Altimexis
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Posts posted by Altimexis
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Well, I think I'm going to stop making predictions!
Looks like we got a 2-fer today, and what a day it was for Matt and Kevin. A real roller-coaster of a ride.
(I just had to throw that one in there)
In any case, things are moving fast - much faster than I ever thought they would. I don't want to spoil things for anyone who hasn't had a chance to read things, yet, but can anyone say, separation anxiety? The ending of chapter 33 was terrific. I really thought we were going to have a repeat of chapter 30, with Matt sticking to his damn principles. Without saying more, it's nice to see that Matt now realizes that Kevin needs to know that he's loved, and Matt himself needs to know Kevin loves him.
The next year should be interesting . . .
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One more crazy prediction - based on the new layout of the TOC - I'm guessing there will be around 5 more chapters.
Yikes, that's only 2 1/2 more weeks, and then it'll be all over!
I'm gonna miss these guys.
Great writing, Cole, as always.
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The problem is that Matt wants to be able to have his cake and eat it, too. Don't get me wrong - Matt has every right to set boundaries he's comfortable with. It was not all that long ago that it was accepted that people waited until marriage to have sex. No one thought there was anything wrong with that and no one would break off a relationship over that. Kevin's pushing Matt to have sex could be considered immature and self-centered, and it should be Kevin that should be worried about losing Matt, and not the other way around. That said, we do live in the 21st century and it really is more a matter of Matt wanting to be free of commitment while at the same time being able to have Kevin's love. Twice now he's come close to losing Kevin's love forever. He's hurting Kevin and he knows it, and for that he may ultimately pay a very steep price.
Now on a very separate note, I would love to be Matt's guidance counselor. I'm thinking in terms of a double major for him when he goes to college - Music and Education. That would give him the flexibility to consider both a career in any aspect of the Music field, or to be a Music teacher at any level of primary, secondary or tertiary education. Indiana University would probably be the number one choice for this, combining a music school that truly is second to none with a highly ranked education school, but they're not well-known for Science and Engineering offerings for Kevin, and Purdue is more than 100 miles away - not that that may matter the way things seem to be going for Matt and Kevin as a couple. UCLA is also a very good bet for Matt, and to me Kevin definitely seems like a Cal Tech kind of guy.
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Altimexis's crazy predictions:
It's time for the start of a new school year and time for some wild and wacky predictions for chapter 31 of DDG. I think it's pretty safe to say that Ch 31 or 32 will find us in the lunch room at some point with Becky, Matt, Kevin and Tim all seated at their table, catching up on their respective summers. Becky will have had a great time falling in love with Ryan - maybe, and we all know what happened between Kevin and Matt. Tim will have gone off to Space Camp and will be his usual quiet and shy self, when up will come Stuart, who will ask if he can join them. Poor Tim will be quaking in his boots, when Stuart will up and apologize for all the pain he ever caused the poor guy. He will tell Tim that it wasn't him - that it was his cousin that put him up to it all, and that he, meaning Stuart, would actually like to be Tim's friend. Of course, Tim will still be scared to death, so Stuart will confide in him that he's secretly gay. Tim will get his back up and surprise the heck out of everyone by replying that he's actually straight - whether he is or not - it'll be a pure defensive move on his part. Of course Kevin will let everyone know where he stands, and Matt will go into his usual jealousy mode.
Well, something like that'll happen . . .
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Spoiler Alert: I'm not going to put my whole post inside a spoiler tag, so if you haven't yet read the final chapter and epilogue etc., don't read this, OK?
Elecivil put it well in the the Afterward when he said he knew a lot of readers would dislike the ending since even he likes happy endings, after all. I have to admit that after reading Leaves and Lunatics, I was expecting a happy ending. The trouble I ran into with Laika was, how could there ever have been a happy ending. Even the title was a dead giveaway - no pun intended - Laika, the space dog, died. The bottom line is, how could Bran and Nick ever find a way to be together under the impossible circumstances of their different backgrounds? The answer, plain and simple, was that at least until they became adults, they couldn't.
