Dear The Job,

I know I've written you angry letters in the past, and let's be honest, I will probably continue to do so in the future because I'd rather be a full time artist. That said, I really don't hate you, and in the spirit of Christmas cheer, I wanted to tell you what I like about you. After all, much as I complain sometimes, the fact remains I haven't left you, which in itself is a testament to your not being all bad.

• My coworkers are intelligent, competent, and responsible. I can rely on them to do what they said they'd do, and it's a pleasure to help them out when I can.
• They're also funny. Never underestimate the power of humor.
• The work is challenging. In a bigger sense, I'd rather find my challenge in creative pursuits, but I am glad to have a challenging job right now that's actually teaching me skills that I can apply to those creative pursuits someday.
• You pay me. It's been a year and a half and I'm still beside myself every time I get a paycheck that's over the federal poverty level.
• You do good things. It's kind of a thrill to work for a company that's at the top of its game and plans to stay there. It can add to the stress level, sure, but there's also something incomparable about feelng you're making a difference somewhere.
• You have good food.
• You look cool. The architecture nut in me geeks out about your campus and the design that went into it. Your focus on making function look cool—drains that look like waterfalls; hallways that look like movie sets—delights me when I take a moment to really see it.

So, while I definitely need the vacation that's coming up in two days, and while I'm probably spending between 10 and 13 hours with you today and tomorrow each, I'll come back in January because there are some things I'm really happy about with you.

Merry Christmas,

B

Dear Trader Joe's,

Thanks for selling prewashed, ready-to-eat green beans that take zero effort to pull out of a fridge crisper and shove into my face while I veg exhaustedly on the sofa after a weeklongfeeling Monday. While I channel my inner e. e. cummings and make up my own words, you provide me with more nourishing foodstuffs than the rather more tempting jar of Nutella in the back of my cabinet or the potato chips that I neglected to purchase for my eatallthethings mood.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Madison,

Where else can I:

• make friends on the bus home from work?
• walk past the poshest restaurant in town, look in the window, and find one of the chefs (my next door neighbor) waving at me delightedly?
• spend the weekend biking, sailing, picking up my CSA, and attending a food and music festival downtown?
• fill my bike tires with a gratis air pump and fix-it station set up along the bike path by the city?
• always—always—get a smile on my face when I enter downtown because it's always just the right place to be?

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Sweet Potatoes,

How is it possible that I ever thought you were disgusting? Your rich, earthy taste straight out of the oven, the ease with which your skin peels off the vibrant orange center ... with a touch of salt and pepper, you're amazing, but you don't even need that. You're perfect just the way you are.

Maybe that's why I used to think you were awful; I had only ever tasted you dolled up and coiffed until you didn't resemble yourself at all. Add marshmallows or breadcrumbs and you're no longer the root vegetable that I know and love. I met you in disguise.

You're sort of like salmon: fresh salmon, slightly baked or grilled, with just the lightest sprinkling of lemon. Nature did most of the work getting you to be tasty. We just have to add some heat.

Excuse me. I have a plate of sweet potato sitting beside me that begs me to return.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Pancakes,

Thank you for being a tasty way to use up some old milk and butter last night after the Ash Wednesday service.

Of course, I'm not sure how thankful I should be that you nearly became ashes, yourselves. Why did you have to nearly burn? Why did you have to fill the entire apartment with smoke so that the alarms went off and brought my landlord upstairs to make sure his house wasn't burning down around him?

I get it. You're in cahoots with God. Shame on me for being ashamed of the ashes on my forehead from the Ash Wednesday service and being glad I hadn't seen anyone on the way into my apartment. Setting off the smoke alarms was just your little way of teaching me humility, wasn't it, Pancakes?

Well, it worked. And you were delicious, which more than made up for trouble.

Hug & kisses,
B

Dear Cookies and Coffee on One-Hour Flights,

You can't fool me. Your purpose is not to sate thirst or hunger or even to force interaction between seat partners. The thing is, at 36,000 feet above the earth, we are none of us experiencing normal. In several hundred thousand years of human existence, flight has only been possible for about the past 100. Humans flying in a metal tube is not natural. But eating -- yes -- eating is. Your purpose in our lives so high up in the air is not to satisfy us, but rather to distract us. Combine something so foreign as flying with something so basic as food, and we're sure to reach some kind of equilibrium between take-off and landing. Good thinking.

Hugs & kisses,
B