Tipdin

Many well made points. Some college work is damn tough and deserves to be treated with reverence. I bow to ANY mathematician! I must disagree with some statements however. I think that penmanship is still important. Not AS important as it once was, but still somewhat important. If you need to print or write, you should know HOW to print or write - and that includes spelling. I liken it to doing math. Calculators are great and have saved my butt a million times, (and probably that much money too)! However...without a calculator, I couldn't add 1 plus 1. I have no clue how to figure a percentage without my beloved calculator. And I wouldn't be able to make change as a cashier to save my life. The machines do all the thinking for us. And that's part of the problem. We are so machine dependent now that most of us CAN'T make change, or figure percentages, or square roots without the machine. People still need to write for all sorts of reasons. One should be ABLE to write in such a manner that others can read it. One should not have to depend on the cash register to tell us how much change to give back. Now, I admit, that I can't make change - I have never conquered the language of Arithmetic. It might as well be Mandarin, or Arabic - for all I would know. So I am not condemning anyone for anything. I am simply asserting that we humans should be able to things like write, speak, and calculate to some degree without the help of machines. Being that we live in an age of machinery, however, I agree that computer basics, such as language and programming should also be incorporated into school curriculum.

Timely topic, I am about to graduate, (again). College has a an artificial importance. Studies show that college graduates, leaving with a Bachelor's degree are ALMOST as well educated as a typical high school graduate of the 1950s. Sadly, prospective employers look for a college degree, ANY degree, as a magic pass. So without a college degree, you're chances of being considered for a position are dramatically reduced. Nearly 80% of those with a 4-year degree DO NOT work in the field for which they hold a degree. Nearly 60% of students using the Internet for online learning, fail to obtain a degree. I had over 30 years experience in business administration when I applied for a secretarial position at a major company, near where I live. I did not have to required qualifications. I type 60 words a minute, have designed, built and maintained websites, owned several businesses for which I did all the bookkeeping and staffing, along with all the other aspects of running the show. But I did not have any college degree. When I retied, I never expected health insurance costs to rise so dramatically, but I figured getting a simple little office-boy job would be a snap. Nobody would even talk to me! I've spent the last two years getting a business administration degree. What a joke! Ninety percent of the crap I had to deal with in college was fluff and filler, just so they could charge $450.00 a credit. I challenged my instructors and went up against the Deen, herself. I tested out of half the classes, (for a price) but had to suffer through such COMPLETE and utter B.S. in many other classes. Some of the kids teaching the classes were not even as old as the number of years of my experience! College has an artificial importance. I went to classes with kids that couldn't speak a full sentence in English - correctly - if it meant saving their life. Never mind diagraming one! Penmanship for these kids was at a first grade level, and forget arithmetic. Oral presentations were downright embarrassing, some kids could barely read. How did they get into college? College is a joke. Especially now that so much of it is going online. I fear for the future. (But now that I am nearing the finish line, the college(!) asked me to be a instructor - in the tutoring lab!)

Hang on.... Let's get something clear - NOTHING - outranks simply being Scottish. Being a Scot simply MEANS being on top. (OK people, this is sarcasm...! It's a JOKE!) Actually, you and I may be related. I can document my father's lineage back to Charlemagne, my mother's lineage back to Robert the Bruce. And being that you, a fellow Scot may be related to me, - a Scot - then that elevates you to the top as well! Welcome!

I would say cheating is usually symptomatic, not always, but usually symptomatic of other, more serious situations. Perhaps the cheater does not feel worthy or worse, feels YOU are not worthy. Perhaps there are problems in the relationship that can be over-shadowed by the more serious crime of cheating so the real issues don't have to be faced. Perhaps the cheater is a sex addict. You must decide for your own situation what the cheating means or is all about. It has been my experience that men who cheat, make a habit of it. Men who get caught and are "forgiven" are much more careful about it in the future. Ultimately one must decide how to deal with their cheater, but it's never easy. My own partner is a cheater. He's been having long-term (multiple) affairs lasting years. Our relationship has suffered greatly because of it. We've stayed together for business and financial reasons. We're still friends, but we're no longer bed partners. He understands that his behavior has created the limits. I have my friends, he has his, and some of those friendships overlap. But I think of myself, really, as a single man, not a partnered man.

