Hello Cary, I’ve been reading your columns for a year or so. In fact, it was my ex who introduced me to your column. She also introduced me to lots of other wonderful things, like the benefits of going for a walk in the woods and how therapy can be helpful to people who don’t particularly think they need it. I loved her and I do love her. She is beautiful, and she is in love...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Cary’s archival column from WEDNESDAY, JAN 4, 2012 Unemployment is making me depressed I lost my job, came back to my hometown and now I’m lost Dear Cary, I’ve been reading your column for about a year now, and really believe you might have some words of...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Classic column from November 3, 2010 I can’t stop smoking pot I love smoking pot, but I think I may have a problem. I smoke it every day, and when I can’t get it, I drink Dear Cary, I smoke marijuana every day. There are times when I don’t smoke, but I’ve definitely smoked...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Cary, In my early twenties, I went to graduate school to study English literature. I was deeply passionate about the written word and knew from the moment that I could read that I wanted to devote my life to this pursuit. Idealistic, I felt like providence had led me to...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Classic column from Tuesday, March 14, 2006 During the blizzard, I refused to shelter my friend There were other places he could go, and I wanted to be alone with my boyfriend. Dear Cary, At 8 a.m. on Sunday, during the height of the recent snowstorm, my significant other...
Dear reader, The following column first appeared Tuesday, February 15, 2011. As always, if you would like advice, please write to [email protected]. Happy New Year! Dear Cary, I feel somewhat guilty even writing to you; you seem to have excellent insight into many people’s problems, and should you choose to answer my letter, would someone more desperately in need not have their letter...
Dear reader, If you would like advice, please write to [email protected]. And if you would like to help support this endeavor, feel free to make a donation. Dear Cary, I discovered and appreciated your thoughtful presence through reading the Sun Magazine, and since then, reading your columns in Salon. Thank you so much for your ability to see something honestly and differently...
Dear reader, Below is another archival column from Cary. He’ll be publishing a brand new column next week. As always, if you would like advice, please write to [email protected]. Happy New Year! Classic column from October 17, 2012 I’m going crazy in my job I’m anxious and insecure and paranoid and bored — but it’s such a great job! Hi Cary: Two reasons...
Dear reader, Below is another of our favorite holiday columns. And, as always, if you would like advice, please write to [email protected]. Norma and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Should I tell her the truth — to save her from the derision of her friends, if nothing else? Hi Cary, I will be the first to admit that this may seem like a lame problem...
Dear reader, If you would like advice, please write to [email protected]. And if you would like to help support this endeavor, feel free to make a donation. I’ve asked my family to write but they say they’re too busy. Dear Cary, Happy holidays; hope this letter finds you well. I’ve been reading your column for a long time and respect your advice, so I’m seeking some...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Hi Cary, Look, this might be a no brainer, but I’m just a product of a world with rapidly declining standards and dubious if any moral values, so here goes. I live in a major international city (A BIG ONE). Through some kind of human or machine type error I mistakenly...
Dear reader, If you would like advice, please write to [email protected]. Dear Cary, I am 30 years old and have been with my wonderful boyfriend for over a year. I really think he is the love of my life, we get along greatly, and we have projects for a life together, although everything for now is limited to words and dreams, because we haven’t the financial opportunity to marry...
Visiting my family gets me down Every time I see them I’m depressed for a week [button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Cary, First, thank you for being persistent with your crazy wisdom, and for not giving up. I enjoy your column. I need a new way to think about this situation, and I’m hoping you can help...
Dear Cary, Last year, at the age of 29, I was diagnosed with a rare kind of thyroid cancer. I was halfway through graduate studies and was just about to embark on a year of research as a student, in Central Asia, where I wanted to explore a new region, do some neat environmental work, and enjoy the adventure. A quick recap: a handful of days before my plane took off from a city in North America...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Do not trust the voice in your head that says everyone else has a distorted perception of what day it is. Recognize that when your wife reminds you it’s Tuesday and that you said you would write a column on Tuesday, she thought you meant you would write a column on Tuesday...
