methodwriter85

Well, to be honest, I thought Brad was going to be pretty central by nature of the fact that he's still recovering from 9/11 and he's going through the dating scene. Brad remains Mark's avatar for the things (and men) that he wishes he could do. As for Will...eh. Mark clearly loves writing for Will but it's not really his conflicts that are carrying this particular story forward. The last time we had a story that wasn't an ensemble piece was Millennium...ever since then, it's basically been either a dual-narrator, or an ensemble piece. Poor Man's Son really signaled that shift- we were set up with the idea that it was Gathan's story and he was the title character, and then Will basically went from being the supporting character to the dual character and then basically the lead character while Gathan got demoted to supporting. So after that experience, I don't really expect anyone to "really" be the star even if the title would indicate that they were. As for why we haven't seen that much of Zach and JJ as the marquee and title would indicate, you gotta remember that Zach and JJ's seasons are just getting started.

Well, it kind of makes sense that we're hearing a lot from Brad and Will, because we're hitting both the 1-year anniversary of 9/11, and Will's 16th birthday.

I just think it's funny that 20 years ago, Brooklyn and the outerboroughs were places you escaped FROM to move to Manhattan, and nowadays people are moving there from Manhattan, especially Brooklyn. They're even building skyscrapers in Brooklyn now. It's funny to think that in maybe 10 or so years, Queens or Staten Island will be some kind of happening, hip hotspot. LOL. In 10 years, I hope they will have FINALLY done something with The Gallery at Market East Mall in Philadelphia. That place was a dump in 2004 long before any kind of Great Recession, and from what I've heard, it's still a shithole. They've had plans for years but nothing ever seems to pan out. I'm not sure I can agree with the idea that Philly is going to become like D.C. or Boston, though- not unless they somehow get a large influx of white-collar jobs, and I'm not sure how likely that really is. Also in 15 years, I predict colleges will be scrambling from declining enrollments, because the Great Recession put a damper on birthrates. The percentage of foreign students at colleges will be pretty high by then, I bet.

Brooklyn will have a lot more skyscapers, and the people priced out of Manhattan and Brooklyn will start gentrifying Staten Island or Queens.

Chapter 4 -When JJ narrates the opening of the 2002 Nebelhorn Trophy in Germany, and gets into bitchy competition mode. "Murder on the Dancefloor" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor This is more Europop than American pop, which at the time was waning in favor of hip-hop. In any event, it's a funny video, and it makes me wonder what JJ would be willing to do in order to win.

Tiffany seems like she's a lesbian who will occasionally have sex with men, but wouldn't actually get into a relationship with one. (I was actually hoping she'd be more on the bisexual side, but that doesn't seem to be where Mark has gone with her because we only see her considering female love interests.) I'm not sure a Tiffany/JJ/Alex triangle could happen, especially considering that she's JJ's lone mother figure now. I also cannot see Tiffany willing to play the beard for anybody, given her own experience of getting crucified by the sport for refusing to play straight like Nicole Bobek did. I looked up the guy, Craig Buntin. Not bad at all. Too bad JJ has his policy about not mixing with other skaters (although Evan seems like an exception), but it's probably smart to avoid that. I really like how many layers there are to JJ- he's so hard to read because he's so enigmatic. He wants to exercise utter control over his emotions, but he can't, and I like how that paragraph was juxtaposed with him talking to his infatuation, Alex. The other thing I thought was interesting is JJ responding to being looked at, in that way. He's used to being the little 12-year old looking shrimp that no one ever gives an appreciative once-over at, while they lust over Darius and Will. It'll be interesting to see how he handles that kind of attention, which will probably start increasing the further along he gets into his career. When we met Will at 13, he was already pretty developed in terms of his sexual interactions with people...with JJ, we're getting more of a neophyte who, aside from his abusive coach, has only ever really made out with people. It'll be interesting to see how JJ handles becoming sexual, especially considering that he's expected to hide that sexuality in order to be the perfect virginal asexual figure skater.

Adam, you rock! Happy birthday.

There's this storyline on the Young and the Restless where a woman who looks like this guy's dead daughter is scheming to seduce him. Not that he fell for it, but it made me think about Blue saying how creepy it was that J.P. slept with a guy who looked like a copy of his dead son who died at 15. Although Mark has really backed off on the idea that the Hayes men look exactly alike, starting with Matt's generation. I wonder if part of that was to avoid situations involving the weirdness of sleeping with people who look so much like another loved one. How weird would it have been if Zach had looked exactly like Robbie and Will still slept with him?

