Posts by Jolisa
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Emma Hart,
I get that "I could be at home here" feeling in Wellington - it's the same instinctive yes or no you get house-hunting.
Oh yes, me too: it's got amazing emotional feng shui (apart from the small matter of fault-lines). The way the hills hug you, and the harbour shining below... it's an amphitheatre of awesome. You can pick a ringside seat, or sit up in the gods, and just enjoy the show.
Also, despite not being on an island or laid out on a grid, for me it's the NZ city that has the most NYC-esque vibe. Not just because it's got a Brooklyn (holla!) -- but because there's something about the way the physical geography of the place constrains, funnels and thus concentrates all the human energy, to a degree not encountered elsewhere in Aotearoa.
And you can walk everywhere, 'cos nowhere's very far.
Warning: may cause homesickness:
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Emma Hart,
It was Mum’s house, and if it’s not going to have Mum in it, I don’t want to see it any more.
I know exactly what you mean. (Note to self: stop driving past old houses of now-departed relatives to see if the new people are keeping up the garden. Really, just stop).
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We could band together and commonly commiserate about being from Hokitika, or Masterton, or Oamaru – unless you were the guy from Auckland we were making fun of.
I was that guy from Auckland. Skipped the halls, and made common cause with other refugees from the North Island, and none of us could believe how lucky we were to be being paid (the full student whack + accommodation allowance usually reserved for those 20+) to live and study in such a cool, student-friendly, affordable, flat, groovy city. Even in winter when there was ice on the inside of the windows, and you could cut the smog with a knife, I loved Chch.
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Jackie Clark,
The house I am most attached to is in Takapuna - it's where I was raised, but I haven't lived there for 30 years, and my parents sold it over 27 years ago. I have great envy of people whose parents still live in the "family home"
I know someone who bought the house they grew up in -- after it had been out of the family for quite some time. It's a great house, and I can completely see why it begged to be not just revisited but reclaimed.
(I don't know if I could reinhabit my own childhood homes, although I know I am always looking for places that remind me of the best parts of them...)
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Hard News: Really good, actually, in reply to Che Tibby,
As they probably say in East Texas, diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.
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Hard News: Really good, actually, in reply to Che Tibby,
the secret to getting the playboy was simultaneously pushing two buttons on the cord-connected remote control.
this required two hands.
But two of anybody's hands, right?
sneaky damn born-agains
Something rather apt about being required to adopt a prayerful posture, though...
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Case in point: last night’s The Good Word, which you can see here.
"This video is only available within New Zealand due to international rights agreements."
Darn.
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Or, good spot for a farmers' market?
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So it's road-width, but two house-sections long? Sounds like the old joke about the pilot who lands the wrong way on the runway. "Widest runway I ever saw!" (to which the co-pilot adds "yep, and the shortest").
Can it be turned into a pocket park after the RWC is over with? Something the locals can actually use, rather than a pointless concourse?
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Hard News: The Wall and the Paper, in reply to recordari,
‘Ms’ Gracewood is a well-known radical who is at the forefront of a campaign to destroy the New Zealand way of life.
Spooky. Dr Haywood's satire is almost word-for-word what someone wrote in a letter to Metro last month. Just add "literary" before "life". Is he ghost-writing for disgruntled NZ authors now?
(I deny both accusations, of course. But then I would, wouldn't I).