And then there was the sweet letter from a woman who said, "I enjoy the column, but is there something troubling you, Mr. Blue, that perhaps we could help you with?" Now there is an offer. Unfortunately, my problems tend to be the sort that have obvious solutions, which the sufferer knows along with everyone else. But the moment I come up with a good one, I'll hang it out here for everyone to see.

A woman responds to Romantically Inhibited who can't understand why women only see him as a friend: "The problem is, he and others like him focus on those very few trophy women (blond, blue-eyed, with six-figure salaries) that he and his friends view as worth attaining, though there are other women nearby who are attractive (but not whiplash inducing), smart and funny, with whom he has a lot in common. He should start looking at the real people in his life, not 'Sex and the City' fantasy people." OK. But attraction is attraction, and it's hard to ignore, and it's impossible to fake. 

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am writing to you not because I have marital woes, dysfunctional family problems, writer's block, etc. but because on Jan. 21, I still feel as angry and despondent as I did on Dec. 12 when the Supreme Court handed the presidency (and therefore my country) to a candidate whose claim to victory shall ever remain dubious.

I consider myself a creative and resourceful person with a dry sense of humor, but my heart is so heavy now. My good friends all seem to be booked in steerage of the same boat I'm on. Part of me would love to drop out, but there is something within me preventing the luxury of dissociation So, Mr. Blue, what's a fellow to do?

Leftover Sixties Idealist

Dear Leftover,

President Bush is in the Oval Office and nobody is so surprised and alarmed as he. His uncertainty is visible in the way he makes entrances and carries out the simplest public acts, and it's sort of endearing, isn't it? I mean, the guy is certainly aware of his own shallowness, he has to live with it every day of his life. Bill Clinton stole the show every time the two were together in public, right up to when the Bushes got the Clintons stuffed into the limo and sent them away. To attempt to govern from a set of bromides and applause lines is not a fulfilling or dignified life for a grown-up, and Mr. Bush's greatest pleasures as president may be his encounters with tour groups in the White House. So save some despondency for him. As for anger, you can go be angry at the Supremes for their impulsive lurch into judicial activism, and yes, you could be angry at the Florida Republican machine for their brazenness, but where do you stop? Do you cut in Ralph Nader for some anger, and Donna Brazile, and Al Gore, and Colin Powell for vouching for a man he well knows is a lightweight, and Sen. McCain, and all the other folks responsible for this tongue-tied bozo? It's too long a list. You'd wind up a sour embittered old coot snarling at the TV. Best to clean out the files and start fresh. Take a vacation from the media and do some good for yourself.

The two best antidotes, I think, are the outdoors and the classics. The inherent interest of the photo op and the sound bite and the focus group pale next to the beauty and grace of the natural world when you venture out into the woods and consult your immortal soul, or the majesty of Marcus Aurelius or Horace or Ovid. They speak to us from the ruins of cities that knew their own Dubyas, and they speak to our condition vividly and with powerful wit and conviction beyond anything you'll find on the evening news. Just as soldiers might read the 23rd Psalm the night before battle, it suits you to listen to the ancients before you re-enter the lists. When you're ready to resume citizenship, take a trip to Washington and poke around the Capitol, visit your congressman, see what sessions you can attend, try to cop a ticket to the Court, pull strings to get an inside glance. It isn't that hard to get behind the ropes. But do know that the Supreme Court has no power to hand the country over to anybody, and Mr. Bush is not running the country. He is trying to manage the presidency, a very different thing. The country belongs to the people, and is in the hands of God, and in another year and a half, you can try to pull the levers in your direction. Courage.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"