methodwriter85

See, that's the thing. If that happened, it would be an "accident" as opposed to an actual accident. Dan Savage once had a bit where he talked to a reader who should NOT be reassured that her daughter's not having sex because her boyfriend is gayer than Lucas Grabeel in High School Musical. Closeted gay teenagers can and often impregnate girls,because as Savage put it, nothing says "I'M NOT GAY" more than knocking up a girl. At least in terms of the closetcase mindset. I remember when Ella had at pregnancy scare, you were talking about how most "accidents" aren't really accidents, on some kind of level. Although I could see Tony also going the other way, where if he and Will are "together" in 2013 and Will starts pressing him about wanting to get a surrogate to start having kids, and Tony refuses because on some level he doesn't believe in gay men raising kids together. I had an e-friend once, from a pretty conservative background that struggled mightily with his sexual orientation...he had a committed boyfriend and clearly would have loved to have started a family, but he had a very strong feeling that children deserve to have a mother and a father instead of same-sex parenting. Will's reaction to Mason's height was a little weird to me. I get that he's 6'1" and the bulk of the guys in the story are at least 6 foot, but JP is 5'6" and Will's still in the underclassmen years of high school, where 5'5" wouldn't be that uncommon. It wasn't until 11th grade that I noticed guys were really starting to tower over me. Unless Mason is someone who has really broad shoulders that looks like he should be taller. Will's bit also made me wonder about JJ's height....I've assumed that JJ is likely about 5'3" or 5'4", but it makes me wonder if JJ's actually more around 5'5"-5'6" and he just seems shorter to Will because Will is pretty tall for his age. I liked the semi-culture shock going on with Will. I experienced a shade of that when I lived in Western P.A. for a few years. I also like that Will's apparently going to be more faithful in their limited fidelity agreement- he's better about that than his father was. It doesn't seem like Mark is modeling Will/Tony on Brad and Robbie or Matt and Wade, which is nice. People usually don't display their depth when they're in party mode.

Chapter 12 -When Tony finally dumps Dana. -When Will and Tony talk about Tony's issues. Dear god, you know how many times I've heard a college band cover this song? Finally, ear gauges. Those were seriously picking up steam around this time period. Although some people went waaayyyy overboard on them. He was kind of ahead of the curve though with his hair, though- hair was almost uniformly short, gelled, and spiked during this time period. I didn't start seeing more guys with his kind of naturalistic hair until about 2002, 2003. Then there were the Converse sneakers, which came back in during the early '00s, and I think he's wearing Dickies. Essentially, the quintessential punk/skater/rocker look going on there. -As the float trip party rages. Blue, aren't you glad I'm incorporating country into my music choices? I was all set for "Fiesta" by R. Kelly and Nelly, but this seemed to fit more for some reason. -When Will has sex with Tony, and muses on what a relationship like him will be like. It's getting weird that we've hit the point where music that was popular when I was a teenager are being used. I remember this song being everywhere around late 2000/early '01.

Damn it, Mark, 5'5" is not that shockingly short! ;-) LOL. Unless the purpose of that was that Mason is someone who looks like he'd be tall because he's broad-shouldered and the like. I've had people comment before along those lines before about my height. I do like that Will is staying true to his word with regards to the limited fidelity he has with Tony...he's better about that than his father is. Although I wonder what's going to happen on this trip, because it doesn't seem like this crowd would be cool with the whole gay thing. What happens if some girl starts hitting on him?

