Take It From Me

Happiest thing that happened today: I received, unbidden, an advance galley of Anne Tyler's forthcoming novel (May), Digging to America. This is one of the highlights of every two or three years for me.

I'm currently reading The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family by Dan Savage, whose sex-advice column, "Savage Love" -- which appears in the Washington City Paper and others -- I adore. I'm not very far along in the book -- about his and his boyfriend's deliberations about whether to marry -- so I shouldn't judge yet, but so far it's surprisingly sappy, its humor forced and sometimes mildly lame, and the writing kind of . . . ordinary. But I should say that it's already getting a little better, though it's hard to imagine it reaching the heights of his caustic, sensible, hilarious, and deliciously raunchy column.

I'm a fan of advice columns, by the way, and I even fancy myself a bit of an aficionado. My other favorites are "Tell Me About It" by Carolyn Hax, in the Washington Post and other papers; "Dear Prudence" by Margo Howard (the late Ann Landers's daughter, whose voice is just about as un-Ann Landers-like as you can imagine), in Slate; and -- although it took me a while to warm to it -- "Ask Amy" by Amy Dickinson, the relatively new kid on the block. Her syndicated column replaced Ann Landers's in the Washington Post after a brief transition period with the dull "Dear Abby" (daughter of the original Dear Abby, who was never as good as her sister -- all together now! -- Ann Landers).

Amy Dickinson is more serious than the others, and she's a little corny when she tries to be funny, but her advice is very down to earth and open-minded, and I particularly admire how she brings in her own experience, past and present. I once met her about six years ago. She lived in Washington at the time, and she was in the audience at a reading I took part in at Chi-Cha Lounge. She introduced herself afterward and said some nice things about my work. So I admit I have a soft spot for her. I recently heard her for the first time as a panelist on a public-radio show I've long been a fan of, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. She was a little corny there, too.

I still feel bloated from the ill-advised fries I ate with my falafel at the overrated Amsterdam Falafelshop. The "Dutch mayonnaise" you can dip the otherwise-good fries into is truly grody -- it comes out of the narrow squeeze spout like a series of yellow gelatinous worms. I actually love mayonnaise on fries -- that was the standard way to eat them when I lived in Germany for a year in college. But that mayo was creamy, smooth, and homemade-tasting (and not yellow). Some of the toppings at the Falafelshop are interesting, but the falafels themselves are far from the best I've had, and the pita bread is thin and dry. They are cheap, though, and the place is open till 4 AM on weekends.