Saturday, 1 November 2003 - 3:43 PM GMT

what's with the orange balls?

Saturday, 1 November 2003 - 9:03 PM GMT

i keep meaning to ask. what does 'ex-DH' stand for? diminished hosanna? deranged horticulturalist? diletante humanitarian?

or is it a secret?

Saturday, 1 November 2003 - 11:05 PM GMT

Pumpkins ... they're flash-in-the-dark pumpkin deely boppers. Pffft, you mean not everybody wears those on Hallowe'en?

Saturday, 1 November 2003 - 11:06 PM GMT

It's a pisstake of something, but, seeing as your name is Ish Kabibble, I'm not totally sure you have the irony glans/glands to appreciate it. (:-D)

So it stays with me. Heeeee!

Sunday, 2 November 2003 - 5:31 PM GMT

oh aye! sorry, I'm a bit oblivious to festivities. We're a bit like the Amish in our family, but atheist and with electricty and beer.

Sunday, 2 November 2003 - 8:58 PM GMT

Lol! I just had an involuntary mental image of a drunken Geordie barn raising with Harrison Ford. Oooh dear, me sides. Sorry!

Sunday, 2 November 2003 - 9:04 PM GMT

Okay, full explanation. When I first started posting on usenet, I used to see heterosexual married female posters use DH to mean Darling Hubby or Dearest Heart all the time. I kind of started using DH partly to protect my other half's privacy, and partly as a kind of comment on the soppiness therein. Now she's an ex-DH I'd dearly love to change it to something that sounds less agonisingly about losing her, but everything I can think of sounds either soppy, lovesick or mean, so I haven't.
My first response to this comment was offhand and mean, and I was also too stupid to realise it was. That was partly because I was furious at people attributing words to me elsewhere that weren't true - people who keep changing their online names. If you want the whole damn story of that, Vic has blogged it, and the comments boxes over there will show you just how mean and nasty spirited I can be. I doubt it will make sense to anyone who hasn't witnessed the whole saga, anyway.

Sunday, 2 November 2003 - 9:50 PM GMT

glad we finally managed to get through to each other.

The 'DH' thing is perfectly understandable... I've had personal little phrases like that work themselves into my own lexicon to a point where they were simply ineradicable... I still call my ex girlfriend really stupid pet names (that I will not repeat in public) instinctively when she calls me on the phone, although I haven't seen her since 1997 and we've been broken up since 1995.

Still, in the interests of healing... how we speak and write largely reflects how we think, and just as forcing ourselves to smile will, honestly, fool our brains into getting happy (it works, god knows why), forcing ourselves to change our speaking/writing habits can have a salutory effect on our thoughts and feelings.

So, since you aren't in any way trying to conceal your sexuality, why not simply refer to your one time Dear Heart as your ex-GF (ex-girlfriend) or, to save three precious keystrokes (always important to babble happy folk like us), simply your ex?

Other than that, I think 'DH' has now come to mean 'Despair Habit' or some such for you, and it's repetitive behavior I think you should break. I would like to see your Despair Habit become your 'ex-DH' in truth. I imagine you would too, so maybe you should just take away the special little pet names and start referring to her in a more commonplace fashion. If you're like me, well, those you've loved will always own a piece of you, but you don't have to let them know about it if they aren't worthy of it, nor do you have to allow them to own a really BIG piece. Take back as much as you can, and move on.

Again, I'm glad we worked things out. Email me if you want to have a good mutual sniffle fest. Or not. I'll keep hanging out as long as you do the same over on my blog.

If you stop blogging and we lose touch because I don't have your email address, though, I will be at least mildly annoyed. You Have Been So Advised. ;)

Monday, 3 November 2003 - 6:49 PM GMT

Other than that, I think 'DH' has now come to mean 'Despair Habit' or some such for you, and it's repetitive behavior I think you should break.
I can see how it would seem that way on a blog, where twenty days seems a long time. Set against the previous nine years, however, I really don't think I'm stuck in a holding pattern of despair yet. It's not even a month. My natural inclination is to stem the emotions I've felt over her leaving, and I don't want to do that. In my life, right now, that would be less productive than allowing myself to admit a weakness, or being open about being hurt. Sure, at some point it would be better to move away from it. I'm not there, yet.
And you have my email - I'd put it in a comment at your blog yesterday, anyway. Details, Darren!

Wednesday, 5 November 2003 - 9:56 PM GMT

Why "Melons"? Don't get it, was this an English-department thing? Don't understand "Ulp" either... Must congratulate your new camera on its ability to make all of us without exception look absolutely AWFUL. I for one was most glad to hear somebody got their own back by knocking it against a wall ;D

Thursday, 6 November 2003 - 12:42 AM GMT

I didn't take those photographs, I'll have you know - they were mostly Berlioz and Ulp playing with it for the first half hour while I attempted to get further than the hallway.
Melons stemmed from the old job selling plastic mountainous melons to rich ladies. Ulp stemmed from Duch's mispronunciation of his name the first weekend she ment him.

Thursday, 6 November 2003 - 1:02 AM GMT

I got to see the Scary Spice melon last night!

Thursday, 6 November 2003 - 1:47 AM GMT

Oh cripes, you mean she's still got it? Euuuuurrrrgh.

It's almost like a kiss and tell - to have something that's been *inside* Scary. Yeeeurgh. Wonder if Hello would be interested!