B1ue

My mother called yesterday to relay some comments my aunts had to say about me. I was well-mannered, so helpful, they said. They told my mom that she raised me right. As I have been at times compared to a permanently boiling over teakettle, I find these comments both amusing and a bit worrying. As blunt and basically arrogant as I am, the only kind of person that would think I had good manners must have an interesting view of the world. But, that's my family. I tell people I'm the nice, mellow, good child. And I'm not even lying. No nightmares to report, though something odd did occur the other day. One skill that I do have is being able to wake from dreams. ot exactly a rare gift, I know, but I am told that not everyone is able to do this, or do it without penalty as I am able to. In fact, there are specific therapies designed to give people who suffer from chronic nightmares and PSTD that ability. I sometimes make the choice to not wake up from a dream, but usually if I realize I'm dreaming, I wake myself right up. Except for exactly twice in my life, one of which was the other day. I woke up, but in the dream, as if I was drowing in it, and could not quite push far enough out of it. I even realized withint the context of the dream that I was dreaming, that the abusrb reality presenting itself to me could not be. That didn't wake me up though, which it has almost every other time before. Naturally, after "waking," I laid back down and went to sleep, waking for real a bit later. That was disconcerting, to say the least. Well, now that I am well below the cut, I am going to brainstorm ideas for a novella. If there are any judges for that watching. Evil healing god -God of Escaped Consequences, directly opposed to God of Redemption and Goddess of Purity. How his cult gains a foothold in one city. Actions have consequences is the theme. Possibly a bit highbrow for my own tastes. Nightmare -dunno, but I'm sure I'll think of something along this line. I think of them often enough. Maybe I'll jsut read older entries on this blog. Werewolf story, possibly riff on "Magical Negro" -A man with no past coming through, saving a young White guy four times. The fifth time, he kills him? Someone close to him? His powerbase? POssibly along the lines of the fisherman, but I'd like for there to be some kind of payment there.

As you post, your "member" status is upgraded. I cannot remember the specific breakpoints, but I believe "Cool" is over 50. There's also ranks like Gold and Elite, as you can see with PrivateTim above.

Only one thing I can think of. Hmm, how can I put this delicately? You know the stereotype about black men, as far as their basic sexual assets? Well, reverse that. Note, I don't actually think it to be true, and even if it was, it's not something I care about, but I have certainly heard people spread it around. Edit: I have also heard about a tendency for Asian guys to specifically not date other Asian guys, preferring Latino or White guys. I can't really say I've conducted any kind of survey, but it's also something I've heard (even unto the point of reading blog articles decrying it).

Is it that his world is telling him not to do any of these things, or simply don't get caught doing them? There's a pretty big difference between those two states, one that encourages a level of hypocrisy that moist of us can relate to strongly from one point in our lives or another. JJ may be a more interesting narrator, once he ages a little, than I'd been giving him credit for. And yet, that little living seems to have made you angrier rather than sober, as, by your own words, you're a hothead who's is speaking out based on your own personal experiences. As to this issue, and not being able to use euphemisms such as "clean" when enquiring after HIV or related STD status, I call bullshit. Not being willing to confront that issue before having sex with someone, for fear of hurting their feelings, is really stupid. Anyone likely to take offense to that is someone that it's probably not a good idea to sleep with anyways, especially without a condom. Personally, I think that bed-hopping like Will is doing at all is pretty damn stupid, but if he's going to do that, I think it's necessary to develop a certain amount of callousness when confronting this particular issue. Being able to talk about STD status is needed. It isn't nice, it isn't polite, but the hell with anyone that would value that over their own health. I also call bullshit that we, gay men in general, don't and haven't dealt with the societal after effects of HIV regardless of our own status. You're correct, those of us with negative status don't live it like those that do. But there is still a perception of assumed HIV status that clings to all homosexual men, and while we have you to thank for it being easier now than it was in the 50's, we also know who we have to thank for HIV and homosexual men being linked in the public's mind.

I may have laughed at that. Besides, are any of the listed names their actual birth names, or simply what they are called? Joey and Johnny are, going with the odds and their class, Joseph and John. And I thought Tony was Antonio, but I may have stories crossed.

There's a persistent myth that having a child will inalterable change a person, over and above the perfectly normal change anyone goes through when they have to rearrange their life for new circumstances. The myth is told that it isn't having to reprioritize around something that is totally dependent on you and any fellow caregivers, or acknowledging you helped create something you cannot control, but that the act of becoming a parent itself confers some mystical change within you. This change is thought to be universal, both because people are frankly mentally lazy and most assume anything that happens to them will affect someone else the same way it did them, and because most that have this belief cannot imagine anyone who hasn't knelt at that altar could understand them. I feel certain my word choice conveys adequately my feelings for such beliefs, but it is sincerely held by many, with a quite a lot of evidence and justification. Cody is just one that proves the universality of it is sometimes oversold.

