Kitt

WooHoo! bears dance must have worked. We were forecast to get 6 to 8" of snow overnight and we got just enough to make the lawns pretty again and left the roads clear! I saw on the news where NJ ( and I would assume Philly area seeing as we are so close) got more snow this winter than Anchorage Alaska. Something is seriously wrong with that!

I have to agree - it isn't just a "gay men" issue. All one has to do to understand why so many of us, men and women, gay and straight, hate their bodies is to walk through a mall. Any clothing store actually. Look at the Juniors rack, and at the "normal" size clothes. In the women's wear departments they are filled with all these pretty outfits, nice dresses, pleasing skirts and slacks. Men's clothing? Properly fit good looking shirts and pants in all colors and styles. Now look at the "plus size" for women, and "big men" rack for the guys. Color disappears. Shades of grey and black dominate. Shape is non existent. A guy with a 16 inch collar and a 28" waist can get a shirt tailored to fit. One that has the same 16" neck and a thicker waistline gets something resembling a tent. Women's clothes once you get past "large" go from pretty to shapeless sacks devoid of fashion and color, or worse yet the most horrid prints. And "large" varies so widely I have occasionally held up a pair of pants and asked "extra large what? Pixie?" Of course we hate our bodies. Who could not when just about the entire fashion industry thinks they have a right to dictate my breast size or waist size, and society in general seems to think they can put a guy down if he doesn't look like he could enter the Mr America contest in the morning? And don't get me started about shoes that are designed to cripple you! 5" spike heals and toes shaped to climb small gauge chain link fence. Honestly, who's feet are shaped to fit into those?

You are rather attached to numbers aren't you? Interesting stats.

We should be the ones thanking you and your team. You all did a phenomenal amount of work on the story and deserve every word of praise we can come up with.

The methods have changed since I was a kid, but I don't think the issue has. I can remember when my best friend and I found her dad's stash of Penthouse magazines. We were fascinated by the entire concept and no amount of moving the hiding place stopped us. Today it is not just internet porn you need to keep an eye on. Something as simple as their phones could lead to just as much experimentation. Smart phones access the net. Even "old fashioned" flip phones are used for ''sexting" in which teens send revealing pictures and provocative texts to each other. The sexting thing really hit the fan around here when a boy who had been dumped decided to share his girlfriends pics with the football team. The bottom line is maturity. You seem to have a great rapport with your boy. Use it. Talk. He agreed to the current block. If you keep the lines of communication as open as they are now, he will let you know when he thinks its time to remove the block and you can sit down and decide together, just the way you decided to place the block together.

To the Ladies and Gentlemen who won - congratulations, it was well deserved. To the also nominated, well done! You were all up against wickedly tough competition. Just deciding whom to vote for was extremely difficult in some of the categories. To all the people who were nominated in the first round but may not have made the final ballot, you are the heart and soul of GA and I am sure I will be seeing your names on the nominations lists again next year. Every single one of you deserve Congratulations!

Very impressive. Congratulations!

A day late and a dollar short to this forum, but oh well! Better late than never. I think just the opposite - the skinny dude from Peter Pan as Ferris and the more demure proper guy as Allistar. I can't see Will being even remotely interested in Robbie Kay.

I think everyone knows some version of Mrs Weston! Nicely done Wayne.

If all 13 aren't in the schedule Mann - try starting at Poor Man's Son. That will give you enough background to follow. While I love Mark's work, you sort of have to at least have read 911 to pick up where the family is at the beginning of Flux, but going back to Poor Man's Son will fill you in on most of the pertinent details to really understand.

Brad protect the carpenter from Will and Stef? That might just be putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Matt seems to finally be figuring out just how much of an ass he has been. Will? Without seeing how he handled things in the last 6 months it's hard to guess how he will react. He could easily go either way, keeping it together if for no other reason than to help Wade, or he could blow like Mt Vesuvius. I can't wait to see which! Excellent start to the new work Mark. Thank you, and your team of course. And marks to your team for not letting things slip ahead of time. With the first entries so close on the wrap of 911, this had to have been well underway and no one gave up with any spoilers! That has to be a herculean effort.

Guess a month didn't do much for Matt figuring things out. Seems like it is still all about what he wants in his head. Delighted doesn't cover the feeling of knowing my favorite purveyor of literary addiction is back right on schedule.

