dkstories

Well then why tell us about it if we can't see it or use it? Got ya! That's right, go ahead, tease me about a hangover again!

Unless someone's banned your IP, you'll always belong here! I've actually left some online-forums before because I just got too tired of the anti-gay crap going on at times there. I usually ended up back within a month or two, and was welcomed back by far more people than those who had caused me to leave in the first place. The lesson I learned there was to always talk with those I know and trust before reacting harshly. It usually helps a LOT.

Myr, I have some ideas on the gay teen help. Let me get in contact with some local people, and some websites and I'll work with you on updating some of that information. We need a section on why some gay men are reticent in talking with or dealing with teens (I remember that discussion here a while back and have a lot of thoughts and conversations on it as well as practical experience over the last few months).

Well, Chapter 9 of DOR should be coming up soon...I was going to comment in my blog on how quiet it has been lately, but I got too tired and turned the post off.

Dude, that is so wrong. Maybe looking around for info before going in the wrong direction like this might be a good idea. Shanks is actually going to be the anchor for SG-1. Ben Browder is joining the cast as the team's new commander. Amanda Tapping is PREGNANT in real life so she's missing a few shows to give birth and spend time with her baby. She'll be back after that. RDA is indeed leaving but is scheduled for at least two guest appearances. Beau Bridges is taking his place as SGC Command. Now, having watched Beau Bridges in lots and lots of movies over the past 20 years or so, I must admit to being kind of droolish over his being a part of the show. This is like, big time good news. Then there's Ben Browder. If you don't know the name, and don't start drooling over sexy guy with quips that rival RDA, then you haven't watched Farscape. Ben Browder is one of maybe two or three people in the world who can provide the same...zaniness and quips and quirks as RDA provides WITHOUT having to imitate RDA. Ben Browder has his own style that will work just nice...now the only problem is he looks damn sexy in red and black leather, which I really want to know how they'll fit into the show's premise. You see, those Air Force uniforms most of them wear right now are just too...baggy to give us the eye candy that is Ben Browder.

I'll take both. Seriously. For every 24 oz glass of soda I drink, I drink the same size glass of water. I alternate it throughout the day. Here's some Navy facts for you about what you civilians call Kool-Aid and we called Bug Juice: 1. The absolute best cleaner for any brass fitting is a regular scouring pad soaked in Kool-Aid. 2. To clean up corrosion on metal, use Kool-Aid liberally.

Well, people will understand the plug when they get to chapter 11, 12, and 13.

Whew, I was worried you might take my post a little too personally and be hurt. I'm not one of those people that tippy-toe around things. I go right for the jugular and push the main point (right up until I start rambling). Safe Sex is a term from the late 1980's, early 1990's. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you weren't in high school at the time, getting these lectures. In the days before AZT, this country was a different place when it came to AIDS. It was a death sentence, plain and simple. If you've read Do Over, you remember the scene where Davey visits an AIDS ward in 1981 San Francisco. I based a lot of that scene on a real-life incident when my mom was having back surgery in Children's Hospital (located in the heart of San Francisco). Like most SF hospitals of that day, they had an AIDS ward there. It was on the same floor as mom's room, and I slept in the waiting room there for a week while she recovered. The AIDS ward was cordoned off with that plastic bio-hazard door coverings, everyone going in or out had to wear infection disease scrubs, masks, gloves, booties, the whole works. I overheard a lot of conversations between nurses that week. They'd refuse to change bedsheets that had been soiled when a man lost control of his bowels, and it would take threat of termination to get them to change them. One nurse walked out and loudly quit over that, meanwhile a dying gay man sat in his own shit feces for two hours before the doctor got the nurses to change the sheets. Another nurse collapsed when she stuck herself with a needle after giving one of the men a shot. I later found out that YES, she'd just infected herself with AIDS and would die a year later. However, what I remember the most is that none of the other nurses would approach her or help her. They actually turned their backs on her and looked the other way (that was when one of them spotted me and shooed me out of the ward). This was 1985 and I was fourteen years old. When my father learned I was staying on the same floor as the AIDS ward, he drove to SF to take me home so I wouldn't be contaminated by those men or their disease. My grandmother almost refused to go see her daughter because she was on the same floor, and it took a day to convince her that Mom wouldn't come with 'that' disease. See, I'm rambling now. My main purpose of this post was to talk about 'Safe Sex' and the condom. You see, as far back as 1981 we were learning that this disease was transmitted MOSTLY through casual, unprotected sex between men. The CDC and doctors wanted bathhouses, where most of the infections were happening to shut down, and they did their best to get gay men to use condoms. At first they were ignored and ridiculed for trying to do those things. Gay men responded that the bathhouses and anonymous sex were 'our' culture, the culture we made because society had rejected us. Our pride killed many of us, including some of the best. The 'Safe Sex' campaign finally started to take root as the hospitals filled up with the dead and dying. When we finally figured out there was no cure, and we were killing ourselves, some changes had to be made. The truth was that calling it "Safer" wasn't going to work. We wanted to be safe, so the people trying to save our lives let out a sigh and just used the word "Safe". During the early nineties, they tried to change it back to "safer", and lord knows I've used Safer more than Safe in discussing this over the length of my life, but it has not really taken hold (reason: Safe is one syllable word while Safer is two syllables. It's easier to say Safe than it is to say Safer, and people are inheritently lazy). So, if you're going to use the monkey, cover him.

