We have always known that Karen would have a shortened life, so in my own way of dealing with that, I have been writing this speech in my head for over 25 years. That doesn’t mean it’s any easier to do now.

Even a few weeks ago when the doctors said “it’s going to be months to a year left”, I still thought there was a pretty good chance she’d outlive them purely out of spite. I could do a whole speech about the stubbornness of Karen, but as I write this I’m pretty sure everyone speaking before me will have already talked about her tenacity, so I will instead bring my perspective as her youngest sister. 

A couple of years ago I made her an advent calendar for Christmas, where each day was a happy memory of us together. I haven’t opened that document file because it’s enough material to make this talk all day long, but it does segue nicely into me talking about the creativity of her gifts. Though of course the past 20 years have featured a lot of book-shaped, book-sized parcels, Karen also excelled at the homemade. One year she surprised me with a duvet cover and pillow set she’d sewn that transformed my bed into a giant Totoro. She hunted down the exact Dick Bruna Happy Families card game we used to play as kids and replaced the incredibly problematic “ethnic” cards with pictures of our family instead – you’ll see this as her Facebook profile photo now. 

Possibly her greatest labour of love though was the Wow magazines she made for me when I was about 7 or 8, and she would have been 12-13. Every issue was handwritten, hand illustrated, and incredibly detailed. She made up pop charts, fake celebrities, whole days of tv listings of our favourite shows and new ones she created. There were whole cinematic universes going on in those things – Marvel could never. And every magazine had a competition I could enter as well, where I’d win handmade Jem & the Holograms comics and outfits for my Barbie, or sticker sets she drew or all kinds of other goodness. 

Everything Karen did, I wanted to emulate. Her Barbie was the Sea Queen? Well then mine would be the Ocean Princess. She named her Barbie Amanda after a girl we knew? My Barbie became Vanessa, the real life Amanda’s sister. The naming of our toys was incredibly important, and I suspect Karen still has the notebooks where she wrote down the intricate family trees and scandals of all our Playmobil. Karen didn’t like to let things go. Once when my mother donated some old stuffed animals to a school jumble sale, Karen bought them back.  

It was hard sometimes being five years younger than her when she was only two years younger than Anji, and I got jealous of the closeness of their relationship, especially when they would gossip washing the dishes together every night, or when there wasn’t a part in ‘I know him so well’ for me to sing on car trips. I was stuck being the bratty littlest sister when I desperately wanted to be cool too. 

But of course having an older sister had its advantages. The absolute FIERCENESS of Karen roaring with rage at another kid who’d accidentally hit me with their bag will always stick in my mind. When my parents and I moved to Japan without my sisters – who were old enough to stay by themselves in our house in NZ –  Karen sent me my first bra after Mum insisted (correctly, I should add) that I didn’t actually need one. When I moved back, Karen was able to drive us to all the endless film festival movies we went to together, with enormous hot chocolates at Midnight Espresso afterwards. I’d get to to take me to Bar Bodega for gigs by Superette and Garageland, and buy me one malibu & coke. After she saw the movie ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ about a dying alcoholic, she refused to buy me alcohol again for a while, but luckily when she went overseas for her OE, her friends were still here. Purely coincidentally, Hi Anoushka! Lovely to see you again today though the reason why sucks.  

Karen and I started taking holidays together to a Pacific island every year after my friend won a wedding in Rarotonga from a radio station. I still feel sorry for semi celebrity DJ Robert Rakete who tried to make conversation at the dinner afterwards. When he found out Karen was a bookseller, he asked her all excitedly “Oh, have you read The DaVinci Code? It’s so great”. You can probably imagine how that went

She and I had a great system – I’d book the holiday, and she’d front the money to pay for it. She’d hold on to the passports and tickets, and I’d do all the talking. Luckily we both wanted basically the same thing – to lie in the sun, drink cocktails and point at fish while snorkeling and tell them we were going to eat them later. At one resort in Vanuatu we met a cat who might actually have been Karen in a previous life, because whenever Karen put her book down, the cat would sit on it. It didn’t matter where the book was – by the pool or the restaurant – the cat was on her book like a shot. It wasn’t the particular book the cat fancied either, because when I was reading that book later, the cat still preferred whatever Karen was reading. 

It was very handy having a bookseller for a sister. Karen and I had very similar taste, including both loathing one particular NZ classic which I won’t name here because I’m not sure who’s in the audience, though often I’d just ask her for something very easy to read with lots of sex. When we were young, our Opa had a whole extra lockwood house attached to their house without any interior walls that was his study, and it was completely filled with books. Anyone who’s been to Karen’s house will know she took that on as personal inspiration – so please do fill out the form to help us share out her taonga later! Whenever I wanted to tease her, which was most of the time, to be honest, I would threaten to break into her house and put all her books in colour order. 

Karen introduced me to a lot of my favourite authors, and I introduced to her to Douglas Coupland in return, and lot of music too. The number of not great gigs I dragged her to because of crushes I had on boys in the band – she really was much more patient and tolerant than I have been giving her credit for lately. Today you’re hearing musicians I know and love thanks to her, including Tori Amos, Suzanne Vega and Nick Cave, songs that Karen picked out in preparation for this very dumb day. 

Probably the most important thing I introduced Karen to though was a certain bearded gentleman that I used to go to quiz with every week at the Southern Cross. If Tom had known then about the family text chains he’d be unable to escape fifteen plus years later, he might not have been so attracted to the woman who fiercely debated Murakami vs David Mitchell (the author, not the quiz show panelist she also grew to love thanks to Tom), but guess what Tom? You’re stuck with us now. 

And here I must pay tribute to my darling friend who brought so much love and happiness to my darling sister. With COVID, Tom closed in his world to protect Karen, and we are so so grateful to him for that, and for loving her so completely. Thank you.

Although this past week has been unimaginably hard, it has also been so special to hear from so many people about how much they liked and admired Karen. She could be hard and prickly – because she was so soft and vulnerable inside. Hearing stories about how you all managed to get past her barriers to know her makes me so glad.  

I want to thank my sister Anji too, who is the best biggest sister. Anj, you certainly don’t have it easy, having to look after both Karen and I, and our two extremes of personality at times. But you have been such a fierce staunch advocate for Karen through all of this, and you are extraordinary. Thank you also Bambi for being there for all of us. 

And to my parents – I’m glad you were already pregnant with me when you found out Karen had CF, so that I could be here today. You’ve had so many battles over the past 49 years to get the right care for Karen – and to get her to accept that care as well sometimes. She knew you loved her, even if sometimes she seemed like an absolute brat. Thank you for giving me two fucking amazing sisters. All this sucks, but we are so lucky to have each other. 

My parents were with Karen when she came into the world, and almost 50 years later they were with her when she went out. She was infuriatingly stubborn, but she was beautiful and wonderful and ours and we love her so. 

1. What did you do in 2023 that you’d never done before?

• A cool thing I did was two 90 minute workshops at the Council of Trade Unions’ Women’s conference on how Fat Liberation is good for everyone – though it horrified me that someone had very obviously misread my talk’s blurb because she came up to me and asked if she could show everyone before & after photos of her weight loss. No she could not!
• Had nude art commissioned of me (and it’s AMAZING)
  
• Got a stomach tattoo

I feel in many ways my world shrank in 2023, because we continue to be in a pandemic and I continue to be terrified of it. A third round of COVID in May brought back the Long Covid symptoms that I was just starting to overcome, so I had very little energy to do much. But life-changingly – I finally got my ADHD diagnosis in October.

That was a hell of a long journey. In January I completed a 30+ page self-test workbook, and then went to my GP to ask for a referral. She had both me and Jo fill out more surveys and agreed that it seemed very likely I had it. I say “self test” and survey” like these were light and breezy things to do, but they brought up so many issues. For example – did I only get such good marks in school because I was afraid not to? Did I suppress most ADHD symptoms because of fear? My GP said there was no one in Wellington she would recommend, so I made a zoom appointment with a doctor in Northland – for June. It cost $600 for the initial assessment, I had to wait five months, and then I got the date of the appointment wrong and lost my absolute fucking mind when I couldn’t get ahold of the doctor on the day, before I realised I had, for the past five months, had the wrong day in mind, and had booked the wrong day off work, and then in fact my appointment was going to be in fifteen minutes from when I heard from them.

So I definitely got off on the wrong foot in the assessment, and then the psychiatrist absolutely did not listen to me. I had to go over my whole mental history and I feel like she spent more time interrogating me about why I hadn’t applied for ACC funding after getting raped (ummm, cos I already had a counsellor I was seeing, I could afford it [though I still think he should have paid, and for every fucking time I need to fork out big bucks for dentistry sedation] and cos I have a ton of friends who were retraumatised by the ACC process, maybe?) than talking about what I believed to be ADHD symptoms. She misreported how much I drink by three times as much, diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder, suggested I switch drugs to Effexor and prescribed me 30 minutes of exercise a day – after I had cried during the session about how going to the supermarket would cost me two days of functioning because of how physically exhausting it is. You know how little is known about Long Covid but the one thing that they do know? Is that exercise makes it fucking worse. So going through everything in conversation with a woman who didn’t like me and then getting all that in a PDF document with absolutely no warning was absolutely a horrible crushing thing to receive. I am incredibly lucky that I got it the morning I had a counselling session booked already.

I gave my counsellor the document and she was horrified with that psych’s diagnosis and lack of patient care. I asked her if it was worth trying to go back for a second opinion, and she suggested that no, I should just talk to my GP again and get a different referral, that trying to fight it would just cause me more stress. I’m incredibly lucky as a fat person to have a GP I trust, and she was absolutely great too, and put in a referal for me to a doctor in Nelson who specialised in children. Her reasoning was that maybe he’d focus less on various trauma from my adulthood and actually get to the root cause. He took me on as a patient, but would only see me in October in person for the first assessment, so that was another $1000 for flights and hotels and his fee.

Before that session, I reread all my old school reports from childhood that Mum still had stored away, and pulled out fragments of what I could see were symptoms that I mostly got away with because of my intelligence and how reading was my hyperfocus and teachers like it when you like reading (except when you’re reading as they talk because they are talking too slow). Again, school reports are a horribly confronting thing to read. I have mentioned a lot that I was bullied as a kid, and I was, but also, it’s clear now that I was a bully. I remember being mean to people who I thought were stupider than me – which I would charitably describe now as being extremely frustrated at things going much slower than I would have liked them to). According to the Iowa standardised testing I did at the American School in Japan age 12 or 13, I was reading 410 words per minute when others averaged 190-240 words per minute. I just kind of want to reach inside my skull and pat my brain and say “woah there girl, woah, slow down” and give it a hug. There was a lot of unpacking of privilege. My mother said that in reading Opa’s diaries he was always frustrated by all the things that he wanted to do but couldn’t focus on any of them, and that sounds very familiar too.

Going to Nelson was extremely nerve-wracking, because I felt there was so much at stake. I had even asked a friend of mine in if they could get me some ritalin just so I could try it as I continued to fight to be able to get a prescription for it, because even back in the very brief period in my early twenties when I took E a couple of times, I did speed maybe once or twice and only with a fuckton of booze so I had no idea what it would feel like, but apparently the black market was all tapped out. I am extremely lucky that I was able to afford to go private, but an unexpected $1000 expense still tapped me out pretty firmly. An amazing friend put money in my account so that I could have some fun while I was in Nelson too instead of stressing about money, which was a very generous and loving thing for them to do.

But, anyway, the doctor in Nelson was AMAZING. He LISTENED to me. He didn’t dwell on non-related traumas. He concluded that it was 80 to 85% likely that I had ADHD, as there was no definite like, blood test, to be able to measure it, and said that it was definitely worth me trying short release ritalin (rather than slow release due to my caffeine sensitivity). I thought from there he’d have to petition the Ministry to get me an exception (fuck you Bill English for making it so hard, I’m glad your kid had to smell my stinky hungover poop that time one of my flatmates brought him home) and then I’d have to go back to my GP and it would be weeks, but I left his office with a prescription in my hands. HOLY SHIT, yes I definitely went back to my hotel to cry for a couple of hours.

The very first time I took a ritalin – and I started on a half dose for a week or so, I was reading the paper, and after I took the pill, I read one article. NOT five articles at once, jumping all around the page. I focus on work tasks and knock them out, including things that I would previously have abandoned. Friends have said it makes me seem more present when I am with them. I am still able to sleep and nap. I feel so much happier and in control. I’m gradually sorting out my house to make it more sustainable to tidy and I love the results like this organisation of my liquor cabinet (there is no reason why I have four kinds of absinthe except “Bad Tom” though).

Ritalin is not the solution to everything that I over-hoped it would be, but it definitely makes things more manageable.

Three and a half months later I am still trying to figure out the balancing act though – that now my brain is like I CAN DO ALL THE THINGS and my body is like – the fuck you can, no, and exhausting myself physically (I have a swelling ligament in my left ankle now to make matters worse). Another thing I’m learning is that drinking substantially if I’m on Ritalin is not ideal – at Sajoween it made me stay up later than I would normally, doing tequila shots which had bad puking on the carpet consequences. This past weekend when I was at Nireaha I still had Ritalin in my system from driving and I was much more conscious of everything that I said as I gulped down gin and it made me feel uncomfortable, not that I was doing anything wrong except being a tiny bit slurry, but just because it made me feel like I was looking at myself from a distance? Again, work in progress. This is not a return to the reset of 2020, but it is just something I need to be more aware of, of course.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I made ONE New Year’s Resolution, which was to enter the Sunday Star Times short story contest, and, partially thanks to Ritalin, I was able to finish off an idea I had, and submit it. You can read it here – it’s gay and Classical, and not a single person who’s read it has said anything about it to me except Karen who said she liked it and Jo who didn’t get all the references. So if you read it and say something nice about it to me I’d be very happy.