Most of us grow up feeling we're different, but often live in denial of the fact that we're attracted to guys even as we relish the sight of bare chests and sock-less feet. OK, maybe mismatched socks do it for some of us.
We can't help but come to realize we're gay when we develop our first crush on someone of the same gender, but that person more often than not is straight. (Unfortunately for me, I never let this happen - see my story, The New Job, but I digress . . .) In Bran and Nick's case, however, their first crush was mutual, which was the basis for this story, but not the premise.Although Bran and Nick were compatible, it was, strangely, Alex and Nick who had the most in common - they were both prisoners of their own circumstances. They both rebelled in their own unique ways, but they couldn't escape their respective roles - Alex the son of a wealthy politician, forced to attend an exclusive high school, and Nick, the son of the most conservative minister in town. Like it or not, we are bound to our parents until the age of 18 and the alternative, running away, is usually a one-way street that has a very unhappy outcome. BTW, for most of us, that parental bond doesn't end at 18, either.
Bran, on the other hand, to a large extent had freedom. He wasn't as free as his brother or Corey and his "boundedness" was more a product of his own imposition, but he had a lot of freedom to go his own way. I wonder if he ever did come out to his parents . . .
Thanks, Ele, for taking us down this very bumpy road. It was a beautiful story up almost until the very end. It would have been nice if it had taken less than two years to have told the story, but life does have a way of making it's own demands. Believe me, I know. In any case, I really enjoyed reading Laika. I especially appreciate the ray of hope you left us with at the end of the epilogue. It wasn't much, but what would life be without hope?
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Ahem, getting back on topic, Chapter 28 is out!
Well, sorry to disappoint some of you, but there is no game of dick tag. Yeah, I know, it really looked like they knew how to have more fun, but all they could think of to do was to sit around the pool on display while pretending not to care. How boring is that?
So, we still don't know if Tim is gay or not, and we don't know if he's going to end up in some kind of love triangle with Matt and Kevin. It's interesting how Matt called Kevin in his game of trying to use Tim to make Matt jealous. He was right, I think that's exactly what Kevin was trying to do, and Matt wasn't falling for it. Interesting . . .
Now, on to Matt's first day on the job. Matt was great! Man, I wish I'd had a counselor like Matt when I was a kid. He really worked to make the activities fun and he listened to the kids to get their input. I think that was a great way to gain their trust. As Matt said, the other counselors seemed to just boss their kids around. That's pretty typical of camp counselors.
Cole, I'm curious. The four books Matt selected to read to his group of kids are all books that came out in the mid to late nineties and that would have been age-appropriate for him around the turn of the century. Obviously, you didn't read these books for yourself when they first came out (at least I suspect you didn't), and I'd never heard of them before, so how did you come across them? They sound like they're perfect, so I'm guessing you have first-hand knowledge of them, perhaps from volunteer work, classroom experience, children or even grandchildren. Sorry if I'm being nosy - I just like to pry.
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I have a question. OK, I have more than one.
If I wear tomorrow's socks, does that mean I'm living in dreams instead of today? . . .
After giving this a lot of thought, the answer is, frankly, quite obvious. No matter what socks you put on in the morning, they will always be today's socks. End of story.
Besides, I'm way too excited from Eli's announcement to care!
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All I can say is, the story keeps getting better and better. OK, I can say more . . . a lot more
As tempting as it is to say, Matt, what the Hell are you doing? You have this fantastic, bright, wonderful kid who loves you to pieces and is willing to practically kill himself to cram 4 years of high school into 3 or maybe even 2 1/2 for you, let's back up a minute. Matt is 16 or maybe 17, but Kevin really is only 14 going on 15. He's been home schooled all his life and he's finally convinced his parents to let him attend high school so that he can get some socialization skills and what does he do? He falls madly in love with the fist boy he likes and decides to rush his way through high school so he can catch up with this boy academically, all based on a wealth of social experience . . . NOT. Call me a spoil sport, but I think Matt really does have a valid point, here. Take it from someone who finished high school in 3 years and college in 3 years - as much to avoid socialization as for academic reasons - you can delay socialization, but you still ultimately have to go through it.