I was curious why you picked the Smashing Pumpkins cover of, "Landslide." I don't object, like I did with Tiffany's, "I Think We're Alone Now." It's just not the version I most associate with the song, and so am curious as to your thinking.

It's sounding like you could make it up entirely, and none of us would know the difference. I certainly wouldn't. For all that every member of my immediate family hails from Highland Park, we've all since gone country. I hadn't even noticed when flannel became ironically-in, I merely took advantage of being able to buy them.

To answer this specific question, the second summer session usually ended about three weeks ahead of the fall quarter. During that time, the summer kids would keep their dorm. About four days ahead of the regular move in, the same day us workers and the volunteers were allowed to move in, so did they. By that point, the RAs were wrapping up their training and all the dorms had been converted back from whatever purpose they had served during the summer. That also gave the cleaning staff time to prep their dorm rooms for the new occupants, who moved in on the regular move in day.

Except that's emphatically not the culture of UCLA. From the people I've talked to that went there, UCLA is by no means a party school. Quite the opposite. One lecturer from there that I talked to said it was a commuter campus, that almost everyone spent the day there then went back to wherever they were from. A school like Purdue or UCSB, there's nowhere else to live besides the immediately surrounding community, so you might as well hang out with your buddies from class. Columbia or NYU, rent is absolutely nuts, so restricting yourself to campus makes a lot of sense. USC, it's a bit dangerous to stray far from campus. UCLA, however, has a wide spread of options that are of comparative cost to on-campus housing, probably even cheaper, and don't require you to put up with an RA. Further, why would you go to some dumb frat party when Venice, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood are all right there, only a fake ID (which were still relatively easy to fake) away? Even if he chose to subvert convention, which I'm sure many UCLA students do choose, an apartment still would have made more sense. Keep it close to campus, and it'd be a natural focal point for other students that had farther commutes. But, as you say, he had to pick a dorm. That seems weird too, but I'll let that go.

So...I'm guessing he pulled strings to move in with the athletes, and thus get the hell away from Brad losing his mind over Will? I could see that. I assume that's why he opted to move into a dorm at all, rather than just living at home. The commute from Malibu is what, 30 miles? That's totally reasonable to do on a daily basis for someone from LA. I drive nearly that to work. Robbie traveled farther. He could also have opted to buy or rent an apartment closer to campus, but perhaps not without being obvious that getting away was his goal. Dorming would be enough of an excuse that Brad might have let it go without thinking too deeply about it.

Really? That's not quite how it worked for UCSB. Moving in early was an option for the RAs, some athletes, a couple dozen freshmen that opted for a summer quarter start, people like me that worked directly or indirectly for the housing center (and so were working move-in weekend), and the volunteers that help move-in weekend. The RAs moved a couple weeks ahead of time, of course, for their training. The athletes right behind them. Summer kids, the volunteers, and us workers got a four day head start. Everyone else could move in either Saturday or Sunday (determined by floor of your building) of move-in weekend at the earliest, though many opted to move in at some point during the following week before classes started. UCSB was pretty strident about not letting people move in earlier than their assigned dates. Even the kids that started during summer, who were assigned a different, summer only dorm room and roommate, couldn't move into their real dorm room earlier even if no one was occupying it. That was a big if, too, many of the buildings saw use throughout the summer, by various summer camps and conferences. The cheerleading camp was the most hilarious. We'd all get rounded up the day before they were due to arrive, and a manager would tell almost every male worker, "Don't look, don't touch, don't talk to them, do NOT smile at them. You will immediately throw away any numbers or email addresses given to you, by either the cheerleaders or their coaches. Do we make ourselves clear?"

