methodwriter85

I was about to say that wouldn't work because I thought Jeff was from Oklahoma, but then again, it's entirely possible that Jeff's father is from L.A. while Jeff himself was raised in Oklahoma. I do like that someone's interested in a college that's not Stanford or Cal. I remember Mark saying once to me that he needed to spread the characters out when it comes to colleges, and we've hit max density with Stanford. USC seems like a pretty fun school, and Jeff would be a senior in college when Zach Hayes is a freshman or sophomore, so there's possibilities there... From reviews: I think it makes perfect sense. Think about it. JJ was born a preemie to a crack-addicted mother, and there were concerns that Bitty might have relapsed at some points during that pregnancy with JJ ending up a deformed crack baby. He didn't, but right when he was born, Jeanine knew that JJ's mother couldn't be a mother, and his father thought of him as an unfortunate consequence with his whore that didn't really happen. JJ simply needed Jeanine, probably much more than Will did, because Will had Brad, and there was no way to cut into the bond that existed between Will and Brad. So Jeanine focused on building a bond with JJ, and to a slightly lesser extent Darius, instead. And as Darius explained it, JJ is more into girly stuff than either Will and Darius are, so they had that in common. I'm sure JJ made a fantastic shopping and pedicure companion for Jeanine.

I want costumed intrepretors pretending to be Titanic passengers, like what they're doing at the Franklin institute. I wonder how many people they're going to have to stop from going to the bow and yelling, "I'm king of the world!" or "I'm flying, Jack."

Buzzfeed mocked up a Christian Dior ad of Jennifer Lawrence's fall. Pretty stunning ad, I think: She somehow managed to look graceful while falling on her ass. Pretty impressive.

I've had grey hair since I was a little boy. It was annoying because EVERYONE used to comment on it, but I'm used to it. I'm waiting for it to go fully grey so I stopped getting carded all the freaking time. It was fine in my early 20's but at nearly 30, getting carded is annoying.

It really doesn't seem possible that 1984 was 29 years ago. You know, I heard on my local oldies station. Kind of weird to think Madonna is now golden oldies music.

A surprising amount, apparently. I do it for shits n giggles, and I assume a fair amount do it, too.

Yeah, I really wished Bradley Cooper had a shot, because he was fantastic- but DDL gave a virtuso performance. No one had a shot. I'm also pretty happy that Jennifer Lawrence won. I loved Silver Linings Playbook.

I lived in a small Western Pennsylvania town called Indiana for two years, and I remember being told by people that Target would never come there because Wal-Mart would never allow a Target being close to it, and the town wasn't rich enough to support it. I do wonder what it's like if you're a straight guy who gets an M4M connection. I remember this creepy series of postings about someone who not only posted the guy's name, but where he worked at Home Depot. It wasn't just one time, but serveral times. It eventually got to the point where the actual guy posted about how creeped out he was about it, and how he was getting merciless teasing about it.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the only male in the Crampton/Schluter family that has been described as short was JP. Otherwise, it seems like everyone else is six feet or more, or almost there like Will. As for the childhood thing, one thing to keep in mind is that figure skaters are expected to repress any outward signs of sexuality, or partaking in activities that aren't considered wholesome. Unless you're safely over in EU competitions where they tend to care less about it, JJ needs to maintain a pristine image at all times. He can't do the kind of things that Will does, like drink or smoke pot or have an open sexuality. (And we're talking even a straight one- good little skaters don't have sex before marriage, or at least don't admit to it.)

Have a good one!

Isn't Wisconsin known as like the beer state, though? That totally makes sense. I got a kick out of this because I like reading the "Missed Connections" section of Craigslist for shits and giggles. There ARE a far amount of WaWa missed connections there. I think my favorite kind are, "You were such a friendly and helpful salesperson, and I couldn't help but notice you smiling at me." Edited to add: Nope, I looked over it- North Dakota and Vermont are also bar states. I just think it's funny that most of the states are Wal-Mart. I never would have thought Wal-Mart would be the place for a love connection.

I don't see JJ having any semblance of maturity until at least when he's 18 or 19. I think his little boy, emotionally stunted mindset will be around for at least a couple more years. It takes a long time for that to go away if you have it. I do love the contrast though- that Will is for all intents and purposes a young man, while JJ, who's actually 9 months older, is still very much a little boy and will remain that way for at least a few more years.

