Indulged

One of my tasks as a feature writer is to come up with interesting people to profile in various set pieces we have in our magazines. One of these set pieces is Indulge, in which we ask people about their indulgences, what they can't live without, and how they spent their weekends. A lot of people answer the same things; red wine, chocolate, 'my family' and coffee come up again and again. Sometimes you get one that's a real corker, like tomorrow's one in which I talked to New Rags market founder Abbie McCall about her love of retro chairs. I have often wondered if I would make a good Indulge subject. What do you think?

My indulgence is: Time by myself. I've spent a lot of time by myself in my life - sometimes too much time. But it's the one thing I crave when the noise of the world, work and home clogs up my brain. I need time to daydream. I was thinking the other day about one afternoon when I was temping in London at a lawyer's office. I had the glamorous task of photocopying pages of exhibits for a trial. The office was somewhere in a leafy part of London I had never been before, and it being summer, was gloriously warm and light after work. I walked to the tube station through streets I'd never seen before, and when I got to the tube, I just kept on walking, all the way home to Earlsfield. I loved the idea that I had no place to be and could just take my time.
When I do get time by myself, I like to op shop, or sit in a cafe with the paper and a cuppa. Running is one way I get to have time by myself. I have little mantras I chant to myself to get me up hills or to last the distance. I find it really hard when someone in jogsquad wants to chat while we're running - I love having someone to run with, but I can't do that and talk too.
Sometimes the only time I really have to daydream is on the train. Everyone around me has they're ipods plugged into their heads, or has a book or is playing on their phone. I like to stare out the window. The harbour puts on a display each morning I find hard to resist.
I can't get by without: a cup of tea within the first ten minutes of waking. Nothing tastes as good, as cleansing, as refreshing as that first cup of tea. I spend the rest of the day trying to make tea feels as good in my mouth. It's like a junkie trying to chase that first high.
At the weekends I: am concerned first and foremost with getting my laundry done on a Saturday morning. Then it's off to the toy library to take back toys and get new ones, and I usually have to bribe Harper to leave the toy library with the prospect of a fluffy at the mall. The rest of the weekend is a melange of chores, cooking, gardening, visiting people, and going to the dump shop, all of which is done at Harper-speed or not at all depending on his mood. I often feel tireder on a Sunday night than I do on a Friday night.

Photo: A rare bit of by-myself-time at Madeira Park, British Columbia, late on a spring evening

A post about knitting

When someone knits something for you, it's a way of saying they love you. Knitting can be incredibly naff, I'll admit. There are some awful, awful patterns and yarns out there.
I will never knit a pair of trousers, or a bikini, or a skirt. You will never see me knit anything with a reindeer or bobbles in the pattern.
But baby hats and cardigans fall from my needles like petals; little tiny garments for little tiny people whose very existence revolves around milk and sleep and love. And when they are adorned in something knitted, they are wearing that love, literally.
Knitting is a winter activity; it's for sitting in front of the fire, slippers on, hot tea on the coffee table. It's what hot biscuits out of the oven and costume dramas were invented for.
At lunchtime on rainy weekdays, I crave going to the knitting shop. I'll look at all the yarns, browse the patterns, but hardly ever buy anything. I have a big enough stash of gifted yarn and leftovers at home that should keep me going for some time. And I can honestly say I don't mind if it's raining on the weekend. That just means less work in the garden and more time inside knitting.
Knitting has its own objects of desire. For me, only metal knitting needles will do. Old, slightly bent metal needles found in a tin at the Sallys are like gold to me. They're my treasure. I have more pairs of needles than I know what to do with; it drives my partner crazy. I've put them all in an old jug, where they stick up like petal-less flowers.
Knitting doesn't have to be a practical thing, like a piece of clothing or a blanket. I've met women who knit everything under the sun from "tree cosies" to genitalia. I recently saw a Dylan Thomas poem knitted by more than 1000 people who contributed a letter each, and in the United States a group of knitters covered an entire petrol station in blankets, turning it into a fluffy piece of art.
I'm a relative newbie to knitting, although my mother taught me the basics when I was a child. She's an exceptional knitter, as if she was born with needles in her hands. Knitting has a language, you have to learn it. Reading a pattern is at first like looking at hieroglyphics or a code to be broken.
It wasn't until five years ago, with the imminent birth of my nephew, that I knitted my first garment. When my sister was still pregnant, we visited an aunt who had piles of ancient knitting patterns. Something in that pile of patterns inspired me. I didn't remember which was knit and which was purl; I borrowed a stack of patterns and got my sister to re-teach me.
The first thing I made, from a 1970s pattern, was a striped red, purple and brown jersey that my nephew wore for about five minutes before it was too small. It took months to make, with lots of unravelling, swearing and reknitting.
By the time my own son was on his way, I was getting pretty good at this knitting lark. So far I've knitted him cardies and jerseys, a hoodie, a hat and a toy bird.
Most of what I make is for babies - me being in my 30s, lots of my friends are having children. And I get bored making anything bigger.
Recently I made a hat for a friend who was undergoing a course of chemo. The best way I could help her fight her disease was to show her I loved her. So I knitted.
Last year we bought our first house. It used to belong to a woman who had lived there with her husband and three children. Over the years, the husband had died, the children had grown up. And when she died, the house was put on the market. The first time we went to see it, her things were still inside. I admired the neatly ordered rows of crochet in a blanket spread smoothly over the spare bed, the unfinished projects in her knitting basket. It was clear, this woman had a lot of love.
Recently, my love of knitting has extended to crochet. One of my most treasured possessions is a crocheted shawl made by my father. It represents hours of time and love and care.
I met a woman on the train one day who, as soon as she sat down next to me, took a ball of wool and a crochet hook out of her bag and began stabbing at a scarf she was making. "It helps with stress, " she told me.
Soon after that, I started work on an epic project - a blanket made from 315 crocheted granny squares for my son's bed. I taught myself how to crochet, and gradually the piles of squares began to grow. I finished it just as the first cold southerlies of autumn came to town, and now when I tuck my little boy in at night, I pull this blanket up around his chin.
I might leave the room then, but my love stays wrapped around him.