My oldest niece graduated from high school today- Charter School of Wilmington's Class of 2013! It was pretty cool to watch- the ceremony was at the DuPont Theater in downtown Wilmington. The class salutorian was actually pretty funny, the speakers weren't boring, and they had a cool touch with a powerpoint show that showed a large, blown-up picture of every senior as they graduated. It was a pretty stark contrast to my own graduation in 2005- a dark rainy night, really boring speeches, and disorganization to the point where people were showing up and sneaking onstage while the ceremony was in progress. I gotta say, I got pretty teary-eyed. My oldest niece was the family baby for almost 12 years until the second niece came along in '06 - I can still prety clearly remember her crawling around on the floor of our house when she was 9 months old. It's weird to think she'll be going off on her own to Pittsburgh University, where she'll be studying molecular biology. It doesn't seem possible that 18 years went by like *that*. It was wonderful to watch her grow up from a baby into a young woman who marches to the beat of her own drum, with some great accomplishments under her belt. Later that night, I wound up going out to Newark, DE to watch Alumni Weekend in progress. Alumni Weekend, called Del-A-Bration (get it? get it?) is a weekend where the University of Delaware puts on various celebrations for their alumni. The centerpoint of this is Mug Night, where they put two tents on the North Green and South Green, and the alumni get trashed to the tune of cover bands. The other hallmark is that alumni are allowed to have "overnights" in the dorms. I didn't take part in all of that, because I didn't feel like putting down money for that. Maybe next year, since it's my 5th year out. Well, not my 5th year, because I graduated in 2010, but 2009 was my real class year. And...I guess maybe I don't really feel accomplished enough yet to really"deserve" to these alumni events. I did hit up popular UD bar Klondike Kate's, though. I don't usually go there because the crowd is always 90 percent college- I tend to hit up Deer Park Tavern or Homegrown, which are more mixed and have live music. But one of my friends was there (he graduated in '11), so I wound up going. It was cool to see old faces that I remembered seeing when I went to UD. To top it off, our D.J. played "Party in the U.S.A.", which instantly brought me back to the fall of my senior year, when the song was huge. After the bars let out, it was pretty funny to walk around Main Street and see all the 25 to 30-year olds acting like they were still at UD- people carrying around their drunk friends on their shoulder like they were 19 again. I did wind up running into a few people I knew from college, which was cool. My friend and I walked down to the fountain on South Green, where a bunch of people were splashing around. It's a UD tradition for seniors to splash around in this foundtain on graduation night. I sat around and laughed my ass off at this spectacle until the cops came. (Okay, I'll admit I stayed around to watch because some of the guys were pretty cute with nice bodies that looked good in wet boxers.) I could've gone in, but I don't know- I jumped into the fountain when I was actually graduating from UD- I didn't really feel the urge to do this, plus given that I'm no longer a student there, public safety would have no incentive not to throw the book at me so the risk didn't seem worth it. As I watched those 25-year olds re-enacting their rite-of-passage(one of them said they were the class of 2010), I did think a lot about what Adam has said about The Endless Summer- when it's gone, you can't really get it back. Although if it makes them happy to pretend they're 22 again for a weekend...well, more power to them. My friend Mike and I then walked around aimlessly around campus and just talked. It was nice. It made me remember what it was like on a late night at UD, when I couldn't sleep and I'd just walk around the campus aimlessly. It was cool to point out places that hold particular memories- although even though I'm only 3 years out, A LOT has changed. Again, the Endless Summer not being so Endless...it really isn't 2009 anymore, and I got reminded of that while walking around the campus. I don't consider University of Delaware the best years of my life- I really think my IUP graduate school years brought out the best in me. But it really was a time in which I went through a lot of change and growth, learned some incredibly tough lessons about myself and about other people, and made some incredible memories.

I thought about posting this in the internet forum, but due to the political nature of the rap, I thought I'd just post it here. Definitely a very well-done parody. I loved the use of the D.A.R.E. shirt- a program shrouded in good intentions, but didn't really do much to actually stop the children of the 1980's and the 1990's from using drugs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=channel%3A5184385c-0-212a-9238-47d7b3a8822&feature=iv&src_vid=U-KTqKTvTzw&v=cd3UBZysWTw

Here's a video I found of Sam Claflin, who will be playing Finnick O'Dair, at a Teen Vogue photoshoot this past March. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di0FFwtbvgk I pictured Armie Hammer as Finnick, but those dimples are winning me over for Finnick. I think while he doesn't have the Greek God looks, he's definitely got the charm.

