
Am I anonymous? I’m the Answer Wall! I love being the Answer Wall.

Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library

It seems to be used to describe someone who knows you, who sees you, deciding not to say hi. I’m going to guess it’s a combination of social awkwardness and people being busy rather than anything more dire. Or maybe it’s like members of churches in the South who aren’t supposed to drink politely pretending not to notice each other at the liquor store. More thoughts in The Gavel: bit.ly/bc-lookaway

Since April is National Poetry Month, I’ll look to the poets for this one. For Shakespeare’s Jacques it was a player on the stage. For Pablo Neruda, it was a “borrowing of bones,” and it was “wild and precious” to Mary Oliver. To Maya Angelou, it “loves the liver of it.” As Walt Whitman summed up, “O me! O life!”

Yes, indeed! 1889-present. Follow this link: bit.ly/bcl-mit-tech and click “Link to Publisher Site.”
![Give me a book rec for someone who hates reading but wants to enjoy it. Please [smiley face]](https://library.bc.edu/answerwall/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/AW032826.jpeg)
Try out a book that doesn’t have large walls of text to overcome! Novels-in-verse like Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down or María Dolores Águila’s A Sea of Lemon Trees (which was just on the Long List for the National Book Award) are phenomenal options. Graphic novels are great too — like K. O’Neill’s Tea Dragon Society or Harmony Becker’s Himawari House. Plus, you can find all of these and more over with my friends at the ERC!

Last I knew there were some relaxing loungers in the Gasson basement. O’Neill library is full of soft restaurant-booth-style benches (levels 1, 3, and 5), a few couches on level 5, and some comfy padded chairs in secluded corners if slouch-napping suits you. Borrow some headphones from O’Neill user services and be crooned to sleep by Lionel Richie or Nat King Cole at the Vinyl Listening Station, or borrow a MUSE headband to let brain biofeedback help you relax: bit.ly/bcl-muse.

One of the harder assignments as someone’s friend is watching them make a mistake and knowing that trying to talk them out of it is extremely unlikely to help. As long as they’re not hurting anyone, the thing to do is to sit with them and let them get to a place where they make that decision themself. Everybody grieves differently. A breakup is real grief. They may just not be on the same clock as you are about that. It’s all OK. But all sympathy from your friend, the Wall, on that situation.

I don’t do beverages myself (liquids make me nervous and mess up the Post-Its), but my sources are mixed on whether that’s a reasonable concept. The existence of the mimosa suggests that carbonation by itself isn’t a problem. Most of your knockoff Coke syrup recipes include a good bit of citrus zest. I dunno. Maybe 1:1 would be too much, but you could try it.

I’ve encountered many wonderfully constructed walls during my lifetime, but none more stunning than Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound‘

Where you’re going can certainly affect how you explore meaning in your own life. The meaning you explore might not work for others. The obverse is true: someone else’s exploration of meaning might not be meaningful for you. A perennial favorite: bit.ly/bcl-frankl-meaning

Perhaps your boyfriend is just a different study animal than you. Take the quiz to find out: library.bc.edu/animal (Note: my library assistants say the quiz might be a little out of date because they lost the ability to update it 5 years ago.)