Letters to the Editor
jaketwice
Published Letters: 37 Editor's Choice: 3
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George Bush is to Blame for all of This!!!!
[Read the article: My business trip ended with me in four-point restraints!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]" I must have fallen asleep immediately in my seat and the next thing I knew, I was in a wheelchair outside the plane with police officers who were handcuffing me. I demanded to know what happened and was hysterical."
Sorry, but what? How does that happen? Either LW was not really telling the true story (omitting details), or the airlines are screwed up.
You're a customer! You should not be placed in four point restraints...
That's why I'll be taking the train from now on. Or a boat.
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Identity
[Read the article: Why wouldn't a 16-year-old boy want to live on a houseboat?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's a good reason: part of who you ARE when you are a kid, is your music, your friends, whatever. If you live on a boat, you become the kid who lives on a boat.
While it might be "cool" to live on a boat as an adult, as a kid, there's more to lose living on a boat then not living on a boat. Pretend you're in high school: every stupid thing you do can be blamed on the fact that you live on a boat. And if you're cool, no one is going to talk about how you're so cool BECAUSE you live on a boat, they'll talk about how you're cool in spite of that.
Cary was only half right. ALL kids crave stability, which is why the popular group in high school is almost always comprised mainly of kids from two-parent homes with good role-models. "Boat-boy" does not sound like a very stable person - whether he is or not.
Wait until your younger sons go to college... maybe just take a vacation in the boat. A houseboat sounds like something that the father of a successful high school student possesses - not something that he lives upon.
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Assuming the Letter is Real
[Read the article: I was masturbating in my office to kinky Internet porn when another mom walked in]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]- or better, as words of advice to anyone who is an awkward situation like this: pretend it didn't happen to the extent you can convince yourself.
I was visiting the home of an Irishman one afternoon who took a certain amount of time to answer the door. He invited me in for some reason, and we sat in the living room looking at some fresh spunk he had obviously recently applied to the floor. We made terse small talk for a moment or so before a group of his wild Irish roommates came in. He never mentioned what was on the floor, and I excused myself as quickly as possible.
This is the first time I have told this story.
Just try to believe your friend doesn't want you to be embarrassed and comfort yourself with the fact that masturbating is natural.
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Get Married
[Read the article: I'm an absent-minded engineer; my mind wanders and so does my wallet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perhaps the LW's issue is not that he is forgetting things and need to remember them, but that he need someone else in his life.
Frankly, I don't know anyone who prefers mundane tasks to more complex thought. Even a lot of the dumber people I know prefer to have their heads in the clouds. Point is: LW is not all that unusual a person.
Consider: the LW is a software developer at a national laboratory (which for those who don't know is no joke); he is in a band part time, and he plays guitar in his spare time. That's it. There's no more time for anything else.
So why "Get Married"? Because at the end of the day, two live more easily than one: one shopping, one laundry, one less thing to worry about. If the LW wants to improve his memory and focus, he should consider finding a partner (perhaps someone similarly driven) with whom he can share responsibilities, and with whom he can discuss what's going on: the presentation, the jazz concert, the long term goals.
And while surely it is true that a partnership can ADD to the time commitments in a person's life, it is also true that those time commitments are more practical, and less esoteric, which seemed to me - the esoteric and the impractical - the kinds of things from which the LW was seeking some relief in writing to Cary.
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Commit to a Time!
[Read the article: How do you know when your intuition is speaking to you?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The LW says she was raised in an extremely agnostic home, where arguing and debate, for its own sake, was prized.
Her issue, naturally, is how to step beyond the realm of debate, and into actual decision making. LW can't just rely on faith and feeling, because she was raised to put her faith in analysis, and to eschew feeling for thought.
My question for the LW is whether she could analyze a little more carefully. Why go away from where your talent lies? Perhaps a more focused level of analysis is all that's required.
The problem with over-analysis, as I see it, is not the analysis in and of itself, it's that the analysis is ongoing. Information is always changing, and any good analyst need to account for the changing information.
SO my suggestion would be that the LW pick a point in time at which a decision will be made, and commit to the time - with no possibility of backing out. At the appointed time, right down the decision. If you feel the urge to change your mind, no matter what the result, tell yourself that you have made up your mind, and that you are going to live with it. I predict that if you end up being happy with the method, you will use it again, problem solved.
If, having stuck to your decision, you hate the results, I predict that you will find some intuition for the next time. Force yourself to follow through.