So today I started doing volunteer work at a small museum near where I went to undergrad, called Newark Historical Society. I decided to do this in order to keep my skills relevant while I look for a paying job. They started me on a project where I'm going to go through 5 boxes that city hall sent them, which consist of photo albums from the 20th century Memorial Day parades. I'm not doing any real processing yet, just a little inventory. Today I looked at Box 3 of the Collection- it had albums from 1969, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, circa 1986, 1989, and circa 1990. A lot of the albums had the years embossed on the front, but three of them did not. I had to do a little detective work for the ones that I deduced as being from about 1986 and 1990- one of the volunteers that is a fireman, and said he recognized the vintage of the firetrucks from the mid-80's in one album, and the early 90's in another. What really nailed the year down, though, were two pictures that showed the winners of the Newark "Pushmobile" contest- basically, the soap box derby for this town. (It was gone by the mid-90's, because I moved to the town in 1995 and there wasn't anything like that.) In one album, it showed a photo of a boy who was announced the 1986 winner, and the other showed a little girl who was announced the 1990 winner. I really enjoyed trying to deduce the year- it was easy to get an "era" down in terms of the clothing, hair, and cars, but an exact year can be harder to come by. It was really funny looking at the 1990 photo album, because that's a year I can remember, and it really brought back memories of how things looked when I was 4, 5 years old. Another fun moment was when I was going through what I think was the '86 album, and I saw what looked like a brown 1981 Buick...that was our family car through about 1993, if I'm remembering correctly.

Damn. Will is bucking some of his family trends, isn't he? Although it would make sense that the attempted blackmail scheme would probably have affected that.

Well, that, and it seems like it's in Will's genectic make-up not to lock the door when he's having sex.

Luke Thomas, aka Mippey5, is pretty funny. He's like what I imagine the typical mid-Western boy-next-door to be like.

That's a damn good question. Sure, Tony is gay, but a lot of gay men can have sex with and enjoy women. Matt apparently still does. It wouldn't be emotionally satifisying for him, and he probably would wind up cheating on his wife on the side, but at the same time, Tony can take the easy way out and never come out. They've got until September 2004 before they can even openly be in a relationship, as Tony is 19 and Will is not-quite 15. It's going to be a long time before they can even entertain the notion of an committed, everybody-knows relationship. So yeah, really good question. In any event...Tony's mother and sister TOTTTTTALLLLLYYYYY know he's gay, and that Will's his boyfriend.

Chapter 11 -When Tony takes Will on a tour of St. Louis, which is a pretty quirky city. "Barely Legal" by The Strokes British music is like always ahead of the curve as opposed to the U.S. God, the Strokes were awesome. -When Tony and Will talk about the Dana situation. I pretty much had Wheatus on endless repeat that year. This is one of my favorites by them. -When Dana comes to St. Louis and brings the romance to a screeching halt. "Case of the Ex" by Mya I've been wating for a good moment to use that one. Mya really did just disapear, didn't she? -When Will drives off with Tony's friend for the float trip, and watches the agony on Tony's face as they drive away. I gotta admit, I like how Will is reacting. He gets it, but he doesn't REALLY get it because he's never been closeted in his life. I'm like that, too- I get Tony, but I don't REALLY get Tony because other than some half-hearted attempts at saying how hot Jennifer Love Hewitt and Katherine Heigl are back in 2001, I've never really tried to cover up being gay. Will is really representative of the "new"generation of gays who grew up in a time and a place they weren't shamed for being gay.

Alright, here's another idea I have for Tony...a young Joe Manganiello. (He's best known for being on True Blood and was in Magic Mike.) The only thing I've really gotten in terms of a description of Tony is that he's got typical Italian good looks, and he's very masculine-looking and not a pretty boy, so I figure his face would have to be somewhat rough. So with a "rough" idea in mind, my other idea for Tony would be a young Bobby Cannavale, who's probably best known for being Will's boyfriend on Will and Grace. I'm seriously going through pictures of a lot of hunky Italian-looking guys here. Not that it's a chore. LOL.

Here are some 80's tunes I really love: , 1980 "Angel of the Morning" by Juice Newton, 1981 , 1982 , 1983 "Shout" by Tears for Fears, 1985 "Manic Monday" by The Bangles, 1986 by Crowded House, 1987 , 1989

I had a major "I'm old" moment, when I was trying to sing "Let's Talk About Sex" by Salt N Peppa at a college karoke show in 2012, and the kids had no clue about the song. Like, at all.