*This story appeared in The Press and The Dominion Post's Your Weekend magazine on June 4.

Five more things

1. We have just signed the lease on a house with an Awesome Backyard (TM) in which I can plant some veges that might survive the winter, unlike the deep dark gully of our current yard. The front yard is all grass and quite vertical; perfect for rolling little boys down it.
2. I'm wondering when it will be safe to take my coat to the drycleaners - it's spring but feels like midwinter.
3. Kakapo are one of my favourite creatures. Especially after seeing this.
4. I am writing a story about Baby Loss Awareness Week, with the help of this book. I realised I know so many people this book would help.
5. Harper is bi-lingual. This morning he said 'aporo' as I spooned aporo into his breakfast. Sweeney on the other hand, is not. I asked him last night if he wanted more kai, and he said 'no, I want more food.' Then we had a discussion about the circumarket. He's more bi-wordal than Harper.

It will all be ok

I've just interviewed stiX of Outdoor Knit (aka the red headed devil child's geeky mother) for a story on their work decorating our glorious city with even more glorious knitting and craft. Pretty great. They're the people behind the "It Will All Be Ok" cross stitched into a wire fence on the bypass.

Check out these amazing graffiti knitting projects:

This beauty by Carol Hummel.

The International Fiber Collaborative beautified an old gas station.

And this beauty is by the Convent Garden guerrillas, pic courtesy of Knit the City and Yarnbombing.

Proof I work for a living

I'm really chuffed with how this story turned out. It's about drag queen Judy Chicago, who will be competing in Queen of the Whole Universe : A Very Queer Beauty Pageant this weekend at the St James in Wellington. Go Judy!

A post in which Special K reflects on the awesomeness of people

I've had some pretty fantastic interview subjects in the past couple of weeks. They make my job really rewarding and means I learn something everyday, which is totally awesome. Journalists would be nothing without the people who let us into their lives, so a big shout-out today to those who have graciously invited me into their worlds and happily let me plaster them all over the paper for 250,000 (or so) people to read about.
Especially these dudes:
- Josh and Kiran: J talked about how for all the professional development and good intentions in the teaching profession, teachers are still pronouncing students' Maori names incorrectly, and that Pakeha NZ doesn't seem to be able to get past 'kia ora'. We all grew up with 'ma is white' etc, so why can't we all say Toe-paw or Far-no? It's not that hard.
- Nikki, who in an interview talked about how, even if she had very little money, supporting the organic industry would still be a priority. "I'd like to see fundamental shifts in the way the world spends. I try to live the way I would like to see the world live." If we all did that, wouldn't the world be that much more awesome?
So thanks guys. You give me hope on a day when I read this story.

