Open Letters

Dear friends,

I’ve been applying to medical schools again lately. After getting rebuffed in my attempts at getting into med school for the past 2 years, I think I’ve been subliminally trying to sabotage my chances at getting in. I spun my wheels on my letter of intent for weeks, hiding in my other work and doing everything other than my med school application. In order to get the application in, I’ve been hiding from everything else, not answering e-mails, not reading or commenting on blogs, not even taking time to cook. Things are a little less crazy for me now that the application is done so If you’ve written me an e-mail lately I’ll get back to you when I start to empty out my account.

Dear Lina,

Thanks a ton for all the help writing my letter of intent. There’s a metric ton of pie that will be waiting for you next time you visit Chicago.

Dear Oasis,

Your song Wonderwall has been my favorite song since it first came out. Recently, however, I have decided that Lali Puna’s Faking the Books is my new favorite song. I’m not sure if I love it so much because I learned to appreciate European techno dance beats while in Germany, because of her charming pronunciation of the word “books,” or because I like the rest of Lali Puna’s music so much that it’s biasing my opinion of my favorite of her songs. By the way, with few exceptions, I think most of your other music is mediocre at best. In any case, the song makes me want to smile and cry at the same time. Give it a listen (it’s better with headphones than speakers).

Dear St. Vincent,

Amanda and I caught your concert last month at the Metro and it was fabulous. Although my favorite songs of yours are on your first album, Actor is very solid as an album, and well worth the good reviews it’s been getting. By the way, I think Amanda might like you more than me because of your music video, but I will be rather upset if you seduce her away from me. In fact, if Amanda leaves me for you, I will make an active effort to not recommend your music anymore. You’ve been warned.

Dear absentee landlord of my new apartment,

First off let me say how much I love the place; I particularly love the kitchen and Amanda is thrilled with the wood floors. That being said, your policy against dogs is absurd so I’ve decided not to follow it. Amanda and I recently bought a mini-poodle puppy and named it Gob (in honor of Will Arnett’s character from Arrested Development, although I love the homophonic parallel to the Biblical Job). Amanda’s been teaching him tricks and he’s also already litter trained, so your floors are safe. On a side note, Amanda gave him a haircut but spared the hair on his legs so that we can dye it. For now, it looks like he’s wearing a pair of really baggy pants. A-freaking-dorable if I do say so myself. If you ever decide to enforce your no dog rule—despite Gob’s adorableness—we’ll have to loan our dog to family or friends, which would be very sad for us and for Gob. If you do crack down, however, we’re pretty sure that someone on the third floor has a dog too, and it’s likely that any stray dog poop came from that dog, not Gob.

Dear messers Ensign and Sanford,

I’ll say the same thing I said while you were vehemently calling for President Clinton to step down: your sex life is none of my business and has zero determination on whether you can or should be a politician. Even still, I find irony rather funny and giggled inside when you were caught. I still feel sorry for Mrs. Ensign.

Dear Mrs. Sanford,

You are supremely ridiculous. I won’t even dignify your argument by refuting it. (Evan has pointed out that this was satire. Sorry Ms. Sanford).

Dear Ms. Palin,

I actually rather like you as a person. I think your opinions on abortion are medieval (or Italian) and your notions on science are damaging and ridiculous, but my ire for you only extends to your ability to use your crazy notions to make policy. Now that there’s no chance of you having access to a red button or the chance to slash science funding, I wish you all the best in writing books or working for FOX news. If you run for the presidency in 2012, however, we’re no longer friends.

Dear squirrel that keeps eating the tomatoes we’re growing on our back porch,

If you insist on stealing my tomatoes, is it too much to ask that you eat the whole thing, rather than just half? I have enough tomatoes on my plant that I probably won’t notice if you take a few, but I’d swear you’re taunting me by leaving an uneaten half right in front of my door. There are starving squirrels in China who would love those tomatoes, young man.

Dear Harry Potter movies,

I’m going to have to ask you to scale back the tween romance a lot. I know you might be tempted to cash in on the Twilight craze that has the kids shelling out good money to lust after rather awkward-looking heartthrobs, but Rupert Grint is actively hard to look at; ask J.K. if you couldn’t just write him out of the next few movies as much as possible. On your latest installment: although there were some things that could have been done better, the cave scene was excellent, as was Alan Rickman. I do have to say, however, that all of your movies end approximately 30 seconds too late. Please make an effort not to end on awkward anti-climaxes or freeze-frames in the future.

Dear President Obama,

Please focus; Professor Gates should not be on your radar right now. Health care is broken, nobody else is going to bother even trying to fix it, and it will not bode well for you if congress can’t get its crap together and pass a bill. Even a broken plan would probably be better than what we have got now and there will always be time to tweak later what you pass right now. Perhaps I’ll write more on the health debate later.

Dear Hyde Park Ward,

Thank you for not celebrating Pioneer Day or assigning the sacrament speakers to talk about pioneers. If I have to listen to one more person tell me that their great great grandparents were more righteous than mine because theirs were driven at gunpoint to Utah and mine weren’t I think I’m going to pitch a fit.

Dear clutch from my 2002 Hyundai Accent,

I thought we were tight. You’d been going strong for almost 100,000 miles and then you decided to try and strand me in rural Kansas, rather than lasting another 150 miles until I got to Wichita? Luckily for me I have really cool in-laws who have AAA and were able to bail us out and foil your scheme. I have a new clutch that’s apparently worth $800, so I don’t need you anymore. You’re dead to me. I hope they melt you down and turn you into something really awful and degrading like parts for public toilets or limited edition Jonas Brothers wrist watches.