Just after Matariki, a bunch of us assembled to release things into the fire outdoors and also summon our intentions, which is my preferred form of New Year’s Resolutions. However, since the last time I put everything away for a Boom popup I can’t find the records we kept (yes of course everyone got worksheets and clipboards, have you met me???) so I can’t check what I wrote. I’ll find them eventually though, maybe by Matariki this year. I do remember that I wanted 2500 Facebook followers for House of Boom and I’m currently stalled at 2040, so you know what to do.

As for New Year’s Resolutions for this year, yeah I have one but I don’t think it’s very achievable right now so I’ll keep that one close to my chest.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t think so?

4. Did anyone close to you die?

I don’t think so? Cat’s death continues to drive my work with Boom, and I had a cry at Camp Boom when I saw one of her dresses that I most associate with her going to an amazing woman called Stacey who really embodies Cat in many ways.

5. What countries did you visit?

There’s still a pandemic, dumbass. So instead, in approximate order, here are the nights that I spent out of my bed.

At the start of January, we went north for my neighbour Kate’s 50th. Saj and I flew up to Kerikeri, picked up a rental car and went to visit Kat’s land. I TOUCHED A CHICKEN! Given that I used to be afraid of them, that was pretty huge. It was raining so we didn’t get to ride the quad bike, but the drive there had been enough of an adventure, in a very low roofed Carolla on a very bumpy path and not realising at first that I could pump my seat lower. Poor brain, a lot of bashing on the roof. Saj and I spent two nights at the absolutely delightful Cocozen near Kaeo, delighting in the freshly made bread the hosts gave us, looking at bunnies and birds, using a hot tub in the middle of a forest and watching a lot of House Hunters when I got too talked out.

Then we drove in the rain down a carefully planned tasting trail through Kerikeri to Russell, except it wasn’t that well planned cos a lot of places we wanted to go to weren’t open. But we got in wine tastings at Fat Pig (with a chandelier in a tin shed that had survived the San Francisco earthquake of 1906) and lunch at Marsden Estate (Marsden girls cheat at croquet, 1997 me would like to remind you) and handily bumping into Kate at the Matakana chocolate shop. Sara and Nick met us in Russell where we stayed in a pretend old villa complex around a pool. We swam in the rain when there weren’t kids crowding us out, went wine tasting to a couple more vineyards (Sage Restaurant had amaaaaaaazing Goonie-esque views but for a $55 [admittedly crayfish] pasta their service was TERRIBLE), watched Clue, and then it was time to go to Kate’s party on their land. I used long drops! I applied glitter to many many people! We met all kinds of lovely people. Saj & Sara thought one babe was into me so they kept topping up my glass so I wouldn’t have to move. Get you friends who etc. Thoroughly excellent time. On our last day the sun came out for the first time that whole trip and I was thoroughly peopled out so I spent the whole day floating in the pool and despite judicious sunscreen applications I got quite burnt. Boo-urns.

Later in January, Sara & I went to Taina (of best new person of the year last year) & Peta’s wedding on the beach in Waikanae. All guests were requested to wear white so that their pastel outfits would pop more against us. It was innnnnnncredibly hot, but also raining a shit ton so the reception was moved from their garden to the rugby club at the last minute. Sara and I stayed in a little above a garage apartment at a fancy house that Taina & Peta had got ready in and taken their photos in before the wedding. It was very shabby chic and there was a gorgeous pool I swam in in the morning. The wedding was fun – Taina’s brothers were so hot I almost felt straight even though the wedding was so gay that their official witnesses were even called Tegan & Sara.

In February for Sara’s birthday, Iona, Saj and her son, Sara & Nick and I went back to my favourite place in the world – Nireaha. We drank gin in the icey cold pool, played old Solid Gold records, brought way too much food, and discovered a fun outdoor game called Kubb where you try to knock over your opponents’ wood blocks. When I got tired of socialising I went and sat outside and looked at the amazing stars, drank too much red wine and listened to sad songs. And Iona took a ton of photos of me in the pool for House of Boom, modelling my new (then) rainbow necklaces.

In March, Sara and I went up to Palmerston North for the opening of an exhibition of Cat’s Adipositivity photos (link possibly NSFW), a year after her death. The art was glorious and we met some lovely people, including a drag queen who assumed we were a couple (tbf we were both wearing PENNY ROYALE dresses and rainbow necklaces). There was a lot of happy and sad and EMOTIONS. Our Airbnb had a hot tub and later that night I ordered a delivery of ice cream & donuts from it. I mean, from my phone while I was in the tub – it wasn’t THAT lux.

At the end of May, I went to Christchurch to be professionally gay – by which I mean I went to the Cross Agency Rainbow Network Conference for work. I was incredibly disappointed by how gay it was, as opposed to queer. 1 in 3 members of the Rainbow community are disabled, but they took absolutely no COVID precautions – even things like all the doors to the terrace were locked on a sunny day so if you wanted to take your lunch outside to eat so you could safely take off your mask, it was a great big walk around. And while inside, talks covered good people working within systematic racism & homophobia & transphobia, outside they parked a cop car painted with rainbow korus, and people walked around in airforce uniforms. Just a really hugely disappointing lack of community care. The conference organisers were like “oh but we followed the Ministry of Health guidelines” and yeah right, remember how well our community fared in the 1980s when we did the absolute fucking bare minimum during a pandemic? Anyway, my Long Covid creeping back after my third infection (despite my constant mask use and generally avoiding people) meant I was absolutely fucking exhausted the whole time I was there and did nothing but go to talks and order lacklustre room service cos even going to the foyer to collect Uber Eats seemed too hard. So no photos from Christchurch.

In June though, I booked an AMAZING bach in Waikawa and issued a five page invitation to Anna & Iona & Saj & Sara for my birthday weekend. I challenged everyone to come up with a canape & matching canape for my birthday dinner but took care of everything else (there was a LOT of luggage). For my course, I served breakfast martinis with savoury french toast. We played Prosecco Pong and taught ourselves how to score Darts. During the day the sunshine was so warm I sat around in my bra, and at night we had amazing sunsets and spas. I do recommend.

In August, because I had very luckily received some money from my mother for my birthday, I contemplated whether I could afford a tropical holiday. I was drowning in choices and also it was all just a bit too expensive so I thought about what I really wanted: to get out of my house, to get some sunshine and to eat & drink nice things, and booked three nights in Napier instead. On the first night I ate a fancy French dinner (and wished I could politely put on headphones to not have to hear the loud Americans at the next table) and enjoyed the bisexual fountain on the waterfront. To my absolute delight, Karla from Two Lippy Ladies who I’d met at Camp offered to take me out wine tasting when I told her I was going to book a tour, and SHE PLANNED IT ALL. Oh gosh, what a treat for me! I’m usually absolutely the planner, and mostly the driver, so it was thrilling to not know where we were off to. Me being me, when we were at Elephant Hill I did request that we go to Clearview as well since it’s my favourite and was right next door – and that turned out to be a great decision cos I ordered six bottles of rose/rose bubbles from them and they ended up sending it to me twice (and let me keep the extra for free). We had lunch in Hastings, hit up Mission and Church Road as well and talked all things small business clothing sales, and it was just so lovely. I ended up taking some of that Clearview wine to the Camp wine tasting as a demonstration of the power of fat friendships.

The next day I went to the museum where one of the women on the desk was like “I know you from somewhere!!!” and I was like “… House of Boom?” and yes, turns out she was the sister of one of my followers who I’ve never met but is one of my favourites on instagram. Then I went to the National Distillery Company and tried a lot of gins, and then to the Tony Bish Urban Winery right next door to it and tweeted about how it was my house cos it’s the home of Fat & Sassy, and their marketing person came out and gave me another magnum of Fat & Sassy to try at Camp. It is a very good Chardonnay, and I recommend it highly. I also just absolutely loved the Urban Winery - I loved all the staff, and the flights on offer and the food, and I spent a bunch of hours there happily reading trash on my kindle and enjoying everything. The next day was the best croissant I’ve ever had outside of a former French colony at the outdoor markets and a massage on a full sized bed. I definitely got all the things I needed in a holiday without having to leave the holidays. Oh, the one thing I didn’t do was swim, because the pizza I’d ordered after the day of wine tasting had me pooping all night and I did not want to bring that energy to the pool.

In December, I rounded out the year with a jaunt to Auckland to see L7, my second favourite band when I was 16 (after Hole). I had been supposed to see them in 2020 in Wellington, but, as we know, 2020. So I decided it was worth trekking up to Auckland to see them because I didn’t think Lil Riot Grrl Joanna would have forgiven me if I’d missed them. I’m so glad I went! I loved the train in from the airport, cos I like trains. I stayed at the Ohtel in the Viaduct which was gorgeous, and I asked them for a room with a bath if possible and enjoyed a free upgrade to a bath right in the middle of the room. I ate burrata topped with chili sauce like it was tofu at Hello Beasty, and the second or third best tiramisu of my life at Biavacco (Chiara’s was better). At the Powerstation for the gig I managed to find Penny, best friend from high school who I’d put onto L7 in the first place, so that was amazing to see her, and also Chrisana. Astonishingly, I managed to find a seat on the back of a banquette, so I rocked out in my mask from up there. For a second the benzo I’d taken for crowds met with the Ritalin and I thought “hey I could go in the mosh pit!” before I laughed at what a ridiculous idea that was. But I did get a very good view, was so very pleased to not have to stand much (and to have a bath afterward) and had such a lovely time. Auckland is so full of memories though, perhaps even more than Wellington? I was just thinking of amazing Shihad gigs at the Powerstation, and also of course that Placebo concert.

6. What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023?

Ha, and speaking of Placebo and the first boy ever to ask me to be his girlfriend that night in 1999, that’s a good lead in to say I still have not had a relationship with someone who yells it from the rooftops. I know I say this every year, but the heart wants what it wants.

7. What date from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

November 4 because that was when the third-ish Camp Boom was, and while it was basically sold out six months in advance, I ended up having to do a LOT of pivoting. But it was absolutely amazing event, I’m really proud of myself for it and also so incredibly grateful to all the amazing humans who helped me pull it off.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting my ADHD assessment despite all the setbacks, and getting on Ritalin and having that make such a difference.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I had to extend my overdraft for House of Boom and things are not selling well. We talked about this last year though, like is a new government threatening 15,000 of my key clients with job loss my fault? No, it’s not my failure, but perhaps nevertheless, my business fails. And when I threw a pop-up weekend in December and ONE person showed up the whole weekend (and not a single Boomette except for Sara came to the Boom fifth birthday party), well, that really really fucking sucked. So much. I had intended to wind up Boom last year but then Camp was so great so I’m conflicted.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Continued depression & anxiety, partly because of the sheer frustration of thinking a pill could help me with so many elements of my life but I couldn’t access it until October, but also see: failing business and state of the world. And also as discussed already, continued Long COVID. Oh, and new for the last part of the year, my left ankle ligament swells like billy-o if I stand on it for too long. Which reminds me, it’s been two months since I saw my GP about that, must be about time to go back and say “you told me to come back in two months if it was still happening”.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Given that I’ve just spent like three hours writing about all the various holidays I’ve been on, I guess I’m going to have to say those, obviously! I also bought a new fridge on Boxing Day because mine had been freezing everything on the bottom couple of shelves, exploding sodas and everything, and the dude said that a new part would be $500 and I’d only paid $200 or so for the fridge in the first place when I bought it off Jane. So now, for the first time ever since leaving home age 17, I now own a first-hand fridge. It does NOT have an automatic ice maker unfortunately, but it is pretty and fits a lot in. I nearly died in the Harvey Norman carpark when I couldn’t find a pedestrian exit and it was too hot, but I managed to survive. Woo!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Sara’s, my amazing wonderful darling without whom I would not be able to Boom. Jo’s, for always being at the end of Messenger, ready to listen to my constant whining and love me unconditionally. My family for the financial privileges that I have which made the year more achievable.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Anyone who dismisses COVID as just a cold. The Labour govt for dropping our remaining protections and then not putting up a fight at the election. Everyone who voted in the shysters of NACT and Winnie. The Israeli government. The American government. People posting Shein haul videos.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Apart from the obvious holidays, vet bills for Callie (who has a thyroid condition) and obviously two $600 psychiatric assessments. And then there was also a $300 sedation for a filling repair at the dentist, which is just really fucking awesome.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Jo coming over for Camp! Yellowjackets! Katie cat learning to come inside when I call her, and allowing me to sit and meditate with her every night. Callie letting other people touch her!

16. What song will always remind you of 2023?

Can I say “She speeds”? Heh.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

I’m fatter,

I am in a better financial position however I have more debt? And more uncertainty about my job continuing.

I am happier. Things make so much more sense now with all I’ve learned about ADHD and finally having access to the right medication.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Selling clothes. And pashing. And hanging out with my team at work who are a lot of fun.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Crying to Jo about all the fucking traumatic stuff going on, and thinking about E.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Since we were denied even the usual low $20 subsidy (public service), I organised the work Xmas party and turned a boring meeting room into a colourful pile of joy, with games that everyone seemed to enjoy, great accessibility for everyone and a lowered Covid risk. I like organising parties!

We had Sajmas dinner at Saj’s a couple of days before Xmas with pasta and Catan.

On Xmas itself I spent the day baking my mother’s spekkoek, watching my ankle swell, and then went up to Ngaio with Karen and Tom. I was on vegetables, including broad beans from the garden. We didn’t do presents except that back in September I started making Happy Memories advent calendars for my nearest, so that they’d be ready in time for Jo to take home with her after Camp.

People seemed to appreciate them.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

Jo! Occasionally we would Facey but usually it was just messenger and occasional voice messages of bad jokes or complicated stories.

22. Did you fall in love in 2023?

No. Still healing a little bit after the last time.

23. How many one-night stands?

Two. An American dude because honestly, I was curious if his dick was as big as it appeared in his track pants tinder profile picture (yes) and a British dude who said he sounded like John Snow so I made him talk to me as both the Game of Thrones character and the news reader.

But at least I can continue to be a man-hating lesbian by saying I haven’t slept with a white cis dude since like 2019. And they weren’t particularly straight either. In fact I think I’d have to go back to 2016 for the last cis white straight dude. Progress!