Progress

As Harper approaches another milestone - the 12 week mark - he's getting bigger and sleeping longer at night and has become the wriggliest baby in Wellington. We've moved him from his wee bassinet into his cot, he's taking a bottle of expressed milk without melting down like Chernobyl, and yesterday he made a grab for his feet. He has been more and more interested in the world around him, the mobile that hangs over his cot, his wrist and foot rattles, and he seemed to totally love going in the stroller to Newtown yesterday, even chatting to the man in the post office queue in front of us. He was graced with a visit from his Graham grandparents last week who let his parents out for an evening (they went to the pictures and saw Lars and the Real Girl which is excellent and had his mother all choked up at the end). He could be spotted in the company of his grandad Ces (above) in the stroller doing the rounds of the neighbourhood even though the weather was a bit pus.

Today, Harper's mother achieves her own milestone - she's writing her first freelance article since Harper's birth. And even though she can't remember her own name somedays and has once called Harper Sweeney, she's doing alright at it and is today interviewing chef Richard Till.

Just another random Monday

Oh my, it's my last week at work here at the glorious Dompost. Can I get through the next five days of sitting upright? It's a struggle, I tell you. But the finish line is in sight. One story to go and fingers crossed my lovely boss doesn't sidle up to my desk and ask me, can I do just one more?

Some random thoughts for a Monday:

• I've never seen brown grass in Wellington, so the crackly biege of McAlister Park in Vogeltown is quite an alarming sight.
• I didn't do as well at Craft 2.0 this weekend as I thought I would, but am really pleased with my designs and have birthday cards ready to go for the next two years.
• I met a postie on the weekend who was still working three weeks before giving birth to her daughter. She says it was hardly working because her run was only 2kms, but the other day I melted into tears because a walk from Boulcott Street to Manners Street almost crippled me.
• I have about a year's worth of features to paste into my clippings book. It's a crap job and have been putting it off. Though I will swear to keep my clippings book up to date from now on and avoid having to do a swag in one go, both me and the book know I'm kidding myself.

Beware being friends with a journalist

Being friends with a journalist means you are always at risk of being roped into a story they are working on. For a story I did on middle income earners last year, I interviewed my pals Chris, Gus and Deb - the story led to Chris being 'spotted' to present a TV show earlier this year. My stories have also starred my brother in law Martin (liver transplant recipient), my mother and aunt (who let me fry in a swimming pool when I was younger in a story about sunburn), my nana (a story about trains). I got Susie Poole a gig writing about her favourite year, introduced Natalie and Monique to our features section who have since had things published, and many craft pals have starred in the paper too, including Martha who made the front page skybox with a pair of her screen-printed undies.

But the piece de resistance comes tomorrow. Hapless, affable, lovable Neil is doing Movember this year, and did it last year to raise money for prostate cancer research, awareness and support. He has to grow a moustache over the month of November to raise the cash. A great cause and quite a sacrfice for his poor girlfriend Becc. So what have we done to celebrate his good efforts? Drawn a Senor Biggles moustache on him today on page three for thousands upon thousands of people to see, and tomorrow he gets much much worse treatment... stay tuned.

Me, Hayley and Michael. Just one big happy article

I have become 'famous people profile' girl at work, which is actually quite good because I'm getting more confident about writing them and injecting some of my own impressions and personality into my stories. This weekend's newspaper contains not one, not two, but three profiles written by moi - including one on the fabulous Michael Palin (we're like *fingers crossed* now) that will run in The Press as well. And then yesterday I was handed Hayley Westenra's autobiography to read and interview her about. I don't know anything about her, except she seems awfully good. I'm sure anyone who has had The Datsuns to their 18th birthday party can't be all 'nice'. Surely there's some naughty side to her noone's found yet.

And then there's all the feedback from you lot and the Wellingtonistas suggesting people for our One of Us column. I've got a few in the bag to interview in the coming weeks which should keep us stocked up. The days are busy.

Meanwhile Tiny just gets a little less tiny and the kicking gets a little more visible. I was at a law seminar yesterday where he was acting up - I looked down at my belly and could see movement through my top. Crazy.

