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So clearly my blogging has been spotty lately, but as it turns out, my readers (or at least my people who know I keep this thing) have been doing my work for me! Win!

There's all kinds of good advice-columny-stuff going on out there this week, most of which I failed to post. But here's a sample:

From ALS: Amy admits to a faux pas!

Dear Amy: When responding to the letter from "Just Friendship," from a woman who wasn't romantically interested in her morbidly obese friend, what led you to use the "elephant in the room" analogy in your answer?

It seems insensitive and really adds to this nation's already unbelievable bias toward overweight people. I'm disappointed that you could not have come up with something better than that to make your point.

Did you realize that the headline over your column would read, "He's the 'elephant in the room,' but she's not interested"?

Shame on you.

-- Disappointed

Dear Disappointed: I don't know what I was thinking.

Well, I do know what I was thinking, but that's still no excuse. I apologize for an unfortunate pun. Individual newspapers decide on the headline over the column. I agree that it was also in poor taste.

I read this column in the Denver Post, which left out the bit about the headline (probably because it was a Chicago Trib headline and the comment wouldn't have made sense in their paper). Thanks for pointing this out to me! I, too, have been guilty of sacrificing sensitivity for a pun when it comes to headline writing.

From AMR: The pioneer woman adds advice to her already illustrious resume of blogging, photography, cooking, home schooling and ranching, and poetry! And she's not bad! Of course, she has the advantage of not actually BEING an advice columnist, which gives her the freedom to give five pontential answers and then say, "but what do I know?" Ironically, this approach makes her seem more like a friend and, perhaps, more worth listening to. And it works in her blog, quite well. But it's not concise or direct enough to fly in a newspaper column. What do you think...do folks with problems want direct, authoritative advice, or chatty, friendly meandering?

Either way...thanks friends, for doing my job for me!