Salon Columnists

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S A L O N
E M P O R I U M
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If I write a salacious story in the first person, will readers assume it's about me?

Bend Over

Yes, the reader does. You can claim that those panting, perspiring bodies writhing in the Wamsuttas are purely an invention, and you can say so on the copyright page, but the reader presumes that you've been there, done that. Especially if the descriptions are really good and the dialogue sounds about right. Then it reminds the reader of some of the reader's better salacious moments. But nobody will think less of your mother for your libertinism, nobody who your mother really cares about. You're on your own, kid.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a journalist who spent four years abroad working on a big nonfiction book project with my fiancé, a photographer. We pulled off some pretty amazing interviewing and travel feats, and moved back to the States, got married, the book got delayed, my husband turned out to be a pathological liar and cheater, our marriage fell apart and now I am putting my life back together. I feel that the book deserves to be written and I desperately want to write the book, but I also need to get on with my life and get the ex out of my head. Can I achieve this and still write the book?

Wretched

If you desperately want to write the book, then you should do it. No doubt about it. Four years of your life was a big investment, and you can't walk away from it because the marriage broke up. The book is a concrete good thing, compared to "getting on with my life," and you can use the first to speed you forward in the second. Unfinished projects are rocks in our pockets, especially when we know that they deserved completion: They keep calling to us for years. Of course it will be awkward, given your feelings about the guy, but keep a civil tongue, be a pro, get the job done and bend over backwards to be kind to him, no paybacks. Do the book, and you'll be better able to close the door on the past and get on with living.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am 29 and have recently met a boy, 22, and have become smitten with him. He is in an advanced degree program for philosophy and is precocious. Does age matter? I don't think twice about seeing a man seven years my senior, though I have to admit I easily tire of the mentoring that goes on. So shall I fold this one up before it begins to take form?

The Older Woman

I am so charmed by the thought of a 29-year-old as Older Woman, I can't tell you. Yes, age does matter, I guess, but beyond a certain point it matters less and less. That is, it matters less how old you are than how many years you have left, and not many of us know that for certain. A 50-year-old who is taking good care of herself is younger than a 30-year-old who is hellbent on destruction. But if you can be smitten with someone, then age difference has already become a minor consideration. I say, if you're smitten with the lad, smite him back, enjoy your romance, and should you wish to get rid of him, start mentoring.

Dear Mr. Blue,

It's been almost a year since I broke up with my college sweetheart. She was my first love and first partner, and I was hers. She says that she sees no future for us, but whenever we are in the same city, we spend time together and usually end up in bed together. We don't talk for months at a time and then she'll call and I start thinking about her again. There are plenty of women around who seem interesting, but I can't get past the first or second date. I keep telling myself that I don't need her anymore, but she keeps creeping back into my head. I have a good life. She is not that special. So why am I so obsessed?

Distraught in D.C.

Don't try to dismiss the old sweetheart from your thoughts -- you can't -- but if you truly feel that this is an obsession that does you no good, then avoid seeing her. You don't have to see her if you don't want to. You don't have to be nice to everyone who calls you on the phone either, especially if this all is making you miserable. That's what I can't quite read in your letter, whether you're hanging onto her as a marker or whether you really love her and are protesting against it. If you can't keep away from her city, can't keep from seeing her, can't keep from going to bed with her, then I guess your next option is marriage. It might save you both a lot of frustration.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a nerdy professor of computer science, married to a lovely woman, living in a friendly college town filled with bike lanes, the father of two of the loveliest little girls on earth and yet I am filled with foreboding.

I work happily and hard all day, and at night I dream horrid dreams of abandonment. Almost every night, my beloved leaves me and I awaken in a sweat at about 2 or 3 in the morning.

She is perplexed, and wants to help, but wonders how. What am I to do about these dreams?

Agonizing

If you're at the point where this is painful to you and seriously getting in your way, then go to a therapist of your choice and see if counseling can help, or pharmaceuticals, or whatever the therapist is dealing in. That's my advice. I'd also suggest that when you waken at 2 or 3 filled with foreboding, that you don't lie in bed and stew but get up and do something, exercise, clean the bathroom, do the laundry. And it might be helpful to give yourself a morning ritual that will be a clear boundary between nighttime and daytime. These miseries belong to the night; you live in the day. For example, every morning upon arising you do your push-ups, take a shower, fix breakfast for your daughters, talk to your wife about something cheerful and walk to work listening to Bach on your Walkman. A step-by-step conditioning exercise. I believe in the efficacy of talking with a caring professional, and I also believe in tricking oneself and finding distractions and in keeping busy. I mean, there's a lot of weirdness and snarkiness in all of us even on our good days, and we can't be always lying down and taking our own temperatures. Sometimes you just need to get on a bike and ride 20 miles.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a moderately successful writer who has gone through a couple of divorces and a number of foolish flings, mad crushes, brief passions, unsatisfactory dalliances, and now seem to have lost my appetite for female company, except of a strictly platonic kind. I keep thinking that I'm in some sort of restorative phase that will pass in due course, but from time to time I become alarmed at how little I am alarmed by my indifference -- which I know, after all, to be a cancer of the soul. Should I be trying to relight the flame, and if so, how?

Alone and Slightly Worried

Your becoming alarmed at your lack of alarm is perhaps the first signal that you're thinking about coming back into circulation and having another fling. Meanwhile, enjoy your indifference. It may not last long. Loss of appetite puts you in a fine position to observe the crushes and dalliances of others, and what other realm of behavior is so rich for a writer? If you ask me, which you did, I'd say you should go to all the parties you're invited to and hang out in bars and study the countless little ways in which the available smell out each other and circle and dally and intrigue and drive off competitors. Don't relight your flame, it will be relit for you soon enough. You'll see someone and converse and suddenly you won't be indifferent anymore. Meanwhile, you're fine. In some form, indifference may be a cancer of the soul, but a person cannot be open to all possibilities at all times and remain sane. Sometimes we shut some windows for our own preservation. You're OK, says me.

N E X T+P A G E +| Cynicism in a writer is not just bad faith, it's a critical wound