We need warm bodies

It's not often I use my blog for furthering my career, but if my boss were to peer over my shoulder at this moment, he'd see I'm going to write a post about getting your ideas for stories that we can fill our glorious newspaper with.

I write primarily for the Long Weekend and Indulgence sections of said glorious newspaper which come out on a Saturday, and we have regular coloumns we need to fill. One of those is called One of Us, and it's a brief but entertaining look at someone doing something kooky, or has kooky stuff about them, or is a kooky person living in a kooky place. You get the idea. In the past I've done stories on Julian Raphael - community musician who runs the whopping Wellington Community Choir; Heather Barnes - Craftwerk inventor; and my good pal Gus Firestone - artist who is trying to get an international art movement off the ground from his Brooklyn flat. They're the kind of people who don't ft into our other sections - entertainment, arts, home, travel etc, but deserve some column inches. And preferably from Wellington, the lower North Island, or the upper South Island which is our coverage area.

So if you know someone who makes strange model rabbits out of chicken bones or has a small business polishing bondage equipment or is running a campaign to ban the colour turquoise or something, let me know. It doesn't have to be anything weird - could be a person who looks after stray seabirds, or who hand-makes all their own clothes from scratch, or is just someone you could imagine starting a conversation with "I know this guy who ...". Would be *super* if you actually knew the person and could give me contacts rather than "I know this guy, don't know his name ..." etc which makes us journos sad.

Holy schizzlebags!

I've just been given an assignment to interview Michael Palin next week!

*high pitched girly squeal*

I LOVE him. He's my favourite Python, I love his shows, I have his books (or had them, before shifting house many times) and I think he's just a bag of neato-ness. I've been given his new book to read before the interview which I hope will survive this weekend away with Sweeney at his grandparents house, and am just all round pretty damn excited. Of course, I won't get to meet the man in the flesh, I have to phone London. But who cares! This rocks!

Isn't it ironic?

I've just started work on a story based on a book called "The Cult of the Amateur". It's about how the Web 2.0 revolution - that's blogging, YouTube-ing, Wiki-ing, MySpace-ing etc is undermining those of us 'professionals' who bring you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth through the mainstream media. Here's a snippet:

I call it the great seduction. The Web 2.0 revolution has peddled the promise of
bringing more truth to more people - more depth of information, more global
perspectives, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is
all a smokescreen. What the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is
superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis,
shrill opinion rather than considered judgement. The information business is
being transformed by the Internet into the sheer noise of a hundred million
bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves.

It's ironic I should be writing this post, as I'm contributing to the 'noise', but at the same time, I'm an actual real live journalist discussing something I hope will prompt informed debate. It's also ironic that Mr Andrew Keen, the book's author, has a blog called www.cultoftheamateur.com and hosts a podcast - two things he argues are bringing about the end of "the very traditional institutions that have helped to create out news, our music, our literature, our television shows, and our movies."

So far it's an interesting read and I urge you to check out his blog to see what he's talking about. While I disagree with some of his arguments - I take exception to being called a monkey banging away on a typewriter and I couldn't care less that downloading is hurting the pockets of Hollywood executives - I do defend my skills as an objective-as-I-can-be journalist. There is a lot of crap out there in blogland, there's also a lot of good. I'm looking forward to getting into the heart of this book and talking to blog-Gods like Russell Brown and t'others. And will be making a lot of noise about it.

Wellington's Next Top Interview Subject

I've been doing a story about models and what it's like to model in Wellington. I interviewed an incredibly gorgeous woman this morning about it, and here was me having just scarfed a sausage roll, hair pulled back into a bun because I got up too late to wash it, crusts in my eye corners, the same pair of stained brown cords on I've been wearing all week and unbrushed teeth. Talk about skanky.

Anyway, it has recently come to my attention that I look as if I have eaten too many pies. I'm too small for real maternity clothes, but wearing my normal sized clothes feels like I have to go to the toilet all the time. And I can't stop burping. That too made interviewing a 22-year-old model a less glamorous experience that I would have liked. If I had the chance, I would walk around with my top button undone all the time, but that wouldn't go down too well in a professional environment, I'm sure.

The last bit of decent writing I did

Now that I'm editting, I don't get as much time to write, and it's actually quite nice to have a break. But I managed to bash this out for yesterday's Life section in the paper, and although I thought it was cheesy, it brought Sarah my divinely talented and patient colleague to tears.

