Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: Same as it Ever Was

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  • Emma Hart,

    Unless I'm misremembering I don't think I've ever had a relationship end due to someone screwing around (though screwing around was a feature in a few of them).

    Yeah, me too. I know this sounds like a cliché, but it was Dan's constant lying that made me leave him. I knew he was sleeping with Jane. For years, 'squash game' was a euphemism for illicit sex in KAOS. But it was when he said that he'd move in with me, then kept coming up with increasingly stupid reasons not to, that's when I turfed him.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    I'm misremembering I don't think I've ever had a relationship end due to someone screwing around,

    split up with me on a near weekly basis

    Well, if you consider that aint a real screw around, you really could put that one into the file girl. Reckon that's right up there with disrespect at least. That's just made me realise how glad I am to know that my man's ex wife is a great friend of ours.

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Isabel Hitchings,

    Well, if you consider that aint a real screw around, you really could put that one into the file girl

    We were very young, and overly dramatic and making up was fun to do

    Christchurch • Since Jul 2007 • 719 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    Well that sounds better :) I admit that I liked being single just as much as being with someone. I never went looking but didn't mind trying whilst single. Once in a relationship is quite different for me mentally, just another level to move to, I guess. Both is a grand thing eh? innit.

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Islander,

    Most of my whanau are (or have been*) highly sexual beings. We count a bisexual, and homosexuals (G & L),& serial monogamists and people who just happily live together when they feel like it & go do something else when they dont, among our happily wide & inclusive parameters.

    One of the interesting relationships includes a couple of 18yrolds marrying & then splitting (over one partner's need to have kids and the other partner's determination not to) - I think my sib's determination to split was wise -but - we still call the first partner a member of the whanau (and the marriage et al took place over 35 years ago.)

    And my lovely mother decided to divorce her second husband when she was in her 70's. Great family rejoicing among her offspring & other relations! (The man was a fucktard & a shit. But everyone can make mistakes...)


    *It's hard to tell about those who are dead. I have my Nana's & Grand-dad's love letters (my mother refuses to read them) and they are so polite and full of gaps....

    I was also executrix for one of my loved elders, and discovered some - ur, materiel- that I've put into 50year storage.

    Life is always interesting eh?

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Hilary Stace,

    When I was a very young librarian with my hair in pigtails, I had a brief relationship with a truck driver (well that’s what he said he was – and I’m still not sure what his real name was), who was an associate of various Wellington gangs. We met through my vivacious musician flatmate who was going out with a handsome young Black Power chap (gangs seemed much more benign then, and with full employment they all had to be at work at 7 am the next day). Their local was the public bar of the Royal Tiger Tavern in Taranaki Street, and it was all a bit of a revelation to me.

    He didn’t have his own motorbike so we went to parties on my Honda 90 stepthrough. One night we were alone in a room discussing our cultural differences when several people burst in, and someone took our photo. There was a bit of arguing but I didn’t think any more of it until I was at work a few days later when a young woman - who didn’t look like she was interested in historical research - stormed in and said she was going to cite me in their divorce case. I was quite concerned as in those days Truth published details of co-respondents which could be quite embarrassing and career limiting. So I secretly read the library copies of Truth but never saw my name. Since I didn’t know their real names (everyone went by nicknames) I wasn’t even sure who I was looking for.

    Later I heard he had gone organic gardening up the coast somewhere.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report

  • Stephen Judd,

    Um, is that like discussing the Ugandan situation? You may just have invented my new favourite euphemism.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    Life is always interesting eh?

    So far :)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • giovanni tiso,

    "What happened to Uncle Jim? "
    "He went organic gardening."
    "Say no more."

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    "Say no more."

    lol, I got the giggles now, thanks. :)

    Oh, and Emma ,i think Hilary beats you there. You'll have to come up with another one. I'm sure you can find one.It is afterall your blog. :)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Jeremy Eade,

    Somehow it is certain descriptions that Craig comes up with, that sorta gives the garden the much needed blood and bone composting that shows PAS what this man can be, and he wins many times over. so yes, that last one wasn't in the running.

    I just liked the idea, writing is just the vehicle.

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report

  • JackElder,

    Agree about the "posting dodgy stuff using your real name" worries. I google prospective coworkers - it's how I found that a new hire wrote erotic startrek fanfic, for instance - and I'm aware that my children will probably have a look one day as well. Then again, I don't think that anything that I've done is actually particularly odd or out of left-field; it's just occasionally funny, as these things should be.

    Another anecdote from my past; I may have posted this one before, but it's a personal favourite.

    These days, every hipster worth their skinny jeans has stretched earlobes. But back in the late 90s it was a bit less common. I've had stretched earlobes since about '96, and used to get a few comments. At one point, I was at a friend's housewarming. The house she was renting had a lot of antique agricultural machinery on the walls. At one point in the evening, rather inebriated, I put a cast-iron pulley on a hook through my earlobe. The weight of the hook/pulley distorted my earlobes quite a bit, and a friend of mine got a good photo of the slightly worrying results. As is the way of these things, it was posted on the internet fairly rapidly. And all was well.

