Cary you're wrong on this one. This is nuts. Sorry to be blunt, but I know from organisation.

LW you can't work with this person. Your colleague's 'go with the flow-ness' just creates stress for you and all the other people whose messages she loses etc etc. She lives in a dream world and while it might be holding together for her now, it won't for long.

The hippy label is a red herring. This is an event that people pay to come and see. That means they are choosing to spend their precious spare time and money on this and if you care about your work, which it sounds like you do, you want them to be happy that they did.

The best way to create a great atmosphere is to get the fundamentals - including hygiene, safety, timeliness etc - taken care of in a professional, calm way so that people are in the optimal, happiest frame of mind possible to enjoy the show. This requires good management. The clothes you wear and the language you use while you manage well are optional. The fundamentals of good management however are not.

If I were you I would focus my management skills right now on taking control of the situation. I advise that suggesting to your colleague that from now on you take care of all the stuff she finds boring.

This will no doubt include all messages (could you be the one point of contact for everything), parking, finances, sorting out artist's travel etc etc etc. Have you got it yet? Soon enough you will be in control of everything and she'll still be floating around the back paddock trying to work out if the flags should be red or green. As soon as you can get an assistant to help you with this stuff.

Next year you'll be in a position to decide if you want to hire her at all.

My heroine, the woman I aspire to be, the Ultimate Everything - Ripley. If I'd had a girl I was going to give her Ripley as her second name.

I thought 'sibling rivalry' the minute I read this letter. Somwhere alone the line he has got himself lost in you. At the beginning this might have felt like love, but now the two of you are vying for oxygen to survive, and he sees you as his air supply.

So the question is: can this marriage be saved? And I think not. NOT because of the way he is having trouble defining himself separately from you. This has happened to me with close friends and with my husband from time to time and I think awareness and distance can work wonders.

The most revealing thing in the letter is, to me, that he talks about you unlovingly behind your back. If he does something so lacking in respect and compassion as this, it says to me he isn't going to be very receptive to you chucking a huge tanty and screaming 'enough', which in some cases can work wonders. Not in this case though.

You might still have enough energy to try it - in which case, set a time limit. Tell him everythign you don't like. Be really clear about what you want to see change. Set a date by when, and if the picture isn't looking very different by then get a divorce. Right now this relationship is limiting you and a good marriage should do just the opposite. It should enable you to feel great and do and be your very best.

Good luck.

No good thrillers these days - I know it was a while ago but I've only just seen it: Unfaithful, an Adrian Lyne film. Looks great, is great.

No good cinematography - how about Collateral? That was stunning - don't know who the DP was. Also some very good looking low budgeters lately like 'Friends with Money' which I think might have been even shot on digital. And then there's HBO - those last episodes of Sex and the City shot in Paris - BEAUTIFUL cinematography. I can vividly remember some of the set ups as I sit here: Carrie running through Paris at night, the street lights blinding the lens. Carrie sitting in a cake shop lonely and stuffing her face. All of it gorgeous looking.

Dear LW, this isn't about the funeral. This isn't about money. This isn't even about New York. This is about your aunt. This is about death. This is about missing people and realising that no one is around for ever and that while you're in New York you aren't in New Mexico. And that while you're with your boyfriend you are not with your family. And while you are spending your money on food and rent and holidays you are not spending it on other things.

This is about the terrible fact of time passing. Of options chosen closing out other options. Of the present becoming the past. Of making decisions that can't be undone. That we can't have everything and that we have to choose.

That's a terrible thing to come to grips with and no wonder you're feeling terrible about it. But you know what? Those things you are realising can also help you wake up to life. The more you realise how transitory and either/or it all is, the more you can make the most of every moment. The more you realise how living in New York means you are not living with your family in New Mexico, the more you can appreciate it for the precious gift that it is. The more you can value life and yourself and the choices you are making.

So go on, feel your feelings. But don't make it about blame or money anxiety or any of those feelings that perhaps you are more familiar with. Embrace this. It's sad. It's real. It's life.