newatthis

Good point. As I wrote above, I did not find out directly about any of the friends who have had it, only from mutual friends and only in casual conversation. I found out about my next door neighbors when I was teasing friends who had a case on their block and they replied "what about your next door neighbors?", which they knew about because they belong to a book club together.

Not even secondhand? I'm amazed. My community probably has a lower median age than yours, and by now I know (or know of) quite a few people who've had it. In all cases I found out indirectly, including my next-door neighbors. I suspected something was wrong when their newspapers started accumulating and they didn't even bring them in from the front porch where I had moved them. They were never hospitalized and took about 2 weeks to recover (one of them actually got "better" and then relapsed). Their description of how sick they felt reinforced my determination to avoid catching it.

You'd better get right to it after imbibing...

When I lived in Europe, the default was the opposite...you shopped more or less every day. Bread every day (there would be a line at the bakery around 12:30 of people picking up baguettes for the mid-day meal). Ditto for veggies. Maybe a little less often for meat or fish. Less frequently and in a big chain store for staples like toilet paper. This was 20 years ago; things might have changed since then.

What I can't get my mind around is this. We suspect (see recent stories about random testing in California and New York, for example) that there are many asymptomatic carriers out there. We don't know how long immunity lasts for someone who has had the disease. And I have to assume any escort I hire has other clients, some of whom may be infected and asymptomatic. So no matter how much I trust a particular escort, at this point there's no assurance (other than our having been isolated for > 14 days?) that one of us not infectious. I know people who have had this. Even though none of them was hospitalized, their experiences were worse than the worst flu I've ever had. All those things put together are likely to greatly suppress my libido in any real (as opposed to fantasy) encounter.

That's called a teaser. When do we get the main course?

Here the online portal used to apply for "normal" unemployment benefits had to be modified (or supplemented) to handle self-employment situations. They announced upfront that would lead to delays for those people. One self-employed friend told me a few days ago that the system was not yet working for him. Different from a denial, I know, but cause could be similar. Good luck!

The backstory on why I'm gunshy: when my son was 7, I gave him a disastrous haircut during a bath. He didn't let me forget it for at least 20 years (I didn't realize that hair seems longer when it's wet).

Here it's Trader Joe's that does that -- with their usual cheery staff who manage to walk the line between upbeat and cloyingly pollyannaish. I most enjoyed the way the guy managing the line ended his spiel: "and buy as much as you want...we've solved all our supply chain problems."

Not possible.

I have something like that for beard and body hair. I don't have the balls to try the various haircut/hair-styling attachments, though -- I'm sure I'd end up like one of the bad examples quoted earlier in this thread.

IMO he's alway adorable...

Wish I could say "yes" to that ...

It's going on 2 months now and I'm beginning to look the way I did in the '70's (if you're a millenial, please inquire for elucidation ). My barber called before my last scheduled appointment to make sure I knew his salon was closed, and he mentioned I could reach him at the number he was calling from. Yesterday I the light bulb went off and I said to myself "maybe he is doing private appointments." So I called. Alas, he is not. Doing it myself is not an option; I know I'd make a mess of it. Ideas?

Seems to me this guy is not a native speaker of English...I actually find his ad quite charming.

And fantasies are all we have now . It's nice to see what will await us when this is all over.

These quotes from the thread "Hiring Freeze" in The Deli make me think we need a (new?) thread on masturbation . Free-form, no holds barred...could be techniques, jokes, whatever. For starters: my favorite LA guy introduced me to Gun Oil a few years ago...and there's been no looking back

A local religious institution has a variation on this: they have set up a fund for donations; the donations are used to order food from local restaurants for delivery to health care and emergency workers, providing support for both the workers and the restaurants.

Would you be willing to share what you've noticed (maybe "anonymously", like "in city A such and such, in city B, thus and so"...)?

The "only seeing once" stipulation is an interesting one. I've had an awesome first time with various guys, but often the second time has been less awesome. I can only conclude that, for me, there is an extra kick that comes from the excitement of meeting someone new.

A long -- very long -- time ago, I asked a similar question here. The most useful answer I received was to communicate the things I fantasize about, which would give an escort a place to start from.

I'm pretty good at mimicking accents as long as I keep to short phrases. I learned to say "I don't speak Turkish" in Turkish and "I don't speak Hungarian" in Hungarian. These invariably elicited a torrent of Turkish/Hungarian in response, which defeated the purpose of learning the phrases in the first place.

When I speak French in Montreal, people often assume I'm European, rather than American. Anyway, in the places where I hang out, the young men I'm speaking with are unlikely to respond in English.

Not my experience in France at all. Occasional attitude from Parisians, but IMO that's the big city thing, not unlike the attitude you sometimes get from New Yorkers.