methodwriter85

Glad to see you're still writing. I always like seeing it when Adam gets shit from people for being so damn privileged. The guy was a dick but he did have a point about the bullshit closeted guys try to pull in order to fit in.

Freaky shit. Officer Shot, Killed at Convenience Store in Bear, DE This stuff happens, but there's something surreal about this one for me because I am very familiar with the store. I used to walk there all the time when I was a kid because I lived like a 10-minute walk there back then. I also pretty much always get my gas from that WaWa- I'm usually at that store at least once a week or two weeks. This very pro-NRA conservative type posted a video about witnessing the shooting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpy85ir4wcY I can't even imagine how I'd react in that kind of situation.

Wow, it's been awhile since I updated. I usually don't go that long with this blog. Hmm. Winter was alright; early spring has been as well. My life has a general pattern right now- work, watching YouTube videos a lot, strolling Netflix, using my employee pass at the movies. On the weekends I have off, I usually will go into the city of Wilmington to catch either a play or a movie at either Theater N or Penn Cinema on the Riverfront. Possibly a beer or two every weekly or bi-weekly. It's a big cry from my heady days as a young college student, but eh, it kind of works for me. I find lately that I really enjoying being solitary, and not having to expend the energy to be Fun Loveable College Slacker Party Boy anymore. (I can still be that guy every once in a blue moon, but I feel a lot more relaxed now.) I do think a lot about where I'm going to go next. I've spent almost 2 years at this crummy (but ultimately easy and sometimes even fun) job being a movie concessionaire. Funny that Day 3 I was ready to quit; now here I am two years later at the same place. It's soul-crushing at times, but hey, a boy's got to eat, right? I don't know what or where or how I'm going to go to that next place. I've gotten pretty comfortable treading water, and it all still kind of works for me. The 5th anniversary of my grad school graduation is in May. Crazy, right? Thankfully, I did do volunteer work to keep my degree relevant, but I do wonder if I might wind up getting a certificate or something and doing something else. I have to see where things go. I find I don't feel a rush to get there. In my late 20's, I was so full of anxiety about making things happen and breaking into my field. (I think that's why I had my breakdown when my internship fell apart 3 years ago.) I felt like I was on some kind of timeline. At my early 30's, I just kind of feel...cool. I guess. Things will happen when they happen. Life has a funny way of dragging you into where you need to go and what you need to do. Anyway, by some dumb mistake, I'm stuck watching a musical called Once at the DuPont Theater in Wilmington more than I planned on seeing it. I meant to get the Saturday matinee, but I accidentally bought the Sunday matinee. I then bought the Saturday matinee ticket and hoped I could get someone to buy the Sunday matinee ticket off me for twenty dollars off, but no dice. It kind of sucks because I was planning on going to the season opening of the museum I volunteer with, but if I blow this off, I'm throwing 63 credit card dollars down the drain. So yeah, it looks like I'll be seeing Once twice. ;-)

I'm 31 and still stuck in a minimum wage job, with no real clue about what I want to do next despite my massively indebted college education. The thing I've come to realize, at least for me, is that there's no real timeline for "adulthood". Do you want. See what feels right. Don't listen to other people's input on what you should be doing. That's a real big difference from what I thought when I was in my mid-20's like you are now. Is it kind of embarrassing when I serve old college or high school friends? Absolutely. But all you can really do is forge the path that feels right, even if it's not what people think you should be doing.

Man. Will misses Zach so much. I'm still kind of shocked he actually did get to have that high school relationship- I figured Will would only have boyfriends over the age of 20. You can tell he's trying to use Dally to fill that emotional void...not that he means to, just that it's happening that way. I can tell you had a pretty vivid music soundtrack playing when you wrote this chapter. Well-done.

Chapter 43 -Buzz's funeral. "When I'm Gone" by 3 Doors Down I really associate this song with the War on Terror/The Iraq War, probably because of the video being very military and this song hitting it when the wars were heating up. "I Hope You Dance" by LeeAnn Womack -When Will and Dally passionately kiss. "I've Been Waiting for A Girl Like You" by Foreigner -When Will hears the song that makes him think of Zach. "I Miss You" by Aaliyah Mark basically did my job for me this chapter. Cool.

"Chicks Dig It" seems like a Preston anthem.

Chapter 42 -When Will bitches about the music Preston is playing in his car. "Cowboys From Hell" by Pantera (Metal) "Chicks Dig It" by Chris Cagle (Country) -When Will and Preston get into a betting mood. "Theme From The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" -When Will rides the horse. "Theme From the Magnificent Seven" I have a distinct memory of my 2nd grade class doing a twirling baton ribbon dance to this song at a high school football game. 1994, I think? Thank god my family is poor and didn't have a camcorder back then. LOL.

Alexandra's youngest son is supposed to be fat. (Not the military one. The one who plotted with her against Brad.) I think it's been said that Ethan lost the extra weight, though.

