Dear Gertrude--

Great that you finally got your column. Hopefully, I can be the first one to write in search for your wise words. My heart is breaking these days, and I can't imagine how anyone but you could help. My husband of eleven years just cheated on me with my sister, who's younger, and none of us knows what to do. We all love each other very much, and have always hung out together. She has the condo below us, and takes care of her niece on a regular basis. But now, we are all awkward around each other. I cry myself to sleep each night, and my husband is talking about leaving the country. We've tried to discuss it rationally, but I ended up shredding a beanbag and filling my sister's bird-feeder with the beans that fell out (she loves her birds). Do you have any suggestions?

Sincerely, Confused in Tight Confines


Dear Confused in Tight Confines,

Confining tight can be stretchy. In the stretch of stretchy tension, we find it tightly so. She will look at the tension and locate its rubber and discover the elastic nature of tight stretches, stretchy confines. Elastic is lasticky, you see. And when she touches the elasticity of lasting stretches, she will find the tension, which will be tense and full of long pulls. She will examine the stretch and ask herself if the stretch stretches out to tension or if the tension is inside the stretch. Tight? See, nothing elastic tightens in beanbags although they give said impression. Amoebic furnitures, they do not stretch but thrust pseudopodic blobules of themselves towards the stretched stretches in order to confine our stretch. Stretching, she will know if the elastic stretches stretch enough to confine blobular blobules of beans, tightly or confining, I'm confident.

Hopefully that helps. Good-luck,

Gertrude

(p.s. this publication does not hold itself responsible for any typographical or otherwise errors in Ms. Stein's column. we abdicate all responsibility, in fact.)


Dear Homer--

I really need your help. I hear you are blind and I feel blind right now but with anger not because I have no eyes. I just got fired after working thirty years at the same place and I think it's because they want to only hire young people these days and I'm sure young people are great but they don't know their job like I know my job. I could do much better than them and I think I was doing my job. My progress reports were always positive but now my boss is "shaking things up," he says. But our company is doing fine without shaking and I know there is no other reason than my age to have fired me and I want to go back. Any Suggestions?

Yours, Blind in Rage


Mighty Blind in Rage:

Odysseus paused at the shore of the ever-changing ocean and called for his son, Telemachus. With his frothy white beard, Odysseus looked very different and even his own son did not recognize him. Odysseus's long journey had changed him, and his now-grown son threatened to whip him. With all that time looking at the sparkling stars and finding his way back to Penelope, Odysseus felt impatient but loving towards this young spawn. So, he took the rod from Telemachus with his monster-smiting musculature and then told Telemachus who he was. Telemachus's eyes flowed. Odysseus asked his tear-flowing son how the beautiful Penelope was, and how the condition of the kingdom was holding up. His son gave him the gossip and the two listened to each other, each hearing the knowledge the other held. After their consult, Odysseus lit a pyre to Athena and asked for her intervention in justice and wisdom.

Then he went and slaughtered all the drunken young usurpers with his mighty bow. His wife was glad to have him back and life shaped up soon after.

Omni Omnibus, Homer

(p.p.s. this publication really abdicates responsibility for Mr. Homer's column.)


Dear Fyodor--

I'm having difficulty sleeping. All I think about are my downstairs neighbors, who I think have a meth lab in their spare bedroom which is below my bedroom. I've never fancied myself a rat, but I'm scared I might get blown up and I'm also worried they might go on a psychotic killing spree. Do you think there is any way to talk to them without causing offense? Or do you think I'm just being paranoid?

Respectfully, In Need of a Meth-od


дорогой In Need of a Meth-od,

You are a desperate man... you are a vile and bitter man. I believe you're probably a lonely man. Your esophagus hurts. However, I am not sure if you have given all the information about your problem, and I don't know what to advise you. You don't go to the police, and you are frightened of them, although you seem to understand the concept of ethics and laws. In general, I guess you've never read a single philosophy book. Besides that, you seem very stupid. No, I will not give you any advice on ethics. You would probably be confused anyways.

Well, I see you have a dilemma though. Of course, I have no idea the nature and character of your downstairs neighbors and so have no way of ensuring that any advice to such a stupid and vile man will not backfire. But they are probably not without their own flaws, making meth possibly being one. So you might explode--let things break!

How long have you been going on like this? Is this a problem that has haunted you for years? I imagine you are very old, and it seems likely you once were an accountant, for you are fond of an accounting. You were a desperate accountant. You were stupid and patted your back for such ethical cleanliness. And for these naive jiggerings, you probably felt baptized in righteousness. (This is cruel of me to write, and I thought about erasing everything and starting over with the assumption that your neighbors indeed make too much meth, but I choose not to simply because I have one of those old typewriters, and don't believe in white-out. I shall burn this. Yes!)

When the meth-heads downstairs rattle their kettles and mix their materials, you lie upstairs with your hands folded on your chest. You keep your hands folded on your chest to look like a dove. It is your dove-nature you value, and you do not want to mar it with the recriminations of angry psychotics. You do not stand up, do not walk over and yell through the air conditioning. You do not exploit your position of being above, because you relish the idea of being one flight on top. This is your success and it folds your hands for you.

You have already decided! You know what to hold onto, your hands; you know what to love and how to hate. You are oppressed by your own obsequiousness, but you think it prime achievement too. You are paralyzed, sleepless for freedom of drug-bubbling, and I think of you as a kind of average and stupid man. Soon you shall explode and a new idea will be born!

Best of luck, Fyodor

(p.p.p.s. this publication doesn't even understand what it is abdicating responsibility for, in regards to Mr. Dostoevsky's column.)