Three times in my life I have submitted a letter (of praise, complaint, or just straight sarcasm) to legitimate publications, all three letters have been printed…including the third which I didn’t even intend for print (e.g. I sent it directly to a magazine’s writer with no thought that it would end up printed). 

My letters, in order of appearance are, at the age of about 17 I wrote a letter to the X-men comic book…I think my letter appeared in issue number #53 and it was basically a super geeky praise of what was going on in the book and a few geeky questions.  I was delighted to see myself in print. 

Cut to 14 years later and I write my second letter to the publication Time Out New York, a sarcastic somwhat bitchy three line email, which won their letter of the week (and won me a book of my choice as a prize…read more about that publication here). 

Now, less than two months later I emailed writer Julia Allison directly about a column of hers that I found promising, but ultimately a huge let down.  You can read her column about women waiting too long to say ‘I love you’ here.  I’ve pasted my published letter below, for your viewing pleasure.  Please note that the letter they printed was heavily edited, at least one whole paragraph being cut, but I’m glad, as it was a somewhat personal paragraph about my relationship, something I would not really have wanted to see in print but again, I didn’t really think I was submitting this letter for print, I guess I’ve learned you should always be prepared for it.  Fortunately, I still feel the letter is well written and represents pretty accurately what I was trying to say, even with the edits. 

So what have we all learned here today?  Apparently my superpower is to bitch, whine, and praise my way into useless letters columns everywhere…Yea!!!  I will try to use this power for good and not evil…

Love Story

“I pretty much agreed with Julia Allison for her whole “When ‘I love you’ Comes Too Late” column [Seek TONY 633] but then she surprised me by undoing everything she was talking about with this sentence:  “There are some guidelines:  If you love someone and don’t say it after dating for six months, you probably should.”  I guess I just feel like this is really bad advice to come in such an absolute sentence. 

Six months in one relationship can be a really long time, and for another it’s really not enough to know for sure that you love someone and should say it.  For so many women, myself included, relationships (and life) become about looking for the next thing to check off the list: get boyfriend, check.  Get him to say he loves me, check.  Get us to move in together, check.  What do you do when you run out of things to check off that list, which you’ve been told by society is so all important, and you didn’t bother to enjoy much of it because you were too busy looking for the next item to check off? 

I think we’d all be better off following our instincts and the organic process that is life and love.”