podga

It almost sounds like you'll be too busy for chat Looking forward to reading your stories, though!

Tintin, Asterix and Lucky Luke. I don't consider them trash, but I'd rather not be seen giggling over them, either!

The_Round_One, I'm 48 (49 in less than a month), straight-acting (as in closeted), and nobody in recent memory has mistaken me for a model. I have always felt more than welcome in the chat room, and look forward to visiting with friends there. In fact, this has been the first opportunity for me since the mid-80s to be part of a mostly gay, and certainly completely gay-embracing, community.. People have listened to me, supported me and, at the simplest level, provided a fun and warm space for me. Are there insults exchanged? Yes, sometimes, but it's more in the nature of jokes in a jocks' locker room. Well, a gay jocks' locker room, because there's also some flirting. And we talk about a lot of things: today we covered writing, diving, hunting, guiness book of records among other subjects. I believe I was present during the spell you were talking about. Although I wasn't paying full attention to the main chatroom, the incident you are referring to was between three GA members, ranging in age from mid-40s to 16, who know, and, as far as I can tell and have witnessed, like each other. Lines were flying at great speed, and people were just going with it. So, at least in this given conversation, while some of the themes you mention were present, they were more mentioned in fun than in a hating way. That being said, walking into a chat room with 10 or 12 participants who all seem to know each other can be anything from simply confusing to intimidating, and it can also take a while for one of those participants to hear a voice talking about a different subject. If you'd stuck around, you'd have seen the conversation slow down, and you could have voiced your concerns and been listened to. We should have also been more proactive; I know I very much appreciated one member asking me a lot of questions the first time I was there, and had you entered a few minutes later or earlier, you would have seen a different topic that you could have jumped in on and started to feel more comfortable. Not everybody is going to like chat, or all the people in chat, or all the subjects discussed, but that's true of any situation. Just consider that what you assumed you were seeing, based on your experience in the other chat rooms you mentioned, was not actually what was going on. And if you want to try again, well, at least now we know you a little better, and you us, and the conversation will start to flow a little more easily.

Thank you, AJ!

Glad to hear it, Conner! Thanks for letting me know, and a very happy birthday to you!

Thank you, Joann!

Thank you, Lisa! I like a happy end myself

Thank you, Frosty!

Thank you very much! In romances, especially short ones, I do think it's extremely important that one understands the characters, even if one doesn't agree with their actions, so I'm glad you sense that intimacy.

Thank you, CM! (And you're right, I did change a couple of things and I hope I also caught some mistakes )

**hands Tranqy cough drop**

Ricky, speaking as someone who met Tranq in chat, the question is: Will we survive him? The name is definitely misleading

Once Trevor broke it off between us, I often thought about that riddle of whether a falling tree makes a sound if there is no ear to hear it. If nobody knew of the relationship, if the two involved parties themselves had never acknowledged it in so many words, had it ever existed in the first place? And, if not, why was I feeling such a deep sense of loss? After all, I'd never expected anything more. Until almost the last moment, no promises or requests had been made or even been hinted at. From

One night in Berlin creates unforseen ripples.

Welcome!

Yay!

So many to choose from! But other than some songs already mentioned by others (and a lot of Greek ones that wouldn't mean anything to most people here), these are ones I'm currently listenting to: Peter Gabriel: "In Your Eyes" David Bowie: "Putting out the Fire (Gasoline)" Queen: "Somebody to Love" Roberta Flack: "Killing me Softly" Village People: "YMCA" Pretty much everything by Dire Straits, but especially "Twisting by the Pool" Tina Turner "Private Dancer"

I slept with a stuffed clown a neighbor finished making for me the day I was born. Very much worse for wear, Mr. Loolee still lives with us, and will celebrate his 49th birthday in less than a month. PS: I now sleep with a Teddy, but he's no bear.

When you look at accountability, there are a couple of issues here: 1. Was the bus company breaking any laws? For example, is there a state or federal mandate to have x number of chaperones, or alarm buttons on hatches, or for the bus to only move when passengers are belted in, or whatever (and I can assure you hh5, dancing in the aisles of a speeding bus might not be very graceful or easy, but my friends and did it every time our school took us on an excursion and falling on someone's lap was half the fun). What other bus companies apply might be good practice, it might be common sense, but if it's not the law, then the bus company isn't accountable. 2. Did the bus company make any misrepresentations to the parents or the children themselves? Did they say there would be 3 chaperones when only 1 was present? Did they tell them (if even asked) that escape hatches cannot be opened on a moving vehicle? Again, if not, they cannot be held accountable. Even if they did, they can only be held accountable to the degree that what they misrepresented led to the kid's death. One could argue that the bus company could have reasonably foreseen this might happen and didn't do enough to protect the passengers. But let's look at this a little differently, by taking some of the drama out of it: My parents told me never to stick my hand out of a moving car. They drilled it into me every chance they got. I'm sure most parents still tell their kids the exact the same thing, even in these days that back windows can be locked from the front. That's because we all know that bad things could happen. So now I'm 16 years old, my parents have long allowed me to control the back window like I want, the temperature in the car is fine, but I'm wearing a nice jacket and I don't want to sweat in it, so I open the window. And then, I unthinkingly stick my hand out, maybe to feel the cool breeze, or to do that airplane wing game, and I get stung by a bee. Is there any way my parents could possibly be held accountable? If no laws were broken, no misrepresentations made, if there was a warning on the escape hatch not to open it unless in case of emergency, then this was simply a tragic accident, the result of extremely bad judgement at the exact wrong time. It might be an occasion to examine whether certain further safety measures could be reasonably applied (as is the case in airplane accidents), but nothing more.

Good story, Louis. Seeing this, I also understand what you were trying to tell me about the use of dialogue to tell a story, offer descriptions etc. a little better now. I felt this was 3rd person omniscient rather than Colin's POV. Though the descriptions focus more on him and Andrew is a little 'absent', I'm not sure Colin would be so aware of his own state or actions (e.g. the pellets of sweat or the hand clenching on the window), except for the stutter, which he's always struggled against, and his fight to get words out. He'd be more focused on Andrew, who's a real threat to him, at this point, and on the present. That being said, I do "get" Colin, because you also include some of his thoughts (which would point to the story being Colin's POV, but since these come a little later, I'd already sort of placed myself as reader), and the way he looks, speaks and reacts are consistent with his thoughts and story.

When I think of how ridiculously small the distance between a stupid impulse and actually acting on it often is when you're 16, it's a miracle most of us ever make it to adulthood. I can't imagine the pain his parents are going through right now. May he rest in peace.

I'm not liking Tibial very much now. Why is he there, if he doesn't even intend to give Chad a chance?

Mia died, didn't she? But why is Tibial here? And poor Chad, what a lonely life.

I understand Chad's choice, and I don't think it's cowardice. It's one thing to face external dangers, but to give up on the idea you have of yourself, on your own narrative, might be a lot harder. And Chad's narrative is that he must protect Tibi, no matter what. And sometimes we're most selfish, exactly when we're trying to prove to everybody how unselfish we are.

They're escaping almost certain death, they're still in a world of trouble, and Tibial's worried about looking like an ugly woman. Teenagers!