Rainbow Letters

I've been asked to write letters of recommendation for four of the people who work with me, and I'm happy to do it. These guys are all really great, and it's a fantastic fellowship I think they're all qualified for, but man do I need a break from this. I'm not usually one for effusive praise. I feel like I've been shitting rainbows for a week. I've been writing things like, "Jim is a wonderful coworker! He is smart and hardworking and wonderful, and his wonderful wonderfulness is a wondering wonder wonder, puppies flowers gumdrops and kittens!"

What I would really like to do is write a letter like this.

"Dear Committee. Mary is a very productive coworker, but she could get a lot more work done if she wasn't always stuffing bon bons in her fat mouth. Jim perms his hair because, apparently, it's stil lthe 80s in his universe. And Tim... well, Tim is so far in the closet he can see Narnia."

Alas, such a letter would be both inapproriate and untrue, as these coworkers of mine are worthy of all the fucking rainbows I can squeeze out. So I'm keeping the letters just as they are, all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, except I'm adding these words to the beginning of each one:

"Despite his drug problem...."