Too much wine

I forgot to point out my second favorite moment at Toast- We got to witness a Winery shuttle bus speed ahead and crash into a sign post on the same block we were walking on. The driver jumped out of the bus and sprinted down the street like Forrest Gump. Turns out it was some drunkard who'd hijacked the bus and attempted to drive it, but decided after the crash that running to the next vinyard might get him there faster. hillarious! yet, i wouldn't have found it funny if that signpost hacked into me and cleaved me in two, which could have happened.

Don't Drink and drive! Don't drink and steal and drive other people's vehicles! Don't drink and get on your bike and ride into traffic!

Let's talk about wine

So, to catch up on previous events. Nov 16th I went to "Toast Martinborough"! It's a wine tasting event held in Martinborough vineyards, nearly two hrs drive away. I didn't know too much about the event before buying tickets, but it was highly recommended that I not miss it. I sniped some tickets once they went on sale, and they had promtly sold out within about 10 minutes. I must say this heightened my expectations of this event. Anyhow Joe and Pelle and I went by shuttle, driving away from Wellington's overcast sky, to find it clear, warm, and sunny in Martinborough. Wonderful! It's similar to driving out of SF and going up to Napa. Except on this particular day, there were droves and droves of girls in sundresses. Good thing I too was wearing a sun dress. You could tell that everyone was very thankful to get some sun, for once. It felt like I was at a country club, except everyone eventually got drunk and it was something like a frat party. My favorite part was at one winery, where we were allowed in to the aisles of grape vines! We had met up with the rest of the crew and relaxed in our very own aisle on a picnic blanket. It was so laid back, so warm, so..winey....... I coulda stayed there all day. But of course we had to check out all the other wineries. The next place we went to, and yes, i forget the names of these wineries but you won't care, anyway the next place had a cover band playing. Imagine a bunch of 40-somethings drunkenly dancing around to weezer. It was quite amusing. We picked out our favorites among the crowd- mine was the hussie in the black and gold metallic tiger striped dress, complete with a tiger face on her tummy, and black hooker boots. Can you say Cougar? i donno, but i just typed it. Anywhoo, it was fun, and a great chance to get out of the daily city life. Though, I won't be trying to go to this event next year- i didn't know that the wine tasting prices weren't included in the price of the event ticket!!!!!!!! (Pictures thanks to the talented James Ogle)






What is your favorite wine? I know what wine I like least- I think it's called Port. I don't like my wine too thick and desserty. Check out my lack of wine describing skills there. Awesome.

holy fuck. new post!

Should I cut down on my use of curse words? the word "Fuck" is so ingrained in my vocabulary I use it about every 5th word. I use it instead of other possible adjectives and adverbs..I have probably limited myself and forgotten a large chunk of useful descriptives I once knew.. Is descriptives even a word I can use in this case? I don't fucking know, i can't think of anything else. See what I mean?

I would think people are used to hearing curse words and aren't so surprised by it anymore. When it comes from me, i have noticed that some people are amused by it and perhaps feel invited to be casual around me (which is probably what I intended by it). I have been introduced to new people more than once as "that girl who swears a lot in the emails" "Oohhh her".

But perhaps I should be holding back. What if the image I am portraying is that I am vulgar, immature, and stupid? On friday, a girl at work had a video camera and was filming "Beer o'clock", where everyone gathers in the lounge and drinks and mingles. I was playing pong with Caj, and well, pretty much every time I hit the ball was a time that I missed and a time that i uttered a curse word. Just for fun, and perhaps the shock factor that such words are coming from such a tiny girl, I am like I have Tourette's, and I say gems like "bitch-whore", and in Friday's case i said "Fucking whore" on camera. I regret that now. What if that video is shown to coworkers that don't know me, how would they see me if that's their first impression. There are a lot of women at Weta, and perhaps some of them would take offense to such a curse...

Most of my guy friends find it funny, but I think I have met one person who isn't used to me and perhaps thinks that I am bitching him out when I speak the way I do to him, and I can see he reacts with annoyance. I'm simply trying to offer my friendship in this way, showing that I treat him like I treat any of my friends, you know, "rough-housing" verbally, just like all the guys do with eachother already. But when I do it, I'm a bitch?? (fucking double standards)

I probably shouldn't try too hard to be anything but myself...but at the same time, is it lame? Am I the ass-backwards girl that pushes the boys on the playground and insults them, but really only does it because it's a chance to interact and really wishes for friendship? Am I trying to prove something by being so crude, trying to show I'm cool and I don't give a damn? When really I probably care too much......

