g0_to_sch0ol

If I were a spiritual seeker and I walked into a church to check it out, which religions will welcome me with open arms and which will consider me an outsider? I know pretty much all the Christian denominations are welcoming, but what about others?

The last song they played during tonight's episode about the leaky pipes?

I'm in my 30s and I have been a writer and editor for print publications for my entire career. I have lots of experience in print. But now, of course, print is dying and it's getting harder to find jobs. In today's online world, I think I need to learn web design in order to keep an edge.

My question is, what level of study or degree would be appropriate? Is it a matter of taking a few continuing education courses or going out and getting an actual degree?

So, you're on a train and it's really busy and you find a seat next to someone and the train fills up and all the seats are filled and people are even standing around you. Everyone's squeezed in, everyone's crowded, and you're sitting there next to some stranger, packed in like the rest of them.

Then the train gets to a popular stop and practically the whole train empties out. The people standing file out of the train and most of the people sitting down get up and leave the train too. But you and your seat partner are still sitting. Together.

So, what do you do? Do you get up and move to an available empty seat (meaning no one is sitting next to you)? And would the person sitting next to you think you were running away from him/her at the first opportunity, leaving the person thinking, "Hey, what do I stink or something?" Or do you sit there next to someone, the two of you next to each other with a whole empty train around you, leaving the person to think, "Geez. Why doesn't this person move already? There's a whole empty train!" Which is ruder--staying or moving?

There is a poem I read a long time ago. I THINK it was in the Norton Anthology of Poetry. It's a contemporary poem and it's about a little boy who likes to draw only in black and it speculates about how he might grow up and be a murderer or something but "for now let him be content with his limited palette..." or something like that. I've tried googling it and I can't find anything. If anyone has a Norton Anthology of Poetry, if you could find it for me that would be awesome. Thanks!

So, I got those energy saving fluorescent lightbulbs to replace my regular ones and I put them in a four-bulb fixture that is controlled by a dimmer switch. The moment I turned on the switch, they started humming and slightly flickering. I changed them back to the regular bulbs, but I'm wondering why they did that and does that mean that they won't work in this fixture.

Thanks!

My father is extremely critical and has nothing but "helpful" criticism of everyone he sees. If you tell him he's hurting your feelings, he berates you for having feelings in the first place, and for "getting hysterical" and "taking everything personally" instead of realizing that he's only trying to be helpful. I'm talking about saying things like, "you're really stupid" and "you're not a real (insert profession here)" and laughing at your accomplishments in life.

He's been like that since I was a kid, but now he's getting old and feeble. It's hurting my emotional health, but I don't think he's going to be around much longer. Do I just live with it, or should I drop him from my life? He's never going to change.