Charlie

My first partner's first name was Geta, which people who only saw it or heard it usually assumed was a female's name. This was sometimes convenient for me, back in the Dark Ages pre-Stonewall, when I casually discussed my domestic situation with strangers. The name could have been awkward for him, but he was a Southern WASP (bless their little quirks!), and it was also his father's name, so he usually added "Jr." to make his gender clear. Serena Williams' new baby girl, however, is legally named Alexis Ohanion, Jr., after her father, which seems really perverse to me, although her parents at least seem to refer to her as "Olympia," which is her middle name. I agree with Quora that it is not fair to a child to give it a name which inevitably causes confusion and mistakes when the child is growing up and claiming his or her identity among peers. Let the child choose its own odd name or spelling for itself when it is an adult.

Or was---that photo is very old, because I remember it from a magazine back before I ever saw the Internet.

Many years ago, when I was still a twink, an attractive man told me that he wanted to keep me in a cage at the foot of his bed for the night. Needless to say, I declined the invitation to his slumber party.

I once had a student whose name was Toya Lett. A colleague suggested that her mother should have been prosecuted for child abuse.

Lately I get a lot of calls from IDs like "unknown name" or "invalid number" (whatever that means). Sometimes it just says "wireless caller" or "toll free number." I also get a lot of calls that give the supposed location rather than the identity of the caller, and I don't answer if I don't know anyone in that place. My area code covers a very large geographical area, and apparently a lot of scammers get numbers in small towns within it. I have my voicemail set to start after six rings, because most professional callers for organizations or robocallers hang up if I don't answer after four rings. Legitimate callers will normally stay for the full six rings and then leave a message. The one thing I don't do is answer and engage the undesirable caller in any way, because it just lets them know that mine is an active number.

I find that I fart more often when playing tennis than I used to (mostly when I hit a forehand, but sometimes on my slice backhand drop shot).

No way.

As I enter my twilight years, I find that I feel sleepy after lunch, and sometimes I drift off if I close my eyes, something that never used to happen to me--when I was younger, I couldn't take an afternoon nap even if I tried.

Where else would one expect to find kosher meat but in the Deli?

I am still using furniture I bought at an IKEA in Penna. a quarter century ago, and it is as good as it was then.

Didn't you realize you had answered your own question? You could have brought an apple pie!

To me it seems more like an extension of the current trend of employers trying to save money by making the customer do more of the work himself. When my employer first announced that all employees would be working remotely from their homes, it was explained that it would be more efficient for everyone; what wasn't mentioned was that the employer would no longer have to supply a workspace or equip it: instead, the employees would provide the computers, printers and paper, desks and chairs, cable hook-up and electricity, but wouldn't be financially compensated for it all. Making the patient input all the information himself on a tablet in the waiting room means the doctor doesn't have to hire clerical help. BTW, having the patient enter the information directly into the records himself certainly doesn't reduce the likelihood of errors, and without trained clerical helpers, the errors are less likely to be detected immediately.

But I have no idea how to re-boot my router! It was set up by Spectrum when I moved in, and I don't know anything about how it works.

I arrived early at a new dentist's office this afternoon, prepared to fill out the usual pile of medical information they all require. Instead of a clipboard with paper forms, the receptionist handed me a tablet. The keyboard was unfamiliar to me--it was not the same as the one on my 5 year old iPad, the only one I have ever used--and I kept trying all sorts of maneuvers to learn how it functioned. It took me twice as long to complete as it would have if they had just given me papers.

I have had it a few times, but only in very good restaurants.

It's sort of like going to a high class restaurant and ordering only an appetizer. It satisfies some of your hunger, but leaves you wanting the entree.

I have eaten kangaroo, ostrich, and reindeer.

As always, it depends on your circumstances and tastes. I moved here from the Northeast because I was tired of dealing with snow and ice, and that part of the move worked. But it is not a climatic paradise: the heat can be really oppressive, and it lasts a long time. This year the wind has also been oppressive, like living on the high plains. I like the dry climate, but it can play havoc with your skin and sinuses--I expected to finally get free of my lifelong seasonal allergies, only to discover that I am simply allergic to different things which bloom here. By California standards, PS is a relatively inexpensive place to live, but coming from other parts of the country, you will experience some sticker shock. The Coachella Valley as a whole has many of the amenities of a mid-sized urban area, but it lacks the high culture resources someone from a large city might be accustomed to. When we moved here, we expected to use Los Angeles for things like opera and museums, but we discovered that they are a little too far away and accessible only by car, and we sometimes go for months or even years without ever venturing into the LA area for any purpose. What makes up for it, to me, is the natural beauty of the surroundings (Epigonos and I have very different tastes) and outdoor recreation opportunities. For most of my life, I have been well integrated into the local gay community of the cities I have lived in, but here I am hardly aware of the gay community, because gays are so commonplace, that one hardly sees a gay community distinct from the rest of the community. I find it very refreshing that I never have to explain my relationship with my partner to a salesman or a service provider, because same sex couples are the norm rather than the exception here. There is gay sexual activity here, as there is anywhere, but I couldn't tell you anything about it, because it doesn't impinge on my lifestyle any longer. My impression is that the majority of gays in this area are white, middle class and upper class men, who are older than the average gay male in larger American cities, and many--perhaps most--are in stable domestic relationships, which probably makes it harder for single males to establish themselves in a social circle. It is sort of like living an a good suburb of a Midwestern city, except that the P.T.A. meetings are dominated by gay parents. I would definitely try living here for awhile before committing to live here permanently.

I have been reading them, but I don't find them very enlightening.

I think straight men have a hard time judging the sexual attractiveness of men, because they are not used to looking at men that way. They tend to compare themselves to other men along a different set of parameters: physical strength, athletic ability, money, power, etc. Gay men, on the other hand, tend to observe other men's physical attractiveness first--just as straight men's first observation about women is their physical attractiveness--so they can't help comparing themselves to the men they find sexually attractive, and as they age, they can't help feeling themselves less desirable on that account. Straight men are aware that women value other things in men above their physical image, so the loss of their looks as they age doesn't matter as much to them psychologically as it does to gay men.

I just came back from playing my second three set tennis match in less than 24 hours, and I have fewer aches and pains than I did yesterday morning after not having had any exercise for almost a week. I find that vigorous movement often makes me feel better than rest does. I have many friends in their 80s, and the ones who have always been physically active are almost always in better physical (and mental) health than the ones who are relatively sedentary.

In my family, my parents' and grandparents' generations on average lived longer, and in better shape, than my own. Many family members in those earlier generations lived into their nineties and hundreds, yet I was one of the oldest in my cohort of cousins, and I have already outlived most of them.

I have always assumed that a good escort asks what he believes he is worth, and if he is willing to accept less than that, then he will probably produce less than his best experience.

What often surprises me is to see an obituary with a photo of someone (more often women than men) who looks like he or she is in the prime of youth, and then read the text and learn that they passed at well beyond three score and ten years of age. We all like to be remembered at our most attractive.

As I was eating lunch today at a restaurant, I glanced across the street to the gas station, and saw that premium was now $4.20/gal.