Let's see, abstinence is a great notion, except it's like the old 'Just Say No" campaigns. I know as a teenager that whenever I heard the 'Just Say No' campaign I would laugh and go out to have a smoke, a drink, or a toke, or a line, just to say 'Up Yours' to Nancy Reagan and everyone else pushing it. Every time my dad talked about having sex outside of marriage being a sin that will send you to hell, I got horny and made it a point to 'hook up as soon as I could'. If it was while we lived in Eureka, it was with someone in Do Over Redux after church, in the house before his family left or he'd stay for lunch. When I finally admitted to myself that I was gay (at the age of twenty), I threw myself into sex with a different person every night because that was what gay people did. The concept of monogamous relationships didn't exist for me back then, and I saw almost no examples of such things being possible until I hit twenty-one. Even then, it was an abstract because about half the couples I knew had 'open' relationships. It was a woman by the name of Mary Lou Hacker (sound familiar?) who first game me an idea that monogamous, caring relationships were possible between men. I thought she was just feeding me a bull line until she introduced me to a few couples, and a few singles looking for such a relationship. It was thanks to the campus support group that I met the guy I fell in love with, signed a DP with, and lived with until he 'divorced' me. Now he's my best friend. One of the things I've done with Do Over is present a character who has the concept of monogamous relationships as a central core to his outlook on life. It's what he wants and he will settle for nothing less. He'll decline opportunities for random sex while pursuing his goal. Not because 'abstinence' is his goal, but because he wants to save that part of himself for that someone special. Why do I do this? Because telling anyone, much less a teenager, 'no' and leaving it at that is not going to work. Telling a teenager that they HAVE to wait until marriage isn't going to work (especially gay teens who can only look forward to marriage if they live in Massachusetts). Using 'NO' as an absolute for anyone, much less teenagers, is foolish if you expect things to work. I've seen the crap they put out with the abstinence sex education programs and I've shook my head each and every time at their naivety. What's worse is that I've heard the warped ideas in the heads of teens after they go through those programs. "Why bother using condoms if they don't work." Is the most popular one in dealing with 'protection'. "I ain't gay so I don't have to worry about AIDS" is another false assumption. "A blow job ain't sex." or "Going down on her ain't sex." One I fell over laughing when I heard (from a straight boy) was "If I screw her in the butt we're both still virgins". These were kids who got the abstinence-only package in schools. Guess what, guys, it's sex and you can catch sexually-transmitted diseases from all of the above, including AIDS (although AIDS would be tougher than most diseases to get. For instance, on the blow job, if you have a gum infection, a cavity, loose dental work, or an open cut/sore in the mouth then you're really at risk for AIDS from oral sex. Without any of those, the risk is much more remote. Oh, and if you want to say you pull off before they ejaculate, I know a young man whose mother got pregnant with him because the guy always pulled out before he came and they didn't use any protection). As far as the actual abstinence, having sex with only one person while you're dating them, dumping them a week later and going out with someone else isn't abstinence, it isn't waiting, it's the same as sleeping around. Unfortunately, I've heard far too many kids try to explain that it's what they were told in their Abstinence program and should be perfectly safe. It isn't. What these programs really need to do is explain fully why we, as people, should wait for having sex. What's so special about having sex with only one person in your life when there's so many people out there who are damn good looking. That's a question I tried to wrestle with in Do Over. Lord knows that I'm the last person to use as an example for holding off, and for sticking to only one person for the rest of my life, yet oddly enough, it's something I'm wanting in my life now. Why? Possibly the best answer is the old phrase of the "Grass is always greener on the other side". When you jump the fence you find out the grass might be slightly better, slightly tastier at first, but eventually it gets old and you jump another fence. All that happens is you end up going from one field to another, and every time you see a new field with green grass, you find it easier to just jump the fence. Meanwhile, that first field you came to has become a lush, green paradise that you will never find again. Love, fidelity, trust. honor, loyalty are all just words, but their true meanings are so much more, and are extremely lacking in our society. I'm not a preacher, I'm not going to force people to live by a code, but if you live by those words, you will find that your life, and your world can be a much better place. The only thing is, you can't get love, fidelity, trust, honor, or loyalty unless you give those things first. When you've had multiple partners, or even one partner before, earning those things becomes harder, jumping the fence at the next green pasture becomes easier, and the dream of living forever with a person that you love, and who loves you back, and being happier together becomes more difficult. The fact that only having one partner in your life, who has only had one partner, you, makes catching AIDS or any other STD a virtual impossibility is secondary to the emotional and spiritual well-being that such a thing will give you.

