Letters to the Editor
Cary Tennis
Published Letters: 52 Editor's Choice: 12
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Treatment for hoarding
[Read the article: My wife is a compulsive hoarder]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks, Callie, for that tip about the Institute for Living in Hartford. Yes, their program is described at their Web site.
http://www.instituteofliving.org/ADC/current_research_studies.htm#Hoarding
The LW might want to contact them; they apparently offer a nationwide network of resources and help for compulsive hoarding.
Their contact page is here:
http://www.instituteofliving.org/ADC/hoarding_info_request.asp
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Not getting much writing done today
[Read the article: I hate your column and all the letter writers too!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I asked for it and I'm getting it. This is both moving and educational.
I'd like to make some observations. One of the things I was trying to get at was just how powerful feelings get stirred up here. That hope is being amply met. The reasons raised -- idenfication, seeing your own issues in someone else, the joy of just being able to let loose with what one really feels, anonymously, all those things make sense.
The fact that a formerly privileged space, that of the *writer,* has been opened up is a great thing, I think. The whole question of authority or competence or, you know, being deserving is also relevant. Never forget: I got this job because I was in the right place at the right time with the right experience. I'm not better than you are. I'm just occupying a certain job. And I really wasn't out to denounce angry letters. Be angry! But I do think ugly personal attacks generally come from some unacknowledged context; they don't come from the discourse that the rest of us are engaged in, right? They're, like, unexpectedly personal and so you just go, Huh? you just want to know where a person is coming from. Seriously. And some speech may wound. It's meant to wound. OK. I'm not all for completely soft speech. Go for it. Wound! I personally try to be gentle. But maybe some people need to be yelled at. I don't know. I'm all for the freeest possible speech.
Random thoughts: You know what really stung? the phrase "failed poet" as applied to me. Hey, that stung! Because why? Because it is true, in the sense that if I thought I could get a job as working poet, I guess I'd apply. But it's too scary. And they don't make any money. Like a hundred dollars for a poem or something. Try living on that. Or you have to teach. Yikes. That whole world of poets is weird and scary to me. I'd rather be in the world of journalism and doing sort of poetic things. Poets are scary. Journalists I understand. I like working with journalists. But yeah, if you want to say that I'm a guy who would like to be a poet but didn't make it, OK. I'll take that. Ouch, but I'll take it. Not good enough to be a real poet? You could insult me with that, and I guess I'd have to take it.
Here's what I got from Elmore Leonard: "I am willing to be judged." He was on the radio and he was, like, "Bring it on."
After all, people are judging you all day long whether you like it or not. You can't do anything about it. People judge us. Can you feel it on your skin? Does it diminish you? It is mostly an irrelevance, something that happens in somebody else's skull. My only defense against being judged is to just let it happen. Valuable crtiicism is something else again. have to listen to it. Takes work.
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Oh, yeah, another thing:
[Read the article: I hate your column and all the letter writers too!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I really like that idea of a separate place for retractions and apologies! We all say things that maybe we wish we would've said better! Not to say it's technically doable. But the Internet seems to beg for vitriol. Normal constraints are removed. And so we sometimes express things we later regret. Ha ha. I know I do! And what about this, mostly for guys: Isn't one of the main constraints on male speech the threat of physical violence? I wonder if a lot of the really mean stuff on the Net isn't because we guys can finally say what we're feeling without fearing that we'll get our asses kicked.
the whole idea of confession and apology and retraction just fascinates me.
there is that site http://www.dailyconfession.com/ for confessions, and I think some other sites like that. It's such a cool moment, the moment where you go, uh, I'm sorry! It's like the germ of self-knowledge right there.
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Fake letters? Nah
[Read the article: I hate your column and all the letter writers too!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In response to the suggestion that some of the letters might be fake:
All the letters, without exception, come to the advice mailbox or to me personally. I will sometimes write back to verify or clarify. But I don't run any letters that I think are fake.
Sometimes people will write requesting a personal response, and I will try to talk them into letting their letter run for publication. Time does not permit the crafting of private responses, except occasionally in the most casual way. Sometimes a letter will be edited by a letter writer, at my request, for clarity or to preserve anonymity. But that is the extent of my involvement with the letters.
When a LW has a change of heart and asks that a letter not be published, the request is honored if possible. It's occasinally troublesome, but that's the understanding we have: If you change your mind, OK, I'll withdraw your letter if it hasn't already been published. (Nothing we can do once it's published.)
I would like to hear from anyone who has written a fake letter and gotten it published. Maybe it's happened. I'm not saying I can't be fooled. But we don't fake any letters. Ever. That's the policy, and it's followed without exception.
The letter that ran today was a satire written by a reader. It came to the advice mailbox just like any other.
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How, pray tell?
[Read the article: I don't want my husband at my high school reunion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How does one just "grow the fuck up"? How is up-fuck-growing done? I mean, what the fuck? Grow the fuck up? Like right now this instant just fucking grow the fuck up? Up? Into fucking what?