This is me just r(w)anting (again)...

Doesn't all the spam and email junk make you crazy? Fortunately there are various email accounts that help eliminate the spam-junk-shazit. I use Gmail and Yahoo.

Gmail delivers the spam-junk-shazit directly to a special spam folder. After a few days it looks like an "Erections-R-Us" catalog. I have no idea why Gmail has targeted me for daddy's little helpers. (Just send me the guy with the four hour erection.)

Yahoo doesn't do a great job of spam-sweeping. They leave it up to the addressee to address the problem via creating spam filters, etc. Kind of a drag, but I do it. I hate unsolicited mail. I doubt that I have a million dollars sitting in an unknown bank account somewhere in Nigeria, or an ancestor from the deep root system of my family tree that has left me some serious cash.

Or that I need male enhancement.

But what really, really, REALLY gives me a minor rash is receiving newsletters in my email from writing organizations of which I've never belonged. And I know the culprit, well, sort of.

Romance Writers of America. Nothing against them. They've never been a good fit for me, but a new RWA "special interest" chapter came into my radar that looked like a match, and I wanted to join. And of course, I had to lay out RWA's mega-fee in order to join. Can't belong to one without lining the mother ship's coffers now can we?

And so it goes that last week I received a newsletter from an RWA chapter of which I have no affiliation, never took a class through, or entered any contest with. From out of nowhere there it was in my email. Possibly my email address was gotten from Facebook. Who knows? I took care of the matter by unsubscribing to the newsletter that I never subscribed to in the first place.

And then this week I receive a flier from said RWA chapter in my mailbox, which is screwed into the door of my new house. At my six-month old address that very few personal friends have.

Why does this irritate me? Simply put, it sucks. It's one thing to have my email address bombarded with unwanted junk, but my home address? There's only one way an RWA chapter could get a hold of my home address. Okay, maybe a few ways. First, maybe RWA hands them out wily-nily. Second, maybe someone in said chapter has a connection with RWA (the board perhaps?) and scooped up a few. Or, maybe there is a member in the "special interest" chapter who has an affiliation with said RWA chapter, and created a mailing list.

Whothefuck knows? The point reiterated, it sucks.

I paid RWA's exorbitant membership fee just so I could belong to the new "special interest" chapter. Shouldn't that come with a little security? What does RWA do with all those fees, anyway, other than print out their monthly mag, of which goes from mailbox to recycle bin in one fell swoop?

Shame on me for joining an "organization" that doesn't fit. But shame on them for allowing personal home mailing addresses to fall into unauthorized hands.

Excuse my rant, but something is a little off here. And if anyone can come up with an explanation for how said RWA chapter got my personal mailing address, I'd entertain it.