Adam Phillips

Well, no. That was "Adam was pissed off by the story and hadn't bothered to re-read, but only rememberered how callously JP had killed before, and then remembered him saying, after the fact of Jeff's death, that he wasn't even all that sad. Whereupon Adam began to hate JP and in his ADD-addled brain disremembered that JP had sent Sam there to kill him." A re-reading of the story...and a polite "quit being a moron" from...uhh, well, I think it was you ...set me right on that one.

Senior year in high school I and the rest of the soccer team got their left nipples pierced. Don't ask why the left. We just decided to be uniform. That year I also got my tongue pierced. Neither of those places are pierced any more. I'm old and no fun anymore. However, the little tattoo above and to the left of my left pec--also from that year--has remained. Wow. Oh, how the years go by, as Vanessa Williams used to sing. Or Amy Grant, depending on your preferences.

I'd go with your 11:09 pm gut response of last night. Tiger's post gave me yet another opportunity to harass Mark about 1968, and I thought this one was kind of fun. But, you know, that's the kind of crap people do all the time when they read, without the author having to do anything at all. They just add additional details to that world inside their head, details that the author isn't even aware of. After all, once it leaves his word processor and makes its way into our heads, it's not really his world anymore, right? He only has control over what he writes. What he intends is a red herring, and "what he means" is dang slippery. Especially in fiction. You know the whole debate on "authorial intent" from them literary circles. All that being said, I'm just trying to make him miserable. It appears as though a couple of people are working on this project from a couple of different angles. It's what happens when you try to change your writing from "realistic" to "fantasy" within the same series. I mean, c'mon. A straight figure-skater? That was bound to have repercussions. If readers wanted to read some Mercedes Lackey they wouldn't have started on the Cramptonworld series. Damn, I'm having fun.

Jingoism made mawkish. Ugh. Just ugh.

I'm turning out fiction right now. I'll likely have a short story available by summer called Remix. And in it, a miracle really does happen. Or, as Arthur C. Clarke put it, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

You people keep talking about miracles. We know you don't believe in resurrections, Mark. We're not talking about miracles. We have rationally-plausible explanations. And we know shit like that happens because we saw it back when we watched Days of Our Lives or whatever. So, no miracles. We just know what really happened behind those grisly scenes you narrated and intend-to-narrate. All those things you conveniently forgot to mention. (Okay, I'll quit now.) But I really think that JJ... :devil: (actually, I don't give a shit)

Or a conspiracy theorist either. You gotta watch out for those initial impressions. Hang around a person long enough and they're bound to revise.

Just goes to show you that he's pulled one over on you too.

"Miracle"? Nah. No such thing was necessary. Not even close. You have clearly never watched soaps. Suicides can be faked, you know, and the letter he left behind was all a part of the ruse. Only Tonto knew. And she was keeping the secret because she wanted Jeff to get a new start on that tropical island with her son and his man. And "remains"? Remains, schmemains. He wasn't dead, he was just faking it. Did anybody accompany the medical examiner? He was the father of one of Jeff's closest friends in high school. That father-son duo transported the "body." And yeah, those were his dental impressions and fingerprints. He just wasn't dead. Doesn't take no "God," and, to be true to the author's own sentiments, I don't believe there is a God in Cramptonworld. I'm just relieved to know he's still alive and enjoying the tropical life. I feel bad that the rest of the family had to be tricked. Although, really, it kind of serves JP right for not being more relieved than sad that he was dead.

I have some news that will shock all fans of Jeff who hated to see what Mark seemed to do to him in 1968: He's still alive! I know it's impossible to believe, but Tiger figured out that Steven Schluter and Aaron Hayes faked their deaths and are still alive and well, if in their golden years, on some tropical island...and after that bit of sleuthing it was child's play for me to follow his lead and discover that Jeff found out about the ruse and decided to do likewise, and start a new life on that very same island. https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/26343-the-box/page__st__375 Mark's done a really good job of getting us to mourn for all these guys (even in advance for Aaron and Steve!--well, sort of), but we got your number, Mark. I mean, you gave it away anyway in one of your comments on my blog where you said you preferred happy endings. Man. I'm so relieved.

