PrivateTim

Bump de bumpy.

1. Hello..... that is any younger brother, your older brother (or sister) never has the time for you that you think you deserve 2. Long before Will's mother's turned batshit crazy he treated her like dirt and Brad undercut her at every turn, maybe the two of them deserve blame for the breakdown 3. Please.... his father's didn't spend any more time in their jobs than any other high level execs and lots of parents who work three jobs and they turn out fine 4. True, which is why he should have been in therapy from the day he got back and wasn't 5. Well he was actually older and again, lots of people have bitchy siblings and all the above too, it isn't unique 6. His perception is his father turned on him, what do you think Robbie's perception was? How much did Brad leave Robbie out of the loop with Will, just like he did to Jeannie 7. He didn't fight like hell, it was actually fast and Jeannie wasn't even around 8. Will jumped into her world with both feet and stirred up trouble, who is at fault here? 9. I didn't hear Isidore or Claire say any such thing or imply it, but Will still thinks the world revolves around him. I have criticism for Claire, but more on that later. I don't think Will handled it the way a mature person would. You don't create drama and ruin dinner for everyone. You go to JP for quiet advice. Not only is it the mature thing, it is quite Machiavellian. I don't think Claire is a bad person or shallow. She hasn't had reasons to doubt her daughter's word in the past but maybe things are changing with Typhoon Will on the scene or maybe Marie has mislead her parents in the past and didn't get busted. The phrase, "creeps me (her) out" was never in play, it was she was "uncomfortable". Without Noah being part of a prominent family in the area, apparently he was more easily expendable than the hoity toity. I DO think that the Claire we have come to know, would have come and talked to Will about it, because that is how Claire seems to me, but Mark has to take poetic license with the characters to move the drama where he wants it to go. The question is, did the guest list have the name of the inviter? How did Marie know Noah was on it? Surely Marie must have known the spit would hit the fan at some point. Will didn't give Claire a chance to say that Noah should be reinstated, he pulled that class warfare BS straight out of his recently expaned heiny, another immature, passive aggressive stance; "because you didn't invite any Native Americans, you hate Native Americans". It is a straw dog argument straight from the manure pile in the stables. If there was a problem with Claire & Jack and their kids not going to Claremont, that is JP's issue to deal with not Will's. Jack and Claire didn't committ to rebuild Claremont, that was the men of the Crampton/Schluter and now Hayes, based in part on Gathan's challenge. As to Isidore, do we know how much time she spends in The City? Surely she would have an apartment there for business and shopping reasons. Frank and she are bit players so we never know what is going on with them (or Ace) so we don't really know what they know and don't. Speaking of bat shit crazy...... We have gone from Noah making Marie "uncomfortable" and asking her out ONCE to "he creeps her out" and "a nice guys who keeps hitting on her". There is nothing textual or even subtextual to support either of the Tyra Banks pop-psychology assertions.

Ya ever been to Malibu & Palo Alto?? Mmmmm, no. Will would need to go a very long ways to be exposed to different stratas of life. East Palo Alto is just the other side of the 101 and John and Marie would be aware of it and probably interact with those kids at the malls, movies, etc more than Will and JJ would. I do agree that JJ was just following Will's lead, either to support him or just because follow is what JJ does.

Right, but Will can't simultaneously be very mature for his age/wise beyond his years and a typical teenager (dramatic and emotional). The cold rationality of someone who raised the spectre of Tonto would have understood the ramifications of dropping the ring on the table.

