Charlie

My spouse has a brother who is also gay. A close gay friend of ours has a brother who is also gay. But what is more important in their cases: nature or nurture?

He made interesting posts on lots of non-sexual subjects, so I frequently responded to them. However, I was not interested in hiring him, particularly after the IceFireWizard contretemps. I was surprised when he private messaged me that he would like to meet me at the Palm Springs Weekend one year, yet when he showed up he totally ignored me. I never did understand him.

He retired and moved to Santa Barbara many years ago. His name comes up on this site whenever certain New Yorkers wax nostalgic.

I don't think Downton Abbey had showers. The inhabitants normally took sponge baths, and only once per week they took a real bath, because it was a lot of work for the staff to heat all those pitchers of water for the tub.

I have needed AAA more often than I have needed my auto insurance company.

I could do it without trying sixty years ago, but now.......

I have seen most of these guys in the flesh, so to speak, and photo #9 could have been taken by me at Indian Wells, where most of the players practice shirtless, which is fun for the fans (that's Pablo Cuevas on the right).

I never thought of using paper towels--too stiff for wiping up. I prefer a real cotton towel.

I actually prefer synthetic fiber to cotton, and I like a soft, mushy pillow. To each his own.

If he is a lumberjack, he should know that wood is measured in cords, not chords.

Our oldest gay friend died yesterday at 88. We met him fifty years ago, and he and his partner quickly became our closest friends. We had a typical lifestyle of openly gay middle class urban professional couples in the 1970s: parties, gay bars, subscriptions to the opera, vacations on Fire Island, etc. Then the shit-storm of AIDS hit in the 1980s, and by 1987 his partner of twenty years was dead. For the next 32 years he was alone. For a few years he soldiered on, then decided he wanted a completely new life. He retired and moved across the country to a very small resort town (pop. 1000) on the Oregon coast where no one knew him. He didn't have a "gay lifestyle"--a night out was usually having a drink at the VFW hall with other vets--but he never tried to hide the fact that he was gay. He did socialize with a few other gays and lesbians he met in the area, but his closest friends were the straight neighbors whom he interacted with in local groups: the local historical society, environmentalists, a group trying to set up a charter school because there was no elementary school in town, the public library supporters, etc. He became a well-known figure in town. We ("my friends from Palm Springs") visited him almost every year, often for a couple of weeks at a time in summer, and those were the people we got to know. A group of about a dozen met every morning for breakfast at a local restaurant, and we began to join them regularly during our visits. We got married in 2013, and our friend obviously had told everyone, because the first morning after our arrival when we walked in for breakfast, everyone stood up and applauded. When his health declined from Parkinson's disease a couple of years ago, one of his neighbors took over responsibility for his care. The mayor came every morning to get him out of bed and get him dressed. For the 4th of July parade this summer, his neighbors brought him outside in a wheelchair and stationed him on the main street, where the parade frequently stopped for people who wanted to greet him. A section of the library bears his name, with a portrait of him on the wall. We all have our definitions of the "good life," but I think his was one of the best.

I have an insurance broker who finds the best insurance deals for my house and cars, and he has advised me to change companies about three times in the past fifteen years. He has never advised one of the companies with those in-car sensor thingies.

Love it! It would also be perfect for the wedding reception, except that parking in that area would be a problem for the guests.

This is your audition proposal for an episode of "House Hunters," right? I'll bet the producer will be ringing your doorbell at any moment. Let us know when it will be broadcast, because I am dying to see which one you pick. I'm voting for House #1.

Wonderful thread, but do you have too much time on your hands waiting for your betrothed to return?

90% of the calls I get on my home phone are scams or solicitations, so I glance at the ID, and unless it is a person or a number that I recognize, I don't answer. If it is important, the caller can leave a message. My voicemail is set to pick up after six rings, because robocallers almost always hang up after 4 or 5 rings. Some unwanted callers call almost every day; apparently they never scrub their lists despite the lack of response. Only a few people know my iPhone number, and they hardly ever use it; I never seem to get robocalls on it. There are a couple of people with whom I only exchange texts, which is one of the reasons I got the iPhone. I do have an old flip phone as well, with an AT&T account I hardly ever use. When I tried to get an error on the bill corrected, I couldn't find a service rep who knew how to do it, so I finally had to write a letter to customer care in Indiana; they have never responded. Last week I was trying to get the bill paid through their customer service (it was due in two days), but they said they could only help me if I gave them my special ID number, which I didn't know, so they said they would send it to me, but they texted it to the flip phone, which doesn't receive texts! I had to deal with four customer service reps before I found one who could figure out how to take a payment over the phone without the special ID number. I'm ready to cancel the account--if I can figure out how to do it.

One always wonders how a loving family could turn on a child and reject him completely solely for being honest about his feelings and needs, rather than dutifully meeting all their expectations. As time passes, they may re-evaluate their response, not to take advantage of you, but because they realize their mistake. Meanwhile, it is great that you are there for him. And now you won't have to manage a big family wedding, just something more intimate. BTW, I know a happy couple who have been together for decades, who started in a very similar fashion to the two of you. The younger man's very traditional family in a conservative country eventually did accept the situation, if not always graciously, and the siblings have become reconciled.

I don't use bleach on my undies. And I don't believe in spending money to replace anything that doesn't need to be replaced. Now, if I wore them on the outside of my clothes, I might invest in new ones more often.

I change them whenever it becomes necessary for sanitary reasons. E.g., after I play tennis on days like this, when the temperature is 116, they are soaked with sweat, so I change them immediately as soon as I get home. OTOH, sometimes I will wear the same pair for three or four days if they are dry, clean and don't smell. I can't imagine buying new underwear every year, like Hoover42. I still wear a few pairs of underpants that I bought at Bloomingdale's in the mid-1980s, and they are still in good condition, though newer ones often do wear out more quickly. I rarely need to wear undershirts, so they last a long time. I rarely get rid of any clothing I like if it is still wearable, so I still wear some of the things that I bought when I was a college student.

When I was 12, it was Elvis who gave me a woody. By the time I was 16, it was Brando.

A good friend of mine was a singer. One evening during a concert, he happened to mention that his brother was in the audience. I was sitting in the audience with his brother. During the intermission, several people came up to us and began to talk...to ME, about how much I looked like my brother, the performer.

These are masturbation fantasies, not serious proposals by a responsible adult. He doesn't need clients; he needs intervention by a good counselor.

The Don Juan stereotype for opera superstars has been around for a couple of centuries; men whose careers depend on convincing a live audience that they are consumed with passion for women they are making love to on stage may find it easy to identify with the Don Juan role. What makes this less acceptable is the claims that Domingo retaliated by damaging the careers of those who resisted. It also makes things very awkward for those whom he obviously favored, like Ana Maria Martinez, whose relationships with him will be questioned. Opera companies and orchestras have always felt it was good business to protect their great artists from public exposure whenever they got in trouble, as the Met did with James Levine. The whole business model is now under review.

You won't be asked any questions about how you met when you are applying for a marriage license. I assume that after you are married, there will be questions from USCIS (successor to the INS) regarding your new spouse's status.

I dunno, it doesn't look much like New Jersey to me.