What's the deal with:

1) "Toxins"? I can't find anything besides Wikipedia and 10000000+ advertisements to tell me what toxins are and how I can cleanse them from my body. So I eat only lemon juice and cayenne pepper for 21 days, and "toxins" are cleared from my "system." Does this mean I'll never get cancer? What are all the toxins currently living in my body up to: making cancer?

2) Genetically engineered salmon? This was all over the news yesterday and I have no idea why. Or again: what specifically will happen to you if you eat it? Looks fine to me, + if it can protect native species from overfishing, + if it can increase the world food supply, what's the problem?

I know these could be obvious things to most people, which is why I ask. I really want to know! Tell me what's up.

Sister Blog Alert: Gone Fashion'!

It's been a quiet week here on JOP, with two of your writers on vacation and the rest of us just busy in general. But hold onto your hats because there's a new blog in the Hi Fever/Jar of Paperclips family, and it's all about a topic close to your hearts and mine: clooooothessss!

A committee decided on the name, so don't blame me if it's cheezy. Gone Fashion' (like gone fishin', get it??!) is a joint effort among most of JOP and most of Hi Fever, and its mission is pretty similar to all of these blogs'. That is to say, writing about whatev we want, whenev we want!

If you have any ideas for topics, for GF or HF or JOP, send us an email at hifever40@yahoo.com or

jarofpaperclips@gmail.com.

JOP is still taking advice and although we have an enormous backlog, we'd like to hear what's going on right now! GF has sort of an advice feature, obviously specifically to do with fashion. So drop us a line and don't be a stranger!

What time is it?

Advice time! Our new email address (jarofpaperclips@gmail.com) has provided an amazing opportunity to get an even larger volume of questions than ever before. So the least we can do is answer them! This one seems to carry some urgency:

dear jar of paperclips,

how do i become a better blogger? should i maybe just admit that i don't want to be a good blogger? or is that simply not true?

xo
in need in durham

Hmmm. I think I know who this is. "In need," I think what you need to do is think about what it means to be "a good blogger." Does it mean you're in charge of posting cute videos of pets? (ed. note: I think it does) Does it mean you update every day? (ed. note: nope) Does it mean you should just write when you feel like it and not worry about it? We don't begrudge you anything, so just write whatev whenev! No big deal. You're always welcome here.

Next!

Dear Jar of Paperclips,

My husband has been acting really strange lately, and I noticed some woman's name on his cell phone last week. I asked him who she was and he got angry and didn't speak to me for the rest of the night. Finally, he confessed that he'd been seeing her and left late one night, I assumed to be with her. I couldn't take it anymore and ran outside, beating him to the car, and slashed the tires with a kitchen knife. He grabbed the kitchen knife out of my hand and held it against my throat. He told me he would kill me if I tried to stop him. That was 3 days ago. I'm terrified, and I can't leave the house. What should I do??

[no signature]

Whoa. Intensity alert! My recommendation is this: find a good lawyer and press whatever charges you can (it varies state-to-state) NOW. Get a restraining order. Find a friend with a gun. Move out of that house immediately and put as much distance as you can between you and your husband. This marriage is over, in case you hadn't noticed! Next step: take some self-defense classes, preferably with a personal trainer. Spend a long time at a gym learning moves. Make a montage of the footage. After a couple of years, wait for him in his house and show off those moves! Rent Enough, starring Jennifer Lopez, for tips.

Got a question? Send it on to jarofpaperclips@gmail.com!

Practical Summertime Advice

Three questions from three friends today. This first one was sent a while ago, but I think it's timely as I'm about to go to the beach for a long weekend and can't decide whether to pack suncreen or funscreen (aka tanning oil). Just kidding, sort of, but here it goes:

Dear Jar of Paperclips, every year is the same around this time...it's beginning to be skirt weather and me, a pasty white girl, have noticed other women who were just as white as me last month are now bahama mamas. should I be jealous of their bronzed, just got back from tahiti and used a bottle of tanning oil, look? even though I know they get their tan from uv bulbs in a strip mall in greensboro, it still sort of makes me wish I could have such a "base" tan in the beginning of May after a week of torrential storms. Any help on this issue would be wonderful.

