Advice.

Dear megastore,

I think I have too many books. Well, they can't fit on my shelves.

Help,

Needs More Shelves

***

Dear Shelves-y,

You probably do have too many books. We can't all live in the Library of Babel, which, as a fictional construct, has an infinity of shelves and thus an infinity of books. You, my dear Shelves-a-lot, are not a fictive construct. Well, maybe you are, but you are not infinite. Well, who knows, maybe you are infinite, but I think it's unlikely, because you're writing to me. Well, maybe you're not actually writing to me.

Okay:

You probably do have too many books, Shelvesford. The problem is, which ones to get rid of. The other problem is, which books not to buy. Have you heard of the public library (not the Babel branch)? The books at that library are, whilst in your possession, only temporary. Temporary books is one solution. Put them on a table, and you avoid the shelf conundrum.

My dear Shelvesmore, of all the things to have too much of, books are not so bad. To have too many of, you see, you see where I'm going, right? It's not like shoes, which are clearly a vanity. Well, sure, books, too, are a kind of vanity. Sure, of course you've read all those different versions of Proust AND Moby Dick.

Shelvesniss Everdeen: just, I don't know. Just put your books in stacks on the floor like a normal person.

And may the volumes be ever in your favor,

htms

__________________

Dear megastore,

How do you say no when people want you to do things that you don't want to do, you don't have time to do, it's wrong of them to ask you to do, and also you're really tired both of being asked and of summoning up your inner strength to think, then say, no?

So, so tired,

Ms. Yessayer

***

My dear Miss Yesmonger,

Like most things, saying no is a matter of practice. Just look in a mirror, knit your brow ever so slightly, and say it. It's easy, just one syllable, the n with its Proto Indo European history of negation vibrating between the tongue and the back of the teeth, the o the universal sound of indescribable wonder. The Wonderful No. Say it.

Come on: say it like you mean it, Mistress Yes-to-all, you aren't getting anywhere if you don't put your back into it.

What, are you afraid people will be mad at you? Are you suffering from the Indispensable Man Complex? wherein you believe at some level of madness that nothing, not one thing will get done if you, the Indispensable Yes Monkey Man, do not show up (saying YES I said yes I will YES) to do it? 

Fine, Yeswhillikers, go ahead. Just say yes to everything. But don't expect me to feel bad for you when you're ranting about your too-much-to-dos or your I'm-so-stressed-out.

Are you ready now, Yesterday's News? It's really the only way. Say it with me now:

No I mean it No I won't NOoooooooooooo.  

Yours in the negation of the negation, whatever that means,

htms

Words to live by.

The historian is proofreading a manuscript.

The historian: Don't ever do anything that requires footnotes.

Me: I won't. As God is my witness.

If you want my advice.

I love advice columns, and I love advice columnists.  Wow, do they ever have confidence in giving people they have never, ever met some urging about what to do next, how to think, what to order for dinner, and how to vote.  And what they should do for a living.  For instance:

I am 53 and have decided to chuck 30 years in the garment industry to become a high-school history teacher. Is one ever too old to make such a career change? What can a late-middle-aged rookie teacher expect?

Peter Hoelter
Los Angeles, California

Dear Peter,

Fifty-three is a fine age to make a change. Fifty-four is too late. One thing you should know: students today have a great deal of knowledge. This knowledge is wrong, because it comes from Wikipedia, but they know more wrong things than you did in high school. A word of caution: because of texting and cell-phone cameras, you will have no time at all to set your reputation. Before you finish teaching your first class, every student will know whether you are, to borrow a word the kids today may or may not use, a tool. Avoid this by remembering one thing: you are not their friend, you are their teacher. A little distance can produce great authority.

This is from a newly-undertaken advice column called "What's Your Problem?" at The Atlantic 

(Mildred Krebs: "This advice column is a bad idea.  If I want advice I'll ask a friend, or go online.  Are you going to join in the trivializing of the media?  Will horoscopes be far behind? You are watering down your brand!"  

WYP?: "Dear Mildred, Please don't worry.  It's not as if we'd put a photograph of Britney Spears on the cover.").

So far, so good.

Now if there's one thing I believe, one principle by which I live my life, it's that no one should have to suffer the uncertainties of this world, which is full of quandaries, without good, trustworthy advice. Since I, better than anyone, know this, here are some of my favorite advice columnists:  

Dear Prudence, at Slate.  It used to be Margo Howard, Ann Landers's daughter, who wrote a great column, I thought, though apparently she has turned a little mean.  Now it's Emily Yoffe, and I think she does a pretty good job as well.

Carolyn Hax. The Tribune publishes her alternatively with an advice columnist I am much less fond of (she suffers from excessive earnestness, but I read her anyway, because I need me some daily advice. Even if it irks me and I roll my eyes.). Ms. Hax, on the other hand, while perhaps risking a teensy bit of smugness, is always super smart, a good writer, and witty when it's called for.  

Ask E. Jean, in ELLE.  Her tagline is "Tormented? Driven Witless? Whipsawed by Confusion?" Which, let's be serious: aren't we all?  

The Ethicist, aka Randy Cohen.  Interesting and funny--serious daily-life ethical questions. Always, always worth the time.

Social Q's, written by Philip Galanes.  New-ish, very funny: etiquette questions, sorted.

Miss Manners, aka Judith Martin.  I remember reading a bit from her column--someone wrote in to ask what, if anything, one might say when conversing on the telephone, and it becomes abundantly clear that one's interlocutor is eating whilst chatting.  Miss Manners suggested that one might say, "I beg your pardon, but I can hardly hear you--it seems there's a carrot on the line."  As a result of this advice, I feel certain that I am a better person--I keep it in mind when, upon occasion, I need to be eating something (let's say potato chips) while talking on the phone--I try at least to keep it sotto cruncho.