24. What was your favorite TV program?

I finally watched The OA just so I could message Jo about it, and while I liked it, it wasn’t my favourite. I think I was most excited about season two of Yellowjackets, and Succession I guess, and Bob’s Burgers continues to be the most beautiful emotional show on TV. That Regular-Sized Rudy-centric episode! WOAH.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Well there’s a whole bunch of NACT politicians I didn’t know existed before they were elected in, so yes, I guess.

26. What was the best book you read?

Song of Achilles? Was that this year? As you may have guessed by my short story, I do love me the classics. I also bloody loved the Britney Spears book too, gotta admit.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

The Number Ones blog. It turns out I am OBSESSED with reading current pop culture analysis of past times that I have experienced. Tom Breihan examines every billboard number one since charts began in the 1950s and it’s such a joy to read. He considers musical genres, what was happening in society at the time, where the artist came from and where they will go, as well as breaking down beats, samples and other covers of the song. And the comments section is a DELIGHT. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

28. What did you want and get?

 Cuddles with Katie! While she’s still afraid of others, she now comes in when I call her, or if she sees a delivery person at the door, which means she can jump on my couch while I sit on the floor and eat, and she gets to nuzzle into my armpits. She’ll be on the other couch by 11pm generally so we can mediate together, and sometimes when she’s sitting there she’ll just start purring in her sleep. It is a magical time when I’m sitting there and she’s spooning my right arm and then Callie jumps up on my left side and puts her paws on my leg.

29. What did you want and not get?

House of Boom to be successful, and a relationship.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I saw two movies at the movies this year – a much delayed session of Barbie that a coworker arranged with subtitles so that our Deaf colleagues could join us (and I watch everything with subtitles if available now post Long COVID too), and A Death In Venice to fill in time before my flight back from Nelson. Neither of them were that amazing.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

There were three parts to my birthday celebration, of course. First there was the besties at Waikawa weekend, then a bunch of others came to dinner at Peking House (though I was very disappointed when newbies defied my matrix and ordered both Orange Beef AND Orange Chicken), and also I had dinner at Damascus with BAMJI and Karen, which was veeeeeeeeeery slow service and it was soooo loud in there it made me feel very very anxious cos I couldn’t hear anything anyone was saying.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I’d got on Ritalin nine months earlier.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023?

Since I got my arm tattoos in 2021 I’ve been showing my arms more willingly, so you can imagine how it’s gone since I got my STOMACH TATTOOO in September.

I am hating the feel of polyester more and more, so there’s not really much of a choice for me but to wear House of Boom or a couple of other small ethical labels. But to be honest I left the house so rarely that it was mostly my Jo Jo Jim Jams that I wore.

34. Who kept you sane?

Sara with all her support and literal labour for me, Jo for her emotional labour, my counsellor and GP and me, for continuing to try to do the work.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Daddy Pedro Pascal.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Fat liberation and inequality.

37. Who did you miss?

Sebastian. Every so often I think Katie is him when I catch her in the corner of my eye, and damn there’s a hole in my heart that will never heal.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

The mothers!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2023

Sometimes how other people are feeling is not actually about me. That sounds really obvious I know, but I’m very self-centred and plus there’s that whole Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria of ADHD thing. So it’s helped doing meditation and mindfulness to be able to take a moment to pause and think about what other things may be going on for people, to assess what other things may be at play in decisions or whatever. This is a perhaps purposefully vague paragraph but it makes sense to me.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

Honestly it’s June now so I can’t think of one, but I can tell you that ‘Keep the streets empty for me’ by Fever Ray was my number one on Spotify.

The bouncer is absolutely final in his declaration. “Nah mate, You can’t go in. It’s only for VIPs. Your roommate’s in there? A lot of people’s roommates are in there. No”.

The young man he’s denying looks desperate and prone to violence. I have been in this club for long enough to know how badly this could go, and I recognise enough of myself in him to want to save him. So I go over. 

“Hey,” I say, “it’s not going to work. You can’t go in there. It’s not for people like us. Come on, I’ve got you, let’s go talk”. I see the rage in his eyes settle into resignation as we move away from the entrance to the VIP section and take a seat at the bar, and remember exactly how that felt. Every inch of this proud beautiful man slumps. His calloused hands flail on the bar, and I offer him a cigarette to give him something to replace the reins he’s more used to.

It’s almost a whisper when he speaks at last. “Alex has cut his hair.” I know what he means. How dare Alex continue to exist without his love?  “Yeah, they do that,” I say, “you should have seen what Arch did once I had left”. My laugh is hollow, because all that anger and rage and yet still ultimately he chose fame instead of a forever with me? “You can call me Pat,” I say, “let’s get you a drink. You’re going to be here a while”.  

“My name is Hep,” he says, “and I know who you are,” he says, “we used to like… worship you two”. 

Two, us two, Arch and I, together always, ever since we were very young. So I guess I still don’t have an identity outside of his, no matter how much time has passed. People always saw Arch as the brightest star in the sky, but when we were alone he would call me his evening star as we entwined, limbs aching from a day of training. Our bodies were so alike that in his clothes people thought I was him and I can’t pretend that I didn’t like the feeling. I stood in his shadow willingly but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t cold when his light wasn’t focused on me.

“Yeah, I have a total weakness for arrogant dudes. It’s a bit of an Achilles heel for me”. He notices my wince and I see him fumbling for his next words. Poor Hep, because here there are no poets with spare stanzas to help him out. How to articulate the frustrations I know he carried all his life as he lived so close to the spotlight of the man, witness to all the accolades but left out of all the selfies with groupies? How to cope now when all the monuments to love mean nothing with his love in the VIP section without him? 

“He said I was a divine hero! I went everywhere with him. I put up with so much – that asshole Darius was always around, there were women too, I said nothing. And this is how he treats me now? Won’t let me into the VIP room? He didn’t even say goodbye.” 

Hep throws back his drink and gestures for another. I marvel to see my words, my thoughts, my feelings coming out of his mouth. How did we have such identical experiences so far apart? 

“He was just a stupid Nepo baby!” Hep half wails, “He wouldn’t have been anything without his dad”. And because I don’t have a reply to that, I lean forward and lick his tears. The salt taste crashes into me heavy with memories of ten years spent on a beach and my body shudders. I take Hep’s hand and lead him into the bathroom, where he spends his anger inside me. I don’t open my eyes as he calls Alex’s name because I know this all too well. It’s what I did the first hundred or thousand times after as well.

I try to take him in my arms, this damaged little bird, and kiss him though I know neither of us will taste what we really want. Any hopes that this will quiet him are dashed as he pushes me aside and angrily punches the wall. “ROOM MATES!” he spits in disgust, and storms back to the bar. 

Walking out of the bathroom, I don’t even bother looking in the direction of the VIP section as I used to, desperately hoping to see Arch emerge to summon me. Instead, I look towards the front door and the commotion coming from just outside, as the paparazzi call out the name of the young man entering. “Antinous! Antinous, over here” they cry, and he obliges, posing for pictures, but looking around distractedly. I know who he’s searching for and who he won’t find, but he catches Hep’s eye and there’s a spark of recognition there, a shiver as if his grave is being walked on. I’ll leave Antinous to Hep. I’ll keep watch on the next. There’s nothing else to do here but wait.

1. What did you do in 2022 that you’d never done before?

• Had my ass eaten for the first time. I wasted 24 years not having my ass eaten, frankly. 
• Posted completely naked photos of myself on the internet. Oh look, I’ll do it again cos I love this series of photos so much

• Caught COVID. Twice. 
• Had a semi-long-distance semi-relationship? 
• Cut my hair short (ish). Or at least as short as it’s been since I was 3.

Honestly a lot of the year was a blur with the Long COVID and the brain fog and exhaustion so it seems like most of my “new” things are in the that one dude basket, cos it was not a year of career highs or many achievements. But oh I’ll add

• Threw an amazing camp for 40+ babes

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t believe I had made New Year’s Resolutions for 2022 and since I didn’t do this review for 2021 I don’t have a written record of them. But yes, I have ONE resolution this year: enter the Sunday Star Times short story contest. 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I… don’t think so? Wait, no, Kate B did! Yay babies! I have yet to meet him though but hopefully that’ll happen in February. And maybe Stephanie? I am actually not 100% sure whether things happened in 2021 and 2022. See: Long Covid. 

4. Did anyone close to you die?

We weren’t that close, but Cat was a super important role model for me. I wrote about that extensively in my last post. 

5. What countries did you visit?

No international travel! But my JoJoJo did come visit from Melbourne, TWICE.

But let me tell you instead about my domestic travel. 

In February I booked a weekend at an old schoolhouse in Nireaha when postponed Camp was supposed to be after I had to cancel that due to COVID levels. We ‘swam’ in the old school pool that was about a metre or less deep, marveled at how there were eight sinks in the property and at night dragged duvets and all the pillows outside to make a great big puppy pile and look at the amazingly clear night sky. There were shooting stars! It was the best! Here’s a class pic:

In July I decided to book myself a proper lux holiday as well as taking a week off work to try to recover better from COVID. I considered various places in the country, but was wary after the July floods I got stuck in back in July 2021 in Blenheim, so I thought I’d take it easy on myself and just go to Martinborough. I booked in to Parehua Resort, booked lunch at Poppies, and then it rained and rained. I drove up in the sunshine and discovered that the road from the south into Martinborough was closed due to flooding. I drove to the east as Google directed me and discovered that way into Martinborough was also closed. I drove to the west to try to get into Martinborough that way, and once again, roads were closed. All I could do at that stage was laugh, and remind myself my holiday goals were to be off social media, to get out of my house and to get some sunshine, and I was achieving all of those things in my car. Eventually after a very long round about way, I managed to get in from the north, hurrah! And it was a truly luxurious decadent stay, with a degustation dinner in the resort’s restaurant, lots of baths, much book reading and strolling to Palliser Estate through the vines – as far as I was able to walk. 

In August, I spent a weekend in Whanganui with the man. It was one of the best weekends of my life. There were supposed to be a couple more but that didn’t end up happening. Oh but I did meet a goat in Whanganui who was called Marshmallow. 

6. What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?

A profitable business. House of Boom did not make any money – in fact, it cost me a lot to run. Why do I have this stupid expensive hobby? I am trying to shift out of it, but that brings up a lot of issues for me about my identity, and who am I without it, etc.  

7. What date from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

July 24. I don’t think I’m ever going to forget sex in a lighthouse and a briefcase of gold coins that opened up like something from Pulp Fiction. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I said this in the 2020 summary too, but surviving. 2022 was HARD. Having my brain knocked out from beneath me by the Long COVID brain fog was some serious shit. 

I think that I mostly managed to take care of the people I love as well though, and that’s very important to me, though there were some lapses when I had no strength. 

And Camp Boom in the City 2022 was a moveable feast of PIVOT PIVOT PIVOT but I did it for Cat and I’m really proud it got done. 

AND it’s still a bit of a roller coaster, but my very lengthy amounts of time spent lying on the floor next to the bed upstairs throwing bits of shredded chicken at her has paid off when Katie will come inside now and ever so often allow me to pat her. What a treat! 

9. What was your biggest failure?

Surely by now I have done enough therapy to accept that many things that I view as failures are things are actually things that are outside of my control? For example: 

• Running an ethical clothing business (ie: basically a luxury for most people) at a time when the cost of living is rising ridiculously fast is not a recipe for success, especially when I do all the things that I believe it is moral to do – organising clothes swaps, calling out the media for fatphobic bullshit instead of kissing their ass to get good coverage, etc etc
• I absolutely knew I was running a huge risk falling in love with someone who’d raised a number of red flags. But do you know what’s awesome and a worthwhile thing to do? Falling in love. Oh and do you know what you actually can’t stop yourself from doing, probably? Falling in love. And I don’t think there are things that I could have done differently that would have produced a better outcome. Well, maybe not the drunk texts in December. Those weren’t helpful at all.  
• I do not think I achieved much in my day job this year, for a couple of reasons – mostly the long COVID. But I think most of my coworkers would have found me helpful when they needed me, and many of them seem to like it when I’m actually in the office, so perhaps I am not quite as much of a failure there as I sometimes feel I was

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Yes. Yes I did. 

In February, my troublesome filling had cracked open (thanks Wellington Water for the lack of fluoride in our water!) and got infected and it was an absolute misery. Here’s a photo of my swollen face. 

I had to have it removed, and now I am waiting for my parents to die so I can get it replaced. (My parents’ eventual death is absolutely my proposed solution to all my financial difficulties, but don’t worry, I am not a Menendez brother). 

The first bout of COVID absolutely fucked me up and continues to have an effect. Its latest fun thing? I’m ALLERGIC TO THE SUN NOW. Luckily it’s okay if I take an antihistamine first and after but I think that contributed to my very very bad sunburn from Russell in early January 2023. 

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Probably that expensive holiday in July, in terms of its restorative powers? But also perhaps all the time I spent on Boom in terms of what it did for others. 

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Always the answer to this will be Jo. And Sara, my right hand for Boom. Anji who lent me money so I could spend $1200 having a lump removed from Katie. Oh, you might not even know who Katie is if you don’t follow me on socials! This is Katie.

Callie, my other cat, who every night is super excited to snuggle up with me in bed and purrs and purrs and purrs like a hive of bees, although I wish she would overcome her reluctance to meet all my other friends. And sometimes I would like to be able to finish reading the paper.

But also I need to acknowledge how absolutely lucky I am to work where I do, to be able to work from home when I’m fatigued, to have taken the amount of sick leave that I have, for my workmates to understand. I guess it helps that two others now have Long Covid too – I was the pioneer! I don’t know how people in less supportive workplaces can survive it. 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The last time I answered this I said “COVID deniers. Right wing assholes. Centerist politics” and you know that’s going to be the answer again this year too. Watching Republicans gleefully stripping away reproductive rights and trans rights in the US is scary. TERFdom here in NZ is loud but a minority but we need to be vigilant, always. 