Mark, so is this like a look yet where you are? Here, it's been around since about 2012-2013. You telling me that the whole shaggy hair thing didn't hit the Mid-West until like 2007 makes me wonder if they have this look yet where you are. The "hip" look seems to be an undercut haircut with a shaved-in part, a v-neck t-shirt, and cuffed jeans with Brogans. Although for younger guys (teenager to about mid-20's), I've noticed that the basic general look seems to be this: fitted button-down shirts(both solid color and patterned), slimfit khaki pants (cargo pants are seriously out) and canvas shoes. Also, Hollister and Abercrombie are so far out of the loop the only guys I see wearing that are my age or older, kind of like they're trapped in some kind of 2005 style loop. One thing I've noticed that's kind of weird- young guys don't wear ankle-length socks like my peers did when we were their age. Guys my age- we stuck with either flip-flops or we wore low-rise socks. Guys now seem to be longer length socks. Not calf-socks from the 1970's, but the socks are longer enough to actually be seen. Northface has definitely gotten replaced by Patagonia, and for the preppy crowd, LaCoste has been ditched for Vineyard Vines. We're definitely at the part of the decade where most fashion traces of the previous decade have faded out and the trends that this decade will be remembered for are around right now.

I got a kick out of Dally being fat. It really was a more innocent time where you could converse on a phone with someone and have no idea what they looked like. Yes, camera phones and social media were around, but it wasn't as pervasive yet. Had this taken place a year or two later, Will probably would have looked Dally up on Myspace and realized what he looked like. I wonder if their town stays a small place, or it gets caught up in the exploding population boom around Austin. It's supposed to be close to Austin, right? Austin's population since the time the story takes place has grown by almost 300k people, just within the city limits. That has to be spilling out into suburb sprawl and turning former small towns into busier places. Hmm. I wonder if Stefan would ever consider investing in Texas real estate.

Chapter 41 -When Will hangs out with Dally and his friends in small-town America. "Red Dirt Road" by Brooks and Dunn -When Dally tells Will about his father. "The Saddest Song" by the Ataris

Tet, your countdown to 30 has begun! Happy birthday!

Chapter 40 - When the gang arrives in Texas. "God Blessed Texas" by Little Texas

Hey, question for guys who were young men who lived in California circa 2003-2006.... Mark's memory of men's hairstyles in 2003-06 basically involves them looking like this. (Will's hair is supposed to look like this, just with dark auburn hair.) Which I remember too.. but I also remember in summer/fall 2003, this look was starting to creep in: The idea with this look was that guys were letting their hair grow out of the short and spiky trend of the late 90's/Y2K era. A little less product, with bangs and hair curling in what I called "wings". Or alternately, long with sideswept bangs like Aaron Samuels from Mean Girls: Both pictures are from circa 2003-2004, the current CAP time period. Would Will, a teen from California, think long hair looked unfashionable? I'm just questioning that because on the East Coast, at least, guys were actually starting to ditch the spiky short look in 2003. (By '05-'06, I felt like every hot jock/frat boy I knew and lusted over had longer hair like this.) But from Mark's memory, that look wasn't yet around in the Mid-West.

This has been a shitty year for icons from the 70's and 80's. R.I.P. Carrie. I really did love watching Meryl Streep bring to life Postcards from the Edge.

R.I.P.

Someone raised a good point that they have a hard time seeing a Texas family court allowing a non-relative gay male from another state have custody of a underaged teenager if the family chooses to contest the will, but I'm guessing Buzz figured out a way around that. As for JJ...what I think is interesting is that he's capable of being very perceptive about how other people. He's just dense about how he affects other people.

So...Buzz didn't think it was kind of weird that neither Will or JJ waited until they were 18 to leave Brad's care? Eh. Dally will probably just wind up at a boarding school anyway. It does say something that Buzz doesn't want his family to take care of Dally. Man. JJ's on Bitch Level 8 or 9 mode. Hope he gets the fuck over it and stops being a dick to Carullo.

I'm not surprised Will is graduating early (honestly I thought he would have done it during the spring 2003 semester), but I'm kind of surprised he plans to head East. Will seems like such a true blue Californian that I'm kind of shocked he's not staying on the West Coast. He'll need a nice new Northface black fleece jacket for that crispy Northeast fall weather.

I'm honestly kind of surprised Will didn't try to graduate during last year. He never really seemed to be that "in" to high school. Mark has been vague enough about what classes these kids are taking that you can just basically believe that Will has been taking enough credits that he can graduate a semester early. And then there's creative liberties and all that. It kind of would have been nice to see Marie, Will, and JJ do the whole "class of 2004" graduates thing, but then JJ dropped out of 9th grade and Will is graduating early. So, eh. I so wanted to use the Graduation song, too. Oh, well. Mark basically already did that anyway with Brad, Robbie, and Ace and the class of 1981. Can we send to Will to Australia for his gap semester? He would love it there. Surf all around and really hot guys. BTW, Mark, have you watched the Social Network yet? You need to. It nails the time period. Apparently every single shirt Mark wears in the movie is one he wore in real life. Funny to think that Will's going to have a Facebook account within the next year. It didn't make it down to where I'm from until '05. Myspace was big first. Someone should get Will a Northface black fleece jacket. He'll need it.

Not my idols, but I think these guys were the U.K.'s answer to the Backstreet Boys. Or were they like second-rung, equivalent to 98 Degrees? Not sure. Any U.K. people in their early 30's want to answer this one?

Growing Pains Star Alan Thicke Dies of Heart Attack at 69 Pretty sad. His youngest son is only 19. I loved Growing Pains as a little kid. Jason Seaver was a pretty cool dad.

Hey guys, check out the trailer for the brand-new Spiderman movie coming out next summer! Thank god this isn't an origin story. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

When Will was 14, his mental age was 17. At 15, it was 19. At 16/near 17, it's now 25. Does this mean that when he's 20 he'll have the mental age of a 50-year old? In all seriousness, I did enjoy the teen angst and drama. Try to appreciate that more, Will- once day you wake up and you're 30 years old and have no idea where all the time went.