methodwriter85

I can't picture Marie as written so far ever going along with anything she didn't agree with because her cousin said so. I really can't. Will does feel like a leader, but not in a autocratic way- more like a Democratic way. He had to work and negotiate with Darius on the issue of Jeanine's care- I don't think Darius would have responded if it were more like an edict. Of course, given that Brad's generation is only approaching their late 40's/early 50's NOW (and are still in their 30's in CAP time), it seems incredibly premature to wonder about the dynastic succession for WIll's generation, as the oldest of them would in 2012 only be barely out of their 20's. It would make a lot of sense if the mold kind of ends with Brad's generation, though. I agree that it's nice that we seem to be getting the "Academic" back into CAP. Brad and Robbie went to Ivy League schools and are very bright, but neither of them seem to have the same level of academic spirit or thirst for knowledge (YES, I KNOW THEY SENT THEIR KIDS TO HARVARD-WESTLAKE, PRIVATE TIM. I STILL THINK IF THEY WERE HARD-CORE ACADEMICS IT WOULD HAVE COME ACROSS IN THE STORY LIKE IT DID FOR J.P. IN HIS TWO STORIES, OR HELL, LIKE IT DID FOR ANDY SHARPE IN CROSS-CURRENTS EVEN THOUGH HE WAS ALSO A MAJOR PARTY BOY) that Will's been displaying. The marine biology lesson from Will remains my favorite moment from him.

They've released a bunch of these portraits ...they're done up Capitol haute couture portraits for all the different characters. They look pretty great, especially Katniss. They really upped the wardrobe for this film, which is great. Katniss's interview dress was such a disapointment in the Hunger Games. Check out Sam Claflin as Finnick O'Dair...after seeing this, I totally think he's going to pull the character off: Would I have preferred Armie Hammer? Yeah, but I think Sam looks pretty hot as Finnick. He's got fantastic bone structure. I love that he's got what is essentially a pirate costume on. I totally think that fits with his District 4, sea-goer image. Anyway...8 more months! Yay!

And Jeff likely would have been born well after Brad and the Gunn High Class of 1981 graduated (it'd be sometime around the first half of 1982), so if Lark had gotten a girl pregnant towards the end of senior year, she probably wouldn't have been showing through the summer after graduation. I mean, if Brad didn't find out that his sister had a baby until said baby was a freaking three year old, I could easily see him missing that Lark had a kid, especially if the mother hid the pregnancy from everybody she went to high school with.

Well, I turned the offer down. I thought very long and hard about it, and it came to this... I would be driving 30 miles each way for the commute, with a roundtrip 1:30 to 2 hour commute, for about 4 to 5 hours of work at 9 dollars an hour. With gas incredibly likely to hit close to 5 dollars a gallon this summer (and at best, 4 dollars), plus the wear and tear this would do to my 8-year old car, it just didn't seem worth it for what would amount to maybe 40 dollars a day. I might as well just volunteer at a local museum. There are quite a few of them in Delaware, especially in Chateau Country. (Thank you, du Ponts.) It was definitely one of the hardest decisions I've made in a long while, but sometimes you really just have to go with your gut. And my gut was screaming at me that this isn't a good fit. I did get something out of this interview, though. I realized that I'm not comfortable with driving more than 30 minutes for a commute to a job that isn't full-time, unless I could take a rail or bus ride to it. I also realized that I'm more interested in doing archival work than I am in doing historically intrepretive work. And that's pretty valuable information to realize, I think. I think one of the important things about adulthood is figuring out what your limits are and learning to work within them. The director of the plantation seemed to understand when I leveled with him about how I was not comfortable with the commute, and I did ask to keep him as a contact, with he agreed with. I do feel like I learned a lot from this experience.