14. Where did most of your money go?

This has been a very very expensive year. Some standout costs:

• Refunding everyone for Camp Boom 2021 cost me a couple of thousand dollars in sunk costs for things like swag, travel to Taupō, deposits, sending people the swag they were supposed to get as part of Camp’s manakitanga. And of course because I was a dickhead and started selling tickets to Camp in the previous financial year it created a huge mess that I have yet to pay my accountant to sort out. 
• Getting my fucked up tooth that had a broken filling completely removed was EXPENSIVE. They’ve changed the sedation laws in NZ now, so whereas it used to be $80 for oral sedation (and my dentist would only charge me $40 because he knew I was getting it for my rape PTSD), it now costs $350 because they have to put you in a chair and monitor your oxygen the whole time and a whole bunch of other kerfuffle. AND it wore off halfway through too and yeah I know I bragged in my last year in review that EMDR had helped me go to the dentist – and it does – it did not help enough when I could feel them ripping the tooth out. Ugh, I’m crying just thinking about it. Anyway, that was a thousand something dollars all up and I still have a big hole (heh) – a new tooth will be like $7k and I can’t help but feel like the dude who raped me should pay for my sedation for life, frankly.  Though Stupidly Hot Dentist did just tell me that instead of paying $7k here, I should take a trip to Spain and see his friend there and get a holiday included for the price. Luckily my teeth aren’t moving and it isn’t damaging my mouth to not replace the tooth – but additional dentist checkups to ensure that continues to be the truth continues to be an expense. 
• Having COVID was expensive. Not the medical care itself – that was blessedly covered and continues to be covered under COVID Care  and I am extremely lucky that the counseling I got came under Employee Assistance Programme – but the lifestyle expenses that mount up when you have isolation periods and then extreme fatigue. A supermarket trip would wipe me out for days so I’ve switched to online delivery mostly, I rely on paying someone to clean my house, more meals delivered etc. And then once you get used to something, it’s hard to give it up. 
• My car needed $2000 of repairs when I went for a warrant. I’m told that a rusting thingie holding the engine in is like a once in ten years repair, and I really hope that’s the truth. 
• Tower, who my house was insured with through our bodycorp of two decided that they didn’t want to insure bodycorps anymore. My house and the other half of it with the best neighbours in the world wrap around each other in complicated ways, so if something affects one of us, it will fuck up the other too (case in point, my dishwasher leak flooded their house more than mine – I am very relieved it was a loose fitting rather than my hot water cylinder dying though my plumber has warned me to start saving up for that), so we ended up going with Vero who said they could handle us not having a literal firewall as long as we both got policies with them) and now I pay $3600+ a year in insurance (including contents and third party car) and yet my body corp dues haven’t gone down? I should look into that I guess.  
• As I have already mentioned, in August, after darting into the house at night to eat whenever she thought I was asleep, Katie started sleeping on a blanket inside, and let me crawl up to her and pat her and cuddle her for a couple of nights in a row, which is how i discovered she had a huge lump on her leg that felt like an unpoppable abscess. The vet drew fluid out of it and said it wasn’t an abscess, so it had to be removed and tested. Luckily it turned out to be benign, but that whole thing cost me probably around $1500. The best part of it was that afterwards I had to keep her in a crate for a couple of weeks in a cone of shame, during which my friends would visit her and pat her and she’d purr and purr. I thought that’d be the turning point in our relationship, but when I moved around big stacks of boxes and other supplies for Camp Boom in the City 2022, she got spooked and that combined with the warmer weather drove her outside again. 

• Then the other big expense was Camp Boom 2022, of course. I spent $200 on Fimo for one session? I decided a photobooth was essential for the experience, so bought a new printer (partly because my old one was the fucking DEVIL) and then the wifi at the venue needed a web page gateway to log into and we couldn’t even print from the photobooth anyway. I am reckless with money, but also didn’t sell as many tickets as I had hoped, and had to refund some people with COVID, and there are a couple of speakers who were supposed to pay for half of their tickets and didn’t, and ugh, it’s awkward. And of course I created too many scholarships because there were too many worthy people, and that’s why I’m still really angry about the person who got the media scholarship and didn’t bother to show up and didn’t do anything about letting me know so I could reassign it. GRRRR. 

Look, I make a good salary. I live a good life by many measures. I am very lucky. But bills bills bills! I don’t know how people afford to have kids. 

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I mean, I feel that this entire formatting of questions has already led us all to the answer of GETTING MY ASS EATEN. Though, if y’all actually know me as a person who prepares for things and actually that was out of the blue, I guess we are going to have to put in a bullet point list of things I got excited for: 

• Jo coming over after all the COVID keeping us apart, and how ironic it was that I got COVID right before and basically ruined our time together (this is not how she would describe it but she is a better human than I). And then me getting very very excited that I got to have dinner with her in December too and I DIDN’T CRY THEN!!! 
• YELLOWJACKETS!!!!! Omg like I love some other TV shows (Evil, White Lotus, Industry, Taskmaster, Shortland Street even though they don’t have any fat characters 
• Of course I’m going to say Camp Boom. 
• And Sajoween! This year was the sixth Halloween party that Saj & I threw together, and the theme was Horror Prom. Ya’ll, I was VOTED PROM QUEEN!!! But I didn’t get to slow dance with anyone.

But I think we all know that what I was most excited about was that there was someone who seemed to be so into me, who called me multiple times a day, who made me feel so fucking amazing and. Well. Yeah. 

16. What song will always remind you of 2020?

There’s two songs. There’s hope

 and determination: 

Do you see how it’s fucking goddamn 2023 and I’m embedding a PLACEBO song? Like oh yes remember how in 1999 I went to a Placebo concert with Thomas and afterwards he asked me to be his girlfriend? I know. I KNOW. Stupid hetrosexuality flashbacks! I would have a lot more of an issue of it if it wasn’t for the amazing 100% positive influence of Nors in my life who had a Placebo tattoo – which is part of why we hooked up – so it’s not ALWAYS bad. 

But also, the Mavis song has been a favourite of mine since I heard it spin up at Monterey in the olden days, but I’ve never felt it so much as when all my thoughts were consumed by someone 194km away, especially when they – or I – wasn’t doing so great. 

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

I’m fatter, possibly quite a lot more but my only measures are my clothes. I can tell you that COVID destroyed all my pretensions towards moving my body but did not affect my appetite in the long term so you bet I am fatter. I should keep track of it – but only because I am the body model for my clothing label. If I have started doing a size 5 – because inclusion is important – but maybe I have taken a shirt in a size 5 rather than my usual 4, I am actually responsible to reporting that to people.

I am poorer because I got a very generous amount of money from my mother for Xmas 2021, and I used that to pay for Camp debts and trying to keep Boom going.

I don’t know if I am happier or sadder. There’s been a lot of things happen but maybe I am better equipped to deal with them? So we’ll call it the same.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I think every year I say dancing and swimming, but if I was to write the answers every year I would also say FUCKING.

So you know, all of those things. Also in a post COVID world, I wish I had been ABLE to spend more time walking and carrying things, and also dancing. 

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

 Waiting on replies from that boy who was never going to be able to answer me properly. 

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

For Xmas we spent it at my parents’ place, going over in the afternoon. Sometime in November I had called out my absolute brokenness and warned people that I absolutely could not afford to spend the usual amount on them, and had suggested at $25 price limit and a focus on handmade gifts. 

In theory, I intended this to be a chilling out of things. Hello, hi, have you met me? So I ended up making rosemary & lemon-infused salt for everyone, 

So, as has become the tradition for the past couple fo years, I spent a couple of hours on Xmas Day making Mum a Spekkoek – the cake Oma used to make that’s a huge part of hers – and my – childhood – that now I am basically trapped into making forever. But an op shop trip yielded me more than that. I bought Saj antiquey champagne flutes cos I know she doesn’t actually have that much of her own kitchenware – and her rented house has less than that (you want me to drink bubbles out of a white wine glass like som SAVAGE?). For my father I made the melting moments kind of biscuits that Granny used to make, getting Mum to find me the exact kind of old timey cotton reel to press into the top like Granny did that we used to nibble around – but of course they melted too much because while I am a great cook, I am not a great baker. Anji & Karen got truffles that looked like poops.  Bambi got peanut butter miso chocolate chip cookies and Tom got parmesan rosemary shortbread. But also. Because Tom loves going for walks, I spent a good number of hours planning out an urban ramble route for him, taking in mind places for drinks to stop by, asking him trivia questions along the way and everything. I made him gorgeous documents laying out every clue along the way that took a long time to prepare. And the point? Well I think it speaks for itself

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

That boy. Frequent facetime sessions. Jo I mostly messaged all day long on and off every day. For example she knows right now I am watching Gossip Girl the reboot so I can send her messages like “DOROTA!!!” all caps and she’ll know what I mean without any other context. 

I also have a groupchat with Saj & Sara that keeps me grounded too. 

22. Did you fall in love in 2022?

Yes. Very much so. 

More wholesomely, Callie Cat and I have consolidated our snuggles and it’s lovely. 

23. How many one-night stands?

None. I did have a quick pash with a babe as they were leaving Rachel’s hens’ do but I don’t even know their name. 

Oh but here’s the slightly weird thing. So you know how I had many feelings about a boy? We actually only spent four nights together, ish, and every one of them was in a different bed. 

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Yellowjackets! And then White Lotus s2. Either way, both were THE BEST to repeatedly message Jo about. 

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

The February occupation of Parliament that fucked up so many people’s lives made it real hard to feel kind of neutral about antivaxxers eh

26. What was the best book you read?

Greta and Valdim! Please give me a sequel ASAP. SUCH A GOOD BOOK OMG

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Heartbreak High, the very queer very lovely reboot was full of great music that I shazamed to add to my playlists. I also watched some of Glastonbury and added things like Wet Leg and Wolf Alice from that. I don’t think I listened to many whole new albums, apart from Bey. 

28. What did you want and get?

Laid. 

29. What did you want and not get?

To hold Camp Boom in Taupō delayed from 2021. A truly domesticated Katie cat who’d come to me for snuggles. 

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I do not remember any movies that I watched, to be honest. 

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 42, so I threw a Purple Reign party, based loosely on the idea that Elvis died when he was 42 but I’m coming into my power.

On my actual birthday my family and I went to eat asardo (ha, I started writing that assado) at Nikau and it was very very bad service, I do not recommend.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I had rolled down the window of my Uber when the driver was wearing her mask under her nose and coughing – or even better just got the fuck out – so that I wouldn’t have caught COVID-19 and had to deal with Long Covid. 

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022?

I have lived in my JoJo JimJams with all the sickness and working from home. 

34. Who kept you sane?

I’m not sure that I was sane? I mean, if you read my last journal entry you’ll know there was suicidal ideation and a lot of counselling and many breakdowns. But definitely Jo was there for me, like the time I ate too many pot brownies to deal with period/back pain and got very very very paranoid about all the ways I was potentially being racist in my Camp planning (It ranged from “I’m giving people bowls with koru curls on them made by my mother, a Pākehā woman” to “Oh no am I ghettoising speakers by having a panel discussion on the indigenous experience of fatness?”) . 

I would see Saj & Sara basically every week too, and they were my real world hugs and kindness and hair brushing. 

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I don’t think there was someone? I could be wrong though. Perhaps just some fat babes on instagram. 

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Once again, fat liberation. 

37. Who did you miss?

E. I’m gonna miss him for a long time. 

38. Who was the best new person you met?

I’m not one hundred on the dates but I think I met Taina (and therefore Peta) for the first time at the start of 2022 when they came to a pop-up and from there Taina became a Boomette and now I plan to go to their wedding in two weeks – and Sara and I gave them their wedding present tonight at a group dinner so they wouldn’t have to open it in front of their family  

But look, obviously I have to say E, even though yes, fair call we met in 2009, though I got to know literally nothing about him at the time except how he made me knees weak when we kissed. And yeah, I’m still not 100% sure about what stories were absolutely true or not, but I will always remember how he made me feel. And fucking hoooo boy by golly omg. I mean, it was nice and stuff. And actually I don’t even mean just sexually. I have never felt as seen. 

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2022

As much as I would like to, I can’t control others. All I can control is my own responses. 

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

“Open up this is a raid. 

I wanna get it through to you; 

You’re not alone”

Covid 1

Everyone has their own stories of course.  That’s the thing about a pandemic, it affects everyone. And still, when those two little lines came up in April, it still felt so fucking personal. I HAD BEEN OBEYING ALL THE RULES! I WEAR A MASK ALL THE TIMES YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO WEAR A MASK AND MORE! I WORKED FROM HOME MORE THAN I WAS TECHNICALLY ALLOWED TO. And yet. I was testing expecting to be negative cos I had a sore throat I figured was from drinking too many glasses of wine that week. 

I had been drinking and crying because Cat Pausé had died, and people online were absolutely every bit as horrific about it as you can imagine any time a fat woman with a little profile dared to not apologise for her existence. Sara and I had driven Kath up to the funeral in Palmerston North, which was held in a pavilion on a lawn to fit all the people from academia and unions and fat liberation and all the other areas that Cat had touched. We wore masks, of course, though I removed mine for the requisite sausage roll afterwards. We laughed, we cried, we got in the sea on the drive home so that the ocean could take some of our tears. 

Cat was the first person I knew who did Fat Studies. She was the one person I’d see in the newspaper pushing back against systematic fatphobia. When I started House of Boom and she ordered from me, I was so fucking excited. She was a celebrity to me. I met her at the Fat Babe Pool Party at the start of 2020, my first big outing newly sober and with no one else I knew there, and was incredibly welcome. When I announced Camp Boom and asked her to speak at it, she was instantly supportive, paying not just for herself but also offering a scholarship. On the second night of Camp I went to buy a drink and discovered that someone had put a chunk of money on the bar for everyone, and even though I wasn’t supposed to find out who it was, of course it was Cat. She was so generous with planning Camp in 2021 as well, and supportive when I had to delay and then cancel it. I think one of the last messages I had from her was asking when Camp would be in 2022 because she wanted to go to Dua Lipa, and I laughed at her and suggested she was crazy for thinking I could do that to myself again. I wanted to quit doing House of Boom altogether. I was so jealous watching other fat friends shutter their businesses. But when Cat died I knew I had to keep going. 

