I’m Rachel Wildavsky, and I never go a day without the advice columns.
I save them to read at lunch. I find it’s something to look forward to.
Advice columns are life! They’re where we go to learn the crazy things people will do.
They’re also where we go to judge people. Judgement is important! And advice columns are the way to do it, because they don’t use names, or humiliate anybody.
So the columns are a great idea. But the columnists…sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they don’t.
Does it drive you crazy when they don’t?
Me too. And that’s the point of AdviceObsessed. We scan the internet for the best and worst columns, and when we find them, we call them out.
And who am I?
Briefly, I live in suburban Washington DC. I used to be a journalist, then became an all-purpose writer-for-hire. I’m the author of The Secret of Rover, an award-winning YA novel, and McMansions: A Novel, which is for grownups. I’ve been married since 1992. I have three adult children whom I adore, plus one awesome daughter-in-law.
I maintain a list of things everybody hates that I actually like. On the list so far are:
Cafeteria food
Surgery
Construction noise
Apex predators. Wanna get really, really close.
Extreme weather. This is similar to the apex predators.
And here’s what I hate that everyone seems to like:
Waterfalls—terrifying
New Year’s Eve— that countdown, also terrifying
Colas of any kind. I’d have to be in the desert and without fluids for at least three days to choke down a cola.
My daughter once described me as the only person who ever sided with the fish in The Cat and the Hat. At first I just thought that was funny. Now I own it.
Finally, a word about dates. Old columns don’t die; they just keep circulating, and they regularly pop up AdviceObsessed’s feed, looking just as interesting as when they were first published. This makes them fair game, so AdviceObsessed often covers them. Advice columns are as timeless as the human universals they reflect!
But this is a conversation—please weigh in. And if I missed a letter I should have covered, please share the link and we’ll all take it on.
Thanks for reading,
Rachel
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