The SG-1 Season finale was good, but the Atlantis Season Finale is even better (Battlestar blows both of them away, though). It'll be good to see the Atlantis finale on the television screen instead of computer screen, though. I quite enjoyed it the first time around and hope to enjoy it again. Probably one of the best battle scenes from either series, beating (in my opinion), the Antarctica battle scene last season in SG-1.

Patrick, when you've got a body of works like SG-1, believe me it's easy. Heck, if I tried to write something set in the Mists of Fate universe, I'd have to ready through THIRTY-odd chapters to make sure I don't forget anything, and chances are I'd still miss something and create a contradiction. It happens....

Boy, let me tell you this: As a person who has used condoms religiously since he was fourteen, I put a lot more stock by them. With a history of having six people come back and tell me they were HIV + after we had sex, I've had a few scares. I used condoms each time, and you know what, the last time something like this happened was four years ago and my test results still come out Negative (yes I still get tested twice a year). Sex can be safer, but never truly 'safe'. Most of what you said sounds like stuff right out of the scare pamphlets from the catholic church. I've known people who worked at condom factories and they told me stuff a lot different than your sister. If her factory was producing one out of three condoms defectively, you need to report them to the FDA and they need to be shut down and fined, and their employees investigated for possible malicious endangerment by knowingly producing defective products. Condoms are safer, not perfectly safe. It's best to not have sex until you are ready to commit to a person for life, but if you do, use the condom. Even when you do commit to the person, you should still use condoms, because you can never guarantee they will never cheat on you, no matter how much they love you or you love them.

I was a pre-teen when I first heard about AIDS, and remember the hate and fear the disease caused. As a young adult, I watched several close friends waste away and die from the disease. Since then I've watched more follow. The modern cocktail drugs that keep those infected longer are only a commutation of the death sentence that is AIDS. Those infected live longer, but AIDS will kill them eventually as it has in the past. This is one of the reasons why this disease plays a part of the Do Over series, and YES it will be in the Redux, and many people will NOT like what happens. I know I don't. Remember a simple lesson: The only absolute way to not have to worry about this disease is to not have sex. The next best way is to have a single partner who has never had sex (of any kind) with anyone but you. Using condoms for all sexual contact is a must, and the fewer people you have sex with, the fewer chances you have of catching a disease that WILL eventually kill you, only now it will first drain your pocketbook before you die. (paying for all those cocktail drugs) They aren't nice words, or easy ones to hear, but they are the truth no matter your age or sexual orientation.

Daniel got back because the rest of the Ascended Ancients decided that Oma had finally paid for her bad decision in helping Anubis ascend. Oma obviously survived because she was the one who has a hankering for seeing a nude Daniel (as well as most of us). As for the storylines left open: Tritonan is used by rebel jaffa who do not have a symbiote. T'ealc mentions this in the season finale. Carter's lack of use on the hand devices is simple: When the frack does she have time to learn, and why bother since they've already found several other devices that work just as well and don't need naquida in the blood? Jack's clone is now a teenager. He's living a happy, normal life. Leave him be. The human soldier that became a Tokra, Lt. Elliot I do believe, died in that same episode while he made a last stand against Jaffa to give SG-1 time to escape. Harsesis Child Ascended. What does he have to do with the mortal world anymore? Female Jaffa warriors are around, just barely off-screen. Oh, and Thor got himself a new cloned body with no problems. Don't you think this might indicate they finally fixed their cloning problem?

We moved?! Oh, and um, about the rumor stuff...Ego...Pride...and all that yap.

