Okay. So. You know what? We’re going to pretend that it was a shoe.

This unknown someone threw a shoe at you. It hit you in the back. Not hard enough to knock you over or do any damage or anything.

But it hurt. A lot. And it surprised you. It was startling and painful and unpleasant.

The choices I make in my life are only about my life. You can totally drink coffee and eat cookies all day and I will love you just the same.

Seriously. I could not care less.

Whatever guilt or “shoulds” come up for you, they’re not coming from me. I’m sorry if talking about stuff that goes on in my life makes you feel uncomfortable about stuff going on in yours. That is never my intention.

People vary. What might be poisonous to me could be completely harmless — or even beneficial — for you.

I am not interested in being an evangelist. “You” just the way you are right now? Fine by me. I promise.

How we can do it better:
Kid: “I want to be a pilot when I grow up!”
You: “Wow. I didn’t know that. Tell me more about this. What is it about being a pilot that appeals to you?”

And then you can have an actual conversation. It might turn out that your kid just really likes peanuts, in which case a career in the circus might be better.

Come hang out inside my head for a minute while I deal with some meta-issues first.

One of the problems I have while answering Ask Havi questions is that I can never decide whether to answer the question that the asker thinks they’re asking or if I should really answer the one that I think they’re asking.

That’s because your business is alive.

And just like your life and your business, blogging is a living, dynamic process. It will change. Steadily and regularly.

But I mainly said it to get back at Lauren Collins for saying “de-stuffification” in the last New Yorker. Ahem. Lauren, we all know you’re a fine writer. You don’t need to steal my made-up words and then rejigger them for a restaurant review. Really!

“And then I feed her Milk Duds.”

One of my readers and I have a conversation about pain, love, the inner critic/editor and a whole bunch of other things.

If writing is not the thing you have a tortured, obsessive love-hate-love relationship with, I’d love it if you would substitute something that is.

You know, the thing that — when you actually allow yourself to think about having time to devote to it — makes you feel elated and miserable. Joyful and terrified.

Painting, photography, dance, playing the mandolin. I don’t know. But you do. The thing you’d be doing if you had all the time and money in the world and didn’t have to tell anyone about it. Yes.

Let’s pretend that you have to have an awkward, uncomfortable conversation or confrontation or something else that begins with “con” coming up.

And I’ll just go ahead and assume that you’re totally not looking forward to it.

Anyway, even if that’s not what’s going on for you right now, it will be the case at some point, because relationships between people? Sometimes hard and messy.

Just play along with me.

Obviously when a super-biggified “expert” screws up, it’s way more entertaining than when other people do. And god knows we all need someone else to slip on a banana peel once in a while or we’d never feel good about anything.