To the Ghost of Weather Past

Dear Weather Channel App on My Smartphone:

There’s something that you need to hear. We’ve all been thinking it for a while, so here goes: No one cares about Past Radar.

Okay, well, perhaps some people, like my sister and brother-in-law, who are Real Life Meteorologists, care about Past Radar for some geeky, science-y, meteorological reason, but most people—especially the people in your Target Audience—don’t give one flying flip about a picture that shows us what the weather was doing just a minute ago. We care about what the weather is going to do. That’s why they call it forecasting.

But perhaps I am being hasty. Perhaps I should step back for a moment and attempt a more generous read on this seemingly-confounding feature of your radar maps. Let’s imagine a scenario in which I might need to know the weather that has just happened. Perhaps it is the dead of night and I am suddenly awakened by a loud booming noise. In my half-asleep stupor, I might need to confirm if the noise that’s just woken me was a clap of thunder or if Godzilla has just thrown a car onto my roof. I might have been leaning toward Godzilla, but one quick look at that Past Radar will set me straight right away! Phew! Thank goodness! That sure did save me from one awkward call to my local authorities!

Or suppose I am trying to reach my mother who lives down along the Gulf Coast and I can’t seem to get through. Suppose I somehow missed the fact that yet again, some pesky hurricane had been sneaking up on her for days even though is it likely the first thing I notice when I scroll past your weather video news stories and even though anyone with half a brain and one working ear would have heard about it in passing (never mind the aforementioned Real Life Meteorologists in the family who would have surely alerted me to this phenomenon). Perhaps if I were unable to contact my mother, then I might scratch my head and wonder what her weather was like. Perhaps then I might find the Past Radar particularly fascinating.

But not really.

Weather Channel App, when I tap on your little icon and scroll down to your radar screen, I’m not hoping for some wistful glimpses from the Ghost of Weather Past. I want to know if I need to sprint out to the parking lot and roll up my car windows. I want to know if I should switch the TV over to my local weather coverage. I want to know if I have to fear the thunder that could potentially wake up my toddler or if it’s passed us by. I want to know if I need to dig up the bike helmets and get the storm shelter ready. I want to know if I will have to get up an extra 45 minutes early to shovel out my car. I want to know if I will need my rain boots all day or if this is just a little cloudburst.

I want to know what is coming next. I do. We all do.

Please, Weather Channel App. We deal with so much—no job security, crappy vision and dental insurance plans, unreliable public transportation, rising gas prices, a lack of the feminist perspective in standardized history curricula—at least give us this. This one Small Thing.

Tell us what is coming next.

Because I don’t need an app to tell me that I just got caught in a sudden downpour without my umbrella.

Soggily, Robin

To the Peddlers of What I Do Not Want

Dear Groupon:

I do not want a Brazilian wax for Mother’s Day.

I do not want Logitech headphones, unlimited boot camp classes, half off Sushi and Asian fare, or exercise hot pants for Mother’s Day.

I do not want 68% off cubic zirconium studs.

I do not want one or three oxygen facials.

I do not want a cookie bouquet. Auto detailing. Pet therapy.

I do not want a NASCAR driving experience at the Kentucky Motor Speedway, although I do concede that this would be pretty bad ass.

I do not want Teleflora roses. I do not want laser hair removal. I do not want a family fun package involving go carts and/or mini golf.

What I want for Mother’s Day is to take a shower.

I want to stand under the water uninterrupted for more than 10 minutes without the hot water running out. I want to shave my legs without incident and I want to remember to put that brand new razor I bought last month in the shower before I get in so I don’t have to leave the shower running while I drip across the bathroom to go get it from behind that confounded child safety locked cabinet door. I want to blow dry my hair in small sections the way my hair dresser showed me so that it will frame my face in straight, smooth tresses and I want to actually apply that make up sitting neglected in my make up bag.

I want to wear jewelry, but not fancy jewelry, just the regular kind, but I want to wear it all day without fear of toddler hands snapping it in two or shredding my earlobes by “helping” me remove my earrings.

I want to not be typing this at 3am.

I want my child to go one whole day without wiping snot on my sleeve because I want her to go one whole day without a cold or without falling down or without pitching a fit because I asked her if she wanted cheese when she obviously wanted a banana with cinnamon cut into small bites on the bias.

And it’s okay, Groupon. I get it. You’re obviously not a Mom. You’re our young single friend who thinks you want to be a Mom maybe one day and so you have Ideas about what you would want or what you should want and so you don’t know that I do not want a luxury spa package, ten beginning guitar lessons, a four-device charging station.

You don’t know and so I will just tell you that really, I just want someone else to put gas in the car and maybe vac up the Cheerios in the back seat.

Hope you make someone else’s Mother’s Day something special, Robin

To the Modern Day Milk Maids, Sort Of

Dear Medela:

Let’s try a fun experiment. I’ll go to a Party and say the phrase breast pump in a slightly louder than average speaking voice. You count the number of people who Shift Uncomfortably and drift away to other parts of the house.

Perhaps you are thinking that maybe I am just not at the Right Party, so let me clarify what type of Party I am most likely to attend at present, just so we can start this hypothetical situation from a point of Mutual Understanding. I am quite obviously not talking about a Party that centers around breast feeding or babies because let’s face it, Medela, just because I am about to be a Mother does not mean that I will suddenly stop going to Non-Baby-Related Parties.

The Party I am thinking of might be a Department Party for the Academic Department in which my husband and I work, in which case it would be held at someone’s Nice House and would most likely carry on well past any reasonable bedtime because the people in our Academic Department like to carry on. The Party I am thinking of might also be a dance party at a bar with our friend the Extreme DJ and all our other friends who like to throw darts and drink beer and occasionally might press shots of Questionable Liquor into our hands. The Party I am thinking of could be a summer family cookout, maybe not even a cookout with our own families but someone else’s, and there would be a pool and other kids and lots of other fun people our own age to get to know.

These are the types of Parties I am thinking of. These are the kinds of places where the phrase breast pump would, most likely, fall like a wet noodle across the faces of those in earshot.

It’s bad enough that, as an Expectant Mother, I am forced to do battle with the Baby Industrial Complex. Bad enough that I must register for things like changing pads and swaddling blankets and miniature spa bathtubs. But now—thanks to you and others like you who like to remind me that my breasts are there for a reason and no, it’s not to Look Good in Sweaters—now I also have to register for a breast pump. For nursing bras and bra pads. For nipple cream.

(For the record, I refuse to register for anything called nipple cream.)

And not any breast pump will do, you know. It’s not like there’s just one. It’s not like you could make even that easy for me, Medela. You give your products fancy names like Freestyle, Swing, and Symphony—names which mean nothing—nothing!—and so I am forced to stand awkwardly in Target and read the details on the side of each box to determine “which pump best suits my lifestyle” while pimply teenage boys walk past on their way to the electronics department because the baby section is somehow always—always!—next to the electronics department. And how am I to know which pump will best suit my lifestyle? I do not even know what my lifestyle will be. I have never used a breast pump. Do I want a single pump or a double? Do I want manual or electric? And it’s not like Consumer Reports has ratings for these things. It’s not like I am buying a Known Entity like a car, although Medela, in case you have not noticed, some of your breast pumps cost as much as a monthly car payment, and not a payment for a Lame Used Car, either, but a payment for something far grander like a Shiny SUV. And so I stand there and read the boxes and then go home and read reviews online from Cranky Mothers and Glowing Mothers and Hippie Mothers so high on breast feeding that they talk about Pumping in Public as though this were a good idea and not something Horribly Awkward.

And I can accept that very soon, I will spend a car payment on one of your fine Products with Meaningless Names so that I can be a Good Mother. I can accept that at some point, I will shamelessly plunk nipple cream down at the cash register.

But what I cannot accept, Medela, is your foray into Questionable Fashion Accessories and in case you don’t know what I am talking about (although I am certain that you know exactly what I am talking about), I am talking about your Easy Expression Bustier, because Medela, I am already going to feel like a Freak Show sticking a suction cup to my breast and flipping a switch and letting some machine milk me like a cow. This feeling would most certainly not be minimized were I wearing a bra that looks like some throw-back from Madonna’s “Blonde Ambition” tour gone horribly wrong or an ill-advised Lady Gaga awards show stunt or a typically tacky Katy Perry Rolling Stone cover shot. Not. At. All.

And as for that Party, you know, Medela, I’ve been thinking. Maybe we shouldn’t try that Fun Experiment after all. You can still come, if you want. But do us both a favor: keep your Questionable Fashion and your Commitment to Highest Quality Breastfeeding to yourself. It just makes for Awkward Pauses in conversation.

Robin

To the Social Network Sans Sound Reasoning

Dear Facebook:

I know that I have been posting about my All-Consuming Pregnancy with increasing frequency, and that you like to troll my posts for your Fancy Targeted Ads. I know, too, that you’re really just using some Spiffy Algorithm to figure out what Fancy Targeted Ads might actually appeal to me and that you are not using Sound Reasoning when deciding to plaster my wall with ads for Crystal Light or student loans or art school programs in photography.

But surely at some point, Facebook, your Spiffy Algorithm must have noticed that I am an English Major. A Pregnant English Major, but a Dedicated English Major with no mathematical or scientific abilities nonetheless, Facebook. And while I know that, as words, pregnancy and ultrasound certainly travel in the same circles, no one wants an English Major as an Ultrasound Tech.

And what is with this Fancy Targeted Ad Image? If the general idea of becoming an ultrasound tech was not enough to send any Dedicated English Major running for the door, the Creepy Pink Baby-Type Person in the Image would more than do the trick. As an English Major, I am trained to read for symbolism, but Facebook, I cannot even begin to analyze the symbolism behind the Creepy Pink Baby-Type Person because the Baby-Type Person is nothing like the green light at the end of the pier in The Great Gatsby. The Baby-Type Person is just Creepy.

If only you would give me a “Dislike” button, Facebook. If only.

Robin

To The Oblivious and Caffeinated Distracters

Dear Very Animated Couple Who Just Sat at the Table Directly In Front of Me in the Independent Coffee Shop:

I am not trying to listen to your conversation. I am not. I have on my headphones. I am listening to Jump, Little Children, which—given your age and our Relative Geography and the fact that you were not in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1998 like I was when their only album Magazine was released—you have probably never heard of, but which is an album I know very well and which should be sufficient to drown out any and all Outside Noise and I need to drown out any and all Outside Noise because I am trying to focus on the computer screen so that I can keep Doing My Work and thus, Feel Accomplished.

But you are both Remarkably Tattooed and use Very Animated Hand Gestures and seem to talk even louder than the Jump, Little Children drummer can possibly ever drum and so, it is hard, Animated Couple, to focus on the My Work because I am ADHD and currently unmedicated and I can’t decide if I like your perfume and cologne (respectively) or not.

Please stop Being Interesting.

Thanks,

Robin

__________________________________________________________

Dear Overlarge Stitch n’ Bitch Group that has Taken Over 25% of the Tables and Floor Space of the Coffee Shop Down the Street and Whose Members are Completely Oblivious to the Rest of Us with Laptops:

Perhaps you think that laptops have no place in Coffee Shops, but if that’s the case then those of you knitting in front of your laptops are really blowing a hole in that Belief System. Perhaps, then, you think that holding your Stitch n’ Bitch meeting in Such a Public Venue will interest more people in knitting and thus, expand your already unwieldy group. Perhaps you are in secret competition with some other Louisville knitting circle; perhaps you are gunning for the coveted Most Members in a Knitting Group 2011 award, which I just made up here to make fun of you, but which you might think Actually Exists and that might—might—explain your taking over the front quarter of this Subpar Coffee Shop Space and filling it with your clacking needles and your vapid conversations about Knitting Parties and some guy named David who everyone seems to know and a few people seem to be asking after and who none of you have actually seen in a while.

Perhaps you have been Conspicuously Knitting in Public En Masse for a while and still think it’s a Cool Thing to Do. I get that you are a Diverse Group of Mixed Ages and Genders and Nationalities. I get that Louisville is the sort of Liberal, Feel-Good City that encourages such displays as Conspicuous Public Knitting. And I will own that Stephen and I live on the Hippie end of town where wearing Ill-Fitting Clothing from the Thrift Store and dousing oneself in sandalwood and flaunting ones Remarkable Tattoos is considered not just socially acceptable, but almost a Neighborhood Requirement.

But here’s the thing: Stitch n’ Bitch (the book—you did know it all started as a book, didn’t you?) came out in 2000.

It’s 2011.

Wake up to the cliché that you’re perpetuating and stop hogging all the tables with the best wall outlets.

Robin

PS: For the record, I knit, too. At home. Just putting that out there.

To the Masters of Pathos

Dear ASPCA:

Please stop stalking the Food Network and HGTV during those little half hour shows I like to turn on when I am the only one in the house and feel like lounging on the couch in between Doing Productive Things because I am Pregnant and Hormonal and really, it is just not fair to bombard me with Sad and Thoughtful music playing behind the slideshow of Sad and Hopeless animal videos with captions like “Nathaniel: Never loved and left to die” under the Sad Video of the Sad Tabby Kitten with the Tiny Cast on his front right leg because who could possibly maintain any semblance of composure when forced to look at a Kitten in a Tiny Cast?

It’s not that I don’t admire what you do. I admire what you do. If I weren’t busy watching Curb Appeal or The Barefoot Contessa, I would be watching Animal Cops on Animal Planet because I love watching those Righteously Angry animal cruelty investigators, who looks more like People You Might Meet in Prison, track down and lock up those Losers, who actually are People You Might Meet in Prison, on behalf of their Sad Animals who can’t do anything about being Sad and then at the end of the show one of the Sad Animals always gets a Good Home and each episode leaves you feeling good about yourself and your Good Home and your Not Sad Animal.

We have two Shelter Cats of our Very Own. Two! And one of them is Black! And since you are the ASPCA I know that you know that getting people to adopt Black Cats and Black Dogs is hard work because people are Stupidly Superstitious even though the only danger out Black Cat poses to anyone might be that you might accidentally trip over him. Not only that, but he is a Special Needs Cat with a Heart Murmur and did we turn him out to be “never loved and left to die” when we found out? No. No we did not. We give him Liquid, Fish-Flavored Beta Blockers twice a day and leave Social Functions early and make awkward excuses like “We hate to leave, but we have to go Medicate our Cat” because we are Good Pet Parents and I’ll just bet you never thought about that, did you?

So before you go turning your Vicious Rhetoric on Helpless, Hormonal, Pregnant Women of a Certain Demographic who just want to watch 30 minutes of Mindless Home Improvement Television (but who, instead, spend those 30 minutes crying over pictures of Sad Kittens in Tiny Casts), you might just want to consider that Some of Us are already Doing Our Part. Some of Us might not need to see pictures of Tiny Tabby Nathaniel.

Some of Us might just want to hear “Hey, thanks” and see some Happy Animal Pictures every once in a while. You’ve got to have some of those lying around somewhere.

If not, talk to those Righteously Angry People on Animal Cops. They have Happy Animals on every episode. I’ll bet they can totally hook you up.

Robin

To the Family Easter Outfit Shopper

Dear Photo-Op Fashion Victims with Families:

First of all, we at Necessary Letters understand that for at least 360 days a year, you are a Fairly Normal Person with Fairly Adequate Fashion Sense. You wear jeans and t-shirts on the weekends. You wear button-downs to work. You wear tasteful sweaters. You dress your children in age-appropriate apparel in good repair.

But Easter is coming.

We know about Easter. Easter, in all of its pastel, bunny-rabbited glory, is as hard to resist as, say, Halloween with its costumes or Christmas with its Jolly Elf hats or the Fourth of July with all of those Festive Flag-Themed clothing items. Easter is seductive. Easter is a time for Bonnets and Special Dresses. Easter is a time of rebirth, a time where we begin to think that, perhaps, we will take a better family photo this year. Perhaps it will not be like the Year of the Zit that Ate Johnny’s Nose or the Year of Becca’s Broken Arm. Perhaps this year, our family will really be Picture Perfect.

But before you dress your children in matching purple button-downs with yellow clip on ties or those Rather Awful printed jumper dresses with the ruffled bottoms and matching, oversized hairbows or, god forbid, those Dreadful Sailor Outfits that seem to crop up every other year or so, please consider that perhaps—perhaps—if a child is old enough to argue with you about wearing mascara or playing First-Person-Shooter Video Games, said child might—might—be Too Old for tailored, knee-length shorts and matching shirts with Peter Pan collars.

Because really, nothing says Awkward Family Photo like a balding middle-aged man and a glaring fifteen-year-old Lurking Uncomfortably in super-sized versions of that Easter egg bow tie and pastel pink shirt your toothless seven-year-old is wearing.

Your Local Promoter of Practicing Safe Seasonal Fashion,

Robin

To the Month of Birthdays I Always Forget

Dear January,

Happy New Year! I am happy to see you again—I really am—because you mean that I get to erase all of the stupid things I did Last Year, like when I ran the front corner of my grandfather’s Cadillac into That Damn Post next to my apartment parking space or like when I believed Stephen when he told me that Bono from U2 was Jewish or like when I went to that One Party and drank all of that boxed wine out of Solo cups (Franzia, FTW!) and then wrecked my Awesome Bicycle on the way home and gave myself that Gnarly Black Eye, but then you showed up, finally, and now I get to start again because you are New.

But January, as happy as I always am to see you, even though you typically involve Large Amounts of Unwanted Precipitation, I am never happy to see you dragging along with you that pesky string of Birthdays I Always Forget, starting with my Father’s. My Own Father’s! My Own Father is hard enough to buy a present for in December when all of those Mandatory Present Buying Holidays roll around because his favorite color is Purple and he does not wear ties, but to ask me to skip off and buy another present less than 30 days later, well, that’s not only wrong but also Highly Unreasonable unless you want me to buy him, say, a pair of shoes, and only give him the Right Shoe on Christmas and make him wait to unwrap the Left Shoe until January 22.

Not only that, but do you know who shares a Birthday with My Own Father? Can you guess it? You can’t. You will never in a million years guess it and so I will just tell you: My Own Husband! My Own Husband, Stephen, shares a Birthday with My Own Father and while Stephen is easier to buy presents for because he likes baseball hats and because I can always just go to the liquor store and buy him Something Fancy for Bloody Marys, it nonetheless means that I cannot really Throw Him A Party when I am really in the mood to Throw Him A Party, which is usually, like, August because nothing ever happens in August except the start of the school year and that alone means that poor Little August definitely Needs More Parties.

And now, January. Now for the cruelest trick of them all: My Own Blogmate. My Own Blogmate, Luke, has a birthday in January and it is today and that is why I am writing this to you here, now, on January 3, 2011, because you need to know, January. Because this, of all the things I could talk about today, is the Most Necessay.

It’s not like these are Incidental Birthdays. It’s not like these are Birthdays I can really be excused for Forgetting. And I know that my Facebook homepage will tell me about these birthdays on the day that they are happening, but January, if presents are involved, I definitely need more lead-time than a same-day Facebook note in the upper righthand corner of the screen that I may or may not see and what if I don’t log on to Facebook on the day of a Very Important Birthday? (Haha, I know. I will never not log onto Facebook. Just seeing if you were paying attention!)

The Truth is, January—and this may be hard to hear, I know, but if your friends won’t tell you then who will?—the Cold, Unforgiving, You-Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Truth is that you should not have Birthdays.

Now I know that you are thinking “But everyone always gets excited for the birth of the First New Baby of the New Year,” but let’s think about that poor New Year’s Baby for just one second. I would hate to be a New Year’s Baby because I would have to celebrate every year with stupid plastic glasses with lenses shaped like the date of the next year of my life and with champagne at midnight and with Dick Clark or Ryan Seacrest counting down seconds at me and who wants to always celebrate her birthday with short TV personalities? (And what is with that, ABC? Is it in the job description that the host has to be 5’8”?) And who wants to drink champagne when they’re 5? Or stay up until midnight? New Year’s Baby or not, that’s just irresponsible parenting. And anyway, there would still be a First New Baby of the New Year, that baby would just be born at 12:01 on February 1 instead and we could leave Ryan Seacrest out of the whole thing and doesn’t that sound nicer all around?

Think about it, Jan. Think about how nice it would be to give all of your Birthdays to February. What’s February got? Valentine’s Day? Black History Month? You and I both know that these things, no matter how Culturally or Socially Significant they may be, pale in comparison to the Newness of You. Or maybe you’d rather share them around like the Rainbow Fish and all her Rainbow Scales in that kid’s book? I would support that. That would be a very generous gesture, doling out your Birthdays to all those other months out there that are Less Flashy than you. Like August. Think about August, Jan. Think about poor, sad Little August, who nobody likes because August makes everyone go back to school.

Think about how Philanthropic you will look.

Think about what Good Things people will say.

Think about how happy you will make poor Little August.

Encouraging the Spirit of Giving in the New Year, Especially for Birthdays,

Robin

For Luke, Stephen, Dad, and all you other Birthdays suffering at the hands of January. I haven’t really forgotten you. Promise.

Guest Letter Week! Day 1: To Those Contributing to My Delicate Emotional State

Dear Makers of Most Maternity Clothes,

Excuse me if this wasn’t already obvious to you, but pregnant women are still, by definition, women. Which means, in most cases and especially in my (admittedly Shallow, Fashion-Inclined) own, that we appreciate at least the ability to choose to look cute. From my years of watching Project Runway, I understand that real designers have some sort of mental block, perhaps due to repeated exposure to anorexia and cigarettes, that keeps them from knowing how to drape/tailor/design fabric over a body larger than size 4 (the horror!). But You Who Exist in the Mall do not have the luxury of that excuse. I know for a fact that you have More Imagination than that simply because I managed to clothe my non-pregnant self quite satisfactorily for many, many years. However, when it comes to maternity, you seem to have forgotten some easy solutions. Does my outie make you squeamish?

1. Empire waists are VERY flattering to anyone with hips and a bit of a belly. When that belly gets big, they provide the Added Bonus of giving us a little definition so we don’t look like we?re wearing our grandmothers’ maternity “hatching jackets.”
2. Side ruching to make tops cling to those same bellies can make the pregnant form (dare I say?) sexy. Do this more.
3. Yes, basics are good, especially for layering, but PLEASE, for the love of all that SPARKLES, add those pretty, tasteful details to clothes that make them, and us in turn, feel SPECIAL.
4. USE NICE MATERIAL.

Target cannot handle the burden of your failings all on its own. They do a good job, but we need more than three options every 6 months. We’re a little too tired to do Much Laundry right now.

And Fancy Pregnancy Boutiques, you’re not entirely off the hook yourselves. $300 for a sweater? Did you think I was drunk and wouldn’t notice? I am most decidedly not. You’re taking advantage of my Delicate Emotional State.

In conclusion, my expanding waist/bust/hipline do enough all on their own to challenge my self-confidence without the added insult of your Fugly Clothes. Step. It. Up.

Not naked in protest yet,

Emily

To the Well-Intentioned Encourager of Terrible Prose

Dear National Novel Writing Month:

Can we call you NaNoWriMo? We hear all the cool kids call you that and so, we will, too.

We here at Necessary Letters admire your Purpose and Overall Spunk: nothing says “go-getter” like an organization based on convincing hapless, ordinary people like plumbers or baristas to write a novel in a month. And while we know from our Research that you chose to make November the month of choice because of the typically crappy weather in the San Francisco Bay Area, we love that someone, somewhere, sat down and decided that the month whose abbreviation is Nov would be the best month in which to write Novels. Weather-shmeather. Perhaps you thought we wouldn’t notice that little detail; if so, then you, NaNoWriMo, underestimate our Powers of Perception.

We also must confess to Coveting Your Acronym. When we lie awake at night thinking of you (and of course we lie awake thinking of you. It’s November and we cannot help thinking of you, but only when we are not lying awake thinking of the laundry that we never seem to get done or whether or not we should go to the effort of cooking a turkey again this year), we often wonder what would happen if we had such a clever Acronym. We fantasize about the merchandise we could produce with that Acronym and we hate you a little bit for already having some of the merchandise we fantasize about ready for purchase on your website and so we resolve not to purchase it, partly because you already have it and partly because that will only make us Covet Your Acronym that much more.

