Posts by Emma Hart
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The essence of heroic epic is when two loyalty directives conflict (eg family vengeance vs mateship, love of a woman vs mateship) such that honour cannot be satisfied.
Bravo, Stephen. Would you like an MA with that?
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The whole staunch New Zealand 'mateship' thing, for all its faults (and there are indeed many) certainly has some upsides, and wouldn't have survived as a social institution if it didn't have something to commend it.
Yeah, mateship intrigues me in its ambiguousness, especially as it ties into the whole gang thing. I know I was safe in some places we went because you did not fcuk (in any sense of the word) with someone else's missus.
OTOH... I found out later that Standard Lamp had wanted to ask me out before Table did, but Table 'saw her first', so I was considered to be his. This pissed me off no end.
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I wanted to be out there, fucking shit up, but it was hard when I was stuck on a farm just outside of Hammo.
I believe one of my mother's consolations was that I never found myself on the methodone program, unlike my cousins who lived in Hamilton. That whole family turned out to either be addicts or missionaries.
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Hmmm, great story Emma but by all that's holy makes me glad I had three sons who were not into that sort of thing
Crossbows?
Girls?
Sorry.
Do you know what happened to the boyfriend?
No, I don't. I did stay in touch with that group for several months after this incident, long enough to see Catfish get his next girlfriend pregnant and develop arthritis in his hands so badly he couldn't play any more. Standard Lamp married an old high school friend of mine and moved to Kalgoorlie. Lost track of Table after his mother died so my mother stopped running into her in the supermarket.
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Yes, and it compels me to ask: did you not have heroin in New Zealand?
There's a statute of limitations or something on this shit, right? We had homebake, that I remember. It had a pretty bad rep with us though, and was regarded as largely being for idiots.
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Good on you for getting through it, but is (your story) not also a good reason to let kids be kids and not grow up too fast?
Hey John. My kids are starting to get to this age, and I still think my mother's policy of pretty much letting me make my own mistakes and find my own way and always being there if I needed her was the right one. A more restrictive attitude (such as I would have been subject to by my father) might well have led to me leaving home completely and going much further astray. The fact that I made it out at all was a very delicate balancing act and owed a lot to sheer luck. This incident is not the worst I was subject to.
But I'm not sure what 'let kids be kids' means with reference to sixteen year olds. Because in my (apparently slightly odd) experience, if you 'let' 16yos, they're not kids.
I have considered what might have happened if Table had been a P user. I think I might have died - had I not changed any of MY decisions because of it. But we were already choosing dope out of a swathe of available drugs. If we'd had it to hand, that wouldn't necessarily have meant choosing to use it.
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No idea how long that will be, but if the Homosexual Law Reform Bill is any guide, it'll be around a generation before the status quo is institutionalised, and we can be successfully the envelope again. But who knows, maybe sooner ?
I think it might be sooner. When Tim Barnett and his partner got civilly unioned, the media referred to it as 'getting married' several times.
We supported the CUB because it was a step in the right direction
Ditto. It's not good enough, but it's a feck of a lot better than it was. Like Craig though, I would like to see people being honest about their position, and whether they're prepared to publicly support full gay marriage.
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That's a downside, surely? 'Sorry, mum, I couldn't get to a phone' was my absolute favourite line between the ages of 15 and 18.
Oh dear. One should always ring one's parents, from the first available phone, early in the evening. This buys you hours of drinking out at the Richard Pearse monument or establishes your presence at one house when you're at another. Saves you having to talk to them when they ring, too, when you're munted.
I was a little alarmed to read the other day that schools are getting pissy with parents txting their kids in class. My gods, let them breathe.
Not a drama queen. Not even. Your inner murlfriend got you through that exceptionally well, I'd say.
Thank you, David. There's something very weird in feeling that you'll sound simultaneously hysterical AND banal.
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I have solemnly pledged to myself that when my kids go through teenagehood I shall refrain in any way possible from giving them the impression that I know what they're going through
My partner and I have this theory that human beings are designed so that by the time you're parenting teenagers you can no longer remember what it's like to be a teenager. Because otherwise it's just too bloody traumatic.
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Yes, London's really good at logos...