What am I gonna do when I have kids? How am I going to stop myself from cursing around them? How am I going to explain that it's bad and that you shouldn't, when I use it so freely and with joy if not even more so than in anger? My kid's gonna get in trouble in school for swearing, and the other parents will advise against their kids hanging out with mine, and my kid's gonna develop a weird complex and not understand why she doesn't have friends. My kids'll probably be fucked up for more reasons than that, but I digress.

What do you think about the use of the word "fuck"? Do you swear as often as I do? Are you going to let your kids curse like you do?

kitty? :(

I had a dream last night that I found a kitten in my apartment.. it was a teeny tiny orange stripped kitten the size of a mouse, just wandering around the carpet in my living room. I picked it up and it was no bigger than my hand, and it was fluffy and plump. I was soo happy! Some "friend", who would now be unwelcome in my home, told me i should get rid of it cause i'm not allowed to have pets in my apartment complex. I whispered to mini kitty that he would stay with me and no one would ever know. I just had a building inspection two days ago and the manager wouldn't be by again anytime soon!
and then i woke up :(
Since I cannot take images from my brain and show them to you, I give you: vampire kitties.


In other news. friday we saw Tropic Thunder, which was pretty funny, and went out for drinks afterwards. Last night was Arnie night at Matt's, we had pizza and beer and watched ten minutes of the best parts of Arnold's first movie "Hercules in New York" and then "Commando", pure gold. It makes me really want a projector & theater setup like Matt has, and it also makes me miss Arnocorps pretty badly. In Commando, Arnold had the black camo paint streaked across his face...like a goddamn hero.


Prepare for audio assault by The Greatest Band of All Time.

bowling

Last night was the bowling tournament, models vs textures vs creatures. I arrived too late to get a spot on the lanes, which was probably for the best for my team's score, but i wore my models dept tshirt and supported with cheers and the drinking of beer. It was also Shannon's birthday and we continued onto a few bars afterwards. His girlfriend got him 30 beers, which he was expected to drink on his own... i think he got pretty close, cause he got decently drunk! evidence!


real classy, guys. real classy.

Work-Shop, Fuck Yeah.

On wednesday I got a tour of the Weta Workshop! Fuuuuuuck. yeah. It was pretty damn cool to see where all of the props and armors and maquettes were made by the work of peoples hands. It's a much more inspiring environment than rooms and rooms full of computers. Oh well, not to say I don't enjoy my job. I'm actually having quite a bit of fun with my work right now :) Anyway, at the workshop I got to hold an Oscar (it was heavy), wear an elven helmet from LOTR, and ride the halo warthog! pretty fucking cool for geeks like me.

DNB

Last friday was Wiki's birthday. It was the first time I got to hang out with my group of girlfriends in a non-work function. Wiki wanted people to dress up in prom theme, and well, I didn't bring my collection of prom/horrible 80s dresses with me... so I did my best to glam up with what I had. Turns out nobody dressed up in prom attire anyway, unless their proms look very different from ours! We went to this place called Duke Carvell's Swan Lane Emporium. It was run by Wiki's boyfriend I think. It had a pretty cool interior design going on, and a nice laid back, posh if you wanna, sneakers & hoodie if you wanna, sort of vibe. I love places like that. I felt a tad awkward at first, since I didn't know anybody. But it got better as the night went on, and of course a little bit of alcohol helped smooth the transition. By the end of the night I had had some decent conversations and got to know the girls a little better, and I even got hugs and kisses on the way out, which made me feel warm and fuzzy :) I'm doing ok here on my own, but I'm certainly looking forward to seeing my friendships develop.

robert, AGAIN

yesterday was rob's last day at work. we had a nice lunch for him, a bunch of people showed up to say bye, and fuck you at the same time, apparently.

The best part about rob, is that he's leaving his stuff behind. i got this! mmm...media player..
So, i saw batman tonight. A very satisfying movie experience. don't need to say much more than that, you already know. I had intentions to do lots of productive things today, but my body still needed rest and i slept away a lot of the day.. Jen had organized a get together before the movie and people hung out afterwards, but i was still too sicky to be able to go out and enjoy that, which was a bummer.. But rob and I had a nice dinner and tea instead. I gotta find someone else cool to hang out with. bah. I think that's all the writing i'm gonna do for tonight. such a skimpy post. oh well.

sicky

I've been at home sick for the past three days :( which sucks an extra lot cause there's no sick pay as a contractor :'( The first couple of days I was mostly bedridden..drugged up on the remainder of my supply of nyquil..Must ask my mom to send me more.. no doubt i'll need it. OH, except for the fact that the cold meds here are supposed to be really potent and awesome, containing codeine? i think? And they grill you pretty hard at the pharmacy before they give it to you, cause apparently you can turn this stuff into worse drugs...



