Charlie

When I was very young, I used AquaVelva after shave, then realized that any kind of after shave was unnecessary and just dried out my skin, so I stopped. I still use Old Spice Pure Sport deodorant. I never used cologne, and always found it a turn-off on another man.

That sounds totally unbelievable, especially for a city the size of Sao Paulo.

Novak's failure to bring home any medal from the Olympics must have been a big disappointment, but he still should be motivated to win the calendar year Grand Slam. However, will the fact that this is probably the only opportunity he will ever have to accomplish that elusive goal unnerve him the way it did Serena in 2015, when she was upset by Roberta Vinci, of all people, in the semis? Of course, there are all sorts of imponderables in the situation this year, from the weather to the pandemic-influenced playing conditions in NYC, so one can't focus only on who the players are. Who would have predicted that Novak would be defaulted in a bizarre incident last year? That said, I wouldn't write off the chances of Medvedev or Tsitsipas, both of whom played exceptionally well in Toronto this past weekend.

I wouldn't be surprised if this will be the second USO in a row without Roger or Rafa, or even the defending champion Thiem. Novak won't have to go through any of them to get to the final, but will he become overconfident and be upset by someone unexpected, as he was in Tokyo?

I tricked with a man who claimed to have tricked with King Baudouin of Belgium when he was still a young prince. It may have been the truth....

I hired an escort from the Advocate pink pages back in the 80s, and was surprised that it turned out to be him. It was pretty good sex.

I have lived with someone in a partnership for the past 57 years (I went directly from a 4 year relationship into one that started 53 years ago tomorrow), but they have worked primarily because I have been allowed to be alone as much as I need to be. Committed relationships can be supportive, but they can also be suffocating if one doesn't also have "alone time." I grew up as an only child, and psychologically I need to have my own space; my partner has understood and accepted that right from the start. When I was younger, sometimes that meant a vacation on my own, or a few months away from home doing something that didn't involve my partner, and on one occasion even a one year separation in different countries. At this point in my life (i.e., old age), a room of my own and a few hours entirely separate from my partner will do the trick. However, it has been such a very long time since I have been truly alone--no partnership as the base of my existence--that I don't know how I will handle it if and when the time comes. I can't say I look forward to it, but I try to be prepared for it. My parents were happily married for 41 years and never separated for more than a few days. They both assumed that my mother would die first, because my father was younger than she was and perfectly healthy until the last four months of his life. Instead, my mother survived him for 28 years. To her surprise, she found that she managed remarkably well living on her own until she was no longer physically able to do so. She realized that being completely alone offered opportunities as well as losses.

I'm sure I have mentioned this before, but Ozzie grew up in a house around the corner from my childhood home, and we went to the same small public high school, though not at the same time (he was a contemporary of my father, not of me!). Some of my older neighbors had known him well when he was a teenager, and often talked about him. There were photos of him on the wall at the high school, because he had played on the football team, but the building was torn down many years ago, so the photos are probably in an archive somewhere.

Given the importance of beliefs and opinions to Steven, it's hard to separate his feelings about the clients' beliefs and opinions from his feelings about the clients themselves.

I worked on many teams over the years with both lesbians and straight women. Some were great to work with, some weren't. I rarely saw any connection between their sexual orientation and their professional competence or their personalities. I have also played doubles tennis with a number of straight women and lesbians; the only difference I have noticed is that the lesbians tended to have a more seriously competitive attitude toward the game, though they are not necessarily any better athletes than the straight women.

In the 1930s, wearing something green, especially a green tie, was supposed to be a secret sign of orientation between homosexuals.

Steven Kessler has posted often here about his dislike for some of his longtime regular clients. (BTW, where is he these days?)

@jackhammer91406 started the "Friday Funnies" thread in the Lounge eleven years ago, and it is still running regularly, more than six years after his death.

I remember talking with him about his conviction that biking was the only reasonable way to get around in Los Angeles.

Jack Dixon

OMG! That sounds like Harrisburg when I used to cruise there 60 years ago!

I was in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA, a few days ago, and I took a photo of the prices there; 91 premium (I drive an M-B) was $4.99, which I thought was laughable. The next day I stopped for gas in Salinas in the San Joaquin valley, where I expected it to be cheaper; premium was $5.20/gal.

I had forgotten about Raul. I met him at a PS Weekend years ago. Lucky also mentioned Will, a small town college professor from Ohio who posted interesting posts often in the early years. He signed off when he retired and moved to North Carolina.

There are so many I remember, though don't exactly miss, and almost all of them have been mentioned already. Woodlawn, for instance, was a reincarnation of someone else whose name I can no longer remember (it started with an R), but who went into a complete meltdown when I criticized something he had posted, and he started screaming all sorts of ridiculous curses at me, so that Hooboy suspended him. JD Daniels stalked me, but luckily I avoided actually meeting him. Some I met briefly, like bigvalboy, Rendie, and Tampa Yankee, some I knew well off the site, like jackhammer and latlrnr, both now deceased. One who has not been mentioned was lankypeters, who hasn't posted for a few years; I was surprised to discover some time after we both started posting that he was someone I had known well as a work colleague three decades earlier.

Looks like a bit of a diva, not a diver.

By withdrawing from the Mixed Doubles Bronze Medal match, he denied his partner Nina Stojanovic even the opportunity to play for a medal (did he "injure his arm" by smashing those racquets during his own losing match with Carreno Busta?).

Novak has been understandably frustrated and disappointed by his losses, but he has not behaved very well at the Olympics when he was losing.

Steffi Graf will remain the only player ever to win a "Golden Slam," at least until 2024. But Novak still has a chance to win the calendar year Grand Slam, which no man but Rod Laver has won in the Open Era.

I remember hiring a guy back in the early 1990s, when one still found escorts on print media; he advertised as 30, with one hot black and white body photo. When we met, he admitted that he was 35, but judging from his face I suspected he was still fudging. Time passed, the Internet came along and advertising moved online. One day around 2010, I clicked on a Rentboy ad, and in it there was the same body photo. The ad said he was 40. You do the math.