Joe Long

Damn you must drive fast through the neighborhoods. MapQuest tells me 21 miles in 27 minutes, from the Harrison's to the Moreno's. Probably a dozen high schools in between (these are upper middle class suburbs of a major metropolitan area). I had mentioned a while ago that I thought it would be a bad idea for a girl to work her own school as she would likely be recognized. We later found out their faces were not in the binders. With what I know now, I think it likely that each school has a different binder, showing only the girls from elsewhere who work that school. If Belle or Amanda are in a binder, it won't be one that Jack will see at Brow Ridge. Maybe Arthur will have to look at his school's binder, but how will he recognize Belle or Amanda's scantily clad body?

It does seem like everyone's moved on and left Amanda behind. If she's still doing any guys, I think it's paid or totally random. Or she's just doing Helena. Or both. When Jack opened the binder full of women I was totally expecting him to find Amanda instead of Belle.

My suggestion was that Amanda could be offering herself to older dads as a way of getting back at her own father for taking Alan away from her. Do it just for the sex with absolutely no emotional attachment.

Whether he intended to or not, I think jashley has touched on something very important in our culture today. Perhaps he's been reading Elizabeth Nolan Brown. Jack sensed that his friend (or former friend) Belle was in some sort of distress. He was also aware of a prostitution ring working his school. Jack is a white knight who can't stand to see people suffer, so dfter thinking about it, Jack concluded there was a fair chance that Bellle was involved with the ring, because of course prostitution is bad, so he set out to find the evidence. The problem that Jack fell into was assuming that he knew enough about these different things to act, such as one group must have been victims, some other must be the perps, and if he doesn't rush in to save them, who will? It reminded me of a video I saw recently, probably on Twitter. A guy with a camera went up to an attractive young lady who was protesting something while holding a Mexican flag. He asked her what she thought would happen if American went to protest in Mexico, and she admitted it likely wouldn't go well. Now, I'm the kind of guy who likes intellectual honesty and consistency in political debates, whether I agree with you or not, so I'm cool with these kinds of interactions, and believe both sides can learn from them. At that moment some middle aged white woman with a head full of gray hair pushed the guy back, screaming at him, "Leave her alone - you're just a fucking white guy, what do you know?" Jack was this activist woman charging into the situation. She assumed that because the guy with the camera was white and male then he must have certain attitudes and agendas. She also assumed the teen girl was helpless and needed her defense. In my opinion, the activist only made an ass out of herself, with thousands of people laughing at her when they watch the video. It's not all Jack's fault. We're told that prostitution is always bad and the women are abused. I believe that is true a large amount of the time - but at the same time realize there are women who willingly do it because, as Karen said, they love both sex and money. A libertarian viewpoint is that if two consenting adults want to have sex and exchange money, that's a business contract that shouldn't be immediately outlawed. And going back to the video. I enjoy intelligent political (or even sports) arguments with people I have opposing viewpoints with. It's no fun to debate idiots. I had a Twitter fight a couple years ago with a writer concerning a certain baseball player. I still think I'm right, and the player is still bad, but the exchange made me evaluate and modify my algorithms for analyzing player performance, as I realized some logical errors of my own. We tend to prejudge people and situations, We need to be patient enough to get to know them. We also want to help people. I don't want to see people seriously hurt, but I believe in order to grow as people we do have to experience failure. Sheltering children from the world around them, turning them into precious snowflakes, does them no good at all when it's time for them to leave the nest.

Binders full of women

It's still Easter on this side of the world. I'm letting all the food settle.

Jack's depending on 'Karen' to keep her mouth shut to avoid getting beaten to a pulp by the pimp. Rhona's totally pissed at him. He'll be back together with Kayla but Alan and Amanda won't understand the 'break' unless Jack explains everything, and he saw how well that worked with Rhona.

Still reading (and not coding - damn you, jashley!) Absolutely loved the 'eating out' paragraph - very well done sir, had me LOL'ing (and a fist pump!)

I have time sensitive project I have to code. There's baseball data on a website that I want to download, it goes up for the first time tomorrow, but they only keep it for a day and then it's gone! Plus, I have to drive to Pittsburgh sometime tonight or tomorrow and church activities Friday afternoon. Busy, busy.

If I read the next chapter on Good Friday, will I have to say some Hail Mary's afterwards?

Maybe not because Becca was possessive of Craig but that in that role she threatened Jack - and Kayla will not stand for that. Kayla has shown the will to take on Becca, Belle or Jessica. Rhona's in a yellow zone, and she doesn't know about Amanda (Ooh, maybe that's a hidden bombshell)

When they were in 10th grade more than a year ago, It didn't seem to me that Kayla had a lot of personality. She was Jack's hot girlfriend who loved to have sex with him - which is great for Jack. Over the past year she has defined herself and become much more strong and assertive, but not always how I'd like it. If I was Jack, I might rather be banging Rhona (but maybe that's just me). To me Kayla has become possessive of Jack, ready to defend him, and rather bitchy towards some of the other girls. Jack loves her very much and maybe he doesn't see this, but I tend to agree with diabound, there may come a tipping point where Kayla becomes something that turns Jack off.

Women always start from the position of assuming the worst.

Interesting. I talk to bashful occasionally, and it's usually about 'the meaning of sex.' Once you move past stroke stories into what you buys are writing, the sex is not there just to be gratuitous. It has to add to the story. The characters have certain attitudes about it.

I had a lot of great memories of my high school and college years. It was also the most depressing time of my life, as I was trying to find out how I was, find a girl I could have a relationship with, and withstand my parent's divorce.

Oh yeah, I'm slow - my Hannah, of course, at the age of 13. When I read 'Don and Mike' I couldn't help but immediately think of these guys. I spent too many hours being a groupie outside the WJFK studios. (although once at Chuckie Cheese I did get invited into the ball pit by Janet From Another Planet)

Jack and Kayla's group are such goodie two shoes. Craig's apparently the only one that does any drinking. I have some booze (and one porn) parties in my story. I'm going to have to add passing some joints around (I never partook, but they were offered). Hmm, how would Hannah act when she's wasted?

Even if it's underage consensual sex!

For anyone who wants the first four chapters (around 35k words) of my story, drop me an email at jplong@mail.com or PM me here. I've got a scene and a half at the end of ch4 to edit and it will be ready.

So, check your messages!

I've sometimes suggested things for a story, and I have one in mind now, but at least the way jashley describes it, sounds like the guy was expecting it and when was the author going to get around to it. That's dickish to me.

We value quality over speed, just get it right!

So I didn't miss any new chapters in my absence? Bummer! My conference went excellently. I was nervous for my presentation, finishing up my powerpoint the afternoon before while in the audience, but all went well and I got lots of compliments and requests for the slides from several teams. I met and handed my business card to a couple of general manager and one director of baseball operations, and today was sending out proposed data sales to two teams and a major website.

Kayla turned 17 in the spring, while the Harrison kids had their birthday in July. I had questioned before about if it was mentioned how old Tara is. I think she has her license. She's either the same or a year younger (16)

OK, Jack did - once. It's been over a year, Kayla's been deprived