The Chap in the Panties

The Wednesday Ask E. Jean

The Daily Quagmire

Hello! Hello! Trying a mad experiment here. Before I was fired from Elle, the old Ask E. Jean advice column solved five or six problems each month. Now, just for the Queenhell fun of it, I’d like to try solving a daily problem. And like the famous New York Times crossword, as the week goes on, the problems could get harder, juicier, slippier, knottier, and more complicated. So by Sunday, the problem could be so difficult, I will have torn out what’s left of my hair solving it—and, you? You’ll be plunged up to the eyebrows in the Conflab (comments), and comforting (or regaling) the letter-writer with your own ideas, tips, tales and encouragement.

Are you game? Wednesday’s quagmire is easy, Thursday’s is hard, Friday’s is very hard, Saturday’s is really very hard, and Sunday’s is somewhere between hospitalization and murder. (Monday and Tuesday, thank gawd, we take a break; and Wednesday we begin with the easy quagmire again.) It could be a lark and bring meaning to o…