GaryK

I hope it went well. Especially considering my comments below. Everyone seems to have missed this point and I think it's an important one. Was this friend's desire for a relationship due purely to his attraction to you, or did it have more to do with the fact you're the only gay guy he apparently knows? As a real friend I think the best thing you could do is invite him to join you--not as your date--when you socialize with your friends. Help him make his own friends in the gay community. Then hopefully he'll be able to not only have more friends, but also a wider range of people with whom there might be a mutual romantic attraction.

Stop trying to deflect attention from yourself onto Steve. Steve is a sweetheart; plus he's drop-dead handsome. Steve would never do any of the mean things you've done to us Mr. Goat. Just keep that cake in mind! Sometimes there's more truth in jokes than a more serious approach.

Man, not only great pix but a fantastic script to go along with it. Thanks Myr. About the goat sacrifice. Couldn't you guys have waited until CJ posted all of LTMP. Now we'll probably never find out what happens to Dimitri.

Meh. I still intend to put on a blindfold, spin around three times, and then randomly touch the voting screen. Neither apparent candidate seems worse than the other to me Nick. In reality I'll probably vote Democratic because that's basically what I am. At this point the only thing that would make me vote for McCain is if Obama selects Clinton as his running mate. So I say bring on Webb. He's certainly more qualified for the job than any of the other names I've seen bandied about.

I had forgotten about this thread. Thanks for reviving it Tim. I'm listening to the audiobook version of Ann-Marie MacDonald's book, "Fall On Your Knees". Billy recommended it to me. Thanks Billy.

I've never found much solace in talk therapy. I know what's eating at me. So do you. I could talk about it forever and it wouldn't change how I feel. Is talking about what's happened going to make you feel better? I don't know. Maybe it will if you're lucky. It seems to me to make more sense to find ways of coping with what's happened while still moving forward with your life. That's harder to do for you right now because of where you live. No doubt that's also playing a role in your depression. Perhaps more relevant to this thread in general is that being stuck in what seems like a hopeless situation plays a role in depression. Being young, gay, in the closet, and afraid to come out for fear of being ostracized or worse is enough to make anyone depressed. Is it what I call situational depression which meds probably won't do much if anything to alleviate? Or is it clinical depression that meds can help with? I don't know. Only a psydoc can tell you for certain. But there's the Catch-22. Regardless of which kind of depression it is what maybe makes it worse is you can't tell anyone about your depression without risking the real source of it being uncovered. What's a person to do in that situation? I'm really not sure. Tough it out seems too trite an response. Develop of circle of friends with whom you can be honest is perhaps a more workable solution. That still might not be enough...

Who said anything about you not writing cliffhangers? Don't confuse letting you get away with not posting a chapter of LTMP with a lack of cliffhangers.

What a cutie!

*taps Dan on his shoulder* We're still waiting on photographic proof of all this stuff. Please be sure to include the bed pix! ADDED: Great minds think alike you wily old goat.

Jamie, in your own inimitable way you have made several good points that I agree with including the topic of this thread.

That is sort of what they do to your mind. BTW, don't get too excited about this Wellbutrin. Not every anti-depressant works for every person. My psydoc and I struggled for nearly two years before we found the right combination of meds for me. Even if Wellbutrin works for you most anti-depressants take between 2-6 weeks before you begin to feel any benefits.

Sometimes an optimistic outlook is not a good thing!

Didn't you satisfy your oral fixation by talking with me on the phone today? You seemed kind of talked-out by the time supper was ready and you had to go.

Thanks for the link Kevin. It's nice to have empirical evidence to backup what I already knew. I'm living proof that Wellbutrin doesn't affect sex drive or performance. That's what I was joking with Tim about.

Don't look at it as running away Jamie. You've done the best you can there and perhaps it's time to move to a place where you can live your life without constantly trying to measure up to everyone else's expectations of what normal means. It's always nice to do stuff that'll leave the next generation in a better place than you were. But that shouldn't be the focus of your life. Live your life the way you want to and you'll set a good example for the next round to deal with.

This is CJ we're talking about. There are always cliffs around when CJ is involved.

IMO the anthologies should always get priority. So many people work so hard on them, they're all so good, and they deserve a chance to stand-out without being overshadowed by releases from our Hosted Authors. I can only speak for myself, but I think volunteering to wait a week for another chapter of LTMP is a wonderfully selfless act on your behalf and I'm all for it.

They're probably planning on going cliff diving!

I'm in a similar situation with my work as a software developer. It's seems I do as much reading as coding. We're in the wrong forum to discuss how FDR would feel about democrats of today so all I'll say is I don't think he'd recognize them as the same type of democrat he was and leave it at that. If you want to pursue this let's take it to the Soapbox.

Thanks for the food tips Nick. How about Jan and I adopt you, take great care of you as our son, and you can show your appreciation by cooking for the three of us? Actually it'll be four at the end of this year when the foster child I was supposed to adopt turns 18 and gets kicked out of the system. I promised him a college education plus room and board until he can get established on his own.

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. By my books I meant books that I own. I have a room at home devoted to books about WWII. Same with my father who was in WWII in the Pacific theater. It's a topic we both love to talk about when we get together for meals during the week. We both just recently finished reading FDR. While it doesn't focus entirely on the war there's still enough information about the war to warrant my interest. Reading a book like that is nothing like reading fiction. It certainly doesn't fit the formula you mentioned in your first message. Especially the types of fiction on GA.

Do you really need to ask me that question?

I've never given any analytical thought to why I enjoy reading. I just know I enjoy reading about lots of different things, not just the stories on GA. The definition you provided fairly well summarizes the process I go through when reading fiction. It's completely different when I'm reading non-fiction like my books about WWII. It applies to many of the better stories on GA. Finding those stories is often a challenge.

Does that mean the electrician finally showed up and fixed things at your new home?

Be sure the prescription permits the pharmacist to dispense the generic version because the brand-name is obscenely expensive. That's true with almost every single modern psymed. I take generic Wellbutrin-SR along with generic Celexa and together they work wonders for me. Bob, Xanax is a brand-name drug here too. It's a benzodiazepine-based medication similar to the Klonopin I take. Actually I take the generic version called clonazepam. Like Xanax it's powerful stuff. Even worse it causes a physical addiction. But it works really well and I expect to be on it the rest of my life so the addiction really isn't important. I''m on a rather high dose of the stuff; 6-10mg daily. Great idea Steph! However there doesn't appear to be a Mental Health America affiliate close to Tim. I wonder if you have to live in the service area of an affiliate in order to get help from them. I couldn't find anything about that on the NMHA website.