I mean, really, they got 1.3 million views. That's not a bad haul at all, and I'm sure that they'll at least get some curious people from near the area to go. All free publicity there, except for the 200 dollars they probably spent paying the high school kid to shoot and edit the ad on his IPhone. It's like those it's so bad it's good deals, and it's not like professional people haven't come up with anything that bad and cheap-looking: You realize how many millions of dollars were spent to air this ad for the SuperBowl circa 2004? Also random...anyone ever shop at Rue 21? It's a good cheap clothing store. I have a polo I got from there like four years ago that I still like wearing.

Some mall in Missouri decided to put out a jingle for back-to-school shopping, and...well... Something tells me that Mark Arbour despite being from the state has never set foot inside that mall.

Chapter 3 -When Brad and Cam start talking to each at the club. "Hey Ma" by Cam'Ron I remember being intensely anti-hip-hop by about 2002 because it was EVERYWHERE and you were forced to listen to it all the time, but I don't know, I can enjoy this 2002 hip-hop stuff now. I had buried my head into Blink 182 and Good Charlotte poppy punk sand, but this stuff isn't so bad to listen, either. It was featured in a pretty sweet scene from End of Watch.

Mark, you tagged the Streak as 20th century. Shouldn't that be 21st century? Anyway.... The same kind of father who basically dumped raising him to Jeanine for 14 years so that he could focus on being besties with his biological son? I wonder if Brad even realizes that JJ basically considers himself lucky that they aren't very close because as JJ put it, being Brad's favorite comes with a pretty heavy price, one that both Will and Robbie had to experience.

Hey guys, I talked to Tim Saturday and he's doing as well as can be expected. He lucked out and was able to get the charges reduced to a misdemeanor after some cops were talked down. (It's good to know some cops, I guess.) He has a hearing to try and get his car back, and he'll have his hearing October 1st, but things are looking good for him, thank god. He'll just have to pay a shitload of court costs and the like. He'll be alright, I think. Tim told me he went back on Prozac and is seeing a therapist again, so I think he'll be fine. I'm just glad that the whole felony thing won't happen...having a misdemeanor conviction is one thing, but a felony is a whole 'nother thing. As for the saying goodbye bit...I won't lie, I've been down for the past week. And it does bother me that I missed the actual service. At the same time though...I thought a lot about how much Steve HATED ceremonial/formal stuff. It just wasn't his thing at all. He bounced from Delaware as soon as he was done with finals instead of staying around for graduation. We had our real goodbye to college right before we both headed off to our respective grad schools, when we hung out at Brett and Tim's junior year house. So there's something that kind of feels right about the fact that I missed the ceremony, but I was there for the informal lunch where we sat around, ate, looked at photos, and talked about the guy that we all loved and now miss. That was definitely something I needed to do, be around people who don't just dismiss Steve as some junkie that brought his death on himself, so I feel grateful that I got to do it. Some people were talking about having some informal memorials for Steve down the line, which I really hope happens.

So I was checking out Mark's replies to the reviews... And I really, really like that you're going this way with Zach. I love that he's not having some kind of epiphany about how much team work really matters and yada yada yada. It's a great departure from Wade and Matt, who dearly loved their teammates and made really close friends with them. He's a lone wolf, with a few people he lets in, much in the way JJ is. Although with JJ's case, he pretty much latches on to one person and makes them his entire world. I don't think Zach does that, but he does appreciate having Will as an anchor. As for the Streak description...I kinda like that you went succinct there, as opposed to the long, drawn out description we usually get that directs people to the other stories that they've been in. I mean, at 15 stories...

I just think it's funny that the one and only time we've seen someone get arrested for statutory rape in CAP was Gathan in a case that wasn't even statutory as Kristin was 17 and legal in Ohio at the time. As compared to the many, many incidents of actual statutory rape that has happened in CAP, especially since Will became our main oversexed Lolita protagonist. At this point with him being close to 16 it doesn't really bother me anymore...although to be honest, when I was 14, I knew kids in my 8th grade class were having sex and it didn't bother me at all. Although if you think about it, Will's sister Maddy would be close to 14 right now in August 2014. I wonder what his reaction would be if she even came close to the amount of sexual hijnks that Will did when he was 13/nearly 14, particularly if she decided to do a striptease at a European club. LOL. It'll be interesting to see what Riley and Maddy are like as teenagers, and whether or not they'll see themselves as siblings, or...what I'm hoping, engaging in a cute love story that will make La Danfield's head explode. It's kind of blurred there. Particularly when we're talking about guys in their 20's who are basically out for a good time. You think you're invincible at that age. Well, most of them do.