I don’t think I caught COVID at the funeral. I know that would make sense, given the number of people from around the country in one place, and the removal of masks to eat. But I didn’t hear about anyone else catching COVID there, including the two people who drove up to Palmerston North with me, and in that kind of caring, community-focused audience, more people would have talked about it if they had. Instead, I think I got it from my uber driver on the Monday after, who had her mask under her nose and who was coughing a lot. It was raining so I didn’t wind down my window. I was masked, of course, but still, on the Tuesday I was feeling like shit, and while I normally work from home on Wednesdays, I canceled my meetings anyway in anticipation of feeling worse. So yeah, I tested, and up it popped straight away. After more than a year of being terrified of what it could mean for me, but more importantly what it could mean for my sister, I had COVID. 

This is where my privilege kicks in. My amazing neighbours had recently had it and I’d kept them stocked with treats so they brought me milk and an oximeter. I managed to get a grocery delivery slot without any difficulty, and my parents brought me chemist supplies and RATs. Anna – the first of my real life friends to get it, who I’d sent doughnuts to – dropped off a ton of supplies. That’s three different sets of hot cross buns I was delivered because it was Easter too. Callie the cat was happy to have me home for easy snuggling. Working from home was easy to do because I’m a public servant and our work was adaptable, even though i was the first one to get it. I was too sick to work for a couple of days and spent my time sleeping and watching home renovation TV shows. The first night when I used the oximeter, my heart rate was 105 so I rang Healthline like the piece of paper told me to, and they said they didn’t care, as long as my oxygen levels were fine (which they were). I tried to remove my gel polish with acetone in order to make sure I got an accurate reading but it did nothing. I dutifully tracked my temperature (always fine) and symptoms, aware of the statistics saying fat people were more at risk. 

Mostly I was really productive – if snot was a useable product that could be traded for goods and or services. The scariest part came when somehow a bird got into my kitchen. I went to open the dining room window, which gets opened about twice a year, and doesn’t have a sash so it’s incredibly heavy. My lungs BURNED with the effort, like I’d smoked a thousand cigarettes in an hour and it absolutely wiped me out for the rest of the day. Other than that, while I’d cried as I got the positive result, I thought I was okay. 

More importantly, Jo was coming. And I had been holding on for so long to see her. Her first night in Wellington she spent at a friend’s house because I was still in isolation, though I was incredibly relieved to be testing negative by then. I really wanted her to meet Saj, because they’re both so important to me, so I had her and a bunch of people over on the Friday night. I tried really really hard to be a relaxed hostess and not run around after people, but I coughed so much I peed myself a little (elegant!). Jo is of course a darling and would never have made me do anything, but I wanted to go out with her. We ditched our plans to spend a day at the pool on the grounds that it was school holidays but went for lunch at Pickle & Pie (which we had to leave cos the music was so terrible) and did a gin tasting at Denzien  instead. Then as we walked to her hotel two blocks away, I felt like I absolutely couldn’t go on, and asked her to carry my handbag for me. That’s how weak I felt. I absolutely hated the feeling, and was incredibly ashamed – although I know I shouldn’t have been. There’s a thing that comes with being fat, I think, where you’re so socialised to try to be the “good” fat, so you want to be strong, you don’t want to be seen to sweat or to puff or to not take up any kind of physical challenge. Fatphobia is a hell of a drug.

Speaking of fat, I had been asked by friends of Cat if I could look after distributing her wardrobe to the wider fat community, because it was such a treasure of hers. So Jo and I drove up to Palmerston North on Anzac Day, and absolutely crammed my little hatchback with bags of goodness. I write that like we both did it, but in truth I lifted one bag and had to sit down on the garden wall and try to breathe while she and the friends did it. Would it have been prudent to wait until I’d recovered more? Absolutely. But I wanted to help. I didn’t want Cat’s friends – or her poor parents who’d flown over from America – to be burdened for any longer than necessary. I remember how it took a year to get rid of Opa’s books. I didn’t know Cat nearly as well as many people but I could step up and play my part. And it felt like good timing to do the roadtrip while Jo was with me, because we could chat and listen to good music and sing and just be together. I cried three times on the way home. She was polite and pretended not to notice. I cried every day while Jo was staying because I felt so fucking weak and pathetic and because I’d cried and been pathetic while we were in Tasmania the last time after my gallbladder surgery and I was so angry at myself for not being more PEPPY, for not being a better host. And she said then, and she’ll say now, that I have nothing to apologise for, but I hated it. I hated being weak. 

I still tried to be realistic though, and put a call out to people to help me set up for a size 24+ clothing swap in order to distribute the taonga that was Cat’s wardrobe. Obviously amazing Sara answered the call, and we spent a long night sorting clothing and laughing and cursing at the fact that Cat owned one singlet in over 20 colours amongst a lot of other clothes of course. The next day I had a dozen or more fat babes at my house running around in their underpants, and it was AMAZING. Not cos I’m a perve (that too) but because all of these individuals – most of whom I’d never met before because Boom was out of their price range – were able to find community and clothing and power. It was such a good feeling. But it was so fucking exhausting. 

Longer Covid 

There is no doubt I pushed myself too hard. That I took on too much of a sense of responsibility to the community because Cat was so irreplaceable and I wanted to limit the burden on her loved ones. It wasn’t until I returned to work until I realised exactly how fucked up I’d become. Walking to my desk felt like a Herculean task. Holding a conversation for more than five minutes – even with the people who I liked, talking about cats or whatever became impossible. 

Here’s the most visceral description I can give you of the brain fog that comes with Long Covid. 

This song is an absolute banger, right? But it’ll make your brain feel funny, because it SOUNDS like English, but it’s not (the Italian dude that sang it wrote it cos he saw a lot of English songs going to number one and figured that anything that sounded like English would be popular, even if it wasn’t) 

That’s what it felt like for so long trying to understand even the most basic conversations. My body was physically exhausted as bad as right after surgery for my gallbladder and the surprisingly long time it took to come right after that, but I’m used to my body being a disappointment. I’ve always been the smart girl, able to think of a million things at once. My brain has always been the only thing I’ve had going for me. To lose that ability was a real betrayal. I learned that mental exhaustion can absolutely fuck you physically too. 

One of the hardest things to deal with while I was struggling with COVID was emails from my web host, who kept shutting down my websites (and my email with it) because they were riddled with spyware that I couldn’t clean out of them, no matter how I tried. They wanted to sell me all kinds of upgrade packages promising to deal with it for me, but I had no money. And I know I’m not the most technical person but I used to be able to poke around in stuff and fix it. Not at all in this case. I kept replying going “I can’t think, I can’t function, I can’t do anything, my brain is completely fried, can you please just give me some time?”. I begged people on twitter to help, like I would have happily thrown money at the problem, but I just don’t know the same kind of geeks that I used to. Eventually I just decided to migrate my sites onto wordpress.com directly, which is why this site looks so ugly right now, and there may be advertising on it. Hubris is badly neglected and I need to update her on so much. Writing here is my Acceptance Commitment Therapy, where I sit in my feelings. As you read on you’ll appreciate that it’s deeply ironic that I’m about to pour another glass of wine while I try to finish this story. 

I started to need to turn on TV captions in order to be able to follow anything more complicated than Shortland Street (https://houseofboom.co.nz/blogs/news/it-s-2021-time-for-shortland-street-to-get-some-fat-characters?_pos=1&_sid=61883eb42&_ss=r) . I felt fucking useless at work and wondered why they bothered keeping me on (I am very lucky to be in a small team at a ministry that should care more than others). Doing one extra thing a week would wreck me for the next week. I had to turn down invitations from friends to hang out at the same time as I was feeling extra lonely and isolated.

I can’t remember the exact timeline or sequence that events happened in, but one of the shows I was watching with captions was The Deuce. In one scene, a character commits suicide, kind of out of the blue, with no prep and no planning and I was incredibly incredibly jealous. To just let go! To be released like that! To not have to care about anyone else! I wanted that for myself (while also knowing it was unobtainable and not an option). And I thought about it a lot. So I made an appointment with the Employee Assistance Programme to get some counseling because I couldn’t go on crying every other day with exhaustion. She also had me make an appointment with my doctor to get blood tests (and a doctor’s note for work) and I cried in the doctor’s office over how happy I was that she could hear a wheeze in my lungs that had never been there before, like I wasn’t just making things up. My Vitamin B12 levels were also incredibly low once again, so I got a shot of that, and it made a huge difference to my energy levels. Because I was one week off before three months since I’d had covid, my official diagnosis is Acute Covid Syndrome, but that’s Long Covid to you or I. It’s weird, because I don’t talk about where I work here, but I guess I could say it’s in the disability sector. I was worried about going into the disability space as a non-disabled person, but here I am now and I guess I’m starting to accept that label. 

When I started counseling, I was basically so worn out that I would sit in her office eyes shut, I couldn’t even look at her and sometimes I’d lie down on the couch. She’d ask me what I was hoping to achieve and at first I’d be like, I just want you to listen because you’re paid to, and it’s a safe space, and I’m not burdening anyone else like my overburdened coworkers or my overburdened friends. She has really furry pillows, which is an excellent thing for a counselor to have. I enjoyed how over our six sessions I could feel myself start to look at her her better, as the vitamin b12 kicked in and I started to be able to focus a little better, even though some work things continued to be hard. I now ask people to please email me bullet points if they need something from me, knowing that I can’t sustain a meeting for more than half an hour. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It is easing a little. This is December when I’m writing of course.

Two months after I had COVID I had my birthday and I had to ask my dad to carry my present bag to the car for me. My counselor suggested to me that I have someone else organise my birthday party and I laughed in her face knowing how much more that would stress me out.  

Covid Too – the sequel 

What happened next is that, finally starting to feel a little bit more like myself, I wanted someone else to feel me. I was horny. And I was specifically horny for a cis dude (any dude would do). I was craving the hardness of a body different from mine, to be scratched by stubble during a marathon kissing session. I set my Tinder account to be open to men as well as women, for the first time in like five years, and while most of the profiles reminded me exactly of why I’d stopped looking at men in the first place, I eventually matched with a silver fox and sent him a witty response to the question in his profile. When we started talking, he was like “Wait, are you HUBRIS? We’ve met before”, and I laughed because of cooooooooooourse he has, everyone in Wellington knows me, but I never remember anyone else. I suggested a couple of places where we might have met, and he said “actually it’s more embarrassing that that – we actually kissed. You wrote a blog post about me”. 

“I know that my gut instinct is correct in thinking that the boy I kissed this past Saturday is trouble, but oh, what a kiss. ”

Oh. OH. The boy I kissed in 2009 who I felt would be trouble but whose kiss I couldn’t get out of my head for a number of years. The boy who’d watched me fuck a friend of his (turns out it was his ex girlfriend) in a hotel room. The boy I’d meant to hook up with after that but it never happened cos generally one of us was too drunk for us to get together. THAT boy. Well fuck yeah I wanted to talk to him and see what could be, and find out if he was still trouble. Hey spoiler alert: yes. 

I want to capture the feelings that I had before I’m looking back and going why the fuck did I allow myself to ignore all those red flags. I want to also remember what it felt like to bask in a shared glow. I want to remember that actually, sometimes it’s okay to let go and take a calculated jump even if it doesn’t end up where you hoped it would. 

So I wanna tell you about the absolute tingles of driving out to a lighthouse one evening, after joking to your friends it would be the perfect place for a murder cos no one would hear you screaming, and having them tell you it would also mean no one would hear my loud screaming orgasms either. Of the butterflies of anticipation during smart, intelligent conversation about the journeys we’d both been on since the last time we met, and about his sobriety. Of an absolutely ridiculous situation with a briefcase full of gold coins that needed to be counted and then finally hours later another kiss. Some things are worth waiting for, and that was one of them. A lady would draw a veil over the evening, but since I am no lady, I’ll tell you about just how fucking amazing it felt to see him watching me walk naked to the bathroom, like a cartoon character whose eyes are popping out of their head with lust. I know you shouldn’t need someone else’s validation in order to feel comfortable in your own skin, but fuck it’s nice to have though. 

He was supposed to go back to his own town the next day but we still managed to spend most of the day in my bed. I could tell that I was falling for him already, and I let myself be pried open (my feelings, obviously. Legs open for a lot of people, my heart does not. I had only ever said “I love you” to three people face to face before this) . Later he took me out to dinner and charmed the waiters while I was so well-fucked basically all I could do was giggle and try to rehydrate, thinking of the puddles I’d left on my bed, thankful for waterproof mattress covers. We kissed goodbye in the rain and he left Wellington, but I knew I’d see him again soon. We stayed in constant contact on Messenger. 

Two days later he posted on Facebook about testing positive for COVID, but didn’t mention it to me until I brought it up. I tested too and yup, though the second line was pale and slow to emerge, it was present. Fuckety fuck fuck fuck. I was terrified that the second time would be worse than the first. He suggested that we isolate together but I didn’t want anyone to see me in the whining whinging ball of snot that I become whenever I’m sick. We talked three times a day or more. Very quickly I got used to facetiming him so we could see what each other were eating for dinner. We talked about FEELINGS. He sent me a cake.

I sent him flowers that arrived before the cake.

I joked with my friends that I felt like I was in the episode of 30 Rock when Liz’s friends secretly hire a sex worker to seduce her because he just seemed so absolutely perfect for me. Demelza told me they weren’t rich enough to hire anyone for me. He asked how could he know that I hadn’t been hired for him?  But he was the one with the briefcase full of coins. 