Oh, man! Yeah. Of course. That's the ticket! And also, Jeff's there too! Like...he discovered the box first, right? When he was back at Claremont disgusted with what he'd become. And he read the journal, and the very last entry was about Aaron and Steven faking their deaths and moving to a tropical island. Steven also left a map in the journal, and Jeff realized that he needed to start over fresh somewhere...so he took the last pages and the map with him and put everything back just like he'd found it, so nobody would know it had already been opened...and he decided to go to that island and meet Aaron and Steve, who were by now much older and would be living that life that Aaron had promised Steve. So, inspired by the boys' ingenious deception, he also faked out Sam and what's-his-nerd by staging a "suicide." Got one of his friends from back in HS who worked for the ME to drive the ambulance that transported his "body," etc., etc., and then when no one was looking... I mean, this kind of shit happens all the time in soaps! Right? I'm so relieved. I thought Jeff was dead this whole time! Wow. I didn't know you were that clever, Mark. I'm liking 1968 better already!

Uhh...this is, you know, kind of like...uhh...going to a Star Trek convention. I think I'll just read the story.

Yeah. Me too. I don't know what kind of stick Jeremy has up his ass about Aaron. He's a great guy. I like him better than Steve, even. Not that I have anything against Steve. Chapter 13 was nicely written, Mark. I enjoyed it a great deal.

No. Opening-my-eyes-to-facts much. Prejudice would be if I wanted to spit on him because he was a figure skater. Or maybe what you meant was "Stereotypes, much?" To which I'd have to reply "Guilty as charged." I'm sure there might be one straight figure skater out there in the history of the...uhh...sport. Oh, yeah. Elvis Stojko. Whom gay people love so much.

I want one so bad I can taste it. I'm just waiting for the dust to settle and a winner (for me) to emerge. The IPad's not in the running for me. Don't want all that other capability, and anyway it's backlit. And bigger than I'd like for an e-book reader. I like the idea of e-ink technology, where you can read it outside at the beach. I plan on getting one within the year. Right now I'm leaning toward the Kindle. The idea of being able to haul multiple books along with me in such a small space is enormously appealing. If civilization were to collapse I'd just go back to real books, and I guess I'd lose all those books I had in my e-book reader. Somehow that's not sufficiently disconcerting to cause me to factor that into my considerations, LOL.

Yeah, right. He's a figure skater. That's like saying you found some triangle with four sides. Oh, I don't know about that. There are a couple of people here in the Forums who may disagree. Isn't that the same camp where they do the circle jerks?

Well, yeah. I mean, when was it ever an open question? What, you can't love somebody just because they're gonna die? You people haven't watched near enough chick flicks.

Odds are, it was something rude about Jeremy. When I end up deleting a post at my Yahoo group, it's usually because I've said something rude about Jeremy. Although not lately.

Heartless woman. Good thing I love your musical tastes. Well, and also the fact that you got my back whenever I've needed it...

I wish there were a way to delete posts here. Especially after you've said something lame.

Interesting. I'd never have thought of him as the male version of Tonto. I love Tonto, and find her considerably more interesting than Stefan. But you're right. Everybody reads with different eyes.

As I said in the first part of that two-part reflection on sexual labels, "everything I've experienced in my own life, and in hearing from some of my readers, and from research and reading I've done, suggests that sexuality is much too complex and nuanced to be adequately captured by the labels 'gay,' 'straight,' and 'bi.' " On the other hand, the labels are attempting to get a conceptual fix on something that's real, and there are times when we need them. We do need to recognize that the labels are reductionistic and obscure important realities and distort others, but as long as a person recognizes this, I think they have legitimate uses. Thanks for your post and your reflections!

Thanks for the reply, Eros. Crosscurrents deals with much of what we're all talking about here.

You think it's sad?? Boy, you don't know what sad coulda been... Right, Mark?

I like Stefan just fine as a character. At the same time, he's not particularly interesting to me. Not compared to the head-case who is JP, or compared to some of the younger narrators. --Adam