I think it also helps that Tony is only a sporadic presence in his life. Tony's not around Will day in and day out to annoy him with his not-so-good traits. If Tony was 16 and going to Menlo, I think it'd be another thing entirely. The way things are, Will gets to enjoy Tony's skills in the sack, but he doesn't really have to deal with the day-to-day issues that come from being in a committed relationship. Remember when Brad and Robbie were on the outs in Millenium, and Brad kept noting all the annoying little things about Robbie? Will and Tony aren't together nearly enough for that kind of a familiarity, so everything stays fresh and interesting and hot with them. I remember one point Will made to Brad was that he has friends who roll on X down at the Pier and other such stuff, and he hasn't gotten into that when he very much could. Someone like Will could have access to some pretty hardcore drugs at his age, and that he's stuck to pot does say something about the amount of control that Will does have. Although it would be hilarious to see what a control freak like Will would be like on X. I remember that was the big drug at the time...I had classmates in 9th grade who were into the rave scene and they'd talk about doing it.

What I like about Jenna Marbles is that she's packaged as a Kelly Bundy-style bimbo in how she dresses...but in actuality she's pretty shrewd and witty, and very good at pointing out the b.s. that goes on in American society.

It's weird that he's such a pushover, because he's also supposed to be an Alpha Male jock, who's so masculine that Will finds him irrestible. Interesting dichtomy there. When I've met Alpha Male jocks, "push over" was usually the last thing you could ascribe to them. Here's the thing about Will, though. He's proven, time and time again, that he's got a good "bullshit" meter when it comes to people that want to take advantage of him. People who look at him and think, "Wow, dumb young rich kid that I can con into giving me shit" have been proven very wrong. I can't see Will ever being manipulated into doing things he doesn't want to do, and I also can't see him getting blindly caught up in the kind of things that happened to Pat and the like. He also does not have an addictive personality- yes, he has his fun and does edgy things, but I can't see him going over the edge. I don't think Stefan would have let Will into the club if he didn't think, on some level, Will can handle himself pretty well. I mean, JJ's the same age as well, but I can't see Stefan in a million years letting JJ into a club, because JJ is much more naieve and it's much easier to take advantage of him.

From reviews: Another thing to remember is that this is BEFORE clubs starting using computer scanners with facial recognition to check I.D.'s, so it was easy to get into a club as long as you had a good fake. That started changing by the late 2000's when the computer scanners started becoming commonplace, but by then Will is already going to be past needing a fake. (He'll be 21 in 2007.) Will, JJ,and John are part of that last generation of kids who had a fairly easy time sneaking into bars and clubs. I know a couple of people who were still able to do that now, but they usually had to stick to a dive bars that don't use the computer scanners. Riley and Madison will probably not have as easy of a time sneaking into bars when they're 14 like Will does. Things got a lot stricter, especially if they find themselves in a big college town. I really do like how Will's representing that first generation of young gay men who were born post-Gay Rights movements, and who are too young to remember the AIDS epidemic. I really relate to that- I was never really closeted, and I never really felt like I was losing anything by being gay. And even though Tony does kind of bore me, I get why he's there- to represent the classic closet case and contrast against Will's. I don't quite get why it has to be suuuuccchhh a big deal for him to be gay- I get the Dad deal, but it's not like Tony's going to Jerry Falwell's Liberty University or anything. Stanford seems like it'd be a great place for anybody to come out. I mean, Will gets it on a mental level why it's hard for Tony to come out, but he doesn't get it on an emotional level, because he's never had to deal with the internal homophobia. I feel the same way- my mind gets it, but my heart just doesn't understand why it has to be such a big deal, because I never really tried to fight against being gay, or felt like being gay was wrong.

Chapter 10 -When Will complains to Gathan about how boring Claremont is. -When Will and Random Blond Claremont dude get massively high together. "Clint Eastwood" by Gorillaz Why does Claremont have so many blondes? Was it originally a Swedish settlement? -When Stefan and Will enter the gay club. I remember that song was EVERYWHERE that summer. -When Will grinds with his random trick and has fun in the V.I.P. room. "Rock DJ" by Robbie Williams Robbie Williams...I always liked him and thought it was a shame that his career in the US never quite took off. Bad case of timing- to be a sustained male hitmaker in the US during the 2000's, you needed to be either a version of Usher, a version of Linkin Park, or a soft rocker like John Mayer. Male dance pop vocalists like Robbie were pretty much passe in the U.S. for most of this decade, save for some one-hit wonders. (I'm not counting Justin Timberlake, because his music was pretty much R&B post-N'Sync.)

