Charlie

One of the problems with "poppers" is that it is a generic term for chemical solutions that are not uniform from one brand to another. When I started using poppers sixty years ago, all that was available was medicinal amyl nitrate in little glass ampules wrapped in yellow fabric that one bought from a pharmacy with a prescription (my grandfather had used it in the 1920s for his heart problems); one broke the container --hence "poppers"--and sniffed until it lost potency. I was lucky that I had a friend who was a pharmacist and provided them to me under the counter. During the 1970s in Amsterdam, I went home with a chemist who made his own 🙃, and we had sex under sheets soaked in it! In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, it was mistakenly believed that poppers might be the cause of Kaposi's sarcoma, often a symptom of AIDS, and at that point the gov't stepped in to make it harder to get medicinal quality amyl nitrate. The composition of recreational poppers was changed to facilitate the legal sale of commercial brands over the counter, and they were advertised as things like "room freshener." Unfortunately, I have never used anything else that has the same effect on me--liquor makes me sleepy rather than horny, and other drugs screw up my head too much and for too long. Too much of the commercial brands usually gave me a headache, but I have never been personally aware of any vision problems related to using it--this is the first time I have ever heard of that. I used them off and on for about 50 years, and my own vision is still excellent, but if they seem to affect yours, then I would not take a chance on developing maculopathy; macular degeneration runs in my family, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

It looks like an economy model of the Burj in Abu Dhabi.

I wonder why so many people would sign up as a "member," but never post any content (btw, does "content" include reactions as well as actual posts?), since if all one wants to do is read the site, one could do that as a "guest." Since this thread started as a response to the birthday list--I don't even know where that is--couldn't members who have not logged in for a certain period of time, such as two years, simply be flagged as "inactive," so no one wastes time wishing them a Happy Birthday?

Deleting posts by someone who is no longer a "member" would certainly free up a lot of room, but it would destroy a lot of useful, interesting and even beloved content; e.g., what would become of the "Friday Funnies," which were started by jackhammer, who has been gone for more than six years? (R.I.P., Ray😢) Some people disappear for long periods, but then return, including Lucky. Would it be possible to group members in two different categories, "active" and "inactive?" I would suggest that someone who has not posted within the past three years belongs in an "inactive" category, and should be labeled that way on their profile.

I guess the question is whether the ones the ginger is wearing in the photo are navy blue (the ones in the linked ad) or black, the color of the ones that Bomba claims they only give away to shelters.

Or on a site like this one.

Everything in this article is spot-on, and I've watched enough press conferences to know.

Do you mean Oliver'sGarden?

"Nel mezzo del cammin de nostra vita, mi ritrovai...." I felt right at home in the circle of the Lustful, and told Virgil he could venture on without me.

I'm sure I would get distracted by trying to read all that text on his left leg, especially if it is in French.

I came to this thread late, and my first impulse was to ask whether the discount included the GPS option, but as the story went on, I began to feel that this was getting too emotionally serious for you for me to make this into a joke. I wonder how much truth there is in his "just messin' with ya" statement. He seems to be quite aware of how strongly you are attracted to him, and is enjoying his power. Maybe my usual suspicion of car salesmen is showing, but my fear is that the deal will not be quite as straightforward as it sounds in the showroom. I hope I am wrong.

I am going to get carpal tunnel syndrome from constantly clicking the "Like" button, so just take it for granted that I "Like" everything in this thread, unless I indicate otherwise.

A am impressed by the size--his hands, I mean.

I grew up close to Pat Boone's house. My friends and I would sometimes drive slowly past it at night, in hopes that the living room drapes would be open and we would catch a glimpse of him. One Sunday night the room was brightly lit, and we saw Lesley Gore ("It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to..."), who we knew was visiting him that weekend.

My Father and Myself by J.R. Ackerley is a wonderful book about this subject.

Although the lifeguards are wearing the old-style one piece suit, the guy climbing up to the diving board behind them is only wearing trunks, and mostly obscured in the background is a vehicle that is probably from the late 1930s, so the photo is less than a century old.

The evil source behind all of this is text messaging on those tiny keyboards.

I have never been to Icelandic Pride, but I know there are gay Icelanders, because I had sex with one of them in Reykjavik. Of course, he probably isn't available now, because that was fifty years ago.

I also first saw Pitt in Thelma and Louise, and couldn't take my eyes off him.

I have the old SE and a new 11. I like the size of the old SE when I want to carry it in a pocket, and the home button. I like the size of the new 11 when I want to use the keyboard or read my email/texts, but I hate swiping instead of using the home button.

As a few commentators have already said, I don't think she thought this issue through before she made the first public announcement about the press conferences the other day. She is still pretty young, and I think it is probably a good idea for her to take some time off from a career under constant press scrutiny to deal with her own mental health problems. If I were a sensitive 23 year old woman with a Black Haitian father and a Japanese mother, raised in the US but who has become the international face of Japan although she speaks very little Japanese, and has quickly become the highest paid female athlete in the world, I would probably feel overwhelmed by pressure, too. Right now she is also being constantly pushed by all sides to take a position on the controversial upcoming Olympics in Japan. The statement about the press conferences was probably a spontaneous reaction to something concrete that she thought she could control, and instead it made things worse.

Fire Island in the 1970s.

It looks like he is trying to hide--or call attention to--his friend's hard-on.

Pretty Boy Floyd got his nickname not because he was especially physically attractive but because he was a snappy dresser. Some of the things he did while committing his crimes were apparently intended to make him popular with the general public as a kind of Robin Hood figure, although he didn't rob the rich to help the poor but only to help himself. He also was a killer, though most of those he killed were fellow criminals or law enforcement figures. For some gay men, I think the "thug" image is attractive because they connect it with sexual domination by a physically strong male figure, and the motivation for his crimes don't have much effect on whether they find him sexually attractive.

In case anyone wonders, my post was not really intended to memorialize Sanker, but simply to inform those who were interested that a well-known figure in the community had died. I have no personal knowledge or opinion about the man.