methodwriter85

No, no spoiling. I live in the northern Delaware area. Sharon lives somewhere around the Baltimore area. That's only about an hour drive. If I spoiled a major plot, she'd glean where I live based on my very public Facebook, show up on my doorstep, and then bitchslap me into next Sunday.

Eh, he's an institution. His wife actually was a professor at the community college I attended when the '08 campaign happened; it was pretty exciting. Delaware's strange in the sense that socially, we're a very "blue" state and pretty liberal, except for the stance on medical marijuana. But we've also got a very relaxed, "laissez-faire" tax system and a very "Corporations are Great!" mindset, which was probably fostered by the noblesse oblige that the Du Pont Corporation practiced throughout the 20th century for our state. That was what was interesting about living in Western P.A. for two years and running into that anti-corporate blue-collar Union mindset, especially when I was taking "History of the Labor Class" while Occupy Wall Street! happened. I think the problem with making Ethan central is just the fact that he's not at Menlo and he seems rather happy at the Webb School. And you're right that the high school scene is pretty crowded right now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Jeff tell Will that Pat had full-blown AIDS? If you're going to resurrect Pat, you might have to do it soon because his shelf life can't be too long. Thanks for the typo pointing out, Tim.

I've been reading about this case, and all the strangle twists and turns it's taken, and I'm really fascinated by it. The basic gist is that Bode Miller, in 2012, had a few dates with a woman named Sarah McKenna that he met on a matchmaking service. He got her pregnant. She contends that he initially wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. In the meantime, Bode Miller met and married volleyball player Morgan Beck, in a span of a few months. At seven months, Sarah McKenna left California for New York in order to start school at Columbia. This is where things started to get nasty. Bode Miller filed to establish parental rights, and McKenna was castigated by a judge for "shopping" for a more sympathetic court by going to New York. Custody was awarded to Miller. This enraged women's rights advocates, who believed that this ruling set a dangerous precedent that would allow biological fathers to dictate where pregnant women are allowed to go. It was overturned, and right now they have a short-term custody agreement before a hearing in March. It's pretty contentious- the mother and the father can't even agree on a name- Bode's son was named Samuel, after Bode's legal name. Miller wants to call Sam "Nate" after his recently deceased brother, to the point where the visa that would have allowed his son to go with him to Russa got held up because of his insistence that "Nathaniel" be added as a middle name on his birth certificate. And of course, Miller's wife decided to post a blog, since deleted, blasting McKenna for her poor mothering skills. (His wife, by the way, suffered a miscarriage in 2013, and decided to call it a blessing in disguise because it meant they could focus on raising just one baby instead of two. Which...kinda raises The Hand That Rocks the Cradle red flags in my mind.) Here's an article about the case, and what it could mean for women's rights: Bode Miller Changed His Mind and Hurt Pregnant Women's Rights Everywhere It does raise a really good ethical question- is a woman obligated to stay in the same state as the child's father while the baby's in utero and before they've worked out custody arrangements? Another interesting case I've been following is the Jason Patric custody case, which challenges the California state law about sperm donors. His ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child insists that Jason Patric is a sperm donor, Jason insists that he had every intention of parenting the child. I think both cases are interesting views into how parental custody battles have evolved over the years in regards to paternal rights.

Thank god Will's never been with JJ. The Hayes men really satisfy the incest quotient. Will had oral sex with Drew, but he didn't go further than that. John was supposed to be his first fuck, but Zach had a go at John instead. Will's first technical anal sex experience was with the kidnapper guy, although I'm not really counting a rape as a sex partner.

