no, your input is appreciated but i only threw pot in there cuz A) i love it B) its one of the most common denomenators throughout humanity (everybody smokes, gay, straight, black, white, male, female, etc..)

also it comes into play because the main character who is usually uptight about homosexuality loses some of his inhibitions when he's smoking with his gay friends, hence the heavy presence in the beginning. it does end pretty soon but if i tell ya why that might ruin it so i'll keep that under wraps for now. but the pot is significant to the story in the sense that it takes a drug for the main character to ease his tension about his developing gay desires. actually i appreciate that out of the 400 or so people who have read it, you're taking the time to comment. i used vonetta flowers because i felt like using a more obscure name would make the character seem more authentically into sports than going with one of the expected names, EVERYBODY knows jordan, tiger woods, etc... in other words, everybody knows mariah, whitney, elvis, etc... but REAL music afficionados know about gillespie, tatum, blind willie jefferson, etc... as far as the language, that comes from my own character. tremaine is a combination of me and some of my gay friends, and one thing we all have in common is our dirty mouths. i know its not pretty or easy on the ears but its the reality of some people's language. i also wanted to tackle some of the prejudices people face. because of his poor language, one might assume that tremaine is uneducated but you'll see in future chapters that he's actually a very bright young man (there's also a chapter set in his spanish class where he speaks to the teacher entirely in spanish) who just has a foul mouth. i did try to balance that, i can't remember if i've introduced priscilla yet but she's another main character who actually doesn't curse at all. julian (tremaine's love interest) does curse but only sporadically as he was raised in a strict household and is a reflection of the more well-spoken bruthas. i'm trying to make sure that when i write julian's dialogue, not only does he curse rarely, he actually speaks pretty articulately. i hope i'm doing a fair job representing everybody, the foul mouth and the well-educated. once again, thanks for taking the time to comment (even if you don't, thanks for taking the time to read and i hope i'm not disappointing).