The is no trump card for Marie with Will and Tony's relationship (nor for Dana). You have to understand the mind of a prosecuting attorney to understand why no charges would ever be filed against Tony. Prosecutions are not about Truth, Justice and the American way, they are about winning and without a victim on the stand a DA would have no way to win this case, not even if Will and Tony doing it onstage were the halftime show of the Super Bowl. DAs hate to lose cases and look stupid and trying to make Will implicate Tony on the stand would make a DA look stupid. Here is my review, which also serves a good jumping off point on how I saw this chapter (with a correction bolded): I thought this was supposed to be an unhappy chapter? I was grinning ear to ear. It was nice to see Sainte Claire getting it wrong for a change. It is amazing how blind parents can be about their own kids sometimes. Apparently Claire is missing a thing or two in how Marie is. The most interesting part of the whole chapter though was Will's observation about the Bastille Day guest list being weighted to the rich and powerful. I am not sure Will would actually be self aware enough to notice it since his 14 years have been in a cocoon of privilege, but he provides a good vehicle for Mark to show the movement of the Crampton & Schluter clans. In smallish town mid-west America there were prominent families, but you regularly interacted across class lines with. The Crampton & Schluter clans went to public schools in Claremont which brought them into contact with people from all walks of life. In CA they live in elite conclaves. When JP moved to Escorial, Palo Alto was just a nice, upper middle class, intellectually elite conclave, but by 2001 you couldn't swing a dead cat over your head without hitting a multi-millionaire and even several billionaires because of the tech boom in Silicon Valley. Ditto for Malibu and especially The Colony. I am not saying the Cramptons & Schluters are wrong for sending their kids to private school, they pretty much have to at this point in CA and at their station. It isn't a snobbery issue, but safety and education quality. Yes you can still get a good education at Gunn or Palo Alto High, but nothing like The Menlo School and there are real dangers for the wealthy and their children. I don't know how in the loop Isidore is with the daily goings on in the house because we see and hear from her so seldom, but Claire should have been acutely aware of all the ramifications of who was invited and who was not. While not exactly a helicopter mom, I can't see her being so detached that these subtleties escaped her. It makes me question all the 'practically perfect' attributes ascribed to her. It was nice that JJ supported Will in removing the ring, but I think that was over the top for both of them. Given Will's actions over the last year and the amount of support he has had from the people in that room, taking the ring off and letting it fall noisily to the table was over the top. A simple, "what does this ring really mean, if you don't support family over outsiders" should have sufficed. It was a nifty keen bit of writing though.

I thought this was supposed to be an unhappy chapter? I was grinning ear to ear. It was nice to see Sainte Claire getting it wrong for a change. It is amazing how blind parents can be about their own kids sometimes. Apparently Claire is missing a thing or two in how Marie is. The most interesting part of the whole chapter though was Will's observation about the Bastille Day guest list being weighted to the rich and powerful. I am not sure Will would actually be self aware enough to notice it since his 14 years have been in a cocoon of privilege, but he provides a good vehicle for Mark to show the movement of the Crampton & Schluter clans. In smallish town mid-west America there were prominent families, but you regularly interacted across class lines with. The Crampton & Schluter clans went to public schools in Claremont which brought them into contact with people from all walks of life. In CA they live in elite conclaves. When JP moved to Escorial, Palo Alto was just a nice, upper middle class, intellectually elite conclave, but by 2001 you couldn't swing a dead cat over your head without hitting a multi-millionaire and even several billionaires because of the tech boom in Silicon Valley. Ditto for Malibu and especially The Colony. I am not saying the Cramptons & Schluters are wrong for sending their kids to private school, they pretty much have to at this point in CA and at their station. It is a snobbery issue, but safety and education quality. Yes you can still get a good education at Gunn or Palo Alto High, but nothing like The Menlo School and there are real dangers for the wealthy and their children. I don't know how in the loop Isidore is with the daily goings on in the house because we see and hear from her so seldom, but Claire should have been acutely aware of all the ramifications of who was invited and who was not. While not exactly a helicopter mom, I can't see her being so detached that these subtleties escaped her. It makes me question all the 'practically perfect' attributes ascribed to her. It was nice that JJ supported Will in removing the ring, but I think that was over the top for both of them. Given Will's actions over the last year and the amount of support he has had from the people in that room, taking the ring off and letting it fall noisily to the table was over the top. A simple, "what does this ring really mean, if you don't support family over outsiders" should have sufficed. It was a nifty keen bit of writing though.

A winery doesn't need to be big to be highly profitable and if you have more demand for your wine than grapes you can produce can provide, you buy grapes from other growers and crush and ferment them onsite at your winery. Even hobbyist vinters don't work their own vines, you hire people for that.