Kimberley Rothwell goes from zero to 100 in three months - taking on the Oxfam Trailwalker challenge in which she and three teammates will walk 100km in 36 hours this April. The girl who didn't even own a decent pair of trainers reveals how she's doing it.
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AS I PLOD along another walkway on a weeknight, pop another blister that has sprouted on my heel, inhale another meal of pasta, I ask myself what is the point of walking 100 kilometres?
I thought it would be easy _ it's just walking after all, and anyone can do that. Walk 100km in one go and raise some money for a good cause. If others can do it, so can I. But it's a grind, this training. It's grinding away at my feet, my knees, my spare time. It's not like the 40-hour famine in which you watch movies and eat barley sugars and groan when food ads come on the telly, then eat an entire cheesecake the next day. It's step after step after step for hours on end.
The Oxfam Trailwalker has been going for 25 years and involves teams of four walking the entire 100km course in less than 36 hours. The course is set north of Taupo, taking in Huka Falls and Craters of the Moon geothermal area. It's gentle country, not like tramping in the Tararuas or climbing up the Red Rocks track. At least, that's what I'm banking on. We also have to raise $5000 for Oxfam, primarily through people sponsoring us on the walk and donations.
When I think I can't do it anymore, when getting up at 6am on a Saturday to do another walk just seems too much, when it's raining and there's something good on the telly, I think about Cambodia.
In Cambodia, people sit atop piles of bricks on the backs of trucks for many kilometres over dusty rutted roads. Barefoot teenage boys walk along those roads carrying huge lumps of ice in their hands.
The stories of people who walked hundreds of kilometres to the Thai border to escape the Khmer Rouge are mind-boggling. They didn't have comfy walking shoes or water bottles or scroggin. They just endured.
It's ironic that it should be those images spurring me on as I stuff another protein bar in my face because some of the $5000 could end up in Cambodia.
But it doesn't stop my feet hurting.
Before I started all this, I hated tramping. I hated sandwiches and scroggin and the thought of eating chocolate for anything but pleasure was unknown to me. I just wanted to raise a lot of money for Oxfam, the 100km came second. But it's quickly taking over my life.
I have become an expert on which brand of tape and plaster will go on what shaped blister, and Nike shareholders can all pay off their mortgages on what I've spent in sports socks.
My diet has changed considerably since I've started training. I used to be the girl who ate half of what everyone else had. I considered deep-fried foods a complete food group. Now I eat everything, including the pattern on the plate. I almost swallowed my fork the other day. Nuts, bananas and water have become close friends.
A Vogel's sandwich with leaves and tomato and mayonnaise after a good three hours in the hot sun up hill and over dale tastes really, really good. I don't feel guilty about all the barbecue sausages I've been scoffing. I'm an athlete now, you see.
The next challenge is the weather. As summer ends abruptly with rain lashing the windows and wind toppling small children, I expect my training will turn into trudging.
I expect mud will replace sunburn. My sandwiches will get soggy in my pack. My iPod might get wet. I will spend more time thinking about the needle-like rain in my eyes and my waterlogged feet than anything else.
But then I will think about those people sitting on the trucks, just enduring what they have to endure. And I'll keep walking.

What the nuns made Sweeney do

Last night, Sweeney and I visited the Sisters of Mercy convent in Thorndon for a story I am doing about Christmas. (see "Angel of the Morning") One of the sisters, who practically smothered S in her enormous bosom, bullied the photographer into taking a picture of S like this ... hilarious watching a 6 foot 1 man get bullied by little old nuns. And the pic? Cheese-o-rama...

Angel of the morning

or a conversation over morning tea with a 74-year-old nun about Christmas that dissolved into me having to stop the interview because I was crying. Up until then, we had chatted amiably about Christmas trees, what the sisters were each going to cook for Christmas dinner, the perils of leaving small children to celebrate midnight mass by themselves with tablecloths and candles, and how commercialism had washed away the link between Christ and Christmas ...

Me: What was your best Christmas ever?

The nun: (looking off into the distance a little) In the 1970s, we were decorating the crib which is at the back of our chapel and we heard one of our sisters had been killed in an accident in Picton. That really told us that death was part of the child’s coming. In some way it was a very memorable Christmas Eve. We’d heard this group had been to Picton to pick up a nun from the ferry were driving back to Blenheim and there was a slick on the road. And one of our sisters was killed and two were injured. I think was forceful memory that this celebration, we were committing to the birth of Christ in the liturgical year and she was committing to eternity, and that both were part of our lives.

