PrivateTim

I love how Will called them, but not because he is right, but because it is the perfect picture of a typical 14 year old who still only sees the world in the parts that are important to him and doesn't stop to think there might be a bigger picture going on. As to how Brad and Robbie are reacting with Pat, I am sure it is not because they are worried about Will being molested, they know Will well enough to know that that wouldn't happen. No one is going to get in Will's pants that he doesn't want there. This is kid who two months ago (3?) was doing a pole dance in Paris. More likely they are getting advice from their lawyers about what they have to/ought to be doing. And behaviour? What are you British now?

Smoking hot chapter. I so remember being that, self-absorbed, "woe-is-me, life is so unfair, my parents don't care about me" teen. You capture all that perfectly. I don't think that Will not being able to get into Pat's pants proves Pat is innocent, all it might prove is that Pat learned his lesson and is more cautious now. Although my speculation is that the previous kid got caught in the proverbial "with his pants down" situation and to deflect his parents resorts to "that nasty man turned me gay" defense. I do find interesting the pain that Robbie and Brad are feeling as parents. Not the Pat situation, but the demands of being good, involved parents. Those demands sometimes require putting your own comfort and desires on hold. It is nice if you can skip off for a romantic weekend on one partners birthday, but as parents, to be good parents, you can't always do that, otherwise you wind up like Grafton's parents who are so busy being self absorbed that they barely even remember they have kids. Anyway, I am glad we came back to this side of the story and hope we get the raft trip before we go back to Wade & Matt.

I only say "hun" online. Rob Lowe is famous for his sex tape with a 16yo that almost killed his career.

Oh hun, you are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too old for Rob Lowe

I think he must watch too many soaps, he knows all these soap people..

No, I am not saying a "save it for marriage guy", but someone who has to be committed emotionally. Not the kind of guy who screws you before he knows your last name. and can have sex with four guys in a week and it is nothing more than recreation to him. Like that Adam fella Errr... I mean "Andy" If I had a nickel for every young friend of mine who fell deeply in love with someone and then when I see them two months later, it is over already.

Ummm, excuse me bitch, that was LATE 1970's I think you may have missed what Tom was talking about. He was talking about kids whose BACK-UP school was Dartmouth or at least kids who thought that only getting into Columbia and no's from Harvard and Yale was a disaster. They could save face if Stanford accepted them, but only getting into UCLA or UCI, even though they are elite schools in their own right, would a reason to stay home sick two days. Not every H-W student wants Ivy, some want top liberal arts colleges like Wesleyan, some want top performing arts schools, or top schools in engineering & science like MIT, but the point is, the top H-W students are applying to top schools in various fields. If you look at the stats for admits for H-W students for the class of 2010 and 2011, not where they went, but where they were accepted, the numbers are stunning. In two classes, 59 were admitted to Cal, 28 to Stanford, 23 to Brown, 32 to Columbia, 43 to Cornell, 13 to Harvard, 82 to UC San Diego, 16 to Yale and the numbers just roll on. HWS College Counseling Handbook

I think Elizabeth will figure a way to get the money out of Mary Ellen's trust by doing a land swap there or some such thing. Wade may have gotten the bulk of the trust, but I assume that Mary Ellen and little bro (whose name escapes me) get a nice sum too. I also think it would be cool for Wade to fly his little brother out to Stanford for a hockey game and to clue him in about his mother. It would be nice to see how he is doing. I really hope Josh and Wade don't tumble into bed because at this point I am figuring Josh is a virgin and one of those modern guys that doesn't just want to tumble into just anyone's bed, but that "one special" guy's that he can build a relationship with.

Awesome chapter dude, I was on the edge of my seat. I get the very Lady MacBeth like traits of Wade's mom. She really isn't evil, but she is the one with balls in the family just like Lady M and she does what she has to do: That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe topful Of direst cruelty The new character Josh?Jason? is cute. It is refreshing to see a normal kid from the community college world, just exploring life. He hasn't grown up in a life of privilege or where people are down with the whole homo thing so it is cool to get that new look at how unsettling college can be in that transition from kid to adult. Kudos for the whole chapter.

I know there is a topic on "Why I love Mark Arbour" that we are not supposed to respond in (although I don't quite get why not), but why I love GA is part of why I love Mark and his writing and being into the story as he writes it. I love reading and read a lot of non-GA stuff. Patrick O'Bryan was a favorite, which is one reason I loved the Granger series, as was Bernard Cornwell with his Sharpe series. Alexander McCall Smith is one of my current obsessions and I am reading three of his series, rotating through books. What is frustrating is that I can't provide feedback to Mr. McCall Smith as he writes his stories and get feedback back from him. I would love to give him feedback on his characters Isabel Delhousie and her niece and lover (two different people) and Bertie and his father and mother and get an idea of where his head is at. It is so nice to be able to dialogue with Mark and get an idea of how and why things happen the way they do and even cooler, I think Mark takes the feedback seriously and makes changes in his stories because he has considered the feedback. That is so unique in the world of literature. I wonder what it would have been like to have chatted online with Dickens online as he wrote his serialized stories.

Josh has dimples, he can't be evil.... that is a well known fact.

