My parents have by and large been decent parents. But they did not handle my transition to adulthood well. I had great grades and we were comfortably middle class. They decided I should attend local school X (which was a glorified community college) rather than a farther away school that would have fit my interests. They pushed me to study engineering instead of my admittedly scattered hopes of something in the liberal arts or maybe a history teacher.

I found myself commuting 30 minutes a day to a school where most were from area high schools that I hadn't attended. The school was friendlier than most (shout-out to Midwest niceness), but I still felt rather isolated.

My point? You could make a good case my parents messed me up. But...it all worked out in the end. I graduated with zero student loans. I had some amazing teachers. And I was accepted at the graduate schools of my choice.

Why am I telling this story? It's not "if" your parents will ruin your life, it's when. (I could also tell a story on how they did a great job dealing with me from 11-14 when I was a weird kid.) Even the best parents will misjudge you or hurt you. Expect it, but also know that you don't have to stay ruined. My relationship with my parents survived those weak years, and soon after had some of its strongest years. Just a thought.

I was once close friends with a guy who lived in my hometown. He moved away to Washington state. We sadly had a big argument about a year after he moved. We slightly patched it up, but scars remain.

His wedding is this winter. I'm wondering if I should go or not. You've been there too, right? Calculating what fading loyalties are worth?

On the one hand, I find that all my friendships get worse after the person gets married. If I go, I'm merely doing something nice, politely putting dirt over the already cold grave of our friendship. Also, I was deeply offended by our falling out.

But on the other hand...he used to mean something. His friendship helped get me out of my lowest low in my life. No, I don't truly owe him anything. But to see him get happily married would be nice. Plus, our mutual friend will also be there, lessening the chances of any blowup.

Heh. Yay dilemmas. The dilemmas are the same throughout life, only the ages and settings change.

So which is it, do you miss her or do you miss the man you were when you were with her? Asking for a fiend, err, friend.

I woke up feeling tired and beat up, and have spent today in a bit of a haze. I was mad at myself for this. "Come on, body, why are you so lethargic? Why do you hurt? Come on, wake up!"

...I then remembered that I had done a big workout yesterday, and it all made sense. Ah, how stupid of me to forget. And yet, isn't that what we often do? We forget logical reasons for our weaknesses, and then we obsess over things. It's good to remember and rebuild, rather than be frustrated over temporary weakness.

I felt like posing a dilemma question, it's been a while. In the past, which type of loss has hurt you the most?
1) Losing an old friend or
2) Losing a boyfriend or girlfriend (assume you've been dating them for less than a year).
Thoughts?

Halfway to Pittsburgh: some thoughts about helping others. Click to watch my video on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFwCia0OioQ

I have been gingerly tipping various toes into the dating waters, and was reminded of how awful I am at first dates via online dating sites. As a learning exercise, I've decided to write down why I've been so bad at them.

Flirtation:

I realllly hate flirting when I know I am soon going to meet someone in person. Why? I think first of all, I'm worried that it'll be a bad first date and that I led the lady on in some sense. All first date rejections hurt, but to go from a torrent of compliments to "Um, it won't work out" is a particularly bitter drop. I had that happen once especially that I remember; I was flirtatious ahead of time then first date was awful...she thought it went well and I had to drop the "no, sorry..." via text. So as you can guess, not flirting much before first date isn't a good sign.

Silence:

I know better, but I have a super bad habit of not talking to the lady in the day or two before the date. Often its because I have a lot of work scheduled, but also at times I feel like I have nothing to say or should save a story for the date itself. As you can guess, suddenly going silent right before the date always helps a lady feel better about this first-time meeting.

Body Language:

I am a walking litany of bad posture and negative signals. Slouching? Awkwardly getting in your way? Leaning back instead of forward? Oh I have it all. Worse, I become hyper-sensitive about our body distance (Wanting to get the door first but also almost running into you, etc.). Also, given my height/weight, at times there is a huge contrast between me and the lady, and I start feeling like Shrek.

So, working on it. A pox on online dating, I say!

I realized I hadn't posted as many Christian posts in the last 3 years. I feel a bit bad about it.

What happened? Well I spent 2008-2011 looking for a church to attend in NY. And once I felt comfortable in one, the Bible study group I liked from 2009-2011 kind of started falling apart. I tried to lead a Christian Fellowship at work with rather weak results. Basically, a lot of the outside structures that I used to maintain my Christian walk weakened or faltered.

I don't feel that I truly fell away, but I think I just became less innovative in my Christian walk. I unfortunately had some quarrels with a few Christian Xangans as well, and that didn't help. There's a certain irony in writing about Jesus when you know your brother/sister in Christ is mad at you.

I'd like to do more Christian posts again. But I have to admit that I'm a little down on all types of intellectual and spiritual posts lately. I somehow feel blogging has changed, and that people are just interested in pics and humor. Maybe it was always that way, and I was just better at ignoring it. I feel bad about not doing Christian posts because I recognize people might read certain things into it. But it just isn't in me lately. Hope that changes soon.

Stupid_systemus has a sweet post up about Otakon; if you like cosplay, definitely go check it out.