Dear Outlook.com,

Hello there, my old friend.

We’ve been together for quite some time now, haven’t we? Long enough for me to overcome my trust issues and learn to lean on you. Long enough for me to rely on you, making you the guardian of some of my most precious information.

You know…things like email correspondence with agents and publishers…contracts for the work that’s been or is going to be published…critiques and encouragement that mean the world to my shriveled, degenerate writer’s soul.

You know…all the stuff I crammed into a custom folder with the unoriginal title of ‘Writing.’

You know…all the stuff that disappeared today.

I can’t tell you, dear Outlook, how thrilled I was to find a completely different program in your place when I logged in after lunch. That’ll teach me to take a midday break, I guess.

But…back to you, the star of this love letter.

Can you imagine that ‘special’ feeling I got when I realized my old friend had been transformed into a cumbersome, lumbering, inelegant troll?

I bet you can’t.

Do you know how great it was when I tried seventeen times to access the live chat Help Desk only to find you are now so buggy, you cut every attempt off as soon as the chat begins?

I bet you don’t.

Can you imagine the rage of loss that had me considering legal action for the wanton destruction of years of accumulated information?

I bet you can’t.

Do you know how much fun it is to now have to employ numerous mouse clicks and maneuvering where before one click sufficed?

I bet you don’t.

So thank you, dear friend, for a day devoted to panic and anger.

It’s special times like these that remind me how much you care. We are so in sync, you just know you don’t need to warn me.

So, thank you, dear Outlook.com. After that heavy cup of yogurt for lunch, I really needed that shot of adrenaline to get me through the rest of the day. You know…the reaction to finding years of effort…gone.

No, I bet you don’t.

And you wonder why so many writers become raging alcoholics.