Enough about Hillary’s emails, please!- Washington Blade 10/15

No one is sicker of the Clinton emails than I. Not Bernie Sanders. Not even Larry David.

Whatever that doltish, pretty boy, almost-next-Speaker of-the-House, Kevin McCarthy blurted out about the real purpose of the Benghazi hearings, goes double for email-gate. Why does no one ever ask that Gollum-looking Benghazi hearing chairman, Trey Gowdy, the obvious follow-up question: “Hey small, slimy creature with the weird shiny lamp eyes, are you also behind the Clinton email thing?”
Some poor slob of a summer intern must have had to read the backlog of Hillary’s emails. If you actually read them, Hillary comes off pretty professional. It’s not like she’s all meowy, “Oh pulease, did you see the dress Arianna wore to the state dinner? What was that girl thinking? Yellow winking smiley face. Yellow smiley face in black sunglasses.”

I’m a little tetchy I know, but it is no fun having the last name Clinton anymore. When Bill Clinton was president, my own brother Bill, a Democrat, ran for town council in a red-blooded Republican suburb of Philadelphia and liked messing with people. Through a screen door, he looks like George Bush so when he went door knocking and introduced himself as Bill Clinton, the local blue bloods visibly twitched.
I have a sister named Monica who lived in the same town as Linda Tripp, but my sis never cashed in on the All-in-the-Family fun. Privately she did tell me that Linda Tripp never scooped up after her dog.

But everyday the newspaper, op-eds, and online alert headlines all have a “how-dare-she?” tone. How dare Clinton run for president? How dare she laugh like that? How dare she change her mind? Even the rare compliment has a snarky “she got lucky” undertone. Don’t even get me started on Maureen Dowd. She’s semi-gone but the snarky torch of MoDo’s mojo has been passed on to Frank Bruni. Admittedly Hillary’s press handlers are awful. Thank goodness for Katherine McKinnon on SNL. Her Hillary and Hillary’s Val were funny and human.

For several reasons, I take it all very personally. You try seeing your name defamed every time you read the news or inadvertently land on Fox News.

Also Hillary gets my butch up. I go into my wide-legged, arms crossed on chest, resting-bitch-face protective stance.
And I have secret shame about emails I have written. Somewhere in the Cloud my early, pre-NSA, pre-hackathon, un-self-censored, out-for-blood, gossip girl emails languish. The Cloud is forever, eternal. Apparently I-God is less forgiving than God. They’re a black mark on the logic board of my soul. I’m not proud of them.

And it’s really not the witty character assassinating emails I’ve written that I’m ashamed of. At all. It’s my email management skills. I have lost control of email addresses. I’m always getting notes from the mysterious Daemon Mailer. Why won’t Matt Damon send my emails?
The Away Message, whether stock or cleverly home crafted, does not actually block email from getting into your box. What is the point?

And since when did unsubscribing become such a chore – from finding the faint, tiny ‘unsubscribe’ to answering the ‘please tell us your reason for unsubscribing.’ Is the raised middle finger emoji an answer?

AOL homepage teasers can derail me for hours — “Supreme Court Justice a nudist! You won’t believe who. Read more.”
Flashing Zappos ads induce adult onset ADD.

I have e-anxiety disorder. I wake at 2 a.m. remembering I did not actually reply to someone’s email, merely raised the orange flag of loser-later-land.

I have come to loathe email as a soul-sucking, spirit-crushing, unending daily chore. A portal to defeat. Swabbing out hog pens in an Iowa winter seems more fun.

Enough with your damn emails! Please. I invite you not to respond.