbing drive across Alligator Alley being what it is. Radiation is still at 10:15 five days a…
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It’s Gone Fast
Chemo is two pills, taken at home every day. Radiation is a machine, five days a week at the hospital. I have written this information down (along with her contact information, her doctors, her medications) in a little notebook for my mother to keep in her purse for when she forgets. She looks through it…
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Let Us Know If There’s Anything We Can Do
You are doing so great. You are doing amazing. She is lucky to have daughters like you girls. I donāt pay attention when someone says something like this, I donāt even hear it. I check my phone and go on to the next thing that needs doing. The side effects will be. You should be…
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Ten Years
Itās the solstice tomorrow, I think, and the light stays long, a couple of days before Christmas. I didnāt sleep well last night but itās hard to nap with the sun so high and bright. Ten years ago I wrote the first post for this blog, or, as I would have said at the time,…
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Talking With Alice On The Couches
Alice came over for dinner Monday night. I have a table and chairs in my lounge but I never eat dinner on them; I sit on the couch like everyone else. Alice sat too. We ate zucchini pasta and talked about my work and her midwifery exams and about the weather and about the election…
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sex shop ucuz satan yer
sex shop ucuz satan yer
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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 havenāt been doing circus for months I just forgot about it…
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Back To Yoga
After something like four months with no regular exercise except walking around and the occasional dance party, Iāve started going to yoga again, three times in the last four weeks. I know the studio and they know me, and itās all pretty straightforward, going to class again, even though I havenāt gone very much this…
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Band Tension
[Chiara and her bandmate Jez are working on their new song at their friend Rachelās flat. From behind a closed door some indications of band tension begin to emanateā¦] Chiara: But it goes: the verse about the whiskers, then the pre-chorus with the abalone, then the Pacific Ocean pre-chorus, then the chorus. Jez: What Iām…
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It’s Been Busy
Not much to report, reallyāeverythingās been very busy but itās the kind of busy where even though youāre doing lots of stuff there isnāt really a way to write about it. I mean, what are you supposed to write? You have a friend in town and there are parties and dinners and cups of hot…
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Daylight Savings
Itās 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…
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How Was Your Trip?
Iāve been back from the States a weekāI got in off the plane last Thursday morning, paid an exorbitant cab fair home to Mt. Vic from the airport, fell asleep in my clean-sheeted bed, and woke up in time to have buddies over for tea and biscuits before work the next day. āHow was your…
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Tonight’s My Last Night
Itās been so busy since Iāve been in FloridaāIāve been here for about ten days, most of it here in Miami, where I am spending my last night of this trip, but of course some up in Tampa to meet my my nephew and to make my sister and brother-in-law vegetarian lasagna. Since Iāve been…
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Dear James
Dear James: You are the real reason I came on this visit to the States. Itās been awesome seeing my friends in the Bay Area and Seattle and Miami, and I have had lots of fun catching up with them, but the whole point of this trip is you and your entry into the world…
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I Didn’t Stay
The Cloud Room isnāt the Cloud Room anymoreāitās painted a sort of forest-y green now and has a lot more furniture in it as a guest room than it did back when I lived here, what feels like ages ago. Iām staying at the Blue House for one of my Seattle nights but it just…
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Confusion Re: The International Date Line
The first thing that happened was that I thought the pilot had got the day wrong when he said, āItās Saturday the 13th, 10:15 a.m.,ā just as I was congratulating myself on a very easy trans-Pacific flight. āWait, did he get that wrong?ā I worriedly asked the guy sitting next to me. āIs that possible?ā…
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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. Iāve been planning this for months, referring to it as my Wellyversary: two friendsā bands played, some…
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Five Years
I donāt even remember anything thatās happened since the last time I wrote, man. I am never home and when I am home all I want to do is put my laundry in or make sure I have enough Greek yogurt for tomorrowās lunch and to wash my face and brush my teeth and go…
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Weakness
I started taking a circusāspecifically, adagioāclass 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…
