Charlie

Of course. The article even mentions that fact, but doesn't bother to follow up with any commentary on the fact that the stats are not very useful in the first place, because they are comparing apples (a demographic that has always been able to marry) to oranges (a demographic that has been legally able to marry for only a half decade).

An excellent example of who should and who shouldn't go out in public in a harness.

Organizations that thank you for a donation, and immediately ask for another one, usually in the thank you letter.

Having lived in both England and Czechoslovakia (when it was one country), I was expecting this to be amusing, but it was simply inane.

I also have never liked carrots, and I feel justified now, because I recently had a food allergy test, and the only vegetable to which I had a strong reaction was carrots.

I have never tried to look younger than I am; why pretend? I had fun being a twink when I still was one, but being a mature adult was more fun. And there are perks to being recognized as a senior citizen. If people tell me I look younger than my age, I assume they are referring to my physical activity level rather than my epidermis.

I live in the desert, so I have to use moisturizer to keep my skin reasonably soft and smooth. Since I also spend a lot of time outdoors in the sun, I use sun screen on exposed body parts (and put on a hat) before I go outside. At my age, using something else to try to make me look younger isn't worth the effort.

Thank goodness.

A friend of mine, who was not especially physically attractive, used to just walk up to a guy he found attractive in a gay bar and say, "I have a big cock. You wanna get fucked?" It amazed me how often it worked.

I am not crazy about veggies. I do like avocados, cauliflower, spinach, broccoli, and tomatoes (although technically they are not a vegetable).

I never made an error when I did my own federal taxes, but this year our tax accountant did, and it was a whopper of a digital error (a $1900 deduction became a $19000 deduction). Luckily, I checked everything before it was sent to the IRS, and got it corrected.

Interestingly, the majority of the members who posted in this thread in 2010 have long since disappeared. But Axiom2001 is STILL HERE!! (And has over 10K posts now.)

I have never understood the psychology of people who run up huge credit card debts. I have never used a credit card for anything that I can't fully cover with cash by the time the bill arrives. The only long term financing I have ever done is for a home or a big ticket item like a new car, and even with a car I only do it if I have access to enough cash to pay it off if I have to. Too many consumers don't understand the principle of living within their means, and most businesses know that and depend on it for their success. (I know, I'm an old grouch.)

I started investing in a TIAA traditional annuity when I was 23, because it was a requirement of my academic contract (we did not have a pension plan). I contributed 5% of my salary, and my employer matched that with another 10%. When I retired at 60, I still had other income sources, so I took only the monthly interest on the plan. In 2008, just before the economy started to collapse, I converted to the annuity at its then face value. I have been able to live comfortably on my annuity payments, plus Social Security, ever since, while friends who depended entirely on stocks and bonds went through a nerve-wracking collapse of their income for some time. (I also have stock investments, but since I have never depended on them, I don't get upset about the roller coaster ride in the markets.) Although one of the drawbacks to annuities is supposed to be that they are permanently fixed, in fact, TIAA has raised my monthly annuity payment almost every year. We almost got long term care insurance, but when I priced things out, I realized that if I put the same amount as the premium into some other safe investment, I would still have that money if I never needed to use the insurance. I had one friend who bought an expensive policy, but only used 3 months of long term care. I also knew a couple of people who bought policies, only to discover that the policy didn't pay enough in benefits to be worthwhile by the time they needed it, because the premiums they would have had to pay to get what they actually needed would have been exorbitant.

Who would like to bet that all four ads were written by the same person? He uses four different sets of fairly similar poses, and all have identical to near-identical stats (26 years old, 6 ft, 190-210 lbs, similar muscular physique, and all but one have upper body tats--he can claim he photo-shopped the photo to hide the identifying marks). No matter which one you call, the same guy will show up, looking sort of like the ones in the ads, but not quite as good, unless it is a total scam.

Never mind--I found what I was looking for.

Back in the 1980s, I hired a guy who was a coverboy on a gay mag. He was gorgeous, but the sex was unsettling and something told me he was seriously disturbed, so I didn't give him any contact info for further business. A year later I hired an escort who looked so much like him that it could have been his brother--and it turned out that it was his younger brother! A few years later, I learned from another escort that the older brother was in jail for killing a client. If I had received a letter from him, I would have freaked out.

Although I haven't read it in years, I am sorry to see this. It used to be an excellent source for finding rental apartments in the Village when I was a young man.

Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat with Epigonos, figuratively speaking. I am near enough to Loma Linda and would love to have an avocado per day, but my waist is much too trim to qualify.

In a tour group a few years ago, in which all of the men were seniors, one of the women remarked to me, "I'll bet you're a tennis player." Surprised, I asked her how she knew that. She said, "My husband was a tennis player, and like him, you're the only man in the group who walks upright with your shoulders back." Regular exercise that involves balanced movement will help keep you from becoming round-shouldered.

The first Thanksgiving that I lived in London, an American friend who was visiting me wanted to take me out for dinner. We ended up at Simpsons-in-the-Strand, where we asked the puzzled waiter for a traditional dinner, expecting turkey. We got roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

He doesn't say if he is married to a woman or a man, but he does seem to indicate that he is gay and out. At 40, he seems a little old to be using an "otter" hashtag.

Never.

I have just returned from a difficult visit to an old friend whom I travel 1200 miles to see every year. We were very close for many years, worked together for two decades, traveled around the world together, even lived together for several months during a European sabbatical. He and my spouse have also been good friends for nearly a half century. He moved far away from us a quarter century ago, but almost every year we go to visit him. We used to stay with him for at least a couple of weeks at a time. The visits have been getting shorter, and the last couple of years we have stayed at a nearby inn instead of his home. This time we were there only three nights. The problem is that we really have little to talk about anymore except the past, and that gets very tired when one no longer has anything else in common.