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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Dear Mr. Blue,
I am a man in my late 20s dating a 22-year-old woman who is a writer. Recently, she gave a reading at a local bookstore and invited me to attend, and she read a story about sexual abuse she suffered as a child. I was flabbergasted. I still am upset about it, and I feel pain that my friend had to endure this abuse. After a couple of weeks, she has not brought the subject up, though I wish we could talk about it. Should I mention it, or should I just let it pass?
Troubled
Dear Troubled,
You can bring a conversation into the neighborhood of what you want her to talk about -- you can talk about childhood (yours) in such a way as to invite her to discuss hers -- but I don't believe you should interrogate her. It's her story and she can tell it as she chooses. Perhaps she chose the reading as a way to tell you about it and perhaps that's all she wants to say.
Dear Mr. Blue,
My husband and I are devout Episcopalians. He's 51, a public schoolteacher, and I'm 38. We have two small kids. Since childhood he has felt a calling to be an ordained minister and now we both feel it is a good time to explore the idea. We live very well, have good retirement savings and are free of debt, and we lead a simple life full of good friends and family close by. Following God's call means we would sell most of our things, open ourselves up to the idea of poverty and spend three years in seminary immersed in a culture of learning and personal growth. After that God only knows. Are we crazy to contemplate making such a big change?
On the Verge
Dear Verge,
If God calls you to be crazy, then you should go be the best crazy people you can be, and thank heaven for good friends and family. Before he spends all those years in seminary, though, give him an audition and have him prepare and deliver a six-minute homily. Brevity is the first step to good preaching. If he's a gasbag, seminary is only going to encourage his worst tendencies. And can he preach in a normal tone of voice? Or is he going to suddenly get all plummy and Sir John Gielgud-ish? Or artificially chummy like a used-car salesman? And have him read the Lord's Prayer aloud, and a few other prayers: Does he read them warmly but in a formal cadence? Or does he attempt to give them dramatic inflections, as if he were reading them for Oral Interpretation 101? I've come across some Episcopal priests who put topspin on the prayers and they drive me crazy. Check on these tendencies toward the florid and sanctimonious, please. And then march forward.
Dear Mr. Blue,
I'm a fairly successful columnist for a daily paper in the West and for the past six months have been working hard on a book, nonfiction, based on a story I reported years ago. This book seems to me to be my one best chance to break out of the newspaper business and into the literary trade and also my best chance to earn some real money to send my two boys to college. The problem is that I seem to be faltering. I spend a long day at the paper, come home and start work on my book, and before I know it, I've had a couple drinks and everything I write is sludge. I've never had a drinking problem before. How can I finish this thing?
Slurred
Dear Slurred,
Turn your day around. Work on your book first thing in the morning when you're fresh and go to the office a little late. I'll bet you don't drink at the office -- the old-soak era of journalism is long gone -- so you can work late there and not run afoul of the bottle. Alcohol and writing make a sad combination and many a man has been deluded by the results. Finish your book.
Dear Mr. Blue,
I am a never-married, beautiful 45-year-old woman living in New York. My friends are streaming out of here at the speed of light and I'm about to follow. There are no men for us here! I am a playwright. Now, where in this country should I go? I'd like to be near a good regional theater; I'd like to be in a pretty place where the men are mature and available and want families; I'd like to be in a place where people appreciate the arts and writing. I'm from New York and don't know anything about the United States. Could you give me some advice?
New York Artist
Dear New York,
You came to the right advice columnist. The others would have ducked a straight question like yours, preferring to deal in platitudes, but I'll tell you the honest truth: Minnesota is your new home, Lady. St. Paul, Minn. It's out in the upper center of the country, on the Mississippi River, just left of Chicago, and it's an elegant, unassuming city that happens to adore New Yorkers. Really. St. Paul is not so haughty toward outsiders as, say, Seattle or Portland, Ore., or other urban paradises. Along with its neighbor to the west, it forms the core of a metropolitan area of some 2 million-plus (known as the St. Paul-Minneapolis area) that supports a slew of good theaters and includes several thousand mature, available, family-minded men, almost any of whom would be dizzy with pleasure at the thought of knowing a cool 45-year-old New York Woman. St. Paul is two hours, 46 minutes from LaGuardia by air, and 26 hours by road. Anything else you want to know about the United States, don't hesitate to ask.