Anyway, so yeah, i started to feel better today. And while I wish I could have used all the free time in a more productive way, I just wasnt up to it. I managed to print out a bunch of images, though, and arrange them on a bulletin board I'd sprayed black a few days ago. I got 7 of them, actually, and plan to fill my study with these boards and post up pictures of things i love, including people, artworks and inspirations, and directly in front of my work desk i want to post reference and relevant images to whatever project I happen to be working on. This sort of thing excites me :) It's a fairly cheap and quick way to make this empty room more personal. Go me. So the pic above is full of a bunch of images i've collected over time, and It makes me incredibly happy to see them printed out and displayed. They're no longer just files in my computer that i have to look at one at a time, once in a while. :) :) ah..simple pleasures...

welling-ton, well-ing-ton

ok ok ok pictures first. I know nobody reads this shit anyway. These were taken with Rob's phat canon camera. It's heavy, and it's pretty hot. Almost makes me want to pick up photography as a hobby.. but i have a few other things i should be spending time on. Rob took the pic of the Asuka and Rei figurines on my desk. What a sweet camera. I took the pics of Rob, Adam and James. We were at Rob's house having a laptop party, while watching knocked up and superbad. Good times. James Willingturkey, you have some crazy fucking stories, bruu. You're heaps lucky.







So... for most of my time here, i've been just.. working, and dealing with settling into my new apartment here in Wellington. Haven't explored anything outside of the route between home and work. Haven't done much in the way of nightlife.
I saw Kung Fu Panda with a bunch of guys at work a few weeks ago. We got tickets in the theater's "Gold Lounge", which is a vip area that has plush recliner seats and service to your table. You can schedule to have beers brought to you during the film. I had an ice cream sunday delivered. fucking awesome. Costed quite a bit, but it was a fun experience. After the movie, I got a taste of what it's like on a friday night here. The streets were kinda busy, the crowd felt very young, and we watched a troupe of 16 year old girls dancing to Michael Jackson hits for a while. Very spirited. After that, we went to a bar called... who knows what, i dont know anything here... It was pretty cool tho. The bartenders wore vests and ties and stuff and it looked very classy, even tho the place itself was pretty chill. Got to see a bunch of new coworkers drunk for the first time. I myself didn't have much more than a beer. Pacin myself..
Last night was my first clubbing experience. It was a going away thing for a girl at work, at a club that had just opened this week. I was doin housey things all day and took my sweet time, and rolled out of the house at close to 1am. The streets were paaacked tight with pretty much everyone under 3o in one district. There aren't many places for Wellingtonians to go, apparently. Just 2 streets. Courtenay, and Cuba. Courtenay is more..Ruby Skye/Market. Cuba is more..Zeitgeist. Also, the drinking age here is 18 i think. So many young kids, most of them drunk off their asses. Most girls wearing mini skirts, cocktail dresses, prom dresses, in fucking winter. Most boys sporting euro-trash-mullets. The sidewalks were so packed that it made me walk on the roads sometimes. Anyway i made my way over to the club they were at for the girl's going away. Place called Temperance. There was a line outside the place, just like there was a line outside every other place. The bouncer stood in front of people just a few places ahead of me and said we all had to move on, the club is too full and they're not letting anyone else in. Everyone around me left, but i just kinda stayed there and looked busy on my mobile while i texted my friend Adam who was inside, asking him to come pull me in. There was already another line forming in the other direction. Fuck getting in back of that line, i stayed put in front. Adam came down and asked the bouncers to let me, his "girlfriend" in. It took about 5-10 minutes of waiting and light pleading, and finally one of the bouncers was like, can we just let the guy's girlfriend in?! And they let me in and i left all those fuckers chill out in that line outside. Adam gets an award for his acting skillz. So anyway. Crazy line, crazy cut off.. High expectations for this place. 3 stories, VIP levels up top etc. So i come in, it's sorta bright in here, for a club... get in to the bar/dancefloor.. doesn't get any dimmer. Odd. OK ok ok, so here's the scene. It's SORTA like Ruby Skye kind of feel, except hardly dim, kids are like, 18, they're projecting Rugby matches on the wall, and get this, the DJ's spinning Fucking SPICE girls.. not even one of their "good" songs. Next comes that mamma mia pop song.. whatever, those are my two examples of what the music was like at this club. I needed a drink pretty bad, was not drunk enough for this and was not really intending on getting that drunk. I did dance a bit. It was fun to chill out with some work people and see them cut loose a bit. All tho most people including myself didn't really know what do do with what the dj was spinning. The people i met up with had already been there for a few hrs, so thankfully I didn't have to stay very long by the time they were ready to leave that joint.