I'm not entirely sure how well the idea of "one ruler" is going to work with the Will/JJ/Darius/Marie/John generation...when Crampton Construction was the family company and everyone was concentrated at Claremont and later on at Escorial, it was one thing, but this seems like a generation with wildly different interests that could and should take them all over the globe. It might become like what happened with the British monarchy, where there's a ceremonial "head", but all the real decisions are reached by Parliament. I can see Will as a leader, but I can't see him as the kind of leader who would expect everyone to follow his orders, like the way Brad does. I think it'd be more a republic and less of an autocrat feel to it. Mark, are you familiar with the story of the Du Pont family? I think it's an interesting model to read about...at one time, they were very much in the mode of that French family mode, especially as they were building their gunpowder empire in the United States. They had what constituted as a "chateau country" in the Brandywine River Valley, and had the kind of regional power the Cramptons seem to have. But that feeling diminished as the Du Pont Company became less and less of a family run company, and more of a global company after the 1990's. Of course, this is something that wouldn't really be an issue until Will and the gang are at least in their 30's, and that's not til the mid-2010's, and I'm not sure we're going all the way up there, unless Mark has this burning desire to explore Riley's teenaged rebellion circa 2015.

Hunter Parrish from Weeds as Ryan? I kind of had him in mind for JJ, too, but I think Ryan would fit better, now that I know you don't picture Ryan as having rounded features. (I totally had Ryan pictured as having a round face and facial features.) If you've ever seen him in Zac Efron's 17 Again, he's incredibly good at playing the high school bully, which is what Ryan was when he first appeared. If you' agree to this one, you'd be fufilling Adam's request to have someone looking like Hunter Parrish in CAP. LOL.

Adam Phillips has talked at length about his observations in guys who "walk the fine line", and how clearly straight or clearly gay starts to become blurred, so I think Noah is representing a little of that. Gathan especially represented the guys of the 2000's who clearly did abscribe to any sexual labels to themselves...Noah seems more along of the lines of straight guys who can flirt around with gay guys and not be uncomfortable with it. I called it "jokingly gay"...I noticed it a lot in 2003, but I'm sure it was around in 2001, especially considering these people are living in a liberal area of California. Finally, I really like Noah being straight, because I think Will strikes me as someone who would mostly have straight friends and not relate that much to stereotypical gay guys. (The exception being JP and Stefan.) That was true of my experience in college- I had some gay friends, but all of my very good friends in college were straight. The big bulk of the openly gay kids at UD were of the shallow, "I can't believe you wore those shoes with your hair!" variety. That's why I was shocked when I went to IUP and met gay kids who could carry on conversations about things that went beyond hair and clothes. Tim, I really agree with you about liking the social mixing. In my high school experience, social lines weren't played out along the lines of the popular head cheerleader and the quarterback and their stuck-up friends made high school hell for everybody else. There were bitches and stuck-up people at my school, but for the most part, everybody just did their own thing, and social groups would often mix. I like that Will's high school experience is apparently going to reflect that more instead of Brad's high school experience, which seemed very much of the whole "rich, good-looking kids terrorize the poor, normal-looking" kids that we see so much of in Hollywood movies about high school. It does happen (Adam Phillips's Cross-Currents definitely described his school as having the vibe where the rich good-looking kids ruled everything), but there are other kinds of experiences, too.

As much as I would have liked Noah as Will's boyfriend, I'm glad that he's got a male high school friend for whom there will be no sexual tension.

I was wondering if there was going to be any bitterness by Niners fans towards the Ravens. I'm kinda suprised by it- I thought it was a rather clean Super Bowl, where both sides played great (first half- The Ravens, second half- The Niners), and where both sides were pretty respectful of each other.

I'm going to be honest. This is actually the first job I've applied to since I left my holiday season temp job in January. So it's not like I've been searching for three months. This was kind of an "on the whim" job application. It was worth it to go on the interview, either way. I hadn't been on a job interview since October, so it was good to refresh those skills. Someone told me to think of it as like this- you don't come into a job interview with the implicit understanding that you're going to take the offer if it's given to you. Both sides need to realize it's a good fit. Every bit of my gut instinct is telling me not to take the job. Even my mother doesn't think it's a good idea. A mother of a unemployed graduate. Telling him that it's not a good idea to take a job offer.

