ANY THING SHE CAN DO TO DRIVE HER NEGATIVES DOWN...:

Dias inquires about Clinton's favorite "black girl book" (Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) and the three things she'd bring to a deserted island (chocolate, a book, and a phone with which to FaceTime her grandchildren), then asks if she had any insecurities in middle school before developing the confidence of a poised politician. "Oh, Marley, I have a terrible story to tell you," Clinton writes. She continues with an embarrassing tidbit straight out of YM:

It was my first week of high school, and I was excited and nervous. At that time, I wore my hair in a ponytail or held back with a headband. When I saw the older girls with their hair in little bobs, I thought that looked so much more grown-up, so I begged my mother to take me to a real beauty parlor to get my hair cut. Our neighbor recommended a man who had a small shop behind a grocery store, and he got distracted talking to my mother and hacked off a huge chunk of my hair! I was mortified. So I tried to fix it by wearing a fake ponytail to school. And then a friend of mine accidentally pulled it off in front of everyone. Which of course was a nightmare. At the time, I felt like it might have been the worst moment of my life.

Here, Clinton sounds like a warm-hearted guidance counselor comforting a tearful preteen after a conspicuous fart in gym class--a perfect tenor for an interview in a kids' zine with a candidate who's battled the "likability" police. She wraps up the hair story on a doubly tender note and a reminder for older readers of the misogyny she's absorbed throughout her decades in public life: "Now that I'm older, I have a little more perspective. But I certainly remember what it was like to be your age and be so worried about what people thought of me. And I'm glad I didn't know back then that I had a whole life ahead of me of people commenting on my hair!"

Tweet   @brothersjudd