Should we go home for Christmas— even if we can’t afford it? We lost our house in Katrina. The family is scattered but gathering. Should we go? [button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Cary, So Christmas, the so-called happiest time of the year, fast approaches, and my little family is in a tough situation...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Cary, I’m a recovering alcoholic, married with two teenagers and a mild in-law problem that really bothers me during the holidays. To some degree, what I am struggling with is naming why my holiday situation bothers me so much. May I bend your ear? My in-laws are nice...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Hi Cary, I have a problem with my disposition. I don’t know if I can do much about it, but I would love your perspective on how to cope with it. I am a fairly normal, social, functional person. I have several very close relationships, good rapport with people at work, I am...
Dear reader, I had been thinking about forgiveness, and gratitude, and certain aspects of my own personality that are maddeningly perverse, and how boring I’ve become, and how hard it is to install a new piece of software, and how much we miss the dogs, and novelistic structure, and how we need to fill the January getaway, and the books I’m reading which I have opinions about, and how...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Reader, Well, hello there. I just feel friendly today. We’ll get to the letter in a moment. It’s down there below this note –>>. But first: I’ve been out of Salon for a good six weeks now and am adjusting to being newly independent, an...
I’m starting to think of the Rob Ford phenomenon as a rare performance-art spectacle in which the tragic and doomed performer, seeking the death of his own ego, effects a feat of topological magic in which he turns his own id inside out. Like a DayGlo 3 a.m basement tattoo of his ravaging animal being, the awful, voracious, unquenchable id of desire appears on his red, bursting skin: Will...
Dear Reader, Well, I’m in Monterey this morning, here to help some writers. Also here to write on my own. When I was writing the Since You Asked column for Salon.com, which I did for nearly 12 years, every day I wrote it I wanted to be proud. It was an extraordinary opportunity for a writer, for someone who really doesn’t know how to do much else and so has had to find jobs writing...
Dear Cary, What a delight that you are continuing. Bravo! The quality of the world dipped there for a moment, but now it is leveled up again, thank, goodness. I’ll be sure to do my part to spread the word so that everyone I know can enjoy your column. On another note, I do want to ask you a few related questions about my writing. Some background: On a deep and sweet level, I am an...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Reader, Right now I’m writing this column here on my own site on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can bookmark to always find it. I’ll announce it on Facebook and Twitter whenever it goes up, and we’ll send out an email newsletter about it, too. Might miss a day or two...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Cary, Thank you for deciding to keep your column alive. I am writing to you from Italy, a country you must have a special spot for since you even organize your workshops/retreats here. I am not Italian but it has little to do with my story. I grew up in a troubled family. My father...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Cary, I need your help before I really mess things up for myself. I’m a single woman in my early 50s, I enjoy my job, nice people, understanding boss, etc. Earlier this year I spoke to my boss about a promotion/raise. She felt it was worthwhile to pursue and said...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Dear Cary, How do you tell your vegan girlfriend that she smells like spoiled cabbage, and sometimes the smell “down there” is revolting? Hopefully you can pull this out of the archives, I hate to see people work for free. Signed, Let’s Come Together for a Better...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] Hi Cary, I’m in my 50s with a career in my chosen field. The pay isn’t great — never is in this field — but I love what I do. I consider myself very lucky to have found this job. However, the recession and continuing economic mess have not been good to my...
Dear Cary, A friend just posted an old family pic on Facebook of her and her mother on a swing in the woods. My friend’s legs were wrapped around her mother’s waist, and her mom’s hair was flying like a black silk cape on the downswing, the look on her face the essence of motherly adoration. They were fully engaged in life and love. I commented, “They say it’s never...
Hi, my new advice column will debut here on Friday, Oct 18, 2013. See you then.–Cary T.
Dear Friends, I have left Salon.com after 14 years. My unique advice column, which ran on Salon.com as Since You Asked from October 17, 2001 to Sept. 30, 2013, just shy of 12 years, will now run on my own site, carytennis.com. For now, it doesn’t have a new name. I am open to suggestions. Once I get started (letters are already coming in) it will run weekly but if I find a way to make it...