I'm grappling with the same problem, so I don't know how helpful I'd be but: I have found Jergens "Natural Glow" products (and their competitors) to be very useful. My sister is really into tanning, and one look at her--sorry Liza! I love you!--is enough to dissuade me from too much real-life tanning. Just thinking about aging and cancer related to that mess is enough! My advice is: fake it with lotion and use sunscreen when you're outside. You should not be jealous of their look. When we're all in our 50's, you'll be hot, not withered.

And this one is from co-writer Kneeker:

whats the best post-sunburn treatment?

5 words: Aloe, aloe, aloe, aloe, aloe!

NEXT.

"Smithee" writes in:

I recently stumbled onto a scary, shall we say, sensitive scene while taking a walk along the river bank, and I think I may have gotten the PTSD. Now I feel confused and angry at inappropriate times. The neighbor kids have started calling me a "grouch"! How do I deal with this terrifying event?

Without getting into the whos, whats, whys, or hows of what you witnessed, you may be able to press charges criminally. From what I understand, sometimes this is helpful to victims of sensitive-in-nature crimes, but other times it's an exacerbator. If pressing charges isn't an option but you have money, consider talking to a therapist. Otherwise, you're going to have to de-program the freaked-outedness and continue taking walks along the same path, every day, until the memory fades. You can use yoga to deal with your anger; even deep breathing exercises will help you calm down during an "episode." Time will probably be the biggest healer of all, so just try to relax and breathe until it passes. Meditate on this peaceful new-age image. You know!

Post-Memorial Day Advice

It seems like people have been spending lots of time with their families lately, which means lots of stress with their families. We got an email over the weekend to see what can be done to accommodate some "non-traditional" readers:

Dear Jar of Paperclips,

i'm a big fan of the blog. however, um, my grandmother can't stand it! whenever she catches me surfing the archives she tells me to turn off the electric bubblegum and get a job. how do we win her over? -Krazy Kid in Kings Mountain

Dear Krazy Kid:

A lot of people who grew up before the 1980s are unfamiliar with computers and tend to lump them together with video games, DVDs, Walkmen, bluetooth...basically, any and all recent technology is equal to "mindwasting crap" to some people. So your first job is to prove to your grandmother that the internet isn't all bad. Start slow and show her some news sites, some educational sites (depending on how old you are), some literature sites. Wholesome stuff! Then introduce her to "blogging," but don't be surprised if she just never comes around to Jar of Paperclips. We'll try to introduce more coverage of gin rummy and Lewis Grizzard, but please don't hold your breath. Honestly, I think your best bet is to get her to see that the internet isn't a bad place at all. Remember: hatred comes from fear!

Are you utterly stuck on some problem in your life? Write us at hifever40@yahoo.com and we can find a way to help you out!

"I'm a percentage person."

Sometimes when I'm making plans with friends and I've got something else going on or my attendance depends on another person's absence (sorry! but you know how it goes. sometimes you just don't want to hang with some people), I'll say "I'm 85% sure I'm coming," or "I dunno, only feeling like 9% tonight." It's easier for me AND you, and sort of more fun as well. But I never really thought of relationships (romantic ones, friendships, and business relationships if that's part of your life) in those terms...until I was reading this advice column and the columnist broke down the question as a percent. Which I liked.

The question was "How important is sex for a relationship and what can you do if it stops?"