I can re-affirm what Phantom has said. I never put more on the Internet than I feel comfortable letting the public know. Birthday, schools, who I'm related to, that sort of stuff is no big deal to me, that's easy to find out even off line. But private issues and situations I keep private. I talk face-to-face or phone-to-phone. Did you know that Congress has passed legislation making it legal to archive YOUR Internet history? They can track down everything you have ever put on the Internet and keep it, making it available to legal authorities, and others who formally petition to get that information. (Many employers are now petitioning for that info.) The Internet is a public billboard, you are publishing everything you put on the Internet. Just go to google and type your name, you may be surprised at what comes up. I have posts that I made on certain websites (that I would NOT want my mother to see) from years ago!

Don't 'TRY' anything. Just be you. It'll work out.

I have two addiction currently... 1. Second Life, which, for those who don't know, is a virtual world in which nearly anything is possible. (Participation is free, btw.) 2. Men. I love men; everything about them. I'm not a sex addict, but sometimes I think that would be easier. I can be in a mall when a man walks past, and his scent will hook me by the nose, dragging me along behind him. I'll see a guy and think he's so beautiful that I want to touch him. I'm fascinated by men. Especially hairy men. Although, the grungy, baggy look has helped me. It covers guys up and makes them so unattractive that I may not even notice them! But just when I think I'm safe, a classy guy will walk by and I'm a gonner. He may be in snug-fitting ratty old jeans and a T-shirt, but if he carries himself well; and if he smells nice, and has a nice smile, oh dear...

I'm with you all the way. I used to own a 24/7 telephone answering service and after I sold it, the ONLY phone I had was a 75 year old candlestick type from the 1930s. Not even an answering machine. My family and friends went crazy. A few years ago I got a very simple cell, or mobile, if you prefer, and it sits in my desk drawer - turned off. (Same phone and plan for the past five years.) Sometimes I remember to bring it with on long road trips in case I have an emergency, but that's it. I'm not a mobile-addict.

You, Sir, have a way with words! Within just the first few words, I forgot to look for spelling and grammar errors - the story overshadowed any thought of such things. As someone who danced for decades on and off stage, I felt every sway and leap. I rarely am physically effected by reading something - but I actually FELT this, and it was great, thank you!

Coming to grips with being gay took me a while, I was in my twenties. After a long series of events culminating in an suicide attempt that resulted in a week-long coma, I got some very good counseling.

I vote for the Nook.

Wow, (some of) this is great to read! It's a best case scenario for you. I'm happy that you've learned more and better coping skills, and have a different (read better) perspective now. Many people can, and have gotten the sunshine back in their lives with counseling and a bit of time. And you're right, it is a beginning- truly. What I think is best of all is that now, YOU have knowledge and perspective that allows you to see life in a deeper, more meaningful way. You're now in a position to support and assist others who may need it. And you'll probably continue learning HOW to support and assist in better and better ways for the rest of your life. And that ALONE makes you worthwhile, never mind all the "normal" things that make you priceless.

I was not a big dater, but I've had a few. Most of my intimate relationships developed from well-established friendships. Consequently, my friends are extremely close and important to me. Going out on a date with a stranger is not a problem for me. I'm confident in myself enough (now...) that I can take charge if need be. It's great fun to learn about someone new, finding out what we have in common and what we could have some great arguments about. Most of my stranger-dates turned into old friends, I've kept them in my life. I actually don't want a partner that is a mirror image, might as well be alone then. I enjoy hearing new perspectives and being (respectfully) challenged so that I have to clarify my thoughts and feelings. It helps me to learn and grow. The same is true for my friendships as well. My friends have wildly diverse backgrounds and hold beliefs that cover the entire spectrum, from traditional to WAY out in left field. Now that I'm on old fart, I don't have to worry about being beautiful and perfectly perfect in every way - to every one - I can relax. It's much easier to be open to others who are critiquing everything about me. It's also easier to deal with less than tactful comments and naive points of view. I can get into a person more deeply and quickly, assessing their stance and perhaps even them. Nearly everyone I talk with provides a learning experience for me. I learn about them of course, but at the same time, I learn about myself. I find out what makes me comfortable, or nauseated, which "type" of person I don't even want to deal with or have around me. I've also learned that most everyone I run into is interesting and I want more of them - for a friendship. Among my friends, someone usually stands out as the one (or three) people that I am most comfortable being around. From those select few, I usually find the one someone that I want a more intimate relationship with. So I always tell people that ask for a date that I would prefer to be friend first - so we can't call it a date, we have to call it hanging out together - less stress and more options.

