Fairy-tale ending

“Are you more like Little Red Riding Hood or the Big, Bad Wolf?” is a question I’ve seriously been asked before. When my first column came out in September of last year I honestly thought it would be my last. Not too long ago, I spent all night giving love advice to a first-year who is falling “in love” with a spunky little girl from New Jersey. The surprising thing is, he was shocked that I was a real person. “You’re ‘Ask Nell’? I didn’t think you really existed.”

Am I a mythical combination of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Dick Cheney (who I personally think actually died 2 years ago, but has been preserved and displayed for social reasons)? I ask myself all the time, “How the heck did I get from there to here?”

A sex advice column is apparently a pretty radical idea for SMU. After all, everyone from Southern Millionaire’s University is a virgin, has never dated before and cringes at the word “sex.” Along the same lines, alcohol is also made from carrot juice and has just been announced by the American Health Association to improve health and stamina. A keg a day keeps the doctor away, right?

People always ask me, “What’s the craziest question you have ever been asked?” Well, off the record, a few drunk guys had an obsession last semester with questions about porn around Dallas. A few questions were about heinous terminology that I would probably be fired for printing. The rest were people who wanted advice or wanted to be entertained. This all leads to the next question people have asked me repeatedly, “Do you make up your questions?”

Back in September I had to jump start the column a little bit, but since then, I have had a steady supply of questions. Remember the “cotton yanker” style of men’s undergarments? Somebody actually wanted to know about that …

And as for me? People (mostly drunken frat boys, cup in hand, slurring sweet nothings somewhere in my direction) have wondered where exactly I get my advice from – more specifically, if I go out and experiment for my column. Or why I write a sex column in the first place. I have had a fun, live-for the-moment life, but I have not experienced most of what I write about myself. I leave that up to watching my crazy friends and neighbors and hearing about their “after-hours” problems. The rest of my advice I get from watching “Sex and the City,” reading Maxim, just watching people at the Foam Party and researching stuff on the Internet.

Though at first described as “outragious” and “wild,” I’ve found that my column has now become a part of people’s Tuesdays and Thursdays. I appreciate my fans out there who picked up newspaper just to read my column (and the police reports). Officer Norris told me he read “Ask Nell” every week. He was excited to see that The Daily Campus had entered a new phase. Not bad, but different. Thanks, Officer Norris. I’ll try to keep my rendition of “[Love] Tha Police” a notch lower from now on.

Of course, I have to give mention to my heroes and the people I look up to. I would never be who I am without them. When it comes to writing, I would have to say Kurt Vonnegut and the writers for Maxim magazine. Witty, on-the-edge, hold nothing back is the kind of writing that gets and keeps peoples’ attention. My mom and dad, of course, are a big part of who I am (literally). Without my mom’s relentless support and love and my dad’s wit and easy-going nature I would actually be more like the aliens from the spaceship I was adopted from. Friends, family, teachers: thanks for reading my column and giving me ideas non-stop, even if I don’t ask for them. Chris Tolles, thank you for your flattery. You’re not a bad writer yourself, and if you ever started “Ask Chris,” I would send some questions your way.

My experience as “Ask Nell” has been nothing like I thought it would be. Will Harvard Law be amused when they read my application? Who knows.

Fans of my column have told me that the great thing about something controversial is that people will read it. An advice column about studying and parents? I would have a fan base of maybe 3 people (including my 2 parents). Sex, alcohol, and youth? It was destined to be a hit…

Bottom line: am I naughty or nice? If I had to decide between being Little Red Riding Hood and the Big, Bad Wolf, I think I’d be a combination of both. Who wouldn’t want the fairy tale innocence of Red Riding Hood and the cunning wit of the Wolf?