Charlie

I have had a medical POA for years, and I have held one for others. It is important to have a back-up person named in case the primary POA is unavailable for any reason at a critical moment. It is also important to update the document if your situation changes (the POA holder becomes unable to act effectively, your relationships change, etc.). You should also carry it with you when you are traveling. At one time I held the primary POA for a friend, but when he unexpectedly became critically ill while on a European vacation, it was his family who were contacted, not me, and I didn't even learn that he was ill until after they had brought him home and he had died.

I beg your pardon? Center City is where most people want to live, which is why it has become so expensive.

No, it is posts.

If it's a sex vacation, three days is enough. If it is a first time tourist visit, it is worth more than three days.

I hate all the days of prep beforehand, during which there are restrictions on what you can eat, medications you can take, etc. The operation itself doesn't bother me, since I am completely unconscious. I just had what I hope is my last, since supposedly they don't do routine colonoscopies after one turns 80.

Please do not blow that petard (which is a small bomb made of metal or wood filled with blasting powder)!!! The phrase "hoist by his own petard" is Shakespearean, and it means to be blown up by your own bomb.

An old friend of our had a stroke at 70 that put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He moved to a new home and hired a younger gay man, who had been a tenant of his in San Francisco, to live with him and take care of all his needs (non-sexual). I don't know how much he paid him in addition to his free room and board and a car. After several years, however, the personal relationship soured, and then the trouble began, because it was difficult to get rid of him, since it was not a formal contractual relationship, and lawyers were engaged on both sides. It was only resolved by the unexpected death of the younger man. Then our friend hired a young gay aide through an agency, who came in for several hours a day, and although it meant that he was alone much more of the time, he was happier with the set-up. I don't know how much it cost, or how well the situation would have worked out in the long run, because our friend died in his sleep several months later.

If you repressed your sexual desires for a long time, it is natural to think that if you have a lot of great sex, you will feel much better. You won't. It isn't the sex itself that you need, but something else that the sex represents for you. It sounds like you have already figured out that much. I would second the advice of those who recommend finding someone to help you understand what that something is and how to satisfy that need.

I can sometimes ignore everything above the waist for a pair of muscular, hairy legs.

Young males nowadays are much more aware that they are sex objects to other men than they were in the days when homosexuality was the lust that dare not speak its name. When I was a young man, if another man stared at my naked body, I could yell "Faggot!" and punch him in the eye without being accused of a hate crime. Now young men are probably reacting the same way that most young women do when they are in the company of men whom they do not want to attract sexually, by trying to avoid evoking any prurient interest.

The California DMV does not take credit cards, only debit cards. If you do not want to use a debit card (I don't), they ask for cash or a check.

And may there be many more!

My Citizen Eco-Drive, which I bought several years ago, is powered NOT by motion but by light. Therefore, as long as I leave it out to absorb light, it continues to be energized. It has never lost time. I don't remember what I paid for it, but it certainly was no more than $250. However, the majority of the time I wear a $20 Casio, which also remains accurate, and has a battery that lasts a couple of years.

I'm not sure what you saw in my post that convinced you that Jefferson was right. I think it showed that Jefferson was pretty foolish to believe that the rest of the world would respect the American declaration that after we had won our independence, our country just wanted to be left alone to do our own thing, and they would just go and fight among themselves. BTW, it was Jefferson who made the Louisiana Purchase that extended the USA across the plains and over the Rockies.

Thomas Jefferson was opposed to a standing army, because he thought that a republic could always count on its citizens to rise up and join voluntary militias to defend themselves against foreign enemies. He tried to cut off support for the army academy at West Point and any support for a navy. (He also insisted that any money appropriated by Congress for naval vessels should be spent on ones he designed himself, which turned out to be worthless in combat, as the naval professionals had predicted.) When the British declared war in 1812, the country was caught unprepared, and Madison found himself a Commander in Chief with almost no organized military to command. It was mainly luck and the British distraction by Napoleon in Europe that enabled the US to avoid being defeated by the British and potentially absorbed back into British North America. Believing in the possibility of non-involvement with the rest of the world was unrealistic then, and it is no more reasonable now.

No one has mentioned the Triangle (Durham/ Raleigh/ Chapel Hill) in North Carolina, which is probably one of the most liberal areas in the South. One of the most active early members of this site retired there around 2005 and declared himself so happy there that he stopped posting. There also seem to be a number of active escorts there. If hiring escorts regularly is important to you, you should probably check out sites like rent.men to see what the market is like in the places that you are considering. Places like Iowa City usually can't support a variety of escorts, so you will have to either travel to where the escorts are, or import them (at your expense) to you.

My first recommendation would be Philadelphia; of really big cities, it is probably the cheapest to live in (that doesn't mean that someone coming from the South would consider it cheap, however). Twenty years ago I would have said Portland, but housing cost there is rising fast. A favorite of mine is Salt Lake City, but the air pollution there is becoming a problem. Someplace inexpensive and very gay friendly, in a low key way, is Albuquerque.

BTW, he bears a very strong resemblance to a retired Serbian soccer player of the same name.

One of his hashtags is #WaterSports. Given his handle, I wonder if he knows what that means on rent.men.

Oh...I thought from the title that this was going to be about bidding in Bridge.

This is a subject that has never swum into my ken before the appearance of this thread. I never took typing in high school--no male in my class did that. When I did start typing papers in college, I was a hunt-and-peck typist, and I still am (which is why there are often several more posts before I have finished trying to add my own). It never occurred to me that there might be some rule about how many spaces to leave after a period. When I had an important paper to submit, I gave it to a professional to type for me. I didn't start typing regularly until email came along, and I still have no idea how to text. (I have just been notified that four messages have appeared since I started writing this.)

The "Dr. Dolittle" series of books. Also The Wind in the Willows.

My mother also used to make her own bread & butter pickles, as well as mustard pickle. We always had jars of them stored in the basement. I have never eaten the commercial variety (if they exist).

OMG, I thought I was the only one (pickle juice drinker, that is)! I like dill pickles, and I save the juice when I finish a bottle of them, because someone told me the juice is good for preventing muscle cramps. I didn't really believe her, but it was a good excuse for having the juice in the refrigerator if someone questioned me.

I stayed in Death Valley once. We rented a cabin in Furnace Creek, and I got some terrible spider bites during the night.