Oh man that's awesome....... Tony dies next chapter in a horrible river accident! We don't even need to wait for 9-11!! Way to go Arbour!

See ya Tony!!

Naw, 'cuz it'll just be that much better when Tony's bites it...... I've known guys who have been 'in 'n out', 'gay not gay' so many times they had to install a revolving door on their closets. We will see what happens when Tony dumps Dana (if he actually does/can) and what happens when they are back in Palo Alto and Tony has to come to terms with being out to friends on campus (roommates, etc who we have not seen yet). If Tony has any ideas about NOT being open on campus, I am sure Dana will take care of that if Tony actually does dump her. I will grant that the character Tony is marvelous vehicle for Mr. Arbour to present drama and POVs through, but I still think he is a worthless c*!t.

Of interest to followers of the CAP series, Jason Collins, who with his twin Jarron, led Harvard-Westlake to two California state basketball chamionships has come out as gay. He went to Stanfurd (also of interest to CAP followers) after H-W and then on to a 12 year carrer in the NBA. Wonder if he spent anytime at Escorial???

I fukkin' hate Tony

How anyone can remember when "bitchin'" or "rad" (was it Summer of '85, Fall of '91?) is beyond me. I suppose I could dig my junior high and high school yearbooks out of the closet in my room at my parents house and see what the comments were. It is easy with the pop phrases that come out movies ('show me the money', 'a frickin' shark with lazers'), but even if I can remember what year I first said "gnarly" that doesn't mean that word was endemic to California, So Cal or even Los Angeles. Beach kids talked different from Valley kids (818ers), barrio kids, ghetto kids and Inland Empire kids. A word or phrase that was popular at the beach in 1995 might not have reached Claremont (CA) until 1997, by which time it was no longer popular at the beach. Kids at Menlo would have a very different local vernacular than Harvard Westlake kids, not a lot of words, but some, but when someone like Will shows up he will bring the latest So Cal/Malibu words to the Menlo School and when he is with Ryan and Alistair he'll use the new Menlo words that are part of his new vernacular they will take that to HW. If I can retire soon maybe I'll take up a study of how slang words spread.

I'm not buying the defication Tony is slinging. Rome is a very romantic city especially to an EYE-talian American. It took Tony a week solid of carnal peccadilloes with Will (and the absence of the Standfurd girlfriend and Stanfurd social circle) to drop the "L" bomb on Will. Until they are back in Palo Alto and Tony drops the GF, they are an official couple and Tony is comfortable with the whole hand holding routine in Cali, I am not buyin' it one bit. Hopefully Will won't either. (but despite the big body, emancaipation, blah blah blah, he is still a 14 year old and maturity comes through experience not a piece of paper from the Superior Court of California)

Seriously...... you just know that Roberto is Vincenzo's boyfriend. I still don't like Tony. He is my #1 candidate for 9-11 tragedy. I'd have been impressed with his "I love you" declaration if it had been the first day in Rome BEFORE they fornicated, not after a week of hanging out in Rome when it is easy to get all emotionally sucked in to the person, the setting etc. What will it be like when they are back at Stanfurd? Talk is cheap but the Grand Hotel De La Minerve ain't, does Tony's family have money?

I don't know if I agree with all of that or none of that, but it was an interesting read and if we could just get Arbour to make Erik a wherewolf and Kyle a vampire we'd have the start of a hit series of books and three picture movie deal......

I won't speculate on what Marie's motivations were or how the overhearing happened because there just isn't enough information. But I do agree with you on Claire because she is a straight shooter. I don't see her telling Will what do or even offering advice, but to ask Will questions that help him to understand and calrify what it is that he really believes. A point I meant to make earlier was that if Will really thought he was doing the right thing or an okay thing, he wouldn't have been mad at Maire & John in the first place.

