Advice columnist Carolyn Hax takes your comments and questions about the strange train we call life. Her answers may appear online or in an upcoming column.

Note: Carolyn is off for the holidays and her chat will return on January 8.

Here are tips on how to participate in our live chat:

- How to stay anonymous: You’ll notice there is an input box for your name. Please feel free to use that space to type your subject line or question topic instead. You can also leave that box empty, and the name will default to ‘guest

- How to add paragraph breaks: On your desktop computer, hit ‘shift + return’ or ‘shift + enter’ and you’ll be able to add a paragraph break.

- How to respond to others: We are not using threading for Carolyn’s chat for now, so you can respond to others by submitting a post as you usually would, and typing ‘Re:' or ‘To’ and letting us know your response. The comments section will also open, as usual, after the chat ends.

- Where to ask questions: The question input box will always be at the bottom of the chat. Click here to jump to the bottom.

Thanks for joining us!