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Happy Place
We went for a walk along Oriental Parade after Chrisā waffle party this afternoon. Itās been such a warm winterātoday 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,…
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I Wrote A Song
My big new thing is that I wrote a song. Iām 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…
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Riding Around On The 86
Last weekend I went to Melbourne, Australia to visit my friend Theresa, whom I met in Wellington and who went across the ditch last September, much to the dismay of all her friends. I was just sort of keen to get out of town, I thinkāmuch as I love Wellington, I also think thereās a…
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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…
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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…
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Scintillating Prose
Iāve been sick for what feels like ages even though I guess itās only been a week, really. Went back to work full time today, swallowing my antibiotics and wiping my nose. Iāve had to skip circus and parties and Cut Copy and all sorts of things: too tired to do anything but stagger home,…
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Heaven’s Hammer
Right before I left for Malaysia this past Christmas I sat down on the floor of my bedroom and made a mix CD for my dear friend who lives just down the hill from me here in Mt. Vic. Little did I know that on the very same night she was making me a mix…
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Solitary Sunday
7:15 Rainrainrainwindwindwindwind HeyIdonātfeelsoawesomerightnowrainrainraininrainwindwindwindKABOOMIdonātfeelsohot 7:45 Hmm, I see that, according to Facebook, everyone else in Wellington has noticed the bad weather as well. Fascinating. I feel gross. 8:15 Urrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh. Arrrrrrgggggggghhhhh. Bleuuuuurrrrrggggghhhh. 9:30 Bed, I love you bed. I love you forever, bed. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever leave you, bed. 10:00…
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Leaving
Itās 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…
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Affiliation
For me my nationality is a pretty random identity or affiliation, not something Iām proud or not proud of. I didnāt 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 ā2 FEET…
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I Meant To Take Photos
I meant to take photos of everything I did over this long weekendāin New Zealand we get Good Friday and then the following Monday off, for Easter, and if this was Australia Iād be getting tomorrow off too, for ANZAC Dayāand to caption them hilariously and all of that, but it just never happened. Itās…
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Autumn Face
Trudge through the drizzle to the foot of a hill where they filmed Middle Earth ten years ago, to the pile of concrete blocks that houses your beloved flat. Look up at the mist rising off the reconstituted native forest. Look down at the full gutters and the empty mailbox. Throw your shopping bags on…
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This Stuff
A couple of weeks ago I was at a gig and a slightly tipsy acquaintance asked me if I had a boyfriend. As I reported to a friend later, I reacted to this question as if someone had asked me if I had a pet monkey. āA monkey? Oh. A monkey, right. Aā¦monkey. Yeah, nahā¦I…
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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…
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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. Itās my birthday,…
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Whichever Comes First
Iām spending my last evening of being thirty-five sitting on the couch drinking tea and chatting on and off with my mom as we pack up for our trip to Golden Bay tomorrow. We just got back from Rotorua last night, where we saw some geothermic activity, had a hangi, saw a kiwibird, all the…
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Each Step Again
Slowly, a little earlier every night, itās getting darkerābut not yet, not tonight. Itās still light, and warm outside from what I can tell from the other side of this window. Sitting in an old Fat Freddyās Drop shirt and ill-fitting leggings, home sick for the second day in a row. I donāt know exactly…
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Christchurch Earthquake
Christchurch had another earthquake todayāfor you non-Kiwis, they had what was supposed to be the Big One, in September, and theyāve 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 brutalāChristchurch…
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Amazing Thing
I donāt know why I was thinking about this the other dayāI was at the rockpools at Island Bay with some buddies after doing Frocks On Bikesābut for some reason I had this very visceral memory of something we used to do in my secret club I was in as a kid. It was called…
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No Real Goals
