Charlie

I do live in Palm Springs. Lucky and Steven Kessler do not.

And there is your answer to your question of whether Rancho Mirage is more expensive. On the whole, RM is more upscale than PS; the residents tend to be older and wealthier than those in PS proper. However, although they are separate towns, many people tend to think of RM as simply an upscale neighborhood of the larger Palm Springs metro area. Lucky, Steven Kessler and I live in three distinct towns that locals think of as rather different from one another, yet outsiders tend to lump us all together as residents of Palm Springs.

There is no residential gayborhood per se here in Palm Springs that I am aware of; I'm not sure there is even a straight one. The exclusively gay commercial neighborhood downtown is relatively small, because there are openly gay businesses everywhere in town. I have never lived in a real gayborhood, because Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen were not noticeably gay when we lived in them many years ago (I guess we set the tone).

Aww! He's cute. I hope hockey doesn't mess up that face.

She is out of the Olympics, where she was one of the official tennis competitors for the US. She is only 17, so she will probably have future opportunities, but the US will have fewer potential winners this time around, because it is probably too late to replace her.

Now Coco Gauff is out, because she has tested positive for COVID.

We have a similar though somewhat smaller crate--our dog is only ten lbs--which we take folded up in the trunk of the car if we have the dog with us on a long trip. You never know if an occasion will arise when you have to leave the dog somewhere for a short time, such as in a hotel room while you go out to do something, and you don't want to leave him loose. He is accustomed to the crate for such times, because we often use it at home when we go out, so he knows the routine.

I believe the correct term is "cleaning au naturel "

I finally decided that we will leave the home county in August (we haven't been out of Riverside County in the past 18 months) because I can't stand the extreme desert heat here much longer (a mild day is anytime the temperature doesn't go over 110F). At this time of year, we usually drive up the east side of the Sierras and through Oregon to the coast. But now there are huge wildfires on that route, so I expect to drive straight west to the ocean, and up the coast, perhaps as far as the Olympic Peninsula, in search of ocean-cooled weather, which is what matters more than anything else to me right now. I am beginning to wonder if we will ever get back to London, which we had planned to visit in 2020, then in 2021. Cases are rising there again, even the Health Minister is ill with COVID, and Boris Johnson is self-isolating again, as everyone is supposed to do in the UK if they have had contact with someone who tests positive, even if both of them are vaccinated. As others here have mentioned, I am less worried about catching the virus than about getting stuck in a situation where the travel schedule gets expensively screwed up by regulations that change while one is en route.

I still keep a small collection of mags from the 60s and 70s, and a few newer ones, mainly of models whom I knew or by photographers whom I knew. I also keep copies of a few gay magazines that I was involved in producing, which have some photos in them, including a tasteful nude photo of my first partner on the back cover of one of them.

The member whom I described to you in another thread actually used the handle "latlrnr" on this site. When I asked him what it meant, he said to pronounce it "late learner." We had many discussions about his past, and his description of his life was probably familiar to a lot of older gay men: born in a small town in a straight world, when the "gay world" was a fairly secretive closed urban society; raised in a loving "normal" family; followed the expected path for a respectable American male, meaning college, settlement in his hometown, a professional career, marriage to a woman he loved but wasn't really sexually attracted to, and children. His children were grown and he had already taken early retirement before the world had changed enough that everyone knew what "gay" meant, and he could log on to a site like this and communicate with other men like himself. If he were still here, I am sure that he would be eager to discuss his experience with you, but unfortunately he died suddenly only a few years into his new life as an openly gay man. But your experience is different from his, because at 40, you have grown up in a very different world. AIDS came along when you were a young child, so you were surrounded by a world in which everyone knew what "gay" meant, and everyone was exposed through the media to a "gay world" in which they could explore their sexual desires without fear of being arrested for admitting that they were even attracted to other men, much less that they engaged in same sex activity. Even so, I am sure there are many men your age who have followed the same path as my friend, despite the new opportunity to be openly gay or bi, because although we have attained a lot of "gay rights" in the past 40 years, that doesn't mean that every young man feels that they apply to himself, or that he is comfortable exercising them. You have traveled far enough down the old traditional path that you have commitments--like a wife and child, friends and social obligations, and perhaps a career--that still complicate an exit to a different path. I hope there are other men here with similar experience who will connect with you, but I'll play "Dear Abby" and suggest that you also consider professional counseling if your situation allows.

Harold Matzner, one of the wealthiest citizens of Palm Springs and a well-known philanthropist, always wears tennis shoes and often appears at formal events wearing dark blue tennis shoes with his tuxedo. Of course, he also owns the fashionable Tennis Club in town, so it's a kind of signal to those in the know. However, I have noticed that they are not really "tennis shoes," but what would be more properly described as sneakers (and cheap ones, at that). Instead of trying to hide the fact that you are wearing comfortable shoes, make them a transgressive fashion statement.