Well except only you know the exact circumstances of HOW Erik came to hear Marie and John talking about Will and Kyle. It would have been one thing for Marie to run to Erik as a friend and say, "OMG Kyle is drilling Will", but pretty different if John is saying, in what he thinks is a private conversation, "you need to lighten up on Will" and Marie replies, "well he shouldn't be intercoursing Kyle" and Erik overhears. Marie isn't betraying family loyalty in that case, she is being careless, maybe even thoughtless, but not committing an overt act like Will is. That bitch Carmen will bite your ass every time. I am sure Marie has ethical issues but the old playground code of no one likes a snitch takes precedence. If what Will was doing was outright dangerous (mainlining smack) I am sure she would have gone to Claire, but this didn't rise to that level. But there is a good conversation starter, what WOULD Claire have said to Will?

So the first three chapters are a great example of what I am talking about with Will when I talk about ethics and moral philosophy (not religion Jeremy, ethics and moral philosophy). Will wants to create moral and ethical standards of his own whereby inserting yourself in someone else's relationship is okay because it isn't your responsibility to keep them faithful, but betrayal is bad. If Will really believed what he was doing was fine and morally acceptable then he wouldn't have needed to worry about John and Marie talking about it, because if what he was doing was ethically okay then everyone else would think so too. I am surprised no one has brought up how hurt and betrayed Will felt when John was pounding the hell out of Zach. I am surprised Will doesn't remember how hurt and betrayed he felt when he found John plowing Zach, maybe John will remind him. That karma is real bitch when it bites you in the ass. Will wants to judge Marie for her gossiping, Brad for his control issues, Hank as a gold digger, and others for their foibles, but in a world where everyone gets to choose their own ethical standards you have to then live with the choices others make unless you are willing to acknowledge that there ought to be agreed upon standards of ethical behavior and you do have some responsibility to behave within some set of boundaries.

Wow, the chapter came so quickly I didn't even notice it! I wonder how Julian (beta reader from Paternity) feels about his flouncy namesake It is about time we had a flamer in CAP though, especially a young flamer, because it raises so many issues in the gay community. And no, I don't considerate Stef a flamer...... he is French, which while it is pretty much the same thing, is still different. Good to see the names Alistair and Ryan come up, I love their characters and love that Will actually has friends his own age. I assume at some point we get to see Jeff & Ryan interact? Do we know if Ryan now knows he has a half brother? I forget if that was addressed in the last story since it was Paternity, not Maternity. It is nice to JJ getting back to normal, or as normal as a nationally ranked athlete can be. I am not overly worried about the Hank character yet, Hankis just being a cop, who like all cops is used to having people be intimidated and defer to them. On the good side she can provide Jeannie some much needed structure, on the bad side she could dominate too much so her indivaduality is submerged, and that would be healthy.

Great set-up for the actual 9-11 day, any number of characters can/will be in NYC the day of the attack. I agree with B1ue on Marie, but for a different reason that I'll expound on more in the forums, the gist is though, Will wants to set up his own moral code and his own standards of right and wrong, he doesn't want to have to conform to traditional standards of right and wrong. But I am not sure that even Will thinks his conduct was okay, again, more on that in the forums.

Actually Chapter 3 got published so quickly I thought it was Chapter 2, even the notice in my email, I get so many GA updates of the stories and authors I follow, I delete most of them out of hand.

You are the only person talking about "religion". I keep talking about ethics, morality and the philosophy associated with those and you keep yammering on about "religion". Mark has laid out many philosophical viewpoints and lots of moral and ethical dilemmas whether or not you choose to recognize it or acknowledge it. From JP conking the campus cop on the head all the way through Erik punching Will in the nose CAP has been full of actions that occur because of someone's ethical and moral point of view even if the person doesn't understand or even acknowledge that that is what they are doing. And yes Mark it is literature and a monumental work at that. Ditto for Odyssey.

CAP is literature not a soap opera and it has had morality, philosophy and ethics all through it. Bizarre that you do not recognize that.

Mere Christianity isn't about religion per se, it is a discussion of morality and right and wrong and where the understanding of right and wrong come from from a series of radio broadcasts that Lewis made during WWII when the outcome of the war was very still much in doubt. The Dream Weaver is 14 year old Ian's walk through philosophy, morality and ethics. A journey young Will, also 14 should embark on. Since Jack starting writing the novel in 2001, Will very well could have been the model Bowen used....... interesting.