Charlie

I went out and bought a new test this afternoon. It gave exactly the same negative result as my seven month old test did earlier in the day. So although I have the same symptoms as my housecleaner, it appears that he has COVID and I do not.

I asked because I tested negative a couple of days ago, but my housecleaner tested positive today (with newer tests).

Are the older self-tests still reliable? I got my last ones six months ago.

But Fetterman's health status has been questionable since the day he was elected.

In case it matters to you, he is actually in New Jersey (check the "map me" function). He is near the Lindenwold station on the PATCO line.

Isn't that Jack Dixon on top?

If I had $1K for every person with whom I had some sort of friendly relationship, whose death I only learned of later from an obituary, I would have a lot more money in the bank. For example, I had two roommates in college, each one for a year and a half; we were good friends at the time, but I didn't keep in touch for long after graduation, and I learned of the death of each one only after I became curious about re-uniting with them, only to discover that they were deceased. In fact, of the eight people I have lived with since leaving my parents' home, the only one still living is my spouse, and only one of the other seven was someone whose death I anticipated in advance, and visited a few days before the end. If I had known, of course I would have contacted the others before they died, if only to let them know that I had cared about them and would mourn their passing. I felt particularly upset about the old friend who committed suicide, wondering if there were something I could have done to prevent that, although that was probably unlikely. But the others all died of natural causes, and at the end I doubt that they thought sadly, "I wonder why I didn't hear from Charlie?" It sounds like you had a much more casual relationship with Harry than I had with friends I lived with, sometimes for several years. (My roommate Cal was actually the person who gave me the nickname "Charlie"!) There is no reason for you to feel guilty for not reaching out to Harry; you weren't responsible for his life, or for his death. What you are feeling is nostalgia for the loss of a relationship that might have become more important--or might not. Of course, I feel sorry about not making the effort to re-connect with Cal and the others sooner, but I don't blame myself for not having made what might have seemed to them like a quixotic gesture at the time. For all you know, you might have made Harry feel worse by reminding him that he wouldn't be anyone's fbud any longer. As I remember from long ago, G-man, you are a sensitive soul. Give yourself a break.

The oldest (b&w) picture on the RM site was uploaded in 2016, and it looks like a man at least in his 40s, whereas the most recent (color) uploads look like a much younger man. The vascular patterns on his arms also look different in that older photo than they do in the others. 😒

One of my favorite places to relax in Paris, too.

Depending on the time of year (I don't like to get up in the dark), I get up between 5 and 6:30, go to the bathroom to empty my body of waste, throw on some clothes, and take the dog outside to perform his routine business--often I will have a bit of morning chat on the street with neighbors doing the same thing with their dogs. Then I feed the dog, and have some breakfast (juice, fruit, and pastry or cereal). Two mornings per week I then leave for the tennis club at 7:10 to play a doubles match for a couple of hours, and do some food shopping on the way home. On other mornings after breakfast I take the dog for a long walk, or drive my partner and the dog to a trailhead from which they walk home. Then I settle down at the computer to read my mail and this site.

My parents didn't marry until they were in their 30s, because during the Depression they both were working to help support their parents; they were close to middle age when I was born, and I was their only child. My father's family background was German, my mother's was English, and I don't remember either one of them (or my grandparents) being very physically or verbally affectionate with me or with one another, yet I never felt any doubt that they loved one another and me, so perhaps the signals were more subtle. I think the only time my father actually told me he loved me was when he knew he was dying, and he asked me to take care of my mother. I had always thought of them as sort of asexual, so I was surprised that when I was cleaning out his things, I found a couple of old photos of naked women (NOT my mother). My mother told me that they had always supposed that she would die first, because she was older than he was and she had been considered rather fragile since childhood, so she had urged him to marry again after she was gone (women often seemed obviously attracted to my father, who was tall and athletic, and capable at everything he did). In fact, she survived him for almost three decades, yet she never showed any interest in a relationship with any other man. I was 19 when I came out to them, and they didn't seem surprised, though I'm sure they were disappointed that they wouldn't have any grandchildren. I think they were relieved when I settled down with my partner, whom they approved of and liked. In old age, my mother came to live with us for five years and seemed perfectly comfortable in our household. My partner's parents came from the same ethnic background as mine; I knew my mother-in-law for almost thirty years, and I observed that she was never verbally or physically affectionate with her sons either. Although we weren't verbally or physically affectionate in front of her or my parents, my partner/spouse and I always have been so when we are alone together; maybe our parents were the same way.

I now see it was me that got a gift.] Oh, no! "THEY who oppose." It was I WHO got a gift." (I dare you to rip the red pen from my grip.)

A wonderful family photo for the Xmas card.

He may feel that being hired regularly by you at that asking price is more satisfactory to him than possibly seeing less of you at a higher price.

Speaking the local language is certainly a help for anyone living anywhere. I have lived in places where I wasn't fluent in the language (Czechoslovakia) or where my accent gave me away as a foreigner (England), but English is the lingua franca, so to speak, in most parts of the world now, and I never found becoming at least moderately communicative in the local language all that hard. Learning another language is easier to do, however, if one is young, and I wouldn't want to have to start learning a language that is completely foreign to me (e.g., Japanese, Finnish, Arabic) now that my brain is old and tired. Canada never seems as foreign--to me--as Louisiana or West Virginia.

As an historical footnote, when the typing machine was first invented, the term "typewriter" usually referred to the person using the machine.

Shouldn't it be "1 & 2 are correct?"

That is the point that anyone looking to retire anywhere should consider. He moved to a beautiful area that he had experienced before only as a tourist. Daily living is more than charming scenery, good restaurants, nice weather, and free healthcare.

I wouldn't kick Hadrian out of bed either.

He was in a somewhat rural area, and found it difficult to make friends of any kind, despite being a very intelligent person (retired school teacher) and a pleasant personality.

Unfortunately, I don't remember.

I just finished reading the article, and was surprised (and enlightened) to realize how little "queer" literature I have read, especially in recent years, when I seem to have lost interest in fiction and poetry of any kind. The article made me only mildly curious about most of the works the panel discussed. I am even older and more irrelevant than I realized.

Are there human proofreaders any longer? I certainly don't see much evidence of them in the newspapers I read. I took a course in proofreading once, because I enjoy correcting people's mistakes, but the teacher explained that it was a very poorly paid profession, and should be considered only as a sideline.

A number of years ago, an English friend of mine retired to Portugal because he thought he could live there more comfortably than he could in London on his modest pension. He would occasionally phone me practically crying, because he said the health care was great, but otherwise he found it a miserable place to live for an elderly gay man.

One thing she said I would agree with: I have been encountering hotel room bathrooms with toilets that are too low for normal-sized elderly adults to use comfortably.