Letters to the Editor
IndigoSwash
Published Letters: 101 Editor's Choice: 5
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Rebecca,
[Read the article: My big fat obnoxious former self]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]*swirling red lights and alarm bells*
As you can see from your first letter, you should don your mental asbestos suit now. Prepare for the scorn that gets heaped on extra from strangers on the net to all who are fat and losing it, or on the flip side, admit they might even be attracted to it or okay with it.
Anyway, good for you! :) I hope you enjoy your new body. Keep on being brave and strong, and keep writing.
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Um...
[Read the article: I'm not sure I have a self. How do I get one?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ok, Cary is not "Dear Abby." Or Carolyn Hax.
He has his own style, to be sure. No Gap crap. More like a rakish hat and cool wingtips and a funky tie with a rumpled jacket.
He's not all together all the time. He loses it sometimes. The metaphors can run together and overpower each other. Other times, he's a poet and a genius. (I've saved several of his columns on my computer for rereading for inspiration, while the everyday Miss Manners stuff does not take up more than seconds of me scanning it and clicking somewhere else.)
So, if he occasionally has a day of insanity, I say, oh damn well. Better insanity than inanity.
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Impossible to lose hundreds through diet & exercise? Au contraire.
[Read the article: My big fat obnoxious former self]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is the story of a man I am familiar with from another forum.
He is 47 years old. He has lost 308 pounds (NOT A TYPO) through diet and exercise. Period. No surgery.
http://www.myfooddiary.com/Charles/
The interview link above has 300 pounds, but he is now at 308 gone.
Check it out, all non-believers.
Is it easy? No. Can it be done? Yes.
He ultimately wants to lose 342.3 pounds, to be exact ;-)
Now I'm not saying this is not an incredible feat. It sure as hell is! I'm amazed by him. Can most people do this? Maybe not. You'd have to be really determined. Really, REALLY determined. He is.
(This is not meant as any kind of dismissal of those who get the surgery. I feel that whatever works to get you healthy long-term, go for it.)
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"Real News"...
[Read the article: Wait, was Karl Rove in Boulder this week?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Article subheader:
"It's the best explanation for the way an incredible JonBenet Ramsey confession knocked real news off the air."
Hmmm, this piece of un-"real news" now occupies the top spot of Salon's front page. Not too shabby...
Just saying. Let's not knock the other media when Salon is following suit.
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Re: symptoms
[Read the article: LASIK surgery ruined my eyes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The letter writer says in the opening:
"Dear Cary,
I had LASIK eye surgery a year and a half ago."
What was a 'reasonable' amount of time for you to fully recover? A year and a half seems excessive to me, yikes!
(And I've thought about getting this since I can't function without glasses but maybe I'll stick with ye ol' plastic lenses instead...)
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Now THAT...
[Read the article: Heavy Pockets]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]was friggin' cool.
(Loved the walking and snow bit.)
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This girl is a hit?
[Read the article: Lonelygirl15, brought to you by. . .]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like, gag me with a spoon, okaaaaay?!
Way too twee for me, thanks.
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"Terrifying to behold" ?!
[Read the article: The Fix]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Talk about hyperbole. Give me a fucking break.
Clinton, as many others have observed, calmly, persistently and thoroughly answered the question. There was no "rage" or "wrath." He was righteously angry yet subdued and extremely controlled, and got said what he wanted to say... regardless of the many annoying and fumbling defensive interruptions by Wallace.
I was not a Clinton worshipper to the core, but I miss having a leader who can THINK and SPEAK eloquently and persuasively. I can only hope the majority of America now feels the same.
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My personal favorite responses, split up.
[Read the article: Since You Asked: The Book]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I saved these on my PC because I loved them so much :) They really spoke to me as I continue to try to get out a depressive funk I've been in for a long time, and spark up my life! Thanks, Cary.
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Monday, August 08, 2005
Dear Lost,
Society is a gun. Don't point it at yourself. Society is a disease. Wash your hands frequently.
How to live in society without being killed by it? I do not know. It takes a little more out of you every day. It seduces you out of your seductiveness. It coats you with white flour. It makes your voice sound strange. It puts you in a uniform. It wears you down.
You could live in an apartment full of drag queens and record-store clerks for the rest of your life. There are such apartments to be had, though the rents have gone up.
You could tell your parents all about yourself or you could let them guess. Either way, you will not be understood.
Life is not something you can ace like a test. It's messy, glorious and strange, filled with blowhards like me who say things like "Life is messy, glorious and strange" and "society is a gun" like some 1950s beatnik. (I would march with the beatniks if I could.)
Become friends with queer people in their 60s. Talk to them. Talk to veterans of Stonewall and be prepared for a world as empty of theory as a brick wall. No matter what you say to it, you cannot persuade it.
Rejoice in your singularity. Get used to being alone. Accept that society is out to crush you -- but not because it is malevolent! Is the common cold malevolent? That's its nature: to make you sneeze.
Your job is simple, really. It needn't be complicated by tortuous contemplation about what you reveal and what you hide. Neither hide nor reveal. Just be. It's not your job to figure it out. It's the job of society, that ravenous beast of sameness, that gravel-crushing machine.
And one day, like me, assuming you survive, you will say to people in their 20s: You know what's really terrifying -- more terrifying than the deadening effect of society? It's that, bit by bit, completely of your own accord, you eventually become so boring that you want to stomp yourself in the face with a boot.
Which you cannot do because your knees are too stiff.