Canuk

from your last post it looks like you are trying to resolve too many issues at once. hopefully your therapist will help resolve that. if you split from your wife, life will go on, it will be difficult but it doesn't sound like "easy" is the current descriptor you'd use for your marital situation. Commentators who said "you got married too young"; ignore them. The age at which a person marries has NO bearing on the likelihood of a happy marriage. Personally I was married at 21 and had 15+ great years. I now have children in their late 20's and that's blood marvellous. I can see that you feel you made a "wrong" decision" and you're now fearful of making another - all you can do is do what you did when you made that first decision: with what you currently know what is the best decision I can make now? remember hindsight is always 20/20 and never have regrets - they just waste time.

done

if ass= arse what do north americans call the small donkey-like animal? i.e that animal that in Australian/New Zealand/UK english is called an ass - the animal that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on ( I know he rode in on his arse - but his arse was on an ass)

OK, there was a previous string where someone asked "when did you feel you were "old". Well it just hit me ( unfortunately not for the first time). I saw the title to this post - "Why do so many people hate twilight". my first thought - and this didn't cahnge until I had read the first few entries - was why on earth would people not like the period just before and after sunset? That said as I have never seen the twilight that obviously involves cute boys and werewolves, I can't comment. But I do like watching the (very brief, inthe tropics) twilight each night......

I am SO glad that somehow my schooling wasn't this complex..... I'd have been a cot case! Where do you conjure these evil women from? I hope like hell it's not based on personal history! congrats

This is the most stressful story I have read!! who needs cliffhangers when the entire bloody story is one loooooong cliffy!!! CJ you packed an awful lot into this one chapter. certainly built tension and opened up so many possibilities, not many of them good! Great read. Thanks

well done - great chapter. Nice to see how you slowly pull all the pieces together. With the assassin coming from the north and with a range of 800 and the boys sailing south - with luck they'll miss and the assassin will spend days/weeks searching the coast and Shark Bay..... we can but hope.....

A truly great Canadian. He is the proof that one person can make a difference, and a difference for the better, in a complex modern democracy.

There, J, you hit the nail on the head: your happiness. I am so sure this is, has been, and will be Mark's one aim in life!!

two ex's: one, mother of my two boys. 10 years of hell, then the councelling kicked in and she's fine with me and my partner. second: a bastard of the first order: a year or so after we'd split his new best friend rang to tell me that my ex had died. I was shocked and up set. when I called back to get details of funeral etc- he laughed and said to my ex that "I'd fallen for it"...... I am not sure I have ever been so angry..... really glad-we-have-gun-control angry.....

Great beginning and any character that reads P&P will have my interest immediately!! I agree with Cia - the flow was a bit off - the build-up, the shower, the noise the discovery and phone call were great, then the note, and your main character isn't talking until second week..... IMVHO, instead of leaping forward to school, perhaps he could have returned to what you had already mentioned - the moment he put the shampoo in his hair..... his, in effect, "last peaceful moment. the angst tho' is good, and the resolution of this over his school year should be interesting..... Congrats!

????? what's the equivalent of speechless and gobsmacked when you are trying to think of a typed response?????

the two things that stand out from the responses that never apply to me are the "lock the door" (who's going to come in that I don't know?) and "collect/dump the mail" - all my bills etc arrive with my email.... so it's only the junk that arrives in the box and that gets claned out ~weekly. the dump the clothes works - I bought these great "fisherman's pants" at the Mindil beach markets.... but the primary task on getting home is making sure the b/f is happy

I played Travian (does this count?) for ages - until my partner gave me a choice - him or Travian. At that point I realised I had a problem.... so I gave up!

Winkler is turning into the Google of the 18th/19th centuries! what he doesn't know hasn't yet been captured! and that last para or two..... well that certainly stopped me with a crash. But the letter - what an opportunity!! congrats again!

MMike1969....the rich are different to you and I......

could you enlighten an Australian by expanding on "happy frat boy" - would I like one???

and if the Jesuits there are anything like the Jesuits here, if (IMHO) he can escape the religious aspect, he'll get a bloody good education.

you write the scariest prose. I dread to think where that mind of yours conjures up such succinct twistedness. Brillaint writing for the way you get such amazing emotions across in such few words. I am jusy SO glad school/college was not like this for me....!!

I really would like to know why Lady GaGa's Alejandro does it for me? it is SO unlike anything else I like, but I somehow really lose it whenever I hear it!!

this post is bloody hysterical!! I can see "Super Ham" broccoli in one paw, cheese in the other, pursuing the "magic Penis" killer!! ain't sanity overated!

I saw Shortbus in a cinema. After the show two groups walked out - those with huge smiles and those with their mouths open in shock!! Not the greatest movie - but ......different!

This boy is 14???? good god! I don't recall any 14 y o looking this good when I was at school.......

interesting. This period (2000-2005+) passed me by completely, musically. My boys were out of the house (so I didn't have to listen to their crap contemporary music) so untill I started listening to new stuff again later that decade the only thing I recall is the Kylie song and that only because I am Australian (yes, and Canadian too)

I think you are being a little harsh on MMIKE's comments. What I understood him to be saying is that Gathan had been through a lot of shit in the previous few weeks. Then with the Concorde incident he realises that he nearly lost the one thing that makes him happy/keeps him sane/provides a rock to which he can anchor himself, then Hendrickson's look to be taking it all away. So his response is not the level-headed reasoned response you'd have him deliver. Your "If Bob tells me I am a dick, I don't give Ralph attitude" works well, with no history. You add Gathan's history and suddenly the discussion with "Ralph" is not the level playing field you suggest. Particularly when "Ralph" has his own baggage. Based on my own experience the best thing to do with children/young adults where things have gone catastrophically wrong is to say nothing but sit and listen. You'd be amazed how often they will talk without prompting first defensively, then explaining, confessing and apologising - all without the "parent" saying anything !.