Chapter 1 -When JJ expositions his crush on Alex. "Crush" by Mandy Moore Honestly, this type of stuff feels so much more appropriate for JJ than it ever did for Will, save for Will's first story. It's kind of nice to do music recs for someone who's 16 going on 17, as opposed to 14 going on 21. Chapter 2 -When Brad feels a spark with Cam. "At First Sight" by Kylie Minogue I've loving that we've got the Kylie Minogue revival going on at this point. Aside from 8 Mile-era Eminem and Linkin Park, she was probably one of favorite bright spots in this year, which is admittedly not a favorite music year of mine. I was SO sick of J.Lo by this point in time. Sorry this took so long...but in all honestly, if you guys have read my blog, there's been WAY too much emotional turmoil I've been going through and trying to work through so eh.

Yeah. That entire night and the next day, I kept thinking, "This can't be happening. It really can't be. This feels like some indie drama coming-of-age story about a young man who learns hard lessons about life, love, regrets, and death over one 24-hour period of his life." It was. I think when I'm 58, I'll still vividly remember this weekend. And yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking this weekend about what had been, what's happening, and what is still possible for me. There are a lot of regrets on my mind right now, but also a lot of really good memories, and still some good hope. The biggest thing I got out of this weekend...hell, out of the past couple weeks...that just because I'm pushing 30 doesn't mean I don't still have a hell of a lot of growing up left to do. The embarrassment of losing my internship absolutely paled in comparison when it came to having to wait in a parking lot for Tim's parents to pick us up. I felt like such a kid at that moment.

Damn. Just damn. Robin Williams Passes Away I grew up loving his 90's kid movies like Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Jumanji. He'll definitely be missed, R.I.P.

Lisa, I really can't get too much into details about Tim. As for Steve, he died of a heroin overdose back in November.

Thanks. The last couple weeks of my life have been one major emotional roller-coaster- losing my internship, watching my sister have a baby and thinking about the fact that Steve's never going to get to experience having kids or being married, getting ready for Steve's memorial, and then watching the "unfortunate set of circumstances that detained my friend Tim", and then actually going to Steve's memorial. I can't help but laugh about it, though. I thought to myself, "This could make a good indie film short about an emotional young man dealing with a career setback who visits his old college friends for the purpose of going to a memorial, goes out for a few drinks with them, gets pulled over by cops, sees one friend get arrested, gets hits with major detours, and then misses the service but not the reception. Then gets driven back home by some mutual friend and her Trinidad mother, who sympathetically listened to all the crazy emotional turmoil he's been through the past few weeks." I mean really, you just can't make this shit up. It was one of the most bizarre and surreal 24 hours I've ever experienced in my life. I cannot even describe what it was like to be 28-years old and have to wait in the parking lot for Tim's parents to pick us up, sit silently in the back of their car while they ranted at raved at one of the cops, then rant in the car while driving us back, and then sleep (or try to) in the basement of their house while their own son was locked up. Tim's problems made my own seem pathetically small in comparison. I faced the prospect of losing an unpaid internship at a small state parks division and no longer being able to get hired there. He's facing the very distinct possibility of having a felony conviction, which will wreck his life completely. It's amazing how things can happen that put things into perspective really quick