We told each other stories. He liked my terrible terrible jokes. Two days into isolation when I wasn’t sicker we tried to figure out if there was a way he could get down to me without coming into contact with anyone. I could see he was a person who thrived when bouncing off other people and could use the company but I just didn’t think I had enough energy to drive to his town and back in one day. In retrospect, maybe I should have. Maybe it would have changed the course of events but of course hindsight is 20/20, right? So is thinking about two years ago.(That’s a joke). 

There were a couple of phone calls that were less than great though. This is where I swing into questionable territory with Hubris. My thoughts and feelings and experiences are my own, of course, but talking about other people’s stuff creates the question of when does it veer into someone else’s story, someone else’s business? So I guess I will focus on the me, as much as I can, although this will mean some obtuseness. One of the reasons I was so attracted to him this time around was his sobriety, and his willingness to talk about that. I still carry the memory of the start of 2020, when I stopped drinking for a while because I knew it was becoming an issue so I think I have some kind of insight. Everything was so fucking terrifying and I felt like everything I did was like dragging myself over a cheesegrater. Every part of me was just so raw. You may have read all that over past Hubris entries, and know that I try to be sensible now – making sure I eat, making sure I drink plenty of water, using H.A.L.T as a way to think if I’m hungry, angry, lonely or tired before I drink and trying to solve those problems instead of avoiding them. The last time I drank badly was the day that Cat died, when I mixed alcohol with tramadol on purpose because I was in pain. So it was exciting to be maybe building something with someone who didn’t drink, who talked about their feelings, because it meant I wouldn’t be drinking when I was with him either. What is not exciting or fun, however, is to be on the phone to someone who is not sober, and to be terrified they are going to do something to hurt themselves.

The notes app on my phone started getting a lot of use as I put down my feelings and tried to sort out my brain. I am proud that I set boundaries – “Don’t call me if you’re high” and considered what dealbreakers I would have. You know me, I’m a Gemini and while not everything about that stereotype rings true, communication is EVERYTHING to me. I can cope with just about everything as long as people are honest and communicate with me about it. When we got out of our respective isolations we made plans for him to come down and spend the weekend with me. I tidied my room. I baked a pie. His boss texted me to say he wasn’t coming, that he needed some time. I took the sad pie over to my neighbours instead. Eventually he messaged. We spent three hours on the phone the next morning talking about what had happened. I decided I needed to go and visit him instead. 

Once I got out of COVID isolation I was able to return to my EAP counselor. We spent a while talking about semantics because I noticed so many of the words I used to describe him – enchanting, magical, bewitching – could have negative trickery connotations, and I tried to figure out if it meant that I was doubting his sincerity or just whether I actually deserved such attention. I told her that I’d promised myself that I would always tell Jo everything, and that if there were things that I didn’t want to tell Jo, that’s especially when I would know I needed to tell her (and writing this now makes me chuckle uneasily cos oops, I have not told her a few things lately). We talked about issues around addiction, and she checked in to make sure I wasn’t feeling responsible (and I’m proud to say I was not). She asked me “yes these are all things that are important – but how do you feel when you’re actually with him?” Safe. Warm. Cared for. Sexy. Interesting. Admirable. All the things. I loved how I felt reflected in his eyes.  Do you know those minutes when you’re sprawled across a bed naked and you look backwards over your shoulder to smile at your lover coming to bed and your hair is skimming your bare skin and everything is tingling and in that minute you feel like the absolute centre of the universe? Like that. Like coming home. Every cliche. My counselor told me it sounded like I had thought things through well, and was realistic. “What will you do if it fails?” she asked me. “Cry a lot. And come back to you to talk it through,” I said. Falling for someone is always risky, you can get your heart broken without distance and other issues involved anyway. So she said “Go – go and let yourself be dazzled”. I did. 

My August weekend in the town he was living in was one of the best weekends of my life. I had Bridget Jones and her obsession with mini-breaks in my head. But just to be there with him, to touch him after a couple of incredibly intense weeks getting to know one another from a distance was unbelievable. He was real. I hadn’t made the whole thing up. I hadn’t made up how I felt. And holy fuck he felt so good. 

Now we come into a whole diversion about my sexuality, and how strange it felt to have so many feelings about a boy. Normally I forget that the whole thing about being queer is that it’s the word I prefer to describe myself with, as it’s more of a call to action than “bi” but oh yes, I do actually like boys too. In fact the last person I was in love with, at the end of 2019, was a man. There were tangles in my brain too, about how I often end up being domme with women but my preference is to be submissive and yet it’s only dudes that top me. And then the I AM A STRONG FEMINIST, I DON’T NEED NO MAN part was screaming about how fucking nice it was to be with a man and have him take care of me. It was nice to be the little spoon. It was so nice to be taken care of. On the Sunday I took a nap in the back room of his workplace and he came in to check that I was warm enough, and to bring me water. That seems like not a huge gesture, but it felt like everything. He made me feel the way I try to always make others feel. Just how absolutely right it felt to be with him made my overheated mind go “wait have I been lying about being queer after all? Am I actually just straight? Am I even failing at being gay?” which is of course nonsense because there’s no right way to have a sexuality – it just speaks to the lack of care previous lovers had given me. And that seems worth mentioning – how everyone I’d loved before had girlfriends or husbands or massive internalised homophobia that they prioritised over me. So to have most of one person’s focus for once was absolutely intoxicating. And he told people about me! I wasn’t a dirty hidden secret for the first time ever. Wow.

I’m a planner. Y’all know that. Someone can smile at me across the street and I’ll imagine the potential arguments we’ll have about where to send our children (I’m never going to agree to let my son go to an all boys’ school, COME ON). OId undiagnosed ADHD noggin here cranks at six thousand thoughts per second, so just because I consider something – like the children I’ll have with a stranger on the street – doesn’t mean it’s necessarily something that I really really want. But to watch him at work, I could see a future together, even in separate cities. I loved how he treated everyone, the space he created. I was deeply deeply turned on by his ambition. His sparkle combined with my getting shit done attitude could have created some really great projects. And I loved feeling my brain work on ideas too, slowly shifting out of the sludge it’d been mired under for so long. He felt like such a catalyst, because if a man that great could be into me, well anything could be possible and achievable. I asked him to take photos of me in various Boom clothes I’d brought up for the background, and he pulled out a ladder onto the street to get the best angles. I was embarrassed at the attention, and he was like “They’re just looking at the hotness of you” and it felt conceivable. The enthusiasm! The spotlight! The attention! Honestly again, if I was to try to describe the way I wanted someone to make me feel, it would just be describing that weekend. That night I had the same reoccurring nightmare that I have so often about being at school and having missed most of the year and being about to sit an exam and not knowing where my classes were, and it was amazing to be able to wake up with him at my side and have him wrap his arms around me and comfort me even while making fun of me for having such a nerdish nightmare.

Weekends end though. I went back to Wellington. We discussed him coming down for the next weekend. He relapsed instead. I tried to reinforce my boundary of not being called when he wasn’t sober. I said that I’d be there for him as long as he was doing the work and if he wanted me. Rinse, repeat throughout September. That withdrawal of affection hit so hard, to go from constant joy to breadcrumbs was a hell of a come-down. It also had far too many echoes of how others had treated me in the past. I didn’t like how I was acting either, begging for scraps. Previously I’d been proud of myself for setting boundaries, for talking openly about my feelings, for asking for the things I needed. I liked that I wasn’t comparing myself to his successful exes, that I felt secure thinking that I was the right person for him at the time (though you know the group-chat got pinged when one of them appeared in the paper). 

So in order to keep myself from losing the plot, I decided I needed a distraction. What better way to salve an overthinking brain than by bringing back a huge fucking big deal? I decided to hold Camp Boom again and soon found myself overwhelmed with decisions to make and things to do and financial stress, but he was still on my mind.   

 He disappeared for a week and then surfaced to ask me to lend him money. That was my dealbreaker. I waited two days before replying to say that I was done, that I’d take his call when he got to the ninth step, and that I hoped it wouldn’t be another 13 years before we saw each other again. He sent me the nicest message saying he understood. It hurt. It still hurts. But in a surprisingly responsible move, instead of throwing myself under the nearest person, I made sad playlists and tried to sit in my feelings, allowing myself to feel the grief of all that lost potential, the things it felt like we had been building and that we could have had. I second-guess myself constantly, trying to figure out if any of it was real or not. I think it was. I hope it was. 

Third time’s a charm? 

The theme for Sajoween  (the annual Halloween party Saj and I throw every year) VI was Horror Prom and the stupid fucking ridiculous romantic in me carried this tiny little hopeful spark inside that he’d show up, because guess who’s seen the Prom episode of Buffy  way too many times? Somewhat ironically, I got drunk and messaged him to say I missed him. Sorry Jo, I didn’t tell you that. 

The weekend after that was my friend Rachel’s amazing wedding, where I drank a lot of water as well as a lot of wine so that I would behave myself. Even though we were asked to RAT beforehand, it turned out some people at the wedding had COVID, and when I got sick I thought well fuck, this is it, number three. I stayed home, felt really fucking sick, took RATs every day and was surprised every day when they were negative. I even went and got a PCR test to be sure. Still negative. It was just my crappyass immune system fucking up. That cold has left me feeling kitten-weak all over again like the first bout of COVID.  

I spent way more money on Camp and scholarships than I had budgeted for. I didn’t sell as many tickets as I needed to. I launched a new season of House of Boom because I am always a stupid optimist and had to pay for that while trying to hold money to pay for the venue and the catering. I had to refund someone because they got COVID (and that was my promise to make people feel more comfortable about attending). I currently have $25 left on the overdraft in my business account. People who received scholarships didn’t bother showing up. Speakers were really uncommunicative. Other speakers got COVID and I had to pivot seven thousand times? One person out of the 45 or so people there was basically unbearable. And yet Camp was amazing? Full credit must go to Sara for being the most amazing number two a girl could ever hope for, and for others for stepping up when my stupid fucking longass COVID self physically could not carry anything anymore, or really mentally either. 

I am incredibly proud of what I created. And yet, as soon as it was over, as soon as I stopped having to make a million fucking decisions on the fly all the time, I realised that gaping giant great big hole is still there. Camp was a much more productive way to try and kill the pain than many other alternatives, and caused a greater net good, but I still feel him missing. And yeah, I messaged him to say that (sorry Jo) and he sent me back an incredibly lovely message and I felt that spark again and no. He’s moved on (it doesn’t take a Veronica Mars-esque best friend to know that, but it helps) and I don’t know how he’s had time to take care of himself and be able to take care of someone else too, but it’s not actually my business. 

I don’t feel like we are done forever? There may be some time in the future where the planets align and we are both where we need to be. Maybe in another 13 years? For a non-spiritual person, I am surprisingly into the idea of FATE. I didn’t intend to catch COVID on Tinder, let alone feelings, and yet here we are.  

Look, this shit is all pretty grim. I wanna end on an up note. The full funding of Trikafta may be a huge fucking deal to someone in my family and that’s worth celebrating. Cheers.

And let’s let this just be a one paragraph digression. In the past two years I have done very well at learning how to deal with my feelings without resorting to alcohol. I sit and I process things. But that means processing and feeling becomes the primary response (as it should be) and recording those feelings becomes a distant thought. If you read back through twenty something years of posts on Hubris, you’ll see I speak “my truth” more when I’ve been drinking – and you’ll see that my previous counsellor even kind of encouraged that as a way to actually feel things. So this is somewhat of a conundrum for someone who’s been doing a lot of work to only drink in a more mindful way. And that’s why though Sebastian died in August, I’m only at the point now in February where I feel I can write about it now, and that’s only because I want to write a year in review and all that crap, but I can’t make him just one paragraph in a great big piece. He absolutely deserves his own entry.

Did you meet Sebastian? Here is the first online journal entry when I talk about adopting him on January 26, 2003. He was five weeks old then, more ears than cat, and he fit in the palm of my hand. I brought him home from the pet shop and we sat on the floor in the kitchen and I held him and told him what his name would be. He gave me a brown shower one morning, and I threatened to wax my flatmate’s balls after he stuck a giant “Rock FM” sticker to Seb who didn’t even notice. When Iva moved in with her two female cats, Seb made mounting them motions, even they were all fixed, but we’d still find them all cuddled up on the spare bed in the lounge. He slept with me every night and bit the toes of boys who stayed in my bed overnight.

I can’t write out 18 and a half years of history. You know the basics. I moved back to Wellington at the end of 2003 and had to sedate Sebby for the flight down. My parents loved him when I lived with them – their cat did not. Seb put up with horrible flatmates who didn’t like him in Newtown. I can still hear him crying from the night he got locked up in a warehouse in Newtown and a member of Two Lane Blacktop tried to help me bust him out in the morning and got covered in wood chips for his trouble.

Seb came into his own when I moved to Hataitai with my sister Anji and he had two people totally dedicated to him. He loved Bart and Smoo later when Anji went elsewhere. It was a strange thing to know that I wouldn’t be too surprised to wake up to street signs and blood on the bathroom walls from random drunken boy shenanigans but that they would absolutely feed my little man if I asked them to, and let him in and out when needed.

It’s strange, I lived in Newtown for a couple of years after that but I was so caught up in a stupid boy for a while then that my memories of Sebastian at Immoral Terrace are few and far between. I know I left my bedroom window open for him which meant that someone almost climbed through it one night. I started taking two zopiclone a night (do NOT do that!) at the suggestion of my psychiatrist who later had a breakdown and left the country while I was hooked on sleeping pills witout any clinical notes to support it, so I can only imagine Sebastian enjoyed me sleeping that much, as he loved to crawl up into my left arm pit to cuddle with me.

After Newtown there was a brief stay with my parents again where I learned just how much a cat could be weaponised in a passive aggressive battle – “oh your mother’s still not up to feed you? well I guess I’ll feed you then!” before a six week stay at the Aro end of the Terrace. On the first afternoon i was there, Seb went outside and disappeared under the house, but even though I was worried, I was confident enough that he was bonded to me that he’d come straight back when he was done exploring – and he did.

