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Published Letters: 4
LW, Tennis doesn't seem to get that you're in a dangerous situation. Your roommate has lost touch with reality and is hovering on the brink of financial ruin--which could ruin you financially, too. She's withdrawn from the real world and is clearly in an emotionally unhealthy state, and having this depressed person constantly zoned out in front of a computer in your home is surely effecting your own emotional wellbeing.
Take steps to help her get back to reality, if you can, but your first priority has got to be taking care of yourself. (After all, you will not be able to help anyone if you don't take care of yourself.)
Ask yourself, "what can I do to take care of myself in this situation?" Then do that. THEN think of a few things you can do to help your friend.
Good luck.
> Will anybody ever read what we write here, after today?
This isn't necessarily a philosophical question. Cary/Salon could analyze and publish longitudinal statistics on page hits for letters.
Good idea to put the letter and Cary's advice on separate pages. All of Cary's columns should be posted this way.
Attention letter writer: your friend has already clearly demonstrated that she is not open to the idea of her son being autistic. There is nothing you can say or do to change that. In time she'll probably be forced by events in his life to confront the fact that he has a problem, if that is indeed the case, but she's not ready now. Leave the situation alone.
Attention Cary Tennis: 99.99% of Salon readers want polished, interesting, crisp writing, not your dreadful unedited rough draft.
People like this column because other people's problems are compelling. You should be writing about the letter writer's problems, not about the minutia of your life or your writing process--your writing process is the means, not the end, and it certainly isn't the point. Maybe it is the point for you, but it isn't the point for 99.99% of your readers. We care about the letter writers. You should act like you do, too, by treating their problems as more than an opportunity for you to engage in a stream-of-consciousness writing exercise.
