Hm, I think mine are mostly mental things.

I can be extremely inflexible due to anxiety. It can be as simple as refusing to go to a different restaurant at the last second because I already looked at the menu online for the first restaurant.

I also have bad moods where it's best to just leave me alone. Sometimes it's over in five minutes and I'm back to normal, other times it lasts a day. Sometimes I have no idea why it happens, other times I know and it's something incredibly stupid that I just need to work through in my mind.

But, I think, perhaps my biggest form of baggage comes from the simple fact that I want to be a people person and I'm just so not. I range from weeks or months of attempting social interaction as I see other people doing it, followed by a complete meltdown over it. Then I have an "I don't give a shit" period followed by watching people to figure it all out. Then it starts all over again. All of that causes mood swings and stuff. Probably not very fun to be around for that reason.

I've had relationships negatively impacted or ended over those things before.

I was hoping that you were just busy. I really enjoy your lessons and can't wait for when you're able to start back up!

The idea is appealing and it's definitely something that is romanticized. I'd like to think that I would enjoy it and relish in the opportunity. Unfortunately, if I were to be completely realistic, I would lose my mind. My anxiety would keep me nearly incapable of going to a store. If it was a country that spoke a language other than English, I would sit in front of a mirror, scared to go outside, because I would be too worried about messing up the language and getting myself into trouble somehow, or even just embarrassing myself. I'd probably end up sitting in a small room, too stubborn to admit it was a bad idea and too nervous to do much of anything.

Of course, that would be if I were to go alone. With my partner, I'd survive. She'd enjoy every single second, I would be so worried about breaking any cultural norms that she'd just have to laugh at me. I assume at some point, I would get used to it and maybe even comfortable.

My partner has guardianship of her sister. So, kind of.

Exactly. I got so bad for awhile that I basically became a prisoner in my own home. Going to the store seemed like a huge feat. What if I didn't have enough money? What if I got into a fender bender?

Luckily I've been able to work on it some in the last few months. Sometimes I can even go to a bar by myself which is pretty huge because you're bound to have someone talk to you when you go to a neighborhood bar. I'm also having less of the "oh suddenly something came up and I can't go" stuff when people invite me out. I missed a local Hubski meet-up awhile back, when I first got on here, because of that.

I'm one of those people who read a lot of books at once, but I'll narrow it down to the three that I'm reading the most right now.

I'm reading a chapter or two of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart every night. It's one of my partner's favorite series and I was curious how effective the sex scenes are since I don't read a lot of books that include lots of sex. I'm only a little over 100 pages into it, but it is holding my interest. So far the political aspect of it is kind of boring, but more from not really knowing the characters the main character is talking about.

I'm also reading Lee Smith's short story collection Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger. I kind of have a love-hate relationship with Lee Smith only because she is so good at what she does which is writing about small towns in the south. I got the hell out of my own small hometown (now getting a name for itself as being exceptionally poor, violent and uneducated) so reading her stories can bring back both good and bad memories.

I also read a few diary entries each week from the first volume of Virginia Woolf's diaries. I'd like to try and start reading whatever novel she was writing as I'm reading the relevant entries, but either way it is fascinating. You learn a lot about her as much from what she doesn't say in her entries as what she does say. It was put together by the wife of her nephew and I must say she did a fantastic job. She was meticulous with footnotes to explain who everyone is and what events Virginia is mentioning.

I hear you on the science thing. I'm normally broke, so when I got some extra money this past Christmas I went ahead and bought her some things for the years to come. That included three dvd sets by They Might Be Giants (ABCs, 123s, and Here Comes Science). I just don't want her to think that science is automatically a boy thing.

I don't think it's strange at all! My niece already loves the music from A Link to the Past and enjoys watching my brother play Minecraft (I think it's the green). And she's totally going to be introduced to Star Trek as soon as possible. My childhood was changed by Capt Janeway, I'd love to share that with my niece.

I tried violin, bass, and drums but none of them stuck.

The only thing that has stuck to this day is guitar. I picked up my brother's guitar when I was eleven. He was taking classes and I decided I was going to teach myself how to play, just until I got better than him. I guess I was a competitive sibling. I did get better than him and then really grew to enjoy it and started writing my own songs. I have to keep at least one guitar in my house at any given time, just so I can pick it up once a week or something and let it all out.