I think it's fascinating to discuss why some narrators work well, and others do not. That is an incredibly good point that the two narrators percieved as "failures"- Marcel and Gathan- were people who came from a rougher background and didn't really fit seamlessly into the family like Matt and Wade did. I know Mark's not from an "ultra rich" family, but if you go by how he described his family socioeconomic status in On The Mark, he seems to have come from an affluent, upper middle class background, meaning that it might be harder for him to get into the mindset of people who come from a blue-collar background. I'm from a poor background but I went to college with mainly upper middle-class kids at U of D (it was where affluent Jersey and Long Island kids typically went), and when I went to graduate school in a solidly working class Western Pennsylvania town called Indiana, I was shocked by how different the mindset is. Indiana is similiar in being a rust belt town like Zanesville (which Claremont is modeled on), and there's this very tough, blue collar mindset there despite there being a big university. As for the "repeating of situations"...hmm. I think there are some things that can be homages, and history does have a way of repeating itself in some way. What myself and the rest of Mark's writing team try to steer him away from blatantly playing out the same storylines from older books with younger model characters. For example, if you brought in someone that could be a Hayes, that's one thing. If Mark brought in a Hayes who was looking for his father because he needed a bone marrow match, or a Hayes who was found being raised in Europe with mean parents, that'd be what we call a "redux" or a rehash of a previous storyline that was already done well in the first place. Re-hashing storylines (which is what Little House on the Prairie did when they introduced a "new Nellie" and a "new Laura" in the form of Nancey Oleson and Jenny Wilder) is the sign of a t.v. series or book series that is running on fumes creatively. What would be the point of reading a Matt Carrswold re-hash if we already have Bloodlines to read? I've talked to someone who stopped reading the series because he felt like Mark was setting up Will as being a "Brad Redux", as in Mark was going to give Will Brad's old storylines but just with new names and younger characters and have it take place in the 2000's instead of the 1980's. So far, Mark's done a great job in making Will his own character and not a knock-off of Be Rad. He's had similiar things occur to Will that occured to Brad when he was young, but at no point reading Poor Man's Son or Paternity did I think, "Wow, didn't we already do this in Be Rad?" Now, that's not to say that Mark shouldn't have similiar situations re-occur, because that's life. So as long as it was done creatively in a way that didn't make one think, "Wait, didn't Mark already do this with Marcel and Matt?", I'm sure it'd be a good storyline.

Yeah. I just didn't get the impression that the Cramptons are "old money" the way the Danfields are. They're not "nouveau riche" like Robbie Hayes is, but they seemed more like an affluent family who didn't start reaching the stratosphere until the second half of the 20th century. I did like the deal with Jeff, and the reminder that Matt really did hit the adoption jackpot, even though his parents were kind of assholes to him for a couple of months. I did like how Gathan found Matt kind of arrogrant and didn't really seem to like him all that much, either. I think there's gotta be this certain "blue blood" bearing to Matt that people who know he's got trashy white trash roots would probably find annoying. I think Nana could be a good influence on JJ. I'd love it if through her, JJ came to like learning about certain subjects, such as art history or literature. I think JJ would be good at those kind of subjects.

See, I get what you're saying. It's also entirely possible that the Cramptons had money in Europe but then saw their fortunes decline, sparking a decision to wind up here. There was a fair amount of landed gentry in the 1800's and 1900's that basically had no money, which is why they were willing to inter-marry with American heiresses in swaps for titles during the Gilded Age. It doesn't seem like they have titles, or at least you'd probably have to go several times removed to get to that. I think it's pretty interesting to speculate on their family history, since the furthest we've gone back is Tonto and Maman's generation. I'm really happy that you're interested in speculating on this with me, Westie. It looks like we're both pretty interested in history here. Cool. :2thumbs: I'm, more of an American history guy, so I'm really glad for your input from a European perspective there, Westie. Thanks!!! I'm not sure JJ would want to permanently leave El Segundo. That's a pretty damn good club, apparently. It doesn't seem like there's one on that kind of level in the Bay Area. I had Daisy check on that. I can't blame him either, but I was a bit disapointed in that. As Mark told me, Wade doesn't really know the happy, friendly version of JJ, just the bitchy diva version of him. I really do hope that they start to bond at some point, like the way Will is getting on Matt's good side.

I always liked that Matt was someone who by birth should have never been a part of blue-blood culture, but was raised as a blue blood anyway. The Cramptons have a lot more money than the Carrswolds, but I think the Carrswolds likely have more of an old money pedigree than they do. My guess is that the Carrswolds are a Mayflower kind of family, whereas the Cramptons seem more like solid Mid-West 1800's immigrant stock that capitalized on the post-railroad building boom. Tiffany was once a promising figure skater who grew up with grandparents that expected a lot out of her. I think someone who had that kind of ambition as a young girl wouldn't be complacent with just raising kids for gay guys, especially considering that she saw what happened with Jeanine and just how well being what was essentially the live-in nanny worked out for her. When JJ goes back to L.A....if she wants to stay his coach, I can't really see where Wade would be able to stop her. That could tip Wade into attending UCLA Law.