Genealogy is a major hobby of mine. I've tracked two lines of my ancestors back to men that were awarded armorial bearings, or what we would call a coat of arms. In spite of popular myths, let me also state here that a coat of arms never belongs to a family. The whole point of having a design is that it was a pictorial representation of a specific person during a time when people could neither read nor write. The picture could be recognized by anyone with vision good enough to see it. (Literally everything in the design of a coat of arms has meaning to, and regarding its owner, thereby making it very personal.) Outside Scotland, there is almost no place on Earth anymore that still uses a coat of arms as a legal mark, following ancient heraldic guidelines. Some countries still register designs, but they really aren't the same as the owner's signature, they're more like a registered trademark or a copyright. So here are my questions: Would you like one? Should we Americans have a system in place to legally track and use an individual's coat of arms? If you would like one, what items would you want represented in your design?

For me, focusing on the negative would have driven me over the edge - permanently. Focusing on the positive helps me find the joy in life - which then helps to take the edge off the pain if being alive. Over time, I have learned that keeping the focus on positive things does, indeed, make the black cloud go away, or at least fade to gray. Every ray of light that manages to pierce the darkness looks that much brighter and is that much more of a gift.

This is depressing. One can guess at someone's age just by reading the list of things that can no longer be done. My list is long, suggesting that my age is something approaching dinosaur-ick. Some of these are things that can no longer be done and some of them are things that no longer ARE done. I grew up in Minneapolis and could hang out on ANY street corner at ANY time of the day of night. There was no place in the entire city that we could not go into to play. Sure can't do that anymore! Every boy carried a pocket knife in school. We sifted through trash in the alleys looking for bottles that we could return for the nickle or dime deposit. You could leave any bicycle any place you wanted to and nobody would touch it. You could ask a complete stranger to watch your dog while you went into the store for a bottle of soda or a candybar. You could leave your house unlocked and empty for days on end. You could leave your car keys in the ignition. You could hitchhike or pick up a hitchhiker without concern. Any adult anywhere could put you in your place. Parents expected you to follow rules. Adults were treated with respect - and could cause a great deal of trouble for you if you didn't treat them appropriately! You could do business on a handshake, paper deals took place between strangers. Running around with your pants down around your knees could land you in jail - and everyone around you would be thankful! We didn't expect to own every gadget known to man and could survive just fine without them. Sharing a bedroom with only one sibling was a big promotion. Sharing a bathroom with only one other person (in there with you) was a huge promotion. Dinner time, evening curfew, and bedtime were all carved in stone. An extra dollar meant that you could take a friend to lunch! Midnight and Sunday meant NOTHING was happening anywhere, everyplace was closed for the day, and all four TV stations were off the air until six the next morning. That's just a quick list off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more things that I'm not recalling right now.

Thank you for saying something. It is an issue I am passionate about and very willing to discuss. I even went so far as opening my own business where we took suicide calls. It was life-altering.

Thank you.

Good question! Being obsessed with architecture and a geek at heart, I would choose to meet with Alexander Jackson Davis. He is the architect who (more-or-less) single-handedly brought Gothic architecture to America. He has designed some of the most beautiful buildings in this country. Working in both the public and private sectors, his body of work reaches across eras; some 50-plus years. One of my favorites places: http://lyndhurst.wor...t/virtual-tour/ Little is actually known about the man. He was a very private person in spite of associating and working closely with the wealthiest Americans during the 1800s. For a time, he had a partner, ironically named Alexander Jackson Downing, a very good looking young man who tragically died in a riverboat accident. It was a time in America when something called The Middle Class emerged. Most everything we know today was being put into place; railroads, banking, electricity, schools, roads, machines, plumbing, and medicines. Everything seemed to be happening at once, and everything that was happening needed a building in which to take place. A.J. Davis was there, designing and building, experiencing and writing about it all. In some ways, that period in history was the most gracious in all of US history. Lord help you if you were poor, but if you were part of the growing middle class or part of the upper class, life would have been a treasure chest of opportunities. Truly, anything was indeed possible. There were very few, if any taxes in those days so if you made a million, it was all yours. A.J. Davis made money and made history simultaneously. He was part of, and connected to, some of the most amazing events of the time.

Well TetRefine, I will step into the line of fire as well. In regard to behavior: Generally speaking, I think men who are masculine are more attractive than men who are effeminate. Further, I think women who are feminine are more attractive than women who are masculine. What trumps the masculine-feminine issue is attitude. If someone behaves in an honorable fashion, it doesn't matter whether they are masculine or feminine. In regard to looks: I have fairly clear lines for that as well. Men who look manly are attractive to me and women who look womanly are attractive. Someone who blurs the line may be beautiful to behold, but I would have no attraction to them physically. (They may end up my best friend, but sex would never enter into the situation.) Simply put, effeminate men, masculine women, and androgynous looks are all turn offs when it comes to considering someone as a sexual or life partner. However, all that has very little to do with my friendships.

