The Diary of A Simple Man

Check out this question from a lesbian who wants children. I gave her the best answer that I could, but I snuck some humor in there. Can you find it?

http://advicenators.com/qview.php?q=423236

By the way, I'm taking tomorrow off and going on a short overnight trip with Teri on the weekend. It's our five-year anniversary. So I'll be offline for most of the weekend, probably.

I might do some voice posts, though. They're addictive. :P

I know, it's my anniversary, so I shouldn't spend all my time on the phone. I'll use restraint, I promise. :D

I just answered a question on Advicenators which I found highly interesting; a man who discovered that his wife had slept with a lot of men before they got married.

I found it particularly interesting for two reasons: first, this was one of the rare cases where I had to take the questioner to the woodshed. I may get 1'd for it; we'll see.

The second reason I found it interesting was that there was a bit of a religious angle to the question, and I used that in my response. In that sort of situation I always find it interesting as an atheist to make a response that includes a religious element.

Why? Well, to tell you the truth, it amuses me to give a more genuinely "Christian" answer than actual Christians. It also amuses me that I know the Bible better than most of them.

I'm not sure WHY it amuses me, but it does.

I'm struggling with my dark side on Advicenators.

Like this question. A girl wants to know how to dump her boyfriend, since the spark is gone.

And it's all I can do not to channel Homer Simpson:

"Stand aside, everybody! Sensitive love letters are my speciality.

Dear Baby,
Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: You.

PS - I am gay."

That always makes me crack up.

To my amazement (although I shouldn't have been surprised) someone tonight asked for reading suggestions on Advicenators. And not just any kind of reading, but science fiction and fantasy particularly.

It's a miracle that my head didn't literally explode with possibilities.

But I collected myself and spewed out the following list:

SF/genre fiction:
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
The Bridge of Birds - Barry Hughart
The Foundation series (just the first three books) - Isaac Asimov
The Instrumentality of Mankind (short story collection) - Cordwainer Smith
Norstrila - Cordwainer Smith
Ringworld - Larry Niven
The City and the Stars - Arthur C. Clarke
Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
The Amber series - Roger Zelazny
Cities in Flight - James Blish
The Devil's Day - James Blish
Dune - Frank Herbert (the other Dune books are good - although all of them are terribly complicated. Avoid ANYTHING written by his son - Brian Herbet he's done some "Dune" books - and they're beyond bad)
anything by Fredric Brown
The Vlad Talos series by Steven Brust (but make sure to read them in order)
Lord Valentine's Castle - Robert Silverberg
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame - volume 1 (probably the best collection of classic short stories available)
The Dorsai series - Gordon R. Dickson
The Dragon and the George - Gordon R. Dickson
The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat - Harry Harrison
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers - Harry Harrison
Time and Again - Jack Finney
The God Box - Barry Longyear
Superstoe - William Borden

I also quite like almost anything by Lawrence Watt-Evans, Robert Sheckley (particularly his short stories), Ron Goulart, David Brin, Lyndon Hardy, Anthony Boucher, Michael Moorcock, James White, and Lord Dunsany.

Some non-genre books you might enjoy (I do):
Kim - Ridyard Kipling
Shogun - James Clavell
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
I, Claudius - Robert Graves
The Catcher In the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Almost anything by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (you might want to start with Welcome to the Monkey House)

I know as soon as I'm done with this I'm going to think of 20 other books and authors I should have included, and I'm going to kick myself.

I just did my 500th reply on my column over at Advicenators. Actually, I wish that #499 had been #500; I like that one better.

I've been getting active on Advicenators again, lately. In fact, I've been considering starting up an LJ community for Advicenators moderators to discuss the questions on the site.

Anyway, I got a question, one of the many that get asked over and over. And I'm not sure, but I think I like my answer. Dorky though it is.

The question was (paraphrased) "What do guys prefer in a girl: face or body? That is, would you prefer a great face and okay body, or great body and okay face?"

