Clearly drawn during the "I spend too much time at the pub because I'm haunted by my betrayed beliefs" period of my career with Westfield.

Nathan Meets the Bugs of New Zealand:Part 3 (I rarely can tell a story without swearing. It's by far the most Jersey thing about me.)

Last night, maybe around 11:30 (I go to bed early during the week. It's lame but so is the real world.) and I'm half asleep, when I hear a rustle amongst the papers and magazines I have piled up against the wall. At first I think nothing of it. Stuff creaks and crackles during the night. It happens and we live in a creaky flat as it is. It's not the most stable construction and the whole thing can shake from seemingly insignificant events.

But then I hear the rustle again, and wake up some, and realize its a heavy rustle that after summers of living in platform tents out in the woods I've learned to associate with a rodent. So shit, I have a mouse. I don't want to have to hunt it down in the morning so I get out of bed and turn on the lights.

And then, that fucking...Land of the Lost Mutant Flying Tank launches from a pile of papers right at me, buzzing at a level that mimicked an electric shaver perfectly. Needless to say it's more than I expect out of life at the moment and I trip backwards and fall on my ass.

Which is a pretty cruel trick for the universe to play, seeing as how I'm already half-asleep, half-blinded by the sudden light, and wearing nothing but a pair of ratty boxers.

The rest is a blur, but somehow in a matter of seconds I open the door, grab the nearest heavy object at hand, I Love You New Zealand (101 Must-Do's For Kiwis), and swing at the mofo with precision I really wish I had possessed during the embarrassing mandatory baseball years. Thing goes flying out the door, I collapse into bed, and forget the whole crisis ever happened.

I get home from work tonight, and the third thing Jess says to me is "Oh my god, guess what we found." And there, contained in an empty Hennesy bottle, is the damn bug, STILL ALIVE, twitching and going at the booze residue like its happy hour. Guess I can't blame him for heavy drinking. Nobody's really sure what it is, but Kiwi opinion is leaning towards an oversize Mason bee. Which is just awesome.



Here's a picture of our tree so this isn't all just about me killing a bug. The neighbors still haven't succcessfully gotten us evicted. Life is good.

I got nothin

I'm deliriously tired from the Holiday Season in general and tonight's Kid's Christmas Party but too wound up to sleep, so here is a heap of pictures from over the weeks.



School Event

With world heavyweight champion David Tua. This was the Monday after my Lost Weekend in OZ and I was running on nothing but fumes and lattes.


I honestly had no real sense of reality at the time. I just went along with it all and hoped for the best.




Flatmates-Jess and Mac.
Neighbors.


Mac's son Dante. I once made the genius decision to introduce him to Resse's peanut butter cups. The fucking sugar goblin tried to wrestle me for an hour straight.


Westfield Kid's Christmas Party aka my primary work life for the past three weeks. We had to to create an invitation, work out the publishing with a flaky design company, mail them, organize RSVP charts, organize the kid's into age, go out and buy presents for every kid attending, wrap said presents and the list goes on and on and on.
It was a huge success though. And the entire centre was on edge the whole day because Steven Lowy was visiting, so people were ready to blow off steam.

This was the highlight, hands down. Santa arrives, does a lap around the venue, and starts heading towards his chair, where a girl no older than 3 is sitting. I go over to her and say something like "I'm sorry dear but Santa needs his chair to give everyone their presents" and she looks me right in the eye, exasperated, and says "I know that. I'm saving his seat!"

With the boss. Since Deb is the sole PR person for all of Westfield NZ, I'm essentially her PA. We spend obscene amounts of time together and luckily we get along famously, kindred spirits. It's formed into a working-friendship.


This picture is blurry as but the content is priceless. That is Justin Lynch, Director of Westfield NZ, in a super-soaker fight with Nadia, It Manager, as Deb is trying to avoid the crossfire. I ended up watching over Justin's hyperactive 10 year old daughter for a huge chunk of the afternoon. Exhausting. There's been discussion of me staying on longer, which obviously is a compliment but never going to happen. I'll almost miss this all though which means I obviously need sleep.


I'll end with an image that has had me cracking up the entire month.





I need sleep.

I was camp counselor drafted and now I'm in charge of games at the Westfield Kids Christmas Party. Yikes.

While I'm sure it was exasperated by Monday rain and the nature of my work, the news about that Long Island Walmart temp worker who was trampled to death during a sales frenzy has had me in a qualified funk all day.

It's such a preposterous tragedy, I don't want to believe it. But then I do and feel sick to my stomach. It doesn't help when you read details like, "customers simply stepped over him and kept on shopping even as the store announced it was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said."

@$^@#%^@$#%@!#^!^!##$!$#^!$#@$###^&%&*^%^(^(&%^%^$%@#@@#$$^#!


Q@$#Q$^QY%Q#^$$#&@!#@#$$^%&$#%^


#$^@#$$^

Anyway.

I had a year off from Thanksgiving, which I really thought was fine, but a few days later it sunk in that I missed those rare times when the entire family is together and things felt off.

So in an attempt to fix that, here's my list of things I'm thankful for

My ever loving and supportive parents, who have provided me, along with thousands of other gifts, the treasure of accessibility to the bigger world, and aid/put up with all my various ambitions.

My beautiful sisters-everyday I feel blessed that the words sibling and best friend can mean the same thing.

All the amazing friendships that have formed over the years. My comfort starting over from scratch in NZ is testimony to solid bonds overseas.

Blind luck/fate/karma-I'm not sure which is responsible for all this good fortune so I'll give props to all three and cover my ass.



The photo site is up, pretty pleased with how it came out. If you're ever bored, check it out nathanshulmanphotography.com (I'm still trying to legitimize in my head paying monthly for it)