I got a job offer as a seasonal intrepreter at a historical plantation in Pennsylvania. I'm not really jumping up and down about it. I had mis-givings about the job when I drove up there...the plantation is pretty out of the way and wasn't easy to find even with GPS, and it's about a roundtrip 90 minute to 2 hour commute. The job only offers 9 dollars an hour, and it's based on when school groups tour. On one hand, this is good experience, and I haven't had a job in a three months. On the other hand, I'm not sure the wear and tear the commute would take on my car would be worth it, as well as just the stress of the commute. Finally, I think that I'm more interested in archival work, as opposed to intrepretive living history. At 17, living history is what I thought I wanted to do, but after three internships of archive work...I think I really think I'm leaning towards that. I'm more inclined to work some job within the area and then volunteer at a historical society on weekends while I wait for the right opportunity to open up than to take this job. I'm leaning towards saying no (I wanna say 80 percent of me is thinking no), but there's this fear...what if I don't get a job offer again? I don't know, it's confusing. If I do go through with turning down the job offer on the phone(the guy gave me his personal number to call for when I reach my decision), do any of you have any advice about how to do it respectfully and without alienating them? I mean, if I lived closer, or these was a reliable transit route, or this was more of a full-time job I'd probably had said yes without hestitation, but I'm not so sure.

Not necessarily, though. Roger "snaughed", and he wasn't a Hayes. And Matt Carrswold is biologically a Hayes, but he doesn't snaugh. I don't think any of the characters have described Matt as snaughing.

Joe Flacco on his new 120.6 million dollar deal: Joe Flacco: It's About Respect, Not the Money Way to go, Flacco. It's pretty amazing to think that a guy who five years ago was talking to his college football coach about possibly joining the baseball team instead of going out for the senior combine now holds the most lucrative contract in the NFL.

Yeah, that would have been in the early 1960's. Hot Jeff would have been born in 1981 or 1982.

Yeah. That's why I said, "If you made Theo James a little bit darker..."

If you took Theo James (aka the ill-fated Turk from season 1 of Downton Abbey) and made him a little darker and 18 years old, I could see him as Darius: He definitely has the exotic, ethnically ambigious good looks down, I think.

Let's congratulate Mark for winning best hosted story with Paternity! It's been an interesting 4 and a half years working with you as part of the team. There have been times where I've been really frustrated with you, and vice versa, but I think we've done a great job of working through it and I really hope that we as a writing team have helped you create the best work that you can do. *hugs* You're like the zany fun older uncle I never had, and I'm glad to be your e-friend. In celebration, I thought I'd post a song...enjoy!

Hey Blue, I'm wondering... Mark has his characters saying "that's raw", as in "that's awful" or "that sucks", quite a lot. Do you remember ever saying that with your friends? I'm racking my brain trying to remember it, but I don't. I feel like I would have heard and said "that bites", "that sucks", or "that's a dick move" in place of how the characters seem to be using "that's raw." Mark, where are you getting the "raw" thing from? Off of a website, or personal memory? It doesn't feel like something that would be anachronistic, but I'm curious about it, because it's not a slang word I remember using that much. Is it possible that it's actually 80's slang that wasn't that popular with my generation? Or is it possibly slang that's particular to your area and just didn't hit my area, Mark?

I think it's within the edge of possibility. Robbie's mom would have been in her early/mid-40's in 1981/1982. I'm also going with Ryan's father, but I'm not sure about it being a relative of Robbie's.

Here's a pretty life-affirming story about a man who found an abandoned baby on a subway, and would eventually raise the child with his boyfriend, and then get married to him by the same judge who allowed him to raise the child. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/we-found-our-son-in-the-subway/ What a great story. Family really does come in all different shapes and sizes.

I'm really shocked Corbin's article was allowed to be run in the first place. Then again, my school newspaper was nothing but a propaganda piece for University of Delaware.

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.