I'm largely going to keep my mouth shut because I'd respond to this like I would a flame e-mail, and the sight would not be pretty. Considering the relative youth involved here, I'd recommend learning a very real lesson: Talk quietly before raising a big stink. Talk to the people in charge, talk to other Authors, because posting stuff like this is guaranteed to piss people off and get yourself a load of words you might not like. Myr and the others who contribute to this site have always been the most helpful, most considerate, and good people I've known. I've never had a problem in getting them to work with me or to give me a hand when it was needed. They don't do it for money, but out of a labor of love. Trash it, trash them, and you'll find plenty of people ready to defend them. Oh, by the way, I've received maybe forty or fifty e-mails for stories that have had over 3,900 hits. Feedback has to be cultivated by the author, and it takes a lot of effort on the AUTHOR'S part. No one can do that for you, so take up the burden and do the work.

Best lines I've heard in a while: Sam Carter:"You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water." Jacob Carter"There, you got it." Sam Carter "For my next trick, parting the Red Sea."

Daniel's not leaving from everything I've heard. I just want a hot gay kiss scene between him and Browder. That would be cool.

Very big Happy B-day on Fifteen. March Babies are the best men in the world!

No, Myr must stay close to computer so I can get more of Dom's stories. It's been raining like mad out here...but at least it isn't flooding yet.

See how much attention I pay to things sometimes...I don't usually go down that far...unless comicality makes me go down there.

You guys lost me on this one...

Patrick, having gone through a bit of management training for different jobs, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that you did the right thing. One thing I might have recommended is confronting Mike with the choice of coming forward himself or then you'd inform the manager. That's just something for future reference. Yes, what you did will likely ruin your friendship with Mike, but then do you really want to be friends with a thief? It'd be different if he was sorry about what he did, but that's neither here nor there. If you are really troubled about it, you might want to tell him why you told, and encourage to do the right thing from now on. You mentioned probation, which makes the fact that you did tell the manager a very good thing. It's part of what probation is meant to be, a stick right behind you that you know there is there and will whap you if you mess up. It should be used to encourage 'proper' behavior to help you build GOOD habits instead of the bad ones that got you into trouble in the first place. Here's a suggestion...contact your probation officer and talk to them about this incident, and ask them for advice on how you could have handled it better. Most often probation officers dont' hear this sort of thing from their charges, and it's something they should know about you. You really are making an effort to do the right things in your life, and you're succeeding. Let them know that, so that if you do mess up, which can happen to anyone, they have something positive to balance it with. Encourage your PO to talk to your manager about the incident as well, to confirm your cooperation with the manager. From your post, it sounds like you volunteered the information to a manager on a basic fishing expedition, not on a witch hunt, which will work in your favor. If it had been a hamburger here and there, I'd have encouraged you to talk to him about not doing it again and dropping it...but it was far more than that. Petty theft such as this really does cost companies money, and no matter how you try to shade it, it is wrong to steal company property for private use. My kudos to you for making the right decision, not just for yourself but the right decision, period. Continue to learn these lessons in life and whatever trouble you had in the past, you can proudly hold you head up and say you learned from your mistakes. That is all anyone can ever ask from you, to pay the price for your mistakes, and to learn from them.

There are so many songs out there that help calm me down or lift me up, or push through my rage until it's all gone. When I feel totally ineffectual, and don't know what I'm going to do next, I put on 'Wonderful' by Everclear. It reminds me of my family so much, for so many reasons, that I sit there and cry while it plays on repeat for a half-hour or more. When it's done, I feel drained, but ready to continue on with life. This was also the song that helped me decide to write Do Over. When I'm just flat-out hurting emotionally and ready to give up on life, I listen to Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb. When I'm pissed off at life in general, it's Pf's "Mother". Then there's Metallica for angry and need to just hash out it out, Garth Brooks 'The Dance" and Sarah Mclaughlin's "Angel", as well as Elton John's "Daniel" when I'm missing my dead parents (we played those last three songs at their funerals). Uncle Cracker lifts me up out of depression and leaves a slight smile on my face while Green Day helps me work past the anger for a bit, and then helps me put a smile on my face and go about life with a renewed vigor. Then there are the songs that I write while playing....and that list stays secret for a while. Yes, music is an important part of changing/enhancing moods, which is part of why it is such a big industry. It always has been, and will likely always be important in that way (of course for most of history it was part of religion only, or tribal storytelling/events and so forth, which is an interesting course of study I dabbled in for one whole semester).

Big happy birthday to a fellow Pisces!