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"  The 21 most popular questions for ELLE&amp;#039;s 21st birthday Dolls!  The 13 years of lust and fury, rage and jealousy, love and obsession that have poured into the Ask Eeee column have been so delicious, many times I&amp;#039;ve yearned for a knife and fork. So before I pop the cork on the Dom P. and toast ELLE&amp;#039;s birthday, I thought it might be amusing to run a semiofficial count of ALL the letters I&amp;#039;ve received and present the top 21 questions...and the answers that at least some of you aren&amp;#039;t heeding, or I&amp;#039;d be out of business.  21. How do I get my rat-slob of a roommate/husband/girlfriend to wash a dish/run the vacuum/clean the toilet?   A. Peel and mash eight kumquats. B. Mix with four jiggers of vodka. C. Pour into two martini glasses. D. Crank the Missy. E. Comet up the bathroom together. F. If the place still looks like the bottom of Missy&amp;#039;s gladiator sneaker, hire a teenager who needs extra cash to juke the joint for you.  20. I&amp;#039;m desperate to find time for myself in my seriously busy life, but how?   Sitting still for 10 minutes will restore you. Eating lunch in the park will energize you. But if you need the Gonzo Recharge, raise your voice. Announce to everyone: &amp;quot;I won&amp;#039;t be here on Friday!&amp;quot; They&amp;#039;ll all be too busy to pay attention. When Thursday comes, yell &amp;quot;Adios!&amp;quot; and wham! Straight to the stack of Johnny Depp DVDs and a bowl of popcorn.  19. Why do I always feel like a worthless failure at everything?   Because, my stupid love, you won&amp;#039;t even begin to feel successful until you embrace your inner Screwup. Cut loose, make mistakes, and stand on your head for an encore. Here&amp;#039;s your new motto, which I stole from Samuel Beckett: Try again. Fail again. Fail better.  18. I have a great job and a fab apartment in the hippest section of town and I&amp;#039;m gorgeous, so why aren&amp;#039;t I happy?  You could be renting a wing of an Olsen twin&amp;#039;s penthouse and be career-ranked higher than Maria Sharapova and still be in a low-grade funk most of the time. It&amp;#039;s the small pleasures\u2014making French toast with a friend at midnight, dancing to the Peas as you&amp;#039;re dressing for a big meeting, sticking peanut butter on the roof of your dog&amp;#039;s mouth, putting a sock on a giggling baby\u2014that bring the bewitchment of happiness. Our days are chock-full of these simple joys. We just need to pause for a dang moment to savor them. 17. I just discovered that my wife is having an affair. Should I divorce her or take her back?  If your wife confesses, if she&amp;#039;s sorry, if she still loves you, then your marriage can get up off the floor and go another round. If she pities you or still craves the bloke, forget it. 16. I met a hot guy on Match.com, and we&amp;#039;re flirting like mad. How do I take things to the next level?  Google him. If he&amp;#039;s not Ted Bundy, put on your killer jeans and meet him at Starbucks. The instant you clap eyes on each other, you&amp;#039;ll either be at the next level or see the flirtation die of natural causes. 15. I&amp;#039;m violently in love. The man is married. How can I get him to leave his wife?  You can&amp;#039;t. He won&amp;#039;t. Move on. 14. How do I get a guy to call me?  Do not care if he calls. Do not expect him to call. You&amp;#039;ll lower your frustration level if you never expect a man to do anything. 13. I&amp;#039;d be glamorous and hip if it weren&amp;#039;t for my ugly thighs/hair/teeth/face/boobs/butt. What can I do?   Since when do your thighs wield a larger influence over your life than your brain? Fix what you can, then name your left thigh Fly and your right thigh Superfly, and know that if you change the way you look at yourself, the way you look will change.  12. Even if I&amp;#039;m hot for a guy, I know I shouldn&amp;#039;t shag him on the first date. But what about the second? Or third?  Ha! Not until you&amp;#039;ve shredded the dude&amp;#039;s nerves and he&amp;#039;s rolling on the linoleum declaring eternal love. Otherwise, chill. Make him beg for the smallest favor. E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com  11. How can I stop being jealous of my friend/sister/any member of the female sex who is younger/thinner/richer/prettier than I am?   