Me: (not really getting it) So death is not a sad thing?

The nun: Death is a return to God, but I’m not sure what it is on the other side. For me it is a deep element of faith, where or what the eternity will be, but I have a deep faith that there will be an eternity in one form or another. But I haven’t got visions of beautiful surroundings, I’ve only got a sense that God my creator will be there. I’ve lived in that faith all my life, and that he will bring me to a happy death, a realistic death, and acceptance of death. I watched a 35-year-old nun die of cancer, and after fighting it for 11 months, I thought that death was the nicest thing God could give her. It was a gift, it was the culmination of a life well spent. If you’re fearful of death then you have been badly informed. If you are fearful that death will bring you to a judgement you’ve been badly informed. You’re going to God who made us in love, you’re going to the ultimate, a person who appreciates you and knows all that you’ve done, and all that’s good in you.

Me: (in a tiny mouse like voice, feeling suddenly overcome by tears): Even if you’ve been bad?

The nun: (almost whispering) Yes, God knows why. He knows the conditions in your life that might have driven you to a fragile life. You might have a little insight in to the whys of failure. God has a full insight into the whys of failure, so God sees failure in a different why to what we do. I don’t believe that God comes down with a heavy hand. He is the hand from whom we came. He understands the reasons for failures. He accepts them. Lots of humans won’t, but God will. You didn't really want to know all that?

Me: (gasping for breath, unable to speak) I feel ... I think we'll leave it there for today.

The nun: (smiling) Ok.

Letter to you, Sweeney

Dear Sweeney,

You saw Wellington for the first time in my arms. You were about fifteen minutes old, and I held you up to the window so you could see outside the overheated delivery room. It was a classic whitewash morning, June 26, 8.15am. You could barely open your eyes, but I couldn’t stop looking at you.

I adopted Wellington as my hometown, but you were born here. You’ll always have the wind at your back, in your face, tickling the hair on your neck. You’ll find stillness unnatural. You’ll loathe places that are flat, and think nothing of barrelling down Devon Street at 60kph. You’ll probably have a fluffy before you eat solids, and you’ll never have someone jeer at you because you don’t know the difference between a flat white and a latte.

Your mum and me, we’re from the Waikato. The Waikato has wide streets and driveways and garages and plenty of space. A double bedroom means you can get two of everything into it, and you never have to park your car on the street. Summer is hot and autumn has falling leaves and winter means frosts that layer the grass in ice like a snowfall. On cold days when breath comes puffing out of your mouth, you can see spider webs coated in ice, like jewels hanging from hedgerows and shrubs. In Wellington, the only ice is on the tip of your nose as you walk to school in a southerly or on the mountains in the South Island that you can see on a clear day. I went back to live in the Waikato for a year, and though I loved the grapefruit that came with summer and the bath-like water at Raglan, I missed Wellington. I missed the verticalness, the layers. The way we can’t park our cars near our houses.

So I packed up the cat, and headed back. One day, you’ll come hooning down Ngauranga Gorge, and it’ll spit you out and into a curve and there’s Wellington, the little city nestled into the hills. You’ll know how I felt driving into the city that day, the sense of relief that I was home. There was the wind turbine chopping away at the sky and the ferry snailing across the harbour and little lights on the houses lit up with that warm coming home feeling.

Every morning when I walk to work, down the hill a bit, under the pylon, down the steps past the house where plants grow out of an old bathtub, across the road and into Aro Street - every morning when I walk down there, I think about what a neat place this is. If the sun is shining, all the colours on the houses look like a circus, and the puddles on Aro Street glisten. If the cat follows me down the hill skit-skittering along the footpath, I’ll get one of the neighbours I pass to distract him and run down the hill away from him, laughing. As the trolley bus rattles past me, I’ll see the same faces I see every morning, people bobbing their heads to the music in their ears, absorbed by the newspaper, and little bubbles of happiness rise up in me like a glass of champagne.

One of the best bits though is when I pass the community centre and see the kids walking to school. There is the African family and the two boys with long eyelashes. There is the Chinese family and the little girl with her hair sticking out in pig tails like someone has put wire in them. There are the little boys with hoodies and scuffed sneakers and blue eyes and I wonder if you will look like them, will be like them, racing around on a scooter or a bmx bike.

