Dear President Trump,

Off and on all day I’ve gotten emails from the White House Correspondence Team thanking me for my messages to you. They are all dated today, 1/5/18, even though I’ve not sent today’s message yet. All told, there were 21 emails. At first I thought the contact system went bonkers like the rest of your system, but I think what actually happened is that the email responses came back online today after the major change in the interface that happened on 12/14/17. It’s about the right number of responses from then until now. I suppose from here on out I’ll get both the disingenuous cute little box that immediately pops up and says “Thank you for your submission!” and the disingenuous regular email each time. Oh well.

While I’m on the subject of your contact page, I strongly prefer the previous version both for all the reasons stated previously on 12/14/17 and because the initial information page is no longer set up to auto-fill. The other annoying thing is that the FIRST NAME: and TO: fields are no longer required. I guess this is in keeping with how things roll with you – you don’t actually care who we are as individuals and you, yourself, will never have anything to do with the messages people send you. These changes just make these facts abundantly clear, but it’s ok; I know who I am and that I’m not just some or another Simpson and these letters are still mostly so I can cope with my most difficult person and I also know who that is. One more thing about your new contact page: I think it no longer has the 2500 character limit. I’ve kept my messages to that limit but have been able to push them closer to the max than previously. Actually, I just tested it with a hunk of text well over the old limit and the system allowed it; yet another sign you all don’t care whether you get these messages since there’s no way you are reading endlessly long missives. I will, however, (mostly) stick with the original limit to keep this process manageable.

There’s lots of compelling stuff in the news today but I’m out of characters so will have to take those things up with you tomorrow. In the meantime here is your blessing:

May you not slip and fall on the displaced polar ice today.
May you bring at least one adult person who didn’t vote for you some modicum of happiness today.
May you eat some food that is healthy for you today, even if it’s a salad from McDonald’s.
May you not start a war today.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson