An Open Letter to Our Unwritten Open Letters

Dear Unwritten Open Letters,

The other day I stumbled upon a hilarious time-suck of a website: Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency.  It is but one creative outlet for the many excellent authors associated with McSweeney's Publishing of San Francisco.

Among the varied and delicious aspects of Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency is a column entitled Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond. Here are a few titles from the column, sufficient in and of themselves for eliciting the sort of chuckle-fit that can drive an officemate to madness.

An Open Letter to My Ex-Fiancé About My Recent Arm Amputation

An Open Letter to the Man On Match.com Who Emailed Me to Fix a Grammar Mistake On My Profile Page

An Open Letter to My Toddler Regarding His Use of My iPhone

An Open Letter to the City and County Inspector Who Fined Me $500 Even Though the Weeds in My Front Lawn Were Well Under the 6” Regulation Height

An Open Letter to the Gentleman Blow-Drying His Balls in the Gym Locker Room

An Open Letter to the Glorious New Couple That Rose Like a Phoenix from the Infernal Failure That Was My Last Relationship

An Open Letter to Undated Yard Sale Signs and the Yard Sale Purveyors Who Make Them

An Open Letter To The Inanimate Objects In My Apartment That Just Sat There While I Was Heartbroken

An Open Letter to the Gym Shorts That Are Not in My Gym Bag


And so forth.

Scanning this column left me convicted, dear Unwritten Open Letters, of the fact that you were still, at present, unwritten. You see, when L and I first came up with the idea of creating you several months (years?) ago, we had been eating very good food and drinking very good caffeinated coffees wiling away good times in good company in a good city. And we had every good intention of carrying out these plans to draw you up.  But then the caffeine wore off, we waved adieu to each other and the city and the delicious coffee... and the business of life once again requisitioned our time and creative energies.  That, and we couldn't agree on the appropriate font.

Among the list of your envisioned kin were:
An Open Letter to Married Friends
An Open Letter to Friends With Kids
An Open Letter to Church Leaders on How To Incorporate Non-married Persons

A proper list, to be sure, and topics that deserve attention.  But fear not! Despite our negligence in bringing you to fruition, other people have gone ahead and done it for us -- put in the hard work of writing on these topics, and doing so brilliantly.

For example, several months ago My Lovely Sister-in-Law made me add to my intentionally spartan Bookmark Bar a link to an interview conducted by her pastor, the now-Bishop Stewart Ruch. It's all about how to preach Celibacy. I just now read it (sorry for the delay, Sis-in-Law!) and it is outstanding.  All that's left for me to do now is provide the link. Here is the link.

In summation, dear Unwritten Open Letters, you are for the present to remain as such. But who knows what the future will bring?

Yours in spirit, if not letter (see what I did there?)
E & probably also L