So, I took the Greyhound up to New York City on Friday, with the plan that I'd stay with a college friend that lived in Long Island. Another friend was coming, and we'd all go down to Steve's memorial the next morning. Well, that was the plan, anyway. The Greyhound was over an hour and half late- the New York City Tunnels are an absolute nightmare of traffic, though it was cool to see the New York City skyline complete with the new World Trade Center. The one and only time I had set foot in New York City was twelve years ago, and the skyline looked pretty different from what I remembered. Lots of new buildings seem to have sprouted up. I walked around Times Square/Broadway, which was just as chaotic and noisy and wonderful as I remember it being. After that, I took the Long Island Railroad (known as the Lirr) to my friend Tim's place. Our friend Brett, who comes from Rhode Island, had come down and was already at Tim's house. The evening started out pleasantly enough, with us just catching up on our lives. Brett had gone back to school for video game design, while Tim was teaching English at a charter school in the City. Tim's band was playing a gig at some dive bar, and it was an alright time. I was pissed off about paying 5 bucks for a freakin' Pabst, but otherwise I had a lot of fun. His band was good, some of the other bands were pretty good, and it felt like a nice callback to college when I had friends who were playing in local bands. There was one particular moment where I rocked out to this cover of "Dreams" by the Cranberries which was fun as hell. And Brett and I had a pretty good conversation revolving around the grief thing, which I really needed because I really, really needed to be physically around people who knew and care about Steve. That's been the one big thing I've been missing in processing this. We left and then hit a really unfortunate sidetrack. Not to go too much into details, but on our way back to Tim's place, Tim made a few wacky moves that got the attention of the cops. We were pulled over, the cop immediately accused Tim of being high as a kite, and then they found a stash in the car. There are a few more details there, but I can't really say much except that he's facing some very serious charges that could get him jail time. (I'm also extremely glad that I don't touch that stuff.) He got arrested, his car got impounded, and we had to sit out in the parking lot next to a Wendy's to wait for Tim's parents to pick us up. I have never experienced watching a friend get busted like that. It was the most bizarre feeling to deal with seeing a friend's entire life getting wrecked while knowing that we were also going to mourn a lost friend the next day. The ride back was extremely awkward, to say the least. Tim's father was angry as fuck- although he calmed down towards me because I was honest in telling him that I did not partake in anything that night. We literally had to sleep in the basement of Tim's parent's house while Tim was spending the night in jail. Tim's mother was very upset, and when I offered her a hug she pretty just sobbed for a little bit in my arms. It really made me think about what it would be like as a parent to see your kid make such a massive fuck-up...I just felt so bad for Tim, who is in serious danger of losing his teaching license, and his mother, who has to watch her son hit rock bottom. It REALLY put things in perspective, because I've been whining about my failed non-paid internship and the fact that I won't ever get a chance to work with that state agency again, and now I'm seeing a friend who is facing very serious charges that could basically render his teacher's training useless. Needless to say, we didn't sleep, and the next morning we had the awkwardness of talking to Tim's brother, who was understandably upset as hell. I was anxious to get the hell out of there, so we started our way towards New Jersey. Unfortunately, we were hit with traffic from hell in trying to get onto the Lincoln Tunnel, and it delayed us enough that we basically missed the actual memorial service. We literally got in there as someone was saying, "Now this concludes the memorial service." I watched from the door, and as they filed out, I looked for Ethan, who I wrote about in a previous blog that was Steve's resident at their dorm. When I saw him, I gave him a big hug and I knew I was close to losing it. Then Steve's girlfriend came up to me and told me that it was great to finally meet me, because Steve had talked so much about me and how much my friendship meant to him. I was then a blubbering mess for a couple seconds, and I managed to croak out, "It meant a lot to me, too." Steve's girlfriend and Ethan comforted me for those few moments, and I cannot tell you how much that meant to me, and how much I had been screaming out for a chance to mourn with people who loved him as well. Then at the lunch reception, I met Steve's parents. I met his mother first, who thanked me for sending out the card that I did back in December, and then she mentioned how much Steve would talk about me. I got the same general reception from Steve's father, who also mentioned that Steve did mention me a lot. When that happened, I felt like it was confirmation about how much Steve really cared for me as a friend, and as someone who has often been made to feel like he has to apologize for his existence, that was everything to know I really did have that. It was the reason why I knew there wasn't a chance in hell that I'd miss this, and even though I missed the actual ceremony, being able to meet with and talk to the people who also loved Steve was everything. One really cool thing was that I learned that someone had printed out the Facebook cell photo I had taken of Steve, enlarged it, and framed it...his parents loved the photo, which made me glad. I also talked with Steve's brother, which was also hard, because his brother looked a lot like Steve and I couldn't help but see Steve. But it was great telling him funny stories about my days on the U.D. campus with Steve. Aside from his family, I talked with his friends from high school as well as his Residence Life comrades, which was great- mixed with the tears there were also a lot of laughs and remembering of the good memories we had of him. After that, I managed to snag a ride from someone going down to D.C. (The original plan was that Tim would drive me back to Manhattan in time for my 8 p.m. bus departure and well you know how that went.) On the ride back, I looked up at the sky. It was beautiful out, big and blue with perfect fluffy clouds. I pictured Steve looking at me, smirking a little. I felt a massive sense of peace. Despite all the crap I had to go through in order to get there, I finally got to say my proper good-bye.

Tomorrow I'm getting ready to take a bus into New York City, spend an overnight at a college's friend's house, and then spend Saturday at my friend's memorial. So...here are songs I'm listening to. The Grief Playlist- Steve Edition 1. 2. " 3. "Boys of Summer" by the Ataris (Instrumental) 4. " 5. 6. 7. "Fields of Gold" by Sting 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. "Make You Feel My Love" from Glee 13.

Yeah, I meant Cam. Oops.

I honestly thought Cia has been your only boyfriend. Interesting.

I honestly can't see JJ giving a shit about graduating with a bunch of people he didn't even really go to school with. He really doesn't seem all that concerned with hitting the typical teenage rites of passages. Probably because he doesn't want to be a typical teenager in any way, shape, or form.