You don't have to knock on wood
I just subscribed to yet another advice column, and maybe it's time to dig into this a little.
Hi, my name is Julia, and I'm addicted to advice columns.
Not to belittle actual addictions. But damn, I am super obsessive about reading these opinions, to the point of spending hours ferreting out any missed editions of my favorite soothsayers.
I've been into reading advice for most of my life.
It started in childhood, reading Ann Landers in the Valley News. Then I listened to The Savage Lovecast weekly for YEARS. I'm not sure how I fell out of that habit; possibly it’s because Dan starts each episode with a political rant and sometimes I am just not here for it.
Carolyn Hax's Washington Post column has been delivered straight to my inbox for a couple of years. Now I've had to unsubscribe (because Jeff Bezos has become some kind of fascist and is busy ruining one of the best papers in America. Should we have billionaires? I think not.).
I've recently become absolutely obsessed with R. Eric Thomas.
He has a fantastic weekly newsletter which I link to BEGRUDGINGLY because I'm afraid that if I introduce you to it you will leave me for him. Please don’t, there’s room for both of us in your mailbox. I used to read his advice column in WaPo and am now just following links from his newsletter until I figure out how to mainline it again.
One day recently I was unsubscribing from marketing emails and there was Slate telling me to pay up and I accidentally subscribed to the Dear Prudence thrice weekly advice column newsletter.
Maddeningly, but also fortunately, I can no longer read the answers in full unless I resubscribe to Slate, and while I really love Slate I’m trying to curb my OTHER weakness which is paying for too many online publications.
I pop in to read various other columns here and there, and if an old-fashioned printed-on-paper magazine finds its way into my hands I will always seek out whatever advice guru they've got on staff.
I love that in the UK they refer to the authors of these columns as the Agony Aunts. Very fitting, no?
So why do I love these so much? Hard to say. At one point I thought maybe I should become an advice columnist myself. But honestly I like reading them more than I think I'd like writing them.
Not that I don't give excellent advice. In fact, send me a question and let's see if I can help. 😁
I guess I like glimpsing the dingy undersides of other people's lives. I try not to engage in gossip more than I absolutely have to (which, well, I don't know) but I still ENJOY gossip, because it is one of life's great pleasures.
And hearing about stranger's lives is actually sort of better because you don't have to pretend you don't know that your friend lied about where she was and who she was seeing while her dude was out of town.
And worry about somehow spilling the beans at happy hour.
I enjoy taking in the sage advice of the Agony Aunts, which I often agree with but not always. And then of course I never have to take their advice myself because I never see myself in these columns! Which might mean that I lack self-reflection entirely or these people just find themselves in some pretty wack situations.
Anyway, I love them and I can't decide whether this is a problem, a guilty pleasure, or simply one of my daily practices. Which makes it sound way more positive. "I'm learning and growing by reading about how to tackle life's problems on the daily!" I’ll go with it.
This is a story with no narrative arc, which I'm pretty sure is breaking some sort of law of public writing. I will simply restate; I am obsessed with reading advice from people I’ve never met to people I do not know.
Please tell me if you are like me so I can stop pathologizing the entire experience. And be sure to tell me who you’re getting your wisdom from! (And now I’ve ended a sentence with the dreaded dangling preposition and had better hang it up for the day.)
Ok, love you, bye!
Julia
Recommendations!
Good smells!
In an ideal world, I live in a warm climate and the scent of jasmine flows in through my perpetually open windows. In my current 3D experience, I live in a place with chilly wet winters, and the windows are shut more often than not.
Enter delicious smells that make me feel like I'm outside when I'm really in.
Three of my favorites:
P.F. Candle Co's Sandalwood Rose Room & Linen Spray. I like to spritz this around the bedroom before I go to sleep, but it's good all day, every day. It's a light scent, not too flowery. Love it!
Thyme's Frasier Fir Pine Needle Candle. This takes me back to my New England childhood - no chemical smell, just woods, woods, woods.
From Paddywax, Amber and Smoke Incense Sticks. I would drink this smell if I could. It reminds me of road trips in the Southwest and evenings spent by the fire pit. It also comes in a candle, many of which I've burned to the last drop.
John Prine understands the importance of good advice, and so does this email. Forward it to someone who knows their own mind.