A Little Help from My Friends

Hello, friends. You probably noticed that the blog looks a little different. I’m pretty excited about the changes.

The first big shift is that I’ve added a way for all of you to subscribe to my email list, and I would love for every one of you to sign up. If you don’t need to hear any more and want to get right to it, you can do that. In a desktop browser: Go to the sidebar on the right and look under under Follow the Circus.  The form asks for your name and email address and won’t even take you away from this post. On a phone or tablet: Scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see the Follow the Circus section.

Back? Okay. Here’s why I’m doing this. I’m connecting with some of you on Facebook, and some of you on Instagram. Maybe a few on Twitter. And I know there are people out there who aren’t on social media at all that check in every once in a while to see if I’ve gotten off my behind and written something. Rather than relying on the ever-changing algorithms of social media companies to make sure you see me, an email list means I can connect with every one of you in the same place.

What’s in it for you? Besides helping me out in my effort to get more organized and have some idea what I’m actually doing — and thank you for that — you won’t miss a single word that drips from my keyboard. (What an incentive, right?) I won’t disappear from Facebook and other social media sites, but I believe it will be easier to follow along this way.

Standard but sincere disclaimer: I will not ever sell your information or share it with anyone else without your explicit permission, and you will absolutely not get multiple emails from me every day advertising really cheap Ray-Bans. (Who is the target audience for that? I will never understand.) In fact, you’ll likely get an email less than once a week.

Sales pitch over!

Another big change, and I hope you noticed this one already: I have a logo!

Matt Ramseyer is a local artist and art teacher that I am lucky enough to call a friend. I went to Matt with a couple of paragraphs about a poorly formed idea that I had. I told him all the ways I wanted to use it and all the things I needed it to do, and then I waited while he worked some sort of sorcery. When he came back to me with drawings, he had managed to produce more or less exactly what was in my head, except better. I am impressed and grateful in equal measure. And maybe a little worried about Matt. It can’t be good for anyone to have to go rooting around in my brain like that.

I also want to say thank you to the select group of friends and family who have looked at things on different screens and read through multiple versions of welcome emails and new posts and acted as digital guinea pigs as I was setting all this up. My nerves appreciate your indulgence.

This is Paul, modeling the medal he earned for not griping even a little when I disappeared for most of a day to a coffee shop to work because every part of this took a little longer than I expected it to.

And you, my reader friends. Thank you for sticking around with me. It’s been five years. I didn’t even realize until I was scrolling back through the archives yesterday. It’s been a wild ride in spots. (Anybody remember that van trip? Pinky the pig? My sister’s faux baptism?)

I’m glad you’re here. Hope to see you around again soon.