I have a grammar question for you, and one that I
thought was
particularly
appropriate since you also read Vanity Fair.

I’m a
bit of a newbie to
VF.
My roommate just got a subscription, and it’s like
crack — I cannot put
it
down, even though I must do other, important things,
but oh, VF, with
its
wonderful articles and the train wreck that is
Dominick Dunne. What a
buffoon! It’s great! I must find where she’s hiding
the latest issue soon
because I’m
starting to get the shakes…

Anyway, my VF-related question: Is it grammatically
correct to
describe
someone as “‘the’ writer Dominick Dunne” (I realize
that’s a stretch, but
for
kicks)? For example, I’d much rather be “non-profit
professional and
law
student My Name” than “THE non-profit
professional…” et cetera. I notice
that
VF does that ALL the time! It’s never “writer John
O’Hara,” it’s always
“THE
writer John O’Hara.”

Why? Why the THE? Isn’t that
wrong, or at the
very
least ostentatious? I hope I’m not wrong, as that is
my complete
grammatical
pet peeve. Please let me know. Thanks so much, and
keep up the great
work
in all of your endeavors.

Peace,
Annoyed VF reader, not THE annoyed VF reader

What do you do if you think your friend might be about
to marry an idiot? Do you owe it to her as a friend to
express your doubts, or do you put up and shut up, in
case you risk losing her friendship by saying anything
anti-him?

And if she goes ahead with it, how do you get through
things like engagement parties and hen nights without
lying through your teeth?

Yours,
One Wedding and a Quandary

I was wondering if you would help me out with a problem.
Actually, it’s not MY problem per se, but I have gotten sucked into it, and my QUESTION is: should I do anything about it.

Okay, backstory. A friend of mine (let’s call her “Gertrude”) has just broken up with her boyfriend of four years. She called me one day out of the blue and told me that she had asked him to move out of her house. When I got the story, it turns out that this guy is a drunk. He drinks all the time, he has way too much and it effects everything in his life. Let me say, Sars, I was shocked! I’ve known this guy (let’s call him “Drunky McBlackout”) for a while, and I NEVER knew this! Now Gertrude and I are friends, but not in the bestest buds, spend every minute together kind of way. I call her a few times a month, and see her infrequently (we live in the same city — on different ends). So I have been out with them, drank with them et cetera, but never noticed a problem.

Now I am sure that he is an alcoholic — being the child of one I recognize plenty of the signs from what she told me. She told him to move out and gave him three months to clean up his act. He responded to this news by getting totally ripped and passing out on the subway. She says that she has tried many, many times to get him to stop, but he won’t so this is her last resort. I wholeheartedly agree with her, and will make every effort to support her in this. The problem is, he keeps trying to worm his way back in without changing anything, and I fear for her resistance.

She doesn’t have the highest level of self-esteem in the world, and many outside factors are trying to keep them together — for example, her mother keeps whining about her getting married and how she will never find a guy as good as DMcB (she is 25 years old!). Most of her other friends are of the bitchy sorority type who could care less about her problems as long as she has the right accessories. She is surrounded by shallow, shallow people who think that happiness and self-respect are not quite as important as a fat diamond and a $3000 Pretty Princess Wedding dress. He knows this, and has recently started talking about them getting married, he loves her blah blah blah manipulative-bastard-cakes.

I feel like I am quite possibly the only sane person in her life right now who WILL NOT let her get back together with Drunky. I know it’s her life and she has to live it, but I really want to help her stay away from him. He is not willing to do anything about his drinking, as tells her she is overreacting. I keep trying to get her to go to an Al-Anon meeting (as they helped me out quite a bit), but so far she has been reluctant!

Can you think of anything I can do? Or should I just stay out of it? I want to be a good friend, and I feel I might be the only one she’s got.

Girl Planning Intervention

Here’s a silly question that’s been bugging me and BF recently. We
met in January 2001, dated for two months, and broke up. I didn’t
see him until August 2001, when we started dating again. This time
things progressed from sleeping together to things more serious, we
moved in together, then separated, and eventually broke up in the
spring of 2003.

But this time, we stayed friends and had a chance to talk things
through, et cetera. In August, we decided to get back together again, and
start things new and different — more “conventional,” for lack of a
better word. Consequently, we’d like to have an anniversary date to
celebrate, but can’t quite pick one. We don’t remember the exact
date when we first met, or any of the other dates, for that matter.
Any advice?

Dateless and Confused

As a writer yourself, I’m hoping that if there’s anyone who can help me
with my dilemma, it’s you.

I love keeping journals. I kept a paper journal for most of my young
life, and it both got me through hard times and provided me with a
wonderful learning tool for figuring out my adolescent mistakes and not
repeating them. I gave up the paper journals after high school but didn’t
stop writing — I merely converted exclusively to online media. To this
day, in fact, I keep three online “journals” (that word used loosely, of
course): one associated with my online life, one that’s totally public
(for my friends, family, et cetera), and one that’s strictly personal.

In recent months, however, I haven’t been feeling satisfied with the
personal aspect of my journaling experience. I’ve found a wonderful guy
and moved in with him, I have a new job, I have lots of new friends — in
other words, I have a lot on my mind — and pouring out all the intensely
private emotions that go along with these things into a sterile “update”
field online just wasn’t cutting it for me. So, after considering it for
about two seconds, the solution seemed very clear to me: write in a paper
journal again. I went out, bought a lovely brown leather number and a new
pen, and I was all set to go. And that’s when I ran into the problem.

I think my boyfriend is very hurt that I’m choosing to keep a totally
private journal. He didn’t say much about it at first, but I could
definitely sense the hurt in his neutral “…oh, okay,” in response to the
news. We have an amazing relationship and I’ve learned so much from him
about how to talk more about my feelings and all of that, but the fact is,
there are still things that I clam up about and can’t seem to bring up in
conversations.

When I pressed the issue a bit, he still didn’t say anything negative
about it — just assured me that I could always come to him to talk. But I
suspect he’s worried that I’m going to go to the journal rather than him to
talk about what’s bothering me. He would be right, of course, to a
certain extent; the only topics I might refrain from discussing with him
(and would thus write about in a journal) are the those about him and our
relationship that I think he wouldn’t want to hear or that I would be
uncomfortable saying to his face.

I guess my question is: what do I do? I can’t bring myself to write in
it, so the new journal is still sadly blank and collecting dust on my
desk. On the one hand, I want to take the selfish road and have my
thoughts the way I want to, dammit, but on the other hand, I don’t want to
be subconsciously chickening out from important relationship-type
coversations and hurting my boyfriend in the process. How can I explain
it to him so that he sees the positives involved for both of us? And how
do I get over this lame guilt thing that I’ve got going? I’d love to hear
any advice you might have.

Thanks,
Blocked Beyond Belief