So I did get some actual correspondence last week in response to something I sent a magazine. This is the letter I got:

Hi, Erin.

- Shape editorial staff

I’m not sure whether this was an auto generated response or a reply from an editorial underling. But for the sake of maintaining a shred of personal dignity with regard to my letter writing campaign, I’m choosing to believe that an underling saw my sunscreen tip (post April 25) and decided that it struck exactly the right note of “well, duh” that Shape readers want to hear. I mean, they’re probably not asking for photos from everyone right?

This photo thing threw me into a total tizzy. I have nearly 60,000 photos residing on my computer right now. 60,000. I am in perhaps 200 of them, Maybe 75 of those were taken in the last three years (a semi-reasonable amount of time to call a photo recent). Guess how many of those 75 are of only me? Two. That’s right, two. Both of which are owned by WDW, and are thus not usable by me. There are maybe 10 photos of me overall that I don’t seriously hate, all of which also include at least one child and/or large costumed Disney character. So I decided it would be OK to crop out the child and/or character that appear in one of these - not an easy task when said child and/or character has his/her hands all over you.

I did end up with one tiny photo that I only moderately dislike, that looks like I actually use sunscreen. I sent it to them and we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, I’m going to try to figure out how to get some decent photos of myself.