I made a savings goal todayāone I made several months ago and promptly unmade five minutes later by putting down the bond on this house and then immediately buying Malaysia tickets. This goal was pretty arbitrary and isnāt really enough to do anything but get me a couple months expenses if, heaven forbid, I was…
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Cambodia And Malaysia: Bits And Bobs
Iām thinking about a lot of stuff latelyāwell, Egypt, obviously, and #dearjohn, and this huge hurricane in Queensland, and all sorts of other things happening in my friend groups in all hemispheres everywhere. I just signed up for a circus class and Iām going to be a maid of honour for the sixth time in…
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Stuff I Ate In Malaysia And Cambodia
More trip stuff. January is almost over and you have no idea of any of the other things Iāve been doingādonāt lie to me, I know you have been staring off into the distance when you should have been working, wondering if Iād been wine camping this month or if Iād been back to yoga…
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Cambodia: Siem Reap and Angkor Wat
Itās been several weeks since I got back from the trip, now, and itās getting harder to remember it; like, I know I went, I know I was there (it was only a couple weeks ago!) but I feel like Iāve told all the stories and put away all the souvenirs and just slipped effortlessly…
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Cambodia: Phnom Penh and Kep
From Kota Kinabalu I flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to meet up with my friend Katherine. Kat and I went to college together (I told a friend of hers that I āknew her from the ninetiesā) and I hadnāt seen her for four years, since our going-away parties when she was on her way to…
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Malaysia: Borneo Dive Trip
One of the funnier things about this trip was that I was either with a local friend who spoke the language and would take me to cool places, with whom I would have these very long and intense conversations, or I was super touristy and super on my own. I like both of those things,…
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Malaysia: Melaka and Kuala Lumpur
This time last week I think I would have been on the plane to Melbourne from Kuala Lumpur already, wearing my maxi dress and fuzzy socks that I now always bring with me on planes, watching 90s movies and zoning out but not falling asleep. Iāve been back home almost a week now and thought…
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Everything Right Where It Belongs
I got home from Malaysia yesterday around seven, on a perfectly blue and gold Wellington evening, coming down through the clouds over the harbour. Iād spent almost twenty-four hours in transit, on various types of public transport and on planes and in airport lounges and I was so tired and dirty and all I wanted…
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See What I Can See
Itās a gorgeous Christmas Day in Wellington: sun is shining, birds singing, all of that. My bag is packed, my house is clean, and all there is left to do is skype my various family members on the other side of the world, put on my travel outfit, and get on the first of three…
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That’s How These Stories Go
One time, about a year ago, I was sitting at a cafĆ© with five other women, and I donāt know how we got on the subject, but because I can ruin any social gathering, we started talking about sexual assault. About rape. I talked about some statistics and saidāI still donāt know why we were…
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Atomic
I was in the mood to go out on Saturday night. Iāve been very busy socially lately but itās hasnāt 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 thatāsometimes even events–and I have people over to…
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She Knows
This time last week my friend Calin and her (and now my as well) awesome friend Susan were staying with me here in my little flat, as part of a stop on this awesome Antipodean horse-riding tour they were on together. Wellington put on quite a show for them, being all sunny and lovely and…
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November 2010 Books
November 1 The Voyage of The Narwhal by Andrea Barrett My boxes of books from August continue to provide me with excellent re-reads, this being way way up there on the list. You guys, this bookā¦this storyā¦I mean Andrea Barrett does what she does so right and Iām always really made when I come to…
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Long Light Days
How I–snap! click! pop!āwent, with what feels like no transition whatsoever, from staying home every night, not even going to yoga, to double-booking every weekend and having to schedule nights off from social stuff, is anyoneās guess, but all of a sudden all my conversations are about how I can make it to this one…
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Soft Grey
Itās cool and rainy and a little grey right now as I write this, but spring grey, soft grey; not the intractable closed-down iron of the winter thatās finally dripped and dragged to an end. Earlier it was short-sleeves-and-sandals weather, and I didnāt even need a hoodie as I got the seasonās first cheap red…
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Somewhere Else I’ve Never Been