All of that said, I tend to think Kevin really has found someone special, and vice versa. Matt may have had his problems, but he's really grown up a lot in the past year and I think Kevin's on to something. He's clearly after Matt for the right reasons - valuing him as a friend first and not for sex. Likewise, Matt values Kevin as a friend first. I think their love really has what it takes to go the distance. I just worry that Kevin's plans might be the wrong moves for the right reasons.
Cole, you're a masterful story teller as always.
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Hmmmmm . . .
When chapter 24 concluded, I thought to myself, how the Hell will Matt get himself out of this one. After all, Cole would never resort to something as clich? as having someone show up at just the right time, now, would he? I mean, that's the sort of stunt I might pull, but not Cole, but real life isn't like that, so I had mixed feelings when Brent happened along in chapter 25. However, what in the world would ever possess a few kids to attack someone on school grounds in the first place. Sure, it was after hours, but there were lots of other kids around getting out of extracurricular activities, so Brent happening along actually wasn't totally unexpected at all. Stuart and his cronies don't seem all that bright, but really. I do find the idea of the kid who was probably Stuart's brother pulling a knife to have been a bit far fetched, but Cole doesn't introduce things without a reason. We're going to be hearing a lot more about this kid, and about Stuart, too. You can count on it.
I loved the presentation of the concert scene. Cole really outdid himself there. He really captured the atmosphere - the feel of the performance. I was really surprised that Matt had an unintentionally prepared an encore, catching Mr. T off-guard. That was great! It's not clear yet that Matt wants to be a professional musician, but he clearly has the skill, the command of music and as would surely come as a surprise to himself more than anyone, the leadership skills to pull it off. He might even be able to be a conductor some day. Something tells me, though, that Matt might be happier being a plain old music teacher like Mr. T.
Finally, I'd like to consider the interplay between Matt and Kevin. It seems we're getting closer and closer to breaking down that final barrier - if that's even the direction Cole is taking us. I still wouldn't put it past Cole to wind up matching Kevin with Timothy or even Matt with Becky, although I seriously doubt the latter. Seriously, though, we saw Kevin get himself in serious trouble and willingly serve a week of detention just to demonstrate to Matt the seriousness of his love for him. Honestly, if Matt didn't know it already, I don't know how this would have made a difference, but Kevin certainly has never been anything but bold. He was right - Matt should have called him. Matt should have called Becky, too - they're both his best friends.
At the end of the concert, however, Matt came so close to handing his bouquet to Kevin, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Was it because he couldn't acknowledge his love for Kevin, because he couldn't admit to himself he was gay, or because he didn't feel is was proper to give a boy a bouquet in public? As the reader, we were already inside Matt's head, but not far enough inside to figure that one out just yet. Matt didn't have the nerve. But Matt's mother noticed the interplay. She saw it in Matt's eyes and seemed to acknowledge it as she looked at Kevin. She knows the score. The question is, will she leave it for Matt to figure it out on his own, or will she finally confront him on how he's hurting Kevin now in trying to avoid hurting him in the future.
Great writing, Cole, as always. Looking forward to 26. How many chapters are there in DDG, anyway?
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Cole,
Since when did you become a cliffhangermeister? Is that even a word???
Oh yeah, for those who haven't noticed, chapter 24 is up - the story's getting better and better, and Matt's evolving right before our eyes.
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Here's a bit of a spoiler.
Chapter 23 is where Matt loses his Drama Queen persona for the time being.
I must say, this was most unexpected,
and I told you Timothy would be back.
Great work, Cole
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Well, it's probably not good form to reply to one's own story forum to generate interest, but Hell, if no one else is going to start some discussion, I might as well. Please note, if you haven't already read my stories, there are spoilers ahead:
What we have in Naptown Tales is a collection of independent but interrelated short stories that take place in the suburbs of a middle-sized Midwestern city. Some of the stories, such as Broad Ripple Blues are mostly feel-good stories, but even these carry some sort of message. For example, Broad Ripple Blues carries the message that it's easier to come out on ones own terms. By proactively coming out at the start of high school, David and Jeremy faced homophobia together, as in Back to School Jitters, and were able to become role models for other gay kids. It doesn't always work this way in real life, but sometimes the only thing that's lacking is courage.
