paya

Hi Mar! Welcome!

It seems to me that you don't know why his behaviour changed, do you? It looks like the reason you broke up... So if he doesn't want to talk about it, you have only a few options. You can let him be, take his time and wait if he'll feel like talking to you about it. You can send him signals that you're here for him, but you can't tell him "I forgive you all those things you did to me." Because with that you're throwing all the dirt in to his face again - and that can have a negative impact on his will to talk to you. If he agrees to meet with you or to talk to you, you can tell him that you're sorry how the things between you turned out but that you're over the past and you want to start again - or to link to the good that was between you. But if you expect him to be sorry or to apologize for what he has done, well, you have to start with your own apology. It may not seem right or just to you but that's how it goes - you want him back, not vice versa. So he has to make the first step - to go to see (and talk to) you and then it's your turn to show him that you're not hurt anymore BUT without hurting him again... If you know why his behaviour changed, that's another story.

Happy birthday!

I used FF for a long time, occasionally I flirted with Opera (7, 8, maybe also 9), now I downloaded and installed Opera 10 and I'm quite amazed. With last edition of Firefox, I think it was FF 3.5, I had a lot of problems because of crashes. Once I launched FF, it started to gorge the memory used and then it crashed. It took several hours before it crashed but I'm used that my laptop is on-line almost 24/7, so these crashes were quite frequent, three or more times a day. Now I'm testing Opera and the memory used even dropped after some hours of running! So I synchronized my bookmarks, customized the Speed Dial (according to my Bookmark Bar in FF) and I think I'm moving to Opera... It's definitely more stable and it seems quicker than FF.

Maybe she doesn't like he spends more time with George than she does. ;-) But it could be also some Court gossip, if I remember right, he had some problems because of Arthur and if Arthur is "known", the gossip can pass on Calvert as well... Travers hasn't been to the Court so he's not known being gay, nor is George, a married man and a father of two children... ;-) Well I don't know, Calvert hasn't seen the King yet (I suppose that was why he was nervous about the levee), so he wasn't exposed so much to be gossiped about... what else? some people just don't hit it off... (The real reason is that Mark wants to stir some drama in it! ;-P)

maybe that says something about people who voted... ;-D

Our neighbour had a daughter who died on a brain tumor, she had cancer that wasn't operable... well in such time you don't have much possibilities what to do. The least, what my parents did for our neighbour, is to offer him your time for words of consolation and to listen to him - he has to expell all the feelings and pain from his body and that goes by words. Let him talk to you or talk to him if he's closing up and try to ease his pain.

If I may add my cents... Don't underestimate yourself. It's making you no good. People who don't see their own value can't show it to the others. I'll be a little harsh now but instead of wallowing in self-pity (and believe I know what I'm talking about) try to focus on what you're good at. You certainly have some interests, something that you like, that you excell in. Everyone has. At least - you must be fast in learning if you manage to learn by listening. So you are not dumb! But certainly you know to do something - but you don't think about using it in that group. For example: you can say you know nothing, but what do you do in your free time? Let's say you play computer games all the time. So there certainly are some you're good at. How about some match or championship in playing games? Your group isn't any Royal Academy of Science, you go there to hang out - and believe me even if they are near middle age, they can play like small children. And you'll show yourself. You're capable of organizing a tournament, so you must have some organizational skills. Next time they'll take that into an account when preparing something. This was just an example but I wanted to ilustrate that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING you know you can use for your profit. You're unique as everyone else and those who seem to you to be witty and clever etc. only know how to use what they know. I don't want to look like some... I don't know how to call these people :-D but you can make some sort of a SWOT analysis of yourself - what are you good at, what are your weak points, what's an opportunity for you (definitely that group and learning from them! ;-) ) and what threatens you (your low self-esteem!) That could help you with thinking of what you can use for the profit of your group. ;-) You can always run - leave that as the last resort. ;-)