You’re still small, but when you are bigger, there are so many places in Wellington we could go to and things we can do. We could spend hours finding creepy crawlies in the rocks on the south coast, or teasing the baboons at the zoo. We could pretend we are seagulls on Oriental Parade, just standing and squawking obstinately at each other. We could be very cosmopolitan and order coffee at the Chocolate Fish, or press all the buttons on all the exhibits at Te Papa. We could drop little bits of blu tac onto the heads of politicians from the gallery at Parliament. We could have a barbecue on a still January evening. In the winter, we could splash in puddles and let paper planes go in the wind. We could watch the washing go flying over the houses and down into Aro Valley. Best of all, we could sit on the grass, listening to the tui on the power lines and watching the moon come up. We could do anything you want, because we’re in Wellington.

Meeting Wayne

There is something rather sad about the faded stuffed animals in Wayne’s* one bedroom studio – especially the one with a stuffed red heart reading “I’m wild about you”. The cat knick knacks on his window sill make me feel sadder still. It's loneliness. Slinking around the door is Smokey – a standoffish cat with bright yellow eyes and an overcast coat. Wayne bends down and she smells his nicotine stained fingers. Wayne is the first person I’ve ever met who is HIV positive. I am aware of all those things we used to think about people with AIDS – said in that kind of creepy, hushed way - 'AIDS' – like leprosy or a hairy back. You could catch AIDS off a toilet seat, we used to say, off a cup. But there is Wayne, making me a cup of tea in a large white stained mug, while talking about how hundreds of people he’s known have died of what was once called ‘Gay Cancer’.

“They dropped like flies,” he says, describing San Diego in the 1980s. “Wards full of them. And the stench.” He fishes the teabag out of my mug with a teaspoon.

You meet some interesting characters in this job. People who don’t know you invite you into their homes to talk about the most intimate things. And not only you – thousands are going to read what they’ve said to me. It’s a huge responsibility, and a huge honour. Interviewing is like walking down a corridor and opening a door. The first door has what their name is, what they look like, all the surface stuff, but then you open another door. And another. The ‘how did you get HIV’ door, and the ‘how my partner was killed in the Gulf War’ door. You keep opening doors until there are ones they just don’t want you to open and you have to force the locks a little. Or doors that are just rusted shut. Like the door that says ‘how do you feel about dying’.

Wayne believes he will come back as a panther. A black panther or a leopard. Once, on a river bank in Colombia, he saw a black panther. They stared each other out.

He loves his garden – a small terraced area he cleaned up and planted himself. He can’t do much physical labour though, his back has had it and HIV saps his energy. He has no fat, he says, some days it's hard to get out of bed. Alcoholism, depression and HIV have driven him to three suicide attempts. But with a wave of his wrist he laughs off “gloom and doom”. The bigger it is, the funnier it is. “You’ve got to laugh,” he says.

Most of us don’t know how we are going to die. And probably don’t want to. Me, I’ve always thought I would die in a car accident, changing the tape in the tape deck or checking out a sign on the roadside. I won’t see the 10-tonne truck or the power pole. But Wayne pretty much knows how he is going to die. He’s seen it happen to his friends. He’s seen them waste away to nothing, which he is slowly doing too. You can keep it at bay, but it will get you. "It's like a black cloud hanging over your head," he says.

When I leave Wayne’s flat, the smell of lavender greets me. Smokey runs off ahead of me, scared of my grown up shoes trip-trapping on the bricks. I wish Wayne a good day.



*not his real name

I'm gonna leave old Hamil-tron

(If you can guess the song title, you get 300,000,000 million points)

Things I will miss about the Waikato
1. Cows and new calves
2. Cold, fresh, still mornings
3. Don and Carolyn the neighbours, who gave me updates on Charlie's hijinks
4. Driving over the river
5. Walking into work 15 minutes late
6. Roast ham at the caff on Friday nights
7. Hash browns and scrambled eggs from the caff
8. Tracey's sarcasm
9. Ye-yah
10. Reading Sideswipe and doing the Herald's sudoko just after deadline
11. Autumn colours
12. Driving the little yellow Times cars all over the countryside
13. Sunsets over a big wide sky
14. Ngaruawahia and Taupiri