FNC: Happy Bogan Christmas to all who celebrate
Kia ora! Welcome to Friday Night Chats! My LORD what a week. I seem to always bite off more than I can chew, and the Tents 4 Gaza campaign took up every second of my time and every inch of my brain space this week. BUT - we helped a lot of people! We are helping a lot of people!
And it's the holiest day of the year for bogans today - The Rock 2000 countdown. Yay! Let's chat...
My Chromebook crashed this week. Which was not a good thing - right in the midst of the tent campaign so I had to bite the bullet and buy a laptop. I've tried to not buy a laptop just because of the price. But it seems Chromebooks really only seem to work for tweens.
So now I have a maxxed out credit card and a new laptop. It is MUCH faster.
So, it’s been a good/bad week.
Good
This week once of my bestie's had a baby - and you KNOW how much I LOVE BABIES. He is SO CUTE. I can't wait to meet him. I can't wait to spoil him rotten.
It’s Bogan Xmas AKA The Rock Countdown today.
I got tickets to see Chappel Roan! OMG! I am so excited...
We were overwhelmed by how many people signed up to fundraise for the tent drive! In the end we had 76 people! Incredible! We are going to buy so many tents! Everyone has had a really easy time raising money. This has helped me so much - I feel like y'all are really my people. You care so much. And look at what you've achieved!
I read a piece of writing at Say the Thing the Wellington Open Mic night run by my friend Simon. And people seemed to like it! It felt so good to perform.
Bad
Everything else has been mildly to extremely stressful. Including dealing with very entitled people. Parasocial relationships are wild. People give me $8.50 a month and think that entitles them to say such out the gate stuff to me. I cannot fathom writing to someone and saying, 'you should be doing this and if you don't, I won't continue to support you'. It makes me feel like I'm in a freakshow and people are throwing coins at me trying to get me to dance.
On top of that, I have not balanced things well this school holidays and I've been kinda cranky with the kids. I am making up for it (hopefully) by giving them a fun weekend.
I also forgot to take my meds for three days and it absolutely destroyed my brain so if you have any tips for remembering pills I'd love to know. I set alarms but still get distracted and forget to take them.
What are your plans for the weekend?
Tomorrow I'm going to Waikawa with a bestie and our kids to celebrate Eddie's birthday.
I’m looking forward to having some quality kid time and celebrating 🥳 Waikawa beach is such a cool beach I’m hoping the weather allows us to at least have a walk along to see the sunset.
What I've read this week:
I read some smut that was so bad I'm not even going to share the name. If you have any smut recommendations let me know! I mostly just read good stuff on the internet. Ghost does an embed thing so I'm going to embed them and you tell me if you prefer the old way or this way:
Maggie Harrison Dupré
Nikki McCann Ramirez
Emanuel Maiberg
Michelle Duff
Melody Thomas
Michelle Duff
What I've been watching:
My friends are very smart and cool IMO and I've been loving Josh's 30 day project about making art. I've embedded to his YouTube because Insta is a shit about embedding content but if you want to follow him on the 'gram it is here: https://www.instagram.com/tworuru/
I do have plans to see Prime Minister with my son. He doesn't often choose films I want to see (six-hour docos on American presidents - no thank you) but I've heard Prime Minister is good.
I've been watching Task on Neon because I'm very hot for Mark Ruffalo but it's not really grabbing me. Neither is Black Rabbit on Netflix.
But I'm going to try out Wayward on Netflix because I love Mae Martin.
I think I'll watch this tonight. I love ROY KENT.
What I've been listening to:
I am listening to a fairly fluffy-ish audiobook Bring Down The House by Charlotte Runcie. It's pretty good so far. Synopsis is: "A theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress he has a one-night stand with in this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox."
It just came up after I listened to The Compound by Aisling Rawle as a recommendation, so I picked it up.
I've mostly been listening to my usual podcasts - Panic World, Power User with Taylor Lorenz and If Books Could Kill.
On my 'to listen to' list:
Good Noticings which I think is a terrible name for a podcast, but has been born from my old dead favourite podcast Celebrity Memoir Book Club.
A Bit Fruity has an episode on Dr Phil being a Nazi. It has one of my fave people on - Aubrey Gordon!
There are No Girls on the Internet looks interesting - I've been served up an episode called "Charlie Kirk's Legacy is being rewritten. Remember who he was." Which sounds promising.
I was also interviewed for a new podcast called Parenting is Political which is part of the Why Do You Parent Like That podcast. The Parenting is Political podcast hasn't launched yet but it sounds like my cup of tea.
I immediately forgot I was being filmed though and I'm at a terrible angle with unwashed hair and bags under my eyes so...GREAT lol.
What are you listening to? Watching? Reading? 📚📺🕹️
What are your plans for the weekend? Anything good happening? Highs and lows for the week?
Obviously we are in full Bogan Christmas mode. Right now, Simple Man is playing and it's had a huge drop and is number #31. I'm typing this while my husband and Eddie play along to it with their guitars. They look so cute. Major news that Everlong was number 1 last year and this year it was #32. Last year it was #15.
I'm predicting War Pigs for number 1. Black because it's always in the top 5. Back in Black for similar reasons. Maybe Duality because Slipknot were just here. Surprisingly that Stinkfist (#52) and Schism (#64) have already played. I'm stopping my commentary at 2.30pm!
But I am guessing it will be Ozzy-heavy this year.
I thought this week to celebrate Autism bought to you by Tylenol we could also start sharing our - Obsession of the Week! 💪
This week I’ve been obsessively reading about people who go down the Niagara Falls in barrels.
This is a good starting point - Exploring the History of Going Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel.
And of course, the wiki list of people who have gone over Niagara Falls. Did you know, and yeah you probably didn't, that a woman was the first person to survive going over the falls? Annie Edson Taylor went over in a barrel on her 63rd birthday!! She said about the experience: "If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat ... I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Fall."
Of course, the next person was a man who didn't listen to her, Bobby Leach did it and absolutely nailed himself, getting two broken kneecaps and a fractured jaw.
But get this, in 1926, while on a publicity tour telling everyone about his barrel roll he went to Aotearoa (!!!). And while he was here he slipped on an orange peel!!!! His leg became infected and he got gangrene and died.
AND HE IS BURIED HERE! You could literally visit him tomorrow at Hillborough Cemetary!
Finally: For Eddie's birthday he has started a fundraiser. He said he didn't want presents (don't worry we got him Tool tickets which we will surprise him with on Tuesday). He wanted to fundraise so ten kids could go to diabetes camp. If you would like to share or donate that would be awesome.
You can read about what diabetes camp is like here:
Emily Writes
As always, thank you for being here. I am really grateful. I really love this little community we have. The next time we chat I'm going to be the mother of a teenager! EXCITING! Arohanui Emily x