Would that be too much of a request to ask that Calvert stays with Granger on one ship? PLEASE! Well now that was a chapter! I hope we'll stay on shore for a chapter or two, we have to visit the King and the Prince of Wales, there also could be some commotion about purging the Wilcoxes and perhaps Granger should know something confident about from Lord Spencer? I mean something like a secret diplomatic spy misson or something would be nice too :-) But what was there to spy on Dutch or French in the Carribean? I know they have some islands there but not too much anyway... And YAY to the Carriebean! Free rum and a lot of :chris:! :-D And the Bermuda triangle! :nuke: And a lot of grateful Spaniards

Hi Comsie! I read Savage Moon and even if it is very dark, much worse for me was Dream Lover, that was freaking psycho! I have to admit, your stories are ones from few that really affect my psyche, they're very disturbing... But I liked to read them and I hope you'll finish them some time. :-) Well as for the "teasers" from your links... Can I have one question? Do you also write something more... normal? I know it could be exciting writing something like a War of the Worlds to cause some uneasiness among people, but do you realize that on the net you can find freaks who would actually believe this is true, based on reality? Last but not least, it's quite politically polarized text, more like from the soapbox... I'm really disappointed :-/ I really enjoyed Savage Moon even if it was dark and creepy, I read the Dream Lover, even if it was freaky, it still was a fantasy that had some potential to catch my attention. This is just too much - in a sense that I realized that I'm not interested. :-/ Can you tell what made you write this? Why did you decide or what are you...what do you want... well I don't understand. I'm trying to understand the purpose of that story because "for fun" - at least in my case - doesn't work... ;-)

And I was just thinking where I've heard that name... And it was on Mark's blog! So if he was researching on this at the beginning of September, we're around three weeks late. ;-) Well even if they meet him, they couldn't help him :-/ but they can be among major contributors to his foundation after his death... We also noticed the ongoing struggle before the dot.com bubble. ;-) When it was discussed, a lot of people were arguing Stefan wouldn't lose his money so mindlesly, but we've forgotten his partners! At least Brad is considering both possibilities and I hope they'll manage to avoid some major (like almost 80 %) loss...

now that was nice... though... I think I'm getting spoiled by the marvelous chapters and these ordinary ones are just... ordinary? ;-) at least it was a fair fit of Bloodlines, I hope to survive till the other one ;-)

well, it wouldn't be Mark if he hadn't killed off somebody from time to time... ;-) And blame the smallpox, of course. ;-)

awww I know you do! Do you want me to say what's in the next chapter?

Oh, OK... I hope I wasn't rude or something with that reminder, it was just to let you know, if you don't know about that... maybe I take that FYI much stronger than it is, in my native language FYI hints the speaker is somewhat irritated...

so much for dominating the forum... ;-D this was what Mark promised to be two chapters twice? Bloodlines 9 and 10? I must admit I could get used to that! ;-D

yeah, but he wouldn't admit that to himself... He has to figure it out firstly. Huh! Now I dominate Mark's discussion forum! My posts are at the end of all hot topics!

I vote for Cody. I can't help! And on the second place, from the much older characters, I'd vote for Stefan, Brad, Robbie and well that's it. I also liked Roger, I liked his devotion to wine. And he was very kind person, sort of a big good giant and I loved him being with JP.

Happy Birthday! I found CAP at nifty, there was a story with some 20 chapters, so I started reading day after day some five or six chapters and then I realized that the number of chapters is still growing - I said to myself "wow that guy really writes quickly..." then there were no other chapters at nifty but a notice about the yahoo group... so I joined and found the rest of CAP, 1968, The Land Whore and maybe Be Rad in progress! Well I don't remember that accurately because the chapters were still coming and I know that I managed to keep up in the middle of Be Rad! But then the whole new era began - I couldn't just go on reading if some twist in the plot kept me glued to the screen, I had to WAIT! till the next chapter was released... :wacko: So while waiting, I started to think about the story and what you want to do with it... And I also grew attached to the characters as well! But what I really appreciate, your stories helped me to find GA with a whole bunch of a brand new sort of friends and for this I'm really grateful!

Mark! YOU! You dare! Your only luck is that you hadn't made that a cliffhanger in ch17! The horror in my eyes when I realized "so he's not going to kill him but we'll never hear about him!" so much for letting out the steam... otherwise it's only on your page that you've already published CH10 Bloodlines and CH18 MaC, there's no announcement neither at GA nor at yahoo group... let's work can wait ;-)