I got a fair bit of feedback on A Dance to Remember that a school principal would never condone a deliberate provocation - even if by friends of the provoked - to create sympathy. That said, the ruse worked and same sex couples were accpted at the Homecoming dance. Way to go, but is it real? The whole Gay Prom movement has arisen in major cities because most school districts, even in the most liberal areas, will not accept same sex couples at school dances. This is without question a violation of civil rights and everyone knows it and everyone feels powerless to do anything about it.
In Educating My Parents, young Trevor faces a dilemma. Caught up in the moment at the Homecoming dance and having outed himself by dancing with Dave Reynolds, he knows it's only a matter of time before his Evangelical parents find out, so he knows he has to tell them, but how? Trever is your typical computer geek, and so he concocts an elaborate scheme in which his parents "discover" a trace of carefully selected websites that he hopes will lead them to conclude that he's questioning his sexuality, he's conflicted, and that he really has no choice in the matter. What he didn't know is that although his computer doesn't have any parental controls or spyware installed, his father has been using their firewall to trace his son's surfing habits for years.
Halloween Hero is a personal favorite creation of mine. Told from the POV of a straight boy who is forced to choose between his best friend and his gay brother, it quickly builds momentum as their family disintegrates around them. I know that some readers have found the ending to be somewhat formulaic; perhaps it did deserve more time. In any case, I didn't see much point in belaboring the conclusion once the house of cards started to fall. Halloween Hero was written in its entirety in a single sitting. It came to me in an instant and it is one of the most enjoyable pieces I've ever written.
My First Thanksgiving begins a two-part ordeal in what will undoubtedly be one of the most controversial stories posted on this site. When Dude read it, his first impression was, to paraphrase, 'we don't like to discuss religion on this site, and I hope you are not concluding the series with these stories.' Some of my editors and readers have told me they are outright in awe of these stories, and others have told me they hope people get out of them what I hoped to convey. I cannot overemphasize the trouble to which I have gone to insure sensitivity to cultural and religious differences in the presentation of these two stories. Because I am Jewish myself, I wanted to be sure that I was being fair in every way possible to the Muslim character in my story. I therefore put out an appeal for Muslim editors and beta readers and eventually selected Fun Tails as a Muslim editor, and BeaStKid as a northern Indian editor, the two together giving me as close an approximation as possible to having a Pakistani editor as I was likely to achieve.
The impetus for My first Thanksgiving came from a colleague of mine, who immigrated to America from Pakistan and became one of the first to be granted asylum as a gay man because he had been sentenced to death by stoning for being caught in the act of having sex with another man. Using the fundamentals of his story, I concocted a similar premise, but with a pair of young teenage Pakistani boys. My First Thanksgiving traces the plight of Altaf as he makes his way to America, falls in love with Randy Bernstein and is faced with adapting to a new and strange culture. Invited with his mother to the Bernsteins for Thanksgiving, at first Muslim-Jewish tensions flare at the dinner table, only to be supplanted by the revelation that he and Randy are boyfriends.
The Un-Christmas started out to be a light-hearted look at Christmas from the viewpoint of a couple of non-Christians, but ended up being anything but light-hearted. When Altaf immigrated to America, he left his first boyfriend behind in Pakistan to face death by stoning alone. Refused burial, Fareed's parents had little choice but to turn to the Hindus for cremation, unbeknownst to Altaf. Though not forgotten, Altaf had largely put Fareed out of his mind until one day when he received a package that turned out to be Fareed's ashes. Consumed by guilt, he lashed out at Randy, at first causing Randy to fight back. But then something amazing happened. Turning to the very institutions that spurned Altaf and Fareed, he found a message of hope and love. Together the boys rediscovered religion as they laid Fareed's remains to rest and as the world around them celebrated Christmas. I am particularly proud of what I accomplished in writing this piece.
Finally, there is A New Year Resolution. This being the Midwest, things couldn't be expected to go smoothly for the teens of Naptown. When young Trevor heard the pastor of his church call him a sinner in his Sunday sermon, his eyes saw red. Not only that, but the pastor started a petition drive to have the high school's GSA banned and to remove certain text books from the curriculum. Fortunately, help came from an unexpected source - the pastors gay son.