It&amp;#039;s difficult. Nearly all female mammals are programmed to size one another up, but if you wish to join the ever-shrinking segment of women who don&amp;#039;t care about Nicole Richie&amp;#039;s size 0 body, go outside and look up at the stars: You are on a feeble little planet looking up at a creation so vast that if that doesn&amp;#039;t give you a blissful conviction of your own\u2014and all the prettier, richer chicks&amp;#039;\u2014total insignificance, nothing will.  10. How can I get rid of my fear of meeting new people/taking risks/ presenting bold ideas at work?   Stop imagining the worst. Forget yourself. Concentrate on the other person. Boom, you&amp;#039;re Diane Sawyer.  9. Sex with my fianc\u00E9/husband/boyfriend is sooooo hideously boring. How do I liven it up?   Step one: Enjoy a cozy dinner at home. Step two: Instruct the lad to tie his napkin around his eyes. Yes, like a blindfold. Step three: Blindfold yourself, too. Step four: Feel your way to the bedroom, and brace yourself for the blindest, hottest sex on Planet Earth!  8. My boyfriend is wonderful, except that he tells me I&amp;#039;m ugly/hits me/screams at my child/controls my money/beds other women. (Monster Men appear in the Ask Eeee column in many evil forms.) How can I get him to see that we could be happy if he would only stop?  Stop? Oh, things are going to stop, all right. The man&amp;#039;s a suckfish, swallowing the life right out of you. Get out, do not see him, do not speak to him, and e-mail me if you lose your nerve.  7. I&amp;#039;m struggling! I&amp;#039;ve put on weight, tried diets, and gained! How can I lose?   Losing weight is simple math. Sleep eight hours every night. Work up a sweat 20 minutes a day. And count: The calories you take in must be fewer than the calories you expend.  6. How can I find my purpose in life?   Eh, purpose is for dingbats. Seroing in on one puny purpose will paralyze you! Draw up a list of 27 purposes, and let the Queenhell possibilities show you the way.  5. I&amp;#039;ve just transferred to a new job in Chicago. Any suggestions on how to move ahead quickly?   Yes. Suck up.  (Note: Numbers 4, 3, 2, and 1 account for 68 percent of all questions.)  4A. How do I get rid of a man?   Hundreds of guys will be cuckolded, crushed, forsaken, and jilted in the time that it takes to read this. The key is to be gentle (but not so gentle that he falls in love with you all over again), truthful, firm, respectful, and above all, kind (i.e., do not try to be friends with him afterward).  4B. How do I get over a man?   The only sure cure is falling for someone new. To do that, you must leave your apartment.  3. How can I get my man back?   Disappear for one year. When you run into him again, look three times hotter than you did before. Even then, the odds are 97 percent against it.  2. How do I drive a chap out of his mind with love?   Pull up your bra straps and remember: The essence of romantic love is uncertainty. Torture him. Vex him. Keep him off balance.  AND 1.... (How unsurprised are we?) Where do I find/how do I meet a good man?   It&amp;#039;s actually very easy. Place yourself where there are such high numbers of eligible chaps that it becomes a mathematical certainty that you&amp;#039;ll meet a great one. Here are my top 21 places: golf courses, batting cages, skeet ranges, the U.S. Opens (golf and tennis), Major League Baseball games, the Final Four, the Super Bowl, sports bars, sporting goods stores, music festivals, rap concerts, art galleries, car shows, your church, your office (one of the best reasons to go to work is to meet someone cute), cigar bars, downtown clubs, the bars of hip restaurants, the park (walking your dog), the Internet (I suggest GreatBoyfriends.com\u2014my own site, ahem), and the street. Instead of letting that handsome lad pass, instead of glancing down at the pavement, look him in the eye and smile. HAPPY 21st, DEAREST ELLE! E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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