methodwriter85

Well, I meant butch as in Kristy McNichol, still-an-attractive woman butch, like Justin Beiber-like way, not in a FTM trans way. (We actually had an ultra-butch, "we're pretty sure she/he's taking testerone" lesbian working at my dining hall once. It was interesting.) I'm not sure Hank could get THAT far on the butch side- she's in a pretty conservative profession, and while looking like a tomboy is probably fine, I don't think day-to-day people in mainstream Jersey society would be okay with her if she bordered on looking like an FTM, especially since we're talking 13 years ago. Since we're on the female side right now...here's another idea I have for MaryEllen, Wade's bitch of a sister. David Cassidy's daughter, Katie: She's usually blonde but went brunette for her role in Arrow. She tends to lean towards playing bitchy characters- that's why I thought of her.

Alright, if we're going to go really butch...Dani Campbell, the lesbian contestant on A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila: It was really funny though when Justin Beiber first came out...my thoughts were, "Wow, he looks like Dani at A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila! I think Dani was a volunteer firefighter, so not that far off from being a cop.

I agree that Mason isn't really an ideal candidate to do it, unless he winds up transferring colleges. I really thought Shane Jackson was going to turn out to be using Will in order to sabotage JJ, but it didn't exactly turn out that way. Other than the obvious reasons, it's a shame that Shane died. He was going to grow up to look like this: Anyway, I wonder if Mark's going to give JJ a new fictional big rival to play off against or if we're waiting for when Johnny Weir, Evan Lysacek, and JJ are vying for titles as senior skaters. Hmm.

I don't think Billy is muscular enough for Mason. He needs this overwhelming prescence where, when you see him stand up, you're shocked that he's short. It's funny you say that, because the woman I picked for Hank pretty much plays "butch" in most of her roles. Anyway, thanks. Rashida Jones is pretty gorgeous. This is basically my image for what Jeanine looked like when she had Christmas 1985 conception sex with Brad: In this picture, Rashida is REALLY rocking that tough but sexy 1980's slicked back hair/lacqured red lipstock look, ala the models in . I see 1985 Jeanine with that look. She doesn't strike me as someone who would have dressed like Madonna, or someone on Dynasty. Her '85 look would have had some edge.

I see Mason as 2012 U.S. Men's Team gymnast Jake Dalton: Damn, those eyes are sexy as fuck. Mason's body is described as being very similiar to a gymnast kind of body- muscular with very broad shoulders, but short.

Mason seems like he's kind of where Matt Carrsworld was in Bloodlines- knowing he's pretty much gay (or close to it), but also being from a family where it's not acceptable because white-collar kids from upper-class families are expected to get trophy wives and continue the good family line. My guess is that we're supposed to see Tony in a similiar way we see Robbie- someone who's massively fucked up in how he treats people he's supposed to care about, but who we forgive because we know deep down there's a good heart there.

Thanks. I kind of figured it'd be popular with Tony's friends, since you've described them as being somewhat redkneck, good ol' Southern boy types, so eh. 2001 was a better year for music than 2000 was, so I'm enjoying this.

And it's a little weird that he thinks that way, given how close he was to Gathan the Ultimate Bisexual last summer. It's not like Will hasn't been introduced to the concept. From last chapter reviews... Will has an incredibly good bullshit meter. You can argue Tony, but the truth was that Will has not been around Tony enough to get a real "feel" for how he interacts with people- the first significant vacation with Tony was in the city of love with Rome, and the second "alone" time experience didn't exactly end well. Will is not naieve or trusting enough to buy into a Neal, who frankly wasn't that good at fooling people. If anything, you've setting JJ up for that happening somewhere down the line. It's been established that JJ is not good at being able to read people. I can see JJ having Robbie's trait of thinking that you need to buy things for your friends to get them to like you, and unlike 1985 Robbie, 2005 JJ would have the kind of money to be able to do it. As for this chapter...floating sounds like fun. Over by here, there was an event where people would get smashed while in boats anchored in the Chesapeake Bay, but that unfortunately got 86ed.

Chapter 14 -As the float trip commences, and Will becomes increasingly irritated with Tony. -When Will and Mason have some fun, and Mason invites him to his lake house. -When Will tells Tony that he's going off with Mason to his lake house. -When Will and Mason get it on at Mason's lake house. -When Will tells Brad about his Tony epiphany, and his plans to go to Hawaii. Blue, I really hope you've appreciated my effort to put in a little country music. St. Louis strikes me as the kind of Tea Party area where country would be rather popular, so I really looked hard at circa 1999-2001 country music. (Well, except for Garth, who is timeless.)

I think she's become more likeable after marrying Jay Z, but yes, there was a time when I really despised Beyonce Knowles. Unfortunately, you can't really ignore her- if you count Destiny's Child, she had a top 10 hit in every single year of the 2000's, and her career was unquestionably hot from 2003 (Dangerously in Love) to 2008 (Single Ladies).

