care and feeding of a neighborhood

these things take some tending over time. and due to recent trends, it strikes me that the time has come once again to go poking around for a few new neighbors– to infuse fresh insights and energies into a rather flagging field– which is by no means to insult the field or to suggest that I’m not completely enamored of and devoted to my core vox community, which, thank goodness, is still pretty well intact. just that I take the long, cyclical view, a natural process of wax and wane and wax– and in the waning periods it can help to supplement.

so I’m on the lookout for some new ‘hoodies. pretty much this amounts to browsing via Explore, searching for things tagged “chicago” since I do believe in the merging of virtual and actual worlds to some extent, or poaching my existing neighbors’ ‘hoods (which has yielded some real gems in the past, lemme tellya). so feel free to throw your thoughts my way– who brings you joy? let us celebrate this.

and if I’ve just added you to my neighborhood, and you’re all, who the heck is this navelgazer person and why is she adding me?— this is why. hi. :)

xoxo to my friends and neighbors and the silent folks watching from the wings. I am especially grateful to the ones who speak to me in whatever capacity you can manage, helping to keep me feeling vitally connected in this world.