So, will there be additional Naptown tales? As long as there is intolerance toward gay youth, I expect that there will be inspiration for me to write further. I have two more stories in the works currently that I expect to publish this spring. The first will be titled "All My Heart", and will be told from the POV of a straight girl who falls in love with a straight boy - well, at least that's what it will look like at the beginning. I'm not going to give anything else away for now. The second will be titled "Class Election" and will be about Dave Reynold's bid to become next year's sophomore class president.
Anyway, please feel free to comment on my stories, or to hijack this thread if you want to.
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Both excellent points, Trab, and much more likely than my hypotheses.
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Chapter 22 is pure gold!
The shower scene, and the conversation over lunch had me laughing like a drain.
This chapter was funny as Hell, but there was a lot more to it than laughs. First, there's the whole jealousy thing. Let me assure you, we haven't seen the last of Timothy - Cole doesn't introduce characters for no reason, and I'm sure there's more to this character than a single jealousy scene.
Next, we have the wrestling scene in Keven's bedroom. At the end of it, Matt says, "I was refusing to do what we both wanted to do because of my stupid principles, that was the only thing stopping us, and right now it all seemed so very silly." So they end up rolling around on Kevin's bed, laughing like hyenas and feeling each other up (or at least Kevin was feeling Matt up), so did that mean that Matt was changing his mind about Kevin being too young, or was he just venting. This is pure Cole - teasing us and then cutting the scene without giving us the answer!
Then there is the shower scene and Kevin's discussion of it at lunch. Cole, that was priceless.
Finally, there was Matt's decision to forgo playing the Mozart Concerto in favor of the Weber. This indicated a degree of maturity the reader never suspected Matt had. Here he was giving up the opportunity of a lifetime - one that could literally propel himself into his career, in favor of something that would showcase the talent of the clarinet section. There are a couple of thoughts I have on this. One is that Matt may not be as keen on a career in music as Mr. Tollini thinks he is. The other is that Matt truly is enjoying his leadership role and is proud of his fellow students. It wouldn't surprise me actually if Matt is heading in the direction of a career in teaching rather than performing music.
I've been giving a lot of thought lately to Matt's whole attitude toward Kevin and Kevin's feelings toward Matt. At first I thought that Matt was being entirely unreasonable and that this whole - I'm leaving in two years thing - was yet another aspect of his immaturity. We start out with Matt trying to convince himself he's an adult and then Cole fills us in on his past as Matt tells his story to Kevin. Kevin just seems so much more mature than Matt, particularly with what he's had to go through. And of course teenage love is supposed to be fleeting - it's a time to experiment and try out the whole concept of caring for another person and to, well, try out sex, although parents cringe at the idea of that. Kevin sure is eager enough, and that perhaps is the problem. I have no doubt that Kevin likes Matt and that they could be lifelong friends, but I'm not sure how much he really loves him. He certainly lusts after him - he likes him well enough, but his primary interest is in sex. Matt on the other hand loves Kevin for his mind, his wit and his personality. Sure, he'd like to have sex with him, but to Matt, that's secondary, and so I'm beginning to think Matt is being the more mature of the two. If they have sex, they could potentially lose each other as friends, and that would be a crime.
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As one who has had the "pleasure" of getting sick while on vacation overseas, you have my complete sympathy, Wibby. I'll tell you, you have not lived until you spend a day in a Paris ER, with gurneys stacked so closely together that you could walk on them from one end of the ER to the other. Lucy for me, the ER was full and so they put me in the break rook, next to the urinalysis machine. I very pleasantly bled out while the nurses sat around laughing and orderlies brought urine samples right by me to be tested. My wife, who speaks fluent French, wasn't let near me. My French and the doctors' English were on a par with each other, which meant we understood squat from each other. If the French health care system is supposed to be one of the best, this ER was not one of the better examples of it. Finally after I vomited a couple liters of digested blood, they got serious and sent me to a military hospital, where they took exceptional care of me. I guess it wouldn't have looked good for an American citizen to die of something that in the US, would have been considered malpractice, pure and simple.