I don't think it's just that. I think it's that as sexy as Italian machismo can be, there is also this very strong mindset that it's okay to fuck around because you are the man, but if your significant other was to do so, they're a whore.Thus, Will is seeing the dark side of that macho Italian attitude he finds so sexy. My sister had a boyfriend like that. It's very unsettling to watch. As much as that would thrill Tim, I can't see that being case. Will does need some conflict in his life- I'm sure it'll be a decade-long "will they?/won't they?" deal. Of course if Mark has Tony graduate in 2004 and NOT stick around in California, then I can see it.

It is pretty interesting though- the late 90's/pre-9/11 time period was pretty quiet for the United States. We had the whole Columbine High School deal going on, but generally it was a stable, prosperous,peaceful time. That all gets shot to hell after 9/11- we had the D.C. snipers in '02, Iraq War in '03, the Republican National Convention protests (the '04 election rhetoric was definitely the nastiest I remember) and the Asian Tsunami in '04, Hurricane Katrina in '05, Virginia Tech in '07, and the financial meltdown of '08-'09. And this current decade has had some major stuff go down- the B.P. oil spil in '10, the Tunisia/economic inequality protests of '11, and Hurricane Sandy and Sandy Hook in '12. I think it'll be really interesting to see how the characters react to it.

Chapter 13 -When Will realizes that Tony hooked up with Rick, has his own fun, and then lays down the law about the parameters of their relationship. -When Will comes to an unsettling truth about Tony. -When Will decides to stay on the trip and has some nice revenge sex.

Hey, dude, I think I at least deserve to be a bottle of Dasani water.;-) I'd rank you as a nice hot cup of green tea. LOL.

And I think that's a pretty fair criticism- it's not meant to come off as me thinking I'm the shit, but I can see why it'd come off that way. I do that because I like to relate to the story, and what it reminds me about my own experience. Not that my experience is anything particularly special, but I like feeling like I have some kind of common ground with the author's experiences. The other thing is that I'm fascinated by people's life stories- the common people story- and I figure by sharing my story in the context of being a regular college kid from the mid-2000's/late 2000's, I'd get other people to share their stories about their lives.

So, in my life I've realized that there are two major personality flaws about me- I can be incredibly self-absorbed to the point where I say things without really thinking about how other people will take it, and I'm quick to assume things. I try to be on guard for those traits, especially the self-absorption bit. When I was a teenager and early twentysomething, I got constantly called on the fact that I talk too much and that I'd "hijack" every conversation and bring it back to myself. I get that I'm an pretty annoying person in that regard, but I've felt like when I'm having personal, one-on-one interactions with people, I try hard to listen to and react to what the other person is saying. I once got told that I'm "too quiet" by someone, and that's honestly because I feel like when I start talking, it's almost impossible for me to shut up. I'm not sure why I am this way, but it's been that way for as long as I can remember. I think my self-absorption comes from not having any real friends while I was growing up. That's my guess, in any event. So I'm bringing this up because a poster at a discussion board I post at basically got at me about how I make all these self-absorbed postings, hijack every damn thread, etc etc. I was shocked, because I felt like I hadn't been nearly as bad about this as I have been in the past, though I suppose I must have been oblivious in that regard. (That's another flaw that feeds into my self-absorption.) I remember when I was contantly battling with the group's owner, to the point where he kicked me out several times while I left the group several times, and I got what the problem was- I wrote a lot of antagonistic posts and the like. But now, I'm not trying in any way to piss people off, and it seems like I still do it. I don't plan on leaving the group, but I do feel much more self-cautious about posting there, and I want to take at least a few days off from posting there. When I got called on shitty behavior there, that was one thing, but it felt like I was getting called on behavior that I honestly can't help, and honestly wasn't trying to antagonize peope with. I do feel pretty down about it, though. I feel like I've been getting this criticism for 15 years, and as much as I've tried to change that about myself, it doesn't seem like something that I can change. I guess all I can do is channel it into posts either here or at my Twitter/Facebook instead.

I started work on another box- this one isn't going to be as easy, because it's not filled with photo albums with dates on the front like the first one I worked on was. It's mostly scattered photographs in packets from photo development shops. The bulk of the photos I've run across in this box are from the late 1990's into about 2004, although I did find photos from 1988-1990. That was interesting for me, because I started hanging out around downtown Newark/The University of Delaware area in the late 1990's/early 2000's, so I was seeing a lot of familiar old sights there. One photo I really loved was of Rainbow Records- it's an indie record shop that had been really popular, to the point that they had moved into a nearby building as part of a big expansion. In latter years, the store had moved back to it's original space, and then eventually moved to an even smaller space in what had once been the store's back offices. It's been barely hanging on, but it's still there- just in a much smaller space. So the photo of what the store looked like it in the glory days of CD's before MP3's became common was pretty cool to see. I had to do a lot of "dating" clues when it came to the photographs. One that helped was Gore Hall, which was built on campus in 1998. So if I saw a photo of ROTC kids marching on camps and they passed by Gore, I knew the photo had to have been from post-1998. Another interesting clue I had was a picture of these children who were at the parade- one little girl had a shirt on that said, "04", which suggested 2004 to me. I remember when it was particularly trendy at that point in the decade to have shirts that said the year on it. Then there was Cafe Gelatto's, the fancy schmancy Italian restuarant that had been around since 2000, where I would get Gelatto since I was in high school. My favorite clue though, was when I'd see photos with Mayor Vance Funk (who became mayor of Newark in 2003), and Ruth Ann Minner, who had been Delaware governor from 2001 to 2009. So having those two in the parade would definitely point to a 2004-ish time period for those particular set of photos.

Dylan Meehan, Brad Taylor named first same-sex "Cutest Couple" at Carmel High School in NY Too cute. It makes me think about Kyle Kessler in Cross-Currents said about how messed-up gay men are, essentially because they're treated like freaks who don't get to engage in the same kind of socialization that their straight counterparts get to. We're getting to the point now where many gay men are growing up without hiding who they are, and are getting to engage in many of the rights-of-passages that their straight counterparts are, like going to prom and being celebrated as a cute couple in their yearbook. It's the little things like that which make ya smile, don't you think? Has that ever happened at any of your schools?

It does remain to be seen if I can see Tony down the road taking part in the Prop 8 protests that we all know damn well Will is going to be front and center with. He's got a lot of internal homophobia to deal with.

Hmm. I agree with you on that. What is your thinking on Trevor Donovan, then? He's certaintly blond enough. Alright, let's go over to the lesbians... Rashida Jones (The Office, The Social Network) as Jeanine: Katherine Moenning (The L-Word) as Hank: Rasida Jones is so pretty. I can so see gay men being willing to turn for her. And Katherne Moenning does butch lesbian pretty well.

I totally would have loved to have gotten drunk with a circa 1989, 26-year old Mark Arbour...I bet he must've been a geat drinking buddy. I think the thing bout Tony is that he's someone who avoids conflict or upsetting the status quo, pretty much. I think that's gotta change if he's going to wind up with Will, who is pretty much going to wind up the Champion for Various Just Causes like his great-grandmother was back in the day. Will very much runs head-first into conflict, as well as speaking up when he thinks the status quo in a particular case is b.s.

Alright, so since Mark didn't sign off on Trevor Donovan as Cody, here's my next idea...Chris Carmack from the O.C. and Nashville: He does look pretty believable as a corn-fed blond farm boy from the Mid-West. I had totally forgotten about him until he showed up on Nashville this year. He still looks pretty damned hot. My belief with Cody is that he needs to look like someone who could have modeled for Abercrombie and Fitch, so I'm kinda geared towards looking at 30-something former Ambercrombie and Fitch models. (Both Trevor Donovan and Chris Carmack were Abercrombie guys, not surprisingly.) I can also see Chris Carmack as Luke Carruthers, the bisexual business partner that Stefan started messing around with in The Land Whore.

Don't feel bad about that. It's almost impossible to do a family tree for CAP.

Not really, just that there's no way Will won't eventually have kids by his late 20's (I think the only one of Brad's kids I could see as being childless would be JJ), because a big on-going theme of CAP has always been the creaton, and passing on to, the next generation. CAP ended with Isidore being pregnant with twins. The Land Whore had a bit where Stefan mused about the kids. Man In Motion had Brad finding out about Darius, and the births of JJ, Marie, and Will. Bloodlines had Robbie discovering a son. Then in Poor Man's Son, we had Matt and Wade become daddies before they were old enough to legally drink- the creation of Riley leading to (if we start with JP's) the start of Generation 4. (I'm counting Brad's generation as Gen 2, and Will's generation as Gen 3.) If Tony is indeed being written as eventually ending up with Will, kids are eventually going to become a question mark. I do think it's obvious that he's going to be a continual prescence in Will's life (much to the chargin of Private Tim)...there's too much backstory being built up for me to think that Tony's going anywhere. A couple can have a happily ever after if they don't become the focus of another story...happily ever after is nice, but to read as a story would be pretty boring. Brad and Robbie had a "happily ever after" until Mark dusted them off to become the focus in Millenium. This pretty much mimics typical soap...soap supercouples only have a happy ending that sticks if they're off the show or on the backburner.

I just realized that it's actually a bit of an anachronism that Hank's name is Hannah. Hank would have been born in the 1960's, when the name was ranked 839th.The name fell out of the top 500 after the 1930's and wasn't very popular in the 1940's, the 50's, the 60's, and the 70's. It didn't explode in popularity until the 1980's, when it reached the top 100, and the 90's, when it was ranked 11. Therefore it's a name that would be more appropriate to Will's generation (more Courtney's, actually), not Brad's. Unless, of course, Hank's family is Jewish, which would actually be pretty interesting. New Jersey does have a pretty big Jewish population. Our team is usually really good at catching the anachronisms (there was a scene where Gathan was originally showing photos on a camera cell phone, which did exist in 2000 but not on the domestic market), so it kind of bums me out whenever I realize there's an "oops." Have any of you guys noticed ay other anachronisms that we've failed to catch?