When I moved into my first ever place by myself, I wondered if I’d have to teach him how to use the cat door that I had especially installed. Nope. That fucking slut had clearly been going in and out of someone else’s house with all the skill and confidence he demonstrated going in and out of the cat door at Scarborough Terrace.

At one stage I wondered where the heck he was spending all his time, and pondered on Twitter if I should attach a camera to his calendar. I received a tweet back from my neighbour – who I didn’t know followed that account – saying all I’d see was the inside of her cupboards. She sent me pics of his butt disappearing into her cabinets to prove it. After his death she sent me a whole cache of pics of him, snuggled with her boyfriend at the time on their bed, interrupting her yoga shoots or sniffing her flat lays of smoothie ingredients. He always was a slut.

And that was the amazing thing about Sebby. He was so chill with everyone. I believe this is because of how many people were coming and going in Volcanic Street when he was a baby – I guess there are benefits to living in what was practically a youth hostel. He was just such a chill dude. Mostly.

Of course in 2012, when Florence showed up and decided to adopt me, Seb had plenty of reason to be less chill. Here was this whole other cat deciding to sleep on HIS bed, to be on HIS human, to take the place in front of HIS heater – and of course that happened around the same time that I started my first grown up relationship when it wasn’t just another cat in my bed but another woman too. He wasn’t happy at first, but then he understood that he was still top dog, and wasn’t nearly as threatened. Sheryl always talked about how important it was for her to charm him., not Florence, since that was who was really in control. There was nothing better than mornings in bed with her, the paper and two cats.

And when there was no more Sheryl, there was still a Sebastian. He was always there for me when I cried – not necessarily running to comfort me outside of his own schedule, but he definitely knew when I was upset. Honestly, fucking hell – imagine you had to see me cry almost all the times I cried in 18 and a half years. Imagine you had to deal with my highs and lows. That cat was a goddamn hero.

When I bought my house in Thorndon, I was happy to let him out first thing when the cat door was installed, because I knew he’d come back to me. Florence used to love jumping out the upstairs window and making her way down to the ground again. One day he followed her and was still stuck on the roof unsure what to do next when I heard her coming back in through the cat flap.

Of course Thorndon meant a dog in the garden and sometimes in the house. I feel bad for Trixie as to how quickly she was whipped by the cats to be afraid of them. Sometimes I would sit in the garden with Seb on one side of me and Florence on the other – both of them very staunch in their dislike for each other – and Trixie would want to come for pats, but couldn’t get past my guardians unless she pushed through the weeds at the back. Sometimes she’d come in to eat the food the cats had snobbed and run out with half a bag of catfood in her mouth – but Lorde help her if Seb or Flo ever saw her and took a swipe.

Too many people in the house continued to be a theme as I took in AirBnB guests to pay for a trip to Mexico. Florence was deaf by then, screaming every morning like Fran Drescher for food and Seb would be bemused by her – like shut up Flo but oh, there’s food happening now? I can dig that. They had chosen their own sides of me to sleep on by then, though things got a little more complicated when Flo started burrowing under the blankets for my warmth and Seb didn’t know.

At this stage I need to write about how he disappeared for six days, and when he showed up again, his back left leg was all bung. But it still makes me cry thinking about how he managed to drag himself home to me though he was basically screaming in pain, so we will just leave it there. I so wish more of you could have met him before his injury. You know how great he was at sitting in a corner so regal and handsome waiting for you to lavish attention and treats on him? Yeah that but times a million.

After Florence died, I think it took him a while to adjust back to having ALL of my attention, but he liked it. At parties, he’d hold court in the corner of the couch, waiting for people to pat him and feed him treats. At Boom popups he’d lie on my bed – having climbed up the little stairs on an extra box – and watch people getting changed, always hoping for treats.

During the first lockdown, when D had a brain aneurism, everything after that didn’t matter, once D was home safe. So this is where we come to second lockdown in August 2021. I was burnt out and grateful for an excuse to pause Boom stuff, and I was happy to just be home and just chill with Sebby. Until I noticed his breathing was a little laboured. I took him for some steamy showers to break up congestion, but that didn’t do anything, so I made him a vet appointment to get some antibiotics.

We were at Level 4 so I couldn’t go into the vet’s with him. I had to put him in his cage – which he got into so patiently, ever since his accident he always knew that that vet meant getting better, even when it meant two kinds of painkiller a day and arthritis shots once a month – and leave it on the bottom of the vet’s stairs, like I was leaving my baby outside a church. But they’d take his temperature and prescribe some antibiotics, he’d be chill, it was fine. Except that it turned out they suspected he had fluid on his lungs and they wanted to scan him. I agreed, and howled in my car. The vet came outside in a mask and told me he thought Seb had lymphoma, and that in a cat his age, there wasn’t really anything they could do, and that he was in a lot of pain. I knew they were saying it was time to say goodbye, but at level 4, I didn’t want to do that without being there. I asked what we could do, and they told me they’d put in a drip and a two metre line, and I could come in wearing a mask and gloves, and hold Sebby for ten minutes under the regulations, and they could give him the drugs from a distance.

How do you say goodbye to someone who’d been there half your life in ten minutes? I’m actually in a way grateful that it happened that way because Seb was inside while I howled in the carpark and bawled my eyes out as they set things up inside. I’m so pleased he didn’t have to see me like that. I hate that I was wearing a mask and gloves when I went in to see him, but he was just lying in his open cage, chilled out, line going into his paw that hurt a bit so I couldn’t pick him up. But I stroked him and told him how proud I was of him, what a good boy he was. I reminded him of how when I first got him and carried him home from the Balmoral shops how we sat on the floor in the kitchen together, and how we had always been so bonded. I wanted to yell WAIT STOP when he was rubbing himself against the side of the cage, still seeking skritches, because how could you kill someone who just still wanted to be scratched under the ears? But I asked the vet to come in, and I stroked Sebastian, and I told him that I loved him, and the vet gave him the sleep and he went limp. My boy. My beautiful beautiful boy.

It was Level 4 in New Zealand, which meant basically nothing but essential services were available, so when I was ready to talk about it – after doing a contactless dropoff of Tom’s birthday cake to Karen and wow if you think Brits are emotionally cold, imagine having to see someone you love when they know something incredibly devastating has happened to you and they can’t touch you – I told the internet that if they wanted to do something productive for me, I’d take donations towards the Sebastian and Florence tattoos I already had booked, since they couldn’t send me flowers. And I said that reminding people I had everything I needed, but also knowing I’d received four bunches of flowers when Flo had died, and knowing how I’d feel if I was in the place of people who loved me and how sometimes it’s nice to throw money at issues. So my friends paid for my cat tattoos – which were the same price as Seb’s final tests and cremation – and that makes them even more special.

When we got to Level 2 my parents brought me a magnolia tree to plant and scatter his ashes under. I just cried a lot. I cried and cried and cried. I’m crying now as I write this, which is right and good, because fuuuuuuuck. That sweet boy meant everything to me.

Soon I will tell you other things about 2021, and I’ll talk to you about Callie and Katie. But I’d held off for far too long telling the story of Sebastian, and I still feel I haven’t done him any justice because I haven’t told a single anecdote – like the tragedy of Will’s ham, for starters. But at least I started. And I’ve got him tattooed on my arm and inside my heart, so there will be stories forever.

There has been a super pink super lesbian super moon or something recently. I’ll blame that for the malaise. Has it been depression or anxiety that made the floor lava? Anxiession? Depriety? Either way, it just meant hiding in bed with Sebastian, who is still my most wonderful fluffy boi, despite a few health scares and an evergrowing awareness that he’s running out the clock. Now a couple of days later when I’ve been moving my body more and eating vegetables and ticking off tasks to be more productive I’m almost furious at how much better I feel, like IT’S ALL SO SIMPLE. But then we get into the chicken and egg scenario, and wonder why they couldn’t both come simultaneously.

Fat has been on my mind a lot. I mean, obviously it has, it’s my business. I organised a fat swim in January and went on a hydroslide for the first time in 25 years. When I sat up there, feeling a bit scared although the size of the tube assured me I would not pull a Homer and get stuck, I thought to myself “Well, if I can be brave enough to start a business, I can be brave enough to go down a hydroslide”. That’s now the name of a talk someone is going to give at Camp Boom in November this year, which is fucking awesome. Also fucking awesome? This video of me at the recent fat swim in April:

And so the fat swim thing will take me to Auckland in three weeks (May 22, come along! And/or let’s hang out while I’m there) and I’m already dreading packing. Well, more specifically, the opening of the Trans-Tasman bubble takes me to Auckland so I’ve decided to put on a fat swim while I’m up there as well as booking in a solid night of crying a year’s worth of tears on the bosom on my most beloved. I’ve also booked a trip to Christchurch to go to the fat babe pool party down there, and to ride the choo choo train back to Wellington. Sara and I had a night in Taup? last year when we went to check out the venue for Camp Boom (have I mentioned Camp lately? You should come to it). Saj and I went to Marlborough for a day on the ferry to do a wine tour and get out of Wellington. I’m trying to do that whole do something new, New Zealand, thing. I do it from a world of privilege.

Recently I read a book (I’ve read 14 books so far this year, amazingly) called Letters from Skye which is, strangely enough, a novel told in the form of letters, and it made me think of the person I used to have email correspondence with when I was 21 after he emailed me saying he read my journal and it made him happy and he wanted to send me a present. The last time I thought about English Mark so much was when I was reading Three Women and pondering grooming and age difference and all of the many many awful things in that book made me think about so many awful relationships or things that have happened. But in this case, I just miss the story-telling. At 40 chances are I’m barren so who even knows if there’ll be someone to think about me but it might be nice for them to have some stories of mine if they do end up existing.

I’ve been contemplating this as well because I’m booked in for my first ever tattoo. Previous ideas I’ve had for tattoos are things that I am super super relieved I never got, so I’m worried about what if I change my mind? But I keep my paper diary from 1996 and 1997, and Hubris stretches back to 1998, and those are my stories, I own them. I haven’t deleted them despite some of the gross language I use and bullshit that I express because they’re part of me, so I figure a tattoo will be the same. Besides, who could ever regret a COVFEFE tattoo?

At some stage, maybe around 2005, I started a word document copying in all my old journal entries and annotating them and adding in all the <!—secret comment tag special comments – – > and even then there was plenty of stuff I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was talking about, so sorry about it, future me. But hey, here’s something I want you to know, future me – you’re pretty great. Like I really hope you have learned to listen to the 100 people who say nice things and not focus on the 1 person who doesn’t, but even if you haven’t got that, you’re still pretty great.

Tomorrow is Saj’s birthday party and Nors’s farewell, but I am not thinking about that part yet. Does not compute. Even with vaccinations on the horizon, the thought of travel to the UK is still a big no. I will settle for Melbourne for Jo’s birthday in June. I can’t believe it’s been a year since we went to Level 3. The loneliness of Level 4 still seems so fresh. But this means it’s also been a year since I’ve been in my once-new job, and a year since I eased alcohol back into my life in a very different capacity. You’ll still find me grizzling on Twitter about how unfair it is to know that when I’ve had a shitty day and all I wanna do is get drunk I don’t because I know it won’t help. But you’ll also find me with unwelcome hangovers after 50^th birthday party sing-along Grease on an empty stomach. Balance, my friend, balance.

1. What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before?

• Spent over four months completely sober (I haven’t done that since I was 16?)
• Had a six figure salary (briefly!)
• Wrote a video script for the Prime Minister
• Organised a camp for 32 babes
• Took classes in Te Reo and NZSL
• Had relationships with four different people (not at once)
• Successfully processed my PTSD with EMDR ( Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Do you know how amazing it is to be able to go to the dental hygienist and not worry about having a flashback and panic attack? I hope you do.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

The resolutions I made for 2020?

Go on a date with Dan – well that won’t happen, and I haven’t met Mittens instead either.
Buy a new bed & couch – done! And for good measure I installed new flooring throughout my house and a brand new kitchen too.
Pay my mother back at least 3k for House of Boom – 2/3 ain’t bad
Get a new job – yes! Two of them in fact. The job I was in at the start of the year I lasted less than three months in, because there was no way for me to achieve anything in it, but I love my job now and I actually get to make a difference.
Organise a Camp Boom – YES! This happened in early November – read more about it here. It was so much hard work but I am incredibly proud of what I achieved and the space that I (and many others) created for the attendees.

So new resolutions? I don’t have any specific ones actually, beyond throwing another Camp, but I know I will have to have a very serious discussion with myself when it gets close to December about whether or not to continue doing House of Boom beyond three years.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My old work partner Amy did.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
It was a close call, but thank fuck, no one did.

5. What countries did you visit?
Um hello, 2020! Instead, I did domestic travel. In February I went to the Fat Babe Pool Party in Auckland. I went to Martinborough for a weekend with my family after lockdown, I went on a fancy mindfulness retreat in the Hawkes Bay in September and tomorrow I am going to Taranaki for two nights.

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?
A relationship that lasts, with Facebook status. I am fucking OVER being people’s hidden away dirty little secret.

7. What date from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
December 19 when I finally got to have my season four photoshoot, that had been planned for a year in advance, which had shifted location from R&D’s house to Anna’s sister’s house, then was cancelled due to lockdown, then was supposed to be in a fancy hotel and then ended up being in my kitchen. I don’t have the pictures back yet but it was marvellous being with my Boomettes again having spent the whole year just taking photos of myself. And I rolled with all the punches of a changing roster of Boomettes and people not showing up at the last minute and we got it DONE. Boom.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Surviving. Obviously 2020 was a fucking nightmare for everyone, but to be honest my hardest times were possibly pre-COVID. I wrote about all of that very extensively on here. There were various pop-ups of shitty stuff throughout the year to keep me on my toes, but I dealt with those too. And Camp Boom! That was my other biggest success.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Financial management. I’m gutted I haven’t paid back Mum that last of the money she lent Boom, and I know I need to take a very good look at Boom’s finances and stop propping it up out of my own pocket. I would have liked to have made money on Camp, but eight people got scholarships and had experiences they said were life-changing, and who can put a price on that?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had two COVID tests and my last massuese went “WOW” at the size of the knot in my shoulders, but physically things have been okay. Mentally I have continued to work on taking care of myself.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A ticket to the mindfulness retreat I went on and my new kitchen tiles:

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Always the answer to this will be Jo. But also everyone who supported me when I needed it – like Elizabeth who I know on Twitter but not very well, who came over to play Bananagrams with me at the start of the year because she thought I might like to hang out with people who I didn’t normally drink with (and she was absolutely right). Sara was always at my side when I needed catsitting or Boom things done. My family who helped me through my renovation even when I was behaving like a sulky little brat.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
COVID deniers. Right wing assholes. Centerist politics.

