To hear people tell it, the kids are definitely not all right. According to The Washington Post, there’s “a crisis in American girlhood.” To Derek Thompson in The Atlantic, “the inexorable rise of teen anxiety ought to be a national crisis.”
DEAR HARRIETTE: I feel so bad. A friend of mine asked me to talk to her dad about a project he is working on. I agreed right away, but then I got distracted. First, I got sick with whatever bug is making its rounds. Then I got so busy playing catch-up at work that I totally forgot. I remembered the other day, but then I felt like such a loser that I didn't reach out. It just felt like it was too late. But that's no way to handle things. I don't mean to be a disappointment, especially to my friend's dad. What can I say or do to make it up to him? — Not a Flake DEAR NOT A FLAKE: Now that you have remembered, reach out at once to your friend. Tell her the truth. Start by letting her know that you haven't spoken to her father yet.
Dear Doctors: I am 69 years old and have two cups of coffee each morning.
It was a different time. The Ruan Center in Des Moines, with 35 floors, had just become Iowa’s tallest building. Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, home of the Iowa State Cyclones, had just opened. The farm girls were still playing 6-on-6 high school basketball – three forwards on one half of the court, three guards (permitted to dribble only twice) on the other, and no crossing the half-court line – and they were attracting thousands of spectators, as many as 7,362 to watch Warsaw defeat Bloomfield, 57-52, for the state championship in 1976.
In 1861, a Texas state convention voted 166-8 in favor of a measure to secede from the Union.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I work in a highstress environment with an unreasonable boss. She often makes us work through lunch, sometimes without even having time to go to the bathroom.
You know, since I've been eating these chia seeds, I've noticed my beard has gotten heavier.'
The intolerance impulse from the left is as odious as it is from the right.
DEAR HARRIETTE: As someone tasked with interviewing people who have stories that may not be of particular interest to me, I often struggle with connecting to my subjects. How can I possibly be interested in something that I find lacking in any real personal meaning? It can be challenging to craft a thoughtful line of questioning that leads to the best possible story outcome. As an interviewer, what tools or methods do you use to make the stories you tell stand out? How do I work to identify what makes a subject's story interesting to others, even if it isn't interesting to me? — Uninterested DEAR UNINTERESTED: This is a tough situation that is actually common for journalists and other writers.
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