My answer:

You left out personality.

I can't speak for every other guy, but for me, personality is probably the biggest factor. I've known girls who by most definitions were overweight and not that pretty, but men CLUSTERED around them, ignoring girls who were technically prettier.

And more than anything else, I think it was because those girls were a lot nicer and friendlier than the others. There's one that I remember in particular who had a smile that just knocked every guy who saw it out.

Of course, some guys are pigs. But I think that even they would prefer a girl with a nice personality over one with the best looks or body, unless they were looking for a one-night-stand or a hooker.

Because a body you only really see when her clothes come off. A face you see most of the time. But a personality is ALWAYS there. In the dark. When you're in different rooms. Over the phone. Whenever.

In the end, we all want to feel loved. The face and body are secondary.

My column is the featured advice column over at Advicenators this weekend. I didn't realize that it would be for all weekend; I thought it was only for a day at a time. Got a few interesting questions.

I should admit that it's not like I was picked for my sterling qualities. The featured column selection is made randomly. There are just a few fairly simple standards you have to meet. As far as I know, no human decision is involved.

I don't know...I think I've been pushed over the deep end. This was SUCH a stupid question!

"me n my boyfriend want to take a shower together.. but we dont know what we should do... does anyone have any cool ideas of what to do in the shower????"

I'm tempted to answer something like ""Take the shower while you're both fully dressed. Press against opposite sides of the shower area so you don't accidentally touch each other. Avert your eyes in shame."

Of course it's probably just a troll.

I'm still pretty busy with Advicenators.

There are a couple of columnists there who are really funny. One, Jean Nicole, often gives sincere advice, but she's got a very funny writing style and there are times when she completely cracks me up.

The other, Jack Spot, represents the Dark Side of advice. I have to admit that there are times when I've been tempted to enter the dark side myself. Instead, I can just read his column.

Really, really funny.

Advice: I've been going a bit insane with the advice column; it's really kind of addictive (obligatory joke: "Now I know how George W. Bush feels about wine and cocaine". Updated version: "Now I know how George W. Bush feels about wine, cocaine, lying in order to send poor young people off to die in Iraq, and shredding the Bill of Rights^* )".

Anyway, I've answered 44 questions so far. My current average rating is 5 (which is perfect, of course), and I have 70 feedback points. Of course, I'll probably be crushed by the first less-than-perfect rating I get. :/

HAH! I walked away from my computer before posting this, came back, and sure enough, someone just gave me my first "4". Most unfairly, too. I was the only person to even TRY to answer her question! Oh well.

RuneQuest: Something strange: I was just added to the Mongoose RQ playtest group after all. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Greg Stafford's remarkable rudeness, though, so right now I'm not very excited. Still, I'll check the rules out soon.

Dreams: Another funny thing: The night before last I dreamed a neat and funny idea for a roleplaying scenario. I even dreamed that I was writing a snatch of poetry for it. When I woke up, I ran to the computer and noted it all down. The couplet wasn't bad, I guess (it sounds a little familiar, though), but it doesn't actually fit into the scenario at all:

I could not save him, although I tried;
I rode to live, he lived to ride.

Health: It was a sinus infection. I'm 99% sure. Steady pain in the lower sinuses, and random pain EVERYWHERE. Every little movement hurt. Every bump hurt 10x more than it should have. So I took a lot of Tylenol over three days, and used saline on my sinuses just before bed for two nights in a row.

But man, the saline hurt. Even WITH Tylenol, the sheer pain kept me up for more than an hour each night. Agony. On the plus side, I didn't have to use the saline or the Tylenol last night. I'm mostly better.

Apology: Apologies to Kat for kinda stealing her subtopic style. But come to think of it, I used to the the same style back when I was writing for The Wild Hunt and Interregnum.

So maybe she stole it from me.

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^* Except the Second Amendment, of course.