I also thought Tim nailed

While I appreciate your sentiment, Kitt, I'm not sure it's well founded. I won't comment on the spirit of your original comment, but however inadvertently this is exactly the sort of ethical question that has come up before, several times, during the course of this story. As long as we remain civil, which we have so far, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't open it again. The Crampton/Schulter clan seems to exist in a world of privilege, one where legalities apply only when they let them, or when Arbour lets them. Meeting violence with more violence might not be a particularly practical option, but it's one they've chosen time and time again because, when it comes down to it, the family in general and JP in particular don't seem to trust legal authorities to settle matters to their own satisfaction. Never mind that they aren't, actually, supposed to do that, the family has consistently shown a predilection towards deciding what is right and wrong for themselves, and meting punishment as they deem fit. It's very aristocratic, I think. So I think Will might just take a baseball bat to Robbie's mom. Well, her car at least. Despite his technical assault on Robbie and that one bodyguard, Will hasn't demonstrated a true violent streak when it comes to people, and he has towards property (though whether that is a false distinction is another good discussion point). Brad, on the other hand, has shown to be physically violent towards people on several occasions. And, though often at a remove, so has JP. If Robbie's mom showed up at the funeral to rail at them, I'm not sure who would boil over first. Will, normally, would be my first candidate. He's rash, and afflicted with survivor's guilt. Matt might be my next most likely, as he too is deep in his high testosterone years. But whatever patience Brad and Darius have managed to piece together, it probably won't be available to them the day of the funeral. Plus, Brad has history squaring off against her. Anyone causing trouble that day would be reaching their hands into a woodchipper, but she especially would not be welcomes, possibly even if she came all conciliatory and saying, "He's beyond all pain and suffering now; let's pray for his peace, and ours." JP, naturally, wouldn't do anything that day, but I'd be mighty careful crossing the street for a while after he noticed me.

Now that is probably a fair bit of temptation for Mark, well done. And according to Wikipedia, you are quite correct. He was teaching constitutional law concurrently with his tenure in the Illinois Senate. Instead of beating a dead horse, I just wanted to say I really, really liked the interaction between Will and JJ. We get pieces where they act as the brothers they truly are, and this was one. I love all such moments.

JJ worries me. We've seen him explode and implode, and I'm honestly not certain how he's going to handle losing both Jeanine and Robbie on the same day. I think Tiffany might be of help there; it would give her some distraction as well. I agree with you on Cody. My best guess was that he kept Maddy with him and Brad's house, but that was when Robbie looked like he'd make it. As it is, I'm not certain, and besides, Jeanine did the primary caregiving, so that probably wasn't a realistic choice anyways. I also don't know about Claire and Jack. While I'm sure he's met them, I don't get the sense that he really interacts with them beyond holidays. JP and Stef might work; he knows Stef and Will, and they like Brad would certainly have enough money to hire any help they needed. But that would also mean moving Maddy to Palo, so I don't know. Maybe he'll simply hire a nanny and try to set up a household for Maddy himself. No matter what happens, I think Will will involve himself in her life, and probably drag JJ along behind him kicking and screaming. Specifically, screaming "I hate babies! They're gross! Why do I have to do this WHYYYYY?" I disagree about Elizabeth though, but that's just me being ornery. The divorce being final makes sense, follows along logically, blah,blah,blah, whatever. I think it'd have made for a more interesting story, but apparently not. Also, I think Wade is going to be involved peripherally (probably very, as in off-camera-one-sentence-in-an-otherwise-unrelated-moment) with the new senator as he or she sets herself up as his replacement, if for no other reason than to give the new senator access to some of Senator Danfeild's home files, and his mother would give us a ready-made plothook to explore it for a future story. As it stands, the biggest play she could make would involve Beau, I'd think, right? She could try to limit Wade's access to Beau, take control of his finances as a wedge between them, or in a move to force Wade to move home, or any other concession she could think of. And Beau might not automatically take Wade's side, if she did attempt to cause trouble, because he may not recognize the plot when he saw it. On the other side of this, Wade is probably in no mood to take ANY of his mother's crap, and might respond somewhat aggressively.

To answer this specific point, http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/vacancies-in-the-united-states-senate.aspx Virginia law dictates that a governor would fill the vacancy from a list of candidates submitted by the senator's party, and that appointee would serve until the next general election, except if the next statewide election is less than 120 days away, which does not apply in this case. The appointee can choose to run for the seat or not. Also, in this case, whomever wins that election will only be able to serve a truncated four year term, I'm assuming to keep the rotation of Senator seats in tact. So, assuming she was tapped, she'd have to run in a little over a year anyways, and that would likely be a mistake if Wade or Nana hated her. I guess the disconnect is that I haven't read her, or them, as having reached that point yet. By all means, cut her controls, but actively stopping her machinations when they aren't an active threat to them is a line I haven't seen them cross.

I thought so too, Kitt. But I may have missed it as well. Plus, we just haven't been focusing on the Danfields lately.

