methodwriter85

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?

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.