So, I was at dinner tonight with my family, and we were talking about my 18-year old niece's senior prom. They then talked about a schoolmate named Regina Reynolds who took a calculator to the prom. Apparently, the guy who was going to ask this girl decided to ask my niece instead. So Regina decided to say, "What the hell", and went to prom with a calculator that she dressed up in a little tux while drawing a flower on the screen. Her Tumblr post about the whole deal went viral, to the point where she skyped with Jimmy Kimmel on his show to talk about it. It was funny to hear about, because this took place at Charter School of Wilmington. CSW is the math/science school that was upstairs from my own performing arts high school, so it's not my alma mater, but I was there pretty much every day. The school was/is incredibly intense, and the school mascot is a calculator. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Students there are incredibly dependent on TI-80something calculators because of massive amount of math they do there. I think what's awesome about the story is that this girl could have easily felt sorry for herself and not shown up to prom, but this girl clearly had a great sense of humor and must have been pretty comfortable in her skin. I think back to when I was in high school and early college when I wanted so badly to be "cool", and I don't think I could have done that. I really wish more teenagers would be okay with letting their "dork" flag fly, and not so concerned about fitting in and wanting to be seen as cool. Seriously though, if any of you are still in that phase of your life, just remember this- boring, shallow, cookie-cutter "cool kids" are sheep, and their "coolness" means jack shit in terms of life beyond their big weekend rager. Embrace being diffent and embrace those who are different without being afraid of getting called a "dork"- you'll have much more fun in life than if you tried to conform to what the Abercrombie clones think is cool.

Anyone check out Jenna Marbles? She's basically a suburban stoner Boston chick who's exploded on YouTube over the past couple years. Her profanity-laced observations on life, and being a woman in the post-feminist 21st century, are pretty funny satire and on-point. Jenna recently got a write up on the New York Times: The Woman With 1 Billion Clicks. Here are some of my favorite videos by her: What a great, funny broad. She's got this brutal honesty to her, juxtaposed against her highly made-up, bleach blonde looks. Beneath the piles of make-up and Forever 21 wardrobe, Jenna's a socially astute observer of the social mores of the twentysomething life- she gets on a soap box, but does it in a way that doesn't feel preachy because of the way she presents herself. Definitely check out her stuff, if you have the time. I feel like I'm getting an incredible window into the mindset of a young woman in contemporary American society. You guys have any internet stars you're adoring right now?

That's a good point. My region was hit hard by the current recession because Delaware based it's post-industrial economy on the credit card industry, but this area didn't have a whole lot of tech companies. Other than government and banking, our big state employers are pharmecutical/chemical companies, the University of Delaware, and Dover Air Force Base, all of which were doing fine in 2001. We also had a real estate boom from the 1990's into the mid-'00s as people fleeing the high property taxes of New Jersey and PA came here. We're a podunk state but it tends to lean more towards affluence. (Although there's a major income disparity here- it's almost comedic how you can hit one block in Wilmington that's nice and rich, and just a couple blocks later you hit the ghetto.) In any event, Brad and Stefan weren't whacked hard by the dot-com bust, because Brad and Stefan realized there was a bubble and got out before it burst- that was a whole storyline thread in Millenium. Brad and Stefan got out of the tech market, and moved more into defense contracting, which of course is going to be huge for the upcoming decade. It also looks like they're getting into real estate, which was the other big economic boom for the Bush II administration. Mark's written Stefan as someone who's basically able to judge the herd, and because of this he always makes sound economic decisions. I imagine that Stefan and Brad will be one of the few people to come out of the Great Recession even richer than they were before. I'm betting anything come 2006, Stefan will start to get an "itchy" feeling about real estate and decide to get out. This speaks to rule number 5 of the CAP Saga: