Charlie

I think I would have made a good father, but my partner of almost 50 years did not like kids and would have made a terrible parent, so I am glad it wasn't a serious possibility when we were young. Instead, we have had several dogs and a cat over the years, and I have managed to exercise my parenting impulses on them. I think about children more now that I am old, because the advantage of having children and grandchildren, if they are the right kind, is that one can finally depend on them for care rather than vice versa. I am lucky that I am somewhat close to a niece and nephew of my partner, because without them we would have no one of a younger generation to look to for support.

There were no sex education classes in my public schools, and my parents never talked to me about sex. I was a rather shy only child with few male friends, so I was in my teens before I learned how babies were made--I thought the male somehow inserted his penis into the woman's belly button. At 13, I realized from a Raymond Chandler novel I found at my grandmother's house that a man could put his penis in another man's mouth, but I never imagined anal sex was an option until my first adventure with another male at age 17. I went away to college a few months later, and between 17 and 18 I devoured every book I could find about sex, especially gay sex, so I could understand my life to come. At 19, having already had sex with numerous men, I sat my parents down and told them that I was gay. They looked at one another in puzzled silence for a moment, and then my mother said, "But, how do you know?"

Our dog got a birthday email from his vet yesterday, but it was just an arbitrarily chosen date, because it was the anniversary of his initial examination by the vet. We don't know his real birthday, because he was a stray whom we adopted from the county shelter, and the first two vets who examined him couldn't even agree on his probable age. He just got an extra treat at lunchtime. I have owned animals whose exact birthday was known (one dog was born on the tenth anniversary of the death of another beloved dog, which was a little spooky), and sometimes we would go for a special romp in a park, but otherwise we don't do anything special--hell, we don't even do much to celebrate our own birthdays, unless they end in a zero or a five.

A good friend of mine has been in home hospice now since June. As she says, her spirit is completely prepared to leave, but her body refuses to let go. My mother went through the same process, except that she was psychologically ready to go in her mid-90s, but didn't enter hospice till she was 102. I hope that I am spared that. I would like to be healthy and independent until the end, and then learn that I have exactly one week left before the breath stops. Fat chance!

The Episcopal Church has accepted some openly gay priests and a gay bishop, but plenty of members are not happy about it.

Ditto. I remember the first time I got a hard-on, and the first time I came, but I don't think of that as "having sex." I also remember the first time I did something sexual with another boy, but that was fumbling adolescent experimentation. To me, the first time I "had sex" was as a consenting teenager with another male (who claimed to be 18 but was probably older), when we tried out all the standard acts, oral and anal in top and bottom positions. It was also the first time I heard the term "gay."

Yikes! That kid hasn't got a clue. I wonder if anyone will alert him to all the comments here about his response, or if he will understand the negative impression he made.

+1

I stopped watching Fixer Upper a while ago, because I got tired of Chip and Joanna, and of Waco. I also found Joanna's style choices predictable and not ones that appealed to me. But the break-up of Tarek and Christina has shaken me profoundly. Their relationship seemed refreshingly believable, and to learn what was going on behind the scenes made me question my own perspicacity. As a southern California real estate lover, I also enjoyed watching the variety of places they flipped.

Despite his appearance, he must be a fairly cultured young man. Ariodante is the title of a relatively obscure opera by Handel.

What makes that weird for me is that I knew someone who who really was known as "PK" to everyone.

I am actually having the under counter and overhead fluorescent lighting in my kitchen replaced tomorrow with dimmable LEDs, by a very attractive young electrician (but that is NOT why I am doing it, I swear).

The tickets are not easy to get, because they go on sale twice a month, at the beginning and middle of the month, for two week periods, and are often completely sold out very quickly.

Actually, this question has come up in previous years. Since most people on this site, both clients and escorts, are usually known to others only by their "stage names", it is best to start introducing oneself by one's site name/handle, but if it is a long or unpronounceable one, most people then switch to their real first names. Last names are not necessary.

I find bodies like these more attractive when they are dressed than when they are undressed.

I worked at the same job, in the same city, for 36 years, and it was the right job, in the right place, for me at that time. But I was able to take long summer vacations, and even one year sabbaticals a few times, to get away and try out life in other cities and other countries, so I had a pretty good idea about where else I would be happy living. As Moondance said, what was right for me during those years would not necessarily be right forever. I don't like cold, snow and ice for more than about a week at a time, so I wanted to move somewhere sunny, warm and dry, which was why I chose to move 2500 miles from the Northeast to the Southwest, and I have never regretted doing so. But after a dozen years in Palm Springs, I began to think I might want yet another change. I had always liked the Pacific Northwest, and I began to explore possibilities for another move. Ultimately, certain circumstances convinced me that it was the wrong time to make a change in location, and so we stayed in Palm Springs, but if circumstances change, it is still possible that I will end up spending my final years somewhere completely different. BTW, jjk, being part of a couple can make it harder, not easier to make the move. Each time I contemplated moving, it took me a long time to convince my spouse to consider leaving where we were, because he is as resistant to change as you are. If I were alone, it would be much easier for me to try someplace new.

Just a couple of notes. LA-PS train service is notoriously unreliable, especially going from PS to LA, where the infrequent trains have been known to arrive many hours late. The train station is in the middle of nowhere, with very few services, and if the train is not on time, you can find yourself locked out on the platform waiting. Some of the flights on azdr's list are only seasonal, and many are not daily. The Virgin America (now part of Alaska) service non-stop between PSP and New York is only once per week, and goes to JFK. There is actually more service between PSP and SFO than between PSP and LAX, because United has cut out most of its turbo-prop commuter service to LAX. My in-laws are coming later this month and flying from DFW into and out of ONT, because the flights were cheaper than to PSP. However, they have to rent a car at ONT, and their return flight from ONT is at 5:30am. I will pass on their experience with ONT after their visit.

My oldest friends live in one of the few private residences that Philip Johnson designed. It is a gem, but impractical as a family home. One of them is an architect himself, and he has had to make numerous tweaks to the house to make it functional to raise their children. Whenever I stay in their guest bedroom, which used to be one of the kid's bedrooms, I feel like I am in a compartment on a very small ship. Nevertheless, they have stayed in it for almost a half century, and despite the trouble of maintaining it, they can't bring themselves to leave.

I lived down the street from the Sinatra house for a number of years, and walked my dog past it regularly. It had become rather shabby, but I understand that the renovation (which seemed to go on forever) has been very successful.

A good friend decided to leave the Hollywood Hills and move to Santa Rosa. Unfortunately, he had been there only two weeks when he was diagnosed with a particularly nasty kind of cancer, and discovered that the medical care in Santa Rosa was not up to dealing with it. He had to go to USF for treatment, and ended up having to rent an apt in SF to live in while recovering and having daily treatment, because when you are ill, traveling into SF from Santa Rosa regularly is just not practical. He never did get to live in the beautiful retirement home he had bought in Santa Rosa because he didn't survive, so I don't know what he would have thought of the place. Ashland is gorgeous, but it is not cheap to live there. We looked at the area very seriously last year, when we were thinking of leaving Palm Springs, and found that the nearby city of Medford was more reasonably priced. A ten minute drive from Ashland, there is a large, beautiful continuing care retirement community in Medford, on a hill overlooking the city, at which we spent two days as guests. However, we found that our hosts were the only gay couple among the 1000+ residents, sort of the token gays so the community could claim it was diverse. The area is reliably conservative Republican. If you are interested in the area, however, PM me for details about the options there.

When I was younger, my requisites for my headquarters would have reflected Amazon's: there had to be at least a million people in the metro area, and a major airport. In old age, I have begun to appreciate the charm of small towns. Their main downside for the elderly is a lack of medical support, but otherwise I appreciate the cheaper cost of living, friendliness, slower pace and convenience of the small town way of life--IF you choose the right small town, of course. My favorites are mostly in the Pacific Northwest and New England, but there are other candidates throughout the country.

I thought you were referring to the Central Valley of California (aka the San Joaquin Valley), which is wide and flat, and has some of the worst air pollution in the country, according to the EPA. I travel though the valley a couple of times each summer, and from Redding to Modesto to Bakersfield, it always seems as hot as the desert.

Have you seen what the temperatures have been like in the Central Valley this summer?! And the air quality? No thanks.

Is that an EMT transport waiting in the background for passersby who have a heart attack?

I understand that motivation, but one of our reasons for moving was that so many of the good friends we had known for years had already left, and the city we had lived in for so many years had changed a lot from when we had arrived. Being old and alone in an old place that was no longer the same was not my idea of The Golden Years. It can be hard to make new friends as a newcomer in a very conservative, static community, but it is not that difficult to make friends as a newcomer in a place where many other residents are also new. I used to think it would be great to retire and die in the NYC I used to love, but now I couldn't afford to live in the neighborhoods I used to call home.