My V-Day Letter (Belated) to America-Why I'm Single

I've been gone for a month. It's because I've having a great time with with life. Work is kinda back and forth, but I understand the joy of having a vision, now, because I am the steward of one. Church is good. My truck lives. I live.

Then I come across the Golden Child known as V-Day. I saw the kids at the RC celebrate today, running around the halls with all their abundant joy. I had to fight the notion to say in my heart that Valentine's was irrelevant. But I've never really embraced it.

I'm single. Flaming single. I have been in this state for all my life. sans two weeks. Laugh if you will. Why, you ask?? I could blame Fayettenam for my issue. I was overshadowed in college by golfers, athletes, the 9 to 1 male to female ratio and my own taste for beer. After I got out, I found myself overshadowed by the looming shadow of Fort Bragg. Eek!

And then there's the game issue. Laughing out loud. Haha.

And I'm pretty fickle when it comes to women. I've developed high standards. That disqualifies me from part of the population. If I'm not crazy about a girl, why go through it? The tempation of infidelity would loom larger...

Heck, marriage and valentines and all that jazz may never be in the cards for me. It's possible. I don't think that settling for less than the best isn't ideal!

Don't forget, Paul was single for the duration of his life. So was my good buddy Jesus ;).

So I hopefully have explained why I'm single. I did it all for you.

asperger's part 2: continued education

I've done some research on Asperger's syndrome over the past month (before the holidays distracted me) and I've tried to relate what I've found to what I've gone through in my life. I've mentioned some symptoms in part one, but I've just wanted to highlight some things that I relate to:

-Having a narrow set of interests in life

I fall into that category; I tend to narrow down my primary interests to sports, music that people of my shade of skin color wouldn't dare admit to being interested in, writing, and other things. If you try and ask me about something I don't care about, or if you ask about something that I care about but had just started following, you would run circles around me. Nowadays, I wouldn't care about what other people think about my interests, but at one time I hid them (or edited them in conversation) because I wanted to be liked.

-Social awkardness

Asperger's victims have trouble with eye contact, small talk, and generally keeping a good conversation with people. They have trouble with figuring out sarcasm, jokes, and the like. Personally, I've improved with social awkardness, but sometimes the sarcasm park still gets me.

-Worrying

This is something that Christians shouldn't do a lot of, but Aspies have a high tendency to both worry and keep their feelings inside. I sometimes worry, unfortunately.

-Bad body language in social situations

This is a difficult thing for Aspies to deal with and it certainly doesn't help you socially.

-Being too trusting of people

-Difficulty with dating and relationships

This is a separate column all together......

And so on..

In Part 3, I'll speak about illusions about Asperger's Syndrome.

new year's revolution

I'm going to return to my Asperger's Syndrome series (after being derailed by the holidays) but I'd like to share my New Year's Resolution.

(drumroll)

It's to simply mature as a person in Christ and grow into someone that could handle a better job, a career, a relationship, and everything that God has in store for me, in time.

God bless.

asperger's syndrome and life, part 1: opening statement

Since I moved to the Triangle, I've had an increasing desire to dig deeper into the intricacies of Asperger's Syndrome.

This is the difference that I have. I'm not going to run away from that. I did when I was an unbeliever. I won't now. Take it or leave it. God made me this way.

And the fact that I have it has driven me recently to volunteer with the Autism Society and other groups. I want to help people. I want to give back in any way possible.

That being said, I also want to know and understand the symptoms and how it affects my life. And I admit that the things that I've found (although I'm a little unsure of the accuracy) have bothered me. For example, people with Asperger's syndrome struggle with:

-Problems engaging in small talk (I am hit or miss on this)
-Problems with depression and anger
-Lack of empathy
-Unable to see things from the other's point of view
-According to one site, having difficulty with entering relationships and marriages, and I've read that Aspies have a divorce rate of about 80 percent.

Glad I have God's favor.

I want to discuss some of these issues later, so stay tuned.

Mock College Football Playoff Bracketology, Some Weeks Late

If the Football Bowl Subdivision had a 16-team playoff, with all 11 conferences receiving automatic bids, and five other schools recieving at-large bids, and if the season ended today, with no title games) here's what we'd be looking at:

No. 1 Auburn (SEC auto bid)vs. No.16 Florida International (Sun Belt auto bid)
No. 8 Michigan St. (At-Large) vs. No. 9 Oklahoma (Big 12 auto bid)
No. 4 Stanford (At-Large) vs. No. 13 Northern Illinois (MAC auto bid)
No. 5 Wisconsin (At-Large) vs. No. 12 Virginia Tech (ACC auto bid)
No. 3 T.C.U. (Mountain West auto bid) vs. No. 14 Connecticut (Big East auto bid)
No. 6 Ohio State (At-Large) vs. No.11 Boise St. (WAC auto bid, if there is a three-way tie with Nevada and Hawaii, then i'd give the bid to Boise as a tiebreaker because of BCS ranking)
No. 2 Oregon (Pac-10 auto bid) vs. No. 15 U.C.F (Conference USA auto bid)
No. 7 Arkansas (At-Large) vs. No. 10 LSU (At-Large)

With this said, we do have title games coming, and some bubbles could be burst. That is all.

I love Sundays.

I love Sundays.

I wouldn't have said this a year and a half ago. I would use Sundays to sleep in and watch football, basketball, movies, Nintendo, whatever. Often I'd sleep in to rest up from a long night of shenanigans.

I still stay up late at night. But it's mandatory that I take my butt to Grace every single Sunday. It just has to happen. That's what Christianity does to you.

I also love the fellowship among Christians afterwards. This is the first solid Christian community that I've ever been around. I will confess that I did feel kind of out of the loop during the summer when I spent a lot of time in Fayetteville and Virginia and GNet wasn't active, but now I'm really plugged in.

And did I mention football on Sundays? It doesn't even matter that my Panthers are angling for the No. 1 draft choice. It's a male soap opera.

I still love Fridays and Saturdays. But add Sundays to my must-look-forward-to days.

Some Days Late...Parental Advisory Suggested....

On Veterans Day, I remembered the contribution made by my deceased grandfather, late great uncle, and two of my cousins. They all served our country.



And yes, I lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina for seven and a half years. Most of you know that Fayetteville is home to Fort Bragg, which is due to become the largest military base in America by next year due to its expansion. Veteran's Day is held in high regard in that town.



I spent that day wrestling with the notion that Veteran's Day could be a form of idolatry. I feel that might apply to Fayetteville more than, say, Raleigh, with it being a military sanctuary and all. We make a big deal about soldiers dying in war for our freedom...but didn't Jesus die for our souls????????????? I meditated on this Thursday.

I'm all for Veterans's Day, but why can't we have a Jesus Appreciation Day? Ain't that more important?? If you believe in Christ anyway, which I do, you would feel that God would protect us and our freedoms (or the freedoms that God enjoys anyway) from evil Islamic thugs.

I've struggled with bitterness towards Fayetteville because soldiers always get their - kissed there at the expense of the "townies" in many things. But bitterness is wrong and respect is required of me. We should say thanks to all of the difference makers in society for what they do.

We are all equals, no matter what Satan puts in our heads about us not being equals. I respect Veteran's Day, but I sometimes fall victim to seeing both sides of the coin here.

Idolatry and bitterness are evil. Good day.