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Can you help me with a #moderncrisis and #personaldilemma: I hate Twitter so much. I had high hopes that Google Wave or some much better other thing would sweep it away, but it hasn’t happened yet. I found Twitter somewhat useful to check some tweets during the snow storms in DC (firefighters: look both ways when crossing street!) but most of the time, I just wish my favorite tweetsters could stop using this dreadful twitter novlangue and go back to blogging in full sentences already.

Of course, I have a Twitter too: I joined in 2007 but only started tweeting last year, for no particular reason, just to stay in the loop. Even you relented! Should I stop worrying and learn to love Twitter or do you see in the current twittermania the seeds of some awesome and smart new medium that could make me all excited and giddy like it’s 1999 again? — Grumpy in DC. continue »

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Can you expound on the Politico analogy from a few weeks ago — i.e., what brands of tea best identify the various types of teabaggers? — Ed O.

In the famous cartoon editorial meeting at the bat-cave/newsroom of The Politico, a story was proposed in which varieties of yuppie tea would be matched to elitist Republican establishment figures — “Pawlenty is Chamomile because he is sweet and calming, Romney is Earl Grey because he is traditional and dignified.”

But what about real Tea Party people, those real pro-American Americans with the tragic costumes and illiterate poster-board signs? continue »

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Dear Ken Layne: I notice that you are a big advocate of getting outside and seeing nature. I think you also wrote a book about walking the length of California, but maybe I made that up. If I didn’t make it up, when is your book coming out?

I wonder if you could help me find the motivation to exercise each day. I work at night and have plenty of time to sleep late and then go to the gym (which is free and in my building) but I still don’t do it. Instead I read the Internet and write jokes. I fear that as I age and my metabolism slows I will become morbidly obese. What to do? — Sincerely, Sara Benincasa. continue »

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I’m pretty sure this won’t get answered and published because it’s mundane, but how do people get a life — a nice fulfilling social life? I am 20 and currently in university. Most days I go through the motions of trying to chat people up and most days it works and I can pretend that I have friends. But when I come home, all I do is drink and whine about my horrid, horrid life on various Internet message boards.

Thing is, I am fairly certain I tried it all. Talk to people, act confident even if you aren’t. Invite people to stuff. Pretend you’re interested in the things you’re not, so people will like you regardless. But nothing is really working. And with the spring semester ending in less than two months, I’m realizing that I completely wasted the year. I just wish I was a normal 20 year old who goes to parties, gets extremely drunk and wakes up with some random girl whose name he doesn’t know. How do you go about making that happen? — Friendless and Miserable. continue »

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I need some sage advice from an internet sage. (I am eating a piece of pizza with sage on it).

I hate my job. More specifically, I hate being a 24-year-old paralegal. I took this job almost two years ago as a precursor to law school and a career as a public defender, or at least that lawyer that gets eaten on the toilet in Jurassic Park. Then the economy collapsed and law schools/graduate schools/cosmology schools became glutted with applicants and I realized how terrible the law is.

Like my entire generation I want to write. But I didn’t eat enough Panera or get enough internships to land something at The Atlantic like my peers. I’m starting a website with my friend but that too seems sad and cliche. I don’t even have a garage/running car to sit in while I blast “The House of Stone & Light” and think about how much my kids will miss me. What should I do? continue »