I just bought the last of the four internal flights Iāll take during my upcoming trip to Southeast Asia, from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Iām going for just a little over two weeks, and I leave on Christmas Day. Something I notice as I get older is that I vacillate…
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October 2010 Books
October 1 Love In The Time of The Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez How many times have I read this? This is from the box of books I had sent from Seattle, which makes it likely that itās my high school copy. On the front page my name is written and that of my best…
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Tonga: Doing A Lot Of Nothing and Getting Home
Whale swimming was probably the big huge major thing we did on the trip, the thing we talked a lot about and thought a lot about. We laughed a little, later, when we realized how actually active weād been on our beach holiday, suiting up and getting on boats right after breakfast, when mainly weād…
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Tonga: Whale Swimmin’
One of the many nice things about planning this trip (other than the decision to hold Bikini Meetings) was the happy discovery that weāre all dive certified, and that Tonga, has, like, coral reefs. Our mission was clear. We did four dives over two days and some snorkeling as well. The last time I tried…
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Tonga: Getting There And Some Tapa Cloth
Okay, this is turning out to be a monster of a post so I am going to split it up a bit. I don’t know if anyone cares about the kind of airplane we went on from Nuku’alofa to Ha’apai, but if you do? This post is for you! Well. You know how excited we…
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T-O-N-G-A
Iām going to the Kingdom of Tonga tomorrow evening after work with my friends Rachel and Angela. I have hauled out my old green pack and filled it with jandals and togs and sunnies and a lavalava. Our snorkel with humpback whales is all booked (which we hope the whales have been informed of). I…
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This, Here, Now
Yesterday I didnāt have yoga after work and I also didnāt 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 weāre finally getting into spring, and then in a flash I recalled that I had…
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September 2010 Books
I donāt even know what to say about reading this monthāI guess obviously I was moving and felt like I didnāt have enough time, even though I always seem to have time to read the internet, hmmm, and then I sort of read some Italian fairy tales for a week or so but I didnāt…
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Just A Nice Weekend
Friday night I walked home after work and waited anxiously for my new stove to be delivered. All the appliances in this flat are hilarious for their own various reasons, but the stove was not funny at all because a) all its various temperature markings had been worn away so you just sort of had…
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We’re Not Talking About It
We put Theresa on the plane to Melbourne yesterdayātwo carloads of friends. Sheās doing a working holiday visa there for a year, after two years in Wellington, and I donāt think any of her friends have completely absorbed that sheās gone yet; we joked about getting tickets to Auckland and continuing the party up there…
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Turning Out To Be A Big Deal
The stove doesnāt workāIāve tried out all the burners and they get sort of lukewarm for a while, enough to almost boil water for pasta, but then they just shut off randomly. One of the windows sticks. Thereās a washer from 1982 but no dryer. The bedroom closet door draaaaags across the carpet. The curtains…
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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…
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Crying In August
I did so much crying in August. I did lots of different of kinds: the kind where you canāt 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…
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July and August 2010 Books
August has been a very rough month for me: it started out so rough that I completely forgot to post what books I read in July, and has continued on rough-ish (with the bright spot of my books from Seattle arriving, woo!) Anyway, hereās what Iāve been reading for the last two months, and hereās…
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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…
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Four Year Anniversary
Itās 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…
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There Is No Requirement To Still Your Mind
The yoga teacher seems to want to touch the American a lot in class tonight. She doesnāt 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 childās pose. She can tell, thinks the American, lowering down…
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Sunday Night
You told yourself you were going to scale back from social stuff this weekend but youāve been out every night all the same. Brunch and lunch and coffees and dinners, lots of friends, lots of talking. Lots of texting and running around. You are home only to sleep and to throw your clothes in the…
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My Imaginary Boyfriend