And his answer was as follows (partially; the full answer is on his site, linked above):

... let me further add that I’m a percentage person. I’ll put a percentage on anything. (Will I make out with her after dinner? 12%.) I’m especially fond of a really low percentage shot, like, was Angie flirting with me? 1.2%. This all gets me to the fact that I’ve thought about the sex question a lot. Which isn’t really a sex or no sex question, but more of a “mutually agreed upon amount needed” question. If two people both don’t like to get it on and find each other.. more power to them. So I’m going to stick with what I’ve got until someone proves me other wise: 50%. Yup, a straight 50. Why? It’s a bit like when a company buys a share of another company. And it is always 49 or 51 percent What the news heads like to call “the controlling share”. It’s only two percent away between the two but a world of difference in what it means to the dynamic on the whole. But at 50, neither works without the other right down the middle. of course there is always fluctuation, so I’ll give my sex math a +/- 4%. It’s also like a test. If you aced the “gets along” half but skipped the sex section (sextion? pow!) you would still fail, and vice versa. Never mind the fact that a relationship with unbalanced sex is just a friend who hangs around too much and stresses you out. No fun there. So yea. that’s my answer, it’s 50 percent of the test. To all those people who are thinking “but we get along so well, so I can look past it…” well, you can’t. Same goes for the “he’s a total loser but the sex is ammmaaaazing..” Anyway you score it, you still get an F for the class. It might hold together for a bit, but either disproportionate situation will eventually erode your personal chunk of love.

Wow. What a good, objective way to look at such a problem. I might take a cue for my own advice-giving! How would you think of your problems if you had to display them in graph form?

Breed All About It

Dear JoP,

Our beloved dog died almost two years ago (minus a month and a half) and we're ready to get a new one. We're looking to get a western terrier. They are similar to the previous dog we had, a miniature schnauzer, although the hair will go from salt and pepper to just white. We're having trouble choosing a suitable name. We're going to get a girl, and we'd like her to have a persons name, not something like snickers. Should we name her Eileen after the girl who watched our kids as we were growing up? Thanks for your help.

-Cesar Milan

Dear Cesar,

First of all, I'm glad that you took some time to consider a new pup. This is not a decision to enter into lightly. It sounds like you've done your homework on what breed works best for you and your family. This is great news as it will make the transition easier for a new puppy if she can fit in with your family's lifestyle.

Names are hard. My family had a particularly hard time coming up with one for me. A solid two-syllable name will make it easy for the dog to recognize and train her. Eileen is a nice choice because you obviously have some sentimental attachment to the name. Personally I find it easiest to name a new pet after you have been interacting with her for awhile. Eileen might be good in theory, but your new dog might not be an "Eileen". I was about to be "Izzy", "Pickles", or "Rita" - how embarrassing! Brainstorming names is a good way to start, but to really get the dogs personality you might want to wait a bit to see if she has any defining character traits.

-Dora

One more, real quick

Combing through the heap of questions in my inbox, I spotted this little one. I've got five minutes, have you?

Dear Jar of Paperclips,
my boyfriend and i are figthing about our musical tastes. i want to go to the taylor swift concert and he's threatening to break up with me over it. hElP!

ps here is a picture of my boyfriend when he was little. see how cute he is!!

The key here is going to be compromise. If he won't go with you, go with a friend. If he forbids you to go, break up with him AS SOON AS POSSIBLE cuz that means he's an abuser (not to mention a real jerk. no offense but it looks from the picture like that guy would grow up to be a jerk). And just don't talk about music with him until you're both ready to give each others' favorites a chance.

Time for some advice!

It's been a while, but we're still hacking away at the huge backlog of questions we've been receiving (keep 'em coming! we can always use more. gchat is the preferred medium). This week, we deal with some sensitive mother-daughter issues.

Dear Jar of Paperclips,

I am a reasonably attractive middle-aged woman, but i am nothing compared to my stunning seventeen year old daughter. Men turn to jello when she walks into the room.
While i am proud of her on the one hand, i am also insanley jealous of the affect she has on them. Am I a sick person for feeling this way?

from, horrified in Hartford

Your first responsibility, Horrified, is to be a good mom.
This means you shouldn't be jealous of your daughter's male attention, but protective of her during this vulnerable time. Make sure she knows what's what, sex-wise, and with a good dose of self-esteem to protect her in relationships as well. That said, you are not a sick person for feeling this way. Try a new hairstyle, or take some pottery classes. Honestly, it sounds like you're in a rut and that your daughter's just a symbol for your past youth and exuberance. Get out there, meet some new people, and have fun! After all, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree--your daughter had to have gotten her looks from somewhere!