I will say that it's been kind of consistent that Will seems to let friendships go by the wayside whenever he gets all sprung on someone. He's well-known and liked, but none of his Harvard-Westlake friendships seem all that deep, and I think it's because as you've said, this guy pretty much jets off on weekends and on summers, and he's really all about his love interests. I do think that when you're 15 and in 10th grade, friends expect a level of loyalty and quality time, and I think that mindset is kind of reflected in the fact that Will doesn't really seem to have any seriously close, non-HW friends, mainly just buddies like Austin and the like. It seems his really close peers are also his family in Marie and John, and then JJ. They're the only ones we've seen Will consistently maintain a tight bond with. I really do enjoy Adam's gossip dirt about how Troy Aikman's been seen in the Dallas gayborhood quite often. I still think it's kind of sad that he'll likely never come out, but then again, Aikman's private life is his private life. God, I loved this exchange. I've been waiting for two or three years for us to get into the fictious Johnny Weir and Jeremy James rivalry, and this is going to be so good. Johnny Weir's rivalry with Evan Lysacek was pretty nasty- he used to call Evan a "slore"- i.e. a slut and a whore. He also tended to roll his eyes and do quotations in regards to Evan's "straightness." Meanwhile, Evan seemed to insinuate that Johnny Weir was lazy, and he made a crack about Johnny's gender on Twitter but then pretended that his Twitter got hacked. Johnny Weir, according to Daisy, was kind of known as the "East Coast" guy- like there just wasn't really anyone on the East Coast that could touch him during this time period. It'll be interesting to see how JJ stacks up against the guy, as they'd be competing in the East Coast Sectionals to get a spot at Nationals. It'll be interesting to see what nasty one-liners the fictionalized Johnny Weir will make towards JJ, and vice versa. I think it'll make the Trevor Morgan conversation look like a cakewalk. At this time, Johnny Weir is Junior Worlds Champion, so I imagine the ego is probably pretty high at this point. And eh, Delaware is kind of of a generic American suburban hellhole, but the nice thing about it, when you get sick of our lack of culture, boringly flat landscape(our highest point in the state is a mere 447 feet tall), and relentless ugly surburban sprawl, you've got New York City being 3 hours away, Philly being 1 hour away, and DC/Baltimore being about 60-90 minutes away. Not to mention that you're never more than 90 minutes away from a beach when you live in Delaware. (How far again do you have to drive to get to an ocean beach again, Mark? I think the weirdest thing about living so far inland for grad school was not seeing any seagulls.) Plus, I gotta say it's nice not having to pay sales tax.

Dude, you still didn't change the "regionals" to "sectionals."

This is kinda OT but check out Johnny Weir's ladies short commentation outfit. Johnny Weir's style is often not my taste, but god, this is outfit is FIERCE. I wonder if we'll have JJ dressed in similiar get-ups. (Probably not, unless JJ's style changes from his Junor Brooks Brothers look.) It was also nice to see Tara Lipinski again.

In my case, I was so sick of hearing it back then.

Chapter 76 -When Will and Zach work out the beard deal, and Zach tells him that he's moving to California in 2002. "Follow Me" by Uncle Kracker I absolutely and completely hate this song, and I still get hives listening to it, but I can't deny that it fits. My at the time 6 year old niece LOVED this tune. Ugh. -When everybody's in celebratory mode for the Ironmen, and Gathan congratulates Zach on a game well done. "Family Affair" by Mary J. Blige

"Jesus fucking Christ! They play this song like 20 times a day!"

She's not a romantic lead, but Sarah Paulson of American Horror Story and 12 Years A Slave is having one hell of a career roll right now, and she's been an open lesbian for a pretty long time. I think Ellen's career isn't really going to be hurt by this, because Ellen Paige was never going to be the leading romantic lady in films, anyway. She's pretty much stayed in indie mode with some forays into blockbusters, and her career seems firmly on the character actress Parker Posey kind of track. However, if you're someone like Portia de Rossi, who DOES have the leading lady look, doors will indeed close because I think the thing about the leading lady status is that you need to be the woman that men want to sleep with, and fantasize that they can. I do wonder if Amber Heard's career faltered a bit because of her dating another woman and supposedly coming out, although she's now with Johnny Deep. I think it's okay for a leading lady type to say that she's bisexual, because then men can still imagine that they have a chance with her. There are a lot of openly bisexual women- Madonna, Evan Rachel Wood, I suppose Amber Heard, Angelina Jolie, etc etc.