14. Where did most of your money go?
On me. You know it’s the way of my people to throw money at our problems and I spent thousands on counselling – which I very much needed, reparations, expensive gym subscription, fitness clothes, meditation apps, mindfulness retreats. I’m incredibly fucking privileged that I was able to do that, and I don’t take that privilege lightly.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Camp Boom! Who wouldn’t get excited about being able to surround themselves with fat babes and wine tasting and yoga and belly-dancing and clothes swaps and life drawing?

16. What song will always remind you of 2020?
During lockdown I was determined to stay active to keep my brain okay, and I will always remember dancing to ‘Blinding Lights’ by the Weeknd and bawling my eyes out because the man I loved was in hospital with a brain aneurysm and no one could be with him and all I could do was keep dancing while I cried. ‘Too Much’ by Carly Rae Jepsen was also on the playlist and also made me think about myself too much.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Fatter and so so much happier.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Dancing and swimming.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on stupid clicky clicky Property Brothers game.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent 90 minutes or so baking my mother her beloved Spekkoek multi-layered cake, and then I went up to their house with my sisters & their partners to eat too much and just have a nice surprisingly chill evening with mountains of presents.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Jo of course, and Zoom counselling sessions, plus of course a million trillion Zoom work sessions.

22. Did you fall in love in 2020?
Not quite. Definitely fell for a beautiful babe, but she called it off before I could fall too hard, so I guess I’m grateful for small mercies!

23. How many one-night stands?
If we’re defining it as meeting someone and having sex with them then never seeing them again, none!

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Shrill. My tolerance for media without fat people is shrinking rapidly.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No. I’ve spent too much time on mindfulness to hate people!

26. What was the best book you read?
Two books – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous which was just breathtakingly beautiful and sad and powerful, and Three Women which made me shake and ache in recognition.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I dunno if I discovered much, I think there was definitely a lot of reverting to old music for comfort.

28. What did you want and get?
An amazing birthday party, a kitchen renovation, to do a bunch of stuff for Boom like Camp.

29. What did you want and not get?
To hug Jo – either on my 40th birthday or hers. A lasting relationship with facebook status.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I actually went to the movies this year! The last movie I saw at the theatres was the second in the Hunger Games. Anna, Sara and I went to see Birds of Prey at the Embassy and I absolutely loved it.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 40. On my actual birthday I’d already postponed family dinner since Karen was still in hospital so I was supposed to get a massage and have dinner with Anji, but instead I got a COVID test and cried at my mother from a distance when she dropped off flowers for me. So many people sent me flowers! I was so lucky!

Luckily my test came back negative so I was able to go ahead with my 40th dinner plans – I treated a bunch of people to dinner in a private room at Tinakori Bistro and it was amazing. I made this speech which I may as well reproduce here for posterity:

Thank you all for coming tonight. I’ve been planning this for a long time – since February in fact when Jo booked her flight over – though obviously that didn’t happen. And then last week when I had to go get a covid test and I was worried this wasn’t going to be able to go ahead, I was freaking out but determined to be chill about it. It’s the roadblock in the third act I have to overcome, I said, this is the part where the Spice Girls discover the bomb on the bus – but they make it to Albert Hall in the end and everyone has a wonderful time.

The reason this dinner is such a big deal is because I planned it when I had no idea what my life would be like, or if I’d even have anyone to celebrate with. I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t the funny pervy drunkard. I didn’t know if anyone could stand to be around me when I hated myself so much. So I want to thank you all. Thank you for having soda with me when I couldn’t drink. Thank you for holding me when I couldn’t stop crying. Thank you for supporting my business when I wanted to burn it all to the ground. Thank you for loving me when I couldn’t love myself.

The first third of the year is basically just one giant blur to me and I like that because it’s unrecognisable to me now. Things are chill in my life now. Things are GOOD. And that’s because of you all. So let’s eat some good food, have a drink because it’s tasty, not to kill our anxiety, and then let’s have a kani kani. Cheers!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A safe tran-Tasman bubble so I could have hugged Jo more.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
My name in NZSL is the sign for ‘Rainbow’ so I think that sums it up very well.

34. Who kept you sane?
So many people. It was a team effort. But I am also going to have to give special credit to me, because I did the mahi. Also my neighbour Kate was particularly supportive during lockdown because I could cry at her from two metres in our garden, and swap her wine that I wasn’t drinking for butter so I didn’t have to go the terrible anxiety-creating supermarkets.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don’t actually know. I was so raw for a lot of the year I don’t know if i had much of a sex drive.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Fat liberation (body positivity is learning to love your body – fat liberation is making sure you’re never taught to hate it in the first place)

37. Who did you miss?
Dan.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Nors. She is an utter delight and I’m sure she likes my puns more than she pretends. Also all the fat babes I met for Boom-related activities.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019
I matter to people and I deserve to be happy too.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
All my life (hey!)
I’ve had to fight to stay
You were right, love takes time, hey, hey

At my last session with my psychologist, a couple of weeks ago, conducted via Zoom, me on my bed, her in her pristine kitchen, I told her I thought I was ready to graduate for now. A health crisis for someone I cared about had passed the critical stage (though it will have a long tail), my unfulfilling job was over, I was going to get a hug that weekend as we entered level 3 and I had kept it together pretty well throughout solitary lockdown. So I asked her how to introduce alcohol to my life again.

I know what you’re thinking, why did I bother stopping if I was just going to start again? But it was always my intention to be able to have a drink in a different way than I had used alcohol in the past, once I was ready for it. How can I know if I’ve truly actually changed me otherwise? If alcohol is always verboten, then it’s always this black shadow looming over me. I’m stubborn enough that I want to know that I can choose to drink, but choose to drink in a way that meets my values. And I love food & wine together. It’s part of my hospitable nature. So we talked about setting baselines. How much did I want to drink, when did I want to drink, what outcomes were acceptable to me? I said that I wanted to continue to not drink alone throughout lockdown, and generally not drink by myself unless it’s _a_ glass of wine with a nice dinner I’ve cooked – not a bottle of wine and some toast instead of eating vegetables. I won’t drink in times of H.A.L.T – hunger (read: instead of food), anger, loneliness or tiredness (read: exhaustion). I will drive to events more so that I stick to a two glass maximum. And I will allow myself occasional nights with more for celebrations, like my upcoming 40^th birthday. And if that becomes too much, and I can’t drink in a way that aligns with my values and I run the risk of hurting people including myself again, then I’ll stop for good. It was a really encouraging conversation, and it allowed me to be proud of what I’ve actually achieved.

I had my first half glass of rose that Saturday when I got to go to BAMJI’s for dinner at level 3. It wasn’t that amazing, but the half glass of red after dinner was incredibly lush. Since then I’ve had a glass of wine on a date, and a glass of bubbly and a small Bailey’s at a family dinner when we reached level 2. It was nice to not have anxiety about where the next glass of wine was coming from knowing that I actually just couldn’t have any more. I send a picture of every glass to Jo as a weird way of being accountable, which makes a nice change for her from the neverending repeats of photos of my butt I normally send her. I must admit that every clink of Tom’s wineglass on a glass table when we’ve been doing pub quiz over Zoom has given me a Pavlovian response, and I’m really looking forward to going wine tasting this weekend in Martinborough, but I think a lot of that is about a return to normalcy, albeit a better normal.

That date was lovely but ultimately I am not in a good place to have a relationship. After I called it off, someone sent her screenshots of a closed-group conversation I’d had when I’d talked about the reasons I stopped drinking and the specific harms I had caused, so that wasn’t….great. I will always hold myself accountable, and you should too, and I recognise the importance of keeping other people safe. And I’ll talk about my actions if you ask me – and I’ve written about it pretty in-depth here on Hubris too. But knowing someone I trusted (though I’m not sure who) felt the need to take those screenshots in the first place – well that’s really not a great feeling. To be honest, being reminded about it (not that I had ever forgotten, that I ever woke up without thinking about it) was also a really gross feeling, but that’s something I need to carry anyway. I might have to check back in with my counsellor, which I am extremely lucky to be in a position to do.    

Other than that, I am excited and scared to be able to go to the gym and go swimming again. I avoided it this week because Karen was having surgery and I wanted to keep my bubble real tight but our family is going to Martinborough this weekend so it’s time to get out in the big bad world again. I’m going to have to stop wearing my Jo Jo Jim Jams every day, boo. They really are the very best garments for lockdown, but I’ve had a couple of issues with some size 1 pants actually being size 3 which is a nightmare. In better news I have new dresses to pick up this weekend which I am certain will all be gorgeous since they’re made right here in Wellington and it’s a pattern we’ve done before, just in new colours, so that’s good Boom news. I’m still debating whether or not to order more Jim Jams. Why is being a business bitch so hard? Anyway, lunch is almost over so I had better try and tidy a few things before the eagerly anticipated return of MY CLEANER (#bougie) and getting to see darling Sara this afternoon who is coming to catsit. I hope you’re doing okay. Let’s pretend it’s 2003 – leave me a comment and tell me how things are.

So you swallow your disappointments about not being able to do a fashion shoot with your gorgeous Boomettes and realise that no, you won’t get to have your glass of wine at your April 17 launch party. You drag your furniture around to clear a space to shoot photos of yourself and grimace through having to look at literally hundreds of photos where your face is dumb or your body is not showing off the clothes properly and try to be kind to yourself. 

You launch your season FOXY AS FUCK online with a half hour facebook livestream then have to painstakingly caption that because there’s no way that Youtube can understand your slurred very kuwi accent.

Your heart fills with joy when people trust you and your work enough to order four thousand dollars worth even though there’s no sign of when you’ll be able to deliver it. 

And then, project over, you find yourself with a lack of purpose. Everything aches from sitting at a laptop at your dining room table. The urge to just stay asleep grows. You’d do anything to be touched. One night when you’re lying spooning with your cat, he gets a fright and viciously sinks his teeth into the fleshy part of your hand. Your twitter friends convince you to call the doctor. You circle the red on your hand with a vivid and watch anxiously as it grows down your wrist while you wait for the chemist to call you and say your antibiotics are ready. You’ve been hospitalised for cellulitis before and do NOT want to go back. You know you’re cat-astrophising, but it’s still scary going into the pharmacy, when someone won’t stand two metres away from you and the chemist is wearing a welding mask. You cry about the only thing in your bubble turning on you and then you feel fucking pathetic for being such a wimp when so many people have it so much worse so you donate to Women’s Refuge because throwing money at your feelings is what you do best. 

Did you mention how bougie you’ve become – even more so than usual. Your attempts to avoid the supermarket have led to sourdough bread delivery, and Dutch cheese delivery and Italian deli delivery. You rationalise this to yourself by saying you’re supporting small businesses, when maybe the reality is that food is all there’s left to enjoy. You curse yourself when after sending treats to a friend you forget to change your delivery address and she gets your order of pop tarts too and then they’re all sold out. You try to remember to eat regularly so you can take your antibiotics but they make you sleepy and you find yourself crying more. You tell your counsellor this is punishment for thinking that you were handling this well and then you wonder if it’s creepy to ask about her dog when you see the dog bowls behind her. You are so tired of seeing your face on screen in video chat. 

Your bougie decaf coffee turns out not to be as decaffinated as the brand you’re used to and you end up staying awake until 6am playing the Property Brothers game, and because it takes you a couple of days to realise it’s the coffee that’s the problem, you also get major physical anxiety and heart palpitations. No amount of guided meditation can fix that, but luckily there are benzos and zopis to be had later though the nausea lasts all day.

There are moments of lightness too. Your neighbour is a fucking delight who swaps you butter for wine that you weren’t going to drink anyway. When you’re doing a massive zoom call with friends to do a pub quiz that involves no less than three internet connected devices in one house, one man forgets that he’s not wearing pants and you all recoil from the screen when he gets out of bed. You cackle yourself hoarse at Taskmaster and delight in being able to track down items your friends need (coffee filters, olive oil) from local suppliers. You plan iso-dates with cute girls you’ve started talking to on OKC. You somehow trick yourself into relating to Laura Ingalls Wilder in The Long Winter, partly because you’re reading another book about white people surviving a cruel winter on a prairie. Because obviously being limited to deciding whether to go clockwise or windershins around the block on your semi daily walk is exactly the same kind of isolation. You resign from your job that doesn’t align with your values or deliver any sense of fulfillment and feel guilty because you have another job to go to when so many are struggling right now. 

You try to do good things like hanging cardboard easter eggs in the bushes around your property for passers-by to hunt for. You develop a schedule of weekly small gifts for your neighbours as the only people you can really access right now – fancy bodywash from your ridiculous collection, homemade scented candles, episodes of TV you think they’ll like. You share trivia quizzes so people have small moments of other things to do. You desperately wish there would be another site like the Toast or The Hairpin where you could read clever funny things, and are eternally grateful to The Niche for turning you on to Taskmaster.

And then you get devastating news about people you love and you can’t be there and it just fucking SUCKS. You send cheese and pasta and track down a lawn-mowing company and it feels so fucking inadequate. You get angry at yourself for feeling inadequate because IT’S NOT FUCKING ABOUT YOU. You write lists of things to talk to your counsellor about in your next session. You walk around the block clockwise. You meditate. You dance to Kanye West even though he’s cancelled. You update your journal. You stay in your bubble. You carry on.