Anyway, here's wishing you all the best and a speedy recovery.
Oh, and I fully intend to call my sequel to Love in a Chair a sequel, even though it involves different characters and spans a period of time that begins several years before the start of the first story. So there.
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His comment to me, while working his way through this story, was that Matt is the biggest drama queen he'd ever met and if he were Kevin, he'd just shoot him and be done with it. I wonder how many readers feel exactly the same.
Count me in!
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OK, now I haven't exactly had a lot of time to frequent the forums, here or at the other sites I frequent, and maybe I'm a bit naive here, but isn't the primary purpose of this form to discuss the story?
Maybe it's that silky smooth cerebral cortex I have - after all, I'm only a bird. All you raccoons and dogs and other mammals with your wrinkly brains - how can I possibly compete? Maybe I should just give in and admit defeat. I'll just never understand the nuances of the forum - I'm just an obsequious little raven, after all. So please accept my humble apology for coming here to do something so inappropriate as to discuss the story. OK, I confess - I've been a big fan of CP from his early days at Nifty. He tells a great story and has a wonderful way of getting inside the mind of kids - I guess it's just his child-like nature coming through.
Anyway, I love the three primary characters Cole has so lovingly constructed for us. The way he gradually introduces us to each of them, making them real, is exceptional. The interplay between Kevin and Becky is priceless. Matt has really been undergoing a transformation, right before our eyes, from thinking he's a mature adult, to developing extreme guilt over what he did to Kevin. Kevin is obviously a rather precocious fourteen-year-old who has a much more mature way of thinking, thanks to what he's faced at home, but with still a bit of immaturity in there as becomes apparent in his reactions to things. It wasn't at all surprising Kevin would come clean to Matt, but for Matt to relate his story to Kevin took a major shift in his self-perception.Matt is still in evolution. Knowing how Cole thinks, I still wouldn't put it past him to have him turn out straight (see Josh Evolving for an example of this), but I think we're getting very close to Matt accepting he's gay, if he hasn't already, and recognizing that the only one he'll fool in trying to put a lid on his feelings for Kevin is himself. So enter Timothy in chapter 18. I really thought we'd see Matt get jealous of Tim in chapter 19, but Cole never takes a straight path to his objectives, which is one of the things I love about his writing, frustrating though it may be.
I'm still expecting jealousy to be the motivating force that pushes Matt into accepting his growing love of Kevin, but we shall see.Chapter 19 was really classic. Here we had two teenagers who were intimidated as hell by each other and neither one recognized it in the other. All these years, Matt has been downright frightened of Brent and although he says he's moved on, his reaction to him clearly tells us he hasn't - at least not entirely. If anything, it was Brent's talking to Matt that will now allow him to do just that - seeing that Brent was every bit as much a victim of peer pressure and that although his pain wasn't as obvious as Matt's, he was hurt none-the-less. Both boys were able to come to closure on that episode of their lives, and I thought it was great.
Matt's refusal to win on a technicality was wonderful. Many of us can relate to the way he felt, but few of us will actually do something about it. Here he showed a degree of maturity that Kevin clearly lacked.
Great going Cole. Looking forward to chapter 20. Oh, and for those of you who weren't aware, the Dude often puts up the chapters as much as a day before he updates the AD page, so if you're a bit over-eager as I am, you can always go directly to the DDG page on Tuesday or Friday afternoon, or even manually type in the expected URL if you're particularly desperate. I, of course, would never do such a thing myself.
We can't help but come to realize we're gay when we develop our first crush on someone of the same gender, but that person more often than not is straight. (Unfortunately for me, I never let this happen - see my story, 
I'm still expecting jealousy to be the motivating force that pushes Matt into accepting his growing love of Kevin, but we shall see.Scan to donate
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in Readers Rule!
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(I deleted the images to save space)
I tried your experiment and got both chapters to come up just fine in both Safari and Firefox. What version of Safari are you using? Did you try the obvious sorts of things like clearing the cache etc.? Did you try to reload? Sometimes it's just something pretty stupid - not that I'm saying you're stupid or anything . . .