I'm digging on Nikita Katsalapov. Russian ice dancer, but his look is so classic fraternity boy:

I'll admit my reaction is kind of Meh to this. Ellen Page is not the first actress to come out of the closet, and that people are treating this like such a big deal kinda surprises me. If this were 1994, yeah. But in 2014? It's not like Ellen Page is this huge A-level star known for an ultra heterosexual bombshell image, so there isn't even really the shock factor. Good for her, but Heather Matarazzo, another indie darling, came out a very long time ago to very little a-do. It just feels kinda dated.

Speaking of Manhattanization: Festivities Planned for New Wilshire Grand 20-Hour Concrete Pour Pretty cool- L.A. is getting their second "super-tall." (That means over 1,000 feet.) It seems like there's renewed interest in building American skyscapers again, which is pretty cool. I remember after 9/11, there was talk about how the skyscaper was going to become obsolete in American life.

I think everyone is an asshole to some extent. Really, who survives being a meek little "yes or no ma'am" kind of person in 21st century America? And in your case, weren't you like a venture capitalist before you became a professor? You're actually surprisingly mellow like 90 percent of the time, considering. To get things back to CAP, how great was that break-up scene between Matt and Wade? I thought it was realistic, I thought it was a long time in coming, and I thought it emphasized how much Wade wants to be an adult and grown up while Matt really wants to go back to being that happy college couple. I also thought that it's a good thing Facebook doesn't hit Stanford until March 2004, because god, how nasty would it have gotten? (Why people post about break-ups on Facebook, I'll never know.)

He'll probably be much hotter than Bieber, to be honest. Justin's always going to have that ambiguous Peter Pan look to him.

Very true. Henson, I really need to disabuse you of your notion that I somehow "strong-arm" Mark into changing the story against his wishes. That couldn't be further from the truth. Mark is not a delicate flower who bends to the will of others. Mark and I will debate, but at the end of the day, it's his story, and he's going to go where he wants with it. For example, I absolutely and totally hit the roof when I found out about the JJ molestation storyline. I begged and pleaded with Mark to change the story so that Wade and Matt "rescue" JJ from a molestation attempt. Mark absolutely and unequivocally told me, "No, this is the way I'm going." And the storyline turned out great, and it's created long-lasting implications and drama for the JJ character. Without the molestation storyline, we wouldn't have gotten that wonderful little scene between Will and JJ at the hospital after his coach died, and in this story, the scene between John and JJ where we could see just how messed up he is. The only time Mark ever decides to change a story is when he himself realizes that the direction isn't working, or he agrees with one of us that something just doesn't make sense for the character, or a plot is really unrealistic.

Well, it's not like Austin Mahone is obscenely far away from legality. He was born around the time you were a sophomore in high school, in April of 1996. He'll be 18 in a couple of weeks.

Silver medalist slopestyle skier Gus Kenworthy... A cute college-aged guy in a backwards baseball cap holding a puppy making goofy faces to the camera. What's not to love?

So I need a pick-me-up, and what better way than to listen to great 80's pop? Let's start! Pop Goes The 80's Playlist, Part 1 (1980 - 1985) 1. 2. 3. I remember seeing an interview with Madonna where she said that had she know this song would have branded her the Material Girl for the rest of her life, she might not have done it. LOL. 4. "Let The Music Play" by Shannon 5. "Cars" by Gary Numan 6. 7. 8. This is one bat-shit crazy video. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. It's hilarious how obvious that they used multiple stunt dance doubles in this. 14. And you get a double shot of Irene Cara! I think it was my great sorrow that my high school never did something like this. We didn't have enough really good dancers, unfortunately. 15. 16. " 17. Valley Girl. God, what a wonderful teen movie. Also, Nic Cage was surprisingly hot when he was young. 18. "Mickey" by Toni Basil 19. 20. 21. 22. The Boy George Behind the Music episode was pretty good. So, basically this song is about how Boy George was getting extremely pissed at his lover, the drummer of the band. 23. 24. I remember this tune being the closing song for "The Ryan White Story", which was a t.v. movie starring the little boy from Witness as the real-life Indiana kid who was banned from school for contracting A.I.D.S. after his bloodclotting treatments. 25. 26. " 27. 28. "Down Under" by Men At Work 29. "The Neverending Story" by Limahl 30. Hands down, my favorite music video from the 1980's. Sure, Thriller is technically the best video from that decade, but there's a whimsy fantasy about Take On Me that's just so irresistible. God, I wish it could be 1984-1985 again...what a fun time for music.