But underneath our Coveting of Your Acronym and underneath our admiration, we here at Necessary Letters cannot quite shake one small, annoying, nagging thought about NaNoWriMo’s purpose:

Not everyone needs to write a Novel.

We know that you strive to discourage this very sentiment. That this goes against the very fiber of your movement and that right now, you are gathering yourself to bellow noisy and endless disagreements, but before you sound your barbaric YAWP, consider this:

Right now, somewhere, a Man sits, writing, closeted in some garret (because all writers write in garrets in ratty gloves with the fingers cut off like Jo March did in Little Women, even in August) or possibly in his mother’s basement and surrounded by his still-in-the-box Marvel comic action figures and stacks of the original Green Lantern comic books (which he has been pursuing with diligence on Ebay! every since that cheerleader rejected him when he asked her to Homecoming back in 1993). Or maybe even a Woman, since we do know at least one Woman who collects comic books, but she does not live in her mother’s basement and thus, would probably not be tempted by anything with an Acronym like NaNoWriMo. So a Man. A Man sits, writing (preferably on an old typewriter but more probably on an older model desktop that he’s converted to Linux, but definitely not on a MacBook Air or an iPad with optional keyboard) and he is writing a Novel because it is November and November is National Novel Writing Month and he has always wanted to write a Novel.

The Man in the Garret’s Novel will be wonderful because he is writing it for National Novel Writing Month and he has told everyone that he is writing it and every day, his Facebook status update tells all of his Facebook friends how many words he has written and he uses exclamation points. “Man in the Garret is a machine. NaNoWriMo daily word tally: 2,753!”

The Man in the Garret has been thinking about his Novel for a long time—maybe years—and he knows that you are not supposed to start writing for National Novel Writing Month until November 1, but he has had this idea, you see, this idea in his head every since the final installment of the new Star Wars trilogy came out in theaters and he saw it the same week his mother made him watch Sleepless in Seattle for the first time because they were replaying it on TBS that Saturday morning with limited commercials, and he found himself wondering why no one has ever written about lovers who meet on an Intergalactic Talk Radio Show. And he has read more fiction since then—more science fiction—and he has not seen any Novel where two people meet and fall in love on an Intergalactic Talk Radio Show and he has even thought of a name for his lead character (who will look just like him, only hot) and his lead character would never get rejected by that high school cheerleader because his lead character’s name will be Rock Stardust.

Rock Stardust, NaNoWriMo. Rock. Stardust.

So, because of our admiration of your Overall Spunk and Purpose, we here at Necessary Letters would like to propose a solution to the Problem of Rock Stardust (and while you may protest just to save face, we both know that there is definitely a Problem with Rock Stardust). Rather than encouraging hapless beauticians and clichéd unemployed Comic-Collecting Men living in their mother’s basements to generate 50,000 words of woefully uninspired prose inside the arbitrarily imposed deadline of 30 days, we would like to encourage them, instead, to devote their energies to an entirely different enterprise:

Necessary Letter Writing Week.

NeLeWriWe is, traditionally, the third full week in November. Why, yes, it does conveniently begin with the phrase Necessary Letter. How good of you to notice. However, we assure you that NeLeWriWe has been a staple of the writing world for quite some time and while this is, possibly, the first annual recognized NeLeWriWe, the third week in November has been a very busy time for letter-writing all around. All that looming turkey and pie and awkward, forced family interaction encourages people to put pen to paper, so to speak, and write the things that they have been meaning to write. The things that are Necessary.

NeLeWriWe lasts for six days, instead of the five days of the regular work week or the seven days of the typical calendar week for the simple reason that the US Postal Service delivers mail for six days out of any given week, and back before Necessary Letters were posted online, they were actually posted via mail with a stamp.

And so the gauntlet has been thrown, NaNoWriMo. NeLeWriWe hereby challenges you to put down that truly terrible piece about the failed attorney who joins the circus and falls in love with the cross-dressing clown and, instead, pick up a Necessary Letter. One letter every day for six days.

We can do it. Can you?

Sportingly,

Robin