methodwriter85

I'm pretty engaged with all three stories, although I'm really curious to see the fight scene where Becker tells Kevin that his mother pays more than 8k on a dress that she'll wear once from Kevin's perspective because you know how much that had to piss Kevin off. You do a pretty good job here of outlining why Kevin broke up with Becker. It was pretty much asshole behavior that he only visited him like once given that DC and NYC are only about a 4-hour train ride away. I also kind of liked the callback to Kevin saying all 3 names again when describing him as Peter Adam Becker to his friends, because it's this weird identity thing that I'm pretty sure Kevin has picked up on. He might be the only one who has, because Becker REALLY compartmentalizes everybody in his life. The only one from his "Peter" life who has seen it in action in Justine, and I think she's just shrugged it off as a weird quirk in her big brother. As for Kevin's episode of the O.C. (what a great reference given that Kevin would identify with Ryan Atwood), I loved his "mentor" basically telling him the cold hard truth that Nick is a lost cause. It looks like Nick is so much of a loser at 18/19 that he doesn't even seem to roll with the guys he bragged about at 14. Sometimes people are just lost causes. The Matt stuff is fun as well, although we know it's not going to end well. Loved the Abercrombie reference- I don't think I ever see current teenagers wearing that kind of stuff now. As kind of a broader perspective, we are looking at a time right before the Great Recession, so Kevin's class issues are really interesting to look at.

I also wish Private TIm showed up here, because man I want to pick his brain about the USC admissions cheating scandal. I've always gotten the vibe that he has close ties to that school.

TIL that there's a subculture of adults who participate in what they call "Disney Bounding", where they dress up in outfits inpspired by Disney characters but not actual costumes, because Disney bans adults from wearing costumes. (Which makes sense- you don't want kids following strangers in costumes, and you don't want non-employees being thought to be employees.) God, I wish Blue still showed up here. I wonder if he's ever dated a guy who was like super-obsessed with Disneyland.

I'm re-reading the Uncle Pete chapter. I can just see Billy Crudup (90's pretty boy ingenue who never quite took off) as him. Like I can just see this guy saying Uncle Pete's lines with a faux-charm and barely veiled passive-aggressive resentment of his more successful sibling.

I don't know, I'm feeling the army dude.

I don't know if Private Tim still lurks, but I thought he'd enjoy this photo of Downtown Pasadena that someone posted on Reddit:

My condolences.

It doesn't even really feel like anybody does anything with the Malibu house anymore. But I think that's actually kind of realistic- Darius is in college, Will lives in the SF-area house more because he attends school, and JJ's in New York City. I would bet that it was rented out or something in 2018 before it burned down.

It's really interesting to learn just how deep Kevin's psyche goes. He's such a mask but there are so many things about him that he won't reveal because he doesn't want to sound psychotic. Pretty fascinating. It's also interesting how he surrounds himself with rich people but resents them at the same time. I did a lot of that as a teenager and in my early 20's. Weirdly enough, in my mid-20's I wound up going to a university that was in a blue-collar area and I kind of loved being around salf-of-the-Earth types instead of the "Oh, I went to Sallies and I just got back from study abroad in Europe" types.

And that right there is why it's never going to work. Duncan sees Kevin as a kid. I did think that was a pretty funny line, because when you're 21, you really feel like you'e miles away from being 18 or 19, but when you're 30, people from about 17-23 kind of just blend to together as kids to you.

Mark's gotta be happy that the Rams are going to the Super Bowl. I wanted it to be against the Chiefs, though.