Dear Gmail,

I like ya lots. HOWEVER. I switched to your “new look” about a week ago, because, as you intend to force this new look on all your users soon, I wanted to see what I was in for. Want to know how it’s been for me? Well, let’s see, I can no longer figure out what any of the command buttons mean, because you’ve turned them into obscure symbols instead of words. When I send an e-mail, the sent mail displays on my screen with its top cut off, which is sloppy, weird, and requires me to scroll with my sore arms if I want to see the whole thing. Worst of all, when I open a conversation, I can’t see readily where one e-mail starts and the next begins — a serious problem, because it means I risk missing e-mails altogether if I’m reading fast.

How can anyone possibly consider this an improvement? Please, PLEASE, don’t force your new look on us, or I will be forced to leave, and then you’ll no longer be able to show me hilariously irrelevant ads based on what you think my e-mails are about, like “Find Out If Your Husband Is Cheating” and “Couples Counseling” and “Singles in Your Area” websites because I’ve been e-mailing a friend about a fight that my characters, all of whom are, please note, imaginary people, are having. You wouldn’t want that, now would you? I know I wouldn’t. Please, please Gmail, don’t take away my fun.

Sincerely, Kristin

******

In other, much more pleasant news… I am hardly ever excited about new movies, but this one excites me. Here’s a trailer for Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, coming in March: