A painful bind from early in the game.

I played this OTB casual game with my regular chess partner.  I am what you would call the well-read novice while he likes to attack and knows little of positional play.  Nevertheless I found myself in the painful bind with few ideas for active play.

I'm especially curious as to which of my alternatives (if any) are sound, how I could have improved, and where my biggest mistakes (other than the letting him skewer me) were.

Thanks in advance, I look forward to your feedback.

Edit:  Another major reason this game vexes me is that his kingside attack looks far more advanced than any of my ideas.

well first of all dont let your queen be skewered lol

Your position was cramped the entire game, instead of capturing the knight in the center of the board try just kicking it away with a pawn

I have no idea about this opening but:

14.... why not Ba7? The bishop there is more active than on f6 - it hits the f1 square and after b6 it can always come back to b7.

I would have loved to play Ba6, but I was worried about 15. dxc5 Nxc5 16. b4

I do have 16.. Nd3 where he has the option of sacrificing the exchange to trap my bishop with 17. b5.  This line was murky, though so I decided to avoid it.  On second thought, it's probably better because I get to trade off pieces, and because he would have weakened his pawn chain.

Edit: I realized that 17. b5? is weak, so 14... Ba6 seems to be much stronger than what I played.

After 17.b5 you can play 17.... Ne4 (hitting the rook and the pawn) 18.Rc2 b6 and he looses precious time while you activate your pieces. At some point you should move f5 (solidifying the knight). Now it's you who have the greatest attacking chances and this knight is simply marvelous on e4. He should exchange it but then he have pathetic pawns on e3 and e5.

That's just what I was looking for.  Thanks!  I only noticed the symptoms as opposed to the problem.  It is difficult for me to find moves such as f6 because it looks ugly to block the fianchettoed bishop (which in truth was doing nothing). 

The only question I have now is:  How should I have dealt with the early Ne5?  As I said before, advanced knights horrify me. 

Ok, first of all what he played on you was the Stonewall Attack.  Thats the name for the pawn formation c3, d4, e3, f4.  Despite being called an attack, its a slow opening and not particularly worrysome if you know how to handle it. 

He played ne5 quite early, not sure if you can exploit it with best play, but after events unfold, why not 8 . . . f6 with the idea of re-capturing with the rook to prevent kingside castling, or with the bishop maybe planning e5.  Basically, at this point, white's development is bad, if you can rip the position open you should have an edge.  (Indeed, Shredder assigns you a small advantage after 8. f6, which is pretty good for black at move 8.)  Normally, white castles before playing ne5, and ripping the position open in this fashion is much more difficult.   

In allowing white to castle, and locking your bishop in, you are correct, your are setting yourself up for a cramped and uncomfortable game. 

Knowing my opponent's dislike of theory in general, his pawn structure was a complete accident, and once I tell him it has a name he'll probably never play it again.  Still it is good to know the setup. 

By the way, does anyone disagree with 5... Nfd7?

 I dont think nfd7 could possibly be "bad" there.  Whether its best, perhaps not, but f6 is a normal tactic against the stonewall to try and break things open, and if you dont eventually hit that knight somehow he will castle and manuever the other knight to f3 to back up the other knight.   

Your idea of nc6 looks reasonable as well, and c5, recommended by Paul above, would steer you to fairly typical Stonewall lines, cant possibly be bad.