Saturday morning, Chiara and her flatties lay around the lounge discussing their respective Friday nights they wait for a load of firewood to arrive, which they will have to lug up four flights of muddy slippery steps if they want to stay even slightly warm for the next eighteen months of Wellingtonās winter. Outside, it…
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Closure
There was one (okay, more than one) time in my wasted youth where I would regularly get calls from weepy friends and Iād drop whatever I was doing and be all āIām on my way!ā and hop in the car with a breakup CD and extra padding on my shoulders, ready to rumble. Everyone is…
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Squeeze
Things go quick or they donāt go at all, these days. Iām never at home anymore, thereās never enough time to do anything like grocery shopping or laundry or reading or writing blog posts or anything, because either Iāve got dinner with one friend or dinner with another friend or easy-ish yoga or really hard…
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July 2010 Books
June 7 The Dispossessed by Ursula K LeGuin I am not in the mood to do anything new, lately, and I also feel like I have been reading some crappy-ish books, so I am re-dedicating myself to some old favorites this month. I grabbed this out of the library before going away for a long…
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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…
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St. Swithin’s Day
Thinking back now I suppose you were just stating your views What was it all for For the weather or the battle of Agincourt And the times that we all hoped would last Like a train they have gone by so fast And though we stood together at the edge of the platform We were…
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Winter’s Here
I am sitting our lounge in front of the fire; the flatties have mentioned something about itās being ātoo warmā in here but I have hadāwearing yoga pants, two long-sleeved shirts, a pink fur-lined hoodie, and pink fur-lined slipper bootsāto disabuse them of the notion that there can ever be such a thing as ātoo…
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Back From The Weekend
Towel-dry your hair and put on a singlet, thick socks, a shirt and two jumpers, shivering in your unheated room. Wrap your neck in your biggest scarf and pull your hat down over your ears, pull on your new mittens and be late for the bus, head down into the rain. Look at the different…
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Pancakes
At yum cha on a rainy Saturday afternoonā¦ CHIARA:ā¦yeah, soāsorry, can I have one of those sticky rice things?āwe have this rule in the house, now. You know how weāre all lonely spinsters, all three of us? Well, we decided that if anyone ever brings someone home, she has to cook pancakes the next morning…
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May 2010 Books
May 3 Window Licking in the City of Love by Jennifer Maxwell Whatās going on here? Some sort of rich couple where sheās a writer and heās a self-help dude who does sculpture and they have a son in France and she lost her virginity in the seventies to some guy whoās now a conservative…
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Sunday Afternoon Amaretti
All week Iāve been thinking I wanted to bake some cookies. I was having some American-style oatmeal-raisin fantasies and duly gathered up the rolled oats and the brown sugar and whatnotābut with one thing and another I never got around to it. As in life, so in baking, I guess, and I munched on my…
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In The Middle
She missed the twilight while she was at the store, wandering around the aisles sort of dazed, trying to remember if they are out of milk at the house, if she needs more ravioli or feta cheese. The winterās held off the last couple of weeksāsheās been trying to spin out wearing her cute new…
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Pendulum
The last big Italian lunch I went to was for my own birthday; so I was really looking forward to the one this afternoon. May has been surprisingly still and calm and warm and every morning when Iāve hopped out the door and run down the 38923892 stairs to the street Iāve looked out the…
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At The Ceilidh
Last night I went to a ceilidh (pronounced ‘cay-lee’), a Scottish country dance, with many delightful buddies. I had never been to one before and wasnāt quite sure what to expect. I mean, I knew there would be kilts, but that was about it. It was at a little social hall in Newtown and they…
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No Space
Itās so hard to concentrate, lately. I will try to say an ordinary sentence, like, āHey, I really like otters,ā or āGoodness me I am concerned about that Gulf Coast spill,ā and Iāll get about two-thirds of the way through before just AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH comes out in a long low keening wail. Iāve got work trouble,…
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April 2010 Books
April 6 2010 Changing my mind: occasional essays by Zadie Smith I broke a rule I have for this book, and that is: donāt pay for library books, because library books are supposed to be free. But I was in the library and saw this in the New Releases section and itās five dollars for…
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Ash Cloud