I think the tutoring thing makes sense for this semester, but I do hope JJ gets a second chance to go back to HW and prove that he can handle the courseload for sophomore year. From how Private Tim describes the school, I think they'd be willing to give him a second chance if Brad(and perhaps JP) tell them that JJ was under major emotional stress for his freshman year. I think his friendship with Allister could keep him pretty grounded, and I like that there's a friendship that doesn't seem to have any sexual undertones to it. If we are indeed not skipping over these guy's high school years, I would like to see more of JJ and Allister at HW. I'm not sure how realistic it is for Tiffany to really become JJ's full-time coach, but I think it makes sense that she could coach him while he's in San Francisco and preparing for his eventual triumphant return to El Segundo for the '01-'02 season. It didn't surprise me that was what Jeff's issue was with Matt, but I'm kinda suprised that this wasn't something that happened with Gathan instead. Finally, I liked the bit where Wade is uncomfortable with the idea of Tiffany eventually moving to Los Angeles to be JJ's coach. Of course, right now there's a short-term solution, but I don't think there's going to be a pat solution to the arrangement like there was with Brad/Robbie/Jeanine. Tiffany doesn't seem like she'd try to keep Riley from Wade, but Tiffany also doesn't seem like she wants to become their live-in nanny, either. And unlike Jeanine, she's not beholden to their purse strings, so if things ever got ugly that's not something they could hold over her head. Then there's the issue of where Wade winds up going to law school, and whether or not Matt goes to grad school or enters the corporate world after college. You can't get a true picture of how things are going to work out until at least 2002.

So much for Harvard-Westlake. Man. I'm kinda bummed. I really liked the idea that we'd get to follow a few legacy characters going to the same school.

So, this is basically a map of the United States, with each state labeled as the most common locations where "Missed Connections" listed on Craigslist occur. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/fascinating-map-of-the-most-frequently-cited-locations-where Pennsylvania and Delaware were both "convenience store" states...I'm guessing WaWa really does serve as a romantic connection for people. I'm kinda surprised that South Carolina was the only "football game" state...I thought for sure Texas would be one, too. I like that Idaho was called the Land of the Heterosexual Male, and Hawaii is of course the gayest state. LOL.

Every once in awhile I need that bitchslap to remind me. Thanks, Mark. I really needed that bitchslap. See though, I actually like how dickish the lacrosse players I knew back in early college were. They were fun to party with. It's totally not a knock at all.

The other deal is that I'm not sure how it wouldn't be a replay of Matt and then Wade's hockey team drama, unless the storyline is going to be about more than just having Will fuck his way through the polo team and then deal with bratty teammates. Besides, as Private Tim describes it, water polo is a fun sport with fine, upstanding guys who all get along really well. Not much drama there.

I just bought my tickets. It was a total bitch of a moment, and I had to drop 238 on my card instead of 198 or 218 because all those tickets sold out at an suspiciously fast rate, but yeah. I got my tickets! In celebration, I'm going to post one of my favorite songs from MGMT, who is on the lineup... I'm now looking forward to seeing Tom Petty, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foster the People, Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Calvin Harris, Passion Pit, The Lumineers and Matt and Kim. I'm also looking forward to getting introduced to all these great new music acts that I hadn't heard before, like when GroupLove played at the 2012 festival. I haven't decided yet if I want to camp there like I did last year. I only live about an hour north of the site, and I don't know...the campsite wasn't really a campsite. I actually wound up walking at nights to the nearby Dover Downs casino so I could use their bathroom instead of the porta potties, which got pretty gross. It also rained a lot, so there weren't a lot of great night ragers there, either. It all depends on whether or not I find someone who wants to camp with me. If not, I could probably just hold back on the drinking and drive home every night. In any event, this will be a lot of fun. And this time around, I'm not spending 6 hours a day picking up trash. All the bitches that I had about that weekend last year were completely balanced out as soon as I saw The Killers launch into one great, rocking show that I'll never forget.

Brutally honest but true. After the 9/11 story, I'd actually like to see Matt deal with college graduation in 2002. I'm sure there will be some major angst to mine. As for Will...I think having Will do three straight stories in a row would be way overkill. Let the kid take a break for a bit and settle into a normal life for awhile. You don't want Mark to keep burning through storylines to keep Will front-burner. Hey though Private...maybe Tony and Gathan could co-narrate the next story. Gathan could be having sex with lots of girls, while Tony tries to have sex with girls but then needs to have some fun time with the boys on his soccer team while being really, really drunk.