    Then a couple of months later I got a phone call from the friend. She'd been casually going through her logs to find who was deeplinking her content, and had found Something Interesting. The conversation went roughly:
    "You know that photo of you with the pulley through your ear? It's being deeplinked by another site."
    "Oh yeah?"
    "Yup. It's, um, a German site."
    "OK...."
    "It's... a special interest German site."
    "Yes..."
    "Actually, it's a gay German piercing fetish website. Is that a problem?"

    And it wasn't. She sent me the URL for the page that I was linked off, I went there and found a number of perfectly charming gentlemen who were very admiring and made a number of lovely comments, and had a wonderful afternoon. Few issues with the translation, but some things are universal.

    Wellington • Since Mar 2008 • 709 posts Report

  • Joanna,

    It's being deeplinked by another site.

    In the olden days before flickr, often whenever I found a site deeplinking one of my images, I'd switch it to pictures of the consequences of venereal disease. Because I am a grown-up like that.

    I appreciate that I haven't told any good stories in this thread. For some reason I just can't think of any. But to make up for that, if you know one of my stories, please feel free to tell it here for me.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 746 posts Report

  • Jackie Clark,

    It's hard to tell about those who are dead. I have my Nana's & Grand-dad's love letters (my mother refuses to read them) and they are so polite and full of gaps....

    After my Dad died, my Mum made me read love letters that he'd sent to her from overseas business trips in the first 6 years of their marriage. Now remember, she was a shy young thing of 23 when they marrried, and he was 47. And he was horny, horny, horny. OMG he was horny. At turns I was mortified at what I was reading, and pleased that he so obviously fancied his child bride. I have always recognised my father was not an ordinary man, but those letters fleshed out, if you will, just what a very sexual man he was. I was relieved to find that my behaviour in my 20's was so obviously genetic.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report

  • Lucy Stewart,

    Agree about the "posting dodgy stuff using your real name" worries. I google prospective coworkers - it's how I found that a new hire wrote erotic startrek fanfic, for instance - and I'm aware that my children will probably have a look one day as well.

    But was it well-written fanfic? That's the real question.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    That's a lovely story Jackie. One of my oldest memories of ma and pa was watching Dad on top of Mum and thinking "oh goodie we have a trampoline inside". No doors in our house, but a trampoline.:)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Emma Hart,

    Okay, I have a short list: if anybody wants to embarrass Tom or Jo, now's the time.

    Oh, and Emma ,i think Hilary beats you there. You'll have to come up with another one. I'm sure you can find one.It is afterall your blog. :)

    Tch, it's not a competition, Sofie... oh, no, wait, it is. It's just so hard to come up with stories that won't embarrass/annoy other people, which is why I love the Alex story so much.

    But. In my first year, I went to a toga party. At this party, my boyfriend (seated) did... something. I can't remember what, but it was obviously dreadful, because I got really angry and decided that the best way to punish him was to get really drunk and sleazy. Not something I did by halves when I was eighteen.

    This night is, I think, the origin of the Legend of the Diced Carrot Man. He goes around waiting for people to vomit, and then tosses in Diced Carrots. Nobody eats diced carrots, after all, so how else would they get there?

    Anyway, in the morning I woke up in my halls room with no memory of how I got home. Not too surprising until you consider that I would have needed the swipe card for the front door and the key to my halls room. Neither of which I had, because I was still just wearing the sheet.

    And then I had to get up, go back to the party venue, and squirmingly ask if I could please have all my clothes back.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report

  • mark taslov,

    Ha ha, Nice Emma,

    [Remainder deleted, Mark. I've had a couple of complaints about this post already, and I tend to agree. It's off-topic and distasteful. RB]

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report

  • BenWilson,

    mark, I think mpgs or it didn't happen on that one, sorry.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

  • mark taslov,

    or it didn't happen.

    haha, prove it;) wmv ok?

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report

  • Joanna,

    And then I had to get up, go back to the party venue, and squirmingly ask if I could please have all my clothes back.

    I once had to return to a boy's flat the next day to ask if I had perhaps left my skirt in his room (this is why I wear a skirt over my pants, Damian Christie!), and I found him sitting out with all his flatmates and I know exactly how thin the walls in that house are (because I used to live there) and I knew exactly how loud we had been. And also that I had thrown up during a rather key moment, which I blame entirely on the fact that I had been needing to throw up all night but the bathrooms at the Secret Garden were flooded so I couldn't earlier on. I'd always thought I had a great gag reflex before then...

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 746 posts Report

  • mark taslov,

    You never cease to amaze me Joanna. More!

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report

  • Michael Savidge,

    When I was a very young librarian with my hair in pigtails....

    Call me a perve but I'd read any story that started like that :)

    Somewhere near Wellington… • Since Nov 2006 • 324 posts Report

  • Joanna,

    You never cease to amaze me Joanna. More!

    Now you're really asking for trouble!

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 746 posts Report

  • BenWilson,

    I had one terrible night in Melbourne. I think someone slipped me a mickey or something, cause I had a psychotic break in which I was paralyzed with fear that the bar was full of witches and warlocks out to get me, so I had to stay still. I thought I snapped out of it and left, but I can't have been right because I came more fully lucid in the graveyard wearing a black academic robe a bit later. Watch your drinks in Melbourne folks.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report

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