Chapter 75 -When Wade and Matt officially break up. "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House You remember this tune when it came out, Mark? It was a big tune the summer you were in your mid-20's. According to the commentary for Adventureland, it was released in the fall of 1986, languished for awhile, and then suddenly hit big the following summer of '87. It was apparently perfect make-out music.

See, in my case, I thought I was finding a happy medium- making sure that three important things about the shape of figure skating for the 2000 to 2010 era stay there, but also allowing for some flexibility so that Mark can have the freedom to do what he wants with the JJ career. Plushenko is a living legend, and nobody but him was expected to win at Torino. The Johnny Weir lore is really shaped by the fact that he bombed at the '03 Nationals, but then won '04, '05, and '06. Because Johnny Weir was so good but seemed to have his middle finger permanently stuck in the air, the USFSA really started pushing the family-friendly Evan Lysacek, further exacerbating the rivalry. And the Johnny Weir/Evan Lysacek rivalry of the 2000's gets topped at the end with Evan ultimately winning everything at the end. Those three things really seemed like they shaped the vibe of men's figure skating in the 2000's, and the idea is to weave JJ into the narrative, without completely changing it. It's what Mark has tried to have done by having myself and Daisy research the vibe of that era in figure skating. That's all I'm saying. And yes, Blue, I came into being part of Mark's team because when he posted chapter 2 or chapter 3 of CAP, he was having JP and Peter Gordon spirit themselves down to the Delaware beaches to hide out for a week. The problem? It was late March, 1962. A huge NorEaster, called the Ash Wednesday Storm, had destroyed the whole area in early March. Mark incorporated the whole thing into the story, and I thought it really made the chapter even stronger. Exactly. Really, Henson, if I ever get too forceful with Mark and he isn't convinced by me, I get shut down pretty quick. It's been that way for 5 years, and it works.

I agree as well. There are certain cardinal facts that can't be changed- Plushenko wins the '06 Gold, Evan wins the '10 Gold, and Johnny Weir is national champion from 2004 to 2006. But for this storyline to be worthwhile, and for it be believable that people like Evan or Johnny are even deigning to interact with JJ, he'll have to start displacing real medal winners. Otherwise, he can't ever medal at an event...which...well, we couldn't really call him elite, could we? I've thought about whether or not we should write out Jeremy Abbott from skating history and have JJ "take his place", so to speak. He can be the skater that's really good at U.S. championships but then chokes at Worlds or the Olympics. Then again, from what I understand, Jeremy Abbott is a total headcase and he apparently lost it at the 2010 Worlds because Johnny Weir stole his boyfriend. That might be a fun thing for JJ to comment on. When I watched the Team Figure Skating, I was wondering how JJ would react if he were on that team and had watched Jeremy Abbott's choke and 7th place finish. I'm guessing he would have smiled pleasantly at the camera, patted Jeremy Abbott on the arm, gone to his hotel room, and spent a good 30 minutes screaming his lungs out.

I wonder if eventually San Francisco will have to give in to Manhattanization and start building more skyscapers. It sounds like people are very NIMBY about them in SF: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/11/san_francisco_zoning_needs_more_density_and_tall_buildings.html

Mark, your move. I do kinda wonder what SF would look like if they hadn't clamped down hard on skyscaper development- on one hand, all these great early 20th century houses and buildings might have gotten knocked down. On the other hand, you'd probably have better affordability. Washington, D.C. has a similar problem.