Have never seen either show. Don't know a thing about them.

AMEN Brother!

Please Tiger, don't misunderstand. Well, don't misunderstand me, at least. I am not saying I don't like men and women that do not behave in the stereotypical way. My pondering has little or nothing to do with behavior. I believe that regardless of everything, the way one should behave does not change. In fact, the motto on my coat of arms reads: Treat self, others and the Earth with the kind of gentle care that ensures good health, and nothing else matters. I'm more curious about why something is attractive. What variables have to fall in line for us to be compelled by something? I have seen my mom, sisters, and nieces wearing manly outfits and looking like a million bucks. I have female friends that dress in mens clothes often and they're just plain smoken' hot. My queries are more about what makes that look ok, while men in female clothes are very rare on the street, (and I suspect would cause a great deal of commotion). Is androgyny ok when females are masculine but not ok when men are more effeminate? And why? As a culture do we see femininity as inferior? Thus a man that looks and acts androgynously is also seen as inferior? I think it's clear, (to me anyway) that sexuality and attractiveness is highly subjective. It's all on a sliding scale and changeable. I do not fault anyone for the way they look or behave. I'm interested in understanding why a given look or behavior is attractive and under what circumstances. My own look as a young man blurred the lines. Most of my life my hair was so long that I had to be careful not to sit on it. I had a pierced ear long before it was fashioned. I also had a short-lived modeling career because I was quite thin and androgynous looking. (In my mid-twenties some genetic switch was flipped and I became a hairy little monster.) I was an athlete and a dancer with a lean, almost feminine sleekness but then I also had a jet black beard and a monobrow so my "look" was gone. My five o'clock shadow showed up at noon. My androgynous look was WAY gone - as an adult, I was the guy with hobbit feet and hairy knuckles, with more back-hair than most men had on their chest. Talk about out of fashion! I've gone all the way to the other end of the scale!

You're getting to my point. You don't think a man dressing as a woman is particularly sexy. However, women in men's clothes can be sexy, even useful in relating ads to macho men. Why is that? Really. Why do most people find a woman in men's clothes to be attractive but not the other way around? A women in a man's shirt is - 'covered' or 'possessed' or 'fully under his control' ...? Is the clothing a metaphor for his own prowess? Or does she look like him and therefore he's attracted to his own reflection? There have been fads over time where men were supposed to be more sensitive, and many men allowed themselves to be just that. I was happy about it, I thought too many men were too caught up in the masculine game. But as it turned out, more women became more masculine than men who became more sensitive. Both of my sisters are as tough as any linebacker you could choose; nearly equal in physical size and ability too! They break out in a rash when they see ruffles, and wouldn't have a clue what to do with a purse if they owned one. They both claim that men's shirts and jeans are more comfortable but can't explain why. I suspect they are naturally just not very girly girls. Ok, I get it. Some men are not real masculine - my partner is rather effeminate. Ok, I get it. While me partner is not very masculine, he doesn't wear female clothing, and doesn't want to be thought of as girlish. My sisters are both straight, with children, and I don't think either of them have ever had fingernail polish on - ever! But they don't want to be thought of as girlish either. They see femininity as weakness, as being less than... The point is, we are all on the sliding scale of testosterone, some men and women have a lot, and some men and women have very little. Where we fall on that scale at any given time affects our choices. I just wonder why more and more women are becoming emasculated. Is androgyny becoming more common? Is there something causing it? Is it more often a female than a male who is blurring the line?

From the way you describe yourself, you and I seem to be a lot alike. I was the clown, the funny guy who was always able to instantly adapt and ad-lib a joke to smooth any transition. Privately, I had to work at NOT focusing on the world's ills and aches; it was too overwhelming for me. My own little black cloud followed me everywhere, threatening to rain on my parade. You described things well when you used the pain-to-gratification ratio. For years, I expended vast amounts of energy keeping that scale balanced but it finally tipped all the way to the pain end. It's a bit easier to keep the scale balanced now, but it's still exhausting. I realize that it's a chemical imbalance in my brain - and some medication did help for a long time. For whatever reason, the effectiveness wore off and nothing else seemed to work, so I'm back to living every day like slogging through knee high mud. You seem to have a good handle on what's going on with you, that's VERY important - especially when others in your life don't.