Perhaps you didn't understand my point. In 1983 and 1984, the Australian Open was not held in January: in those days it was held in Nov.-Dec. Top international players often didn't bother to go all the way to Australia for it because, as the last slam of the year, it wasn't as important as the other slams unless they were interested in winning a Grand Slam (defined as winning all the slams in a single calendar year), and rarely had any of them already won the first three. But the Grand Slam was a desirable goal for a player, and anyone who wanted it definitely had to win the first slam of the year to be in contention for it at all, so moving the AO to January made winning it more important strategically for the top players. Cost and closeness to the end-of-year holidays was more of a deterrent for the lower ranked players, who often were exhausted at the end of the year from just trying to make a living, and the AO didn't even pay as well as the other slams. One of the main reasons why Margaret Court holds the record for most slams won is that almost half of her wins were at the AO at the end of the year, where she was playing at home, primarily against local talent rather than against the other top international women players.

Lovely greyhound.

Looks more like a sock fetish.

This is the second year in a row that we will not travel outside the USA. I am hoping to end that unusual (for me) record in 2022, because my spouse's passport expires in 2023, and he wants to make his final trip abroad before then, so he doesn't have to apply for another passport. My current passport expires in 2025, by which time I hope COVID will finally be under control and the process will be back to normal.

I have never put anyone on "Ignore." I want to know who to avoid.

I think it is human nature to assume that we all think and feel the same way, and everyone fits into neat categories. The reality is rather different. I understood who I was and what I wanted from the time I was in my teens; other people's experience obviously differs. Most people are uncomfortable when they can't firmly label themselves, or when the labels they have chosen don't stick. If you can, try to relax and explore first. BTW, those who are close to you, especially your wife and child, have labels for you, too, and they will be confused and upset when theirs don't stick to you either. Be gentle with them.

Another one who gives English as his only spoken language, but writes "I am open of mind I like kiss"

The Aussie Open also used to be the last slam tournament of the year, so anyone hoping for a Grand Slam year would have lost interest by the time the year was coming to an end if he/she hadn't already won the first three of the year. One consequence of moving it to January and making it the first slam of the year was that more people wanted to play, because you had to win it first or you had no hope of winning the Grand Slam that year.

In the early years of this website (at the beginning of the century) I became good friends with a man who had recently started posting here. He was in his early 60s, happily married, with grown children and grandchildren, and had never had sex with another man, but he knew there was something about that possibility which intrigued him. He met an escort who posted on this site, who was kind and sensitive as well as young and attractive, with whom he had his first male-with-male sexual experience. Unfortunately, he was still trying to figure out what to make of this experience, when his wife found out about it and forced the issue, to the point that he and his wife separated, and his family knew why. He left the town in which he had been a pillar of the community, and began a new life; some of the changes were desired, and others were not. I don't know what your situation is, but wherever your journey takes you, you should be prepared for the likelihood that your life will probably change, positively and negatively, in ways that you may not anticipate. Be ready to ride the wave.

I think I have told the story here before, of the night I ran into him in the "Meatrack" on Fire Island. He was sucking someone off against a tree, when the inimitable voice of Alice Ghostley called out from the boardwalk, "Paulie? It's time to come back to the house. You have to work tomorrow." Then Paul's anguished reply, "Oh, Alice! Not NOW!!"

Many years ago, a friend of mine from London retired to Portugal because he expected to be able to live there more comfortably on his limited retirement income. A couple of years later he phoned me from there, practically sobbing because he was so miserable. His lifestyle was comfortable, but even though he was a well-traveled, educated and sophisticated gay man, he felt completed isolated and alone in a culture that didn't really interest him. Things got even worse when he developed AIDS symptoms, because he had difficulty getting medical help there, and the locals treated him like a pariah.

I am confused: you two make it sound like he is no longer around. He posted in another thread only a few hours ago.

Since it sounds like you are setting up a fund for a specific purpose, rather than donating to an existing program, it will create extra expenses for the university to administer it, so it is not unreasonable for them to let you know how much of your donation they will set aside for that purpose. They will have to advertise in some way that such scholarships are available and recruit recipients, and vetting the applicants sounds a lot more complicated than something as simple as verifying the financial resources of more typical scholarship applicants. Moreover, unless you want the whole sum to be disbursed at once, the administrative expenses will be ongoing, because the money will have to be invested to keep the fund solvent for future years. I have no way of knowing whether the 6.5% is an appropriate charge or not, especially since I don't know how substantial the sum is or how many scholarships you hope to offer.