Ted,

I’m so happy for you that you’re getting your first book published! {Just when I thought my life couldn’t get more depressing, this happens. It’s a sign of the degradation of our society, and if publishers and consumers bought anything of any merit, rather than nasty, moronic crime melodramas, then it would be my novels in print, and your ode to idiocy would lie unread in the only storage space you have, under the bed in your squalid little studio grief-hole, while your ugly, frail body, racked with alcohol-sweats and tears, would lie pathetically on the yellowed sheets above}

The similarities between Batman and Groot have been explored before, but I wanted to take a crack at it.

• A test of your patience for reminding people that it is the first Wednesday of the month.

• Your city’s reminder that it is the first Wednesday of the month.

• A test of the Look Outside Anyway Alarm.

Before anyone asks: Yes, Winslow was at a resort called “Lovers’ Retreat” by himself. It was an educational experience.

On your last math test you answered several questions correctly but deliberately tried to erase your steps toward finding the answers. You are clearly a genius. So when I received your “Dogs are the Best” story I was excited to read it at lunch, while smoking in my car. I loved it.