Theyāre still in the information-gathering stage after an hour or twoās delay at the airportāsheās taken the afternoon off work, just to be able to spend as much time with him as possible before he leaves and before she seriously considers that really, she might not ever see him again, she really really might not…
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Popular
Yesterday I had the day off because I was at a hui in Te Kuiti all weekend; one of my flatmates and I took the opportunity to stack this winterās firewood and then we went to see my friend Tom speak at Pecha Kucha. Tomorrow night I am meeting Giulia for coffee and then going…
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Digging
What happensāone of the things that happensāis that after a while your heart gets buried. You are the one who buries it. The screamingās been screamed and the tears have been cried, and thereās really nothing left to do but to dig up the cold wet earth and tamp it back down again, grim and…
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Easter Easter Kayak Kayak
Iād 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…
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Only If It’s Not Fun
Between getting new flatmates and getting sick and having a birthday and all sorts of other things, I havenāt been to my tribal bellydance class for almost a month. I was determined to make it this week, the fact that I got home at 3:00 on Sunday morning, the very same Sunday morning that would…
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35 = Great
My birthday weekend was so good that I had one of the several cakes people made for me for breakfast today just because I felt like it. Iām sort of sniffly and snuffly and had to skip yoga tonight so I could come straight home and make soup for dinner, but I am still basking…
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Cicek Satin Al
Cicek Satin Al
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Sick In Bed
Sick in bed for a day and a half, in a way I havenāt been since the Bush Administration. Tired and sore and achey and shaky, sweating through the sheets, sweating through my purple octopus shirt, dazed and dehydrated, staring at nothing. The last time I was this sick I was in my motherās house…
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Carrying Me
The bay heaves and surges, flexes its muscles but never breaks into waves; the clouds filter the eveningās light whitely, greyly, into the fading hills. I look out the window at the smudged harbour, tired from yoga, tired from my week. Looking forward to dinner and bickies and bed. Mist gauzes over the open mouth…
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Switching Up
Right after we all got back from Christmas and New Yearās my very lovely flattie gave us some simultaneously awesome and awful news: she was moving out. Awesome: sheās moving in with her fantastic boyfriend! Awful: sheās leaving us! I had a couple days to wrap my mind around that, thinking about the hassle of…
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Yoga
I had a good yoga class tonight, lots of hip openers, which I love, and my sore toe (which I totally blame on last yearās extraordinarily expensive high-heeled boots) wasnāt too bad. I like the studio I go to and I like the teachers and I like stretching and breathing, so Iāve been trying to…
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Sevens Weekend 2010
Yesterday was pretty exciting because not only was it Waitangi Day and good old Sevens, it was also like the one day of summer that we have in Wellington per year, and when I say that I mean that thatās what they were actually saying on the news, like, āSummer to fall on weekend this…
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January 2010 Books
Aaaaaaages ago I decided to track what I read every month, kind of just for fun. I did it for a year, during which I read something like a hundred and eleven books, and then when I started backpacking in 2006 I was all āI have no time to record my reading! I am living…
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Watching And Listening
Thursday night I went to see Neko Case at the good old San Francisco Bath House, scene of many fun times over the past couple of years. Itās a pretty small place but Iāve seen some very good shows there–Kristen Hersh in 2007 springs to mind, for example, plus lots of local stuff. I was…
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Summer Concert
You have been going to the summer garden concerts since you first arrived in this city: as you walk down from the cable car along the path to the soundshell you think about the night you first thought you might like to stay for longer than a year. So many memories, now, as you search…
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This Year’s Summer
Itās been pretty awful weather since I got back from Golden Bay, as in itās currently 54 degrees (Fahrenheit, that’s 12 for everyone else) outside, in the middle of whatās supposed to be summer, and itās raining sideways and the wind is whipping the tree branches against my window in such a manner that suggests…
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My Theory
Hereās my theory, I told her. My theory is that everyone has, like, a core, you know, like they have a part of themselves that no one and nothing touches. That no one will ever touch, or even see, or even know about. With you so far, she said. I worried I was sounding a…
