And who wants to come to my place for dinner tonight?  I got used to eating with people on vacation and hate eating alone again.  I made "American chop suey" (rotini in a meat sauce) and have bread an salad.  We can eat and watch some "Dallas."

:)

Classic meal, Ed!  That's one of the easiest meals to make and I lived off of that for quite awhile, which explains why I need to really work out some more!

I've gotten used to eating alone.  Listening to some music or watching tv or a dvd makes the time go by.  Besides, after being at work all day, a little bit of quiet can be a good thing!

Understandable, I was unemployed for about a year and a half.  Nine months of that was living back home.  Even then, I didn't want to be around too many people because I was usually in a bad mood or depressed after applying to places I figured weren't gonna hire me. 

My Tivo has been recording episodes of "Frasier" so that's been a nice change of pace.

I was younger than everyone else in my grade and consequently a little smaller. Being the small, smart, shy kid meant I was always going to be targetted which also meant I was going to learn to defend myself physically. And because I won the fights, and fought a lot, I was the one punished. Sent to psychologists and counselors so they could try to figure me out. At which sessions they gave out really bad advice like; ignore them, you're better than them, don't stoop to their level; violence never solves anything. So I'd take it for most of the year and not say anything and not do anything, which gave the bullies free range to escalate the taunting and escalate the physical intimidation until finally I would just lose my temper and start a fight. The bullies (who lost the fight) wouldn't be punished since they were seldom in the office whereas I would get lectures and detention since it was a pattern of behavior. This whole thing still astounds me; the teachers and the principals knew I was getting bullied, told me not to defend myself physically or verbally and when finally the abuse got too much for me would punish me and not the bullies. I'm not really angry about it anymore, I just don't understand it.

High school was better in that I suddenly became one of the biggest kids in my school (I'm not that big but there was only 400 students so being over six feet and 210 lbs was pretty big) and I could end a lot of situations just by standing up straight and looking people in the eyes. And when I got in a fight in high school I would just tell the principal what had happened and he would thank me for stopping before I seriously hurt the other kid.

I think bullies thrive in schools because the system is set up to benefit them in a strange way.  The mob mentality keeps the majority of students in line (through peer pressure), and teachers either don't see it, or have their hands tied in how to deal with it.

The telling moment for me was when I worked with a guy who was a bully in school (not someone who bullied me because he picked on little guys, not big guys) and he said the same thing that all the teachers, psychiatrists and counselors had said; 'the bullies want you to react and if you react at all you're giving them what they want so the best thing you can do is not react. Ignore them and they'll go away.'  The fact that he said that crystallized something for me; that advice is pure insanity. Who stops pushing someone around because that person lets themself be pushed around? And why would a bully searching for an easy target not target someone unwilling to fight back? They'd rather get in a fight with a scrappy little dude who's known as a good fighter and get their butt whooped? Just weird, wrong advice.

There were probably a few gay people in my high school but only one that was out of the closet in terms of the way he acted. He never came out and said it but he did make it very obvious and while he wasn't one of the popular kids he wasn't picked on all that much either. He kept to himself and was left alone. Looking back I'm not sure how he managed that as I would have thought in a rural small town environment like this one that he'd have been targetted from day one.

I know Jodi will call you, so I'm going to go back to playing Fallout 3.

:)

The Internet can be good to vent (e.g. "My boss is driving me crazy!") just to unload a bit to relieve some stress.  Sometimes getting another opinion online can be affirming.  However if things are so doom and gloom that you feel like you just can't go on, please seek personal contact (whether it's a friend, family member or professional).

Someone I went to high school with (the only person at the time I still talked to from those days) had a really bad string of bad luck with relationships, work, etc.  She kept posting song lyrics and writing long posts on MySpace.  Though that seems to be her preferred method because when she asked me what she should do about work, she got mad when I told her to stop complaining and do something about it.