Seems like Lester caught on to an important truth, not all the people who are "friendly" are truly friends. He is well rid of this latest bunch. Fortunately he figured it out before doing something irreversible, Well done.

I know I said this somewhere else, but it deserves repeating. Well done sir! note to Zombie - I can't read more of Mann's stuff till he writes more! Come on Tuesday!

This girl was extremely lucky in that her mom was one of the good ones. There are still a lot of parents out there who absolutely freak out when the child comes out. What would have happened to the child if her parents had tossed her out, like so many idiotic parents do? Then there would have been another child into the foster care system, or worse yet - out on the street. Sometimes there are reasons to be in the closet. What those coaches did is reprehensible. I have to agree with Zombie - what i saw was a school system hiding behind the insurance company so they did not have to defend their actions.

WoooHooo! Congratulations! Well done sir!

And not a reason to tell any of those big names they have written enough, time to hang up their pens!

I am thinking this is one of those cases where more laws are not what is needed, proper enforcement of the existing laws is. WL also discussed this in his blog and I took the time to read it before responding here. If I am understanding things correctly it is giving carte blanche to business owners to revert to the sort of open prejudices that were fought so hard against in the south right up into the 70's and 80's, banning individuals from service in their establishments based this time on sexual orientation rather than race, and excusing it on the basis of freedom of religion. I don't see as passing legislation protecting a business for exhibiting prejudicial attitudes will be helpful. Legally protected or not, if a gay couple is turned away from a restaurant or refused the services of a particular bakery, it will make waves in the community. Perhaps it would prevent some lawsuits, but beyond that I see no benefit to legislation of this nature. One response in WL's blog was that the writer did not have a right to buy a cake at a particular bakery, and if turned away he would simply go elsewhere. I would like to think we have advanced enough that this would work nicely. After seeing this foolishness I am not so sure. Another comment asked what would happen if other businesses that supply raw materials decided not to supply a particular establishment on the basis that the customer sat on the other side of that moral fence. I see a huge snowball effect on the horizon, in which more and more tax dollars are wasted in debate and passing of more and more laws trying to correct what this one law could set in motion. Just as correcting the prejudices against black people ( is that the currently pc term? if not I apologize) resulted in reverse discrimination for a while, I can see it happening again here. Laws passed to protect the rights of the gay community resulting in laws like this one to protect the rights of the business owners, and so on and so on. It seems to me that we are seeing a sort of pendulum effect, in which opinions are swinging from one extreme to another. Some day the pendulum will lose its momentum and we will all settle down to a peaceful co-existence, but unfortunately we have yet to reach that point.

Is it horrible that I find myself hoping that a host of goblin hunters are waiting by the door and cut Kenrick in half as he steps through? I have gotten the feel of evil about the character right from the start, but now I am feeling like there is way more to it than meets the eye.

Impunity is right - there isn't much to say beyond what the others have already covered, but to not add my thanks would be remiss. I followed another author here just about a year ago. After catching up on that story, the chapter of Paternity that had just been posted at the time was the first thing I read on GA. I then went back to book one and read through to the point of waiting for the next chapter to be published. The reason I actually joined GA was to be able to leave comments on your work. Thank you, and your team, for the huge amount of hard work you have all put into providing us with some truly great reading. You all deserve every single word of praise I have seen, less than a fraction of the criticism, and all of our love.

LOL While I was young in '68, I can't hold Jeff's demise against Mark. A lot of my friends lost older siblings to the drug culture building in that timeframe, and to have had the family totally manage to escape the problem would have been unrealistic. Now, as to how helpful? Well, he learned and developed into the writer we all love didn't he? Worth it in my book.

Well finally! I thought I was the only one liked the old style swim suit thing. You guys just had different names for it!

Can I vote for a blast from the past and a normal old fashioned swim suit? Much shorter and more snug than board shorts but not quite so...intimate apparel...as speedos. To me speedos look like they swiped the bottom half of a 70's era ladies bikini and board shorts always seem on the verge of wrapping around their ankles.

I know Tim and I don't see eye to eye very often, but can I like his last post two or three more times?

Hello Jason and welcome. There's lots to enjoy around here so don't be shy. Most people will be glad to answer any questions you have, or if we can't we will point you to someone who can.