I've never been on the scene to help anyone, but I did help my mother-in-law come to terms with what she had done after helping out on the scene of an accident.

Last year, on Father's Day weekend, she was driving down to pick up her teenage daughter for a visit. As she was driving along the highway, she saw a MAC truck lose control (we think the driver had fallen asleep) and plow into a car. Minutes before the accident, this man's car had gotten a flat tire. He pulled over and started changing the tire with the help of his son. The son would have been 10-12 years old. His daughter, probably around 6, had stayed in the car. The son had moved a few feet from the back of the car for some reason, and the daughter moved to sit in the driver's seat. The MAC truck hit the father.

By the time my mother-in-law had parked and gotten out of her car (grabbing a blanket she had in the back), the daughter was attempting to get out of the car. She covered the girl in the blanket, trying to shield her face, because the girl had to walk through the remains of her father to get to a safe area. The son apparently went into older brother mode, and just kept trying to calm his sister down. She just kept saying, "I've just lost my daddy."

My mother-in-law got in touch with the mother and followed the ambulance to the hospital. She's a preacher, so she knew a little bit of what to say to the kids.

By the time she arrived at my house, the adrenaline was gone and she was a wreck. I was the only adult in the house not at work, so she turned to me to talk about it. She had turned to religion when one of her children had died at an early age, but these two children losing their father 10 hours before Father's Day really shook her up. I'm not religious, but just kept telling her that she was obviously supposed to be there at that time.

She seems to be doing better now. She's friends with the kids on Facebook and even went to the little girl's birthday party.

The obvious choice would be food. I grew up hating broccoli, asparagus, and fish. Now I like all of those, although I can only eat so much asparagus.

More recently, jazz music. I used to think of it as a very boring genre of music. While I could appreciate certain songs from the past that obviously had a jazz influence, I just couldn't give jazz a chance. I'm currently taking an intro to jazz course online. I expected it to be a relatively fun course, but I never expected to completely fall in love with it. Now, I can see how a lot of the earliest jazz is sensual and wild. When I feel like listening to music, more often than not I just stick a jazz playlist on. My problem, it turns out, is that I was listening to the more mellow jazz and it would make me sleepy. I like that kind too, but I'm so glad I've given it another chance because I get so much enjoyment out of it now.

I'm so sorry for your loss aperson. I wasn't much of a dog person until I got mine, but they certainly are special.

Thanks for sharing the video.

I worked in the service industry and my fiancee is currently a bartender/server. She works at a sports bar in a relatively large city in the south. So not only do her coworkers talk about what races don't tip, they also talk about what local college sports teams don't tip.

This topic gets me pretty heated whenever her coworkers bring it up. My fiancee is very math-oriented so she did a little experiment. She kept track of people and their tipping over a few months. Of their clientele, you had to watch out for white customers more than black customers. And yet, her coworkers keep on complaining about black customers. I assume it's a mixture of the fact that her coworkers, like it said in the video, don't give as good of service to black tables and so get tipped less as well as noticing it more when black tables don't tip compared to white tables. One of the main differences is that my fiancee gives the same service all around.

In fact, she only has two types of customers that have ever given her trouble. One being the usual unruly children whose parents don't watch them. The other has only happened twice in a year, which only makes it a minor annoyance. My fiancee is half-Puerto Rican and it shows. Twice now she has served Latino couples and the woman has felt threatened and asked for another server. That's not really my fiancee's fault, and she's never thought about approaching those types of tables any differently. I wonder what those women would think if they knew it had become a big joke among the staff. They didn't know it, but my fiancee is gay.

I'm rambling now. There's not that many times I get to discuss the service industry--both the good and the bad. Anyway, thanks for sharing again.

Thanks for sharing. This would be perfect to listen to while drinking coffee on a rainy day.

I don't really have a favorite quote, certainly nothing inspirational that I like to go back to every so often. Instead I have this: "Do you suppose yourself anything to her, but that? You have been too long among your uncle's books. Girls love easily, there. That is the point of them. If they loved so in life, the books would not have to be written." It's from Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

I use it to kind of remind myself of my place in other people's lives. I too easily fall into a sense of adoration for friends, expecting some great friendship, imagining bonds that will never break. The quote reminds me to chill out, that I don't know people who are looking for that right now.

Man, if I had the money I'd pick up The Definitive Book of Handwriting Analysis. Back in high school, I became really interested in the criminal mind and all the ways the criminal justice system worked. I borrowed every book in my town's small library that had to do with criminal cases, law, criminal profiling, and the one book on handwriting analysis. It's some really interesting stuff.

That's hilarious. I am pretty excited to hear what kid logic she'll come up with.

OOT was my first Zelda. Not the first that I ever played, but the first that I ever owned. Before that, my brother was always given video games and I was just allowed to play them. For that reason, I'm pretty excited for LBW. "My" first top down Zelda. I suppose it was only fitting that OOT on the 3DS was also my first portable Zelda game. I've been slowly purchasing every Zelda game available through the eshop but haven't beaten any of them. As for the DS Zelda games, I never really gave them a chance. I haven't even seriously thought about buying them even though I now have a way to play them. Being a lefty, I just find the controls intimidating.

I guess it's a pretty normal problem to have. My partner and I have discussed it a bit. She used to be a WoW addict. It feels acceptable to spend hours on silly flash games or Words with Friends, but to pick out a "real" game and play it for a few minutes feels wrong.

Fantastic! It'll probably be two years down the line before I actually buy a Wii U, but I'll certainly get Wind Waker when I do. Until then, I'll wait for A Link Between Worlds.

The latest Animal Crossing is my go to game still. I don't have as much time to devote to gaming as I used to and I also have a guilty feeling when I pick up my 3DS, like I should be devoting my time to something more productive. Animal Crossing is the best game for that, I've found, so that I can just pick it up for thirty minutes at a time and put it back down again. Although I did play a few hours of one of the Professor Layton games a few nights ago.

I like Zelda games, though I don't keep up with many consoles so I haven't played all of them. I never got a Gamecube, so I missed out on Wind Waker. I hope to get a Wii U in the upcoming years and would like to get the HD version of Wind Waker then. Do you think I'll miss out on some of the charm of the game by skipping to the "prettier" version?

Haha yeah, my brother and his wife have been trying to come up with PG-terms to say instead of cuss words. Just to get used to them before she starts parroting. I have no doubt that one day her mom will slip up and yell "tits!" in front of her and that'll be interesting.

It was fun to see her discover ceiling fans. She was so amazed and would just watch it if she was near one. I'm too used to things like ceiling fans, so it was kind of nice to see that sense of wonderment over something so ordinary.

I kind of wonder if I'll go overboard when she's older like Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours. The whole asking about the kid's day from the beginning (waking up) but really trying to focus on how they felt, why they did things instead of what exactly they did.

That Ariel story is awesome, by the way. I've basically lost out on any stories like that due to staying away from kids for so many years--for good reason. There was about a two year period that anytime I was out shopping and a child was nearby they'd hit me with something. One had a freaking slingshot and whacked me with it in a store. Little monsters.

Yeah, there's a part of me that worries with her being the first grandchild on both sides she'll get whatever she wants and will become a little monster.

I'd never heard the bit about the d-pad and buttons doing the same thing. That does make it sound a bit better. I missed out on Skyward Sword too because I didn't have the, what was it, motion plus or whatever? But I always used the wiimote with my right hand, so I might have been able to do that one anyway.

I did boot up one of the Oracle games for a few minutes when I first purchased it before I had to go somewhere (what was I thinking?) and felt like a kid again. I spent so many hours on my Gameboy Color, it was nice to see graphics like that again.

Yeah, I have really bad anxiety. I have trouble going to stores down the street from me, I imagine it would be ten times worse in a foreign country.

I'll try to make it, but I make no promises. I have a pretty bad cold at the moment.

I'm in Raleigh, but it's so far in advance that I can't even say that I'll be there for sure yet.

Any ideas on which of those cities it will be?

When you're that angry over fast food, there's a major problem. I hope they can catch the guy, that behavior is so beyond unacceptable.