Adam and I tried to meet up with some friends at some house party, but nobody was answering their phones. We were so hungry that we snacked on some Burger King.. everyone else had the same idea.. I'd never seen a burger king that crowded. Seriously, it was like everyone planned on meeting up at BK after prom. It smelled kind of like vomit in there. Then we got a hold of Dan from work, and we met up and went to a bar/joint called The San Francisco Bathhouse. Cooool, huh? It sort of did feel like san francisco in there. This place was definitely dark, thank god. The crowd was less meat-market asshole. the DJ was still stuck a few decades back, but at least it was the fun punk/pop stuff. We danced our asses off for a while. It felt pretty good. Well, my feet did not feel good at all afterwards. I was wearing some heeled boots. I'm wearing fucking sneakers next time. Tho they had warned me i had to dress sorta nice for the first club so i tried that. I probably won't be trying to get into clubs that you need to dress nice for anymore. That shit was fucking weak.

My feet still hurt. I brought my TV home today, with Robert's help. He's been so awesome, helping me move and all sorts of stuff. It's pretty shitty that he's leaving just as I got here, cause I think he woulda ended up one of the people I hung out with a lot..But He's got a better life waiting for him in Cali. Dude I'm so jealous. I miss california. I miss san francisco. I miss internet without bandwidth limits. I miss netflix delivery. I miss amazon delivery for that matter. I miss shopping in 2008 instead of 1989, not that SF wasn't in an 80's kick as well.. but yeah. I miss japan town, and chocolate mushroom cookies. Bah, oh well, enough complaining for now.

There's lots of cool stuff about wellington.. but I don't know about it yet cause i've just been building furniture and shuffling it around and seeing what arrangement i feel like..

ok brain is tired. will rant again another time.

take THIS, Luke!

this blog's not dead! Actual content coming ..soon..

Bike ridins, and bay to breakers

So... haven't drawn recently.. been keeping busy, plans everyday to see my friends before I leave the country.. I feel sort of like I'm acting like I'm dying in 3 weeks.. I put in my 2 weeks notice at work yesterday, so now it's official and I can talk about it out loud. My heart and head are swirling with so many emotions that I can't even tell you what I'm feeling right now, but I guess I could try- I'm nervous that I won't get my work visa in time.. I'm sad to be leaving all of the people that I know and love. I'm sad to be leaving San Francisco, especially now that I'm taking advantage of it. I'm crazy excited to be going to New Zealand, and excited to find my new home and settle in on my own for the very first time.. I could scream. I just did!


anyway, I went on an excellent bike ride this past saturday. After some tasty blue bottle iced coffee, Luke, Ross and I met up with Jordan and Ross' friends Percy, Norm, and Seth, who are all super cool, by the way. We started at the Embarcadero, and rode thru hunter's point, yay, and all the way down to Millbrae! We got to the fucking airport! it was ridiculous! It was nice and warm, and I surprised myself by being able to keep going with the guys and not pass out after the first 2 hrs. I could have kept going, really, i fell in love with bike riding that day, more than I knew I had loved it before. (I love you sammy..). We did a great deal of drinking and laughing after that. Really, I need to be smarter about my intake...

On sunday I dressed up as the White Rabbit for Bay to Breakers. I would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't so fucking cold. ..I'm so pleased that I got to play the white rabbit, though, that character has been in my head for a long while now....

more sketches

here are more sketches exploring that animal girl theme. i'm leaning more towards the first image of this post, not so much the 3rd but i experimented. i've always liked the idea of (a character) wearing a skull as a helmet of sorts... i know wendling did this in iguana bay and im pretty sure that inspiration is direct. i fucking love claire wendling and im done being conscious of whether i'm copying or not. this is what i like! so there! check her out.

sketches for new project

So i am trying to brainstorm my next sculpture project... I keep going back to this animal theme.. for over a year now i think it's been in my head, and i've had several versions of how to turn it into something.. but right now i just want to keep it really simple, so i've stripped it down to naked chicks with animal elements involved.. it will be difficult to explain what i'm trying to do here, but i want there to be some sort of strange waifish and somewhat morbid thing going on in a way that i want to come across as a little more raw than taxidermy.. but i won't get too far into it now, don't need to jinx it. this is something i intend to finish. there, i said it, now i have to finish it. i have a goal and destination in mind...

cherry

mothafuckas love the blogging