Wow, such Machiavellian machinations. Yeah, yeah... big scene coming up with mommy, I am more ready for the big scene with Josh

I simply think Mark hasn't concentrated on that part of the story. Darius didn't have bad grades or SATs, he would never have gotten into an academy if he did and Santa Clara isn't for slouches. We really haven't seen Will and JJ's inclinations to school and studying etc. Having parents like Brad and Robbie and JP for a grandfather they have grown up in the environment of rarefied universities. They don't have to be all panicky like the poor kid from Montebello High School or Bell High School whose parents probably did not go to college or probably did not go to an elite university. Again, that is an oversimplification, but I grew up in an environment not unlike Will and the kids. It was never a question of were you going to college, but where. Everybody in my family went to college. All my aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc, not one isn't a college grad and several went to prestige universities. The point I am making, is that because of that, it wasn't something you dwelt on. It just was what it was. College was the next step of your life. I stressed more about where to go to grad school that I did undergrad when I was 15. Bringing it back to Will and JJ. I think the academic environment at H-W will keep them in line and keep them focused. And again, just because Mark doesn't talk about it a lot, doesn't mean that Brad and Robbie don't take an acute interest in the kids academics. Their simply isn't time enough to go into detail about every aspect of their lives. It is likely that the boys went with Brad and Robbie on trips back east where they went to events at Princeton and Yale. It is likely that they have been to many Stanford football games with JP as would be expected due to JP's standing at the university. It is also THE thing to do in Palo Alto in the fall so even if JP didn't go (which he would) Will would have gone with Jack and Claire and John.

The way it works in CA is that the the UC has the mostly useless undergraduate majors (Art History, Philosophy, Statistics, etc) and the state universities have the practical undergraduate majors (Accounting, Physical Therapy, Engineering, etc). It is a gross oversimplification, but largely true. If Tiffany were to be an agent, she'd do the combined JD/MBA at UCLA or she would take Integrative Biology and Physiology for coaching. Long Beach State is where people go for physical therapy, etc. It has one of the finest schools in the country for it. What I would call the practical programs, Management, Engineering, Architecture, etc kick in at the graduate level. The School of Nursing is a legacy program.

Wow, who pissed in Jeremy's Cherios? It might be frowned upon to go to the same school for law school as you did for undergraduate, but not that much and certainly not at top tier schools like Harvard, Yale. Columbia, Stanfurd, Cal and not even at the USC, Duke and UCLA tier. It hasn't been easy to get into Cal ever, not even in 1960's or before, it has always been an elite school and if you were not a top 2% student at your high school and didn't have SATs to die for (1500+ in the old system) you weren't getting in unless you were a football or basketball star. I think it makes sense for Wade to stay in the Bay Area for law school and I would love to see him at MoFo for an internship because Mark Arbour could just have so much fun with that name. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe could be an interesting one too for its West VA connection I feel badly for Tiffany, she has to be having postpartum blues and feeling like just a breeding cow with nothing going for her. She isn't a trophy wife for a rich guy so she can just go to Pilates and plan cocktail parties in their fabulous house, she doesn't have a great career and I forget her level of education. I think Wade needs to motivate her to do more, maybe go back to school As to JJ and his future, in general I say it would be hard for a Malibu kid to move to a place like NYC, but while we haven't seen a lot of JJ, I do recall any attachment to the beach of lifestyle that Will has. I think it will be impossible for Will to leave CA because of how important surfing is to him. JJ on the other hand I can see in NYC because it is an amazing place when you have the money to pay $8 million for a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment on the upper east side. But I can also see JJ in Paris just as easily or maybe more so.

Interesting. Lots to chew on. One thought on the club team. Most clubs teams don't even have paid coaches, the club president is kind of the coach. The big time schools like Stanford and USC that do have paid coaches, the coaches are there for support and to handle the administrative details of the clubs. It isn't like the NCAA program where the coach is God.

Yes they would notice he was gone, you are as much a little DQ as he is And are you kidding? Europe vs AZ? If I had to choose between a water polo (or wrestling) tour, do you think I'd take the European one, even Bulgaria, over a state every time. While H-W is in some senses strict about not missing school, they are also used to dealing with world class athletes and world team members. Many H-W water polo players have been on USA WP world youth, world cadet and world jr teams and have probably even missed some school over it. Coaches too. The old H-W water polo coach was the head coach US Olympic team at one point while he was coaching at H-W and I know he missed time for that.

Cool chapter as always.... it is funny though, the first few paragraphs felt like the first chapter of a book, not the 19th. Just like the old saying goes in law, "a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client" so it goes in money management. Wade needs a good trust company (may I be so bold as to suggest TCW? , and then a specialty consulting firm to help evaluate, hire and manage managers (Callan Associates?). An ordinary accounting firm, even a Deloitte & Touche or PWC, doesn't have the level of expertise that a Callan, Russell or Hewitt does. Wade would do well to hand that off as soon as is practical. Will we get to see Wade's little brother in this book or at least get an update via a phone call? Maybe Wade can enlist him to help with his wicked sister

I am in RJO's camp, just because we don't see all or much of JJ's interactions with Brad and Robbie doesn't mean they are not close to him. Yes Jeannie was all involved of the skating part of JJ's life, but the skating is recent and Brad and Robbie would have been involved in his life in different ways before that. It just isn't credible that the Brad and Robbie characters that Mark has painted would be neglectful of one of their kids. We've seen how they pull in complete strangers, I can't believe those same people would be "enh" to one of their kids.

Toronto, it makes all the sense in the world because I feel the same way. Wade isn't some one who does casual sex easily, I can see him falling for Sean and Sean falling hard for him. It is just a complication in their lives. I was going to bring up the same point. And I'd have gone to the Fairmont. Much nicer

..... would be 13 years old in Palo Alto in 2001. Isn't that John's age?

There is nothing more wholesome and Americana than Disneyland.

Except you forget I am around high school and college peeps all the time because of water polo and I was an advisor at my fraternity house at USC in the early 2000's through 2008, and no one I knew or saw did the upturned collar thing. Anyone who did would have been derided. I wouldn't take David's ho of the week as representative of anything. In 2000 he changed boy toys more often than I changed socks.

here is JJ in his mid-20's or this Drugs are bad JJ

Not in my social circle. Maybe in {cough} Delaware.