Advice is back!

Well, the response to the advice column has been overwhelming and here I've been sitting on this pile of questions for months and months. Some of the questions are very dated and may have been better answered around the holidays, but guess what? There will also be holidays this year! So here we go, part 1 of the latest installment of ADVICE: The Column.

Let's see what we got. This one looks timely:

My boyfriend says he only hits me because he loves me. Is that okay? -Black 'n' (in) Bloomingdale, Indiana

No it's not ok! He may think he loves you, but really he loves to dominate you. You deserve a relationship of equals and he's shown you he's not capable of that. Get out of that mess as soon as possible!

I can't tell if I like a girl because I like HER, or if I just don't want to be lonely anymore. Any General advice? -Generally Speaking, Charlotte

Well, the first clue is that you're not sure. Anybody worth dating will inspire a much surer, extremely strong feeling at the beginning. The beginning is when it's supposed to be just nuts! If you feel lukewarm now, imagine how you'll feel after getting to know her, going on some dates, spending the night, meeting her people, seeing her without makeup, putting up with her mood swings, picking her up from the auto shop, listening to her snores, etc. Does that sound appealing? Answer quick before you think! If yes, then yes: you like HER. If no, you just don't want to be lonely anymore. See how easy?

Check back for our next advice column, coming probably later this week. We have seeeevvvverrrralll questions to go through so it should be good! Send us more if you want at hifever40@yahoo.com or to jarofpaperclips@gmail.com.

Jar of Paperclips, Jar of Questions

It's been a while since the last Hi Fever advice column, and a lot of that has to do with the calibre of questions we've been getting. Some are unpublishable (presented here with edits for our younger readers), some aren't worth acknowledging as questions, and all are obviously made up. Actually, one might be real.

But I'm answering them anyway, because of my passion for advice. Send us something legit at hifever40@yahoo.com or jarofpaperclips@gmail.com!

Q: My boyfriend sleeps on top of monkeys. I really want him to get it down to just one monkey. What should I do?

A: The easiest way to respond to this is with stuffed animals in mind. Am I right? So, well, it sounds like you're dating a child. Replace his monkeys with pillows and see how he reacts. If he's fine, keep him around. If he can't sleep without monkeys, you need to break it off.

Q: Is broccoli safe to put up your [behind]?

A: Probably not, but if it's sterile, I guess it's ok. Check with your doctor. If you're mature enough to bring it up to him or her, you're mature enough to give broccoli a try.

Q: I need more balls in my life. Who can help me with that?

A: There are two ways you could go here: you could visit any sporting goods store, OR you could try to meet some available men. The good news is that sometimes it's easy to do both at the same time! You could take up a new sport and make some friends at the same time. Good luck!

Q: Someone said they want to give me a portugeuse omlet [sic]. What is that?

A: Have you looked it up anywhere else on the internet? I just did. I thought you made it up! I can't print this.

Q: I really want a dog, but I live in a tiny apartment. My roommates think it would be ok if i got a small dog but, it seems wrong for her to have no space to run around. What do you think?

A: Good question--it's great that your roommates are fine with it, but you've hit on something really important about the space issue. A dog could make you happy, but she or he deserves to be happy as well. And I know what doesn't make dogs happy: small, cramped apartments. And think of the money. Owning a dog at this point in your life will result in that dog effectively going to your ATM and withdrawing more of your money than you ever thought s/he could. You should wait until you move somewhere with more room.

That's it for today, everyone. Until JoP changes its name (that's another thing: suggestions? we need to do better than what's sitting on my desk), you can send your questions either to Hi Fever's address (hifever40@yahoo.com) or to us at jarofpaperclips@gmail.com.