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New Year’s In Golden Bay
I had only about twelve hours in Wellington between the Coromandel and going down to Golden Bay, where I hadnāt been since the tail end of my South Island trip in 2008. I was very keen to return to my beloved Shambhala becauseā¦well because my last New Yearās Eve was not that great, to be…
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Natale A Coromandel
I just got home from my summer holidays last night and itās been a bit of a shock to be back in Welly, to say the least. Today itās been all awful and stormy and sideways-rainy and I couldnāt sleep and I had to do a bunch of washing and food-getting and every time Iāve…
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Time To Go
Last night we all went to the Wellington International Ukulele show at San Francisco Bathhouse and got home ever so slightly late for a Sunday night, after much singing along to āAfricaā and āSweet Child OāMineā (works surprisingly well as a happy cheery folky song) and everyoneās favorite āHeartacheā. This morning when I got into…
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The Realization Of Desire
I leave in a couple of days for my summer holidays (and of course itās still winter weather in Wellington, of course it is) and have been busy with many parties and much wrapping-things-up with work and much trying to see everyone before I leave for the usual lunches and coffees and dinners. Iāve been…
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Down From The Mountain
In the course of a series of emails this week I sent a friend a link to this old entry (I still call them āentriesā), and he sent back some very nice compliments. Is it true, he asked, is all of it true. The mountain, the kiss, the fireworks in the background on the Fourth…
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Rotorua Road Trip
I was couching it all in super generous termsāmy friend Eric from the States is in Wellington for a couple of months, and I was all like, āGirl, your experience of the North Island should not be limited to Cuba Street!āābut really I was feeling a bit restless and wanting to get out of town.…
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Timing
We had to read Sense And Sensibility in high school but I didnāt think much of it at the time; it wasnāt until I was in college that I actually LOLed at Emma and then proceeded to devour Jane Austenās other books in a matter of a couple of very happy weeks. I have deep…
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Trying To Dissolve
There are six or seven things Iāve been thinking about lately and meaning to write about here (Pride and Prejudice, my heterosexual life partners, the end of crappy olā 2009, how my hair lady gave me this weird winged mullet with which I am having a hard time coming to terms) but thereās no time,…
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Art’s Hopeful Sickroom
Friday evening I was invited to aperitivo, like after-work drinks for Italians, at the studio of someone I know through my friend Giulia and also from Facebook. I wasnāt quite sure what this was all about, exactly: what kind of studio was it? Who would be there? What sort of a snack situation were we…
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Home Alone On Sunday Evening
The sunās going down now, slowly, softly, and part of me thinks I should go downstairs and chop some kindling and make a springtime fire, but really what Iāll probably do is shiver slightly as the clouds rush overhead and drink another cup of tea in my yoga pants and oversize Auahi Kore shirt I…
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Thursday Night In Spring
Of course in the Northern Hemisphere Guy Fawkes Day would be cold and dark and autumnal: brief glares on a freezing November evening, actual bonfires, something warming in a hip flask perhaps. In your city, itās cold and dark too, when you finally decide that oh fine, itās just once a year, and suit up…
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At The Pride And Prejudice And Zombies Ball
My first response, when invited to a Pride And Prejudice And Zombies ball for Halloween was to sigh heavily and to dream of a beautiful white Regency dress my friend Anna made me around 2002, I think. I have no idea where this dress is: I know I put it in storage three years ago,…
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Not Quite Spring, Not Quite Saturday
You thought, somehow, that when you got back to Wellington it would be warm, like spring, or spring-like in nature, and that you would be able to wear some of your adorable new mass-produced American clothes. You have been able to, actually, now that you think about it youāve been wearing those clothes all week:…
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The First Holiday
Iām pretty well over my jet lag, now, thanks for asking, and I have very much enjoyed my long Labour Weekend back in Wellington, after only 24 hours in transit from Miami the other day. Iāve clicked right into being here, after the initial weirdness and when people have asked me how it was being…
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Short Duration
I meant to go for a beach walk today but the tide was too high and the sand was trashy with sargassum and the wind was too windy. I spent the rest of the day shopping with my mom, eating Sir Pizza, petting the cats and packing for my flight back to New Zealand tomorrow.…