To what end, though? I agree, if she ever tried to mess with them directly, Nana and Wade have enough in their Mutual Assured Destruction files to make such moves inadvisable, but that doesn't mean they'll use it for any provocation. If the Senator did somehow survive, and wound up in a hospital, they might use their knowledge to transfer his care to themselves rather than her. They may try to keep Beau out of the line of fire, or use it to make sure their lines of communication with Beau don't become strangulated. But as far as his senatorial seat? She actually is the best candidate to maintain his legacy and all of the political deals that put him into that place, as she was involved in negotiating most of them. She'd be a familiar face to his constituents, colleagues, and staffers, although that last would need to be thoroughly cleaned up. And as I said, with her national visibility as a 9-11 widow, she'd be uniquely useful to the Republican leadership, as she could say anything in either anger or conciliatory tones, and they wouldn't be a contradiction. Well, not an unforgivable one. I don't see any reason they'd want to oppose her on the seat. Not enough to get themselves and their families dragged into the spotlight, at least. I could be wrong, but I don't see them thinking it is an important enough topic for them to fight her on, especially with a tactic they can only use once. I should probably mention that I don't think she'll actually run for anything. She won't have to. It's perfectly acceptable for a congressman's widow to step into their shoes to at least finish off their term, and in her case it would make sense more than most, given the active behind-the-scenes politicking she did on her husband's behalf. She could still turn it down, and Wade and Nana could force her to do so, but I would find it more logical that they'd negotiate with her. Let her take the seat, keep the nation's eye on her for the next several years as an encouragement to being a good person. Meanwhile, they'd not oppose her in trade for complete access to Beau and Maryellen, her agreeing to stop trying to screw with them and their trusts, and Wade would get a job as a staffer once he graduated, in order to keep her honest (and to prevent her from forcing Beau to do the same).

A couple alternate songs for these chapters: Yellowcard, "Believe" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSd_iTChv1Q Alan Jackson, "Where were you when the world stopped turning" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPHnadJ-0hE

First thought on finishing this chapter: "Is Centex going to be okay?" Second thought: "Damn. Elizabeth IS going to take over the reins for her husband. And her approach to politics is going to resonate really really well in the coming months. A grieving widow, acting as a pillar of strength to her family and community even through her grief is going to be able to get away with absolutely anything, including expressing any level of rage."

I was about three weeks into my senior year of high school. My mom was able to drive me to school that morning (usually I walked or caught a ride with a friend), and we heard the news over the radio. My mom already knew thanks to my sisters, but she had not told me anything was amiss until we heard this, and she had to admit it. The full extent of the attack did not become apparent to me until later. Nothing was accomplished at school. We mostly watched the news broadcasts all day that day, or discussed with our teachers what was going on. The commentary got quite vicious. Most of my male classmates, and quite a few female ones, just wanted a target to strike against. Nine months later most of them, including my entire circle of friends except myself, enlisted.

Edit: The following does not reflect specific legal training in this field, but it does reflect the fact that certain members of my family have kids despite being unfit parents, and watching the various legal wrangling that took place, both inside and outside actual courts. If Cody did not specifically decline his parental rights, custody would almost certainly fall to him. Even if he did, he's not a (legally) unfit parent, so I could see if going to him anyways, unless Jeanine has a will set-up that clearly delineated who would get custody of Maddie in the even of her death. I find the idea of her thinking of doing any such thing pretty hard, in light of her delicate mental condition over the last year or so, but her commitment to Hank may have inspired her (or gotten Brad to prompt her) to do so. Honestly, all of the possible options besides Cody seem weak. Brad and Robbie would normally have the strongest case short of Cody, but current state of affairs being what they are, Will's lawyer(s) would make that difficult assuming he took an interest. And he would. If Will was a couple years older, he might have a shot, but not as it stands with other options besides him available. His living with JP and Stef would make them strong candidates, assuming they agreed to take her in. Jeanine's parents, assuming they are still alive, married, and not permanently estranged from their daughter, might have a case, but a family court would take into account that all of Maddie's siblings live on the west coast. All the custody proceedings I've witnessed took that into account even if the final decision did not reflect it. Further, any candidates besides Cody would have to prove that he'd be unfit to be a parent, wouldn't they? I think his simply giving Maddie to Brad and Robbie to raise might prompt that, as that action would be a clear indication he has no intention of raising her himself, but I'm not certain. It seemed to work that way in the cases I saw, but there may have been other subtleties at work that eluded me. These are just my opinions, of course. I look forward to seeing Tim's expert response.

Can't leave either JP or Will alone for five minutes, can you? I'm not encouraged by how Brad is treating JJ. Darius has already written Brad off, as has Will, and now he's pushing away JJ. I can understand the view that a child's safety is more important than how much that child like's their parent, and I can see how Brad might still be in overreaction mode from the coach, but isn't going from "ignoring my kid" to "total overprotection" with no warning or transition the exact screw-up that led to Will acting out? I would think he'd have learned from that, but I suppose that would require him admitting he made a mistake. It's going to be interesting to see how someone with that characterization plays out in the next couple of chapters, with his family scattered about and he can't get a hold of anyone.

Tim's last paragraph is quite correct. I live in downtown Long Beach. The difference even a couple blocks can make is staggering, though I suspect that's true of most cities.